Selling Out Is Not Cool Again

When we started Pajiba nearly 20 years ago, we had an ethos that still largely permeates the writers’ room here: Don’t sell out. Don’t let publicists influence you. Don’t soft-pedal. Don’t launder studio marketing. I’m a Gen Xer. I still firmly believe that, though Ethan Hawke may have been a dirtbag, he was still a better choice for Winona Ryder than Ben Stiller’s character in Reality Bites. I know we grew up and started defending Bennie from Rent, but also: Hell no! Bennie was a slumlord! I’ve written about this idea of selling out before, and how our refusal to do so has definitely affected our livelihoods. But it’s just not who we are or what we do.

That seemed commendable for the first several years of our existence, but that approach has felt more lonely over the last decade or so when “selling out” seemed to become the goal of younger generations, influencers, app designers, and even that guy who created Wordle and initially refused to run ads on it.

That has absolutely been the case with young filmmakers, many of whom had one decent indie hit and use it as a springboard to Star Wars and Marvel gigs. We lost a lot of great filmmakers for a lot of years to giant franchises. I get the instinct: Huge budgets, big paychecks, A-list stars, and clout to make future projects as long as you don’t get stuck in the machine. The truth is: Fans of these indie flicks rooted for the directors to jump to the big time. It was a victory.

However, the narrative seems to be shifting back from selling out. It probably has a lot to do with superhero fatigue, but fans are beginning to realize that landing a Star War or an Avenger means not making a great movie for at least a few years, or worse: You turn into a Russo.

That narrative is evident in the backlash against The Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert), directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once, who caught a lot of sh*t this week from fans after it was revealed that they had signed on to direct an episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.

On the one hand: What the hell?! People need to earn a living! Why are we judging them for that all of a sudden? On the other hand: Yes! We’re finally judging indie directors for taking the money and jumping ship to large franchises! Sell outs!

In this particular case, however, we need not actually worry about The Daniels. They didn’t sell out. They agreed to direct one episode, and they did it for the most American reason of all: Healthcare.

“Lol, all of the people @ing us about getting sucked up by the ‘corporate machine’ can chill,” Daniel Kwan wrote on Instagram. “These headlines are always misleading … Don’t worry. We aren’t working on a whole series, we guest directed one episode. Jon Watts approached us to do an episode a while ago (before EEAAO even came out). We love Jon, love Star Wars, love learning new tech, we love meeting new cast and crew, and we needed the days to keep our healthcare (!!!) so it was an easy yes.”

Kwan also added that their next film would be a Daniels original. This is great news, but the best news of all is that selling out is bad again!