What the top grossing movies, video games, and tv shows tell us about the future of entertainment.

Let us start with movies:

We are going to ignore the top grossing movies taking inflation into account, due to the fact that if you have to take inflation into account the movies are so old now that they no longer influence the future of cinema.

1. Avatar - CGI slopfest. - 2.9 billion USD

2. Avengers endgame - combined superhero universe CGI slopfest - 2.7 billion USD

3. Avatar: The way of water - CGI slopfest sequel - 2.3 billion USD

4. Titanic - Romantic tragedy - 2.25 billion USD

5. Star wars : The Force Awakens - Nostalgia CGI slopfest - 2 billion USD

6. Avengers infinity War: Superhero CGI slopfest - 2 billion USD

7. Spider man: No Way Home - expanded universe teen superhero CGI slopfest - 1.9 billion USD

8. Jurassic world - CGI dinosaur slopfest - 1.6 billion USD

9. The Lion King (2019) - Talking animals children's CGI slopfest - 1.6 billion USD

10. Inside out 2 - Animated sequel children's slopfest - 1.59 billion USD.

Common theme:

1. CGI

2. Expanded universe based upon older IP with lots of different characters mixed in

3. Being special. The chosen one.

4. Family friendly IP. Everyone can sit and watch together.

Outlier movies:

1. Titanic

2. Inside out 2

The top 10 grossing movies of all time suggests that the future of movies is going to be lots of CGI, with movies being based on decades old IP, and being about a bunch of people who are special in some way, i.e. play the role of the chosen one who is more special than all the other people in the movie by a 100 to a 1000x the capabilities.

Expect your movies to be without bloodshed of any kind in the majority of cases.

Now let us look at the highest grossing tv shows:

Accurate information for exact amount of money made could not be found. So instead we look at the highest grossing series that started this century:

1. Game of thrones -Made more than 4.4 billion USD

2. Breaking Bad - Made more than 2.9 billion USD

3. Two and a half men- almost certainly made more than a billion ( Can't find exact source )

4. Grey's Anatomy - made more than 3 billion USD

5. Big Bang Theory - made more than 1 billion USD

6. Modern Family - unknown couldn't find precise numbers

What we can tell from TV highest grossing series:

1. They have to be either serious or comedies

2. The serious ones have to have adult themes of betrayal, violence, and death.

3. The comedies have to be turn your brain off comedies without being offensive to women or minorities. They need to have a cast of characters that don't align with one another and are all eccentric in endearing ways unique to each character. Two and a half men is treated as the exception because the likelihood of another show like Two and a half men being made now is very low.

Expect more serious toned shows with fantastical elements and more dumb comedies with unlikable characters in real life.

Surprisingly, the audience for tv shows has very different tastes from the audience for highest grossing movies.

Now let us look at the highest grossing video games:

For games again we are only counting the ones from this century.

1. Dungeon fighters online - 2D beat em up side scrolling game famous in South Korea - 22 billion USD

2. Fortnite - Free to play battle royale with thousands of different IP character skins in game - 20 billion USD

3. Honor of Kings - MOBA game most famous in China - 18.6 billion USD

4. PUBG battlegrounds - Battle royale game - 16.4 billion USD

5. League of legends - 15.25 billion USD

6. Crossfire - FPS game famous in Asia - 13.1 billion USD

What the gaming market tells us:

1. The Asian gaming market and the western Gaming market might as well be separate entities in terms of what sells there.

2. China and South Korea have their own gaming markets separate from the international gaming space.

3. MOBAs and Battle Royales are the highest grossing games in the market right now.

4. Online games make the most money. Free to play games with purchasable accessories make the most money.

So taking together the information of the highest grossing movies, the highest grossing TV shows, and the highest grossing video games this century we get:

1. Video games make the most money

2. Movies make the most money with the shortest time investment.

3. CGI slopfest with many characters across diverse IPs is the future of movies.

4. TV audience preferences are very different from Movie audience preferences. TV audience wants serious drama or turn your brain off non-offensive comedies.

5. Online video games which go on for years make the most money out of all video games. Out of these, Fortnite, the healthiest IP, also acts as a combined cinematic universe equivalent for video games.

Conclusion:

People want expanded universe slop in their movies and vidya. People want 30 mins independent tv show episodes to turn their brains off to for TV shows. All the money is congregating to the top 5-10 IPs.Expect a new IP to emerge every 2-3 decades as the last one is completely milked dry to the point of death and irrelevance like what happened to star wars movies. Avatar 3 will make billions. There will be another marvel phase every time at least 1 movie in the last phase crosses 1 billion USD in revenue. Deadpool and Wolverine has made more than 1 billion USD which guarantees Marvel phase 6.