Judd Apatow spoke with Vulture in a recent interview about the current state of television, including why the trend of rewatching old series and licensing deals between streamers is “scary.”
“I’m of two minds,” Apatow said. “There’s a part of me that’s an audience member: I’ll go back and rewatch Deadwood or NYPD Blue or any of the David Milch shows. I understand why people love the comfort food that TV offers. But it’s scary to be a TV innovator, because all the streamers are saying: “Wait a minute. We don’t need to spend $200 million on a new show. We can just bring back Barnaby Jones.” “They’ll do that, and then you’ll get fewer new offers.”
“They realize,” the “This Is 40” writer and director continued. Hey, Netflix can only buy shows from HBOAnd I suppose it’s cheaper than making new ones. Then at some point, Netflix will sell its shows to HBO, and they’ll pass on all the episodes of Ballers for the rest of our lives.
Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery has licensed a collection of HBO original series to Netflix, including Insecure, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers. Netflix subsequently signed a deal with WBD to license all six seasons of “Sex and the City.”
Apatow also shared his thoughts on the future of the industry, saying, “There are giant companies and people from the tech world that are leading the charge.”
“And for some of them – but not all – their intentions are just to have a good time online,” he continued. “I don’t know if they were as obsessed with making high-quality films as other owners of these entities were in the past. That’s why they started calling it ‘content.’ Suddenly, they reduced it as much as possible. I don’t think it would be strange if you read something in The newspaper reported that Pornhub has purchased Paramount+.
But Apatow later stressed the importance of taking big risks in Hollywood, noting how Universal, specifically film chief Donna Langley, jumped at the chance to make Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer film.
“Like, who would think anyone would care about Oppenheimer like that? “The Oppenheimer movie is going to make close to a billion dollars,” Apatow said. “Does anyone talk about the inventor of the atomic bomb in their lifetime? We don’t,” Apatow said. But people have to take big risks, and then you realize, No, people want to be challenged. They want smart movies. They want authentic cinematic experiences“.