The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood

On this week’s episode, I’m pleased to be joined by W. David Marx, author of the new book Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century. Alongside Marx’s Status and Culture, this book is one of the key texts to understanding how and why the culture has shifted so radically so quickly: the combination of “poptimism” (we discuss what, precisely, this is early on) and cultural omnivorism (the merging of all genres and all forms into a sort of equally viable mass entertainment) and the internet’s flattening of culture have led to a stagnant culture and a revanchist counter-counterculture eager to exact revenge and facing no real opposition in that effort. If you enjoyed our conversation, or simply want to understand how we wound up in the world we wake up to every morning, I strongly recommend picking up Marx’s book. And if anything was unclear from our chat, drop me a line in the comments and hopefully I can help clear things up!

On Monday, Sam Stein DMed me and asked if we could put together a little livestream event celebrating the work of Rob Reiner; he described it as sitting shiva, and I was happy to take the lead on putting this group of mourners together. I was joined by my colleague Bill Kristol, The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield (whose great column on Reiner you can read here), and Semafor’s Dave Weigel (whose book on prog rock is a must-read for fans of the genre). 

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Vulture’s Nicholas Quah to discuss his and Savannah Salazar’s piece on what Netflix might do with Warner Bros.'s tie-ins with Universal Studios and Six Flags, and then expanded the conversation to consider the vast universe of WB’s entanglements. The studio also owns an enormous video game company, the second-biggest comic book company in DC Comics, and all sorts of other stuff. What is Netflix going to do with all these disparate pieces? Who knows! But we do some rank speculation.

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Scott Mendelson of The Outside Scoop, whom I’ve tasked with answering a very simple question: Is there a good business case to be made for rebooting the Rush Hour franchise or is it merely a (very odd) sop to Donald Trump and his wife’s chronicler, Brett Ratner? (:47). Then we discussed Zootopia’s crazy popularity in China. (14:16) We taped this episode before news broke that Netflix had completed its purchase of the studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros., but we were prescient enough to discuss what might happen if Netflix picked up a controlling stake in WB. Spoiler: Nothing good for competition in Hollywood! (33:15)

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by David Coggeshall (previously on to discuss Orphan: First Kill and the first Family Plan) to discuss his sequel to the surprise 2023 hit for AppleTV+. We talked shooting in London and Paris, the inspirations this holiday-season film, and what might come next for this series (and his career!). If you enjoyed this episode—or need a “drunk uncle movie” to watch with the family, as David described his film—make sure you check out The Family Plan 2, streaming on AppleTV now. And please share this with a friend!