Rushfield: Hope in the Pit of Your Stomach
10 thoughts on our industry's state as Bummer Summer closes
So…nothing hurts me more than positivity and optimism. Just seeing the headline of this piece makes me worry that something inside me might be broken.
But as I started to bring to a close my ongoing special summer series, “We're All Going to Die”, it occurred to me that maybe there's another side to this.
Coverage of Hollywood always careens between shameless boosterism and mindless catastrophizing. Lately catastrophizing has been getting the oxygen. Which in general warms my heart, but while there is plenty of perfectly good cause to panic, if you put down the Inception Horns for a moment there's a few things out there that if you squint, maybe look less End of the World-y than they might at first glance.
So as we bring the summer of our discontent to a close, I just wanted to pause to look at some little slivers of light, cutting through the gloom. Swallow with as many grains of salt as your constitution requires.
1. The Netflix Kids Are Alright
Here's the big one. The Netflix correction is the thing that set off the whole megillah of pain here. Its stock fell off a cliff and rumors of its demise have come hourly since.
But before I stroll down the primrose lane here, let's establish a few bonafides. History will recall, I was the first Netflix skeptic while the rest of the media was demanding every other studio hand their IP over to Reed Hastings with a ribbon around it. I questioned the Netflix model while the trades were calling Bird Box the future of entertainment.