Our recent discussion about the slow death of the legacy gatekeepers drew a lot of comment. One reader who’s in the know wrote in to relate his personal experience.
I know I’m a little late to this but just wanted to give my own inside info on Hollywood’s status to confirm what your friend told you, in case any of it is new info you can use.
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Former actor here, got a few friends in the industry and they’ve been told explicitly that things are terrible. “Hollywood is in shambles” is a direct quote from my friend’s manager (big clients, very connected). My friend had a co-star role on a major network television show that was cancelled over a year ago and he’s yet to book another gig, his wife (a lot of big television credits) has been faring much better so they’ve been fine, but overall it’s not good.
Part of the problem is he’s now competing on small parts with bigger name actors who normally would NEVER audition for these roles, as they’d be considered a step down (can regress your career). So now he’s constantly losing out to actors with bigger resumes (now even more important to draw in viewers). Case in point – Michael Emerson had a small part in Fallout (I’m told, I read your book and took your advice) when it’s a role that really should be going to a much lesser known actor and is below Emerson’s level, who’s a bonafide television star at this stage in his career.
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Then you’ve got agencies not paying their clients, leading to things like this:
EXCLUSIVE: The KMR talent agency, which has been grappling with “talent payment breakdown,” has suspended its franchise with SAG-AFTRA. KMR owner and President Mark Measures today sent a letter to the guild, informing them of the decision.
“After careful consideration and much deliberation, I have concluded that it is in the best interest of KMR and its clients to temporarily inactivate our franchise with the union,” he wrote. “This decision is not taken lightly, but it presents us with the opportunity to address and rectify the issues that have been causing significant distractions in recent times.”
KMR is not one of the big guns, but it’s a well-known mid level agency that’s been around for almost 70 years with well over a thousand clients.And when this happened my friend began to panic and asked his manager if he should switch agencies (he’s at a big one) and she once again reaffirmed the crisis by shooting that down immediately, telling him the last thing any actor should be doing right now is firing their agent.
Then you’ve got dwindling pilots for years now:While the number of overall scripted originals continues to soar, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW had started rethinking their individual approaches to pilots before the pandemic. Now, two years into making television with costly COVID-19 protocols, the five networks have shifted to more of a year-round development model as the days of producing nearly 100 combined pilots have come and gone.
This season, the five broadcasters have (so far) ordered only 35 pilots combined — that’s the lowest tally in at least a decade — and down significantly from the pre-pandemic days when 60 was considered a record low. While sources say a handful of additional orders may still be to come, this year’s 35 comedies and dramas are still down from last year’s sum, which included 20 pilots that were carried over from 2020, when the global production shutdown wiped out pilot season.
And he told me this year the number of pilots is somewhere around EIGHT total.
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Just thought you might like to know! Love your work, and just started reading Combat Frame XSeed and loving it so far as well!
We love our readers, and we always love it when they write in.
Especially when they have unique insights to share on current events.
So thank you, Ex-ActorAnon. And thanks to everyone who reads.
The evidence is mounting that Hollywood is dead; the record labels are dead; deadpub is dead.
They’re just not broke.
Yet.
Stay tuned.
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