← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Hollywood Q1 Report: Disneyland in Abu Dhabi, a Warner Bros. Spinoff, and Streaming is … Stable?
00:34:22
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- [00:00]
Matt Bellany
Hi everyone. Instead of my usual Monday plug for Puck, I've got a special announcement for listeners of the Town that are members of Hollywood Guilds or the TV Academy. I'm doing a special event for the Emmy season called Stories of the Season. It's me and some of my Puck colleagues in special conversations with some of the biggest stars and creators of this TV season, including a live recording of the Town with John Mulaney. Should be really fun. Panels, drinks, food and you can hang with me and Craig. It's May 20th in the evening in Hollywood, so if you're a TV Academy member or awards and you want to come, just email Fritzuck News to score your seat at Stories of the Season. Fritzuck News. Also, the email will be in the description of this episode. Okay, onto the show.
- [00:46]
Craig Horbacek
This episode of the Town is brought to you by MAX Presenting Hacks for your Emmy consideration. Starring Gene Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the new season picks up with Deborah Vance's late night show finally in production and and Ava Daniels stepping in as head writer. To Deborah's dismay, their ever complicated relationship is pushed to new limits as they clash over creative direction and get entangled in blackmail and betrayal. Don't miss the series Slate says has never been better. Emmy eligible for Outstanding Comedy Series and all other categories now streaming on max.
- [01:18]
Matt Bellany
Today's episode is brought to you by Peacock presenting the Day of the Jackal for your Emmy consideration. Eddie Redmayne and Lashana lynch star star in the original drama series Variety calls an exhilarating thriller. The series follows a lone assassin and an intelligence officer in a cat and mouse chase across Europe. The Day of the Jackal is streaming now only on Peacock. It is Monday, May 12th. We're pretty much at the end of the quarterly earnings season for the big media and entertainment companies. Disney, Netflix, Warner, Discovery, all the majors have reported their first quarter numbers and there were some big announcements, some big narratives that have emerged. The TV business continues to collapse and brought down Paramount, among others. They're really treading water, hoping the sale to Skydance eventually closes. But streaming is a much better narrative for the industry. These six big streamers combined profit doubled from 2.6 billion last year in the first quarter that was basically all Netflix to about 5 billion this year according to Owl & Co. The research analysts. That doesn't include Prime Video or Apple tv. They don't break out numbers. Peacock and Paramount plus still not profitable, but those losses are narrowing and subscribers continue to grow. Disney had a pretty strong quarter. Revenue and profit were both up and at Least so far. Neither Disney nor Comcast has said they are feeling the impact of the Trump tariffs on their theme park businesses. We think that's coming, though. And speaking of the parks, Disney is opening a new one. Disneyland, Abu Dhabi. Disney won't build it or own it. They've got a local partner doing that. But it's going to be a major expansion into the Middle east for a company that sees it as a growth market. Also maybe could impact the CEO succession question. Lots of interesting stuff. So we got Lukashaw back. He's still our unnamed Monday guy. We're going to go through it all. It's the Hollywood Quarterly earnings report. Who's up, who's down, who's barely hanging on from the ringer and Puck? I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. All right. We are here with Lucas Shaw. Welcome back. We still haven't come up with a proper moniker for you. We got another week to think about it. Okay.
- [03:23]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah, I, I will put my thinking cap on. I'll ask everyone here in New York at, at the upfront, what do you, what is the first word that comes to your mind when you think of me?
- [03:32]
Matt Bellany
That's true. I'm in New York this week as well. We are taping early. Are we going to see each other?
- [03:36]
Lucas Shaw
Maybe. I assume so.
- [03:38]
Matt Bellany
I'll have the second worst seat. You'll have the third worst seat at the parties.
- [03:42]
Lucas Shaw
Who will have the worst seat?
- [03:46]
Matt Bellany
I could name a number of people, but I won't. All right. We are talking first quarter earnings. We've seen the numbers. We've seen the announcements. We've seen the executives dodging the tough questions to the extent any tough questions are ever asked on these earnings calls. I want to start with the streaming numbers.
- [04:06]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah.
- [04:07]
Matt Bellany
Because I think that is the most interesting narrative that we've seen. One after another, these companies announced their streaming numbers, both their profits to the extent they have profits and their subscriber numbers. And if you go down the line in terms of the profitability of these streamers, the major streamers, Netflix, Disney, Warner, Discovery, those are up. They are pretty profitable at this point. Comcast with peacock, not profitable. Paramount plus not profitable, obviously. YouTube blowing them all away. In terms of revenue, maybe. Not in terms of profit.
- [04:50]
Lucas Shaw
I don't know that in terms of profit. Most people think Netflix is more profitable than YouTube. YouTube?
- [04:55]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. Actually, we did an analysis with Alan Co. In my newsletter and Netflix has $3.3 billion in operating income this past quarter. YouTube 1.3. So there's a lot of Reasons for that, they lump in Sunday Ticket. They lump in other things. The payments that YouTube makes to its creators is actually more money than what Netflix pays out to its professional creators. Which is kind of funny. But my point is streaming is now a profitable business for all but two of the.
- [05:28]
Lucas Shaw
Well, another. Another way of thinking about it is I think at the end of last year, I did the math for my newsletter and it was that if you added together all of the other. All of the streaming services, they were profitable. And even excluding Netflix, they were profitable for the first time.
- [05:49]
Matt Bellany
Okay.
- [05:50]
Lucas Shaw
So this is the second quarter in a row where the major streaming services outside of Netflix, you add them all together and it is a profitable business. Now, to your point, Paramount and Peacock still lose money, Disney and HBO make money. And the Warner Brothers Discovery thing is still a little janky with how they account all that.
- [06:08]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, and by the way, we say Disney makes money and Warner makes money. But they are making about $300 million in the first quarter from their streaming operation, which is not nothing, but it's not what YouTube and Netflix are making.
- [06:22]
Lucas Shaw
Well, or nor is it more to the point, anywhere close to what their cable networks.
- [06:28]
Matt Bellany
Right. And that was going to be my next point here is that do we believe this has turned a corner industry wide to where these companies can see the other end of the rainbow and get to the point where the streaming business will start to offset the losses in tv?
- [06:51]
Lucas Shaw
So here's the problem. I think if you are just looking streaming and tv, I think the answer is no. Because if you look at Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery in particular, we're going to get to Disney in a second. Those businesses are shrinking. Right. If you look at the revenue, year after year, they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Warner Brothers Discovery in particular has shrunk.
- [07:15]
Matt Bellany
Well, because everything that they add to their streaming business, it's because they're launching Macs in another country. And what happens when you launch Macs in another country? You give up the licensing deals for the content that was.
- [07:28]
Lucas Shaw
Well, okay, but you're stuck on that. Cause you've brought it up a few times, but that's only in the last year. Their revenue has gone down 22 to 23, 23 to 24, 24 to 25 in the first quarter. And the reason they're shrinking is because their TV networks are shrinking. They're getting less money.
- [07:42]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. No, but the reason I harp on that is because they have always positioned Max as the growth engine. But when they launch in these other countries, they're doing so at the expense, the further expense of the TV business.
- [07:56]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah. So I think the good news is that the streaming businesses are now stable, profitable. Like Paramount plus is going to get there. Peacock is going to get there. They're doing so while still growing, but they're also getting there because they're introducing advertising and they're raising prices and they're doing all these things.
- [08:12]
Matt Bellany
So streaming and spending less, don't forget spending less, spending a little less.
- [08:16]
Lucas Shaw
They're generally on the right trajectory. The problem is for most of them is that we're not at a point yet where it feels like it's enough to offset what's happening in their linear businesses. The ones that are in a stronger position, at least as far as media concerned, are Comcast and Disney. But that has to do with theme parks. Right. The Disney theme park business is growing nicely. The Comcast theme park business is doing pretty well. And so it matters a little bit less for them.
- [08:46]
Matt Bellany
And we'll get to that. I want to harp back on Warner Discovery because their studio division really sucked in the first quarter. Mickey7 It'll have a.
- [08:56]
Lucas Shaw
It'll have a good second quarter.
- [08:57]
Matt Bellany
Alto Knights not cutting it. The second quarter will be much better with Minecraft and Sinners and Max helped them with their numbers, getting them up. The stock went down.
- [09:08]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah. Again Max, most of that growth is international expansion. Okay. Right. And some of that domestic growth is probably the password sharing crackdown.
- [09:18]
Matt Bellany
Right. So. So the stock went down and then CNBC reported that. Yeah, CNBC AKA David Faber got the go ahead from his sources that may or may not be at the company to say that a split of Warner Brothers Discovery is likely going to happen. He said there was a path towards splitting up the company and then the stock spiked about 5,7%. I haven't looked at it today. They did lay the groundwork for this. They have now broken out each division into a separate reporting structure and have been laying the groundwork gradually over the past months and about a year towards putting all of the television networks into a spinco of its own. Splitting up the company to where the studio and the streamer would be the main company. The TV networks will be floated away to die a slow and painful death. Perhaps merged with the Comcast Television networks. And that seems to be what Wall street wants. They haven't answered the question of how they will pay for this and I still don't know the answer to this. Do you have any sense of what a financial mechanism would be to put all of the money generating TV Networks in a different company and then try to grow a streaming and studio business without the benefit of that revenue.
- [10:46]
Lucas Shaw
No. And I'm going to go on a brief rant here and you're going to tell me nobody cares. But it's funny when the Faber thing happened because I spoke with someone the day before who was talking about, oh, one of the things that might happen is this spinoff because we'd been hearing that something with Comcast was kind of close and then I stress tested it and everyone was like, no, that's not true. But the spin thing is not new. It has been out there for a year.
- [11:13]
Matt Bellany
Right.
- [11:14]
Lucas Shaw
So it was very clear. My takeaway from this was like, oh, not like we have to go report that they're going to spin it. I think your explanation of what happened is important because it did feel like a direct response from the company to ooh, the response on Wall street is negative. We need to like float this. That we're really looking at it again. But the problem is, well, to be.
- [11:35]
Matt Bellany
Clear, they did not tell me this. That is my speaker speculation. That's what happened. My informed speculation.
- [11:39]
Lucas Shaw
Correct. The problem is. So Comcast is doing this, right? They're spinning out their cable networks, but spinning out their cable networks. And by the way, they're less valuable cable networks because they wanted to keep Bravo, they wanted to keep NBC. Doesn't really. It's fine for Comcast because they're this massive company. It doesn't damage Comcast to do.
- [11:58]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, they have other businesses like theme parks and broadband.
- [12:01]
Lucas Shaw
Warner Brothers discovery makes 85% of its profit from these cable networks. So how is that going to work? You would have to take all that debt that they have to service and put it on that other thing which would really limit its ability to do deals and be interesting, especially as it's shrinking.
- [12:20]
Matt Bellany
Well, in some of the reporting I have seen speculation that they might try to raise money, bring in a partner to raise money to float the studio and max business as they send this other stuff away. I've seen that there may be some kind of a financial machination. They could figure out where some of the debt goes, some of the debt stays. This is above my pay grade in terms of the bankers who are pitching them on potential scenarios here. But it seems like a challenge to get rid of your profit center and then still consider yourself a growth company.
- [12:54]
Lucas Shaw
I think very hard. Yeah, that's why you want to be out there doing deals. But you know, you can't do the deal with Comcast in part because One.
- [13:05]
Matt Bellany
You mean, you mean a merger?
- [13:07]
Lucas Shaw
Well, you can't do big. Comcast doesn't want to own more cable networks.
- [13:12]
Matt Bellany
Right.
- [13:12]
Lucas Shaw
That's why they're spinning out this stuff in a Spinco. Once they do Spinco that I think there are tax reasons why they can't really do. They couldn't do like a big merger for a little while. And even if they, and even if they wanted to, the way that they've structured it, Comcast shareholders, Brian Roberts still fundamentally control Spinco. He has a lot of the voting shares. David Zaslav never wants to give up control of anything. So you're not going to give Brian Roberts the cable networks that you have. He's trying to have something where he can have its cake and eat it too. Where the hang from the cable networks doesn't hurt the stock of Warner Brothers Discovery. But he can still control these networks because he doesn't want to give anything up.
- [13:50]
Matt Bellany
And maybe Spinco or Versant, now that it's called maybe the Comcast Versant Company, is it joint venture with Warner's, like they kind of co own it?
- [14:02]
Lucas Shaw
I don't think that's what Brian Roberts wants. But since I was asked this by someone in the broader Comcast NBC family, so I'm going to ask you this. On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you grade the Versant name?
- [14:17]
Matt Bellany
Oh, it's pretty bad. Especially when if you Google Versant, the literal meaning is a downslope or a slope of a mountain. So you're calling the company basically like the downward trajectory.
- [14:32]
Lucas Shaw
They had a different definition of Versant that they preferred?
- [14:34]
Matt Bellany
No, they're saying it's for conversant. Like they are conversant in, I don't know, some conversation about the future of media. I don't know, it's whatever. There's been worse. It's not Tron, not Pegna, it's not Tecna. In a year we probably won't even care. It'll be like Tubi or one of these others will be oh versus whatever. It's not Versace. Versace is cool. Well, when I saw it at first I was like, versant, is that going to lower my A1C? Like, what is that?
- [15:02]
Lucas Shaw
Am I supposed to know what an A1C is? Sorry, it's an old person thing.
- [15:06]
Matt Bellany
It's a pharmaceutical ad term that you always hear like, I'm lowering my A1C. I don't even know what it means.
- [15:17]
Craig Horbacek
This episode is brought to you by Focus Features and Indian Paintbrush presenting the Phoenician Scheme an epic comedy adventure from director Wes Anderson. Starring Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threpleton, Michael Cera and an all star cast follows Zsaza Korda as he races to survive assassinations, win back his daughter and pull off the scheme of a lifetime. The Phoenician scheme rated PG13. Only in theaters Friday.
- [15:43]
Matt Bellany
This episode is brought to you by Netflix.
- [15:45]
Craig Horbacek
Presenting the Diplomat from writer and creator Deborah Kahn.
- [15:48]
Matt Bellany
Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell return, with Allison Janney joining in the explosive second season as US Ambassador Kate Wyler navigates high stakes diplomacy and a fraught marriage in search of the truth. The Guardian lauds the Diplomat a masterclass in storytelling and Indiewire hails it one.
- [16:05]
Craig Horbacek
Of the best shows of the year.
- [16:07]
Matt Bellany
For your Emmy consideration, let's move on to Disney because you mentioned the theme park stuff. The financials at Disney. Pretty good. Great, I'd say, given. Yeah. Given everyone's freaking out about how these tariffs are going to impact the theme parks. And they did not really have huge hits in the first quarter. Film wise. Captain America and Snow White. Not great. They really delivered like profit and revenue both up. The theme parks doing fine. You can, you can weigh in here.
- [16:40]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah, I mean, it was a big win for them. There were people who didn't think that the streaming service would be growing too much because of price increases. The streaming additions were pretty solid. The numbers were, I think, a beat pretty much across the board. The stock was up.
- [16:56]
Matt Bellany
Is that just cost control? I mean, Iger was out there saying we're now in our era of quality over quantity.
- [17:02]
Lucas Shaw
Both Iger and Zaslav tried to do this quality over quantity thing. What a load of bs.
- [17:08]
Matt Bellany
Yes, I agree.
- [17:09]
Lucas Shaw
Because.
- [17:10]
Matt Bellany
Well, first of all, they're the ones that were the quantity people not that long ago.
- [17:14]
Lucas Shaw
No, but they were the ones who, they always said that the difference between what they did in Netflix was that they really cared and they only made a certain number of things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like they just used. They give the messaging that suits whatever they want to say at the moment, not undergirded by reality.
- [17:30]
Matt Bellany
Well. And that they can spend less to get to profitability. They have to spend less. Less. And that means fewer shows and movies.
- [17:37]
Lucas Shaw
Well, but also for both companies, okay. For, for Warner Brothers, Discovery like HBO has continued to pump out quality stuff. It's not like they stopped being quality. That's sort of always been the M.O. i realized that they tried to put more stuff in the streaming service with, and with, with Disney. They didn't actually have a good start to the year for, for streaming television. They didn't have any big hits and. Or people like. But I think the numbers on it are not good. And that wasn't in the quarter.
- [18:06]
Matt Bellany
And the Iger thing is like, yeah, he put in motion the flood the zone.
- [18:11]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah.
- [18:11]
Matt Bellany
Thing for Disney. Plus all of the problems they're having they had with, you know, spread too thin that he kind of blamed on Chapek. That was him. You could blame Chapek. But now he finds a rhythm where less is more and quality over quantity and people seem to be buying it. The stock shot up. I think one of the big reasons the stock shot up was this Abu Dhabi announcement.
- [18:34]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah.
- [18:35]
Matt Bellany
They are partnering with this company morale. They are not going to own this park. They're not going to build it. They're not going to finance construction.
- [18:43]
Lucas Shaw
It's similar to what they, they've done in some of the Asian countries.
- [18:47]
Matt Bellany
True. But. But for most of them they have had an ownership interest like the Shanghai Park. They partner with a company there, but they own part of it. This one is hands off. They are going to essentially develop the rides, the attractions, the IP and design it. But they are having their partner there build it.
- [19:07]
Lucas Shaw
They are selling the Disney brand for lots of Middle Eastern money.
- [19:11]
Matt Bellany
That is exactly not Saudis. I heard there was a proposal on the table for this to be in Saudi and Iger vetoed it. Iger would not, would not go into business with the Saudis. But Abu Dhabi is like one step removed there. They still don't allow gay people. Homosexuality is illegal and that's sort of burning up the Disney message boards this week.
- [19:36]
Lucas Shaw
Why do you think that is has not been become a bigger thing? Because that particular brand of culture war is over.
- [19:42]
Matt Bellany
Well, I think it would take big names coming forward. I got a shareholder or two email about it, but I don't. I mean if someone like Ryan Murphy or someone like, you know, the people at Pixar came forward and said we are not in favor of this. This is the same country that banned the Lightyear movie over the same sex kiss. And now you want to put a park there, like that's not cool. Certainly not going to have pride nights at Disneyland. Abu Dhabi.
- [20:11]
Unnamed Guest
So wait a minute. So you're saying to the degree you can know someone's sexuality, they will not allow gay people at this point?
- [20:17]
Matt Bellany
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is not what I'm saying. I am saying the United Arab Emirates, the country where Abu Dhabi is located does not permit homosexuality. We do not know what the policies are going to be at this park. Supposedly Yas island, where these are all located, is a little bit more tourist friendly and less draconian.
- [20:38]
Unnamed Guest
I have to imagine Disney discussed that with them beforehand and made sure, of.
- [20:41]
Matt Bellany
Course they knew it was going to be a story. But they don't have to deal with this for five to seven years to when this opens. And this was an issue in China as well. Remember the whole debate over the Uyghurs, the refugees that have, you know, the human rights conditions in China are terrible. And Disney got a lot of flak around that. They managed that they managed to dodge that criticism. We'll see how they handle this one.
- [21:05]
Lucas Shaw
Okay, well, most important question, will Bob Iger still be at Disney when this theme park opens?
- [21:12]
Matt Bellany
I wrote about this. Yes. And this gets to the another in our ongoing series, how does this news impact Dana Walden? Because the succession issue for CEO, I think is impacted by this big new project in Abu Dhabi. Josh, tomorrow the parks person was there standing next to Iger in Abu Dhabi announcing this thing. The speculation in Burbank that people I talked to there said not only does this give tomorrow a little bit of a boost in the CEO race, but it also could end up being the excuse that Iger gives us in 2026 for why he needs to stay on for a couple more years.
- [21:52]
Craig Horbacek
Not a CEO.
- [21:53]
Matt Bellany
He'll appoint a CEO. Whether it's tomorrow or Walden or the.
- [21:56]
Lucas Shaw
Board will appoint a CEO.
- [21:58]
Matt Bellany
The board will appoint the CEO, but Iger will agree to stay on as executive chairman. And he will oversee not only the construction of Abu Dhabi, but will allow Josh d' Amaro to focus on that while also learning the film and television business under Iger's expert tutelage. Because that worked so well last time.
- [22:19]
Lucas Shaw
I think demaro's been the the favorite for a few months now. Just based on conversations with a bunch of people.
- [22:29]
Unnamed Guest
For all the sports fans at home, are we thinking minus 200, minus 300?
- [22:33]
Matt Bellany
Craig, why does everything have to be about betting with.
- [22:35]
Unnamed Guest
I think it provides nice context.
- [22:38]
Lucas Shaw
I would give maybe even odds.
- [22:40]
Unnamed Guest
Okay.
- [22:41]
Lucas Shaw
And I think Dana Walden is still the second up. And I'm not a better, but I listen to enough of your podcasts to have a feel. Let's say Dana's plus 300.
- [22:52]
Unnamed Guest
Okay. Three to one.
- [22:54]
Lucas Shaw
And no one else is closer than seven or eight to one. Okay. The funny thing about what you were saying with Josh is on the one hand, like I said, the reporting bears out that he feels like the favorite right? Now, on the other hand, these people keep getting different tests, Right. Like Dana did the investor conference.
- [23:15]
Matt Bellany
You had Jimmy, which was mixed reviews from people I talked to.
- [23:19]
Lucas Shaw
You had Jimmy Pitar and Bob Iger or Jimmy Pitaro interview Bob Iger at a Sports Business Journal conference. Like they're all getting. I mean, Jimmy Potter's about to have a big moment with the unveiling of, of espn.
- [23:31]
Matt Bellany
Right? Just espn. It's cleaner.
- [23:34]
Lucas Shaw
The only sensible name, Dana. There will be more of these moments, right? I'm sure that there will be something that Dana does later this year where it will all be positioned in the same light.
- [23:43]
Matt Bellany
Well, she'll get up at the TV up fronts, I'm sure.
- [23:46]
Lucas Shaw
Right. But this is, this is undeniably a big one. Right. The Parks is the biggest part of their business at this point, at least from a profit perspective from revenue, it's getting close and it's a win because yes, there are, there are political challenges, but it's hard to see it being a business failure.
- [24:02]
Matt Bellany
It's the one thing they do better than anyone else in the world, undeniably. And he is running it right now. And the profits are kicking butt. All right, let's move on to Paramount. Poor Paramount. I always, I just feel bad for everyone there. They're just going through the motions. The company's been sold. They just need the government to sign off on this deal. Yet quarter after quarter, they go through the motions on these earnings calls. And not quite there in profitability and streaming, but getting there. But the TV numbers are perhaps the worst for anyone at Paramount because they didn't have the comp this quarter of the super bowl last year. They had to deal with a comparison to a non super bowl year.
- [24:47]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah, always throws it. I mean, those cable networks are from hunger at this point. There's just not much there. It's amazing that they continue to get these pay TV distributors to carry them.
- [25:00]
Matt Bellany
The one thing that I found interesting though is that they did announce a bunch of shows for cbs. CBS is still pretty firmly in the scripted television business.
- [25:13]
Lucas Shaw
On cbs, the most watched network of the broadcast now.
- [25:16]
Matt Bellany
I know, and like we can laugh at these shows that nobody you or I know watch. Like they're doing a Blue Bloods spin off. Baby Tracker, the number one show of the year. They, they, they've got a Jerry Bruckheimer Friday night schedule of all shows that you would never watch. I mean, they're still doing those shows though. Look at, contrast that with NBC, which also is announcing their lineup for the Next year. And they are just picking them off one by one. They are canceling everything. Not everything. They're, you know, the Zach Quinto medical show got picked up. They've got the Dick Wolf stuff. But a lot of shows on NBC are being canceled.
- [25:57]
Lucas Shaw
It's going to be reality tv, Dick Wolf and NBA.
- [26:00]
Matt Bellany
And the NBA. The NBA is coming for two nights a week. So. And I think, and I still think that is the future of these broadcast networks. You know, slowly they are circling the drain and are going to start, are going to be airing less and less. But CBS is still in that business and it is telling that they are putting the Yellowstone spinoff with Lou Grimes, the Marshall Show. They are putting that on cbs. That is not a Paramount plus original or exclusive.
- [26:30]
Lucas Shaw
Their biggest sports for the most part are all weekend. So they need that prime time for something. Right. They've got the NFL, but that's Sunday. They have college, a lot of college football. That's Saturday. They have, you know, some golf tournaments. Those are on the weekends. It's like a lot of it is, a lot of it is weekend. There's not a lot of prime time weeknight sports that they have because they don't have basketball, they don't have baseball.
- [26:50]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, I think they are going to change that when the new regime comes in. I think they're going to work some deal with the NFL to maybe do a, you know, prime time clip show on Tuesday nights or something that will fill the space. Yeah, preview. What's the big story going to be for the upfronts this year?
- [27:11]
Lucas Shaw
Probably sports. Sports, sports, sports, sports.
- [27:13]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, I agree.
- [27:14]
Lucas Shaw
I think everyone's just going to be touting live sports because it's the one thing that they have that nobody else does and what advertisers want, trying to get them, sell them on scripted tv, whatever. Sure.
- [27:23]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. And we saw that in the Disney numbers. Their, their revenue coming from sports broadcasts going up, revenue coming from other stuff going down. Which is why, I mean, you're watching these NBA playoffs there. You're seeing ads for movies that don't come out for months because there's literally no other opportunity for these movie studios to get in front of a male audience before these big blockbusters come out.
- [27:47]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah.
- [27:48]
Matt Bellany
All right, Lucas, look forward to seeing you. I'll buy you a free drink at an event.
- [27:52]
Lucas Shaw
Well, we will share free cocktails.
- [27:55]
Matt Bellany
See you later. We are back with a call sheet. Craig, before we start, embarrassing error in Thursday's show, I mentioned Craig, Chris Miller, the director of the Smurfs movie And I said that. That Chris Miller was the Lord and Miller. Chris Miller. There are two Chris Millers that direct in animation, and this is not that one. The director of the Smurfs movie is a separate Chris Miller who's done a bunch of DreamWorks movies and has been around for a long time. And I should have known better, but I didn't.
- [28:30]
Unnamed Guest
Look, that's understandable. Chris Miller of Lord and Miller has done Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in the Lego Movie. So he's associated with animation, so that's fine.
- [28:38]
Matt Bellany
He is. But there's this other Chris Miller that has a whole career and is now directing the Smurfs movie. So I should have known that there were two, but whatever. All right, we'll move on. Gotta talk about this Dan Spilo situation. Are you following this a little bit?
- [28:53]
Unnamed Guest
Yes. But set the scene for those who aren't aware.
- [28:55]
Matt Bellany
Well, you are a Survivor fan, so, you know, Dan Spilo is a talent manager, industry entertainment, who's one of the sort of. It used to be a bigger deal in management, now it's smaller clients. But he's been a principal there for a long time, and he was on Survivor a couple years ago, pre Pandemic. And he actually became the first person who was removed from the game in the middle of the game because of two instances of what was later called inappropriate touching, where people felt that he had crossed the line and was touching people in a weird way. They complained and he was removed from. From the game, which was the first.
- [29:34]
Unnamed Guest
Sign of what was to come.
- [29:36]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, well, it didn't get him kicked out of Hollywood. He just sort of chugged along. And shockingly, he had this client, Alan Ritchson, who literally was a stuntman. And his credits, very minimal credits, including a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where he played one of the turtles in a suit. So you didn't know who he was. He was this gigantic stuntman. He amazingly gets the lead role in the Reacher series, which is now the number one show on Prime Video. So he sort of walks into this nobody client who's now probably a 20, $30 million a year client, which, like every manager, My wife's a manager. Every manager dreams of a scenario like that. And he blows it up. He becomes a producer on this indie movie with his client. He and Alan Richardson get into a fight on the set. Not which, I gotta say, the last.
- [30:30]
Unnamed Guest
Guy you'd want to fight in the world is Alan Ritchson.
- [30:34]
Matt Bellany
Not a physical fight, I am told. Just screaming and yelling at each other. And he Was sort of bullying people on set. And this is according to multiple sources I talked to there. It was described to me as don Simpson in the 80s behavior. Was asked to leave the set, was removed as a producer. And then Alan Ritchton fires him very publicly on the set. Comes back, everybody finds out about it, it leaks to the trades. And now this guy has been fired from industry entertainment. One of the. You know, he was a principal there. And my prediction is this is there's no coming back from this. I do not believe any of the other management companies are going to take this guy. A generation ago, he'd probably recover. You know, he. But now it's two strikes against this guy, and I do not believe he will be able to recover.
- [31:21]
Unnamed Guest
Well, so does he have other major clients?
- [31:23]
Matt Bellany
Not really. At Cal Penn. And he's got a bunch of smaller clients. He had Joey King, but there was some question with her. She fired him as well.
- [31:32]
Unnamed Guest
Well, it also sounds like, to be honest, if he was a bigger deal and had massive clients, it would probably be easier for him to stick around. And the industry would need him to stick around. His clients would want him to stick around. The fact that he kind of fell into Alan Richardson and then becomes a giant asshole, why would anybody need him to come back anyway?
- [31:48]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah. Talent will do a lot for people in the.
- [31:51]
Unnamed Guest
Talent. Yeah. He doesn't have any huge clients, so it's like it's easy to kick out the guy who's not that important. It's a lot harder when it's a big deal.
- [31:57]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. And if there was somebody, if he stumbles into another client that becomes a big deal, people will not welcome him back, but they'll probably hold their nose and deal with him. There's guys who lurk around the business now who have had scandals in the past and are kind of on the sidelines. And, you know, they've got clients that people care about, so they're kind of involved and they just keep a low profile. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw. Producer Craig Horbeck. Arter, Jesse Lopez and I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week, including a special guest from New York.