0:02

Hello and welcome. My name is John August. My

0:05

name is Craig Mazin. And this episode is

0:07

634 of Script Notes, a

0:09

podcast about screenwriting and things that

0:11

are interesting to screenwriters. What

0:14

if Alexander the Great had died at the Battle of

0:16

Granicus River? What if Robert E.

0:18

Lee hadn't lost Special Order 191? Historians

0:21

consider these questions as counterfactuals, exploring

0:24

how major world outcomes sometimes hinge on relatively

0:26

small moments that could have gone either way.

0:29

Today on the show, we'll explore a range

0:31

of Hollywood counterfactuals, looking at some

0:33

moments, people, and events that could have

0:35

gone very differently. And in

0:38

our bonus segment for Premium Members, capitalism! Craig, is

0:40

it good or bad? Uh oh. We

0:42

will definitively answer the question once and

0:44

for all. Oh

0:46

boy. Oh boy. Craig, it's so nice to have

0:49

you back. Oh, it's so good to be back. I'm

0:51

sorry that I was gone for so long. Among the

0:54

small matter of directing the first

0:56

episode of the second season of

0:58

The Last of Us, which

1:00

I'm almost done with, we have a few

1:02

days still outstanding that we

1:04

need to do in a different location, I've

1:07

been monitoring things on the internet a little bit.

1:10

People are very clever, they like to see where

1:12

we're shooting, and then they have all these brilliant

1:14

theories about what it means. Yeah. And

1:16

they're all right. 100% of them are correct, right?

1:19

I wish I could put my armor on each one of them

1:22

and say, no. No, no, no.

1:27

Most of the theories are incorrect, some of them

1:29

are halfway as correct, some of the conjecture is

1:31

like 28% correct. But I

1:33

do enjoy it all, I like the interest, it's fun.

1:36

But I'm mostly

1:39

done with my directing stuff and

1:42

very happily enjoying watching

1:44

the second episode being done from the

1:46

more traditional showrunner point of view, which

1:48

is nice. So

1:51

I do like directing, but also it's

1:53

the most exhausting thing ever. And I

1:56

miss it when it's over, and then while it's

1:59

happening, I do. I just keep asking myself,

2:01

why am I doing

2:03

this? Hey Craig, I have

2:05

friends who direct sitcoms, and

2:07

let me tell you, one week they're in

2:09

and they're out. If you could go back, why

2:12

not make it a sitcom? Then you could

2:14

direct as much as you wanted to direct, because it's just a week of

2:16

your time. James Burroughs is not

2:18

exhausted the way that you're exhausted. No,

2:21

and it sounds like you're talking about

2:23

a good old fashioned three camera. Oh

2:26

yeah. You're really just working on

2:28

a stage play that three cameras are

2:30

capturing, and you don't have to figure

2:32

out angles and coverage and turning around.

2:34

Oh, that sounds wonderful. Plus just a

2:36

week. Yeah, so if there is some

2:38

sort of box I failed to check

2:40

to have James Burroughs career and money,

2:45

that sounds like a plan. Yeah. I

2:47

tell you, I finally met James Burroughs. I kind of for all these

2:49

years, I met him backstage at a play,

2:52

and of course, as you'd expect, the

2:54

most lovely man. I would hope so. I

2:56

mean, like if you were just

2:59

unpleasant, what a weird

3:01

choice to keep going back and back and back. Those

3:03

days are kind of over though, aren't they? The

3:06

three camera sitcom is sort of a... You know,

3:08

there are more this development season

3:10

than in previous years. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I

3:12

think there's still some hope for it. But

3:14

yeah, there tends to be more of the

3:16

half hour single camera things, which

3:18

again, though, are pretty short schedules. Modern

3:21

Family is apparently a deal light to shoot. They'd

3:23

show up the location, they'd shoot everything in a couple

3:25

of ways, and then we're done.

3:27

Yeah, the classic network model of doing

3:30

something like that, the standard is shoot

3:32

a master and then hose it down,

3:34

as they say, just simple coverage. And

3:37

if you're shooting a couple of cameras at

3:39

the same time, the thing about a show

3:41

like Modern Family is the

3:43

coverage really doesn't have to be

3:45

particularly specific. It's

3:47

people talking and what they're

3:49

saying and their faces are the

3:51

most important things. And whereas when

3:54

you get into these big dramas

3:56

and the big dramas

3:58

are like each other. episode is kind of a

4:00

movie. I will say like, you

4:03

know, the shows that are like

4:05

the office or

4:09

like Modern Family, they do rely sometimes on the

4:11

camera finding a joke because the conceit of course

4:13

is that it's a documentary crew so the cameras

4:16

find the joke at times, added elementary has the

4:18

same thing, but it is much more straightforward.

4:20

It is, you know, it's a very

4:22

survivable life. Yeah, I don't think it

4:24

requires less skill. It simply is easier

4:27

from kind of how much stuff

4:29

you have to do perspective, but

4:32

the specific talent required to know where the

4:34

camera ought to be and also editing those

4:36

shows very tricky. Editing comedy

4:39

is incredibly specific. Yeah, it

4:41

is. All right, let's get us some

4:43

follow up. This is mostly follow up on things I

4:45

think you were maybe not here for, but you could

4:47

still weigh in. Okay. Drew, help us out with some follow

4:49

up here. Let's start with the table reads bit. Yeah,

4:51

so a few episodes Jacob wrote in asking a question on

4:53

whether you should send the script for a table read

4:55

ahead of time or have everyone read it cold. Yeah,

4:57

great. What's your instinct on that? It's like, let's say you're

4:59

doing a table read with some friends. Do you think

5:01

you should send the script ahead of those books or hasn't

5:04

come in cold to read it? What's your instinct? I'm

5:06

not a huge table read fan. I think I've

5:08

said that as much, but if I were to

5:10

do one, I would do it cold. Yeah,

5:13

and that was Cillian Song's recommendation as well. So Jacob

5:15

wrote in with some follow up here. Jacob

5:17

wrote, our table read was already scheduled for five

5:20

days after the episode's release date. So we ended

5:22

up going with the dual method. Half of the

5:24

attendees had the script ahead of time and the

5:26

other half we pulled. And this one, Cillian

5:29

was right. Our actor friends who had

5:31

the script ahead of time put way too much energy

5:33

in coming up with ways to play their characters. And

5:35

bizarrely, even some had accents. We definitely

5:37

preferred, we definitely preferred the read from

5:39

those who did not have the script ahead of time. But

5:42

it was still helpful to receive feedback from people who

5:44

are able to discover the under the radar jokes that

5:46

might have required a reread to enjoy. Yeah, we're

5:50

talking about this with Cillian Song, Michael Bickelait does this

5:52

thing where in his development process, he'll

5:54

have a sort of an interim draft will have

5:57

a bunch of his funny friends over and they'll

5:59

have a pizza. and read through the script.

6:01

And that's an important part of his process, but

6:04

he's really making sure that they're not auditioning

6:06

for roles in that, that they really are just like,

6:08

they're there to read the script aloud. And that feels

6:10

like the right instinct here. Yes,

6:13

it's especially the right instinct

6:15

when you're dealing with maybe

6:19

actors who aren't as experienced or

6:23

at a particularly high level. So

6:25

I don't know where Jacob is in his life,

6:27

and I don't know if his

6:29

actor friends are well experienced or

6:32

highly professional or sort of quasi professional

6:34

or aspiring. The

6:36

more aspiring they are, the

6:38

more important it is to not give them the

6:40

script at a time because they're

6:42

just gonna do the thing. Yeah,

6:46

they're just gonna do it. They're gonna do

6:48

the thing where they care way too much.

6:50

And that's not the purpose. The

6:52

purpose is, I assume in this case, for

6:54

the writer to hear the words out loud, note

6:57

the things that do seem to be working, note where it

6:59

gets slow, note where it gets too fast, et cetera. Yeah,

7:02

so we have a different opinion here from what

7:05

Guy has done at the opposite way through hella

7:07

sack. Yeah, Tom Harp says, I've done reads both

7:09

ways with writers and with actors, and

7:11

I want to offer my experience as a counter to what John

7:13

and Celine said. In my own

7:15

process, my trusted writer friends read early drafts and

7:17

gave notes, but before I give it to

7:19

my agents, I always do a read through with actors. During

7:22

the read, I'm listening to the pace and flow of the

7:24

dialogue, but maybe the most important part is

7:26

the Q and A I do afterwards. Actors

7:28

have a different set of antennas than writers do,

7:30

and there are instincts that have saved me several

7:32

times. I've been told this feels

7:34

false, or I don't think my character would do

7:37

or say this, when none of my

7:39

writer friends noticed it, nor did I, because writers

7:41

get why the story needs it. But

7:43

down the line, an actor is going to call emotional bullshit

7:45

on set, and then you've got productions booed on your neck

7:47

as you try and solve it. All

7:49

right, so not quite on the same focus

7:52

here. So he's saying that actors do bring

7:54

something different to a read because they're bringing

7:56

experience of how to sell a

7:58

line, and they don't have a- Well,

8:01

I'm not going to disagree with Tom because he's

8:03

obviously getting some use out of that. The only

8:05

flag I would wave here is that

8:08

casting is a thing. And

8:10

one of the reasons casting is important

8:12

is because you're trying to match an

8:14

actor whose instincts match the instincts of

8:17

the character you have created. So

8:19

when you have somebody show up because they're

8:22

available or they are your friend, it doesn't

8:24

necessarily mean that they're the right casting for

8:26

that part. And they may

8:28

indeed think this feels false or I

8:30

don't think my character would do say

8:33

this. Well, A, it's not

8:35

their character yet. Yeah. And

8:37

B, they might not be right for the

8:39

part for that very reason. That's not

8:42

to say that there aren't going to

8:44

be things that almost every actor in

8:46

that spot will go, ooh, I don't

8:48

quite understand why I

8:50

would say or do this here. So

8:52

that matters. That logic is important. But

8:55

if you don't pick up on it until the

8:57

actor comes up to you after, so you listen to the

8:59

whole thing, sounds good to you, and then they call, come

9:01

over and say, I don't think that this, well,

9:06

maybe it's just that the actor is not

9:08

the right actor for that part. So

9:10

that's the only thing I would flag there. But if it works

9:12

for Tom, it works for Tom. All right. Let's

9:15

get to the meat of this episode, which is

9:18

counterfactuals. So instead of here, over

9:20

the last few weeks, I've been reading this book called

9:22

What If? which is a series of essays edited by

9:24

Robert Crowley about military history. And so I'll put a

9:26

link in the show and I'll end this book. But

9:29

the important part is that it's

9:31

really talking through counterfactuals versus alternative

9:33

history. So I want to spend a moment to

9:35

describe the difference between counterfactuals and alternative

9:39

history. A counterfactual is basically the outcome of

9:41

this battle or event could have turned out

9:43

different in a way that's very possible. So

9:45

there's a distinct moment that could have gone

9:48

either way, but kind of a coin toss.

9:51

And if you'd gone the opposite direction, outcomes

9:53

would have been very different. Alternative

9:56

history, I'll define as something happened

9:58

in a very different way or... or a

10:00

different timeline, like what if Africa had

10:02

industrialized first, or we discovered nuclear power in

10:04

the 1800s. You still get

10:07

to a place where the outcomes are very different, but it's

10:09

not hinging on one moment, one thing where it could have

10:11

gone either way. So we put

10:13

out this call to our listeners saying, hey, what

10:16

kind of professionals do you want us to talk through? And

10:19

some of them were incredibly useful, but a

10:21

lot of them were actually just alternative histories

10:23

where, oh, this could have, what

10:25

if this had happened, or what if this had happened?

10:27

But it wasn't hinging on a specific event. There's

10:30

a different verse that came out of here. So some

10:32

of the alt histories that people

10:35

propose, what if Zoetrope

10:37

Studios had succeeded? Well,

10:39

sure, but that's not based on one

10:41

movie succeeding. What if Jacksonville, Florida had

10:43

become the filmmaking capital of the world?

10:46

It could have happened because there was

10:48

an alternative way things could have gone, but it

10:51

wasn't based on one moment that

10:53

could have happened. Or the wars in Europe,

10:55

what if the wars in Europe hadn't happened

10:57

or had it happened differently, and European

10:59

film industry became the dominant one rather than American?

11:01

Again, it's not based on one event. So I

11:03

just wanted to make it clear that, thank

11:06

you for saying this through, but those are really

11:08

kind of alternative histories and not the counterfactuals I

11:10

was looking for. So you're really looking for those

11:12

fork in the road moments where there's definitely two

11:14

ways you can go and

11:16

things went left instead of right, but what if they

11:18

had gone right instead of left? Exactly.

11:21

So the first thing I wanted to talk

11:23

through is Edison. So back in 1915, he'd

11:25

already invented many of the most incredible

11:28

devices that we use today, electricity,

11:30

how he was getting electricity and

11:32

light bulbs and things out into the world were incredibly important, but

11:34

he also had patents on the original kind

11:36

of motion picture camera

11:39

and projection technology. And

11:41

so because he had this patent and

11:44

was trying to enforce it very vigorously, a lot

11:46

of people who were trying to avoid his

11:48

sort of patent thugs were heading out to the West Coast.

11:52

And that's part of the reason why, it's

11:54

one of the reasons why the Hollywood industry

11:57

in California was to get away from this guy

11:59

and his... for very ambitious

12:02

enforcement of his trademark over

12:04

things. He lost the 1915

12:06

court case, which was crucial in sort of

12:08

his ability to constrain how

12:11

people could use his

12:13

devices and whether these things he

12:15

was creating, these projectors could only show

12:17

his own creations. And so

12:20

this feels like an important moment in

12:22

terms of the evolution of

12:24

the early film industry. So 1915. 1915,

12:27

so you have this court case that

12:30

basically allows an industry to exist.

12:34

Prior to that court case,

12:36

everybody had to go through Edison

12:39

and his company, the motion picture

12:41

patents company. And I did

12:43

not know this until I'm looking at the article

12:46

that you linked to in the Saturday evening post. When

12:49

you say patent thugs, you mean it. Yes.

12:51

And so Edison famously occupied

12:53

a space in New Jersey.

12:56

And there isn't Edison Township, New Jersey, I believe that is

12:58

now for him. But

13:01

in West Orange, New Jersey, that's where

13:03

his base was. And

13:06

he would hire mobsters, and there sure were

13:08

a lot of them up

13:10

there on the East Coast, to

13:13

literally beat up people, filmmakers,

13:16

that were using cameras

13:18

and film. Edison's

13:21

argument basically was, I control the

13:23

entire chain of creation of

13:25

motion pictures from film stock

13:28

to projection. And

13:30

anybody that tried to get around him

13:32

and do whatever they wanted without

13:35

getting his approval, could even theoretically get

13:37

physically assaulted. The

13:40

court case said, no. Basically

13:43

the court said, you can sue

13:45

somebody for infringing, but you can't

13:49

use your patent as quote, a

13:51

weapon to disable a rival contestant or to

13:53

drive him from the field. We

13:56

used to, and this will tie into our

13:58

capitalism versus anti-capitalism discussion later on. We

14:00

used to be quite invested in

14:02

busting trusts, monopolies in

14:04

this country, particularly around then Teddy

14:07

Roosevelt was quite the

14:10

pioneer in that effort to create a

14:12

kind of healthy form of capitalism. We

14:15

seem to have lost our way. There are a

14:17

number of companies I look around now who I

14:19

think Teddy Roosevelt will be thrilled to break apart.

14:23

But yes, if that goes

14:25

the other way, then John, you

14:27

and I are probably working in New Jersey.

14:30

Yeah, I think we're working for the Edison Company

14:32

or some offshoot of the Edison Company.

14:34

So it's hard to find a perfect analogy for

14:36

what this system would have been like, because it's

14:39

not quite like the app store where you have

14:41

to, everything has to be done through

14:43

the app store. It's not quite that. But it

14:45

is like, you know, there's just basically one

14:47

funnel and everything has to either license or

14:49

be done by this

14:51

one company. So all motion

14:53

pictures have to go through this one

14:55

channel, which would be vastly

14:58

different than what we're expecting. Do I think this would have

15:00

lasted forever? No, I think there would have been other ways

15:02

around this other alternative technologies that didn't infringe

15:05

on a patent, there would have been ways

15:07

to do it. But clearly, our

15:09

early film industry would have been very different. And

15:11

what we do goes back to 100 years

15:14

ago when this was all being figured

15:16

out. Yeah, it's almost certain that in

15:18

order to get around this, a healthy

15:20

motion picture industry would have sprouted outside

15:22

of the bounds of the United States.

15:25

So that's a good point. Where would that have

15:27

taken place? France? Certainly.

15:30

But in terms of what

15:32

we do, like the Hollywood style would

15:34

be very American style of creating things

15:36

and making a huge business out of

15:38

it as opposed to thinking of it specifically

15:41

in terms of art and cinema, which is a

15:43

very kind of European and certainly French way of

15:45

approaching things. I think about where

15:47

I'm sitting right now in Vancouver. Canada

15:50

would have been a wonderful place. The

15:53

immigrants who founded Hollywood way, way

15:55

back when, Warner Brothers and so

15:57

on, may have just... Headed

16:00

up to Montreal or Toronto. Yeah,

16:03

Mexico would have been another great choice.

16:05

There's just other venues. Yeah. So

16:08

it looks like, again, we are

16:10

not legal experts in here, and this is a

16:12

really first glimpse of the history here, but it

16:14

looks like the projection technology is the issue. And

16:17

so if the projection, basically, if any

16:19

projector sold in the US could only project

16:21

things that Edison had approved,

16:25

that still would have been a challenge for

16:27

American audiences. And so it's not just where

16:29

you film the things, it's also how you're

16:32

showing the things. It would have

16:34

gotten sorted out. There would be some way to

16:36

do it, but it would have really limited

16:38

the spread of Hollywood movies.

16:41

Yeah. When you have something

16:43

that people want, it will find a way to

16:46

exist. Yeah. A little bit like Prohibition,

16:49

which also fell apart, you know, sort

16:51

of a few years after this happened.

16:54

By the manufacturing distribution of alcohol, manufacturing

16:56

distribution of film, yeah. People want it.

17:00

And so there is, if you really want

17:02

to go down that other fork in the road,

17:04

the movie business is

17:06

run by cartels, and it

17:09

is an entirely criminal enterprise.

17:11

That would be great. And

17:14

that's how it would be a movie. You

17:17

can kind of envision that. In some ways, the man

17:19

in the high castle and the hidden films, the

17:21

stolen films of the alternative history,

17:24

while it's all tied back together, is an

17:26

example of that. There's a currency for

17:28

these films that show what happens in the

17:30

other timeline. Yeah. I would

17:32

say that. So our next what-if is actually similar.

17:35

So this is the Paramount Concentricary, which we've talked

17:37

about on the podcast several times. And

17:40

again, this is a question of manufacturing distribution

17:42

of film materials. And so prior

17:45

to going into this, the very thumbnail

17:47

version of this, the studios were

17:49

allowed to also own movie theaters, and they

17:52

could control the entire channel of we

17:54

were making the movies. We're showing them our

17:56

theaters. We're showing all of our products and

17:59

the Paramount Concentricary. create the hell

18:01

that the studios cannot own exhibitors,

18:03

and therefore films from other companies

18:06

can be shown in theaters. Had

18:09

that not fallen apart, I think you would

18:11

have seen a

18:14

creative paralysis in the business. So

18:16

what happened immediately following the collapse

18:19

of that was the breakdown of

18:21

this incredibly formalized manner of presenting

18:23

art to people. If

18:26

you look, even though there are incredible movies that were made

18:28

in the 20s and 30s and 40s, there

18:32

were also very clearly rigid

18:34

constrictions. Because it seems

18:36

like a long time ago, it's

18:39

hard for us to see how fast things

18:41

changed and how dramatically they changed because it

18:43

was before our time. But

18:46

let's say you were born

18:48

in the 30s, you're

18:50

used to watching movies of a certain sort.

18:53

By the time you get into the 60s, you

18:55

now have nudity and graphic

18:58

sexuality being shown on screen.

19:00

I mean, you couldn't even

19:02

show people kissing with tongue. And

19:05

now there's sex. It's

19:08

kind of incredible how fast it

19:10

changed because if the

19:13

studios don't control the

19:15

screens, other people can

19:17

make movies to put on the screens. That's

19:19

the big difference. And the other people didn't

19:21

have to follow along this kind of rigid

19:23

formality. And so it's

19:26

important to understand both from a producer and a supplier

19:28

point of view, because this allowed theaters

19:30

that were not affiliated with

19:33

studios to compete for titles they wanted.

19:35

So it allowed for more independent theaters,

19:37

but also allowed for filmmaking that took

19:39

place outside of the studio system. And

19:41

those are the ones that you first

19:44

see, nudity

19:46

and moving past the Hayes code and

19:48

really pushing what cinema could

19:50

be. So obviously it's had a huge business

19:53

transformation on Hollywood, but

19:55

also had a huge creative impact. And so

19:58

if the Paramount Center hadn't happened. we

20:00

would be in a different place. The

20:03

irony of course is that the Paramount's essential creed

20:05

was overturned in the last five

20:08

years, ten years, how long we've been doing

20:10

this podcast. And so in theory now studios

20:12

can own movie theaters. We

20:15

haven't seen a huge change

20:17

in that. Like they haven't come in and bought out

20:20

the AMC's of the world. Probably because

20:22

it's not a great business to be in.

20:24

Yeah, so that's not an amazing business, yeah.

20:26

It's funny, the Paramount's decree fell apart right

20:28

around the time it was no longer necessary

20:30

because studios found

20:32

a new bunch of screens they

20:34

could control via streaming. We

20:36

have however, because of that window

20:40

from the 1950s through, you know, let's

20:42

say up to ten years ago, where

20:45

the screens were so important,

20:47

the proliferation of different

20:50

kinds of content occurred that toothpaste cannot go

20:52

back in the tube. We've all grown up

20:54

with and have become used to a

20:56

certain kind of entertainment. And

20:59

ironically, when you look at

21:01

the movie's Paramount itself was

21:03

making in the 70s, starting with

21:05

the Godfather and Onward, and the kind of

21:08

filmmakers they were supporting, they themselves

21:10

benefited more almost than anyone from this

21:12

because they were allowed to make new

21:14

kinds of things. So the

21:16

companies do now control their own screens via

21:18

streaming, but people want what

21:20

they want. And it's

21:23

one thing to say, I want some things

21:25

that I haven't seen, but I would

21:27

imagine I'd like them. And it's

21:30

another to say, I have seen the things I like,

21:32

you can't take them away. Before we move

21:34

on, I think it's worth looking at both the Edison

21:36

case and Paramount's dissent decree is at

21:38

the time these things were being decided, the

21:41

justices and everyone else involved

21:43

couldn't have anticipated sort of what the long-term effects

21:45

are. They could only really look at like, what is

21:48

the state right now? Because they really

21:50

couldn't know what was gonna come 10 years,

21:52

20 years down the road. So I guarantee you that there

21:55

was not an awareness of like,

21:57

this will change the type of movie that get made.

22:00

And if this gets overturned, they were

22:02

just looking at it in terms of this

22:04

is a law, this is restraint of

22:06

trade, this is anti-competitive, and therefore we're

22:09

not getting it down. Yeah. If

22:11

they had taken the other path, I

22:14

think we would still, to

22:16

this day, have a

22:18

much more restrained kind of

22:20

content. I just

22:22

don't think we would have ever... People

22:24

look at the 70s, the freewheeling 70s,

22:27

and the rise of the auteurist and all

22:29

of the rest of it as

22:31

some sort of product of

22:33

the cultural revolution in this country. And

22:37

I would argue that, no,

22:40

that is not the case, that in fact

22:43

those things happen because of

22:45

this court case. And I would

22:48

point directly at network television as proof, because

22:51

network television is the control

22:54

of screens. And when

22:57

you look at what was allowed on

22:59

network television and is to this day

23:01

allowed on network television, it

23:03

is so much more constrained than what

23:05

is allowed in movies. It's not even

23:07

close. Language,

23:10

nudity, content, there's

23:12

just limits. People lost

23:14

their minds when in the 90s NYPD Blue

23:17

showed a butt. A

23:19

butt. And

23:21

they're still not allowed to drop F-bombs and so

23:23

on and so forth. So I

23:25

would just say that's what movies would be like. Movies

23:28

would be like network television. You'd be constrained. And

23:31

of course, European cinema, Asian cinema

23:33

could have made different choices. But the problem

23:35

is, if there's no way

23:37

to exhibit those films here, it's

23:40

moot. That's right. Absolutely. And that was

23:42

always the case, right? So in

23:44

the 40s you could, or the 30s, people

23:46

referred to, my grandfather referred to

23:49

French films. Those were

23:51

like sort of early Blue movies with

23:53

nudity. Yeah, sure.

23:56

But mostly it would have

23:58

operated the way. network television

24:00

still operates under those constraints, which

24:02

some people argue are positive on

24:05

some levels. Creative restraint does

24:09

force certain kinds of creative creativity. But

24:12

you would not have the things that we

24:14

have in movies if this had not gone

24:17

that way. Alright,

24:19

simpler what ifs. What if George Lucas had

24:21

died in his car accident? Oh god. So

24:24

this is June 12th, 1962. Oh god. As

24:26

Lucas made a left turn, a Chevy Impala can

24:28

fly in from outside direction and broadside him. The

24:30

racing belt snapped and Lucas was flung onto the

24:32

pavement dressed before the car slammed into a giant

24:35

walnut tree. Unconscious Lucas turned blue

24:37

and began vomiting blood as he was rushed

24:39

off to the hospital. So

24:42

this is George Lucas, who at this time is

24:44

a promising young film student at this time. I

24:46

guess he's made some stuff at this point, but

24:49

he had not made Star Wars. He had not

24:51

made Raiders of the Lost Ark. How

24:53

different would it be if we did not have

24:55

George Lucas as a filmmaker? What are the knock

24:57

on effects of this? Well,

25:00

for starters, I just want to say

25:02

as an unlicensed doctor, if you turn

25:04

blue and start vomiting, it's not good.

25:07

That's really bad. So

25:09

there's two ways of looking at this. One

25:11

way is, let's go the obvious way,

25:14

George Lucas doesn't create Star Wars. He

25:16

doesn't bring about the era of the

25:18

blockbuster movie stay a

25:20

bit smaller. Special effects and visual

25:22

effects do not advance as far

25:25

as they did and as

25:27

fast as they did. And the

25:29

hyper-merchantization of

25:32

films and the creation of so-called

25:34

franchises does not occur. However,

25:38

a couple of counter arguments to that. One

25:42

is that somebody else probably

25:44

would have done something of the size

25:46

that would have created that anyway.

25:50

George Lucas was really important as we discussed

25:52

in the creation of Raiders of the Lost

25:54

Ark, but I

25:56

do feel like there's going to

25:59

be a Stephen Spielberg make his own blockbusters, jaws.

26:02

He's making jaws. He's still making blockbusters. Yes. I

26:05

think there's going to be blockbusters. But just

26:07

as importantly, it seems like George Lucas's brush

26:10

with fate here was actually quite

26:12

informative to him as a filmmaker.

26:15

So, he sits there in the hospital

26:17

and starts thinking about what saved

26:19

his life in that car. And

26:21

eventually, I think that sort

26:23

of turns into American graffiti.

26:27

And that, you

26:29

know, there's this world where it's sort of

26:32

like if he doesn't

26:34

get into the he

26:38

needs to get into the car accident, I think.

26:40

So, what happens? If he dies in his

26:42

car accident, we don't get these movies. If

26:44

he doesn't die in the car accident, we do get these movies.

26:47

We definitely wouldn't have Star Wars. There

26:50

would be no Star Wars. That's for sure. Yeah.

26:53

The world without Star Wars is different beyond like

26:55

the business things you've laid out, how it

26:58

popularized a kind of space

27:01

opera, children's stories, but

27:03

for all ages. It did

27:05

a very specific thing. We already had Star Trek. And

27:07

so, Star Trek was totally consistent about Star Wars. But I

27:09

feel like we kind of needed both of those things. Or

27:11

it happened. Right. Yeah.

27:15

Star Trek is a network television show that gets canceled after

27:17

I think it was three seasons. And

27:20

then Star Wars happens. And shortly after that, Star Trek

27:22

the movie happens. Star Trek the movie does not happen

27:24

and Star Wars doesn't happen. There's just no chance. Very

27:27

good point. Yeah. Very

27:29

good point. Similarly,

27:31

all the movies that were sort of inspired by Star Wars

27:33

don't happen. So, the movie that's coming to mind actually

27:36

is Dune. Yes. Because Dune

27:39

was really the only thing that could

27:41

have been Star Wars because

27:43

it preexisted Star Wars as a

27:45

novel. Maybe the Dune that gets

27:47

made doesn't get made, right? I don't think.

27:50

I don't think the Lynch Dune gets made without Star Wars. But

27:52

at some point... And the George Alstud

27:54

Dune doesn't get made either. I agree.

27:56

That's not going to get made either. But at

27:58

some point, somebody, let's say... Spielberg. In

28:01

the absence of a

28:03

huge or copular somebody, somebody

28:06

figures out how to make

28:08

Dune and gives us the kind

28:10

of Denis Villeneuve standard type Dune

28:12

earlier. And that leads,

28:14

because there's obviously great

28:16

interest in those large-scale

28:19

science fiction fantasies. Because it's crucial to

28:21

understand there was a huge science fiction

28:23

community before Star Wars. It's just

28:26

it popularized it in a way that

28:28

was important. I think you don't have the

28:30

volume of science fiction fandom until you

28:32

have Star Wars. Star Wars,

28:35

it was like giving a very loud

28:37

and passionate fan base

28:39

the world's biggest megaphone because

28:42

everybody sort of flooded into the

28:44

tent. It's a really

28:46

interesting thing, a world without Star Wars. And

28:48

this isn't a fun thing I would do

28:50

like to think about when we're talking about

28:52

these counterfactuals is that we are currently living

28:54

in counterfactuals. Meaning in our world, Melissa

28:57

Suzanne, worst fake

29:00

name ever, Melissa Suzanne does

29:02

die in a car accident, doesn't make

29:04

mala-la-bloo, which is the biggest

29:07

frickin' thing of all time in that. And

29:09

we're living in the counterfactual where it didn't

29:11

happen. We don't know what we don't have.

29:15

We don't. So let's talk about another

29:17

movie that would be different if it didn't happen, which is

29:19

Titanic. So you and I were

29:21

both in Hollywood as Titanic was happening.

29:23

And so some backstory folks who

29:25

don't know, filming was supposed to last

29:27

six months, it stretched to eight months, the budget doubled

29:30

from a reported 110 million

29:32

making even costlier than Waterworld's $200 million

29:34

price tag. So another counterfactual would be like, what

29:36

if Waterworld were a hit, but it was not

29:39

a hit. Titanic was incredibly expensive. Craig

29:41

and I will both testify to the fact that

29:43

there was real discussion about

29:45

like, oh my God, this movie could be

29:47

a disaster. It could completely tank. Well, absolutely.

29:50

And think both Fox and Paramount were both,

29:52

you know, both putting out the money for

29:54

it. That didn't happen. It became a giant

29:56

hit and changed exhibition. It just kept going.

30:00

running and running forever despite its long

30:02

running time. So what happens

30:04

Craig, if Titanic had tanks? Well,

30:09

the thing is we do live in

30:11

the world where these enormous movies tanked

30:13

and sunk. That one might

30:16

have killed Paramount. So

30:18

Paramount was the, I believe was the

30:20

initial production company and

30:23

it got so bad that

30:26

they had to go to their competitor,

30:28

Fox, and say, would

30:30

you basically put in all

30:33

the money we put in on top of the money we

30:35

put in and we'll give you all of the international. I

30:37

think is how it worked out. That's

30:40

unheard of. I don't even think it's happened

30:42

since on that scale. And I think in

30:44

part it hasn't happened since on that scale

30:46

because Titanic did become a huge hit. And

30:49

the only thing that scares these companies more than

30:51

a massive bomb is missing out on all of

30:53

the money of a massive hit. But

30:56

I think we would still

30:58

unfortunately be in a world where

31:00

some massive films just tank because

31:03

people take these big swings. The weird

31:05

thing about Titanic succeeding

31:08

is that it probably has created more

31:10

flops in its wake. Because

31:13

everyone goes, well, what if

31:15

it's Titanic? Yeah. And

31:17

then someone's like, well, we've done research and it's projected to only

31:19

make, I think Titanic gets opening week and made like $28.6 million

31:22

is what it made. Which

31:24

is really good for a 1990s. Really

31:27

good. Very good opening weekend for a four hour

31:29

movie, yes. Yes, but if

31:31

it followed what normally happens, which

31:34

is then the following week one would be, let's say,

31:36

drops 50%, 40%, 50%. So

31:39

let's say the following weekend is like 15 million and then

31:41

it goes to seven and three and two. Disaster.

31:44

Oh my God. But in

31:46

fact, it made more. It went up. And

31:50

then it just kept, I just remember

31:52

how it just kept making somewhere in

31:54

the twenties every single weekend. Forever. And

31:58

there's never been anything quite like that. like it. Box

32:01

office wise, my husband Mike was running the AMC theaters

32:03

in Burbank at that point, he had 30 screens. And

32:06

Titanic nearly killed him because they had screenings and

32:08

then they would post a sell out. So they'd

32:10

add like nine in the morning screenings, and not

32:12

even advertise them and they would sell out. Yeah,

32:14

it was crazy. And so like, yes, it's really

32:16

good money for the exhibitors that they're getting a

32:18

cut of that. But it was just

32:21

so hard on everybody just to just staffing those

32:24

endless screenings. The creation

32:26

of that movie was incredibly difficult to

32:28

do. It is certainly no

32:30

fun to be making something that massive

32:32

while the people that are paying for

32:35

it are freaking out and basically telling

32:37

you we're screwed. Making things

32:39

is hard enough. When you are confidence

32:42

shaken, it's really hard, because

32:45

you already want to curl up and die just

32:47

from the exhaustion of doing it. And Titanic was

32:49

an incredibly exhausting thing to make, to think

32:52

while you're making it that also everyone's

32:55

miserable, and it's gonna fail. Oh my

32:57

god, how do you even wake up in the morning? No,

33:00

but but you do

33:02

they did. And so people just keep pointing back

33:04

at this and saying, Look,

33:06

so the one thing I think that

33:08

would be different is maybe there would

33:11

be fewer flops. Because

33:14

there's there'll be fewer big swings. I think

33:16

you know, I think there would have been

33:18

some limit. I know we absolutely cannot do

33:20

this thing. And one thing is different about

33:22

like, our current moment is we

33:24

have some places that have so much money, and

33:26

they don't actually need that as a box office,

33:29

right, they can just spend a ton so Apple

33:31

on killer the flower moon, in

33:33

any normal situation, that would be a disaster.

33:35

But it's not a disaster for them, because

33:37

they kind of don't really care about the

33:39

money. And so they can make it, you

33:42

know, a very long, very expensive movie that

33:44

doesn't perform with the box office, because that's

33:46

not really what they care about. Yeah. And

33:48

similarly, Netflix doesn't, I don't know

33:50

what their metrics, I don't know how any of it works. Yeah,

33:53

you know, I work for a company that is oddly

33:55

old fashioned in the sense that even though there's a

33:57

big streaming service for Macs, a lot of people are

33:59

not A lot of people still watch HBO

34:02

through cable or satellite, and

34:04

those are subscriber fees that get paid in, and there's

34:06

ratings for that stuff. But yeah,

34:08

I mean, Netflix makes these enormous

34:11

things and sort of go, it kind of

34:13

doesn't matter. I

34:16

don't understand any of it, but certainly in the

34:18

case of Amazon and Apple, those

34:20

companies are so enormous. Their

34:22

production wings are such a small piece

34:24

of what they do that

34:26

they can easily absorb any of these

34:29

things, no problem.

34:31

And the world of Titanic, it was

34:33

back, I don't know who owned Paramount

34:35

back then. Was it Gulf Western? It

34:38

kind of still went Gulf Western. So that was

34:41

a big oil company. If you read

34:43

about the history of the Godfather, for instance, they

34:46

were all freaking out when they were making the

34:48

Godfather. And because they were gonna

34:50

lose, they couldn't stand the notion of

34:52

losing money. And

34:55

there's a history of like, disastrous films

34:57

costing studios so much, and

34:59

they had to change like Cleopatra and Fox. We have

35:01

Century City in part because Fox had to sell off

35:03

some of that lot to actually earn money. And that

35:06

became Century City. Exactly. And

35:09

there's Heaven's Gate, which basically

35:12

destroyed a studio. Yeah, there's

35:14

been movies that were so big and so

35:17

massive and so horrifying in terms

35:19

of their costs that just entire companies

35:21

fell apart. So

35:23

a movie that did not cost the company, but

35:25

was a big swing and a big miss was

35:27

John Carter. So John Carter of

35:29

Mars was a film that Disney made. Well, thanks to

35:31

an article by Richard Newby for The Hollywood Reporter

35:34

called John Carter Changed Hollywood, but Not in the Way

35:36

Disney Hooped. Based on the numbers,

35:38

John Carter earned $284 million on

35:41

a $360 million budget. That sounds

35:43

like, oh, it was close, but of course there's hundreds of

35:45

millions of dollars of marketing on top of that. Newby

35:48

argues that Disney realized like,

35:50

okay, we were trying to create Star Wars,

35:52

maybe we should just buy Star Wars, and

35:54

they might not have reached for Lucasfilm at

35:56

that moment if John Carter had worked

35:59

possibly. They also were coming

36:01

off of other challenges like the Lone

36:03

Ranger, which has been an expensive flop.

36:06

And Newby argues that because of Mr.

36:09

Back to Back, you know, Mrs., Disney got

36:11

very conservative and we're just banking on sher

36:13

bets. All right. Well, I'll push

36:15

back a little bit on this one. It seems like

36:17

Mr. Newby's hanging a little too much

36:20

around the neck of John Carter. Yes,

36:22

it was a flop, but it wasn't

36:24

a studio destroying flop. 284

36:26

million against 306 is not good, obviously,

36:28

because that doesn't include the, let's say, $100 million

36:31

of marketing. And

36:33

then of course they don't actually get all the money from the

36:35

ticket sales, but there was video and all the rest. I'm

36:38

not sure that that's why they said we

36:40

need Star Wars. I think anybody who has

36:43

the chance to get Star

36:45

Wars and has the capital to do it, and

36:48

also the brand that would convince

36:50

Lucas to allow it, which

36:53

in this case was Disney and no one else, unless

36:56

there was an old existing Paramount that wasn't

36:58

there anymore of the way

37:01

that he was familiar. Yeah, I think

37:03

anybody would buy Star Wars. And

37:05

I don't think that you can put

37:07

too much around the neck

37:09

of John Carter. And the fact is he cites

37:11

Lone Ranger as an example of how it didn't

37:13

help matters, but that's sort of proof that John

37:16

Carter wasn't enough of a

37:18

cage rattler because they did make Lone Ranger.

37:20

So I don't know. Let's rephrase this though.

37:22

Let's rephrase it. Rather than saying, what if

37:25

John Carter had bombed? What if John Carter

37:27

was a huge, huge, huge hit? What

37:30

if it were kind of Star Wars level?

37:33

That I think would have been a bit of

37:35

a game changer because then it would be validating

37:37

like, yes, let's spend a lot of money, take

37:39

really big swings on pieces

37:41

of IP that are kind

37:44

of known, but not hugely known. I

37:47

would say John Carter Mars is more in the

37:49

level of a narnia book in the

37:51

sense of people kind of know what it is, but

37:53

they're not necessarily directly familiar with it. That

37:56

could have changed some things. I don't know that if

37:58

it were a giant hit. Do they still have

38:00

bought Lucasfilm? Probably,

38:02

because they would just have so much money. I think

38:05

it's still probably presuming too much

38:07

logic on the part of the folks

38:09

that make these things, because there

38:11

has always been this strange gravitation

38:13

towards quote unquote IP that

38:16

I think most people would look at

38:18

and go, okay, you think that that

38:20

matters? When they

38:22

made, what was that, they made the, what was the

38:24

one with Billy Zane? Was it the Phantom? Oh

38:27

yeah. Right, the Phantom was, that was something that- And you're

38:29

up. Yeah. Like my

38:31

dad was into that, like barely as a

38:33

child. It was not relevant anymore. But

38:36

it seemed like, oh, well we,

38:38

you know, that thing. And

38:40

now in the age of algorithm driven

38:42

companies, I think the computers, as

38:44

much as we hate them probably would have said, please

38:46

do not make the Phantom. But

38:49

you still see what I

38:51

would call attempts to recreate

38:53

other people's large successes. And

38:56

they sort of work or sometimes they don't work.

38:58

So Amazon and Netflix

39:01

have without naming names have

39:03

certainly tried to reproduce their

39:06

own, we won our Game of Thrones. Where's our

39:08

Game of Thrones? And

39:10

then they go looking for IP that people

39:12

are sort of interested in, or maybe not

39:14

that interested in. Some of

39:17

it works great. Some of it doesn't.

39:19

It's hard to predict sometimes. There are

39:21

books that people, absolute book series that

39:23

people love. And then,

39:25

but just don't want to watch, adapt it. There

39:27

are other things that people don't really

39:29

care that much about. But when they get adapted, catch

39:32

on. It's not as logical

39:34

as all that. So I think

39:36

if John Carter had been a hit, the only thing that

39:38

would, I don't even think it would have stopped Disney from

39:40

buying Star Wars. The only thing that would change, a

39:43

lot more John Carter movies, and then a

39:45

whole lot more movies that are sort of

39:47

John Carter's that don't work. Yeah, I agree.

39:49

Like when I was a kid, my

39:52

dad said, you're going to love these books. When I was

39:54

a kid, I read them. Duck Savage.

39:57

Do you know the Duck Savage books? I recognize this

39:59

title, I don't know anything else. Yeah, sort of, I think they were

40:01

like, 1930s era. They

40:05

were pulp fiction. Pulp fiction,

40:07

adventure stories, largely for boys,

40:10

about a group of courageous

40:12

people that go on to

40:14

the far-flung reaches. The

40:17

Dog Savage was definitely an inspiration

40:19

for Indiana Jones and even

40:22

James Bond to some extent. And

40:24

they keep, every now and then, somebody would bring it up

40:26

in Hollywood as I was coming up. That's

40:29

like, so old. And

40:31

maybe there'd be like, a bunch of Dog Savage movies,

40:34

or a Dog Savage movie would have been made at

40:36

a large scale and failed. But

40:38

I don't know if the world would have changed that much

40:40

if John Carter had succeeded. But

40:42

Craig, what if Iron Man had bombed?

40:44

Oh, boy. I

40:46

think we've talked about this before. I carried a

40:48

football on Iron Man for just a couple weeks.

40:50

I love everybody involved. And I got to go

40:52

to the premiere. And I remember going to the

40:54

premiere and the after party, which was at the

40:56

Roseville Hotel across the street, and saying, like,

40:59

wow, that was really good. That's

41:01

going to be a giant hit. But

41:03

I will tell you that there was no guarantee that movie was

41:05

going to be a giant hit. And

41:08

you look at the folks involved.

41:10

Fabro, so smart, so great,

41:12

had done some movies, but

41:15

there was no guarantee that he could direct this

41:17

movie. There was no guarantee that Barbara

41:19

Janier Jr. was a good choice, or even a rational

41:21

choice for this, because he was not in

41:23

the best place in his career. There

41:26

were a lot of things that could have

41:29

really derailed this movie. And yet

41:31

it was a giant hit and started a franchise,

41:33

which has made billions of dollars

41:36

for the companies involved. Billions and

41:38

billions and billions and changed the shape of

41:41

multinational mega corporations. Now,

41:44

it's important to acknowledge that there

41:47

were Marvel movies before that that had not worked, and

41:49

they still got the Marvel universe. But

41:52

I would argue that if Iron

41:54

Man had flopped, you

41:56

don't have the Kevin Feige Marvel Cinematic

41:58

Universe. Without

42:01

question. You could even go further back and say,

42:04

what if the X-Men movies had flopped? Because

42:07

superhero movies, other than

42:09

Batman, always seem to work. Superman

42:12

worked for two

42:14

movies. But the

42:17

other movies that they tried to do, the other things they tried to do,

42:19

all just Spider-Man also,

42:21

is another one, if that had not

42:23

worked. So there were pre-existing superhero films

42:25

that had done well, but

42:27

those were not controlled by Marvel,

42:29

per se. So X-Men was controlled

42:31

by Fox, Spider-Man was controlled by

42:34

Sony, and Batman was controlled

42:36

by Warner Brothers. So here's

42:38

Marvel as a company, suddenly

42:42

finding a partner to make Iron

42:44

Man with and do it well, and

42:47

that directly leads into the

42:50

entire Avengers thing. It also

42:52

created all

42:55

the feeder ones, Thor, and then you never get

42:57

to, obviously never get to Guardians of the Galaxy

42:59

or any of that. No, no, that was really tough.

43:01

Ever, ever, ever. And it really felt like if

43:03

you had Iron Man but didn't have a good

43:05

follow-up for that first Captain America movie, it would have

43:07

been much more difficult. But you have to have Iron

43:09

Man first. Yes. But

43:11

the whole choice to center

43:14

this whole thread on Iron Man was

43:17

kind of a weird one too, because he wasn't

43:19

the biggest... No. He wasn't the biggest available hero

43:21

there. No. Iron Man, I loved Iron Man comics

43:23

when I was a kid because the suit's awesome,

43:25

but he... Yeah,

43:28

no, the actual Iron Man stories

43:31

got kind of morose. He was an alcoholic. It

43:34

was like comics run into a whole story about alcoholism.

43:37

Also, you would not have the superhero saturation

43:39

in the way that superhero films... I

43:42

mean, there's going to be some amazing books written 10 years

43:44

from now about it. The transformation of

43:46

our culture by that

43:48

movie and everything that came beyond it is

43:51

remarkable. What it did to our business, for better

43:53

or worse, and in a lot of cases worse,

43:56

is remarkable. What it did to the visual

43:58

effects industry, but also technology... remarkable. And

44:01

then here's this question. Does

44:03

any of this work without Iron Man? Does

44:06

any of this work without Tony Stark,

44:08

Robert Downey Jr.? Or is it just

44:10

sort of begin to fall apart? Obviously

44:13

Marvel has created this incredible system

44:16

with phases. We're in a

44:18

struggling phase right now. I think it's not hard to

44:20

see that we don't know what's going to happen next.

44:22

That's right. I think in our next episode we'll talk

44:24

a little about sort of when you hire stars, how

44:27

careful you have to be because they are going to

44:29

be the face of your entity. And so in some

44:31

cases, like Johnson Majors, that did not work

44:33

out well. In the case of Robert Downey Jr., it worked

44:35

out great. But if you were to look at those two

44:37

people at the start, I

44:39

would have been on Johnson Majors. Well, I

44:41

don't know what was known, right? But here's

44:43

what was definitely known about Robert Downey Jr.

44:46

prior to Iron Man. He had

44:48

gone through a very long period of

44:50

substance abuse problems. He had gone through

44:52

a very long period where he was

44:54

highly unreliable. He was

44:56

considered to be mercurial and

44:58

brilliant, but uncontrollable. He had had

45:00

issues with the law. There was an infamous story

45:03

where he just woke up in somebody's bed in

45:05

the house because he broke in because he was

45:07

completely out of his mind on whatever

45:09

he was. I don't know what substances he was

45:11

abusing. And so there

45:14

was this sense that the

45:16

last person in the world you put an

45:19

enormous thing on top of would be Robert Downey Jr.

45:21

and they just

45:24

went for it. And this is it. This

45:26

is the weird thing about trying to game

45:28

or predict. You want the

45:31

real hero here. If I can

45:33

point to one person that is the reason why

45:35

our culture is full of superhero movies and why

45:38

Marvel is worth as much as it is and has had

45:40

as much success. Susan Downey,

45:43

Robert Downey Jr.'s wife and producing partner

45:45

who is the stabilizing force in

45:48

his life who clearly got him back

45:50

on track and got him

45:52

sober and focused. If Hollywood could give

45:54

a Nobel Prize, it should go to

45:57

Susan Downey. She's remarkable. And as

46:00

I'm concerned, Marvel should write her a check for a

46:02

billion dollars. I

46:04

think let's do a very short version on

46:07

this. So we've talked about FinCyn before. So

46:09

FinCyn limited the degree to which networks

46:11

should own the production entities. So it's

46:14

like Paramatka and Centrokri's, and it's about

46:16

how much vertical integration you could have

46:18

over the course of production. It was

46:21

abolished in 1993 by a decision. So

46:23

it counts as a counter-pouchable because the decision could

46:26

have gone the other way. In

46:28

a short version, if

46:30

in 1993 FinCyn hadn't

46:32

been eradicated, how would Hollywood

46:34

look different today? Oh, boy.

46:37

Well, you

46:40

can argue in a lot of different directions here.

46:43

The deal with FinCyn is it created a system

46:46

where the only people who could afford

46:49

to produce television good enough to be

46:51

on networks were companies that

46:53

could afford to operate under a system

46:55

called deficit financing. The

46:58

only way you could make money making a

47:00

television show, because the networks couldn't make them. Therefore,

47:03

the networks made money off of licensing. So

47:06

the networks pay you money to

47:08

license the show you produced. They

47:11

run it on the air, and then they sell ads.

47:13

And the amount of ads that they sell hopefully is

47:15

way more than the licensing fee they're paying you. But

47:17

how do you make money? Well, you don't. Because

47:21

a licensing fee doesn't even come close

47:24

to paying you back. It's covering your costs.

47:26

It doesn't even come close. So you rely

47:28

on syndication. Exactly. Basically, you need a hit.

47:30

And if the show makes it to 100 episodes

47:33

was considered the kind of classic number to hit,

47:35

then it could be syndicated, meaning it could

47:38

then go into reruns. And at that point,

47:40

it just starts to spin off insane amounts

47:42

of money through licensing fees forever.

47:45

And the game was right.

47:48

We're going to lose a whole lot of money to

47:50

make a whole lot of money. And the only people

47:53

that can afford to do that are very large companies.

47:55

And in this case, Movie

47:57

studios, basically. Those are the ones doing it.

48:00

And co is. Since. And

48:02

hadn't. Gotten. Shut Down. Even

48:05

imagine they're they're be there was some help

48:07

more couple of would have flown into to

48:09

create. More. Things are life, the car see

48:11

worse and stuff like these parents producers would somehow be able

48:13

to raise enough money to go to make the shows are

48:15

in a bell. The make. But. Of will

48:17

still be dicier. Those people would

48:19

be very wealthy into a decent

48:22

is Roscoe. they have more often.

48:24

Internally. You want to sort

48:26

of sight and brittle innovation receive because it

48:28

is at a competitive. I mean it. it

48:30

can drive down wages for the officers, have

48:33

fewer, place didn't sell you're thing yup but

48:35

it would have trailers, hands are doing stuff

48:37

and. It's hard to know like

48:39

whoa, it just looks like in today's

48:41

streaming world because there are companies that

48:43

bring their own money to do stance

48:45

today. and so thin and until unstinting

48:47

so exists. Assist different They're decently

48:49

a legendary of the fifth season. two of

48:51

the company said Ashley are coming with her.

48:53

I managed to saw. It would

48:55

look like different. I can't even such out what.

48:58

The. Real changes would have been. well.

49:00

I think that you would probably have

49:02

had much larger productions. So.

49:04

We can look at companies that are not

49:07

impacted by Sen. Sen Rand since and fell

49:09

apart by. When. You look at

49:11

Netflix for example, Netflix produces and distributes

49:13

their own material. They are not beholden

49:15

to Israel for the reason that sense

49:17

and was a thing as because it

49:20

and applied to broadcast television broadcast television

49:22

use the public airwaves now and to

49:24

send their signals outside. The government therefore

49:26

have the ability to get in the

49:28

way and and create regulations. There's

49:30

no regulations on an end to end

49:32

our agreement like Netflix where they're not

49:34

using public airwaves whatsoever. Yeah, a salary

49:37

as to see or video justice from

49:39

it could still come in there. But

49:41

it it. without the broadcasts aspect

49:43

of it as much harder to and for

49:45

says i thought it might be much harder

49:47

for that the when the judgment they would

49:49

have to with yes i mean that the

49:51

government has a clear established interests and the

49:54

rules regarding the use of public airwaves going

49:56

all we back to the radio on so

49:58

forth i wis internet carriers It's

50:00

different. Netflix

50:03

and companies, Amazon, etc.,

50:05

they've never operated under anything like this. They've

50:07

always been able to make their own stuff

50:09

and exhibit their own stuff. What

50:13

you see are massive productions because

50:16

there is no arrangement where

50:18

you deposit finance in the hopes for syndication.

50:21

Meanwhile, the exhibitor is making money off of

50:23

the sale of ads. In fact, Netflix and

50:25

Amazon don't have ads, although now they're starting

50:27

to. And then

50:30

they're starting to just put more money in their

50:32

pockets. You can argue, I mean,

50:34

I don't know how the finances of these

50:36

companies work, but you could argue that for

50:38

Amazon, for instance, it's possible that their production

50:41

wing is really a loss leader. And it

50:43

is a deficit financing just

50:46

to drive customers to their other aspect, which

50:48

is buying toilet paper

50:50

and pencils. I

50:52

don't know, but it does seem like if

50:54

there had not been FinCEN and the networks

50:56

could have

51:00

reaped the benefits of their own syndication,

51:03

that probably you would have seen some

51:05

larger productions happening. Last

51:08

bit of counter-factual. Remember

51:10

when Netflix was the red envelopes you got in

51:13

the mail? Yeah, it should be. So what if

51:15

Netflix had stuck with their DVD model? That they

51:17

were the company that sent you a DVD? This

51:19

is a great one. And they never started a

51:21

whole streaming business. How would the

51:23

world be different if Netflix hadn't started the streaming

51:25

revolution? Okay, so I'm going to contradict myself a

51:27

little bit here. Most of what I've been saying

51:29

is when the world wants something, it finds a

51:31

way to get it. In

51:34

this case, I suspect that if

51:36

Netflix hadn't done what they did, nobody

51:38

would have done it. And the

51:40

reason why nobody would have done it is because I'm

51:42

not sure it, meaning the streaming model actually makes sense.

51:46

And we watched this happen. Netflix did this.

51:48

They turned through an enormous amount of money

51:51

to build a business out of nothing, a

51:53

little bit the way Amazon did with their

51:55

larger business. And

51:57

then everybody else said, oh my God, we have

51:59

to do it too. And then they all did it, and then they all looked

52:01

at each other and went, how do you make

52:03

money doing this exactly? And

52:06

that makes me suspect nobody would have done

52:08

it, because it kind of doesn't make sense.

52:11

And a lot of what we all

52:14

went through with our convulsions in the

52:16

labor movement in Hollywood was

52:18

trying to make Hollywood confront the

52:20

fact that they had blown up

52:22

a system that worked fairly

52:24

well for them and fairly well for

52:26

us. And they had blown it up chasing

52:29

something that wasn't like them

52:32

and something that they could never be like. I

52:35

think the world would be enormously different

52:37

if Netflix had just stuck to the

52:39

red envelopes. All right, counterfactual

52:41

to your counterfactual. I would say

52:43

that internet video is going to

52:46

want to happen. And so the fact that

52:48

YouTube exists, there was a market for people

52:50

wanting to watch things on through

52:52

video. And even before we had Netflix, we did

52:55

have webisodes of your favorite shows. So

52:57

the idea that we were going to be getting

52:59

our TV or TV-like

53:01

things over the internet, I think is

53:03

kind of inevitable. What

53:05

the business model behind that could have gone many,

53:07

many different ways. But I do think it would

53:10

have ultimately seen things that kind

53:12

of looked like Netflix that were using

53:15

money they got from investors to create shows

53:17

and put them on the internet. And some

53:19

of those would have grown into things that

53:21

are maybe not the size or

53:24

scale of what Netflix became. But would have been

53:26

big enough that even the other studios would have

53:28

developed their own wings that were doing that kind

53:30

of stuff. We would have gotten to something that

53:32

looks kind of like what

53:34

we're doing now, but it's not with the full scale. Well,

53:37

I think you're right that in terms of

53:39

a distribution platform, places like YouTube would have

53:41

absolutely worked and they kind of work. If

53:43

you think back to what we were arguing

53:45

about in our penultimate

53:48

strike, the

53:50

big concern was that

53:52

the companies were going to use the internet to

53:56

run our content and have ads run

53:58

in it just like it. would

54:00

on any syndicated channel, but because

54:02

it was the internet as opposed

54:04

to, you know, channel five in

54:06

New York, that somehow residuals wouldn't

54:08

apply. I think YouTube

54:10

did and continues to have a very robust

54:12

system where they run ads. And

54:15

yes, I think they would have struck

54:17

deals with the companies to

54:20

rebroadcast stuff. I think the whole thing of like YouTube

54:22

is going to make its own stuff. Well, they sure

54:24

tried. It didn't work. I mean, what was it? YouTube

54:27

Red? That was sort of a thing? No, it's

54:29

a thing. They got rid of YouTube Red. They

54:32

got rid of it. Yeah. So

54:34

they got rid of it. Quibi, good Lord. Oh,

54:36

yeah. If it weren't for

54:38

Netflix, I don't know if we would have never

54:40

had Quibi. We would have never had the four

54:42

million easy jokes about Quibi. Yeah. So

54:46

the idea that these

54:48

independent internet companies would...

54:52

Remember Amazon Studios? Remember us

54:54

discussing that whole baloney nonsense?

54:56

Yeah. So I mean, they

54:58

were always looking to do a thing. But again,

55:00

like, you know, Amazon still with all their money,

55:03

they probably would have tried to develop something that

55:05

is, again, it's not Netflix, but they would have

55:07

developed their own video

55:10

streaming service. Maybe. Or

55:13

maybe they would have just

55:15

said, we are

55:18

happy to be in the business where

55:20

we pay you a licensing fee to

55:22

rebroadcast your stuff on our

55:24

platform. Just like Walmart pays

55:27

for the DVDs that they then resell.

55:31

And then Amazon will collect the... Just like, yeah, they

55:33

will collect the ad money and that'll be that. They

55:35

probably would have looked at YouTube and said, like, we

55:37

want to be in the YouTube business and then they'll

55:40

sell their membership back. Right. But

55:42

where the internet was before Netflix

55:44

decided to go bananas was

55:49

this... You

55:51

and I got yelled at a lot, as

55:53

I recall, for decrying the concept of the

55:55

democratization of entertainment creation. There

55:59

are certainly a lot of people making... making money as influencers and

56:01

all the rest of that, but that's its own category. There

56:03

was this moment and we

56:05

were podcasting through it where these companies were like,

56:08

the only reason that everybody doesn't have great television

56:10

to make is because of the gatekeepers and if

56:12

we just allow everybody to get to know, the

56:14

answer to that is no, none of that would

56:17

have happened. None of that ever will happen. That's

56:19

not a thing, it doesn't happen. It's hard to

56:21

do what we do. There are not a lot

56:23

of people who do it. It's sort of like

56:25

saying, oh, we're gonna democratize major league baseball. Everybody

56:28

can show up and play. No, actually we still

56:30

just want one Soto, which as you know, is

56:33

gonna take me, the only one who's gonna take

56:35

me and give some of the World Series this year. I know that you've

56:37

been thinking it. No, I

56:39

basically stay awake at night. Just really thinking about

56:41

all the scenarios that gets them to the World

56:44

Series. Well, just, I mean, Soto and then Judge,

56:46

right? Like one, that number three, number four lineup

56:48

punch. I mean, we've talked about it a lot.

56:50

It's a big deal. I mean, there's so many

56:53

scenarios. That's why I can't play. It's

56:55

really only the one scenario. But

57:00

you never know. The counterfactual is that,

57:02

what if you get hit by a bus and therefore?

57:05

Well, I'll tell you, if one Soto gets hit by a bus,

57:08

the Yankees will have another season like they did last year,

57:10

which is really bad. David

57:13

Benioff and John Gatens and I have a little three

57:16

person group chat that is

57:18

just nothing but us complaining about the Yankees.

57:21

All we do is just

57:23

a constant ruing this season. Hopefully it will

57:26

be different. But in any case,

57:28

I really think that what

57:30

Netflix did was so improbable

57:33

and so risky and so crazy.

57:35

And I'm still not sure it worked.

57:39

I'm still waiting for gravity to kick in. Yeah,

57:42

it basically works for Netflix. It does not work

57:44

for everybody else. So like Netflix now actually makes

57:46

a profit, but it

57:48

was a wild, wild gamble and they were

57:50

able to use cheap money to do it. It's just, you

57:52

know, the circumstances worked out the way they worked out. The

57:54

circumstances worked out the way they worked out. I

57:57

don't think, I think the proof is in the pudding, even

57:59

as. Netflix started to be successful. The

58:02

legacy companies still work like, Oh God, we

58:04

got no, they were like, great, keep licensing

58:06

our stuff. We're here friends, give us money.

58:08

You can run friend. It really

58:10

was until they felt that there was an

58:12

existential threat to their existence. And I think

58:14

that was a miscalculation, by the way. Um,

58:18

so here's a question for you. Let's say streaming

58:20

ever happens. Netflix doesn't happen. And streaming never happens

58:22

to the cable companies get even more powerful

58:25

because they were the people that

58:27

are making the show as opposed to controlling

58:29

access to people's CVs. Cable and satellite become

58:32

more powerful. It is possible that a company

58:35

like YouTube, which has successfully

58:37

replaced a lot of cables

58:39

and satellite dishes would

58:42

have become the other new

58:44

dominant delivery system, but there would have

58:46

been a delivery system. They wouldn't have

58:48

been a creation slash delivery system. And

58:50

that's the difference. Yeah, I

58:52

agree. So let's wrap up our big

58:54

counter-factuals segment here talking through why

58:57

I think it's useful is because when you look at the

58:59

coin tosses, the ways things could have gone one way or

59:01

the other way, you recognize that we are

59:03

in, as you said before,

59:05

Craig, we're in a counterfactual, we're in somebody else's

59:08

counterfactual, like things worked out the way they

59:10

worked out, but they were not inevitable. And that we have to

59:12

be mindful that the choices we

59:14

make now will have repercussions down the

59:16

road that we can't always anticipate. So

59:18

it's just, I think it's always nice

59:20

looking at this ecosystem we find

59:22

ourselves in was not the only possible

59:25

version of this. No. And

59:28

it is either

59:30

a distressing or comforting notion to think that we

59:32

are in the

59:35

alternate reality. And in our version

59:38

of the sim that we all

59:40

live in, yeah, we're missing some awesome

59:42

things or we dodged

59:44

massive bullets. Yes, for

59:47

sure. Craig, it's time for

59:49

one cool thing. We haven't done one cool

59:51

thing together for a while. Mine is on

59:53

post quantum cryptography, which sounds, it's

59:56

a mouthful, but actually makes a lot of sense. So

59:58

I'm going to link to... Apple security blog

1:00:00

post that did about it. But the

1:00:03

idea of post quantum cryptography is obviously

1:00:05

cryptography is so important for securing our

1:00:08

communications, making sure that the things we

1:00:10

want to say private, stay private. So

1:00:12

end-to-end messaging, all that stuff. Right

1:00:14

now we are using cryptography, which

1:00:17

is so strong that computers

1:00:19

could spend a thousand years trying to break the

1:00:21

codes behind stuff and they wouldn't be able to

1:00:23

open these messages. The problem is at

1:00:26

some point we're going to get to quantum computers

1:00:28

that are so powerful and so fast that the

1:00:30

scriptography will fall apart. It will not be useful.

1:00:33

And so I think that it's happening is very

1:00:36

well resourced companies or nations can just

1:00:38

say, okay, we're going to suck up

1:00:40

all this data. We can't actually process

1:00:43

it now. Like we can't actually break the codes,

1:00:45

but we know that in a couple of years

1:00:47

we will be able to. And so this becomes

1:00:49

like, well, then how do you prevent that? And

1:00:51

so this paper goes

1:00:53

through this plant, these plans for

1:00:55

in these new natural new algorithms

1:00:57

that they figured out for living in

1:01:00

a post quantum cryptography world.

1:01:02

So basically how do you encode things now

1:01:04

so that as quantum computers come online, you

1:01:06

still can't open those messages. And the good

1:01:09

news is there's mass that can get you

1:01:11

there so that it's still going to be

1:01:13

incredibly difficult for these super, super, super computers

1:01:15

to open those messages. And so there's things

1:01:17

you can turn on now or soon

1:01:21

in these messaging platforms that will still keep

1:01:23

stuff locked down whenever these

1:01:25

quantum computers come online. So interesting.

1:01:28

I like that it's both dealing

1:01:31

with problems now and

1:01:33

problems 10, 20 years from

1:01:35

now. Yeah. That's smart. There

1:01:39

was a problem I hadn't thought of. Thanks. Now

1:01:42

I'll be awake at night. Well, my

1:01:44

one cool thing is a bit

1:01:46

sweeter, pun intended, but also a

1:01:48

bit sad. And somehow

1:01:50

one of the most gripping articles I've

1:01:52

ever read about marshmallows.

1:01:55

John, have you

1:01:57

ever had a smashmallow? I

1:02:00

know what that is. Neither did I.

1:02:02

True. Smash I

1:04:00

that can build new machines to make

1:04:03

the Smashmallows at scale and this company, I think it's

1:04:05

in the Netherlands, says, we can do it. We

1:04:07

can do it. And we're going to send you a

1:04:09

sample of what we made to show you. And

1:04:12

he was like, oh my god, you did it. And the big

1:04:15

secret was they didn't make that sample with a

1:04:17

machine at all. They just

1:04:19

lied. They lied. They just

1:04:21

lied. He lied. Just

1:04:24

lied. This past week, I had to go in for a blood

1:04:26

test. And I remember trying to back and telling Mike, like, man,

1:04:28

I was there. It just seems really inefficient. I

1:04:30

felt like there's a way you could have a machine that could

1:04:32

do this for you. I'm like, oh, shoot. I'm

1:04:35

pitching Therianos. I'm going to stop right now. I'm

1:04:38

pitching Therianos. And was it

1:04:41

just to tie back to our

1:04:43

counterfactual? Was her machine called the

1:04:45

Edison? Maybe so.

1:04:47

The counterfactual was like, what if she'd actually

1:04:49

been able to make that machine? In

1:04:52

theory, it's a really good idea. But

1:04:55

apparently, it's like the Smashmallow. It's

1:04:57

like, yes, you think you should

1:04:59

be able to make that thing, but it turns out you can. Yeah,

1:05:01

I think if she had been able to make that

1:05:04

machine, somebody would have made that machine already. Because when

1:05:06

she was like, we're going to take a drop of

1:05:08

blood and do all of your blood tests, a drop

1:05:10

of blood. And I remember her

1:05:12

mentor at Stanford, this wonderful professor, just

1:05:14

said to her, no. No.

1:05:17

No. That is

1:05:19

literally physically impossible on a

1:05:22

molecular level. But there

1:05:24

was maybe slightly more of a chance that the

1:05:26

Marshmallow thing could have worked. Yeah.

1:05:29

But I'm sure that professor, where he told

1:05:31

Thomas Edison that he couldn't make a motion

1:05:33

picture projector. And look, it hit me, it did. Yeah,

1:05:36

no, definitely a better chance of that

1:05:38

than the Therianos machine ever working. Therianos

1:05:40

machines. Craig, a pleasure talking to

1:05:42

you again. Great to be back. Script, now, is produced

1:05:44

by Drew Markhorse, edited by Matthew Cholelli,

1:05:46

or outro this week by Zach Lowe. If you have

1:05:48

an outro, you can send us a link to ask

1:05:51

at johnautres.com. We love when good

1:05:53

outro has come through. And reminder that outros

1:05:55

involve some version of bump, bump, bump, bump,

1:05:57

bump. You can hide it in there, but

1:05:59

I'm always. who's listening for it. And sometimes we'll

1:06:01

get these outros that are like, that is musically

1:06:03

beautiful, but it's not a script notes outro. You

1:06:06

gotta get that in there. We gotta hear that. askatjohnautics.com

1:06:09

is also the place where you can send questions. You'll

1:06:11

find the show notes for this episode and all episodes

1:06:13

at johnautics.com. And it's also where you'll

1:06:16

find the transcripts and sign up for our weekly newsletter

1:06:18

called Interesting. There's lots of links to things about

1:06:20

writing. But the one that's the past week was really good. It's

1:06:22

about oases and sort of basically the

1:06:25

moments in a story where characters find a bit

1:06:27

of respite and escape

1:06:29

from the plot and how

1:06:31

important those are in just in stories. So,

1:06:33

interesting. You have t-shirts and hoodies. They're

1:06:36

great. You'll find them at Cod Bureau. You can sign

1:06:38

up for a premium member at scriptnotes.net where you

1:06:40

get all the back episodes and bonus segments like

1:06:42

the one we're about to record on capitalism. Yay.

1:06:45

Yay. Craig, it's so nice to have you back.

1:06:47

Great to be back, John. Thanks.