Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Funnily I came across this purely by accident while googling info on the new Clip Studio pricing changes, but it's tangentially related to the brand I'm a fan of so I gave it a read. Given it's something that got printed in Bloomberg, figured it was worth a share.

Sounds like according to Bloomberg anyway, there's some internal re-evaluation going on as to Hasbro's general strategy re: their forays into Hollywood since buying eOne, given it hasn't been as successful as they hoped. (Granted, half of that is likely "pandemic then shut down Hollywood" coupled with "Brian Goldner passed.")

(And weird, the autogenerated article title is a very relevant CAPTCHA message)

 

It's weird. We were just discussing this in another thread. The consensus of a few of us was that Hasbro would focus more on entertainment than toys. Clearly, we were wrong. I didn't think they'd do much of anything with eOne and certainly not this.

Goldner was so sure... Cox is too, in the wrong direction. Perhaps wanting to oust him *was* the right idea.

 

I wish this news surprised me.

It's probably for the best that they go back to the drawing board. Maybe not releasing another Snake Eyes-tier film would also help.

 

Honestly I'm fine with TF taking a break from movies. Shows are really where it's at for actually making use of the storytelling potential of the fiction. Movies have been great for bringing in money for the franchise at first but the returns have been trending down too so if the movies need to rely on actually being good to make money and they can't even do that then I don't see why they should keep coming.

 

Welp looks like were not gonna that rotb trilogy. Im betting that the only way that the rotb trilogy will be greenlit is if the movie makes 1 billion which i can already see it not happening especially when none of the marvel movies have hit a billion except for spider man.

 

Honestly if tomorrow they announced their current movie schedule was being wiped clean and they won't make another attempt for at least a decade or so I'd just let out a sigh of relief. The movies making a ton of money for the franchise is all well and good but not if they ultimately just devalue the brand.

Focus on making Earthspark a good show, maybe make a follow-up to that if it does well, come up with a good plan for the comics... and next time the idea of movies come up: start over from scratch.

 

Not renewing their plan with paramount plus would be a bit of a silly move on their part giving how big paramount plus has become in the last year alone. Their subscriber count has skyrocketed.

 

Paramount has also created garbage like that halo show and the snake eyes movie, i wouldnt be surprised if they dont renew because the movies arent up to quality standards like the mcu.

 

Pay close attention to the details of this article. This does not mean they will no longer make Transformers movies or shows. Rather, they were initially going to use eOne to expand beyond their typical brands and become a true production and media company which finances a slew of genres, media types, etc., but will instead likely pull back and stick to the tried-and-true franchises for their media ventures.

Also, even if they do not renew the deal with Paramount, any movie in active development will still be released (at the moment, I believe that only includes RotB and the animated prequel).

 

Batgirl (film) - Wikipedia

All I'm saying is we saw more of this movie than we've seen of ROTB and yet it was still shelved, so I think we should just wait and see.

 

The whole Transformers live action universe, while it started before the MCU and hence the whole "you need a roadmap for your cinematic universe" strategy, is now really obsolete because it lacks said direction and focus... I think they missed an opportunity with "Bumblebee", doing a half pivot "soft reboot" instead of cutting cord and restarting the franchise with a well though out, clearly focused new film series...

I've often thought the coolest way to get "regular folk" into the Transformers mythology would be to do a movie starting on Cybertron with the origin of Megatron and Optimus--i.e. the origin of the whole franchise--but have well known actors do motion capture for the faces, so people feel like they have a connection rather than just have it be a full-on CG fest with no human characters. I think it needs that piece of the story, because otherwise we end up with bullshit like "we came to Earth to find your grandpa's glasses which have a map for some reason.. also to get peed on by your dog who's high on meds... oh and then take this super dangerous cube artifact into an extremely populated city so dozens of people can die, whereas we could've easily just had our showdown battle with the Decepticons out in the desert where the cube was originally..."

 

Rotb will not shelved for the same reason why the flash movie hasnt gotten canned yet. They already spent more than $200 million trying to get it made, for comparison batgirl had reportedly a budget of $90 million.
Not to mention hasbros stake (aka the toys) in the movie have also been made already.

 

i wonder what studio would be up to scratch to make a TF film if paramount with their mediocre recent releases get the boot. not disney, they've got enough already. maybe universal or columbia

 

this is the only part where i disagree. god that would make it just uncanny.

 

I maintain that Brian Goldner was a good CEO, possibly Hasbro's best, and that it's a shame he died so young. I don't agree with all of his business decisions but I think he had the right idea to expand into the entertainment industry, as the market for toys is only so big, and has shrunk in recent years (and will likely shrink more with inflation, as it becomes more of a luxury than it already is).
I still maintain that Chris Cocks was a terrible decision to replace Goldner.
Even though I think the "activist" investor is an idiot who just wanted to run the company as a glorified pump-and-dump, I definitely think Cocks was a bad choice.
I would suggest new blood. Darren Throop is leaving eOne, and it seems they have few people left to help them navigate this industry, so they need someone on-board who can do so, and they need them now.

Mattel's strategy makes more sense short-term, but to really expand their company, Hasbro's move to produce its own entertainment media makes a lot more sense. How they did it, however, seems messy.
First, I would have avoided Paramount, especially recently.
I think the DreamWorks deal which fell through is interesting, because I reckon that could have been their best bet for breaking into Hollywood.

Hasbro has some fundamental problems though. Most of its IPs are relatively unknown, and even bigger ones like G.I. Joe have seen little-to-no success lately.
Transformers appears to be their biggest hit but it still can't shake the stigma associated with both children's toys and shitty movies (and I don't care what the movie fans think - the general public looks at those movies as one big joke).
In fact, some of Hasbro's most successful products tend to be licensee products, usually from Disney.

What I would suggest is that Hasbro looks to acquire more intellectual property as opposed to going for more Hollywood studio stuff.
Power Rangers, for example, was a good start (though one I personally think is a terrible IP, particularly because it's almost wholly reliant on adapting Toei's Super Sentai, but that's another discussion entirely).
Hasbro would do well to have more IPs which they can integrate between toys and multimedia.

I also think that the video game market is money being left on the table for Hasbro.
They have a whole bunch of licensed mobile games, which do okay, but having so many different games for the same IP can dilute the player base and, potentially, the income.
We've had some good games and we've had some bad games, for both Transformers and their other IPs, but Hasbro has never really committed to video games, and since it's technically a bigger market than Hollywood, that might be a better approach in the mid-term.

Long-term, I think Hasbro is best to keep Entertainment One, though with caveats.
As Bloomberg points out, it's a bad time to sell. Now, that could give them a useful cash infusion at a trying time, or it could leave them out to dry in the future.
I don't know a ton about eOne so I won't hazard a guess on the likely direction such a sale could take, but if they can keep the eOne IPs and make some money off of what's left of that company, it might still be a worthwhile sale.

What Hasbro needs for the long-term, in my opinion, is one of two things, in addition to the aforementioned (recognisable) IP expansion.
Either they get involved with a major Hollywood studio (maybe a merger or partial stakeholder), or they sell to a bigger company like Disney or Warner.
The latter is probably the easiest - a bigger company who can leverage what Hasbro already owns and what they do best (toys) could bring a slew of their own IPs into the mix, creating an invaluable brand.
I would suggest Warner may be a great choice, as Disney already produces some of their own toys, merchandise, games, etc.
Warner, however, is unlikely to be in a position for acquisitions at the moment as David Zaslav is still busy cleaning house internally.

Even though we as fans don't like the "brand unification" between Hasbro and TakaraTomy, I think that ultimately helps both companies, at least as far as reducing costs.
Hasbro seems to have some pointlessly spendy expenses at times, such as the amount of toys that don't sell (look at a lot of the recent Star Wars movie toys, for instance), or putting out the umpteenth Transformers movie that may or may not blow up at the box office, sell some toys, and then immediately be forgotten about, only for most of the movie fans to then refuse to buy toys for petty reasons and buy KOs instead.
And sure, they make money on these things, but they tend to linger on them too long and let the money dry up instead of moving onto something else whilst their endeavours are still profitable (for example, The Last Knight existing at all, and possibly even Age of Extinction, despite its commercial success).

This is all without even touching Wizards of the Coast, which I still believe Hasbro should just sell because it's been a joke of a company for years now, and has actively alienated a decent portion of their audience, myself included.

Honestly, I think Warner's current situation is pertinent to Hasbro, to some degree - they need to cut their losses and refocus their efforts.
Sure, they've got cartoons and such being made, but they're small fries. Whilst they're working on that, Hasbro has enough manpower to work on other projects.
Rise of the Beasts has been delayed (multiple times, if I remember correctly) and it sounds like an absolute disaster already. I'd personally suggest they pull a Batgirl and just can it now. It's already a year out, so I doubt it's close to being finished anyway.
Write it off and refocus. David Zaslav wants a ten-year plan akin to Marvel's Cinematic Universe, and that's not stupid. The MCU might be currently dying but it was successful previously. There are many reasons for it being a failure lately, but the short of it is that they aren't giving people what they want, and they've become focused on quantity over quality.

I know people enjoyed the Bumblebee movie but Bumblebee isn't your most recognisable character - that's Optimus Prime. Where's the Optimus Prime movie? That's what we should have had. Make that instead. Flesh out more characters. Do smaller-scale stories in the vain of Bumblebee. Heck, it could have even worked with Snake Eyes, if the movie wasn't some subversive garbage (and also because kids don't know who Snake Eyes even is).

My Little Pony was HUGE - why chuck out all those characters people loved just to start a new generation? You can introduce new characters and keep some old ones.
I'm all for keeping things fresh (God knows we need more of that for Transformers) but the new generation feels like they cut off their nose to spite their face.
Granted, I know and care very little about My Little Pony, but my point is that the last iteration was hugely successful to the point where it spawned what I can only describe as an entire cultural movement (for better or worse).

The IDW crossover comics such as First Strike and Titans Return, terrible as they are, had the right idea of blending these universes together.
Also, come on, they have IPs like Rom who could be super-cool and popular with children, and yet he's just... nothing. He got a four-issue mini-series. Most children don't even read comics these days, so that feels more like nostalgia bait than anything geared towards kids.


In summary, what it comes down to, for me, is that Hasbro has a lot of ideas but little focus.
They have a lot of IP with little brand recognition for most of them, and they want to be big players in an industry that laughs at their pathetic attempts at movies (and that's saying something, because Hollywood is pretty pathetic in general).
What they need is a new brand strategy. I think Goldner had that, to some degree, but I fear it might have been far too much of his own personal strategy rather than a company-wide strategy, and thus something that won't play out well without him.
Consider that Disney hasn't been doing too well lately - if Disney is having this trouble (granted, there are other issues for them, such as political issues), Hasbro needs to bring their A-game to even begin to compete.
I think they can do it, but I doubt Chris Cocks is the one who will make Hasbro a big success.

 

Yeah, reaching international audiences and keeping the franchise alive in the eyes of the general public is SUCH A BAD STRATEGY.
Hasbro definitely should focus on making forgettable shows for kids, that's where the money is in the long run.  

 

Clearly instead they should make forgettable movies for some demographic they aren't too certain of, amirite? That's very clearly the better option.

 

That is almost unheard of in Hollywood and was done for dramatically different reasons. It was also a streaming movie, whereas these are not.

 

On the contrary, we don't actually know why Flash isn't getting canned. Yes, the monetary investment is part of it, but the lengths to which they've gone for this movie, especially given how batshit insane Ezra Miller has been in public, and how the Flashpoint storyline is now basically a moot point of the entire story (and thus will probably be removed from the final version) implies that there is more to why The Flash hasn't been cancelled.

In other words: neither you nor I know why The Flash hasn't been canned, and neither you nor I know whether or not Rise of the Beasts will be canned (I doubt it, but it's still over a year out, so it's possible). Don't make assumptions and present them as fact.

The point, as I made in my admittedly long-winded post, is that the live-action Transformers movies are seen as a laughing stock by the general public. Yes, they devalued the brand in recent years because of the movies, with Bumblebee only marginally clawing back some respect. Yes, their strategy as-is is a bad strategy.
What both of you failed to realise, or at least state, is that both the movies and cartoons can co-exist.
Hasbro is a big enough company to make and manage both at the same time (especially since Paramount is pretty much the only company working on the movies anyway).
The issue is how they're managing it. I have critiques over how the cartoons have been handled too, but since we're talking about the movies: they've been generally handled terribly.

Movies are cancelled in Hollywood ALL THE TIME. Even ones that are in the can. Now, is something like this get cancelled relatively rare? Sure, at least in this manner, but to say that it's "almost unheard of in Hollywood" is just silly.

Also untrue. It was done to refocus their brand and company strategy. That's been done before, maybe not as drastically, but it has been done before. Hasbro, as I outlined, would probably benefit from doing likewise.

Irrelevant. It was canned because they deemed it to be unsuccessful with the intended audience before it released. Keep in mind, they had already test-screened the film.
It was intended to tie into their cinematic movies, particularly The Flash, as well as Supergirl (another streaming movie, I believe, which was also canned).
Their strategy changed and so the movie was shelved. For all we know, that also means no Michael Keaton returning as Batman (certainly not in Aquaman 2, that's for sure).

 

Everything you're saying is wildly incorrect, but I'm not even going to bother lmao