Psychic break

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot on KCRW. I have a very kind and saintly friend who was

asking me yesterday how I thought the entertainment industry is going to change

thanks to the coronavirus and the fact that we're all staying home.

Isn't it possible, he asked, and remember he's a very nice person, spiritually very generous,

isn't it possible that people will take this moment to reflect on what's really important,

maybe even what connects us and binds us to each other, to the ways in which

we need to be more loving and forgiving to our friends and family and even strangers, that

we may come out of this less selfish, less grasping, and with a recalibrated sense of

what's really important in life. You mean in the entertainment industry, I asked.

Yes, he said. We all have a friend like this. I remember years ago he and I were going somewhere

together and before we left his place he told me he needed to stop at the apartment down the hall

and drop off a pan of lasagna. Why are you doing that, I asked.

Because they're my neighbors, he said. And then when he could see that this made no sense to me,

he added, and I'm neighborly. So now my friend was convinced that a major worldwide health

emergency might cause people in Hollywood to rethink their purpose in life and I was about

to tell him that even a worldwide health emergency would not cause people in Hollywood to rethink

their purpose in life, except I stopped myself because, well, I don't know, maybe it will.

A little bit.

You already know this, but just to do a previously on Corona vs. Hollywood,

two major movie premieres, including the latest installment of the James Bond franchise,

have been pushed to next autumn. Upfront presentations have been canceled. Coachella

Music Festival postponed. South by Southwest canceled. Location shoots, studio travel,

live audience comedies, pilot productions, Broadway shows, every part of the entertainment

business has been curtailed, trimmed back, eliminated, and even the agents are staying at

home. The last one isn't such a problem.

To be honest, the only people who enjoy having meetings at an agency are the agents themselves.

The rest of us hate the way the whole experience is designed to make you feel like you're getting

an audience with a great and powerful Oz. But when this is all over, how do we know that the

agents will go back to their expensive and opulent and totally unnecessary offices?

Everything was supposed to change in the entertainment industry anyway about 10 years

ago and then about five years ago and then last year, sometime in the wake of a thousand new

galaxies of streaming services.

Video games, shrinking old line broadcasters, theatrical studios, AR, IR, Silicon Valley

startups, subscription business models. But the system kept chugging along with film festivals

and upfront presentations like a whole lot of people playing nearer my God to thee as the

SS Brentwood starts to list and take on water. Maybe for Hollywood, this is the psychic break

we needed to realize that the world is already different. After a year or so of no can and no

upfronts and a month of no offices with no little bottles of expensive water, maybe people in

Hollywood, or at least CFOs in Hollywood, will realize they were wasting loads of money on

things they didn't really need. And every dollar saved is a dollar to spend on trying to come up

with another hit. So yes, I told my friend, this may in fact be what people call an inflection

point for the entertainment business. There's change coming and we may all very well come

through this with a recalibrated sense of what's truly important.

important in life. You really think so? He asked. No, I said, come on, pull yourself together.

Some people, you know, and that's it for this week. Next week, it will not translate for KCRW.

This is Rob Long.