← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Fox Is Buying Roku for $22B. Is It Now a Streaming Power Player?
00:35:33
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This episode of the Town is presented by HBO Max. For your awards consideration. HBO Max presents DTF St. Louis in this darkly comedic series, a love triangle between three adults experiencing middle aged malaise leads to one of them ending up dead. Don't miss the series TV guide is calling transcendent and audacious. DTF St. Louis is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now. This episode is brought to you by FX's love story, John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. The critically acclaimed series explores the undeniable chemistry, whirlwind courtship and high profile marriage of one of the most iconic couples of the 20th century, with Sarah Pigeon and Paul Anthony Kelly leading a cast including Naomi Watts, Constance Zimmer, Alessandro Navola and Grace Gummer. Called a stunning portrait of love by Variety, A Love Story is Emmy eligible in all limited series categories. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. It is Monday, June 15 Fox bought Roku it was announced this morning that Fox Corp. Is acquiring the streaming technology company in a $22 billion deal. Not a huge surprise, Bloomberg reported last week that Roku was nearing some kind of a deal and they've been an acquisition target for years. When this deal closes next year, it'll combine Fox's sports news and a smallish offering of entertainment content as well as the Tubi streaming service with Roku's connected TV platform. Roku doesn't like this term, but it's basically become the gatekeeper to streaming be it's connected TV device and platform that reaches 100 million households globally. That includes the Roku channel, its free ad supported channel, and the Roku City home screen. That's a very valuable ad platform the Hollywood studios like to promote their new releases there. This is Anthony Wood, the CEO of Roku talking. We believe Roku and Fox will together be uniquely positioned to deliver the value, personalization and simplicity that viewers want. Okay, so lots to break down there with this deal. Does it make Fox, which has kind of avoided the so called streaming wars, now a major player in streaming? Why is Roku so valuable when so many new smart TVs come with their own connectivity and separate platforms? And isn't Roku supposed to be the Switzerland of streaming, hosting and promoting Netflix and Peacock and all the other services, now they've got their own. We've got Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy, here to discuss it all today. It's why Fox is buying Roku and what it means for the business and for the consumer. From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany. And this is the town. All right. We are here with Lukas Shaw from Bloomberg, back at your summer hideout. I am at my secret summer hideout.
- [02:56]
B
Why is your secret and mine not?
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A
I don't know. They're both not secret. I'm in South Carolina, you're in New York. It's not a secret. We go here every summer. I don't know, it just sounds cooler when we're secret. But we're both on east coast time, so we both woke up early this morning to the news that was not that unexpected. I mean, they were high on the list of potential suitors. Fox buying Roku. Interesting deal, but not to me. This makes perfect sense. This has always been the knock on Fox since they sold most of the company to Disney in 2019. They are too tied to the legacy TV ecosystem. You know, half the Fox News audience is over 70 buying catheters and reverse mortgages from ads on Fox News. And, and now they have a narrative change. They can say that Roku is the future. 100 million subscribers or 100. They reach a hundred million people.
- [03:52]
B
Yeah, they don't really have subscribers.
- [03:55]
A
Yeah, they don't have subscribers. Yeah, they reach, they, they measure it and reach. But now they can say that they are a digital player. For real.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah. Well, it's an interesting shift for them because they are now a distributor almost as much as they are a programmer. Right. This is a kind of the, the reverse of Comcast buying NBCUniversal or in, in some ways not quite. Netflix buying Warner Brothers. Right. It is a studio in a network or really at this point more of a network buying a distributor, buying a maker of set top boxes, which is how I think most people still think of Roku. But the company makes the vast majority of its money kind of from the people who are on its own devices. Right. So selling advertisements to video viewers, taking a cut of subscription revenue. I, I both understand the logic, but also am very aware that the history of these types of deals is not great.
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A
You mean the history of content and distribution tie ups.
- [04:56]
B
Correct.
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C
Usually.
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A
You mean we're, we're, we could be talking about AT&T buying Warner Brothers to put five minute segments of game of Thrones on their phones.
- [05:05]
B
I certainly don't think we're that bad, but that is, that is the type of deal we're talking about right here. Yes, it is AT&T. The bad version of it is AT&T buying Warner Brothers. The good version of it is Comcast buying NBCUniversal. And then there are other versions of it in between.
- [05:21]
A
Don't Forget Fox buying MySpace.
- [05:23]
B
Well, yes, that was an unmitigated disaster, but I don't think this is that because without Roku is a real business. MySpace, you know, was a. It had customers or it had users, but it didn't have revenue really. And also just like such a mismatch in culture. Whereas in this case, Fox and Roku know each other. Fox was, I believe, an early investor in Roku, but they sold.
- [05:46]
A
They sold their shares.
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B
They did. Because. But Charlie Collier, who is the. One of the top executives at Roku, used to be a top executive at Fox.
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A
Yes, I know. This is not going to get Rupert Murdoch on the COVID of Wired magazine, though, which MySpace did.
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B
Don't you think this is a Lachlan deal, though?
- [06:04]
A
No, I know, yes. I mean, okay, I'm sure Rupert is involved in the strategy at this point. I mean, but yeah, this is Lachlan saying that we were written off as a linear TV company. We now have Tubi, which is the fastest growing fast channel out there.
- [06:22]
B
Roku would say the Roku channel is the fastest growing fast channel. Just for the record.
- [06:27]
A
Is that true? Oh, I thought Tubi was. They.
- [06:29]
B
Roku would say it's the Roku channel.
- [06:30]
A
Oh, well, now they don't have to argue because they're both under the same company and they would say that now they have the combination of premium sports, premium news and sub premium, but they do have entertainment content and they have this distribution platform that is going to, you know, one plus one is going to equal three in their mind. So let's go, let's go through the upsides and the downsides here because obviously the upside is this gives fox more than 10% of viewing time. If we go by the Nielsen distributor gauge, according to the most recent one, Fox had 7.2% of viewing time and Roku Channel had 3% of viewing time. So 10%. That puts it up there with the big players, Disney, Netflix, NBCUniversal. That's the upside there. Do you agree?
- [07:21]
B
Huge. Yeah. It makes it more of a player in streaming. So it's 10% of TV viewing. It's five and a half percent of streaming viewing, which by the way, puts it only behind YouTube and Netflix. It makes it bigger than Disney, bigger than Amazon. And then I think related to that, which is what you were getting at with sort of the new narrative is diversification, where this is a company that was very dependent on legacy television. Very dependent really on its broadcast network and its news channel. You know, there were a lot Of I would hear from people like, if you're interested in football, you should just buy Fox because it is basically the same price to buy a football package as it is to buy all of Fox Corporation. That is no longer true. I think this in a lot of ways sort of takes them off the table as a target, assuming they can get the deal done, of course. And so I think, yes, it's, it's. It's the related things of sort of more making a bigger player in streaming and as a result, also diversifying the business.
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A
Yeah. And it also makes them a little less desperate for football going into these renegotiations. They still need it, don't get me wrong. But at least they have something else to fall back on in case Google or Facebook or Amazon or one of these companies comes in and just vastly overpays for their football package.
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B
There's no way that they're going to walk away from football, try as they are. That's one of the reasons they're, you know, exerting all this pressure via the government to try to tell the NFL, don't go to these streaming players. But it gives them a bigger foothold in streaming where they can say, not only you're going to our broadcast network, which is really good distribution, but we're one of the top players in streaming. So we can put the game, you know, put the games on Tubi or Roku channel or find ways to use them together, which does bring us to the cons on the deal. But I don't know if you want to go there yet.
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A
We'll get there. The only other plus I can see here is that it makes Fox a must buy for advertisers. Oh, of course, you could get around Fox before. And you know, I actually just a couple weeks ago, I did a little presentation or a talk with Roku's ad sales group. And like, that's their messaging. Their messaging is if you want to reach people, we have a hundred million of them and we are bigger and we penetrate like none of these other companies do. So you got to be with us. And that is a pretty powerful message for Fox. Now when. Before they were diminished subscale.
- [09:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that they had a pretty strong push before with football and news and Tubi. But yes, this makes their pitch to advertisers even, Even stronger. They had a. Know they were probably an older and male skewing buy before, and now they have kind of the. The full spectrum.
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A
Yeah. All right, so let's go into the potential Downsides, because there are a lot and they were grilled this morning on some of these downsides. The stock.
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B
Actually I, I have a question before you go there. I'm happy to go on down. Do we want to talk about the pros for Roku or you want to
- [10:25]
A
get there after do it? Yeah, of course.
- [10:27]
B
I mean the, the two obvious pros for Roku are they solve their succession question. Right. This is a company that has been run by the founder Anthony Wood since its inception. You know, Roku was incubated at Netflix 20 years ago when Netflix thought it wanted to be a set top box maker, it needed a way to distribute its then non existent streaming service. Decided to spin it out and focus on making a streaming service widely available. One of many examples of Reed Hastings Brilliance. And then this company becomes what it is. But I don't. They were having discussions about what to do around succession for a while and I don't think they'd solved it. And the other is it's a pretty good deal for shareholders. It's not a great deal if you bought in the kind of the run up. This Stock peaked around 2020, 2021 when streaming was, you know, was really blown up because of the pandemic. But long term, if you're a long term holder, it's a good premium on where it's been recently. And also, you know, if you'd held it for far longer than that.
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A
This gets us to the downsides here and this is something that I think the stock has been reflecting for years now, which is the what about connected TVs? What about all these smart TVs that are being sold at Walmart and Costco that come with their own connectivity devices that don't need Roku. People I know already have those devices and I know that that doesn't reflect the general public. But Walmart did a deal to buy Vizio because they want to sell their own smart TVs and bypass Roku. So isn't this company just. Aren't there days numbered until a day when every TV is a smart tv?
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B
This has been the argument against Roku for a lot of years now. And it intellectually makes sense, but it has yet to come true.
- [12:21]
A
Right.
- [12:21]
B
There was a belief, yes, there's this transition to smart TVs and all these devices where you will not need to plug a little dongle into the back or attach it in some way. There is also I think a belief. Well, their competition are Apple and Google and Amazon and these giant tech companies that are just going to squash them. None of that has come true. Right. It's Amazon has probably been its most significant competitor in the device business. Because Amazon expires. Yeah, because Apple is a high end. Apple is a high end product that only kind of a certain class of person uses. Amazon, like Roku basically gives away the devices. It's not trying to make a profit from them. And Amazon is a huge player, much bigger than Roku in the advertising business. You know, when it comes to advertising, Google and Facebook and all these are obviously major competitors to Roku. The company has done pretty well. Right. Like it has weathered the ups and downs of the streaming business decently because it has to the number you cited a very large customer base that it is able, and it's able to use that to sell advertising, take a cut of subscriptions. You know, it, it can't really exert any leverage or for the most part on a player like a Netflix. But there are a lot of smaller streaming services where Roku can say, you know, we're going to take a cut, you're going to sell your service here and we're going to take a cut of it and we're going to get some of your advertising space. And you know, we are an important gatekeeper here. That is essentially the role that they play. Now maybe that fades over time because it certainly could be true. And that's one of the reasons why the stock is way off where it was three, four years ago. And so you could argue that this is a premium that is not worth it. But in a lot of ways it's sort of like two companies that Roku has been looking to do a deal for a while. Fox has been looking to diversify it. It's sort of a natural match. I'm not saying it's going to work, but I totally get it.
- [14:12]
A
Yeah. And Roku has been making moves to sell ads across Amazon and Trade Desk and some of these other platforms. So they're, they are certainly aware of that issue and they're trying to make themselves such a vital part of the ad ecosystem that they can weather that storm if their number of users goes down.
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B
Right. Well, and that's the natural conflict a little bit between Tubi and the Roku Channel. Right. These two streaming services that Fox will now have is that Tubi is sold, is available everywhere. Right. It is a. Just like Netflix or Disney plus. You can watch it online. There's an app on basically every device the Roku Channel has. They, they, they would, they've started to, to push it, but it is primarily a service that was grown from people watching it on Roku. And so Roku directs its users to watch its own channel, right?
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A
Yeah. And it's a fast channel.
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B
And so is Fox going to continue to operate those two streaming services as separate services? Probably. At least in the short term.
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A
Lachlan Murdoch said they are going to do that and that they are, quote, incredibly complimentary services. They have about a third overlap in audience. And Roku is primarily a fast channel, while 90% of Tubi viewing is on demand. Let's get into the TUBI messaging here because they are promising $400 million in synergies here and those probably come out of 2B. Right.
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B
Why can't it come out of both?
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A
It. No, no, that's what I'm saying. The combination will come out of that aspect of, of the synergies.
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B
Both companies have ad salespeople, both companies have. Have marketing. And I'm not just talking about to be in Roku channel. Right. Fox has an advertising group, Roku has an advertising group. They, you know, they have some overlap in terms of personnel. I don't think you can get there just on personnel, but so what do
- [16:04]
A
they get there on?
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B
Even if they say they're the same service, I'm sure they can find ways to save money on. On programming and that the way they
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A
buy
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B
probably reduce their real estate footprint, as these companies always do.
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A
Yeah. Roku based in San Jose probably won't be based there for long, but they
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B
have a big New York office. So I'm sure that that New York office gets folded into that. The Fox office in Midtown.
- [16:28]
A
Right. But let's get to the big downside here, which I at least think this is. The big downside is that Roku has always been considered Switzerland among all the services. They sell the different services, they platform them, they sell ads to them. And now there's this conflict because they are a content owner and a distributor. There's an analyst at Barclays that even put it to Murdoch today. He said when you negotiate with, say, Comcast or YouTube, you are largely a supplier of content, but now you're also a distributor of content. It just creates a lot of complications, both with respect to how many brands you own, what those brands individually do, as well as your distribution strategy. Can Roku continue to be the Switzerland of streaming if it is owned by Fox and the Murdochs?
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B
Well, no, because it is by its nature biased.
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A
But.
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B
But this gets back to the conversation that we were having.
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A
You think we're going to see ICE agents Popping up in Roku City. You know, the Murdochs have been very smart about separating out the Fox News of the empire from the rest of the empire in the past. But maybe it's a new day. We are seeing more of the Fox News content encroaching into Fox Broadcasting. We are seeing, you know, them being a little bolder about some of their deals in that space. I don't know.
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B
This gets back to what we were discussing with the marriage of programming and distribution. What are the ways for Fox to use Roku's footprint to benefit its own streaming services and disadvantage the competitors? Or are there because Fox is obviously, you know, gonna say this is an, it doesn't wanna be anti competitive. It. Roku will still be Switzerland. It will still be a place that everyone needs to be. But are there gonna be subtle ways where Fox can, you know, help Fox one or help new, you know, the Fox News streaming service?
- [18:27]
A
Yeah, I mean the obvious one is Roku City, that homepage for every Roku user. That's an incredibly powerful platform. I know that the movie studios love to use that to promote their upcoming releases. So why wouldn't Fox promote their own stuff and it's a priority over their other partners? I mean that seems like a no
- [18:47]
B
brainer because then they have to sacrifice the revenue that Roku makes from selling that real estate.
- [18:53]
A
Yeah, of course, but it's just like the house ads for their own programming that they put in the super bowl and other things. They could sell that ad too. But they promote their own stuff.
- [19:02]
B
Right, but they can buy that space now. So again, I. Are they going to get such a huge bump from. Okay, if fox currently takes 7% of that inventory and we boost it to 20 like, you know, that's, that's a, that's a relatively small boost likely for spending all the money that they are on this deal.
- [19:20]
A
Well, Lachlan made the analogy to YouTube and YouTube TV. He said, said we're partners now in many ways with YouTube and YouTube TV and Comcast. That doesn't change. Those businesses themselves in many cases are both distributors and content providers. A good point.
- [19:36]
B
Yeah, look, we'll take Netflix as the example because it doesn't own a platform in this way. It distributes its product via Amazon competitor Apple competitor Google products competitor Roku now competitor Comcast competitor. Most of its, a lot of its biggest distribution partners are direct competitors. A lot of distribution owns programming. So this just is, you know, more consolidation to that end.
- [20:06]
A
Yeah. And Murdoch is committing to Roku being an open platform. Still said it's essential that Roku remain an open and partner friendly business. We'll see.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Otherwise it doesn't make money. No, no, because most of them, so much of the money it generates is from third party partners. It's from advertising inventory from a cut of subscriptions like it. It would make no sense for them to stop that part of the business.
- [20:33]
A
Yeah, no, I agree. They're going to have to thread a needle here because they also want it to be additive to their own stuff and be able to put, you know, farmer wants a wife or whatever nonsense Fox reality show and is coming up on that home screen to promote it. This podcast is brought to you by the Madison from Paramount plus and executive producer Taylor Sheridan. Michelle Pfeiffer shines in this epic drama about resilience, transformation and the family ties that bind. Variety proclaims Michelle Pfeiffer gives a powerhouse performance In a show RogerEbert.com touts as gripping. Emmy eligible in all categories including drama series, Michelle Pfeiffer, Outstanding Lead Actress Kurt Russell, Outstanding Supporting Actor and Will Arnett Outstanding Guest Actor. All episodes available for emmy voters@paramountfyc.com Adobe
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B
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in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life, unlock a better way to make with Adobe Firefly. Is there someone else that you think should have made a bigger push for it or now that this deal is out there, should try to, you know, come over the top.
- [22:02]
A
Come over the top. Oh, God. Can you imagine if we, if Netflix stepped up and tried to play Paramount for Roku? I don't know. I, I did, I did think that Netflix made a lot of sense here. I mean, they would have had regulatory issues with essentially a vertically integrated company. They would have become a distributor, you know, of other people's content as well as their own here and they have a ton of money after not getting Warners. But I do think that Netflix has, for lack of a better word, gatekeeper envy. You know, it's like in, in social media. Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, he's got an amazing business, but he's constantly trying to become Apple because he knows that ultimately he is dependent on Apple as the gatekeeper of all social media apps. Like one of them Anyways, and I think that Netflix has that issue where they are an amazing provider and distributor of content, but they're not Amazon. Amazon is the, is one of the gatekeepers for everything. And we've talked about this on the show before about how the ultimate end game here for Apple and Amazon and YouTube is to be the gate through which every streaming service goes through. And that could have been what Netflix achieved with, with Roku. And now they want to have that.
- [23:27]
B
I don't. Yeah, look, I think if Netflix didn't want Roku in 2006, if it didn't want it at many times over the years when there was a close relate, you know, Roku operated out of Netflix's old offices for a long time. I believe Roku's chief product office. Sorry, I believe Netflix's former chief product officer is still on the Roku board. There's a lot of connections between those companies. I think, you know, from our understanding they, they, they looked at it during the process but pretty quickly decided they didn't want one. That, that I think may have taken a harder look at it could have been interesting. Was Comcast just. If you're thinking one of the limitations on Comcast right now is its geographic footprint. Right. It only operates in certain markets. Roku immediately makes it an. Kind of an international distrib or a global distributor or at least a nationwide distributor. I don't know that they, you know, I don't know that they want to double down on it. They'd probably say we already have our X1 platform and Comcast already has a free streaming service in the market. This joint venture with Charter called Zumo. But has, has anyone heard of Zumo relative to. To Roku or to. Or to Tubi?
- [24:36]
A
Yeah. It's funny, a source at Comcast told me they were not a bidder. They did not put in an official bid. But I'm sure they looked at it.
- [24:44]
B
Yeah, I think that at a minimum, I don't know, they. When I called them on Friday, they did not, they did not return my phone call. I'll just leave it at that.
- [24:51]
A
What about some of these others like Disney? Disney could have gone for the gatekeeper role. Would that have been a smart first deal for Josh tomorrow? Would have put a lot of debt on the balance sheet. Something Disney doesn't like.
- [25:04]
B
Yeah, I really don't see it for the sort of more at scale streaming players, the benefits of owning distribution and programming. I'm not, I, maybe because it makes you a bigger player and free like that would Be part of the argument for Netflix is like they're not going to offer a free version of Netflix, but if they have the Roku channel that's sort of a free streaming and they can find some, some synergies between those parts of the business. Same with Disney.
- [25:32]
A
Well, it would have instantly boosted the Netflix ads business too, which we know is a huge priority for them.
- [25:39]
B
Yeah. But it's a weird, I think one of the. Because Roku has sort of floated out there as a potential acquisitions target for a while. Once their stock sort of came crashing down a couple years ago, there was a lot of chatter about it and it's, it's always been a struggle to figure out who exactly makes the right sense. And you know, just because to your, to your point about Netflix having regulatory problems, I think Disney would too and I don't think Disney wants any part of that right now.
- [26:05]
A
Do you see any effect on the consumer here?
- [26:07]
B
To your point? Maybe a few more ads from Fox or from Fox Properties? No, but I need to hear more from, from Lachlan Murdoch about ways in which he actually thinks the businesses work together as opposed to just if you're just like, if you're doing what, what these companies so often say is like we're going to buy it and keep it separate. Right. Then obviously if you act, if you buy it and keep it separate, it doesn't have a lot of impact. Right. But if you are gonna, if you're gonna find ways to combine any consumer facing properties, that's where the, it starts to have an effect on people.
- [26:44]
A
I don't think they will. I think this will be mostly an ad consolidation.
- [26:48]
B
Yeah.
- [26:48]
A
And the Fox people and the Roku people will just sell the larger platforms which, you know, good for them and they're not going to be as dependent on mypillow and you know, pharma ads and catheters.
- [27:00]
B
At a certain point now that we've had a couple of these, these big deals likely, you know, Paramount, Warner, which is not done but we expect to happen this one which seems likely to happen. Are there any of the other big media companies because you were talking about Netflix's gatekeeper envy that are sitting there and going like man, we're sort of this, this consolidation is bad for us, it is weakening us and maybe we have to do something.
- [27:27]
A
I think that Comcast is, is again the loser here whether they bid on this or not. But this is their business distribution. Right. And this would have been a step toward escaping the linear cable NPVD business. And it's going not to them. It's going to arrival in Fox that they're bigger than.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah.
- [27:53]
A
I don't know. Comcast got to do something soon.
- [27:55]
B
Okay, so Comcast, you say Comcast is the biggest loser. Who's the biggest winner?
- [27:59]
C
Yeah.
- [27:59]
A
Okay. So I think the biggest winner here, Anthony Wood, he owns a chunk of the company. This is a nice exit for him. Like got the stock up to where someone was willing to, you know, vastly overpay and there you go. Yeah, it's the dream.
- [28:14]
B
Start a company 20 years ago and get. Become a. If not a billionaire and multi. Multi. Multimillionaire.
- [28:20]
A
Yeah. I mean, Charlie Collier to nice little win. He goes from Fox over to Roku and gets this kind of deal where he's now ironically being bought by his former employer. Not bad. Lachlan, you. Do you think Lachlan is a winner here? I think too early to tell.
- [28:36]
B
I think he's a winner because he's now done his first big deal and he was. He had. He had kind of clearly taken the control of the empire from his dad largely, but it was a diminished group of assets. And now I feel like he is sort of entering his own and prime as a mogul now. He's got to make the deal work. But I.
- [29:02]
A
Well, he was. He was largely the driver of the two.
- [29:05]
B
Yes, but a much smaller deal. Right. This is a. This is a big deal. And it means that he's now got. He's more than just Fox News. Right. I think for a long time he was basically like Fox News and the Journal and because Fox Sports is kind of its own thing now, he's got a lot to play with.
- [29:25]
A
Don't forget the New York Post.
- [29:26]
B
How could I?
- [29:29]
A
All right, Lucas, please stick around. We're doing an update on the box office draft today. All right, we're back with the call sheet. Instead of a prediction today, we have Lucas here. We're going to give a update. Is this the mid year report on the box office draft?
- [29:45]
B
Not almost.
- [29:46]
C
Not quite. I mean, it's almost mid year, literally. But most of these movies haven't come out yet. But a few have. Lucas has had four movies on his team come out and Matt has had two. I would say Lucas is up 1.5 billion to Matt's 710 million, but has more movies. Lucas, his biggest surprise hit, Devil Wears Prada, which is 576 million in the profit. And Matt's biggest surprise hit is Michael, which is over $700 million in the profit.
- [30:12]
B
It's really Matt's only movie so far.
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A
Remember, in the draft, we get the global box office, but we also have to take the production budget on the movie.
- [30:20]
C
Yes. And that is why Lucas is suffering right now. He is negative 114 million from Masters
- [30:26]
B
of the Universe and only 150 million from Mandalorian and Grogu.
- [30:31]
A
Well, I would just like to point out that you actually picked Mandalorian and Grogu, whereas I gave you.
- [30:37]
B
I was never going to take Master of the Universe.
- [30:39]
C
So, Lucas and Matt, looking at your teams, which selection that you made back in January are you the most upset about now?
- [30:46]
A
Oh, Lucas, would you care to go first?
- [30:48]
B
Yeah. Mandalorian.
- [30:49]
C
No, let's do this. I want to do movies that haven't come out yet. Would you make any changes to things that have not come out?
- [30:54]
B
You're just going to get me in trouble.
- [30:57]
A
I'll be. I'll be honest. I'll be honest. I'm a little worried about Moana. July 10th. They put out a new song by Lin Manuel Miranda today. That's a positive. It's not Taylor Swift, but it's a positive. And maybe the press tour will make a difference. They're going to, like 10 cities around the world. But buzz and kind of excitement for Moana is not where I want it to be.
- [31:22]
B
Yeah, I would. I. I'm holding on to hope that, you know, disclosure day has been fine but is not a huge hit and that Moana is going to. And that Moana is going to be soft and that that will balance off out the fact that Mandalorian is a pretty much a disaster and Mario was a little soft.
- [31:41]
A
A billion, but not 1.3.
- [31:43]
B
Right. You're going to end up getting almost as much from Michael as I will from Mario, which is not what I intended for my number two pick, but I feel. I feel good about. I. A lot of this is basically going to hinge on just how big is. Is the Odyssey going to be?
- [31:57]
A
Oh, you think so? Not. Not for. For. Because I have Toy Story 5. I have Avengers, and I have Minions. That. That is a pretty formidable lineup.
- [32:05]
B
No, no, no. I think for me, I. Look, Spider man is going to be a hit no matter what. You know, Spider man versus Toy Story. I think we're both. I don't know that it's going to be a wash, but I think we're both going to do just fine with those movies. The. For me, like, my me picking Odyssey, where it was, was a big bet on. This isn't going to be like 600700 million. This is going to be a billion plus. If the Odyssey does a billion plus, I feel good about where I'm at. If it doesn't, I don't think I really have a shot.
- [32:32]
C
Yeah. Because Avengers is probably going to get to like 1.5 billion or something like that at least.
- [32:37]
A
Right, we'll see that. That would, that would be the expectation.
- [32:40]
B
The floor is a billion. I think for Avengers. Sort of like with Mario, the floor is a billion.
- [32:45]
A
Yeah. Except it didn't get there. I did get there.
- [32:48]
B
It did get there, but barely. Barely.
- [32:50]
C
And. And so far I would say the biggest miss is nobody drafting Project Hill.
- [32:54]
B
Yeah. Which we talked about.
- [32:56]
A
And honestly, Obsession.
- [32:59]
C
Yeah, but how the hell would you have done that?
- [33:01]
B
Yeah.
- [33:01]
A
With a less than 1 million dollar budget, you're gonna get to like 350 in profit. Like that would have been nice.
- [33:07]
B
Yeah.
- [33:08]
C
Yeah. But you probably weren't even aware that movie existed in January.
- [33:11]
A
No, I know. I'm just saying with hindsight, Project Hail
- [33:14]
B
Mary was, it was, it was a little bit like Matt taking disclosure day. At the time, I, I, having taken in the past trying to take some risks on non ip, like blew up in my face. And I think if I made one mistake this time, it was actually leaning too much into IP instead of like stuff that felt fresh, you know, I. Devil Wears Prada I was confident in because it had been 20 plus years. Something. Mandalorian and Grogu, they clearly just don't know what they're doing with that franchise right now. Although we'll. Maybe the, the next one will be better. There's just some fatigue and I think Project Hail Mary was a fresh idea that we should have been like, oh, it's the Martian, It's Ryan Gosling. It's all that stuff, you know. Yeah, that was a miss.
- [33:59]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm that same way with Moana. I would have gone Project Hail Mary over Moana, but whatever. I still got a Hunger Games too. And you gave me Digger. So Tom Cruise. Maybe this was before that. We saw the trailer. Trailer is pretty good.
- [34:13]
C
It's all going to come down to Tom Cruise. I hope it does.
- [34:18]
A
I know. Tom Cruise or Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift. If she can get Toy story over 2 billion, that's going to be a dream for me. All right, Lucas, thanks very much.
- [34:26]
B
Thanks, Matt.
- [34:27]
A
Okay, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horback, our editors Jesse Lopez and Matt Pevik. And I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week.
- [34:39]
B
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A
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