Transcript: Gaslit in TV Land

Mostly, nobody knows anything. But sometimes, they know something you don't

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.

"Nobody knows anything," is the famous maxim from William Goldman's book Adventures in the Screen Trade, which is the best book ever written about show business, and you know that has to be true because I've written two books about it myself, and I'm a writer, so if I could get away with it, I'd say William Goldman's book is the third best book ever written about show business.

"Nobody knows anything" is one of those phrases repeated often enough that people start to think it's universally true, instead of contextually true. What Goldman meant was, nobody knows what makes a hit movie or TV show, or what the public wants to see, or when it's time to zig when everyone else is zagging, or any of the arrogant and foolish things we do in show business to predict or even manage a successful movie or TV show release. Nobody knows anything about that.  

But there are lots of areas in which not only does nobody not know anything, but somebody knows something really specific and important.

Somebody, for instance, who runs a streamer or studio or network knows if he or she is about to order a script to production, so if you've got a script sitting over at a network or studio office somewhere — and there are a lot of projects right now in suspense, a lot of things waiting for the green light — so that applies to a lot more people than you'd imagine — you may not know anything, but somebody knows something — somebody at a desk, who's been talking to other people in the office, or the big boss, or whoever manages the budgets — and people have been making their choices known, internally — and that something that somebody knows is something that you'd like to know, sooner rather than later.  

Because when nobody knows anything, we're all just talking through our collective asses, which is how nature intended the entertainment business to run. And how it runs best, by the way. Talking through your ass, making it up as you go along, this is the business model that makes the most money for the most people in show business.

But times like now, when a lot of people are waiting for a yes or no from somewhere, knowledge gets asymmetric. Nobody knows anything isn’t true. Somebody knows something, but that somebody isn't you. You don't know anything.

And when we don’t know anything, what do we do? We look for signs.