Audience Alienating Era / Film — Studios and Production Companies

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until five years after the era begins. Please also try to avoid Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.

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Major Studios

• Paramount:
  • The studio was one of the worst hit by the aftermath of the Paramount case, which forced the studio to divest itself of their prized movie theater chain, and the subsequent collapse of the studio system. In an effort to fill the void left by the loss of the chain, they invested in the DuMont network while operating their own TV service in the West Coast. This resulted in frequent clashes with the FCC, and both networks eventually collapsed. Having failed to establish a foothold in TV, Paramount plunged into turmoil throughout the '50s and '60s, releasing all of their performers under contract, cutting its film slate, and selling portions of their film and cartoon library just to get by. Their only notable hit, the 1956 version of The Ten Commandments, managed to come out just a few years before Cecil B. DeMille's death. The losses continued to accelerate as more flops hit the market, and eventually the studio was sold to a car bumper company, Gulf+Western Industries, in 1966. Only then did they start to find a way out of the hole, buying Desilu Studios to get into television the proper way and with The Odd Couple, Rosemary's Baby and Love Story being critical and commercial hits. Paramount finally returned to prominence with Francis Ford Coppola's crown jewel, The Godfather.
  • The latter half of the 2010s have not been kind to Paramount, thanks to a volatile combination of high profile and costly bombs, leadership turnovers, and toxic industry politics.
    • The troubles started in 2016 with major flops such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Star Trek Beyond and the Ben-Hur remake during the summer, though the blow was somewhat softened with Autumn successes like Arrival, Office Christmas Party, and Fences. On top of all that, an internal power struggle at parent company Viacom ended with then-CEO Philippe Dauman leaving on bad terms. And that's not even scratching the surface—you know you're all but waist-deep in the big muddy when your own parent company urges you to get back together with the very sister studio you had split up with about a decade before.
    • 2017 was even worse due to huge critical and commercial flops, like Monster Trucks (which notoriously was delayed for over one and a half years and caused the studio to writedown a $115 million loss on the project before it was released) and the Ghost in the Shell Live-Action Adaptation (which was accused of whitewashing characters from the source material). Even Transformers: The Last Knight, which belonged to a franchise that always reaped massive profits despite negative critical reviews) couldn't save the studio's summer, as poor word-of-mouth and franchise fatigue led to the film flopping being the lowest-grossing film in the series since the original film and losing Viacom over $100 million. So bad was the year for Paramount that Lionsgate, a mini-major studio, outgrossed them at the box office. The only bright spot by the end of the year was the arrival of new studio head Jim Gianopulos, who many hoped would pull off a studio revival like what he did at Twentieth Century Fox.
    • 2018 was seen as a hopeful if still mixed year for the studio. The critical acclaim and box office success of A Quiet Place and Mission: Impossible – Fallout point to Paramount's fortunes improving. Likewise, the Transformers franchise still showed signs of life, considering that the sixth film was deemed as the best in the franchise and made money even if with the franchise's lowest intakes. However, most of their other films were either critical and financial bombs (Sherlock Gnomes, and Action Point), or were critical hits, but still bombed (Annihilation), so they weren't quite out of their Audience-Alienating Era just yet. Paramount also acquired a new licensing agreement with Hasbro to make up for their lost IPs.
    • 2019 was less successful than 2018, as while the studio benefitted from the successes of Rocketman, (Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Crawl, and Pet Sematary), it also suffered from the significant failures of Wonder Park, Gemini Man and Terminator: Dark Fate, the latter two of which became two of the biggest bombs of the year.
    • 2020 started out decently with Sonic the Hedgehog, which was decently received by critics (by video game movie standards) and became the highest-grossing video game movie ever domestically and grossing over $300 million worldwide. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 Pandemic happened, resulting in the rest of their 2020 slate being either pushed back or moved to streaming services. Nonetheless, Love And Monsters saw a decent return in what little theaters were open and in a simultaneous digital release domestically.
    • Paramount started out 2021 with A Quiet Place Part II, which served as a major confidence boost for the studio; in addition to being well-received, it nearly matched its predecessor's opening weekend, grossed approximately $160 domestically and a little under $300m worldwide despite the ongoing pandemic. They experienced a second hit with PAW Patrol: The Movie, which later had a sequel greenlit. However, the failure of Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins and a surge in COVID cases convinced the studio to delay the rest of its slate to 2022 barring Clifford the Big Red Dog, which was released day-and-date in theaters and on Paramount+ (ending up successful enough that a sequel was greenlit shortly thereafter) and Rumble- and even that was shifted to a Paramount+-only release. Gianopulos also stepped down as studio head and was replaced by Nickelodeon vet Brian Robbins, who announced the studio's pivot towards the streaming service Paramount+ alongside his continuing oversight of the beloved children's entertainment brand that he previously contributed to.
    • 2022 can be considered the year in which the Audience-Alienating Era ended. Paramount opened their slate with two acclaimed franchise movies that made back their small budgets many times over - Scream and Jackass Forever, with the former even getting a sequel green-lit a month after its release. They also experienced a mid-budget hit with the adventure rom-com The Lost City, which became the first non-IP film post-pandemic to open with more than $30m worldwide. Then Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opened to better reviews than its predecessor and made $71 million dollars in its opening weekend, confirming that the studio a new franchise to rely on. Paramount's good luck also extended to Top Gun: Maverick, which opened in the Cannes Film Festival to stellar reviews, and became the first film from the studio to both have an opening weekend over $100 million and gross over $1 billion worldwide since 2014. Despite the failure of Paws of Fury, Paramount got back on track with Orphan: First Kill and Smile in the latter half of the year, with the latter turning out to be a massive Sleeper Hit.
• RKO Radio Pictures fell into a bad one in 1948 after it was bought out by Howard Hughes, whose mismanagement of the studio was described by film historian Betty Lasky as a "systematic seven-year rape", and never recovered. A lifelong movie buff, Hughes demonstrated that just being a fan of cinema does not prepare one for actually creating it, let alone overseeing one of Hollywood's "Big Five" film studios in a time when the entire Hollywood studio system was in flux. The quality of RKO's output dropped precipitously, with multiple expensive bombs that, on their own, each would've been black marks on the balance books of any other studio, and Hughes seemed more interested in trolling the Hays Office (even hiring fake Moral Guardians to protest his "shocking" movies), purging suspected Communists from the studio's ranks, canceling movies whose politics he disagreed with, and pushing the careers of actresses he favored than in actually making good movies. Production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff, the Only Sane Employees at RKO ensuring that decent movies were still getting made, eventually got fed up and quit due to Hughes' penchant for Executive Meddling. By the time Hughes sold the studio to General Tire in 1955, it was practically bankrupt, and while the new owners made a valiant effort to right the ship, it was well past too late by that point. The final straw of The Conqueror in 1956 (filmed in 1954 when Hughes was running the studio), which led General Tire to shut down film production at RKO early the following year, may as well have been a Mercy Kill after what Hughes had done to the studio.
• Sony Pictures has had two of these:
  • The first one began around the early 1990's, when Sony bought Columbia Pictures Entertainment following the failures of Ishtar, Leonard Part 6, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen during the studio's time at The Coca-Cola Company. Most of the movies released during this period under-performed or flopped outright, with the most high-profile bombs being Radio Flyer, Last Action Hero, Geronimo: An American Legend, North, Immortal Beloved, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. These films cost Sony millions, to the point where Sony took a $3.2 billion writedown on the studio in 1994, and considered selling it altogether two years later. Sony also entered a partnership with Jim Henson Productions in 1995, which collapsed in 1999 after the Muppet films Muppets from Space and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland bombed despite mostly positive reviews. Things started turning around in 1997 when Men in Black became one of the biggest summer blockbusters of the 1990's, and ultimately this Audience-Alienating Era came to an end in 2002 when Spider-Man finally gave Sony a franchise that could make them a top player in Hollywood.
  • The second one began in 2014, after the Sony Pictures Hack prompted a management shake-up which resulted in the controversial Tom Rothman becoming company head. The next several years would see the release of several controversial movies that made the company a joke amongst audiences (such as Pixels, The Emoji Movie, Slender Man, Peter Rabbit, Holmes & Watson, Ghostbusters (2016), and Passengers (2016)). To add insult to injury, Sony also lost the rights to James Bond (from MGM which later took over full rights after that) and was briefly entangled in a dispute with Marvel Studios over the rights to Spider-Man. That being said, the company was able to retain some goodwill with Spider-Man: Homecoming, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, their respective sequels), and Blade Runner 2049 (distributed by Warner Bros. domestically). They officially got out of their slump in 2021, due to a successful and non-controversial slate consisting of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the monster hit that was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which not only became the first film to hit the billion-dollar mark during the COVID-19 Pandemic, but ended up as Sony's highest-grossing film ever just two weeks after its release. Perhaps not coincidentally, Sony was all too quick to re-up Marvel Studios and Tom Holland for another trilogy shortly thereafter, and their success continued in 2022 with a diverse range of movies, Morbius notwithstanding — and even that managed to obtain a cult meme following.
• Twentieth Century Fox had two, the second of which played a major role in its sale to Disney.
  • The first one, from the early '60s to late 70's, nearly sank Fox as a whole. The studio was already disproportionately affected by the aftermath of the Paramount case, which ended the studio system that Fox greatly benefited from. But the departure of co-founder Darryl F. Zanuck as head of production (and the death of his successor after only a year on the job) left the studio without any creative direction, resulting in much of their early 60's output suffering from backstage strife, the most notorious being Cleopatra. Not helping matters was the sudden death of their biggest star, Marilyn Monroe, leaving Something's Got to Give unfinished despite millions already being poured into it. The losses from those flops became so heavy that Fox had to significantly downsize their massive backlot (leading to the creation of Century City) in an effort to stave off further losses. Eventually, Fox rehired Zanuck, who in turn, installed his son Richard as head of production. The Sound of Music was able to help the studio recover from past losses, but Richard created new ones by bankrolling more expensive musicals in the wake of Music, leading to the box-office disasters Doctor Dolittle, Star!, and Hello, Dolly! These commercial disasters, along with an aborted attempt to merge with MGM and a battle between Darryl and Richard over control of the studio which led to the latter being fired, led many Hollywood analysts in the 70's to write premature obituaries for the studio. Then, in a twist of good luck, Fox (albeit reluctantly) agreed to back an ambitious project from a young filmmaker named George Lucas. The project in question? Star Wars, which gave Fox enough confidence to stay in the business after its unexpected success.
  • The second one lasted from 2000-2012, when Tom Rothman - who previously ran Fox Searchlight Pictures - was promoted to CEO of the main studio after his predecessor, Bill Mechanic, was fired following the box office failure of Titan A.E.. During his tenure, Rothman made a number of questionable decisions to certain movies, such as screwing the theatrical runs of films like Fantastic Mr. Fox and 127 Hours, taking many films away from their directors, and the unpopular In Name Only version of Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine). He eventually resigned in September 2012 to join Sony Pictures. Fox never fully recovered from Rothman's shadow despite the efforts of new studio head Jim Gianopulos and subsequent successes like Deadpool (and its sequel), Logan, The Peanuts Movie, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (along with its sequel) and The Martian. Not helping matters is that 21CF was unprepared for the onslaught of streaming platforms that greatly diminished its traditional revenue streams such as box office gross, ad revenue and cable re-transmission fees. Just five years after Rothman's departure, 21CF announced the sale of its entertainment properties, Fox included, to Disney, who proceeded to gut much of the autonomy it had left.

Animation Studios

• The Disney Animated Canon has gone through three distinct ones:
  • Package Age/Wartime Era (1942-1950): Following the then-failure of most of Disney's early 40’s output and a bitter strike from the studio that affected production on Dumbo, production on further animated features was halted due to World War II drafting many animators to the U.S. armies, leaving Walt Disney only able to produce Anthology Films, which, as for themselves, despite having been fairly well-received by critics, they, with the exceptions of The Three Caballeros and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, haven’t with fans, and in both cases they‘ve been deemed mostly forgettable, even the aforementioned ones to a lesser extent. Fortunately, in 1948, production on features returned, starting with the massive success of Cinderella two years later, ending this Audience-Alienating Era.
  • Bronze Age/Dark Age (1970-1989): Following Walt's death and the success of The Jungle Book, the studio was said to have lost its way during this period, with production on animated feature being sidelined and the films themselves declining in popularity (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Rescuers were exceptions). This period also saw Don Bluth part ways with Disney to start his own studio, which affected production on The Fox and the Hound. However, the lowest point came with the failure of the massively expensive The Black Cauldron, which was expected to pull the studio out of this Audience-Alienating Era. Unfortunately, management was restructured during production and then-new chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg infamously handled the final cut and marketing. As a result, The Black Cauldron ended up being both a critical failure and such a Box Office Bomb that only just barely avoided being the entire canon's Franchise Killer. Fortunately enough, the new management eventually proved effective with the release of The Little Mermaid four years later, marking the end of this long-lasting Audience-Alienating Era and the beginning of the iconic Disney Renaissance.
    • Disney's live-action side was also in one of these during Miller's tenure — much of their live-action output was released to critical derision and low box-office takes; this also coincided with an attempt to shake off the family-friendly rep the studio had, with Darker and Edgier fare like Something Wicked This Way Comes, TRON, and The Black Hole, among others. Being associated with the Disney name in any way did not help these films chances' whatsoever, and led to the creation of Touchstone Pictures in 1984 as a method of releasing films for older audiences without the stigma of the Disney name.
  • Experimental Era (Post-Renaissance) (1999-2007): Though the Disney Renaissance was in decline since Pocahontas, not helped by the advent of All-CGI Cartoon films starting with Pixar's smash hit Toy Story and Katzenberg's exit to found DreamWorks, there were still mostly critical and financial successes despite not as much as the first half. However, starting with Fantasia 2000, the studio entered a slump with constant critical or financial failures if not both, notably barring Lilo & Stitch. Not helping matters was the success of CGI films from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky Studios, further proving to audiences that traditional animation was outdated, and Disneytoon Studios began churning out their Direct to Video sequels to films from the canon, tarnishing the reputation of many beloved animated classics. The worst part in particular came when Treasure Planet became the biggest Box Office Bomb in the canon's history, further convincing Disney to discontinue traditional animation in favor of CGI, which eventually happened with 2004's mediocre flop Home on the Range. The next year saw the release of Chicken Little, the Disney canon's first All-CGI Cartoon film^note Pixar fully animated their films, and Dinosaur had CGI models (which in turn, though produced by Disney, was animated by then-division The Secret Lab) against live-action backgrounds., where Growing the Beard was expected. Unfortunately, while Chicken Little became the second highest-grossing animated film of 2005 and largely reversed the studio's financial slump, it ultimately proved to be the worst critical failure in the canon’s history by critics and fans alike. As a result, management was once again restructured with Pixar Regulars, specifically Pixar (which was being bought by Disney at the time; reportedly, Bob Iger was inspired to buy the company after discovering when he visited an international Disneyland that every single character in their parade was theirs, and not one was from any recent Disney release) co-founder John Lasseter. Their first film under Lasseter, Meet the Robinsons, despite flopping once again^note Financial performance could've been in part damaged due to Chicken Little's critical failure, giving Disney a bad impression on CGI films., received moderately positive reviews and was widely considered an improvement over their previous effort. Additionally, Lasseter went to unplug further DisneyToon sequels that weren’t in production yet. The next film, Bolt, their first film fully produced under Lasseter, fared even better, becoming both a critical and financial success and earning the studio its first Oscar nomination since 2003. All this marked the end of this Audience-Alienating Era and the beginning of what's widely referred to as the Disney Revival, continuing with a brief traditional animation revival and further hits such as Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Zootopia, among others.

• DreamWorks Animation slowly built their reputation during the 2000's, which started with the unexpected gargantuan success of Shrek in 2001, which made them a formidable rival to Disney. While the decade saw some critical disappointments and missteps (such as the Aardman Animations deal falling through), they were a consistent moneymaker, with Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon becoming critical hits as well. However, after Rise of the Guardians underperformed in 2012, they went through a rather tumultuous era that lasted until around 2021. Most of their output was wildly inconsistent in quality (ex: How to Train Your Dragon 2 got rave reviews while Home (2015), released the following year, was considered So Okay, It's Average at best), and even their critically-liked works have garnered disappointing box office grosses. The financial failures of both Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Penguins of Madagascar in particular led to a massive restructuring in January 2015, which resulted in studio layoffs, project cancellations, and the shuttering of their Pacific Data Images^note aka PDI/DreamWorks division. Despite the successes of Home (2015) and Kung Fu Panda 3, the studio was ultimately bought out by NBCUniversal in 2016, and Jeffrey Katzenberg left the company after the deal closed). Despite fears this Audience-Alienating Era could be permanent, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie - the first movie released after the buyout - was a critical and commercial success due to its low budget. Then How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, become a critical and commercial success as well, seemingly pulling the company out of its funk, as their following films would at least see financial success in some form, be it through theaters or, in the case of Trolls World Tour, digital release. Though their 2021 lineup of The Boss Baby: Family Business and Spirit Untamed did not impress critics and audiences alike, 2022 saw the releases of The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, both of which were large critical and financial hits that were praised for their bold and unique animation styles that suggest a new vision and direction for DreamWorks at last.

• Pixar had a legendary run of hits from its inception and throughout the 2000s, but things started to decline with Cars 2 in 2011, their first negatively received film and the first since the creation of the Best Animated Feature Oscar not to get a nomination. Their next two films were incredibly polarizing, and while Brave won the aforementioned Oscar, it was generally considered undeserving over Wreck-It Ralph. While Inside Out was critically lauded as a return to form, The Good Dinosaur came out mere months later and became Pixar's first Box Office Bomb. Thankfully, Pixar's films in the second half of the decade were mostly well-received, including sequels such as Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 4 (Another point of contention with the era was the studio's overreliance on sequels, with only four original films coming out during the 2010's). In The New '20s, both the overwhelmingly positive responses to their Sparkshorts films on Disney+ and their release of acclaimed original movies such as Soul, Luca, Turning Red, and Elemental suggests a hopeful future — though this is tempered by the Coronavirus Pandemic relegating most of them to the Disney+ streaming service; as of the end of 2023, no Pixar film has turned a profit since Toy Story 4 and corporate owner The Walt Disney Company seems to prioritize their in-house animated features in promotion and theatrical exposure.
• Sony Pictures Animation had one from roughly 2011 to 2018. Despite the studio partnering up with Aardman Animations after their deal with DreamWorks Animation fell through and managing to launch a Cash-Cow Franchise in Hotel Transylvania, most of the studio's output at the time ended up considered So Okay, It's Average at best and terrible at worst, along with studio mismanagement that led to Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Lauren Faust all leaving the studio.^note As of 2022, everyone except for Faust has since reconciled with SPA and rejoined the studio. 2017 would see the studio at its lowest point, when Smurfs: The Lost Village ended up getting tepid reviews and performed below expectations, only to be followed months later with The Emoji Movie, which while profitable ended up getting eviscerated by critics and audiences worldwide, eventually garnering the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (the first animated film to win the award) and nearly tarnishing the studio's reputation. However, unlike their parent company, Sony Pictures Animation managed to redeem themselves in the eyes of audiences one year later thanks in part due to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which received near-universal acclaim from critics and ended up becoming the studio's first film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first non-Disney/Pixar animated film winner since 2011. This, along with Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation becoming the studio's most successful animated film to date ^note the film not only outgrossed SPA's entire 2017 output but also Illumination Entertainment's The Grinch, the positive reception to The Angry Birds Movie 2 and the short film Hair Love in 2019, and plans by SPA president Kristine Belson (herself a former DreamWorks executive) to become a director-driven studio and produce more adult-animated content, have all helped the studio get back on track. If the reviews for The Mitchells vs. the Machines are any indication (though the film's distribution rights, as well as that of Vivo, were ultimately sold to Netflix as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic; their release of Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, initially planned for theaters only, was also abruptly sold to Amazon Studios following the rise of the COVID-19 Delta Variant), it appears that the studio's new strategy is ultimately working, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Other Companies

• With the rise of the New Hollywood movement in the late '60s, Hammer Film Productions could no longer just compete with their sanitized, Hays Code-era Hollywood horror competition on sex and violence alone. The studio didn't truly start hurting, however, until 1972, as Hammer's Dracula franchise fell into its own Audience-Alienating Era with Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula, before the failure of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in 1974 drove a stake through production of all future vampire movies at the studio. After that, Hammer spent The '70s going out with a whimper as the Gothic Horror films that used to be their bread and butter faded from mainstream relevance in the face of a changing horror landscape, culminating in the company going into receivership in 1979 after several years trying to keep up with the times. Among other things, they spent their final years churning out feature-film adaptations of British sitcoms. Much like their famous vampire however, they rose from the grave in 2011 with several horror hits like the Foreign Remake of Let the Right One In and The Woman in Black.