How does the Hollywood system determine the quality of films that are produced, even the bad ones?
Ted Hope
Ted Hope
It’s Oscar season, so let’s take a few minutes to talk about movies — and how they’re made. Ted Hope has an insider’s view on that front.
He is an Academy Award-winning film producer, former Amazon Studios executive and author of the popular book Substack Hope for Film. He said that when he took on this role at Amazon Studios, he had to change the conversation about the films being made: the good, the bad and the mediocre.
Full interview
Ted Hope: You know, I think the question of why movies aren’t better, I think haunts all filmmakers and all executives and somewhere along the line, maybe we should say obsessed with the idea of how the system we live in affects what we make. Do we have to surrender to that which is consistent with that or can we start to see what we actually want to do and move the system to enable that? And probably the most obvious factor is, you know, the downward pressure on budgets, right?
And, you know, this is a creative industry where people get ideas, they get inspired, they actually enjoy collaborating, and that magic happens. And you start to wonder, can you actually engineer serendipity? Can you manage complexity and turn it into a form of simple beauty? And if you already believe yes to these questions, you begin to wonder, what can I do to do this?
Lauren Gilger: So, you know, you were one of the people at Amazon Studios responsible for casting projects, right? So, you get promoted a lot, it seems, by directors and screenwriters, you read a lot, you try to figure out how to find the best projects going forward. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? And I guess the kinds of mediocrity that you tend to see, it seems like?
Hopes: I think there are so many systemic factors that prevent people from just dreaming that they will have the opportunity to aspire to excellence or greatness that they almost self-censor and defeat themselves. You know, at the beginning of Amazon, what was kind of fun was to recognize that sometimes, you know, good ideas don’t go to plan and we needed some financial resources to encourage people to dream. And, you know, you have to start looking at why, why do people lower the bar for themselves? How do we help and encourage them to dream big and how do they do their best to achieve it?
Because the truth is, making a movie is really hard work, and I think most people collapse under, you know, whether it’s attrition or weight or just responsibility. There’s a lot going on. And, you know, we have to find ways to keep people, you know, dreaming and praying and believing that they can get there. One of the easiest things to make movies better, and I’ve certainly found it myself is actually one of the least risky and cost-effective things to do, but it’s rarely done, which gives people more time.
Probably, one of the reasons why a lot of movies become mediocre is because there are questions about degrees, right? The experts, editors, and filmmakers on the team can see small incremental improvements in your movie. But will it make any difference at the box office? Now, does this mean you shouldn’t do it? No, what then, whatever increase you can make on that last 10%, it’s the thing that makes movies last forever.
Gilger: Let me ask you, Ted, the film industry has changed dramatically since then, you know, over the course of your career. Like there’s a lot of content now, there’s a lot of streaming outlets, there’s a lot, maybe more movies being made, right? Does this mean that more bad movies or mediocre movies are also being made or does that kind of open the door to projects that wouldn’t have been greenlit before?
Hopes: Excellent question, Lauren. And I think, you know, my take on it is kind of surprising. I think less bad movies are being made, and I think that’s a shame. I think that less adventurous films are being made, even though a lot more films are being made. I think we’ve become really good across the board at all different levels of experience and background at knowing what’s worked before, right? And imitate it somehow.
So we’re not watching the really bad B and Z movies that used to be shown in places like Times Square and factories that were the work of crazy people who were, you know, obsessed with a fever dream of some kind. Of delirium and he had the reckless courage or abandonment of putting, you know, the unmentionables on screen so that we would all be thrilled and shocked. These movies rarely get made, right?
But you also have, you know, what has led to this era of peak content or cultural exuberance, you know, it’s business, it’s corporate strategy, right? Business goals, you know, to build an audience, you want to give them a regular rhythm, you know, consistent quality, you know, on your platform.
What I found very interesting is that given the amount of films that have been made every year over the last decade, I don’t think we’ve had a proportional increase or anything close to it as the number of great films that have been made. I think we got more, you know, good, you know, C and B are correct. You get a passing grade. But why would you, why would you engage with this film? You recognize the system as this where producers only get money when films are released. So, producers are often not really deep into what a script is and how to make it really sing, and they’re often not really deep in editing because they have to release the next movie.
If you want better movies, that’s one of the things I think we need to do is make sure that we have collaborators alongside the writers and directors who really understand every moment of cinematic potential on the page and can help determine when they should go for it.
