DIE TRYING 029

Publish, Project or Perish

Author

Michael Barnes
April 23, 2026

In partnership with

One crafty writer’s never-say-die quest to tell a story for the page or screen.

Hey! I’m that guy trying to sell my latest screenplay, publish it as a novel or die trying.

In DIE TRYING, you will get an unvarnished look at a bitterly honest writer struggling to make it. No name-dropping or Hollywood phoniness. Just the facts ma’am on what the media landscape is really like behind the curtain.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we greenlight the industry’s future, as consumers suck on the spectacle.

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WE’RE ALL STILL IN 8TH GRADE

You’re daydreaming during pre-cal when you’re in 8th grade. I have 100% confidence in this because I AI Answer Engine’d it.

This means I have deep anxiety this isn’t, like, accurate. You know bot hallucinations and all. It’s not like I remember 8th grade. That was a long time ago.

When my teacher drew equations on the blackboard, was I dreaming of kissing the popular girl after the dance? Maybe I was daydreaming of making varsity as a freshman the next year which would lead to kissing the popular girl after the dance…?

I don’t really remember 8th grade. I’m old. But I do know people are still daydreaming. All of us. At all ages. We want to live the movies, and that’s incredibly good news for Hollywood, currently undergoing its 19th nervous breakdown.

TRANSPORT ME TO FANTASYLAND

I recently read an article about mostly adults enduring a convention center dungeon in hopes of Barbie Dreamland.

It was supposed to be the “ultimate Barbie fan event.”

Instead, people got a dark Floriduh convention center, a pink Corvette they couldn’t climb into and a paper-thin dreamhouse you couldn’t even take selfies in.

The Times reporter called it a Fyre Festival-type event, but what I marveled at was that attendees were willing to shell out between $149 and $449 to be Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

A quick Googling of essential products I could buy for $150 told me that a Ninja 4-Quart Air Fryer could be mine for the admission to BarbieCon.

I was thinking of “essential” like a strong hunting blade for the impending apocalypse, but you do you, consumerist AI.

Speaking of consumerism, the movie Barbie reached $1 billion in just 17 days in 2023. People voted with their wallets for this smart, escapist fare.

Now people want to live the movie, even if the real thing is a scammy, dark convention-center dungeon. Reality is too grim. I will pass on expunging a litany of modern-day horrors. We all know the future, just like David Thewlis’ Johnny, misbehaving badly in Naked, knew the inevitable beating would come.

Like the horrors of the Great War (The Best Years of Our Lives) and the Vietnam era (yes, Star Wars), we escape to the cinematic palace even if it lives on a small screen and in one-minute installments.

But nowadays, we want to cosplay our cinematic treasures. As the world inevitably gets grimmer, there will be ever and ever more demand for escapist product.

I said earlier Hollywood was on its 19th nervous breakdown. I was trying to be clever. It’s more like breakdown #4 or #5, me thinks. The first was the introduction of sound, then television rolled around and now we have the latest tech revolution, AI, to cause an industry freakout.

I don’t know what will happen with AI. Will it kill or help the industry, or will entertainers ingest it and learn to live with it like a kind of benign poison?

I’m certain about one thing. The horrors will get worse. People will want refuge in their cinematic alt-universe. Hollywood won’t die. Its product will be ever more in demand among us hordes of the defeated.

Filmmakers, write your scripts. Ready your cameras and fuck ‘em. The tide isn’t rolling out yet.

THIS WEEK IN DIE TRYING

SHOW, BUSINESS OR BOTH?

If you’re reading this because you write, read, develop or sell scripts:

Are films meant to be consumed, studied or enjoyed?

Get in touch.

—Michael