An alleged former actor who worked in Hollywood claims the entire industry is in shambles as jobs dry up and talent agencies fail to pay their clients on time.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
As reported by novelist Brian Niemeier, an alleged actor who works in Hollywood informed him that “things are terrible.”
This actor stated, “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).”
He continued, “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.”
L to R: Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers and Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch
READ: Zack Snyder’s ‘Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver’ Viewership Plummets In Second Week On Netflix
Next, he explained that one of the major problems the industry faces now is contraction and that is forcing bigger named actors to compete for smaller roles. The insider shared, “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).”
He then pointed to Michael Emerson’s role as Wilzig in Fallout, “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.”
Walton Goggins (The Ghoul) in “Fallout”
From there, this insider pointed to a report from Nellie Andreeva at Deadline that noted that talent agency KMR suspended its franchise with SAG-AFTRA because of delays in payments to its clients.
Andreeva reported on March 22nd, “The KMR talent agency, which has been grappling with ‘talent payment breakdown,’ has suspended its franchise with SAG-AFTRA.” This report came after Deadline noted “agency clients had been waiting for months to get their payments.”
Andreeva added, “Over the past week, we learned of more KMR checks that have bounced though at least one person saw their latest checks clear.”
The insider commented, “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.”
REBEL MOON: (L-R) Sofia Boutella as Kora and Djimon Hounsou as Titus in Rebel Moon. Cr. Clay Enos/Netflix © 2023
From there, the insider pointed to the declining number of pilots being created for the major television networks and cited an article from Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter.
Goldberg reported in the middle of March 2022, “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.”
She added, “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.”
The insider added, “And he told me this year the number of pilots is somewhere around EIGHT total.”
A scene from Halo Season 2 (2024), Paramount+
This information about work contracting appears to confirm screenwriter and YouTuber Script Doctor’s predictions at the end of September that the new Writers Guild of America deal signed with the studios would result in less work.
During an appearance on Midnight’s Edge’s Midnight’s Edge in the Morning show, Script Doctor was asked by host Andre Einherjar, “Will there be less jobs for writers now when you have guaranteed writers room?”
As part of his response, Script Doctor said, “So basically what we are seeing here from the youngins is there’s going to be less, possibly less opportunities for them especially in something like the pre-greenlit or mini rooms. And that comes down to two factors that I can think of right now.”
“The first one is that the current MBA clearly defines that a showrunner has to be a union writer,” he continued. “So it can’t be an internal executive producer like a Kevin Feige. It also gives them a bit more power in to who they select for the writing positions in the minimum staffing mini rooms and it also says that whoever they select has to be approved by the company or the showrunner has to argue for them to be involved.”
“Now, with regards to those rooms, you have showrunners that would only– a real showrunner, a good showrunner is only going to hire writers that they are going to get value out of in their room. Which means that if you are diversity hire and that’s all you’ve got going on you are of no value to a showrunner which means you are not going to get your ‘guaranteed hire’ over there. And I think that’s a good thing,” Script Doctor detailed.
Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Moving on to his second point, he said, “The other aspect with regards to the contract pertaining to mini rooms is that the compelled hiring has now increased– the compelled hiring and the extended timeframe for which they have to work on the show, which is like the minimum of 10 weeks.”
He explained, “That essentially turns the mini room into something more expensive than the traditional model of developing a pilot, producing the pilot to be screened before an audience test to see whether or not it’s actually going to be good, and then giving it the greenlight to go into an actual series order. The mini room basically tries to force a hit show within a six episode, or eight episode, or ten episode structure, get it all written before any of it is filmed, and then push it out there.”
Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor and Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday in Doctor Who Christmas Special “The Church on Ruby Road” (2023), BBC
Next, he shared an example, “You can take a look at a pilot like Ahsoka and say to yourself, ‘Okay, that’s a show that was done in a mini room. It was done by one writer Dave Filoni. And if you put that through the pilot test there’s no way it would have been picked up for the remainder of the episodes.’ And that’s a good thing. You don’t want that.”
“So, right now, it looks like mini rooms are kind of being, for the moment, they’ll be kind of priced out on a budget side of things from the studios because it’s more lucrative and less risk for them to actually go back to shooting a pilot, testing it, and then determining whether it’s going to be given a series order as opposed to building a show in a limited amount of time and then just pumping it out for you to be stuck with it, and can’t control, develop, or change it based on audience reception,” he said.
Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
He then declared, “And when you have those types of orders and you have the showrunner being in charge of it and picking the writers they want to work with and being able to argue why they need it for the benefit of the show, you then basically exclude any of the writers in town that are not going to be of value to you.
“And I think everybody listening and gentlemen on the panel know those types of writers are not going to be lasting in this industry because they’re not qualified. And I think that’s great. I think that’s great that there’s less jobs for them because that gives me a better chance for having more job opportunities,” he concluded.
Freya Allan as Ciri, Henry Cavill as Geralt, and Eamon Farren as Cahir in The Witcher: Season 3 (2023), Netflix
What do you make of this insider claiming that Hollywood is in shambles and “things are terrible?”
They can learn to lithium mine since all coding jobs have dried up. That’d be some delicious irony after their self-superior salvo to the coal miners.
All TV and films are vastly overpriced and with a far inferior quality to 2000s cinema/TV. How some TV series have budgets of $200-300 million for 8-10 episodes is beyond me especially with the poor writing and the mandatory political propaganda. If they cut the overpriced salaries on most people in production, start getting rid of the activists and start hiring based on merit, Hollywood can produce twice as many shows and films and people would be happy to pay and watch. Ask anyone who watches Japanese or Korean TV, if the writing is good, people will coming back and nowadays there are far more potential customers than 20 years ago and with far more disposable income. Until then, let them collapse and hope it continues until they adjust to what people actually want.
What about the audience of this crap?!!!
Ahsoka would never be a series if they tested the pilot with an actual audience. Same with Acolesbian, Bobo Feet, Kenoughbi. It’s time to just stop doing 6 to 8 episode mini-series. Do a 1 hour pilot. Then a 16 episode series if successful.
I cannot support any business based in California until they stop forcing their depraved imperial culture on me. I will never adopt the culture of these white liberal colonizers. I will follow the middle-American culture I was raised in: faith in God Almighty, devotion to nuclear family, stealing is wrong, helping strangers is good.