D (3:30)

Thank you for having me.

C (3:31)

You're on the list of most frequent guests. I mean, Lucas is the champion, of course, but you're up there. It's like you and Rich Greenfield and a couple others we keep having back. Always good. All right, so the Emmys this weekend, big deal. There's lots of prognostication out there. Everyone's got their picks. We're not going to do that today. I want to focus on the business element. I want to focus on who is actually watching these shows because ultimately, that's how these networks and streamers justify their obsession with awards. They say, well, it translates into viewers, it translates into buzz. Having the Emmy stamp on a show can turn a moderate show into a hit, can bring attention to something that people wouldn't otherwise take a chance on, which I do believe is true. But I want to look at the numbers and just get into who is actually watching these shows. So we're going to go through some data that Nielsen put out earlier this week. They crunched all the numbers for each of the shows. They also did some research on actors and kind of what their streaming numbers are. But I want to look at the Nielsen numbers on streaming for the nominated shows. All right. And you have this data, too. So we're going to kind of discuss. Does that make sense?

D (4:51)

Totally.

C (4:52)

Now, with the caveat here that obviously a lot of these shows would be very popular if they did not get Emmy attention. People are not watching the Last of Us because it got Emmy nominations. They're watching it because it's freaking zombies. Right. So let's go into that. But the awards buzz does help. Outstanding Drama Series. Okay. And this is ratings information from June 1, 2024 through May 31, 2025. That is the Emmy eligibility period for the shows that are nominated this weekend at the Emmys. Okay. The most viewed show during that period is Drum Roll, the white lotus. HBO. HBO Max. 210 million hours viewed. Pretty good. Yeah, I would not have guessed that.

D (5:44)

I mean, what we have to note here is that Nielsen does not say if that is just the current season that is eligible for an Emmy or if that's all seasons. The White Lotus has the ability to bring in viewers who want to rewatch, who are catching up with the zeitgeist of most recent season and are now digging into the past. And so I think that was actually less surprising to me than. Than my favorite Emmy contender. Not to play favorites, but the Pit. I think the Pit for me really is the Emmy success story of the year.

C (6:13)

All right, well, that is the fourth on the list. Also an HBO Max show. That one has 128.5 million hours. It only has one season and it was fourth on the list. It goes White Lotus, Severance, the Last of Us, and then the Pit on that list. Then it's after that, paradise, the Hulu show, the Diplomat on Netflix and. Or on Disney and Slow Horses on Apple tv. So why are you so surprised by the Pit and why do you think it's the big winner?

D (6:41)

If we think about just the value that these shows bring to these streaming services, to the network, to your point, it has to be beyond just the critical acclaim that comes with the Emmys. And so I think if you look at a show like the Pit, whose episode is a budget of what, about 6 million, less than $6 million. It's a traditional, almost NBC Thursday night style show. For legal reasons, it is not a follow up to er.

C (7:04)

We are legally not allowed to call it an ER spinoff or a sequel series or anything associated with er.

D (7:10)

But even though it is in our hearts, but if you look at the viewership progression of that show, it doesn't really pick up until its 10th week of eligibility on the Nielsen weekly top 10 list. And then it really continues to climb for a little bit. And actually, if we look at other data from a company called Luminate, which Is uses a similar metric to the.

C (7:28)

Oh, right. I put this in my newsletter once. It got a big spike after the nominations.

D (7:32)

Yes, it got a 200% spike in the week after the nominations. Now if you compare that Matt, to the White Lotus or the Last of Us, they did not see similar spikes. They saw a continued decrease in viewership. Now that does not say that the show is declining in interest or in value, but that people are watching those shows the minute they air. There is a built in fan base.

C (7:53)

They're hits, they're not a discovery. Everybody knows what the White Lotus is at this point. They're watching it when it airs. It's a fun thing. You watch it every week and talk about it with your friends.

D (8:01)

But so for the Pit to be able to do a similar style cultural zeitgeist following it at, you know, a fraction of the cost that it would do for a traditional hbo. This is an HBO Max show. But a traditional HBO show I think shows the possibility for other types of these styles of programs that can air or stream on a platform like HBO Max, air on a network like HBO and still find that kind of critical claim that you know, someone like Casey Blois, who heads up HBO is really thinking about while also making sure that the economics make sense for the business they're running.

C (8:33)

Yeah, I don't think they greenlit this show as an awards player. It turned into something good. But this was a lower cost experiment. And honestly that is why I think it's going to win best drama series over Severance. Because I think people in the TV industry want shows like this to work. They see it as a model that is sustainable and they're, you know, it's old style broadcast network TV basically with a prestige kind of gloss on it. I mean, ER won the best drama series Emmy back in the day. And these kinds of shows should be allowed to exist and thrive and win awards. And I think that's why a lot of people are going to vote for it. The Severance numbers are interesting. I mean for a platform that is much smaller, Apple TV plus to get to 157.5 million viewing hours, pretty impressive for a show like that.

D (9:25)

There's no question that Severance had a breakout hit in its most recent season. I think though it also brought in similar to the White Lotus, a ton of interest because of how popular that season was. So you had people catching up. What I think is actually much more interesting about Apple in this category based on the charts that Nielsen sent us, is that Apple has Two dramas that are sitting within it. They have Severance and they have Slow Horses, which brought in 49.4 million hours viewed. So congratulations to Gary Oldman and farting agents. So that's great.

C (9:55)

Yeah. But you know what Slow Horses is like barely in English. You have to put subtitles on it, even though it's in English. So, like, I'm not surprised that that show is less accessible than something like Severance, even though Slow Horses has more seasons, so you'd think that there'd be more to watch there in viewing hours.

D (10:13)

But Apple has two shows within this. Netflix only has one. Netflix has the Diplomat. And I think what's really fascinating about that observation is that if Netflix never appeared on the Nielsen top 10 charts, it would be like, well, sure, but Netflix dominates every single week when they. When Nielsen puts out their charts, in part because of how Netflix drops its shows, when it drops a full season, there are more minutes to be viewed, and therefore it helps within the way Nielsen uses its methodology. But to really only have the Diplomat, which came in at 95 million hours viewed, I think said something really interesting about Apple's current moment.

C (10:47)

What do you mean? Just that they're making better shows or more appealing shows for awards voters, or that they're getting people to watch them. Because the Diplomat being down on the list there, I'm surprised everyone assumes that every Netflix show is just an automatic juggernaut now, given these are just domestic numbers. Nielsen doesn't do the international component here. So maybe the Diplomat was huge overseas, but it's not as big as paradise on Hulu, which is surprising to me.

D (11:14)

The thing that I keep coming back to is that Apple's always made the type of shows that would maybe appeal to Emmy voters, and so therefore would appeal to that kind of the nomination process. But I think now we are seeing that uptick in general viewership. So to the question of how important are these shows from a value proposition to the platforms beyond just the Emmy knobs, beyond just the fact that they might be able to throw that onto their marketing materials. I think Apple is beginning to really find an audience. You're seeing that, too, with the fact that they feel pretty comfortable with the price increases. You really only do that if you're pretty sure you can maintain a relatively similar churn rate to what you currently have. That's why Netflix tends to do it right before they've got big things coming out, as we all know. And so I do think Apple, between Severance and Slow Horses, is finding shows that resonate with People that are also resonating with Emmy voters.

C (12:01)

And we'll talk about the studio and their other stuff. Yes, the last one on the list is Andor, which is a fascinating experiment here. I mean, I finally watched the second season. It's really good. And it's kind of a miracle that this actually exists on Disney. I mean, there is no way the current regime would allow this to happen these days. These episodes cost more than 20 million dollars. The audience viewing hours here is 8. 88 million over the period. Not a huge hit on Disney, but they gave them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted here. With a political thriller set in the Star wars world that is insanely expensive, but made for a prestige audience, it's kind of amazing.

D (12:46)

What are your thoughts, Matt? I know we're not getting into the Emmy stuff in particular, but on that show, receiving 14 nominations but not one.

C (12:53)

For Diego Luna, oh, that sucks. But you know what? It is a reflection that people consider this show a technical marvel and a storytelling marvel and not necessarily an acting showcase. He's great on the show. I thought a lot of people were great on the show, but I also think it's dense. It's hard. You have to get through a couple episodes to really figure out what's going on. And in this day and age, it's hard to keep the attention of these voters through stuff like that. And they really tried hard. They did a good campaign this year, but it doesn't surprise me that they didn't get acting.

E (13:27)

He's also very stoic. He's a stoic character in the show, and I think he does a lot of looking more than talking sometimes. And maybe they ding him for that, Right?

C (13:34)

Yeah. So, Julia, do you consider Andor the least efficient show in these lists?

D (13:41)

Oh, without question.

C (13:43)

The dreaded efficiency quotient on whether the cost is justified for the ratings andor gigantic cost. And among these, it's only above slow horses, which cost a fraction of that.

D (13:57)

You know what I will say, though, about Andor, I think it had two things working for it, and one kind of gets back to a fear that Bob Iger had years ago. The first thing it had working for it was that it changed up its release schedule the way that it was dropping episodes. Now, to your point, Matt, it's really hard to keep people's attention, whether they're Emmy voters, whether they're regular people. And so instead of doing a drop of three episodes to begin with and then weekly, for a show as dense as Andor they split those 12 episodes across three episode batches over four weeks. And I think that created enough of an incentive to keep watching over those four weeks. And although you may lose some of the audience giving up the weekly release, you actually create a much more tangible and enthralling story.

C (14:38)

I thought that was just a stunt for the Nielsen ratings because if you put three episodes up at a time, the hardcore fans are going to watch them and it's going to burst into the Nielsen ratings rather than drawing it out over 12 weeks.

D (14:52)

I think we spent a lot of time looking at Nielsen ratings and week after week. I think people within these companies do. I don't think anyone else cares, especially people who are watching.

C (15:01)

No, no, no. The real world doesn't care. But I think the narrative around Andor was that it was a very expensive show that nobody watched and the Nielsen ratings for season two did go up in these bursts. So they got to say that ANDOR is finding its audience while neglecting the fact that the long tail of that audience was not as long.

D (15:23)

But I also think that ANDOR had the advantage of doing what a Star wars project should do, which is that there was a break in between these episodes. Right. It wasn't year after year. It was the first season aired in 2022. People found it through word of mouth. And when the second season came back and it was much, I would argue, much stronger, I think there was a built in, an even larger built in fan base. And the way that they approached it as this thing to really be treated with care felt like something you would do with a Star wars film where you were waiting 15 years for a movie. And I think when we look at Bob Iger saying years ago, you know, we're putting out Star wars movies too fast. When you're taking something as extraordinary as a Star Wars IP and turning it into something as ordinary as a streaming gimmick, you're gonna lose part of the audience already. Especially that built in audience.

C (16:12)

Let's move on to outstanding comedy series. The number one most viewed show of the nominees, Abbott Elementary. Not a surprise.

D (16:24)

No.

C (16:24)

It airs on ABC and Hulu. It's got a ton of episodes. It's got 184.1 million viewing hours. The real shock to me is that it's only a little bit above Only Murders in the Building on hulu, that's at 159.1 million hours and a little bit above the Bear on Hulu 1.41.1. Those shows have a lot fewer episodes and I wouldn't think they were as broadly appealing as Abbott elementary, but apparently they are.

D (16:53)

Well, the other thing about all those shows that you mentioned too, which really stuck out for me from this chart that Nielsen sent us was how much of it was Disney, like Disney continues to dominate within the comedy section.

C (17:03)

Yeah, Top three there.

D (17:04)

Whether it is the Emmy voters, whether it's the general audience. And so I think the fact that you have a show like Avid elementary that maybe doesn't do as high of a viewership as we were perhaps expecting because it's a much more broader audience, the fact that they can have these sizable audiences across both niche interests, I would say the Bear kind of falls into that as a weird dramedy. Right. We won't get into that whole situation. The fact that you can then have that with something as broad appealing as Abbott Elementary, I think goes to show where Disney's strength is right now in this moment. It's not necessarily in the dramas outside of andor it really is within this comedy category. And I think we're seeing that.

C (17:39)

Well, FX had Shogun last year. That was a pretty big hit and it won the Emmy.

D (17:44)

Sure. But continuously we're looking at the Bear. We're looking at olden murderers in the building. We're looking at Abbott elementary year after year. These shows kind of sit at the top of that list.

C (17:51)

Yeah, it's true. Nobody wants this is also a Disney produced show, but it airs on Netflix and that's the number four show, 96.8 million. I think Disney probably regrets selling this one to Netflix, but they did. And next one is shrinking on Apple tv. Then we get into the bottom three and it's interesting because the third least watched comedy series on this list is Hacks, which is the reigning champion, 56.5 million. Then it's what we do in the Shadows, another Disney show on FX and Hulu. And then at the bottom is the studio. The favorite to win this year had only 16.9 million viewing hours. That is about 1:11 the audience of Abbott Elementary. Everybody I know watched the studio. I'm sure everybody, you know, watched the studio. Not very many people in the real world watch the studio.

D (18:49)

That's not surprising, though.

C (18:51)

No, I guess not.

D (18:52)

I know you're talking about a show that has 1/10, 1/11 the size of a different show that has, you know, 20x the audience size.

C (19:00)

I know. And it's on broadcast TV. And the thing is, the Emmys have always done this in the peak TV era. They go for the neat shows. I mean, the audience for girls back in the day was tiny. The audience for Mad Men was tiny. But their, you know, they were shows that were designed for the industry succession, never had a huge audience. Like a lot of these shows just don't. This is the first actual ratings number we've seen for the studio. Right. Because it never charted and Apple doesn't reveal any numbers. So this 16.9 million viewing hours within the entire season, that's the first we've seen that number, right?

D (19:37)

It is. And when you talk about the value of the Emmys, you know, the studio is one of those shows that saw about a 60% increase in viewership the week after Emmy nominations.

C (19:47)

Oh, that's good.

D (19:48)

Right. So people are seeking it out. But to your point, when we're talking about Apple TV now, this is a streaming service that I would argue most Emmy voters are going to have because it's a very LA New York type streaming service in terms of the interests of those shows. But when we think about Apple TV plus, we have to remember it represents less than 1% of total connected TV viewing time in the U.S. they don't.

C (20:09)

Even make the Nielsen gauge chart. It's kind of amazing.

D (20:12)

No. And the numbers I see put it like routinely between half a percentage point and like 0.75. And so it's not do. And to compare, that's like ESPN plus is at like 0.3.

C (20:23)

Yeah. That's mostly because they don't have very much content. They don't have a library. We've talked about that reason. Their originals, as we've seen from Severance and from some of the other shows like the originals, can end up on the chart. And Ted Lasso is still there a lot, even though it's, you know, it hasn't had new episodes in a couple of years. But the overall numbers for Apple TV are not good. And we'll see. Studio, I think, has the most to gain from a big platform on the Emmys because it does have Seth Rogen. It is a broad comedy if you get past some of the industry stuff. And it could get a bigger audience by getting this, you know, three hour commercial on CBS for the show.

D (21:02)

Yeah. And also the studio, from an economic standpoint related to the Emmys, is going to be the type of big deal that Tim Cook and Eddie Q want for their platform. If it garners enough attention through all these Emmy wins, maybe everyone will thank Sal Silverstein or whatever his name is.

C (21:18)

Sal Shapperstein. Please get it correct.

D (21:20)

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you know, if they have that moment that could be the type of show that brings people into Apple TV at a time again, when they're content. Slate is a little bit better than it was three, four years ago.

C (21:32)

Yes. I am told Tim Cook will be there on Sunday at the Emmys. He tends to go to these award shows when they have big contenders.

D (21:39)

He doesn't have another dinner with Donald Trump.

C (21:41)

No, he does not. And he's not busy hawking new iPhones. But he will be there. Maybe we'll have a repeat of the greatest moment in award show history. The Ricky Gervais joke about sweatshops in front of Tim Cook at the Golden Globes.

D (21:54)

I think about it every week. It's so good.

C (21:57)

I know. No, but he's there. I think he's there mostly for severance. You know, he has a relationship with Ben Stiller. That is their premium prestige drama. They put all their. Not all. They put a lot of their resources behind it. But I think studio has a better shot of winning than. Than severance does.

E (22:15)

So does this just go to prove that ratings have nothing to do with Emmy wins or nominations? If the studio, which might be the. The studio might be Julia, you can tell me the least watched best comedy winner in emmy history.

C (22:28)

Didn't Mrs. Maisel win a few years? Marvelous. Mrs. Maisel had a small audience. Oh, Fleabag. No, Fleabag has got to be the least watched. Okay. When they won.

E (22:39)

So that is not something that has shifted. Did. Did ratings matter more years ago than it does today?

C (22:44)

Yes, yes. Frasier would win every year. Friends won once. The Office won. Seinfeld won once. Like it used to be, the Emmys would honor more populist shows now. It used to be that there were only shows on the broadcast networks and a few cable networks, and that was the universe that they chose from. When there are 200, 300 shows to choose from, you're going to get more niche winners. But yes, the Emmys used to be more populous, but I would still argue that a big fat hit can help you at the Emmy, certainly with nominations. I mean, we saw like the Obi Wan Kenobi show got a drama series nomination, and we've seen like the boys get in there and like these bigger shows that the Emmy voters tend to acknowledge because they're hits. Those do get in there and it does matter. So it's not like they're just looking for the. The most obscure shows ever.

D (23:40)

Could argue they actually matter even more, even if it's not necessarily reflected. My argument for this is that if you're losing monoculture if the last monoculture is the NFL and Taylor Swift, then finding ways to bring in some form of audience that is feeling connected through something that they all participate in as opposed to just leaning into everyone's various niche interests serves the academy much better than just saying, we love this one little thing.

C (24:04)

It does. But they also will vote for what they want. I mean, hbo, a lot of these HBO shows that nobody watches in the real world, they dominate the award. And you know, this was a big problem back in the day. Like the broadcast networks and cable networks were like, why are we doing an Emmys show on the broadcast networks? They rotate it when it's really just a three hour commercial for hbo. Like, why is Temple Grandin a movie that Nobody watched on HBO? Why is it getting 45 minutes of broadcast airtime when Claire Danes and the real life subject are like having a love fest on stage? Nobody knows what these things are.

D (24:40)

I haven't thought about Temple Grandin.

C (24:41)

Nobody has. But that year, the Emmys, it was like the dominant force. And like people in the real world are like, what? What is this? All right, let's move on to limited or anthology series. There are five contenders. The most viewed of the five Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story from Netflix. About 150 million viewing hours that is considered the least likely to win the Emmy, but it is the most viewed by far.

D (25:13)

The fact that it should be unsurprising to anyone that that monster show, I.

C (25:18)

Know the murder stuff and the Ryan Murphy exploitation stuff like that's going to have the most viewing hours. And you know, Ryan Murphy has kind of a hit and miss history with the Emmys. Some of his stuff does very well. He cares very much about awards. A lot of it does not get attention. This one, I think did not get a ton of nominations, but got a few and made it into this category. I don't think it's going to have any shot of winning, but good for them that they got it. Nobody's watching Monsters the Lyle and Eric Menendez story because it's a prestige awards oriented show. They're watching it because they've heard of that and they know the Monsters murder franchise.

D (25:56)

And it'll be the same thing with the new Ed Gein one that's coming out. But that's why the number on the chart that you're talking about that was most interesting to me, even though it's a show that we've certainly talked about is adolescence. I just think adolescence is probably the show of the year. I think Netflix had Two major breakouts this year that kind of really helped reestablish not the fact that it's a giant, but helped reestablish the fact that it continues to be this player that innovates and continues to do so is K Pop Demon Hunters on the film side and I think adolescents on the TV side.

C (26:25)

Right. But look at the numbers. Adolescence is fourth on this list. 78 million total viewing hours. We were told by Netflix that Adolescence was one of the top shows of the year globally. So this just means that most of the audience for Adolescents is coming from outside the US which is unsurprising.

D (26:45)

It did huge in the UK where it set. I mean, it topped the barb charts, which is the UK version of Nielsen, for weeks. But I think if you look at that 78.5 million number, that's with four show. It's four episodes.

C (26:56)

Yeah, you're right. It's only four episodes.

D (26:58)

And I think the staying power of it as well. So the viewership is there. The viewership, the actual value of people engaging. We can see the fact that it continues to dominate conversation, the fact that it will probably dominate a lot of what happens at the Emmys. I think if you're looking at what is the value of an Emmy Award nominated show, something like Adolescence kind of fits every single part of that equation.

C (27:18)

Yeah. And it is above Dying for Sex, which is the lowest rated of any show on any of these categories. 5.9 total viewing hours.

D (27:28)

Yeah. Show no one watched.

C (27:29)

No, but Michelle Williams is in it. So it's going to get nominated. And that's why it gets greenlit, because she agreed to do tv. And you know, some people watch. I know people watch. My wife did. But a cancer show, it's tough. That's a tough one. The Penguin. Penguin got 102. It's second place. Then Black Mirror. So the Penguin found the audience. And I don't think they greenlit that show as a prestige play either. But then it turned out really good. And I think Cristian Milioti, I think she has a shot to win in her category.

D (27:58)

No. The Penguin always makes me think of what must be a very fun relationship between someone like a David Zaslav and a Casey Bloys, where you're like, I've got the Batman and we should do something with it in case it's do a Penguin show. Yeah, do a Penguin show. And so the show that they end up doing is a great show. Colin Farrell's fantastic in it. The fact that it has a huge audience is Less surprising to me than the fact that the Emmy voters loved it. Because it's a Batman show.

C (28:23)

Right. Well, Colin Farrell, like, he's a prestige guy. No. And it turned out good and they did a nice job promoting it. But we forget, you know, they did that. They did a penguin show. They also did a dune show. Remember that? Nobody watched that. And it went away. So, like the IP stuff at hbo, they can do a great job with it, but they can also kind of whiff on it too.

D (28:43)

The fact that people watch the show, the fact that Emmy voters voted for it, just reiterates that it was a great show. It was one of those few series again in this world where we don't have a lot of monoculture on the entertainment where everyone I knew was watching it.

C (28:54)

Well, everyone you knew. I don't know if everyone in the real world is watching it. I mean, 102 million. Like, it's not monsters, the Eric and Lyle Menendez story.

D (29:02)

No. But it's also not on a platform with 90 million subscribers.

C (29:06)

No, they did a good job with that one. So in the outstanding reality competition series group, the rankings are obviously, Survivor is by large the biggest show. It's got, you know, 50 seasons, all on Paramount plus and it's a hit on CBS. Then it goes to RuPaul's Drag Race, the Amazing Race, Top Chef, and the Traders on Peacock had only 93 million viewing hours. Is that just because there are fewer seasons of the Traders or is it that this show keeps winning? The Emmy won last year. It's probably going to win this year and the right people are watching it, but regular people are not. I thought everyone was watching the Traitors.

D (29:47)

I think everybody was watching Love Island.

C (29:50)

Love island not nominated.

D (29:52)

I think there was a lot of people who watch Bravo who watch the Traitors, but I think it also is a small audience on a platform with a small audience. And so I don't necessarily think you were going to see these huge numbers again, especially compared to a Survivor.

C (30:06)

Yeah, it's only on Peacock. It's not on Bravo.

D (30:09)

Exactly. And so the fact that it is a small platform with a very hyper targeted audience, the fact that it broke in at all, I think is impressive, but it does not surprise me that it does not have breakout viewership compared to others.

C (30:21)

Yeah, Alan Cumming is the new RuPaul. Like, just knocked Ru out of the Emmy conversation and now he's going to win every year for 10 years.

D (30:29)

I mean, I love the Traders. I that they have me. If I was an Emmy voter and I am not. I would vote for the Traders every year.

C (30:35)

Yeah, it's just I thought it might be bigger but I guess the peacock thing and the fact that it doesn't have all the episodes and that it is still a relatively new show and growing. So a lot of room to grow there. All right, good stuff here. Thank you.

D (30:47)

Thanks for having me on.

C (30:49)

We're back with the call sheet. Craig, are you big anime guy?

E (30:53)

You know I'm not. However, I have a lot of friends that are. And I think anime is one of the more under discussed massive hits. Even in America. Shows like Attack on Titan is one of the most highest rated shows in television history. If you look at like IMDb.

C (31:07)

Yeah, I totally agree with you. It is a genre of animation that is growing and doesn't get discussed enough.

E (31:14)

No, it's a massive hit.

C (31:16)

Yeah. And I mean K pop Demon Hunters is like anime style and like all of that. Even the spider verse movies had elements of anime in it and it's. I think young people like it a lot more than traditional animation in many ways. Disney needs to get its act together and do something in that world. But this weekend we've got Demon Slayer. I'm not going to attempt to pronounce the full title here. It is a Japanese mega hit, Demon Slayer. It's already grossed $280 million worldwide. Coming from Japan, was released this summer, hitting the US via Sony. It's crazy. This is going to be Sony's biggest opening of the year and it's not even a movie that they made. Sad. But they are going to release it in the US and the tracking for this movie is all over the place. I've seen 40. I've seen Sony saying 35, which is lowballing ridiculous. I've seen 50, I've seen 60 for this movie. It's kind of nuts. This movie could open to $60 million. I'm going to put the line at 50 and take the over.

E (32:19)

Well, the tracking sites are struggling, right? Because what is the comp for this? There's not a lot.

C (32:24)

No. And also anime audiences tend to be reserve in advance and show up opening nights like it's very front loaded. There's not a lot of walk up business they call it where people just decide on a Saturday afternoon to go to a movie that night. People are super fans and they make plans to see this and they reserve. The IMAX numbers are very, very high, I'm told in reservations. But we don't know whether that will necessarily translate to the usual numbers because there May not be much walk up business. That's why there's so much flux between the numbers.

E (33:00)

So you want to set the line around 50?

C (33:02)

Yeah, I'll set it at 50. It's also two and a half hours and that's kind of surprising to me.

E (33:06)

And you're going to take the over?

C (33:08)

I am going to take the over, yeah. Are you going to, you're going to be the naysayer? You're going to be the anime, the anime hater here?

E (33:13)

No, I'm not going to be the ignorant anime hater. I will take the over as well. Maybe it's not going to have the legs like you said, if it's very front loaded. But just in the opening weekend alone. Not going to bet against the underrated passion of animated fans.

C (33:24)

We have seen consistently this year that when something catches fire and has the very strong dedicated fan base, it tends to overperform. And you know, there's a Downton Abbey movie this weekend, the Grand Finale, that one's at 20. I don't know. There's the Long Walk, which is Stephen King movie that we saw the trailer at Cinemacon. There's The Spinal Tap 2 kind of mockumentary that's not supposed to do much business. A lot of stuff in theaters this weekend, but I think Demon Slayer is going to slay them all. Wow.

E (33:56)

Rob Reiner directing Spinal Tap 2. Didn't even know that he directed the first one.

C (34:00)

Fun anecdote. A newsletter reader texted me last night that he saw Rob Reiner and Larry David at dinner in Santa Monica. And guess who paid the check?

E (34:09)

It should be Larry David.

C (34:10)

It should be Larry David. You would think Rob Reiner paid the check.

E (34:14)

I'm sure Larry has some, has some unwritten rule that whoever invites the other to dinner has to pay for it or something.

C (34:19)

I know, well, that that was the whole curb thing, but Larry David's the richest guy amongst them and I think that matters. I don't know what they were meaning about maybe a project. But yeah, Rob Reiner paid that. Rob Reiner no slouch in the money department.

E (34:31)

No, he's doing fine.

C (34:32)

Yes, but Larry, Larry getting free dinner. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Julie Alexander, producer Craig Horbeck, artist Jesse Lopez and I want to thank you. We will see you next week.