“I have no illusions,” Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle said during a podcast in March. “I will not get a budget of Babylon size anytime soon, or at least not for the next one.
Chazelle reflected on her 2022 Paramount Pictures epic which starred Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, received mixed reviews and grossed $63 million worldwide against a reported budget of $80 million. “Of course, in financial terms, Babylon didn’t work at all,” Chazelle said. “Maybe I won’t be able to get [the next] a fact. I have no idea. We’ll have to wait and see.
This ambivalent feeling is not an exception. Directors – from Oscar winners like Chazelle to newcomers – are in a precarious position when it comes to big studio projects. Not that it’s new. Devoid of nuance, the definition of film prison has always been: lose a lot of money at the studio and you won’t be able to make another studio feature for a while, if ever.
But due to current market conditions, directors’ margin for error is becoming less and less. More than a dozen industry insiders, speaking with The Hollywood Reporterargue that studio filmmakers now face a particularly inhospitable environment, even compared to a few years ago.
Fewer films are being made, from big-budget films ($120 million and up) to even fewer mid-budget offerings ($45 million to $60 million and up), which traditionally gave filmmakers more opportunities for financial success. The features that are given the green light, especially those based on intellectual property, are micromanaged by extremely risk-averse studio executives, who are still trying to figure out how to release a film post-pandemic while making decisions about hiring in a context of belt tightening and staggered layoffs. changing management teams.
“[Everyone] “I went on strike and came back to another sector,” explains a studio director, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Everything is losing momentum, everything is being scrutinized and everyone has a new boss.”
The top brass at Warner Bros. Discovery have been in place for less than two years, and in some areas of the studio it’s been even less time than that. Then there’s the industry-wide pressure to generate windfall profits that will shake things up at the box office and fuel ancillary revenue streams that will appease shareholders (think: Warners barbie). Movie listings – now a massive campaign element – fit into the broader narrative of publicly traded companies.
Insiders say non-writer directors are having a particularly tough time. Due to the limited number of studio films, open directing assignments that would normally be within the reach of young filmmakers are being given to higher-level talent. Elsewhere, emerging directors, those with one or two festival films under their belt and looking for the next step, are sidelined. The time when Colin Trevorrow took the leap from…
