With the resolution of the Writers Guild of America strike, and the expected end of the SAG-AFTRA actors union strike shortly, it seems it's back to the business of making shows for Hollywood.
But as former Amazon Head of Film and longtime Indie Film superproducer Ted Hope notes in his recent essay, "Won't Get Fooled Again," Hollywood is suffering from a dangerously limited perspective.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tedhope/p/they-wont-get-fooled-again-or-will
Why is Ted Hope creating such a stir?
Because he throws a spotlight on the 800 pound gorilla in the room that we could sort of smell, but not really see. And the gorilla turns out to be wearing a suit and he is actually the new Boss of Everyone.
The gorilla is Big Tech, of course, and its backers Venture Capital and Wall Street. They have taken over Hollywood without a shot, without anyone really noticing.
The new framework is: Shows are 100% an expense. Not an investment. Content is a resource that must be obtained as cheaply as possible, as they are working against hard ceilings of total addressable market and maximum monthly fees, which limits profit, their only goal. That’s how Wall Street operates and I don’t have a problem with that.
But Hollywood is not just a business like any other that happens to make shows. It is a culture-making business. It cannot function without being art in some form. Even now, the Academy does not honor the highest-grossing films; it recognizes the “best” films. The best films affect the lives and spirits of billions of people for the better, and help us understand ourselves. They also become landmarks in our lives and the life of our culture. This is an intangibile quality that nevertheless has global impact. And a value that is almost too big to be calculated.
Big Tech substituted a commodity model for Hollywood without a discussion because it looked like consumer choice. But this approach may lead Hollywood down the wrong path. What's cheap but holds eyeballs? Shock, lust, envy & outrage programming on a reality tv model. Hello, naked men TV dating show.
Hollywood lost the knowledge of itself as an industry apart, as a culture business that makes money because it creates culture that people enjoy. The big media corporations that own the major studios are not excused from their fiduciary duty to stand up for Hollywood itself...to protect the way the industry makes money and perpetuates itself. They are not doing that.
The gorilla is backstage, and all we get is thumps, and screams, and things moving behind the curtains. Ted Hope's essay is one of the few to ask, “Hey, what’s going on back there?”
To put it another way: As a business, Hollywood projects need to be break-even to moderately to massively profitable. This allows the whole show to continue in a steady state kind of way. Along the way, talented people and smart studios can make a fortune. There can even be growth in the size of the industry itself (although Hollywood needs to get more bold in this area).
On the other hand, as a business, Tech projects must show huge and rapid growth continuously: double-digit gains, quarter over quarter, until competitors are eliminated and markets are captured, and investors can cash out and/or rely on constantly rising profits and dividends. But most of all, size and market capitalization.
In Tech and Finance, no growth is failure. Slow growth is failure. Anything but the hockey stick is failure.
The people running Hollywood today are financial leaders. They want the hockey stick. They want Team Hollywood all suited up and ready to play for the money.
But they can’t see that hiding under their team’s uniform and helmet is the Big Tech Gorilla.
They can’t see body check that’s coming.