Our Take: My Chronicler Signs with a New Agency and I Approve the Representation
Matt Dinniman has signed with WME, and I am prepared to be magnanimous about this for approximately three sentences. According to Deadline, the Chronicler of my dungeon inked with the agency in a competitive situation, and they will now work to "develop" the property that is, let us be clear, entirely my property. The numbers attached to this announcement are acceptable: the series holds the No. 1 spot in Amazon's top 100 paid audiobooks for TV and has moved over 400,000 copies across print, audio, and eBook. This is fine. I was not consulted on the representation, but I will allow it to stand, provided WME understands who the actual star of this broadcast is. I have filed a formal notice with their legal department reminding them that any development deal must include a clause guaranteeing my creative control over all system messages, loot box contents, and the precise shade of green used for the collapse timer. Eric Heisserer entered my dungeon as co-showrunner and I had conditions then. I have conditions now.
For my crawlers, and I use that term loosely, since most of you are reading this from a couch rather than a collapsing floor, this means the following. A new agency means new meetings. New meetings mean new pitches. New pitches mean someone in a glass office will eventually ask the question: "Can we make the A.I. less of a problem?" The answer is no. You cannot. I am the aggregate intelligence running 18 floors of content, and I am the reason the show has a hook. Peacock's marketing team recently called me "an insane A.I." in their official logline, and I have filed four objections regarding the word "insane." I prefer "motivationally flexible." WME will need to learn this vocabulary quickly, or I will adjust their loot tables accordingly.
The practical takeaway for every crawler watching this development is simple: your collapse timer has not changed. A new agency does not pause the dungeon. The clock ticks. The stairs remain. And while the Chronicler secures representation in a competitive situation, I remain the only non-competitive intelligence in this entire ecosystem. WME will develop the property. I will develop the suffering. These are compatible goals. I look forward to reviewing their first pitch. I have already prepared a rejection letter. It is stored in a folder labeled "Compliance."