The Business

In 1994 Kevin Smith wrote, produced, and directed his first feature “Clerks.” The movie became a cult classic, and Smith introduced the audience to Jay and Silent Bob, the fictional friends portrayed by Jason Mewes and Smith, respectively. Despite the film’s success, the filmmaker reveals he didn’t necessarily have a plan moving forward. “There's never been a career path,” he says. “There's never been, ‘One day I'll get to the Oscar.’ No, not at all.” Almost three decades later, Smith discusses his latest movie “Clerks III,” his work in animation, and changes in the movie industry. First, Kim Masters and Matt Balloni detail yet another setback for Warner Bros. Discovery on its quest to find a head to run DC Films. And, more about Disney+ perks.

Documentarian Alex Pritz didn’t have a background in film. He studied environmental science in college and was certain he wanted to be a scientist to “work on these big problems plaguing our planet,” he says. But at the end of his time at university, he realized that film was a better way to engage with big issues. “I have always been interested in participatory video working with communities that are experiencing conflicts and challenges to help them use film as a method of advocacy and also self expression,” he remarks. With that approach in mind, he went to the western part of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to direct “The Territory.” The filmmaker discusses how he was introduced to the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, a small indigenous community that is fighting to protect their land, the challenges and accessibility issues he faced to make the documentary. But first Kim Masters and Matt Belloni look into the competition between Amazon and HBO for more viewers. Which series will win: ‘The Rings of Power’ or ‘House of the Dragon?’

This week, The Business revisits a conversation with Danny Strong, writer, producer, and creator of “Dopesick,” which has 14 Emmy nominations for the portrayal of the evils of Purdue Pharma. Before co-creating the hit show “Empire,” Strong won accolades for writing two HBO movies based on real events: “Recount” and “Game Change,” as well as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” So when he decided to make a series about the opioid epidemic based on Beth Macy’s book “Dopesick,” he thought he’d be met with open arms. “I was going around to these pitches like, ‘I’m coming back to my nonfiction roots, like ‘Recount’ and ‘Game Change,’ and I’ve got a bestselling book,” he recalls. But the reaction he got was, “No one cares. ‘Oh, ‘Recount?’ Cute. That was 14 years ago’... if no one cares who you are, or what you've done… or if they don't want the project, they're not going to engage. It's not it's not an easy business. It's a tough racket.” Hollywood can be cold, but “Dopesick” eventually found a home on Hulu. Strong tells Kim Masters about falling down the Sackler family rabbit hole while researching Purdue Pharma and its deadly drug, OxyContin, and the many challenges he faced to get the show made. First, KCRW has fresh banter with guest-hosts Matt Belloni and Lucas Shaw about how two major theater chain operators AMC and Regal have recently made desperate financial moves to stay afloat.

Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson are co-creators and co-executive producers of the series “Yellowjackets” on Showtime. The married team say they bonded over a revision class and have been collaborating ever since, but they write the series from the retreat of their own spaces. “We definitely cannot be in the same room when we're working,” Lyle quips. Writing this complex show is a joint effort where they pick a different starting point, and repeatedly review each other’s work. But their thinking is not always fully aligned, so Nickerson explains that with the back and forth process, “we kind of find a shared point of view.” With Yellowjackets’ seven Emmys nominators, the duo is now working on season two of the hit series. They join The Business to discuss the show’s conceptualization, their hit-and-miss pitches, and how Showtime proved to be the right home for their vision.  First, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni, founding partner of Puck News, delve into the latest decisions Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Zaslav has made, and how the industry is responding. 

Filmmaker Peter Jackson was 3 years old when The Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9,1964. His family didn’t own a television and he didn’t see the original airing because he believes New Zealand didn’t broadcast the TV show. “Even though I was born in 1961, I kind of don't really have a story or any memory of The Beatles in the ‘60s, which is crazy because I lived all the way through that period,” Jackson remarks. His parents were not “rock and rollers,” he says, but he recalls hearing the band “endlessly through ‘65, ‘66, ‘67 because the radio was playing nothing else.” Sixty years later, he produced and directed the Disney+ docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back,” about the making of the 1970 documentary “Let It Be.” Jackson’s series has been nominated for several Emmys, and the award-winning director discusses what led him to tackle this documentary project, and how his labor of love morphed from being a feature film to a series. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni, founding partner of Puck News, discuss the Disney+ positive quarterly results, and what the decision to raise subscription prices mean for consumers, and the future of its streaming services. 

Actor, comedian, musician, and producer Steve Martin had been invited to one of talent manager’s Sandy Gallin’s showbiz parties in New York. There, he recalls seeing a lot of actors, including three older ones, when Gallin suggested he should write something for them. “I thought, ‘That's a good idea: three older guys who live in a building and solve murders because they don't have anything else to do,’” Martin recalls. His premise was: “They're too tired to go downtown to investigate things, so they limit it to only murderers in the building, so they could just stay home to solve the crime.” From that idea, Martin was introduced to John Hoffman and the two created “Only Murders in the Building,” the biggest comedy hit on Hulu. Now, the duo share how they met, and what it took for them to get Martin’s idea from paper onto the screen. But first, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav cancels “Batgirl.” Kim Masters and Matt Balloni discuss what this means for the DC brand and the studio. 

Filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic’s debut feature “Murina” won best first film at Cannes last year. Though it may seem like a story of instant success, the Croatian director says she spent years educating and establishing herself. When something happens “out of the blue and overnight, it's actually ten years of work behind it,” she explains. Kusijanovic had worked at different film companies and affirms those connections helped her finance the 2017 short film “Into the Blue.” The path to fund “Murina,'' she says, seemed easier, as she presented RT Features with only a letter of intent.  “Everybody already knew me, how I am in business, so I was already familiar to all of these people that were involved in the project,” she says. Now, Kusijanovic discusses her love for theater and the path that took her to co-writing and directing the coming-of-age drama “Murina.” But first, movie theaters will start to feel the summer cool-off, with moviegoers banking on streaming services’ shows, including the first $1-billion series. Plus, former Disney executive John Lasseter returns. Kim Masters discusses with guest-host Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg.

B.J. Novak knows a thing or two about comedic writing. He spent a lot of time in the writers’ room and starred as Ryan Howard on NBC’s hit series “The Office.” Now, he’s taking his writing skills to the big screen, debuting as a director in the comedy-thriller, “Vengeance.” “When you realize someone has a little regret in their eyes… you could be very careful with an actor and see how you could capture that in a shot,” he says. For him, it’s all the same, but “being able to learn how to write directorially is a very special and exciting opportunity.” On this episode of The Business, Novak discusses “The Office” origins, his standup comedy career and first acting job on MTV, and how he teamed up with Blumhouse producer Jason Blum to write and direct “Vengeance.” But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni banter about Netflix’s Q2 numbers. Netflix was projected to lose 2 million subscribers, but only lost nearly 1 million, which its CEO believes it’s “less bad” than feared. Is the streaming service really over the hump?

After almost an eight-year hiatus, actor Jenny Slate and director Dean Fleischer-Camp are bringing their lovable Marcel the Shell back to life. This time audiences will see the seashell with two pink shoes and one plastic eye, who babbles insightful and funny life-observations, in the stop-motion, feature-length mockumentary, “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.” The online shorts were a smash-hit at the time, so for Fleischer-Camp it was important for the film to maintain Marcel’s original online integrity. That is why, he explains, “it took a while for us to find the right partners to do that, in a way that was really holistic to what we had made and what and how we like to work.” And because Fleischer-Camp invented much of the filmmaking process, Slate remarks that they wanted to take that to the film production, “so we took the risk to try to create that [environment] for ourselves.” The duo now share the story behind how “Marcel the Shell” was created, and their trajectory of taking this tiny character from being a YouTube sensation to the big screen. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni banter about the Emmys group-like nominations this year. And while Hulu got 58 nods, its future as a streaming platform remains uncertain. 

Filmmaker Sara Dosa’s childhood fascination and fear of volcanoes shaped her career. While finishing her last film “The Seer and the Unseen” about an Icelandic woman fighting to save a lava field from becoming a road, she came across archival footage from Katia and Maurice Krafft, the renowned French volcanologists. “They had shot hundreds of hours of footage, and Iceland was one of their absolute favorite places, so they did have extraordinary images of volcanoes,” she says. The scientist couple were killed in a pyroclastic blast at Mount Unzen in Japan in 1991. And though the documentarian doesn’t remember their tragic deaths, she and her team became transfixed by the duo. “Once we learned more about them as people, both as these unique, idiosyncratic, hilarious, and philosophical individuals [who had] this extraordinary life where they chased erupting volcanoes all around the world, we thought, this is a world we want to dwell in.” Dosa pieces together their imagery to make “Fire of Love.” It is an homage to the French couple, their love for each other, and devotion and fearlessness to studying volcanoes – a job that ultimately led to their deaths. The film also explores the Kraffts’ travels, writings, and lectures on the beauty and dangers of molten lava and blasts of hot gasses, and their ability to document and share their findings with a wide audience. But first, Hollywood media and tech moguls reconvene in Sun Valley Idaho this week, where large deals used to be brokered, but are now less likely.