The Death of Hollywood

Send us Fan Mail After a brief hiatus and a new baby in the house, Brian and James return to tackle a big question: Is Hollywood dying? From the golden age of the studio system to the Marvel era, the American film industry has shaped global culture for more than a century. Movies didn’t just entertain us — they exported American imagination around the world. But between streaming, shrinking theater audiences, corporate risk-aversion, and the rise of AI-generated visual production, something feels different. In this episode, Brian and James explore: How COVID and streaming permanently altered movie-going habitsWhether AI will democratize filmmaking — or cheapen itThe decline of scarcity and what that means for artistic valueWhy superhero fatigue might be more than just franchise burnoutWhether this is technological evolution — or cultural decayIs this just another industry shift, like silent films giving way to talkies? Or are we witnessing the collapse of something irreplaceable — a form of art that once commanded global attention? And deeper still: is the real problem technology… or us? A conversation about spectacle, virtue, attention spans, and whether we still know how to value what is good.