Here's What Hollywood Is Getting Wrong About Creativity, According To A Hazbin Hotel Songwriter

The state of Hollywood is ... weird right now. Calling it "dire" doesn't seem accurate, but with the constant onslaught of major industry mergers, an industry still recovering after the COVID-related industry shutdowns of 2020, the necessary WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023, the horrific Southern California fires in 2025, the constant threat of AI, the fact TikTok has completely changed the way a new generation absorbs media, and disappointing performances at the box office, everything just feels ... off. It seems as if we're at the precipice of a massive shift in the entertainment industry, but where things will shift to is anyone's guess.

For one thing, it's apparent that studio heads and media conglomerate CEOs are looking to play it safe, with sequels, reboots, remakes, revivals, franchises, and recognizable IP continuing to dominate the release slate each year. The goal is to appeal to as many consumers (ugh) as humanly possible, but in doing so, it would appear that audiences are checking out of mainstream offerings and seeking out anything to buck the trend. And whenever it happens, the so-called "tastemakers" of the industry are left scratching their heads and wondering where the hell these unexpected success stories came from.

Which is precisely what's been happening with the adult animated series "Hazbin Hotel" and the juggernaut that is "Five Nights at Freddy's." Musician Sam Haft serves as one of the songwriters on "Hazbin Hotel" and contributed music to both "Five Nights at Freddy's" films on behalf of his electronic rock group The Living Tombstone. I recently sat down with Haft, and he shared his theory with me about what Hollywood could learn from so-called "underground" properties like "Hazbin Hotel" and "FNaF." It's simple — Hollywood needs to get niche again.

"It's not a coincidence to me that two of the biggest licensing and merch properties of the last decade or so are 'Hazbin Hotel' and 'Five Nights at Freddy's,' because these are two things that are auteur-driven, they're odd, and they're unashamed of being odd," Sam Haft tells me. "I think a really big driver of this is that niche isn't niche anymore." Haft is completely accurate in his assessment. For the entirety of the 2010s, Hollywood was dominated by adaptations of comic book superhero stories, an interest that has historically always existed outside of the status quo. But now, superhero films are the status quo.

"There's no such thing, really, as four-quadrant," Haft declares. "I used to see a lot of people complaining about the monoculture four or five years ago, and I think that idea is fundamentally dead." It's hard to disagree. Culture is splintered more than ever before, and with endless options to watch whatever, whenever, wherever, it's less likely than ever for audiences to be united in watching the same thing. With the inclusion of algorithms, it's even less likely. "Algorithms destroyed the monoculture," Haft explains. "Everyone is in their own little fishbowl, so your whole goal if you want to have a successful [project] is to be niche."

It might sound like a ridiculous observation, but Haft is right. When everything being released feels like a plug-and-chug reskinning of the same story with the same beats and the same actors, audiences then look for whatever feels the least like what's being churned out. As a result, so-called "niche" shows and movies explode in popularity. It's precisely why "Heated Rivalry" became one of the most-watched shows of the year despite little fanfare leading up to it.

"Hazbin Hotel" and "Five Nights at Freddy's" both enjoy fanbases so passionate that they border on evangelizing, which is the exact type of viewer/consumer Hollywood is desperate to tap into. And the thing they both have in common is that they're fandoms born of outsider art that is unlike anything else being made by the mainstream. It's why a film like "Lisa Frankenstein" became a cult hit immediately after mainstream audiences rejected it. If everyone is in their own little algorithm bubble, the goal shouldn't be to pop the bubble, but to put as many people into it as possible. Or, if we continue with Haft's fishbowl analogy:

"You want to have the super-fans. You want to have this group of people that feels like they have community in your property, and you want to just grow your fishbowl as much as you can. But if you try to be this broad thing that everyone loves, you're going to appeal to nobody."

I've always loved the expression that the more specific something is, the more universal it feels, and this line of thinking is what needs to be applied by Hollywood when greenlighting projects across the board. When you're too concerned about who you might be isolating, you're losing sight of who might be drawn to it. When you're fixated on appealing to as many people as possible, you abandon the idea of finding the people who love something so much that it becomes their whole personality in the process. 

"You have to be specialized, or the thing you're making just isn't going to be served to people anymore," Haft explains. "It's this whole weird landscape that I feel like [studios] haven't really caught up to yet."