THB #390: LABOR Day Weekend

I haven’t really wanted to write this weekend. Not because I have nothing to say. But I don’t want to explain the deep flaws of a somewhat entertaining Equalizer movie or chew over the fake $4 billion summer number that is being sold this weekend. I’m sorry, but when the Friday of Labor Day Weekend falls on or after September 1, it’s not the summer season anymore. Sorry.

But as you all know, everything feels a bit petty right now, pushed up against The Strikes.

I think the world of Emma Stone and I am happy her new movie, Poor Things, seems to be the nuclear event of the festivals… but she should not be in Telluride. She will overcome it, pretty clearly, as media is as deeply in love with her as ever, more so, after this weekend. And no doubt, the work deserves it.

But right now, it’s not about the work. There seem to be 5 or 6 movies that will come out of Venice and Telluride with some serious heat… and that’s fine. But the bubble is more defined than in any year in the decades I have been doing this and the relevance of this weekend is less than it has been.

I am truly looking forward to seeing all the films from these fests that I haven’t seen. I saw one contender twice in the last 10 days and I am going to Oppenheimer for a 6th time tomorrow. So I am not out of the movie love business. And I look forward to an award season of some high quality movies that will shock and awe-maze.

Just not quite yet.

Weighing heavy on me is the relentless negativity in the media, in outlets large and small, about The Strikes.

It’s not that I feel like everything is great. It’s not. But the name-calling has become the primary story and I didn’t like it 4 months ago and I don’t like it now.

AMPTP is The Boss… and the The Boss has undermined the well-paid (and the not-so-well-paid) workers. AMPTP is wrong in this conflict.

That said, the spending on content in the next 2 years for the 7 major Streaming platforms has to come down from the approximate $70 billion a year it blew up to under $50 billion a year. It just does. That’s a 29% drop in spending, some of which is already well along in process. So writers and actors and everyone is going to take a hit, because there just won’t be as much work. Not an optional thing. a survival thing for the studios. For Streaming to make real progress, spending needs to be reined in and Cable needs to continue to be narrowed, with that money saved by consumers moving to Streamers.