Current State and Dilemma of Traditional Film & Television

The entertainment industry operates through gatekeepers who control the production of content, participants, and value distribution. Independent creators face insurmountable barriers to funding and distribution. Film and television financing remains mysterious, with budget usage and revenue allocation lacking transparency. Traditional Hollywood excludes 99% of creative talent through geographic, financial, and network barriers.

Meanwhile, audiences remain passive consumers with no influence over the content they consume. Viewers have zero influence over what content gets created or how stories unfold.

This centralized system stifles creativity, limits diversity, and concentrates power in the hands of a few major studios.

In the traditional film and television industry, particularly in the independent film sectors of the United States and Europe, film teams face profound structural pain points. These issues stem from soaring operational costs and market fragmentation, severely limiting project profitability. According to Deloitte's 2025 Digital Media Trends report, production and distribution costs in the film and television sector continue to rise, while revenues are declining. The six major studios' content spending in 2024 is projected to reach a record $126 billion, up 9% year-over-year, but only a few projects can cover costs, further exacerbating the financing challenges for independent productions.

First, financing is extremely difficult: Small- and medium-sized independent projects must navigate layers of approvals through pre-sales, crowdfunding, or subsidies to secure funding, with low success rates. This is especially evident at the 2025 European Film Market (EFM), where independent producers report intensified pre-sale challenges, and investors' risk aversion due to economic uncertainty has left many promising works unable to launch.

Second, slot competition is fierce: To vie for summer blockbusters or Christmas prime slots, U.S. independent films often incur high "slot-buying" fees and endure uncertainty. Although North American independent productions are rebounding in 2025, prime resources are limited, making it hard for small- and medium-sized projects to compete with major studios. The average release window has shortened to 2-4 weeks, further compressing exposure opportunities.

The imbalance in promotion costs is particularly stark. For a mid-sized U.S. independent film, production expenses are typically controlled at $1-2 million for script development, shooting, and post-production, but marketing budgets often balloon to $1.5-3 million, with over 70% flowing to paid placements on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to capture fragmented traffic. The Independent Film Marketing Costs analysis shows that marketing budgets for independent projects range from $15,000 (micro-budget DIY mode) to $500,000, but higher spending is required to hire PR experts and ad agencies for festival premieres or social influence, while low-budget films rely on organic reach, often failing due to algorithmic barriers. According to the Film Industry Financial Sustainability report, the average screen output for independent films in Europe and the U.S. in 2025 is less than $100,000 per year, down over 70% from 2012, reflecting the low return-on-investment dilemma under high-cost structures.

This imbalance not only arises from social platforms' ad bidding and algorithmic monopolies but also amplifies macroeconomic uncertainties: The 2025 European Independent Producers Report indicates that ad spending is expected to decrease by 60% due to economic pressures, shifting toward less efficient channels and further squeezing the survival space for small- and medium-sized projects.

Overall, the dilemma in traditional film models—regarding resource allocation, efficiency, and risk control—have become industry consensus, urgently requiring innovative mechanisms like Web3 to inject liquidity and community-driven approaches, reshaping the entire chain from financing to monetization for sustainable growth.