【经济学人】好莱坞的人才争夺战

Hollywood’s talent war

好莱坞的人才争夺战

【导读】好莱坞的劳资纠纷有着某种戏剧性的色彩。今年7月，斯嘉丽·约翰逊起诉迪斯尼公司，称其在《黑寡妇》中的角色报酬过低，因为这位女演员 "漠视新冠疫情对全球所造成的可怕而持久的影响 "，该公司发起了一场堪称奥斯卡的大辩论。

Start with the pandemic. As cinemas closed, studios scrambled 爬上；争取；(互相)争夺；攀缘 to find screens for their movies. Some, like mgm’s latest James Bond flick, were delayed by more than a year. Others were sent to streaming platforms—sometimes without the agreement of actors or directors. Those whose pay was linked to box-office revenues were compensated, either behind the scenes (as WarnerMedia did in the case of “Dune”) or after very public spats 小冲突 (as with Disney and Ms Johansson).

从疫情爆发开始。随着电影院的关闭，电影公司争相为它们的电影寻找播放平台。一些电影，如米高梅公司最新的詹姆斯·邦德电影，被推迟了一年多的时间。其他电影被安排在流媒体平台播放——有时甚至没有得到演员或导演的同意。那些薪酬与票房收入挂钩的演员得到了补偿，也是因为要么是私下解决（如华纳传媒在《沙丘》中的做法），要么是公开对决（如迪士尼和约翰逊女士）。

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Even before covid, streaming was changing the balance of power between studios and creatives. First, there is more work to be done. “There's an overwhelming demand and need for talent, driven by the streaming platforms and the amount of money that they're spending,” says Patrick Whitesell, boss of Endeavour, whose wme talent agency counted Charlie Chaplin among its clients. Three years ago there were six main bidders for new movie projects, as Netflix vied with five major Hollywood studios. Now, with the arrival of Amazon, Apple and others, there are nearer a dozen. Streamers pay 10-50% more than the rest, estimates another agent.

甚至在疫情爆发之前，流媒体就一直在改变工作室和创作者之间的权力平衡。首先，有更多的工作要做。Endeavour公司的老板帕特里克·怀特塞尔称："在流媒体平台和他们所花费的资金的推动下，对人才有一种压倒性的需求和需要，"其WME人才机构的客户中包括查理·卓别林。三年前，由于Netflix与五大好莱坞电影公司争夺新电影项目，有六个主要竞标者。现在，随着亚马逊、苹果和其他公司的加入，有近十家。另一位经纪人估计，流媒体公司支付的费用比其他公司高出 10-50%。

More controversial is the streamers’ payment model, which is creating new winners and losers. Creative stars used to get an upfront fee and a “back-end” deal that promised a share of the project’s future earnings. For streamers, a show’s value is harder to calculate, lying in its ability to recruit and retain subscribers rather than draw拉（动）；牵引 punters下赌注的人

to the box office. Studios also want the freedom to send their content straight to streaming without wrangling with a star like Ms Johansson, whose pay is linked to box-office takings. The upshot is that studios are following Netflix’s lead in “buying out”出钱使某人出让地位[产权等]；买下…的全部产权

talent with big upfront fees, followed by minimal if any bonuses if a project does well.

更具争议性的是流媒体的支付模式，它正在创造新的赢家和输家。大腕们曾经得到一笔预付费用和尾款，承诺分享项目的未来收益。对于流媒体来说，一个节目的价值更难计算，在于其招募和保留用户的能力，而不是吸引观众到票房。电影公司也希望能自由地将他们的内容直接发送到流媒体上，而不必与像约翰逊女士这样的明星纠缠不清，因为她的薪酬与票房收入挂钩。结果是，电影公司正在效仿Netflix的做法，用大笔的预付费用“买断”人才，因此就算项目做得好的话，奖金也会很少。

That suits most creatives just fine. “Buy-outs have been very good for talent,” says Mr Whitesell. “You’re negotiating what success would be…for that piece of content, and then you’re getting it guaranteed to you.” Plus, instead of waiting up to ten years for your money, “you're getting it the day the show drops”. For the top actors and writers, however, the new system is proving costly. Create a hit show that ran for six or seven seasons and you might earn $100m on the back end; make a phenomenon like “Seinfeld” and you could clear $1bn.

这很适合大多数新兴人才。"买断对人才非常有利，"怀特塞尔先生说。"你正在商讨......那块内容的成功，你也能保证它的收益。" 此外，你不用再等上十年才能拿到钱，"你在节目播出的当天就能拿到钱"。然而，对于顶级演员和编剧来说，新的体系被证明是代价高昂的。创造一个持续六或七季的热门节目，你可能会赚到 1 亿美元；创造一个像 "宋飞传"那种现象级，你可以赚到10亿美元。

A few star showrunners such as Shonda Rhimes, a producer of repeat tv hits currently at Netflix, can still swing nine-figure deals. But creators of successful shows are more likely to end up with bonuses of a couple of million dollars a year. Some creative types grouse that the newcomers simply don’t understand showbusiness. The Silicon Valley streamers are more comfortable with spreadsheets than stardust. But their unwillingness to venerate a-listers also has an economic rationale. A blockbuster, which today might cost $200m to shoot plus the same in marketing, has one fleeting chance to break even at the box office. The gamble is less risky if a star guarantees an audience.

一些明星节目主持人，如目前在Netflix的重复电视制作人Shonda Rhimes，仍然可以获得九位数的合同。但成功节目的创作者更有可能最终获得每年几百万美元的奖金。一些内容人才抱怨说，新入局者根本不了解演艺事业。硅谷的流氓们对电子表格比对明星光环更感兴趣。但他们不愿意推崇明星，也有其经济原因。今天，一部大片的拍摄成本可能达到2亿美元，再加上同样的营销成本，只有一个转瞬即逝的机会来实现票房平衡。如果一个明星能保证有观众，这种赌博的风险就小了。

What’s more, streaming’s approach to generating hits is different. Whereas winning at the box office required betting big on a few mammoth projects, Netflix’s method is “more like a random walk where ‘hits’ are first discovered by their users, then amplified by…algorithms,” notes MoffettNathanson, a firm of analysts. Netflix served up 824 new episodes in the third quarter of this year, more than four times as many as Amazon Prime or Disney+. Its biggest success, “Squid Game”, has a cast that is largely unknown outside South Korea. “Competition is not limited to who has the best content; it is also framed around who has the best tech” for discovering it, says MoffettNathanson. In the new Hollywood, stars are neither made nor born: they are algorithmically generated.

更重要的是，流媒体产生成功的方法是不同的。分析师公司MoffettNathanson指出："尽管在票房上获胜需要在几个巨大的项目上下大赌注，而Netflix的方法 "更像是随机投放，'热门'首先由他们的用户发现，然后由......算法放大"。今年第三季度，Netflix 提供了824部新剧集，是亚马逊Prime或迪士尼+的四倍多。它最大的成功是 "鱿鱼游戏"，其演员阵容在韩国以外的地方基本不为人知。MoffettNathanson 说："竞争不仅限于谁拥有最好的内容；它还围绕着谁拥有最好的技术 "来发现它。在新的好莱坞，明星既不是天生的也不是后天的：他们是通过算法产生的。