I don't think the initial script / idea is a good indication of where a movie / show is going. A lot more of it has to do with investment into locations, sets, props, technology used to shoot it, skill of crew and director, actors, editing.
One phrase I see missing from all the Netflix convo is "tent pole," and it is the basis of the entire movie business. One or two films a year will hold up an entire studio like a tent pole while the rest of their films lose money.
Why not only make tent poles? Well, they try, which is how we get endless superhero movies.
Why not just make up a new tent pole? Because no one can figure out in advance what they are. No one in Hollywood seems to be able to, ever. Look how many "sleeper" hits were considered unimportant, and how many big budget, highly promoted films fail.
Hollywood doesn't know what's a hit until after it's made, and neither does the viewing public. Great art with lasting value can't be crowd-sourced.
Voting will almost always give terrible results in anything that requires expertise and craft. It's the reason why elected politicians don't do anything important themselves. They appoint people with relevant expertise and experience to do each job.
Voting on which shows to greenlight will probably select for the flashiest pitches/trailers, without any effect on the resultant quality.
Hit shows are hard to make. Seinfeld was considered a dud at the start. The same situation with MASH. Had they been judged by the public initially they would have never been green lighted. A show needs to find it's audience and the writers and actors need to find their groove. It's very hard to do it from the start. Also what seems like a great show from the pilot might be a one time hit and go downhill from there.
Also, generally speaking people don't know what they(we) want. It's hard to like something you've never seen. New shows are full of new stuff so how can the public make a good evaluation after a 1/2 hour or even a full hour.
The other problem is that people frequently tend to vote for one thing, but then actually watch something else. There's a low correlation factor between the vote and what they actually end up watching.
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[ 265 ms ] story [ 200 ms ] threadNot focused on scoring points by using ethnicities as a prop.
Squid Game had some of the worst characters going. Very one dimensional and in some cases were just awful stereotypes.
I don’t know why they stopped doing it.
The Man in the High Castle, Transparent, The Tick, etc..
I mean, they're not exactly great. But decent enough and no worse than some of the filler Netflix put out.
Why not only make tent poles? Well, they try, which is how we get endless superhero movies.
Why not just make up a new tent pole? Because no one can figure out in advance what they are. No one in Hollywood seems to be able to, ever. Look how many "sleeper" hits were considered unimportant, and how many big budget, highly promoted films fail.
Hollywood doesn't know what's a hit until after it's made, and neither does the viewing public. Great art with lasting value can't be crowd-sourced.
This is a nice problem to solve! And profitable too if it works.
Voting on which shows to greenlight will probably select for the flashiest pitches/trailers, without any effect on the resultant quality.
Also, generally speaking people don't know what they(we) want. It's hard to like something you've never seen. New shows are full of new stuff so how can the public make a good evaluation after a 1/2 hour or even a full hour.
You will also end up with less ground breaking shows and more mundane stuff which is already the problem at Netflix.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”