As my late grandfather was fond of (correctly) observing, you can teach 'em, but you can't learn 'em. That certainly applies to Hollywood and, indeed, much of the entertainment industry today. Oh, Hollywood used to put out some amazing stuff; I still think that Casablanca is one of the best films of all time. There are so many brilliant, iconic films in the hopper that it would take decades to watch them all. There are comedies, dramas, love stories, science fiction, fantasy, much, much more, from Animal House to Zardoz. (OK, I'm kidding about Zardoz, although it's either the best bad movie ever made or the worst good movie ever made.)
So what happened? Why aren't films like this being made now? Because Hollywood caught the woke virus, for which there is no vaccine other than good sense, and Hollywood seems to have a shortage of that these days. Case in point: One of Disney's worst, the recent live-action Snow White grenade, the detonation of which cost Disney around $170 million.
After years of controversies and tepid results at the box office, Disney’s 2025 live-action "Snow White" remake has reportedly netted an approximately $170 million loss.
Forbes reported on Tuesday that filings indicate the recent controversial live-action "Snow White" remake cost a whopping $336.5 million, yet met with low returns after years of controversy.
If by "tepid" one means "disastrous," then, yeah. But there is, admittedly, more to it than its underwhelming ticket sales; turns out Disney made some logistical screw-ups as well. That could have been overcome, if the film had been the blockbuster Disney no doubt hoped for - but it wasn't.
The outlet explained that this can be discerned thanks to the fact the movie was filmed in the United Kingdom. The U.K. has local laws which benefit films with a generous reimbursement, but come with heavy rules. As a result, Disney had to create a subsidiary company, Hidden Heart Productions, in order to film there. As a result of these local U.K.-based rules, showing expenditures that otherwise remains a closely-guarded secret for films made in the United States, Disney’s massive expenses were revealed.
"In 2023 this author revealed in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper that by July 31, 2022 Disney had already spent a staggering $183.3 million on making Snow White even though principal photography had only just wrapped," contributor Caroline Reid wrote. "The latest set of filings are for the year to December 31, 2024 which was less than three months before the movie debuted so should give an almost-complete picture of its costs."
So, the cost of this film dwarfs (hah) the ticket sales. And why? Well, maybe the film's preachy, woke star had something to do with it, not to mention the entire storyline flaw that, by any rational measure, the evil queen (Gal Gadot) is far, far more attractive than Rachel Zegler, who played Snow White; that magic mirror, mirror on the wall must have been smoking something funny.
But in this and other areas, the woke virus has a deep foothold in Tinseltown. That's part, but not all, of the reason so many new films and series are like a dead woodchuck under the porch; nobody in the house wants to talk about it, nobody in the house wants to do anything about it, until the smell gets bad enough that nobody can stand it anymore.
There's more to the problem than just the woke horse squeeze. Hollywood and the entertainment industry, film and TV, aren't doing a very good job of coming up with anything new and original. Oh, there have been a few recent examples; I could name a few, such as Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity works, the science-fiction series Killjoys, the great adaptation by Spielberg and Hanks of Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, and Bruno Heller's marvelous 2-season series Rome. We might note that some of these people - I'm looking at you, Joss Whedon - have been bitten by the woke bug but still deserve credit when they get something right.
And, of course, looking back, even those great works are getting a little old.
So what's to be done about it? How about something new? If any producers happen to be reading this, my own Confederation and Nova Roma books would be a great source material. My Townhall colleague Kurt Schlichter has his Kelly Turnbull books, not to mention his chilling book, The Attack, which would also be interesting to see taken live. The literary world has a massive amount of new stuff that could be adapted, de-woke, of course. That would relieve the screenwriters and producers of the necessity of actually coming up with anything new on their own.
Not that there aren't people out there doing just that, as my friend and colleague Brandon Morse recently informed us.
Read More: A YouTuber Just Put Hollywood on Notice With a Successful Self-Financed Movie
What all this means is that the picture of entertainment is going to change; it has to change. CGI and, yes, artificial intelligence are going to play an ever-increasing role, whether people like it or not. New creators are coming out. New techniques are coming out. If they produce good, entertaining, non-preachy works, they will succeed. If they try to lecture us, they will fail - see Snow White. That's how markets work, even in entertainment; as the late, great Robert Heinlein pointed out, writing for pay consists of "...stroking the cat until it purrs."
Movie audiences aren't purring right now. But there are plenty of people ready to try giving that cat a scratch.
