Price Point 019: Revolutionaries are never who you hope
How the next wave might surprise you
In film in particular, there is a sense that much reform is needed and that this could be a good time for new blood and ideas. So many films aren’t working (See Brody, Barnes, Hope). The money part isn’t working. The creative part isn’t working. Every single “successful” film (there are a few) is a sequel. Disney Animation is on fire. WBD is losing money. Who isn’t losing money? People aren’t liking many of the movies. And the TV shows too! People are not secure in their jobs, with their cash flow, and there might be a strike to boot. Bupropion is suddenly outselling Ozempic at Mickey Fine’s!
If the revolution comes to save us all, what should we expect?
Firstly, expect that it will not save us all. Though streaming mostly raised all boats (except cable), most revolutions significantly displace. Some people are the revolution. Some are the ancien regime. Which will you be?
3 principles.
First, expect real change. Every revolution has brought real change and as Heraclitus said, change is the only constant. After David Zaslav moves into Robert Evans’s house, after Jeff Bezos moves into Jack Warner’s house, after the names on the parking spaces are repainted again and again…. what remains? In Hollywood only the real estate is forever — and the illusions.
Second, if you’re going to buck the trend and do something new and different, you have to buck the trend and actually be new and different. No one cares about slightly different.
Third, always expect change to ride the wave of new technologies and industry structures. It hath always been so. If you are not significantly leveraging new technology in your vision of the future, you are the ancien regime.
In the late 20s and 30s, the revolutionaries were those reprehensible sound people. They didn’t appreciate the austere beauty of the silents. The charm of the live piano player in the theater…. And they ruined everything — including John Gilbert’s career! I can hardly get through a Shrimp Louie at the Brown Derby without someone mentioning sound!
In the 40s, the revolutionaries were those awful television people. Their infernal electronics and short, artless entertainments with Morey Amsterdam selling Chesterfields to all those awful people at the DuMont network. It’s drek but if it does catch on — why will people go the movies every week if they can just watch TV? And isn’t there some way to keep these people out of Chasen’s?
In the late 60s, the musical gave way to these dirty looking hippies who made nonsensical downer hippy movies like Five Easy Pieces, Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider. Quite a come down from Singin in the Rain!
And the disco loving 70s people resented the blockbusters (Jaws and Star Wars ruined film, they cried!) and the VHS revolution of the 80s. Don’t forget how everyone feared Blockbuster and that MCA tried to sue videotapes out of existence!
(And those streaming people — intolerable outsider tech bros! — they were the worst!)
You say you want a revolution.
Well, you know…
Sometimes the press tries to pick the revolution and revolutionaries that they would like. And that’s how you get Elizabeth Holmes — just like Steve Jobs but better because she’s young, female and photogenic! Alas, outside of the Meiji Restoration, the revolution is so rarely determined from above.
So whatever the revolution will be that will save the space from itself, expect to find it repulsive, unsatisfactory and off putting and its proponents to be undeserving outsiders.
But from whence might we expect this new day to dawn? I will make four predictions.
First, it’s not TikTok. As TikTok has rapidly grown, people using television has been unaffected. Whatever TikTok is taking time away from (life? human relationships?) it is not apparently television. I really think these are different use cases and I find that all the people who think otherwise are not really TV/film consumers to begin with.
The business tech opportunity is blockchain. The demise of crypto and blockchain technology has been exaggerated. The market cap of cryptocurrencies is today $840B. The market cap of NFTs is ~$10B. A token is an item that you can trade globally 24/7 and that bundles rights and media. Sounds relevant for people who sell rights to media, yes? Crypto projects tend to be decentralized, with money and management coming from all around the world, and censorship resistant. Hollywood has never been more consolidated or its power more concentrated. A decentralized alternative would be a true revolution that would be good for artists — it would free them up creatively and give them access to more upside than they get now. (What is major talent complaining about now? Upside and freedom.) The studio of the future looks like Robinhood.
The creative tech opportunity is AI. Big things start small and the implications of AI are already not small. In terms of production, deepfaking cast, ideation, animation and other applications we haven’t thought of, expect AI to be part of the next big thing.
The tone opportunity is fun. Hollywood recently has been (with exceptions) super political and there are a lot of very sincere downer movies. I’m not that political but I have to bring this up because it’s true. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. If you don’t believe me, believe Chris Rock or Damian Glover.
It’s a shame that we have to even bring this up but Hollywood has put politics front and center and made that its primary brand to too many customers. Everything is just suffused with the politics of AOC, who would get maybe 10% of the vote in a national election. Not to mention that not everyone in China, Japan or India even gets what you’re talking about.
Why can The New York Times be super left wing and Hollywood can’t? Because The New York Times has 6 million subscribers (<2% of the US) but Hollywood is meant to serve 100% of the US population plus most of the population outside the US.
Jeff Bezos famously said “your margin is my opportunity.” In Hollywood you can say “your sensibility is my opportunity.”
If you think about rebels, tell me about all the historical rebels who have come from the group that represents every big company, every big bank, every major media outlet, every university administrator, every billionaire (except one or two), plus the government, and which is opposed to comedy, due process and free speech? You think that’s where the anti-establishment is going to come from? That is the establishment (but it’s only half the people). That is the voice that is being heard and “amplified” already. Hollywood is working to support the establishment 24/7 just as much as it did in 1954.
I don’t think that a new perspective will be “right wing” (documentaries about low marginal tax rates?), but I expect there will be a less political feeling with good stories that are smart, moving and fun. People are ready to have fun and be irreverent again whether Hollywood is or not.
See you at the revolution.
I’m usually agreeing with much of what you argue. But the confusion of evolution thinking it’s revolution is one of my biggest industry pet peeves.