Why every Hollywood movie is a superhero movie

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business News, News, Tv & Film, Technology

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about his new book, "The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies." Fritz says the economics of the movie business have been completely transformed by the rise of online streaming services and by brands like Marvel, which have supplanted name-brand stars and directors as the most reliable indicator of a film's success. He explains how Sony fumbled the "Spider-Man" franchise and missed a big opportunity to own the rest of the Marvel characters, and what the big studios are still doing that Netflix and Amazon can't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's show is brought to you by IBM.
0:02.5	By 2050, the world population will reach nearly 10 billion people,
0:06.6	and food production will need to grow by 70%.
0:09.3	Farmers are working with IBM and Watson to help increase their crop yields.
0:13.5	Let's put Smart to work.
0:15.4	Find out how at IBM.com slash smart.
0:21.2	This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka.
0:23.3	That is me.
0:24.1	I'm Peter Kafka.
0:24.9	I'm here at Vox Media headquarters in New York City.
0:27.4	I'm talking to Ben Fritz from the Wall Street Journal.
0:30.5	He's written a new book called The Big Picture, the Fight for the Future of Movies.
0:34.0	Hey, Ben.
0:34.4	Hey, Peter.
0:35.5	That's called an introduction.
0:36.9	Before we go further, I want to ask you to recommend this podcast to a friend to the internet. I've been sending out emails recommending Ben's book. I sent out a Twitter DM yesterday recommending Ben's book. Someone wrote back and said, I'm in line at Barnes & Noble to see Ben speak. So that is how one does sort of hand-to-hand promotion. I'm asking you guys to do that
0:55.4	so you can listen to this podcast for free. Okay, Golda, is that an adequate promotion? Okay, see, we're going to make Golda a character on this show. And now, Ben, welcome. Thank you, Peter. I wanted to work with you for years. That's right. You rejected my entreaties, so here we are this This will count. You've written this awesome book. It's about the movie business. If you listen to this podcast, so you're a nerd who likes media and the business of media and how technology is changing that, this is for you. It's a great book. I finish the whole thing. Last chapter on the subway here. Give me the thesis of the book.
1:29.1	The thesis of the book is that we've really, we've entered a new era of the movie business,
1:32.9	which I call the franchise era of filmmaking.
1:35.7	The movie business correctly understood now, I think, is driven primarily by brands,
1:41.2	by branded franchises, you know, your Marvel, you're Fast and Furious, your Transformers, your Star Wars, and, you know, the age of the age of movie stars or the age of original films, the age of diverse slates by studios is over.
1:55.7	And those movies, the sense they're still created are really on the fringes of the business.
	...

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