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Andy Burnham - Our First Indie-Kid PM?
Where this was said
The Pattern of Self-Censorship Across Hollywood
At 14:34 · chapter starts 14:00
Richard Osman makes a careful distinction: Amazon releasing Artificial to another distributor is not the same as burying it entirely, and at least some countercultural money or distribution route might still exist. But Marina Hyde is less sanguine. She notes that the problem is now industry-wide — A24 and Netflix have also reportedly passed, and people she knows personally with projects about tech billionaires on the books at major studios are being quietly told, 'have you got something different?' Projects that were promised green lights after Trump's 2024 election have not materialised. The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's sequel to The Social Network, is coming in October, and Sorkin has noted he's only heard from Meta's lawyers asking him to 'just be careful.' But Peter Thiel — extremely litigious, with companies knit into the apparatus of multiple democratic states — has nothing even in development about him [1] — Richard Osman "Beyond Amazon's original drop, A24 and Netflix have also reportedly passed on distributing Artificial. A movie with an impeccable creative …" 15:00 . Marina Hyde's conclusion is stark: the worst aspect of this moment is that the censorship is happening openly, not in the background. Studios are not shamefully hiding their capitulation — they are brazenly announcing it.
Richard Osman makes a measured counterpoint: Amazon releasing the film to another distributor is actually less sinister than if they'd simply buried it and withheld rights. The problem is the pattern — the fact that the industry now structurally avoids these projects before they even begin.
Beyond Amazon's original drop, A24 and Netflix have also reportedly passed on distributing Artificial. A movie with an impeccable creative team — Guadagnino directing, Andrew Garfield starring — is becoming an industry-wide pariah, which is arguably more chilling than any single studio decision.
Beyond Amazon dropping the film, A24 and Netflix have also reportedly passed on distributing Artificial, suggesting industry-wide reluctance to take on the project.
The creative industries are caving to tech giants not out of political cowardice but because cloud infrastructure deals make dissent financially suicidal. Studios can't exist without the tech firms — and that dependency is now bending editorial decisions in cinema, news, and late-night television simultaneously.
