I'm laughing. I've been laughing since January 2025, and January 2026 gave me no reason to stop. February won't either. Next week will bring more nonsense, and I'll be laughing at that too, because the independent entertainment industry keeps asking to be treated like a serious asset class while refusing to behave like one. This is not a think piece about market conditions. This is me, standing outside the room where you're about to pitch, telling you that the people on the other side of the...

I had over 7,000 pitches come to me in 2025, and every single one landed on the same assumption that a festival premiere would convert into a major acquisition. After enough repetitions, follow-up questions stopped adding value, since the plan rarely extended beyond finishing the film, submitting to Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, or Tribeca, and waiting for a buyer to appear. Sundance 2026 is now in its final days, with the Park City run concluded, and the full lineup totaled 97 projects, made up of...

There is a moment happening right now where the film industry is congratulating itself for solving a problem it created, using a solution that changes almost nothing. The announcement that Netflix is offering crew bonuses tied to viewership, supported publicly by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, is being framed as progress. The coverage treats it as a moral correction, a sign that the system is finally taking care of people who were previously ignored.  Many commentators are calling it fair.  Some...