Wildly Specific Predictions
what will def happen in '22... & some geopolitics
Stunning Colleagues,
The intersection of American foreign policy & the distribution of docs about authoritarians is really fucking interesting. Of course the yuge majority of political docs just aren't commercial enough for big streamers. But for the few that are, it seems like it's feast or famine — according to America's relationship to the authoritarian in question.
It’s tricky taking for filmmakers taking aim at a major trading partner. A splashy movie about Saudi Arabia's murderous Crown Prince can only get an obscure (albeit cool?) distributor. And a splashy & heralded movie about China's crackdown in Hong Kong can't get any distributor.
But much like with franchise features, when studios need to decide on the nationality of the villain? It's open season on Russia.
As Biden puffs out his chest over Ukraine, Navalny -- a doc about Putin's most visible foe that just premiered at Sundance -- will soon air on HBOMax/CNN. To be clear, I wouldn't call the movie "well-made," but it's worth watching if only for the footage of Navalny chatting with his own would-be assassin -- a chemist who put poison in his underwear at Putin's instruction.
On Monday, while talking about whether Russia will invade Ukraine on The New Yorker's politics podcast, the host & the magazine's editor-in-chief David Remnick sneered, "Obviously, the lowest form of journalism, much less scholarship, is prediction."
I totally disagree. I love when people tell me what's going to happen in the future!!! (Especially when the subject isn't, you know, war.) Prediction is a reductive, delusional, and attention-craving enterprise that nonetheless prompts you to think really hard.
So, here are some wildly specific predictions for 2022...
Ryan Reynolds finances a movie on the blockchain.
Apple buys Universal, killing off the last big American studio still geared for theatrical.
When explaining what they're looking to buy, streaming execs will bring back the 2017 phrase "left-of-center." While Netflix sticks with the lowest common denominator, other streamers will follow HBO's lead and pivot from "we need Content" to "oh shit the stuff actually has to be good in the way that the Times will write about it."
Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone, says something gallingly, Roseanne-level racist, prompting an outcry for his ouster, but his home ViacomCBS shrugs & gives up & officially announces that the company is for sale.
At Carbone in Miami, a diner snaps a pic of Julia Fox, Ivanka Trump, and Chris Pratt, all beaming. No one's relationship survives.
Joss Whedon writes a novel about a man named Woss Jhedon.
Candle Media -- the private-equity-backed entity that bought pieces Reese's Hello Sunshine & Will Smith's Overbrook etc. etc. -- sells quickly for the sum of its parts to an Asian conglomerate that I've never heard of, becoming a non-story.
Lena comes back big! I still haven't seen her Sundance movie Sharp Stick, but she has another movie forthcoming, Catherine Called Birdy, about an adolescent girl in the 12th century. I've read it. It rocks. It’ll inspire a little wave of stuff about puberty.
Jonathan Glazer's forthcoming movie Zone of Interest makes other fictionalized movies about the Holocaust seem like they were totally missing the point. I was about to tell you about the movie's approach to the subject... but then I remembered that the draft I read was a hard copy printed on dark orange card stock so that it couldn't be scanned & circulated. I want to respect the care with which he expressed his wish for secrecy.
Hollywood Forever Y'all,
Max
P.S. In case you haven’t read the big Joss profile, the stuff about his recent relationships is just like… fuckouttahere, “the cruelty is the point.”