Sometimes, as they say, the story writes itself. And this week, it felt like fallout from a struggling entertainment business manifested all at once.
Our big story this week was Nicole LaPorte’s explosive interviews with Hollywood’s producers, where she found a profession on the brink, beset by a lack of faith in the buyers and a hostile, ever-consolidating marketplace. In The Squeeze: Producers on ‘No Trust’, Anger, Struggles she finds, in the words of Academy Award-winning producer Cathy Schulman (The Woman King), “You have to be a billionaire or dilettante” to make it today as streaming economics, mergers and the need for volume to survive mean “365 days” of work.
Additionally, Nicole writes:
Amongst producers, the dirtiest word in the Hollywood lexicon…is “Netflix.” And not just because “they’re pricks,” as one put it. The feeling is that the streamer stormed Hollywood and wildly expanded the marketplace in its days of drunken spending. “Now it’s whiplash…they’ve shrunk the marketplace.”
More stories from our series “The Squeeze”, about workers caught in the vise of a broken system, are coming this week for paid subscribers only.
Also:
Entertainment Strategy Guy analyzes Netflix’s dueling nine-figure gambles in Shonda vs. Ryan: Who’s Worth It, now set against the Dahmer backdrop and Murphy’s expiring deal.
Sean McNulty does the brutal math on The Netflix GLASS ONION Experiment: What Lessons Did We Learn.
Richard on HBO’s place as Prestige TV’s Mr. Magoo, thriving under one bad owner after another. But can any brand survive the Streaming Wars?
In Rearranging the Deck Chairs, our podcast hosts dissect the nausea-inducing wave of Hollywood headlines from the week.
And Rob Long’s Martini Shot examines the many excuses dealmakers use during the holiday slowdown in The Town is Shutting Down.
The Wakeup: 5 Days of Fallout
Sean McNulty’s must-read morning briefings from this week certainly painted a picture:
AMC Nets write-off up to half a Billion $$, Programming removals ahead
Layoffs hit PAR TV as PAR+ Originals is shut; CNN layoffs hitting today
AMC NETWORKS hits Cable Bundle panic button; Salke takes control at AMAZON
AMAZON STUDIOS spending bender – 2 big film deals, ScarJo does TV… and it’s only Tuesday
T’giving Box Office disasters abound as GLASS ONION left Millions for the taking
From the Archives
Amazon Studios: State of Slate Given this week’s reorg, take a look back at our rundown of what the mega-company has got coming up in their streaming offerings.
Rushfield on WBD: What’s the Plan? As its news division in CNN undergoes deep cuts, our studio-by-studio series dissects the parent company’s overall corp strategy in a sea of chaos.
