It’s a holiday week, which can mean only one thing: you probably are on a flight wondering who has Omicron around you, and if this travel thing was such a good idea after all. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Anyway, we’re back in this installment with the second batch of 2021’s “Exit Interviews”. If you missed the first batch, you can find it here , and we hope you caught all the The Ankler’s exciting news here and here.
But first, a word about the news:
Spider House Rules
Gotten a good number of communiques in the last couple days that go roughly, “Ah ha! You said the movies are dead, but take a look! They are bigger than ever!”
Given the Grim Reapery drift of recent editions, I’ll happily accept that.
So what are we to make of this? Full recovery or dead cat bounce? Before we guzzle every bottle of champagne the supply chain can handle, let’s run through some takeaways on the Spiderfest:
• Pre-Spidey the operative COVID Era And Beyond (CEAB) rules were:
1. Nothing opens other than giant tentpoles
2. Giant tentpoles can’t open big enough to pay for themselves
• Post-Spidey let’s tweak that to:
1. Nothing opens other than superhero movies.
2. Superhero movies are rarely big enough to pay for themselves.
So…yay?
The rules remain open to revision as new evidence presents itself. Yet, some thoughts.
• It beats flatlining on the gurney. And great for all involved, but really where does that leave us? All every studio has to do is make a really good superhero movie every week and just keep the multiplexes full of a flood of superhero products?
• Is it worth pondering if the mighty Disney marketing machine is capable of, or ever feels inspired, to extend itself with quite the same fervor to non-Marvel label releases ( West Side Story and Nightmare Alley come to mind)?
• Also when you wonder why studio executives lose their minds, let Sony stand forever as the avatar of fate’s fickle finger. For the last years of her reign, Amy Pascal rode herd over one problem after another. Today, years later, Tom Rothman is a genius, presiding over the products Amy set in motion. (All due praise to AMBEE, America’s Most Beloved Entertainment Executive — who made some smart and gutsy release decisions as noted in today’s batch of interviews below.)
• Spiderman swallowed the box office but literally nothing else registered. That should seem cause for more than the alarm it’s gotten.
• Re: The rules above. The parlor game of every Sunday afternoon used to convert the vagaries and whims represented by that weekend’s returns into durable rules. “People want sports movies!” “Movies named after months are always bombs.” It was a fool’s game, but it indicated a healthy community. There were lots of examples that you could play with and try to understand the gods’ whims. But when the only rule is “people will show up for good superhero movies,” there isn’t much left in the strands-of-hope realm.
(Again. Opinions vary: see below.)
• And then there’s this notion, as we take stock of the larger world around Spiderman, offered by a very good Ankler friend:
My anonymous prediction: Spider-Man will be identified within a week or so as a super-spreader event.
Now onto the main event. Batch Two of our 2021: Exit Interviews!
Today we talk to The Producers, three name-brand veterans with a list of credits between them taller than Mount Palomar, all of whom had projects of note in 2021.
They spoke on condition of anonymity so that they might freely hold forth on their partners and buyers: Netflix, Disney, Warners, Paramount and the like. While they all agree the town is limping to the end of 2021, they remain cautiously optimistic about what the next year brings — and, surprisingly, it isn’t just a three-buyer town.
Producer 1
So how was 2021?
A full court back to normalcy. People haven’t just gotten out of the habit of seeing movies, despite what some people might think.
How are things going for the industry in general?
Are these the best of times with so much money flowing, or are we on the precipice of doom? The sky was falling in 1955 because television was going to own everything. The sky was falling in 1982 because VHS was going to ruin everything. Oh my God, digital media in 1999, that’s going to ruin everything. Internet, piracy, that’s going to ruin everything. Again, assuming you have a desire to partake of going out to events, the bargain of seeing a movie even at $15, $20 is a bargain, compared to – tell me where else you can get two hours of entertainment for 20 bucks. You can’t even go to the Woke Academy museum for less than $25.
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