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The permanently closed Vine Cinema in Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Hollywood’s Obituary, the Sequel. Now Streaming.
In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so quickly and on so many fronts.
The permanently closed Vine Cinema in Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
By Brooks Barnes
David O. Selznick, the golden era producer, made that glum proclamation in 1951. A new entertainment technology, TV, was emasculating cinema as a cultural force, and film studios had started to fossilize into bottom line-oriented businesses. As Selznick put it, Hollywood had been “grabbed by a little group of bookkeepers and turned into a junk industry.”
Since then, Hollywood has repeatedly written its own obituary. It died when interlopers like Gulf + Western Industries began buying studios in the 1960s. And again when “Star Wars” (1977) and “Superman” (1978) turned movies into toy advertisements. The 1980s (VCRs), the 1990s (the rise of media super-conglomerates), the 2000s (endless fantasy sequels) and the 2010s (Netflix, Netflix, Netflix) each brought new rounds of existential hand-wringing.
Underneath the tumult, however, the essence of the film industry remained intact. Hollywood continued to believe in itself. Sure, we churn out lowest common denominator junk, studio executives would concede over $40 salads at the Polo Lounge. It’s how we make our quarterly numbers. But we can still generate the occasional thunderclap, with ambitious films like “Get Out” and “1917” and “Black Panther” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” arriving on big screens and commanding the culture for months on end.
In one breath: All is lost! Big Tech is going to eat us alive.
In the next: Everyone still loves us. Just look at all those pinwheel-eyed fans buying tickets.
But the moment of crisis in which Hollywood now finds itself is different. In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so fast and on so many fronts, leaving many writers, directors, studio executives, agents and other movie workers disoriented and demoralized — wandering in “complete darkness,” as one longtime female producer told me. These are melodramatic people by nature, but talk to enough of them and you will get the strong sense that their fear is real this time.
Have streaming, the coronavirus and other challenges combined to blow away — finally, unequivocally — the last remnants of Hollywood?
“The last nine months have shaken the movie business to its bones,” said Jason Blum, the powerhouse producer whose credits range from “The Purge” series to “BlacKkKlansman.”
ImageNetflix billboards above Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
The feel of a dismantled film set
Streaming, of course, has been disrupting the entertainment business for some time. Netflix started delivering movies and television shows via the internet in 2007. By 2017, Disney was trying to supercharge its own streaming ambitions by bidding for Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, ultimately swallowing most of the company for $71.3 billion in an effort to expand its library of content and gain control of Hulu.
In recent months, however, the shift toward streaming has greatly accelerated. With more than half of the 5,477 theaters in the United States still closed, more than a dozen movies originally destined for big screens have been rerouted to streaming services or online rental platforms. Pixar’s latest adventure, “Soul,” will debut exclusively on Disney+ on Christmas Day. It will compete with “Wonder Woman 1984” (Warner Bros.), which will arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25, a crossing-the-Rubicon moment in the eyes of analysts.
Meantime, the owner of Regal Cinemas, the No. 2 multiplex chain in North America, just took on emergency debt to avoid insolvency. Trying to keep his own company afloat, Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, the No. 1 chain, quoted Winston Churchill on his most recent earnings call. (“We shall fight on the beaches!”) And the National Association of Theater Owners has found itself begging for a federal bailout. Deprived of one, the trade group warned, “movie theaters across the country are at risk of going dark for good.”
Without appearing on big screens, are movies even movies? Wrestling with that question alone has pushed Hollywood into a full-blown identity crisis. But the film industry is simultaneously dealing with other challenges. Outrage over the killing of George Floyd by a police officer has forced the movie capital to confront its contribution to racism and inequity. Coronavirus-forced production shutdowns have idled tens of thousands of entertainment workers. The two biggest talent agencies, Creative Artists and William Morris Endeavor, have been hobbled by the shutdown, resulting in a diaspora of agents, some of whom are starting competing firms, a once-unthinkable realignment.
There has been an abrupt changing of the guard in Hollywood’s highest ranks, contributing to the sense of a power vacuum. Nine of the top 20 most powerful people in show business, as ranked a year ago by The Hollywood Reporter, have left their jobs for one reason or another (retirement, scandal, corporate guillotine). They include the No. 1 person, Robert A. Iger, who stepped down as Disney’s chief executive in February, and Ron Meyer (No. 11), whose 25-year Universal career ended in August amid a tawdry extortion plot.
Image
Warner Bros., long a symbol of stability in Hollywood, has undergone significant changes under its new owner, AT&T.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Retrenchments at Warner Bros. have also bruised Hollywood’s psyche. Over the years, as other film studios were lobbed between owners (Universal), downsized (Paramount) or subsumed (20th Century Fox), “Warners” remained virtually untouched, emerging as an emblem of stability and spending. In recent months, however, the studio has been streamlined by an aggressive new owner, AT&T, resulting in the departure of a startling number of executives who had been there for decades. For now, Warner Bros. has 10 movies on its 2022 theatrical release schedule, according to the database IMDbPro. Last year, it released 18.
Image
“On the Rocks” playing at the Vineland Drive-In in City of Industry, Calif. When a vaccine arrives, theaters may experience a bump because so many films have been pushed into next year.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times‘
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/b...streaming.html
See the full article at the link above. Truncated here due to character limit.
See the full article at the link above. Truncated here due to character limit.
The permanently closed Vine Cinema in Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Hollywood’s Obituary, the Sequel. Now Streaming.
In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so quickly and on so many fronts.
The permanently closed Vine Cinema in Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
By Brooks Barnes
- Nov. 28, 2020
David O. Selznick, the golden era producer, made that glum proclamation in 1951. A new entertainment technology, TV, was emasculating cinema as a cultural force, and film studios had started to fossilize into bottom line-oriented businesses. As Selznick put it, Hollywood had been “grabbed by a little group of bookkeepers and turned into a junk industry.”
Since then, Hollywood has repeatedly written its own obituary. It died when interlopers like Gulf + Western Industries began buying studios in the 1960s. And again when “Star Wars” (1977) and “Superman” (1978) turned movies into toy advertisements. The 1980s (VCRs), the 1990s (the rise of media super-conglomerates), the 2000s (endless fantasy sequels) and the 2010s (Netflix, Netflix, Netflix) each brought new rounds of existential hand-wringing.
Underneath the tumult, however, the essence of the film industry remained intact. Hollywood continued to believe in itself. Sure, we churn out lowest common denominator junk, studio executives would concede over $40 salads at the Polo Lounge. It’s how we make our quarterly numbers. But we can still generate the occasional thunderclap, with ambitious films like “Get Out” and “1917” and “Black Panther” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” arriving on big screens and commanding the culture for months on end.
In one breath: All is lost! Big Tech is going to eat us alive.
In the next: Everyone still loves us. Just look at all those pinwheel-eyed fans buying tickets.
But the moment of crisis in which Hollywood now finds itself is different. In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so fast and on so many fronts, leaving many writers, directors, studio executives, agents and other movie workers disoriented and demoralized — wandering in “complete darkness,” as one longtime female producer told me. These are melodramatic people by nature, but talk to enough of them and you will get the strong sense that their fear is real this time.
Have streaming, the coronavirus and other challenges combined to blow away — finally, unequivocally — the last remnants of Hollywood?
“The last nine months have shaken the movie business to its bones,” said Jason Blum, the powerhouse producer whose credits range from “The Purge” series to “BlacKkKlansman.”
Image
Netflix billboards above Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York TimesThe feel of a dismantled film set
Streaming, of course, has been disrupting the entertainment business for some time. Netflix started delivering movies and television shows via the internet in 2007. By 2017, Disney was trying to supercharge its own streaming ambitions by bidding for Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, ultimately swallowing most of the company for $71.3 billion in an effort to expand its library of content and gain control of Hulu.
In recent months, however, the shift toward streaming has greatly accelerated. With more than half of the 5,477 theaters in the United States still closed, more than a dozen movies originally destined for big screens have been rerouted to streaming services or online rental platforms. Pixar’s latest adventure, “Soul,” will debut exclusively on Disney+ on Christmas Day. It will compete with “Wonder Woman 1984” (Warner Bros.), which will arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25, a crossing-the-Rubicon moment in the eyes of analysts.
Meantime, the owner of Regal Cinemas, the No. 2 multiplex chain in North America, just took on emergency debt to avoid insolvency. Trying to keep his own company afloat, Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, the No. 1 chain, quoted Winston Churchill on his most recent earnings call. (“We shall fight on the beaches!”) And the National Association of Theater Owners has found itself begging for a federal bailout. Deprived of one, the trade group warned, “movie theaters across the country are at risk of going dark for good.”
Without appearing on big screens, are movies even movies? Wrestling with that question alone has pushed Hollywood into a full-blown identity crisis. But the film industry is simultaneously dealing with other challenges. Outrage over the killing of George Floyd by a police officer has forced the movie capital to confront its contribution to racism and inequity. Coronavirus-forced production shutdowns have idled tens of thousands of entertainment workers. The two biggest talent agencies, Creative Artists and William Morris Endeavor, have been hobbled by the shutdown, resulting in a diaspora of agents, some of whom are starting competing firms, a once-unthinkable realignment.
There has been an abrupt changing of the guard in Hollywood’s highest ranks, contributing to the sense of a power vacuum. Nine of the top 20 most powerful people in show business, as ranked a year ago by The Hollywood Reporter, have left their jobs for one reason or another (retirement, scandal, corporate guillotine). They include the No. 1 person, Robert A. Iger, who stepped down as Disney’s chief executive in February, and Ron Meyer (No. 11), whose 25-year Universal career ended in August amid a tawdry extortion plot.
Image
Warner Bros., long a symbol of stability in Hollywood, has undergone significant changes under its new owner, AT&T.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York TimesRetrenchments at Warner Bros. have also bruised Hollywood’s psyche. Over the years, as other film studios were lobbed between owners (Universal), downsized (Paramount) or subsumed (20th Century Fox), “Warners” remained virtually untouched, emerging as an emblem of stability and spending. In recent months, however, the studio has been streamlined by an aggressive new owner, AT&T, resulting in the departure of a startling number of executives who had been there for decades. For now, Warner Bros. has 10 movies on its 2022 theatrical release schedule, according to the database IMDbPro. Last year, it released 18.
Image
“On the Rocks” playing at the Vineland Drive-In in City of Industry, Calif. When a vaccine arrives, theaters may experience a bump because so many films have been pushed into next year.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times‘https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/b...streaming.html
See the full article at the link above. Truncated here due to character limit.
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