A quick glance at a list of movie box office hits of summer 2024 reveals a common thread: adaptation. It’s no secret that in recent years, large Hollywood studios are favoring building franchises and using existing intellectual property (IP) over developing original ideas. This isn’t to say that original movies don’t exist, just that for every “Trap” or “Challengers,” there are three of “Deadpool & Wolverine” or “It Ends with Us.” It seems now more than ever, the name of the game in Hollywood is “adaptation.”
Adaptations of IP might be increasingly popular, but there’s another type of adaptation that is an unspoken understanding amongst numerous people across the film industry. It’s a strategy that many people learn over time, but also one that can be taught.
When the Writers Guild of America went on strike in May of 2023, followed by the Screen Actors Guild in July, they effectively brought the entertainment industry in Hollywood to a screeching halt. It was an uncertain time for everyone in the film industry. But it was an especially daunting time for film students who were graduating into a market without any jobs. Kyle Petersen is an alum of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He graduated in 2023 with a BFA in Screenwriting.
Petersen is a member of the especially unlucky class of film students who experienced not just the strikes upon graduation, but also the COVID-19 pandemic in the middle of college. Originally part of the class of 2022, Petersen took a gap year during the pandemic, eventually graduating in 2023. He started at USC aiming to work in the comedy television industry, but developed a love for feature film screenwriting along the way. When he graduated, he wanted to work at a talent agency — a common route for aspiring screenwriters.
“I was interviewing at like, CAA, WME, UTA,” said Petersen — those are the big three agencies in Hollywood. But when it became clear that the strikes would be happening, Petersen got stuck in the hiring process, unable to advance to subsequent interviews. “They were saying, we’re all going on hiring freezes, we’ll hit you up after the strikes. That was my whole plan was after college, I would start working, and I didn’t know what to do.”
Faced with no job ahead of him and an industry on indefinite halt, Petersen paused and took stock of his situation. It was demoralizing to look into the immediate future, but something that did help was USC’s guiding hand. The strikes began just ten days before Petersen graduated. Around this same time, USC held a large information session with the entire film department, where students were able to ask faculty questions about the industry. Petersen thought the information session was informative and heartening. “We [hadn’t] lived through something like this before. None of us [were] in these guilds,” he said. Hearing from trusted faculty members who were members of the striking guilds eased Petersen’s worries about the future. The end of the strikes was not yet in sight, but he was confident that there would be an end, and one that came with gains for the guilds.
The strikes also coincided with the SCA screenwriting department’s annual undergraduate First Pitch event. At First Pitch, graduating screenwriting students meet with producers, managers, agents and other film industry professionals. Students have about 10 minutes to pitch themselves and their ideas; even if their story doesn’t get sold, they get used to trying to sell it.
Petersen’s First Pitch event happened the day the WGA strikes became official. There was a “weird energy” that day, everyone still wanting to put all their effort into their pitches, but the elephant in the room hanging like a heavy cloud over everyone’s minds. Petersen says the event was still a success, though, saying he “got a lot out of it.” The topic on everyone’s minds led to interesting conversations throughout the day, and Petersen still felt more informed by the time he went home at the end of it.
Another way USC prepares its students is through the curriculum itself. Cody Zwieg teaches a class called The Business of Writing for Screen and Television, which falls at the end of the undergraduate curriculum. “It’s the right time, because they’ve had a little bit of exposure. I think it might be too overwhelming if it was somewhere earlier in the process,” Zwieg posited. Zwieg’s class also leads directly into the First Pitch program, the two wings working in tandem to help students take flight upon graduation.
With years of knowledge under his belt as a producer (including a formative experience working with horror legend Wes Craven), Zwieg does his best to prepare his students for the realities of the entertainment industry. But oftentimes, the biggest lesson he tries to impart on those green writers is to go with the flow.
“One thing I noticed with students was, they were looking for what the right answer was, or what the right path was. I was trying to get people to realize that there isn’t a right path. You should have a plan so that you can adjust that plan,” said Zwieg.
And adjusting his plan is exactly what Kyle Petersen did. Standing at a crossroads of his future, Petersen decided to take a leap of faith. He moved to New York for a year to make a short film he was writing called “Delicates,” working with old and new friends to bring his story to life. Thinking back on the experience, Petersen doesn’t think the film would have blossomed in the way it has if not for the strikes: “in a lot of ways, the strike opened up a lot of doors for me in terms of having this experience of living in this new city for a year, working on this short film that’s in a very much more expanded place than it would have been otherwise.” Petersen is now working with his co-director Ben See-Tho to finish up the film, which is in post-production.
After “Delicates” wrapped production and the strikes ended, Petersen did end up landing a job back in Los Angeles. He works at Verve, a talent and literary agency. But like many of his industry peers, he’s apprehensive about the coming years.
“You know, I certainly believe in the WGA. I think they needed to strike,” Petersen emphasized. “It’ll be interesting to see if these gains are lasting enough, or if AI is going to take over and it doesn’t matter anyway. You know, I think we just can’t tell yet.”
While there’s no way to predict the future, if there’s one thing Petersen and Zwieg understand and preach, it’s knowing how to adapt — which is perhaps the greatest skill of all, in a business like the movies.