Monthly Digest - OCTOBER 2018
October 31, 2018 | Dear Producer, No. 28
MUST READ
This week I went to a screening of a film produced by my friend Ele Bardha (more notably known for being the stunt coordinator on films such as The Old Man and The Gun and It Follows). When asked in the Q&A what it means to be a producer Ele said, “It’s like one of those puzzles your grandma has with 5,000 pieces that all look the same. It’s your job as a producer to make all those pieces fit together.” I nodded my head in response, yep, that’s about right.
Let me try to help put some of those pieces together for you…
I was going to start by listing all the articles announcing the many new streaming platforms, but thankfully Wired summed it all up for us in You're About to Drown in Streaming Subscriptions, including the new platform called Quibi, which has an unfortunate name but exclusive Guillermo del Toro content.
Meanwhile, Netflix Just Keeps Growing Larger Than Anyone Predicted It Would despite the Vanity Fair piece describing how Working at Netflix Sounds Absolutely Terrifying.
On the flip side, auteur prestige passion projects aren’t fairing as well at the box office as described in The Reasons Behind Annapurna’s Tumultuous Week. But is anyone really surprised by this? Nina Jacobson, ‘The Life Aquatic’ Producer Describes the Moment She Realized Wes Anderson’s Film Would be a Box Office Bomb admitting, “I was so in love and I was so blinded by my love that I went to battle to get considerably more money to make this movie than what we had spent on his earlier movies.” Perhaps the industry gets too caught up in the auteur’s vision that it loses sight of audience demand?
Just ask Will Packer who Became The Rare Producer To Open 10 Films Atop The Weekend Gross Charts. Will has mastered the art of connecting with an audience by going city to city with this films to meet audiences face to face to find out exactly what they are craving from storytellers.
Meanwhile, Endeavor Content Takes Big Swings to Expand Options for Producers. The article states that, “The expansion of Endeavor’s activity in the content arena has spurred growing criticism that it is facing inherent conflicts of interest in representing clients at WME at the same time the parent company is looking to own and distribute content.”
And in a sign that the guilds intend to play hardball in their efforts to reshape the agency business, the WGA Rejects ATA’s Offer Of Informal Talks In Advance Of Agency Rules Showdown.
The WGA is also playing hardball with producers and executives by launching the ‘No Writing Left Behind’ Campaign To Curb Free “Prewrites” If only producers had a union to protect us from the amount of “pre-producing” we do in order to get a project off the ground…
Instead we're left to fend for ourselves as we see with the 'Fast and the Furious' Producer Suing Universal Over Spinoff alleging the studio has backed away from an oral agreement that entitled him to first-dollar-gross participation.
And this month we lost two familiar faces, FilmFreeway Defeated Amazon’s Withoutabox Monopoly and FilmStruck Streaming Service Shut Down by WarnerMedia. While I’m sad to see FilmStruck go, perhaps film festivals can finally make producers’ lives easier by streamlining the festival submissions process?
If you're looking for something to fill the FilmStruck void, the Library of Congress will Provide Hundreds of Free Historic Films Online Through National Screening Room. Almost 300 videos are already available online and the resource will add new offerings on a monthly basis.
And while you are sifting through the Library of Congress catalogue, ponder this, Where Were All the Pregnant Women in Classic Movies?
Keep Going,
Rebecca Green
Editor-in-Chief
ORIGINALS RECAP
How to Make WE THE ANIMALS (in more than 60 seconds)
No One Likes a Mean Girl but We’ll Still Watch Her: Making a Place for Dark Triad Characters
