Rats, meet sinking ship. J.J. Abrams Scaling Down Bad Robot As He Moves to New York
Hollywood is leaving Los Angeles as fast as they can find a U-Haul truck. Governor Newsom has announced a whole bunch of things at the state level to try to get them to stay, and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, has tired to cut some red tape at the city level. It isn't helping.
J.J. Abrams had some early success with Bad Robot, but he has destroyed more than he has created at this point.
The company was founded in 1999 has been responsible for a myriad of hits, starting with 2001’s Alias, and eventually adding 2004’s Lost, 2008’s Fringe, 2011’s Person of Interest and 2016’s Westworld on the TV side.
What do all of those shows have in common? They started strong, and lost their way, foundering on the excessive use of the Mystery Box.
The article also mentions Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). I think The Force Awakens is mediocre at best, verging on bad. Some of the good feelings was the hope, that after the disaster (in my opinion) that the prequel trilogy was, we might get back to real Star Wars. It was not to be. The Rise of Skywalker is awful. (See the in-theater reaction to that movie.)
His reboot of Star Trek was awful. I know it made money, or the first one did anyway. It wasn't needed, and as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't quite Star Trek. It wasn't as bad as Kurtzman Trek, but that is not a high bar to get over.
All of that has contributed to some downsizing, and now getting out of LA.
The move comes after the company sold its longtime Santa Monica headquarters for $31 million in November and had shed employees in recent years.
It is sad to think that the hellscape that is NYC could be viewed as greener pastures by anyone, but that is the state of Los Angeles. And of course J.J Abrams (who Nerdrotic calls Jar Jar after the character in Star Wars) is a good Progressive, and couldn't possibly move somewhere in Flyover Country.
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