Just tweeted this thread // this is a weird flex. Fun time to be a filmmaker rn. 2/ I've been a longtime reader of @stratechery, especially @benthompson's ana

Just tweeted this thread // this is a weird flex. Fun time to be a filmmaker rn. 2/ I've been a longtime reader of @stratechery, especially @benthompson's analysis of Netflix // can't recommend enough his posts on aggregation theory when thinking the future of media distribution, especially re: Netflix. 3/ So…it wasn’t new or surprising to read that Netflix is debt financing a larger slate than Universal, and competing for zero-sum prestige films courting top talent and mounting a massive award campaign to check off their first best picture nom on the strength of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma. 4/ What felt new and “infrared” was the reach for Lew Wassermann’s lineage. 5/ “After graduating from the University of Arizona with a film degree…Mr. Stuber got a job at Universal in 1992 as a publicity assistant. His duties included delivering news clippings at 8 a.m. daily to the studio’s all-powerful chief, Lew Wasserman. 6/ “After about six months, Mr. Wasserman, apparently impressed by Mr. Stuber’s punctuality, spoke to him for the first time. “He said, ‘Hey kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?’” Mr. Stuber recalled. The young Mr. Stuber’s quick reply? “You.” 7/ For those less geeked on Hollywood history, Lew was the man responsible for dismantling the Studio System as it had been known, and with the invention of film packaging gave birth to the start system we’re living the end times of. 8/ That’s why connecting Netflix’s disruption back to the coup that reconfigured Hollywood for me sounds like a formal challenge. What a time to be alive.