Yes is the most powerful word in Hollywood.
No matter how hard a writer labors over a script or how big a star signs on for a movie, you still need the approval of higher-ups — the greenlight — to enter production.
With studios making more expensive movies and their corporate parents demanding quarterly profits, every decision is fraught. Long gone are the days when a hotshot director could waltz into an executive’s office, pitch a movie, and walk out with $100 million.
Well, unless you’re Christopher Nolan.
So who decides what does and does not get made? With all the recent changes in studio executive suites, TheWrap revisited this question by querying a wide range of knowledgeable insiders across Hollywood.