Angry outrage = free advertisement = more people hear about it and might be willing to throw money at them. Especially if there is already a huge existing fanbase.
Just a random example:
Avatar - The Last Airbender: The version of M. Night Shyamalan, not the upcoming movie. Widely regarded as one of the worst ever adaptions of an existing franchise, hated by fans to the point that it’s become a meme to outright deny this movie ever existed. But it was spread far and wide across the internet just HOW incredibly bad the movie was. Box office: $319,713,881 worldwide.
13 Assassins: Came out in the same year (2010) and is praised as a faithful but very polished and pleasing adaption of an older movie, generally favored by critics and fans alike. High ratings everywhere. But that story didn’t spark public outrage, and most people today won’t even remember that this movie exists, unlike the shitty AtLA movie. It is a well-made movie overall, faithful to the “source material”, loved by fans, but only grossed $18,689,058 world wide, roughly 17% of what the Avatar movie made in the same time frame.
Note that I am not saying that pissing off the fanbase is guaranteed to yield good results, and neither is it sustaineable in any way - but the execs aren’t interested in building something that will make them money in the long run. They’re only interested in quarterly profits and immediate results they can present to their shareholders and investors, and creating outrageous bullshit is more likely to make a bunch of people aware about what you created (albeit in a negative way). Once the public starts to lose interest again, they can just grab the next franchise and repeat the process.
Angry outrage = free advertisement = more people hear about it and might be willing to throw money at them. Especially if there is already a huge existing fanbase.
Just a random example:
Avatar - The Last Airbender: The version of M. Night Shyamalan, not the upcoming movie. Widely regarded as one of the worst ever adaptions of an existing franchise, hated by fans to the point that it’s become a meme to outright deny this movie ever existed. But it was spread far and wide across the internet just HOW incredibly bad the movie was. Box office: $319,713,881 worldwide.
13 Assassins: Came out in the same year (2010) and is praised as a faithful but very polished and pleasing adaption of an older movie, generally favored by critics and fans alike. High ratings everywhere. But that story didn’t spark public outrage, and most people today won’t even remember that this movie exists, unlike the shitty AtLA movie. It is a well-made movie overall, faithful to the “source material”, loved by fans, but only grossed $18,689,058 world wide, roughly 17% of what the Avatar movie made in the same time frame.
Note that I am not saying that pissing off the fanbase is guaranteed to yield good results, and neither is it sustaineable in any way - but the execs aren’t interested in building something that will make them money in the long run. They’re only interested in quarterly profits and immediate results they can present to their shareholders and investors, and creating outrageous bullshit is more likely to make a bunch of people aware about what you created (albeit in a negative way). Once the public starts to lose interest again, they can just grab the next franchise and repeat the process.