It’s Friday, January 8, and here’s where we are…
Welcome to the new year.
This is the official start of our second year of publishing here at Substack. I’m delighted to see as many of you subscribing as there are so far and I hope that the year ahead sees at least that many more people join your ranks. The more of you there are, the more freedom it buys me to write more things for you. Even so, Formerly Dangerous is not the only thing I’ll be doing this year. I am anxious to start revealing the rest of the plan, but it’s not quite time yet. Not for all of it, anyway. Suffice it to say I hate free time and I am determined not to have any.
I hope you guys are enjoying The Library so far. I’ve published pieces on The Cable Guy, Gambit, and Nevada Smith so far, and I’ve got plenty of titles ready to go in the next month. It’s a fun warm-up as I work on things like the rest of that Star Wars piece, things where I am digging deep. Productivity is a nightmare during this pandemic, and anything I can do to hot-wire my own process is a good thing.
2020 was very much an experiment in terms of what I want to do with this newsletter. I have tried a number of things over time, I’ve settled into a sort of a rhythm, and I’ve started to really love the format overall. I am a big fan of stepping away completely from the clickbait reactionary school of film writing, and I really don’t care who it upsets when I say that I think much of what is published is simply marketing, completely and utterly beholden to the studios in a way that should trouble both writers and readers alike. There are plenty of good writers out there who will spend their entire online career reworking press releases and casting announcements and pretending they give a shit about a trailer debut, and they will never get a chance to write anything they actually care about because they are ground to dust doing the busy work.
I think sometimes writers feel like I’m criticizing anyone who takes part in the system, but my frustration is with the system itself. People have to play the game to work because that seems like it’s the only game there is. I’ve been writing online for 25 years now, and I spent much of that time doing exactly the thing that I’m criticizing now. These complaints I have are because I’ve seen the way this all works from the inside, and I don’t think it’s good for anyone. I want to believe you can do it a different way, and so far, you guys have done a good job of making me believe it.
I’m going to be publishing more fiction here this year. Just a heads up. You can ignore it if that’s not why you’re here, or you can check it out if you’re so inclined, but as paid subscribers, you’ll have access to all of it. I sent out a piece called The Interview last night that was originally published on Popcorn Fiction, a site run by the great Derek Haas in conjunction with Mulholland Books. I loved that site and loved being a contributor. Part of the deal was that I retained full ownership of the work, something they did with every author that published there. Since the site’s not online anymore, and since I’m not sure how many people bought issues of Pulp & Popcorn, the experiment between HitFix and this newsletter, I figured it was time to give Commander Future a permanent online home. There are a few other Commander Future stories floating around out there, but there are plenty of stories about him that I would very much like to continue telling.
I’m also going to be publishing a series of collections of the screenplays and plays I wrote with Rebecca Swan with Volume One arriving very soon. It won’t be everything. It can’t be, frankly, since much of what we wrote was under contract with other people’s underlying material. You won’t be able to read Clive Barker’s Dread or Mortal Kombat 3 or our remakes of Earth Vs The Flying Saucers and Race With The Devil, but you will be able to read several decades worth of original screenplays, starting when we were in our early 20s and moving all the way through The Solution, the last major thing we wrote together. We wrote at least 40 things together. Some were plays. Some were for television. The majority were screenplays. The plan is to put together something that showcases why we did it, what we wrote, and that talks about the way you can work for twenty years and have a handful of finished things to show for it.
When I fell in love with this business, it was a very different thing than it is now, and the hard truth I wrestle with is that I loathe the way things work on a corporate level right now, but my love for the potential of film remains undimmed. I watch every film or TV show with as open a heart and mind as possible, even if I hate the circumstances in which we find ourselves right now. I can love individual films or even entire franchises and still hate the way they dominate our cultural conversation.
Speaking of which…
FRANCHISE POTENTIAL
Yeeeeeeks.
I was recently watching an interview with Frank Price, former chairman of Columbia Pictures (among his many accomplishments) and he was talking about his tenure during the era of Ghostbusters. He found himself at odds with the owners of Columbia, Coca-Cola, who were still fairly new to the game. They were terrified of Ghostbusters, while Price saw it as an incredibly safe bet. Price was telling the story as a way of underlining how little Coca-Cola knew about the movie business, but the damnable thing is that while he’s right, his story also illustrates just how risky the movie business really is. Ghostbusters is a beloved comedy blockbuster and an ongoing business concern for Sony, yes, but that’s now. That movie was barely finished when it was released, and it’s sort of a miracle that it works at all. As safe bets go, even the safest of them in the film industry is still an enormous gamble that could cost a studio hundreds of millions of dollars if it goes belly up. I understand why a company like AT&T is so freaked out by the movie business. They thought they could treat this the same way you treat any other product… and it’s not, no matter how much they wish it was.
The entire point of tentpole filmmaking was to allow studios to function as a business while also existing as an art. Literally, the tentpole was designed to hold up the tent so that other things could exist under that tent. Today, though, all you have are tentpoles, and studios invest so heavily in them that the failure of one sends ripples through the entire company in ways that could genuinely destabilize them. How much joy or inspiration or individuality is there room for in filmmaking that has to work or else?
There are really only two major stories in Hollywood right now. One is Warner Bros and their efforts to recover from the massive blunder they made announcing the shift of their 2021 slate to HBO Max, and the other is the oncoming glut of IP product from Disney+. The two of them appear to remain locked in the exact same battle that has plagued Warner Media and Disney for the last few years, and while fans might feel serviced in the short-term, this is no good for the larger industry.
Warner Bros. created the modern superhero film in 1978 with the release of Superman: The Movie… or at least, the studio wants you to believe that. Remember, though, Superman was an independent production that Warner Bros released. It wasn’t their film. It wasn’t their franchise at all. They didn’t produce those films or drive them creatively. They didn’t even release the fourth movie in the series. Instead, all the rights to Superman was purchased from DC by the Salkinds and Pierre Spengler, and they financed it themselves.
Batman wasn’t something they inherently understood, either. It took Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker to see some potential at first, purchasing the rights from DC as soon as Superman: The Movie became a hit. They joined forces with Peter Guber and Jon Peters and started pushing the rock up the hill, and it was only after flirtations with several other studios that the film finally landed at Warner Bros. It took them six years to land on Tim Burton as a director and another four to actually get the film made. Every single step along the way, it seemed like they were nervous about how people would view the film, even after Frank Miller and Alan Moore helped usher in a new age of cool for Batman in print.
The studio itself was historically (and sometimes hysterically) terrible about figuring out what to do with their superhero properties. One of the reasons I started writing for Ain’t It Cool News was to put constant pressure on them to treat the material better than they treated it at that time. At that point, their version of the cutting edge was Batman and Robin and Steel, and it felt like they were never going to figure it out or do any better. I was obnoxious about what I saw as the “right way” to approach the property, something that Batman fans continue to wear like a badge of honor today, and at this point, my feelings about the character are almost completely different than they were in 1999.
Batman Begins didn’t solve the studio’s problems. It only threw them into sharper relief. They saw that as a Christopher Nolan franchise and they threw all of their muscle behind the Christopher Nolan brand. They still didn’t inherently trust the material, and the moment he was done with Batman, so were they again. Even though Nolan literally set up a continuation of the series with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, one they originally got excited about, as soon as it was clear that Nolan wouldn’t actually direct another one, they pulled the plug. They only ever seemed to be able to focus on one of their big characters at a time, and Superman became their new priority, with Nolan supervising from a distance. By that point, they had tried to kickstart Superman several times, including the Tim Burton version, the JJ Abrams/McG version, and the false start of Superman Returns. When that one was finally made, it existed largely because Legendary was willing to pick up the tab and Thomas Tull wanted to see his name on a Superman film, not because of any particular vision inside the studio.
I don’t think I knew what I was asking for when I was begging studios to take superheroes seriously, though. I wanted some good superhero movies. I didn’t want everything to be a superhero movie. I feel like I wished on a monkey’s paw and now I’m paying for it. Now we’re all paying for it. Warner has been driven mad by the success of Marvel Studios and by Disney’s purchase of the studio. It didn’t seem to kick in during the early days when Paramount was still distributing the Marvel films, but once Disney went into overdrive, Warner started to lose their mind in trying to reverse-engineer their own nonstop superhero money machine. Whatever you think of the films they’ve made since Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, the behind-the-scenes chaos since that film’s release has been one of the most turbulent and tortured eras at any studio in the 30 years I’ve been in Los Angeles. It is amazing to see how hard it’s been for them to figure out a coherent creative plan for arguably some of the most famous characters of all time.
Even when it seems like they’re starting to build up a head of steam, it never seems sustainable. I like how ridiculous Aquaman was, and I’m certainly willing to watch another one, but looking at the difference between Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984, I don’t even get the feeling the studio understands what people like about what they’re watching. I can’t wait to see what lessons they learned from the success of Joker, a film that practically seems to be designed to confuse and confound executives who try to reverse-engineer the film’s appeal. The long-in-the-works Flash and Black Adam films that are coming soon seem like they’re being spoken of in terms of strategy, not character or story, and that’s not a great sign.
There are several power players who are looking to establish some sort of control over the future of these efforts. On the marketing side, you’ve got Josh Goldstine in charge of selling the 2021 shift to HBO Max to people, and the real trick here is figuring out how to make these films feel like events for longer than 24 hours. On Christmas Day, it seemed like everyone was talking about Wonder Woman 1984, and that’s good. More people seemed to make that a top priority than Soul over at Disney+. Problem is, the word of mouth online for Wonder Woman 1984 was intensely negative and very quick, and within a few days, it didn’t feel like anyone was still talking about it.
In a recent article at Deadline, Warner sources spoke about how the battle with Legendary was shaping up, and they talked about how important it was to Legendary to keep Dune as a theatrical experience in order to “preserve its franchise potential.” At the same time, Walter Hamada, head of DC Films, talks excitedly in a NY Times profile about how he wants to create an HBO Max show that ties into every one of their superhero event films. When that’s the case, it doesn’t really matter where anything premieres. It’s all one giant content stream, and it’s all starting to feel like episodes of one big giant TV show.
It doesn’t help that Warner’s new “multiverse” plan sounds like another weird band-aid they’re trying to apply to their in-progress movies instead of actually sitting down and figuring out the bigger picture. It’s an excuse to throw everything at the wall, which is pretty much what they’ve already been trying. Do I want to see Michael Keaton suit up again as an older Batman? Why not? Sure. That sounds fun. But the most annoying part of this entire story is the way Hamada treats the multiverse like it’s a giant storytelling breakthrough that is unique to the DC universe. I’m wondering what he’s going to say when he watches WandaVision. He could warm up with a viewing of the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Or he could just wait for the third live-action Spider-Man film with Tom Holland or the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel and see what they’re up to. I mean… yes… DC has been doing this for a loooooooooong time in the comics. I was an avid collector of Crisis On Infinite Earths when it first happened and I can tell Greg Berlanti’s been having fun with his multiverse antics in his Arrowverse shows, but once again… the film division is a day late and a dollar short when it comes to staking out fresh ground. Hamada’s idea may make room for some filmmakers to have some fun, but it’s not the magic fix that suddenly snaps their whole slate into place.
It gives me pause to hear this button-up robot talking about these things, and when Hamada speaks to the press, he doesn’t sound like he’s talking about something he loves. He sounds like he’s talking about product roll-outs and brand management, which is why he was hired, and why I don’t trust him at all. I’m sure there will be films made during the Hamada era that I will like… it’s inevitable. I am, at heart, an eternal film optimist. I look at most movies as a collection of parts, and there are things I love about the craft or certain choices that I can enjoy even if I don’t enjoy the cohesive whole of something. By and large, I like movies. I wish I felt like that were true of the people in charge of these companies. I wish I believed that Walter Hamada derives the same sort of joy from these films that the most ardent fan does.
That NY Times piece was widely stripped for parts by clickbait culture, and one of the details that they managed to muddy up in their reporting is the idea that only Michael Keaton and Robert Pattinson will play Batman in the future. It’s amazing how people seize on the phrasing of something and then spin it into actual reportage, but when Brooks Barnes wrote about the multiverse and used the upcoming Flash as an example, that wasn’t the reveal of every single long-term plan they have for the character. It was to show how that film will feature Affleck and Keaton as two different alternate-dimension Batmen, while the Pattinson film will take place in its own world. That’s all. That is not the entirety of Warner’s plans for the character. That is not a discussion of every detail of The Flash. That is not a complete story, but based on the way people pulled the sentence apart and wrote entire giant stories about it, you’d think they had access to Hamada’s laptop. The same thing happened when Disney had their investor’s call recently and discussed a number of Star Wars projects. Almost immediately, I saw people reporting about how Rian Johnson’s proposed trilogy is now “dead” because it wasn’t mentioned. I wonder if those same people would like to explain why Kevin Feige’s Star Wars film also wasn’t mentioned, but still just hired a writer. Is that also canceled? Isn’t that how that works?
The truth is that this stuff isn’t just about franchise potential for the studios; it’s also an ongoing franchise for the sites that depend on clickbait and marketing hype to survive. When you’re offering your readers nothing but hastily rewritten press releases and breathless reactions that treat every trailer like a full meal and casting news that has a shelf life of five minutes, you’re not really giving them anything to read. Instead, you’re giving them a hype drip, and for that to work at all, you need to have things that have a certain amount of hype value. This is what feeds it all right now. “Franchise potential.” No one wants to sell you one story when they can sell you endless installments of that same story. And no one wants to write a single piece about a film when they can milk it for months and months and months. Films are only valuable to the film press when they are still Schrodinger’s Movie, neither good nor bad yet, simply existing in a bubble of hype where everything is equal and amazing.
Actually, that’s not true. They’re also valuable when they are polarizing because that allows the grift to go on endlessly. When you can ride that ugly rabid underbelly of fandom, stoking a seething hatred for years, you can cash in. There are people whose entire online identities consist of nonstop shit-stirring because they know that people who are angry are at least engaged and someone who’s engaged is someone you might be able to shake some money out of and that’s what it is really all about. And the even uglier truth here is that the streamers and the bloggers who bitch the loudest about “SJWs” and who claim that they hate mainstream entertainment’s push for great diversity and inclusion are liars. They love it. They love it because they know that they can turn it into red meat for genuine misogynists and racists and bigots of all stripes. I find the cynical repackaging of online hatred, especially through the filter of “entertainment news,” to be one of the most contemptible barnacles on our industry, and yet studios are so hungry to sell their product that they will play along with these people and even indulge them. They want it both ways. They want the credit for leaning into progressive ideas and yet they continue to work with and even feed the industry that focuses dangerous, violent hatred on the creators and performers behind that work.
Walter Hamada talked about how he would be releasing four theatrical event films a year starting in 2022 as well as HBO Max films for “riskier” characters. The two examples he gave of “riskier” characters were Supergirl and Static Shock, and while he most likely does not mean that women and Black people are “risky,” that is the way it read. The real standard should be “Are we telling a story that is worth that canvass?” instead of trying to build it based on what comic sold how many titles during which fiscal quarter. All of these things are sure things. All of these things are risks. Both things are true. Movies are insanely expensive and each and every time a studio spends a quarter of a billion dollars to tell one of these stories, they’re doing it because they have convinced themselves they know how to make billions of dollars even though they know in their hearts that there are any number of elements that are simply a matter of luck when it comes to making and releasing any film. They make the safest bets they can on a fundamentally unsafe business, and when AT&T calls the shots, that tension is only going to last so long.
Just as I prepare to publish today, Borys Kit and Kim Masters dropped some updates on how things are going in the conversations between Legendary and HBO Max. Unsurprisingly, they’re still squabbling over Dune and that franchise potential. I’m not surprised to hear Lana Wachowski is adamant that the next Matrix should also be a theatrical release. This is the same conversation we’ve all been having culturally since March and nothing’s really changed. All Warner did when they tried to slap on this particular bandaid was make the entire arm fall off. Whatever they do, they’ve damaged relationships, they’ve permanently impacted the idea of the theatrical window, and they’ve made it clear just how little the name Warner Bros means anymore. Whatever this company is, it’s no longer the studio that was managed to embody the best of both the art and commerce so often, and that’s a goddamn shame.
AND FINALLY…
Bridgerton is very much not my typical jam. I don’t have anything against the romance genre… it’s just not where I spend a lot of my energy as a consumer. There are plenty of romantic books and films and TV shows that I’ve enjoyed and given good reviews to, but there are just as many well-known period dramas that I’ve utterly avoided simply because no one can possibly watch anything.
In addition, it recently occurred to me that I have never actually seen anything that Shonda Rhimes made. I am aware of her work, obviously, and I respect that she has built an empire, but I’ve just never felt particularly compelled to actually watch Grey’s Anatomy or How To Get Away With Murder or anything else.
So it is with a good deal of surprise that I report that Bridgerton is a delight, wall to wall, a romantic period drama that basically plays as Jane Austen’s Gossip Girl with a wee bit of cable-explicit sex thrown in to spice things up. As we test out the new 4K set, I’m looking at the signal from the various streaming services. HBO Max and Netflix are both particularly vivid and striking, and Bridgerton gave the set a vigorous workout. Part of the fun of period drama comes with the costuming and the sets and Bridgerton more than delivers on both fronts.
Based on a series of novels by Julia Quinn, the show was created by Chris Van Dusen and produced by Rhimes as part of her Netflix deal. The show is centered on the Bridgerton family and their place in high society during the era of Regency London. It’s the spring of 1813 and the social season is just beginning. It’s time for the annual tradition of presenting all of the season’s debutantes at court for the approval of Queen Charlotte, and it’s time for Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) to make her debut. She’s not the only Bridgerton sibling, and evidently, each book in the series is focused on a different member of the family, with this season largely focusing on Daphne. She finds herself entangled with the newly-minted Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), among other suitors, and embroiled in scandal thanks to Lady Whistledown, a mysterious figure who publishes a society newsletter anonymously. In one of the show’s many delightful flourishes, none other than Julie Andrews is the voice of Lady Whistledown, and it makes sense. Everything about this show feels precisely calibrated.
We’ve entered a fascinating era in terms of historical casting, influenced in no small part by the way Hamilton approached things, and I’ve reached a point where I don’t really notice it or think about it. The way I think of it is this… we can tell stories about any era, but those stories are equally defined by when they are told. When we tell stories about the past, we are telling stories about ourselves and who we are now and how we react to these ideas about the past. Why shouldn’t we cast things to look the way the world really looks now? It doesn’t even occur to me and if I hadn’t seen some people flipping out about it online, I wouldn’t have even brought it up. This isn’t new. When you look at period dramas from the ‘60s, you’re watching films that are very much about the ‘60s. The same is true of movies that were made in the ’70s. Westerns didn’t remain static as Hollywood progressed, and it’s fairly easy to look at Hollywood westerns and pinpoint exactly when they were made by the stylistic choices that were made. That’s true of Bridgerton as well, and I think the entire cast is engaging and well-chosen. The central romantic leads are both charming and beautiful and fully aware of the game the show is playing, and they do a great job of playing the soapy turbulence of the relationship.
The real fun for me lies in the peripheral characters, and I am going on record now that I can’t wait until they get to the season that’s all about Eloise (Claudia Jessie), the next sister in line to be married. She’s bookish and clever and utterly uninterested in romance, and much of the first season, she’s engaged in a private quest to figure out who Lady Whistledown is. She’s also best friends with Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), the daughter of another prominent family, and Penelope might be my second-favorite character on the show. Like any good costume drama, much of the tension comes from understanding the social restrictions under which the characters have to operate and then watching them struggle to survive within those restrictions or to break free of them. Both Eloise and Penelope seem to be a few steps ahead of everyone around them, determined to find a way to navigate this world and still retain some autonomy. Ruth Gemmell is wonderful as Violet, the widowed head of the Bridgerton family, and by the end of the season, I could almost tell the Three Haircuts (Jonathan Bailey, Luke Newton, and Luke Thompson) apart, a major accomplishment indeed.
It also helps that Bridgerton is so removed from the contemporary world. As a brief diversion, it is everything I could ask it to be, and it is produced with a cheeky, casual sense of humor that makes the whole thing fun. I love the way modern pop songs are worked into the show with more period-appropriate arrangements, and it’s all directed with wit and energy by Julie Anne Robinson, Tom Verica, Sheree Folkson, and Alrick Riley. This feels like something that could naturally play out for many seasons, and with this cast and this creative team, I am onboard for all of it. These characters have a rich and rowdy life that I would happily continue to explore as long as the stories are this sharp and satisfying.
I’m including the media diary for the year so far, and I’ve changed the format to spotlight one high point from each category each week. As always, anything in bold was particularly enjoyed.
THIS WEEK’S BOOKS: Pick of the Week - Skin Game by Jim Butcher
also - The Stand by Stephen King; Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule; Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow
THIS WEEK’S COMICS: Pick of the Week - Modok: Head Games #2
also - Eternals #1; Star Trek Year Five #18; The Rise of Ultraman #5; Star Wars: The High Republic #1; Star Wars #10
THIS WEEK’S PODCASTS: Pick of the Week - High and Mighty with Jon Gabrus - “Being Fat”
also - High and Mighty with Jon Gabrus - “Movies in 2020,”; Blank Check with Griffin & David - “The Walk”, “Wonder Woman 1984”; How Did This Get Made? - “10th Anniversary Memories/Burlesque”; The Kingcast - “Christine with Bryan Fuller”; MBMBaM - “Naming 2021”; The Dollop - “Lucy Parsons”; Screen Drafts - “A Christmas Carol”
THIS WEEK’S TV: Pick of the Week - Bridgerton S1 E2 - E8
also - The Stand S1 E3, E4; Get Smart S1 E9, E25; Big Mouth S4 E8 - E10; The Undoing S1 E1 - E6; The Chef Show S1 E12, E19; Wayne S1 E5 - E10; Seinfeld S8 E12; Cobra Kai S3 E1, E2; Benson S7 E5; The Bob Newhart Show S2 E14; Letterkenny S1 E4; Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist S2 E1; This Is Us S5 E5; Batman The Animated Series S1 E15; The Great North S1 E1; Mr. Mayor S1 E1
THIS WEEK’S GAMING: Cyberpunk 2077
THIS WEEK’S MOVIES: Pick of the Week - The Matrix (4K)
also - Shadow of the Thin Man; Nevada Smith; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Gambit (1966); Bell, Book & Candle; Casino Royale (2006); The Island (2005); Eve’s Bayou; Massacre At Central High; Wilder Napalm; Hunter Hunter; Seconds; Master of the Flying Guillotine; Million Dollar Mermaid
Franchise potential in the age of AT&T
WB’s pivot to the multiverse feels scarily reminiscent of, well, DC’s post-CRISIS addiction of pivoting to multiverses — whenever sales drop or your rebooted characters aren’t catching on, just throw another CRISIS/52/REBIRTH in and reboot your universe again... and we’ve all seen how well *that* goes. As much as a company marketing man Hamada seems, I’d argue having Geoff Johns as DC Films’ creative chief is just as damaging, because the “just throw another CRISIS” culture is exactly where he comes from. I’ve never been turned on by his writing on the page (good *lord* just look at his New 52 JUSTICE LEAGUE) and I feel he’s bringing that same sensibility to his overarching vision of DC’s movie division. Could you imagine it if someone like Grant Morrison was steering the ship? (I mean, the whole idea of corporate WB trying to deal with Morrison is hilarious, but still.) But, yeah, I just feel like they’re never going to get it together until they have a unified storytelling vision and focus from someone who isn’t Geoff Johns (or Zack Snyder before him) — if they get *that* right, audiences and ancillaries will follow.
Warner’s “multiverse” plan sounds perfectly fine to me. They failed to make an MCU style thing gel, unintentionally mirroring exactly how the two comics universes evolved. It's just as well as one giant interwoven cinematic universe is probably enough for everyone. If they now can focus on just making the siloed properties work on their own without forcing them to hew to a grand master plan, that seems more likely to result in better movies (for them).
As far as people pontificating about Rian Johnson or Kevin Feige and lack of announcements ... it's just kremlinology. It'll never not exist.