THB #93: The Batman (no spoilers)
| March 6, 2022
-30-
May 1, 2022
"Netflix, the great disrupter whose algorithms and direct-to-consumer platform have forced powerful media incumbents to rethink their economic models, now seems to need a big strategy change itself. It got me thinking about the simple idea that my film and TV production company Blumhouse is built on: If you give artists a lot of creative freedom and a little money upfront but a big stake in the movie’s or TV show’s commercial success, more often than not the result will be both commercial (the filmmakers are incentivized to make films that will resonate with audiences) and artistically interesting (creative freedom!). This approach has yielded movies as varied as Get Out (made for $4.5 million, with worldwide box office receipts of more than $250 million), Whiplash (made for $3.3 million, winner of three Academy Awards), The Invisible Man (made for $7 million, earned more than $140 million) and Paranormal Activity (made for $15,000, grossed more than $190 million).From the beginning, the most important strategy I used to persuade artists to work with me was to make radically transparent deals: We usually paid the artists (“participants” in Hollywood lingo) the absolute minimum allowable by union contracts upfront, with the promise of healthy bonuses based on actual box office results—instead of the opaque 'percentage points' that artists are usually offered. Anyone can see box office results immediately, so creators don’t quarrel with the payouts. In fact, when it comes time for an artist to collect a bonus based on box office receipts, I email a video clip of myself dropping the check off at FedEx to the recipient."
Jason Blum Sees Room For "Scrappier" Netflix
| April 30, 2022
"As a critic Gavin was entertaining, wry, questioning, sensitive, perceptive"
Critic-Filmmaker Gavin Millar Was 84; Films Include Cream In My Coffee, Dreamchild
April 29, 2022
| January 24, 2022
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
With upwards of 30% of the volume of comics NOT being shipped to the comic book shops for the forseeable future, that in and of itself will have a strong hit on the industry from the retail end, certainly. Whether long-toothed DC fans still managing to justify spending $3.99 a month for some comic books will see fit to transfer those lost dollars to some other title or pubisher’s efforts through the comic book shops they frequent, well…it remains to be seen.
One still needs editors and staff to transition from print to even a strictly digital output, though, but it may be that those PTB at ATT and Warner’s or wherever simply think that ‘print is dead’, or they will simply rehire lower-paid drones to do the work. Who can say? Meanwhile, both staffers and freelance creative talent…what of their prospects? It’s gonna be tough all around. All that being said, DC’s output and price structure hasn’t resonated with me, personally, for at least a decade now. I still love the characters, just as a child loves his first ragdoll or stuffed animal, but I don’t ‘need’ them in my life, that’s for sure. I hardly even recognize the characters, to be quite honest, anyway.
Thankfully Marvel is still out there, as are other publishers who frankly have a more diverse group of genres they’re playing with. There’s a lot of talent at DC, but hopefully some will find work elsewhere in this, as you so accurately described, ‘scarred industry’.