The Founder's Brew - Vol. 8 Part 1

This Week: Part 1 of a four-part series on Innovation, a major META miss, and Pages from the Commonplace Book

Part 1 - Spinning Down the Drain

"Movies are Back!"

"The movies are beginning their slow crawl back."

"If you have the budget to make 14 movies and you only have 11 great ones, let's just make 11."

I'm sure most of you have seen quotes like these over the last few months. My favorite is the last, courtesy of Scott Stuber, Head of Film at Netflix, following another common trope amongst the leadership of our content spaces that quality is the only problem that needs to be solved to return cinema to its glory days. In truth, I used to respect this point of view, especially in the earlier days of the pandemic. But now, I've realized that the "business" is entirely blinkered and blinded by, to be frank, stupidity. Stuber's beliefs have become commonplace around Hollywood. Movies that would have been considered bombs a mere 18 months ago, the press now hails as "hits" in the COVID era (see Dune and Ghostbusters) as if the need to make money has disappeared as much as the weekly habit of going to the movies.

Now to be fair, there are a few folks who are continually sounding the alarm. Richard Rushfield and Matt Belloni are just two examples of people shouting into the wind. The critical question is why. Why does the leadership class of Hollywood continually pretend to act as if their solutions are simple and ignore the calls to make substantive changes? I asked my boss this question when working in Australia, and his answer was quite simple. They have bills to pay, and nobody wants to take the risk of drastically changing what's worked in the past. I scoffed at that answer at the time but boy, has he been proven correct over the years. Yes, the executive jobs are comfortable and pay exceptionally well, but one must wonder why it pays so well if all they do is the same as the previous person. 

The bottom line is that working in the industry has become about survival. Surviving the subsequent merger and the next boss (especially if you want to be the boss someday.) It's become almost second nature to the point where they're willing to believe that simple solutions will solve the complex problems. Meanwhile, their audience has moved on and is making their own content. At the same time, executives troll the Marvel basement and look for the latest 80s hit, dying for a sequel and proclaiming it's all about making better movies and content. Oy.

Over the next few weeks, the Founder's Brew will attempt to tackle this problem. Next week, we'll look at how innovation isn't always the solution, and over the following weeks, I'll pitch some ideas on improving the theatrical experience and the story process. Of course, there's no guarantee that my ideas will work, but the important thing is the ideas themselves. I love the movie business and want to see it thrive again, but I refuse to buy into the spin that everything is getting better, and soon we'll be back to normal. The last pandemic started the movie industry; we need to ensure this one doesn't finish it off. 

Major Meta Miss

Check out this spot from Meta fka Facebook:

The ad I saw on TV was branded Meta, but the content is essentially the same. I'm sure there are those of you who look upon the meta-verse as the wave of the future, and I look upon it as the ultimate tool for the anti-social amongst us. I can almost see this ad being developed by people who live in LA and NEVER see their neighbors. This ad celebrates that these guys don't even know they live next door to one another yet love hanging out in this crazy fantasy universe. Hey, here's an idea. How about you get to know your neighbors. Maybe even, shocker, grab a beer. How often do we hear of the crisis of despair in the country, particularly among young people, and here comes META with the solution: Hide in your apartment, and instead of a controller in your hand, you put it on your face. GENIUS.  

Yes, I am Gen X-er who thinks this is unbelievably ridiculous and that Mark Zuckerberg is a scourge on humanity. I'm open to advances in human technology, but tell me how this advances society in the vein of the airplane or anesthesia for surgeries? I don't think it does. Unless Face-Meta figures that out quickly, this whole experiment will bring down the entire company. Not that I would complain.

Pages from the Commonplace Book

This week, we return to the Stoics and hear from Musonius Rufus The Unbreakable (Yeah, great name.)  

"As for me, I would choose being sick over living in luxury, for being sick only harms the body, whereas luxury destroys both the body and the soul, causing weakness and incapacity in the body, and lack of control and cowardice in the soul. What's more, luxury breeds injustice because it also breeds greediness."

Yes, this quote attacks going after money as the most important thing, but I think it's more profound. Pursuing money with such intensity also deprives one of the things in life that are genuinely rewarding. Think of a lottery winner and all the terrible stories one hears about them after holding up that obscenely large check. And it doesn't have to be just money; it could be anything that becomes such an obsession that you forget actually to live a good life which rarely includes a ton of money or the best title.

This week on Hollywood Breaks

The Corner of Negative Reinforcement reunites as we welcome back our good friend, Cami Sargent. Don't miss it. 

See you next week!