With Brutal 2023 in the Books, Will Hollywood Find Its Swagger?

If you’re in the entertainment industry, it’s starting to feel like the end of something. 

The end, perhaps, of a predictable business where one cycle might be better than another, but that eventually swings back around to profits and prosperity in a reasonably balanced ecosystem. 

Yeah, not so much anymore. 

For the veterans who were here during the flush decades of the 1980s and 1990s and even into the early 21^st century, that feeling of a descending arc is unavoidable. The swashbuckling producers of the Jon Peters and Peter Guber variety are lore in the mists of time. The rags to riches tales — like David Geffen forging a letter to get a job at the William Morris agency and blazing a trail to billionairedom — seem ancient.