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Item of Interest The Business of Production

Why is TV attracting the best writers, instead of film?

A recent article in the Atlantic blames an “uncreative business model” in Hollywood.

A recent article in the Atlantic confirms my long standing suspicion that the best writing and most interesting characters with the most interesting stories are on TV, not in the movies.

The article identifies a lot of reasons to support their assertion:

Expanding appetite for media;

  • Long story arcs
  • More flexibility in story (particularly in the cable/Netflix/Amazon Studios/et world)
  • Longer story arcs
  • An “uncreative business model” in much filmmaking.

I think, however this quote captures the crux of the matter:

Although moviegoers loved special effects in movies like Inception and Life of Pi, a fixation on technical wizardry has overpowered investments in good movie storytelling…

United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer

12 replies on “Why is TV attracting the best writers, instead of film?”

Television provides what Hollywood has failed to realize: good stories. CGI cannot sustain an audience alone.

Philip,
Please, please, please is there any “retweet” filter out there that can be applied to the comments on your blog? I get so discouraged flipping through all the content-free comments that begin with “RT @philiphodgetts:” and add exactly zero value to the conversation.
Pretty please?
Paul

The idea was to keep all the conversation about a post in the same place, but I agree, the retweet part of it isn’t really adding. I’ll see if I can modify what is reposted from Twitter.

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