IndieWire published a piece recently that stopped me mid-scroll.

The headline was "Don't Call It a Comeback: How Independent Film Will Be Rewired in 2026." It's a sharp analysis of where indie film actually stands right now — not the hopeful spin, not the doom spiral, just a clear-eyed look at the new operating reality. And one line in particular landed like it was written directly at me:

"Producers are asked to think like founders. Directors are expected to articulate not just vision but value."

If you've been reading our newsletter for any length of time, you know that sentence is the entire premise of Film3. Not as a new idea — as a thing that has been inevitably becoming true, whether filmmakers are ready for it or not.

The question is: are you ready for it?

Let's be specific, because this phrase gets thrown around in a way that can feel abstract or vaguely threatening.

Thinking like a founder doesn't mean becoming a businessman who happens to make films. It doesn't mean pitching your movie like a startup. It means understanding that a film is not just a creative act — it's an entity. It has stakeholders. It has a lifecycle. It needs infrastructure before, during, and after production. And the person who builds that infrastructure has power. The person who doesn't, doesn't.

For most of film history, that infrastructure belonged to studios and distributors. Filmmakers made the thing; other people owned the pipeline. That arrangement was called "the industry," and it worked fine as long as the gatekeepers were willing to open the gate.

They are less and less willing to open the gate.

The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger that just closed last week — a $111 billion consolidation that combines two of Hollywood's most storied studios — is the latest and loudest signal that the top of the industry is contracting. Fewer buyers. Fewer theatrical slots. Fewer places for an independent film to land without already having an audience. A coalition of indie filmmakers and theater operators just sent letters to state attorneys general asking them to block the deal. That tells you everything about the stakes.

When the top consolidates, the middle disappears. And most independent filmmakers live in the middle.

So what do you do?

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "film3 fixes this" — but I actually want to resist that, because the more useful thing to say is this: the tools to build your own pipeline already exist. Film3 is a framework for using them. But the mindset has to come first.

Thinking like a founder means asking different questions at the beginning of a project.

Not just: Who is this story about and why does it matter?

But also: Who owns this when it's done? Where does it live? How do people find it? What do they do when they love it? How does their love of it generate resources for the next one?

These are not un-creative questions. These are the questions that determine whether your work survives contact with the real world — whether it finds its audience or disappears into the algorithmic void that IndieWire is so aptly describing.

The filmmaker-founder doesn't wait to be discovered. She builds the conditions for discovery. She thinks about audience before she thinks about distribution. She thinks about ownership before she thinks about release. She thinks about the second film while she's making the first.

The other half of that IndieWire line deserves its own moment: directors are expected to articulate not just vision but value.

This used to feel like an indignity. You have a vision — a genuine, hard-won creative vision — and now you're supposed to package it for a pitch deck? Explain its "value proposition"? It can feel like the industry asking you to speak a language designed to diminish what you're doing.

But I've come around to a different reading of it.

Articulating value is not the same as selling out. It's the same skill as storytelling, applied to a different audience. When you can explain why your film matters — to whom, and in what context, and what happens to them when they watch it — you're not diluting your vision. You're extending it. You're making it legible to the people who need to believe in it alongside you.

And here's the thing: that articulation used to be optional. You could make a great film, get into Sundance, get picked up, and let the distributors tell the story of why it mattered. That pipeline is narrowing as we speak. The filmmaker who can tell that story herself has a significant advantage over the one who can't — or won't.

IndieWire ends its analysis on a note I want to echo: if the last few years were about disruption, 2026 is about execution.

That's the most useful reframe I've encountered in a while. The chaos is not new. The uncertainty is not new. What's new is that the chaos has settled enough that you can see the shape of the new reality — and build for it.

You are now the studio. Not metaphorically. Structurally. The tools that used to require a studio — distribution, audience-building, revenue mechanisms, intellectual property ownership — are available to independent filmmakers in ways they have never been before. The question is not whether to use them. The question is whether you're willing to learn them.

Thinking like a founder is not a betrayal of the artist. It's the artist taking back what was always hers.

More on how to actually do that — soon. Two announcements this week that are very much about execution.

Thank you for taking the time to read today, and thanks for helping us build film3 🎬

IndieWire published a piece recently that stopped me mid-scroll.

The headline was "Don't Call It a Comeback: How Independent Film Will Be Rewired in 2026." It's a sharp analysis of where indie film actually stands right now — not the hopeful spin, not the doom spiral, just a clear-eyed look at the new operating reality. And one line in particular landed like it was written directly at me:

"Producers are asked to think like founders. Directors are expected to articulate not just vision but value."

If you've been reading our newsletter for any length of time, you know that sentence is the entire premise of Film3. Not as a new idea — as a thing that has been inevitably becoming true, whether filmmakers are ready for it or not.

The question is: are you ready for it?

Let's be specific, because this phrase gets thrown around in a way that can feel abstract or vaguely threatening.

Thinking like a founder doesn't mean becoming a businessman who happens to make films. It doesn't mean pitching your movie like a startup. It means understanding that a film is not just a creative act — it's an entity. It has stakeholders. It has a lifecycle. It needs infrastructure before, during, and after production. And the person who builds that infrastructure has power. The person who doesn't, doesn't.

For most of film history, that infrastructure belonged to studios and distributors. Filmmakers made the thing; other people owned the pipeline. That arrangement was called "the industry," and it worked fine as long as the gatekeepers were willing to open the gate.

They are less and less willing to open the gate.

The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger that just closed last week — a $111 billion consolidation that combines two of Hollywood's most storied studios — is the latest and loudest signal that the top of the industry is contracting. Fewer buyers. Fewer theatrical slots. Fewer places for an independent film to land without already having an audience. A coalition of indie filmmakers and theater operators just sent letters to state attorneys general asking them to block the deal. That tells you everything about the stakes.

When the top consolidates, the middle disappears. And most independent filmmakers live in the middle.

So what do you do?

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "film3 fixes this" — but I actually want to resist that, because the more useful thing to say is this: the tools to build your own pipeline already exist. Film3 is a framework for using them. But the mindset has to come first.

Thinking like a founder means asking different questions at the beginning of a project.

Not just: Who is this story about and why does it matter?

But also: Who owns this when it's done? Where does it live? How do people find it? What do they do when they love it? How does their love of it generate resources for the next one?

These are not un-creative questions. These are the questions that determine whether your work survives contact with the real world — whether it finds its audience or disappears into the algorithmic void that IndieWire is so aptly describing.

The filmmaker-founder doesn't wait to be discovered. She builds the conditions for discovery. She thinks about audience before she thinks about distribution. She thinks about ownership before she thinks about release. She thinks about the second film while she's making the first.

The other half of that IndieWire line deserves its own moment: directors are expected to articulate not just vision but value.

This used to feel like an indignity. You have a vision — a genuine, hard-won creative vision — and now you're supposed to package it for a pitch deck? Explain its "value proposition"? It can feel like the industry asking you to speak a language designed to diminish what you're doing.

But I've come around to a different reading of it.

Articulating value is not the same as selling out. It's the same skill as storytelling, applied to a different audience. When you can explain why your film matters — to whom, and in what context, and what happens to them when they watch it — you're not diluting your vision. You're extending it. You're making it legible to the people who need to believe in it alongside you.

And here's the thing: that articulation used to be optional. You could make a great film, get into Sundance, get picked up, and let the distributors tell the story of why it mattered. That pipeline is narrowing as we speak. The filmmaker who can tell that story herself has a significant advantage over the one who can't — or won't.

IndieWire ends its analysis on a note I want to echo: if the last few years were about disruption, 2026 is about execution.

That's the most useful reframe I've encountered in a while. The chaos is not new. The uncertainty is not new. What's new is that the chaos has settled enough that you can see the shape of the new reality — and build for it.

You are now the studio. Not metaphorically. Structurally. The tools that used to require a studio — distribution, audience-building, revenue mechanisms, intellectual property ownership — are available to independent filmmakers in ways they have never been before. The question is not whether to use them. The question is whether you're willing to learn them.

Thinking like a founder is not a betrayal of the artist. It's the artist taking back what was always hers.

More on how to actually do that — soon. Two announcements this week that are very much about execution.

Thank you for taking the time to read today, and thanks for helping us build film3 🎬