Tuesdays with Tom: Hollywood's Crisis and 2023 Entertainment
A bonus post where I cover the strikes in Hollywood, unpopular executives, Netflix's Quarterback and Barbenheimer
In honor of my grandmother’s passing, I am separating my bi-weekly thoughts into its own post. But since we’re here, how’s your summer going? We are a little more than halfway through the summer and it’s been as busy for me as I can remember it being. I look forward to sharing some of that with you down the road. For now, here’s some stuff I have opinions on.
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
In the last two episodes of Friday Night Beers, Vince and I drank beers called Pliny the Elder and Blue Moon Belgian White. I think most of you know Blue Moon and I encourage you to tune in for our comments on that. You probably haven’t heard of Pliny the Elder, but it’s one of the first double IPAs brewed in America and well known for its high quality in the craft beer community. If you are into prison movies, you will want to check that one out, too. Last call-out: we are officially on Threads now, the new Twitter substitute owned by Meta. Give us a follow there if you are on that app. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast here and follow our Instagram page for relevant updates!
SAG-AFTRA shocked the world of Hollywood last week when it announced that the 160,000 actors in their guild were going on strike for the first time in 60 years. The actors are joining the Writers Guild of America (or WGA), who have been striking for over two months now against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The latter group was created by the studios, broadcast networks and streaming services that create everything we see in movies or television today. It’s pretty rare for any one of these Hollywood unions to strike and this is the first time that two groups have sat out at the same time. Prior to the actors joining the picket line, studios had been scraping by without any working writers. However, nothing can continue without the actors, who have by far the most leverage of any union in the business. All labor disputes are about money, but that’s not the only issue at stake here. Both groups are worried about AI taking over critical aspects of writing and acting and the studios seem hellbent on using AI in the future to eliminate human jobs in that industry (by the way, I wrote about AI back in February). The glory days of writers and actors getting juicy residual checks from broadcast networks and studios essentially evaporated with streaming. Rather than a successful show or film delivering continuous payments for all involved, streaming productions are currently a one-time payment for writers and actors involved. Studios want fewer writers doing all of the writing (and possibly none at all if they can figure out AI) and minimal involvement once the production starts. They also want to use AI to create likenesses for actors that they can use in perpetuity. The ultimate outcome of these developments is that entry level writers and actors would have fewer opportunities to grow their careers, learn new skills to advance and become leaders in the industry. No matter how you slice it, this is a pivotal moment for the future of filmed entertainment.
So, why might any of this matter to you? The studios are banking on the glut of content that is already finished being more than enough for consumers to watch in the coming weeks and months. Unlike the 2007 WGA strike, most people are not feeling like the absence of entertainment right now. There’s plenty of things to watch across your various streamers. But with this strike, none of the famous SAG members will promote their work in any capacity, so you may notice the absence of that. In the long run, there’s a bevy of productions that will be significantly delayed and likely negatively affected by the absence of writers and actors doing anything. It will probably be most felt in a year or two when you suddenly see a dip in quality on your favorite show or a movie you were looking forward to. From an advertiser perspective, anyone buying linear broadcast is going to be totally screwed this coming fall as there will be virtually no scripted shows to buy in the upfront. On a human level, there is something that feels undeniably icky about extremely wealthy studio executives firing people in droves and ruthlessly cutting costs against guilds where only 15% of members make enough income to qualify for health insurance. This negotiation is an attack on the middle and lower class of writers and actors and those are the people most affected by this dual-strike. There’s no telling when these unions will come to an agreement with the studios, but this strike seems like it is far from over. I’m definitely empathetic to the stance of the writers and actors in this dispute and I hope that they can protect the integrity of their careers throughout this messy process.
While we’re on the subject of greedy film studios, Bob Iger is having a rough month in the court of public opinion. He made headlines with some explosive quotes admonishing the actors and writers who are striking, going as far as saying their demands were “very disturbing” and “disruptive” to the challenges of entertainment media today. Fran Drescher, who is an actor and president of SAG-AFTRA, responded to this by comparing him to a medieval land baron. You may recall that Iger infamously snatched the Disney CEO role back from his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, after a brief two-year fake retirement. Iger has already gone back on his promise to pick a new successor and vacate the role in 2024, as he just extended his contract with Disney through 2026. He’s even started saying the quiet part out loud by publicly suggesting that Disney might offload all of its linear TV assets like ABC, FX, Freeform and National Geographic. ESPN was conspicuously left off that list in his comments, but he did say they are still moving forward with their plans to make it available as a standalone, direct-to-consumer app soon. If Disney goes through with selling off their non-sports linear channels, that would be a major cultural shift for them and the industry. I can’t imagine the pressures of being an elite-tier C-suite executive like Iger is. But if his goal was to save the day and maintain his unusually positive reputation for a corporate executive, he’s not succeeding at that so far. If anything, I would say he’s done more reputational damage in his brief career restart than he did in the previous 15 years he was running the show at Disney. As Pete Campbell once said, not great, Bob!
In my opinion, sports documentaries are in a bit of a crisis these days. Most of the new ones are thinly veiled infomercials for the athlete featured in the documentary. While I understand that athletes will always have some say in how they’re presented in these productions, I like getting as real of a story as possible with sports documentaries. That’s why I was very impressed with the new Netflix series Quarterback. This was created by Peyton Manning’s burgeoning Omaha Productions team and the premise is simple. They had cameras follow Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota throughout the 2022 NFL season last year. The show is an eight episode look into the lives of three NFL quarterbacks at varying stages of their careers. Obviously, Mahomes is the biggest draw of the group. He’s the biggest star in the league and one of the most popular athletes in all of pro sports today. But I was surprised at how engaged I was with the Cousins storyline each episode. I can’t say the same about Mariota, but they reduce his screen time appropriately. One thing that the show does an excellent job portraying is how unbelievably demanding it is mentally and physically to play quarterback in the pros. It’s no secret that Cousins is one of the league’s average starters at the position, but the work he puts in is far from mediocre. These guys go through hell every day just to stand upright on Sundays and then they get killed for 3 hours and do it all over again. I’m sure that these three had some editorial control over the episodes, but overall I felt like we saw an authentic representation of what they’re like on and off the field. I’m quite certain that most of the public has never seen some of these Mahomes clips and soundbites before. In addition to being a talent we’ve never seen at quarterback, you really see how maniacally competitive Mahomes is during a game in an unfettered way. There’s no doubt this show was designed for football fans, but I would argue that it might be even more engaging for people who don’t know much about football. Quarterback is a captivating eight hours of TV that showcases the demands of the most difficult and beloved position in team sports and an increasingly rare sports doc that doesn’t feel like a blatant marketing stunt for the pro athletes featured. I hope they get a second season for this concept with some new quarterbacks because I’d watch it again in a heartbeat.
In May 2020, I wrote a piece about the looming downfall of the movie theater business. It was a dark time in our lives to say the least. Three years later, the theatrical experience is still alive and I can’t think of a phenomenon I’ve ever experienced like the movement for Barbenheimer. If you’re not caught up, here’s the gist. For over a year, movie connoisseurs have known about the July 21 weekend box office showdown between the Warner Brothers film, Barbie, and the Universal Studios film, Oppenheimer. If you think this is a coincidence, think again. Christopher Nolan infamously left his longtime home at Warner Brothers after CEO David Zaslav proclaimed all Warner movies would be simultaneously released on streaming and in theaters. Nolan is a hardcore believer in the theatrical experience and he went to Universal mostly out of spite for Zaslav and his business practices. In an effort to seemingly punish Nolan for his departure, Zaslav put the Barbie release date on the same weekend that Nolan historically releases all of his films. Normally, this industry pissing contest would only matter to a film nerd like me. But the stark contrast of Barbie and Oppenheimer releasing on the same day has caught on like wildfire and Hollywood has turned it into a celebration of people going to the movies.
Now, let’s be clear on something. We all know I’m Team Nolan (I saw the movie last weekend and I’ll share my review of Oppenheimer at some point). I want all of his films to be incredibly successful. I’ve enjoyed some of Greta Gerwig’s films and haven’t seen Barbie yet. But it’s getting rave reviews and it’s certainly playing to a large audience of fans. However, I am mesmerized at the shocking momentum towards this double-feature concept of the two films. According to some reports, over 200,000 people have bought AMC tickets to see both films on the same day and there’s likely far more that will eventually see both in theaters. People as famous as Tom Cruise are openly advocating for it and it’s tempting to scream from the rooftops that the theatrical experience is all the way back. When we saw Oppenheimer, there were several people sporting Barbenheimer-themed shirts and even more people in pink attire waiting to see Barbie. It was a bizarre scene. All of this would have been fairly shocking to consider in 2020, when it seemed like non-franchise films were doomed from ever returning to theaters. Oppenheimer is a 3-hour, R-rated historical drama about the most devastating invention in human history. Barbie is a movie about a famous brand that pokes fun at its own existence, while also promoting feminism and the corporate agenda of a legendary toy company. And guess what? This elaborate, meme-based marketing ploy is already incredibly successful. Last weekend was the first time ever that two films opened above $50 million at the box office and collectively they’ve both delivered over $235 million domestically. It’s pretty crazy this is all happening at the same time and, if you care about going to the movies, we should be pulling for both to succeed. I never thought that Barbie and J. Robert Oppenheimer would be holding hands on the journey to save American movie theaters, but these are the times we’re living in!
Can’t wait to see both movies.