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Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a movie called The Bodyguard. You remember it, right? 1992 romance, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. It made some $410m internationally. Which, in 2020 dollars is about $760m. https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/520050-new-study-finds-that-lack-of-diversity-costs
Three quarters of a billion for a romantic drama. Now, when Hollywood makes that kind of money on anything, it triggers a copy cycle. "Get me a Bodyguard, stat!" should've been coming from every executive suite in Hollywood. But how many Bodyguard ripoffs were there? And why?
When Harry Met Sally comes out three years before and makes less than $100m, yet triggers this boom of romantic comedies. But The Bodyguard does nothing? Were there no more thirtysomething white actors you could mate with twentysomething Black actresses?
Or is it that the gatekeepers couldn't stomach another interracial romance so they left millions on the table? Even if you're not gonna catch lightning in a bottle again, you settle for the spark—how else to explain Steven Seagal's entire career?
When Marvel dropped The Avengers in 2012 and makes $1.5 billion, it sent every studio scrambling for their own cinematic universe, whether it made sense or not. Rinse and attempt to repeat, all over town. Almost all of them flopped, but it didn't matter. Hits beget would-be hits.
Black Panther came six years later and makes $1.3 billion. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came that same year and won Oscars. Where are the waves of Black and Afro-Latinx superhero movies that should've followed? Why didn't they come?
Crazy Rich Asians made almost 10 times its production budget—which was already a bargain at $30m—where's the wave of Asian-centric movies that should've been thrust into the pipeline immediately?
It used to be that the only color Hollywood cared about was green. But despite all of the evidence, it still can't wrap its tiny little mind around how ANY shade of brown will increase their collective bottom line.
