UPDATE: And now we can add Bob Iger to the list below. The coward couldn’t stick it out like a real mogul would. Real moguls don’t retire.
——–
This morning, about 11:00, I had an epiphany.
I was trying to think of someone in this fucking town that I wanted to have lunch with today.
I couldn’t think of anyone.
Everyone is so freakin’ boring these days that I ended up telling my driver, Leif Garrett, to go pick up my daughter, Connie, at school and bring her to the studio so I could have lunch with her.
I was stunned that I would rather hear about her morning learning about the Civil War (or some shit) than I would meeting with some other studio mogul to find out what they are up to.
Because I already know the answer – they are up to nothing. They are up to bullshit.
I have never been so bored with my industry as I am right now. Hollywood is in full blown reactive mode.
We are spending our days and nights trying to figure out how to put our beautiful, expensive, well-produced content on a 3 inch screen.
We are working so hard for the tech geeks who are innovating and inventing these new devices and services that this very same beautiful, expensive, well-produced content is on a collision course with a mountain of shit.
Hollywood was built on innovation and there is nothing happening on that front.
Some would argue – “Hell, yeah, we’re innovating, we’re transitioning to digital! It’s an inflection point, bitch!”
Fuck that.
All those ideas, all that technology, all that innovation is coming from somewhere else.
Twenty-five year old dorks with nothing to lose are making us old moguls obsolete. And worse? They are dictating the terms. (30% to show my stupid movie on your stupid Facebook?!)
Nothing new is coming out of Hollywood. We are creatively bankrupt.
Yes, content is king. And we make the content the world wants to see. But it’s the same goddamned content over and over – and that seems to be okay with everyone in this town.
Manka Bros. has the worst Fall TV line-up on MBS I have ever seen. And no one seems to care – certainly not Jay McBee – who does nothing with his time but train for Triathlons (that he loses).
I mean, as long as the bonus checks keep clearing, why the fuck wouldn’t we just keep things at the status quo? Right?
All my friends, visionaries at one point in their lives, are passing their remaining days doing bullshit. It’s depressing.
Barry Diller started a broadcast network out of scotch tape and bubble gum wrappers (Fox) and today he owns a dating service and has to listen to the stupid “ground breaking” ideas of Ben Silverman.
Michael Eisner revitalized and rebuilt one of the great studios of all time and now he’s producing little videos for the internet and going duck hunting. Does anyone really know what the hell he is trying to do?
Jeffrey Katzenberg kicked some ass at Disney and created an environment that enabled a dead genre (animated features) to become popular again. Today, he is most likely preparing Monsters, Inc. 2 and reading a draft of the Kung Fu Panda 3 screenplay. Just sell your studio already, Jeffrey, it’s never going to be the empire you imagined at one time – when you still had dreams.
And then there are these guys – my great friends – the ones that truly built something from nothing:
Rupert Murdoch – who built a global media empire from a tiny grade school newspaper (or something) – and now he’s just sitting around his office in the dark listening to Pippa Middleton’s phone messages.
Sumner Redstone – Well, I think he was more lucky than good and didn’t really do much in his life except yell at people and try to pick up hot chicks. (OK, I’m sure he did something significant somewhere along the line, but he’s still staying at my house on-and-off these days, so I’m pissed at him right now. This guy doesn’t flush the toilet. It’s horrifying. And those Charlie’s Angels posters from the 1970s are just embarrassing.)
And Ted Turner, one of the craziest risk takers and innovators the media world has ever seen – all that great shit he built from nothing – is now making buffalo burgers.
Sure, these guys, as I myself, are getting old and there really isn’t much more we can accomplish because death will most likely put an end to any future plans we have.
And, really, the energy level just isn’t there. I mean, the Mogulympics at Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Retreat this year was just pathetic.
The biggest problem I have at my studio is – there isn’t a new generation of innovators in Hollywood to take the old trailblazers’ place. They’re all going to Silicon Valley – and why not? There sure as shit isn’t anything going on here.
My father wouldn’t consider himself a visionary by any means (and, frankly, no one else would either). He was a total prick whose main accomplishments in life were stealing other people’s ideas and having heart attacks. But he and his brothers (THE Manka Bros.) were Thomas Edisons compared to today’s Hollywood.
All we have today is a generation of cost-cutters and an army of people minding the bottom line.
Innovation has left town and it’s not coming back.
We’re Hollywood, goddamnit, we’re important – how the fuck did we let that happen?
Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company
I think James Cameron keeps rethinking and innovating as a filmmaker. He’s not really a mogul but I think he would be successful and exciting if her were.
You bring up an interesting topic, Mr. Manka. I would say the last little piece of technical innovation would be the DVD? 15 years ago? What would innovative in my opinion would be for studios to get people to watch old movies. There are so many great films from the past 90 years or so – it’s terrible that no one really watching them or has an outlet to do it. It’s like reading War & Peace – everyone says they’re going to do it but no one really “has the time” (he says as he posts on a blog message board).
Hey, Khan, I resembled that remark!
No shit, Sherlock – I mean, Bob. Lunch today?
I would argue that this current crop of moguls is more innovative and creative than the moguls from 1980s. Talk about a shitty decade for creativity.
Great article! The moguls in charge need to bring innovation back into town by
allowing new talent a chance to prove their good ideas to them..
I hear and feel your frustration, Mr. Manka. I admit that nearly every trailer, promo, and movie I see these days is the same old re-used, recycled, re-gurgitated stuff new.
I just finished the script for what I believe would be the world’s first “Faith-based Fantasy Action Movie.” If it’s been done before, let me know.
If their not boring, their out of town or the country working on a film.
Experienced a lot of this lately.
Even though it seems that the final visionary caught the last train for the other
coast, Hollywood is, and will always be, a place for dreamers. A new crop will enter
and reinvigorate the place where dreams are manufactured on assembly lines for all
the universe to see.
Excellent … A man who speaks up and is correct!
Want to deal with an Aged, Experienced, Credible and still energetic Creator ? Contact Chris Bearde. Massive NEW and innovative IP whom is pitching those 25 year old morons that do not even know who he is.
Thanx for the stand up, straight ahead article.
Geary
So did you eat lunch alone?
No, Sam Raimi wanted to do Dim Sum – so we went to Chinatown.
just read your post – it seems to me you are hoping for a different outcome without
altering the recipe. You bemoan the lack of vision and creativity in your town
whilst still hoping that it will miraculously appear on your screens. Maybe you need
to broaden your horizon, actively search further afield for what you want – or
create it yourself. I’m an Australian screenwriter and I can assure you there are
plenty of interesting ideas and great material over here. I’d be happy to talk more
with you if you have any interest. I don’t know you or your situation but is it
possible you’ve grown used to others bringing stuff to you rather than actively
identifying and creating what you want? Just a thought. All the best Victoria.
Funny stuff. Love a good snark-filled rant.
Aside from Hollywood being – in large part – creatively bankrupt…
I have THE NEXT GREAT TV SERIES. A wickedly provocative music biz satire titled: SONIC GARAGE.
I also have a deliciously juiced-up animated parody of Billy Wilder’s mad cap comedy classic, Some Like It Hot, titled: SOME CATS.
I assure you… MY PROJECTS WILL HALT CREATIVE BANKRUPTCY IN ITS TRACKS… for a while anyway.
Email me if you’d like to know more.
Regards…………. Bruce Macmillan
Thanks for the post, Khan. I can assure you – there are fewer interesting people
in the Silicon Valley.
Here’s the problem. In Hollywood, the focus is on the deal, not the entertainment. The deal is often a convergence of capital and social connections. Entertainment value, on the other hand, requires film taste. Film taste is very, very rare – and much more a rarified skill compared to the ability to access film capital. That’s the “visionary” problem mentioned in your article – a general lack of film taste.
In the Silicon Valley capital is abundant for the right projects and for the right people – but social skills and common sense are near-nonexistent. What the product should be – the ergonomics – its practical use beyond the production of the next time-wasting fad, is forever in question, as is the ability to explain it to non-technicians. Further, emotional stability in cloistered technical environments is statistically very low compared to other workplace environments – and even rates for autism spike a bit in regions that focus on high-tech. Certainly power and ego sometimes makes for a similar antagonistic and non-creative workplace environment in Hollywood – but here, at least, if you’re staying off the subject of industry business, you can have a normal and fairly well-rounded conversation. Opinions will differ, of course.
A director friend of mine said that the smartest and most interesting person he ever spoke to in Hollywood was a waitress at Dr. Hogly Wogly’s BBQ (actually in Van Nuys). Now that I think about it…
😉
-JH
I agree, I am a real life present day Pirate, too much to tell, no one believes
this is true so no one listens, perhaps originality is unwanted nowdays.
stay safe.
http://www.captaintonz.com
Well, do you think Hollywood should be more globalized and open minded for the other culture based contants?
It’s not really the content that is my issue – it’s innovation. After I wrote this blog, I received a lot of TV series and movie ideas. In Hollywood, creative people want to sign with the studios first. Because that makes you “legitimate”. Once studios reject someone outright, then they start to do web series and write plays and put them on themselves. But, believe me, they would rather be a at studio.
In Silicon Valley, there are more people taking chances from get go. It’s a culture of wanting to do things that haven’t been done and to be in charge of your own destiny from the start. So many top engineers and entrepreneurs want to start things from scratch (instead of taking the safe route of going to Facebook or Google) – like the old Hollywood days. That’s all. Much less risk taking going on here and it’s really hurting the product.
Khan,
…how can “the World’s Largest Media Company” have a website like that?
There’s a problem with “vision”.
Marcel,
You use quotations as though you don’t believe it’s true. Big mistake. Also, if you have any ideas regarding the website, please send them along. Of course our online division is sub-par. Most of everything we have tried lately has been sub-par. But we may one day fix it – or I will just commit suicide and be done with it.
The payment for this service is whatever you can afford to pay.
Khan Manka, Jr.
Art & dreams cannot be separated. The manifestation of dreams is in the hands of
artists. It may also be the source of all art. Show business has the tension between
artists and commerce built right into the phrase. The dynamic between the two is in
constant motion.
It’s sad really. Another great innovator gone. Who’s left, suck ass Zuckerberg? Ugh.
Well said, KM. Especially poignant today – RIP Steve Jobs.
I think Hollywood today is full of visionaries – they are just not being allowed to rise up within these organizations. It’s tough when you have the old guard not wanting old models to change. I think there needs to be a radical sweep throughout all of these companies and start from scratch. Page one.
I agree that things don’t look great – and frankly haven’t for a decade or two – but I don’t think they’re gone, I think they aren’t allowed to be visionary. Inflated budgets kill that opportunity.
Thanks for your comment!
http://ajking.ca/blog/?p=29
Cheers,
AJ
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This is why I haven’t gone to the movie theater in 20 years, and when I want to watch a good flick, I turn to Turner Classic movies or go to the $ 5 buck DVD movie bin at the local Walmart.
As I said on HP, most of the real art of acting & innovating in a scene to give something the audience can be captured by to insert themselves into the story as participant, has been lost through the meta-cognitive knowledge what you are viewing has been cut & pasted from some film library.
Reminds me as a grad student some years back when I used to put my papers together cutting & pasting content so as to save time & that’s money, and not having to be redundant by reinventing the wheel.
Hollywood movie making evolved into nothing exciting to watch-zip-nada-nothing.
Nearly every new release of 2011 except for a few exceptions I watched for 20-30 minutes in, then got bored and left.
It’s time for some real imagination to be released into the creative environment, in spite of Americans being so disconnected from human nature story-telling, held captive by the culture of empire.
I agree one of the problems is that what used to be thought of as “innovative” was good story, good directing, and good acting.
But not today
The real innovative filmmakers are stuck working on micro-budgets because they can’t afford the explosions or horrible looking werewolf effect that are dictated as the norm nowadays.
If some of the big wig studio guys would give the indie film guys a shot and judge their work on character, heart, and story the world would see that innovation and kick you in the balls type of storytelling that has been missing for the last several decades.
It is quite simply a time for a REVOLUTION in Hollywood and the industry at large.
David LaRosa
No visionaries in Hollywood? You must not know Kathy Eldon (creativevisions.org)…and you should.
I agree. CreativeVisions is turning the media industry ON! http://www.cretivevisions.org Supporting Creative Activists who seek innovative solutions to local and global issues using arts and media to ignite positive change.
Eventually the lack of quality content will merge with technology allowing a 14 year old boy to create his own crap tent poll production on his phone. Where are todays visionaries you ask? As always it comes down to education. But don’t blame the schools. The diminished pool of farsighted innovators is the result of a media catering to the hyper vacuous demands of the adolescent demographic. This self fulfilling death spiral is breading a generation possessing the cultural dynamics of a top fuel dragster. These post tech generations seem to show little interest in non tactile abstract concepts.