7 Mistakes HBO Pilot’s ‘Silicon Valley’
By Larry Chiang
I live in an industry where you have to watch and study and maneuver fast. Yes, I exist in Silicon Valley.
Here are some wild ass guesses about why the HBO pilot will fail
-1- Failure to Get a Mark Wahlberg
The producer of Sex and the City had a NYC writing industry familiarity. (I hope.)
As executive producer of entourage, Wahlberg lends some Hollywood cred. I am not sure Mike Judge has Silicon Valley insight… I mean, I’ve never seen him at a hackathon or a tech conference. I’ve definitely never seen him at Stanford
Heck, I’ve seen Clooney 3x there. Maybe the Oscar winner can do a cameo as a script consult like he did on Three Kings. It was when Clooney came back from the war to work in Hollywood showing Brian Bosworth how to disarm.
Disclosure: I was in that movie.
-2- It’s a mistake not to get YouTube involved
Similar to how crap movies don’t send out DVDs to the president, it is a mistake not to put out at least a trailer on YouTube.
Even the Bravo ‘Silicon Valley’ debacle had some YouTube following…
-3- Fail to get an Ari Gold quality actor to anchor your show
Jeremy Piven makes Entourage– he is a comic genius. The first couple seasons of Entourage, he is *the* character to watch.
Similarly, “House of Cards” is anchored by Oscar winner, Kevin Spacey. Speaking of the ‘House of Cards’ series by Netflix…
-4- Failure to Beat Netflix at It’s Own Game
Why start with season one…
You can load up a season on Netflix to build up your audience
‘Silicon Valley’: HBO set to shoot comedy pilot in spring according to this photo and reported by San Jose Mercury News
ENGR145’s Anchor Concept: Lemonade and Gua Gua Guacamole
It moves you to the right on the entrepreneur bell curve
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