← On with Kara Swisher
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- [00:00]
Peter Chernin
I have no legacy. I'll be dead. And you know that'll be that.
- [00:03]
Kara Swisher
Sir, you greenlit Titanic and Avatar. You did.
- [00:07]
Peter Chernin
It's on.
- [00:18]
Kara Swisher
Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast network. This is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. The indie horror movie Backrooms is one of the big surprise hits of the summer. The the film is directed by 20 year old YouTube creator Kane Parsons. It's so far grossed more than $135 million domestically and more than $200 million worldwide. For context, it had an opening weekend on par with the last Star wars installment, despite costing a fraction of the price to make. But behind Backrooms is someone with a well established reputation for making things people want to see. Peter Chernan. He's one of the producers on the film and his production studio, Chernin Entertainment, co financed the film. Chernin was Rupert Murdoch's longtime second in command at News Corp. Which is where I met him a long time ago. He was also the head of Fox movie and TV divisions where he greenlit major blockbusters like Titanic and Avatar. You might have heard of them. In 2010, he founded his own private equity firm, the Chernin Group, to invest in digital media companies. He also recently sold the global content studio he founded, North Road, to the French entertainment entertainment giant Media won. I love Peter Chernan. I'm not going to pretend. I always used to go to him because he always told to me straight, even if it was not in his interests. He was always very smart and very honest about the entertainment industry. Of course I was always wary because of the Murdoch part, but he was very different, actually. Very liberal in his politics and at the same time was always focused on quality and just smarts. And I just think when he went into digital media, I thought he did it right. I think a lot of Hollywood people didn't. And he also makes the Planet of the Apes movies, which I love anyway. Just a really sharp person and he really is willing to try things and I really appreciate that. All right, let's get to my conversation with Peter Chernin. Our expert question comes from Ari Shapiro, co host of the CNN culture podcast Engagement Party. Don't go anywhere.
- [02:21]
Peter Chernin
Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com
- [03:02]
Kara Swisher
thanks again to Odoo for supporting this show. Odoo wants to be your ultimate all in one fully integrated platform to handle everything. Seriously, everything. Inventory, CRM, accounting, HR and much more. No more shopping around or settling for expensive services that can only handle a fraction of your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com. Support for this show comes from Cohere. As AI advances, one thing matters more than ever. Staying in control. Most AI comes with strings attached like sharing your data and infrastructure or compromising your independence. With Cohere you don't have to give up control to gain capability. You can have both. From frontier models to out of the box tools. Cohere gives you everything you need to build and deploy secure scalable AI that drives growth and delivers your data, decisions and competitive edge. Stay yours. You control your AI on your terms. See how AI can empower your organization without compromising what matters most. Cohere.com Vox
- [04:13]
Peter Chernin
it is on.
- [04:15]
Kara Swisher
Peter Chernin, thanks for coming on on.
- [04:18]
Peter Chernin
It's my pleasure. How you doing?
- [04:20]
Kara Swisher
Good. Let's start with what's happening now. Congrats on the success of backrooms. It's now A24's highest grossing domestic film ever. They co financed the film alongside Chernin Entertain. And the film is directed by Kane Parsons. He was a teenager when you greenlit the movie. Talk a little bit about Chernin Entertainment. Maybe for people who don't know what you've been up to because it's been a wide range of things. And what stood out to you about this film? Because you've done lots and lots of traditional films. I mean Planet of the Apes, things like that.
- [04:49]
Peter Chernin
So Chernin Entertainment is a 15 year old film and television production company ranging from Planet of the Apes to New Girl to Ford versus Ferrari, et cetera. But you know, it's interesting, when I did Planet of the Apes, people came to me immediately. It was the first movie we ever produced and said you should brand the company, you should become the next action producer, you should run the next big. And I said, yeah, that's a good idea, but I don't want to. I want to make a wide Range of movies. The next movie we made was a little searchlight movie called the Drop. We did a family comedy, we did some animated movies. And I've always been interested in doing a wide range of content. And Chernin Entertainment, which I guess at this point is produced, I don't know, 35 movies has done a wide range of things, you know, backrooms is, by the way, is just a continuation of a wide range of interests. And you know, I was interested, I was attracted to the idea of a really young filmmaker. I was attracted to the idea of a piece of very organic YouTube content. And it just seemed cool to me.
- [05:57]
Kara Swisher
So talk about the YouTube content because you had been, I recall you made me go visit an anime company that was doing a bunch of stuff and then some other things. And you had been, you know, dabbling in some of the other investments you made through the most recent years after you left Fox. But initially, I don't recall you being reticent about YouTube stuff, but you were sort of watching it and putting little bets down all over the place. I recall at the time everyone was sort of looking for that YouTube that that was going to leap from YouTube to the big screen.
- [06:29]
Peter Chernin
Yeah, I would say so. First of all, in terms of our early investments, we were never particularly focused on the leap from YouTube to the big screen. What I have felt is that over time YouTube and to some degree TikTok would serve as the incubator for a next generation of talent. You know, similar in some ways to the way Roger Corman did 40 years ago, to the way MTV Music Video did 25 years ago. You know, you have a bunch of very smart, talented young people making stuff, you know, like any other thing in life. Half of it'll be garbage, half of it'll be interesting, and 2% of it'll be extraordinary. And I've consistently been interested in what that 2% is going to look like.
- [07:16]
Kara Swisher
I think a lot of sometimes Hollywood is just good guessing, right? It's like making the right choice. But explain to me what appealed to you about this particular project in Cain himself.
- [07:26]
Peter Chernin
I would say it's certainly good guessing like anything else in life. But you know, I guess you look at these things in two ways. One is just look at the size of the audience and the engagement of the audience, which was quite extraordinary. But I felt from the very beginning that there was what Cain did that in my mind was so impressive and he did it as a. Originally did it as a 15 year old is he took originally backrooms, was a meme on 4chan. It was one photograph of, I believe, a furniture warehouse being deconstructed, and that was posted on 4chan. That became something people talked about. When he was 15 years old, Cain had a vision of turning that into a science fiction storytelling mode. And I found that to be really impressive because I think that he took something which was just a meme and a meme in some ways, for alienation, for, you know, alternate universes, and turn that into a storytelling exercise. And I thought the ways he did that was extremely impressive. Extremely, extremely impressive. And he, you know, he did all those early. He started doing those early YouTube backrooms videos when he was 15, you know, and we optioned it and made a deal with him, I think, when he was 17 or 18. But, you know, but I think the other thing which Bear is saying is, you know, like most things Hollywood, every single meeting in Hollywood over the last 10 days has been, find me my YouTuber. That's not the smartest thing on earth. It's no different than saying, find me a sequel to something else. It's worth noting. We spent three years on this project. We spent a period of time chasing it. We spent a long time working on the script. We spent another year on production. And it's not just saying bet on a YouTuber. It's not just saying bet on some. It's betting on a very specific piece of content and betting on a very specific piece of talent.
- [09:24]
Kara Swisher
A person, a particular person, which is a story. You use the word storytelling, which I think gets lost in a lot of it, because some of this can be very trendy and very ephemeral, like many memes can be. Right?
- [09:36]
Peter Chernin
Yes. And I think clearly our view was we were not betting on trendiness. You know, and I. Look, I said very clearly, you're betting on a piece of ip, but you're also betting on the ability to convert that into a different medium. And a storyteller, you know, a talented individual is capable of doing that, you know, And I think, in some ways, in my opinion, our most significant contribution to this film, because this is not a case of we carry. This guy is extraordinarily talented and I believe has an unmatched future ahead of him. What I think we did, which I'm very proud of, is figured out ways to support him without in any way compromising usurping his vision. So we originally got him a very talented producer and production company, Chris Ferguson. And I think Chris was meaningful. And then we brought on Osgood Perkins as a producer, as an extremely talented director, and I think Osgood was really sensitive about how to stand next to Cain without in any way imprinting his own creative vision on him, just as there is support there as someone who could help. He was 19 years old at the time he was making this. And I think we were immodestly sensitive in understanding how to manage that process.
- [10:56]
Kara Swisher
So when you said, if everyone's like, this week, all the meetings are, how do we find a YouTuber? What is the problem with that? Because, you know, this YouTube's obviously been popular for a while now. I mean, my kids, my older kids use it as television. It's television to them. It's the way they consume content. Even if it's, you know, a PBS Frontline, you know, it's.
- [11:16]
Peter Chernin
Look, the analog is, after a big book has been a hit, go find me a novelist. It means nothing. It's meaningless. 89, 95, 98% of all novels have no relevance for film. 98% of what's on YouTube, 99%, 99.9% has no relevance. And it's just a simplistic jump on the bandwagon. Somebody else was successful with this. Find me my success. And like anything in life, you need to be discerning. You need to be discriminating. You need to decide which ones are relevant, underlying material, which is the relevant talent. And it's going to be very rare that that happens.
- [11:53]
Kara Swisher
You know, it reminds me a little bit. I interviewed the creators of Heated Rivalry, and a lot of people in Hollywood sort of turned it down or was sort of cheapening them. But of course, people in Hollywood hadn't been aware of the, you know, the genre of romantic, the romantic fantasy book.
- [12:07]
Peter Chernin
You know, Hollywood does a number of things that are very smart. Look, it's like no other. It's like any other business. They do a lot of smart things. They do a lot of stupid things. You know, the smart people. Every single thing is an individual bet, and you better be very discerning about that bet. The less smart people are people who just want to follow whatever has been previously successful and who think that because something was previously successful, the next thing will be and. Or who are unwilling to take chances on original visions.
- [12:38]
Kara Swisher
So Backroom has been, of course, a big hit with young people. One audience survey found that during the film's first weekend in theaters, close to 90% of ticket buyers were under 35 years old. Talk about that sort of bet that people don't want to stare at the screens. They want to actually physically, especially young people, go out to the movies.
- [12:54]
Peter Chernin
Well, I guess I would say two things. One is clearly to the degree any of us can remember being young, the only thing you want to do is get out of the house and get away from your parents and get someplace with your friends, along with your friends, et cetera. And so movie theater has always historically been a good place to do that. So it's in my mind silliness to somehow assume that five, eight years ago, young people woke up and said, I want to go home and have family dinner with my parents. Or, you know, that's never going to happen. I think what happened which made people think this is, you know, Hollywood for decades made a wide range of movies for young people. They made youth comedies, they made horror movies, they made dopey action movies aimed at young people. They made movies with young stars. And I think that what has happened over the last five years is they stopped making most of those things. You see very few comedies, you see very few youth comedies.
- [13:54]
Kara Swisher
No American Pie.
- [13:55]
Peter Chernin
Anyway, yeah, there's none of that stuff. And so it's a self fulfilling prophecy. They're not going to come. And I think the second thing that happened is they came to believe that it is fair to say that one of the roles of movie theaters, particularly in a world of ubiquitous television, ubiquitous screens, has been an opportunity to see big effects on a big screen. Movies you mentioned, the problem with that is most of those big effects movies have been sequels and franchise movies. And most of those original franchises are now 20, 25, 30 in the case of Star Wars, 50 years old. And it's a little bit in my mind fallacious to assume that the best product for young people are remakes and sequels to franchises that are, that were originated before they were born. And I think that's one of the things that's really resonated with backrooms is that this feels, there's a sense of ownership among people. This is our ip, this is our content. This is something that we built into success on YouTube, that was made for us, was made by people our own age, et cetera. And you know, you compare it to, look, I don't mean to say anything. You compare it to Star wars which came out the week before, which is 50 year old IP, you know.
- [15:17]
Kara Swisher
Right. Which shouldn't do as well. But one of the things that I've noticed and I've mentioned this many times when people push back against movies was original horror movies are having a real moment now. Last year Sinners and Weapons were huge box office hits. Now we have backrooms and also Obsession that's another film helmed by a young director who made the leap from YouTube. Talk about the genre. Because it's not just comedy like you mentioned the other genres. Horror is really seeing something much stronger and I have a feeling it's cause they're original stories. I don't necessarily think it's cause it's horror. I think it's cause they're original in some fashion. As opposed to say something that feels like it was made by AI. There's nothing about weapons or sinners or these movies. It feels AI in any way.
- [16:02]
Peter Chernin
Yeah, you know, it's interesting if you, if you're inside Hollywood a year and a half ago people were really worried about horror. Horror gone through a really bad year sort of a year and a half ago or so.
- [16:14]
Kara Swisher
How many Saws can you do? Yeah, go ahead.
- [16:16]
Peter Chernin
So that I, I wouldn't say that this is all of a sudden. I think your point is correct. Which they feel original. You know they are. These particular movies have very young stars. Young, well, not backrooms. Doesn't have young stars, but is a young director. But obsession clearly has young stars. Or they feel original. But look, I think it's a mistake. Human beings are desperate to be entertained. The major forms of entertainment have been around for centuries because they're appealing. Horror, comedy, tragedy.
- [16:52]
Kara Swisher
It's not the genre is what you're saying.
- [16:54]
Peter Chernin
And that, you know, people don't make comedies right now. There are so few comedies being made both on movies and on television. I don't get that at all. It's not as if all of a sudden human beings woke up and said I don't want to laugh anymore. They become self fulfilling prophecies, which is people get nervous, they stop making them. And then all of a sudden everybody says, well, they don't work. Just point to a comedy that works right now.
- [17:18]
Kara Swisher
And a lot of the ones who made those are now older, right? They're a lot older. And some of them seem to be going on streaming whether. And now Seth Rogen is older now but you know, he was an early person to do a lot of those comedies that did well, Sandler.
- [17:30]
Peter Chernin
But. But the truth is there aren't that. There aren't that many comedies on streaming either.
- [17:34]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. In a recent interview with Matt Bellany, you said the key to success is to be quote, relentlessly focused on where the next generation is coming from. And right now that's obviously YouTube and TikTok shorts. Now of course, as you said, there's a rush to sign young content creators. How do you think the next generation's media habits will change filmmaking and storytelling? I'm of the mind. Cause I have two kids in this age range that it doesn't. They like a good story. I just don't, I don't see it that different. It may be slightly different and it's sort of like, I don't know, they like hip hop. Right. It's just a different version of different things.
- [18:10]
Peter Chernin
Yeah. I would say that first and foremost, I'm inclined to agree with you, you know, which is people want good stories. You know, there will be some. If you, if you were to look at the evolution of movies over the last 50 years, there's certainly been changes in the vocabulary of storytelling, but the movies that are super successful have stories, great characters, you care deeply about them, you're moved, you're excited, you laugh. Whatever those things are, they may be slightly faster. Cut. There's clearly different music in the background, there's way higher quality special effects, etc, so there are certainly different storytelling vocabulary inside of them. But fundamentally, you know, human beings are human beings. They want to. They want to be entertained, they want to be moved, they want to laugh, they want to be excited, etc. So I don't think that'll change. I do think. Look, I guess I can say this because I did step away from one of those jobs when I was getting tool. The infrastructure of Hollywood is too old. People are. And by the way, I assume a lot of friends of mine will be unhappy to hear this, but these studios are for the most part run by people who are too old and going back forever. Irving Thalberg was in his 20s when he was doing this, but people were in their 30s and 40s at the peak of their careers. I ran 20th Century Fox in my early 40s and I certainly didn't feel young at the time. I felt like. But to the degree that, by the way, on all movies the audience is still younger because those are the people who want to go out. To the degree you are separated from the audience by 20, 30, 40 plus
- [19:48]
Kara Swisher
years, you're just not going to know. You're just not going to know. You're also sort of happy. So the disconnect is that, I mean, welcome to Washington, come visit Washington. It's the same thing. But no one wants to make bad movies. Is it just age or is it not using these formats or not under the executives in charge?
- [20:04]
Peter Chernin
So it's certainly not just age. You know, my very first job in Hollywood, I worked for a Very well known television producer who was an incredible micromanager. And probably 85% of what he did was really valuable and great. And 15% of what he did was really destructive. And I would watch that 15% ruin things. And it was a really valuable lesson for me because it made me realize these things are so fragile. It's so remarkably difficult to make something great. There are literally millions of decisions from. And you can have things with a great script and the wrong director, or a great script, the right director, and there's no chemistry in the cast or there's all sorts of reasons. You can have something that's not great and all of a sudden the right piece of music transforms it. They are insanely complex things to put together with lots of nuances and there's all sorts of reasons why they don't turn out. You're right. Say people set out to make great things, but it's really hard to make great things.
- [21:13]
Kara Swisher
So when you think about yourself, as you said, you did this in your 40s. How do you then stay connected in some way where you're clocking the stuff? Because you could easily make the basic movie. You could do this in your sleep. Right. Presumably a lot of the movies, since you've done so many, how do you continue to change? Especially when these studios are run by people who are quite. You know, it's the same thing with media. You know, I've always sort of been agitating that. I'm like, you're not understanding, especially when I was younger, what was happening here. But how do you stay cognizant of what's happening, especially with this movie? Is there a moment when you would have missed backrooms?
- [21:51]
Peter Chernin
There's plenty of moments. Yeah.
- [21:53]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [21:53]
Peter Chernin
Any number of moments where I'll miss any number of things. You know, it's not like I'm so wonderful or I'm somehow better or different than everybody else. I think that, you know, what I used to say when I was running Fox, and I think it's still true, is that ultimately those jobs as an executive and or producer is your job is to have some weird affinity for the zeitgeist of the world's public two years in advance. That's your job. You're supposed to guess what they're going to be interested in two years in advance from now. And I say if you were to design a job to isolate someone from the world's public, you would design the job of a studio head. You work behind gates, you generally live behind gates. You, you fly privately.
- [22:42]
Kara Swisher
The lunch is delicious.
- [22:43]
Peter Chernin
You're so isolated from people, and I think you need to do two things, which is you need to just force yourself both force yourself and I guess instinctively be relentlessly curious. Just, you know, you gotta be looking at TikTok, not as a study project, but just because you're interested. What's going on? What's. What's this about? You gotta be looking YouTube. You just have to be curious, and you gotta be relentlessly curious. And then you have to surround yourself with as many young people as you can. And let me be really clear. Backrooms was not found by me at the company. It was found by a young executive named Corey Adelson, a journalist who brought it to me, and I said yes to it, but she deserves the credit for it.
- [23:26]
Kara Swisher
What did she say that convinced you?
- [23:28]
Peter Chernin
She said, it's really cool. Read this. And she has real credibility with me. And I'm interested in those opinions. And I think the key is to both have young people trust them and be interested in what they have to say. I think it's the job of young people to force you to pay attention. I used to say, again, I've always said to the people who work for me, if I pass on something that's good, that's your fault, not mine. And it's your fault for not convincing me. And you need to do whatever it takes to force me to pay attention, to convince me. And I used to say, go burn down my car in the parking lot if that's what it takes. But you have to do whatever it takes to convince me that this is right. Because by definition, obtuse, out of touch, all those things. And, you know, you want to create that environment where you have aggressive, opinionated, passionate young people, and somehow you don't put up enough stupid barriers so that you're not capable of listening to them.
- [24:30]
Kara Swisher
We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Deleteme. Have you ever thought I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalkers, scammers, and hackers, but you're not sure what? Here's what to do. Go join deleteme.com cara and enter the code. Cara. You get 20% off deleteme. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. In the age of AI, we're all especially vulnerable to scammers using your personal data that's floating around on the Internet against you. Have you ever looked at yourself online and found your home address, phone numbers, and the name of your family members? It's unsettling. I have done this. It is very unsettling, especially when a lot of it is inaccurate. But it's grouped together in such a way that seems vaguely threatening and also very troubling in terms of your own safety and your own privacy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com kara and use the promo code Cara at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com Kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com Kara code Kara
- [25:55]
Peter Chernin
support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com
- [26:36]
Kara Swisher
Support for this show comes from Teleport. In the AI era, one of the biggest questions is how to contain agent behavior in your production infrastructure. In Teleport's survey of more than 200 infrastructure leaders, the company found that those confident in their AI deployments have more than twice the incident rate of those that aren't 72% versus 33%. Let's talk security basics. The most frequent causes of data breaches are human error and compromised credentials. But in the AI era, the challenge is that agents with broad privileges can find these credentials and gain access to sensitive data. Teleport establishes a unified identity layer for humans, machines and agents that is cryptographically backed, which enables agents to be controlled and contained with the same rigorous that you apply to other actors in your infrastructure. Security is complicated, but with Teleport it doesn't have to be. Download the free report@goteleport.com OnWithKara. Let's talk about the state of Hollywood broadly then, because as you and I know since covering this, the slowness of the penny dropping about digital has been glacial and everything else. So every episode we get an expert question from an outsider. Here's yours.
- [27:49]
Peter Chernin
Hey Peter Chernin I'm Ari Shapiro. I'm one of the hosts of the CNN podcast Engagement Party. And here's my question for you. I know Hollywood is gonna try to do everything it can to replicate the success of Obsession and Backrooms, these two horror movies that have brought people back into the theaters, blown expectations out of the water, and just dominated the moviegoing experience so far this summer. My question is, what do you think are the wrong lessons that Hollywood will reach? What do you think are the mistakes that Hollywood will make as it tries to chase the tail of these two movies that have been such runaway hits? Thanks. Thank you, Ari. Look, the lesson is what I just said, which is go find the next YouTuber. Go buy something off YouTube. It's, you know, it has no relevance. Your job every day is to find something great, exciting, new, innovative, et cetera. You know, look, I would say, and you can understand this, Kara, managing innovation is an extraordinarily complicated thing. Equally complicated for people in the tech world. Yeah, you know, everybody would, you know, it's very easy to come up and say Hollywood is old fashioned. How to touch the tech world. I don't know, you know, how many tech companies that can you point to that have innovated repeatedly over a 20, 25 year period. They are most of them built off of one extraordinary inn. And then they go on and, you know, it's no accident that there are very few companies in the world that stay among the top 10 companies in the world for more than 20 years. You know, managing innovation is extraordinarily difficult. And it's difficult in Hollywood and you lose, you know, you reach the wrong lessons. I would also say that, you know, one of the challenges for tech is that, you know, on the one hand, data is an extraordinary gift and an extraordinary tool. It doesn't necessarily lead to innovation. It leads to extraordinary knowledge about how your audience, how your users are currently behaving. But if you just say this is the way they're currently behaving, this is the way they're going to behave forever, you'll fail. Somebody else who does something brand new out of the blue will come up with something new and better. And innovation is a very, very challenging thing to manage. And managing is essentially managing a form of innovation. They have very different kinds of elements involved in them, but it is managing innovation. And innovation and creativity are largely the same thing. There's some very different buttons and levers to push on both of them, but ultimately you are trying to get something new and exciting and fresh and original.
- [30:32]
Kara Swisher
So one of the things that. Let me just click on something you said earlier about even though a lot of these original films are doing really well, most of the movies are franchises. Right. In which you've been relying on existing ip. I'll say that way. How do you get studios to be innovative and swing for the fences on a risky pitch when they can at least bank on some success with a safe known quantity?
- [30:54]
Peter Chernin
You have management that thinks long term because by definition these franchise certainly over the last 10 or 15 years have been much safer. However, by definition you're going to run out of them. And to the degree you are running one of these places, you should be thinking long term, which is I should be both maximizing my ability to monetize the existing IP that I own and I ought to be creating new IP that's vital and vibrant that will have the same kind of economic success over long term and that, you know, you can't do it to the degree all you're doing is just making sequels.
- [31:34]
Kara Swisher
And you noted to CNBC that risk is ultimately the lifeblood of success. So how do you get Hollywood to take more risk? Given we'll talk a little bit about the sort of economic situation these mergers which will, you know, to me, the more mergery they get, the less risk taking they get. Given all the huge debt, et cetera, and worries about taking risks, what needs to change? Cause Hollywood does has gone through periods where they're very safe and then they're very risky. Right. I think the 70s was. Was more risky. How do you get them to think if it's the lifeblood of success, as you know?
- [32:06]
Peter Chernin
I think it's a couple of things. First of all, I think the danger thing is to equate risk with recklessness. And there are a lot of people who think risk is reckless. Risk isn't reckless. The wrong risk is certainly reckless. But your job is to figure out. Your job is to ultimately make a series of bets all day long. And clearly you want to revitalize. These things are nothing if not repositories of valuable libraries. There are two things. They're repositories of valuable libraries and lots of ip. And they're a manufacturing system that is allowing you to make creative choices 15, 20 times a year. You can certainly take risk inside of that portfolio without being reckless. A the first thing is to think about is a portfolio which is I ought to be doing X number of these things that feel big and safe. I ought to be doing X number of things in the middle that are less risky.
- [33:07]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. Some bonds, some stocks, some cash, that kind of thing.
- [33:10]
Peter Chernin
I ought to be also taking some risk. That's number one. Number two is budgets. By definition, there's an inverse relationship between the size of a budget and risk taking. And the creative community ought to understand that to the degree the creative community wants to take risk, make things at lower budgets. And by the way, I think, in my opinion, that's the really interesting question around AI and then I think, look, it's also the job of leadership. The job of leadership is to have really talented people that you support taking risks. I believe the best thing you can do is find really talented young people, figure out the good ones and support them during failure. Because it's a really weird thing because you are basically trying to run a manufacturing process that is managing creativity. And creativity is very closely associated with failure. Very, very closely. You think about in lots of ways. One is it's the scariest thing on earth. Think about what it is to be an actor, to put yourself out there and get judged by people and saying, I don't like, I don't like her nose. Or she's, you know, he's getting fat. Or, you know, those are real. Or look at, he looks like an idiot with that choice. That's terrible. Being a writer, you've been locked in a room for nine months, you bring your script down. Some say, well, that sucks. You know, they are real. And you, you want to create an environment that makes people feel safe being creative. And you want to do the same thing with the people picking those things. You want to have bold people who both understand enough about the business, who learn the lessons from when they, but who also take risk.
- [35:01]
Kara Swisher
Safety is also starting to prove a little risky. We keep seeing these big movies underperform. The big one now is Star wars, the Mandalorian and Grogu, which is interesting.
- [35:10]
Peter Chernin
Back to the point you asked earlier. The second thing that'll bring back risk is big failures. You mentioned the 70s. The reason the 70s Hollywood innovated so much is all these big bloated spectacles that were playing it safe. Big musicals. Probably the biggest of them was hello, the Dolly, which virtually bankrupted 20th Century Fox at the time. All those movies, movies started failing. All the things that they were doing. Hollywood spectacle, musicals, big Westerns, blah, blah, started failing and they were forced to take risk.
- [35:37]
Kara Swisher
Right? That's a really good point. Although now Hotel Dolly's seen all the time, like later. They have different lives, which is interesting. One of the things, of course, is the center of Los Angeles being that there's been a big decline, as you know, in the number of projects being shot there. A lot of productions have moved out of state and overseas. As content becomes more global, is Los Angeles still the capital of the entertainment industry?
- [35:59]
Peter Chernin
Yeah, I would say two things. So jobs in Hollywood have declined by about 35, 40%. Some of that is tax credit related. Some of that is global production related. Some of that, in my opinion, is about vertical integration. And by the way, I'm far more concerned with vertical integration than I am with mergers. And that's, let's think, you know, in essence, Hollywood has always been the center of global production. They have. It has always been the center of looking for filmmakers in France and Italy and Korea and bringing them here. And it's just been a nexus for the, ultimately, the financial underpinnings of that. You know, movies have always been made all over the world in Canada and England, you know, and other places. And so probably I don't think Hollywood has become less central. I do think that the world has become more global. And, you know, one of the things, you know, I mentioned earlier that I had sold my production company, which I've sold, to a French company called Media Wand. And one of the reasons I did that was that I believe that if you look at the platforms, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, have all become global. They are a global platform serving the global community. The production companies have not. The production companies have never been global. You know, big European companies were never successful in the us. US Companies never cared about the rest of the world. They were just like, we'll sell our stuff there. We won't make it. And I think there's a big opportunity for a global production company that is beginning to unite the highest quality talent all over the world.
- [37:40]
Kara Swisher
We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Cats are special little creatures. So are dogs. I have both. I love my cats and dogs. And my cat's name right now is Lovely, and she means a lot to me. And she's really quite narcissistic, but I enjoy it. She's been pretty healthy throughout her life, but I've had other cats who have gotten sick at the end. And I do think about what's going to happen in the next years ahead because she could get sick, have a health issue. And with previous pets I've had, the bills racking up were enormous. And I never got pet insurance. And I think it's really important going forward to do that because these are big surprises. And here's what surprises a lot of pet owners? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000. Emergency vet bills can run into thousands and always seem to land on a Sunday night. Be prepared for the unexpected with Fetch Pet Insurance. Fetch pet insurance is billed so you never have to worry about about giving your pet the best care. Fetch is the most complete coverage for dogs and cats. You get paid back up to 90% of vet bills for accidents, illnesses, diagnostics and more. Every vet in the US and Canada is in network, so you keep the vet you already trust, which is really important. Plus, with Fetch you can build a plan that fits your budget. Once your claim is approved, get paid back in as little as two days. Don't wait until your pet has a health problem, believe me. Go to fetch.comsave and get your free quote. It takes about two minutes. That's fetchpet.com/fetch lovelonger.
- [39:23]
Peter Chernin
Whatever your thing, it could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design, with our magic AI tool, things you can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing whatever needs to be done for your thing. Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva the thing that makes anything a thing. I'm Seth Matlins. My new show Create or Destroy Reimagining Marketing explores how every decision a company makes. Not just the marketing ones, but the hr, ir, pricing, or design and planning ones. The ones most don't consider marketing at all contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week I sit down with CMOs, CEOs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking and reimagining how businesses grow or don't for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show, it's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show. That that argues they've always been the same thing. From the Vox Media podcast network and the Wisdomist Company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.
- [40:39]
Kara Swisher
So one of the obvious biggest trends, and it's impossible not to talk about, is AI in Hollywood. You've also said you have an obligation to be relentlessly interested in new technology. And it's something I've liked about you because you weren't There were like three executives who weren't terrified of tech. You, Barry Diller and Bob Iger. I would say. Not terrified of tech essentially, or dismissive. One or the other obviously. AI Is the latest and there's been many over the many years. And your production company was one of the lead investors in an AI studio Promise their goal was to actually make shows and movies using AI. Of course, it scares a lot of people in the industry. Is there a real loss of jobs? I think there is in certain areas. In certain areas not. But talk about the worries that go on given you've gotta be thinking of costs too.
- [41:23]
Peter Chernin
Yeah. Let me be clear. I said. Said two minutes ago that jobs in Hollywood are down 35, 40%.
- [41:29]
Kara Swisher
Right.
- [41:29]
Peter Chernin
I don't think there's a single job in Hollywood that has been lost to AI yet. Not one. So what's going on in Hollywood right now, which is devastating and I'm deeply, deeply concerned about. I'd be happy to talk more about.
- [41:40]
Kara Swisher
Sure. Please.
- [41:41]
Peter Chernin
Has nothing to do with AI. So this. And by the way, it's typical, which is people are afraid of the wrong thing. Right. Which is they're already in big trouble and has nothing to do with AI. Can I guarantee, by the way, there's widespread terror about job loss everywhere because of AI. And certainly if you look at the economy today, inflation's a problem, jobs aren't. So we've yet to see that. It's always good to be paranoid, it's always good to be worried, but we haven't seen that. Look, what I would say, my instinct is the following, which is nobody knows. We should all be super interested in what it is. There's certainly an easy analog in the transition from hand drawn cell animation to computer animation. That's something absolutely analog, which is it replaced humans with machines. Artistically, it was fantastic. And by the way, it was fantastic for Jobs. There are more jobs in computer animation than there ever were in cell animation. And that's a pretty close analogy was if the guilds and people like that said you got to protect human beings at all cost, we never would have had Toy Story and all of those wonderful CG animated movies. And so by the way, the same thing is true with special effects. Special effects all used to be analog. Every single one of them is digital right now. And there are more jobs and special effects than there have ever been. And there are higher quality of special effects than there have ever been. So this sort of knee jerk paranoia about technology is bad. It's going to kill humans, it's going to kill jobs, et cetera, I think is not smart.
- [43:24]
Kara Swisher
Right. Well, I think people are worried about the valuations these companies are getting that these all like for instance, anthropic OpenAI.
- [43:32]
Peter Chernin
But that's not a question about Hollywood. That's a completely different question about AI.
- [43:37]
Kara Swisher
Right, right. But you think that they're worried about. I want to ask what you're most worried about in a second. But. But you are seeing some jobs from real actors. For example, there's Business Insider wrote, for example about so called micro dramas and verticals that are using them. Short form series designed to be watched on the phone. Viewers are mixed on the results. This is. Is it a sign to come or not? I've always found them to be not good yet. But whenever I see something in Internet that's not good, I just recall seeing early Yahoo. It wasn't very good. And I kept thinking it's gonna get better. And the New York Times just did an interview with AI actor Tilly Norwood, which was strange.
- [44:16]
Peter Chernin
I thought it was very strange.
- [44:17]
Kara Swisher
At one point the importer asked Tilly what's to stop her from taking other people's jobs or alienating humanity. One of the responses she gave was, quote, whether the people building me are willing to say no to profitable but corrosive uses. So you think it's just overhyped this idea of that this will be what kills these companies or hurts them?
- [44:36]
Peter Chernin
I think it's completely overhyped. By the way. You know, if you look at what most technology has done is extended the power of storytelling. And so to the degree micro dramas, and I tend to agree with you that most of them aren't very good now we'll see if they become good. But they're not killing Netflix or YouTube or anything else or movies. They are a new form. And to the degree they are a valuable new form, you'll start seeing more actors in them. The reason they have AI actors in them is they are done incredibly cheaply. And it doesn't matter that they're not high quality. To the degree that they become all of a sudden super valuable, people start casting actors in them. My simplistic view of AI is use it as a tool aggressive. Now that tool, it may be just a tool. It may be a way to. To streamline the cost of pre production. It may be a way to see. Yeah, it may be a way to. Obviously it has huge implications for special effects.
- [45:39]
Kara Swisher
I think it was Scorsese with the storyboarding, right? Correct. He was in that Ovitz company.
- [45:44]
Peter Chernin
By the way, it may also give you tools to actually create new art forms with. We'll see. And it's interesting to embrace all those things to the degree you're interested in Telling stories to human beings. You should be interested in it. The other side of it is rather than trying to restrict Hollywood from using it because to the degree it's meaningful, all you're going to do is make Hollywood smaller and smaller and smaller as these other things coming. Hollywood has generally been a place that is really good at, as I said earlier, the manufacturing process of storytelling. It should be extended to new art forms. Absolutely. Be really stupid not to do that. So it be, should be the same time. I think it's important to say you should be relentlessly focused on copyright. You should be focused on. You can't steal, you can't steal from these works to train large language models. You can't steal actors likenesses, you can't do those things. Those are very valid in my point. In my view, copyright is copyrighted. It should be sacrosanct. And I do believe that. By the way, I think Hollywood should be more aggressive about copyright.
- [46:47]
Kara Swisher
I agree.
- [46:48]
Peter Chernin
Right. Much more aggressive about copyright. And I think it's going to be real. The copyright questions around AI are going to be fascinating over the next five to ten years. But restricting AI I don't get. I don't think it makes any sense. And I think that to the degree, look, it may not be meaningful, it may be partially meaningful or it may be meaningful, but in any of those answers, Hollywood should be playing a part in it.
- [47:12]
Kara Swisher
What's the most interesting thing you've seen and something you've seen, you're being like, oh come on.
- [47:15]
Peter Chernin
No, with A.I.
- [47:18]
Kara Swisher
yeah, with A.I.
- [47:19]
Peter Chernin
the most interesting thing is, and I won't name them because it hasn't come out yet. There is a cable network that has started experimenting with some large scale documentaries.
- [47:35]
Kara Swisher
100% AI pulling from archives, archival or just making stuff.
- [47:40]
Peter Chernin
Just saying, do a caveman drop or do the fall of Rome.
- [47:49]
Kara Swisher
Ah, right.
- [47:50]
Peter Chernin
Using AI and I've seen 10 or 15 minute segments that they've done, 100% AI that are fascinating and really impressive.
- [48:00]
Kara Swisher
There's little experiments like that online in little short form. It's usually around hardware or making something, but go ahead.
- [48:07]
Peter Chernin
But that's to me the most oppressive stuff. The, you know, look, we are the, the company that we invested in, Promise Studios, which is doing a wide range of stuff, all of it interesting to me. And we invested mostly because we believed in the leadership and because we were really interested in learning. I would say if you asked me to judge today, television animation, good enough to make television animation today good enough to make commercials. Today good enough to make some reality Shows level quality stuff today good enough to make special effects, getting closer on feature film quality animation and still pretty far away of making true narrative storytelling with actors. Right?
- [48:53]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. Documentary is actually a great way to do that because there's so much stuff like why do you need someone person to do the Fall of Roan when there's just history.
- [49:00]
Peter Chernin
Nobody can say that's not what it looks like because more there. But I want to go back to what I said earlier, which is what I think Hollywood, and particularly young people should be excited about is to the degree that it's a valid tool to make things, it should play a meaningful role in driving down costs. And if you can drive down costs, you can innovate more. And I think in some ways the thing I would be most excited about is the match of 22 year olds, 22 year old genuine storytellers and AI because they're going to be some young people with great imaginations who are going to get better at the technology than anybody else who are going to make $500,000 movies that are great and who are going to. And there should be a hundred of them being able to be made. That's great for the art form. That's not a bad thing. That's a great thing for the art form. And anybody who's interested in the art form should be interested in any innovation that has the opportunity to drive down costs. Because single most challenging thing to the art form right now is how expensive it is to make things when the average studio movie is whatever it is today, $80 million plus has another $50 million of marketing behind it. It's a challenge to innovate at $130 million.
- [50:17]
Kara Swisher
Bet it is. And that's how the Internet got started. Those are all small companies riding off of everyone else's free stuff.
- [50:24]
Peter Chernin
Take some chances.
- [50:25]
Kara Swisher
You did say one thing that worries me more than mergers. I do want to end talking about mergers in Hollywood. And as you noted earlier this year, you sold your content studio North Road to the front French Entertainment Giant Media 1. As you said earlier, you felt like it was time for content companies to get bigger and become global as entertainment and tech platforms consolidate. When you think about, you said mergers aren't the problem, it's something else.
- [50:47]
Peter Chernin
Vertical integration. Vertical integration.
- [50:49]
Kara Swisher
Explain that for people what that means.
- [50:51]
Peter Chernin
Vertical integration just means that one company is controlling the entire process. They are making things, things, owning things and distributing things. So if you look at the big platforms, they produce, own the production, own all rights in perpetuity and distributed only on Their platforms.
- [51:14]
Kara Swisher
Netflix.
- [51:15]
Peter Chernin
Right. Netflix app. By the way, Netflix is no worse than Apple, Amazon. Right. Disney, all of these people want to control everything. There are a couple of big negatives to those that if you go back to the 70s, which you refer to as the 70s and 80s were really when Hollywood exploded and you had two things that separated that you had a consent decree which said the studios weren't allowed to own movie theaters. And so it separated movie production from movie distribution. And you had the financial interest syndication rule in the television business which said the networks could not own the shows they made, they could only license them. Right. It led to the explosion of the
- [51:57]
Kara Swisher
tel movie business, production companies, creative.
- [52:00]
Peter Chernin
It led to every single one of those studios which were dying in 1970 became the dominant television producers. Disney, Fox, Universal, Paramount, Warners, all became the biggest television producer. And it's really what led to their growth in that 25 year period. What you have right now, now. So I believe it would make the ecosystem far more vibrant. That's number one. Secondly is this idea that things don't go from one platform to another because all rights are held in perpetuity. It's just bad for things circulating.
- [52:36]
Kara Swisher
Right. So it stays in Netflix, it stays in Apple.
- [52:39]
Peter Chernin
Yeah. And by the way, it becomes just an old piece of content on Netflix versus you look at the number of things that became hits on the second platform they were on when they got marketed again. Or look at Seinfeld, which was by the way a big success on NBC not in the first year, but was a big success later. Has become ubiquitous in syndication, the same sense ubiquitous in syndication, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a bad thing. The third thing is I believe it's bad for creativity because you have every single creative decision funneling through one hierarchy. And creativity thrives where it's messy, where there are people arguing about things, where if one person doesn't get it, somebody else is going to get it somewhere else and we'll innovate somewhere else. And so I believe it's very valuable to have creativity thriving. And then the fourth thing I would say is that what's happened in this process is there's no economic hits for talent. There's also much less economic failure for talent. There's unemployment for talent and unemployment is meaningful. But once you make something, there's no failure. You're getting paid the same. Whether something succeeds or it fails, that's a terrible thing.
- [53:53]
Kara Swisher
So there's no incentive.
- [53:56]
Peter Chernin
There's both no incentive and there's no terror and being Terrified as a creative is a great thing.
- [54:01]
Kara Swisher
That's a really good point. Yeah.
- [54:03]
Peter Chernin
Right.
- [54:03]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. You get paid. You get paid less, but you get paid. So it's.
- [54:06]
Peter Chernin
You get paid. And you're also not incentivized to kill yourself to make it great. You're not. They're not incentivized to promote things as they used to be, et cetera. And so I think vertical integration is really bad for the system. I think to the degree I'm scared you mentioned. What else? What I'm terrified of is vertical. The impact of vertical integration on the Hollywood storytelling community. Because the stronger those vertically integrated companies get, they will look to squeeze talent because it's just a cost. It's a widget. It's the cost of a widget. If you're in the widget business, drive down the cost of widgets.
- [54:41]
Kara Swisher
So should there be regulation or maybe antitrust enforcement to force them to move away?
- [54:44]
Peter Chernin
I believe that that would be more valuable from a regulatory point of view than regulating consolidation. I don't think consolidation is wonderful, but I think that if you were to be able to regulate one thing, I think regulating vertical integration would be far more valuable.
- [55:03]
Kara Swisher
I hadn't thought about this. Yeah. Now, you said you're supporting the pending merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers because you want to see another strong competitor. Yeah. Right now the antitrust grounds are pretty weak. Absolutely. There's still 20% of the market in certain areas.
- [55:16]
Peter Chernin
And I think that I worry about. Look, I think in the current situation, what would be the single best thing to happen is another strong competitor. And whether or not it becomes that, I can't tell you. It'll be a function of how smart and talented and strategic they are. But if they became another strong competitor, it would be good for the end. The of.
- [55:38]
Kara Swisher
It doesn't just make them a taller, like Oompa Loompa. Like, you know, they're not big enough for these because a lot of these are tech fueled. Right. And I would not call a. Paramount is tech fueled now, but not exactly the same way.
- [55:50]
Peter Chernin
It's not.
- [55:50]
Kara Swisher
It's not. It's not. Trust me. I know. I get that.
- [55:53]
Peter Chernin
But it may be that it may be down the road and that's what they're telling. But it's not yet. No, no, look, I think that it is a. Certainly a big, big challenge for Hollywood and someone who understands something about both worlds, like you should be thinking about this more is that these are small companies. They are, you know, Larry Ellison personally is bigger than Disney is bigger than Comcast. Bigger than, you know, it's bigger than. And so when you look at YouTube, YouTube's part of a, what, $3 trillion company? You know, the biggest media company right now, I would call it Netflix, A tech company. In that case, the biggest media company is Disney, which is $200 billion company.
- [56:35]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I was arguing at one point a couple years ago that when they were challenging the AT&T Warner Mother, which didn't turn out to be a good merger, but that had to do with dumbasses running it. But I was more like I was arguing with one of the antitrust people. I go, they're too small compared to the tech people. You don't understand. I hate to say it, but consolidation is the only way they're going to survive.
- [56:56]
Peter Chernin
That is the only way they're going to survive right now.
- [56:58]
Kara Swisher
But I was like, I don't like it. But you've now got these tech companies in these pole positions where they control every bit of distribution.
- [57:06]
Peter Chernin
I think one of the giant questions to the degree they end up controlling these things outright is can they get good at managing creativity? And there are huge differences, which I'm not sure they've thought about, between managing technological innovation and managing creative innovation.
- [57:26]
Kara Swisher
So when you have something like a Paramount one, Paramount, Warner One, David Ellison has promised to make 30 theatrical films a year. If the deal goes through others, we'll see it is all likelihood going through. But I'm looking at the math of $80 billion in debt and everything else. And I watched what happened to Warner before that, and it seems to me they're still small all. Even if they seem irritating in the news area, which they are. And they're somewhat boneheaded in the news area. More than boneheaded. You don't have to. You can comment if you want, but I don't see that they're big enough. And I see no matter how rich Larry Ellison is, $80 billion in debt is kind of a big thing to drag behind you.
- [58:09]
Peter Chernin
Look, I think I said this before. I'm not inside their books. It's very challenging. You know, it's challenging to make 30 movies. It's challenging to continue to build the streaming service, and it's doubly challenging while your core business, which is Linear Channels, is in decline. So they've got a. They're the ones making the bet, not me. They've got a really hard task ahead of them, and God bless them, I hope they succeed because it'd be good for the business.
- [58:37]
Kara Swisher
But would Netflix have been a Bigger owner or would that been more disastrous? Because I think Netflix is going to come in and buy it all up at the end when they fail. That's my feeling.
- [58:47]
Peter Chernin
I think that, well, it depends on success. If Paramount could succeed, that's better. Because what the world badly needs is a competitor to Netflix primarily right now. So in that sense, Netflix wouldn't have been. Netflix certainly wouldn't have been a better owner in the short term, but if it goes out of business, I guess would be a better owner. Yeah, that's the sense in which I said I was rooting for it to
- [59:14]
Kara Swisher
be successful because I think which gets us back. You said Netflix is the one to meet, but YouTube is the one.
- [59:18]
Peter Chernin
Speaking of something, YouTube is absolutely the one to be. But to say I don't buy. Which is the Netflix argument or was the Netflix argument when they're in. I don't believe that YouTube and Netflix are direct competitors right now. Right. I think, think everything is competitive for human, for people's times, everything. But that's like saying, you know, Netflix is competing with video games or Netflix is competing with sports or going, you know, there's enormous competition for people's times. Netflix is a streaming long form video service. Netflix. YouTube right now is I guess largely a short form video service with a little bit of a essentially virtual cable channel. You know, virtual MSO thrown in there though that's a small part of their business on a relative basis. So, you know, individual people who work in the business are not waking up saying, should I go with YouTube or should I go with Netflix? There's zero competition. So this idea that they're competing with each other, they're competing each other the same way that you're competing with Netflix or that you're competing with the New York Times or you're competing with, you know, video games. It's. You're competing for people's times.
- [60:26]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That is absolutely true. So do you think this Warner thing has a chance? I mean, you don't know yet, but I think it's not going to work out well. I just have watched so far.
- [60:39]
Peter Chernin
I think it's challenging.
- [60:40]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, you're nice. You're nice. They can't do it. I just think, I don't know. I'm not a fan of inherited wealth, so that's fine. But great movie, Top Gun, Maverick. I love it. So you've just turned 75 years old. You've been in the business a long time. Have you thought about retiring? How do you look at what you want to do next. And your legacy amid these monumental changes you've worked for through every aspect of this, including working for Murdoch and everyone
- [61:09]
Peter Chernin
else, the idea that business people have a legacy seems beyond silliness. Beyond silliness.
- [61:16]
Kara Swisher
Stop not being narcissistic, Peter.
- [61:18]
Peter Chernin
And it's the ultimate hubris. There are four or five business people a century who have a legacy. So that's ridiculous thing to think about. All right, so I have no legacy. Legacy. I'll be dead. And you know that'll be that.
- [61:31]
Kara Swisher
You greenlit sir. You greenlit Titanic and Avatar.
- [61:34]
Peter Chernin
Then I can.
- [61:35]
Kara Swisher
You did.
- [61:36]
Peter Chernin
Look, I am interested in being interested in stimulating. I'm interested in spending more time with my family. You know, I have a charity that I've been involved in for a long, very long time. Malaria no more. That I'm deeply. I have a new charity that I just started called Billion Scale Health, where we're doing extraordinary things, trying to use technology to build health scale solutions for a billion. For potentially a billion people. Something engaged in that. I still want to do creative things. I have projects that I'm producing and that I'm interested in. I will help this French company of which I think I'm the largest shareholder. So I'm interested in being stimulated and fulfilled and I'm interested in helping. You know, the greatest satisfaction from a business perspective for me right now is helping talented young people.
- [62:22]
Kara Swisher
Absolutely.
- [62:23]
Peter Chernin
But I have no legacy.
- [62:24]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, all right, all right.
- [62:26]
Peter Chernin
Unfortunately, Carrie, you may not either.
- [62:29]
Kara Swisher
I do. That's not true. I'm a media entrepreneur. No. All these people are chasing the stuff I invented. I am. I shall be remembered by my children. At least. It's interesting. I haven't seen you at the White House groveling to Trump at all.
- [62:43]
Peter Chernin
I guess I haven't been there.
- [62:44]
Kara Swisher
No, you're not going to the UFC fight. What?
- [62:46]
Peter Chernin
I'm not going to the UFC fight. By the way, I never really liked ufc, so, no, I will not be at the UFC fight.
- [62:53]
Kara Swisher
Oh, damn. Anyway. Anyway, Peter, as usual, you're really smart. You do have a legacy. I don't care. I'm gonna just say that.
- [63:01]
Peter Chernin
Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, we can ask each other that question.
- [63:04]
Kara Swisher
2022, you have enormous patience. Given to some of the jackasses you've worked for over years, I'll tell you that. Me too. Anyway, let's save that for you. Are you writing a memo? Are you writing a memoir?
- [63:14]
Peter Chernin
I would never write a memoir. It's the least interesting thing on earth. It's so uninteresting. Right.
- [63:21]
Kara Swisher
I'll just continue to go out to lunch with you and hear the stories. That's how I'm gonna go with it.
- [63:24]
Peter Chernin
That'll be.
- [63:25]
Kara Swisher
Anyway, Peter, thank you. And it really is. Backrooms is really interesting. And when I saw. I've always thought you made a lot of interesting choices and surprising choices, and I was very happy to see this work out for your company.
- [63:36]
Peter Chernin
Well, thank you. I enjoyed it. And congratulations on your new home.
- [63:40]
Kara Swisher
Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. Right. Oh, I have another Murdoch. What should I do?
- [63:44]
Peter Chernin
You're back.
- [63:46]
Kara Swisher
No, I own my own ip, Peter. I mean, come on. It's just. And it's also the best Murdoch. I have the best Murdoch now, and it is a low bar, but he is the finest Murdoch of the Murdoch paradox. No comment. No comment.
- [63:59]
Peter Chernin
To be fair, I had a very good run with Rupert and.
- [64:04]
Kara Swisher
You did.
- [64:05]
Peter Chernin
I had. No. Rupert treated me extraordinarily well.
- [64:08]
Kara Swisher
He is. He is.
- [64:09]
Peter Chernin
We had. We had a huge amount of fun and we did great things together. So.
- [64:12]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, he did a lot of great things. He also did a lot of deleterious things, but nonetheless, it's a mixed bag. Anyway, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
- [64:20]
Peter Chernin
My pleasure. I enjoyed it.
- [64:25]
Kara Swisher
Today's show was produced by Christian Castor, Roselle, Michelle Eloy, Katherine Milsop, Madeline LaPlante, Dubie and Kaitlyn Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Annika Robbins, Corinne Ruff and Julia Sharpe Levine. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you help make a YouTube series a box office smash. If not, you're watching an endless loop of bad sequels. Go. Wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.