By now you've probably heard about the cyberattack that struck Sony Pictures, which saw a handful of movies leaked online and has kicked off a massive investigation. Some of the speculation has turned to North Korea as the culprits because of their anger over Seth Rogen and James Franco's comedy, The Interview, which is about an attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Probably not a coincidence that Rogen and Franco's salaries were revealed as part of the hack, along with thousands of celebrity social security numbers. But that's not the only thing the attack revealed, as it also clued us in to how Sony employees really feel about all of those Adam Sandler movies the studio keeps financing. The short answer: they suck.
Digging into the mass of leaked files, Gawker discovered a batch of employee comments on Sony's general direction, and what they discovered is that a lot of people within the studio want that direction to be in the opposite direction of anything Adam Sandler....
Be more focussed and ruthless in directing our resources to businesses that will sustain the long term health of SPE - networks, broadcast TV shows, new movie franchises, digital distibution By the same token, stop or reduce support for areas that have no more value (Sandler movies, DVD)
There is a general "blah-ness" to the films we produce. Althought we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile, Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films. Let's raise the bar a little on the films we produce, and inspire employees that they are working on the next Social Network. That said, there's a strange dichotomy of encouraging us to be fiscally responsible, but then upper management allows certain talent and filmmakers to bleed us dry with their outlandish requests for private jets, wardrobe and grooming stylists - and are surprised when they are asked to work more than 5 hours to promote their film.
In TV and Theatrical, I hope management looks closely at the money spent on development and term deals to ensure efficiency. There are a lot of term deal personnel as well as creative personnel, yet we only release a dozen or so Columbia Pictures a year, for example. And will we still be paying for Adam Sandler? Why?
It is commendable that SPE understands/supports the importance of risk-taking, particularly in how the we pick films to greenlight. However, the studio needs to change deal structure that has been in place with Happy Madison, as this arrangement has disproportionately benefitted Adam Sandler and his team, relative to SPE.
[T]he studio needs to change deal structure that has been in place with Happy Madison, as this arrangement has disproportionately benefitted Adam Sandler and his team, relative to SPE.
That's just a small sampling, but it's good to know that the grunt workers within Sony are just like us. They don't want to see Blended any more than we do. Not all of the comments are about Sandler, though. Some mention the studio's massive budgets and lack of franchises, lamenting that a movie like Men in Black 3 can make a boat load of money yet still be a loser.
Are you aware that Men In Black 3 may gross $600M at the box office, and yet will lose money for SPE? Shouldn't we question that strategy? Why are some studios making Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - and we are considering movies like Moneyball, Steve Jobs story, Captain Phillips Story, Evel Knievel story, etc. Are you aware that SPE only has 1 franchise - Spiderman. Yet, it took 5 years to generate a sequel? Spidey 3 was released in summer 2007, #4 in 2012. Don't harry potters come out over 2-3 years? Are you aware that SPE has only 1 franchise - Spidey? Yet we waited 5 years after Spidey 3 (2007) to release #4? Have you read the SEC annual report? Disney will make $300M on Spidey merchandise this year alone. We won't!
It's interesting stuff, not that Sony seems to care. They'll be releasing Sandler's next film, Pixels, on July 24th 2015.
