(photo courtesy Wikipedia)
When I was growing up, the influence of Hollywood, and Los Angeles, was everywhere. Every movie was made in Hollywood. Most of the music -- more than half of it, probably -- was recorded in Los Angeles, with some of the recording studios in Hollywood. The Rolling Stones 60's albums that weren't recorded in London (at Olympic Studios), for example, were recorded in Hollywood studios like Sunset Sound and Goldstar, where the famous, sunshiny, 60's music from Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys to nearly every folk rock pop hit from that era -- were all recorded.
Van Halen's albums were recorded there, at Sunset Sound. Kiss recorded in or near Hollywood. Guns 'N' Roses recorded their first album near Hollywood, and were part of the Hollywood metal scene in the 80's. Tons of vital rock and pop songs were recorded in the Hollywood studios.
From the 1960's through the 2000's most of the popular Rock music was recorded in LA. Even Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, was recorded in or near Hollywood. A lot of Nu-Metal acts I loved in the 2000's -- from Korn to Coal Chamber to Engines of Aggression to Buckcherry to Limp Bizkit -- were either part of the Los Angeles scene, or recorded there.
Most, if not all, of the movies I enjoyed were Hollywood productions. As a child of the 70's and 80's, TV was all Hollywood. In the 1980's and early 90's, I was an aspiring musician. To me -- as it was to most musicians in Seattle during those times -- Los Angeles was where you made it big. That was because Los Angeles (Hollywood) was THE center of Rock and pop music.
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But now there is a big problem. Hollywood is DEAD.
There have been some videos on YouTube, put there by podcasters who know the industry, who are talking about the fact that Hollywood is dying -- the famous movie and TV production studios have vacant lots and empty soundstages. Actors and all the other people who were part of the industry are unemployed, or only working part time, having to travel to other places to do their job. They're hurting for money.
There have been reports that box office revenues are at record lows. New 'blockbuster' movies aren't busting the block anymore. Something is awry here.
If the chart is hard to read, it can be right clicked and displayed in a new tab or window.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
Looking at ticket sales stats and box office revenues over the past 20 years, the US movie industry is not only seeing nearly half the theatre audience it had in 2005, it is also making roughly half of what it made in 2005, when accounting for inflation. Now, it's not easy to find complete reports, which include streaming movie revenues, which might make the two figures more even, but a 50% cut at the box office from 2001 to 2025 is fairly telling.
Think about it. In just twenty years, the movie theatres have half the viewers and half the revenues they had in 2005.
Correspondingly, the amount of revenue per ticket increased, starting in 2005. But if you account for inflation (see previous chart), the Industry's ticket revenues started flatlining in 2013, and making less money after that.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
The numbers indicated that the monster of entertainment we used to call Hollywood -- and Los Angeles -- is fading.
This leaves the question: What went wrong?
It turns out that a combination of factors killed Hollywood. Poor governance by California and LA politicians -- high taxes, prohibitively high permit fees for location shoots. The fires did not help any. The strikes did not help any. California's tax policies moving parts of the industry to places like Texas and Georgia did not help any. Covid definitely did not help any.
On the other hand, the movies coming out of Hollywood haven't exactly been earthshaking. The trend of constant sequels, comic-book remakes, bland plots or non-stop superhero drivel hasn't exactly made people want to go to the theatre to pay $20 for tickets and another $20 for popcorn and a drink. They stay home and stream -- which makes Hollywood less money.
Most of these factors leading to Hollywood's decline are mentioned by the movers and shakers in the videos I have linked here.
Brian Entin's interesting vid on Hollywood turning into a Ghost Town, which includes an interview with Mel Gibson about Hollywood dying.
Mel Gibson, who made his first big movie in Melbourne in 1979 ('Mad Max'), and came to the US after The Road Warrior hit in 1981, has been either starring in movies, or making his own movies, for over 40 years. He knows a bit about Hollywood.
In his view, bad government, Covid, strikes, fires, the incredibly high cost of living in California, the incredibly high cost of doing business in California -- and other factors -- all have combined to turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which is how he describes it.
In an interview with podcaster Brian Entin, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper to fly an entire movie production to Bulgaria for three days, film some scenes there -- and the cost, including housing and transportation -- was less than it would be for shooting the same scene for one day in Los Angeles.
Everything is so expensive in LA, Gibson says. Even the cost of an apple in LA is so much higher than it is in Rome or Bulgaria.
Looking at the footage in Brian Entin's excellent video on the death of Hollywood drives Mel's point home -- Hollywood is indeed becoming a ghost town. Entin shows scenes of empty parking lots. Empty buildings. Soundstages with no activity -- no people.
It's all DEAD.
For those who work in Hollywood, it's a personal disaster. For those of us who grew up on Hollywood movies and music, it's heartbreaking.
But it's the new reality.
And this leads to the question: will it ever come back? My conclusion is that it never will. I now will tell you why.
This is a video by the Film Threat podcast on Hollywood dying. It concentrates on LA's Hollywood job losses. Over 20% job loss in just a year... a year that was supposed to be make-or-break for Hollywood.
The video I discuss below, which was a roundtable of FilmThreat industry experts, did not show up in the Blogger search function. Here is a link that that video.:
THEY ALL TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT the INTERNET and A.I.
In both of the videos I have linked above, there are two things that none of these movers and shakers have mentioned -- two factors that are systemic, and are killing the audio and video entertainment industry -- and one of those factors will kill it off: the death of physical entertainment media (DVD's, CD's), and AI.
First off, the death of physical media sales -- i.e. VHS tapes, DVD's, cassettes and CD sales -- is an important factor affecting Hollywood, because the death of DVD sales removed a massive revenue stream that propped up the movie and recording industries, and gave music and movie producers more money to work with -- more money to take chances on new artists, new scripts, new song and movie ideas. The billions of dollars that came in from CD sales allowed record companies to invest in new artists. DVD sales did the same for movie companies.
The movie industry, like the music industry, openly embraced streaming, without ensuring that DVD or video download SALES would be included in the contracts for licensing. Instead of ensuring that the video-file equivalent of the DVD would be a vital part of movie consumption, the movie industry agreed to the online streaming model, where there is no sale, and the revenues are based on declining box office receipts and abysmally low streaming revenues.
From what I've read, some movie companies rush their products to the streaming services, which undercuts any theatre revenues or whatever remaining DVD sales there may be -- killing off, or choking off two revenue streams.
The music industry did the same thing in 2001 when it embraced MP3 singles as being the only revenue model, and later on the music industry also embraced streaming, letting the revenues dwindle further in the process. They allowed the CD and the MP3 album to be killed off, replacing it with streamed 'album-equivalent-units', which bring in much less revenue.
This lack of sales of the movie or album has stifled creativity, because there is less revenue to invest in new artists or movie products.
Here is an example of how physical album sales helped propel a genre to dominance: Nirvana in 1991.
Nirvana only became massive because of the Nevermind album, which was an example of a record company taking a chance on a small-city (i.e. Seattle) alternative band, a band that as late as 1990 only alt rock and punk rock fans knew about. Once Geffen Records dumped money into recording and production, there was a sellable product, with all this money behind it to push it to radio and MTV.
The money that was used to front the recording, album cover, CD manufacturing; the video production costs, the merch, and the promotion posters and cardboard, record store promotion kiosks -- it all came from other artists' hit album sales.
Other albums that the recording company had in its roster had provided the revenues that were used to record, produce, and promote Nevermind to be the smash hit that it came to be.
Today there are no album sales. Streaming revenues are incredibly low. A million selling CD single in 2001 brought in over $5 million in revenue. A million plays of a single song on streaming platforms today will bring in $4000.
In 2001, a million selling CD album brought in about $18 million. Today, an "Album-Equivalent-Unit' getting one million plays will bring in about $48,000.
Get the picture? There is a lot less money in streaming -- both in music streaming, and in movie streaming. The death of physical media sales killed off a LOT of revenue, not only for the music industry, but the movie industry also. Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon discussed this in an interview several years ago. He said that in the 2000's, a movie producer could take a chance, because if the movie stiffed in the movie theatres, they could always count on DVD sales, and DVD rentals (which brought in more than streaming).
Damon insisted that killing the DVD killed off a lot of revenue, and was one reason that movies are so cookie cutter today -- the studios have less money available to take chances.
So the death of physical media sales (DVD's, CD's) has drastically affected Hollywood. One of the media experts in the second video I linked does talk about how the internet, and Tik-Tok, has changed media consumption, and that is a similar problem for Hollywood, being that the more hours you're watching clips on Tik-Tok, that's less time you're watching Hollywood productions.
But amazingly, none of these experts mentioned the death of the DVD as being one major factor in Hollywood's decline.
A.I. -- THE FINAL NAIL IN HOLLYWOOD'S COFFIN
AI is the 900-pound gorilla in the room that neither Mel Gibson, nor the experts in the second video address when discussing what is happening to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. Only one of the experts in the second video alluded to AI being in the future, in passing, where he mentioned that people may soon be able to use prompts to order up their own AI movie, on their phone or laptop.
The reality is that AI is not just going to be a trend. It is going to replace all other forms of audio and visual entertainment. Anyone who has seen the rapid improvement in AI video over the past two years can see that it's not going to go away. It's only going to get better in quality. Right now, the best AI out there can create high quality 10 minute clips. Soon enough -- maybe 5 years or so -- it will be able to create movie-length videos that you won't be able to tell from the movies Hollywood is producing now.
Right now AI is only starting to kill off other entertainment forms. In 20 years it will have finished the job. In the rest of this article I will tell you why.
First, let's look at how things used to be. Then we'll look at how they are now.
It used to be that actors, writers, and musicians would go to Los Angeles to try to make it big. When I still had my rock and roll dreams in the 80's and 90's, Los Angeles was always the place I figured I'd have to go to make it.
Why Los Angeles? Because all of the movie studios, TV studios, and recording studios were there. After all, it's HOLLYWOOD, and all the entertainment industries interconnect there.
And because of LA being so big, so diverse, and such a media center -- after all, it's the number two city in the United States -- it is a natural magnet for movie and music star wannabes. And with the great weather, and the beaches, and the sunshine -- it's naturally a place everyone wants to go.
Of course, music and movies often go hand in hand, as do music and TV. And all the entertainment forms converge together in Hollywood. Music stars used to make music videos -- often, those videos were made by people who were from the movie industry. As late as the 2010's, many music videos looked like full-on Hollywood productions.
This is because they actually were full-on Hollywood productions. Here is an example, which I've used in an earlier article 2 years ago -- Selena Gomez's video for her excellent pop song A Year Without Rain (2010), which looks like a Hollywood movie production.
The video for Selena Gomez's 2010 Top 40 pop hit A Year Without Rain. Look at the direction; the widescreen, high resolution; the breathtaking cinematography; look at how perfect everything is. Not only is it a great song -- but there was a lot of money put into this video. ...Money that the music industry lacks today.
As you can tell, the cinematography is perfect. Selena's hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Every movement of her dress is perfect. The sweeping vista shots in the widescreen video look like big-movie cinematography. It's all that way by design.
It has Hollywood written all over it. There was a LOT of money expended to make the video, and the pop track wasn't even a top ten hit. It was a great song, but didn't top the charts.
But look at all the money that went into that video!
Today, most of a video like that would be AI. In fact, in maybe ten years the entirety of such a video -- including the singer, music production and songwriting -- will all be AI.
This is how far we've progressed in just 15 years. From awesome pop hits, sung by real singers, written by real songwriters, and played by real musicians, to everything being done by a computer app.
What does this mean for Hollywood? It means 'it's dead, Jim.'
One reason that Hollywood was such an important place was because it was a LOCATION where everyone involved in music, movies, TV, and other audio-visual entertainment lived or travelled to get albums recorded, videos filmed, movies produced. To record an album, you could do it in Seattle, but the big production albums were finished and mastered in Los Angeles -- because that's where the big name producers were based. That was where the record companies were based. That's where the videos were made for most rock and pop hits.
With AI, none of that is needed. It all can be done via the internet, and in the future, it will all be done on your phone, on your AI app.
At the same time, we've seen the Tik-Tok effect, where there are no big singing stars anymore, and there are really no big movie stars anymore -- the internet has democratized and nichefied audio and video entertainment so much that the days of the mass media star are drawing to a close.
And AI will kill that off, too. Just give it time.
A.I. WILL ALSO REPLACE THE AUTHOR
I'll close this article off with a more personal take. As many of you may know, I've written books and published them on Amazon. Consequently, I frequent some forums for eBook authors, and a couple subreddits (on Reddit) where eBook authors hang out.
The vast majority of them are willingly blinded to the disaster that is coming down the pike. They really think that AI will have no effect whatsoever on the eBook publishing business.
"Readers will always want to read books by real human authors," they invariably say. "AI writing is trash, no one will read it," they invariably say. "Books are different from video and music," they invariably say.
They are blind, blind, blind.
First off, I have read some of the AI produced fiction recently. Sure, some of it is trashy writing. AI is nothing like Melville, Dickens or Shelley in its ability to turn out literature -- not yet. It hasn't even reached Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ruark or George Orwell level of writing skills yet.
But at the same time, most modern fiction is pulp fiction, or a variety of it, and I can't see where AI fiction is much different from any drugstore pulp novel writing. Are there glitches and some issues with the stories? Sure. But any glitches will undoubtedly be smoothed out and fixed as the AI-writing models are streamlined. Another issue is that the average eBook fiction author today reads fiction differently from the way the average consumer reads it. I've seen a lot of top selling books that weren't anything close to what I'd call literary in nature.
But they sell. And so will AI fiction, eventually.
Also, these AI detractors aren't keeping track of the trend in book consumption. Younger demos do not read books the same way that GenXer's, older Millennials, and Boomers did. They read less books, and buy fewer books than their older counterparts did.
Younger people are also much more open to new technology, and especially more open to new entertainment technology. That includes AI fiction writing, as well as AI videos, AI produced music, and the like.
If you are an eBook author and you think AI isn't going to eventually replace you, you are being willfully ignorant, friend. It's going to take over everything, and it's just a matter of time.
There will always be human written books, just as there will always be real music made by real people on real instruments. There will always be real people taking real photos on real cameras.
They just won't be making much, if any, money doing it.
BREAKING RUST: THE FUTURE IS NOW
Just recently, a new wrinkle in the AI factor has surfaced: a mysterious AI country singer named Breaking Rust topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart on Billboard. It's had 4 million streams on Spotify and 11 million streams on YouTube (according to CBS News).
Sounds like Gospel tinged Country to me. Not too different in tone from Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road', which was a smash just before Corona hit. 'Walk My Walk' has had 4 million streams on Spotify. That means it's made the creators (whoever they are) somewhere around $16,000.
If you listen to Breaking Rust, it sounds just like modern day country -- the words, of course are cliche. So are the words in most modern country songs -- I hear a lot of country while scanning the AM band at night, and the lyrics are almost non-stop cliches. The Breaking Rust singer sounds like a soulful white guy, or a black American gospel singer with a country-tinged accent.
Now, the fact that this track topped the MP3 Download Sales chart isn't necessarily a harbinger for the end of all musicians. But it shows exactly what AI is capable of doing. And if you listen to the track, it's not much different from what you might hear on the radio today, production and content-wise.
This is the future folks. We're already in it.
MY ONLY VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD
After viewing the first two videos I linked above, and writing this article, I have to admit that it's very saddening what has happened to Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general.
I only have been to Hollywood once. It was during a road trip I took, by car, with a former girlfriend. We drove from Seattle to New Orleans and back. The furthest east we made it was Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my ex and I waded in the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. I clearly recall the heat of the sun, the calming feel of the warm water, and hearing and seeing the flying fishes flip away in front of us as we were nearly waist deep in the water. It is one of my fondest memories. I was truly happy.
On the way back home from New Orleans, we went through Los Angeles. That night, we stopped in Hollywood. Sunset and Vine. I got out of the car, and walked up and down the block, and we both got a can of soda at a corner market.
So this is Hollywood, I thought to myself. On one hand, Sunset Boulevard reminded me of First Avenue in Seattle, a key thoroughfare that used to be a combination of Skid Row and culture central -- it ran from the touristy Pioneer Square district, pass several adult video arcades and pawn shops and music stores, to the famous Pike Place Market. Sunset reminded me slightly of this combination of run down and upscale.
On the other hand, my heart was pounding, because I was there -- at the center of the universe -- Sunset and Vine!
We drove west on Sunset, before heading north, and back to Interstate 5, so we could make our way back home.
Looking south from Sunset as we were driving towards the hills, you could see this vast panorama of lights to the south of us -- Beverly Hills, and the western part of LA that is the 'Los Angeles' that always makes it in the movies. In fact, the view reminded me of the sweeping vista one can see in the 2000's movie Crash, which features LA, with all of its diversity, glamour, and its hope, and also its underbelly. There is a sweeping vista in that movie that looked identical to the grand view I saw driving west on Sunset.
It was my only foray into Hollywood, but one I'll never forget.
Hollywood is that magical place that now is facing a declining future. Hollywood the neighborhood will always exist. I'm sure that there will always be entertainment in some form happening there, and being produced there.
But the glamour days are over. AI is going to kill it all off.
I'll be glad if that doesn't happen that way, but I don't think I'm wrong. AI is changing everything, folks, and we're in for a wild ride.
My last thoughts are a bit historical, I suppose. Hollywood as we still know it is only about 100 years old. The movie industry, which had been previously based out of New Jersey, moved west to Los Angeles in the 1920's -- just 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time for a single location like Hollywood to be the center of the entertainment universe.
It was a good run.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, it's been going normally. I'm still sorting out some finances left over from my mother's passing, and I'm still riding my bike at night, playing guitar and working on my bagpipes, so I can play them for the family at Thanksgiving. The temperatures have been moderate for November, which is refreshing. When I ride my bike at night, it feels like Spring.
I just got some new, plastic/synthetic Surefire brand chanter reeds for my bagpipes, and they work really well. There are four different strengths, and I ordered one of each, to figure out which strength reed works the best.
I also have a new cat. She's a grey tabby, 8-9 years old. I'm the third owner. The former owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was almost headed to be euthanized. She is now in my upstairs bathroom, which is heated -- and it's her own space.
She still isn't sure of me. Hisses a lot -- it's because she's scared. Cats don't like change. I'm using food as a weapon -- getting her to get to know me, because I'm the human putting the food in the dish. She still hisses a bit, but is meowing more and hissing less.
I don't have any pics because both my phone and camera's memories are full and I need to clear them to take more pics. She looks a bit like my Fluffamuffins did, my little grey cat that died just over a year and a half ago. Here is a pic of Fluffy as a reminder of what she looked like.:
As you can tell, I was working on my Superadio some time before or after I took this pic. Fluffy just made herself at home on the table.
I think I'll call the new cat Princess, because she's a shelter cat that's on her third (or fourth?) owner since she was at a Lompoc, California animal shelter in 2017.
She needs a chance to be a 'princess'.
Peace.
C.C., November 21st, 2025.
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