>"If this has all drifted into bummertown, it’s because many of Hollywood’s problems can be traced back to a single economic theory of everything: the rent is too damn high. From there, everything else starts to unravel."
It's really understated just how much this is behind absolutely everything today. The only reason it became normal for SV software companies to pay 100k+ salaries to interns in the 2010s is because half of that had to be handed over to a landlord every month just to have people physically able to show up to your office. This is why Europe and Asia have completely dominated production of all the great AAA games over the last decade; when creative people can afford to live somewhere, all of the sudden you have the resources to truly focus on a product.
It's really understated just how much this is behind absolutely everything today. The only reason it became normal for SV software companies to pay 100k+ salaries to interns in the 2010s is because half of that had to be handed over to a landlord every month just to have people physically able to show up to your office. This is why Europe and Asia have completely dominated production of all the great AAA games over the last decade; when creative people can afford to live somewhere, all of the sudden you have the resources to truly focus on a product.