My 5 Point Plan for Running and Revitalizing a Major Studio

Five simple ways to get this studio back on track!

The Studio, streaming now on Apple TV+

Ted Hope (author of HOPE FOR FILM) put out a challenge to write about the 5 things everyone would do if they ran a major film studio, and to spend no longer than an hour writing it. I haven’t read anyone else’s posts yet on the subject because I didn’t want to be influenced or discouraged to write my own, and I’ve been on the move so I’m writing this in the air over the Pacific Ocean on very little sleep, so please forgive any typos.

If you haven’t watched the terrific new show The Studio yet on Apple TV+ it’s about Matt Remick (Seth Rogen), an idealistic studio executive who truly cares about films and filmmakers being promoted to run a fictional studio, only to discover that it’s not as easy as he would hope. He has to please the higher-ups and essentially lies to get the job (this is in the first few minutes of the first episode, so not a big spoiler). The films they want him to greenlight are the opposite of the films he truly wants to make - as fictional CEO Griffin Mill (a hilarious Bryan Cranston) says in the first episode “we don’t make films we make movies.”

It reminds me of a similar disillusionment by the Tommy Carcetti character on The Wire, who started off as idealistic mayoral candidate for the city of Baltimore, only to find out when he gets into office that the realities of the job make it very hard for him to do all the good things he had campaigned on.

My 5 priorities are a combination of things that will hopefully help both creatively and financially. I’m someone who loves movies to my core, but I’m also a business-minded person who wants to make films that find their audience and perform well financially, so I (and my new studio!) can keep making them!

So, without further ado…

1. Put younger creatives in charge. Many of the best films ever made were made in the 1970s when the studios didn’t know what else to do but let the young creative people make the movies that the suits didn’t understand, but spoke to audiences. The current studio heads are decades older than the audiences they’re trying to attract, and I now that I’m the head of a studio I’m going to also bring in a younger crop of executives that can help find and foster the next generation of filmmaking talent. Also, I’ll include the directors and producers in the marketing plan! No one knows the film the way they do, and having their input in communicating their vision to audiences would be valuable insight.

2. Set realistic release dates. I will stop the practice of announcing release dates before there’s a full creative team in place or even a script that’s ready to shoot. There are so many stories of films being released with unfinished VFX, sets being built before the script is written, and doing expensive reshoots to try to fix things that probably could have been easily fixed in the script stage. I know a release date can make or break a movie at the box office, but planting a flag early and delivering a mediocre movie (albeit on time) isn’t the answer. Give the creatives time to make the best version of the movie they can (and I say this as someone who really likes having deadlines).

3. Make comedies again. I’m not the first person to say this, but we’ve lost something as filmgoers now that there are very few comedies playing in theaters. We can probably all remember times we’ve laughed hysterically in a movie theater packed full of friends and strangers. Laughing together is a core human experience. I mean, Shakespeare wrote comedies for a reason! I will find my studio’s funnybone again!

4. Make expectations and budgets make sense. Every movie shouldn’t have to make a billion dollars to make a profit, and I’m not solely going to make movies that I think will make a billion dollars. A movie with a $250M budget that comes with a $100M marketing budget has to make something like $700M just to break even at the box office. There used to be a healthy home video market that would help make even box office duds profitable, but streaming hasn’t come close to replacing that income stream. Again, a lot has been written about this, but having a bunch of appropriately budgeted singles, doubles, and triples instead of placing bets only on hitting homeruns seems like something I would REALLY like to do!

Last, but certainly not least —

5. Bet on indie producers! It continues to baffle me how studios and the industry at large doesn’t do more to support and nurture independent producers. I’ve done a couple of studio films myself, but I’m still very much an independent producer, and I started with ann ultra-low-budget feature. Even with larger budgets, it is tremendously advantageous to have the “indie gear” I can shift into to solve problems creatively, which is a skill we all learn working on low budget films. We’re also the ones that help develop the next generation of directors! I’ve made 7 features with first time feature directors! While I did have one director (the inimitable Oliver Thompson) bring me with him on his studio feature debut, that can be a rare thing. I’m not blaming the directors who get opportunities after they have a successful indie feature, it’s the studios who don’t see the value or think the indie producers are “ready.” I’ll pair indie producers with more seasoned producers on larger projects so they can learn how to operate at a higher level of production and talent. This is just a win win win.

I think that’s about my time here, but I want to thank Ted Hope again for inspiring me to write again. I haven’t posted in many months, but I’ve written a bunch of things I’ve second-guessed and not posted, and I’ve also been very busy on a couple of films I can’t wait to tell you all about.

See you again soon!

Bay Dariz

President of Paramount Pictures (Why not? )