LOS ANGELES, CA – A recent internal memo from a major Hollywood studio, leaked exclusively to Hambry, reveals a growing bewilderment among executives regarding the precipitous decline of the teen music movie genre. The memo, titled 'Where Did All The Singing Kids Go?', details a series of focus groups where young audiences reportedly expressed a preference for 'literally anything else.'

“We thought they loved high school drama, catchy original tunes, and choreographed dance numbers that somehow always happen in the cafeteria,” stated studio head Brenda Sterling, who reportedly greenlit three such projects last quarter. “Apparently, they just want 15-second clips of people lip-syncing to songs from the 90s. It’s a complete paradigm shift we simply didn’t anticipate.”

The memo suggests that years of investing in films where plucky protagonists overcome adversity through song and dance have yielded diminishing returns, with the latest offerings struggling to compete against a TikTok algorithm that doesn't require a $50 million budget. “We even tried adding a character who was ‘really good at coding’ and another who ‘understood NFTs’,” explained Sterling, “but they still didn’t want to see them belt out power ballads about finding their voice.”

One anonymous studio analyst, Dr. Evelyn Reed, suggested the problem might lie in a fundamental misunderstanding of youth culture. “These films were designed for a generation that still believed in a three-act structure and the concept of an album,” Reed observed. “Today’s teens are fluent in a language of fleeting trends and ironic detachment. A sincere, original song about friendship just doesn’t hit the same when you can watch a cat play a tiny piano for free.”

Industry experts are now scrambling to pivot, with rumors of a new slate of projects tentatively titled 'TikTok: The Movie' or 'Influencer's Quest for More Followers: A Musical.'