“This is the Cassavetes model: I go act on The Morning Show and Good American Family, take part of my salary, and invest it in ourselves. That’s traditionally worked well for us. But we’re in the hardest moment of self-financing and trying to get your money back. We’re at a crossroads,” he says. “On the one hand, it’s like, ‘Hey, if somebody wants to come in and offer us a huge number to buy worldwide rights to our show forever, and there’s enough profit for me and my collaborators, why not say “yes” to it?’ At the same time, I have to be forward-thinking. These companies are buying less. They’re vertically integrating. There’s going to be fewer of them. So what’s my future, and what’s the future of independent storytelling, if there are only three buyers and there’s not enough profit for everybody? You look at comedians who go behind paywalls. You look at Patreon. Is there a model where I can self-distribute for a better deal than I get from the streamers?”
In the case of The Long Long Night, he decided to take the risk of self-distribution with an eye towards building something for the future. “If I can put a dollar into making independent TV the way I want to make it, with no creative boundaries, and if I can get a dollar and 25 cents back no matter what happens through whatever new distribution model emerges, that will be better than any place I’ve been in this industry,” Mark says.
His remarks come at a time when the television industry is more precarious than ever: network and cable have been pushed to the brink of extinction by streaming, which isn’t exactly on solid ground, either. But the Duplass Brothers see their model as one that could benefit everyone, particularly creatives. “I don’t feel comfortable advocating for a lot in the independent creative community right now—it’s really tough out there—but I do believe that, in the long run, if you can find ways to not lose too much money and keep cranking out a bank of titles, you’ll probably make a few things that you can license out in retirement through the years,” Mark says. You can read the full conversation here.
