In part 2 of our chat Steven Soderbergh, he talks about why "Logan Lucky" was the movie to bring him back to filmmaking. Then, we go behind the scenes at the Hollywood Bowl to find out what exactly goes into making that music sound so good out there, and with the TCA press tour over we find out what's to be learned about the state of the TV business.
From peak TV to peak streaming?: FX's John Landgraf on the state of network TV
At the end of the Television Critic's Association summer press tour this week, one thing was clear: streaming services are here to stay.
And they're growing. Fast.
FX Network CEO John Landgraf took to the TCA stage for his semi-annual presentation on the state of television and the challenges in dealing with Silicon Valley-funded streaming competition.
"He spent a lot of time talking about the different business models that are steering different parts of television and the media industry," said The Hollywood Reporter television critic Daniel Fienberg.
Landgraf, who coined the term "peak TV," also discussed the contrasting demands of people who produce content for Silicon Valley versus the people who work for broadcast networks.
In other words, as Fienberg said: "The people who have the ability to spend bottomless wells of money on their programming versus people who work for networks that have to actually make profit."
Fienberg says it would be impossible not to take Landgraf's statements as criticism of the streaming giant Netflix, which in turn released a press release during his presentation announcing the acquisition of "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," a western anthology series from Joel and Ethan Coen.
On top of that, earlier in the week the Walt Disney Company revealed plans to launch two streaming services. Disney is the parent company of networks such as ESPN and ABC.
Like the very medium it covers, the TCA press tour spared no expense on drama. The Frame spoke with Daniel Fienberg for a recap of the final days of the event.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On John Landgraf speaking truth to power in his presentation:
I think he has plenty of power himself so he's speaking truth, I think, to himself. And I think that's part of actually what he does. I think more than any other network executive we talk to at these biannual events, he's a guy who's prepared to come each year with a set of talking points and then doesn't stick to those. He's willing to talk about anything anyone wants to talk about. He's able to lay out a ... view of the industry in a way that very few people are able to do because most of the executives we talk to are so busy trying to keep their jobs.
On the struggles between streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu versus traditional TV networks:
There continue to be the general protestations [from the networks] of, Yes, we're still relevant. Yes, this is still the most bang for your buck. Yes, this is still the center and spine of the industry. On the other hand, you look at all of the different platforms that these different networks are announcing and pushing, so whether it's CBS ... more aggressively pushing CBS All Access ... whether it's FX announcing its streaming platform... everyone is trying to make it possible for more people to see more TV in more different ways, and there's no sense at all of contraction.
On whether TV networks are attempting to become more creative in the changing media landscape:
That's one of the major concerns that many of us had looking at the broadcast slate for the Fall, that there is really very little evidence of networks looking way far out of the box. And there's very little evidence that the edge of the envelope is being pushed in this particular part of the industry. So there are some shifts in terms of structure and form, but in terms of big swings there are virtually none on the network slates. And it's a little worrisome.
On the similarities between the White House press corps and the TCA members:
I think that is what the TCA press tour at its very best is. It's a chance for network heads — many of whom are heads of publicly-traded companies — to get up in front of a room of reporters whose questions ideally should be serious and pointed and relevant and attempting to get to the root of the future of the industry and lessons learned from the past. I think I can confidently say that, at least at this moment, the TCA and the people we cover have a much better and healthier relationship than the White House press corps in the current White House.
To hear John Horn's full interview, click on the player above.
If 'Logan Lucky' succeeds, Steven Soderbergh just might upend the studio system as we know it
You might recall that Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from filmmaking back in 2013, citing the “horrible treatment” of directors by the people who finance films.
After a stint directing all 20 episodes of “The Knick” on Cinemax, Soderbergh is back on the big screen with the film "Logan Lucky," out on Aug. 18. It’s a heist film set during a NASCAR race that stars Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig.
It’s the first feature to be released under Soderbergh’s company, Fingerprint Releasing, in collaboration with the distributor, Bleecker Street.
"Logan Lucky" is very much an experiment in a new way to finance, produce and distribute studio-level films without, well, a studio. (One note about Hollywood lingo that you’ll hear Soderbergh use: the phrase “P and A” refers to the cost of prints and advertising when releasing a film.)
When I met with Soderbergh recently in New York, I wanted to know what spurred him to take a break from filmmaking, and why "Logan Lucky" was his chance to step back in:
Interview highlights:
On pursuing television:
At the time I wasn't sure what my relationship to movies was, and also the business had stopped being fun — most of it. If one or both of those situations changed and my feelings shifted, I would step back in. It was never something I felt would be permanent.
As it turned out, I had a great time working in television and working on projects with other people. But in the fall of 2014, the "Logan Lucky" script came into my hands and it coincided with some conversations I'd been having both with Dan Fellman, who used to run distribution at Warner Brothers, and [the National Association of Theater Owners] — just sort of free form conversations about what was going on in the film business, in regards to distribution. It became clear to me that we were nearing a point where it was possible to take a movie, that for all intents and purposes is a studio film with movie stars in it, and wide release it without the studio, in a way that didn't really exist before. When the script came in, I started accelerating those conversations and saying, OK, I think I have a project. Can we talk seriously about what that would look like?
On the release model:
It's important we frame what our metric of success is because it's very different than what the studio metric for success is. What I'm hoping is that [through] Fingerprint, the company I formed to be the lead on this in conjunction with Bleecker Street and Amazon — who bought all the non-theatrical rights — that I can open up this path for a certain kind of filmmaker who wants to make a certain kind of film to reach a wide audience. There are plenty of good, small, independent distributors out there. This model is designed for wide release movies.
On this release model vs. a studio system:
I've had the luxury, since the beginning of my career, to be able to control the content of the films I've made. Even when I haven't contractually had those rights, I've been protected by producers. I've never had a battle about the cut of one of my own films. But I've had a lot of discussions and debates about how films are distributed and promoted. This is an opportunity to test a couple of theories and also to take advantage of some technology that didn't exist even four years ago, in terms of targeting people with specific types of advertising. When you spend a lot of money spraying out some advertising ... probably a significant percentage of the people that you're reaching really don't have any interest in your movie and never are going to. So, I've always wondered: Can't we figure out a way to stop reaching people who don't want to hear from us? And now with the sort of data-mining you can do, you can start to get more surgical.
On pre-selling the film, to avoid box office lulls:
This is a model that's been around for a long time ... this independent model of pre-selling to cover the negative, and in this case, selling the non-theatrical rights to cover the costs [of advertising and making prints]. The only thing at risk for any of us is the time it took to make the film because everybody worked for scale. But there's nothing to recoup, we're zeroed out when the movie opens.
On tracking the film's profits:
It's very transparent. The money goes right from the theaters into an account that everybody will have a log-in and a password. You can literally watch whatever money goes from the theaters into this account. It's completely clear and simple. That's the way I think it should work. Compared to most businesses of its size, Hollywood's actually remarkably transparent. And the amount of data that they turn over to the guilds every year is significant and very granular. The interesting thing about the guilds is, since the studios don't share information with each other, we get all the information from all the studios. We have a snapshot of the entire industry that even the studios don't have. So it's actually, I believe, a fairly straightforward, economic engine.