of its original line-up means that silver screen recreation of their live presence is even more marketable : it is no longer possible to see the original band ( complete with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon ) perform , so there is not much modern competition or existing market exploitation from the label in terms of Queen movies featuring live footage . The potent emotional effects of nostalgia , therefore , make it an effective method of monetisation for record labels – it is a reasonably safe form of investment : while the film ’ s production itself success is a factor in its commercial success , the music will make it profitable regardless . This makes music films attractive for labels because they are a more certain income stream than signing a new artist .
The financial attraction to producing musical films is also supported by precedent for success , as well as a growing platform for it . This platform is that more consumers than ever want to watch movies and TV on demand , and therefore do so using video streaming subscription services such as Netflix , which have resultantly boomed in popularity . To quantify this , in comparison to music streaming , Netflix is now worth around $ 124 billion ( Wittenstein , 2019 ), while Spotify is believed to
George Fowles
55 be worth less than a tenth of that at approximately $ 21 billion ( Nusca , 2019 ). This shows that the film and TV industries , in terms of streaming at least , are massively more lucrative than music is , because of how conveniently available ( and therefore popular ) such a wide range of movies and box sets are . In fact , it is hardly surprising that consumers so abundantly opt for the visually and aurally stimulating entertainment that film and TV is , when it is reported that 67 % of televisions sold in 2018 worldwide were “ smart ”, in other words , featuring access to streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime ( Larsen , 2019 ). This massive difference in consumer popularity makes the video streaming market very attractive for major labels to exploit ; especially when they can do so using famous acts – this creates a wide appeal to a massive audience . The Dirt ( 2019 ), on Netflix , is a prime example of this , reportedly earning Mötley Crüe $ 140 million ( Beech , 2019 ).
Turning to the idea of precedent for success that makes exploitation of the film industry a good option for labels , there are a range of ways in which past commercially successful projects make music films seem a safe investment . This extends all the way back to Robert Stigwood productions ; Stigwood