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Village Roadshow put into development 99 feature films, 166 scripted television series and 67 unscripted series. Of those, six movies and seven television serie

Village Roadshow put into development 99 feature films, 166 scripted television series and 67 unscripted series. Of those, six movies and seven television series went into production. I don't know if it is standard practice, but these numbers looks wild to me.

cm2187 2y ago
I don't know the exact numbers but it is consistent with other stuff I heard (notably the Brett Easton Ellis podcast which I recommend). Script writers churn a lot of scripts, many of them get bought but never produced. Or sit as a project for 10 years or more. But I think development doesn't mean they engage massive costs, just that they start trying to get the financing, perhaps with a tentative director and/or actor name attached to the project.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  Yeah, there's a bunch of reasons Hollywood is notoriously known for "Development Hell" as its longest phase in the creative process. Production is generally "quick" and has a lot known knowns. Development is a lot of gossip and paperwork and contracts and writes and rewrites and license agreements and market studies and so forth, sometimes "forever" even for projects "everyone" thinks should be an easy thing to kick off and wants to see on some screen.
qingcharles 2y ago
This is standard. Hollywood is horrible, though. It's not usually the best stuff that bubbles to the top. And even when the good stuff does get visibility, everyone wants a piece of it (especially if they are put up some $$ or other benefit) and meddles incessantly with the production, from the script, to the casting, to the marketing. In the music biz we used to call this "write a word, take a third." I've never asked what the Hollywood equivalent is. Every production gets enshittified. There are mountains of supremely talented people in Hollywood, but an equal amount of totally untalented chucklefucks with money and connections to screw everything up. Maybe the AI will put production back into the hands of the talent. Their scripts will go unmolested by talentless moneyed hacks.

cm2187 2y ago

I don't know the exact numbers but it is consistent with other stuff I heard (notably the Brett Easton Ellis podcast which I recommend). Script writers churn a lot of scripts, many of them get bought but never produced. Or sit as a project for 10 years or more. But I think development doesn't mean they engage massive costs, just that they start trying to get the financing, perhaps with a tentative director and/or actor name attached to the project.

WorldMaker 2y ago
Yeah, there's a bunch of reasons Hollywood is notoriously known for "Development Hell" as its longest phase in the creative process. Production is generally "quick" and has a lot known knowns. Development is a lot of gossip and paperwork and contracts and writes and rewrites and license agreements and market studies and so forth, sometimes "forever" even for projects "everyone" thinks should be an easy thing to kick off and wants to see on some screen.

qingcharles 2y ago

This is standard. Hollywood is horrible, though. It's not usually the best stuff that bubbles to the top. And even when the good stuff does get visibility, everyone wants a piece of it (especially if they are put up some $$ or other benefit) and meddles incessantly with the production, from the script, to the casting, to the marketing. In the music biz we used to call this "write a word, take a third." I've never asked what the Hollywood equivalent is. Every production gets enshittified. There are mountains of supremely talented people in Hollywood, but an equal amount of totally untalented chucklefucks with money and connections to screw everything up. Maybe the AI will put production back into the hands of the talent. Their scripts will go unmolested by talentless moneyed hacks.