Influencers with Andy Serwer: Jane Rosenthal

In this episode of 'Influencers', Andy is joined by Tribeca Enterprises CEO Jane Rosenthal to discuss our inevitable return to the movies, the role of politics in Hollywood, and whether streaming television will continue its dominance across the industry.

Video transcript

ANDY SERWER: As states begin to lift pandemic-related restrictions and everyday life moves back toward normal again, eager Americans will soon take their seats to enjoy one of our favorite national pastimes-- going to the movies. And Jane Rosenthal knows just what audiences have been yearning for. She's produced smash hits, like "The Bronx Tale" and "Meet the Parents" and is the co-founder of the world famous Tribeca Film Festival. In this episode of "Influencers," I'm joined by Jane Rosenthal, CEO of Tribeca Enterprises, as we discuss our inevitable return to the movies, the role of politics in Hollywood, and whether streaming television will continue its dominance across the industry.

[THEME MUSIC]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Influencers." I'm Andy Serwer. And welcome to our guest, Jane Rosenthal, long time film producer as well as co-founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises, which puts on the annual Tribeca Film Festival. Jane, welcome. Nice to see you.

JANE ROSENTHAL: Nice to see you too, Andy.

ANDY SERWER: So I want to start off by asking you about the movie business and where film production stands right now. When do you fully expect the business to be back 100% online in production?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, clearly, it's working state by state in terms of what the COVID protocols are and how people can isolate and get back to work. But the business, certainly here in New York City is busy. There's a lot of production activity. My partner, Robert De Niro, is doing a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese in Oklahoma. So they've started back up. And I think the movie business is moving forward.

ANDY SERWER: Is that Oklahoma film that book about the Indians and the difficulties they had, where people were stealing their money and murdering them, that story?

JANE ROSENTHAL: That story, "Killers of the Flower Moon."

ANDY SERWER: Incredible book. I can't wait to see that movie. That's such an amazing story. I want to ask you about trends that occurred in the motion picture business during COVID. And a lot of people are saying in all kinds of businesses, things that happened back then, we're going to take some of those things and keep them as we move forward. What are some of those things in the movie business, you think, Jane?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, certainly, you look at windowing and you look at how movies decide to go theatrically versus when they're on streaming. I think that that was a shift that was going to happen, whether that was two years ago and how-- whether it would have taken another couple of years to happen. But it's happened quicker now in the COVID world.

So I think there's how audiences-- what audiences want and when they want has always has been-- has been a change in the business. But I think people are adapting more to seeing things at home on their screens. And it's clearly a blurred line between what is a movie, what is a television movie. The lines are blurred.

And I think that's an exciting change if you're a creator. You can make something. And whether it's an hour or two hours or six hours, there's a home for it on the streaming platforms.

ANDY SERWER: I want to talk about all those opportunities. But first, the other side of that coin-- what are some things that we're just going to go right back to? And is the business going to go right back to where it was before in some ways?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Look, I think we all miss eye contact. We miss human contact. We miss being with each other. There is nothing. We miss laughing with each other, crying with each other.

So I do think that I love going to movie theaters. I love going to plays. And certainly, to be able to be in an audience again is something that we without question all crave. And I think people are eager to do that.

I would like-- I would say so many times that I don't want to go to a certain restaurant if it was noisy. I would love to go to a noisy, crowded restaurant right now. I think that again, it's that human contact that we all miss. It's that sense of gathering and listening to live music together. Just all those things that we've taken for granted in this year of being in isolation, we crave that even more.

ANDY SERWER: That communal experience of being in a theater and having the collective scream when something happens, when the bad guy comes on or something like that can't be replicated at home, I don't think.

JANE ROSENTHAL: No, and that rolling laughter, when somebody starts to laugh and then all of a sudden the next person gets it, and then you suddenly have a knee slapper, a head bobber, an elbow. It's that huge laughter. I don't know, it's not the same with just two people.

ANDY SERWER: Right. You talked about movie theaters closing down and 300 screens that are run by the LA-based Pacific Theatre, it's that famous Cinerama dome. And we're seeing a string of closures now. Why at the end of the pandemic?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, it's just how long can any business hold on? And this has been going on for a year and a half. Businesses just have so much runway in order to survive something like this. I do think that there'll be some interesting new buyers in those businesses. And it will be an interesting time for theaters and the movie-going experience itself.

ANDY SERWER: Just to stick with theaters for one more second, do you think that there will be-- some estimates say 25% less theaters when all is said and done coming out of this.

JANE ROSENTHAL: Look, we've been going-- I don't know the exact percentage. But if I go based on what's going on over a 20-year period with the Film Festival, we've lost venues like the Ziegfeld. The Paris Theater was bought by-- was bought by Netflix.

I look at the number of seats we had below 14th Street. Those numbers have changed. Instead, you have smaller theaters with bigger seats and in food. So where is that big theatrical experience?

So I think those smaller theaters will and have closed. It will be interesting to see how it reinvents itself. I was-- and it's got to reinvent itself again, because there's-- it's very special to be in a dark room with a lot of people and laughing, crying, or screaming, as you seem to like.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, well, listen, I got to tell you, I've been to two theaters in our neighborhood, Jane. I went to go see "Nobody," AMC 84th. And then I saw "The Courier" down at Lincoln Square. And there weren't enough people in the theaters. But I guess they'll be coming back soon.

And the Paris is interesting. I remember seeing "The Marriage Story" there for the Netflix situation. "Godzilla vs. Kong" I guess has done pretty well at the box office. Is that a good omen or is that maybe a harbinger of opening up?

JANE ROSENTHAL: I think it's a good omen. I think that people want to see big eventized movies and something that looks different on a big screen versus on your screen at home. And why not Godzilla? I think any time a film does well, it's just good for-- it's good for all of us in the movie business.

ANDY SERWER: This whole notion of what were traditionally called, I guess, art house pictures, and that's kind of your world, versus those blockbusters-- has that dynamic been changed by COVID at all?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Has the blockbuster movies versus--

ANDY SERWER: In other words, if blockbusters are-- get this much market share versus the art house pictures that get this much market share, has that changed the equation?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, I think the more streamers there are and the smaller, intimate stories that you're telling has certainly-- there's more places for them with the streamers than there has been in the studio system, where you're looking to do big blockbuster movies and tentpole movies that you need to have on July 4th or Christmas or Thanksgiving weekend. But I just think there's more platforms now to be able to tell you stories and be able to make your stories. And that's exciting.

It's also exciting for how much animation there now is out there and telling adult animation stories and not just Disney-esque stories, which are also wonderful, and Pixar movies are-- they're all wonderful. But there's more room for experimentation with creators. And that's-- we always like that.

ANDY SERWER: Right. And Netflix did report a slowdown in subscribers last quarter, they just announced this week. Do you think there's Netflix fatigue? Or are there just more competitors or both?

JANE ROSENTHAL: No, I think there's more-- I think there's certainly more competitors. But that said, everybody has an off quarter. They still did extremely well. So there's certainly-- they're certainly in it for the long haul and make exceptional, exceptional work.

ANDY SERWER: Speaking of Netflix, you worked on this new art heist docuseries, "This is a Robbery." I saw the first episode of that. I look forward to finishing it. It's cool. Did you produce that movie during the pandemic? And if so, what was that like?

JANE ROSENTHAL: No, I produced that over the past couple of years. It just happened that we were in post during the pandemic. So then it just came out two weeks ago. So it was-- we were in post. I didn't have anything really shooting during COVID. Everything was in post.

I had a big couple of years in production with "The Irishman" and "When They See Us" and Quincy Jones doc and "This is a Robbery." So I was lucky to-- if there was a time to have COVID, this was-- not that I wish that on anybody whatsoever or what we've all been through and what our economy has been through and the lives lost. But it was a less busy time for me personally.

ANDY SERWER: So in other words, you really, the past 12 months, you really had a lot of these great projects to work on in post-production?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Correct. Well, particularly "This is a Rob"-- particularly "This is a Robbery" and the--

ANDY SERWER: "This is a Robbery."

JANE ROSENTHAL: Yeah, and another project that we did with DreamWorks called "The Good House." It also allowed us to focus very much on the film festival and the kind of projects that we did to pivot the film festival immediately, which was back at the end of January, March, because our festival was in April. So we were one of the first festivals to do so much of our programming online with industry events and jurors meeting on Zoom together.

From that, we went right into creating another festival with YouTube, which was a global film festival, with 22 different film festivals cooperating with each other to do a 10-day live film festival online. And we had everyone from Cannes in Berlin and Sarajevo and Tokyo Film Festival and Sundance and New York Film Festival. So it was really a fun coming together of all the festivals to do a global festival together.

And then we also immediately pivoted to bring drive-ins to as much of the country as we could, whether it was Orchard Beach right here in New York or the Rose Bowl in California and are working with Walmart and being in 160 locations throughout the country. So we were just constantly trying to bring-- how do we bring entertainment in a new way to the audiences that had to be-- that were more isolated? And we were dealing with a public health issue.

ANDY SERWER: And you're going to have an in-person Tribeca Film Festival in June. Is that right? Is it going to be completely in person, the same as it was before? Or is it going to be a hybrid? How's it going to work, Jane?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, it's an in-person film festival. But nothing is like it was before. So we had to also plan this festival while we're still all very much in a COVID mindset. So what could we-- what could we do to bring people to gather back together?

So we created a metroplex, if you will, of screens that go from-- we're opening in the Heights, within the Heights. And there will be a big screen in the Heights, as well as an indoor screening at the Palace Theater. But if you go down, you go down the West Side, we start with big screens that are from Hudson Yards to the soon redone [INAUDIBLE] to Battery Park and the North Cove to Staten Island and Brookfield's MetroTech. And then we'll have traveling screens throughout the different boroughs.

So we're going everywhere this year, bringing screens to audiences, again, in person. And there'll be screenings with talks afterwards and shorts programs and documentaries, as well as some real special musical events. And then separately from that is a Tribeca at Home, which you'll be able to watch-- watch a different type of program that has been curated by the festival at home.

So two different kind of experience. If you're in New York and planning to be in New York and can follow all this social COVID protocols, then we're the place to be in June in New York. And if you can't make it, then you can join us at home in a special program that gives you a different taste of Tribeca.

ANDY SERWER: That sounds really ambitious, Jane. And this is your 20th year, right?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Yes. I had some practice, see? I had some practice. So that's why we can do all this now.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, I mean, are you going to-- I guess this is a real test to see what works and what doesn't work. And then you can take it from here, going into the post-COVID world. Is that part of the thinking?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, to a certain extent, we actually had drive-ins or sit-ins, if you will, the first film festival, because we were trying to bring as many people downtown as we could. So we-- and the first time we went into cinemas that first-- in 2002, we'd wear hazmat suits. So we're used to trying to figure out different issues and solving for them. But again, we were-- we've done drive-ins before. So this is certainly all over Manhattan. So it changes our footprint, looking to do more of that.

We were also one of the first festivals that were streaming films online very early on. So it's how big is our audience? And now people are more accustomed to watching things online and watching new-- trusting in the name Tribeca and what we can bring to an audience if you want something interesting to check out that might not have been on Netflix.

ANDY SERWER: Right. And so you run Tribeca Enterprises, which operates the film festival and some other ventures. Can you explain how the business works and the various things that you're operating?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, the biggest one that we operate in addition to the film festival is Tribeca Studios, which is our branded content business. And we've done some amazing work for Dick's Sporting Goods over the years that has won Emmys and a lot of work for Procter & Gamble, P&G. Some of it actually will be screened at the festival as part of the Queen Collective program that we work on with Queen Latifa and P&J, which is to give women a shot at both creating new work as well as working with below-the-line talent to help them come up in the business.

And again, that's-- we do work with Chanel. And also that's another program to give women filmmakers more of an opportunity to create their work. But Tribeca Studios is probably the biggest one outside of the film festival.

ANDY SERWER: Right. What about New York Pops Up? You've been involved in that as well, right?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Yes. New York Pops Up was an initiative that the governor had asked me to be involved with. And we started that back in January with New York State Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as the economic-- New York State Economic Development Corp. And what we were trying to do there is to bring smaller pop-ups, again, to the audiences, and also push to-- it was really the governor's push for New York Arts Revival and how we can help open up additional, additional spaces, so whether that was to work with a number of the flex venues, like The Armory, St. Ann's, The Shed, to help them open up and just following certain protocols, or help Broadway start to open up and looking at different protocols that you have to go through to gather what you have to do for your audience, what you have to do for your artists.

But the heart and soul of it is really the pop-ups and having these. Part of what we missed during COVID are those spontaneous moments that just happen when you walk down the street. So what happens when you're walking down the street and there is Jean-Baptiste playing and singing? And we tried to-- we've been doing that. And it culminates with the Tribeca Film Festival and also the opening of Little Island.

ANDY SERWER: You mentioned the Queen's Collective and Through the Lens. And I wanted to ask you about diversity and the lack of diversity in the movie industry. What have you learned about trying to address those problems and deficiencies, Jane?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, I've been trying to address those problems and deficiencies since I started in the industry, as a woman being-- so many times being the only one in the room for a very, a very long time. Clearly, we're committed to-- we're committed to championing female's voice-- female voices, as well as other diverse voices in all of our programming, as well as reaching gender parity. The idea that we can bring fresh voices and have diverse perspectives is what we need to, as an industry, keep pushing for. I do think when you start to talk about the abundance of competition and platforms out there, that's good for-- that becomes fantastic for the industry as we strive to be more inclusive and have more inclusive voices out there.

ANDY SERWER: I'm wondering about this polarized political environment that we find ourselves in today. Does that make it more difficult for filmmakers to reach a mass audience, do you think?

JANE ROSENTHAL: I think that if you tell a good story, if you tell a good story and it relates to what's human in all of us, that's going to hit a chord-- that's going to hit a chord with people. And that's the good news. I also think that there are times that when you watch a movie, if it's not from your point of view, you're hearing a different point of view, you're going to listen to that point of view as told through a character and seen in a dramatic conflict or a dramatic situation, where if you were sitting in school, you might not listen to that story quite the same way, or if you were listening to a politician you might not listen to it quite the same way. So I think it gives us-- I think seeing diverse perspectives in storytelling and films allows an audience to learn and engage in ways that you wouldn't normally.

ANDY SERWER: A similar kind of question, Jane-- Will Smith recently pulled production of his upcoming movie out of Georgia. As restrictive voting laws move through state legislatures around the country, do you expect more movies to look for states where they aren't being taken up? In other words, will there be more movie-friendly states and un-movie-friendly states?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, as soon as that happened, New Jersey immediately put out-- Phil Murphy immediately put out a statement welcoming everyone there in terms of what their tax credits are. The movie business brings an enormous amount of revenue into any state, which is why-- which is why states cultivate-- cultivate the business. We're in kind of an in-- a crazy period. But it is also-- it's also to have everyone paying attention to what is going on, restrictive voting, for people now to pay attention and to understand that politics, that voting is important in terms of the elected officials, that it's not just-- that it is all going to impact your life.

When you look at what has happened to us in a COVID world, it is because the government did not-- was not following. We had cut funds. There were all kinds of funds cut. They were not paying attention to where a virus, an international virus was going to-- was going to hit us. And this was going to not just affect everybody's health and emotional well-being, but was going to affect our economy in a way.

And if we have one lesson from all of this, from what's happened in our government, what's happened with COVID, it's that we'd better be paying attention. We need to pay attention to who we're electing, who's speaking for us, because it's not just going to affect-- it's not going to affect just your taxes or a stop sign on your street corner. It can-- it's also going to-- it's your health. It's your children.

I mean, you should ask somebody else about this. I'm not a pol-- I'm not a politician. You just get-- you just look at this and say that we have to do something. So if people in the movie industry can make statements about it, then absolutely, because people tend to listen and follow.

ANDY SERWER: I want to ask you about your background a little bit, Jane. Your father was a businessman. Your mother did some community theater, my understanding is. You grew up in Rhode Island. What inspired you to pursue a career in the arts?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Oh, I wanted to sing, but I really couldn't sing. And I also didn't like-- if you were an actor, people said no a lot. So I thought I could produce.

But actually, I started to-- I wanted to produce stories that would have a-- that did have a social-political bent to them and ended up doing television movies 100 years ago back in the heyday of television movies, when the networks were making a lot of those. I worked for CBS for a long time. And it was ways of telling stories, again, that could hopefully push people to look at something that you wouldn't normally look at.

I did one of the first films about teen suicide a very long time ago, also did-- worked on the movie "The Burning Bed," which was at the time, that's a movie about domestic violence. But what was interesting about that movie for me at the time who is 22 years old, working for CBS, was the fact that it was a justifiable homicide. So I've always looked for movies or stories that have a social-political bent, that said, also can hopefully make you laugh, as we did with all of our "Meet the Parent" movies. It's about the Judeo-- the Judeo-Christian socioethic.

ANDY SERWER: What kind of singer did you want to be?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Oh, I think I--

ANDY SERWER: Was it Broadway or rock 'n roll or--

JANE ROSENTHAL: No, I-- well, I did think I wanted to be able to sing on Broadway. I wouldn't think that today. I would think I would have wanted to be more like rock 'n roll, but not going to happen.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, well you ended up doing all right, I think. Let me ask you about people in your shoes today, or young people starting out who want to get into the business. I mean, it seems like it's a pretty different world, on the one hand-- maybe you hate to say this to young people-- easier, because there's such a demand for content. What do you think about people who want to go into the movie business or film business today?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Well, first of all, it is-- your access is so much easier because you can take your phone and you can write on it. You can finance it. You can cast it. And you can distribute it all right here. And that certainly wasn't the case when I was going to film school.

But I do think that just because you think you can take a good picture on Instagram or make a good video that's going to get thousands of likes on Vimeo or on YouTube or Yahoo, it doesn't mean that you're really good at your craft. You have to learn to keep writing. You have to learn what makes a good story. You have to learn editing, that there is a craft to it. It's not just that because my picture's in focus I can do it.

Clearly we discovered this from starting out the beginning of this interview, when I couldn't figure out how to light myself. And clearly I don't have-- I didn't have a production designer help me here. But I digress. You do have to learn. You do have to learn your craft.

ANDY SERWER: Well, I think you-- the shot looks great, as we discussed, Jane, so no worries there. Final question, and it's about your partner and you and the collaboration with Robert De Niro. You worked with him for decades. What is that partnership like? What has he taught you? And what do you think you've taught him?

JANE ROSENTHAL: Um, hmm, um, well, he's-- one of the things that's so extraordinary about Bob is that he takes input from anybody. He listens to, he really listens to input, and then-- and then makes it his own. And he's very, very special in that way and just the way he does listen. And I mean that in a creative collaboration. I mean that when you're working on-- whether it's-- whether you're working on a movie or a film festival, he's very-- he's always open to trying new things.

And I suppose that's also-- so that's certainly what he's taught me over the years. I also learned that I can swear with the best of them now. So I have learned that too. Anyway, I can yell loud now too. And I have a very soft voice.

And what do I think he's learned from me? I don't know what I think he's learned from me. I think that we've certainly done so many different things. And he's always-- I think I've maybe taught him to be game about certain new things, certainly with technology.

And Tribeca this year has gaming as part of our competition for the first time or certainly when I'm showing him what a VR headset was and going into a VR headset. So those weren't things that he has traditionally done. So I think he's more open to technology than he was. But I don't know, there's probably some better answer that I'm not thinking of right now.

ANDY SERWER: Well, the proof is in the work that you guys have done together. And you've certainly done a lot of great work. And even more to the point of this interview, you've done a lot of work. That's been fantastic, Jane Rosenthal.

So thank you for that. And thank you for your time. Jane Rosenthal, co-founder and CEO of the Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Enterprises, thank you.

JANE ROSENTHAL: Thank you. I'll see you in the neighborhood.

ANDY SERWER: That's right. You've been watching "Influencers." I'm Andy Serwer. We'll see you next time.