Conference Presentation, Fireside Chat
Tom Hanks and Brian Grazer: A Conversation With Two Hollywood Icons
- Brian Grazer anticipates expanding production to include five movies and 20 hours of event programming, maintaining a selective focus on projects where he can daily case build and maintain belief.
- He plans to advance the Empire series by championing its concept combining King Lear and hip-hop with Danny Strong and Lee Daniels, predicting it will become a radio-like phenomenon after securing Fox's enthusiastic backing despite initial rejections from four other networks.
- Future script development involves exploring a schizophrenia story through an alternate reality format to distinguish it from Dominic and Eugene, alongside a non-fiction project merging source materials from The Pacific to contrast opposing Marine philosophies.
- Upcoming film projects include Angels and Demons, expected five to seven years after The Da Vinci Code, requiring a full recreation of the Vatican due to access constraints and posing questions on whether life was created by physics or God, followed by Inferno scheduled for last summer or spring to address the origin of hell and a virus scenario targeting one-third of the global population to solve overpopulation.
- The Apollo 13 narrative relies on the historical reality of a mid-course correction burn to save the crew, while 8 Mile is expected to succeed by framing controversial themes correctly through its protagonist, despite concerns about potentially empowering harmful messages regarding misogyny and homophobia.
- Content strategy involves conforming productions to specific platform economics for services like Netflix and Hulu, with the expectation that Charlie Wilson's War would have achieved greater success as a streaming release, though with uncertainty regarding its ability to capture zeitgeist when distributed across multiple channels.
- Industry outlook remains optimistic regarding human potential due to available talent, though this is balanced by the acknowledgment of fundamental uncertainty regarding the future.