Hoping for Hollywood to learn the right lessons from summer success

Plus: Hip-hop verses, Meryl Streep, and the World Cup

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when a movie's real-life story took an upsetting turn. It was the week when Netflix's DVD business decided to go out with a bang. And it was the week when a film adaptation soared. Let's get to it. Opening Argument What everybody can agree on is that Barbie has made an earth-shaking amount of money. And when anything makes an earth-shaking amount of money, Hollywood tries to figure out how to find the next thing that's going to make that kind of money -- especially now, in this weird, unsettling, transformative period in making movies and television. We know that there are already plans to make a lot more movies about Mattel toys and games -- Uno, Polly Pocket, Magic 8-Ball. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. It's hard to imagine what on earth an Uno movie would look like (the other ones are easier), but here we are. And it's too easy to declare that movies based on games or toys can't be good, even beyond Barbie. On top of the success of Barbie, The Lego Movie got good reviews, as did this year's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. But is "audiences love movies about toys" the right lesson? Because Barbie has a lot of qualities other than being a toy movie. It's a movie from Greta Gerwig, it's a movie starring Margot Robbie, it's a movie with a lot of women in it, it's a movie that taps into nostalgia, it's a movie without sex or violence, it's a movie that was marketed out the wazoo, it's a movie that is aesthetically bright and cheerful. You could list 50 possible things Hollywood could decide they should make more of if they want to continue with the success of Barbie. The same kind of question arises about the recent Suits discourse. As you may know, Suits is a light comedy-drama that ran on USA from 2011 to 2019, about a law firm (where one paralegal is played by Meghan Markle). It was well-liked enough to last for 134 episodes, and now it's available on Peacock and Netflix (Peacock has all of it; Netflix has all but the last season). As Alan Sepinwall wrote in Rolling Stone, Suits belonged to what's often called the "Blue Skies" era of USA, where they were making a lot of light, easily digestible, but also creatively solid drama series like Monk or Burn Notice. (I think of Burn Notice as the show that most exemplifies the era.) This summer, it seems that Suits has gotten extremely popular. Now, streaming services provide very little transparency around numbers, so you have to be cautious. But Netflix has been showing it high on its streaming charts for some time, so even if these numbers are imprecise, there seems to be something happening, enough that you have to suspect Hollywood is going to be trying to figure out how to make money from whatever that something is. That's true even though it's not entirely clear how to draw a line between viewing and money on a channel like Netflix, at least when people are watching without ads. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images There's an ongoing conversation among critics and creatives about what this means. Does it mean people still miss the longer seasons that traditional TV used to offer? (Most of the Suits seasons had 16 episodes, in between the eight-to-ten that you often get now and the 22 that used to be the broadcast standard.) Does it mean people are interested in the lighter tone of Suits, as opposed to what became a fondness on the prestige end for supergritty anti-hero shows? Does it mean people are still curious about in Meghan Markle? Of course, at least some of the lessons of Suits and Barbie are directly related to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. Suits writers have pointed out recently just how little money they make from their show's resurgence on Netflix. It's true that streaming can give a show new life, but who benefits? NPR's Eric Deggans pointed out this week that the strike itself may be behind the Suits-aissance, as it's pushing people more toward streaming (and perhaps to library titles rather than new stuff). With Barbie, you can see the critical contributions of a lot of people in crafts like production design and music supervision, all of whom are part of other unions with their own contracts to figure out. And given how much this strike has focused attention on fortunes created by writers and actors, the success of Gerwig and Robbie's collaboration is a welcome reminder that it takes hard work and vision by human beings to make work that's really worth seeing. Moreover, Suits in particular drives home that on a streaming service, there are opportunities to manipulate what succeeds much more directly than would have been possible with traditional marketing. Netflix can put Suits at the top of your home screen if it chooses to; it can use whatever promotional photo works best based on who they think you are; it can recommend it to you every time you turn around. If streaming services were paying residuals in a way more similar to what broadcast does, could they also decide to bury something they don't want to pay people for? It certainly seems like they could, absent some reason not to. It calls to mind some of the "creative accounting" discussions that have also flared around these strikes; there are lots of ways to end up not paying people. What is taken away from a success is just as important as the success itself. There are past examples of hit properties like Get Out and Gone Girl where attempts to duplicate the performance of the original have mostly led to so-so results. We won't know for a while which lessons Hollywood learns from 2023's success stories; on top of the strikes, it takes a while for imitation as the highest form of flattery to work its way through the system of development and production. Perhaps we're all in for a summer blockbuster where the Hungry Hungry Hippos (who have been circled for a possible movie project for some time!) start a law firm. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend I spent an evening with the Netflix romcom Happiness for Beginners this week. The film stars Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes as two members of a group going on a sort of adult camping excursion (like, camping for adults, not adult camping). Do they fall in love? Yyyyyyyes! It's based on a book by Katherine Center, whose stuff I really like, and if you're a person who likes a weekend watch that goes down easy, I recommend it. I've been catching up with Only Murders in the Building, which is about a third of the way into its third season. They're making great use of both Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep (as well as the core cast), and if you're a person who likes musical theater, you're going to get a lot out of this season. Frequent and marvelous PCHH panelist Ronald Young, Jr. has a new podcast out called Weight For It, and there are few people I would trust more to do this work well. Listen to the Podcast Sponsor-Free Support your favorite pop culture junkies AND listen without sponsor interruptions with a subscription to Pop Culture Happy Hour+! Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org/happy. Learn More What We Did This Week Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Firefly Music Festival Aisha hosted a tremendous episode hearing from a variety of voices including Sidney Madden, Felix Contreras, Brittany Luse, and Gene Demby about "the hip-hop verse that changed my life." We revisited the discussion Glen had with Cyrena Touros and J.C. Howard about Harley Quinn. Stephen talked to Daisy Rosario and Jasmine Garsd (the host of NPR's The Last Cup podcast) about the World Cup. And Glen and I talked with Margaret H. Willison about The Afterparty. Over at NPR Music, Stephen wrote about the Tiny Desk appearance of Post Malone. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: Margaret Willison: The Right Sort Of Man and other books in the Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery series by Allison Montclair Glen Weldon: The Paul F. Tompkins episode of the Good One podcast Linda Holmes: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WBEZ (edit station). Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? 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