THB 1st Anniversary: A Selection Of Newsletters
THB 1st Anniversary: A Selection Of Newsletters
The Hot Button had its first anniversary on October 4. I’ve meant to run a list of some of my favorite columns from the year… so here you go.
There is a lot more stuff that I found interesting along the way, but I think this is an interesting mix… and self-servingly showcases the various things I predicted before they happened over the year.
Hope you enjoy. And if you don’t, a new column tomorrow.
THB #1: Greetings... and Box Office Monday
October 4, 2021
In the current environment, it is hard to tell what the specific effect of more shortened windows is or will be… which is to say, it WILL damage theatrical revenues, but it is hard to tell whether those damages will be under 15% or much more like taking a significant percentage of theatrical and throwing it off the side of a cliff.
THB #24: Encanto, Eternals, and The Trouble With Disney
November 8, 2021
Nobody knows which one might become the next Toy Story or Frozen or The Incredibles or Finding Nemo or Inside Out or even Coco, which grossed $800 million worldwide just 3 years after the (great!) Book of Life grossed just $100m worldwide.
Do you know what Coco is? The fifth highest grossing original in Disney animation history, behind Frozen, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, and The Lion King. No one I know of expected that.
November 18, 2021
The Rescue, Chai & Jimmy (2nd in-person interview since COVID)
DP/30 AudioPod: George Chakiris, Not To Forget, 1961's West Side Story
December 12, 2021
THB #54: The New Math in Hollywood
December 13, 2021
Building working businesses, making more money over time, is no longer the goal. It’s stock price or bust… or “somehow we are going to get Netflix’s 9x annual revenues market cap.”
That would make Disney’s Netflix-ified market cap about $585 billion instead of its measly $278 billion.
NBC/Universal alone would be worth about $180 billion, whereas the total market cap for all of Comcast is now $221 billion.
Not gonna happen.
DP/30 AudioPod: Ruth Negga, Passing
December 23, 2022
THB #73: Netflix Is Chilled
January 21, 2022
However things work out, over the next couple of weeks, Netflix will have a new perspective. But this is not only a Netflix issue. It is an issue for the entire film/tv industry. Bob Chapek has torn Disney up under the premise that streaming is everything (a wild exaggeration… and not). How David Zaslav relaunches WBDisco will surely be influenced by where the market and the world perceive expectations for the next 5 years of streaming. Choices by Comcast certainly are up in the air again. How the smaller players are valued will be changed by the light that Netflix brings or does not.
THB #78: Make Your Own Kind of Streamer
January 31, 2022
8 different ways to approach streaming, every one of which can be a win. In fact, if all these companies did what I suggest - or what they do - effectively, the only way to name losers will be to compare one against another for sport… lazy sport.
This doesn’t mean I don’t think that some of these companies will foolishly chase paths that don’t speak to their strong suits. Some will. But the idea that every streamer needs to match the model of the leader of the moment is nothing less than self-destructive.
THB #81: Fixing The Oscars in 5 Steps
February 7, 2022
Rebuilding The Weight Of The Award And, In Turn, The Show
Rebuilding The Oscar Show
DP/30 AudioPod: Sundown, Tim Roth
The 10 Myths of Streaming
February 14, 2022
You Need To Ramp Up Spending Wildly To Attract An Audience
Acquisitions Will Fix What Ails Your Platform
The World All Looks The Same
Successful/Surviving Streamers Will Play On The Same Ground
Disney+ Is The Primary Streaming Key For Disney
The Netflix Streaming 3.0/4.0 Model Is Something Others Can Recreate
Subscriber Figures Are The Key Stat That Matters
Amazon and Apple Don’t Care About Making Money
IP Won’t Fade Like Movie Stars Have Faded
Launching Original Movies On Streaming Pumps Up Sub Numbers
THB #94: Turning Red
March 7, 2022
Turning Red is the first mainstream animated movie about menstruation.
Turning Red is the first mainstream animated movie about adult women looking back at their first experiences of menstruation and then dealing with menopause.
Turning Red is the first American mainstream animated movie set in a Canadian city.
Turning Red is a charming, thoughtful, loving, funny, girl power animated movie that speaks without shame to the challenges of going to bed a little girl one day and waking up the next to the literal burden of being a woman.
Turning Red is in the great Pixar tradition of mixing metaphor and reality in animation to discuss real human experiences that make us laugh and touch the heart.
THB #127: After The CinemaCon, Into The $2.9B Summer (I Hope)
April 29, 2022
Four movies released in the summer of 2019 did over $200m domestic. We have six movies this summer with that kind of potential. Seems great, no?
But in 2019, those top 4 grossers produced $1.7 billion in revenue… while the wide releases that grossed less than $200 million produced $2.2 billion.
We may have the movies, even with windows shortened right up to the edge of consciously insane pressure against your theatrical revenues, to match or surpass that $1.7 billion from the biggest hits.
The other titles combined will struggle to generate more than $700m combined.
DP/30 Emmy Audiopod: Jon Bernthal, We Own This City
June 22, 2022
THB #182: Should The Globes Exist?
July 7, 2022
1. The Organization doesn’t have any power as a group of media voices.
2. The Organization’s nominations are reflective of a process of narrowing that starts in the summer and has nothing to do with the HFPA. Distributors have already decided what The Oscar Season is going to look like this year, with the first separation of players from pretenders (50 seriously contending titles to 30) during the Venice/Telluride/Toronto window, with a small kicker in New York. A half dozen new contenders show up in November, but another 15 fall off in the run from NYFCA to LAFCA to CCA and The Globes nominations (not last year).
3. They don’t contribute in any significant and measurable way to the success or failure of the awards movies.
4. They don’t improve the situation for The Oscars by being a major precursor or harbinger that excites the public or the industry.
5. They do share some of their money with philanthropic and film organizations. But at what percentage and, in some cases, to what organizations that are otherwise connected to members? And if they come back, will their charitable giving continue, aside from being a tax dodge?
DP/30 Audiopod: Reservation Dogs, Devery Jacobs
August 1, 2022
THB #210: How To Make A Hit/Barbarian
August 23, 2022
The object lesson that has been floating around in my head for the last few week is an unacknowledged Disney release of a credited Fox movie of a Regency production produced by a bunch of young ambitious types and the veteran Roy Lee. The film is called, Barbarian.
It’s a thriller with horror elements. Tiny cast. It has a title that will be indelible if it hits and if it doesn’t is a (traditional) marketing disaster.
Absolutely, 100% a movie theater movie. If you like the genre, you want to see this film and you want to see this film in a room filled with people.
THB #212: Olivia Gone Wild/Variety Gone To Click Bait
August 28, 2022
On Friday, I was seething over a series of stories that were being bounced around the industry in ways that emphasized attention-getting over journalism. I decided not to write anything, in no small part because I didn’t want to be seen as defending anyone or anything when my anger was being driven by the lazy ease with which some of this stuff was being handled.
As noted earlier today, over the weekend, I ended up watching the 2-hour conversation with Jon Bernthal that seems to have been produced weeks ago and which was published after the Olivia Wilde Wednesday cover story in Variety.
THB @ Telluride 4: Women Talking
September 2, 2022
Sarah Polley is a director who doesn’t assume to know everything. She seems in her work to always be asking herself questions, even though there is almost never any question about her firm hand on the tiller.
Women Talking is unlikely to be a runaway hit. It asks too much of it audience. It asks the audience think and rethink and rethink again about what they are seeing… what conversation they are being asked to engage.
For me, that is the most daring and valuable and unusual thing in filmmaking, especially in America (and sometimes Toronto).
THB #217: The Five Stages of Oscar Phase 1
September 12, 2022
Deciding
Exposure
Reshuffling
December
Acceptance
Until tomorrow…