Do Standing Ovations at Film Festivals Mean Anything? The Town Investigates.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Town with Matthew Belloni

Episode: "Do Standing Ovations at Film Festivals Mean Anything? The Town Investigates."

Date: October 23, 2025
Host: Matthew Belloni
Guest: Stephen Follows, Film Data Analyst and Consultant

---

Overview

This episode centers on the phenomenon of standing ovations at major film festivals. Matthew Belloni and guest Stephen Follows dive into whether these increasingly lengthy ovations have any meaningful correlation with a film’s quality, critical reception, or box office performance. Utilizing fresh data and industry insight, they pull back the curtain on the motivations behind these ovations and the media economy that feeds on them, ultimately questioning their significance.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Evolution and Rise of Standing Ovations

• Historical Context: Ovations used to be rare, mainly reserved for lifetime achievement moments or significant bodies of work (e.g., Sergio Leone at Cannes in 1984).

  "In the previous century, they were sporadic." — Stephen Follows [05:48]

• Explosion in the Modern Age: Since the 2000s and especially with the advent of social media, ovations reported at major festivals have ballooned—from a handful per year to nearly 60 in 2024.
• Social Media Effect: The viral potential of ovation videos and minute-count headlines has fueled more performative, attention-seeking standing ovations.

2. Media’s Role in Amplification and Exaggeration

• Traffic and Incentives: News outlets chase clicks by reporting exaggerated standing ovation lengths, creating a feedback loop between media, filmmakers, festivals, and audiences.

  "If you can say controversial Cannes movie got a 10, 20 minute standing ovation, all the aggregators would pick it up." — Matt Belloni [07:45]

• Trade Press Analysis: Data shows that Deadline tends to report longer ovations compared to Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Differences arise in how outlets measure ovation duration, whether from the beginning or end of credits.

  "The reporter and Variety almost always agree... But Deadline was like an average, almost two minutes longer." — Stephen Follows [16:01]

• No Standardization: With no neutral timekeeper, durations are subjective and often inflated.

3. What Do Standing Ovations Really Mean?

• Lack of True Correlation: Data shows virtually no correlation between ovation length and a film’s eventual box office, distribution, or critical reception—except for a slight relationship with IMDb scores.

  "On average, it has absolutely no correlation with any outcome... There's no information there. It's just a fun story." — Stephen Follows [17:58]

• Outlier Anecdotes Aren’t Data: While some famously long-ovation films (e.g. Fahrenheit 9/11) went on to huge success, the relationship is not causational.
• Ovations Are Mainly for the Room: Films with stars or filmmakers present (especially at early or late career stages) tend to get longer ovations, regardless of merit.

4. Film Festivals’ Complicity

• Festivals Welcome the Attention: Festival organizers embrace ovations as promotional tools, helping attract bigger stars and media coverage, even if everyone privately admits they’re largely performative.
• PR Machinery: Festival publicists and trade press work in tandem to create buzz.

5. Which Festivals and Outlets Lead the Pack?

• Venice’s Role: Venice generates the longest ovations, driven by its unique ecosystem.
• Deadline’s Numbers: Deadline, according to Follows’ analysis, routinely reports the highest figures (details above).

6. Changing Trends: Is the Hype Fading?

• Shorter but More Frequent Ovations: Since 2011’s Cannes peak (15-minute average), average durations have dropped to 7–8 minutes, but the frequency of ovations keeps rising.
• Backlash and Media Cycles: An increasing industry and critical backlash exists, with some believing the topic may become passé in the coming years.

  "I think in five years it's going to be a boring topic. And so I'd like to think the trades drop it and everyone rolls their eyes." — Stephen Follows [26:36]

7. Personal Experiences and Anecdotes

• Belloni’s Perspective: Emphasizes the artificiality—he’s witnessed terrible movies receive rapturous ovations simply due to stars or social dynamics.
• Peer Pressure in the Audience: Audience members often feel compelled to keep clapping beyond their genuine response.

8. Meta-Marketing & Self-Perpetuation

• Ovations beget articles, which create buzz, which in turn encourages future ovations, forming a self-sustaining marketing cycle.

  "It's just like in... Tinkerbell the Fairy where you have to clap to keep her alive. It's a bit like that. The more people clap... the more the film does exist." — Stephen Follows [25:03]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Meaninglessness of It All:

  "It's all bullshit... The whole thing is a cynical traffic police play." — Matt Belloni [13:21 & 16:52]

• On Social Media’s Impact:

  "They started being more performative than they might have been in the past." — Matthew Belloni [06:22]

• On Measurement Discrepancies:

  "We measure from the beginning of the credits. The others measure from the end of the credits." — Off-record Deadline insider (via Follows) [16:31]

• On Ovation Fatigue:

  "If I like the movie, I will clap for like a minute... Who's clapping for 15 minutes?" — Matt Belloni [23:42]

• On the Prospects for Change:

  "You know what would be the flex move here? If one of these filmmakers... put up a little placard... 'Please hold your applause at the end. Do not give me an ovation.'" — Matt Belloni [27:01]

---

Essential Timestamps

• 02:00–05:15 – Why Standing Ovations Have Become a Pet Topic for Belloni
• 05:16–07:45 – Stephen Follows on the Data: Rising Frequency and Changing Dynamics of Ovations
• 08:19–11:10 – Media Incentives and Why the Trade Press Promotes Ovation Coverage
• 11:31–14:34 – Festivals, PR, and the Feedback Loop of Hype
• 16:01–17:33 – In-depth Analysis: Which Outlets Exaggerate Ovations Most?
• 17:58–19:40 – Do Standing Ovations Correlate with Success? The Data Says No
• 22:02–23:14 – Which Festival Generates the Longest Ovations? Venice in Focus
• 23:24–26:46 – Audience Psychology, Social Contracts, and the Backlash to Ovation Obsession
• 27:01–27:38 – Belloni’s “Flex Move” Solution for Filmmakers
• Throughout – Anecdotes about specific notorious ovations (Fahrenheit 9/11, Parasite, Smashing Machine, Paperboy, Southland Tales).

---

Overall Tone and Takeaways

The discussion is wry, skeptical, and data-driven, with both host and guest pushing back on the industry’s self-congratulatory attitude toward ovations. The conclusion is clear: standing ovations at film festivals have become an inflated, often meaningless ritual—great for buzz and headlines, but poor as an indicator of real artistic, audience, or commercial value.

Final Word:

"It's a marketing industry and this is marketing. So let's get to the question of does any of this matter?... There’s no information there. It’s just a fun story." — Matt Belloni & Stephen Follows [17:33, 19:17]

---

For listeners and Hollywood watchers alike, this episode demystifies one of the most breathlessly covered and least significant rituals of modern film culture.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's Danny Kelly and it's officially fantasy football season, which means the Ringer Fantasy Football show is back with the latest news from around the NFL and everything you need to get ready for the fantasy football season. So join us at the Ringer Fantasy Football show on Spotify or on our new YouTube channel. This episode of the Town is presented by FX's Alien Earth. Set in the year 2120, the planet's greatest threat is discovered after a mysterious space vessel crash lands on Earth. Hailed as a dizzyingly haunting epic by the Wrap, the series stars Sidney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant and Babu Sise. FX's Alien Earth is now streaming on Hulu. RogerEbert.com declares that the series from Noah Hawley shatters already high expectations with standout performances. FX's alien Earth is now streaming on Hulu.

[B]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[A]

Learn [e-mail] it is Thursday, October 23rd. I was at the opening night of the AFI Festival at the Chinese last night, the Bruce Springsteen movie. When the credits rolled, there was applause but no standing ovation. That only happened when Bruce came out and played a couple songs, which was excellent. AFI is in stark contrast to what I've been railing against for the past couple years. Not just the proliferation of these performative standing ovations at film festivals, some of them lasting 10, some of them 15, 20 minutes at a time. But the breathless media coverage of these ovations, as if they somehow matter and give some indication of the quality or popularity of the films. The overzealous response to a film at Cannes or Venice that's been a thing as long as I've been going to film festivals. It goes back decades at least. And I get it. It's all about a celebration designed to promote movie making. It's why we're all here. It's why everyone plays along. But there used to be a quirk of the European audience, and in the social media age, they've kind of turned into a weird performance art. I've sat through movies that got longstanding ovations and were legitimately terrible, and it really does a disservice to the audience when they're anointed as excellent based on some standing ovation that is only there because of a big star or filmmaker in the room. Or at least that's my opinion. I've always wondered if there's any data to support my theory that festival ovations have no correlation with the ultimate response to or performance of a movie. And now there is. Turns out a researcher in the UK named Stephen Follows. He's a consultant that does tons of film related reports and contributes to the Guinness Records. He's been tracking this stuff and he put out some great charts on his substack. So I wanted to have him on the show to answer my questions. Have standing ovations gotten worse? Which festival generates the biggest ovations? Which media outlets exaggerate the lengths to the most degree to generate clicks? And ultimately, do these film festival standing ovations mean anything today? It's a very important investigation. The Town investigates from the Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is the Town. Okay. We are here with Stephen Follows, who's a film data analyst consultant. Very deep into the numbers on very important topics and also topics like this one. Welcome, Stephen.

[C]

Thank you very much. I think all topics are equally as important. So they're as important as they are to you.

[A]

Well, the rigor with which you approached this topic was pretty stunning to me. I linked to it in my Puck newsletter your data analysis of standing ovations at film festivals and you looked at 500 of them across the world's biggest, biggest festivals with a primary focus on the big five. Berlin, Toronto, Sundance, Venice and Cannes. And this is, as you know, a topic that I come back to because I find it absolutely ridiculous that these ovations, which are driven by such disparate reasons, everything from who the filmmaker is to whether they are juicing up the ovation by like having others join in amongst the talent and like try to get the ovation to continue longer. All of it produces these articles that appear at festivals and people think that because the ovation is 15 minutes that it's actually a good movie. And someone like me who is sitting in that movie often will be like, what is this? What is that? That is not correlative with the movie that I just saw. So let's see what the data borns out for this. Okay, so is it true that standing ovations are on the rise at the five major film festivals?

[C]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they really are. I mean, like there were some in the previous century, but they were usually about like someone's work, like Leone's work. Like Once Upon a Time in America got a 15 minute ovation in 1984. It can, but that was probably more about his body of work. Sure, but also we talk about ovations, but quite often it's about how long people are on their feet making noise. So sometimes things like Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, they were jeered as well as clapped.

[A]

Right. And that counts as an ovation a lot.

[C]

Yeah, well, yeah, nowadays it might, but. Yeah, so like in the previous century, they were sporadic.

[A]

Right.

[C]

But from around, like 2000, we started to see like maybe five, ten films a year. Would have like some thing in the press or in a trivia column about their evasion, but it was really around the 2000 and tens that it just boomed to be like 20, 30, 40 films a year would have one. And then in the 2000s, it's even more than that. So last year in 2024, it was almost 60 different films. And like you said, it's only at these top five festivals and they don't often play the same movies. So we're not talking about many movies that had some reporting in the major film trade press that there was innovation. Okay.

[A]

So that brings up a lot of things because obviously what happened in the 2000 and tens is social media came around and the fact that the ovations at these festivals could then go viral via video and tweets and all of the other things, I think people got wise to that and they started being more performative than they might have been in the past. Do you agree with that?

[C]

Yeah, I think. I mean, it's a mix between this happening more and being reported more. And it's obviously symbiotic because like you said, they're gearing them up, but also they want to reward that particular film and they know this is now a way of doing it. And then people, like, comment on it more. And I mean, this whole thing, the reason I studied all this was that I was at the Zurich Film Festival giving a keynote a couple of weeks ago, and there was a panel before me that had the head of Toronto and the head of Berlin and a few other big, huge names with the festivals. And the topic came up and they all sort of said, look, they're not really that meaningful, but they're interesting. We like the buzz, you know, And Tricia, who runs Berlin, said, oh, you know, someone should, in fact, Stephen should study this about the correlation. And so it is sort of in the air now. That evening I was at a dinner for the festival for the speakers and stuff. And I will not say which outlet it was, but someone I sat next to was in pr and they were sitting opposite someone who works in one of the major trade publications. And he said, oh, yeah, about that topic. That's these guys fault. And these guys from this particular outlet look quite sheepish. And they were like, yeah, they decided to cover it.

[A]

Wait, wait, tell us which one. I. Listen, I ran the Hollywood Reporter, so I am not. I am complicit in this. I presided over the outlet that was doing this, one of the major outlets that was doing this in the 2010s. So I'm. I am fully ready to have this discussion. And I will tell you why we started doing it because it got picked up. You're looking for traffic. And if you can say controversial Cannes movie got a 10, 20 minute standing ovation, all the aggregators would pick it up. Drudge Report would pick it up. That's where this started, 100%.

[C]

I'm not going to say which publication it is, otherwise I may not get invited back to the fondue dinner. But I will tell you that there is the brilliant article in the Hollywood Reporter which may have been from you. I don't know who wrote it. The headline is Standing ovations are getting ridiculous. Who's to blame? Okay, it's us. That is a whole story in a headline.

[A]

And it wasn't just us. Deadline is the worst. And we'll get into who exaggerates the length the most, but it is the trade press. The trade press. They're at all of these events and they are trying to get traffic and distinguish themselves from the others. And the way you do that is to report on some ecstatic response to a movie at a festival.

[C]

Well, you've gotta say something, haven't you? You know, you've got the review of the movie, but that might be embargoed. It's a bit more protected. You can't say the premiere happened because that's not news. And yet there isn't really a news hook. And so if there's something different about it and you've written about it before, then I kind of get it. It's not like any individual journalist is trying to do this nefariously. They've got a file copy, right?

[A]

Right. All the incentives are aligned. So you're saying that the number of reported standing ovations at the five major festivals have reached an all time high, and that's according to 2024 data?

[C]

Yeah, that's the number of films that had them. Although it's interesting. What's actually happened since around 2010 is that the average length of the ovations at Cannes has actually started to reduce.

[A]

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

[C]

Not by a huge amount. I mean, so like the High point was 2011, when the average was about 15 minutes, which is an internally long period of time to be banging your hands together, wearing a tux, wanting to be somewhere else.

[A]

Well, it ebbs and flows, it goes up and down. And then someone else will stand up and then the director will point at the other one and point at someone new who stands up. They know how to milk this.

[C]

Yeah, so that was the High Point, 2011. And then now it's sort of settled down to an average of 7, 8 minutes, something like that. I mean, averages are complicated. Cause there's only a small number of films anyway. I mean, there's only 20 odd films at Cannes each year anyway.

[A]

There's no referee that is out there with a stopwatch saying the official time for this is, you know, it's all based on media reporting of what the ovation is.

[C]

Exactly. And there's no incentive, as you said, to get it accurate or anything like that.

[A]

Right. Except people like me who make fun of the outlets that exaggerate.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be rude about the film trade press, but it's not news, like, it's not hard news, is it? Like, let's be honest.

[A]

Well, news is a subjective topic. And you know, and I've had this argument with many people where I say, just stop. Stop giving a number. You can say warmly received, you can say enthusiastic, just stop giving a number. And the number is the thing that travels and gets picked up by Drudge. So that's what they do.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what we do. I mean, certainly as an analyst, I gotta be quite careful not to turn things into numbers because I like numbers. And they give such pleasing answers. It doesn't mean they're correct.

[A]

And honestly, at these parties, at the after party, they look, the filmmakers look and everybody looks and they want those headlines. And last thing you want is a muted 4 minute ovation or a subdued 5 minute ovation. You want enthusiastic 12 minute ovation, emotional ovation.

[C]

Yeah, you want the word emotion and prolonged. And there was a, there was an interview I found with Pete Docter in Variety when they were talking about the premiere of Elemental at Cannes. They said to him, did you look at the reviews at Cannes? And this is what Pete Docter said. That was a confusing half hour for us. The film played. We got a seven minute ovation and you could feel the love beaming down from the audience to the director. They really responded to it. Then the embargo lifted and some of the reviews were pretty nasty. And it's the same people in the room. Well, certainly it's the same outlets.

[A]

Well, but it's not the same people.

[C]

No, because they saw it earlier in the day.

[A]

Yeah, it's the party people and the ones that are awards pundits and those people are in the room and the critics are seeing it without an audience, sometimes at 7:00am, you know, very different setting. And that's so they evaluate the movie and not the hoopla.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I noticed this because I live in London and I go to the London Film Festival quite often and during the actors strike when you couldn't have the major names, but then you did have a lot of indie films, especially local indie films where they did have the names. Not so much ovation, but just the applause. You're applauding the people in the room. And so if there aren't the people in the room, it's very muted. But if there is someone who just seems to be the pinnacle of their life so far and their life's work, you just want to clap them or.

[A]

They'Re old and they're about, you know, this will be the last time they're there or they're a big star like the Rock or someone like that. Yeah.

[C]

So basically, if it's their first or last, you're going to clap them in or out and that's it. But when you're talking about the different outlets, one of the things I do whenever I collect data on something, especially something unusual like this, I've got a familiarize myself with what I'm measuring. And then I got to take a view as to whether I'm actually can say anything or whether it's just noise. And I noticed that when I found films that were had their revision reported by the Penske Trio, when it was like Hollywood and Variety and Deadline, they actually gave different numbers for the same event, the same physical event.

[A]

Yeah, that's because it's bullshit. It's all bullshit. First, I will say that the film festivals are complicit here. They like it because if you look at this holistically, the film festivals want stars. They need those stars to be in the room. If you're Terry from O at Cannes, if you're Cameron Bailey at Toronto, the currency in the real world of these festivals is the stars. How do you get the stars there, well, they need to be perceived as supporting their movie. And if the ovation is going to be larger with the star in the room, then by all means, measure the ovations, because that gives the incentive for the star to be there, which the festivals like. So even if it's silly, they like it.

[C]

After I did the research, I got back to Trisha and said, hey, this I found out the, the answer to what your question was, but what's your opinion? And one of the things she said, which I love, was that we know that there's a high proportion of filmmakers and collaborators in the room and it doesn't really, you know, I'm not sure about measuring it. But then she said, I do love anything that hypes up cinema. We could use the buzz. And so I think that tends to be on the film festival side. They're like, why not go for it? It's lovely, it's nice of people. Like you said, it's useful. They're not the ones tracking the numbers. It's like everyone's playing their role, aren't they?

[A]

Yeah, they're all in on it. It's all a joke.

[D]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[E]

The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to help bring the excitement with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot.

[A]

Okay, so let's look at the outlets because you actually compiled data on the average reported length of standing ovations at festivals. This is from 2000 to 24among Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline. Which outlet hypes the most?

[C]

See, you're using the word hyped. I'm going to be very independent on this one. What I can say is that Holly, the reporter and Variety almost always agree, give or take. But Deadline was like an average, almost two minutes longer. So the average across Hollywood Reporter and variety was 7 and 7.4 minutes.

[A]

Oh, so 7.7 and 7.4.

[C]

So Hollywood Reporter 7.4. Variety was 7. So fairly similar. This is when they were all tracking the same event on average. But then Deadline was almost nine minutes, so it's almost two minutes longer.

[A]

How embarrassing.

[C]

No, no, no, before you say this, before you jump on them, I spoke to someone at Deadline off the record, so I can't say who, but I did spoke to someone and I said, look, this is what I found. And he or she said, we measure from the beginning of the credits. The others to measure from the end of the credits. I don't know if that's true or not, but I would say that in a straight face. That's what they told me.

[A]

But this is funny because Deadline is like famously like blow joby in their coverage of everything. And of course, why not just do it to have the biggest number? Because you know what, the biggest number is going to get you aggregated more and it's going to get you on Drudge. And the whole thing is a cynical traffic police play.

[C]

Now, I want to be very clear. You said that you're using my data and I'm not saying you're misreading the data, but let's.

[A]

Yeah, but the data is there and you are the expert and I'm interpreting that data to say that no, no, you're not wrong.

[C]

You're not wrong on that one. But it's, I mean, I think is. The whole of the film industry is an industry of storytellers telling stories about how they tell stories. So why would this not be like completely what we'd expect to have?

[A]

No, the history of Hollywood is a history of marketing. It's a marketing industry and this is marketing. So let's get to the question of does any of this matter? Right. So what does the data tell you about the correlation between these ovations and eventual performance of these movies, whether via the critics or even box office?

[C]

That was the core question that got me onto it. And I looked at all the different variations and there is a very slight correlation with IMDb score. But then that's not surprising. And it's not useful on everything else. It's just zero like it. Honestly, on average, it has absolutely no correlation with any outcome. That's whether it's picked up, whether it's distributed, what platforms, whether it gets reviews, critics. I couldn't find anything that it actually measures other than coverage. And even then, I mean, Cameron Bailey talked about that in this year's festival. The film, I think it was Palestine 36. I can't remember what it was. It had the longest ovation this year. And then the next day it had almost no reviews even. And it hasn't had a chance to get out there. So we don't know how it will perform.

[A]

Oh, this was the Palestinian movie. Yeah. I mean, obviously though, the people in the room for that kind of a movie are going to clap to endorse that kind of a movie.

[C]

Yeah, that's it. So we can't say that it's useful in any sense to be like, oh, here's an indicator because it's longer than this. It's like going to go on to do X, Y, Z. You can't do that.

[A]

I will just say, though, like devil's advocate, you say the longest recorded standing ovation at any of the film festivals was Fahrenheit 911 at Cannes. And that was a 25 minute ovation. Fahrenheit 911 then went on to become the highest grossing documentary of all time.

[C]

You're right. But the plurals of anecdote is not data. So just because it does align sometimes and it doesn't with others, it just basically means it's not useful. We can't take the number, let's say it happens tomorrow. We can't take that number and be like, ah, now we should adjust our predictions on, you know, the Oscar race or we should like pick up that film or not. Like that just doesn't. There's no information there. It's just a fun story.

[A]

No. Perfect example is what happened in Venice with the Smashing Machine, which was the big, you know, serious acting debut of the Rock. Dwayne Johnson got a gigantic ovation there. He cried. It was very emotional moment. The movie comes out, the reviews are fine and it tanks at the box office. Yeah.

[C]

Because they're unconnected events almost, you know, and I have this with friends of mine that are like, you know, why did this film win the Oscar? And I was like, well, because you're thinking of the Oscars as awarding the best film. It's not. The winner of the Oscar is the person that got the most votes from the Oscar voters. That's all it tells you.

[A]

You.

[C]

It doesn't tell you anything else necessarily. In the same way that the best films are not necessarily Oscar winners in the same way that our politicians aren't the best human beings. Like, it's just not measuring that.

[A]

Yeah. Parasite got a nine minute ovation in 2019, went on to win best picture and Was a huge hit. Yeah.

[C]

And it's funny because what it is actually producing is like eating its own tail. What it's producing is articles. And so what I did was I went back after you kindly shared the article and shared the link and we started chatting. I was like, okay, you know what, I'm going to go back and see if I can find out something that's a bit more tailored to what you want to do. So I got a follow up piece that will come out when this episode goes out. And so I looked at about 2,000 articles in the trade press that had mentioned the innovation at any point. And then I looked at how many were like the main focus of the article. My criteria was if the ovation hadn't happened, would the article happen? So if it's charting like here is the film that's in the Oscar race, by the way, it had an Ovation, no article would still exist. But if it was like nine minute Ovation, there's the story. And so over the last 20 years, how many articles. Guess a number. How many articles are pure? There was innovation. And this is how long it was like would not have existed without the clapping.

[A]

A hundred? I don't know, 200? 200 trade press articles, just Penske trades. Are you including Screen International? Are you including.

[C]

Yeah, I did the three Penske and then Screen as well. And obviously there are then follow on pieces where people talk about it and then it also comes into like a wider piece. Sometimes people. It might not be about but it may have created a buzz that they want to write about it and it becomes the news hook.

[A]

The other articles will include it as a evidence point for why a movie was well received. You know, the movie which received a 22 minute standing ovation, they can. Which festival generates the most standing ovations?

[C]

The longest ovations is Venice.

[A]

People don't realize that Venice is a.

[C]

Lot more inside, I think. And it's obviously they're all, they all have their own personality. Tiff is a lot more for like anyone. I think Berlin really represents European film. Whereas I think Venice for me is like art, art film. Like I don't know quite how to describe it, but like drama, drama.

[A]

It's a huge pain in the ass. You got to really want to be there. It's really expensive.

[C]

Yeah. Oh, that's what I said. And Sundance, you know, is more of the people, but not really when you're in a ski resort at the height of ski season and it's five grand for a pass.

[A]

Right. And also it's not, it's not right at the start of awards season, Venice, I feel like people know that if you give it a big ovation, it's likely going to help it in the Oscar race.

[C]

Yeah, you feel like you're part of something and I think that's something that's so interesting. And there were examples where people were talking about like, oh, this had a huge ovation. And then later on somebody like, there was one for the Paperboy, which is the Lee Daniels film, like 10 years ago, and it had a 15 minute ovation, all that stuff. When the film came out in the UK like a year later, Robbie Collin from the Daily Telegraph said he'd read that on the Wikipedia page. It had like this long ovation. But for him who was in the room, he was like. It was more like a cacophony of jeering and squawking and mooing and. And it was like. And. And then it did. It had a Poor Rotten Tomatoes rating. It performed very badly at the box office. So it sounds like he's probably not wrong. I wasn't there.

[A]

There's a lot less booing these days, though. I feel like booing was something that happened pre social media because no one wants to be on video booing a movie.

[C]

Do you boo a movie that you don't like?

[A]

No, but I don't. I don't give it a 15 minute ovation either.

[C]

What do you do when everyone's clapping around you? Are you sitting down, watching, looking at.

[A]

If I like the movie, I will clap for like a minute. I'm not going to be Mr. Like, oh, I'm a, you know, real journalist. I'm not going to clap for. I clap if it's good. If there's a person there, like if Coppola or if, you know, George Clooney is standing there or whatever. Like you do a polite clap, but 15 minutes. Like, who's clapping for 15 minutes?

[C]

But are you stopping? I think that's the social contract bit. That's really hard, right?

[A]

I do stop. I do stop.

[C]

Okay, I respect that. That's good.

[A]

Yeah. And if it's like a movie I didn't like, I sat through some three hour Japanese movie at Cannes once that was just painful. And you do the polite, like, oh, you know, a little clap. But then I was out of there.

[C]

I remember when Southland Tales played at Cannes, it played very, very poorly. And I think it was re edited before it came out, but it played very, very poorly. And somebody half suggested there was some clapping at the end and they were like, no, no, no, that snapping back up. Which I don't think is how the seats actually work, but you know what I mean?

[A]

That was quite.

[C]

I quite like that kind of snide.

[A]

See, that's the thing though, that's the problem is that all of these distributors and marketers for film, they're trying to get an assessment of whether a film played well at a festival. And you always hear that, oh, it played through the roof at Cannes, it played through the roof at Sundance. What evidence do you have other than clapping?

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

You don't. You can go to the lobby and start polling people.

[C]

It's so funny because the whole of the film industry, whether you're trying to fund a film or make it, and the shooting of it, but also the release of it, it's all based around momentum. If you can make something seem inevitable, it's much more likely to happen. And so it's just like in, is it Tinkerbell the Fairy where you have to clap to keep her alive. It's a bit like that. The more people clap at any point, the more the film does exist. But funnily enough, it's self fulfilling, it does then exist. So if you think there's buzz and you clap, then there is buzz. It's so it's just. It's seeing its own tail.

[A]

Yeah. But then there's a risk though. If there's too much, then you get the backlash when the critics look at it or when audiences get a chance to see it and it's like, what, what is this, this movie like the Smashing Machine got a standing ovation at Cannes. Like, what is this?

[C]

Well, it is interesting to think about like stories and counter stories. Right. So the story that if we take it into decades, last, like we said at the beginning, last century, not very many, 20, you know, first decade of this century, you've got like, it's happening more then the last, then the next decade, you've got quite a lot of clapping now. The claps are getting shorter, but there's more of them. And there's the increase in the number of backlash. There's this conversation going on. It feels like that conversation where people are like, is Die Hard a Christmas movie? And it went through waves of what the hell, maybe. Oh, I see your point. Oh, I'm so tired of hearing that. Of course it is. I think in that cycle of life cycle of this story, I think we've peaked. I think people are not now they like this conversation, the backlash to the concept. But I think in five years it's going to be a boring topic. And so I'd like to think that the trades drop it and everyone gets so you know that they roll their eyes.

[A]

Not until we get to Google zero and there's no traffic to be had from doing these types of articles. Right.

[C]

I'm coming back in five years. My bet is that it dissipates.

[A]

You think so? I bet you a drink if I have my. If I have my way, then it will. But I am merely one voice in the cacophony of media that is out there. So yeah, it's ridiculous and I think it's going to continue. But you know what would be the flex move here? If one of these filmmakers like Tarantino or Wes Anderson or Greta Gerwig, if they put up a little placard at the beginning of the film, said please hold your applause at the end. Do not give me an ovation. And the filmmaker just stood up and walked out.

[C]

That might work.

[A]

We need one of those epic Tarantino rants where he just shuts the whole thing down and says, stop. Don't do it. It's dumb. It's performative, it means nothing. Do not clap at my movie. Don't do it.

[F]

Well, maybe The Studio Season 2 will be the thing that takes this down.

[A]

Maybe Rogan has said that they may do a film festival episode and even when I was doing my little guest shot on it, they were talking about doing Venice or Cannes or one of them. So maybe it'll be the film festival ovation episode that shuts it all down. All right, thank you very much, Stephen. I appreciate your data.

[C]

Real pleasure. Thanks for supporting the work.

[A]

We are back with the call sheet. Craig, are you following this unfolding scandal? I put scare quotes around that, around the Golden Globes best podcast award.

[F]

Do you think if the Town were nominated, we would have paid the $75,000 to Penske?

[A]

No, we would not have. The Town was not eligible. So if you're not following the Golden Globes, which are co owned by Jay Penske, who also owns Variety, Holly Reporter, Deadline, a bunch of other publications. Oliver Darcy, the media reporter based in New York, he wrote this past week about how Variety is pitching the 25 nominated or eligible podcasts for this award. A editorial package, you can pay $75,000 and you can get a Variety creative impact award and a feature story across the magazine, website and social channels. Which would include getting an award on stage at a Variety event and a 15 minute variety moderated conversation across all of their Platforms. Basically, you can buy coverage in Variety to promote yourself as one of the nominated podcasts for the Podcast award at the Golden Globes, which is owned by a sister company of Variety.

[F]

How icky is this?

[A]

Is there a. Oh, it's so gross.

[F]

So you can do this for podcasts now, but could you do this for movies or TV shows?

[A]

No, no, no, no. That means they've done shady stuff. Since the Globes have come under the same ownership as the trades, there have been some shady things where Penske was charging for access to the Globes voters, and they've been charging for things the Globes never charged for, like submissions and attend events and things like that. And when they charged for a dinner, it was branded Variety, and that got some attention.

[F]

But there's been nothing so blatant like this.

[A]

No. And it's even worse because some of these nominations or some of these eligible pods for this Best Podcast Award are clearly designed by Penske to get the conservative podcasters interested. And in the room at the Globes, some of these eligible pods are like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

[F]

And why does he want the conservative pods? Because those are the people who don't watch the Globes and they're trying to get.

[A]

They want to bring in people who hate Hollywood and might watch the Globes if Joe Rogan is in the room. Also, they want to open up a new revenue line. The Globes, unlike any of the other award shows that are legitimate and on tv, are a for profit entity now, not attached to any guild or nonprofit. The Oscars are run by the Academy, which is a nonprofit. The Globes are a for profit entity owned by two billionaires, Jay Penske and Todd Boley, and they are trying to extract as much money as they can from this. And honestly, I was going to predict that one of these conservative podcasters like Ben Shapiro or Megyn Kelly, would buy the $75,000 package to get promoted for this award. But no, they're not going to do this. I mean, Theo Vaughn has already said that he's not interested in engaging at all. The real question is, what are the final nominations going to be? And will any of these podcasters show up to the Golden Globes if they are nominated?

[F]

I think there is an obvious short list of podcasts whose talent would attend the Golden Globes because it just makes sense with their relationship to Hollywood and what they cover.

[A]

Exactly. I mean, like Amy Poehler, if she's nominated, she will show up because she hosted the show and she has a relationship There.

[F]

Dax Shepard, armchair expert, I think would be there. I think the smartest guys would be there. I think call her daddy. Alex Cooper would probably be there.

[A]

My prediction is that if Megan Kelly or Tucker Carlson is nominated, they will attend. Really? Yes. They are trolls and they would love to stick it to the libs in their own room and have it be. And this is what Jay wants. This is. Jay wants that kind of.

[F]

I don't think so. I don't think they go.

[A]

You don't think so. Who knows if they're nominated? We don't even know the process for how they're going to get nominated. The Golden Globes is supposed to be voted on by foreign journalists. Do you think foreign journalists are like evaluating Bill Simmons and his discussion of the NBA and NFL? Bill is one of the people that is on the short list of 25. Like, are foreign journalists the best people to evaluate an NBA discussion?

[F]

So it needs to be a subcommittee of 28 year old white men who can vote on all of these.

[A]

Not just that, but like American sports fans.

[F]

I mean, it's also. Half of these are crime shows. There's no way people are going to be listening to all these, the whole thing. So you're telling me this is not going to be an incredibly rigorous and serious process?

[A]

I am sad to inform you that the Golden Globes are not being managed with the rigor that we would expect from such a storied brand. Okay. It's just a cash grab and it's embarrassing and I think it's kind of imploding. I think this podcast thing is just, it's an embarrassment.

[F]

Do you think it returns the following year or is this a one off?

[A]

I think it depends who shows up. Because with all the scandals and with all of the nonsense around the Golden Globes and the whole fake racism thing and all of that, stars show up and that is all that matters. If the stars keep showing up, then they will keep doing it. And if Joe Rogan shows up and if Megyn Kelly shows up and it doesn't hurt the ability of them to get other stars to be in the room, then they'll keep doing it. Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan, they're not showing up for this. No way. Megyn Kelly, I could see, I could see her showing up and I could see Tucker Carlson doing it.

[F]

I don't think Tucker Carlson or Megan Kelly want to sit there and lose to up first at npr.

[A]

That's probably true. But they might do the red carpet. They might know that, you know, they might think that this is a good platform for them to reach a new audience. And they're right. People might not even know that Megyn Kelly has a podcast.

[F]

The real question is, will Matt Bellamy show up in 2027?

[A]

The town is not eligible, and I don't think. I don't think, given my coverage of the Golden Globes, that the Penske conglomerate would dominate the town. But we can try. We can have our own award show.

[F]

Like Bowen Yang.

[A]

Bowen Yang started his own award show, and it's on Bravo. Anthony Edwards started his own awards show, and he gave Timothee Chalamet the White Boy of the Year award. It got so much press.

[F]

Yeah, the Townies. We'll start broadcasting the Townies.

[A]

The Townies, exactly. It'll be our big awards show, and we'll put it on the night of the Golden Globes and make people choose which one to go to.

[F]

Yeah, it'll be on Tubi.

[A]

Yes. I have a feeling we'll lose that. All right, that's the show for the day. I want to thank my guest, Stephen Follows, producer Craig Horbeck, artist Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you next week.