You are reading a preview of The Ankler, a newsletter about the business of Hollywood by Richard Rushfield. To get read the rest of this issue and get in on all the action each and every week, click below to subscribe now.
Another week, another cataclysmic shake-up in the entertainment firmament. But what are we mortals to make of such things?
Take it away takeaways:
• Disruption Junction: What’s My Function? How’s everyone liking their Streaming War now?
Yes, on the plus hand, the airwaves are flooded with more first seasons of buzzy new series than anyone can keep track of. But on the downside: the entire industry is turned upside down in the race for possible Pyrrhic victory.
Here we are with the trickle-down fallout of the Great Streaming War. One studio gone, two more hanging by a thread, and now one talent agency less.
• The Squeeze of Corporate Hollywood The problem is of course manifest (and “Manifest”): the streaming services largely have disbanded with ye olde packages of Levitan/Lorre, syndication, and backends; instead we have shorter seasons, fewer giant stars with giant paydays, and the cost of doing business in the entertainment world – rent, suits, travel, lunches – as high or higher than ever.
All those things that have gone away were like annuities to keep an agency pumping, to get a new agency on its feet if you could claim one or two.
Without those, you’ve got to earn your living one deal at a time. It’s a schlep, even at a time when the streaming wars are throwing-off deals like confetti.
• The Volume Game. You can’t count on a couple clients to pay the rent anymore, so you’ve got to cover the ground, get in on *all* the deals. Which requires a lot of lower-wage foot soldiers on the front. More than ever, it’s an always-be-hustling business now. Which means an agency’s footprint has got to grow.
The biggest threat at the heart of this: the industry is not creating new stars that can last years and years at the highest levels of the industry. (Just Google “Kevin Huvane and Julia Roberts” if you want to see what both yesteryear and today still look like for CAA). If the agency business is dependent on representing whatever new talent breaks out 150 times a day before lunch, that’s a lot of pies you’ve got to have your hands in. A lot of scouting. A lot of TikTok views. And a lot of much smaller checks for a much shorter lifespan. It’s all sort of regression to the pre-Ovitz, maybe even pre-Wasserman days of agenting, when it was just a business of hyping, and banging out deals for stars to act in things.
This has been a sneak peek preview of today’s special coverage of the ICM/CAA deal by The Ankler, the industry’s secret newsletter. To read the rest of this issue, subscribe today for just $10 a month and don’t miss out on who’s in the hot seat next!
If you are interested in advertising on the Ankler: write us at anklerads@gmail.com for rates and info.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have the money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind here at The Ankler.
Enjoy this issue? Why not click on the little heart below so it can surfaced to others in the Substack universe. Or better still – share it with the world!
