Marc Andreessen on the State of Film and Hollywood

21:00It's not considered, most people don't consider it maybe the best pension novel, but it's a good mid-tier one and it's in the Pantheon. And it turns out it had been Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite novel. He'd been trying to make a version of it for 20 years or whatever. But what he did basically was he kept the very basic kind of plot framework set up, but then he completely updated it for the message, right? And so it has specifically, it has a whole bunch of it. Like it has this whole, basically it's a racial, you know, it has a whole racial kind of plot structure to the whole thing. And sexual in ways that are fairly amazing.

21:33But that are completely based on the current moment, you know, circa 2022. And so it's a little bit like the 1960s. It's like the early 2020s filtered through the 1960s. And so it's just a little bit odd with that. Arguably, it is kind of salient to our times. because I think if you were to retitle the movie, you would just title it Antifa the movie. Like, it's like a full-throwning celebration of basically violent social change, violent social revolution. And it's completely unapologetic. I'm going to spoil it. I'm going to spoil it. I'm just going to... Spoiler alert. By the end... Spoiler alerts for monitoring the situation.

22:08Everyone's already seen it here, so... So it's a two-hour and 45-minute movie that I went, by the way, and I went to the theater and I paid full price and I smuggled in my snacks and the whole thing. I go through the whole thing and I'm like, he's such a brilliant filmmaker. I'm hoping it's a subversive movie, right? And so I'm kind of hoping that the whole thing is like, by the end, he's like, really like, he's like, okay, like he's weather underground people who like went on the run for 20 years and destroyed their lives. And like, you know, we're always, you know, basically just like, you know, crazed privileged children, like raging out against their, you know, basically their parents and blowing shit up and killing people.

22:36And this, the whole thing was a giant mistake. And I was kind of hoping that that would, you know, that would be kind of the way that you could tell the story. No, no, no. He's just like, oh no, that was great. Like, that was fantastically good. These people are amazing. like they're, they're, these are the myths and legends of our time. He clearly wants to make these people into mythical figures. And then at the end, and then if he has just very clear at the end, he's like, yes. And I completely endorse and support all of this. Um, and this is exactly what, you know, this is, these are the role models that children should have and it's fantastic.

23:00Right. Um, and so, you know, in a, this is one of those movies where in a perverse way, maybe, maybe it stands the test of time that way, where it's just like, wow, these people had like, these people are constructed in mythos, you know, by, by, by, by, in which violent robbering and like violent robbery and murder basically is great, right? Like it's wonderful, right? And so, you know, maybe that's, you know, I don't know, maybe it's like reading Emma Goldman, Emma Goldman essays a century later or something. It's just like, wow, these people kind of really got carried away. But like, you know, it's not what it could have been.

23:28Anyway, this is the, okay. So one is it's out of time, although, you know, hopefully won't become more relevant. And then the other is again, the business aspect of it, which is, you know, being a great filmmaker, you know, this is the one that he got like the real budget for. so this is like a much bigger budget than any of the other movies that he's made. And with that, he was, you know, the cast is like just incredible. Like, so it's, you know, Leo DiCaprio and Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro and like all these amazing, you know, actors and actresses. But as a consequence, I don't have the numbers at the top of my head, but, you know, it was estimated it cost something under$200 million to make.

24:00And then it's more money on top of that for, you know, for advertising. The challenge, and then, you know, it's got Leo and, you know, by the way, he's fantastic in it. Very entertaining. But by the way, spoiler alert, one of the things about The Message, it's got The Message. So the Leo character, I don't know, plays one of these basically. He's a bomber basically in hiding for like 18 years or whatever. And he's got this daughter, the daughter of his lover who was this great, basically, violent revolutionary of the era. And they've been in hiding for 18 years. And he's like completely fried his brain on like, you know, drugs and alcohol.

24:38It's just like, you know, he's completely blown out as a person. and he spends the entire movie running around like in his bathrobe, like, you know, basically high. And if you actually watch the movie carefully all the way through, it actually turns out nothing he actually does at any point in the plot ever actually matters. Like, he plays no actual role in the plot. And so it's this like incredible performance and it's incredibly, you know, dynamic and entertaining performance. And the movie's gonna sell, do well overseas as a result of that because people love Leo. But like, again, it's consistent with the message of, of course, the white male lead can have no actual role to play in the plot.

25:11Like, you know, that's definitely not allowed. Like, in the climax, he literally shows up at the end of the climax and just like, I'm here. And like, it's like all over, right? Like, everybody's dead. Like, it's all, it's just done. So anyway, it's going to do reasonably well because it has Leo, but it's still going to lose like$100,$120 million, you know, the estimates that I'm hearing, which is, you know, a pretty big loss, you know, for a movie like this. The fear in Hollywood always is when there's a movie that loses that much money, will the executive greenlight new original movies? So hopefully the lesson that's drawn from this is basically, it's the Brad Easton Ellis point, which is the, what do you say, the fussiness?

25:56He said it's a musty film. Mustiness, yeah. Hopefully the conclusion is don't make movies that are going to be musty when they're released, right? Like, you know, you didn't have to greenlight the thousandth movie with the message in 2022. too. Like that was a choice, you know, so maybe don't do that anymore. Um, you know, but, but, you know, but, but, but maybe it's time to move on. Let me highlight the movie on the other side that I think is very underappreciated. And I think has, you know, I, I, you can say maybe at best right now, it's becoming a cult classic. It's just not that big of a hit, but like, I have hopes for it and I hope it becomes one of these mythic movies, which is Eddington.

26:27And, uh, let me, let me start by asking, have you guys both at this point seen Eddington? I haven't. I haven't. Okay. Well, you're, you're in for a treat. So, so my opinion, my opinion, personal opinion, Eddington is the first capital A art, great art movie. I feel like I've seen since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and I think it clears the bar. And I would start by saying it's not a perfect movie. Like, you know, there are things about it that I'm sure five years from now or whatever, even the maker of the movie might look back and say, you know, could have done things differently. So, but it's like, it's like, it has the opposite of the musty feeling.

26:59It has the feeling of, oh, I'm actually finally seeing on screen real people again. Like finally. like real people set in the real world doing real things where you're just like, wow. I'm actually seeing the world that we've actually spent the last five years living in. And it's the first movie like that that I've seen in a long time. And specifically, it's the first movie, and it's amazing that this is the case, even with the timescales that we're talking about. It's the first movie in which the George Floyd riots actually happened. It's the first movie in which COVID actually happened. It's the first movie in which social media actually happened.

27:33It's the first movie in which wokeness actually happened. It's the first movie in which Trump actually happened. And this is why I'm sort of having the reaction to the movie that I'm having, which is just like, it's the only movie in which any of those things actually happened in the universe of the movie. Because I don't know, unless I missed something, every other movie that's come out that's been significant over the last five years, it's as if none of that ever happened. And my explanation for that is, these are all the hot-button issues that if you screwed them up, in Hollywood, you got your career destroyed, right?

28:06So if you said the wrong thing about COVID lockdowns or vaccines, if you said the wrong thing about Trump, if you said the wrong thing about the Floyd riots, if you said the wrong thing about wokeness, like your career get obliterated. So we have like a generation of creatives who basically just like got taught, do not touch the stove. And the auteur who made Eddington, it's an auteur movie, this guy, Eric Astor, who's this young auteur, very talented guy. He basically was like, I'm just gonna grab the stove with both hands. And I'm just going to like hold up for dear life. And it's like a rollercoaster ride through every crazy fucking thing that happened in the last five years.

28:38And I was just like howling with laughter. But it's like me and the other four people in the theater who are watching it, we're just like, wow, it's amazing. It's finally happening. Other bright side of this too is that it's not unknown actors, right? It's Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone. And what's really interesting about, as you said, like there's most media, or, you know, most movies try to kind of gloss over social media or things where it's, like, actually hard to depict it on a screen. Like, there's nothing really interesting about looking at your phone. But, like, getting a COVID nostril test is actually, like, very funny.

29:11And I know, like, the trailer begins with, like, pulling up in this, like, old car and getting the nostril test. It's just, like, it's just, like, a funny thing. And so it's, like, it's good that some of these more, like, absurd things that have happened in the last couple years, like, they're actually very cinematic. And they should be put on, like, they should be put, But, like, great filmmakers should be showing them because they're so funny. Yeah. So I'll do a couple again. I'm going to blow through the spoilers. Yeah, so the opening scene is Joaquin Phoenix. Joaquin Phoenix plays this, basically, this crusty sheriff of this small town in New Mexico called Eddington, which actually kind of reminds me of the town I grew up in.

29:42And the key thing for the thing is, Eddington, like, there's just nothing in the town. Like, it's like 600 people. It's just like the streets are empty. The stores are empty. I mean, it's like a town that was empty before COVID, right? And then the lockdowns hit, and then it became even more desolate. But like, there's nothing happening and you can just walk around and there's nobody there. And so Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff who's like this crusty, unreconstructed, and he's not really a Trump supporter per se, but he's like this sort of crusty, you know, kind of traditionalist, you know, kind of guy.

30:09He's the kind of guy who just really does not want things to change that much. And like everything is changing around him. And it starts in COVID. It starts in like April of 2020. And he's sitting in his pickup truck in the middle of nowhere and he's like eating a sandwich or whatever. and this other truck pulls up next to him and it's these, you know, it's set in New Mexico. And so there's these, the town that he's in are adjacent to these tribal lands. And so these two young tribal cops, you know, Native American cops, pull up in a pickup truck next to him. And they're like, you know, they're like young and, you know, let's say cooler than he is.

30:41And they're both wearing their masks, right? And literally they're like, roll down your window and he rolls his window. And literally they're from their pickup truck into his, they're like, you have to put your mask on. Right. And it was like, literally, for me, it was like, you know, it was like, you know, the heaven has opened, the angels are singing, I'm finally singing a capital M movie. Like this, and you know, like he's a brilliant actor. And so like, he gets across like in one look, the feeling that I think we've all had for the last five years, which is like, what the fuck? And that's just the opening scene, and then it cascades through all the COVID, and then it cascades through and then, you know, spoiler alert again, or spoiler, it cascades through the Floyd, so the Floyd riots hit midway through the movie and then all the, and then, you know, the, of course, you know, the local high school, it's like, you know, the local high school is like 100 % white, you know, it's New Mexico and, you know, and then the white kids basically become like obsessed with racial justice even though they literally don't know any black people and they start like basically having like full-blown riots like, you know, in the main street and like breaking star windows and like scratching everything and there's one, there's one black person in town who's a sheriff's deputy, who's Joaquin's deputy, who's a military vet.

31:53And he's just like, what the hell? He's like, why do I have to defend the grocery store from the white kids trying to burn it down on my behalf? Like, what the fuck? Anyway, so the whole movie is like that. And then maybe just one more thing about it that's just hysterical. Eric, this is a good time for you to take a drink of water because you're going to love this part. It's good for the spit takeout. Pedro Pascal is in it. And at first you would think Pedro Pascal plays the mayor. And at first you're like, oh, this is going to be a clear setup where, you know, Joaquin Finney's was like the retrograde right winger and, you know, Pascal's like the voice of reason.

32:28It's like, no, no, he's Gavin Newsom. Like, I swear to God, he's Gavin Newsom. Like a hundred percent Pedro Pascal is playing Gavin Newsom. What does he do? I don't even want to like, it's, it's, it's, it's, I don't even want to like, I don't, I'm not even intending to badmouth Gavin. I'm just saying like, or, or just every other politician, whatever is your idea of a politician who's like Gavin Newsom, like Pedro Pascal, Pedro Pascal plays him and just like, could not be looking down on the, the, the, the sheriff character with more contempt. Like just absolutely just like, you know, and then, and vice versa.

33:01And then, and then basically what happens is that, you know, they, they effectively, so the, so the, the, the, the sheriff gets frustrated by the whole thing, the lockdowns and everything. And so he decides to run for mayor. And so then it becomes a fight, you know, between the two of them, which by the way, is just the beginning of the movie. Like it then gets actually quite a bit more elaborate after that. But the big thing about it is it's just, it's like a full, it's just like an absolute full frontal examination from top to bottom. And like it pulls in, like Catherine, it doesn't have, it's interesting, it doesn't have a lot of like, it doesn't have like a lot of on-screen graphics of like people on social media, but it does have this recurring thing, which again, it's just, it's incredible how rare this is in movies, or maybe other filmmakers haven't figured out how to do it, which is these characters live in a world of social media.

33:41And so he does this great, like when a character in this movie wakes up, he rolls over and he checks his phone. Right? Like it's, it's, it's our, it's our world. And he does, I think a very good job of showing the interleaving back and forth of how people are, and again, this is like a, you know, town, rural town in the middle of nowhere. People are living this, you know, this double life that we all now live, which is we've got our in-person life and then we've got our online life. And there's this, you know, question of which one is more real. And, and, and this is the first movie I've seen that actually just, and it doesn't incorporate that, like, it's not social media, the movie, like that's not what the movie is about, but it's just kind of, it just kind of shows naturally how the nature of reality has changed around that and then how it influences real world behavior.

34:18As anyway, so I can't recommend it highly enough. Isn't Emma Stone's character like taken by conspiracy that she finds online or like, what is her role in the movie? Yeah, well, so this is part of the, so at this point, I'm like grabbing the stove with both hands also. Like she plays like, she plays like the upper middle-class white woman who's just like wracked with anxiety. And this is like, this is the plot arc. Like, she's just like, she's like incredibly deeply unhappy. And so, yeah, so she gets locked into like online conspiracies. And then there's this whole thing. I don't even want to spoil the thing that happens with her because it's quite something.

34:53And it's quite a plot arc of its own. But, you know, she has her own kind of parallel life that kind of unfolds through this. She's Joaquin Phoenix's husband. And he loves her and has absolutely no idea what, he has absolutely no clue what's going on in her head. Like he like married to her. He loves her. She's clearly extremely depressed. She's clearly extremely anxious. He has no ability whatsoever to understand her, communicate with her. And then her mother, you know, her mother, she's, you know, very close with her mother. Her mother keeps showing up, you know, lives in town and just fucking hates him and just is like scathing towards him.

35:26And he's like, you know, what's the fuck? I'm doing my best. I can't read her mind. Like, I don't know what's going on. And so, you know, it's got that, you know, it's got like a whole, it's got like a whole, it's got like a whole arc there. um and then and then it's got another i'll get one more it's got the uh there's there's the uh in the little in the little high school um there's a uh there's a uh a very attractive you know black high school girl uh who basically like becomes like completely committed to social justice um and it's going on and she's got like all the you know patriarchy she's got all the talking points like she's you know she's ready for her you know sociology degree um and and then all the all the like boys and men like orbiting around her basically like become obsessed with Like, there's a white male high school kid who just, like, is, like, just generally oblivious, and he, like, has a thing for her.

36:09And so, like, he starts reading Angela Davis, like, in an attempt to basically become attractive for her. And anyway, so, like, and he starts spouting off about white privilege and the whole thing. Does it work? Because that's always the question. It doesn't work. You're asking for tips. It doesn't work for the purposes that he... It doesn't work for the purposes that he intends it for, but he, let's say, he ultimately... Yeah, he has a very successful, I would say, plot arc of his own. Yes, he actually plays a major role in the... He goes in his own journey and plays a major role at the end of the movie.

36:50Anyway, so it's just like, it's one of these movies and people have different critiques of it and it's a little bit of a, I don't know what they call it, like a shaggy dog story where like, as the movie goes increasingly crazy, things are happening and things get kind of, you know, they get kind of deranged in sort of a way that, you know, is, you know, you could argue is like truly reflective of how deranged things got, or you could say, you know, maybe he gets a little bit carried away. But like, it's just, it directly, it's such direct engagement with our times. And to me, it was just like, wow, I'm actually seeing on screen our world as opposed to this sort of, either this manufactured view of a world that doesn't exist or this sort of manicured view where these topics have just become untouchable.

37:30And so anyway, so my hope is it's the beginning of a wave of, like, there's so much material. You know, this is the old Tom Wolfe thing, which is like, what was Tom Wolfe's term? He said, what was his term? Is the beast with 8 billion feet? Or what was his term? Like, the mass of humanity. He had this term where he's like, Tom Wolfe always had this point of view, you know, the great novelist, journalist. The most interesting topic in the world is like the human race, right? Like the, the, the collective behavior of 8 billion people on planet earth is like the most interesting thing in the world.

37:58And like the 8 billion people on planet earth are always getting up to like the craziest shit. And like, if you want to like write great fiction, he was always telling people who wanted to write fiction. He's like, if you want to write great fiction, you want to go out and you want to be with the people and you want to actually observe what's happening. And it's so crazy that if you just like write it down, you know, that, that's how you, that's how you like write the great American novel. Like that's what you do. And so he, he would famously do this. And so when he did Bonfire of the Manities, he immersed himself in Wall Street.

38:20And when he did a man in full, he immersed himself in Atlanta real estate. And when he did all the, back to blood, he immersed himself in the Miami culture. And he would go do this. And of course, his critique was, the new generation of novelists, they sit in their apartment in Brooklyn with their typewriter, and they introspect, right? And that's why there's no more great American novels. And so Ari Aster is like the filmmaker who got that, I don't know if he ever got Red Tom Wolfe or not, but like where he understands that. He's like, oh, go immerse yourself in what's actually happening in real life and translate that.

38:56And he was, I don't know, uniquely able to do it, uniquely able to get away with it. I'm hoping he's the beginning of a wave of these. And, you know, it doesn't all have to be about COVID or the Floyd riots or whatever. There's many, many other topics you could do. But like, you know, there should be a great movie for every basically significant social cultural thing that happens. And those opportunities are just laying all, there's like hundreds or thousands of those opportunities just laying on the ground right now, you know, for the creatives who can go pick them up. And again, by the way, every creative writing this or hearing this is going to say, yeah, no shit, but will the studios greenlight it and pay for it?

39:31And that would be my other hope, which is, you know, some combination of the bolder executives at the streamers and at the studios. You know, example, you know, David Allison, you know, who's clearly a very brilliant guy, you know, taking over Paramount and maybe buying more studios. Like, you know, guys like him are in a position to greenlight an entirely new generation of movie that could be both commercially successful and could be true art. Yeah, no, so I guess is it your view that like we'll have this like five to seven year window of musty films that people like kind of pretend are decent, but then like we kind of get the Eddingtons as well where you're going to actually see things open up again.

40:04So we'll have this sort of like nice period of weirdness. Like I actually think looking back 50 years from, you know, 50 years from today, it'll be fun to look back at these films and be like, that was wild that that was what we were talking about at the time. So, but your view is that it is going to open up, that there will be more Eddingtons, there'll be more extremes, and it's not just going to be one battle after another, kind of the message. Yeah, so just quickly, one more thing on One Battle After the Other. So the critics are rapturous about this movie, right? And so if you read Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are, you know, it's like 98 % or whatever.

40:36And the critics are just like, this is like the most brilliant movie of all time. It just completely captures, you know, yes, this is like the ultimate chronicling of like America's descent into being, you know, the Fourth Reich. Like, you know, this is, yes, this is like absolutely glory. Yes, absolutely revolutionary violence should be glorified. Like the critics are like all in, right? And, you know, the movie critic community has like gone hard in on this, just like, you know, just like so many other creative communities. And so they're all in. By the way, this movie, I don't know if it's going to, but like it wouldn't be surprising if it sweeps the Oscars, right?

41:04It's just like, you know, the best movie ever made. You know, and I, but now it's just gonna be like, everybody who has been outbent through this, you know, spin cycle for the last eight years is, you know, and people are onto it, you know, including the audience. And so, and I think even the people participating in kind of what is already kind of an orgy of kind of hyper-exaggerated critical admiration are probably all realizing that they're fundamentally being dishonest. But, you know, like, so Catherine, your point, like, yeah, that machine, like the sort of the message machine, like that machine is continuing to spin for now.

41:34It's just very clear that like, there's just like smoke and parts flying off of it. Like, it's just like, you know, it is gonna rattle to a stop. And then if you talk to people in Hollywood, basically what they'll tell you is, by the way, independent of people's politics, what the sort of, I would say, sharp people in Hollywood generally all say is, yeah, the cultural fever has broken. You can now make, you can now get movies greenlit today that you could not get greenlit two years ago. Specifically, and this is amazing, then this is good, but like you can have comedies again. Like they actually say, by the way, they say this, like they're like, we can now make comedies again.

42:08You can have funny movies, right? Because to have funny movies, you need to poke a sacred cows, right? Like the thing that makes comedy funny is like when it's like subversive, when it like, you know, when it touches a nerve, like that's what great adult comedy is. And, you know, you just could not make a funny movie for the last eight years. Like, it was impossible. It was way too risky. But what they're saying now is that you can. And then maybe the other signal indicator, Catherine, of what's happening, which is Mel Gibson finally got greenlit to do his sequel to Bachelor of the Christ, which is the resurrection movie, which he's making right now.

42:38At least my friends in Hollywood are like, yeah, that never would have happened. Like, that never would have happened under a Kamala administration. That never would have happened without the election result. And again, these are not even people who are pro-Trump. It's just, okay, like, the national mood is shifting. We're not, yes, Mel Gibson, of all people being, like, one of the clearly great filmmakers of our time. And, you know, having all of the issues that Mel Gibson has. Like, yes, that guy should get to make a movie. And specifically, that guy should get to make that movie. And that's an example of what I'm talking about, is that that's possible this year in a way that it wasn't before.

43:13And the other thing, I think yesterday, Young Washington came out, the trailer, which Joel's, which, again, is not Hollywood, it's based in Provo, but has proven that they can make very successful films for a different pocket of the country that actually likes patriotism. But I think in some ways, like, the Top Gun success story, yes, it's nostalgia, but, like, the fact that it did so well at the box office shows that there is an appetite for totally different content. Like, 50 % of the country would love to see movies that are patriotic or about something, you know, a biopic in history that's really interesting about George Washington.

43:47So I think in some ways it's like there is sort of this business case, too, of, wow, like, 50, you know, the 50 % of the country that's been starved for the content they want will actually pay to go to the theater and maybe we should support them. Yeah. To that end, Mark, do the, do the executives appreciate the Rotten Tomatoes phenomenon or just how distinct sort of the, yeah, with the critics or even their own staff are from the actual audience? Yeah. So they live it. They live it. And so, like I said, like for the last eight years, it's basically been a reign of terror. Yeah. Because these critics and like who the people these critics represent, like had the power of life and death over people's careers.

44:22and then they know the critics kind of went nuts. But, you know, this is the problem with, you know, there's not that much they can do about it, right? The critics were able to succeed in their own field. You know, it's just like everything else that happened in media. The critics were able to succeed in their own field by kind of going arbitrarily wild. And then, you know, there was basically nothing that, if you're a movie studio executive, there's really nothing you can do about it because, you know, what do you do about it? If you ignore them, you know, they attack you. If you engage with them, they attack you.

44:45If you attack them, they attack you back. And so, you know, there's been very little to do. And then, you know, the critics are not, well, okay, So that's been happening. And, you know, Hollywood, like Silicon Valley and like every other industry, like there is insularity to it. And so, you know, there's a self-referential thing. And so when, you know, when the mood, when sort of opinion shapers, you know, move against you, you know, it becomes a real problem. And in Hollywood, you know, people get fired, right? Like, you know, every studio executive kind of knows that at some point they're going to get fired.

45:11People get fired off of projects all the time. When people get fired, by the way, off of projects in Hollywood, like they may not, you know, they may not eat. They may not get another job for five, you know, for two years or five years or ever. And so, you know, it's a high-tension environment. And so, yeah, I think they don't understand that. By the way, I also think that, you know, especially the sort of, you know, the boomer executives, the Gen X executives, you know, they'll also tell you the same thing you'll hear, you know, that you heard in the Valley and in Washington and elsewhere, which is, wow, the young staff is really radicalized, right?

45:37And so, you know, so they're also afraid of their young staff. And then, by the way, you know, these are mostly public companies. They're also afraid of their boards. The boards are afraid of the public shareholders. You know, the public shareholders radicalized. And so it was a very similar phenomenon to what happened in tech, which is kind of this sort of collective, I don't know, like wildness or, you know, kind of, you know, kind of this intensity thing, you know, kind of happened. And then it really couldn't be openly discussed for a long time and probably still can't. Like they probably still really can't talk about it in public.

46:06A few of them are starting to, but like not really. So for the most part, the conversations are kind of in the background. But again, but against that, it's just like, okay, that's broken a bit. And part of it also is just the business, the business, you know, the kind of business aspect of it, which is, I mean, the classic is, you know, the big moneymaker in Hollywood for the last 20 years has been superhero movies. And let's just say coincident with the beginning of the message is all the, you know, the results of those movies collapsed, right? And so, and like at some point, you know, they need to go sell some movie tickets.

46:35Like, you know, at some point they need to deliver revenue. And I think they've gotten, I don't know, the message of the message, which is, you know, if all you are is on board with the social trend, right, especially, Catherine, to your point, especially when that social trend gets old and it's no longer, you know, au courant, like, you can't run a public company based on reviews, right? Like, at some point, butts do have to show up in seats. And so I think that's also kicked in. And so the financial pressures are very painful. Right now, they're probably not helpful. I don't know. The financial pressures in Hollywood are, it's hard to say, because on the one hand, when there's financial pressures in Hollywood, of course, the argument is fewer movies get greenlit, and then the executives become more risk-averse and the kinds of movies are willing to green light.

47:13But I think it also means that they are also less willing to green light projects that are being green lit only for political reasons or only for social cultural reasons or only out of a sense of fear. And so I don't know exactly how that balances, but hopefully things get more exciting. By the way, of course, the other big topic in Hollywood is AI. I was just going to add, yeah. Yeah, so that's the 800-pound thing. And to their credit, they're highly aware of it. They're highly alert to it. And then, by the way, there are a bunch of filmmakers, including some folks that I know, that are, like, super excited.

47:47And so there are, including some, like, I know of, like, two, like, triple A list, like, directors, filmmakers, you know, top-end people who are, like, very excited about what's possible and are going to fully embrace it. And there's a bunch of other people who are, you know, very excited. And so there's going to be an embrace by at least part. But there's also, you know, there's a lot of, you know, Hollywood has always had kind of a fear-driven reaction and new technologies. And there's some of that. And then there is this attachment, and Hollywood is actually very acute. There's this attachment of like AI politics to like woke politics.

48:19And so if you're still super woke, you're also like super anti-AI. And there are these like basically, it's basically like the woke activists have picked up AI as the new thing that they're going to agitate about. And so, and they're mounting basically already like pressure campaigns on the studios to like basically vow to never use AI. And at least so far, the studios to their credit are like, no, we're not going to do that. Like, we, you know, the studio, so far, I think the studio executives have all been consistent, which was like, look, we've always used technology. You know, the movie camera itself is technology, special effects, like we've always used technology, you know, videotapes, DVD, streaming, these are all technologies.

48:54You know, every movie has CGI, you know, like that's, you know, one of my little fun facts about the history of movies is Tron, Tron was the first, there's a big sequel for Tron that's out this week. The original Tron was 1982 from Disney and it was the first movie that had, integrated use of computer graphics, which was the big thing at the time. And as a consequence of that, Tron was disqualified from the Oscars because they cheated by using computer graphics. Right, right. And so, you know, to go from that world to the world in which every movie has CGI, and for the most part, you don't even know that there's CGI in it.

49:27You just see a romantic comedy and they're using CGI to do all kinds of things in it and you don't even notice and it's just taken completely for granted. And so, like, I think the studios, the studios, I think, understand that. I think they're going to actually embrace AI enthusiastically. But there's going to be this, at least there's an attempt to gin up a moral panic around it and try to basically keep it out. And I don't think it's going to work because I think the economics are too compelling. But anyway, but then the other thing with AI is, of course, AI is going to be super helpful to existing filmmakers.

49:53But the other thing is AI for sure, and we see this especially in this last couple weeks with the new version of Sora and a lot of these other new things that are coming out, AI is going to make a whole new kind of filmmaker possible to exist for the first time. which is the filmmaker with no visual skill, right, or access to a set or to a camera or to actors, but with an idea. Like, people are going to be able to make, you know, it's going to start with shorts and animated things and so forth, but it's going to work its way up to full movies. And so, you know, people who otherwise would be limited to only being novelists or being maybe people who do graphic novels, but are creative geniuses, are going to be able to actually make full movies with AI.

50:36And again, I think that's a reason for profound optimism. I think we're going to get completely new kinds of basically film and entertainment from people who otherwise never would have been able to access the medium. And I think that also is—I'm very positive on that. Can we end? I think as you brought it up on comedy, I know you saw Naked Gun or the new Naked Gun film. What was your thoughts on is comedy working? Does it have to be nostalgic for it to work? But maybe tell us a little bit about that film and whether it's a reason to be positive on comedies in the future. Yeah, so I thought Naked Gun, I thought was actually a little bit of a minor miracle.

51:09So for a couple of reasons. So one is, look, it's a sequel to movies from like 40 years ago. And so, you know, how many people even remember the original Naked Gun movies? It actually turns out a lot of people do. They're beloved movies. But also it turns out like you can make an, like it's great. It's a great comedy. It's like a fantastic comedy. It's very funny. It worked. It worked commercially. It worked statistically. It honored the original material, but it was also like, It was deliriously loopy in its own way. I highly recommend it. It's very funny. But actually, it's striking to that point, it also, like anything, it's also a post-message movie.

51:45And this is actually, and maybe this is a reason for optimism, which is, again, if you go back through the timescale, like that thing was greenlit no later than 22, probably in 21. So at the height of every movie has to have the message, that movie was still greenlit and it got all the way through and out the other side and there's not a trace of it in it. And so like, it's a pure comedy. It's a pure comedy. It's like the original movies. It's a pure comedy. It's a pure absurdist, you know, kind of modern Three Stooges, you know, style comedy. Liam Neeson, of course, plays against type and is, of course, a brilliant comedian and just kills it.

52:14And then Pam Anderson, you know, the great icon of, you know, 1980s, you know, femininity, you know, it's her big, you know, starring role. And she just, like, absolutely is just fantastic. Like, she's just, like, absolutely kills it. She's hysterical. And she's just, like, there as a person and she's not, you know, she's not wearing, you know, she's just like, you know, she's just like full woman in natural form and it's great. And, you know, and it's, you know, it's like there's no, you know, there's none of the casting, let's say, you know, aspects that kind of cause problems. You know, there's none of the, there's no script.

52:52It's just like an extremely well executed, like it very easily could have been made in 2012 or in 2008 or in 2002. um no look it doesn't you know it doesn't move the artistic ball forward right it's a very well executed example of a genre um but it but it is a movie that it was it was somehow able to escape all of the traps that all of these other movies have gotten into um uh and it was able to make it out and to be a big commercial hit and again i think i think that i think the executives are very encouraged by that um the audience is still there for that i'll just give you the it does it doesn't really have any like racial politics or whatever but it does have it did have one thing which is for people who haven't seen it, it was famously a movie originally that one of the major stars of it was O.J.

53:30Simpson playing a character named Nordberg who got into all kinds of unlikely trouble. And so they do this scene where, I'll just spoil one thing because it was extremely funny. So Liam Neeson plays the son of the original main guy, Leslie Nielsen, in the movie. So Frank Grebin and then Leslie, Liam Neeson plays Frank Grebin Jr. and then Liam's sidekick plays the son of Leslie Nielsen's sidekick in the original movie and then there's a young black guy on the team and you know normally in a movie it's like okay of course there's like a young black guy on the team but they do it really well which is they've got out in the hallway of the police station in the movie they've got Leslie Nielsen's photo up on the you know he passed away so they've got his photo up and Liam Neeson does this thing where he kneels down and he's like oh you know father I'm trying to live up to your you know expectations and trying to be a great police officer and he's like sobbing and there's tears and next to it is like his sidekick with the sidekick's photo and he's like, oh, father, I miss you so much and I want to be a great cop.

54:29And then there's the black kid and he's looking up at a photo of O.J. And he just looks at the camera and he just goes...

54:44Perfect. Perfection. Absolutely perfect. Yes. So yeah, comedies are good. By the way, let me put in a plug for one more movie. Have either of you guys seen Fantastic Four? No. Probably not. Fantastic Four is the most pro-family movie in Hollywood since I can't even remember. Catherine in particular, I think you'll be astonished. It's incredible. What's that? It came out this summer. It came out this summer. It came out this summer. And Marvel, just for context, it's one of the new Marvel tentpole properties. and the Marvel machine, you know, did incredibly well from like Iron Man in 2008 through Avengers Endgame and like whatever 2020.

55:27But for the last five years, many of the big Marvel projects have not done well, both the TV shows and the movies. And, you know, again, you could argue different reasons why, but like Critical Drinker would tell you it's because they became consumed by the message. Fantastic Four, it's like a diverse cast. It's got like a lot of the modern stuff in it. But however, and it's like, It's just like 100 % pro-family in a very, actually, quite deep and moving way. And so, again, it's a little bit like, wow, they greenlit this thing in 20. And maybe, again, maybe this reason, maybe I'm actually too cynical.

56:01Maybe in 2022, the filmmakers already realized what was happening. And so maybe they actually had their own version of the underground movement where they're like, all right, it's time to start planting the seeds for what is going to come out of this whole thing when sort of the panic subsides. and you could say like Fantastic Four is like a true audience-pleasing blockbuster from a studio that has been obsessed with the message that comes out and doesn't have a trace of it in it at all. And furthermore, it's like 100 % above. I wouldn't say it's like, it's not, I mean, it's a superhero movie, so it's not like a political, I wouldn't say it has like political content per se, but it's like 100 % pro-family in a way that's very touching.

56:38Great, we'll put it on the list. Do you think Avish... By the way, your kids will love it. Your kids will love it. I took my 10-year-old and he was like, yeah. He doesn't react emotionally to things, but he was like as close to crying in a movie as I've ever seen him, so. Wow. Do you think Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead could get made today? And do you think there'd be an audience for it? You know, it's funny. Yeah, it's funny. It's so funny, especially Atlas. Like Atlas Shrugged has become, Atlas Shrugged, you know, people don't know it's the sort of famous Ayn Rand novel. It's kind of her most successful novel.

57:11It's the novel that basically, it clearly is like a great mythic American novel. Like it clearly, it clearly clears that bar that we were talking about earlier. You know, it is one of the great American novels. You know, it's of a time and place, which is sort of the, you know, the sort of 1950s, but it's written in a way that can be kind of deliberately timeless. It's actually kind of, it's actually interesting how it's written because it kind of, it's like obsessed with railroads on the one hand, which makes it kind of look back to the 1800s, but it also has like science fiction elements. And she kind of did that, I think, deliberately so that it would kind of have this timeless kind of, that.

57:41She's really talking about, you know, some movie, it's a novel as the great novel. So it's a novel about people and the behavior of people. And so, but she does this thing where she kind of abstracts the specific content of it in order to kind of try to make it timeless. And I think, I think it works quite well. And The Fountainhead is another version of that. The Atlas Shrugged basically is about, is about, is about broadly, is about, it's about American dynamism. It's American dynamism in the movie. It's about industrialization and progress and science and going to the stars and, like, you know, achieving great things.

58:10And, you know, and the shape of societies that do that. The Fountainhead is more about, I would say, artistic achievement and artistic purity. And it's sort of similarly evocative. And so both those novels are, you know, high up on the list of novels that will be very influential, you know, in 100 years. Both of those novels have been absolutely scathingly hated by every, you know, good cultural commentator and critic for the last, you know, basically since they came out. And those novels are just attacked in the most vicious possible terms. Like, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, famously, Whitaker Chambers, the reformed communist, reviewed Atlas Shrugged for National Review when it came out in the 1950s.

58:49And he basically called her a Nazi. In National Review, Whitaker Chambers, who became this famous right-winger, basically calls Ayn Rand a Nazi. Ayn Rand, of course, being a Jewish refugee from Russia. He said in the novel, quote, has the whiff of the gas chamber about it. Right. And so like, which by the way, it doesn't, but, but anyway, very unfair, unfair. Um, but, um, but anyway, it's like, it's like your diversions to the Rotten Tomatoes scores of the, of the critics versus the, versus the audience. Like everybody's read Atlas Shrugged, like loves it. Um, and everybody who's like criticized her for a living just fucking despises it.

59:23Right. Just like completely despises it. Um, and so, and, and what's, what's interesting about it, and maybe this is the importance of the novel is, Eric, to your question, like that, that, that aspect of it has, lives today. So like anybody today who, anybody today, every time I've ever talked to anybody who's read Atlas Shrugged in the last five years, they're like, wow, it's like the novel about the world we live in. Like, it's, it's, it's like, oh, I know that guy. And I know that guy. And I know that guy. Eric knows what I'm talking about. Like, these are all people, right? Like, these are all people.

59:53These are all archetypes of people. We know who these people are. We know what they're doing. It's amazing how receptive it is 60 or 80 years later, how primal she made it, that it has that relevance. And by the way, it's tremendously entertaining, and it's this sprawling narrative, and it's incredible characters. And so, yeah, it very clearly ought to be a three-part movie at a huge budget, or ought to be an eight-season, 10-episode, 80-episode total, lavish HBO show or something. But the cultural overlay of that, what it would take in Hollywood to do that and the level of attack that you would come under, the level of savagery that you would encounter if you're the executive or the actor or whatever.

1:00:31I mean, it would be every bit as intense today as it was in the 1950s when the novel came out. And so like, that would be the great, like, that would be the indication that we're in a really different world. I talked to some folks in Hollywood about it. They all know it. They all understand this. They all know the novel. They're all very familiar with it. They all, by the way, love the idea of doing things that have pre-existing brands and audiences built in, you know, because that really reduces the risk. But if you really talk about it, it's a little bit like a hot stove step away. By the way, and again, it's very striking that a novel from like whatever, 1953, can still be generating a hot stove reaction in 2025.

1:01:06It's pretty amazing. And the flip side of that is because it's such a cult classic that people would come out and draw, it would make a lot of noise in a good way. It would be the Silicon Valley version of the Minecraft movie, right? Like, it would just be like, yep, we're all going. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's not a big enough audience or whatever to, you know, maybe that's not a big enough cult classic thing. But like, by the way, it sells. Like, you know, it's one of the best-selling novels of all time. It sells, you know, enormously well today. It sold well basically since it came out.

1:01:36You know, it sells far better. You know, I mean, it's one of these things. It'll sell far more copies this year than any well-reviewed novel, you know, that the New York Times Book Review talks about, right? And yet it is just like, it is so completely politically unacceptable that it's like off the map. But yeah, so that would be the ultimate test. I would love to see it happen. I, yeah, I don't know. And by the way, this may be the answer here. Maybe this is the AI, right? Maybe the answer here is AI. Maybe what we need is the AI system where you feed the novel in and it makes the movie. You know, which, by the way, now that I say that, like for sure that's going to happen.

1:02:07And so, you know, maybe that's actually the answer. Yeah. Yeah, we were laughing offline about how someone was using Sora to make like something that we thought was better than South Park. And so it'll be interesting to see if a whole new crop of filmmaker sort of, you know, democratizes the industry a little bit, that it's not just Hollywood, but it's people, you know, from all over and studios don't have this sort of, you know, monopoly over creation of high quality stuff. So, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, so South Park actually, let's close on this, but just briefly on South Park. South Park was very much like what you're saying with AI filmmaking right now, but in 1993.

1:02:43So I remember when the original South Park came out. the original software came out in 1993 and it was significant it was the first internet viral video ever um it was the first video and this was like pre-streaming pre-youtube pre you know years before all of that and so it literally um distributed at the time as it was literally a it was like quicktime movie um uh it was apple's quicktime video format um and it was a downloadable thing and like if you wanted to download it on modem you had to like leave the modem on for like an hour or something to like download this thing and what and what it was was it was a it was a digital scan of a um of a video christmas card so uh there was a an executive in hollywood at the time that wanted to make his friends a special kind of Christmas card.

1:03:18And so he hired these two basically scrappy young, you know, basically film students, Matt Stone and Faye Parker, who had no credits and, you know, they were just, you know, kids and hadn't done anything yet. And he hired them to, and he basically said, make the most offensive, basically like three minute video Christmas card you can possibly imagine. And so, and with these kids, it was a technology at the time. What they did was the camcorders, digital camcorders are brand new. So they used digital camcorder, but then they did stop, they did stop motion, they had no money. So they did stop motion animation using little cardboard, using literally construction paper characters.

1:03:48And so the reason the characters look like they do is because literally in the original thing, they were cut out of construction paper. And they were literally moved by hand frame to frame. And then the two kids did the voiceovers. But it was from the very beginning, it was the same characters, Cartman and Kyle and Stan and Kenny, right? And in South Park, which is the town that these kids grew up in. And then it was this three-minute Christmas card, and it was Santa Claus versus Jesus. and Santa Claus versus Jesus ended up in a full Kung Fu fight, you know, complete with like blood and like body parts, right?

1:04:19And so it was like this, it was like, you know, it was intended to be like maxly offensive but it was like really, it was really funny. And so somebody got there and literally it was sent out on videotape, right? It was like pre-DVD, right? So it was sent out on videotape and somebody actually scanned the videotape, which is actually hard to do and then it went super viral on the internet and became big. And so it's an example of, you know, everything I just described, the camcorder, that was the AI of its time. It let these kids who had no access or no knowledge even necessarily of traditional animation production methods to do this.

1:04:49By the way, when those kids actually then got their... South Park is like a full studio now. It's been tremendously financially successful. They now have a complete state-of-the-art studio production facility. And what they've used it for is they've used it to hyper-optimize computer models of the optimal recreation of the aesthetics of the construction paper. And so if you watch South Park episodes today, you see actually the characters have, there's actually a depth to the animation that shows the layers of the construction paper. It's all produced digitally today, but like they've used state-of-the-art digital tools to reconstruct the physics of construction paper, you know, 30 years later.

1:05:25And so, yeah, so they were able to do that. And then obviously, you know, they were maybe the most successful like animation duo of the last 30 years. And yeah, I think the AI thing is, we're right on the tipping point of that. and your point, maybe we actually just saw the first one. It's so, let's say, toxic that it's hard to recommend that people watch it. Yeah, yeah. But it is for sure a South Park caliber level thing created in AI by somebody who didn't use any of the traditional, you know, they didn't use any traditional techniques to use for animating anything. It was created entirely with Sora, scene by scene.

1:06:01And yeah, it's just as a demonstration of technology, It's just, it's obvious that that moment has now arrived. And to your point, Eric, like I do think, for example, I think there's now actually a new form of political propaganda at Loose in the World, which is, you know, basically the custom produced, you know, basically South Park-ish, you know, kind of, you know, video series and AI is going to make that so easy for people to do. You're going to be able to do, you know, anybody in any, you know, any electoral race is going to be able to hire some kid, you know, to do things like this. And so it's going to be like this.

1:06:30It's like, I don't know, decentralized satire or something like that. And so, yeah, the moment has arrived. The art forms just again. On that note, we got to let you go. But this has been a fantastic episode of Monitoring the Situation. Thanks so much for coming on, Mark. All right. Fantastic. Situation monitored. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you liked this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com.

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