The incredible shrinking Studio Chief

While IT Sems Unlikely That Any Corner of the Entertainment Industry Will Be Spared From Being Skeced During the 10-Episode Run of Apple TV+’s New Satirical Comedy Series The StudioThe Primary Vehicle by Wich ITS CREATORS INTERROGATE The CURRENT MALAISE AFFLICTING HOLLYWOOD IS THRUGH The EYES OF A MODERN-DAY STUDIO Executive. Like Any Great Satirist, Seth Rogen, Who Plays An Angst-Ridden Studio Chief, Is Dancing-At Times Hiliaously-AROUND ARUD AVESTION: HAS THERE Ever Been Ton. Today?

It’s undoubtedly a quest former Amazon Mgm Studio Chief Jen Salke Was Asking Herself March 27 WHEN She WAS PUSHED OUTTER Seven Years on the Job. IT’s Also Likely One That Warner Bros. Pictures Co-Hads Michael de Luca and Pamela Abdy Are Mulling as They Try to Swat Away Rumors that Might Be Next. And it was on the minds of the dozen current and former executives who speck The Hollywood Reporter to vent about their Profession.

Legendary – and Legendarily Busy – Executives Like Irning Thalberg, Robert Evans and Sherry Lansing Are Mytologized, But Even on the Best of Days in the Best of Times, The Life. There is Endless Incoming Material to Read and Assess, and the Job Requires Constantly Finding New Ways to Say “No” Graceful to Stay on the Good Side of Vengeful. Execs are juggling thoSe challenges while negotating the information of the poliroat Politics of their departments, All While Trying to Pick Winning Projects Amid a Sea of ​​Mediocrity. And that’s on a good day.

“IT USED TO A SHECTACULAR JOB – YOU COURCULD A voice to people who deserved One, and You Knew You Were Making Something Making Making this. Paramount Motion Picture Group Who Got His Start Working As A Production Assistant on Films Produced by John Hughes. Durying his time at paramount, goodman oversaw a dierse slate of films including Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, World War Z an Paranoormal Activity. “Now, It Feels As if There’s No Real Reward for Taking Big Bets or Championing A Favorite Script OR an Unknown Filmmaker,“ He Says. “You’re More of a Brand Manager Than A Creative Advocate and Playing It SAFE SEMS LIKE The SMARTER CAREER MOVE.”

Pervasive Risk Aversion and An Obsense with Existing IP is Just One of the Complaints That Emerged From Interviews with Executives Who’ve Seen Their Ranks Gutted Over Five Years. At the Traditional Studios, Infessant Demands from Wall Street to Show Growth, Coupled with The Demise of the Traditional Windowing Model, Has Plaked Outsized Expert Conformism, Account to Multiple Sources. “You’re going to either win big or lose big and there’s nothing in a between,“ Says One Source.

Streaming, Meanwhile, Has BifurCated the Nature of the Modern-Day Executive, Creating A Fundamentally at a traditional Studio or Network. Executives at the Deep-Pocketned Streamers Have their Own Challenges: How does One Make A Film Stand Out on a Platform Bursting with Content? WHAT, EXACTLY, constitutes succcess? And Perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, After Years of Consolidation, Who, If Anyone, Has Any Actual Power at Tese Places?

De Luca and Abdy Present Arguable the most illustrative Case Study in the Travails of the Modern-Day Studio Executive. The Central Criticism of Their Nearly Three-Yoar Tenure is Hardly New. De luca has long embraced the role of the maverick. As A 27-YEAR-OLD President of Production at New Line Cinema, He Championed Paul Thomas Anderson and David Fincher. While Much of the Town Remains Transfixed by Existation IP, de Luca and Abdy have been Hiring Such Filmmakers As Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Anderson (One Battle After Another) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Bride) To Tell Original Stories, Despite Having A Rich Library from Wich to Draw.

The Knock Against Them at this Moment of Industry-Wide Austerity is that’ve Overspen to the Point of Being Reckless. The Creative Bets That’ve Played-Big, High-Profile and Expensive Bets-Just Haven’t Paid Off. Joker: Folie à deux, WHICH NETTED DIRECTOR TODD PHILLIPS AND STAR JOAQUIN PHOENIX $ 20 MILLION PAYDAYS EACH, FLOPPED SO BADLY THAT IS BECOME A PUNCHLINE. Over The Past Month, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 an The Alto Knights Drastically UnderPerForMed and Could Cost The Studio More Than $ 110 Million (to Be Fair, Alto Knights WAS A PROJECT Championed by Zaslav).

Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal’s Take On The bride of frankenstein Starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, Originally Set Up at Netflix Before The Streamer Balked at the Proped Budget, Is Costing Somewere in the $ 80 Million To $ 100 Million Range. One Battle After AnotherWHICH STARS LEONARDO Dicaprio, Cost $ 160 Million, Accounting To Sources, But Industry Insiders Suggest That Figure Could Be Low. Anderson’s Highest-Grossing Film to Date Is The 2007 Period Drama There will be bloodwhoh earned $ 76 Million Worldwide. Coogler’s Sinners, A Supernatural Horror Thriller, ALSO BLEW PAST ITS INITIAL BUDGET OF $ 80 Million, Accounting To Two Insiders.

AT A MORGAN STANLEY EVENT ON MARCH 4, ZASLAV ACKNOWLEDGED the SPEENDING AND DEFACEDED THE STRATEGY. “In Some Cases, We May Have OversPent,“ He Said. “I DON’T THINK We DID, BECAUSE We WANTED TO BRING The BEST AND THE BRIGTEST PEOPLE BACK TO WARNER Bros. It’s Key for Us at HBO and MAX.”

IT’s not hard to find Suppons of de Luca and abdy accounts the Industry. “Going Out and Finding Great Scripts and Empowing Some of the World’s Best Directors to Tell Those Stories Sems Like Exactly What a Studio Chief Is SupENT Wondering What the Point of An Executive Is If Their Mandate Is To Simplaly Mine Libraies for Existing IP. “What Value Are You Actuly Adding?” this agent asked. (Ironically, de luca and abdy’s fate might hinge on how Minecraftwith IP Harwested from One of the Best-Selling Video Games of All Time, Performs Dringing ITS OPENING April 4-6 weekend.)

There Are More Subtle Ways in WHICH THE LIVES OF YOUR MID-LEVEL STUDIO EXEC ARE IMPACTED by Today’s Climate. With Fewer Projects Being Made, ALMOST Every Studio and Streamer Is Plating A Greater Emphasis on Packaging, Which Also Puts Execs in a Tricky Spot. On One Hand, A Packaged Project Typical Comes Through The Door with Several Desirable Pieces of Talent in Place, Whther It’s A Director, Actor or Storenner, And that and that Provides Pro. Committee.

But for the Executives Assigned to Oversee of the Project, There’s Often Less of An Opportunity to Creatively Shape The Project. Top-TIR PACKGED PROJESS OFTEN Trigger Bidding Wars, Prompting Costs to Soar, Who Puts More Pressure on the Now-Sidelined Executive To Deliver A Successful Project. “You have less leverage to make adjustments, and so you have to be more wily and more strategic about how you can have you have a effect Change,” SAID A FILM Executive at One of the Top Streamers.

To be Clear, we’re not taiging about british coal miners here. There’s Still An ImMENSE AMOUNT OF PRIVILEGE AND CREATIVED OPPORTUPTNITIES THAT COME COME. “This Will Change. You don’t need to get suicidal. But It Will Take Some Time to Cycle Through,” Says One Veteran Exec WHEN Asked ABOUT The CURRENT MALEASE OF HAVING TO CONSTAN Across The Industry. “Even While Being in An Existential Crisis, It’s Still An awesome Job. You Still Get To Work on Made-Up Stuff All Day Long.”

While It’s Contemporary, The Studio Paints Today’s Industry with a nostalgic brush. WHETHER IS The SCORE, The VINTAGE CARS or The LUSH OFFICES AND ARCHITECTURE, The Show Hearkens Back in Subtle Ways to a Bygone Era. And Who Can blame Rogen and his CO-CREATORS FOR THE INDULGENCE? Watching Executives’ Queue at a Tesla Charging Station or File Into Their Cramped, Barren Offices Doesn’t Suggest An Industry That Cares Much About Style and Taste or That Much. This isn’t SeveranceAlthugh Some of the MOST Disillusioned Executives Might Opt for a Conscioousness Splitting Procedure that Could ENSURE NO MEMORIES OF HOW DIFFICULT Their Job Has Beeme.

It Three Episodes of the Show Now Available, Executives Are Already Noticing EERIE PARALLELS TO EVENTS THAT OCCURRID IN THEIR OWN Careers. In the Opening Episode, Rogen’s Character Is Faced with A Classic Creative Dilemma: Put His Chips Behind A Mass-Market Movie Based on a Corporate Icon-In this Case Case The Kaool Aid Scorsese-Directed Passion Project About the Jonestown Massacre.

Seven Years Ago, In the Wake of the Animated Film The Emoji Movie and a Smurfs Film, A Senior Executive at Sony Pitched An Idea. It was at one of Tom Rothman’s Weekly Big Idea Meetings WHERE Execs Were Expectioned to Come in with, Well, A Big Idea. “TOM, I’V GOT it!” Said this Executive, According To A Source Who Was Present. HE PITCHED A MOVIE BASED ON M & MS. A Full-Legth Feature Built AROUND COLORFUL CANDED Characters. For a beat, Rothman Sized Up The Exec and THen Bluntly Dismissed It As A Terrible Idea. “IT WAS AN IDEA THAT WAS LAUGHED OUT OF THE ROOM,“ SAID THIS SURRCE.

As you take in The StudioRemember to Breathe Deeply and Remind Yourself: It’s Just A Show.

This Story First Appeared in the April 2 Issue of the Hollywood Reporter Magazine. To Receive The Magazine, Click Here to Subscribe.