A Tectonic Shift In Movie Biz...

[Chaplin]

i feel like this is also going to just totally destroy a healthy chunk of feature writers’ income. Residuals on movies will be completely a thing of the past, much like they’re already becoming for TV writers. And there’s always that fight during negotiations where Feature Writers bitch and complain about striking or tough negotiations because TV writers are so focused on getting ANY kind of income lost on residuals from the streamers. Well, looks like the feature writers are going to finally understand why we make such a big deal out of getting as much as we can digitally while we can.

I also wonder how this effects stars on projects and their back end box office deals.

Maybe they'll try to integrate the syndicated television model. So someone's movie is picked up by HBO and in a single month, they get so and so business, leading to some kind of payment hierarchy. That's the new box office.

They are huge number nowadays on the tv side with C3, which is getting Nielsen credit for VOD for the 3 days following a premiere. It all gets grouped together and then everything after that 3 day window gets a different financial setup. They've got to adopt something like that for features on streaming services. And I imagine it will pay more than episodic tv.

 

[Cheesebeef]

The economics of streaming new content is somewhat of a mystery to me. I can get Box Office + Video Sales.

But how does say, Netflix do the calculations to spend a huge budget on a show? New subscribers? Retained subscribers?

How would WB make a huge budget back if it is going to streaming right away? Yes, they would still have the reduced box-office, but will that be enough?

WB is going to take a loss on these movies... no way around that. But this is a way to minimize those losses as much as possible while also hoping to really muscle in on the big streamers.

as far as Netflix... who the F knows! They seem to have more money than God. What seems to be most important to them isn’t so much viewer retention as it is getting new subscribers. It’s why they will cancel shows that are either very popular or awards-y much before you’d expect them to (like GLOW a couple months ago or The One Day At A Time reboot). In broadcast and cable, for eons the goal was to get at least five seasons because that meant syndication money and that is where studios really start taking in the cash. But Netflix is the studio more often than not and nothing they produce will ever go syndicated route. And after year three, shows start to get very expensive because that’s usually when actors’ deals are up and if you’ve got a hit, you can bet your ass those actors are going to want to be paid accordingly.

so, you have a smash hit like Ozark... that’s only going four seasons. Glow went 3 seasons.

Why? So they can then pour money into their next splashy show (like mine hopefully!) to get new eyeballs because the old eyeballs are already hooked and they ain’t going nowhere.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Maybe they'll try to integrate the syndicated television model. So someone's movie is picked up by HBO and in a single month, they get so and so business, leading to some kind of payment hierarchy. That's the new box office.

They are huge number nowadays on the tv side with C3, which is getting Nielsen credit for VOD for the 3 days following a premiere. It all gets grouped together and then everything after that 3 day window gets a different financial setup. They've got to adopt something like that for features on streaming services. And I imagine it will pay more than episodic tv.

oh yeah... the feature people will still get paid more than TV writers for their gig. As far as the rest, man... who knows? Like... does Keanu, who must have a big backend deal on Matrix 4 look at this and be like... WTF? Not that I’m crying for movie star millionaires... it’s just another thing to wonder about how much this changes everything.

it’s not like the studios or streamers especially ever open their books to show what’s what.

I’m guessing whenever the next WGA contract is up, it’ll be complete and all out war if this is where everything is really headed.

 

[Dback Jon]

WB is going to take a loss on these movies... no way around that. But this is a way to minimize those losses as much as possible while also hoping to really muscle in on the big streamers.

as far as Netflix... who the F knows! They seem to have more money than God. What seems to be most important to them isn’t so much viewer retention as it is getting new subscribers. It’s why they will cancel shows that are either very popular or awards-y much before you’d expect them to (like GLOW a couple months ago or The One Day At A Time reboot). In broadcast and cable, for eons the goal was to get at least five seasons because that meant syndication money and that is where studios really start taking in the cash. But Netflix is the studio more often than not and nothing they produce will ever go syndicated route. And after year three, shows start to get very expensive because that’s usually when actors’ deals are up and if you’ve got a hit, you can bet your ass those actors are going to want to be paid accordingly.

so, you have a smash hit like Ozark... that’s only going four seasons. Glow went 3 seasons.

Why? So they can then pour money into their next splashy show (like mine hopefully!) to get new eyeballs because the old eyeballs are already hooked and they ain’t going nowhere.

That's an interesting perspective with Netflix.

So one-off seasons shows that generate big buzz like the Queen's Gambit are a jackpot for them - probably lower cost because let's face it, a show about a female chess player wouldn't seem to be a sure hit, but probably got a lot of new subscribers via all the publicity it got.


So when you are pitching a show to Netflix, are you planning on a three season arc?

 

[Cheesebeef]

That's an interesting perspective with Netflix.

So one-off seasons shows that generate big buzz like the Queen's Gambit are a jackpot for them - probably lower cost because let's face it, a show about a female chess player wouldn't seem to be a sure hit, but probably got a lot of new subscribers via all the publicity it got.


So when you are pitching a show to Netflix, are you planning on a three season arc?

it’s interesting. The last time I pitched them we went a full five seasons but that was back in... 2018. And it hadn’t become clear the model that it seemed Netflix had settled on.

we’re going in with two seasons and a “finale”. I know what happens in very very broad strokes in seasons 3, 4 and 5, but from what we’ve been told by our studio, right now people are looking for two seasons and that’s enough.

Mostly because pitching is... weird right now. You have to get used to the zoom pitch as opposed to the normal room pitch. What used to be a 30 minute pitch, complete with multi media and even music sometimes now has to really be whittled down to 15-20 minutes and then hope they like I.T enough to ask questions to facilitate a conversation which is much easier to keep people engaged as opposed to just staring at a little box on a little screen for long periods. People’s attention spans in a room are just much longer then when you’re on zoom.

cross your fingers for me. It’s taken four years, rewrites of script, pitch docs and character sheets too numerous to even remember, getting a producer, star and director attached and hammering out deals with studio to get to this point where we’re FINALLY pitching in January. And if we sell it, I think you’re gonna love it Jon.

 

[Dback Jon]

Good Luck Cheese!!

 

[Bada0Bing]

it’s interesting. The last time I pitched them we went a full five seasons but that was back in... 2018. And it hadn’t become clear the model that it seemed Netflix had settled on.

we’re going in with two seasons and a “finale”. I know what happens in very very broad strokes in seasons 3, 4 and 5, but from what we’ve been told by our studio, right now people are looking for two seasons and that’s enough.

Mostly because pitching is... weird right now. You have to get used to the zoom pitch as opposed to the normal room pitch. What used to be a 30 minute pitch, complete with multi media and even music sometimes now has to really be whittled down to 15-20 minutes and then hope they like I.T enough to ask questions to facilitate a conversation which is much easier to keep people engaged as opposed to just staring at a little box on a little screen for long periods. People’s attention spans in a room are just much longer then when you’re on zoom.

cross your fingers for me. It’s taken four years, rewrites of script, pitch docs and character sheets too numerous to even remember, getting a producer, star and director attached and hammering out deals with studio to get to this point where we’re FINALLY pitching in January. And if we sell it, I think you’re gonna love it Jon.

Jeez...that must be so mind bogglingly stressful! Four years of blood sweat and tears comes down to a zoom meeting. Good luck man!

 

[Stout]

Good Luck Cheese!!

+2

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

i feel like this is also going to just totally destroy a healthy chunk of feature writers’ income. Residuals on movies will be completely a thing of the past, much like they’re already becoming for TV writers. And there’s always that fight during negotiations where Feature Writers bitch and complain about striking or tough negotiations because TV writers are so focused on getting ANY kind of income lost on residuals from the streamers. Well, looks like the feature writers are going to finally understand why we make such a big deal out of getting as much as we can digitally while we can.

I also wonder how this effects stars on projects and their back end box office deals.

The negotiations and deals will have to evolve.

 

[Absolute Zero]

yeah... they didn’t have their signature show to launch the way Netflix did with House Of Cards. HBOMAX just showed up, no one knew if they had to get it plus HBO, it doesn’t really have a brand as far as content.

so, this is their way of standing out from the Netflix, Hulu, Amazons of the world... we’ve got NEW MOVIES.

I think it’s a pretty smart course correction.

Good read on this stuff here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The windows are now smashed, and that’s a good thing, broken glass notwithstanding.

At least that’s the case at Warner Bros. This week, the entertainment giant finally shattered Hollywood’s way of doing business, perhaps for all time. The company said its entire slate of movies for 2021 — 17 in all — would drop onto its HBO Max streaming service on the same day they appear in theaters, abandoning the old system of “windowing” its cinematic releases.

Interesting comments in this piece from the head of AMC theaters who sounds pissed

Clearly, WarnerMedia intends to sacrifice a considerable portion of the profitability of its movie studio division — and that of its production partners and filmmakers — to subsidize its HBO Max start-up,” AMC Entertainment’s Adam Aron said in an email to The New York Times. “As for AMC, we will do all in our power to ensure that Warner does not do so at our expense. We have already commenced an immediate and urgent dialogue with the leadership of Warner on this subject.”

 

[Devilmaycare]

@cheesebeef since you're in the business, have you heard of any fallout from this yet with the other studios? I'd assume this would put them into an emergency mode to decide on how they should respond/what they should do.


And good luck with your pitch in January.

 

[Cheesebeef]

@cheesebeef since you're in the business, have you heard of any fallout from this yet with the other studios? I'd assume this would put them into an emergency mode to decide on how they should respond/what they should do.


And good luck with your pitch in January.

So, right when Wonder Woman 2 news dropped, I said this likely opens up the floodgates. I didn’t expect it to happen this fast though. Totally makes sense for HBOMAX though.

As far as the others... Disney has already dipped their toe in the waters releasing Mulan earlier this year for a premium cost and going further now dropping Pixar’s Soul for free on Disney Plus on Xmas. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up dropping most of their slate for at least the first half of the year on Disney Plus, maybe for a premium but not as much as Mulan was because there’s now movie competition on HBOMAX. Disney is just getting killed this year because of park closures and no marvel movies. Massive cutbacks across the board. I don’t know if they can just “call a lid” for the first six months of 2021.

Apple continues to buy movies (Greyhound, On The Rocks and some others I forgot) and I think this will continue. They’re still trying to build
Their brand and I’m guessing if anyone buys the new Bond movie, it’s going to be them.

As far as Universal... they could go that route and throw some of their movies on Peacock and Jack up the price. They were going to have a monster year with a new Fast/Minions movie. All depends on what their bottom line is right now.

Sony has no streaming service to try and recoup losses so I think there’s a good chance they try to sell off some big properties to streamers next year.

I think a lot of the above also depends on just how much of an impact there is as far as getting new subscribers for HBOMAX. If it’s a smashing success, the studios struggling the most will be more likely to follow suit.

and appreciate the well wishes! Lotta eggs in that basket and I’m super excited/nervous to pitch!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Appreciate all the good luck wishes folks!

 

[Chaplin]

Appreciate all the good luck wishes folks!

It’s tough nowadays, I’m just lucky I’m in television working for a top 5 network during this pandemic. But there are a lot of people who are sweating.

Best of luck cheese.

 

[Devilmaycare]

So, right when Wonder Woman 2 news dropped, I said this likely opens up the floodgates. I didn’t expect it to happen this fast though. Totally makes sense for HBOMAX though.

As far as the others... Disney has already dipped their toe in the waters releasing Mulan earlier this year for a premium cost and going further now dropping Pixar’s Soul for free on Disney Plus on Xmas. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up dropping most of their slate for at least the first half of the year on Disney Plus, maybe for a premium but not as much as Mulan was because there’s now movie competition on HBOMAX. Disney is just getting killed this year because of park closures and no marvel movies. Massive cutbacks across the board. I don’t know if they can just “call a lid” for the first six months of 2021.

Apple continues to buy movies (Greyhound, On The Rocks and some others I forgot) and I think this will continue. They’re still trying to build
Their brand and I’m guessing if anyone buys the new Bond movie, it’s going to be them.

As far as Universal... they could go that route and throw some of their movies on Peacock and Jack up the price. They were going to have a monster year with a new Fast/Minions movie. All depends on what their bottom line is right now.

Sony has no streaming service to try and recoup losses so I think there’s a good chance they try to sell off some big properties to streamers next year.

I think a lot of the above also depends on just how much of an impact there is as far as getting new subscribers for HBOMAX. If it’s a smashing success, the studios struggling the most will be more likely to follow suit.

and appreciate the well wishes! Lotta eggs in that basket and I’m super excited/nervous to pitch!

Thanks, I was thinking Disney might be pissed since they were trying to do releases as premiums to try to offset how bad they're getting destroyed from the park closures. Their numbers have been ugly. Glad I don't own them right now.

Apple's an interesting one outside of this situation since they're not a studio. They might be in good position to sit back and snipe movies from the other studios since they have the cash for it and have used ATV+ as a bit of a loss leader so far. I'm still on a free year subscription to it. I think they'll look to get good deals. The thing I've been thinking (hoping) is that they should buy MGM. That would give them a nice back catalogue for the service and give them rights to a few good franchises. They could put a couple Stargate series into production right away and get a built in fan base.

Rumors I saw on the Bond movie had the studio asking 600m for it. That's a big price to make up for in subscriptions. If true, that's why it hasn't been bought by anyone yet. Sony and the non-streaming studios might run into that as an issue too. They have so much money sunk into some of these movies that recouping the cost or making a profit is going to be really hard with streaming. They might have to look as some of them as limiting losses instead of making a profit.

 

[Mainstreet]

it’s interesting. The last time I pitched them we went a full five seasons but that was back in... 2018. And it hadn’t become clear the model that it seemed Netflix had settled on.

we’re going in with two seasons and a “finale”. I know what happens in very very broad strokes in seasons 3, 4 and 5, but from what we’ve been told by our studio, right now people are looking for two seasons and that’s enough.

Mostly because pitching is... weird right now. You have to get used to the zoom pitch as opposed to the normal room pitch. What used to be a 30 minute pitch, complete with multi media and even music sometimes now has to really be whittled down to 15-20 minutes and then hope they like I.T enough to ask questions to facilitate a conversation which is much easier to keep people engaged as opposed to just staring at a little box on a little screen for long periods. People’s attention spans in a room are just much longer then when you’re on zoom.

cross your fingers for me. It’s taken four years, rewrites of script, pitch docs and character sheets too numerous to even remember, getting a producer, star and director attached and hammering out deals with studio to get to this point where we’re FINALLY pitching in January. And if we sell it, I think you’re gonna love it Jon.

Good luck with that Cheesebeef!

 

[Cheesebeef]

It’s tough nowadays, I’m just lucky I’m in television working for a top 5 network during this pandemic. But there are a lot of people who are sweating.

yeah... you're sitting pretty right now, relatively speaking anyway. stoked that you haven't been effected by the slowdown.

Best of luck cheese.

thanks dude. I'm kind of mad at myself for even bringing the pitches up. I really hate getting ahead of my skies and getting people excited for me, then not selling something and then having all those peeps asking you how it all went.

so basically, folks pulling for me... I appreciate it more than you know. But, do me a favor? don't ask come January what happened. Either you'll know because I will be bouncing off the walls with joy. Or I'll be even surlier than usual.

 

[Stout]

So, right when Wonder Woman 2 news dropped, I said this likely opens up the floodgates. I didn’t expect it to happen this fast though. Totally makes sense for HBOMAX though.

As far as the others... Disney has already dipped their toe in the waters releasing Mulan earlier this year for a premium cost and going further now dropping Pixar’s Soul for free on Disney Plus on Xmas. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up dropping most of their slate for at least the first half of the year on Disney Plus, maybe for a premium but not as much as Mulan was because there’s now movie competition on HBOMAX. Disney is just getting killed this year because of park closures and no marvel movies. Massive cutbacks across the board. I don’t know if they can just “call a lid” for the first six months of 2021.

Apple continues to buy movies (Greyhound, On The Rocks and some others I forgot) and I think this will continue. They’re still trying to build
Their brand and I’m guessing if anyone buys the new Bond movie, it’s going to be them.

As far as Universal... they could go that route and throw some of their movies on Peacock and Jack up the price. They were going to have a monster year with a new Fast/Minions movie. All depends on what their bottom line is right now.

Sony has no streaming service to try and recoup losses so I think there’s a good chance they try to sell off some big properties to streamers next year.

I think a lot of the above also depends on just how much of an impact there is as far as getting new subscribers for HBOMAX. If it’s a smashing success, the studios struggling the most will be more likely to follow suit.

and appreciate the well wishes! Lotta eggs in that basket and I’m super excited/nervous to pitch!

Honestly, I think it may be the death knell of new movies for me. I'm not going to fork out for 80 or 100 bucks for all the different streaming services to see this movie or that movie on top of internet and cable. Maybe it all breaks a different way, but it's sounding dire.

 

[puckhead]

yeah... you're sitting pretty right now, relatively speaking anyway. stoked that you haven't been effected by the slowdown.



thanks dude. I'm kind of mad at myself for even bringing the pitches up. I really hate getting ahead of my skies and getting people excited for me, then not selling something and then having all those peeps asking you how it all went.

so basically, folks pulling for me... I appreciate it more than you know. But, do me a favor? don't ask come January what happened. Either you'll know because I will be bouncing off the walls with joy. Or I'll be even surlier than usual.

Best of luck, Cheese.

 

[Chaplin]

A lot of Hollywood heavyweights have weighed in and they are NOT happy with Warner Bros.

 

[puckhead]

A lot of Hollywood heavyweights have weighed in and they are NOT happy with Warner Bros.

I don't imagine they are. This has the potential to change the industry as much as digital audio changed the music industry.

 

[Covert Rain]

This shift really makes me sad. Going to the movie theater (especially for an epic movie) is one of my favorite things to do. This started years ago with PPV (still in theaters) experiments. This pandemic has kicked it into overdrive. I mean our local chain Harkins is selling concessions in front of all of their theaters. We have been doing our best to support them but the writing is on the wall.

As long as streaming services are paying a ton of money upfront for the rights? Studios are going to jump at the chance to get some of that revenue spent back upfront and guaranteed verses releasing in 20% filled movie theaters. I totally understand why the theaters are upset. I get why some directors etc. are upset. However, I don't blame the studios one bit on this either. They want to keep making and releasing content but they can't with theaters being a fraction of % full.

It just sucks for us movie fans who love the experience.