Brian Grazer talks AI, ‘8 Mile,’ ‘Splash,’ revving his ‘engine of curiosity’ and why flat salaries for artists are ‘disincentivizing’

As a young producer, Brian Grazer wouldn’t stop selling his mermaid movie no matter how many times he heard “no.” It turned out to be the hit – 1984’s “Splash” – that set off his career.

He wasn’t sure if he should make 2002’s “8 Mile” with Eminem. A conversation over dinner with Tom Hanks made Grazer confident to pursue the movie that won an Oscar for best song.

The Imagine Entertainment chief shared stories from his early career and observations about the future of film and television during a wide-ranging conversation hosted Feb. 19 in Beverly Hills by the Paley Center for Media as part of its Paley Media Council series. Mary Parent, chairman of worldwide production for Legendary Entertainment, conducted the Q&A with her longtime industry associate. (Parent, an alumnus of Universal Pictures, reminded Grazer that the first Imagine project that she worked on as a film executive of 1999’s “Bowfinger.”)

Grazer, who has enjoyed a 40-year partnership in Imagine Entertainment with director Ron Howard, credits his longevity to his natural curiosity and drive to learn more about the world.

“This engine of curiosity drives many of the movies, television shows, documentaries that I do. The engine of curiosity drives me to find ways to be in all different genres and all sizes, shapes and forms,” Grazer told Parent during the early evening gathering at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “And so it’s helped quite a bit. I happen to just like to wake up every day wanting to solve a puzzle. Movies are puzzles. They’re cinematic puzzles to me, and documentaries are kind of like that. But they’re more like equations to me. And you postulate a point of view, and then you try to see if that equation works, and if it doesn’t, then you readjust.”

A producer’s fate rises and falls on the strength of the material and the creative partners chosen. After decades of experience, Grazer has developmed clear guidelines for himself.

“Is the idea compressible into a sentence, and is it sexy? Is it provocative? Does it make you curious? Does it activate you? And then for me, usually it’s a character that I can root for because they’re in pursuit of something that that has nobility to it. There’s a noble goal” at the end, Grazer says, pointing to such titles as 1991’s “Backdraft” and “8 Mile.”

Parent pressed Grazer on how he has adapted to new technologies and platforms. He was candid about his experimentation with AI tools to facilitate brainstorming and pre-visualization development.

“It’s very, very, very helpful tool. It’s essential. It’s very, very helpful to me, because you get to collaborate with AI. I often just lay down on my couch in my office, I put it on my phone, on my chest, and I just have these long conversations, right where I do endless ‘what ifs’ and just build stories,” Grazer said. “And you get to test them and you model them, and it’s like spectacular. And there are efficiencies to AI, because it’s very good in pre-production. It’s very good in pre-visualization. It’s great, It’s very helpful. The things I don’t want it to do – or the things that everybody doesn’t want to do – is to replace human beings.”

Grazer and Parent compared notes on the vast changes in the film and TV landscape in recent years, particularly when it comes to how creative talent gets compensated in success. The shifts in dealmaking has taken away the jackpot potential of a huge windfall for writers, directors, actors, producers and others if a movie or TV show is a bona fide hit. Now, even pop culture buzz doesn’t translate to syndication and international licensing revenue because those rights are frequently bought out upfront by the streaming platform. Artists, Grazer, asserted, tend to thrive with the element of risk.

“Artists are paid a flat salary in streaming. Now the salary can be really great [but], I find it very dis-incentivizing. Artists are special people that do oddly special things beyond just the art form itself. They like to bet on themselves, because most artists come from a really hard place where they’re nobody, and they feel the nobody-ness, and it’s indelible,” Grazer said. “So they want to be extra special. And so being extra special is betting on yourself. So you get to walk across that tight high wire. And if you get across and it works, you get a lot of money and a lot of love and a lot of appreciation. And if you don’t, you fall but it’s kind of the fun of it, I think. It makes you really motivated.”