Studio Interference

This is a pretty simple idea. You play a fat-cat studio exec of some unnamed bloated AAA Film Corporation. You have different scripts ideas come across desk. You start with a choice of which one will get the green light. You also set their allowed production budget, how much, if anything, you’ll spend on marketing, and whether or not it will be a world-wide, a domestic-only, or a straight-to-streaming release.

Once you make these decisions, the projects are started and you hire a producer and a director from a roster of available folks, each of which has a short bio and CV for you to consider. These folks then decide whether to proceed with the script as is or whether rewrites are necessary.

As the project moves forward through casting to scouting for shooting locations to principal filming, you will get various opportunities to stick your nose in and insist on various changes, if you wish. Also, you will be receiving various memos and emails urging you to consider things like appealing to multiple demographics, product placement, merchandising opportunities, and many other capitalistic interests.

The film will progress in relation to your meddling and the game ends with a review of the resulting film by Clark Merkode on DDC Radio 9 Live’s Merkode and Mustard's Film Review. The final screen is an image of your film’s Rotten Tomato scores.

To use a Simpson's allegory, this would feel like getting to play Mr. Burns while the parser works as your assistant, Smithers, offering up some truly diabolical suggestions.

This idea is mostly for folks to enjoy wreaking havoc on a film production and watching the resulting fallout. It would also work to highlight some unscrupulous studio practices and wouldn’t cast their motivations or their methods in a good light.