Today, Explained - Hollywood’s still not back

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Covid and last year’s strikes delivered a one-two punch that the entertainment industry still hasn’t recovered from. Entertainment journalists Mark Harris and Diane Haithman explain why this is bad news for the people who make movies and the people who watch them. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh with help from Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Rob Byers, and guest-hosted by David Pierce. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once upon a time in Hollywood, things were going pretty well. Think La La Land's Technicolor Fantasy, the golden age of streaming, Game of Thrones seasons one through six. But then came the COVID shutdowns. And then, before things had time to recover, the writer and actor strikes. This was exactly the year when it was supposed to be full steam ahead. Like, finally, we're back to a full slate. And in that sense, the strike, like, it could not have been worse time. Like, any gains at the box office that were made last year, and last year was pretty good, but nowhere near what it was before the pandemic. This year, box office forecasters already know that it's not going to come close to what last year did. There just aren't enough movies to get to that number.

Hollywood's gritty reboot. Coming up on Today Explained. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm David Pierce, filling in as host here on Today Explained. It's a tough time for the entertainment business, but you might not know it from, say, the Oscars,

where the biggest tensions were the imagined ones between two of last year's biggest movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer. I think I kind of figured out why they call it Barbenheimer and they didn't call it Oppenbarbie. Why? Well, I think you guys are at the tail end of that because you were riding Barbie's coattails all summer. Well, you know, the Oscars are always a moment to put the best face on things. And this year, the best face was pretty good.

But there was, in the ceremony, a lot of stuff that you didn't hear, of course. This is entertainment journalist Mark Harris. He's been paying attention to all the moments that don't get celebrated at places like the Oscars. You didn't hear about the collapse of the superhero franchise market in 2023 when four DC movies all disappointed. DC Comics suffered the flop of The Flash. in 2023 when four DC movies all disappointed. DC Comics suffered the flop of The Flash. And the Marvels really sort of served as an alarm bell that the Marvel universe really is not infallible

and that people are maybe a little tired of this. Tune in for chapter 36 and please make sure you've seen chapters 1 through 35 first thing They stayed away from that they they stayed away from the increasing anger in Hollywood over the wild disparity between CEO salaries of guys like David Zaslav and Robert Iger who run Discovery Warner Brothers and Disney and Disney, and The Rank and File. Nonprofit group, As You Sew, they annually compile a list of the most overpaid CEOs,

and coming in at number one, David Zaslav, the Warner Brothers boss. His cop package, nearly $250 million. They largely stayed away from AI, which is something that some people see as a tool, but many more people see as a threat. Union President Fran Drescher told Al Jazeera. We don't want to be replaced by digital images of ourselves. And we don't want big business to think it's okay to think that that is a viable consideration.

They did not stay away from the strikes, which were a really big thing in 2023 that shut down the industry for six months, but in a way will be a bigger thing this year and in the year to come, not just because of the threat of more strikes, which was made very clear in the Oscars, but because the ramifications of

those strikes are still being felt in a product shortage and are going to be felt for a long time. This long and difficult work stoppage taught us that this very strange town of ours, as pretentious and superficial as it can be, at its heart is a union town. It's not just a bunch of heavily Botoxed Haley Beamer smoothie drinking, diabetes prescription abusing, gluten sensitive nepo babies with perpetually shivering. So it's a kind of bleak picture that you're describing this fundamental rift between kind of the people who make and consume and like movies and the people who finance those movies. And there's a lot of talk about cycles in Hollywood and things get better and things

get worse and things change. But is there something fundamentally broken between those two things now that feels new and might be caused by tech, whether it's the streaming services or AI or some of this stuff? Does that difference feel new to you right now? Yeah, it sort of does. I mean, there's always been something of a disconnect between, you know, the suits and the creatives before those two words were even the words that were used to describe those groups. The disconnect was still there. But one thing that's happened over many, many decades of the history of Hollywood is that the people at the very top have gotten to the top for reasons that have less and less to do with actual movies. You know, so with every step farther away from what it is actually like to make movies, and with every concurrent exponential increase in the salary of those guys at the top,

there became less and less of a common language between the people who make movies and as you said the people who see movies and love movies and the people who pay for them and that's different than um what used to be the case and it connects to tech because when it comes to something like ai which writers and actors really feel is an existential threat, suddenly you have these guys saying, well, no, we don't want to forfeit the possibility that AI could write scripts for us instead of human beings doing it. Obviously, AI can't do what writers and humans can do, but I don't know that they believe that necessarily.

So we need to make it clear there needs to be a human writer in charge. And we're not trying to be gig workers just revising what AI does. I mean, the strikes are over, at least for now. But the anger and maybe even more damaging than the anger, the mistrust really persists. So you mentioned the strikes are over. We're a few months past them at this point. But it still feels like we're very much in the throes of what happened because of the strike. How are you seeing that? How would you explain the movie world of today, the fact that studios and streamers are making less. Let's catch up on a busy movie weekend. Was it that box office was a historic low? We're in a place now where what would have been unthinkable 20 or 25 years ago, which is weekends with no major new releases, now kind of happens

on a fairly regular basis. And there's going to be more of that. In 2023, there were 124 wide theatrical releases, meaning they opened in a thousand plus theaters. This year, they're about 10% fewer, at least according to the schedule today. One thing that's happened is the studios rely more and more on franchises and on very expensive movies. They make fewer movies and take fewer gambles overall. So, for instance, Dune Part 2, which, you know, is a movie that people can look to and say, OK, finally, I've got a reason to go back to theaters for the first time since December. Don't try to impress anyone. Be simple. Be direct. Nothing fancy. That was my exact moviegoing experience. I went to see Dune Part 2 after two, three months of not going to the theater. And I don't think I could name you a movie that came out between maybe Wonka and Dune Part 2.

Right. So you're ride or die for Timothee Chalamet. Apparently. Nothing else will do. So it seems. Cling, cling, cling. Man, you capping. Ooh, ah, cling, cling, cling, cling, cling. Man, you cappin'. Ooh, ah, cling, cling, cling, cling, cling. Ooh, you cappin'.

You also, in your piece, mentioned two kind of possible different ideas about movies that I thought were really interesting. One is the Robin Hymer phenomenon, which has never quite been done the same way. And I'm curious what you think we've learned from that about what could work. And the other one is Taylor Swift, for lack of a better word. Taylor Swift will save Hollywood. Can you explain kind of why each of those jumped out to you as a thing and also whether they actually do maybe portend something new and big here? Well, the Taylor Swift thing was really interesting to me. It was the 11th highest-grossing movie of last year. I think it made something over $180 million domestically.

It bypassed studios altogether to make a distribution deal directly with a theater chain. You know, it was, I think, a really interesting reminder that there's a generation of people that really wants to go to a movie theater. And if they are going to a movie theater for a concert or something that feels like a party or an actual movie, that may not make that much of a difference to them. And it certainly is not going to make a difference to the theaters that need people to fill their seats. And then, Barbenheimer is a really tricky thing because it is sort of the ideal of how studio movies should operate. I mean, you have one movie where it's the most debased possible conceit, like we're gonna make a movie based on a toy. Get in the box, you Jezebel!

Oh, okay. And it becomes this giant, popular, and critical favorite simply because it's incredibly well executed and incredibly well thought through and has a great creative team. Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world? And then you have this other movie, Oppenheimer, that is like in the decades-old historical tradition of how movie studios would like to see themselves.

Like, we spend real money to allow real filmmakers to take real swings at ambitious subjects. And, you know, once in a long, long, long while, they will pay off with a billion dollar worldwide grocer like Oppenheimer. And then you have this magical thing where the two movies actually fueled each other in a way that neither Universal, which put out Oppenheimer, nor Warner Brothers, which put out Barbie, had planned for. How do you duplicate that? I mean, you know, in December, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Wonka both came out, and there was no, like, Wonkwa-man moment, you know? Oh, I don't think I want to hear that.

As you look forward, you make the case in your piece that we've been through these kinds of boom and bust cycles in Hollywood before. And even with a bunch of technological changes over the years, we've had these kinds of feelings where it feels like an existential crisis in Hollywood before. So my question for you is, without any of the benefit of history, which will make this obvious where it lands. Does this feel like another one of those cycles? Or does this feel like we're actually in uncharted territory and everyone has to figure out what to do next? Both is the easy answer to that. I do think Hollywood is cyclical. And I think that we have lived through moments when everyone in Hollywood was saying we're're doomed before. Like, that is not new. The specific elements that are making people say,

we're doomed right now, are pretty new, and there are a lot more of them than there have been in the past. But I do think that there's some historical evidence to say just because everyone in Hollywood is saying we're doomed, that doesn't mean we're doomed. You know, something is going to come next. I don't think the appetite, if anything, Barbenheimer shows that the appetite for going after the movies

and seeing stories when the movies are really good is absolutely undiminished. So it's really possible. It's not, you know, it's not beyond reach to get a zillion people into theaters. But I think studios and streamers are really going to rue the fact that they let the strikes go on for so long as we get deeper into this year. Entertainment journalist Mark Harris. Coming up, the state of movies might be annoying to audiences, but it's downright painful for the people who make them. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura.

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and they are ready with a battle-tested playbook. The ACLU took legal action against the first Trump administration 434 times. And they will do it again to protect immigrants' rights, defend reproductive freedom, fight discrimination, and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. This Giving Tuesday, you can support the ACLU. With your help, they can stop the extreme Project 2025 agenda. Join the ACLU at aclu.org today. Today Explained is back. I'm David Pierce, filling in as host. Hollywood's economic challenges are certainly frustrating for audiences, but they're especially painful

for the workers who actually make the TV shows and movies that are now being produced at a slower pace than before. Well, in Hollywood, it's all a gig economy. You know, whether you're Steven Spielberg or the cameraman, it's job to job. So when we look at unemployment

during a strike, it's people aren't getting those jobs. But does that mean those jobs will be there when they get back? Are they going to be the same jobs? Each time it's people aren't getting those jobs. But does that mean those jobs will be there when they get back? Are they going to be the same jobs? Each time it's different. So again, it's always those people who don't have the money to tide them over between projects who are going to feel it. That's entertainment journalist Diane Haithman, who wrote about how the strike is especially impacting the non-Spielbergs of the industry, the people often known in the biz as below-the-line workers. And you know, it sounds awful. It sounds like it'd be better to be above the line.

But it really just means in a certain type of job, the makeup, the hair, the tech crews, all of those people, the teamsters, and they do get hit. You know, they're the people who all of a sudden they're driving an Uber during a strike. Yeah, how big an employment drop have we seen in these last months? This is the sort of thing it hit. You know, they're the people who all of a sudden they're driving an Uber during a strike. Yeah. How big an employment drop have we seen in these last months? This is the sort of thing that I feel like can sometimes be hard to quantify. Has it been quantified? What do we know about how big a change this has really been? Well, it has been quantified. And one of the things that led me to do this story was receiving a report. The Otis College of Art and Design here does a lot of research into this aspect of what's going on in Hollywood. Now, their estimation is during

the strike that employment dropped 17%. And that's a lot. How do numbers like what we're seeing now compare to kind of overall cycles? You've been covering this a while, you've seen kind of booms and bust moments. Is this much worse and much scarier than before? Is this kind of what we see in the cycles? How does this compare? I think what we tend to compare it to is COVID and how that shut down the industry for months and months. The difference here, and the reason for my kind of looking at what's going on now, is the report, basically their big conclusion was this contraction of the industry happened before the strikes. Even though there was this temporary drop in employment, obviously there's going to be during a strike because things are not happening, this sense that, but the industry had already gone

through this sea change. So I thought, okay, there we go. But what I was hearing all around me is just people saying, hey, I'm not back to work. Hey, I'm, you know, looking for a job. Hey, I'm working on a low-budget video production instead of a movie, because that's what's out there right now. And what people told me for this story was, we just have to get used to the fact that we're going to be ramping up again, but not as high. You know, that it had come to this really crazy peak. And there were some younger people in the industry who'd never seen anything else, who couldn't imagine that, okay, we're going to have to go back to what it was like in 2015, 2016. You know, which is good, but it's never going to be that crazy peak that happened with streaming.

You know, the streaming bubble has burst, and we're looking somewhat at a little bit of a different Hollywood. So these below-the-line workers you're talking about and talking to for these stories, what are they doing right now to make up for the loss in work and wages right now while they try to wait this out? Well, I think some are on unemployment. Some are smart people who know that this is a cyclical industry and it puts some money away. But most of those below the line workers, if they're making less, they're probably less likely to be able to put money away. You know, actors are chronically unemployed, right? I mean, that's something that this isn't really new. But those who had nice, neat gigs or were on a series or something like that might have lost that. I mean, we hear horror stories, people losing houses, people leaving California, people driving Uber Eats, you know, as opposed to doing what they really want to be doing. So, you know, it's just like any other crash in any other industry. The one thing I am hearing that's very encouraging is people aren't telling me I'm going to quit the business. The kind of person who goes into this business understands that it's not a stable industry.

And making things even less certain is the potential for yet another strike this summer, this time by IATSE, the union that represents a lot of these below-the-line workers. Do you think what's happening right now is going to impact whether there's actually going to see is people are just going to have to wait and see because one of the producers i talked to told me that hey if you get started on a production and you think okay if if iatsy strikes i'll go do it in canada you can't because you know there's sort of an international bond between these unions that says we won't take struck work from you. So that whole thing of let's be very careful, let's be cautious. And that I think, you know, what I'm hearing is going to spill over a bit into content too, is, okay, when we do ramp up, we're not going to be as willing to take risks. We're not going to see as many really wacky series, say, even on a Netflix, much more of what I'm hearing is that they're

going to have more procedurals, which is an interesting thing because they're seeing, hey, you know, if we could create another Dick Wolf to create all of those shows, let's do it. It's just, again, just a little bit more of a cautious approach. Yeah, when in doubt, make another Law & Order has really never failed for anybody so far. It has never failed anyone. Then the other hopeful thing is, are we going to see more lower budget productions? Just the costs of this have gotten so out of hand, people may even be getting tired of the Marvel universe. So maybe we don't have to have that blockbuster mentality. And that could be good. That could be good for a lot of people

working, you know, if we have more smaller movies, could be good for a lot of people working. You know, if we have more smaller movies, that's always been the hope of the independents. We heard Court Jefferson at the Oscars make the case for that, right? I understand that this is a risk averse industry. I get it. $200 million movies are also a risk, and it doesn't always work out, but you take the risk anyway. And instead of making one $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies. And I think in a world where we go from a handful of two or $300 million movies to a beautiful glut of $10 million movies, the way Cord was asking for, how does that translate to these below the line workers? Well, it would mean more work with less money, you know?

A lot of this smaller stuff, and some of it has been able to at least get underway during the strikes, is non-union. So it sounds like, to some extent, there's an interesting sort of middle-class challenge that we're about to have, where in a, you know, core Jefferson $10 million movie future, there might be lots of opportunities to get in, and there will still be ways at the top to make money because there are always ways at the top to make money. But the kind of work-a-day work that a lot of these folks have relied on for so long, that's going to continue to be a challenge. It's going to continue to be a challenge, and it already has been upended by streaming. The days of, you know, I live here in Studio City, which is kind of TV land, you know, and a lot of people have a job on a series and those series aren't the same as they used to be. You know, they're not workaday jobs anymore

where you go to the set for 22 episodes and then you take the summer off and take the kids to the beach, you know? Careers that were built on that, contracts that they've settled on is, okay, in the old days, you did this series, you got paid for it. And then there were reruns, you got paid for those. Now it's everything, everywhere, all at once. Your show is playing everywhere. How do you get paid for that? How do you justify keeping somebody under contract when you're only making eight episodes and they're being paid minimum for that. Writers rooms are, they call them mini rooms now because they're just saying, okay, let's just hire fewer writers if we have to pay them X amount. So a lot of those games you can play, it's just instability, just in general. It's accepting more of that, I think, in your life. Entertainment journalist Diane Hatheman. Today's show was produced by Hadi Mawagdi with

help from Halima Shah. Matt Collette edited, Laura Bullard checked the facts, and Rob Byers engineered. And one more thing. Earlier this week, you heard an excerpt from a conversation that Noelle King had at South by Southwest with radio host Charlemagne the God. And now, due to popular demand, we're getting ready to drop that whole unedited conversation with Charlemagne and political analyst Angela Rye. Find it in your podcast feed on Sunday. I'm David Pierce from The Verge. This is Today Explained from Vox. Thanks for listening.