Ron Howard
Appearances
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And we're working with Kiki Palmer and we have partnerships with Glenn Powell who's going to do something with us. So we like to do things with... I think we're good at spotting talent and we like doing it.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
That's another thing. We're also trying to encourage a lot of creatives who are kind of hyphenates. They're entrepreneurial. Yeah, yeah. Like Glenn. Like Sidney Sweeney brought us a project after we worked together. And we're using what we know and the resources at our disposal to kind of help them begin to grow their businesses. And it's fun.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Why don't you try that one, Ron? Well, look, anybody that comes in and fuels the market is a plus for a company like ours. And we've worked with all the big streaming companies. We have good relationships with them across the board. It also creates, you know, hunger...
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
elsewhere, some of these companies that are experiencing a kind of an existential crisis, it's kind of like, it's not our problem unless we can help you. And of course, holistically, we want as many companies winning as possible, but it's even, you know, interesting to see companies like Tubi take off. So it really is dynamic.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
The important thing is, and YouTube, and as Brian was mentioning, wherever a story can meet the audience, that intrigues us. And whatever the format we've found, it can be exciting to us. So it's about aligning the appropriate story with the right home, the right partnership creatively, and from a business standpoint as well.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And I think, again, that's where our flexibility really is exciting for us and important.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Well, we want to just grow Imagine. And so we're having a great time. Sure, we'd like Imagine to become something that continued to be stable and stood for something.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Because young people want to be Imagine. They like the idea of it, the idea of two artists. I mean, I started as a writer. I'm not... Great writer. You are Splash. I think that's a pretty good credit. Thanks. I had other helpers, too, along the way. We got nominated for it, but a lot of it was due to two writers named Lowell and Bob Lou.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
In any event, Enron is a director in Hyphenate, and so I think they like that artists... Well, we understand the language. We understand their, you know, their fears. We all have the same kind of fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams. Look, the content business has always been a dream business. You have to dream in order to do something great.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
You have to dream in order to get through all of the no's, even if you're at the highest level. Steven Spielberg after Jaws had E.T. put into turnaround.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I don't know. I've had some pretty big, without naming titles, because there's been more than one, disparities between, you know, sort of audience response and critical response. And that's always frustrating.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Revive or reboot? Yeah. Well, I like the idea of doing Sports Night again today. I'd really like that. We're doing The Burbs right now, which was a movie that I produced during a writer's strike, starred Tom Hanks, and now stars Kiki Palmer as a TV series.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
No, no, no, no. But there is look, there's conflict in that. And in conflict, there's drama and entertainment value. And so certainly we're all we are always talking about shows that, you know, I sometimes talk to them as about as purple relationships, you know. So I think it's a time where storytellers can utilize this.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And I think in shining a light on it, of course, that's healing and revelatory because at the end of the day, we're all more alike than we are different.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Just say what that means. What does that mean? Do you know what that means?
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
For me, I try to find, I try to have a story that I think will be relatable to the audience that I'm trying to go after, that we're going after. But I look at stories as there's the external part of a story and then there's the internal part. The internal part is, again, the heartbeat or the soul of what that is. So you try to find a theme that is unifying.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
So if you do a movie or television show that ultimately is about family, parenting was about family, but then goofy, arrested development was about family. Because it's about keeping family together. That will unify. That...
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
If that's part of your question. For me, when I'm directing, you always hope you've discovered that. But then, to me, I always say I choose the idea with my own heart and mind and belief. And very quickly, it ceases to be mine, and it starts to be the audience's. And it begins in pre-production. I'll start asking people. I'll pitch the idea. I'll talk about it. I'll include the crew.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I'm always looking for those connections, those heartbeats. And then, of course, the most edifying is when you eventually have your test screenings, which are always pretty shocking and pretty frustrating in some ways, but it's the only way to understand the way the story is communicating and the way it's landing. And then you...
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
to the extent that you can continue to tailor, refine, and focus, you're always searching for that relationship, that connection.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Pleasure. Thank you. Fun. Great. Thank you so much.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I think it's, look, we access on similar taste. in terms of what he thinks is quality, I would think is quality. It doesn't mean we agree on every story or every theme exactly. We often do, and those are our most successful films. But it's basically just trust in each other's creative judgment, work ethic, and... And so I think that's part of it. We have a very polite relationship after 40 years.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I had to, after the first four years and finishing Splash, I had to say to Ron's wife, Cheryl, I don't think the guy even likes me. And she said, no, no, he really does. And I said, why, what evidence is there? And she said, well, no, he really, really does. I said, well, I've tried to hug him, and we didn't quite hug.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And she said, no, but he really likes you, and so we do hug about once every four or five years. But we're a 40-year period. But it's polite.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
We actually don't yell at each other. But we do tell each other the truth. And that's the thing. I mean, we get at it in a way. And by the way, we really know how to read the nuances of each other's sort of statements and even body language. But the point is, we do different things But in the big picture, we're very much aligned. We want to tell great stories.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
We want to find the audience wherever they are and carry stories to them. Brian's famous for his curiosity. That fuels things. That's exciting to be around. And at the end of the day, the fact that our compatibility has sustained itself, but some of it is that the surprises of the business keep presenting new wrinkles. There's new challenges. There's new stuff to figure out.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
In a lot of ways, you know, I still feel like we're kind of in a startup mentality in a lot of ways.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Remember many years ago, right after we were going, we were at the Allen & Company, and there was a panel, and it was all about whatever the latest disruption was. It was, you know, cable should, you know, into DVD, or whatever it was. Some new hardware. New hardware, and there was a lot of controversy about it, and projections as to what it would mean.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And we literally looked at each other, and I just said, aren't you just glad we're software companies?
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Yeah, it's true. We're content providers. And we make movies and or television or documentaries. We do it in all sizes, shapes, and form. Some of them, I know you're going to get to it, I think, at some point. But we do short form. We do YouTube. We do TikTok. We do big scale movies that are, you know, very big scale movies. Yeah. But we do all of that, and television as well.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
When people didn't want to, movie people didn't want to do TV.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
It was extremely unpopular. It was thought of, first it was the pioneer way of experiencing, it pioneered a way of experiencing stories that people hadn't been doing really, which was television in the 50s and 60s. And then it became all about movies when movies could become sort of the signature of something meaningful. And once we succeeded at movies, I really wanted to go back to television.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And the disruptions that you're talking about are often, you know, they're about distribution. Or if it's tech... Most of those are very advantageous for us because we're storytellers, and we're collaborating with storytellers, and all the technical innovations have either impacted distribution, where are people seeing it, how are they seeing it, and that certainly influences
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Us, because we have to decide what, you know, kind of how to tell a story and how do we expect it to be seen and so forth. But the other thing is, as you know, as my friend George Lucas said, it's just trying to get more of the director's mind's eye onto the screen more effectively at, you know, in a responsible, cost responsible way.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
As a filmmaker. Yes. Of course, I want the maximum number of people to see it, you know, as it was designed and executed to be seen. But all my life, more people have seen my movies on TV than on the big screen, between VHS and DVD and syndication and networking. So I've always been aware of that reality. And I also remember that when I was a film student,
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I was cutting my teeth on movies that were classics, and I was seeing them on my little small dorm room black and white TV at 3 o'clock in the morning, because of course you couldn't just download Grapes of Wrath or Citizen Kane. And I was having an experience. It wasn't the ideal experience. So I'm pretty philosophical about it. To this date, I'd say I'm agnostic.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
For me, I'm just practical. I don't care how people see it. I can't regulate how people see things. I don't try to regulate anyone's behavior. And there are times that we have the contractual right, after making a film, to have it in theaters as opposed to streaming.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And there are many times, even though we have the contractual right and muscularity to have it in a big screen, I'll look at it and I'll think it might be, this movie I'm thinking about right now, I thought it was a really good movie, but I did think it should be better experienced streaming. Do you want to tell us what that was? 13 Lives. It was a really good thriller and a true story.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And Ron directed this particular movie. And it was a great movie and got lots of prestigious awards. But I just felt like, I don't know if they'll pay for that movie. It doesn't top line big stars. It doesn't make a star bigger than life. And you have to do a lot of things
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
qualify, in my opinion, for a bigger-than-life experience where people are going to leave their house to go see it, and some events play as a viewing spot.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And that turned out to be the highest testing movie we've ever had, by the way, when we had our test audiences. But I still understand what Brian was talking about. We were coming out of COVID. Mm-hmm. Not a lot of movies people weren't going out to see.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Yes, yes. Things don't work without momentum. That makes sense. And creativity... stagnates if it doesn't have momentum.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I'll say what we're doing and what we would do with it, but we use it in all different forms. We do it, obviously, for post-production and production efficiencies. I personally use it to collaborate if I have an idea or an area, as Ron pointed out. I meet a new person every week that's expert in some other field. So I get excited about things.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I got excited about the military and about drone technology and defense tech. But I'll throw out an idea and then you can just build it and then give it to professional writers to write. I might be able to produce an outline of what I would like to see or what I'd like to see in the frame. But ultimately, someone has to have the artistic finesse to write it.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
to actually ignite real emotion in human beings.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Well, look, I think it's going to affect every business. in the way that you're talking about, every single business. So it's not exclusive to the creative parts.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Hard to tell what the shift is going to be at this point. I mean, right now, you know, it's primarily a research tool. And, you know, it's almost like a backboard. It works very dynamically and quickly. I think you sometimes ask it to do tasks that you wouldn't even bother to. It's not like you're replacing a room full of writers. Yeah.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
because everyone is so fluent in this vocabulary of AI at this point, as are we, it can't, nobody can point to where AI could produce soul or life essence or, and the best entertainment, storytelling, movies and television, usually become memorable because you feel the soul or energy of something that is another dimension. And the great ones like Oppenheimer was certainly one of them.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Some of ours have worked that way where you feel the soul of that.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Why are you trying to get me out of the house?
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Oh, I would say, well, first of all, this is one of our best years. We're now currently in production on five movies. So we just all collectively, with Justin and his team, and Ron and I, with us collectively all working together as a unit, we have the energy to do that. And so that produces real money.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
But the, so you know, we have branded, projects that we do now. And you know what? We're not doing commercials, but we're dealing with brand narratives and themes within and historical moments that they've dealt with. And it's exciting. We find the stories within those collaborations. And and have a lot of fun doing it and a lot of excitement. So it's just broadened what we're capable of doing.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And along with that, it's broadened our potential for collaboration with business partners, but also, of course, with the creative community. So it's Brian and me. We're still loving it. We're still doing it. But it's also, you know, so many more voices that we're able to work with. Some of them are non-English speakers.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
I'm more of a prospector. I'm finding the place to be where we should drill. Ron is an excellent driller.
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
And he can drill all the way through the center of the earth and bring dimension to it, which it already has, but he's able to animate those dimensions and become great films, the ones that you would know about, whether it's Backdraft about firemen or Ransom that even surprised me because it was...
The Journal.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on Longevity in Hollywood
Dangerous and, you know, and then as recent as the one... He's now just worked with... We both like working with younger talent, different talent. We still love working with... I love working with Eddie Murphy and Tom Hanks and Denzel. But we also... You just finished working with Sidney Sweeney and... Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Jude Law and Eden. It's coming out in August.