In the last week of every year, we say goodbye to the 12 months past by having talks with some of the smartest folks we know in this business, hoping they can help us make sense of what the hell that was all about. I talk to them anonymously so they can express the full extent of their thoughts and feelings about this business.
Reminder these thoughts are not necessarily our own and hopefully before we are through, we’ll have a range of perspectives and opinions.
Earlier this week I published my pointed conversation with a TV exec. Today I talk with a producer who shared her very candid thoughts about the state of things, where we are headed and whether the mediums Hollywood produces will stay relevant in the future. If you disagree here, as ever, share your thoughts in the comments.
So 2023 in Hollywood — how do you think it went?
Not great.
Why not?
I think that we are in the midst of some sort of big change, and I feel like it reminds me a little bit of the late ’60s, where it felt like a lot of popular entertainment wasn’t necessarily reflecting the mood of the people. So I’m hopeful that it could turn the way that the ’70s became very cool and a lot of really interesting films were made that spoke to people in a much deeper and more original way. So I’m excited for what may come as a result, but I think this was a tough year for everyone.
What do you think we’re missing that isn’t cool about how Hollywood does, or doesn’t connect with the audiences?
I don’t think it’s just one problem, or one issue. I think that America, if we’re just looking at the domestic audience, is really disparate. I don’t think America is particularly united, so it seems unlikely that there’d be one kind of entertainment that appealed to everyone. I think Friends still does, so there’s that. There was so much made that everything could appeal to very small groups of people versus finding entertainment that could build bridges between people.
“What I keep hearing from buyers is: we really want a real showrunner. We really want a movie star. It’s an illusion I think, but the illusion is that if we can have a sure thing, it will work.”
How for you did the process of getting things made change? Obviously, we were shut down for six months, but apart from that, has the pullback made things more streamlined at all?
I think that’s still a little bit wait-and-see what comes as a result of the strikes. I think the strikes didn’t create any problems that weren’t already there. I think the strikes expedited processes that were unfolding. That’s a dumb way of putting it, but I think that a lot of what is going to happen in 2024 was pretty inevitable. I think we’re making too much. The process by which television and films are made or green-lit has been at once haphazard and perhaps too lenient at times. And so I think that there was inevitably going to be less work. There’s less buyers, there’s less networks, there’s less slots, as they used to say.
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