Five Reasons to Be Optimistic About the Entertainment Business

Late last year, Bryan Lourd, the chief executive officer of Hollywood’s largest talent agency, was surveying the damage. The entertainment industry, his home of roughly four decades, seemed to be shrinking. The movie business was struggling to recover from the pandemic and multiple labor stoppages. Cable TV was speedily collapsing. Execs at Disney, Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. had sought out mergers, cut staff and funneled billions of dollars into new streaming services—Max this, Plus that—that were losing money. Wall Street, which had encouraged the spending, was losing hope; Lourd, who represents movie stars such as Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson, was dismayed.

When times are lean, Hollywood tends to keep faith that it’s one hit away from a turnaround. But many executives and filmmakers have begun to wonder if their industry is entering permanent decline. Barry Loudis ended a 20-year run at companies such as CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. to start a company in Atlanta selling awnings. Former Nickelodeon executive Jessica Brown Sassalos shifted to real estate. Kristen Huntley, who worked on Walt Disney Co.’s streaming services, went to Slack Technologies Inc. Phil Stark, who wrote the 2000 comedy Dude, Where’s My Car?, is now a psychologist treating the industry’s newly disillusioned workers.