Charlie Kaufman Breaks Down Hollywood's Biggest Problem Today
There are no risks, and there are never any rewards.
I often lament that we don't have a lot of daring movies coming out today. That doesn't mean there are none, but it feels like far fewer than in the '90s or the heyday of indie film.
There are several obvious reasons for it.
We're living in the current landscape of blockbusters and franchise fatigue, and it’s no secret that the "mid-budget original film" feels like an endangered species.
But why exactly has the industry become so allergic to risk?
A recent clip from Screenwriting In LA featuring legendary screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Synecdoche New York ) captures the core of the problem: Hollywood is trapped in a circular, fear-based loop.
Let's dive in.
What's Wrong With Hollywood?
Sometimes, in the shower, I ponder this very question to myself again and again.
But leave it to Charlie Kaufman to come up with an eloquent description of the current state of the industry.
Kaufman argues that the industry has created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Studio executives see what performs well, typically established IPs and superhero movies, and continue to greenlight those kinds of projects.
This creates a cycle where anything experimental or "different" is systematically excluded from the marketplace.
That's because it has no comparisons to things that did well at the box office, so it's perceived as a huge risk.
The stakes are higher than ever because of the sheer cost of production.
"When you start making these giant movies that cost $100 million and more," Kaufman notes, "they have to be really conventional because no one is going to spend that kind of money on something they don't have a certainty is going to do well".
The Safety of the "Proven" Failure
I actually thought this was the best part of the clip. It was a breakdown of why executives don't want to take risks, which is really what holds everything back.
In modern Hollywood, it is safer to fail with a "safe" bet than to fail with an original idea.
"If you make a superhero movie that looks like it should do well and doesn't do well, you don't get fired for it," Kaufman explains. "But if you make a movie that no one thinks is going to do well and you take a chance and it doesn't do well, you don't have a job anymore".
We have seen so many jobs disappear after COVID. And as much as we like to pit us against the execs, we're all in this together, and they're suffering too.
The result?
"Everybody’s running scared". According to Kaufman, this fear-driven culture isn't just bad for business; it’s bad for audiences, filmmakers, and society as a whole.
It's also terrible for execs, who do love movies and TV and who got into this business because of it. They feel like they can't take chances either, especially in a market where it is so hard to find a job.
Case in point, the rest of that video winds up being an ad for something else...which I think you can ignore.
The Bottom Line
Kaufman’s observations are a reminder that if you’re waiting for a major studio to take a massive risk on your avant-garde, $100 million passion project, you might be waiting forever.
You have to scale your spec scripts and expectations to something more realistic, usually.
And keep on writing, so you have lots of irons in the fire.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
