The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood

This week Sonny is joined by Megan Ganz, an executive producer and creator of Mythic Quest, AppleTV+’s workplace comedy about life at the studio behind an MMORPG. Megan has worked on a number of great shows, including It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Community, so it was fun to pick her brain about the differences in production cycles on a network, basic cable, and streaming service, as well as what it’s like to produce a big show like this in the age of Covid. (Spoiler: It’s tricky!) If you aren’t watching Mythic Quest, you should be. And if you know someone who does watch that, or Always Sunny or Community, but doesn’t listen to this podcast for some reason, please share it with them! Hopefully they’ll find it entertaining and informative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The show’s first ever guest, Richard Rushfield, returns to the program to discuss all sorts of stuff. Super-Producer Scott Rudin: bad boss, or something worse? What went down with Ray Fisher and Warner Bros.? Are theaters coming back? What’s the industry hoping for in terms of Oscars viewership? All this and more on this week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week’s episode, Sonny talks to David Thomson about his new book, A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors. The book is a look at the evolution of the very idea of a “director,” from the workmanlike efforts out of studio system craftsmen to the auteur theory to the world of TV, where directors get very little notice and writers get all the glory. It’s a personal history, in a way—you see who Thomson enjoys and who he respects—as well as an economic history. The business of building up directors is a fascinating one, given all the financial and social and artistic imperatives that come with identifying a singular vision and person as the author of a massive project like a feature film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Snyder Cut week at the Bulwark wraps up with Sean O’Connell, author of Release the Snyder Cut: The Crazy True Story Behind the Fight that Saved Zack Snyder’s Justice League. We talk about his new book, the social media campaign that not only secured the release of Zack Snyder’s four-hour version of Justice League but also raised more than half a million dollars for suicide prevention charities, and how the rise of streaming helped ensure this film could be released at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny is joined by Tom Shone, film critic for the Sunday Times, to talk about his recent book The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan. The book is a must-own if you’re a fan of Nolan, as Shone spent hours with the director of The Dark Knight trilogy, Memento, and Inception. On this episode we talk about influences on Nolan’s work like Jorge Luis Borges (whose collected fiction is also a must-own for those looking to understand the director), how fatherhood has influenced his work, and the politics of The Dark Knight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week’s episode, Sonny talks to Mike Malloy about the home video landscape, what it’s like to make supplements for specialty Blu-ray purveyors, and the world of tough-guy cinema writ large. Mike began as a film journalist for newspapers, magazines and the occasional book. After the decline of print media, he moved into filmmaking with larger projects like his EUROCRIME! documentary. But with budgets hard to come by, he has lately settled into the groove of producing—and appearing in—bonus content for Blu-Rays. You can find his YouTube channel here and his Instagram account here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Scott Feinberg, the Hollywood Reporter’s awards columnist and host of the excellent podcast Awards Chatter, joins Sonny to talk about the business of awards season. How corrupt are the Golden Globes? What could improve them? And Sonny asks Scott about his absolute favorite part of Oscars season: The Brutally Honest Oscar Voter Ballots! All this and more on this week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joining Sonny on this week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood is Abraham Riesman, the author of the excellent new biography True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee. We discuss the long-running fight for credit between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as well as Lee’s greatest contribution to the world: the character of Stan Lee, a catchphrase-spouting mascot whose ability to connect with fans and create a sense of community helped shape the idea of fandom to this day. For more on Riesman and his book, make sure to check out his website, abrahamriesman.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny is very excited to have the president of CinemaScore, Harold Mintz, on the show. CinemaScore is the fantastically useful company that polls opening weekend moviegoers for their grades on new releases, and it’s a more accurate and unbiased measure of audience opinion than just about any other easily available metric. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alan Zilberman, a critic for the Washington City Paper and the Washington Post, joins Sonny Bunch for a very special episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood in which the two discuss life as a part-time film critic during awards season. Both Sonny and Alan are members of the Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association, and both Sonny and Alan slaved away on our annual year-end nominations for the WAFCA awards. No one knows the struggles we’ve seen—until now! What’s it like to have to watch multiple movies a day in order to futilely try to impact an award that’s just going to go to an Oscar frontrunner anyway? How are the awards in 2020 different from the awards in almost every other year? Why is everyone so in love with Nomadland anyway? For the full list of WAFCA winners and nominees, go here: http://wafca.com/awards/index.htm You’ll notice a disturbing absence of both Fatman and The Wolf of Snow Hollow from the nominees. It’s like most critics can’t recognize great art unless...

This week’s guest is Glenn Kenny, the author of the excellent new book Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas. Glenn is is a film critic whose work appears in the New York Times and Roger Ebert dot com. He has also written for The Current, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, the New York Daily news, Playboy, Film Comment, and other publications. In addition to Made Men, Glenn is the author of Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor and the editor of an excellent collection of essays about Star Wars, A Galaxy Not So Far Away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode, Sonny talks to CNN’s Frank Pallotta about the state of streaming. What does it mean that the WWE Network is headed to the Peacock? Are HBO Max’s conversion numbers good enough? Why is Disney trying to charge people $30 to rent a cartoon? All this and more on this week’s episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Sonny is joined by Peter Labuza to talk about the past, present, and future of antitrust as it relates to Hollywood. In an age of consolidation and technological advance, how will the end of the Paramount Decrees influence what happens in filmmaking? Peter is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he also earned his PhD in Cinema and Media Studies. His research explores the legal, financial, and political history of creative industries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny is joined by Chris McKenna. Chris was the co-showrunner on NBC’s (and later Yahoo’s) Community, earning an Emmy nomination for his classic episode “Remedial Chaos Theory.” He’s also the co-writer of the most recent series of Spider-Man films, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and Lego Batman. On this week’s podcast, he discusses the differences between writing for TV and movies, his winding path to screenwriting success, and what it’s like to work with the great Chevy Chase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, David C. Lowery — the singer and guitarist for the bands Camper van Beethoven and Cracker — talks to Sonny Bunch about the economics of the music business, the difficulties of making a living as a middle class musician, and why what’s happening in the world of movies may resemble what happened to the music business in the early 2000s. How does TikTok resemble Spotify, and what dangers does it present to the world? Most importantly: How much would it cost Sonny to license the opening riff of “Teen Angst,” the hit song on Cracker’s debut album, “Cracker”? (Spoiler: way too much for Sonny to be able to afford.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week’s episode, James Emanuel Shapiro, the COO of Drafthouse Films who started the analytics department at the Alamo Drafthouse and also works as a distribution consultant, talks with Sonny about the epic, amazing, spectacular, disastrous mess that is the decision made by Warner Bros. to release their whole 2021 slate on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. Will theaters play ball? Does a shrinking window mean Netflix originals might show up on big screens owned by AMC, Regal, and Cinemark? Will anyone want to work with Warners ever again? All this and more will be discussed on this week’s episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny talks this week to Ian and Eshom Nelms, the fraternal directorial team behind 'Fatman,' about the circuitous path to making that film, the vagaries of indie economics and budgeting, the clash between critics and audiences on the film, and the possibility of a sequel on the horizon after its surprisingly strong VOD performance. There’s some spoiler-y conversation in the last 10 minutes or so of the show, so you should rent the movie before listening if that sort of thing bothers you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may remember Tony Davis as the guy who explained to us why popcorn grease is destroying movie theater projectors. (He also had lots of interesting thoughts on 3D and the economics of the theater business, but mostly, judging by responses I received: popcorn grease.) He’s back this week to explain why the home theater set you can build in your home looks about as good as a standard (read: non-IMAX or Dolby) theater. (Whether or not it sounds as good is a separate issue.) And he has a few suggestions for theater owners as to how they could step up their game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny talks to the Austin-based Alison Macor this week about the life and times of Warren Skaaren this week. Skaaren’s battles with the studios and the Writer’s Guild to get proper credit for his work on Top Gun, Batman, Beverly Hills Cop 2, and Beetlejuice are the subject of her excellent book, Rewrite Man. Consider picking it up after listening to this podcast; it’s a quick read and a great view into a professional script doctor’s process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Sonny talks to Derek Dye, the Senior Brand Manager for Highland Ventures, which is the parent company of the iconic Family Video brand. The chain is spearheading the #SaveTheVideoStore campaign, which hopes to raise awareness for those remaining stores. Derek and Sonny discuss the difficulties of operating a video store in general, the extra hardships created by a lack of new content coming from Hollywood, and a good way to save a few bucks while you build up your home video library. Plus: Stranger Things, which will feature the store in their forthcoming season! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny talks to Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post) and Peter Suderman (Reason Magazine), his old friends from Across the Movie Aisle, about the world of movies and movie writing post-Trump. Is Christopher Nolan right that Hollywood studios should be looking to foreign box office dollars? Does Netflix have buyer's remorse about their mega-deals with super-producers? And now that The Trump Show is coming to a close, will the world of cultural writing be able to focus a bit more on, you know, the culture? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on the show, Sonny talks to Shannon Moore, the Director of Field Marketing at Allied Global Marketing’s Washington, DC office. Sonny’s been a working film critic for 15 years or so, and the first question he always gets—after “What’s your favorite movie?” which he refuses to answer on general principle—is “How do you see the movies? Do you, like, get a private screening?” So he decided to have Shannon on to talk about this and other facets of marketing movies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny is joined today by Natalie Metzger, VP of development and production at Vanishing Angle. She is a Spirit Award nominated producer whose credits include GREENER GRASS, THUNDER ROAD, THE ROBBERY, and THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW. Metzger is currently in post-production on Josh Ruben’s horror comedy WEREWOLVES WITHIN (Ubisoft), Jim Cummings’ thriller THE BETA TEST, and Sean Mullin’s baseball documentary IT AIN’T OVER. Metzger’s feature directing credits include AT&T original documentary ALONE IN THE GAME (AFI Docs, Outfest) and healthcare documentary SPECIAL BLOOD, which won the Dolores Huerta Award for Best Director at the Long Beach Indie Festival and Best Feature Documentary at California Women’s Film Festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny is joined by Mark Graham, the Editor-in-Chief of Decider, a website dedicated to helping solve one of society's most pressing and important issues: What movies and shows should I watch? They discuss how Mark and his team decide what to cover for Decider and why, looking at the ways in which non-traditional audience metrics can help determine what’s worth writing about. Plus! Mark offers up some tips for would-be freelancers on getting your work published. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny is joined this week by Phil Contrino, the Director of Media and Research for the National Association of Theatre Owners. Topics of discussion include the state of the movie theater business (spoiler: it’s kind of dire at the moment, given news that Regal’s U.S. screens are shuttering again), the relative safety of moviegoing as opposed to dining out or attending church (spoiler: it’s much safer!), and what role the government might play in helping ensure theaters don’t go out of business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny talks to Zack Stentz (“X-Men: First Class,” “Thor,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) about his work with Netflix on the film “Rim of the World” and the hit new show, “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.” What’s it like pitching the service that has everything? How is the world of TV evolving as different streaming services aim for different markets? And how can filmmakers working with kids protect them from being exploited? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, on the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny talks to Chris Yogerst about his new book, “Hollywood Hates Hitler: Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures.” Chris is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the department of Arts & Humanities. He has written for the Washington Post, Hollywood Reporter, and most frequently at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny talks to “Feeding the Dragon” author Chris Fenton. For seventeen years, Fenton served as president of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group and GM of DMG North America, internationally orchestrating the creative and business activities of DMG—a multi-billion dollar global media company headquartered in Beijing. He is currently CEO of Media Capital Technologies and a Trustee of the US-Asia Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Sonny talks to Gerry Daly, who has 15 years experience in home entertainment sales, including 13 years with 20thCentury Fox, working in Category Management. Also, at one time was an elections & politics blogger with a fairly sizeable audience, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny Bunch talks to David Guglielmo, who in only a few years has cast over 20 feature films, including the critically acclaimed THE STANDOFF AT SPARROW CREEK as well as the upcoming RUN HIDE FIGHT, premiering at this year’s Venice International Film Festival. Additionally Guglielmo writes, directs, and produces his own independent films such as NO WAY TO LIVE and HOSPITALITY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny is joined today by James Emanuel Shapiro, who has been an executive in the entertainment industry for 20 years working in home video entertainment, exhibition festival programming and in distribution. He most recently worked at the Alamo Drafthouse where he started their analytics department and contributed to Alamo forming their internal booking department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonny Bunch talks to PEN America’s James Tager, the lead author of PEN’s new report, “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing,” to talk about the ways in which China uses the levers of business to ensure that Hollywood’s products reflect the Communist Party line. Special Guest: James Tager. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny talks to Tessive founder Tony Davis, who until last year headed the technology group at RealD, the company that enables 3D movie presentation in over 30,000 theaters around the world, about 3D’s successes, failures, and future in an uncertain exhibition landscape Special Guest: Tony Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the inaugural episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny Bunch talks to Richard Rushfield about Disney’s decision to charge for early access to MULAN, the future of streaming, and the death of theaters. Special Guest: Richard Rushfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices