Our Bad Book Club is taking on Coleen Hoover -- How is she so successful

[AwkwardlySet]

Outside a few narrow franchise exceptions (family entertainment and some action franchises), hits are mostly determined by quality.

Couldn't disagree more.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Couldn't disagree more.

It's less true now in 2025 than it was in 2019 as Covid effects have gutted the entire industry and trained the audience not to go to the theater, but if you look at the movies that are both critically and commercially successful, you'll find that they tend to be pretty good. It's easy to sneer, but there's a reason Everything Everywhere All at Once was a massive hit and The 355 was a bomb. It's not because of star power or budget or marketing or because poor simple audiences are stupid and crude; it's because EEAAO is a very good movie and The 355 is not.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's less true now in 2025 than it was in 2019 as Covid effects have gutted the entire industry and trained the audience not to go to the theater, but if you look at the movies that are both critically and commercially successful, you'll find that they tend to be pretty good. It's easy to sneer, but there's a reason Everything Everywhere All at Once was a massive hit and The 355 was a bomb. It's not because of star power or budget or marketing or because poor simple audiences are stupid and crude; it's because EEAAO is a very good movie and The 355 is not.

Are you kidding me?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

Look where the two Avatars sit, for example. First and third place, yet the only good thing about those movies was the visuals and special effects. The story, the depth of characters, those were all atrocious. And those were huge hits.
Even the last three horrendous Star Wars movies are huge hits by the metrics of commercial success.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Are you kidding me?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

Look where the two Avatars sit, for example. First and third place, yet the only good thing about those movies was the visuals and special effects. The story, the depth of characters, those were all atrocious. And those were huge hits.
Even the last three horrendous Star Wars movies are huge hits by the metrics of commercial success.

It's not as simple as just looking at the box office gross list and saying 'yep, popular = bad.'

That's the sentence you didn't quote. Both Avatar films represent a fundamental leap forward in VFX, which is a big fucking deal in a visual medium like film. Story isn't the be-all-end-all. And the Star Wars sequels haven't been hits, outside the first one (which is entirely because it's a presold nostalgia IP). To some degree all five Disney films have been critically panned. Box office grosses have dropped significantly film-on-film, which is not supposed to happen in franchises. The Rise of Skywalker finishing behind The Lion King in both worldwide and domestic gross is an enormous failure. That movie, and that entire trilogy, were flops, not hits. The Alden Ehrenreich Solo trilogy didn't get cancelled because Solo was too big of a hit.

If those movies were huge hits by the metrics of commercial success, they'd be making more of then, but every Star Wars film project since Rise of Skywalker has been cancelled before it's gotten off the ground. The IP is big enough to muscle their way to a big box office number, but it took a tremendously risky spend to pull that off -- the budget on Skywalker was more than $400 million and the movie looks like shit, plus another $300 million in marketing support. That's an outlay of $700 million before seeing a single cent in return. There's a reason Disney's cancelled or placed on indefinite hold every single post-Skywalker Star Wars film project. Another $700 million spend with a dropoff like they were seeing and suddenly the whole studio's in a lot of trouble.

If you want to look at box office numbers, look at the list of films adjusted for inflation. Here's the top fifteen in US domestic box office: Star Wars: A New Hope, Titanic, E.T., Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avatar, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Jurassic Park, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Lion King, Forrest Gump, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Avengers. There's two movies on that list that inarguably suck (TPM and TFA) and they're both IP/nostalgia movies that no one else can ever reproduce because no one else has that kind of IP with that much force of nostalgia. Meanwhile, there's at least nine absolute stone-cold classic films in there, give or take how you might feel about Return of the Jedi, and two that bookend the IP-based project that's defined the last 17 years of Hollywood business.

 

[SimonDoom]

Are you kidding me?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

Look where the two Avatars sit, for example. First and third place, yet the only good thing about those movies was the visuals and special effects. The story, the depth of characters, those were all atrocious. And those were huge hits.
Even the last three horrendous Star Wars movies are huge hits by the metrics of commercial success.

We're a bit off track because we're talking about movies rather than books, but I'd say with some confidence about movies and with a bit less confidence about books that the gap between "quality" and "success" has grown. The most successful movies nowadays are usually comic book movies, or needless sequels of famous franchises like Star Wars. In 1972, the highest grossing movie was also the best movie of the year: The Godfather, widely considered one of the best movies of all time. It's almost unthinkable to imagine today that the best movie artistically also would be the most success.

I can't say that I read enough to know whether this is true of the book world, too, but I get the sense it is. There's a stark divide between popular fiction, i.e., what you see in airport bookstores, and "art" fiction, the stuff that gets critical acclaim. That divide appears to be greater than ever.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's the sentence you didn't quote. Both Avatar films represent a fundamental leap forward in VFX, which is a big fucking deal in a visual medium like film. Story isn't the be-all-end-all. And the Star Wars sequels haven't been hits, outside the first one (which is entirely because it's a presold nostalgia IP). To some degree all five Disney films have been critically panned. Box office grosses have dropped significantly film-on-film, which is not supposed to happen in franchises. The Rise of Skywalker finishing behind The Lion King in both worldwide and domestic gross is an enormous failure. That movie, and that entire trilogy, were flops, not hits. The Alden Ehrenreich Solo trilogy didn't get cancelled because Solo was too big of a hit.

If those movies were huge hits by the metrics of commercial success, they'd be making more of then, but every Star Wars film project since Rise of Skywalker has been cancelled before it's gotten off the ground. The IP is big enough to muscle their way to a big box office number, but it took a tremendously risky spend to pull that off -- the budget on Skywalker was more than $400 million and the movie looks like shit, plus another $300 million in marketing support. That's an outlay of $700 million before seeing a single cent in return. There's a reason Disney's cancelled or placed on indefinite hold every single post-Skywalker Star Wars film project. Another $700 million spend with a dropoff like they were seeing and suddenly the whole studio's in a lot of trouble.

If you want to look at box office numbers, look at the list of films adjusted for inflation. Here's the top fifteen in US domestic box office: Star Wars: A New Hope, Titanic, E.T., Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avatar, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Jurassic Park, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Lion King, Forrest Gump, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Avengers. There's two movies on that list that inarguably suck (TPM and TFA) and they're both IP/nostalgia movies that no one else can ever reproduce because no one else has that kind of IP with that much force of nostalgia. Meanwhile, there's at least nine absolute stone-cold classic films in there, give or take how you might feel about Return of the Jedi, and two that bookend the IP-based project that's defined the last 17 years of Hollywood business.

I think we have to be careful in these conversations to acknowledge that there are different yardsticks for "quality." I didn't like The Avengers movies or recent Star Wars trilogy movies, but many of the movies in that list are "quality" in the sense that they are satisfying popcorn entertainment. That's one legitimate measure of quality. There's not a single movie on that listhowever, that I'd put in my personal top 20 other than possibly Star Wars:A New Hope, just because it was so groundbreaking, immersive, and clever.

There's no single yardstick for quality, and none of us is ever going to be able to convince another that our yardstick is the right one.

 

[YmaOHyd]

We're a bit off track because we're talking about movies rather than books, but I'd say with some confidence about movies and with a bit less confidence about books that the gap between "quality" and "success" has grown. The most successful movies nowadays are usually comic book movies, or needless sequels of famous franchises like Star Wars. In 1972, the highest grossing movie was also the best movie of the year: The Godfather, widely considered one of the best movies of all time. It's almost unthinkable to imagine today that the best movie artistically also would be the most success.

I can't say that I read enough to know whether this is true of the book world, too, but I get the sense it is. There's a stark divide between popular fiction, i.e., what you see in airport bookstores, and "art" fiction, the stuff that gets critical acclaim. That divide appears to be greater than ever.

I'd agree with this with a couple caveats as it regards film.

• Release strategies have completely changed. Films used to have rolling releases; now they have a marketing blitz followed by dropping into 2,000-4,000 theaters simultaneously. Something like Jaws played in cities for weeks before it went wide. I don't think this point can be overestimated. In 1980, the top two films in domestic box office were Empire Strikes Back and 9 to 5. Empire was in 1500 theaters and 9 to 5 was in fewer than a thousand. Barbie was on 4,500 screens in the US, playing six or eight times a day in each one. -
• I also don't think it's unthinkable that great movies artistically are also major commercial successes. Barbie, Oppenheimer and Across the Spider-Verse all finished in the top five domestically last year; all three are artistic achievements, Oppenheimer especially. You don't have to go back too far to find years where major critical darlings were way up in the box office -- American Sniper was #1 in 2014, ahead of Captain America, X-Men and The Hunger Games. The Dark Knight was, I think, generally considered the best film of 2008; it was #1 at the box office ahead of Iron Man, Indiana Jones, a Bond film and Twilight. Ten years before that, Saving Private Ryan was both the best film and at the top of the box office.
• I think people having this conversation generally think about it as the tastes of the punters becoming more crude, and there's some truth to that. But an ongoing conversation that Hollywood has been dealing with for the last two decades, at least, is that the tastes of industry critics aren't reflective of the audience, independent of quality. They've become, for lack of a better word, pretentious -- thus the root of the folk wisdom that the best way to win an Oscar is to make a musical (Chicago) about the movie business (The Artist) that's shot in some sort of annoying way (Birdman). The result of that is films being highly-rated and critically-acclaimed while not actually being any good. Every conversation about the Oscars has had to reckon with this since at least 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture despite no one outside the Academy thinking it was the best movie of the year. (One reason for this is that Oscar voters in particular are old and not required to watch the movies they're voting on.)

 

[FidelityBoss]

My Bad Bookclub is tackling "Ugly Love" by Coleen Hoover. How is she so successful? There are dozens and dozen of writers who publish at this site who are more competent wordsmiths and plotters. Ugly Love is written in first person present. Even the parts set six years in the past! The sex scenes are way less erotic than th average story on l.com. We in the bookclub are puzzling over Hoover's success. According to some of her fans, it reads like fan fiction, quick and breezy. I find it infuriating! Hoover does not believe in descriptive prose. She has been quoted as saying that if she encounters more than a few lines of description when she is reading, she moves on and does not read the passage. The Hell? This novel is set in San Francisco -- not that it matters, we don't even get a street name. It could have been set in Pittsburgh, Boston, Manilla, or Shanghai just as easily. There is illogic that burns! The protag's love interest and brother are both pilots yet they DRIVE from San Francisco to San Diego for Thanksgiving, instead of hitching a ride in seats on their airline. The drive from SF to SD is BRUTAL and takes all day. Imagine how much worse it is on the biggest travel day of the year? The flight is about an hour. It's like Coleen Hoover decided to give her studs a "cool" career but then forgot about any realities of that job. One thing I will say. I am much more confident of my own writing ability. If Colleen Hoover can sell more books than the Bible, certainly most of us can crack the best seller lists as well.

Oh man, Colleen Hoover’s success is one of those things that either clicks for you or leaves you scratching your head. Her books might not be heavy on details or airtight logic, but they clearly hit a nerve with readers, maybe it’s the emotional rollercoaster or the way her stories feel like a guilty pleasure you can’t put down.

And honestly, if her success makes you feel better about your own writing, that’s a win! It’s proof that there’s no one “right” way to write a book. What matters is connecting with readers, even if it’s in a way that drives book clubs crazy. Keep doing your thing, your breakout hit could be just around the corner!

 

[FidelityBoss]

Hoover's success is really a textbook case of virality. I believe she started out self-publishing her work, but once she was reviewed by an influential book blogger, she got picked up by a publisher and was able to cash in on her success. The advent of TikTok and the COVID pandemic also propelled her to new heights as BookTok took off when everyone was isolating and social media was one of the main ways people stayed connected and shared content. She also writes for a very specific demographic and there are a lot of people in that cohort who have disposable income. Her prose isn't complex and she writes about relatable topics, meaning she can connect with a lot of potential readers.

All in all, it's a pretty potent recipe for success that isn't easily replicated because not only is she willing to write for the lowest common denominator, she also got extraordinarily lucky. Her presence in the literary sphere is oversaturated and she has a lot of critics as well, but her supporters will continue to be vocal as long as she keeps them fed.

Personally, I do not like how she handles the topics of trauma and domestic abuse so I do not engage with her work. There's plenty of better stuff out there to read.

Colleen Hoover’s rise is such a fascinating mix of hustle and luck. Starting out self-published, catching a break with a blogger, then riding the BookTok wave during COVID, it’s like the stars aligned for her. Her simple, relatable writing definitely hits a sweet spot for her audience, and yeah, timing played a huge role.

That said, her approach to heavy topics like trauma and abuse isn’t for everyone (me included). There’s so much out there to read, and if her style doesn’t click with you, that’s totally valid. Her success is impressive, but it’s also a reminder that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula in writing.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd agree with this with a couple caveats as it regards film.

• Release strategies have completely changed. Films used to have rolling releases; now they have a marketing blitz followed by dropping into 2,000-4,000 theaters simultaneously. Something like Jaws played in cities for weeks before it went wide. I don't think this point can be overestimated. In 1980, the top two films in domestic box office were Empire Strikes Back and 9 to 5. Empire was in 1500 theaters and 9 to 5 was in fewer than a thousand. Barbie was on 4,500 screens in the US, playing six or eight times a day in each one. -
• I also don't think it's unthinkable that great movies artistically are also major commercial successes. Barbie, Oppenheimer and Across the Spider-Verse all finished in the top five domestically last year; all three are artistic achievements, Oppenheimer especially. You don't have to go back too far to find years where major critical darlings were way up in the box office -- American Sniper was #1 in 2014, ahead of Captain America, X-Men and The Hunger Games. The Dark Knight was, I think, generally considered the best film of 2008; it was #1 at the box office ahead of Iron Man, Indiana Jones, a Bond film and Twilight. Ten years before that, Saving Private Ryan was both the best film and at the top of the box office.
• I think people having this conversation generally think about it as the tastes of the punters becoming more crude, and there's some truth to that. But an ongoing conversation that Hollywood has been dealing with for the last two decades, at least, is that the tastes of industry critics aren't reflective of the audience, independent of quality. They've become, for lack of a better word, pretentious -- thus the root of the folk wisdom that the best way to win an Oscar is to make a musical (Chicago) about the movie business (The Artist) that's shot in some sort of annoying way (Birdman). The result of that is films being highly-rated and critically-acclaimed while not actually being any good. Every conversation about the Oscars has had to reckon with this since at least 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture despite no one outside the Academy thinking it was the best movie of the year. (One reason for this is that Oscar voters in particular are old and not required to watch the movies they're voting on.)

I want to be clear that I don't think there's NO relationship between quality and success. I've been in these conversation before here about Literotica stories. I'd say in this respect Literotica is representative of society as a whole. There is an audience and market for quality, and there's also an audience and market for people-pleasing schlock. I know which I think is which, but I imagine others have different views.

So I would agree with those who say that just because something's successful doesn't mean it's good. Britney Spears has been wildly successful. Some of her tunes are catchy in that manufactured Max Martin sort of way, but the woman has absolutely no vocal talent.

But at the same time there's a reason that a book like Lonesome Dove not only was wildly popular but won the Pulitzer Prize: it's a great yarn that people can relate to, but it also has great writing and depth of character. People, many of them anyway, do appreciate that.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

The problem with these discussions is how do you define "quality".
Often it devolves into what someone likes personally.
Is Margaret Atwood a better writer than Tom Clancy? Hint: It largely depends on your personal taste. Authors like Clancy and Michael Crichton were able to inject complex, realistic technology into a well written, interesting story. That takes talent. The fact that someone doesn't enjoy those types of stories doesn't make them lesser authors.

Chet Atkins is one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, the fact you might not care for country music doesn't change that.

On the topic of movies, looking at modern blockbusters is misleading because it doesn't factor in their insane production costs and marketing budget. They are meant to be somewhat generic to appeal to a global audience.
Mad Max cost $200,000 to make and grosses just shy of $100 million. That's a more financially successful film than anything on the top 10 all time list.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yeah, metrics are always tricky. In the case of movies, I'd say that commercial success matters the most. Viewership translates into money anyway. The recognition in the way of Academy Awards can be considered a success as well. Movie quality, now that's more the field of competent movie critics.

But then of course the next question is, how much of success means meritous? Yea, it barely equates at all.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Whether you;re right or wrong is of no consequence in this instance.
So the opinions of judges have "no consequence" the weather prediction for tornadoes among meteorologists have "no consequences" for the civilians or emergency staff? You appeal to authority claiming that I don't have the bonefides to state an opinion on Coleen Hoover. When I demonstrate that I do indeed. Your appeal to authority is forgotten and suddenly authority is is of no consequence. Changing the rules on the fly. How generous! Your entire argument is that there is NO WAY I can offer a meaningful opinion on this issue which is disengenuous in the extreme. Movie and book critics can give valid opinions on films and books because they have a thorough knowledge of film and literature. My background and publishing experience as well as editing other authors who are far more successful than myself DOES IN FACT give weight to my opinion. Your argument is essentially "I don't like that you have a strong opinion." You are not going to bother to read Ugly Love for yourself or even check reviews or preview the text on Amazon to test the waters yourself, No, you will simply claim that all I have is an opinion. God forbid you test a hypotheses! We'd still be living on a flat Earth! Without you own investigation into how good or bad Hoover's prose is all you have is your opinion. An untested, willfully ignorant opinion that you somehow claim is equal to my experienced one. You are defending the position of ignorance. "I'm not going to sample the food that sickened you but I do know you don't have the right to criticize or fire the chef."
THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE ARGUING!

Firstly.... You are not a judge.... You do understand that... Right??? Just another reader...
I didn't offer an opinion on the necessities for any of the above... When somebody is appointed as a judge, they are chosen to officiate.
You have selected yourself... To offer nothing more than an opinion....
You don't like the story.... It's simple, don't read it...
You don't like the food, don't eat it...
I'm not arguing with you... Just offering my opinion... Just like you...
Mine is as valid as yours....I wasn't appointed as a judge either, so we stand on equal ground. Merely spectators, offering our thoughts...
The world is full of critics... All of then offering their opinions on whether they liked something or not....
Most usually add the little clause within their critique.... IMO.
All I suggested is you do the same....
You are not an expert, you have no credentials, you have no authority. So all you add to a conversation is an opinion...
Might I add....
IMO...

Cagivagurl

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Is Margaret Atwood a better writer than Tom Clancy? Hint: It largely depends on your personal taste. Authors like Clancy and Michael Crichton were able to inject complex, realistic technology into a well written, interesting story. That takes talent. The fact that someone doesn't enjoy those types of stories doesn't make them lesser authors.

That's not true. Clancy is full of implausibility in real world plots that hinge on spectacle. Atwood has full plausibility even in speculative worlds while maintaining theme and structure. It's not a matter of taste. It's 100% better writing both technically and stylistically. Now I'm not saying that Clancy is a BAD writer by any stretch, but if you want to compare him to another thriller writer, Martin Cruz Smith blows him away hands down and yet Clancy is clearly more 'successful'.

 

[lovecraft68]

Her work is Hemingway compared to 50 Shades.

Better lucky than good is the motto

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That's not true. Clancy is full of implausibility in real world plots that hinge on spectacle. Atwood has full plausibility even in speculative worlds while maintaining theme and structure. It's not a matter of taste. It's 100% better writing both technically and stylistically. Now I'm not saying that Clancy is a BAD writer by any stretch, but if you want to compare him to another thriller writer, Martin Cruz Smith blows him away hands down and yet Clancy is clearly more 'successful'.

Give an example of Clancy engaging in this implausible spectacle.

I'd argue that the whole premise of A Handmaid's Tale is an implausible fever dream. But it plays into a certain segment of the populations prejudices so it's taken as "truth".

 

[YmaOHyd]

Give an example of Clancy engaging in this implausible spectacle.

I'd argue that the whole premise of A Handmaid's Tale is an implausible fever dream. But it plays into a certain segment of the populations prejudices so it's taken as "truth".

I'd say that a lot of Clancy's later work falls into the category of implausible spectacle, but equally it's (IMO correctly) recognized as lesser Clancy. The stuff that made him famous did so partly because it was plausible.

 

[Wifetheif]

Firstly.... You are not a judge.... You do understand that... Right??? Just another reader...
I didn't offer an opinion on the necessities for any of the above... When somebody is appointed as a judge, they are chosen to officiate.
You have selected yourself... To offer nothing more than an opinion....
You don't like the story.... It's simple, don't read it...
You don't like the food, don't eat it...
I'm not arguing with you... Just offering my opinion... Just like you...
Mine is as valid as yours....I wasn't appointed as a judge either, so we stand on equal ground. Merely spectators, offering our thoughts...
The world is full of critics... All of then offering their opinions on whether they liked something or not....
Most usually add the little clause within their critique.... IMO.
All I suggested is you do the same....
You are not an expert, you have no credentials, you have no authority. So all you add to a conversation is an opinion...
Might I add....
IMO...

Cagivagurl

"You are not an expert, you have no credentials, you have no authority. So all you add to a conversation is an opinion..."
I presented my credentials you dismissed them. I explained why my position has validity. You chose to ignore that as well. You claim you are just offering an opinon. Facts certainly don't sway you. If you don't like the story ... It's simple, don't read it. You are arguing that no one can have an opinion on any story they don't like. You are arguing that you never need to improve as a writer by studying bad examples of what NOT to do. You cannot be any kind of a writer without reading bad examples of fiction and understanding why they don't work. How can you avoid a Deius Ex Machina ending, which NO reputable publisher will accept if you have never encountered it in the wild? How can you understand the difference between good allusions and bad allusions unless you read bad and good examples of both? How can you use metaphors and similies correctly unless you have seen them badly done? Your ostrich, hide your head in the sand approach leaves you reading ONLY what you enjoy and NEVER growing as a writer. That means that whatever you call yourself, "Writer" is an innacurate description. You are a swimmer who choses to swim ony when the skys are sunny and the weather warm. The first hint of a chill or bad weather, you are out of the pool because it isn't to "your liking!" No opinion is the coward's way and the fake, innefective writer's way! You can't grab a medal in the Olympics if you only swim when you feel like it or if it is to your liking. Whatever you claim to be -- writer ain't it!

 

[YmaOHyd]

The problem with these discussions is how do you define "quality".


On the topic of movies, looking at modern blockbusters is misleading because it doesn't factor in their insane production costs and marketing budget. They are meant to be somewhat generic to appeal to a global audience.
Mad Max cost $200,000 to make and grosses just shy of $100 million. That's a more financially successful film than anything on the top 10 all time list.

That's what I mean when I say a studio can muscle a pre-leveraged IP to a big box office number, and why I specifically said you can't just look at box office numbers. Justice League brought in a bunch of money if you just look at the gross; it also under-performed expectations and, accounting for the marketing spend, lost money overall. Profit isn't necessarily the best metric either, because it's also pretty easy to generate big profit numbers out of cheaply-made horror films. You need a combination of things -- critical appeal, audience acclaim, wide-market success. A film like Schindler's List satisfies all three tests: critics and the industry loved it, it has one of the only A+ CinemaScore ratings, it made a ton of money. Rise of Skywalker fails two of the three. One of the difficulties with the new streaming era is that audience reactions are obfuscated -- we don't have CinemaScore data for streaming exclusives -- and market penetration is entirely absent, unless you care about stuff like Netflix's "four hundred million people streamed at least two minutes of this movie!" standard.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I'd say that a lot of Clancy's later work falls into the category of implausible spectacle, but equally it's (IMO correctly) recognized as lesser Clancy. The stuff that made him famous did so partly because it was plausible.

And I can't argue with that, kind of the challenge of the genre is that things have to keep getting "bigger" constantly "raising the stakes" and so forth.
I've only read the first 6 or 7 of the Ryanverse novels. Once the ghostwriters came in... mehh.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That's what I mean when I say a studio can muscle a pre-leveraged IP to a big box office number, and why I specifically said you can't just look at box office numbers. Justice League brought in a bunch of money if you just look at the gross; it also under-performed expectations and, accounting for the marketing spend, lost money overall. Profit isn't necessarily the best metric either, because it's also pretty easy to generate big profit numbers out of cheaply-made horror films. You need a combination of things -- critical appeal, audience acclaim, wide-market success. A film like Schindler's List satisfies all three tests: critics and the industry loved it, it has one of the only A+ CinemaScore ratings, it made a ton of money. Rise of Skywalker fails two of the three. One of the difficulties with the new streaming era is that audience reactions are obfuscated -- we don't have CinemaScore data for streaming exclusives -- and market penetration is entirely absent, unless you care about stuff like Netflix's "four hundred million people streamed at least two minutes of this movie!" standard.

There's always the Tyler Perry formula. Make a movie for 10 million, don't spend too much on marketing, it makes 70 or 80 million at the box office, plus the rights money for streaming. Rinse and repeat. It's not great art, but it's certainly profitable.

Nolan's Batman movies were great cinema and highly profitable. You could say they didn't pass the awards test (2 Oscar's between all three, Heath Ledger for Supporting Actor and a Sound Editing Award) but I think that has more to do with the Academy's prejudice against the genre than anything else.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy (leave the Hobbit out of it) definitely went 3 for 3. Popular, profitable and great cinema.

 

[Cagivagurl]

"You are not an expert, you have no credentials, you have no authority. So all you add to a conversation is an opinion..."
I presented my credentials you dismissed them. I explained why my position has validity. You chose to ignore that as well. You claim you are just offering an opinon. Facts certainly don't sway you. If you don't like the story ... It's simple, don't read it. You are arguing that no one can have an opinion on any story they don't like. You are arguing that you never need to improve as a writer by studying bad examples of what NOT to do. You cannot be any kind of a writer without reading bad examples of fiction and understanding why they don't work. How can you avoid a Deius Ex Machina ending, which NO reputable publisher will accept if you have never encountered it in the wild? How can you understand the difference between good allusions and bad allusions unless you read bad and good examples of both? How can you use metaphors and similies correctly unless you have seen them badly done? Your ostrich, hide your head in the sand approach leaves you reading ONLY what you enjoy and NEVER growing as a writer. That means that whatever you call yourself, "Writer" is an innacurate description. You are a swimmer who choses to swim ony when the skys are sunny and the weather warm. The first hint of a chill or bad weather, you are out of the pool because it isn't to "your liking!" No opinion is the coward's way and the fake, innefective writer's way! You can't grab a medal in the Olympics if you only swim when you feel like it or if it is to your liking. Whatever you claim to be -- writer ain't it!

You presented no credentials...
You mentioned some, but of course, unsubstantiated... So does that hold water?
You said facts don't sway me... Actually they do. You just never presented any...
I never mentioned my ability as a writer, or whether I needed, or wanted to improve...
You have repeatedly stated the difference between good and bad... Without owning the "fact". What you suggest is good or bad, is only your opinion.
The author may have chosen to ignore common rules of writing for stylistic, or other reasons. Does that make a story good or bad? I guess that's in the eye's of the reader. That's you and me BTw... We do stand on equal footing. We are merely readers.
Do I call myself a writer??? No not really. I have posted 1 or 2 stories here. I do not do so with the intent of ever becoming a published writer. I tinker around as a hobby. Playing with words and plots.
Can I improve without reading material I don't like? Personally, I prefer to try to emulate my favoured authors, than troll through something I dislike looking for lessons learned.
As a musician, I listen to what I enjoy. That's where my inspiration comes from.
When I buy art, it is because I like it. Not because some pretentious critic offered an opinion...
when I read, it is because I like what it says... Is it good? If I turned the page, then I obviously think so. You might feel differently...
That is our right to have differing vies....
At the end of the day, e offer only our thoughts, our perceptions, our opinions.

Cagivagurl

 

[YmaOHyd]

And I can't argue with that, kind of the challenge of the genre is that things have to keep getting "bigger" constantly "raising the stakes" and so forth.
I've only read the first 6 or 7 of the Ryanverse novels. Once the ghostwriters came in... mehh.

Yeah, and when you have the same characters recurring for thirty or forty years, eventually you end up in the situation of "genius CIA analyst who's also an ass-kicking gunfighter and he's the President and beats up space terrorists all by himself."

There's always the Tyler Perry formula. Make a movie for 10 million, don't spend too much on marketing, it makes 70 or 80 million at the box office, plus the rights money for streaming. Rinse and repeat. It's not great art, but it's certainly profitable.

Nolan's Batman movies were great cinema and highly profitable. You could say they didn't pass the awards test (2 Oscar's between all three, Heath Ledger for Supporting Actor and a Sound Editing Award) but I think that has more to do with the Academy's prejudice against the genre than anything else.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy (leave the Hobbit out of it) definitely went 3 for 3. Popular, profitable and great cinema.

I agree with you about the Academy and the Nolan Batman trilogy; that was a huge controversy at the time and led to rule changes. And while they didn't pass the awards test necessarily, they were all critically feted. I think most critics (who are different than Oscar voters!) believed The Dark Knight was the best film of its year ahead of Slumdog. Most of the Spielberg oeuvre passes all three tests too: Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report.

Tyler Perry's formula relies on the existence of an underserved audience. Black audiences have been given the shaft by Hollywood for decades. Latino audiences have too, which is partly why the Fast and Furious franchise makes so much money -- it's one of the few studio products that reliably draws large Latino crowds. Finding a niche is a great way to be commercially successful. It's not dissimilar to building an audience here by cornering the market on a specific fetish. It only works inasmuch as that niche is there to be exploited, and Hollywood has a massive blind spot where non-white audiences are concerned.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Yeah, and when you have the same characters recurring for thirty or forty years, eventually you end up in the situation of "genius CIA analyst who's also an ass-kicking gunfighter and he's the President and beats up space terrorists all by himself."


I agree with you about the Academy and the Nolan Batman trilogy; that was a huge controversy at the time and led to rule changes. And while they didn't pass the awards test necessarily, they were all critically feted. I think most critics (who are different than Oscar voters!) believed The Dark Knight was the best film of its year ahead of Slumdog. Most of the Spielberg oeuvre passes all three tests too: Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report.

Tyler Perry's formula relies on the existence of an underserved audience. Black audiences have been given the shaft by Hollywood for decades. Latino audiences have too, which is partly why the Fast and Furious franchise makes so much money -- it's one of the few studio products that reliably draws large Latino crowds. Finding a niche is a great way to be commercially successful. It's not dissimilar to building an audience here by cornering the market on a specific fetish. It only works inasmuch as that niche is there to be exploited, and Hollywood has a massive blind spot where non-white audiences are concerned.

I'll have to disagree about the blind spot for non-white audiences. One of the problems with big budget cinema is making it too generic to try and serve EVERY audience. You are counting on the box office from all over the globe so you have to sanitize it to every taste.
The Lit equivalent of removing every fetish and making it completely vanilla sex to appeal to the widest possible audience. Then you have true vanilla, just about everyone is OK with it, but it really isn't anyone's favorite.

 

[Wifetheif]

You presented no credentials...
You mentioned some, but of course, unsubstantiated... So does that hold water?
You said facts don't sway me... Actually they do. You just never presented any...
I never mentioned my ability as a writer, or whether I needed, or wanted to improve...
You have repeatedly stated the difference between good and bad... Without owning the "fact". What you suggest is good or bad, is only your opinion.
The author may have chosen to ignore common rules of writing for stylistic, or other reasons. Does that make a story good or bad? I guess that's in the eye's of the reader. That's you and me BTw... We do stand on equal footing. We are merely readers.
Do I call myself a writer??? No not really. I have posted 1 or 2 stories here. I do not do so with the intent of ever becoming a published writer. I tinker around as a hobby. Playing with words and plots.
Can I improve without reading material I don't like? Personally, I prefer to try to emulate my favoured authors, than troll through something I dislike looking for lessons learned.
As a musician, I listen to what I enjoy. That's where my inspiration comes from.
When I buy art, it is because I like it. Not because some pretentious critic offered an opinion...
when I read, it is because I like what it says... Is it good? If I turned the page, then I obviously think so. You might feel differently...
That is our right to have differing vies....
At the end of the day, e offer only our thoughts, our perceptions, our opinions.

Cagivagurl

Personally, I prefer to try to emulate my favoured authors, than troll through something I dislike looking for lessons learned. Trolling through something I dislike is exactly WHY I have over sixty published books in both fiction and nonfiction. Emulating only your favorite authors is to become a mimic with no style of your own. You agree that you are no writer and, apparently, never will be one. I shudder at the thought of you in a college literature class required to read sometimes musty old novels and short stories to understand the building blocks of English and world literature. Would you tell your professor, "I won't read Nathan Fromme even though it is assigned because I don't like Edith Wharton? Or I don't want to discuss Uncle Tom's Cabin because it is preachy and I don't like religion in my novels? At some point, if you wish to be a writer (and you clearly do NOT) you have to read a lot of dreck, encounter outmoded belief systems, or encounter questionable racial or moral issues. Thank you for admitting that you are stubborn, uncritical and void of originality with no desire to grow in any way. You claim all I have is an opinion. Further you claim that since all I have is an opinion, I cannot make any judgements of any writer or their work. I have opinions BECAUSE I am well-read and have devoured a TON of literature both good and bad. I've trained my pallate while you insist in only scarfing down pablum. I'm really sorry for you. I can't imagine living, as you do, without an active, well-fed imagination.