With a laptop, any old laptop will do 99% of what the typical user needs and do it well enough most of the time, regardless of whether you spend $3k on a pretty MacBook or $1k on something else.
I suspect there's a good deal of overlap between the kind of person who buys a Macbook and the kind of person who buys Beats earphones even though for the price they are subpar (at least earlier iterations were). It's the same concept - status signalling with expensive and outwardly pretty tech.
>your case is that you think people will spend significantly more money for something that looks nicer.
Is this not a fact? Why do you think people buy diamonds? Are you aware that their role as a symbol was also purely manufactured by commercial interests? Look up the dealings of the diamond cartel in the early 1900s.
ergonomic?
Screenwriters are great and all that, but they're eminently fungible, whereas folk like Cruise are not.
I'd suggest it's more like 5%-10% upfront. What they get on residuals may be a lot higher, but that assumes the film covers its costs, which in Hollywood can mean anything.
Not any more. Case law has basically ripped the old “Hollywood accounting” to shreds. I’m not saying profits and losses can’t be manipulated, but you can’t get away with the dirty tricks used 20 years ago, and firms are held to somewhat higher standards.
The answer boils down to not only personal preference but for some cases it's easier and more orthogonal to use. Even if that _wasn't true_ and many people are going to shit on me for saying it _is_ true, but even if it wasn't: the perception is that it's easier to use, more orthogonal and made with premium materials.
Aside from the pro-sumer market, (which is still hit and miss) the build quality of laptops and battery life is sub-par in Windows-land. Add to the fact that unless you have a Dell support contract you're going to be fighting your laptop vendor over random things potentially and suddenly you're not looking at an appealing platform.
This is _especially_ true if money is literally no object as is the case for screen writers who are probably the most well compensated people on the planet (as roughly 30% of a movie budget goes to the screen writer(s)).