Justin Theroux on AI, Scriptwriting, and the Hollywood State of Play | Pivot

Justin Theroux is an actor and a writer, and his latest role is in a little film called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Uh, Justin is also a Pivot fan. That's how we met him. Welcome to Pivot, finally.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me on this show. I am a huge Pivot fan.

We're thrilled to have you here, and, uh, we're thrilled to have you with such success. Scott, go for it.

If you were talking to a group of analysts or investors about what's going on in Hollywood, how would you describe the industry right now? Like, what do you see coming? What are your, what are your thoughts on scripted television, the streaming wars? What do you, what do you s- w- Give us the state of play from Justin Theroux.

Without disclosing anything to anyone ab-, uh, you know, I, I've gone out with a couple projects this year that I think, uh, over the last 10 years would have been, um, easy buys, you know, like, like this is a, a thoughtful, interesting script that's engaging, um, that has o- uh, many elements that we haven't seen on television. And, you know, a couple of those have not been accepted, and it was the first time where I thought, "Oh, wow, there really isn't an appetite for, um, wonderful, uh, at the moment." That's not to say that it's ... I don't know whose fault that is. Could be my scripts. Could be that, that these are just not good scripts and my, my-

Mm-hmm.

... radar has gone completely whack.

No, I've heard that from a lot of people.

You know-

I've heard that from a lot of people.

Yeah, and I-

It's like, it, it's not discriminating. It's that they don't know what's about to happen, and so they don't wanna take that risk.

Yeah, I think, I think there's a moment-

Especially at this point in time.

... of fear, you know. It's, it's like, you know, if you're a ... And I'm not a stock market guy, but if you were a stock market guy, um, like you guys sort of follow, um, you, you're kinda just going, "Yeah, okay, look. Let's just ... We're gonna put our chips on Coca-Cola. We're gonna spread our chips, uh, you know, across, you know, whatever it is, IBM and Apple and ..." And, you know, they're, they're like, "We're not gonna, you know, we're not interested in a cool little startup that might win a couple Golden Globes anymore," you know? Um, uh, "We're gonna just play it safe." I'm, I'm hearing a lot of ... Uh, and on the writing front, uh, on those sort of meetings that I've taken, they're like, "Do you have anything ..." And then they basically, without describing a medical procedural drama set in a hospital in Chicago, they basically describe that, and you're going, "Well, you're just talking about, um, you know, ER, Grey's Anatomy, or something." And you're thinking, "What? Wait, what? W- we're making ... We wanna make those?" Like ... Um, but I think ... You know, I'm an optimist, so I think those, th- this will bounce back. I think, um, I think, you know, the good news is, is we still have enormous, uh, an enormous amount of outlets, an enormous amount of channels. And frankly, I think it, you know, it, it gives YouTube an opportunity to play, uh, you know, uh, in a bigger ... You know, they still have a big pot of money, I think, that they could play with and do some interesting things, or ... Uh, you know, I'm, still don't quite understand how TikTok is gonna make some money, but, uh, you know, they're certainly positioned to.