The Hollywood Reporter - 30.10.2019

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 56 OCTOBER 30, 2019

PREVIOUS SPREAD: SET DESIGN BY LIZZIE LANG AT WALTER SCHUPFER MANAGEMENT. EMMERICH AND GIANOPULOS GROOMING BY GERINE CORONADO AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. HORN AND ROTHMAN GROOMING AND SALKE ON-SET HAIR AND MAKEUP BY APRIL BAUTISTA AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. STUBER GROOMING BY ROSA MENENDEZ AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. LANGLEY MAKEUP BY KATELIN GAN. ON-SET STYLING BY JARDINE HAMMOND.

Where do most bad movies go

wrong these days?

ALAN HORN It’s the screenplay. As

they say, if it’s not on the page it’s

not on the stage. We have found

issues with screenplays where we

were forced to move on the film

because of availability of stars.

JIM GIANOPULOS Or a [release] date.

HORN This is past blaming mar-

keting, right?

ALL (Laughter.)

TOBY EMMERICH But of course there

are good movies that don’t work.

And bad movies that are hits.

Fewer now, though. Unlike for most

of Hollywood history, it’s really hard

to release a bad movie and have it

be successful. Do you agree?

DONNA LANGLEY Absolutely.

GIANOPULOS By Thursday evening,

you know the verdict. And so

does everyone else. Social media

lights up. It becomes an audience

consensus. Right or wrong.

LANGLEY Five or 10 years ago, if it

was a visual effects movie and it

had a certain amount of spectacle,

then it was anticipated it would do

really well in certain parts of the

world. That bar is now really high.

Comedy could be, “We’ll just slap it

together, production values don’t

have to be that high.” And I just

don’t think that’s the case anymore.

TOM ROTHMAN Nowadays, good

movies aren’t good enough. I

am not sure you ever really got

away with a movie that genuinely

was a significant disappoint-

ment. But it certainly used to be

that if you made a good movie,

it was OK [financially]. And I

don’t think those of us still in the

theatrical business can settle for

good anymore.

EMMERICH Also the floor has

dropped. If you have a big movie

with big stars, you can miss now

and open to single digits.

HORN There is a finite amount of

leisure time. So when the number

of films available increases very

dramatically ... Scott —

SCOTT STUBER (Laughs.)

EMMERICH Jen ...

JENNIFER SALKE Also ... Scott ...

STUBER And Alan soon ...

HORN ... That amount of leisure

time impacts choices.

GIANOPULOS You are also work-

ing without a net. It used to

be that you had this ancil-

lary business, particularly in

the heyday of [home] video,

where you were filling a pipe-

line. There was always some

amount of money that you

could look to. And that’s not the

same anymore.

ROTHMAN I wouldn’t even say that

By most accounts, the traditional film business is under siege. Netflix and its competitors have

commodified the moviegoing experience, placing an increasing premium on the “theatrical-

ity” of studio product — meaning films that people will actually pay money to see in theaters.

That, in turn, has created a Dickensian economy of the haves (pre-branded gotta-see

blockbusters, dominated by Disney) and the have-nots (with exceptions, the rest of studio

slates, which fight for audience scraps). By some estimates, the “Big Six” studios, which shrank

to five this year with Disney’s absorption of 20th Century Fox, will atrophy even further in the next five years,

replaced by Netflix, Amazon and other nascent streamers — including those from Disney, WarnerMedia and

NBCUniversal that will compete with, and be seeded by, their studio siblings. Where does that leave the people

who actually make the films? At this fraught moment, TH R gathered the seven executives who run the “majors”:

the Big Five plus Amazon and Netflix, which now releases many more films per year than its traditional rivals.

What’s notable is how intertwined these executives are. Alan Horn, 76, chief creative officer and co-chairman

of Disney Studios, formerly ran Warner Bros., where the studio’s current film chairman, Toby Emmerich, 56,

ran sister label New Line Cinema. New Line is where current Universal filmed entertainment group chairman

Donna Langley, 51, got her start, and for years at Universal she worked alongside Scott Stuber, 50, who now

heads film for Netflix. Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos, 68, once ran the Fox studio alongside Tom Rothman,

64, who now serves as chairman of Sony’s Motion Picture Group. They joined Amazon Studios head Jennifer

Salke, 55, for a candid conversation Oct. 14 that has been edited here for length and clarity.

B

the floor is low. I would say there

is no floor. On the other hand,

the ceiling is higher than it’s ever

been. Big hits are bigger. And big

misses are bigger.

People look at the Disney strat-

egy as what’s working: releasing

a smaller number of pre-branded,

franchise movies. But Disney has

had a lot of success remaking the

library catalog. Alan, at what point

does that end? Or are we going to

see the Rescuers Down Under live-

action remake?

HORN There is no question that

we, at some point, are going to

run out of the kinds of films like

Aladdin or Lion King. We have

taken a step past that now, so

Maleficent is a step away from

Sleeping Beauty, and Cruella

(2021) is a step away from

101 Dalmatians. But there is no

question it’s a finite universe.

ROTHMAN Thank God for

small favors.

Scott, you are the elephant in the

room, so to speak.

STUBER Thank you for that. Glad I

have been working out recently.

You recently said that if Netflix

spends $60 million on a movie, to

be successful it should be watched

by 30 million accounts. That’s

the first time I have heard you

talk about the success metric for

a Netflix film. Does that formula

apply across the board?

STUBER No. Each film, like for all of

us, the P&Ls are different. Having

been on both sides — the theatri-

cal business and now streaming

— there is so much out there for

the consumer that we are fight-

ing for time. The assumption is

that it’s easier [at Netflix] because

I don’t [have box office pressure].

But we have our own tracking.

We have our own anxiety. We

have our own opening weekend.

That was a rough estimate, but

different things take different

marketing aspects.

So what do you look at on Monday

morning after a big film debuts on

the service?

STUBER We value over a month,

basically. We look at 28 days

and because we can see where

things are opportunistic, we

can market toward it. We can

market in the second and third

weeks as well. We greenlight off

of X money and how much we are

going to spend. And we hope that

this many people watch in that

28 days. And that’s our success

rate metric.