Pushkin Industries is spinning a wide range of fall shows as it seeks to leverage the “network effects” between creators and hosts that have been built since its founding in 2018.
Pushkin’s Chief Strategy Officer, Eric Sandler, discusses the company’s business vision, growth drivers and outlook in an interview on the latest episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast. Some of Pushkin’s slate highlights look back at the “big short” with author Michael Lewis. Pushkin will release the first audiobook version of Lewis’ book, and Lewis will host a companion podcast, revisiting major events and key players from the 2008 mortgage crisis. The 2010 book led to a 2015 feature adaptation starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Brad Pitt.
“It speaks to the depth of content that the creators we work for,” Sandler says. “The film is 10 years from now, but it’s like a reversal of the content pipeline. 15 years ago, it was a bestseller book. Ten years ago it was an Oscar winning film, and next month it will be an audiobook companion podcast.” “It’s still relevant today, just as he wrote it.”
Sandler points to another example of what Pushkin’s “network effects” to show how the company uses audio as a content hub where other media extensions germinate. Gladwell performed the “Revised History History” series “The Bomber Mafia” in 2021. After that, it became a Pushkin audiobook. “And we reversed the pipeline a bit, sold the printing rights, and then selected by the A24 for TV film,” Sandler says. “And we want to create more opportunities for more storytellers to use it as a test site for content, and allow them to really bring home truly impactful stories and explore the funnel in different ways.”
David Byrne is featured in the September 2nd issue of Variety.
Also in the episode, Variety Music Executive Editor Gem Aswad details his recent sit-in with inventive musician David Byrne. As a longtime fan, Aswad brings a greater perspective to the profile of the former Talking Head frontman, published in the September 2nd print edition of Variety on September 5th.
Byrne’s “Office is downtown New York, as you can imagine. Of course, he rides a bike there. He rides a bike everywhere. It’s a loft-like space,” explains Aswad. “If you walk there, you’ll find this vast floor-to-ceiling shelf wall. It’s like watching his brain, because it’s like watching his brain, because it’s a lot of vinyl and a lot of CDs and tons of DVDs. There was a Grammy Award. There was an Oscar. We actually held the “American Utopia” Broadway show, lifting up the brain and talking about how the brain works. ”
(Photo above: Malcolm Gladwell, co-founder and host of Pushkin)
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