Outlook Not So Good
I know, I know, bad blogger. But what can I say, chanterelle season came early.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about investing. Not about banking but about the entertainment business and where those in it place their confidence.
Someone’s making a film about Mattel’s Magic 8-Ball. Battleship, Monopoly and Candyland too. Children’s games. Remember the first Hollywood remake you ever heard announced? And you thought, if it ain’t broke… Why are they remaking something that was great to begin with? Then sequels and prequels became the rage, or rather, the safe bet. And now with Transformers and G.I. Joe bridging the gap between remakes and action figures it’s no great leap anymore to get to boardgames and toys.
(I got an early glimpse at the new Slinky script - so brilliant! Touching, really.)
What’s the lesson here? Business people want to minimize risk. Ergo, an iconic trade mark with nostalgic appeal, few million dollars in marketing and star power and voila: No risk, no worries, and everybody will go see it because the TV told us to. I get it. It makes sense. Where is it going to leave us in ten years when we’re all out of children’s toys to pervert and the remake of 2013’s Jenga: The Movie has just flopped at the box office, well, that’s some else’s problem.
How do I figure into this? Not terribly well, really. I like writing new stories. Exploring new ideas. But, save for grabbing a camera, going out and shooting something myself - which I have been known to do - I also like to try to get others involved when possible. Namely investors. The trouble is, I don’t own the life rights to the shoe from Monopoly or any other property that harkens back to simpler times.
The closest I have is Minushi. It’s no Coke and Mentos video but it’s always had a following and therefore could be the closest thing I have to a property. I spoke to a literary agent a few years ago hoping she’d be interested in reading a new script I’d just finished writing. I was super amped about it, really knew it would impress. She wasn’t interested in reading. “What about this Minushi movie of yours, why don’t you send me that. That looks like something I could sell.”
Sounds like good news, eh? Yeah, at first. Until you realize you’re talking to a literary agent who doesn’t read. Wow. Score one for “picture’s worth a thousand words.”
People don’t want to know you. They want to know what you can do for them. How you can, as quickly and as painlessly, make them money. Once upon a time, people invested in people. In long term potential. It took responsibility, foresight and yeah, maybe some balls. But it was an investment. Maybe it’s symptomatic of an industry that’s being shaken up like a cup full of Yahtzee dice, but shortsightedness seems rampant. That’s the same kind of behaviour we see in people going down in a sinking ship.
Once upon a time, somebody at Mattel took a chance on the original Magic 8-Ball. Good for you Guy at Mattel in the 1940s… With your cigarettes and your fedora… Your big post-WWII capitalist balls… Good for you, buddy.
