Hollywood’s Creative Destruction

Economist Joseph Schumpeter called capitalism “a perennial gale of creative destruction.” Basically, the old gets obliterated to make room for the new. Horse-drawn carriages? Meet Model T. Film stock? Say hi to digital sensors. Blockbuster? Netflix would like a word.

For those of us scribbling screenplays and making stuff, this isn’t economic theory. It’s Tuesday. Back in my network TV days, we’d get orders for 22 episodes and crank them out in 8 months. Our scribble rooms abuzz with 10+ people, everyone learning from each other, building relationships that lasted years. The ad-model-machine was massive and predictable – until it wasn’t.

Swipe forward to streaming. Eight episodes spanning over 22 months. Smaller rooms, longer gaps between seasons, totally different rhythms, and paychecks. Completely different deal. Those residual checks that once covered a mortgage now barely cover a single nice dinner.

Now we’ve got AI taking bites out of everything from concept art to dialogue passes. Runway auto-cutting sequences, Midjourney sketching boards overnight, NanoBanana instant-keying green screens. Tools that required entire departments a few years ago. Vertical micro-dramas and interactive narratives are carving out new niches and revenue streams.

The creators jumping on these trends aren’t waiting around for permission slips from the legacy gatekeepers; they understand Creative Destruction favors early adopters.

So, track the frontier. Spend as much time studying new platforms and tools as you do perfecting your craft.

Diversify your streams. Don’t bet everything on one platform, format, or employer.

Cameras and codecs change. So don’t just learn how to manipulate the latest tools and tech. Invest in your ability to tell compelling stories.

Schumpeter’s point was that capitalism is never static. Every creative career has a limited lifespan. The next decade will belong to those of us who can treat this disruption not just like a catastrophic gale to avoid, but an opportunity to fly our kites.