Hollywood is run by evil morons

Arohamai for the lateness on this one fam! I’ve had a very busy last few days that have delayed me from writing.

Incompetence or Malice? ¿Por Qué No Los Dos?

The more governance experience I get, the easier it is to spot a terribly-run organisation. So many strain under the weight of the incompetence and malice1 of those responsible for governing and managing them. This can usually be chalked up to the fact that they’re doing something that contradicts what they’re meant to do. If you’re involved in running a not-for-profit organisation or a Crown Entity or a charitable trust and you’re faced with a decision, you should always ask yourself “which choice is most consistent with the organisational kaupapa, vision and values”. But for entities that exist to make a profit, any lofty organisational goals are much less important than the quickest route towards maximising shareholder value. There is no better example of this than the film industry where executives routinely make decisions that seem to be based on what will result in the worst possible outcome for cinema.

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This isn’t a novel observation. The film industry has been run by evil morons for as long as it has existed. This was an easy joke to make at least as long ago as Sullivan’s Travels in 19412. I just think that the interests of commerce and art are less aligned now than they’ve ever been.

The platonic example of evil moron is David Zaslav. It’s easy to criticise him. Fun too! This guy is a grade-A bozo. Since taking control of Warner Bros. Discovery3, Zaslav has overseen a number of boneheaded decisions including:

• the cancellation of a number of nearly-completed projects for tax write-offs4

• the burying of a century of Warner Bros properties like Looney Tunes which are now unavailable on streaming

• overseeing the name change of HBO Max to Max and then back to HBO Max

• his own enrichment, including a $51.9m compensation in 2024

If you speak to any filmo, Zaslav’s name is pure garbage, a personification of everything wrong with Hollywood. But he’s just the most egregious example of an industry where the production of art is completely incidental to its own purpose.

It’s Zaslavs all across town…

In 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked, ostensibly by North Korea, and a bunch of its internal data was made publicly available. To industry insiders like Brian Raftery, the moral of the story was one of cyber security: “be careful what you put in an email”. To people who aren’t industry-brained, the hack was interesting for what it revealed about Hollywood execs.

First, the malicious. The most scandalous emails that were leaked include then-chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin ‘riffing’ on what kind of films Barack Obama might like. The ‘joke’ is just a list of films with Black people in them (because the then-President is Black).

In the emails, published by BuzzFeed on Wednesday night, Pascal and Rudin discussed what movies President Barack Obama would probably count among his favorites. "'Ride-Along,'" Rudin wrote. "I bet he likes Kevin Hart." Other films with black casts that Pascal and Rudin presumed Obama would enjoy included "Django Unchained," "12 Years A Slave," "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and "Think Like A Man Too."

Then, there’s the incompetent. The funniest email leaked in the hack came from an executive that Pascal called a “brilliant Millennial research expert”. This guy suggested that Spider-Man be turned into a Snapchatting vegan who says things like “N.B.D”.

Although the fallout included the firing of Pascal (probably more to do with the racism than the cringe), she has continued to work at an executive level. In 2019, she went to Universal Pictures and has since moved to Amazon MGM where she is likely to take on responsibility for the James Bond franchise. It is unclear whether her Bond will use Snapchat.

…and they’re still at it!

This year, we’ve already had a extremely telling example of the antagonism between Hollywood institutions and artistry. Sinners has been a massive success story. After escaping from the constraints imposed on him by Disney, it seems as though director Ryan Coogler has been making up for lost time. Sinners is violent, thematically rich (but never at the expense of genre thrills) and unapologetically horny. It’s as if every time Coogler was confronted with an artistic choice, his decision was always “why not?” and the result is a film so stuffed with audacious moments that it is sometimes messy but always a blast5. He also fought to own the rights to the film—an especially salient point when you consider the fact that the film is all about “ownership” with artists brushing against racialised capitalism and the enduring legacy of slavery into the 20th Century (and beyond). I loved it.

Unsurprisingly, the very prospect of a Black artist owning the rights to an original film triggered Hollywood’s immune system and its white blood cells were immediately deployed. In the immediate aftermath of it opening, Hollywood publications tried to downplay its success. It was heartening to see a number of white artists like Ben Stiller jump to Coogler’s defence and demonstrate basic solidarity and the film has only gone from strength-to-strength.

However, even its defenders accidentally tripped over themselves in their haste to do the right thing. Sean Fennessey had Coogler’s back from the beginning but immediately went onto his podcast The Big Picture to parrot the lie that Black films don’t tend to do as well with international audiences. To be clear, this is a narrative agreed-upon by Americans looking to outsource their own racism by claiming that foreigners (especially Asian markets) are especially anti-Black6. The lie gives studios an excuse to downplay Black actors when promoting their films to international audiences which is used to justify their original opinion. Contrary to this belief, Sinners is doing great internationally.

If even well-intentioned people are confused about what makes a successful film, those most responsible for films’ success are anything but well-intentioned.

Does the strategy work?

It should be clear by now that Hollywood decisions are driven by a disdain for the people who watch their films.

The way execs see it, audiences don’t want access to film history, they want a Spider-Man who Snapchats. Ordinary people are all dumbasses and if they live outside America they’re probably racist as well. Executives don’t have a racist bone in their bodies (give or take an ill-advised email), they’re just responding to the whims of the market!

This is completely irreconcilable about my own views on human nature. I think people around the world want to engage with good art. But what does the market say?

Under Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery has done reasonably poorly, even if some analysts are predicting an improvement. This guy’s bumbling may or may not prove to be good for the company but I don’t think it really matters. If Warner Bros. tanks, Zaslav and everyone around him will still walk away with full pockets, just as Pascal did a decade ago. These people are worth hundreds of millions of dollars despite being provably bad at their jobs. Zaslav will be an easy scapegoat for an industry run by multi-millionaires with the exact same beliefs as him and nothing will change. If Warner Bros. recovers, it will be seen as an affirmation of everything Zaslav has done.

Crucially, neither of these outcomes has anything to do with the quality of the art produced by Hollywood and even less to do with the competence or morality of those who run it. And that sucks.

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