talking shop How well are the major Hollywood studios doing? We asked some veteran insiders for their uncensored opinions, and their no-holds-barred responses might give some corporate parents pause.

illustrations Jonathan Keegan

Hollywood studios don’t really feel like “Hollywood studios” anymore. Instead, thanks to widespread media consolidation, they are entities that must answer to an even bigger corporate – and public – boss, who, in turn, must answer to shareholders, who care more about stock prices than creative expression. The formula for running a studio has gone through so many changes, in fact, that what worked a mere five years ago is already obsolete. To remain competitive, studios today must change tactics and strategies as quickly as a teenager changes moods. For some, the strategy is to scale back film output to cut costs; for others, it’s to increase production in order to build a library and add value to the organization. Some would rather acquire projects or fund them with offshore cash. At some studios, midbudget movies are slowly disappearing, giving way to colossally expensive tentpoles at one end of the economic spectrum, and low-budget niche films at the other.
See a pattern here? Nope, neither do we. So which is the way of the future? Who knows? But since everyone in Hollywood has an opinion, we asked some of the most respected and successful players in the business to give us their thoughts on how to run certain studios. They spoke anonymously, which gave them the freedom to sound off with impunity – and did they ever. Brace yourselves, for they name names and call things like they see them, and it’s often not pretty.
By the way, due to the exigencies of our publishing schedule, we conducted these interviews in early July. As a result, we were not able to savor what would have surely been blistering comments on both sides of Paramount’s decision not to renew its fourteen-year relationship with Tom Cruise’s Cruise-Wagner Productions – an occurrence that received international press coverage due to Viacom chair Sumner Redstone’s salt-in-the-wound remarks to the Wall Street Journal alluding to such behavior as Cruise’s couch-jumping proclamation of his love for Katie Holmes on Oprah, his increasingly public advocacy of the Church of Scientology and his staunch denunciation of the use of antidepressant drugs: “As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
Even so, there’s still more venom here than in that snake-filled plane Sam Jackson was trapped on this summer.  

20TH CENTURY FOX Known as the most risk-averse studio in town, Fox has been a consistently solid performer at the box office. This year, thanks to such hits as X-Men: The Last Stand and Ice Age, the studio is neck and neck with Disney in the race to claim the number one spot in domestic box-office revenues for 2006. Despite this glowing report, some industry players complain that Fox is one of the cheapest, least talent-friendly studios. Recently, Fox replaced Russell Crowe with a less expensive Hugh Jackman on Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming untitled project after Crowe had issues with the script. Then, co-chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman decided to pull the plug on the comedy Used Guys, which was set to star Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller, and to be directed by Jay Roach, after the film’s budget swelled to $112 million. Unfriendly to talent, or just mindful of the bottom line?

Former vice-chairman I happen to like all those guys a lot, except that they’re miserable to work for – miserable. And it is a bizarre thing because they are film lovers, they’re good guys, they’re smart guys, but for some reason they make the process more difficult than it needs to be. They’ve locked into certain successes that suggest their business plan works, when, in fact, I’m not sure that it does. I would run it very similarly to the way it is now, except I wouldn’t make the micromanagement as laborious and intensive. There’s a way of beating people over the head where you still come out having good relationships. Unfortunately, they have good results, so they feel like what they’re doing is working. And it’s not. The other issue that they have is that they tend not to get on the cutting edge. They haven’t quite cracked the comedy thing, and they don’t really take chances on new, fresh people.

Former production president The problem with Fox proper is that they are strictly about the bottom line. They’re not creative at all. I’d try to make it more friendly to talent. Make it so that talent wants to work there, because right now talent does not want to work there. Tom Rothman is the biggest villain in the whole thing because he’s protecting his big franchises at any cost and dishing all the creative projects to Fox Searchlight and Fox 2000. [I’d] take more risks, give people more creative freedom. It’s not that they’re not successful; it’s just that I don’t know anyone who wants to work there.

Producer Fox has a very strong business plan, but they don’t need to be as hostile to people in order to execute [it]. They’re very fiscally prudent, which is great, but they do it in such a way that it’s unnecessarily alienating. There are a lot of people who won’t work [with] them, and not because they strike tough deals. That’s not the issue. The people who’ve actually worked there don’t want to go back for seconds. That’s predominantly because there is a hostility and aggressiveness, particularly on the part of Rothman. He doesn’t need to do that. A good deal is where everyone feels good or empowered. You don’t need to go to nuclear war – because what happens, when you’re living in that place, is you start bludgeoning people because it’s more expedient in the short term. They’ll unfortunately associate the fact they were bludgeoning people with the project’s success. If they hadn’t bludgeoned, the project would be much better. They are choosing the right ideas at the right price, but they are hurting themselves in leaving a lot of money on the table. If they treated people differently, they’d probably get better product.

SONY After a disastrous year at the box office in 2005 (Zathura, Stealth, Rent, Memoirs of a Geisha, Legend of Zorro – shall we continue?), Sony rebounded this year thanks to The Da Vinci Code, and other successes such as the Adam Sandler comedy Click and the surprise hit RV. However, an overflowing release schedule has already forced the studio to push several films into 2007, while rich production deals are becoming too expensive for Sony to sustain, the latter of which the studio has already acknowledged.

Former vice-chairman They’re a little asleep at the wheel. It’s a very pleasant studio, and everybody likes working there because they don’t really bust your chops on budget. But they made a lot of their movies for more money than they needed to. As long as they can keep the Spider-Man franchise alive, they should be credited with doing a phenomenal job. That’s the motor under which they could have a year like they had last year and still be fine. But I feel like they got a little… I won’t use the word “lazy,” I would say they got a little less specific about what were good ideas for movies or not. They just need more specificity and to be more rigorous [when asking themselves], “Is this a good idea for a movie, or not?” From an outside point of view, Sony looks a little laissez-faire. And that’s not to say they need to be all up in the filmmaker’s stuff, but it just feels like they’re more reactive than proactive.

Producer Their problem is bloat: bloat in terms of budgets, bloat in terms of talent. They have more producers than any other studio in town, and none of them do anything. The producers that are active there, Doug [Wick] and Lucy Fisher, Will Smith and Adam Sandler, make movies that, if they cost thirty percent less – which they easily could have – Sony would be a resounding success story. The problem is, they turn into, at best, money-in-money-out because of their costs. RV should have been an unmitigated hit. Click should have been an unmitigated hit. And they know this. They are hosing their producing deals, and they are trying to bring their budgets down.

Former production president Sony is too emotional. Their highs are high and their lows are low, and that comes from [chairman] Amy [Pascal]. She’s just very emotional. Have more poise. Be more calm and confident that this business is cyclical, and you’re gonna have hits and you’re gonna have misses. They’re really good at marketing the big movies, but they just don’t think outside of the box that well. You need more creative blood in [the marketing department], or have someone come in and sweep the whole place out.

Writer-producer Sony doesn’t seem to have a plan. The latest thing to come out of there is: “Don’t just bring us a comedy, bring us a Jimmy Miller comedy.” [Miller manages several comedic big-screen stars.] That means Sony can’t recognize a good comedic script or idea when it sees one – and will only be interested if the project can hang on [such Miller clients as] Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey. That’s a horrible thing to say. It’s saying that no matter how good or funny the project, they won’t recognize it as being funny or good unless a particular talent is attached to it. That attitude needs to change. I’d also hire executives for their forte. I’d staff the place with a comedy exec, a tentpole exec, an action exec, etc. Most executives won’t like that, because they won’t want to feel pigeonholed, but at the end of the day, producers would know which execs to bring which projects to. It would make Sony a much easier place to do business with.

MGM The once glorious studio, with its famous roaring lion, has changed hands so many times that it’s now been whittled down to a distribution service. A press release earlier this year promised that a new management team would be “re-invigorating our distribution business in North America” and would “pave the way for MGM to regain its prominence as a major force in providing new quality film entertainment on a global basis.” However, the impact of those words has yet to be felt.

Producer MGM needs some real movies in their slate. It’s very smart for them to gear up their marketing and distribution system. But right now, they’re taking the dregs because that’s all that’s available. Basically, anything decent already has a home, and anything that they’ve been able to get their hands on is not good. But they need to put it through the system, and that becomes a self-damning situation where you’re releasing Clerks 2 or Lucky Number Slevin or [production company] Bauer Martinez movies, and it’s hardly a way of increasing the value of the library. Their next step [should] be to think about how to make what I call “real movies.”

Writer-producer Right now they have one foot in the movie business and one foot out the door. To have any impact, they’d need to get out there in people’s faces. Forget about all these output deals. I’d buy a big spec script that’s ready to shoot, put a big director on it, get a big star onboard and make the movie. I’d be selective, and not put out as many films in the beginning. Establish the image you want to project, and take it slow.

NEW LINE CINEMA Ever since the final installment of its hugely successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, New Line has struggled to find a solid franchise or tentpole feature it can boast about. Furthermore, production president Toby Emmerich has yet to put his own stamp on the place since the gregarious former production head, Mike De Luca, departed in 2001. However, with surprise hits like last summer’s Wedding Crashers, the studio manages to stay afloat despite its skimpy slate. And Snakes On a Plane wasn’t exactly this year’s savior.

Former vice-chairman I like Toby, and I have to say, at first, he was kind of a joke. But he found his footing. They need to up their batting average. They’re doing stuff well, but for some reason, they’re not maximizing it. They do something really groundbreaking, and then they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to sustain it, either in terms of movies or relationships. [With Wedding Crashers] they knew what they had on their hands, and they should have had those guys [Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson] tied up for at least another movie or two. They have stuff in development with them, but it’s not the same. They should not have lost [Vaughn and The Break-Up] to Universal. Also, I don’t know enough about their straight-to-DVD business, but it feels like they’re not quite figuring out how to maximize titles.

Producer New Line’s difficulty is that it’s balkanized, in that the executives don’t know what Toby wants, who doesn’t know what (president and COO, worldwide distribution and marketing) Rolf Mittweg wants, who doesn’t know what [co-chairmen and co-CEOs) Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne want. [As a producer], you need to build consensus with these different people, which is tough, because even though they know what they want independently, they don’t know what their bosses want. If I were Bob Shaye, I would make my philosophy, tastes and intentions better known to my troops, because they want to please. They just don’t know who they’re pleasing.

Former production president New Line’s problem is they are very limited in the kinds of movies they make. They’re very narrow in their focus. They get stuck in genre pictures. They really don’t have a deep bench because of the way their financing system works. I guess you just have to start buying broader material, not just real narrow genre stuff like Snakes On a Plane. Really try to broaden the kinds of movies they are making.

Writer-producer New Line needs to take a serious look at their nonevent movies. The success of Lord of the Rings covered up the fact that most of their slate of films tanked. Last year, Wedding Crashers became a surprise hit that saved the day. Again, it masked the fact that the other movies weren’t working. The studio has been lucky that way, but luck won’t always be there. What they really need to do is focus on the old New Line business model: making genre movies under $15 million. I understand they get most of their money from overseas, but Rolf has got to stop forcing obscure foreign stars on filmmakers’ movies!

DREAMWORKS The studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in 1994 was acquired by Paramount Pictures earlier this year (minus its animation division). Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider has been brought in to run it, and now all eyes are on her to see what she makes of it.

Former co-president of production Isn’t it called Dreamamount? My guess is that DreamWorks will be running Paramount within the next two years. And I have to think that that’s anybody’s guess. Let’s see: Stacey Snider left Universal to become a development person at Steven Spielberg’s company because she wanted to spend more time with her children? You buy that? I’m not sure I buy that. And then they bring in the GE guy [Frederick Huntsberry] who’s worked really closely with Stacey [at Universal]?

Writer-producer They are in a really good position now because Stacey knows how to run a studio. I’d let Stacey run hard and run deep – she’ll be so successful that they’ll transfer her over to run Paramount. She has forgotten more about running a studio than Brad Grey will ever learn.

Former senior executive Looks like they’re on a good plan. If I were DreamWorks, I would try to own the “Steven [Spielberg-type]” movies. And I’d try to develop at least one movie in-house that he wanted to direct. [Spielberg’s production company] Amblin was so successful, and had such a clear niche; I would try to re-own that niche again, which they haven’t. I would try to reclaim the Amblin niche of the family-friendly action movies.

PARAMOUNT Management changes in the forms of new hires and pink slips have continued to occur ever since Viacom CEO Tom Freston put former talent manager Brad Grey in charge of revitalizing the studio in the spring of 2005. The newly installed chairman and CEO wasted no time cleaning house – which rubbed many the wrong way – and surprised the town when he named Fox television executive Gail Berman as president of the film studio. The DreamWorks deal was touted as a coup for Paramount, but the financial papers have dissected it dollar for dollar and declared it a win for the SKG trio. The studio’s big summer tentpole, Mission: Impossible III – Grey’s first release as chairman – was considered a domestic failure. Grey has made it clear that he is wary of film budgets exceeding $150 million, and he has been slow to ramp up production. Now it looks like DreamWorks is poised to become a key supplier, including this summer’s animated hit Over the Hedge. Meanwhile, Paramount’s own in-house animated film from Nickelodeon Movies, Barnyard, was released too late in the summer to find any traction with youngsters, despite generally positive reviews.

Former vice-chairman Paramount needs to figure out who’s calling the shots. Everybody seems to be looking at each other, and nobody seems to want to go out on a limb. [It’s] kind of like when you’re playing volleyball, and nobody runs for the ball and it’s like, “I thought you had it,” “No, I thought you had it.” There seems to be a lot of that going on, and they’re starting to eat each other alive. You have to be decisive. You have to go, “OK, I want to make this movie,” and be clear about it. Have a plan. Unfortunately, it seems like nobody there wants to really have a point of view. It’s coming from a place of fear, and fear is the most dangerous thing that any studio can have, because then you have a bunch of people going around saying, “Oh, so-and-so thinks it’s a good idea, so now I think it’s a good idea.” Or “So-and-so doesn’t like it, so now I don’t like it.” I hear too many comments like, ”Well, I met with [co-president of production] Allie [Shearmur], then I met with Brad, then I met with Gail, then I had to meet with Brad again and now Brad has more notes.” Nobody seems to be able to tangibly get their arms around [a project] and drive it. All of a sudden, you wake up and you’re like, “Fuck me, we don’t have any movies.” And then you start making bad decisions, and overpaying people, or accelerating post and you just get into a host of trouble. I would say that people there need to be more proactive, they need to be more clear and specific about what they want and when they want it.

Former production chief-turned producer They’re trying to just work with world-class filmmakers right now, so they’re not getting a lot done. They need to be making big comedies and have some commercial hits. They’re all [claiming] that Nacho Libre is a hit, but it’s a triple, not a home run. For Gail to sit there and say, “Oh, I did it,” seems premature. They’ve got to open up the slate a little bit and get some comedies and get some big tentpoles. Right now they seem a little paralyzed.

Producer Ultimately, Brad doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s taken the classic [route] of “I’m going to go in there and do all this stuff to make it look like I’ve got a plan,” but he ultimately doesn’t. And people know that he doesn’t have a plan. I know that [Viacom CEO Tom] Freston is getting tremendous pressure because they’ve got nothing on their slate. They’ve got Brad, who has quickly alienated himself from most of the town, and Gail Berman, who’s kinda done the same. [Being at Paramount is] like you took the town, shook it to one side and all the nastiest people fell out and ended up at Paramount. You get this nest of very competitive, highly nasty people all fucking each other over. That’s your executive ranks. They have no corporate agenda other than there’s a lot of fucking pain and maneuvering going on there. Get rid of Brad Grey and get a real film person in there.

Former co-president of production The first thing you do is try to rewind the clock. They have a bunch of people running the studio who don’t know the movie biz. That’s really the bottom line. I don’t know what Sumner Redstone was thinking. It starts with the split. He decided to split the company in two to boost the stock. Well, that didn’t work. And by the way? Everybody told him it wouldn’t work. Now, I know he’s made his fortunes over the years going against the grain, but this was one [idea] that didn’t make sense. So it starts with the split – and I can’t speak to CBS and the Les Moonves part – but who on the other side has run a film company before? That’s the biggest issue. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. There is a portion of you that has to know the throes [of the film business]. There’s no book you can read. It’s about having been in it – and they have not. To them, buying DreamWorks was probably a safe measure because they realized they didn’t really have anything. And then to get rid of everybody without any sort of any examination of who might be an asset to the new corporation! Someone told me the other day that they’ve never heard of a place where people vocally hate each other. They’re all at war with each other. They’re trying to kill each other, which is a lovely way to work! I would try to get rid of the divisiveness by making clear channels of reporting. They don’t have that. They’ve got Rob Moore [who was overseeing operations for the past year], and all of a sudden they bring in the guy from GE [Fredrick Huntsberry], so now half of Rob Moore’s responsibilities are gone. The real question is, who’s running the asylum?

WALT DISNEY After Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest shattered record after record at the box office, the town was stunned when, in July, chairman Dick Cook decided to downsize by slashing film production as well as some 650 employees, including longtime production president Nina Jacobson. A whole slew of shuffling occurred, including the appointment of marketing head and Chief Creative Officer Oren Aviv to take over Jacobson’s duties and Mark Zoradi to handle domestic and international distribution.

Producer If I were running the place, I’d do exactly what Dick Cook did, so hats off to him. Branding the company to what they do well. It wasn’t an easy thing emotionally for him to get rid of Nina, but he needed to because her track record is abysmal, and people don’t realize that. When you take out the Pixar movies and the Jerry Bruckheimer movies, which she truly has nothing to do with, she’s so far in the hole with her movies that it’s jaw-dropping. Bringing in Oren Aviv is the right move over there.

Former co-president of production I don’t understand how Nina Jacobson gets fired after she’s run six straight years of pretty amazing stuff. Yes, you have some failures, but so does everybody. You know what the most important thing about that entire permutation, which is largely horrifying? It’s that heads of marketing are running production. That says it’s not about creativity anymore, it’s about the marketability. Which is interesting also because it leaves the smaller companies to make the more interesting movies. If you look at last year’s Academy Awards, all five nominees were independent or art-house films. So with Disney, I don’t know what they were thinking. Especially since Nina was smart enough to tell M. Night Shyamalan that he couldn’t make [Lady in the Water].

Former president of production They’ve done what they needed to do. If you read between the lines, what the press release said was, “We’re not going to make Nina’s strange filmmaker-driven dramas anymore. We’re not going to make Annapolis, or the dance movie [Step Up], or The Life Aquatic. We want to focus on the brand; we want to focus on big ideas or Disney-branded action movies or family comedies.” Putting Oren and Mark [Zoradi] in the two top seats is a really good idea. Oren is really good at recognizing good ideas, and I don’t think there is a better person out there in marketing than Zoradi.

WARNER BROS. Despite a stable management team that could always be counted on to produce blockbuster tentpoles with big filmmakers and stars, that very formula has largely failed Warner Bros. this year. Perhaps the studio should take a break from water-themed films, considering the dismal performances of Poseidon and Lady in the Water. The highly touted Superman Returns will not be the success it could have been due to the film’s reported $300 million-plus cost for production and marketing. (Domestic grosses will top out just below $200 million.) Internal power struggles between Warner production head Jeff Robinov and Warner Independent topper Mark Gill got ugly this year, which culminated in the latter’s very public ousting. Ironically, various industry players say that of the two divisions, the indie label is not the one that needed the shake-up.

Producer Their biz plan is flawed, but the people are right. What they were going for was high volume of market share with these big event movies, bringing in co-financers to share the risk to try and dominate market share with sheer muscle. But [the co-financiers] are getting hurt; Legendary, Relativity [and] even Village Roadshow are getting hurt. They need to break up their business plan, and I know they’re thinking about doing that; instead of doing these giant movies, they need to keep costs down by doing a more varied slate. The problem with Warners is marketing. Even when they open a movie big, like Superman or Harry Potter, they’re leaving money on the table.

Former production president They’re severely broken. They are the most broken studio in Hollywood. [Production president Jeff] Robinov focused too much on the Superman tentpoles [and] the Shyamalan pictures, and it all came crashing down on him. He has no comedies, except for the Broken Lizard guys, which is a very narrow business. Basically, Jeff got very arrogant and snooty with the filmmaker-tentpole kind of movies he was making, and he totally backed himself into a corner. And one by one those movies have failed. You need to get rid of Jeff. He’s not funny, he doesn’t understand comedy and he doesn’t understand general commercial movies. He just wants to make big-event, headline-making movies. When a couple of them don’t hit, it’s devastating. This year alone you’ve got Poseidon, Superman, Lady in the Water and now Ant Bully. If you look at them on paper, they’re all the same: big filmmakers, big budgets, big headlines and one by one, [they’ve all been] knocked down.

Former co-president of production The question is, who’s taking the hit? It won’t be Jeff Robinov, so who’s gonna take the sacrifice? You can’t just make tentpoles because audiences are kinda getting tired of them.

Former vice-chairman What Warners hasn’t figured out yet is how to make or market comedy. For guys who are used to taking big bets, it seems like they could figure out how to market and get into that business better. They’re behind in marketing. They’re not innovative. I would hire somebody who understands comedy, both in terms of executive and marketing.

The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to those that are quoted and are not the opinion of Fade In.