← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
Matt Bellamy
Foreign. This episode is presented by AMC Network. A new chapter in Anne Rice's immortal universe begins with AMC's the Vampire Lestat. Get a backstage pass to the iconic frontman who Pace Magazine calls a Bowie inspired rocker that will have fans screaming. Don't miss the legendary vampire Lestat de Liancourt in his own electrifying rock saga. Watch the Vampire Lestat Sundays only on AMC and AMC. Learn more at amcplus.com this summer, FanDuel
- [00:34]
Scott Glasgow
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- [01:04]
Matt Bellamy
It is Wednesday, July 8. Most movies are based on something a book, TV show, a toy, a magazine story, another movie. These days you don't need me to tell you that the Internet is very hot as a place to find source materials. The huge success of Iron Lung From a popular YouTuber and especially backrooms, which originated as a meme on Reddit and was developed by its director as a YouTube series that's unleashed a frenzy of sorts to identify and develop the next digital sensation that can be translated to the big screen. It's been a welcome market for a lot of writers and producers I've talked to. They've been frustrated by the decline in development budgets at the studios, the lack of appetite for edgier material, and now along comes a couple big fat hits to justify taking chances on unconventional IP from creators that maybe don't have the traditional track record. One of these producers is Scott Glasgow. He's Got A Company, 1201 Films. He's also been a talent manager for filmmakers and his specialty lately has been finding Internet based material and packaging it with Hollywood talent and selling it to studios. Last week, Warner Bros. Picked up a project of his called Siren Head that Glasgow helped put together with the weapons filmmaker Zach Kreger and the writer Brian Duffield. It's a viral horror property that centers on a tall skeleton with, yes, two sirens as a head. Scott also sold a movie to Amazon called Seasons, based on the viral horror short that first appeared on Reddit. We're gonna talk about this booming market, what the studios are looking for here, how to actually source this stuff online, how to not source it, and whether chasing the next viral digital horror movie can really be a good business. From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellamy and this is the Town. All right, we are here with Scott Glasgo, producer at his own company, 1201 Films, also a manager doing lots of stuff, hyphenate. Welcome, Scott.
- [03:02]
Scott Glasgow
Thank you very much for having me.
- [03:04]
Matt Bellamy
All right, so you are on the show because everybody around town seems to be talking about this gold rush for Internet based movie development. It's like the classic story in Hollywood. Something hits hits really big and then there's a rush to fill the void and the studios are all of a sudden open to things that they were maybe not open to. Is that your experience as someone who's been in this market for a while is the recent success of Iron Lung and backrooms, has that boosted the market for maybe unconventional digital source material at the studios?
- [03:44]
Scott Glasgow
Unequivocally, yes. I've been around long enough to see a lot of micro trends. I would describe this as a macro trend.
- [03:52]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, okay, that's good.
- [03:53]
Scott Glasgow
Oh, a hundred percent. Like I would say over the course of the past few months, starting with Iron Lung Obsession backrooms, you could almost feel the DNA of the town changing a little bit. And look, I think it's crazy exciting and it's also. That's not entirely in a vacuum. Right. You have the success of those three films coupled with some preexisting IP projects that didn't play in the marketplace. And I think holding those two things up side by side really caused everyone in town to just do a little bit of a rethink of where our energies and focus should be. Because clearly that's where the audience is.
- [04:35]
Matt Bellamy
And this is not entirely new. I mean, we've been talking about how Hollywood is going to create IP that appeals to Gen Z audiences for at least five to seven years now. I mean, I think someone I was talking to traced it back to Minecraft. The fact that Minecraft was so big and it really opened everybody's eyes to the changing nature of what is appealing. Like superhero stuff is for old people now and it's these younger properties. But the fun aspect for me is watching these big monolith Studios and their 50 and 60 something executives try to wrap their heads around a Reddit meme or a short story that unfolds on Twitter or Reddit as, as a basis for a movie. And that's where people like you come in.
- [05:27]
Scott Glasgow
Look, I agree with you on Minecraft, but I also actually even saw it with Super Mario. Right. Like, obviously it's a huge ip.
- [05:33]
Matt Bellamy
Sure. Or Five Nights at Freddy's. Like, these guys have younger property.
- [05:37]
Scott Glasgow
Yeah. And look, at the end of the day, in terms of where the material is being sourced, I still think there's a huge qualitative aspect to it. Right. Like, I spend a great deal of my time in short stories. We started on Reddit. I mean, we've been mining Reddit short stories for like five years now. And at the end of the day, it's a short story. Whether it came from some literary magazine or it came from Reddit, it's a short story. And there is a long history in this town of short stories being turned into great films. Right. So, you know, Rear Window, Shawshank Redemption, like, the short story in of itself as a foundational piece of material is undeniable. Having said that, what I think is very unique about the Reddit of the world, and it is part and parcel with the YouTubes of the world, is the democratization of it, where anybody in the world can literally put their material up. And just because they put it online doesn't mean that anybody's going to recognize it, that it ultimately has to be, you know, the cream of the crop. But it is access that anyone around the world has that they didn't have before. And I think that's what is allowing for new voices to rise.
- [06:43]
Matt Bellamy
But I want you to take us through your sourcing process. Sure. Because I have this vision in my head of 20 assistants at the agencies and management companies all combing Reddit during the day. Like, they've got like, it's 19, you know, like it's 1849, and they're in the Sierras with their mining equipment, trying to find that gold nugget in the stream when most of it is just garbage. Like, how do you do that? How do you source material on digital platforms?
- [07:17]
Scott Glasgow
It's a great question. And maybe I'll walk you back to the very beginning for our first Reddit short story. And then from there I can speak to sort of the apparatus that we built. Right. A few years ago now, a writer that I work with, Harrison Query, incredibly talented, was like, hey, my brother wrote a short story on Reddit and it's blowing up. Will you check it out? Now, mind you, this is like during COVID where no one's mind was really on, like, what's the next hot Reddit short story. And he's like, will you read it? And I'm like, oh, like, there goes my afternoon. Right. I gotta read a writer's brother short. And I read it in one sitting and it was amazing. Like, amazing. It was this piece called My Wife and I Bought a Ranch and I was like, oh, like conceptually it was big, the writing was exquisite, and I was like, this is a movie. Like, we can build this into something.
- [08:05]
Matt Bellamy
Okay, so you identify it as something great. What are the IP rights issues involved there? Can you just take it? And he claims ownership. Does Reddit have a stake in this? Like, how does that work?
- [08:18]
Scott Glasgow
That's a great question. So there is a release that Reddit signs where they don't really have any rights, but you do ultimately need Reddit to sign a release.
- [08:27]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, you do. Interesting.
- [08:28]
Scott Glasgow
It's, it's some sort of like third party usage that, that you need. And we've, they've always been great partners. They've always signed it for no money. For no money. For no.
- [08:39]
Matt Bellamy
Wow. Yeah, because this is like you're talking about a project that has now become this project Seasons with Lily James that is set up at Amazon, mgm, and this could potentially be a hundred million dollar grossing movie. And Reddit gets nothing.
- [08:52]
Scott Glasgow
They get nothing. They get nothing.
- [08:54]
Matt Bellamy
Interesting.
- [08:54]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, if I'm being entirely transparent where even now, when we have original short stories that we curate, we don't always put them on Reddit anymore for those exact reasons. There's no reason to introduce a third party when it's, it's, or, you know, it's almost like reverse engineering. So we don't, we do that less and less.
- [09:11]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, I did notice that YouTube was very quick to congratulate Kane Parsons on backrooms. I wondered if deep down they were like, man, do we just give up a big stake of money?
- [09:24]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, look, it's possible, but like to me, what's, what's so interesting about all of this and Kane and Curry and Mark Parker, like all incredibly talented is like there's a 1.0 to all of this where everyone's talking about like the craze of the YouTube filmmaker, but like, you know, one generation prior to all these very talented people is like, you've got Dan Trachterberg, you've got West Ball, you've got Fede Alvarez, you've got David Sandberg, all who made viral shorts on YouTube and got gigs and that went on to great, like, huge success.
- [09:54]
Matt Bellamy
But those were, those were different because they were proving grounds for directorial talent. What is going on now is the actual IP being created on these platforms is what is being turned into movies.
- [10:10]
Scott Glasgow
I completely agree. Sandberg. Lights out took off on YouTube. They turned that into a movie. But for the most part, you're 100% right. And it's the thing that we concentrate on where one is a calling card and one is doing a calling card that is also transactional. And when you're doing something that's transactional, that's when you have this huge inflection point. And the other sort of third piece of that is that they've built an incredible following where even, you know, Curry with obsession, like, obsession isn't something that necessarily was born out of the pieces of material he was doing online. Right. However, he's got millions of people that are aware of him, and it just sort of all boats rise with that.
- [10:48]
Matt Bellamy
Right? So, okay, so continue through the process. You've identified this short story, and that's on Reddit. You are developing it. What are the next steps?
- [10:57]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, this one took off like a rocket because, remember, this was the first one, so there was no blueprint. Now we have a blueprint. So, you know, I do a lot of work with. With my friends at Verve.
- [11:06]
Matt Bellamy
I call Verve the talent agency.
- [11:09]
Scott Glasgow
Talent agency. David Boxer Bound, Adam Levine. I'm like, we've got something really special here. I think we could take it to market. Like, it's just so conceptually clear. And I kid you not, I read it on a Tuesday, by Friday 5, studio bidding war. And I know you never believe the numbers, but this one sold for over a million bucks, right?
- [11:29]
Matt Bellamy
As long as Shane Salerno is not involved, I'm more likely to believe it if Shane Salerno is not involved. But keep going.
- [11:36]
Scott Glasgow
So sold that. And then a week later, we did a book deal for it. And that's very much became, like, the blueprint of how we operate. Like, in a total of 10 days of not even being aware of this short, to 10 days later, where we had a film project. I partnered with Dan cone and Michael Clear, same guys who just did background five years ago, to make this movie. And now, like you said, like, we're greenlit. We're making that in. In August. So, like, that's the. From. From what was just a Reddit short to development. We moved studios from Netflix to Amazon to go movie.
- [12:14]
Matt Bellamy
Why did Amazon take over from Netflix?
- [12:17]
Scott Glasgow
You know, it's an old regime at Netflix. So the person who bought this is free. Dan Lin. The people who bought it weren't even there anymore. Like, Our executive was gone. And these things happen, you know, so.
- [12:30]
Matt Bellamy
So you got it back?
- [12:31]
Scott Glasgow
We got it back. And, you know, credit to. To this is an interesting side note of, like, Alicia Holmes was at mgm and she bid for it and lost it to Netflix, and she never let it go. She's like, this is incredible project, incredible project. And when it came out of Netflix, she's like, I still want this. And she's our executive at Amazon and we're making it. So it's sort of all is well that ends well. It was where it was meant to be.
- [12:54]
Matt Bellamy
And how long is that? If it were a book, how long is that short story that was on Reddit?
- [12:58]
Scott Glasgow
Typically our shorts are between like 10,000 to 12,000 words.
- [13:02]
Matt Bellamy
Okay.
- [13:03]
Scott Glasgow
And, you know, what happens is on the course of development, we're creating books as well. And what that does is a few things all at once. It allows us to grow the IP while simultaneously developing the project. So my wife and I bought a ranch. The short story became a book called Old country. And that was a really well received book. And I think that very much helped us forward face when it came time to find a new home for the project where we could point to something where, like, Washington Post did a huge spread of, like, are these writers the next Stephen King? And I say all that because that very much becomes baked in to how we approach our short stories moving forward. After the success of that project, I immediately called a timeout on my business, and I was like, oh, this is a model. And I'm finally going to answer the question that you asked three minutes ago of like, okay, so what does the process look like in the wake of that success? I said, this is where we should be looking. And I scoured Reddit, scoured noticeably. This is a few years ago. And what I found for the most part was there was interesting stories to your. To your point. Like, there was no curation here. There wasn't just sort of the silver bullet home run idea sitting there. But you know what was. There were incredible voices, just really talented people who maybe weren't focused on writing the right thing. And there's one writer in particular I found by the name of Marcus Cleaver. And he ultimately became the next writer that we sold with, but Marcus was, and he tells his story all the time, so I'm free to tell it. Marcus was living on his uncle's couch in Canada, literally on Canadian welfare, just trying to make it as a writer. And like I said, I got him on the phone and I said, you writing Is beautiful. Truly. The voice is extraordinary. But we need to focus on something more conceptual, like that Sweet spot for Hollywood. And he listed out five ideas, and one of them was this piece called We Used to Live Here. And it had a great hook to it. Okay, great. That that's what we should focus on. And we spent the next four months developing it. We took it to market.
- [15:10]
Matt Bellamy
Does that mean, did you tell him, hey, sign up for Reddit, get on Reddit, and instead of publishing this as a screenplay or book, you should start doing it as Reddit?
- [15:18]
Scott Glasgow
Exactly. Well, he was already. I found him on Reddit, so it was very organic to. We took the short that he developed. Right?
- [15:26]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah.
- [15:26]
Scott Glasgow
And when it was done, we put it on Reddit and it just became something to point to, of, hey, this is ascending. People were finding it while we simultaneously took it to market.
- [15:36]
Matt Bellamy
I have this vision in my head of development executives passing on a short story. And then you take that same story and put it on Reddit and then sending it to the same executive who says, this is brilliant, I'm buying it immediately.
- [15:50]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, I would, I. It doesn't sound so far fetched, let's put it that way. Right.
- [15:55]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah.
- [15:55]
Craig Horbeck
What does traction look like on Reddit, Scott? Like, how well does it need to be doing? Is there like a general. How many upvotes? Like, when do you determine that something has kind of crossed the barrier? When or you actually want to start going after it?
- [16:07]
Scott Glasgow
Okay, I see what your question, Your question is if there's something online and I'm chasing it versus something that we put online. Right. Craig, your. Yours is.
- [16:14]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. Something that you discover or someone in your company discovers.
- [16:17]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah. Cause there's millions of things that are viral online. Like, how are you determining the right things to go after and how viral it needs to be?
- [16:24]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, I honestly, it's about taking off like your Internet beer goggles. Right. And really looking at it as, is this a viable idea? Like, sure, it could be going viral, but you have to feel at the end of the day that there's a movie in there or there's a TV show in there. And it. Just because it's getting tons of clicks doesn't mean it's necessarily actionable. So to me, it's. It's far less about the upvotes than, you know, the funny thing about Reddit is usually the title of the piece is 25 words. And it's like the concept, you know, whatever it is. And honestly, like, if we're doing our job well off of that Title, you should at least know, like, oh, there might be something there, or not there. I mean, like, that's the initial litmus test.
- [17:07]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, I built a swimming pool in my backyard and it opened a portal to hell, basically.
- [17:11]
Scott Glasgow
Basically. Right. That's a pass for me. Sorry, Max.
- [17:13]
Matt Bellamy
But yes, Wes Anderson gets stuck in an elevator for a half hour with James L. Brooks.
- [17:19]
Scott Glasgow
I was there. I was there for that screening. I literally saw him coming out of the elevator.
- [17:23]
Matt Bellamy
Fan fiction off of that video is pretty good. That could be a movie someday.
- [17:28]
Scott Glasgow
Oh, that was amazing. Yeah, I literally was there for that Q and A. But so, so to your point, Craig, like, to me, it's, it's, I think it's really less about the chase and the heat on that stuff because inevitably, if it's chasing heat, it's, it's a, it's a stampede. It's a thousand people chasing this one thing. And to me, it's more about getting there first than it is, you know, because honestly, look, if it's about either getting there first or being the 800 pound gorilla, I'm not an 800 pound gorilla, so I need to get there first.
- [18:00]
Matt Bellamy
But you have a track record now. You can go to these people and say, listen, do you want this? I just sold this. This, this, this other guy chasing you is not that.
- [18:09]
Scott Glasgow
Well, that's why I'm on the town. This is my advertising. I'm just.
- [18:13]
Matt Bellamy
I know. You can send him the link.
- [18:14]
Scott Glasgow
That's right.
- [18:14]
Matt Bellamy
I want a commission.
- [18:15]
Scott Glasgow
No, but to finish the point with Marcus Cleaver. So, so what we did with Marcus was we built this short out. Got it what I think was airtight. We took it to market and it became sort of this bidding war. We sold it to Netflix as well, coincidentally, back to back. And then similarly, Marcus, we held back publishing. Marcus wrote a book called We Used to Live Here and it broke out. It's a huge success. Huge success. Right. And now his next book is called the Caretaker. It came out a month ago. New York Times bestseller. So this is a guy who started on Reddit, living on his uncle's couch, and as of last month is a New York Times bestseller. Right. And the second book was called the Caretaker. That was a short story that we sold to Universal a couple years ago with Sydney Sweeney, active development. David Bruckner's writing the script right now. Lots of promise. But in the interim of that development process, we have a New York Times bestseller. So I can go back to Universal and say, hey guys, remember that 30 page PDF you bought guess what? In addition to Cindy Sweeney and David Breckenran, like, literally, we're about to sell a million books, right? So it's to me, it's less about, like what's going viral this minute as much as how can we authentically build an awareness and truly turn it into an IP is where the real traction is.
- [19:39]
Matt Bellamy
Hmm. And you feel that the rush to this genre right now is not going to create oversaturation in a year. Because I'm looking out right now for a year or two from today and I'm seeing a horizon with tons of these ripped from Reddit, ripped from YouTube Movies. And it may be a glut. It may turn the macro trend into a micro trend.
- [20:10]
Scott Glasgow
Well, that's where I go back to sort of identifying this first and foremost as a medium, Right. Whether it's short stories or whether it's
- [20:18]
Matt Bellamy
gotta be good first and foremost.
- [20:19]
Scott Glasgow
That's right. Like the Internet is new to all of us relatively to where we are developing things in film and television, right. So, you know, we're old enough to remember the craze of when every TV show needed to turn into a movie, Right. And you get Mission Impossible out of that. You get Equalizer out of that. And you also get a host of bad things.
- [20:42]
Matt Bellamy
Chips. Chips was the worst.
- [20:44]
Scott Glasgow
No comment. So anyway, but the point is a television show as a medium a bad thing to adapt? No. But you have to make sure you're focusing on the right thing. And I think what will happen is if there's too much of that on the wrong thing, there will inevitably be blowback until there's a success and then we rediscover it again.
- [21:07]
Matt Bellamy
This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com Spotify this episode is brought to you by Holiday Inn by IHG Everyone knows Holiday Inn, right? Or they think they do, because though they have the same name, they've got a whole new energy. They kept the global icon status and upgraded pretty much everything else. We're talking modern rooms with real reset mode vibes, spaces that feel like your living room, just a little more low key chic and Dining done right from breakfast to dinner and drinks. Whether you're traveling for work or getting away for a minute, it's comfort that hits different. So yeah, Holiday Inn, it's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day@holidayin.com this episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com Spotify how savvy do you think the studio executives you're pitching are about what's going on online?
- [22:57]
Scott Glasgow
Well, look, I, from what I see is that there's absolutely a very clear cut mandate across the board for studios and executives to be focusing in this area. And then I think from there it's really case specific to the executive. We just sold a piece last week called Siren Head. It made a lot of noise and when we first started making those calls, it was prepackaged.
- [23:23]
Matt Bellamy
So explain what that means. You took the property and you attached producers and a writer to it. Sure.
- [23:30]
Scott Glasgow
I'll go back even further. So Trevor Henderson is a fantastic creature designer and I hired him for a movie I made called Taro. He made nine monsters for me. I got him obsessed with the guy. I became obsessed with him because he created this creature called siren head in 2018. And it went nuts. Like it went nuts online, like totally viral. Like 3 billion TikTok views. And it's actually a mod on Roblox.
- [23:57]
Matt Bellamy
Like it's, it literally, I looked at it, it literally has, it's a skeleton creature with two sirens as a head.
- [24:02]
Scott Glasgow
Well, it's funny because it also has like this sort of mystical quality to it. And I, I, I joke like that. It's sort of like the Internet's Bigfoot, right? Like, it's because, because kids are like, is it real? Is it not real? So, so it's something I've been interested in for a really long time and for one reason or another wasn't available. But Trevor and I always stayed in touch and in the wake of these past few months, I just went back to myself, like, if we're ever doing this, now's the time to do it. Because it was the right. So it was a perfect confluence.
- [24:33]
Matt Bellamy
And when it was in development. It was in development somewhere else, like at another studio.
- [24:37]
Scott Glasgow
It had been, but it had come out of development and it was fully available. Right, okay. And simultaneously, Roy Lee is a producer who, who I do a lot of work with. Roy had already expressed interest in it as well. So let's partner up. And. And for anyone that's worked with Roy Lee, like, Roy Lee can move mountains.
- [24:59]
Matt Bellamy
He. He is the, yeah, great producer and he has a relationship with Zach Kreger, who's probably the hottest guy in genre filmmaking right now.
- [25:07]
Scott Glasgow
That's right. So initially we started making calls just to sort of, to your point of like talking to executives to familiarize themselves with like, us. And the material was just like, hey, this is coming. How does everyone, you know, putting it on your radar? And some, some places were like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, I think I know it. And other places were like, say less like we want it. Right. So you start sort of getting a sense of the market. And simultaneously, you know, Roy was on set with Zach and they started having the conversation about Siren Head. And one thing led to another where Zach really sparked. He's going to co write it with Brian Duffield, Brian Duffield's going to direct it. And it became this really fantastic package. But it all started with, to me, like Trevor Henderson's great creation. To me, it goes back to what you were saying, just in the sense of it can't just be this sort of sizzle. There's gotta be stake to it. And Siren Head is always something that to me has had stake to it. Right. Regardless of what's going on, it just taking it out at this moment made perfect sense. But irregardless of this moment, it still always felt like viable IP to me.
- [26:16]
Matt Bellamy
Most of these projects are in the horror genre or the thriller genre. Do you see this trend metastasizing into other genres? Comedy, rom com, you put your life story on Reddit, your meet cute with your husband or wife, and that can be developed.
- [26:34]
Scott Glasgow
I'm always say that we are agnostic to genre. Right. Over the past year, we saw the political thriller arrive like sort of an apocalyptic movie, suburban thriller, like really across the board. We've touched nearly every genre except straight drama. To your point, I don't think there's any real room for a straight drama with the short stories that we do. Right. I always say the short stories that we curate live somewhere between the pitch and the spec. But what all three of those things have in common is that they're very
- [27:07]
Matt Bellamy
large conceptually, but none of those projects are go movies, are they? It seems like the green lights are coming for the horror stuff.
- [27:13]
Scott Glasgow
I would say it takes time. I don't. I think we're really close on a handful of things that I would say cut to six months from now. I think we're going to have more than, more than horror going. That's, that's, that's my gut.
- [27:26]
Matt Bellamy
So the moral of the story here is Craig should be on Reddit while this show is taping and just banging it out.
- [27:33]
Scott Glasgow
I think Craig and I should sidebar. He should spitball a few ideas that he's sitting on and we'll figure it out.
- [27:38]
Craig Horbeck
I do have ideas. I have a lot of ideas.
- [27:39]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, if you do Swimming Pool Ported to Hell, I want a cut of that.
- [27:45]
Scott Glasgow
You got it. You got it.
- [27:46]
Craig Horbeck
Scott, have you had any experience with, like, the studios or other producers learning the wrong lessons from this macro trend, as you call it? Like, hey, what about this viral thread that I saw online? Like, could this be a movie? Are you seeing a lot of that?
- [27:59]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, dumbest email from a studio executive where their kids showed them something at home and they're like, oh, maybe this is a movie. I'll check in with Scott.
- [28:08]
Craig Horbeck
Like, can you feel the out of touchness coming from studios or other producers? Or would you say, like. Well, yeah, sure. That's always been the case. And the point is to have young, savvy producers who understand what works and what doesn't.
- [28:19]
Scott Glasgow
Yeah, I mean, to me, it's always, for any film, it's always going to be the marriage of concept with the filmmaker.
- [28:26]
Craig Horbeck
Right.
- [28:26]
Scott Glasgow
So it's as much and to your question, Matt, about where we are in terms of development and things getting made. Like, we've got some extraordinary filmmakers on our material that ultimately, if you're going to make a movie, that's what you need. No matter how sticky the idea is, how clever it is, or how viral it is, if you don't have a truly talented person actualizing it, you're not getting off the Runway. Or if you are, you might have a lot of turbulence along the way. So it's, it's ultimately about the marriage of the two things that will yield success. So it's got to start, at least for our purposes, with the big idea has to, has to be conceptually sound, but then you truly need a team to actualize it if you really want to have success.
- [29:12]
Matt Bellamy
Well, that's why a lot of these successful production companies also have talent management firms attached to them where you can develop the Clients as writers and then hopefully introduce them to different concepts or ip. Or they can introduce you, and then you can package it up and produce it together.
- [29:33]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, look, the most fun about all of this with a short story in particular, to your point, is like, it feels like you can a la carte. And I mean that in a way of whether it's designing a vehicle that's perfect for. We've got this, you know, amazing short story that we were lucky enough to attach to the Rock. The part is perfect for him. Right.
- [29:55]
Matt Bellamy
So which project is that?
- [29:57]
Scott Glasgow
It's called ripped. It's at 20th.
- [29:59]
Matt Bellamy
That's not the one where he has dementia, is it?
- [30:01]
Scott Glasgow
No, that's a new one that was just announced. This is. We'll call it Fight Club Adjacent, but it's really cool. But what I'm getting at is more. So it's designing these pieces in a way where you can curate where it's like, this would be perfect for the Rock. And. And a short story is something that's so sort of easily accessible. Like a pitch is sort of vapor, and a spec always feels very binding. It's like, hey, X, huge movie star. Here's a script. Will you star in it? It's like, whoa. Versus, like, you give them a short and they can say, I like this, I like that. So before we go and build this out as the screenplay, we can curate together. And it's far more accessible.
- [30:39]
Matt Bellamy
That's a nice way of saying you don't have to make the Rock read a whole book.
- [30:44]
Scott Glasgow
I mean, he's been a great partner, and I'm sure he would read a book if we sent him a great book.
- [30:48]
Matt Bellamy
I'm joking. He's probably read more books than I have this year. All right, thank you, Scott. Appreciate you coming on the show.
- [30:54]
Scott Glasgow
Thank you guys very much.
- [30:57]
Matt Bellamy
We are back with the call sheet. Craig. This morning, Emmy noms HBO slapped around Netflix. 122 nominations, bigger than Netflix, Although I think the story is probably the 87 nominations for Apple TV or just Apple TV now, plus two for commercials. What did you think of the nominations?
- [31:19]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah, you know, you can really feel the lack of monoculture this year in the Emmy nominations. It just seems to be a lot of shows that are good shows, but not shows that are really kind of taking over the zeitgeist. Other than, of course, the Taylor Sheridan shows, which are actually the most popular TV shows, but those never get nominated, which is hilarious.
- [31:35]
Matt Bellamy
It is amazing that they continue to snub Taylor Sheridan, who continues to shit all over Hollywood. In every interview that he does, it's. It's an amazing blood feud. But the. The big gripe I always have with the Emmy noms these days is that voters check the box on the five shows that they love.
- [31:52]
Craig Horbeck
Yes.
- [31:53]
Matt Bellamy
You know, the. The Pit and Hacks set records for nominations, and they know this going into the season. So like something like the. The. The Hacks final season, it was insane. They got five separate nominations for guest actress on Hacks, and they programmed the episodes like they did an episode where they go to this lesbian retreat and Cherry Jones and Leslie Bibb are the two women they meet there because they know that they're going to get nominations.
- [32:25]
Craig Horbeck
Oh, so you're saying they gamed the cast. Okay.
- [32:28]
Matt Bellamy
Of course. You know, there's a reason why Laurie Metcalf showed up in the finale of Hacks, and it's because they know that they're going to get a nomination for her and they want to blow it out of the water and beat the bear and. And studio records from the previous year, which they did.
- [32:44]
Craig Horbeck
Well, to me, it just feels like, look, if you have the Sopranos, sure, everybody from the Sopranos should be nominated, but. But now that there aren't, there isn't that show that's like the biggest show in the country that everybody's watching, where everybody deserves a nomination, and yet they still follow that formula. It' no matter what shows there are, they just have to pick five where everybody gets nominated.
- [33:04]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. I would argue that the Pit is actually a hugely popular show. I agree that. That everyone is nominated from. The numbers on the Pit are insane. Especially for appearing on HBO Max, which is a smaller service.
- [33:17]
Craig Horbeck
I agree with that. It's just funny, though, just because, I don't know, there's like more TV than ever, and yet kind of the. The saturation of the nominations is still so strong. Like I. It's like we can't broaden out. Maybe it's because it's literally impossible for anybody to actually be watching all of the television shows that exist now.
- [33:33]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. So best drama series, the Diplomat, the Gilded Age, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, paradise, the Pit, Pluribus, Slow Horses, your Friends and Neighbors, Three Apple shows.
- [33:47]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah. Pretty.
- [33:48]
Matt Bellamy
Pretty big for Apple.
- [33:50]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah. Apple now is becoming. People are starting to confuse Apple shows with HBO shows, which is a huge compliment to Apple.
- [33:55]
Matt Bellamy
It feels like that's a win for Apple.
- [33:58]
Craig Horbeck
It's a huge win for Apple.
- [33:59]
Matt Bellamy
I know. I'm going to do a couple predictions. I think that for drama series, it's going to be really tough to beat the Pit.
- [34:06]
Scott Glasgow
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:07]
Matt Bellamy
It's just the show everyone watches. They have been very smart. The campaign has focused on the fact that they shoot in la like literally every other day. There's some news article and we're guilty of this. We had John Wells on the show to talk about it, but the whole campaign is vote for the Pit. You love the show and it supports a ton of jobs in la.
- [34:28]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:29]
Matt Bellamy
Which is a good campaign. Honestly, I'm for them using that. You know, if Netflix is going to make most of their shows in New Jersey and New Mexico, then they that should be used against them in the Emmy camp. And I know it should be about the quality of the show, but campaigns matter and that's what people think about when they're voting.
- [34:47]
Craig Horbeck
What do you think for comedy?
- [34:49]
Matt Bellamy
So comedy is tougher. The noms are Abbott elementary, the Bear Hacks. Margo's got money troubles. That's a new one. David E. Kelly came on the town and did our event. Good for him. Nobody wants this. Only murders in the building, shrinking and Widow's Bay. I'm going to go out on a limb here again. Three series nominations for Apple. A lot of love for Apple. Everybody is going to pick hacks to win. They've won before. Final season, they got the most nominations. I think the momentum here is Widow's Bay.
- [35:22]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah.
- [35:23]
Matt Bellamy
I think it's going to be the surprise. The Matthew Reese show, it's got an element of horror. It's a comedy quasi. And I think that it's going to be like the studio where it becomes the show that everybody's talking about and they end up voting for it.
- [35:37]
Craig Horbeck
Yeah. I think if anything could unseat Hacks, it would be Widow's Bay. I agree with you. It has all the momentum. I'm kind of bummed that, like, Jury Duty, Chair Company, like actual hard comedies didn't get nominated in this category.
- [35:48]
Matt Bellamy
But don't even get me started. Like, Jury Duty was hilarious. They got a writing nom, which is cool. But, you know, I wish that they would boot some of these shows that are clearly not comedies. Like the Bear Chair Company is a
- [36:01]
Craig Horbeck
hard comedy that's going for it. And I don't know, they got a couple nominations, but it's always a bummer when you see, like, the Bear once again. And I'm like, give it to a show that's an actual real hard comedy.
- [36:11]
Matt Bellamy
But I know. And some of these shows are past their prime. Like you and I are going to be dead and buried and only murders in the building is still going to be putting out seasons. Steve Martin and Martin Short will outlive us all. Yeah, but so my big prediction today for the Emmys is I think Widow's Bay is going to shock and end up winning comedy series. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guests Scott Glasgold, producer Greg Horbeck, our editors Matt Pevik and Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We will see you one more time this week.
- [36:43]
Scott Glasgow
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Craig Horbeck
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Scott Glasgow
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Craig Horbeck
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Scott Glasgow
If you if your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremphya, proper training is required.
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Craig Horbeck
Tremphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis.
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Scott Glasgow
Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about tremphaya today.
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Craig Horbeck
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Scott Glasgow
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