In this solo episode of the Entertainment Business Podcast, host Tisha Morris opens with heartfelt condolences for the recent wildfires that devastated many Los Angeles‑area creatives. She then outlines her 2025 industry outlook, emphasizing four major trends. First, production is increasingly decentralizing from Hollywood to tax‑friendly hubs such as Atlanta, New Mexico, and international locations, a shift accelerated by the displacement caused by the fires. Second, the top tier of the market is consolidating: major studios and streaming platforms are merging or forming joint ventures, likely leaving a handful of dominant players (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Paramount/Warner‑Bros). Third, indie filmmakers will benefit from a dual‑track environment—AI tools that lower production costs and new distribution pathways (YouTube, emerging TV apps) that let creators self‑publish, mirroring the self‑publishing models of books and music. Fourth, storytelling will split between AI‑driven, technically polished content and deeply human‑centric narratives that emerge from post‑trauma reflection. Morris flags pending legal battles over AI fair‑use, citing Justine Bateman’s public stance, and predicts courts will shape the next wave of AI adoption. She also highlights the growing importance of subsidiary and transmedia rights—gaming adaptations, live‑experience events, amusement‑park tie‑ins, podcast‑to‑screen conversions, and merchandising—as lucrative extensions for creators and attorneys alike. Throughout, she offers practical advice: build a personal brand, become your own marketer, and leverage social media. The episode closes with a promise of upcoming interview episodes and a call to listeners to support the podcast and her services.
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Welcome to season 2 of the Entertainment Business Podcast. I'm your host, Tisha Morris. Join me as we go into the business of entertainment, publishing, music, and all things creative. We'll get inspirational interviews, informative trends, and practical tips. And with that, let's get on with the show. Hello and welcome to The Entertainment Business Podcast. This is Tisha Morris, your host, and welcome to Season 2. It's unfortunate that we are starting out the year in the entertainment industry on such a tragic note. I have been planning this episode since December to start Season 2 out with my projections for 2025. Clearly it has changed somewhat, actually my, my The title of my podcast was going to be Is Hollywood Dead? I was going to say it's not, it's just not in Hollywood. And I didn't realize, realize how on point that would be. The extent of damage is just incomprehensible. And my deepest, deepest condolences go out to all of you who have lost your home. All of us have been touched in some way, whether you're directly our friends, colleagues, people, you know, all across the country and the global implications that this, these fires will have on the industry and people and their personal lives going forward. It's really impossible now to talk about the entertainment industry without, without these fires coloring it in a really big way. So I want to start out by talking about what I think the impact will be. And it's, it's, it's not— it's just, it's a little more sudden than what I thought was going to happen. I was like I said, I was gonna say Hollywood isn't dead, it's just not in Hollywood anymore. And what I was meaning by that is that I, I see and saw and now see for sure a real decentralization of filmmaking. And we've already been seeing this with, you know, Atlanta really popping other East Coast locations, in New Mexico, not to mention international locations where tax credits are being offered. This is nothing new, but I think we're going to see more and more of what I'm going to say, decentralization of location. And the idea of decentralization is, is kind of a theme in all sectors. And so this is where I I see continuing really strongly in the entertainment industry. Now, LA will be— continue to be a hub, and perhaps it will dip for a while, and then I think it for sure will have a resurgence in a few years. But it will be a primary— it will maintain a primary hub, but definitely a major hub. And, you know, what I see is the— one of the bigger issues going forward with, with the entertainment industry in LA is that, you know, so many industry people were directly affected with their homes. The, you know, the Palisades is filled with not only just celebrities and actors, but the executive producers, the directors, the producers, the real— the money behind the filmmaking, ones who get the films started on the— on a level of EP. And, you know, they're gonna be out of commission. For quite some time. And then you have the crew and the other producers and also actors in Altadena area. And of course, not to mention Malibu, Topanga, all these areas are just rich with such creatives. And it's gonna take a while. I have no doubt that they'll be back and be even better storytellers than ever before. But it's gonna take a while for us to get our people back. And I have no doubt that a lot of people are gonna be moving as well. From these areas for good, which will just kind of ignite more of what I see as this decentralization. Now, I had begun to see some uptick in production, and I think there were some starting to see some positivity going into 2025, as short as those 2 weeks were in the industry, as far as coming out of the strikes and coming out of the, you know, the, the, the downturn in the industry altogether. I still see an uptick in production, just maybe not the same way that we were going to see it. And this brings me to my kind of second projection, and that is consolidation at the top and decentralization at the bottom. And what I mean by that is consolidation at the top with the, with the big, the big studios and streamers. We're already seeing the, the kind of joint ventures or mergers or however, whatever, however the deals were made. For example, with the Disney-Fubo deal merger, we're going to see more of these, these big, the biggies at the top consolidate and merge and bundle and all of that to where I think we're going to end up back with kind of probably the big 3 or 4 like we did with the old school networks, you know, with obviously Netflix always at the top, you know, Amazon, Apple. We'll see what Paramount does. You know, Peacock is kind of sitting out there. Warner, I think you're going to see some of these consolidate under the, the next administration. It's estimated that they will be more merger friendly. You know, one, one big question mark that I feel like every year we talk about is the future of Apple as far as it's— as far as creating its own original content. There's been some, some predictions that they're gonna, you know, stop making films altogether. Some think they should. I kind of think they're going to dig their heels in it a little bit more, honestly. I think they, they as a company love making art in all kinds of ways, where it's the art design of a phone, or that's a studio for their fitness, fitness app. But they love making beautiful things that show show on their devices. I think it keeps their devices fresh by having this fresh content on it, even if it's not getting a lot of mainstream eyeballs on it. I think they could possibly buy a catalog, some catalogs, and expand their, their library of offerings. Meanwhile, as you have the consolidation at the top, you're going to see more decentralization at the bottom. And what I mean by the bottom, I mean indie filmmakers. Okay. I think we're going to see more and more options for indie filmmakers to, to share their work with the world. Now, YouTube is really making strides in trying to help indie filmmakers with that, with better, better algorithms, better channels for their— for filmmakers to host their content on. I think you're probably going to— we're going to probably see a competing company or two with this, perhaps with a very app-friendly option on our TVs to where we can access more indie programming. And so while I see a lot of, you know, a lot of the big corporate studios doing their big corporate things, I also at this— at the— on the other end of the spectrum, see a lot of opportunity for independent filmmakers. And, you know, part of that is because of AI. AI dramatically helps the small filmmaker do the things it needs to do for editing and so forth. So I think AI benefits both, both types of filmmaking. I think you'll see more episodics being produced by indies and better options for viewing those. So if you're an independent filmmaker, hang in there. And, you know, it's time to start making your own stuff. And now with technology, you can do that. And now with the distribution models that are available, you can be the filmmaker and get your work out into the world. Very similar to what the book— the book publishing industry and music industry has done with self-publishing books, and also with, with music, of indie music, of uploading your music to iTunes and Spotify. You know, you can start a channel today and upload your music, and really all it comes down to from there is marketing and, and going and everyone being their own marketer. So an indie filmmaker's brand is going to become more and more important. Um, of course that involves social media, um, getting your fan base excited, creating a fan base, and, uh, and being your own promoter. Even with, even with the labels, even with the big book publishers, you still have to be your, your own marketer now. So this is gonna be a non-negotiable anymore to, to get your work out into the world, regardless of if you're signed by a company or if you are on your own. All right. Now the third kind of projection I see is, is kind of a split with AI versus human-centric storytelling. And this isn't anything new either. I think we're just going to see more of it. More. I mean, the AI is just going to get more and more and more robust. And then there's on the other end of the spectrum, you're going to see very, very human-driven stories. I think in a few years after, after the, um, after all the trauma from the fires and people find homes again, there's going to be a lot of creative resurgence coming out of, out of this tragedy. So I, you know, this is 2027 and beyond, we're going to get some really deep stories. And I don't mean just stories that pertain to the fires directly, but when you go through something like this, you come out the other side, uh, a different person, and person who values, uh, life in a different way and has a deeper look into, into life. So we're going to get some pretty amazing work in a few years. Um, until then, you know, we're going to see this bifurcation between more AI— how can I say it? You know, I watched the movie here recently, and with Tom Hanks. And, you know, they time-lapsed him back into his youth, and it was really well done, actually. But, and then the point of the movie was, it was actually really cool. It's a, it's a concept that's near to, near and dear to my heart as someone who is a He worked with homes in the past as a feng shui practitioner and teacher, and really the, the patterns that keep on happening here in our, these spaces. And actually I have a Substack post that I just posted that is reflections of— it's called Soul of a Home. It's on my Substack. You can find that, I could link to it from my website or from my Instagram bio link. And, uh, in my career working with spaces, I found that the soul of a home, and it remains there throughout generations and generations. And funny enough, the movie Here is really about that. Um, in any way, my point is a very interesting concept and topic, but the movie, you know, it— to me, it didn't have that emotional impact that that I felt like it should given the topic. And so this is an example of, I don't know, kind of an AI-driven movie. There was, you know, dinosaurs from the dinosaur age and it, like I said, it had Tom Hanks age throughout the life. And so while the topic was very emotional and present-day topic, the production to me was a bit sterile. So my point is not to be a film critic about this movie, but just using it as a case example of a movie that I believe strongly uses AI and technology more than just, you know, up-close camera work with great actors. Justine Bateman has been a huge anti-AI proponent over the last few years. She's been very vocal about her thoughts on AI, and she did post I, you know, I'm somewhere in the middle of, you know, it's an inevitable technology but just needs to be done in an ethical way. Which, speaking of, all these lawsuits are still pending out there. There's been some, some, some resolutions coming out, starting to come out. So I think this year we're going to start to see a rollout of where the courts are going to fall on whether AI is fair use or not. So that's going to be a big talking points coming, coming out this year. But anyway, Justin Bateman, after the fires, made the point of like, you know, all of these billions and billions of dollars being put into AI and technology and where is it for just our people's lives. And I think this is going to be a big, a big talking point coming out of the fires of, you know, where are we putting our money? Another big area that I see being a hot topic is subsidiary rights, but specifically some new areas of subsidiary rights that I think are getting— going to get more and more attention. Now, I— in my last year's prediction, I had gaming on top as one of the biggest new trends, and sure enough, that was the case. I think it's just going to get bigger and bigger, honestly, of games to screen. We saw this a lot last year. And I think that's going to be a continuing trend for quite some time. But other areas where I see subsidiary rights, and this is experiences, amusement, amusement parks. For example, you have Netflix Live Experiences that are happening in Texas, I think Pennsylvania, and Comcast with its Universal theme parks expanding, Universal Epic Universe. And so these universal— or these parks and event spaces are becoming even like pop-ups. We're also— the podcast to screen, screen to podcast, all of that is still very much alive and well, but also merchandising. So, you know, we're still coming— we're still, you know, in a post-COVID world where we have a new appreciation for the tangible. For being in person, for the live experience. And so I think, you know, being on the lookout for those subsidiary rights is something, you know, as an attorney that, you know, something I'm always looking for as far as what rights are available to exploit. You know, this idea of transmedia where, you know, using the rights in all of these areas, exploiting them in a lot of different ways. Is kind of the new buzzword. So I hope that gives you a sense of where things are, at least from my perspective. Thank you for, for listening to the podcast. I normally, I have interviews. Those will begin with my next episode. I have some great guests upcoming, so definitely stay tuned. In the meantime, please take care. Again, I send all my love and prayers to everyone that is being directly affected by the, by the fires. And I know, I know that LA will get through this, not only get through it but be better than ever. I have no doubt the show will go on. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you like the podcast, please like, subscribe, maybe even share to your friends. And for more information about my services, visit my website at tishamorris.com. That's T-I-S-H-A M-O-R-R-I-S. Well, that concludes today's episode, and I wish you all the best. Until next time, keep creating and please take care.
