Dicks: The Musical director, Larry Charles, known for his directorial collaborations with Sacha Baron Cohen (The Dictator) and his work on such sitcoms as Curb Your Enthusiasm, slammed the Hollywood studio system, calling it a “media monopoly system” in the United States.
Charles, the director of Dicks: The Musical, shared why he avoids working on big-budget movies. “Politically for me, ethically for me. I find it offensive when movies cost $250 million and the world is in the state that it’s in. So I’m also looking to make a statement in the way these things are made.” Charles commented.
Charles added in the podcast episode of WTF With Marc Maron , “So we’re all seduced by great TV shows and great movies and we’re distracted by those things, and we’re then indulging in that same capitalist system and there’s no way it’s going to change as long as we do that. I struggle with that.”
The director of Seinfeld mentioned that he intends to keep his creative projects low-budget as a form of protest against the Hollywood system, ensuring that his radical work remains independent.
He added, “The way I can make a radical work is by saying that I could do it for a little money, and the way [producers and directors] say yes to it is they think, ‘Oh, that radical little work that’s not going to cost any money is going to make money.’ Absolutely. That is the system,”
Currently, Dicks: The Musical is playing in theaters and it will be available to stream on Showtime and Max soon. It stars Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, and Bowen Yang.
