Showbiz Sandbox 321: New Power Players Emerge In Cannes

5 Responses to “Showbiz Sandbox 321: New Power Players Emerge In Cannes”

1. Andrew on May 18th, 2016 5:32 pm
    

   I dearly wish Michael Giltz would never use the word ‘stupid’ again. Ever. It’s so unpleasant to listen to when he calls other people stupid. Why would you do that?

    
2. shortandfunky on May 19th, 2016 6:34 am
    

   I stopped listening to today’s podcast halfway through because I’d had enough of MIchaels constant interruptions whilst Sperling was reading the report on European worldwide blockbusters of lack thereof.Sometimes it’s part of the charm of the show but today it was plain rude and dare I say it “stupid”.

    
3. mgiltz on May 19th, 2016 9:25 am
    

   Thanks for the feedback. I thought me being obnoxious and Sperling the voice of reason was our “thing.” 🙂
   I was intending to comment on the report itself on the formula for successful European films, not the person who delivered the report (or Sperling). I knew I’d gone on too long and annoyingly and asked Sperling to cut it down but being in Cannes he didn’t have time to make me appear less obnoxious than I really am. Just be glad you didn’t have to listen to it entirely unedited.

   My point remains: China, Korea and India have vibrant, strong film markets and they don’t have them by imitating Hollywood and making films in English. I don’t believe European countries would benefit from the mindset of the report since they can’t compete with $150 mil budgets and movies that cost $15 mil (which is a big budget in context) are an entirely different beast and benefit even less from blockbuster mindset. But I stated that in a stupid manner, clearly.

    
4. J. Sperling Reich on May 19th, 2016 11:09 pm
    

   Like Michael stated, we always appreciate hearing from our listeners.

   As is typical of a North American journalist in Cannes due to the long hours and jet lag, I was quite exhausted when recording this week’s episode. I realized even when we were recording that I probably could have been doing a better job of explaining the presentation that was given on European cinema, specifically so that it was understood that (1) the report being given was simply an overview of the actual figures from the previous five years and (2) that it was solely speaking of exporting films both between European territories and to other continents.

   Actually, it would be a good idea to get Martin Kanzler from the European Observatory, who presented the report, to be a guest on a future episode of Showbiz Sandbox. He could walk us all though the details in a much better fashion than I did.

   I actually ran into Martin later during the festival and asked him how a “big budget” film was defined when not speaking of Hollywood blockbusters. As I suspected there are very few films made for over $30 million in Europe without the name Luc Besson being involved. Films that “traveled” well were all over $10 million. The majority of films produced in Europe however do not have budgets over $10 million.

   In regards to Michael and I arguing, well… we tend to do that a lot. Given the amount of feedback and response this episode has generated, one can see why certain media outlets, like every major cable news network, feature bickering guests and hosts. Apparently it generates audience reaction. In the same way that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I wonder if the same goes for audience reaction; meaning there’s no such thing as negative audience reaction, so long as the audience is reacting. I’m not entirely sure such a theory could stand the test of time.

   As he reads this I can already here Michael thinking, “Good grief! We can’t even make our comments short, how will we ever get our episodes under an hour?”

    
5. J. Sperling Reich on May 19th, 2016 11:10 pm
    

   Both Michael and I responded to Andrew’s comments, which were quite similar to your own. Just wanted to reply to yours in case you weren’t alerted or hadn’t noticed.