This year has been an interesting one so far. The sacrifices I have made will go without mention, though I could write and may write a book or two about them one day. But not today. I will sequester that for the sake of perceived normalcy. While I may have selfish goals, I do not make those efforts while being a bull in a china shop. I do not seek the attention I once sought as a younger man. Give me a cup of coffee, a quiet place to write with internet access and all is right with the world.
I am nearing the end of my current query period for a TV series I have worked on for a few years. A few follow-ups and I can wipe the dust off my hands and be satisfied with my efforts. Getting anyone to take an interest in what you do is difficult, and I chose a direct route this time. Bypassing the contests, the agents, the managers, the readers who have slowed me down in the past.
As a grown-ass man, I prefer to cut out all the BS and get to the point. Being respectful but direct has become my mantra this time around. Never let it be said that I didn't try to save Hollywood in my own way from the 100-year-old spreadsheet-loving and algorithm-driven studio executives who only want remakes or different takes on something successful back in the 80s, 90s, & 00s. Creativity and Originality are not as important as they used to be. Give them the formulaic tripe that people can watch while cleaning the house and you've made the execs happy.
The echoes of 2009 and my last major screenwriting push are reverberating. The shadows of disinterest from that time approach on the perimeter of my campfire. I can shoo them away these days, but in 2009 they haunted my days and nights and led me to start writing books. My objective this time around is not an entirely selfish endeavor as it was back then. I have a love for Hollywood and the magic that it can bring as part of my mission. But, things are a bit shit right now. And I don't mean that there aren't some good shows and movies out there because there are. However, we are going through a tumult of change in viewership, and the powers that be are living in a bye-gone era.
While my current project is a TV series, my head is and has been concerned about the state of both TV and movies for some time. I am not a studio exec and would never want to be one, but they need to pull their heads out of their butts because movie after movie is only in the theater for a short few weeks before it is released to digital. This is a disaster of epic proportions because they are meant to have long runs at the box office. YIKES! SNAP OUT OF IT!
What the hell am I doing being worried about the movie box office when writing a TV series? Again, we as a society are going through change. Even before the pandemic movie theaters had begun to struggle because of the rise of streaming and cell phones. The pandemic only exacerbated it. And now they will struggle to get back to those 20th-century numbers. It's just not going to happen. And the execs are realizing this and are making the turnaround time from theatric release to digital release more quickly than in years past. However, the effects of doing this mean that we will be less likely to get movies with big budgets above $150 million made because of diminishing returns from theatrical releases and an over-reliance on digital to save their bacon.
What does this have to do with my TV series? I began this conversation in an earlier post How to Save Cinema? I mentioned ways to adapt and merge the movie-going experience with streaming platforms. I had my current TV series in mind when I mentioned it, so I pinned it to my Twitter page. The TV series I have been shaking my tail feathers for recently is structured in a way to be one example of how execs can adapt to these changing times in an intelligent way as opposed to the knee-jerk way that has them paying hundreds of millions for a feature that they pull from theaters to try and save it on digital.
My TV series has eleven episodes in the first season. I am an anthology nut who has long been combining multiple stories into standalone movies. Yet, I have been writing TV series for a decade since streaming started its takeover, occasionally reimagining some of my longer anthology movies into mini-series. Insanity right? Well if you mix my brand of insanity with the instability of movie releases and the change in society because of technology you get a recipe for a new way to think about the theater-going experience in the age of streaming, which isn't going anywhere FYI.
The simple solution I came up with is to merge the two. While my current TV series has 11 episodes, three of them are designed to be movie-like episodes, with each of those movie-like episodes different in style from the other two - the pilot, the mid-season cliffhanger, and the season finale. The pilot is the most movie-like episode with all three storylines seamlessly intertwined. The midseason cliffhanger is similar to a traditional anthology movie where each of the three episodes are standalone segments one after the other like in the movie Two Evil Eyes without a narrative break, but with titles between the chapters. The season finale was inspired by the alternate ending of the movie Timecrimes.
Motivate people to go to the theater for the experience and for financial benefit. Streaming services are coalescing into cable-like agreements to protect themselves from the streaming wasteland. I say streaming wasteland because there is so much shit out there with no easy way to sift through it all, and the fact that people can leave anytime they want. Unlike when people had cable contracts and you were locked in for a year whether you liked it or not. Executives would love to have that model again. However, since people have cut the cable and won't be going back, execs had to find something as similar to that old model as possible. Hence, the packaging of multiple streaming services for a higher price than you would pay for just one of them on their own.
I spent an hour or more last night scrolling through Disney, Paramount, Netflix, & Prime trying to find a movie without having to pay $19.99. To no avail. I settled in and watched two episodes of Only Murders in the Building, which is hilarious. What I really like is to get lost in big-event entertainment that is a must-watch because it feels like I am part of something we are all watching -- Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Dune 2, The Mandalorian. While I also like being able to binge-watch shows, I much rather have to mark my schedule for a show or movie because I am so excited about it that I don't want to miss it and I want to get wrapped up in the moment.
My plan for my most recent TV series is to have the two-hour pilot episode premiere in the theater one or two weeks before it releases on digital. In the previous post, I mentioned providing discounts for the streaming service that would be carrying the series. This is something that I am sure is possible and some people would love; however, a studio or streaming service might be less likely to sign off on it as it would mean less money for them from each person. I am not a businessman by any means but I do understand people and their motivations. While the economy is good people are still feeling the pinch of lingering inflation. And even though a studio exec or a streaming exec might get less money from each person, you would be likely to gain more streaming members with that discount and thus compensate for the discount by the sheer volume of members. But what the hell do I know?
Let's say someone purchases a movie ticket to the theatrical release of the movie pilot of my TV series. They love the movie and want to then watch the series but are not signed up for the streaming service. They can scan that movie ticket into the streaming service and receive a 25%-50% discount on that service for a year. Same for people who already have the streaming service or don't like the movie, they also get that discount on their existing service. It creates trust and a symbiotic bond between the theater, the streaming service, and the viewer. Maybe it even opens up further discounts for other movies at the theater or other similar types of streaming shows that release at least one episode in the theater.
Movies and TV shows are a form of entertainment, yes. But they are also of cultural importance to our society. I think studios will soon start slashing budgets for movies, if they haven't already, and do these limited theatrical releases on purpose before sending them to digital. Unfortunately, we may see far less massive productions unless they have a baked-in audience. Which is sad as hell. Most people don't go to a movie on the opening weekend and haven't for decades. My childhood revolved around the movie theater. Go see a movie and then hang out with friends in the area around the theater. Take a date and maybe grab some dinner. Things change though. Now going to a movie seems like an afterthought. And some movies are getting run out of theaters and onto digital before we even get a chance to experience them on the big screen. And in other cases, the movie is still in the theater but already streaming. If that is the case then why go see it in the theater? And that is awful for theaters. We are witnessing the death of the 20th-century entertainment paradigm and need to adapt.
Ideally, I would like all three two-hour episodes of my TV series to be released in the theater for a week or two. To me, this is a great way to not only get people to go to a theater and spend money but also to create an excited fan base. Maybe you could only get one of those episodes into the theater, so that would likely be the pilot or the finale. Ideally, if you got all three theater releases, you would want the streaming service to air the episodes during the week between Monday and Wednesday so that you could release the midseason cliffhanger (episode 6) in theaters on a Thursday or Friday. This would require movie theaters to change. But if movies are going to get shorter runs because of a lack of popularity it would also open the way for my plan, and for others to emulate the same model for a symbiotic relationship between theaters and streaming services. One that allows them to cross-promote and benefit each other.
This would also require studios to agree to change the format of some TV programs. Plenty of shows have storylines in a season that are broken up into at least two parts to maintain an hour-long structure. This way creates suspense, yes. But also frustration. And it lessens the importance of having to watch the first part on the day of release because you have to wait a week to watch the second part. This is not the 20th century when people were trained to wait for gratification. Again, we are in a new era when people need instant gratification and you could risk losing them if you keep delaying it because the method worked in the past. This is why the binge structure has taken off. Again, what I am proposing is a way to satiate both needs -- the patient and the impatient.
It is time to adapt. If you want to save theaters then imagine how this makes sense. Again, this is not your father's century where things are black and white. We are 1/4 of the way into this century and need to take steps to create a future that reflects the times we now live in. A hybrid of movie and TV storytelling that blends them both into a new kind of entertainment would generate huge buzz simply because it is new. But, it could also change the way we view series. We would still have standalone movies and TV shows that adhere to the traditional structures that worked so well in the 20th century. However, to blend the two formats, to me, is exciting as hell. Even if all the 90 to 120-minute episodes do not end up in a theater, the fact that there are longer episodes makes them unique from the majority of the other episodes and raises the stakes and hopefully audience interest.
The pattern of release for my TV series is 1-4-1-4-1, with each "1" being movie-length episodes that could all be released in theaters, and the four episodes between them being the straight-to-streaming hour-long episodes. I have thought a lot about what is wrong and right about the movie theater experience, the benefits and flaws of streaming, and the effect technology has had on how we watch and consume movies and television shows. From what I can tell in my attempts to be objective about this, these ideas are well-suited for the 21st century. Just carrying on with a 20th-century mentality when it comes to entertainment seems counterintuitive. Ancient box office track records don't need to be thrown out the window but adjustments need to be made.
Even if my TV series gets produced and released just as I have described it could still be a bust. Whether that be because the story doesn't resonate as intended, or the production could have been better. However, this way of merging the theater experience with a streaming series is something I can get behind. You can't do this with every series, that would be awful. Can you imagine every NCIS series following this format? While I can see them doing standalone movie-length episodes, a theatrical release seems less likely. It would mean the death of actual movies if every series got an episode with a theatrical release. However, if Game of Thrones had done a theatrical release of a two-hour episode season premiere I would have been there and the atmosphere on opening night would have been awesome. Guaranteed! I think back fondly on The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a time when everyone in that theater was thrilled to be there. Same with Avengers: Endgame.
While I would want but never expect that kind of excitement for my TV show, it does not take much to imagine what it would have been like had Game of Thrones put a season finale in the theater before putting it on streaming. The level of excitement would have been through the roof. People would have been talking about it the week before and while in line as they waited for the theater to open. That is the buzz that is missing these days. That is the kind of social interaction that elevates the movie and the spirits of those who are there to see it. You can't create that buzz as much as we used to because studios are not taking enough creative risks. Those studio execs have to accept it and take ownership of their not having adapted well enough to the changed landscape. But we (execs and creatives alike) need to adapt and realize that we can still create those moments if we are willing to understand what it now takes to achieve them. Not only does that mean green lighting more creative original material, but also adapting to the streaming landscape in a way that is symbiotic between the theater and streaming. Not knee-jerk reactions that make execs look like they have no idea what the hell they are doing and have no grasp on what is going on in the world.
While the plans I have envisioned for my TV show are pie-in-the-sky-type stuff, I am realistically optimistic about the chances of it ever happening. Or at least that we can make a shift to a similar type of format for other productions. I just want to get swept up in the excitement again, preferably with a group of people who also want to enjoy the moment. Everyone is complaining that all that studio execs want is more of the same that worked before. There are problems with this way of thinking but creatives also need to find a way similar to the one I have laid out, or that are unique in their own way that create a blueprint for success, as opposed to just feeding the execs what they ask for. It's that or just write some crap that makes execs happy and yet will fail because times have changed. This cycle has to change at some point. We've been talking for over a decade about how cinema is dying. There will continue to be a few movies a year that buck the trend, but if we don't change things will continue to decline. That is until I get a hold of an artificial general intelligence model that will help me bypass all the impediments in my way and allow me and others to make our creative visions a reality. Thanks for reading.
