← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Part 1 With Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro: AI, Live Events, and the Four-Day Work Week
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- [00:01]
A
As the 21st century was getting underway, Hollywood released a series of films that were daring, entertaining and absolutely unmissable. Films like 25th Hour, Bring It On, Zodiac and no country for Old Men. They arrived during the George W. Bush era, a chaotic time in America. Think 9, 11, Katrina, the mortgage crisis. After the Bush years, the country would never be the same and neither would Hollywood. I'm Brian Raftery and in in my new limited series Mission Accomplished, we're gonna dive into some of the biggest movies of the Bush years and look at what they said about the state of the nation. We'll go behind the scenes with filmmakers and experts and relive some of your favorite movies from the early 2000s, from Donnie Darko to Michael Clayton, from Anchorman to Iron Man. So slip on your sketchers, dig out your old Nokia and join me for mission accomplished starting Aug. 12 on the.
- [00:56]
B
Big Picture Feat this episode of the Town is presented by FX's the Lowdown, proclaimed a gloriously off kilter noir by Rolling Stone. The series follows Lee Raybon, a citizen, journalist and self proclaimed truthsorian, as he exposes corruption and unearths the city's hidden rot from acclaimed Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo and starring four time Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke. TV Guide raves the Lowdown is easily one of the best new shows of the year. The Lowdown premieres September 23rd on FX, streaming next day on Hulu.
- [01:36]
C
This episode is brought to you by Scene on the Screen, a podcast presented by Make It Universal and Rotten Tomatoes. Join me Jacqueline Coley as I meet the filmmakers, actors and industry insiders influencing entertainment. Each episode is an intimate, fun conversation about the impact of film as guests share their journeys, inspirations and answer trivia about the movies that shape them. Scene on the Screen is available now. To listen, simply search Seen on the screen wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [02:07]
B
It is Thursday, October 9th. It's been 30 years now since Ari Emanuel and a group of talent agents from ICM defected to form Endeavor, and since then Ari has become one of the most important figures in the entertainment business. Ari and his crew grew Endeavor to the point where it's sweeping swallowed the much larger William Morris Agency, which kicked off a decade or so of buying smaller agencies, the img, Fashion and events empire, eventually the UFC and wwe. But when Ari and his partner Patrick Weitzel took endeavor public in 2021, the market didn't really like what it saw. Many, many assets, no cohesive story to tell. And since then it's been seemingly one corporate maneuver after Another splitting the sports group into a new company, tko, and with the help of investor Silverlake, taking the talent agency and other assets private as WME Group. Then just this week, Ari and his business partner, Marc Shapiro, they announced yet another new company called Mari. Yes, it's a combination of their first names, which will house a bunch of sports stuff like the Madrid Open and events assets like the Freeze Art Fair. Those were once part of Endeavor. So it's basically transferring them over to a new company that Ari will control and be off on his merry way to do what he wants and to do.
- [03:25]
D
So.
- [03:25]
B
They've raised about $2 billion from Apollo, Redbird, the Qataris, a bunch of others, and oh, on top of that, Ari just launched a podcast with a music manager friend called Rushmore about the greatest people in all aspects of culture and sports. It's so much that it got me wondering what Ari prioritizes on a day to day basis these days. Besides of course, calling people constantly and swearing at them on the pH. After all, he's got his fingers in so much stuff, from advising everyone from David Ellison to Tyler Perry, to talent deals like the recent south park re up at paramount to the seven year, $7.7 billion deal for UFC rights at CBS, which came after Netflix picked up WWE for 5 billion over 10 years. Now he's back managing all those events assets and looking for other stuff to buy. It's well past time for Ari to come on the town, so I asked him and Mark Shapiro to make some time and they are here today. I should note that wme, the agency, they represent Puck where I work, but doesn't represent me personally. Today it's the second act for Ari Emanuel and what he and Mark Shapiro have planned for the new company from the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Ari Emanuel and Marc Shapiro. Honestly, Ari, normally I say what the title is of the person on the show. I have no idea what your titles are. Give us your titles.
- [04:50]
E
I'm the chairman CEO of tko.
- [04:53]
B
Okay.
- [04:54]
E
And the founder of William Morris.
- [04:56]
B
No, you're not the founder of William Morris. You are the founder of Morris Endeavor. William Morris Endeavor.
- [05:01]
E
Yeah.
- [05:02]
B
And Mari. Ari, what is this Mari company? What is. What is your title?
- [05:07]
D
There now you know, I'm here right now.
- [05:09]
B
You know, I'm Mark, tell us what Ari's title is.
- [05:12]
D
Ari is the principal investor and the founder of Mari, and he's the one that went out and raised $2.1 billion.
- [05:21]
B
Okay, great. Mark, you have been on the show. Welcome back. You are a returning champion. Ari has not been on the show. I honestly, I kind of want listeners of the town to get the full Ari experience. So feel free.
- [05:32]
E
I want a couple four letter words.
- [05:34]
B
Feel free to tell me to fuck off a couple times.
- [05:35]
E
No problem. It's not going to be very difficult for me to do. And you're a piece of shit for wearing a fucking Dodger hat. Okay.
- [05:42]
B
Okay, There we go. All right, let's start. You are a sports mogul now, Sports media mogul. You still have your big deals. You do in the talent world. I'm talking to Ari now. You're basically like kind of like an investment banker in that sense. Why do you want to go back and own art fairs and a car auction company and all the things that you are doing now with this Mari company?
- [06:07]
E
I don't know. I'm intellectually curious still and kind of entertainment people would say obsessive on a grander scale. I bought the majority of the assets, identified them with Mark and other people, the majority of the assets that we acquired. And I looked at the world and I said, you know, I don't know anything about AI can invest a little bit in AI and I've invested with Elon Musk and people, but. And I don't know about data centers and all that other stuff, but what I do know is, and when you started looking at the data, you know, we're down to four day work week, probably for full employment. Governments will require three day work weeks. That means there's going to be a lot more free time live. AI can't disintermediate. And if it can't disintermediate, and I know how to. Mark and I and the team that Mark's built, we know how to operate these things better than anybody. We had some of the best assets, I think, in the world. Our tennis assets freeze Barrett Jackson, our taste festivals, our participatory sports. And I looked at all the data. Drive times on average in the United States for work are 11 to 4. Hotel bookings are up on Thursday night. You just keep on looking at all the data. You realize, wait a second, the. The marketplace is shifting. And so there's Live Nation, there's TKO and other kind of sports, you know, NFL, NBA, et cetera, and, and nascar, et cetera. But there's nobody in the space of live events that are an aggregator on a global space. And so Mark and I started talking. I said, I'm gonna go raise a bunch of money. On this concept. And then if I can raise the money, I want to buy some foundational assets that we had at Endeavor that Silver Lake was selling to take down the debt. And we went out with this formula that I'm talking about and people thought we were right and went from there.
- [08:09]
B
Yeah.
- [08:10]
D
I want to add to that, Matt, because I think his last point is such an important one. As soon as Silver Lake told us, hey, here's the plan, we're going to go WME Group, which is going to be pure play representation.
- [08:25]
B
You're jumping over the fact where they said going public didn't work.
- [08:29]
D
Well, yes.
- [08:30]
E
No, no, it didn't work. It didn't work. Let me just say something. For whatever reason, from my perspective, we sold our academy for a billion two, we sold the production company for a billion dollars. We moved UFC out and merged it with the WWE.
- [08:45]
B
And TKO has doubled in value at that point.
- [08:49]
E
Then CAA gets a $7 billion investment from Kering. We have in the.
- [08:55]
B
No, they got a seven million dollar value, $7 billion valuation based on that.
- [09:00]
E
Wait. And we were only getting at Endeavor the value of our majority ownership of tko. And you, you know, we kept on operating. Kept on operating. Tried to simplify the story. They. We weren't getting any credit. And finally we all looked at each other's like, whatever, you know, this wasn't working.
- [09:20]
D
Yeah. And. And Mario was past that though. That's why, I mean, Mario was. We're already post that. Right. So we've already made the decision, hey, we're going private with pure play representation and tko be a pure play sports public. It was at that time they said, what will be left are all these events that have been collected from Mark McCormick starting them, Teddy Forestman adding on. And then obviously Ari and me adding to that. And Ari was like, over my dead body are you doing that? I found most of these, I acquired most of these, especially the big ones. Mark and I grew these. So I'm going to be a bidder. And they're like, look, we're not going to do you any favors. Just to be clear, like, there's no tie goes to the runner here. You're going to get into the process and you have to beat everybody. So Ari went out and just did a massive race.
- [10:07]
B
All right, Interesting. You premised this on the idea of the work week being cut down to four days a week because.
- [10:16]
E
I know, I know, Matt, you work seven days a week.
- [10:19]
B
Of course. But I.
- [10:20]
E
Let me just tell you something. I work a lot.
- [10:24]
B
You do? Yeah. And you work at 4 in the morning, which I don't work as hard.
- [10:27]
E
As Shapiro, but I work a lot. But, you know, other people don't.
- [10:32]
B
And it's not all just. It's not all hosing down Elon Musk on a yacht. You do other things.
- [10:37]
E
Well, you had to bring that up. Okay, keep on going.
- [10:40]
B
No, but this is premised on the idea that the workweek is changing, which I think is super interesting. Except for the fact that most of these, not most, but a lot of these companies now are requiring five days in the office.
- [10:54]
E
It's not happening.
- [10:55]
B
It's not happening.
- [10:56]
E
No. You can require it and do whatever you want to do. You just look at the data. You just look at the data and it's not there. Like now, maybe if you're in manufacturing, right. You have to build something. Those people are in there.
- [11:09]
B
Paramount Global, Paramount Skydance is requiring five days of work.
- [11:13]
E
Okay, we'll see.
- [11:14]
D
Yeah, that's new. We'll see how that does. It's financial institutions and to Ari's point, manufacturing that are proving the model. Everybody else is into three, four days. And we're excited to see Peace Guy and a few others. Comcast. Ramp it up.
- [11:27]
E
Yeah. There was an article three weeks ago in Wall Street Journal. I think it was like Denmark or. I don't remember. The government said workweek is four days. That is happening. It's going to happen around the globe. You're going to have more efficiency with AI. It's happening.
- [11:44]
B
Okay, so you believe that this new company is uniquely poised to take advantage of that shift in the culture. Why haven't you guys gone after music more heavily? Do you just think that Live Nation has that monopoly? I know they don't like the M word.
- [11:59]
E
Michael Rapinoe and AEG have that locked in.
- [12:02]
B
Yeah, it's really tough to go. I mean, you could be a witness in the antitrust case against those companies because you would seem like the perfect person to challenge those two companies. And you are throwing up your hands in music.
- [12:17]
E
I'm not throwing up my hands.
- [12:18]
B
No.
- [12:18]
E
There's plenty of work to do. We have a plenty of targets and plenty of work to do as it relates now, I just want to point out, you know, people say, well, how are you going to manage your time? Mark and I used to manage these things inside Endeavor. It's not like, oh, it's all new. Like, we used to run these businesses. When it was Endeavor, we ran the agency, we ran these things. We ran ufc. Now UFC is with tko, so it's like we have done this before and we're bringing the whole. Our. All of our teams, operators in to run them.
- [12:47]
B
No, I know, but I think it's a fair question to ask you what your day is going to be like. I know you do 500 phone calls a day still, but like, these are real businesses and you are atop a lot of them. And I mean, do you still consider yourself even an agent anymore?
- [13:05]
E
Well, I had this morning, I had Simon Cowell, I had Dwayne Johnson. I had a situation with Pete Berg. I'm in the middle of something because he's shooting his movie now with Jonah Hill. Yeah, I mean, yes, I do that business successfully. I think I'm successful at it.
- [13:23]
B
You pop in when it requires your attention or where it's a client that you care.
- [13:26]
E
I know what you mean by pop in. I'm on my client's business.
- [13:30]
B
Meaning. No, like Dwayne Johnson. Brad Slater is his day to day agent. Yeah.
- [13:34]
E
No, no, I'm not sitting there reading the next script that Dwayne Johnson's doing and saying, you know, I'm PA32.
- [13:40]
B
That's what I mean. Yeah, but when shit hits the fan on the Moana negotiation, you make a call.
- [13:46]
E
Correct. However, Simon Kyle just asked me, what do you think about this ending for my new show at Netflix? And we went through it and we had a really big conversation and then we went over the marketing campaign and I got a call into Bella and I'm doing that.
- [13:58]
D
No, I think, I think you're Matt. I think you're spot on with that.
- [14:01]
B
I mean, he was doing a lot.
- [14:03]
D
Of what you're saying. Even in the last iteration. He wasn't day to day on. On a lot of folks right now, just from certainly where I sit, you know, he's obviously all over TKO as the chairman and CEO at WME Group. Like, he's wearing.
- [14:18]
E
Mark doesn't like that that much. Mark doesn't like that.
- [14:21]
B
What does that mean? I mean, there's only so many rights negotiations to be done. I mean, what does day to day on TKO mean?
- [14:28]
E
Let's go through this. Do you know how we make money?
- [14:31]
B
I do. You have a $7.7 billion deal.
- [14:35]
E
We make money on international deals, we make money on domestic deals. We make money on sponsorship, we make money on site fees. Right. In addition to that launch, starting our boxing business.
- [14:46]
D
Well, ticket sales, consumer products. I mean, there's, there's a multiple.
- [14:50]
B
I thought it was mostly whatever Dana White is up at the casino that week. That's that's most of your profit.
- [14:57]
D
Well, hope. Fortunately, we don't play with that because there are days where he's down.
- [15:00]
B
So that doesn't factor into our balance sheet. No, I've already only wins.
- [15:04]
D
I've heard we're doing $300 million a year just at UFC on partnerships. That's a lot of hand to hand combat. That's a lot of C suite meetings. So Ari's obviously on that as well. But on the WME front, he leans in where he has to lean in. Like, if he thinks he can add value or to your point, put out fires or sign somebody or chase another agent we might want to bring over, he'll do it. But he's not hourly on Wmen Wme anymore. He's. He's raising money. He's mar. Tko.
- [15:33]
E
You want notes on the next script on page 32.
- [15:35]
D
You want notes for his second season of the studio? I think we should do this.
- [15:39]
B
We should give him notes. Please. Ari, how many clients consider you their primary agent?
- [15:50]
E
Probably 25.
- [15:52]
B
Okay. That's a lot.
- [15:53]
E
I mean, from Joe Scarborough, Kaitlan Collins to Marty Scorsese to Jonah Hill to Mark to Pete. I mean, it just goes on Wahlberg.
- [16:05]
B
Yeah.
- [16:05]
E
Tyler Perry. I'm just thinking about it. Yeah. It's 25.
- [16:08]
B
Okay. When you identify someone who's out there, who you don't believe is being represented, well, what is your opening line to them? What is the Ari Emanuel pitch?
- [16:20]
E
It depends on the situation.
- [16:22]
B
Do you still cold call?
- [16:24]
E
Yeah. I just signed Noah Hawley.
- [16:27]
B
Great. Greater Fargo as Alien.
- [16:29]
E
Yeah. With Eric Greenberg and Robert Newman and Esther.
- [16:34]
D
Oh.
- [16:34]
B
That's why I saw him at your agency's Emmy party, so I didn't think.
- [16:40]
E
They were positioning well at Disney. And then God forbid, a Disney situation doesn't work, which everybody hopes that it does because he has so many shows there where we're going at the highest level for him at other studios.
- [16:54]
B
Okay, and you said. You called him and said, I think you're underrepresented. What's going on here? What is Joe Cohen doing for you?
- [17:01]
E
How about at his prior agency? They weren't even introducing him to that. He has one of the most important shows, multiple shows at Disney. I mean, he had not had a meeting with Bob Iger. It's insane.
- [17:16]
B
Simple.
- [17:17]
E
That's. I mean, that's just 101. And he's one of the best writers ever. I've been calling him since Fargo every season. It's an incredible show.
- [17:26]
B
Oh, you have. So you still do that? You still call you still cold call people you like and say, when are we meeting? What are you doing?
- [17:33]
E
Yeah, I'm about to do it on a show I just saw that I loved.
- [17:36]
D
It was glad handing last week when we went to the Smashing Machine premiere. He was, he was in the red carpet line, shaking hands, telling me about the good old days on how he signed people doing just. Just that.
- [17:49]
B
That's really funny. What do you think of the agency business right now? There's three. There's three major players. Outside of music, everyone's trimming. AI is coming. Where are the opportunities in the agency business?
- [18:01]
E
Well, my belief is the following. First of all, there's not three agencies, there's only two.
- [18:06]
B
Oh, stop. We listen. You can say that, but until CAA buys uta, there are three major players.
- [18:13]
E
You're wrong, but that's okay. You've not. You've been wrong a lot and that's okay. So have I. So I could be wrong.
- [18:18]
B
I'm still waiting for the F bomb. Tell me I'm. Tell me I'm effing wrong.
- [18:22]
E
I mean, do they put movies together? I don't think so. Maybe on occasion, once in a while. Okay, but let's just be very clear. The need for content, whether that be live music, podcasts, social books, lectures, movies, television, etc. Etc. Etc. Because if what I just said at the beginning is true, that it's four day work weeks going to three, that is going to increase now you're going to have Amazon, Netflix, Disney, and we'll see what happens with the rest of the game. Okay, so there's going to be. And YouTube. There's going to be multiple players out there bidding for eyeballs and guys with big economics. The pricing, meaning the cost structure because of AI is coming down and there's going to be a lot of people hurt by that because they're one, they're not going to have need for those jobs inside the production business. So is that business coming down by $10 million or $20 million or $30 million over time? It's going to be. There's going to be less and less. So the cost of the productions are going to come down. I think there's going to be more productions happening, more content happening. Oh yeah.
- [19:32]
B
More professionally produced productions. It's not going to all be AI.
- [19:36]
E
Slop and non, you know, social media, et cetera. And if that's the case, yes, cable and et cetera is going away, but you're going to have streamers spending more money and doing more and interesting things. If that's the case, the agency business is going to adapt and change. And are you going to need that much of a below the line business? I'm probably going to get in trouble. I don't know. I mean, it's going to change because of AI.
- [20:00]
B
Yeah, but those are the bread and butter of the agencies are not the big star. It's like the middle and the middle seems to be going away.
- [20:09]
E
I don't think so.
- [20:10]
B
No.
- [20:11]
E
But I might be wrong. You're not going to tell yet. You don't know yet. But here's the one thing that's not going away. Great ideas, great creators, and whether that comes from a new person or an existing person like an Aaron Sorkin, that's not going away.
- [20:27]
D
Look, the star business is still strong, Matthew. And while, while certainly it we're in a different era as it relates to obviously Hollywood and television. You just look across the board really at our world order, sports, music, creator, economy, big business speakers, big business for us, huge business for us. Fashion having a resurgence this year, brand partnerships. Will Ward runs that for us under Christian Muirhead and Richard White. Best year they've ever had. Broadway and books, all those areas are up big time. So are they enough to offset where television and film is going? Time will tell.
- [21:03]
B
Yeah. Have you guys been on the Sora app? The agencies are all putting out these statements. WME opted out for all of its clients. Everyone's freaking out. What is Ari? What is the right strategy with respect to Generative AI video?
- [21:17]
E
Internally, I haven't had an opinion that I promise you they learned on a bunch of our clients material.
- [21:24]
B
Oh, it's obvious.
- [21:25]
E
And we're having an internal discussion about how to address OpenAI and we will probably in the next couple weeks have an opinion about how we're going to move forward, but it's not going to remain as it is, where nothing happens.
- [21:41]
B
Do you feel a little conflicted being friends with Elon and having investments in that space?
- [21:47]
E
No, he hasn't gone in and because he has Twitter, he owns something.
- [21:52]
B
Yeah, But Twitter has Grok.
- [21:54]
D
They haven't tried to steal our stuff yet.
- [21:56]
E
No, OpenAI has that we know about.
- [21:59]
B
But yeah, I was talking with a very senior studio executive who said that in 10, 15 years, it used to be where if you wanted to be an actor, you'd move from Iowa to la, you'd audition, you'd work, try to get gigs. Eventually you climb the ladder. In the future and not so far away you are going to scan your images, put yourself into one of the emerging platforms. And then the studios will have a library of quote unquote actors from which to choose to populate their shows and movies.
- [22:40]
E
Maybe. Do you think that Bette Davis is coming back and Elizabeth Taylor? I think so, maybe.
- [22:45]
B
But those are old images. I'm saying the capture technology will be so good that you can have a catalog of quote unquote actors that will then be able to be utilized in.
- [22:58]
E
Productions that might be true.
- [23:00]
B
And you can have Joe Blow, actor at age 20, 25, 30, 40. As they age, there's a different one. Or you could be forever young if you want to.
- [23:09]
E
You know, I would say to you is there is just only so many people that are talented now. Maybe AI can make them more talented than they are untalented. Maybe. I don't know. But I say to everybody if you're talented, you will be found. It always happens. Like whether you're a writer, director, singer, you will be found. It's not like there's too many people out there looking. So is AI going to make people more talented in Kansas? I don't know. I don't believe so.
- [23:41]
B
But maybe, maybe.
- [23:43]
D
We've got AI actors out there already. It's been happening since the beginning of time. We've got Mickey Mouse, we've got Woody and Buzz. It's out there.
- [23:51]
B
It's different.
- [23:51]
E
Woody and Buzz, Mark Woody and Buzz. I did you really pulled that out.
- [23:55]
D
Absolutely. Pixar was going to be the end of that. Was going to be the end that didn't happen. So bottom line is we'll be ready to pivot with that. Matthew. We're not afraid of that by the way. I mean we will embrace the change as it comes and capitalize on it.
- [24:08]
B
We're going to do this one in two parts. Part two will be tomorrow. Got to stick around for part two. The lightning round is very fun. We are back with the call sheet. Craig, you and I are taping this right before we are headed over to Lucas's event, his screen time event where we are doing a live episode of the Town where we update our town stock market picks who were buying selling. That episode will air next week but Lucas's event making some news. The co CEO of Netflix, Greg Peters was one of the guests last night and he made some interesting comments about Warner Brothers. Are you following this?
- [24:48]
F
No, but you just informed me. Tell me what he said.
- [24:51]
B
There's been some speculation I think fueled a lot by the David Zaslav Warner Brothers side. Our guy David Zaslav would very Much like there to be people other than the Ellison family interested in buying his company. He would like to set up a little bit of a bidding war. He doesn't want Ellison to swoop in with a massive check and just take the company out from under him. He would prefer to wait until the spring when he can split the company into the TV side, the crap company, and the studio and streaming side, which he thinks will have much more value if they split it and he can get a bigger price. But part of that strategy has been to create the illusion that Netflix might be interested in buying Warner Brothers. And Greg Peters basically took a dump all over that. He said last night, we come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers. I also think that one should have a reasonable amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don't have an amazing track record over the history of time, which is very true.
- [25:52]
F
Well, one, how was Zaslav setting the crafting the illusion that Netflix was a potential buyer in the first place?
- [25:59]
B
Well, he's not said it publicly, but you can kind of put the dots together. People in the media have suggested it. Some of the analysts that are friendly to Warner Brothers discovery and have a long relationship with him have suggested that the Ellison bid might not be the best path for shareholders. If there are others out there. You know, Netflix needs ip.
- [26:22]
F
Yeah, but isn't it an oxymoron for Netflix to own a movie studio? Like, they're not going to just own Warner Brothers and start releasing movies in theaters under the Netflix banner.
- [26:29]
B
No, they're not going to release in theaters, but somebody is going to own Warner Brothers at some point, whether it's Paramount or private equity or some other buyer. And the thinking is, is that Warner's could be ingested by Netflix. They take all the ip, the superhero stuff, the Harry Potter, Dune, all of it, and then they supercharge Netflix. It's a massive price to pay. It's going to go for like, $60 billion or something like that. I just don't think Netflix needs it. They already won. They won the streaming wars. It's not like Netflix needs this.
- [27:03]
F
Oh, I don't know how that would work. If. If Netflix bought Warner Brothers, how would they convince a director like Greta Gerwig that her movie's gonna come out on streaming and not in theaters when they also own a distribution arm?
- [27:15]
B
Well, no, they would shut that down if the thinking goes, oh, they would.
- [27:18]
F
Just kill the theatrical department.
- [27:21]
B
I mean, that's the thing is this consolidation is afoot. Warner Brothers is going to Go away in some manner, likely, whether it means being merged with Paramount, whether it means being bought by some tech company or something.
- [27:36]
F
But the idea is if Ellison bought Warner Brothers, he would still, in theory, keep Paramount and Warner Brothers as studios separate and would still release movies under the Warner Brothers umbrella. And the Paramount umbrella.
- [27:46]
B
Yes, that is what they are saying. They are saying that if this happens, which is a big if, they'd say 15 movies a year would still come from Warner Brothers. Now, keep in mind, Disney said something a little less committal but similar when they bought Fox. And now Fox is a small shell of its former self. It's a label under Disney, and it's not a separate distribution company. And I think even if Warner Brothers was still making movies under Paramount, it would all be under one distribution arm, which is consolidation. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe there's a deal where, like, the theatrical operations of Warner Brothers go somewhere else and Netflix just takes the ip. But who would want that at Warner Brothers without the value, which is the IP in the library?
- [28:32]
F
It also feels like to me, the direction Netflix is moving in is live content. And I feel like the Warner Brothers assets have the worst live content. Like, specifically with sports, like, they have.
- [28:42]
D
The worst rights right now.
- [28:44]
F
So if Netflix were to go after anybody, to me, it would be somebody with better live rights.
- [28:47]
B
Oh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, they could merge HBO Max into Netflix and take all those subscribers and have all that prestige content, which would really help Netflix. But, you know, they've done pretty well on their own just making their own content. So there's a case to be made for Netflix purchasing the studio and streamer part of Warner Discovery. And I think Zaslav and his allies have been getting that out there in order to allow the company to split and kind of test the market. But my prediction is that it's not going to happen. It's. I mean, Greg Peters, he kept the door open. So we have to evaluate everything. But Netflix is not buying Warner Brothers. They're just not. So my prediction is that does not happen.
- [29:29]
F
Okay, great. Well, thank you to Lucas Shaw for giving us call sheet content.
- [29:32]
B
We can ask Lucas his opinion. I'll do it on the live show.
- [29:35]
F
Yep.
- [29:36]
B
All right. That's the show for today. I want to thank my guests, Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, producer Craig Borlbach, artist Justin Lopez, and I want to thank you. We're going to have part two tomorrow, so tune in then.