The Big Picture
Page 29
Early in the year, the prevailing feeling in old-school Hollywood was relief that most Netflix films appeared to be duds that weren’t part of the cultural conversation, like Will Smith’s Bright and The Cloverfield Paradox, a movie so bad Paramount sold it off rather than release it.
But by summer, it became clear Netflix was building a sizable audience in a genre studios were ignoring, with teen romantic comedies like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Kissing Booth.
Nobody knew how many people were watching these films, but based on the buzz they were getting online, it was obvious they were hits that gave young women excellent reasons to get two hours of entertainment at home, rather than in a theater.
By fall, many in Hollywood were downright terrified, as it became clear Netflix was going to be impossible to keep out of the Oscars. It had major dramas from top filmmakers like Paul Greengrass, Tamara Jenkins, and the Coen brothers. Most significant was Alfonso Cuaron’s drama Roma, which won rave reviews at film festivals and was many critics’ early favorite for best picture. Netflix would pay whatever money was necessary to make sure Roma played in at least a hundred theaters worldwide, but virtually everyone who watched it was certain to do so on a streaming device. Which left the rest of Hollywood in a pickle: nominate for best picture what was for all intents and purposes a high-end TV movie, or ignore it and keep arguably the best picture of the year out of the Oscars on what some would view as a technicality?
Either way, Netflix would win, whether from the prestige bestowed by the Oscars or the scandal when it was ignored.
And the streaming giant was sure to be even harder to ignore in 2019 and 2020, as it put together a slate of films not only several times bigger than that of any traditional studio, but with every type of movie possible save for the $200 million–plus blockbuster.
In preparing for this afterword, I kept track of all the movies Netflix made deals for over the past year. It’s impossible to give a comprehensive overview, but suffice it to say that just three years after releasing its first original film, Netflix is working with Dwayne Johnson, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Bay, Idris Elba, Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Reynolds, Disney animator Glen Keane, Charlie Kaufman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Affleck, Gary Oldman, and Jennifer Aniston.
Put more simply, pretty much everyone in Hollywood is working with Netflix now (except Amy Pascal).
Most of these are original films that would have made any studio’s slate five or ten years ago. Today, they likely wouldn’t get made without Netflix, because they don’t qualify as global theatrical events with franchise potential.
Not that Netflix is ceding that space to the old-school studios either. It’s producing new Chronicles of Narnia adaptations and developing its own superhero universe.
The only reason to go to the multiplex anymore is for horror films—the one genre people still love to watch together in a dark room—and for the most popular cinematic franchises that Netflix doesn’t control.
Facing Reality
What of the other forces mentioned in this book that could keep interesting, original movies for adults in theaters? Whether the hoped-for savior comes from Seattle or Shanghai or Silicon Valley wealth, the news has not been good.
Amazon released one flop after another in 2018, and while the studio hasn’t abandoned its indie movie strategy, Price’s replacement Jennifer Salke is weighing what exactly she should be doing in film. As discussed earlier, Amazon wasn’t necessarily looking for big profits on each movie, but it certainly hoped to have at least one movie gross more than $5 million this year. Just as important, flops like He Won’t Get Far on Foot, Life Itself, and Beautiful Boy failed to garner the kind of cultural buzz the company sought.
In fact, as I previously said was likely to come true in Hollywood’s near future, Salke doesn’t seem to see much of a difference between movies and TV. Thanks to the flexible digital platform she controls, it’s just content.
“Our talent is saying, ‘Should this be a movie? Should this be six episodes? Should this be a special event for two hours?’ ” she said of her new job. “There’s fluidity in the delivery system, which I love. So I do think the lines are blurred. The language is all about stories and what is the form that those stories should take to be told in the best interest of those stories and that vision?”
Chinese investment in Hollywood has virtually ceased in 2018 due to political developments that have made it more difficult to move money out of the country. Hopes that Chinese companies seeking to learn from the American film industry would fund more diverse productions are on hold, at least for now. The Chinese box office is still booming, but consumers there are seeing more local productions and fewer imports. Sales for Hollywood films were down 24 percent through September 2018, compared to a year ago.
Even Megan Ellison has been forced to face the grim realities of the modern movie business. Just a year after her company started releasing its own films, Annapurna was selling off movies that were about to start shooting and saying “so long” to top executives as the losses from several high-profile flops mounted, including the $40 million Sisters Brothers, which barely grossed $1 million. Megan’s father, Larry Ellison, the Silicon Valley billionaire, stepped in to try to reorganize the business. Whatever the result, it probably will mean Megan is no longer the open wallet for filmmakers with ideas too bold and risky for the major studios.
None of these developments have been heartening for people who like original, interesting films for adults and want to see them in theaters. But ignoring reality is no longer possible.
Even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars that has long kept its head in the sand about the changes roiling its own business, has been forced to wake up. Television ratings for the Academy Awards have been falling for years, largely because the types of movies honored aren’t the ones most people enjoy seeing anymore. Between 1983 and 2005, every best picture winner was among the twenty-five highest-grossing releases during the year it opened. Since then, only four have been, and none have ranked higher than number fifteen.
The era of movies like Rain Man, Forrest Gump, and Titanic winning Oscars and topping the box office is over. Now we’re in the era of The Shape of Water, Moonlight, and Spotlight, which simply don’t appeal to mass audiences.
What’s the Academy to do? It has made great strides expanding and diversifying its membership, but it can’t force its voters to favor Wonder Woman or Get Out. A ham-handed attempt at compromise this year was creating a new Oscars category for “best popular film,” which was to be awarded alongside the traditional best picture. After most of the world finished laughing at the idea that forcing Oscar voters to consider movies people actually watched in a separate and unequal category was the solution, the Academy withdrew the plan.
Dumb as this concept was, it revealed the increasingly impossible position the Academy is in. The organization and its leading members want to honor original, dramatic films for adults that play in theaters, but each year fewer of them exist and fewer people go out to see them.
If the Academy wants to honor theatrical movies, it will have to get over its biases against franchise films and consider great superhero movies like Black Panther and genre films like A Quiet Place. If it wants to focus on dramatic pictures made for adults, it’s going to have to expand its horizons to include made-for-digital pictures on Netflix or Apple, which is sure to become a player in motion pictures in the coming years.
This was a book about how franchises took over Hollywood and how new companies, new business models, and new sources of money are defining the future of the movie business. Just one year after I wrote it, franchises are as entrenched as ever at the box office, but the takeover of the entertainment industry by digital companies has accelerated at an astonishing rate.
It’s now painfully clear that in the 2020s, the shrinking theatrical-movie business will belong to mega-franchises and every other f
acet of entertainment will belong to technology giants, or traditional Hollywood studios like Disney that are attempting to morph into them. There are no saviors; there is no going back.
Movie lovers will have to make peace with Netflix and Amazon and Apple and AT&T and Disney-Fox. That means supporting great films in theaters whenever possible, while accepting that streaming online is inevitable and doesn’t make what you’re watching some inferior form of cinema. The only other option is to become cranks and curmudgeons, yelling at our grandchildren that the news is meant to be read on paper, music needs a turntable and a needle, and the only real way to see a movie, goddammit, is with a projector, a screen, and a room full of people.
Los Angeles
October 21, 2018
Acknowledgments
After years of covering the entertainment industry, I’ve seen firsthand that what makes or breaks a film is usually the quality of the collaboration behind it. In the two and a half years I spent on this project, I learned the same is true for a book. If you enjoyed what you just read, much of the credit belongs to the people I have been blessed to work with on it and to know in my life leading up to it.
This book wouldn’t exist if not for an e-mail I received out of the blue from my agent, David McCormick. David played a critical role shaping my early thinking as he guided me through multiple versions of my proposal, before landing it with the right publisher.
Eamon Dolan edited this book with a sharp eye, an inquisitive mind, and a consistently supportive attitude. Our conversations always left me invigorated with new ideas that made their way into the manuscript, and his notes led me to change the final product you hold in your hands significantly for the better. He is, to me, the Platonic ideal of an editor, and I feel lucky to have worked with him and his many talented colleagues at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
I didn’t always feel naturally suited to be a journalist and the fact that I have built a career as one is in large part thanks to the mentors I have had. First is the one and only journalism instructor I had in college, Michael Vitez. He taught me to pay attention to details, to write as if the most seemingly tedious set of facts make a great yarn, and to try and see the world from my subjects’ point of view. When Mike found out I was working on this book, he told me to “report the shit out of it and write with felicity.” I hope I followed his advice well.
I’ve had many editors who helped me develop my skills as a reporter and understand the entertainment industry. I’m indebted to Peter Bart, Sallie Hofmeister, John Lippman, Claudia Eller, and Charles Fleming for their guidance. I’m particularly indebted to my editor at the Wall Street Journal, Ethan Smith, who supported me in writing this book and has been a champion for me and the talented team of reporters with whom I work. I feel proud to work for one of the world’s great newspapers and I thank our many leaders, including Gerard Baker and Matt Murray, for maintaining its standard of journalistic excellence, which I tried to apply to this book.
Hollywood has a deserved reputation as a place where truth is often not welcome, which doesn’t make life as a reporter easy. So I’m very grateful to the dozens of sources, from the highest ranks of the industry to the lowest, who candidly shared their experiences and knowledge with me in interviews. Some are named in this book but many are not, often because they put their careers at risk in talking to me. I’m particularly grateful to current and former employees of Sony Pictures who had every reason to be wary of a book that uses internal e-mails and documents from their company, but assisted me nonetheless.
I wouldn’t enjoy the life and career I have today if I hadn’t always been encouraged to pursue my passions and be myself by my parents, Bruce Fritz and Elise Godfrey. I’m also lucky to have many friends who have made my life richer. I’d particularly like to thank Brendan Nyhan and Warren Zeger for the valuable feedback they provided on drafts of this book.
My most heartfelt thanks are reserved for Alicia Kirk, my partner and dearest friend, who has always believed in me more deeply than anyone I’ve known. I am a far, far better person because she is part of my life.
Hudson Fritz won’t be able to read this for a few years and probably won’t be interested for many years after that. But whenever he does, I want him to know that watching him grow has been the best part of my life over the past few years and that our time together has kept me sane and happy amid the stress of this project.
I end these acknowledgments on a tragic but important note. My sister Riley Fritz died in the Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire while I was writing this book. Her personal integrity, her gentleness, and her acceptance of other people were examples I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I am grateful to the people who loved and supported Riley, and I’m grateful to those who supported me and her family and friends when she was stolen from us. This book is certainly not a worthy tribute to her too-short life, but it is dedicated to her nonetheless.
Notes
Introduction: Groundhog Day—How Franchises Killed Originality in Hollywood
“nobody knows anything”: William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade (Grand Central Publishing, 1983).
preparing to shoot a scene: Details on preparations for Investor Day come from people involved in the event.
more than $75 million: Sony financial details come from internal documents leaked in the hack and people who currently work or previously worked at the company.
“it’s an investor conference”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Michael De Luca, Nov. 21, 2013. No subject.
“U know its bs”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Doug Belgrad, Nov. 21, 2013. No subject.
“and always will”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Doug Belgrad, July 17, 2014. No subject.
double the number created in 2010: Stephen Battaglio, “Scripted Shows Continue to Grow as ‘Peak TV’ Hasn’t Peaked Yet.” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 12, 2017.
1. The Odd Couple: Lynton and Pascal’s Glory Days at Sony
“and so here we are”: E-mail from Michael Lynton to Amy Pascal, Oct. 3, 2014. Subject: a reflection.
“turn the company around”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Tom Rothman, April 3, 2014. No subject.
“the history of the business”: Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, Hit & Run (New York: Touchstone, 1996), back cover.
and Blazing Saddles: Dennis McLellan, “John Calley Dies at 81,” Los Angeles Times, Sept 14, 2011.
middle-class Jewish intellectual: Jewish Women’s Archive, accessed June 23, 2017. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pascal-amy
parents, who live in New York: No author, “Amy Pascal,” Hollywood Reporter, Dec. 19, 1998.
she would later say: Tim Arango, “Sony’s Version of Tracy and Hepburn,” New York Times, Oct. 25, 2009.
“That’s always been the plan”: Claudia Eller, “Ted’s Ready for His Build-Up, Ms. Pascal,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1995.
annual budget of $100 million: Claudia Eller, “Unhappy Ending at Turner Pictures a Sign of the Times,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 1996.
“they’re more like you”: Eller, “Ted’s Ready for His Build-Up.”
“the greatest studio boss out there”: E-mail from Ron Howard to Amy Pascal, Nov. 1, 2014. Subject: Emma—confidential.
“studio that loves film”: E-mail from George Clooney to Amy Pascal, Jan. 30, 2014. Subject: Re: It’s getting worse.
“I actually love her”: Ben Fritz, “Sony Executive Needs More Than ‘Spidey Sense,’” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2014.
“(ebullient)”: Jess Cagle, “The Women Who Run Hollywood,” Time, July 21, 2002.
“a chance to begin”: Eller, “Unhappy Ending at Turner Pictures.”
fiscal discipline was needed: Here and elsewhere, motion picture group profit details come from internal Sony documents.
“to become a CEO”: Author interview with a former colleague of Michael Lynton’s.
“stranger in a strange land”: Claudia Eller, “A Stranger in a Strange Land Is Hollywood Pictures’ New Player,
” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 17, 1994.
he said of himself: Michael Wolff, “Executives at the Gate,” Vanity Fair, Dec. 1, 2004.
“henry miller sculpter”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Andrew Blum, Sept. 19, 2014. No subject.
Lynton’s brother-in-law: E-mail from Michael L. Ryan to Michael Lynton and Peter Lattman, Dec. 3, 2014. Subject: Introduction.
about Lynton’s departure: Claudia Eller, “Michael Lynton’s Brief Film Career,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 1996.
“That is a horror”: Robert S. Boynton, “The Hollywood Way,” The New Yorker (March 30, 1998).
traditional entertainment world: No author, “The arrogance has gone,” The Guardian, July 14, 2003.
“weird, arranged India marriage”: Arango, “Sony’s Version of Tracy and Hepburn.”
declared Stringer: Claudia Eller, “For Sony Pictures, It’s Complicated at the Top,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11, 2003.
more than he needed: E-mail from Craig Schwartz to Amy Pascal, Nov. 8, 2014. No subject.
“what it means,” she wrote: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Michael Lynton, Nov. 8, 2014. No subject.
“who runs this place”: Interviews with former Sony employees.
“he delegated a lot”: This and other De Luca quotes are from author interview.
“what’s good about us”: E-mail from Amy Pascal to Michael Lynton, Nov. 8, 2014. No subject.
boasted Stringer: Merissa Marr, “Expanding Sony’s Web,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 15, 2004.
(her peak pay, in 2011): This and details on Amy Pascal’s compensation are from e-mail from Amy Pascal to Alan Wertheimer, Oct. 22, 2014. Subject: deals.
$13 million in 2013: E-mail from Michael Lynton to Marc Goldberg, Dec. 4, 2013. Subject: Gifts.