Great directors are once again becoming the main draw for audiences because of the high trust they’ve earned from them (Nolan/The Odyssey, Coogler/Sinners). If I were building a new movie studio, I’d act like a label and sign next generation directors with bold visions (Barker, Parsons, Ullom), back their next 5 movies up to a certain budget size (with option to raise additional capital for more ambitious projects), split IP ownership, give them broad creative control, and build a studio brand off our taste in filmmakers we sign and gain audience trust from the freedom we give them. I’d also take a page out of the Sundance Institute and create an in-house fellowship program to develop new voices we find online and connect it to a micro-budget fund that finances a handful of shorts from each filmmaker we’d post on YouTube free for everyone to watch to grow their audience, and treat the revenue loss as R&D for a future pipeline of filmmakers we’d hopefully want to sign. I’d probably have a branded division to rep our filmmakers in the commercial space and offshoot some of the financial risk of the studio by producing those jobs in-house and taking agency/prod co fees off the top. And I’d have half the marketing team be uniquely focused on growing the personal brands of each filmmaker we’d sign because the entire model relies on their ability to become household names. I left traditional Hollywood years ago because I care more about the hours we spend consuming media online every day than the one movie you see a month, but I love movies and if I ever came back it would probably look something like that.

Some stories from the making of this episode... We missed Knicks in 5 because we were en route to Syria This episode cost us almost $100K to produce (far cry above the existing average of ~$20K/ep). It would not have been possible without the generous support of @DorisDukeFdn and @airHQ. We shot it on June 17th, two weeks before President Macron arrived in Syria and three weeks before President Trump announced his intention to rescind Syria's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. We had a permit from the Ministry of Information that allowed us to film in the country, but otherwise had zero interactions with any members of the new Syrian government. Damascenes are some of the most welcoming people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. The shawarma spot we went to was the greatest shawarma I've ever had in my life. Kareem has Subway Takes fans in Syria. The internet is making the world a really really small place. I did in fact buy the cigarette music box from IKareem Rama Duwaji (whose parents are from Damascus) illustrated beautiful Damascene drawings for our intro We actually cleared the rights to Chiquitita by ABBA for this. Credit to my chief of staff Jack for chasing them - I got a worm in Damascus that lasted for a month. 10/10 would eat everything I ate all over again. We were devastated to leave and can't wait to go back.

In June, we traveled to Damascus, Syria and asked a cab driver to take us to his favorite place and keep the meter running. Bashar took us on the greatest two day adventure of our lives. Hour long special out now on YouTube