Several movies coming out of Hollywood are related to the tech industry and its founders. Why the focus?
Our fascination, or frustration, with tech founders and CEOs is once again hitting the big screen. Hollywood is releasing a slew of tech-related films, focused on figures like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes.
For a look at what Hollywood is trying to capitalize on and how these movies are performing at the box office, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Kimberly Adams spoke with Nicole Sperling, a media reporter who covers Hollywood for The New York Times. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kimberly Adams: Why do you think Hollywood is releasing all these tech-related movies right now?
Nicole Sperling: Well, I mean, technology has really taken over our lives, hasn’t it? And with something as pervasive as Facebook and a person as pervasive as Elon Musk, you can see the reason why technology has become such a fertile ground for storytelling.
Adams: Can you talk a bit more about how these movies have been performing so far, and what you’re expecting at the box office in the coming weeks?
Sperling: We had “The Social Reckoning” open wide and not perform very well at all. The critics’ scores on the film weren’t very strong.
The Musk documentary, that’s the four-hour movie that Alex Gibney directed, has started off very strong. And the Elizabeth Holmes documentary — that I think has a tremendous amount of buzz because of the Nathan Fielder involvement.
And then there’s a big question on “Artificial,” which has its own interesting backstory. “Artificial” is a movie about OpenAI and Sam Altman. Amazon greenlit and produced, and then Amazon made a big, huge investment in OpenAI and decided they could no longer release this film. And rather than burying it, which was an option and is something that other studios have done when they don’t want to release something, they sold it.
Adams: As you’ve mentioned, tech firms are not only the subject of some of these movies but also have direct ties to the very platforms and industries that are trying to distribute them. Can filmmakers continue telling critical stories about the tech industry and its founders, given those dynamics?
Sperling: I mean they’re still doing it, right? The Musk documentary is being released domestically by Bleecker Street, but it will, when it hits its next window, be on HBO. And that will be in January. And HBO is owned by Warner Bros., which is now owned by Skydance, and David Ellison, the CEO of Skydance, has a close relationship with Donald Trump, and, therefore, you could see a situation where maybe he would not want a documentary about Elon Musk appearing on HBO. But so far, we’ve seen no hesitation from that end, and it’s going forward.
Adams: What do you think is behind — or the psychology of why people have so much interest in these movies?
Sperling: Well, these founders are now the richest men in the world, and so not only do they control a lot of how our lives are run, but their psychologies and what drives them is also quite compelling. I mean, who doesn’t want to be a billionaire and want to find out how they got there? Or what happens when they become billionaires and how money corrupts?
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