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The a16z Show
Marc Andreessen on the State of Film and Hollywood
01:07:46
Hollywood is going through a major cultural and creative reset, and Marc Andreessen thinks it’s long overdue. In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Marc joins Erik Torenberg and Katherine Boyle to dissect the past decade of filmmaking, from the rise of “the message” in every movie to the return of genuine comedy and art. They cover the post-woke shift in Hollywood, the financial collapse of the streaming era, and why AI could spark a renaissance for a new generation of independent filmmakers. Marc also shares his favorite recent films (and the ones he thinks aged terribly), why Edington might be the first true “Capital-A Art” film in years, and how AI could democratize storytelling the way digital cameras did in the 1990s.
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- [00:00]
A
I think movies play the role in our culture that myths and legends used to play in ancient cultures or that novels used to play 100 years ago. They're the art form that is capable of basically containing and expressing and making permanent the most important aspects of a culture or of a civilization.
- [00:18]
B
There were a lot of great films in 2019, and then like just a memory hole of like what great film has come out since then? Like something happened in Hollywood. The scripts that are being written, the types of things that are being made today are very, very different than what was happening 2018, 2019.
- [00:34]
C
Hollywood is changing fast. And for once, not because of a new technology, but because of a cultural reset. On this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Kathryn Boyle and I are joined by Marc Andreessen to talk about what really happened to the movies over the past decade. From the dominance of the message to the quiet revival of real art, comedy and creativity. We talk about our post woke cultural moment, the economics of streaming, and why AI could unleash a new generation of filmmakers. People with no studio access, no camera, the big ideas. And we end on the question every creative industry is now asking. What happens when the tools to make movies belong to everyone? Let's get into it.
- [01:15]
D
Mark, you've been known to monitor a situation or two. Welcome to the program.
- [01:19]
A
Eric, how would you characterize me as a situation monitor?
- [01:22]
D
Er, extremely eager. You know, I picture you with the thorough. I picture you with security cameras extensively monitoring, you know, all hours of the night advance.
- [01:36]
A
So basically Howard Catherine, Howard Hughes in the penthouse, is that.
- [01:40]
B
Yeah, an elite situation monitor, which is why you're here. We're so happy to have you.
- [01:46]
A
Well, speaking of movies, I'm watching all the James Bond movies with my 10 year old and we just got to Diamonds Are Forever, which is the one set in Las Vegas. And it turns out the producer Harriet Saltzman of the Bond movies was a close personal friend of Howard Hughes at the time. So they set up a movie in Vegas and had all this cooperation from Hughes and there's actually Hughes character in the movie, but I'm just gonna give a spoiler alert. Blofeld has kidnapped Hughes and is holding him hostage and has sort of substituted in and is pretending to be Hughes. And James Bond scales the side of Hughes big casino in Vegas at the time and drops down through the skylight into essentially Howard Hughes bathroom. And the bathroom is literally set up with like monitors and like, you know, computers and like typewriters, an elaborate phone system, and then a single golden roll of toilet PA and bot drops into it. And he's like. And I was like, that's the perfect bathroom.
- [02:36]
D
Our new media team has a Twitter group chat called Monitoring the Situation. Where that's the room that they want in the office for. Exactly, exactly. All the things happening on Twitter.
- [02:45]
A
And did they ask for it to be the bathroom? Is that, was that part of it?
- [02:48]
D
Yeah, that'd be the next evolution.
- [02:50]
A
Would that just be an add on feature?
- [02:51]
D
Yes.
- [02:52]
A
Okay. All right, let's proceed.
- [02:54]
D
Mark, not everybody knows this about you, but you are an extensive movie buff, a movie aficionado, and you've been having some commentary in a group chats lately over some films that you think are worth watching right now and, and kind of broader commentary around what's been happening in films. Why don't you share that with us?
- [03:09]
A
Yeah, so let me start by saying, like, why this topic matters, you know, because this does matter a lot. So first of all say, like, I've got like enormous respect for anybody who does anything creative. And so like every time I see a movie, I'm just kind of marveling like I know what it takes to make one. It's like making a tech startup or something. It's just like this incredible labor of love and effort and blood, sweat and tears and everybody's part and it's just like a minor miracle, I think, whenever any of these things actually show up as a two hour executed film. And I think that's amazing. And so, you know, none of what we're about to talk about, you know, should be considered a knock on filmmakers per se, or the people who put all this work into it. And then the other thing I say is, look, in the last, you know, whatever, five years, decade, 20 years, there have been a tremendous number of what you could call, you know, highly entertaining movies. Right. And some that I think are like, jaw dropping. Right? So like, you know, one of my favorite genres, action, you know, the John Wick movies are like, you know, the best action movies of all time. They're all on the last, whatever, 15 years, you could name that for a lot of different kinds of movies. You know, the entertainment factor remains very high. Having said that, you know, I think movies and Catherine, I see if you agree with me on this or not. I think movies play the role in our culture that myths and legends used to play in ancient cultures or that novels maybe used to play, you know, a hundred years ago, or that maybe songs used to play or something like that, which is basically, they're the art form that is capable of basically containing and expressing and Making permanent the most important aspects of a culture or have a civilization. Right. So sometimes you'll hear the term, like, there's this term called the great American novel. And there are these certain novels, like the great gaspeer To Kill a Mockingbird, that kind of capture the spirit of a times and kind of become immortal through doing that. When I love novels. But, like, you know, the idea that novels do that, I think is probably at this point, you know, pretty unlikely for a variety of reasons. We could have a whole separate podcast on that. But for the last, let's say, at least 60 years and probably 100 years, like, movies have been the way that our culture is able to express itself in a way that is going to really deeply stand the test of time, where people 100 and 200 and 500 years from now are going to look back and kind of say, this is what these people are about. Catherine, would you agree with that?
- [04:55]
B
Yeah, no, no, definitely. I mean, I think it was in slow decline probably the last 25 years, probably the 90s was the last decade where everyone watched the same movies and the Oscars were indicative of, like, what's a great film that everyone has to see. I would love to hear when you think it started bifurcating, but it does feel like there's been this sort of bifurcation of if, you know, maybe you could say the Tarantino films of the last 20 years were widely watched and mattered in cinematic lore. But, like, it feels like there was a lot more to say. It's like the next great American novel is actually the next great American movie that feels like maybe that ended in the 90s.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah. So it's possible. Although you could also say it is interesting because as we've discussed in other forums, it's not that there aren't cultural artifacts that everybody participates in. I am told there's this young lady named Taylor Swift who is apparently extremely popular. And I am told that other than me, everybody follows her with a great deal of avid attention. And I'm told that she has a new, I guess what, album and movie and album. Album, yeah. And there's a new movie coming out too, I think. Right. I believe I remember her breakthrough, her first movie was the movie a couple years ago that came out that was so popular, her movie, she had a.
- [05:58]
B
Thing on Netflix that was sort of following her around, that kind of.
- [06:01]
A
Okay, so, okay, here's something I know about Chanda Swift that you don't, which is the only time in my life I'm going to be able to utter Those words. She did a famous thing, actually Hollywood, in the movie industry. She released, I think whatever that was, she released that actually into theaters. And it was actually very significant that she did that because she cut the deal directly with the theater owners. And I think it was a straight 50, 50 revenue split with the theater owners. And she booked it directly and it was like a huge release. It was like on 4000 screens and it was like extremely popular. And like a lot of, you know, Taylor Swift fans and a lot of families with young girls, you know, went to see it. And I, I remember it at the time because it went big the same week that Martin Scorsese's movie Killers of the Flower Moon was in theaters. And if you remember the reviews, and Martin Scorsese is one of these filmmakers who's made these mythical movies, you know, that will for sure stand the test of time. And so, you know, Killers of the Flower Moon was a movie that he intended to do that, and I don't think it did. And we can talk about why not. But it was this movie about, you know, as a period piece set in the 1920s about, you know, basically the rape and pillage of Native American missing natural resources by, you know, evil white people. But it was a three hour movie and I didn't see it, but apparently it was extremely slow. And then apparently it had these extremely long stretches of silence because he was trying to get across this sense of like, awe and grandeur and like, emotional impact. And apparently what would happen is that movie would be playing adjacent to the Taylor Swift movie. And the Taylor Swift movie was so loud that whenever he would go to the silent part, you would just hear Taylor Swift pounding away on stage.
- [07:15]
B
Probably helps the movie out probably a little bit.
- [07:18]
A
Arguably improve the movie, from what I heard, you know, filled in the missing soundtrack. So anyway, there are still mechanical issues with reproduction of these things. So anyway, the point is we do have cultural artifacts that sort of have almost universal attention. To me, it's just a question of like, okay, like this way true art, like with a capital A is the thing that not only captures the popular imagination, like, not only that people really experience, but also is the thing that actually has the lasting impact, such that in 10 years and 20 years and 50 years and 100 years, like, people are still discussing it. And then, you know, maybe a couple of things you could say. One is like, as time passes, the sort of most important cultural artifacts are sort of continuously reinterpreted, right? And so the way that it comes across when it's released is not the same way that it comes across five or 10 years later and then 20 years later, and then sort of each new generation that discovers it, you know, maybe interprets it and talks about it in a different way. And then so basically, like capital A, art is the ability to do that. And so, for sure, it's true that the audience overall has fragmented. For sure, it's true that, like, the Internet is sucking away, you know, just enormous amounts of time and attention from movies. It's certainly true that the business pressures in Hollywood, which we can talk about, you know, are probably more intense than ever. But it is still true that I think it is still possible to do what we're describing, and we'll talk about this more, but I think we'd all agree Tarantino, you know, was able to do this with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, not that recently. So anyway, maybe I can say I still hold up hope this is possible. I think this is a thing that the best filmmakers in the world, in the country, really ought to be able to do. Would you agree with that, or do you think it's too optimistic?
- [08:34]
B
I hope I'm a little more pessimistic than you that I do think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the last American movie, but for different reasons probably. Like, I think not only, you know, it's like, again, like Tarantino is. You know, I think he has one more film in him, as he says, but that was really his final opus, right? Like the penultimate film. That was what he had been kind of moving towards. And I think he said his last film is going to be a much kind of scaled down, smaller sort of film when he decides to do it. But, like, I think there's something about 2019 in particular. There were so many great films in 2019. There was 1917, Parasite won the Oscar, stole it from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in my opinion, but still was like a decent. Like, there were a lot of great films in 2019, and then just a memory hole of, like, what great film has come out since then. Something happened with COVID where we stopped going to the theater. And it does kind of map to that. You know, no one goes to the theater anymore. But it's also like something happened in Hollywood, which I know we want to get your take on what happened in Hollywood, because it does feel like the scripts that are being written, the types of things that are being made today are very, very different than what was happening in 2018. 2019.
- [09:36]
A
Yeah. So just spend a moment. Let's spend a Moment on the state of Hollywood for people who don't track it. And so there's a bunch of things. So, yeah, look, the theater business has obviously taken a G kind of in the wake of COVID You know, Covid was like this big, you know, was this big step down, you know, because the theaters, you know, were closed along and everything else. And then there was this, there's been this question ever since of kind of how to reengage those audiences and get them to go back to the theater. And, you know, that, you know, maybe that's just a secular change that goes with people being on their phones or whatever. You know, having said that, it's not quite, you know, I don't think a complete explanation for what's happened to the art form. And the reason for that is the length of time that it takes to actually make a movie. Right. And so the movies that showed up in the theater in 2019 got greenlit in, you know, call it 2015 or 2016. You know, they got staffed in 2016, 2017, and then they got executed in like 20, you know, basically 2017, 2018. And then they went through, you know, editing and post production and so forth. And you know, for, for big movies that's, you know, that whole process is like a two year process. And then, and then there's the long run up to release with the marketing campaign and you know, all the, you know, put the actors on the road and do all the stuff. And so there's like whatever a four month ad campaign or whatever. And so, you know, by the time you go through that process, you know, start to end, it's like four or five years. And so for once upon a time, I don't know exactly when it was greenlit, but for it, for when it took for it to show up in 2019, method, basically the making of it, the backstory probably starts no later than 2015. And I just bring that up. Which means the movies that hit the theaters in 2021 started in 2017. Right. And the movies that are showing up today started in 2020. Right. And so the COVID explanation is not sufficient for what we've seen in the last five years, because those movies weren't greenlit under conditions of COVID Those movies were greenlit under conditions of pre Covid. And so whatever changes have taken place, which we can talk about, I think probably started around 2015.
- [11:18]
B
And what is your theory around why things really started changing in the 2020 decade of film?
- [11:23]
A
Yeah, so again, let me give again sort of maximum Kind of respect here, which is there's no question, a couple things. So just the secular changes. So one thing is, look, the streaming revolution has had a very big impact. And the streaming revolution hit Hollywood incredibly hard, very positively, for a stretch, basically through the 2000 and tens, because all the companies that were engaged in the streaming wars started spending just unprecedented amounts of money on televisions and shows of all. On shows and movies of all kinds. And so there was just a giant flood of money. And I would say the mood in Hollywood, I don't know, whatever eight years ago or something, six years ago, was, you might even describe as euphoric from a business standpoint, just because, like, I mean, the big thing was when Netflix scaled up to the point where they were spending like $20 billion a year on content, which is just like this, you know, this giant budget and everybody else, and they were like, you know, whatever, a dozen streaming companies or whatever, all the different platforms that wanted to compete. And so that money kind of took off like a rocket. And then what's happened is as the streaming, as the streamers are consolidating, as the streaming wars are kind of rationalizing that money got pulled back. That was a big kind of financial blow. And then the other thing that streaming did that has really affected things a lot in Hollywood in a very negative way, which is streaming cut off the financial upside to the. To films and tv. And so films used to, when they were hits, they first they would sell a lot of box office, um, and then they would. And then they would sell, like, the television rights or, you know, or, you know, ultimately the streaming rights. And then. And then they'd have this long aftermarket where they would, you know, sell DVDs, you know, videotape rentals in the 80s 90s and then DVDs in the 2000s and 2010s. And so if you had a movie that was a hit, like, it could run and, you know, it could run for years, generating just like enormous amounts of revenue and cash. And then, same thing with TV shows. You know, it used to be a successful TV show. The line, I think, was six seasons and a movie where if it got to like, whatever, a hundred episodes or something, it would enter syndication, and then you could sell it for hundreds of millions of dollars, and there would be all this upside for the people involved in creating it. And what happened with streaming and the economics of streaming is those. Those forms of upside just vanished. Because what happens is the streamers just buy the projects with like a cost plus model. A lot of the time. And so you make the movie and you turn around, you sell it for like a 10% profit margin to a streamer. And then there's no aftermarket because it's just a tile on the streaming service, right? And there's no, you know, there's no DVD sales, there's no, you know, there's no TV syndication rights. Those concepts are irrelevant. You know, the streamer just has sort of a perpetual writer, a 20 year ride or whatever to be able to show it at that sort of fixed fee. And so the upside got cut off and that, that removed I think, a lot of the economic incentive for kind of the wildcatting thing that Hollywood used to do more, which is to really take, you know, take these chances on things. You know, like Hollywood used to work a lot like the venture capital model, which is, you know, you, you, you, you put 10, you know, you put 10 lines in the water, you get, you know, you get four bytes and you get maybe one grand slam. And you know, if it works like that's this particular model. But the grand slam has to be able to scale economically in order for that to happen. And that's been cut off. So that did not help. And then there's the big thing, Capital B, capital G, capital T. The big thing that happened, of course, which is Hollywood being on the vanguard of culture, got hit by the thing, the cultural change of the last decade, like incredibly hard. And you know, we've talked a lot about how tech, you know, got hit by that incredibly hard and Hollywood got hit by it in a very intense way. You know, nobody's ever quite figured out the right way to talk about this. Sometimes you say things like wokeness or whatever. In the 60s they would have called it the new Left. There's actually a term, there's actually my favorite term for it in Hollywood is there's a YouTube channel called Critical Drinker where he's a movie reviewer. It's quite funny. And the Critical Drinker has been documenting basically the thing that hit Hollywood. And he, and I would say in quite scathing terms this whole time. And what he calls it is, he calls it the message. And it's. Right, it's the message with a capital M. And it's actually really funny because for a long time people who watch the Critical Drinker, he would never actually define what the message was. You know, he would basically just say, you know, this, this, this movie has been affected by the message. Right? And of course, and you, you guys are both laughing because of course you already know what the message was. Everybody knows what the message was, right? All white people are racist. All men are, you know, sexist. You know, everybody's a transphobe. And you just go in America's, you know, a force for evil in the world, right? And you just go, like, right down the list of, like, everything that you thing that you would expect, you know, from the last decade. You know, America's, you know, an incipient fascist regime. Like just the entire package, you know, basically, you know, like whatever's on the front page of the New York Times that day, right? Just the message. And so, you know, movies transform themselves. You know, very large percentage of movies that could have been great, you know. You know, you know, in some alternate world could have been these. These. These. These great works of art just. Just basically became. Became in some form political propaganda. Or. Or you could, if you wanted to be more generous, you could say that, you know, those will be the lasting art last decade, right? Which is. Historians will look back and they'll be like, holy. You know, holy Lord. Like, these people were really, like, wrapped around the axle on, like, a bunch of political issues, like my. You know, my goodness. And so they got hit hard by that. And then the other. And then that. That led to in Hollywood, you know, what can only be described as a reign of terror. And this is something that. Occasionally Hollywood figures will talk about this in public, although very rarely, because they. They, you know, it's. It's a very sensitive topic still. But, you know, if. If, you know, people in Hollywood, you know, basically is through that. Through the. Especially the last, you know, eight years, you know, they. They just. They felt like if they made one misstep on, you know, casting or on this. Details in the script or use of words or the themes of a movie or anything, you know, they just felt like they were in danger of just like a lightning strike from. You know, from. From, you know, from. From the sky. Just like striking them dead on the spot. Like, you know, and they. They. They had, like, friends. You know, everybody in Hollywood had, like, friends whose careers just got, like, completely detonated, you know, at one point, you know, in one unpredictable way or another. And again, people have different opinions on this. And you could argue it was long needed or whatever, but it became a thing. And it basically changed the process of how projects were selected. It changed the process of who made projects. It changed the process of staffing. It changed the process of screenwriting. It changed acting. It changed aesthetics. It changed almost every aspect of how these projects get executed. And I just Go through that. Because I think that's changing again right now. If you talk to the same people in Hollywood, what they'll tell you basically is, you know, it's basically this year that the fever has broken, and there's a bunch of indications for that. And we're entering kind of the sort of post. Sort of post message, you know, kind of era. And, you know, we don't know what era we're heading into. Maybe there's a new message or something, but, like, there's a phase shift that's underway. But that phase shift is going to take time because it takes time to make movies, right? The movies that are greenlit today, right, are not going to come out, you know, until like, whatever, 2027, 2028, soonest. And so we. We. So we're in this, like, liminal period or this interstitial period where for the next, like, three years, we're going to get like, a thousand movies that have, like, the message. And they're all going to act like the message is, like, brand new and fresh and nobody's ever heard it before because they, you know, they all pretend that this is like some big revelation that, like, all white people are racist, right? Like in every movie. And there's going to be like a thousand more of those the next three years, and they're just going to land like an absolute thud, right? Like, because it's just like, if you wanted that message, you got it, right? If you already saw a thousand movies to set you, like, the next thousand movies don't contribute to that, right? And just. Just to knock on one. And he's a brilliant filmmaker, but I just saw the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, One Battle after Another. And it, like, it's literally like a time capsule. It's like a 2022 time capsule. It's literally like time froze in 2022. And in 2022, this movie would have been like, oh, my God. This movie is, like, got the message, right? It's just like everything about it. We could spend hours just on this movie and it lands today. And you're just watching. You're just like, wow, that was a weird time. Like, oh, my goodness.
- [19:11]
B
I want to put more about this movie because I think it was Brett Easton Ellis who came out and was the first person. Cause it's getting all the Oscar plotted. It's definitely in line for the Oscar, right? And he came out and he's like, it feels musty, right? And I should get the actual, like, language he used because it was much worse than that, but he said it's like a musty film. It's exactly what you said. It's 2022. Like this was green lit at a very different time and now it's come out and like the world's moved on. And so I'm curious, like, do you think that, that, that we're still going to pretend these movies are great even though they don't match with our time? Or is there going to be sort of a three year period where we are allowed to say actually like that that doesn't make any sense anymore and like maybe that movie shouldn't have been made?
- [19:50]
A
Yeah, so this is, it's a, it's a, it's. This one is a complicated, this is a complicated scenario. So just on the movie itself, the movie itself is actually. And it's, it's quite like I quite enjoyed watching it. I quite enjoyed watching it not just for ironic reasons but just also watching it of like how, how this happened. Like, and there's a bunch of reasons and you know, and again, the filmmaker is one of, one of the, you know, one of the great filmmakers of the era. Paul Thomas Anderson, you know, he made There Will Be Blood and he made you know, Boogie Nights and like all these, you know, by the way, he made right there, I'll name two movies. Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood are two movies that are like in the, in the, they're going to be in the hall of fame of the art form where it's like you know, 100 years from now people are going to be like, wow, you know, that's what that culture was about. And so he's, he's, he is one of those guys and clearly that's what he's going for in this movie. It is a weird movie in that it's, it's, it's partially based on a famous Thomas Pynchon novel called Vineland, which is Thomas Pynchon's movie. Is Thomas Pynchon's novel basically about the, it's essentially, I mean it's essentially veiled through whatever, but it's basically like about the Days of Rage, you know, the Brian Burrow book or the, you know, the Weather Underground, you know, basically the, the violent social revolution, you know, basically from the far left in the 60s and then sort of what happened in the aftermath of that. And so like that's the theme of the novel, but it's very much a novel of. And about the 1960s. It's not considered, you know, most people don't consider it maybe the best pension novel, but like it's a good mid tier one and it's, it's in the pantheon. And it turns out it had been Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite novel. He'd been trying to make a version of it for 20 years or whatever and. But what he did basically was he kept the very basic kind of plot framework set up, but then he completely updated it for the message. Right. And so like it has like specifically it has a whole bunch of like it has this whole, basically it's a racial, you know, it has a whole racial kind of plot structure to the whole thing and sexual in ways that are fairly amazing but that are completely based on the current moment, you know, circa 2022. And so it's a little bit like the 1960s. It's like the early 2020 filtered through the 1960s. And so it's just a little bit odd with that. Arguably it is kind of salient to our times because I think if you were to retitle the movie, you would just title it Antifa the movie. Like, it's like, it's like a full throated celebration of basically violent social change, Violent social revolution. Like, and it's, it's completely unapol. Like I'm gonna spoil, I'm spoil. I'm gonna spoil it. I'm just gonna. Spoiler alert by the end.
- [22:07]
B
Spoiler alerts for monitoring the situation. Everyone's already seen it here.
- [22:09]
A
So. So it's a 2 hour and 45 minute movie that I went by the way and I went to the theater and I paid full price and like I smuggled in my snacks and like the whole thing, I go through the whole thing and I'm like, oh, he's such a brilliant filmmaker. I'm hoping it's a subversive movie, right? And so I'm kind of hoping that the whole thing is like, by the end he's like really like, he's like, okay, like these Weather Underground people who like went on the run for 20 years and destroyed their lives and like, you know, we're always, you know, basically just like, you know, crazed privileged children, like raging out against their, you know, basically their parents and blowing shit up and killing people and just the whole thing was a giant mistake. And I was kind of hoping that that would, you know, that would be kind of the way that you could tell the story. No, no, no, he's just like, oh no, that was great. Like, like that was fantastically good. These people are amazing. Like, they're, they're, these are the myths and legends of our time. He clearly wants to make these people into mythical figures. And then at the end. And then at the end, it's just very clear at the end. He's like, yes, and I completely endorse and support all of this. And this is exactly what, you know, this is. These are the role models that children should have, and it's fantastic, right? And so, you know, this is one of those movies where in a perverse way, maybe. Maybe it stands the test of time that way, where it's just like, wow, these people had, like. These people are constructed a mythos, you know, in which violent robbery and like, violent robbery and murder basically is great, right? Like, he's wonderful, right? And so, you know, maybe. Maybe that's, you know, I don't know, maybe it's like reading Emma Goldman. Emma Goldman essays a century later or something. It's just like, wow, these people kind of really got carried away. But, like, you know, it's not what it could have been. Anyway, this is the. Okay, so one is it's out of time, although, you know, hopefully it won't become more relevant. And then the other is, again, that the business aspect of it, which is, you know, being a great filmmaker, you know, this is the one that he got, like, the real budget for. So this is, like, a much bigger budget than any of the other movies that he's made. And with that, he was, you know, the cast is, like, just incredible. Like, so it's, you know, Leo DiCaprio and Sean Penn and Benito del Toro and like, all these amazing, you know, actors and actresses. But as a consequence, I don't have the numbers at the top of my head, but, you know, it was estimated to cost something on the order of $200 million to make. And then it's. It's more money on top of that for, you know, for. For advertising the. The challenge with it. And then, you know, it's got Leo and, you know, he's. By the way, he's fantastic in it. Very entertaining. But, by the way, what. Spoiler alert. One of the things about the message. It's got the message. So the Leo character, I don't know, plays one of these. Basically, he's a bomber, basically, in hiding for, like, 18 years or whatever. And he's got this daughter. Is the daughter of his. His. His. His lover who's this. Was this, you know, great, like, basically, you know, violent revolutionary of the era, and they've been in hiding for 18 years. And he's, like, completely fried his brain on like, you know, drugs and alcohol. It's just like, you know, he's completely blown out as a person. He spends the entire movie running around, like, in his bathrobe, like, you know, basically, you know, basically high. And if you actually watch the movie carefully all the way through, it actually turns out nothing he actually does at any point in the plot ever actually matters. Like. Like he. He plays no actual role in the plot. And so it's this, like, incredible performance. And it's incredibly. It's incredibly, you know, dynamic and entertaining performance. And the movie. The movie's going to sell. Do well overseas as a result of that because people love Leo. But, like, again, it's consistent with the message of. Of course the white male lead can have no actual role to play in the plot. Like, you know, that's definitely not allowed. Like, in the climax, he literally shows up at the end of the climax and just like, I'm here and like, it's. It's like all over, right? And like, everybody's dead. Like, it's all. It's just done. So. So anyway, it's going to do reasonably well because. Because, you know, because it has Leo, but it's still going to lose like 100, $120 million. Are, you know, the EST that I'm hearing, which is, you know, a pretty. Pretty big loss, you know, for. For. For a movie like this. The. The. The fear in Hollywood always is when there's. When there's a movie that loses that much money, you know, will be executive green, green light, new, original movies. And, you know, so hopefully they do. Hopefully the lesson that's drawn from this is, you know, basically it's, you know, is. Is. Is the. Is the Brady Snellas point, which is the. The. The what is. What do you say? The fussiness or the musty.
- [25:57]
B
He said it's a musty film.
- [25:58]
A
Like, musty mustiness. Yeah. Hopefully the conclusion is don't make movies that are going to be musty when they're released. Right. Like, you know, you. You didn't have, you know, you didn't have to green light the thousandth movie with the message in 2022. Like, that was a choice, you know, so maybe don't do that anymore, you know, but. But, you know, but. But maybe it's time to move on. Let me highlight the movie on the other side that I think is very underappreciated and I think has, you know, you can say maybe at best right now it's becoming a cult classic. It's just not that big. Of a hit. But, like, I have hopes for it and I hope it becomes one of these mythic movies, which is Eddington. And let me, let me start by asking, have you guys both at this point seen Eddington? I haven't. I haven't. Okay, but you're in for a treat. So, so my opinion, my opinion, personal opinion, Eddington is the first Capital A art, art, great art movie I, I, I feel like I've seen since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And I think it clears the bar. And I would start by saying it's not a perfect movie. Like, you know, there, you know, there are things about it that I'm, you know, I'm sure five years from now or whatever, even the maker of the movie might look back and say, you know, could have done things differently. So, but, but it's like, it's, it's like it has the opposite of the musty feeling. It has the feeling of, oh, I'm actually finally seeing on screen real people again. Like, finally, like real people set in the real world, doing real things where you're just like, wow, like that, that I'm actually seeing the world that we've actually spent the last five years living in. And it's the first movie like that that I've seen in a long time. And specifically, it's the first movie, and it's amazing that this is the case even with the timescales that we're talking about. It's the first movie in which, like, the George Floyd riots actually happened. It's the first movie in which Covid actually happened. It's the first movie in which social media actually happened. It's the first movie in which Wokeness actually happened. It's the first movie in which Trump actually happened. Like, and it's actually, and this is why I'm sort of having the reaction to the movie that I'm having, which is just like, it's the only movie in which any of those things actually happen in the universe of the movie. Because, like, I don't know, you tell unless I miss something, like, every other movie that's come out that's been significant over the last five years. Like, it's as if none of that ever happened. And my explanation for that is these are all the hot button issues that if you screwed them up in Hollywood, you got your career destroyed. Right? So if you said the wrong thing about COVID lockdowns or vaccines, if you said the wrong thing about Trump, if you said the wrong thing about the Floyd riots, if you said the Wrong thing about wokeness, like your career get obliterated. So we have like a generation of creatives who basically just like, got. Do not touch the stove. And the auteur who made Eddington, it's an auto movie, this guy Ari Astor, who's this young artur, Very talented guy, he basically was like, I'm just gonna grab the stove with both hands and I'm just gonna, like, hold up for dear life. And it's like a roller coaster ride through every crazy fucking thing that happened in the last five years. And I was just like, howling with laughter. But this way, me and the other four people in the theater who are watching it were just like, wow, it's amazing. It's finally happening.
- [28:50]
B
Other bright side of this, too, is that it's not unknown actors, right? It's Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone. And what's really interesting about, as you said, most media or most movies try to kind of gloss over social media or things where it's actually hard to depict it on a screen. There's nothing really interesting about looking at your phone. But getting a Covid nostril test is actually very funny. And I know the trailer begins with, like, pulling up in this, like, old car, getting the nostril. It's just like. It's just like a funny thing. And so it's like, it's good that some of these more like absurd things that have happened in the last couple years, like, they're actually very cinematic and they should be put on. Like, they should be put, like great filmmakers should be showing them because they're so funny.
- [29:32]
A
So I'll do a couple again. I'm going to blow through the spoilers. Yeah. So the opening scene is Joaquin Phoenix. Joaquin Phoenix plays this basically this crusty sheriff of this small town in New Mexico called Eddington, which actually kind of reminds me of the town I grew up in. And the key thing for the thing is Eddington, like, there's just nothing in the town. Like, it's like 600 people. It's just like the streets are empty, the stores are empty. I mean, it's like a town that was empty before COVID right? And then. And then the lockdowns hit, and then it became even more desolate. But, like, there's nothing happening and you could just walk around and there's nobody there. And so Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff who's like this crusty, unreconstructed, and he's not really a Trump supporter per se, but he's like this sort of crusty, you know, Kind of traditionalist, you know, kind of kind of guy. He's the kind of guy who just really does not want things to change that much. And like, everything is changing around him. And it starts. It starts in. It starts in Covet. It starts in like April of 2020. And he's sitting in this pickup truck in the middle of nowhere, and he's like eating a sandwich or whatever. And this other truck pulls up next to him and it's these, you know, it's set in New Mexico. And so there's these. The town that he's in are adjacent to these tribal lands. And so these two young tribal cops, you know, Native American cops, pull up in a. In a pickup truck next to him and they're like, you know, they're like young and, you know, let's say cooler than he is. And they're both wearing their masks, right? And literally they're like, roll down your window. And he rolls to the window. And literally from their pickup truck into his, they're like, you have to put your mask on. Right? You know, it was like, literally it was like, for me, it was like, you know, it was like, you know, the heaven has opened, the angels are singing. I'm finally seeing a capital M movie like this. And you know, like, he's a brilliant. And so like he. He gets across like in one look, the feeling that I think we've all had for the last five years, which is like, like, what the fuck? And that's just the opening scene. And then it cascades through all the COVID And then it cascades through. And then, you know, spoiler alert again or spoiler. It cascades through the Floyd. So the Floyd riots hit midway through the movie. And then all the. And then, you know, the, the. The. The. Of course, you know, the local high school, it's like, you know, the local high school is like 100% white. You know, it's New Mexico. And you know, and then the white kids basically become like obsessed with racial justice even though they literally don't own a black people. And they start like, basically having like full blown riots, like, you know, in the main street and like breaking store windows and like crashing everything. And there's one, there's one black. There's one black person at a time who's the sheriff's deputy, who's Joaquin's deputy, who's a military vet. And he's just like, what the hell? Like, it's like, why do I have to defend the grocery store from the white kids, like, trying to burn it down on my behalf, like, what the fuck? Anyway, so the whole movie is like that. And then maybe just one more thing about it. It's just hysterical. Eric, this is a good time for you to take a drink of water because you're gonna love this part. This is good for this fit takeout. Pedro Pascal is in it. And at first you would think Pedro Pascal plays the mayor. And at first you're like, oh, this is going to be a clear setup where Joaquin Phoenix is like the retrograde right winger and Pascal's like the voice of reason. It's like, no, no, he's Gavin Newsom. Like, I swear to God, he's Gavin Newsom. Like, 100%. Pedro Pastel is playing.
- [32:39]
C
What does he do?
- [32:40]
A
I, I don't even want to. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's. I don't even want to. Like, I, I don't. I'm not even intending to badmouth Gavin. I'm just saying, like, or, or just every other politician, whatever is your idea of a politician who's like, Gavin Newsom, like, Pedro Pascal. Pedro Pascal plays him and just like, could not be looking down on the, the, the, the. The sheriff character with more contempt. Like, just absolutely. Just like, you know, and then vice versa. And then basically what happens is that, you know, they, they effectively so that, that. So the, the. The sheriff gets frustrated by the whole thing, the lockdowns and everything, and so he decides to run for mayor. And so then it becomes a fight, you know, between the two of them, which, by the way, is just the beginning of the movie. Like, it then gets actually quite a bit more elaborate after that. But the big thing about it is it just, it's like a full. It's just like an absolute full frontal examination from top to bottom. And like, it pulls in it like Catherine. It doesn't have. It's interesting. It doesn't have a lot of, like, it doesn't have like, a lot of on screen graphics of, like, people on social media. But it does have this recurring thing which, again is just. It's incredible how rare this is in movies or maybe other filmmakers haven't figured out how to do it, which is these characters live in a world of social media. And so he does this great, like, when a character in this movie wakes up, he rolls over and he checks his phone, right? Like it's our world. And he does, I think, a very good job of showing the interleaving back and forth of how people are. And again, this is like a rural town in the middle of nowhere, people are living this double life that we all now live, which is we've got our in person life and then we've got our online life. And there's this question of which one is more real. And this is the first movie I've seen that actually just. And it doesn't incorporate that. Like, it's not social media, the movie. Like, that's not what the movie's about, but it just kind of shows naturally how the nature of reality has changed around that and then how it influences real world behavior. And so anyway, so I can't recommend it highly about that.
- [34:21]
B
Isn't Emma Stone's character, like, taken by conspiracy that she finds online? Or like, what is her role in the movie?
- [34:28]
A
Yeah, well, so this is part of the. So at this point I'm like grabbing the stove with both hands also, like, she, she plays like. She plays like the upper middle class white woman who's just like racked with anxiety. And this is like, this is the plot arc. Like, she's just like. She's like incredibly deeply unhappy. And so, yeah, so she gets locked into, like, online conspiracies. And then there's this whole thing. I don't even. I don't even want to spoil the thing that happens with her because it's quite something and it's quite a plot arc of its own. But, you know, she has her own. Her own kind of parallel life that kind of unfolds through this because she's Joaquin Phineas's husband. And like, and he loves her and has absolutely no idea what she. He has absolutely no clue what's going on in her head. Like, he, like, married to her. He loves her. She's clearly extremely depressed. She's clearly extremely anxious. He has no ability whatsoever to understand her. And then her, you know, her mother, you know, her mother, she's, you know, very close with her mother. Her mother keeps showing up, you know, lives in town just. And just fucking hates him and just is like scathing towards him. And he's like, what, you know, what's. I'm doing my best. I can't read your mind. Like, I don't know what's going on. And so, you know, it's got that, you know, it's got like a whole. It's got like a whole. It's got like a whole arc there. And then. And then it's got another one more. It's got the. There's. There's the. In the little. In the little high school. There's a There's a very attractive, you know, blonde high school girl who basically, like, becomes like, completely committed to social justice, and it's going on and on. She's got like, all the, you know, patriarchy. She's got all the talking points. Like, she's, you know, she's ready for her, you know, sociology degree and. And then all the. All the, like, boys and men, like, orbiting around her. Basically, like, become obsessed with, like, there's a. There's a. There's a white male high school kid who just, like, is, like, just generally oblivious. And he. He, like, has a thing for her. And so, like, he starts reading Angela Davis like, in. In an attempt to be. To basically become attractive for her. And. And anyway, so like. And he starts spouting off about white privilege, the whole thing. Does it work?
- [36:26]
D
Because that's always the question.
- [36:28]
A
It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work for the purposes that he. It doesn't work for the purposes that he intends it for. But he. He. Let's say he. He ultimately, yeah, he has a very successful, I would say, plot arc of his own. Yes, he actually plays. Plays a major role in the. In the. He goes in his own journey and plays a major role with the end of the movie anyway, so it's just like. It's one of these movies and, you know, people has different critiques of it and it's a little bit of a. I don't know what they call, like, a shaggy dog story where, like, as the movie goes, like, increasingly crazy things are happening and things get kind of, you know, they get kind of deranged in sort of a way that, you know, is, you know, you could argue is, like, truly reflective how deranged things got. Or you could say, you know, maybe he gets a little bit carried away. But, like, it's just. It directly, it's such direct engagement with our times. And to me, it was just like, wow, I'm actually seeing on screen our world as opposed to this sort of either this manufactured view of a world that doesn't exist or this sort of manicured view where these topics have just become untouchable. And so anyway, so my. My hope is it's the beginning of a wave of, like, there's so much material. You know, this is the old Tom Wolf thing, which is like. What's Tom Wolf's term? He said. What was it? The. His term. Is it the eight. It was the eight billion. Is the. The beast with eight billion feet or what was this term? Like, the mass of humanity. You have this term where he's like. Like, Tom Wolf always had this point of view. You know, the great novelist, journalist. The most interesting topic in the world is like, the human race, right? Like, the collective behavior of 8 billion people on planet Earth is like the most interesting thing in the world. And like, the 8 billion people on planet Earth are always getting up to like, the craziest shit. And like, if you want to, like, write great fiction, he was always telling people who wanted to write fiction, he's like, if you want to write great fiction, you want to go out and you want to be with the people and you want to actually observe what's happening. And it's so crazy that if you just like, write it down, you know, that's how you like, write the great American novel. Like, that's what you do. And so he would famously do this. And so when he did Bonfire the Vanities, he immersed himself in Wall Street. And when he had a man in full, he immersed himself in, you know, Atlanta real estate. And when he. When he, you know, he did all the, you know, back. Back to Blood, he immersed himself in the Miami, you know, Miami culture. And, you know, he. He would go do this. And of course, you know, his critique was, you know, the new generation novelists, they sit in their apartment in Brooklyn, you know, you know, you know, with their typewriter, you know, and they. They introspect, right? And. And. And that's why there's no more great American novels. And so, like, Ari Aster is like the Phil. He's like the filmmaker who got that. I don't know if he ever got, you know, red Tom Wolf or not, but, like, where he understands that, he's like, oh, go immerse yourself in what's actually happening in real life and translate that. And he was, I don't know, uniquely able to do it, Uniquely able to get away with it. I'm hoping he's the beginning of a wave of these. And, you know, they don't. It doesn't all have to be about COVID or the Floyd riots or whatever. There's many, many other topics you could do. But, like, you know, there should be a great. There should be a great movie for every basically significant social, cultural thing that happens. And there's. Those opportunities are just laying all. There's like hundreds or thousands of those opportunities just laying on the ground, right? You know, for the creatives who can go pick them up. And again, if, by the way, every creative writing, this hearing this is going to say, yeah, no shit, but, well, the studio is green light it and pay for it. And that would be my other hope, which is some combination of the Boulder executives at the streamers and at the studios. Example, David Olson, who's clearly very brilliant guy, taking over Paramount and maybe buying more studios. Guys like him are in a position to greenlight an entirely new generation of movie that could be both commercially successful and could be true art.
- [39:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. No. So I guess is it your view that, like, we'll have this like five to seven year window of musty films that people, like, kind of pretend are decent, but then like, we. We kind of get the Eddingtons as well, where you're. Where you're going to see things open up again. So we'll have this sort of like, nice period of weirdness. Like, I actually think looking back 50 years from, you know, 50 years from today, it'll be fun to look back at these films and be like, that was wild that that was what we were talking about. So I. But your. Your view is that. That it is going to open up. That though there will be more Eddingtons, there'll be more extremes and it's not just be one battle after another kind of the message.
- [40:26]
A
Yeah. So just quickly, one more thing on one battle after another. So the critics are rapturous about this movie, right? And so if you read Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are, you know, it's like 98% or whatever. And the critics are just like, this is like the most brilliant movie of all time. This completely captures, you know. Yes. This is like, this is like the ultimate chronicling of like, America's descent into being, you know, the Fourth Reich. Like, you know, this is. Yes, this is like absolute glory. Yes, absolutely revolutionary violence should be glorified. Like, the critics are like, all in. Right. And, you know, the movie critic community has like, gone hard in on this, just like, you know, just like so many other creative communities. And so they're all in, by the way, this movie, I don't know if it's going to, but, like, it wouldn't be surprising if it sweeps the Oscars. Right? It's just like, you know, the best. The best. The best movie ever made, you know, but now it's going to be like everybody who has been out, been through this, you know, spin cycle for the last eight years is, you know, people are onto it, you know, including the audience. And so. And I think even the people participating in kind of what is already kind of an orgy of kind of hyper, exaggerated critical admiration are probably all realizing that they're, you know, fundamentally being dishonest. But, you know, like, so, so Catherine, to your point, like, yeah, that machine, like the, the, the, the sort of, the message machine, like that machine is continuing to spin for now. It's just very clear that, like, there's just like smoke and parts flying off of it. Like, it's just like, you know, it is, it is, it is going to, it is going to rattle to a stop. And then if you, if you talk to people in Hollywood, basically what they'll tell you is, by the way, independent of people's politics with a sort of, I would say sharp people in Hollywood generally, I'll say is, yeah, the cultural fever has broken. You can now make, you can now get movies greenlit today that you could not get greenlit two years ago specifically. This is amazing. Then this is good. But you can have comedies again. They actually say, by the way they say this. They're like, we can now make comedies again. You can have funny movies because to have funny movies, you need to poke a sacred cows, right? The thing that makes comedy funny is when it's subversive, when it's, you know, when it touches a Nerf like that, that's, that's, you know, that's what great adult comedy is. And, and, you know, you just could not make a funny movie for the last eight years. Like, it was impossible. It was way too risky. And, and, but what they're saying now is that you can. And then maybe the other signal indicator, Catherine, of what's happening, which is Mel Gibson finally got greenlit to do his sequel to Bastion of the Christ, which is the resurrection movie, and which he's, which he's making right now. And at least my friends in Hollywood are like, yeah, that never would have happened. Like, that never would have happened under a Kamala administration. That never would have happened without the election result. And again, it's. These are not even people who are pro Trump. It's just okay, like, the national mood is shifting. We're not. Yes. Mel Gibson, of all people, being like one of the clearly great filmmakers of our time and having all of the issues that Mel Gibson has, like, yes, that guy should get to make a movie and specifically that guy should get to make that movie. And that's an example of what I'm talking about, is that that's possible this year in a way that it wasn't before.
- [43:13]
B
Well, and the other thing, I think yesterday Young Washington came out the trailer, which Joel shows, which again, is not Hollywood. It's based in Provo, but has proven that they can make very successful films for a different pocket of the. That actually likes patriotism. But I think in some ways, like the, The Top Gun success story, yes, it's nostalgia, but like the fact that it did so well at the box office shows that there is an appetite for totally different content. Like 50% of the country would love to see movies that are patriotic or about something, you know, a biopic in history that's really interesting about George Washington. So I think in some ways it's like there's there sort of this business case too of, wow, like 50, you know, the 50% of the country that's been starved for the content they want will actually pay to go to the theater. And maybe we should support them.
- [43:59]
A
Yeah.
- [44:00]
D
To that end, Mark, do the. Do the executives appreciate the Rotten Tomatoes phenomenon or just how distinct sort of the. Yeah. With the critics or even their own staff are from the actual audience?
- [44:10]
A
Yeah. So they live it. They live it. And so like I said, like for the last eight years, it's basically been a reign of terror because these critics and who the people these critics represent had the power of life and death over people's careers. And then they know the critics kind of went nuts. But this is the problem with. There's not that much they can do about it. Right. The critics were able to succeed in their own field. It's just like everything else that happened in media. The critics were able to succeed in their own field by kind of going arbitrarily wild. And then there's basically nothing that. If you're a movie student executive, there's really nothing you can do about it because what do you do about it? If you, if you ignore them, they attack you. If you engage with them, they attack you. If you attack them, they attack you back. And so there's been very little to do. And then the critics are not. Well, okay, so that's been happening. And Hollywood, like Silicon Valley and like every other industry, like, there is insularity to it. And so there's a self referential thing. And so when sort of opinion shapers move against you, it becomes a real problem in Hollywood. People get fired. Right. Like every studio executive kind of knows that at some point they're going to get fired. People get fired off of projects all the time. When people get fired, by the way, off of projects in Hollywood, like, they may not, you know, they may not eat, they may not get another job for five, you know, for two years or five years or ever. And so, you know, it's it's, it's a high tension environment. And so, yeah, I think, I think they don't understand that. By the way. I also think that, you know, especially the sort of, you know, the boomer executives, the Gen X executives, you know, they'll also tell you the same thing. You'll hear, you know, that you heard in the Valley and in Washington and elsewhere, which is, wow, the young staff is really radicalized, right? And so, you know, so they're also afraid of their young staff. And then, by the way, you know, they're, you know, these are mostly public companies. They're also afraid of their boards. The boards are afraid of the public shareholders. You know, the public shareholders radicalized. And so it's a, it was a very similar phenomenon to what happened in tech, which is kind of this, this sort of collective, I don't like wildness or, you know, kind of, kind of, you know, kind of this this intensity thing, you know, kind of happened. And, and, and then it really couldn't be openly discussed for a long time and probably still can't, like, they probably still really can't talk about it in public. A few of them are starting to, but like, not really. So for the most part the conversations are kind of in the background. But again, but against that, it's just like, okay, that's broken a bit. And part of it also is just the kind of business aspect of it, which is, I mean the classic is the big moneymaker in Hollywood for the last 20 years has been superhero movies. And let's just say coincident with the beginning of the message is the results on those movies collapsed. And at some point they need to go sell some movie tickets. At some point they need to deliver revenue. And I think they've gotten, I don't know, the message of the message, which is, you know, if all you are is on board with the social trend, right? Especially Catherine, to your point, especially when that social trend gets old and it's no longer, you know, au courant. Like you can't run a public company based on reviews, right? Like at some point butts do have to show up in seats. And so I think that that's also kicked in. And so the financial pressures are very painful right now. They're probably not helpful. I don't know. The financial pressures in Hollywood are, it's hard to say because on the one hand, when there's financial pressures in Hollywood, of course the argument is fewer movies get greenlit and then, and then the executives become more risk averse in the Kinds of movies that roll in green light. Right. But I think it also means that they are also less willing to greenlight projects that are being greenlit only for political reasons or only for social cultural reasons, or only out of a sense of fear. And so I don't know exactly how that balances, but hopefully, hopefully things get more exciting. By the way, of course, the other big topic in Hollywood is AI. Yeah. So that's the, you know, that's the 800 pound thing. And you know, and you know, to their credit, they're, you know, say they're highly aware of it, they're highly alert. Alert to it. And then by the way, there are a bunch of filmmakers, including some folks that I know that are like super excited. And so they're including some like, I know of like two, like a triple A list, like directors, filmmakers, you know, top end people who are like very excited about what's possible and are going to fully embrace it. And there's a bunch of other people who are, you know, very excited. And so there's going to be an embrace by at least part. But there's also, you know, there's a lot of, you know, Hollywood has always had kind of a fear driven reaction to new technologies and there's some of that. And then there is this attachment in Hollywood. It's actually very acute. There's this attachment of AI politics to WOKE politics. And so if you're still super woke, you're also super anti AI. And there are these basically, it's basically the WOKE activists have picked up AI as the new thing that they're going to agitate about. And they're mounting basically already pressure campaigns on the studios to basically vow to never use AI. And at least so far, the studios to their credit are like, no, we're not going to do that. Like the studio, so far I think the studio executives have all been consistent, which is like, look, we've always used technology. The movie camera itself is technology. Special effects, like we've always used technology. Videotapes, DVDs, streaming, these are all technologies. Every movie has CGI. One of my little fun facts about the history of movies is Tron was the first. There's a big sequel for Tron that's out this week. The Original Tron was 1982 from Disney. And it was the first movie that had integrated use of computer graphics, which was the big thing at the time. And as a consequence of that, Tron was disqualified from the Oscars because they cheated by using computer graphics. And so to go from that World to the world in which every movie has cgi, and for the most part, you don't even know that there's CGI in it. You just see a romantic comedy and they're using CGI to do all kinds of things in it, and you don't even notice. And it's just taken completely for granted. And so I think the studios, I think, understand that. I think they're going to actually embrace it enthusiastically. But there's going to be this. There's going to be this, like, at least there's an attempt to, like, gin up a moral panic around it and try to, you know, basically keep it out. And I don't think it's going to work because I think the economics are too compelling. But anyway. But then the other thing with AI is of course AI is going to be super helpful to existing filmmakers. But the other thing is AI for sure. And we, you know, we see this, especially in this last, last. In this last couple of weeks with the new version of Sora and a lot of these other new things that are coming out. AI is going to make a whole new kind of filmmaker possible to exist for the first time, which is the filmmaker with no visual skill, right. Or access to a set or to a camera or to actors, but with an idea people are going to be able to make. It's going to start with shorts and animated things and so forth, but it's going to work its way up to full movies. And so people who otherwise would be limited to only being novelists or being maybe people who do graphic novels but are creative geniuses are going to be able to actually make full movies with AI and again, I think that's a reason for, like, profound optimism. I think we're going to get, like, completely new kinds of, you know, basically film and entertainment from people who otherwise never would. Would have been able to. To access the medium. And, and I think that also is. I'm very positive on that.
- [50:49]
B
Can we add, because you, you brought it up on comedy. I, I know you saw Nick Gun or the, the new Naked Gun film. What, what was your thoughts on? Is comedy working? Is it. Is it. Does it have to be nostalgic for it to work, but maybe tell us a little bit about that film and, and whether it's a, a reason to be positive on comedies in the future.
- [51:06]
A
Yeah, so I thought Naked. Naked Gun, I thought, was actually a little bit of a minor miracle, so. For a couple reasons. So one is, look, it's a sequel to movies from like 40 years ago, and so you know, how many people even remember the original Naked Gun movies? It actually turns out a lot of people do. They're beloved movies. But also it turns out like, you can, you can make an, like, it's great, it's a great comedy. It's like a fantastic comedy. It's very funny. It worked. It worked commercially, it worked artistically. It honored the original material. But it was also like, it was deliriously loopy in its own way, way. I highly recommend it. It's very funny. But actually it strikes me to that point. It also, like Edington, it's also a post message movie. And this is actually, and maybe this is a reason for optimism, which is again, if you go back through the timescale, like that thing was green lit no later than 22, probably in 21. So at the height of every movie has to have the message that that movie was still green lit and it got all the way through and out the other side and there's not a trace of it in it. And so like, it's, it's a pure, it's a pure comedy. It's a pure comedy. It's like the original movies. It's a pure comedy. It's a pure absurdist, you know, kind of Three Stooges, you know, style comedy. Liam Neeson, of course, plays against, plays against type and it's of course a brilliant comedian and just kills it. And then Pam Anderson, you know, the great icon of, you know, 1980s, you know, femininity. You know, it's her big, it's her big, you know, starring role and she just like, absolutely is just fantastic. Like, she's just like, absolutely kills it. She's hysterical and she's just like, and she's just like there as a person and like, she's not, you know, she's not wearing, you know, she's just like, you know, she's, she's like, you know, she's just like full woman in natural form and it's, it's, it's great. And you know, and it's, you know, it's a, like there's any, there's, there's no, there's no, you know, there's none of the casting, let's say, you know, aspects that kind of cause problems. You know, there's none of this, there's no script. It's just, it's just like an extremely well executed, like it very easily could have been made in 2012 or in 2008 or in 2002. Now, look, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't move the artistic ball forward. Right. It's a very well executed example of a genre. But it. But it is a movie that it was somehow able to escape all of the traps that all of these other movies have gotten into and was able to make it out and to be a big commercial hit. And again, I think the executives are very encouraged by that. The audience is still there for that. I'll just give you the. It doesn't really have any, like, racial politics or whatever, but it does have. It did have one thing, which is for people who haven't seen it, it was famously a movie originally that one of the major stars of it was O.J. simpson, playing a character named Nordberg, who got into all kinds of unlikely trouble. And so they do this scene where I'll just spoil one thing because it was extremely funny. So Liam Neeson plays the son of the original main guy, Leslie Nielsen, in the movie. So Frank Grubbin. And then Leslie. Liam Neeson plays Frank Grubbin Jr. And then Liam, sidekick plays the son of Leslie Nielsen, sidekick from the original movie. And then there's a young black guy on the team. And normally in a movie, it's like, okay, of course there's a young black guy on the team. But they do it really well, which is. They've got out in the hallway of the police station, the movie. They've got Leslie Nielsen's photo up on the. He passed away. So they got his photo up, and Liam Neeson does this thing where he kneels down and he's like, oh, Father, I'm trying to live up to your expectations and trying to be a great police officer. And he's sobbing and there's tears, and, you know, next to it is like a sidekick with a sidekick photo. And he's like, oh, Father, I miss you so much. And I. I want to be a great cop. And then there's, you know, the black kid, and he's looking up at a photo of OJ and he just. And he just look at the camera and he just goes.
- [54:44]
B
Perfect.
- [54:45]
A
Perfection. Absolutely perfect. Yes. So, yeah, comedies are good, by the way. Let me put in the plug for one more movie. Have either of you guys seen Fantastic Four? Four? No, probably not. Fantastic Four is the most pro family movie in Hollywood since I can't even remember Catherine in particular. I think you'll be astonished. It's incredible. What's that?
- [55:11]
B
Did it come out?
- [55:12]
A
It came out this summer. It came out this summer. It came out this summer. And Marvel, just for context, it's one of the big Marvel. It's one of the new Marvel, one of the many Marvel tent pole properties. And the Marvel machine did incredibly well from iron man in 2008 through endgame and whatever, 2020. But for the last five years, many of the big Marvel projects have not done well, both the TV shows and the movies. And again, you could argue different reasons why, but critical drinker would tell you it's because they became consumed by the message. Fantastic Four, it's like a diverse cast, it's got a lot of the modern stuff in it, but however, and it's just like 100% pro family in a very actually quite deep and moving way. And so again, it's a little bit like, wow, they greenlit this thing in 20. And maybe again, maybe this reason, maybe I'm actually too cynical, maybe in 2022 they already real, the filmmakers already realized what was happening and so maybe they actually had their own version of the underground movement where they're like, all right, it's time to start planting the seeds for what is going to come out of this whole thing when sort of the panic subsides. And you could say like Fantastic Four is like a true audience pleasing blockbuster from a studio that has been obsessed with the message that comes out and doesn't have a trace of it in it at all. And, and furthermore, it's like it's like 100 above. I wouldn't say it's like, it's not, I mean it's a, it's a superhero movie, so it's not like a political, I wouldn't say it has like political content per se, but it's like, it's like 100% pro family in a way. That's very touching.
- [56:39]
B
We'll put it on the list.
- [56:41]
A
Do you think Atlas, by the way, your kids will love it. Your kids will love it. I took my 10 year old and like he was like, yeah, he, he doesn't, he doesn't react emotionally to things, but he was like as close to crying in a movie as I've ever seen him. So. Wow.
- [56:51]
D
Do you think Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead could, could get made today and do you think there'd be an audience for it?
- [56:57]
A
You know, it's funny. Yeah, it's funny. It's so funny. Especially like Alice Shrug has become Alice Shrug is why Alice Shrugged. You know, people don't know. It's the sort of famous Ayn Rand novel. It's kind of her most successful novel. It's the novel that basically it, it clearly is like a great mythic American novel. Like, it clearly. It clearly clears. We were talking about earlier. You know, it is one of the great American novels. You know, it's of a time and place which is sort of the, you know, the sort of 1950s. But it's written in a way that can be kind of deliberately timeless. It's actually kind of. It's actually kind of interesting how it's written because it kind of. It's like obsessed with railroads on the one hand, which makes it kind of look back to the 1800s, but it also. It's also has, like, science fiction elements. And she kind of did that, I think, deliberately so that it would kind of have this timeless kind of. She's really talking about, you know, it's a movie. It's a novel, as the great novels. It's a novel about. About people and the behavior of people. And so. But she does this thing where she kind of abstracts the specific content of it in order to kind of try to make it timeless. And I think. I think it works quite well. And the Fountainhead is another version of that. The Atlas Shrugged basically, is about broadly, it's about American dynamism. It's American dynamism in the movie. It's about industrialization and progress and science and going to the stars and like, you know, achieving great things and, you know, and the shape of societies that do that. The Fountainhead is more about, I would say, artistic achievements and artistic purity, and it's sort of similarly evocative. And so both those novels are, you know, high up on the list of novels that will be very influential, you know, in a hundred years. Both of those novels have been absolutely scathingly hated by every, you know, cultural commentator and critic for the last, you know, basically since they came out, like, just. And. And those novels are just attacked in, like, the most vicious possible terms, like, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, famously, famously, Whitaker Chambers members the reformed Communist, reviewed Atlas Shrugged for National Review when it came out in the 1950s, and he basically called her a Nazi in National Review. Whitaker Chambers, who became this famous right winger, basically calls Ayn Rand a Nazi. Ayn Rand, of course, being a Jewish refugee from Russia. He said the novel, quote, has the whiff of the gas chamber about it. And so, like, which, by the way, it doesn't. But anyway, very unfair. Unfair, but anyway, it's like you're a divergence through the rotten tomato. Scores of the critics versus the audience. Basically everybody who's read Atlas Shrugged loves it, and everybody who's criticized her for A living just fucking despises it. Just completely despises it. And what's interesting about it, and maybe this is the importance of the novel is Eric to your question, that aspect of it lives today. So anybody today, every time I've ever talked to anybody who's read Atlas Shrugged in the last five years, they're like, wow. Now it's like the novel about the world we live in. It's like, oh, I know that guy and I know that guy and I know that guy. Eric knows what I'm talking about. These are all people. These are all people. These are all archetypes of people. We know who these people are, we know what they're doing. It's amazing how receptive it is 60 or 80 years later, how primal she made it. But it has that relevance. And by the way, it's tremendously entertaining and it's like this sprawling narrative and it's this incredible character. And so yeah, like it very clearly ought to be a three part movie or you know, at a huge budget or you're ought to be like an eight season, you know, 10 episode, 80 episode total, you know, lavish HBO show or something. But like the cultural, like the cultural overlay of that, like what it would take in Hollywood to do that and the level of attack that you would come under, the level of savagery that you would encounter if you're the executive or the actor or whatever, I mean it would, it would be every bit as intense today as it was in the 1950s when the novel came out. And so like, like that would be the great, like that would be the indication that like we're in a like really different world. I'm, I've talked to some folks in Hollywood about it. They, they all know it, they all understand this, they all know the novel. They're, you know, they're all very familiar with it. They all by the way, love the idea of, of doing things that have pre existing brands and audiences built in, you know, because that, that really reduces the risk. But like they, if you really talk about it, they, it's a little bit like a hot stove, you know, step away. And by the way, and again, it's very striking that a novel from like whatever 1953 can still be generating the hot stroke reaction in 2025, you know, is pretty amazing.
- [61:08]
D
And the flip side of that is because it's such a cult classic that people would come out and drove like it would, you know, it would, it would make a lot of noise in a good way.
- [61:15]
A
It would be, it would be the Silicon Valley version of the Minecraft movie. Right. Like, you would just be like, yep, we're all going, yeah. But you know, I don't know, maybe, maybe that, maybe it's not a big enough audience or whatever to, you know, maybe that's not a big enough cult classic thing. But like, by the way, it sells like the, you know, it's one of the best selling novels of all time. It sells, you know, enormously well today. It sold well, basically since it came out. It sells far better. I mean, it's one of these things. It'll sell far more copies this year than any well reviewed novel that the New York Times Book Review talks about. And yet it is just like it is so completely politically unacceptable that it's off the map. Yeah. So that would be the ultimate test. I would love to see it happen. I don't know. And by the way, maybe the answer here, maybe this is AI, Right? Maybe the answer here is AI. Maybe what we need is the AI system where you feed the novel in and it makes the movement, you know, which by the way, first, you know, now that I say that, like for sure that's going to happen. And so, you know, maybe that's actually the answer.
- [62:11]
D
Yeah, yeah. We were laughing offline about how someone was using SORA to make like a something that we thought was better than South Park. And it'll be interesting to see if a whole new crop of filmmaker sort of, you know, democratizes the industry a little bit. That it's not just Hollywood, but it's people, you know, from all over. And studios don't have this sort of, you know, monopoly over, over creation of high quality stuff. So, yeah, we'll see.
- [62:35]
A
Yeah, so south park actually, let's close, close on this, but just briefly on South Park. South park was very much like what you're seeing with AI filmmaking right now, but in 1990, 19, 1993. So I remember in south park, the original south park came out, the original south park came out in 1993. And it was significant. It was the first Internet viral video ever. It was the first video. And this was like pre streaming, pre YouTube, pre, you know, years before all of that. And so it literally distributed at the time as literally it was a QuickTime movie. It was Apple's QuickTime video format and it was a downloadable thing. And like if you wanted to download an unmodem, you had to like leave the modem on for like an hour or something to like download this thing. And what it was was it was a Digital scan of a video Christmas card. So there was an executive in Hollywood at the time that wanted to make his friends a special kind of Christmas card. And so he hired these two basically scrappy young, you know, basically film students, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who had no credits and, you know, they were just kids and hadn't done anything yet. And he hired them to. And he basically said make the most offensive, basically like three minute video Christmas card you can possibly imagine. And so. And with these, with these kids, it was. It was a technology at the time. What they did was the camcorders, digital cam. Digital camcorders are brand new. So they used digital camcorder. And but then they did stop. They did stop motion. They had no money, so they did stop motion animation using little cardboard, using literally construction paper characters. And so the reason the characters look like they do is because literally in the original thing, they were cut out of construction paper and they were literally moved by hand, frame to frame. And then the two kids did the voiceovers. But it was from the very beginning it was the same character. It was Cartman and Kyle and Stan and Kenny, right in south park, which is the town that these kids grew up in. And then it was this three minute Christmas card and it was Santa Claus versus Jesus. And Santa Claus versus Jesus ended up in a full kung fu fight, complete with blood and body parts. And so it was like this. It was like it was intended to be maximally offensive in it, but it was really funny. And so somebody got. Then literally it was sent out on videotape, right? It was a pre dvd, right? So sent out on videotape. And somebody actually scanned the videotape, which is actually hard to do. And then it went super viral on the Internet and became big. And so it's an example of, you know, everything. I just described the camcorder like that. That was the AI of its time. It left these kids who had no access or no knowledge even necessarily of like traditional animation production methods to do this. By the way, when those kids actually then got their. They then actually, you know, south park is like a full studio now. You know, it's been tremendously financially successful. They now have a complete state of the art studio production facility. And what they've used it for is they've used it to hyper optimize computer models of the optimal recreation of the aesthetics of the construction paper. And so if you watch south park episodes today, you see actually the characters have. There's actually a depth to the animation that shows the layers of the construction paper it's all produced digitally today, but like they've used state of the art digital tools to reconstruct the physics of construction paper. Paper, you know, you know, 30 years later. And so, yeah, so they were able to do that. And then obviously, you know, they were maybe the, maybe the most successful like animation duo of the last 30 years. And yeah, I think that the AI thing is we're right on the tipping point of that. And your point, like maybe, maybe we actually just saw the first one. It's so, let's say toxic that it's hard to recommend that people watch it. Yeah, yeah, but it's for sure a South park caliber level thing created in AI by somebody who didn't use any of the traditional, you know, they didn't use any, they didn't use any traditional, you know, techniques that you use for animating anything. It was created entirely with Sora, scene by scene. And yeah, it's just as a, as a, as a, as a demonstration of technology. It's just, it's obvious that that moment has now arrived. And to your point, Eric, like, I do think, for example, I think there's now actually a new form of political propaganda at loose in the world, which is, you know, that basically the custom produced, you know, basically south park ish, you know, kind of, you know, video series and AI is going to make that so easy for people to do that. You're going to be able to do, you know, anybody in any, you know, any electoral race is going to be able to hire some kid, you know, to do things like this. And so it's going to be like this. It's like, I don't know, decentralized satire or something like that. And so, yeah, the moment has arrived. The art form shifts again.
- [66:38]
D
On that note, we got to let you go. But this has been a fantastic episode of Monitoring the Situation. Thanks so much for coming on, Mark.
- [66:43]
A
All right, Fantastic Situation monitored.
- [66:48]
C
Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to, like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us on X16Z and subscribe to our substack@a16z.substack.com thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com disclosures significant.