Sabo Strikes Again and H'wood Changing Production

One of Sabo's works

Sabo, a Hollywood street artist, hijacked three billboards in Tinseltown the day prior to the Oscars and turned them into attack advertisements against the film industry for its abuses and mis-informed protests.

The Sabo inspired billboards boasted the messages:  "And the Oscar for the Biggest Pedophile Goes To" , "We All Knew and Still No Arrests", and "Name Names on Stage or Shut-the-hell-up."

The billboards, prior to Sabo's work, had paid advertisements and measured 48ft. across x 14ft. high. Sabo has attacked H'wood before with billboard take-overs but he considers this latest venture his largest artistic endeavor yet.

Over 100 men in the entertainment industry have now been publicly accused of sexual abuse and misconduct since charges were made against Harvey Weinstein 5 months age.

Sabo says, "my sign art is meant to point the finger at those that enabled sexual harassment with their silence, and to send a message to celebrities to refrain from preaching during their Oscar acceptance speeches."

Hollywood Changing It M.O.

In his new book, 'The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies' Ben Fritz, describes how Hollywood moved from the rise of the superhero film to the complete disappearance of the mid-budget adult drama.  From the hacking of Sony's corporate records to the development of on-line streaming, Fritz lays out where he believes the boxoffice is headed.

According to Fritz, and I agree, Hollywood is obsessed with funding the next global brand films - but the new franchises are no longer talent-based but concept-based.

It was not too long ago that Sony, Warners, and Universal all kept vacation villas in places like: Acapulco, Aspen, and Tuscany that stars had free access to.  But following numerous star-centric films that have been boxoffice flops over the last 5 years all of the major studios have now moved to the concept franchise over star power.  The current H'wood mantra is 'we can't make money by pushing stars and we need to stop relying on them to carry a film to big-grosses'. What has occurred is that the stars are all trying to abandon the studios (that no longer want or need them) in favor of inking deals with Netflix (which is in the throngs of developing a library of their own productions).



  Stay in touch,

Jim