Indiana Jones 5 and Witcher Season Three Bomb along with more Echo Troubles

To the surprise of no one Indiana Jones 5 has bombed in spectacular fashion, as it echoed The Flash's anemic opener. The film wasn't helped by how bad Indy 4 is and that, unlike Star Wars, other than the original film, there's no universal acclaim for the prior entries (both Temple of Doom and Last Crusade had their critics--as a kid I preferred the former to the latter, but neither were as good as the first film). That said, there was still plenty of affection for the IP and, unlike The Flash, the impact of its failure is far more limited--Disney knew the film was bad before release and the IP has been largely inert since Indy 4. I've seen it argued (1:38:42-1:39:34/2:42:27-2:42:42) that the Affirmative Action decision in the US will impact how ESG functions at the company (if the approach can be legally challenged, companies will have to search for a workaround). This pair of big budget failures has helped discount Spider-Man continue to limp forward into 'meh' box office territory (Spider-Man 3 made 1.9 billion, Miles Morales has reached 647 million). To dovetail back into the Indiana Jones IP: I don't think either George Lucas or Steven Spielberg ever understood the IP, not just because of the abominable fourth film, but from the various problems that occurred in the sequels. I mentioned previously that only the TV-show came close to capturing the right spirit, but it also failed and I think we're in for an unfortunate reboot in the future.

More rumours about the poor quality of Echo have leaked, with a long time Marvel stuntman saying he's been told that the show was originally going to be scrapped (Batgirl-style), but Disney was desperate for content because of the (still ongoing) writer's strike so decided to air it. This echoes (heh) comments from insider Jeff Sneider who said in May the show was so bad it had to be completely reshot with a shorter episode count. All of this seems highly plausible and I expect Willow-levels of awfulness. The only question is: does it kill Echo as an IP and further damage Daredevil and Kingpin? Time will tell, but I think for the former the answer is definitively 'yes'.

While it's much too late, Bud Light finally fired Marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid for the campaign that has lost them around 28 billion at this point. The marketing began (appropriately enough) on April 1st, but many (myself included) did not think Bud would ever fire the person responsible. Billions of value lost later and on June 27th, she was terminated. While Heinerscheid did not get the same gush of media support that Disney's Victoria Alonso received months ago, the press did their best to shame any and all who participated in the backlash, but to no effect--the people who drink cheap, crappy beer hated the media long before this. I'm curious what impact, if any, this has on the entertainment industry (many of their viewers also drink cheap beer). Is this why the hammer has started to fall diversity heads? I suspect there's another cause, but I'll get into that below.

I'm not sure there's a point in covering Witcher season three, as I have no plans to watch it (even the overly generous xLetalis says he won't watch after this season--his poorly thought out pseudo-apology video for his reaction seems to be an effort to play nice with both sides). There are people enjoying the season, but for the first time I don't know any personally. To me there was never any hope for the show after its botched first season. What we can hope for is that there is no fourth season and that the push for botched adaptations disappears with Rings of Power (Jeff Bezos is finally asking what Amazon Prime is doing to bleed so much money, but Bezos is an ESG supporter, so I wouldn't expect any meaningful changes to their products).

Diversity Heads fired

I mentioned last time that Diversity Chief Latondra Newton was fired from Disney, but as it turns out she is one of four who have been terminated recently (Verna Myers at Netflix and Karen Horne and Jeanell English at WB--they are all women, of course, because men are inherently problematic--except for people like Elliott Page, presumably). There are reasons to think these moves are connected to the Supreme Court decision referenced above, although all three of these companies are bleeding money and cutting expensive sinecures helps. The reality is meaningful diversity doesn't require a manager (creating departments to govern behaviour is Orwellian, after all). It's not clear that this will result in any meaningful changes in the quality of entertainment produced, as there are no signs of positive developments as box office hits historic lows. For those few who find firings like this alarming, there are plenty of safe places to go, from Mastodon to Critical Role and so forth. While BlackRock has talked about moving away from the name ESG, it continues to fund its goals so I'm expecting plenty more Witcher: Blood Origins, She-Hulks, The Woman Kings, and so on.

It's been interesting watching Andy Signore's career evolve after beating the MeToo charges that got him fired from Screen Rant (cf; a channel that seems dead outside of Pitch Meeting). At first Signore attached himself to Fandom Wire, then jumped back into the YT game as an entertainment commentator/scooper. This effort did not work, as he had generic, Campea-like opinions and often got into fights with other people in the community. He jumped on the Johnny Depp trial and has ridden that success into being a celebrity gossip channel for court cases--it's a successful niche and a redemption story. I have no investment in Signore (his content isn't to my taste), but it's interesting to see that some people are able to find a way out of a losing career path.

This article was written by Peter Levi