I have so much hope for film; can I share some of of it with you?
There is more than the eye can see.
I head off to Cannes soon.
I first went in 1992, thirty-four years ago. I just counted — I’ve had 24 films in one of the four sections of the official selection, so far. Although I haven’t gone every year, I must be closing in on attending thirty times. That’s sort of wild — particularly for a man who had never traveled out of his country of origin until he had produced a small handful of films.
I am not sure I am going to be able to keep up my attendance record going forward. As some of you know, I had hoped to go as “press” for the first time this year, but they turned me down, alas.
Still though, I find the annual event an excellent opportunity for me to assess where things stand for our art, business, industry, and community.. If you are tracking the ups and downs on my optimism/pessimism meter, you might recall that I ended 2025 confident that my part of the industry was dead. No more American films for grown-ups. I still hope to get a few more such beasts made (or completed) but I do not feel as I once did, that certain kind of pleasure that comes from a feeling that it is inevitable that I will get them all made. So be it. And call that realism “rock-bottom of the pessimism scale”. I ran aground. But the good part of such a scrape is that there is nowhere now to go but up. And so, yes, HOPE is on the rise. Giddyap, cowboy!
We may still be at rock bottom earnings for a bit longer, but there are many indications that good times lay ahead. I did one of those “pause-and-let-me-count-the-ways” exercises I like to do just to evaluate if I was more than a little delulu or kraykray… a take the temperature of where we may be now sort of thing. If I can hit twenty good things in such a contemplation, then I believe I am in a good place.
And you know what? I am in a good place. And that means you may be too.
20 Signs That There Are Better Times Ahead (for cinema)
Perhaps best read with this playing in background
1. NonDē & the recognition of filmmakers’ holistic cinematic responsibility: THIS is the most-pleasing hangover from the last year. NonDē jelled. For thirty-five years, we’ve been counseling filmmakers to budget their work on a realistic anticipated financial return on their film. For twenty-five years we’ve been encouraging filmmakers to know their audience in advance. For fifteen years or longer we’ve been begging filmmakers to budget for the distribution of their film. For five years we’ve been encouraging them to build and own their audience. For three years, I’ve been urging all to build a non-dependent cinema ecosystem. It started to all really come together this last year. THAT is NonDē and it is really happening.
2. Disintermediation of Distribution / Distribution as a service: this still is the greatest disruption we will face and we still are far from prepared for it, but it is inevitable. All the other cultural industries have faced it. It will broaden the distribution options significantly and enable a true community approach to supply and demand. The proofs are already proven, but boy-oh-boy is the business slow on the uptake. It will bring a wider range of cinema, genre, audience, experience, and business. I can’t effin wait. It will create jobs and generate knowledge… maybe even some wisdom.
3. “Block the merger” action & the growing antitrust, anti-competition pushback: It has been very inspiring for me to see the close to 5,000 industry professionals to stand up for a level playing field. The forces of value extraction have been served, and we are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Anyone who ever said that “it is inevitable” know now they were brainwashed or on the side of the oligarchs and tech bros. We know we must stand up for what we believe in, and I am hopeful this next era is going to be marked precisely by that.
4. Increased recognition that we are in a system and the system is in us: This would be on the short list of what is necessary for every young pup and old hound to know deep, deep, deep in their bones. We don’t get to determine what we do any more than we get to determine what we want to do – at least not until we have had that recognition that this is the case. It is one of those things that I think actually determines whom you can work best with – as you are either in the know or you are not. But the tide is turning in our industry; what once was the minority may soon become the majority. Yay.
5. Pushback to the tech bros co’s: Let’s be very, very clear. The former film industry has been eaten by the TBCs and they are all toadies for the 1% of the 1%. They have a very different business model than cinema ever had and a much different vision of what The Better World looks like. Theirs, for instance, lets us and our industry die. The machines and their slop will rule. But we are not going to take to it. The pushback has begun. Get off all their platforms (he says as he writes on one of them) – or do the best you can under the circumstances.
