THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 12 MARCH 26, 2020
Behind the HeadlinesThe Report
and ingenuity for an animation
production to continue without a
hitch,” says Almondi Esco, CEO of
Imepilt. “When your writers and
producers are in L.A., your sales
agents in the U.K., your head of
immersive experiences is in New
York, etc., you need a system that
can withstand a massive amount
of information given and received
across different continents and
time zones. ”
Even the way Hollywood pro-
motes itself, with costly parties
at far-flung events, has changed
in ways that may concretize, with
major industry gatherings like
South by Southwest, the fall TV
upfronts and the Cannes Film
Festival canceled or delayed.
“We’ve seen things like that in
business in general all the time,”
says ICM partner and managing
director of talent and branding
Adam Schweitzer. “You’re forced
into doing something that’s not
the regular practice. It ends up
saving dollars, it ends up yielding
a similar result, and then people
go, ‘Oh my God, why weren’t we
doing this before?’ ”
Artists are also seizing the
moment with a DIY ethos.
Musicians like Chris Martin and
John Legend have begun stream-
ing concerts for their fans at
home, DJs like D-Nice are hosting
celebrity-packed house parties
on Instagram Live, and creators
like married writers Kumail
Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, who
launched a podcast, and former
daytime TV host Rosie O’Donnell,
who hosted a Broadway-themed
benefit for the Actors Fund from
her basement, are inventing new
microbudget programming spe-
cific to the catastrophe.
Blum believes the most lasting
impact may be in the nature of
the content itself. “Every artist
is going to be touched by this
event,” says Blum. “And storytell-
ing will shift. You’ll see that in
scripted and unscripted and tele-
vision and movies. Everything
that we’ve done pre-[COVID-19]
will seem dated much more
quickly than it would have in an
ordinary time.”an explanation of what drove
the decision, but one person
with knowledge of the studio’s
deliberations says much of the
marketing money for Trolls World
To u r had been spent and there
were no appealing available dates
on the calendar. “When is a good
weekend?” says the industry
source. “It’s a clusterfuck. And it’s
obviously precedent-setting.”
Tellingly, Universal is stick-
ing with theatrical for the pricey
tentpole sequels F9 and Minions:
The Rise of Gru, both of which were
delayed (the previous install-
ments of both franchises made
more than $1 billion in theaters).
But the $90 million price tag
on Trolls World Tour makes it an
unusually costly film to premiere
on demand. “Movies that are
extremely expensive are released
in theaters worldwide
for a reason because
that’s the only way
you can make that
money back,” says
Paul Dergarabedian
of Comscore. “Look at Avengers:
Endgame. How would you ever
earn $2.7 billion on demand?”
As the industry adapts to a
quarantined world, innovations
are afoot. With film and TV
production almost entirely shut
down, key sectors of the business
are finding new ways to work,
with late night TV shows like The
Daily Show and The Tonight Show
offering programs shot from their
hosts’ homes, and with scripted
TV shows convening their writers
rooms via video conferencing.
Hollywood’s shift to WFH where
possible has accelerated the
already growing trend of produc-
tions relying on cloud and other
remote services for key postpro-
duction processes like editing and
visual effects work. And there can
be rewards for smaller players in
the industry that had already set
themselves up for remote work
by necessity, like tiny Imepilt
Studios, a 30-person animation
company based in Estonia at
work on a feature written by the
screenwriters of Disney’s Mulan.
“It takes just a little bit of sweatO’Donnell4:54 P.M.
TUESDAY, MARCH 17
North Rodeo Drive
& Dayton Way12:35 P.M.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18
Universal Studios
Hollywood10rep_opener-5_L [P]{Print}_53732644.indd 12 3/25/20 4:26 PM