What's The Next Big Pop Cultural Push?

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, sure, the point wasn't to tell me how I'm wrong (I almost always am) but for YOU to suggest what you think may be next.

Ok, I just thought that was worth noting given how many of those shows came out in the last five-ten years.

My general suggestion would be "Expect the unexpected". No-one is going to guess it right given we're a bunch of old fogeys. If we were late teens and twenty-somethings maybe, but they're usually just as myopic in a different way.

I do think certain kinds of horror and sci-fi are kind of missing at the moment. YA is kind of due a comeback. I might not be entirely surprised to see some fantasy YA novel series become pretty big.

I think it's unlikely fantasy, superheroes, zombies, vampires, cowboys, spies, "operators" (i.e. spec ops etc.), or the like.

Non-zombie post-apoc is on the table. Most attempts at that don't get a lot of traction.

We've seen a rise in quirky/weird stuff and mystery box stuff - Severance and the more recent Paradise for example, but again I don't think that'll rise to "pop culture" levels like Game of Thrones did.

I don't think anything coming out of China will do it because China does not have, as the internet calls it "the sauce". China is just a little bit too restrictive and scared and limiting to have "the sauce". If China let its media off the leash though, then things might change, and fast.

 

[payn]

Screw it: let's have BattleTech on the big screen. Have five different movies involving different factions, then have your 'Avengers' crossover with the Fourth Succession War.

It would probably lose so much money but not because of me!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Non-zombie post-apoc is on the table. Most attempts at that don't get a lot of traction.

This I could see. Post Apocalypse always has potential

I could also see things going in a super optimistic direction (kind of like the original Star Wars in the 70s)

Something we really have't seen in a while, at least at the level we used to, is comedies. We might be due for another Jim Carey style comedy streak

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I could also see things going in a super optimistic direction (kind of like the original Star Wars in the 70s)

Yeah an optimistic distant post-apoc, but that's not, sorry, "hippy nonsense" like Station Eleven (sorry, I say that with love but goddamn) that's say, set 200+ years after the world ends from climate change and warfare and so on, but where people are rebuilding a better world could easily be a response to the current political climate and lack of ideas. There can be cool battles with the evil people who want to drag us back to a worse time and so on too (including various future-tech weapons left over from the wars that ended the world).

What's really going to do it though is just really good writing that speaks to a lot of people, feels relevant to a lot of people, not the specific setting or whatever. That's why Mad Men, The Sopranos, and yeah even Game of Thrones all went huge. Because they were both well-written and had something relevant and meaningful to say to people. You can have the coolest setting ever but if your characters just speak in trope-y drivel you'll never go big (Arcane is pretty much as far as you can get like that - big but not huge - and it's because the writing is mid and half the characters - particularly the men - are dull as ditchwater). You also need like, "integrity of concept". You need to really stick to what your show is about and not jump around or go off somewhere else.

But you can have all that and fail to move the needle too - just look the utterly brilliant Halt and Catch Fire, which like, in a just world, would have been Mad Men huge (I'd argue in many ways it's better and has more to say than Mad Men). But it just never got the eyes on it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think we’re going to have a few years of experimenting, when various creatives will try to initiate the next big thing.

So I wouldn’t be surprised to see a wave oddball genre fusion films (“It’s a rom-com with barbarians, JB! A “Crom-com”, if you will!), or maybe someone trying to do with millennial meme humor what was done with puns & sight gags a la Airplane! and it’s ilk.

And when the next big thing happens, most of us will be going, “Huh. Didn’t see THAT coming.” Except this guy:

Which will result in an online review consisting of this in its entirety:

 

[Scribe]

Screw it: let's have BattleTech on the big screen. Have five different movies involving different factions, then have your 'Avengers' crossover with the Fourth Succession War.

Yes please.

 

[payn]

I think we’re going to have a few years of experimenting, when various creatives will try to initiate the next big thing.

So I wouldn’t be surprised to see a wave oddball genre fusion films (“It’s a rom-com with barbarians, JB! A “Crom-com”, if you will!), or maybe someone trying to do with millennial meme humor what was done with puns & sight gags a la Airplane! and it’s ilk.

Oh man, Crom-coms!

 

[Deset Gled]

So, what do you think is going to be the next pop culture trend to take over our televisions and movie theaters?

1. Skibidi Toilet: The Roblox Saga, ft. Fortnite Jonesy, with special guest Baby Shark.

2. English remakes of Indonesian horror (similar to the Japanese horror trend at the turn of the century).

3. Crime/action movies catering to the Chinese market.

 

[KYRON45]

I was wondering if someone could point me to a conversation of a bunch of old people trying to figure out what the next cool thing is?
I'm both old AND not cool so I'll see myself out.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It would probably lose so much money but not because of me!

Right? I'm not even that big a Battletech fan but... modern CGI movie to do like realistic-looking, realistic-damage-taking BattleMechs with some ridiculous melodrama between all the pilots, like, I dunno, Game of Thrones with BattleMechs, absolutely hell yeah.

I genuinely think "Game of Thrones but with BattleMechs", with a good enough writing team and a big enough CGI budget (or doing something really clever/cool with the SFX) could do pretty great.