#8 History repeats itself
Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eyes,
For another edition of Oblique Forecasting comes to life. If you’re new here – welcome – don’t worry, I usually write like a normal 21st-century person.
See you at the bottom of this post if you have Qs! I may have As.
Love, Esther
💰 What I’m investing in
📼 Vintage IPs
If you were a studio executive, would you back a movie based on a short poem in lieu of a script? We’ll come back to it later.
"There Is An Idea Of Patrick Bateman."
You may have heard by now that a new American Psycho movie is in the works. If your first reaction in hearing the news was NOT ANOTHER remake!, fair enough. It however looks like it’s going to be a new adaptation of the novel.
Quick aside: I’m not mad at either idea! Luca Guadagnino has proven he can direct a masterful remake. His version of 1969’s Swimming Pool, 2015’s A Bigger Splash, is proof. He can obviously also adapt books, see Call Me By Your Name and Challengers, my top pick of the year. American Psycho (the novel, another personal fav) was written as a commentary on Yuppie culture by a gay observer, and while the 2000 movie is interesting in its own right, it doesn’t quite translate the source material. Finance bros usually see Patrick Bateman as aspirational (!), instead of sensing the critique.
Now back to remakes.
If you feel that there are just so many remakes and fewer original ideas than ever, you’re on the right track. Now and then, a clip from Matt Damon’s Hot Ones episode resurfaces where he explains how streaming has changed the movie business. tl;dr movies used to make money twice: first during their theatrical release, then when the DVD11 came out. There was thus less pressure for a movie that came out in cinemas to do huge numbers right away. The game has changed since the advent of streaming: you either need to invest an exorbitant amount in marketing to avoid bombing at the box office or partner with a streaming giant.
There’s generally less money to be made in movie releases (bar obvious blockbusters). Studios are understandably more risk-averse. Gone are the days when studios green-lit a film based on a 12-line poem! That’s how Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life got its budget approved in 1983. Today, studios require brand recognition in hopes of capturing audiences’ weaning attention spans.
That’s how we ended up with Barbie last year. It grossed $1.5B and smashed numerous records. Not only that, but the marketing ahead of release and the zillion collabs it generated was astounding.
Following in its footsteps, we now have a Polly Pocket movie in the works (that Lena Dunham is no longer attached to), and so many more Mattel projects coming up: American Girl Doll, Barney, Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball (???), Thomas the Tank Engine, Uno (!). As well as a Monopoly (a Hasbro game) movie. Any toy you may think of, you’ll see in a movie soon.
Does this mean one should invest in Mattel stock? Inconclusive.
But the trend seems to be here to stay. I’ve used the movie business as an example but the recognisable IP requirement has spread to all industries:
Fashion: celebs do wear more and more archival pieces, kudos if you noticed it. For us laymen, new fashion remains a regurgitation of past aesthetics, with a faster and faster trend cycle.
Tech: flavour du jour (VCs invest in AI) aside, tech founders keep pitching their products using existing products, and not concepts. If I had a dollar every time I heard “[insert new tech] is the new Uber/Deliveroo/Chatroulette/Amazon disrupting [insert industry].”
Food: brands prefer revisiting classics to investing in innovation.
Packaging: not an industry per se, but I’ve recently been introduced to the concept of chaos packaging. As Ochuko puts it, “Did you know that innovation, actual innovation, has declined across most industries in recent years? It’s not every day fun packaging and guerrilla marketing… some actual innovation on product would be nice, too. These days I feel like sexy branding is just an excuse for brands to charge more while skimping on efficacy. Like, what's the split between your marketing and R&D teams?”
Music: is Indie Sleaze bound to be revived again and again and again?
So where do we go from here? It’s not that I like it and that I advise going against innovation, but I suppose that if you’re the decision-maker in your company, or work in a creative field… go with the option that people can recognise.
Known > new.
💸 What I’m divesting from
🎄 Advent calendars
It’s not yet All Saints’ Day and Christmas decorations are already up in the streets of Paris! Which is fine by me, I’m not the Grinch. But! Every time I open Instagram or TikTok, I’m subjected to an influencer’s review of a branded advent calendar.
After a few PR debacles in the past few years – the $825 Chanel calendar from 2021 and the $3500 Dior one from 2022 come to mind – beauty and food brands keep releasing advent calendars.
2 questions come to mind:
Does anyone need 12 to 24 products from the same brand? Whether we’re talking about the Bonne Maman jam calendar or the Sephora beauty calendar, the odds are – not every flavour or shade will be to everyone’s liking. Because they sell out earlier and earlier in the year, brands drive up the FOMO factor to encourage consumerism. Taste aside,
Who buys them? I’ve never heard of anyone around me purchasing one.
📈 Bullish news
A new dating app concept just dropped! Match’s random video chat app Azar could be the next Chatroulette — for better or for worse [TechCrunch] Read my predictions on the future of dating apps here.
Daze, a creative, AI-powered messaging app for Gen Z, is blowing up prelaunch [TechCrunch]
“The LVMH of real estate” – what does that entail exactly? [Airmail]
OpenAI and Microsoft are offering $10M grants to local publishers who use their AI tools in the newsroom [Axios]
Carine Roitfeld & son Vladimir are launching a sports x fashion publication. Curious about the outcome since I love her fashion presence but idk about her expertise in sports. [WWD] Meanwhile, The New York Times is investing in basketball. [nytco]
Jens Grede, co-founder and CEO of SKIMS, and Oscar Engelbert bought a $61M office in Beverly Hills. [TheRealDeal]
7% of the American workforce are influencers?! [WSJ]
Eva Longoria is financing some of your fav indie movies [X]
Jacquemus has hired Rothschild to find an investor to buy a minority stake and finance his store expansion plan. [nssmag]
📉 Bearish news
Bad omen for fashion M&As: US court blocks $8.5B merger between Tapestry (Coach, Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman) and Capri (Versace, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors). Tapestry’s shares went up 15%, Capri’s down 46%. [Reuters]
Glossier ran an ad in the NYT, toeing the line between endorsing Kamala Harris and advertising their perfume You. Yet it’s backed by investors at Sequoia who have donated $300k to Republican candidates. Do with that what you will. [The Review of Beauty]
Character.AI and Google sued after chatbot-obsessed teen’s death [The Verge]
Why Celebrities Stopped Being Cool [GQ]
Amazon is preparing to launch a low-price storefront to compete with Temu [The Information]
Boeing lost $6B in 3 months [QZ]
Apple and Goldman Sachs ordered to pay $89 million after Apple Card failures [CNN]
Novo Nordisk asks FDA to ban compounding pharmacies from making Ozempic, Wegovy copies [CNBC]
Meet the Italian ‘Fruit Detective’ Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings for Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared From the Kitchen Table [Smithsonian] Beyond actors guilty of having an ‘Instagram face’ in period pieces, I can’t help but think about inaccuracies in food scenes, as well as animals. Many dog breeds as we know them today didn’t exist mere centuries ago!
The Paris Market Report
🎙️Recorded a podcast with Harmony Homes on Friday, really hope they keep my martini joke in the final cut! Will share it when it’s out :)
💌 Any questions?
He uses DVDs as an example, one can extrapolate and include the videotape business as a whole:
On advent calendars: I wait until the beauty ones go on cyber week sale, buy them, and use the items as stocking stuffers which… probably quite niche.