THB #93: The Batman (no spoilers)
| March 6, 2022
Jeffrey Katzenberg On Quibi’s Nearly Two-Billion-Dollar Burn: “I couldn’t be prouder of what we built and delivered. The big idea of a next generation of film narrative, longform stories in quick bites. The content that was made, the talent that contributed to it, the studios that made it. They exceeded my expectations. But I am humbled by its failure. It clearly did not have a product–market fit. We can argue about, was it the product, was it the market at the time we launched, or was it never to be a fit? But we do get up everyday and take a little TV with us and have in-between moments. Will it never be a product–market fit? I’m not sure. So I’m humbled. In life I believe the greatest lessons you learn are from your mistakes and misses and not your successes. Trying to follow your exact path on your next success usually doesn’t lead to success. But the learnings from failure are powerful. I am humbled, but not humiliated by it, because I am proud of what we did.”
-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
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