Re: the behavior of corporate executives, I think the ‘they’re just morons’ is an idea that shouldn’t be too easily dismissed either. There’s this very popular (and very pro-capitalist) notion that the market leads, that businesses optimize, everything is hyper-rational, we’re just plebes that don’t understand, etc. Fans don’t matter, they got your money, etc!
But uh.
The entirety of the movie industry is having trouble, and we’re fed headlines (omg it made a billion dollars!) that are propaganda designed to undermine the underlying realities: Box office records are non-inflation adjusted as an industry standard for a reason (the myth of perpetual growth), and a billion dollar box office doesn’t actually have a large profit margin on a $250mm budget, once you factor in marketing and theater share (especially when that money is coming from foreign markets, and especially x2 if it’s coming from China).
Streaming is successful, but it’s built on cannibalizing the rest of the industry. The studio platforms have deep libraries, but they’re fundamentally competing with themselves, so gains in those divisions are reflected in losses elsewhere (this isn’t even some behind the scenes arcane accounting concept, its the core of the streaming window debates, of the ScarJo lawsuit, etc). Netflix is its own beast, trading that self-competition for piles of debt due to painful licensing costs.
And the fandom? Maybe individual fans deep cut lore gripes don’t matter to the bottom line, but that’s the aspect that gets exaggerated for the sake of outrage journalism. The MCU certainly isn’t 100% comics accurate, but it hit enough touchstones that it was widely embraced. Star Wars, on the other hand? Uh, they went from 1 movie per year to ‘streaming only’ with a gaggle of projects on hiatus. If that’s not a resounding fan rejection having consequences, I don’t know what is.
And for Netflix, the ‘you’ll still watch it anyway!’ doesn’t really matter. Viewership numbers are meaningless short of uber-hits at the Stranger things level; costs and subscriptions are their bottom line, which is how Sandman can be a question mark. Netflix is now losing subscribers. Maybe ‘they’ll still watch it.’ But I really doubt people will add Netflix subscriptions to tune into Witcher S4. And that’s if we get there, since 3 seasons tends to be the threshold of their cancellation math (when they don’t axe things immediately).