94 FASTCOMPANY.COM MAY 2019
that Abrams is most excited about that are
also the best market opportunities. Consider
games, which Abrams has always loved. “In
[Felicity], there are elements of an alternate-
reality game,” says Dave Baronoff, head of
Bad Robot Games, citing the series finale’s
time-traveling, multifaceted structure.
The global gaming industry is a $135 bil-
lion business (more than three times larger
than the global movie business) and grow-
ing more than 10% annually. “Games are a
natural extension of the type of content that
J.J. has been very successful in creating,”
says Tal Shachar, chief digital officer at the
esports company Immortals and a onetime
digital-media strategist for BuzzFeed and the
Chernin Group. “Why not go into an adjacent
market that’s really, really big?”
Gaming platforms have “reached a point
where they are sophisticated enough to deliver
almost cinematic experiences,” says Clive Lin-
dop, creative director at Bad Robot Games, but
the medium’s “storytelling craft is still quite
nascent. So the idea that you can tap into [our]
different storytelling experience—in televi-
sion, film, production design, world building,
music—is an incredible force multiplier for
trying to make a great immersive experience.”
Bad Robot Games currently has six titles in
development, across a variety of genres. Thus
far, the only publicly announced one is Spyjinx,
an espionage strategy game it’s making with
Epic Games and Epic’s developer studio Chair
(maker of Infinity Blade). “J.J. and I were playing
Infinity Blade a bunch,” says Baronoff, explain-
ing how the project came together, “and we
appreciated how amazing its approach was
to gameplay on a mobile device. We reached
out without a specific agenda, and said, ‘We’re
fans of what you guys do, and if there’s an op-
portunity down the line for us to collaborate,
great.’ ” Spyjinx is slated to be Epic’s follow-up
to Fortnite. “We don’t control the camera any-
more,” Baronoff says of transitioning from
filmed spy narratives such as Alias and M:I to
video-game ones. “But we can think about the
way we want our audience to feel when they’re
watching one of our shows or a movie, and
create those scenarios within the gameplay.”
When it comes to music (another indus-
try growing faster than movies, at 8% versus
1%), Bad Robot’s approach is to forgo signing
J.J. Abrams
(Continued from page 49)has and that Disney won’t necessarily need.”
However, others laugh at the idea of an Apple-
Abrams pairing. “They’re too much alike,” one
exec says. “They would both say everything
isn’t good enough and have no one to blame.”
No matter what happens, Abrams will
have to monitor his compulsive tendencies.
He has occasionally been known for spread-
ing himself too thin, resulting in such fias-
cos as The Cloverfield Paradox. Abrams had
decided to retrofit an existing script onto his
Cloverfield franchise in 2012, but he later ad-
mitted that it began filming without a clear
enough story. Abrams was reportedly set to
rework parts of the film in post-production,
but he was pulled away to start Star Wars:
Episode IX. Paramount sold the film to Netflix
for $50 million to avoid a likely box-office
disaster. “There are lessons learned all the
time,” Abrams says readily, when asked
about his multitasking. “I take full respon-
sibility for all of our failures.”LUCASFILM’S KATHLEEN KENNEDY THINKS
Abrams will decide based on instinct. “That’s
the way he approaches business and every-
thing he does creatively,” she says. When the
question is put to Abrams, he says, “All I care
about is telling stories and making sure that
there is a partner that can get those stories to
people. Watching the way our kids consume
media now... I don’t know if they care so
much where it comes from. They just want
access to the thing.”
He credits companies like Netflix and
Amazon for “shaking things up and making
people look twice at traditional templates for
everything.” In the next breath, though, he
acknowledges that some traditions exist for
a reason. “At a certain point, you go, well, the
studios have a wardrobe department because
you need a fuckin’ wardrobe department.”
Essentially, Abrams wants it all. His eyes
practically twinkle behind his signature black-
framed spectacles as he thinks about what Bad
Robot’s future can mean for storytellers and
creators. He wants to open as many avenues
as possible—regardless of whether he has to
work within the system or create a new one.
“I love to do something where someone
says, ‘How did you do that?’ ” Abrams says.
“Whether it was a little stupid magic trick
or a little movie I would make [when I was a
kid], when my parents or friends would say,
‘How did you do that?’—that was literally
the end-all.”
[email protected]
[email protected]traditional recording contracts with artists
in favor of more flexible terms that could
be as simple as producing a specific project.
Loud Robot has signed three performers so
far. One is the Afro-Japanese artist Umi, who
is working on a conceptual EP that touches
on the lack of racial diversity within anime.
“These four songs are one narrative story,”
says Nicky Berger, co-GM of Loud Robot.
“Where [artists are] looking to build a world
and gel with their fan base through visual
content,” adds Berger’s counterpart, McKee
Floyd, “that’s an area where we can really be a
good partner.” For now, the business model is
unchanged—Loud Robot has partnered with
Capitol Records—but the goal is to do bespoke
projects with artists that a large record label
isn’t equipped to handle.OVER THE COURSE OF THIS PAST WINTER,
guessing where Abrams would land his
“megadeal” was Hollywood’s favorite parlor
game. Among the reported contenders were
Apple, Comcast/Universal, Disney, and War-
nerMedia. Disney and Apple have surfaced
as most people’s top bets, and each can stand
in for the value that a traditional media or
technology company could bring to Abrams.
Abrams has proven his worth to Disney
for almost two decades, from Alias to Star
Wars. The Force Awakens was such a smash
that within weeks of its December 2015 re-
lease, a valuation expert at the Stern School
of Business estimated Lucasfilm to be worth
$10 billion; Disney had purchased the com-
pany for $4 billion a little more than three
years earlier. As one film exec who’s worked
with Abrams says, “Disney could add Bad
Robot to its line of brands [Pixar, Marvel,
and so forth], plus Fox—that would be pretty
incredible.” The late-2019 launch of Disney+,
which will need a lot of original content,
would make having Abrams as an in-house
producer even more compelling. On the
other hand, as another exec notes, “Disney
can get J.J. whenever they want. Why buy the
cow?” Abrams made the Star Wars movies
despite his deal with Paramount, much to
the consternation of Paramount executives.
With Apple, however, there would be
a different sort of alignment. When asked
which companies inspire Abrams, Wein-
stein says, “J.J. loves Apple and has for many
years. So much admiration.” Neil Cybart, an
independent Apple analyst, adds, “Given
that [entertainment production] is all new
to Apple, having names on board gives its ef-
forts legitimacy in ways that Net flix alreadyFast Company eight times per I ssue Number 232. Copyear by Mansueto Ventures, LLC, 7 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007-2195. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian GST Registration No. R123245250. yright ©2019 by Mansueto Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved. Fast Company® is a registered trademark of Mansueto Ventures, LLC. Fast Company (ISSN 1085-9241) is published
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