Coping With Failure in Hollywood (And Life)

Richard Rushfield talked to some Hollywood execs about what it’s like in the office after a movie bombs. Awkward, is the gist of it. (“I remember one time we came back the Monday after a big flop and nobody talked about it. There was no analysis of what we can do better, what we could do different. We had our Monday meeting, and, the crazy thing in the room was, no one spoke about it.”)

The alternative to not talking about it is finding a fall guy:

“For any movie to do well or not, a whole bunch of variables have to work: you have to luck out with your release date — you don’t want to come out right after Harry Potter. Are you marketing to right audience, spending enough? Spending in the right places? There are so many different elements, but that’s at odds with everybody’s desire to have a quick pithy reason why something didn’t work. It’s in everyone’s interest for the finger to be pointed at one culprit.”

How do you deal with failure in your workplace? I tend to think everything is my fault, so that’s how I deal with it: I make it all about ME.

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