“The Studio,” the Hollywood satire from Seth Rogen, arrived at a moment when the declining domestic box office and the deflation of the streaming bubble have left all of us who work in the industry anxious about our relevance and viability. And unlike Griffin Mill, the soulless yuppie studio executive in 1992’s “The Player” — the Hollywood satire against which all others must be judged — Matt Remick, Rogen’s character, is an amiable doofus of a studio boss who genuinely loves good movies. He just doesn’t make them.
As he states woefully in the first episode, “I got into all this because I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.”
It’s a common conundrum in Hollywood. Mr. Rogen has recounted that a version of that line was said to him years ago by the studio executive Steve Asbell, who now runs 20th Century Studios. I’ve worked with Mr. Asbell, and I can confirm that, like many film-loving executives, he’s someone who’d rather nerd out with you about Howard Hawks or dissect the story minutiae of “Alien” than sadly inform you that the best line in your new draft won’t pass muster with his boss.
This raises an uncomfortable but unavoidable question, which “The Studio” helps to answer: If Hollywood is so full of enthusiastic, knowledgeable cinema lovers, then why aren’t the movies we make better?
Critics of Hollywood have identified many culprits, including an addiction to franchises based on familiar intellectual property, the intrusion of risk-averse executives and an industry more worried about managing decline than taking big swings. As someone who’s been told that an exciting actor “doesn’t move the needle,” only to see the same performer get showered with praise and offers a few months later, I can’t deny that playing it safe and following the herd are real problems. But “The Studio” offers a more radical answer: The true problem lies with you, the audience.
That’s right: I, a Hollywood professional whose last original movie currently sits at 31 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, am laying the blame at the feet of you, the moviegoing public.
From the first episode, “The Studio” skewers Hollywood’s addiction to building stories around brands as Mr. Remick, newly appointed as studio head, frantically tries to attach his idol, Martin Scorsese, to direct a movie about Kool-Aid. That scenario may seem over the top, but nearly every working creative I know has had the experience of sitting in a conference room lined with artfully framed posters of David Lean and Akira Kurosawa films while trying to pitch an executive on a proposed adaptation of a breakfast cereal or a Saturday-morning cartoon.
What’s too rarely acknowledged in both of these scenarios is the fact that a Kool-Aid movie exists because an executive thinks people will go see it. And, quite often, they are proved right. If audiences truly supported blockbusters in the spirit of Kurosawa, executives would happily oblige. When critically acclaimed films languish, including “Mickey 17,” “Drop” and “Warfare,” and audiences flock to “A Minecraft Movie” to shout “Chicken Jockey!” at the screen, it’s hard to argue that Hollywood is doing anything other than giving you, the moviegoing public, what you want.
I know what you’re thinking: That’s not me you’re talking about! Maybe you bought a ticket to “Anora,” the Oscar winner that only made a ripple financially, or you rushed out to see “Sinners,” an audacious film from Ryan Coogler that’s a critical and financial hit. Trust me: Seeing a film like that flourish gives all of us writers hope for that beloved original script that’s currently gathering digital dust on our hard drives. When I eavesdropped on two Trader Joe’s checkout clerks excitedly discussing their favorite “Sinners” plot points, it gave me the same optimistic feeling about the relevance of cinema that I got from “Oppenheimer,” a big risky bet on a talky three-hour biopic, and “Barbie,” which showed how a film based on familiar material can be great — a sense that cinema just might be able to reclaim its rightful place at the center of popular culture.
So maybe you, the audience, aren’t the problem! Well, not you, specifically. You might even recall the bygone days when studios made hits like “Good Will Hunting” and “Pulp Fiction,” and you’d go back to those days if you could. So would most everyone who works in Hollywood, happily. Yet “A Minecraft Movie” reigns.
That’s the central joke of “The Studio,” and its most resonant message. The ability to develop artistically worthy films that genuinely connect with audiences requires fortitude, bravery and a willingness to take risks — all the qualities that Matt Remick lacks, and which make him a tragicomic character. The lack of these qualities in so many real-life executives has put Hollywood at risk of becoming a tragicomic industry. The real-life Matt Remicks need to find the bravery to make more of the movies that Matt Remick likes to watch — not the ones his boss and the audience force him to make.
Zack Stentz is a screenwriter and a writer of “X-Men: First Class,” “Agent Cody Banks” and “Thor.”
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