Kodak "rightsized" their film production a few years ago, and film sales are actually on an incline since then (both due to enthusiasts and professional cinematographers). They're actually bringing back various classic film stocks as well as introducing new ones based on modern R&D. Ilford has shed their financial legacy (and toxic waste-dump of a site) and is doing better these days too.
Fuji just can't get their act together, and to be honest they've never been a very well-run company. Amazing products (best-in-class film, cameras, lenses, etc) but extremely shitty marketing and distribution, particularly outside the Asia market. They're finally sorta getting it together with the digital side of the company (the X-series are great and have a big following in NA/Europe) but the film side has been a mess for 50+ years. Probably a lesson in there for the entrepreneurs of HN - along with the importance of producing the appropriate amount of product.
The really aggravating thing is their instant packfilms (peel-apart Polaroid film) - they literally are making the emulsion anyway for their Instax series (which have been selling like crazy for years), they just need to produce different sizes of film, which has traditionally not been A Big Deal for film companies, up until Fuji made it one. They could increase their volume quite a bit if they would just restart production of the standard film sizes that Polaroid, MF, and LF shooters have been using for decades, but they only make the proprietary one that fits their cameras.
> Fuji just can't get their act together, and to be honest they've never been a very well-run company.
This is a more than strange statement to make in a thread mentioning Kodak, where one of those two companies successfully managed the transition from film to digital, and the other went bankrupt.
Fujifilm didn't so much manage the transition from film to digital as manage the transition from film to other things that could make use of their technical capabilities in making film.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/9503675822/analog-revival-incr...
https://www.dpreview.com/news/1282034127/kodak-alaris-is-bri...
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/features/gr...
Fuji just can't get their act together, and to be honest they've never been a very well-run company. Amazing products (best-in-class film, cameras, lenses, etc) but extremely shitty marketing and distribution, particularly outside the Asia market. They're finally sorta getting it together with the digital side of the company (the X-series are great and have a big following in NA/Europe) but the film side has been a mess for 50+ years. Probably a lesson in there for the entrepreneurs of HN - along with the importance of producing the appropriate amount of product.
The really aggravating thing is their instant packfilms (peel-apart Polaroid film) - they literally are making the emulsion anyway for their Instax series (which have been selling like crazy for years), they just need to produce different sizes of film, which has traditionally not been A Big Deal for film companies, up until Fuji made it one. They could increase their volume quite a bit if they would just restart production of the standard film sizes that Polaroid, MF, and LF shooters have been using for decades, but they only make the proprietary one that fits their cameras.