Everyone seems to loathe the FilmLA president as the poster child for the local production bureaucracy, but despite vocal opposition, the group scored another five-year renewal of its contract as the go-between for the industry and the city, just before California passed Gov. Newsom’s $750 million-a-year production incentive package that should boost local shoots.

Runner-up: Bong Joon Ho, whose Parasite topped the Times list of top 100 movies of the 21st century. On the heels of Thursday’s vanity list of who voted for themselves, a few additional awards:

Least Subtle Suck-Up: Mikey Madison, who didn’t choose a film of her own, but anointed two directed by her Oscar-generating Anora auteur, Sean Baker—Tangerine and The Florida Project (plus an obscure Russian film that happened to star fellow Anora nominee Yura Borisov).

Best Pillow Talk: Celine Song, who voted for Queer, written by her husband, Justin Kuritzkes.

Nepo Honors: Gia Coppola, who picked her Aunt Sofia’s film The Virgin Suicides.

Pixar Job-Creation Act Award: Tony Hale, a co-star of Inside Out 2 (and Toy Story 4), chose the first Inside Out.

Wildest Pick: Nicholas Sparks, who for some reason (maybe because it’s co-written by Noah Baumbach?) picked Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.

“If you talking crazy out your face up on the stage and disrespect me on the stage / expect me on the stage.”
—Will Smith, referencing his Oscars slap in a cringey freestyle rap on Fire in the Booth.

Runner-up: “In the case of theatrical movies like F1, we were always planning this from a theatrical point of view, and we’ll continue to do more movies theatrically. There are other movies that will go direct to TV+.”

—Eddy Cue, the Apple services V.P., in a typically noncommittal quote to Screen Daily about his theatrical ambitions.

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This is a partnership for the ages. Formula 1 is defined by high-stakes teamwork and innovation – and both Atlassian and Williams Racing were founded on those same principles.

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A little more on that…

Yes, if a traditional studio opened a $250 million tentpole to $57 million domestic (like, say, The Flash, which debuted similarly via Warner Bros. in 2023 and was quickly dismissed), the knives would be out. Especially since the movie in question benefitted from a $10 Fandango coupon pushed to every Apple Pay user. But the F1 overseas number ($89 million) is promising, reviews are good, and expectations for Apple were low after four multiplex underperformers in a row. Whether this actually leads to more wide-release theatrical plays is still an open question, but at least Cue can’t point to F1 as a reason to get out of the big-budget movie business.

5,228
Writers Guild members who reported income in 2024, vs. 6,910 in pre-strike 2022—a huge 24.3 percent decline over two years. [WGA, via THR]

51 million
C-SPAN linear households, down from 100 million in 2015, which is why its C.E.O. is pitching Hulu and YouTube TV on carrying the nonprofit. (LA Times/Nielsen)

5.6 million
Customers that streamers gain, on average, by bundling with Prime Video Channels versus not. [Antenna, via IndieWire]

$475,000
Cost of the 2001 Vanity Fair Hollywood issue cover shoot by Annie Leibovitz ($850,000 today), as revealed in Michael Grynbaum’s new book. [NY Times]  

Now, here’s Kim on Artists Equity…

When Ben Affleck was still joined in holy matrimony with Jennifer Lopez, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Artists Equity gave a special gift to his bride. He decided that his recently launched company would make Dreamgirls director Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman old-school movie musical, based on the Tony-winning Broadway show from the 1990s. Other executives at the independent production company opposed the idea, sources told me, but Affleck said he loved it—plus it gave his then-dreamgirl her dream role. And when it comes to Artists Equity, what Ben thinks is what counts.

Even before the cameras rolled, Affleck departed from the Artists Equity ideal and sought outside financing for Spider Woman. He found it in Mark Scheinberg, an Israeli Canadian billionaire and co-founder and former co-owner of the online gambling company PokerStars. (Affleck is a highly skilled poker player.) “Ben convinced him it was a good idea,” said one insider. The film was shot for $32 million, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and sold to no one. Roadside Attractions, where movies often wind up when all else has failed, will release it in October.

Affleck and Matt Damon launched Artists Equity in November 2022 with a reported $100 million in backing from Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners. Affleck is exclusive to the company; Damon is not, but sources say he remains involved even as he has been on The Odyssey with Christopher Nolan. The business plan was for the company to assemble movies from soup to nuts, giving creatives more freedom and offering cast and crew a piece of the profit.

Two and a half years in, the L.A.-based company has grown to around 80 employees and produced five films, with three more in the works. Cardinale told me he’s thrilled with its progress. “We’re trailblazing,” he said. “We’re figuring it out, but Artists Equity is one of the best companies in my portfolio, and it’s only two years old.” As for Affleck, Cardinale said, “This guy is a unicorn. In my career, 35 years, I don’t think I’ve met someone like him on the creative side who can also go toe to toe with me on the business side.” (Affleck declined to comment.)

But the Spider Woman saga also says a lot about the way things are going at the company—where, so far, family relationships appear to matter a great deal (two of the company’s first four movies featured J.Lo), and the question of what is, or is not, an Artists Equity movie has yet to be resolved. It’s a place where Affleck calls the shots with an intensity that has led to strained relationships, as well as some turnover at the top. “Did you see Air?” said one source who was involved with the company, referring to its 2023 film about Nike’s creation of the Jordan shoe line. “[Affleck] thinks he’s Phil Knight. There’s a scene where he goes, ‘This is my company, we do things my way!’ That wasn’t acting.”

Artists Equity got off to a promising start when then-Amazon Studios chief Jen Salke forked over $130 million for Air, which featured the widely desired Ben-and-Matt onscreen combo platter. Affleck directed, and he and Damon were also among the many credited producers. The project brought rich paydays of about $25 million each for Affleck, Damon, and Viola Davis, who played Michael Jordan’s prescient mother, Deloris. (Given its role in the origin of the project, David Ellison’s Skydance Sports also wound up with about $25 million, sources say—a sum that Affleck was not thrilled to pay.)

The company’s luck held when, in late 2022, Apple agreed to pay about $140 million for The Instigators, which starred Damon. One knowledgeable source said with fees—more than $30 million for Damon, for example, and $20 million for the company—the price tag rose to a big number. The project was also a family affair: Casey Affleck co-wrote and co-starred in the film, while Damon and Affleck were among the producers; Damon’s wife, Luciana, was an executive producer.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

This is Atlassian Williams Racing

Two powerhouse teams are joining forces for one epic goal. Atlassian is thrilled to become the Official Title Partner and Official Technology Partner of Atlassian Williams Racing.

This is a partnership for the ages. Formula 1 is defined by high-stakes teamwork and innovation – and both Atlassian and Williams Racing were founded on those same principles.

For 20+ years, Atlassian has worked alongside high-performing teams to develop a System of Work that helps them work more effectively together. Now, in partnership with Williams and a global community of F1 fans, we’re turbo-charging teamwork on the race track.

You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of The Instigators. “Nobody even knows the movie came out,” marveled an executive at another company. The Doug Liman–directed project skipped theaters, premiering directly on Apple TV+ last August, with a grim 40 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Liman walked away with $15 million, the biggest payday of his career.

After those two big scores, the movie business changed. “Some of the early [Artists Equity] successes were tied to streamers paying massive premiums,” noted a studio executive. “As they’re not paying those premiums now, what is Artists Equity in business to do?” Given the company’s promise of cutting in cast and crew on the profits, another source with knowledge of the company asked, “Is there margin to maintain the model if you’re not selling movies at $80 million or $100 million?” As another source put it, “Can you make movies like that cheaply enough for everyone to participate at a high level?”

Perhaps the biggest question facing Artists Equity is: What’s the appetite for its movies without Ben and/or Matt appearing in front of—or, in Ben’s case, behind—the camera? “The reality is, the company was built on the backs of having those two willing to do movies,” said a source with knowledge of the company. Artists Equity “can’t be a success if you need the principals to be in every movie,” this person continued. “The next wave is, How do they put movies together without them?” So far, their involvement has been pretty key to their movies’ appeal. Consider two upcoming projects in the Artists Equity pipeline, both for Netflix: The RIP, set to drop in January, stars Damon with himself, his wife, and Affleck among the producers; then there’s Animals, a kidnapping thriller with Affleck starring and directing.

Given their involvement, Netflix film chief Dan Lin is more than pleased with these projects, both of which the company has showcased to press and fans at recent events. “We have had a great experience working with Ben and Matt on both The RIP and Animals,” Lin said. Artists Equity not only “fully develops and packages their films, and oversees the production process from start to finish,” but Affleck and Damon “share our high quality bar—they are always pushing themselves and their collaborators to make the best movie possible.”

But how thinly can Affleck be spread? Yes, he’s one of the most respected multihyphenates in show business, and executives who have worked with the Oscar winner speak with awe of his talent as a writer, actor, director, and producer. Still, he’s obviously not a traditional or experienced C.E.O. “Ben is kind of a 24/7 guy and very hard to work for,” said an executive who does business with Artists Equity. A producer who has worked with Affleck said, “He has taken his personality and put it all in the company, and he has an intense personality.”

There has been shuffling in the executive ranks along the way. Affleck was originally planning to start a company with former Warner Bros. film chief Jeff Robinov, who had helped him escape his post-Gigli exile with the chance to direct and star in The Town in 2010. Next, Robinov backed Argo— which brought Affleck a best picture Oscar—and that was followed by Affleck’s turn as Batman. But for reasons that are unclear, Robinov was out of the picture before Artists Equity launched.

This past January, Artists Equity C.O.O. Michael Joe left for personal reasons, but sources say the stress of the job was a factor. The C.O.O. position then went to Dillon West, a young man who’d worked at RedBird for seven years—and not in entertainment. The company also hired Sony and Paramount veteran Andrew Gumpert in the new role of president of business affairs and strategy. Three weeks ago, Dani Bernfeld, who had been president of creative, quietly transitioned to a producing deal. The company is said to be looking for another high-level creative executive. “When it started up, Ben liked having his hands in everything,” said a longtime Affleck associate. “Now he’s realizing he doesn’t have the bandwidth to do it all.”

Over the past year, Lucy Damon has become an increasingly active partner in the company, learning the ropes by producing. The parameters of her job are not clear, but sources say one of her roles is to insulate others from Affleck, which seems to have been the case during the making of Animals. “Lucy has a unique level of access to Ben,” Brad Weston, who is a producer on the project, told me. “She wasn’t trying to hoard the information—she would use access to Ben to inform the line producer and department heads what we were doing. Lucy is a lovely human being, and she uses her access and her kindness to make everything go forward.”

But with the heyday of big streamer paychecks over, one source with knowledge of the company predicted that Artists Equity will have to adjust its model. “They’ll have to evolve into co-financing with studio partners,” this person said. “Gumpert knows how to structure them.” Another source saw the company at an inflection point. “They need to stand up a slate of movies that Ben and Matt are not in. That’s a hard pivot. It’s a really hard pivot when you have such an owner-dominated, star-driven company. [But] if you see something going in the wrong direction, your job is to course correct. So Ben, who is brilliant and knows what good movies are, has to course correct.”

To that end, Artists Equity just announced a push to sell movies for theatrical release, striking a three-year first-look deal with Sony Pictures. The studio will finance up to three movies—though it’s under no obligation to make any Artists Equity projects. The deal contemplates consulting on directors for each project and then, theoretically, Artists Equity will run the making of the movie. But anyone who knows the very thrifty and hands-on Sony film boss, Tom Rothman, recognizes that he is loath to cede creative control. Yes, he is hungry for material and has enormous respect for Affleck and Damon, so he may be more deferential than usual. But what are the odds that he won’t want to be involved throughout the production process? “Everybody is pretending to be somebody they’re not in that deal,” said a source close to Actors Equity.

It remains to be seen whether the Artists Equity family project can adjust and find its place in a highly challenging and fast-changing Hollywood. An industry veteran said he believes in the company: “I see this as the evolution of the independent financing model in today’s marketplace, which allows two to four independent financiers to be suppliers to studios who don’t know exactly what they want to make.”

I’ll admit it’s kinda fun to see Big Tech powers like Apple and Meta look so desperate and… disrupted as they scramble to catch up on A.I. [Bloomberg]

Congrats to Peter Chernin for getting Apple to take on the North Road film production deal. Netflix, its former home, was definitely not thrilled with that $10 million producer fee on movies, even if the service saved on overhead charges. [Bloomberg]

I supposed it was inevitable that a weakened Hollywood would allow product-placement brands to stomp all over the content. [WSJ]

Netflix wants to make customized trailers and interactive movies or shows based on user histories. In related news: Max now doesn’t crash as much. [Business Insider]

How to make $400,000 in a month on OnlyFans: “Extreme” sex challenges like sleeping with 583 men in just six hours. [Vulture]

Messages are slowing down for the holiday, but a couple fun responses to my Thursday breakdown of the new HBO compensation guidelines…

“Crazy how much nicer you are to HBO than us. They’re doing this to pay less!” —A Netflix executive

“HBO has been fine for the big stars they care about, but that [net profits] definition was there as a floor for people they don’t value. I’ve had plenty of clients angry about how HBO has treated them.” —An agent

“The HBO folks and agents are apparently not monitoring national politics. They need to drop this ‘bonus’ language and call those payments ‘tips’ instead!” —A music supervisor

Have a great holiday week,
Matt

Got a question, comment, complaint, or the name of Brad Pitt’s, uh… doctor? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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