Rushfield: Satan's Plan for Hollywood
The devil went down to Burbank
I'm going to take an unusual turn for an opinion column in a journal of hard-nosed business facts.
The problem is, if there's been a subtext to my Ankler writings over the years, it's that I've been looking at an industry governed by confused and short-sighted decisions and asking, What the hell are these people thinking?
Sometimes when you ask that question and you dig deeper, you find out there are some good reasons for what seems inexplicable from afar.
And I'm not talking about the decisions Hollywood likes to call "insane" — green lighting a movie that flops; choices that may not have turned out well but can fall under the header of "Honorable Failures". Those are business disappointments but no stain on honor or intelligence to have a flop or two or even a tough streak on your watch.
But there's that largest category of bad decisions that could fall under the heading of "Short-Sighted" — decisions that help a company make the best of this quarter while doing nothing for its long-term prospects, or that undermine the long-term for the benefit of today. The boundary between short-sighted and inexplicable can be very porous (e.g. the Streaming Wars). At a certain point, workaday short-sightedness becomes so clearly damaging to future prospects that these can seem acts of madness.
But lately, particularly in these strike times, the "inexplicable" column becomes overwhelming, where our what are these people thinking subtext springs to the surface and demands to be addressed; and the damage to the industry becomes so great that it's hard to find explanations to make sense of it.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have the money to spare, 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.