← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Five Biggest Stories in TV: HBO Max Is Back, NFL Goes Global, and Netflix’s Franchisification
00:33:27
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- [00:00]
Amy Poehler
Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself and the guests will come.
- [00:13]
Matt Bellany
Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing. I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?
- [00:22]
Amy Poehler
Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast, so join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there, we're just trying to lighten it up a little.
- [00:31]
Matt Bellany
This episode of the Town is brought to you by MAX Presenting Hacks for your Emmy consideration. Starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the new season picks up with Deborah Vance's late night show finally in production and Ava Daniels stepping in as head writer. To Deborah's dismay, their ever complicated relationship is pushed to new limits as they clash over creative direction and get entangled in blackmail and betrayal. Don't miss the series Slate says has never been better. Emmy eligible for Outstanding Comedy Series and all other categories now streaming on max, this episode is brought to you by Netflix. Presenting the Diplomat from writer and creator Deborah Kahn, Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell return with Allison Janney joining in the explosive second season as US Ambassador Kate Weiler navigates high stakes diplomacy and a fraught marriage in search of the truth. The Guardian lauds the Diplomat a masterclass in storytelling and Indiewire hails it with one of the best shows of the year for your Emmy consideration. It is Friday, May 16th. I'm back from New York. Was running around for a few days in the rain at the TV upfronts, taking in the presentations and parties for ad buyers. This upfronts game is as old as television itself and it's kind of amazing it still exists given the whole thing. Could probably be an email. The networks and the streamers. They bring the stars and creators to New York every May. They tell the ad buyers how great their shows are. Then those ad buyers book for billions of dollars worth of ads on the various platforms. It's a big festival of spin and puffery, but I go because advertising is a growing business and very competitive business for all the streaming services now in addition to the linear networks that are trying to hang on and you can really get a sense of what shows and movies these platforms are prioritizing for the rest of the year. Yes, they bring movie stars too because those are on the platforms. Also, I'm a sucker for free drinks and the mini fried chicken sliders. Thank you very Much Netflix. Very tasty. I didn't make it to all the presentations, but I saw enough to spot some narratives across the different platforms. This year, I also bumped into Alex Sherman from cnbc, who is enduring the same presentations I was and eating the same mini fried chicken sliders. So today Alex is here and we're going to do the five biggest takeaways from TV's biggest cash grab event of the year. From the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Alex Sherman, who is the media and sports reporter at cnbc. Welcome, Alex. Welcome back.
- [03:02]
Amy Poehler
Always a pleasure to join you.
- [03:03]
Matt Bellany
Matt, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is A, you endured a lot of the upfront presentations as I did this past week, and B, you now are reporting on the sports business as well. And sports was a huge narrative this week at the upfronts. We will get to that. But the first of the five narratives I want to get to is the HBO HBO Max Max debacle. We don't have to go that far into this. We talked about this on Wednesday's show, but, man, I mean, the amount of dunking that people were doing on Warner Brothers Discovery for this retreat from Max to HBO Max was pretty funny. I mean, they were ducking on themselves on social media. They were putting up memes. We were on a break. You know, they were using their shows to basically make fun of themselves before everyone else did. And my take on this is that, yeah, it's funny. We're laughing. It's not that big of a deal. Most people assumed that Max was HBO Max anyways. They also kind of just assumed it was HBO with a bunch of other stuff. The branding issue is like, they'll be fine. It was only two years that they will be fine going back to HBO Max without much business being impacted. For me, it's what this change says about the larger strategy at Warner Brothers Discovery and basically the underpinnings of the entire rationale for bringing the Warner Media assets together with Discovery.
- [04:40]
Amy Poehler
First of all, I love this topic, so I will restrain myself because you.
- [04:44]
Matt Bellany
Love dunking on them. Everybody does.
- [04:46]
Amy Poehler
Here's the first point I want to make. When HBO Max was invented by AT&T, the point of changing HBO to HBO Max was a signal to the street to consumers that HBO was too small and that AT&T wanted to compete with Netflix. So it was making a bigger, broader statement by saying, our streaming service is no longer just hbo, it is now HBO Max and now you fast Forward to today. And the reason that HBO Max is coming back is a statement from Warner Brothers Discovery that they do not want to compete with Netflix, that Max is too big and that they should be leaning on the prestigious programming and the branding of HBO Max. So the name HBO Max was invented and brought back for the exact polar opposite reasons, just five years apart or whatever the years may be.
- [05:46]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, Exactly. But those five years have seen big changes in the market and 100%, to be fair, they are saying, we tried. We, we thought we could compete. We can't compete. The brand was actually not doing much for us. The content from the Discovery channels, the TLC stuff, the thousand pound sisters, Dr. Pimple Popper, Guy Fieri, all of that stuff not as meaningful in an on demand Max environment where you are not the first choice for people. People don't just come home and turn on Max. They realized that that stuff was less valuable. But that's why these companies were brought together. The entire thesis was, oh, AT and T got it wrong. They tried to turn HBO into Netflix, but they didn't have the assets, they didn't have enough stuff, they didn't have populist content. We, Warner Brothers Discovery will have it all. David Zaslav said, it's our destiny be together. And now they don't have it all. That stuff wasn't meaningful and they're pivoting back. How does this apply going forward now? Because now they have said, we're not Netflix. We're just going to be a secondary service focused on quality. You were there at their upfront. Still a lot of garbage there. A lot of the Discovery stuff that, that doesn't really matter in the streaming universe. But the HBO stuff still looks great. They have, you know, the creative engines, they're still great. They don't have premium sports, they don't have NFL or NBA. What is the takeaway from their upfront?
- [07:31]
Amy Poehler
You know, I think if you talk to David Zaslav, he would say, we still have to do a deal. And so the question is, how do we get there? Is it. Do we have to split our company in two and then we figure out some sort of remix of assets? Or can we do some sort of streaming deal where we put our content together with Peacock or Paramount Plus?
- [07:53]
Matt Bellany
And yeah, but those are the business underpinnings. That's what Gunner was talking about, the Moffat Nathanson conference. He's like, oh, we're open for business. We want to do a deal. And now they have these separate units where they can very easily spin off the linear networks, they can combine the studio and the streamer with something else. Like that's what's going on behind the scenes. But the messaging to the ad community was not that. The messaging was, we've got the premium content. Hbo, to their credit, did have a number of hits this past year, like the White Lotus numbers on Nielsen have come in and it was the number one show in streaming, which is pretty remarkable because there are not typically max shows on those Nielsen charts. And they do have, they called it momentum. I don't know if I'd say momentum, but, but they, they do have pretty premium TV assets. I just, I, I, I just wonder what, what your sense of the takeaway from the people in that room, hearing their pitch was.
- [08:54]
Amy Poehler
I mean, I can tell you what my takeaway was, which was that, look, you, you have to play the cards you're dealt. And actually, to some degree, this is the optimistic take. It was kind of refreshing to sit into an upfront where the first hour was just dedicated toward entered scripted entertainment.
- [09:11]
Matt Bellany
Programming because, yeah, shows you would watch.
- [09:13]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, that's not what we heard from any of the other companies. It was sports, sports, sports for, by and large, all of them. Netflix, a little different. We can get to them. And obviously YouTube has their own thing going, but, you know, the first five people to appear on stage at Disney's upfront, and Disney is a mecca for entertainment content were Pat Mahomes, Saquon Barkley, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, and Bob Iger. Like, that is not a coincidence there.
- [09:39]
Matt Bellany
All right, so that gets me to number two on our narratives list from the upfront, and that is the reveal of the price point for the ESPN standalone streaming service. 30 bucks a month or 36 bucks a month if you bundle it with Disney and Hulu. So they're pushing people to the bundle. They priced it at a point where it's pretty expensive. They don't see this, I talked to a number of analysts about this. They don't see this as an immediate sub driver for espn. A couple million, they're saying in the first year or two. What is the, what is the strategy here? What was your takeaway?
- [10:19]
Amy Poehler
This is a tough one, I think. I mean, the strategy is we want to price ESPN high enough so that it doesn't off all of the traditional pay TV distributors while also making it a consumer product that will be appealing to cord cutters or Cord Nevers that have been desperate for sports and have been on the sidelines while also saying, please don't cancel our service if your sport of choice is not in season. And that's why we'll bundle it at an, at an attractive price point with Disney plus and Hulu, that is.
- [10:52]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, they talk a lot about bundles like Disney's big, big into bundles.
- [10:56]
Amy Poehler
It's a Venn diagram that probably only appeals to a few million people. So I tend to agree with the analysts that at least in the beginning, I kind of doubt that this is some sort of, you know, hair on fire, fire needle mover for Disney or espn. But what it does do is it at least is a future looking product for ESPN to say we all need some sort of strategy. And as millions and millions of people cancel cable TV every year, so this is it. The reason that I don't think that this is some sort of unbelievable needle mover to begin with is that frankly, if you've been subscribing to cable tv, you probably have been doing it for sports. And so I don't know that you would cancel your cable TV subscription now that you can get ESPN for 30 bucks a month outside. Because if you were to piece together all of the sports ports that are available within the cable bundle, you're paying basically the same price that you'd be paying for cable. So.
- [11:55]
Matt Bellany
Well, but, but now for the first time, all the NFL games are available on streaming because Fox will now have Fox One their service, which most people think will be about 20 bucks. And ESPN is now available over the top and all the other stuff is available on streaming. So there's no excuse, if you really look at it, there's no excuse to, to remain in the cable bundle if all you care about is NFL.
- [12:19]
Amy Poehler
Well, but I mean the, the counter argument to that is how much are you paying streaming to get all of those games? You're probably paying $150 a month or, or more maybe if you're getting Sunday ticket or whatever in order to watch all of your football games.
- [12:35]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, Craig's not interested. Craig's still a YouTube TV guy and he's just like, yeah, this is too expensive and he thinks it's going to push people into, more into YouTube.
- [12:45]
Craig Horback
It's going to become too complicated and confusing for people to pick and choose which specific sports streaming services they want when they can just go to YouTube TV for a little bit more money and have everything in one place, which is why I love it.
- [12:57]
Amy Poehler
But in addition for it to being too complicated, it also will be too pricey.
- [13:01]
Matt Bellany
Well, until someone bundles them. Until there's the NFL bundle where you get all the services through, through DirecTV or Roku or Amazon or one of them, and you just click on the NFL Bundle and for 100 bucks, you get everything.
- [13:15]
Craig Horback
Yeah, but you're describing YouTube TV.
- [13:18]
Matt Bellany
I know, I know, I know, right, exactly.
- [13:20]
Amy Poehler
Cable. YouTube TV is cable.
- [13:23]
Craig Horback
It's just cable with an algorithm. It's. It's honestly the best possible combination or outcome out of all of this is, is what YouTube TV has created, in my opinion.
- [13:32]
Matt Bellany
The real thing here is, I think Disney just wants to plant the flag and, and slowly migrate these people over to ESPN streaming, because eventually we're all going to be getting TV via streaming, and they need to have some product where you can take it if you want it, you get it if you subscribe to cable anyways. So maybe then that will just be where you go.
- [13:58]
Amy Poehler
The important business application about the transitioning from traditional pay TV to streaming is that customers will now watch ESPN within the ESPN app. So it is now a direct relationship between the consumer and espn, which is something it did not have in a traditional world where the direct relationship was Comcast or DirecTV or whoever your pay TV provider is. That theoretically is very good for ESPN.
- [14:24]
Matt Bellany
In terms of advertising and data and the whole thing.
- [14:27]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, the data and then their bells and whistles part products on top of that. So I think that's the important leap from, you know, ESPN 1.0 to the coming ESPN 2.0.
- [14:37]
Matt Bellany
All right, but that, that gets to the number three narrative I want to talk to you about, which is the NFL schedule. I made a joke in my newsletter about Roger Goodell being sort of the bell of the upfront. He was everywhere. He dressed up in a little Santa suit at the Netflix up front. He was over at YouTube announcing games. You know, YouTube is now doing an exclusive game the first week of the season. As we talked about with Neil Mohan NFL schedule, what does it say about the way that they are looking at the media rights for this season?
- [15:08]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, I love this story because while he was the bell of the ball throughout all the upfronts, I think it is very telling that the two upfronts he attended in person were Netflix and YouTube. Because Roger Goodell is the ultimate puppet master with all of the media and entertainment companies looking up to him as he pulls the strings on each of.
- [15:31]
Matt Bellany
These ones and says, who's the most powerful person in TV? Those deals are worth $110 billion.
- [15:37]
Amy Poehler
YouTube pointed out that 90 of the most of the top 100 programs during the NFL season were NFL games. This is true year after year now that NFL programming by Far dominates the ratings on all events. And you can just see Roger Goodell in the background saying, like, oh, YouTube, you know, welcome to the party. Our rights are up. If we pull the outlaws after the 2029 season, you know, maybe you could come to the party and buy a package of games and Netflix. Hello. You know, I spoke to Ted Sarandos. He admitted to me, like, yeah, I talked to Roger Goodell on the side about adding even more games beyond our two Christmas games. We just need to figure out a way to eventize these games. But, you know, maybe the NFL works with Netflix and gives them a package of 15 games that they can figure out how to eventize.
- [16:26]
Matt Bellany
That's the thing I'm curious about, is how does the NFL continue to extract more money and spread the product across more platforms when it's pretty saturated at this point? Like, there's. They keep taking games away from their existing partners, putting them on these new platforms, putting an exclusive game on Peacock, doing the Black Friday thing with Amazon, they're just, like, adding more and more. And where does it end? Or does it end? Or is there still room for them to extract more?
- [16:59]
Amy Poehler
It certainly seems like the ultimate show of power to me. Right, because you're exactly right. What they're doing is essentially taking games away from traditional partners and throwing them toward theoretical new bidders in five years for even more robust packages of games that are currently. Currently owned by the traditional partners. And what can the traditional partners do about it? Can they take a stand and say, no more? NFL? No, they cannot. They are completely tied to the NFL. They are desperate. They are unbelievable bidders because of their desperation. Roger Goodell knows this. So it is a fantastic situation for the NFL. Clearly, the NFL takes a different approach from the NBA. Whereas if you talk to Adam Silver, he says it's important for us to only have two or three partners. They have three now. Amazon, NBC, and ESPN or Disney moving forward, because we don't want consumers to be overly confused about where they have to find a game, and we don't want them to have to spend too much money. The NFL does not care.
- [17:58]
Matt Bellany
They know that. People will find it. I know, it's amazing. I mean, that was the bigger story of the upfronts, is how much sports is dominating. Because 10 years ago, it just wasn't the focus of the upfronts. It was sort of a given. There was nothing really new about sports. You knew football was on every year. You knew basketball was on every year. Yes, when the rights came up, it was a story. But it wasn't like you saw the emphasis that you see now on sports. And we know why. You know, linear is dead without sports. And these other platforms are bringing in new audiences from sports. But, like, one after another, these upfronts were dominated by sports stars. Michael Jordan's coming to our NBA coverage. You want to hear John Tesh play his music? Go for it.
- [18:42]
Amy Poehler
Bella Bajaria at Netflix made a comment saying, you know, the upfronts are all about our TV shows and movies. I'm paraphrasing that, but that's basically what you said. But it struck me because I'm like, not all the upfronts, like, most of them were about sports.
- [18:56]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, well, she ended her presentation with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Like, she knows. She knows what's going on.
- [19:02]
Amy Poehler
Jerry Jones came up there.
- [19:04]
Matt Bellany
It was a weird Jerry Jones senior moment where I think he thought he was like, back in the 90s, hanging at Rupert Murdoch's house. At one point, he was talking about how great Rupert Murdoch is.
- [19:12]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, I know, right? I mean, look, there were a couple of bizarre moments from aging figures. Jerry Jones's was more confusing. I loved Arnold Schwarzenegger at Amazon. He was hilarious. But he also would not get off the stage. Jamie Lee Curtis had to pull him off at one point.
- [19:27]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. He was talking about, like, his royalty checks that he has to pay to his ex wife. Like, it was very bizarre.
- [19:33]
Amy Poehler
Yes, right. He mentioned he gave Maria A. Shriver a nice shout out on stage.
- [19:38]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. He also claimed that Jingle all the Way is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.
- [19:43]
Amy Poehler
I couldn't tell if he was purposefully joking or.
- [19:45]
Matt Bellany
I really hope he was. Craig, you had an NFL note.
- [19:49]
Craig Horback
Yeah. You guys were talking about how the NFL can figure out a way to eventize their games even more. And I think, to me, the final frontier for the NFL is expanding globally. And they have seven international games this year, which is the most they've ever had. I think 13 teams are going to be playing a game outside of the.
- [20:03]
Matt Bellany
US including the one on YouTube. That's not an accident.
- [20:06]
Craig Horback
Right? And YouTube and Netflix. I mean, if you want to go after the two places that have the most global reach, it would make sense that the conversation Goodell and Sarandos are having is like, how can we turn these games in Dublin and Germany and Spain and Brazil into kind of Netflix eventize mini international super bowl games? Which I think is what the NFL.
- [20:24]
Amy Poehler
Is trying to do, 100%.
- [20:26]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. They want people outside this country to care about football. They want kids to play football. That's why they're doing flag football stuff and they're making it in. They, they strong arm the Olympics into adding flag football in la. Like they know the growth areas and they're going after them dead on.
- [20:42]
Amy Poehler
That's exactly what's happening for sure.
- [20:48]
Matt Bellany
Today's episode is brought to you by Peacock. Presenting the Day of the Jackal for your Emmy consideration, Eddie Redmayne and Lashana lynch star in the original drama series Variety calls an exhilarating thriller. The series follows a lone assassin and an intelligence officer in a cat and mouse chase across Europe. The Day of the Jackal is streaming now only on Peacock. This episode is brought to you by Focus Features. An Indian Paintbrush Presenting the Phoenician Scheme an epic comedy adventure from director Wes Anderson starring Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threpleton, Michael Cera and an all star cast follows Zsaza Korda as he races to survive assassinations, win back his daughter and pull off the scheme of a lifetime. The Phoenician scheme. Rated PG13. Only in theaters Friday. My number four narrative is the franchisification of Netflix and Amazon. Like they were. They, you know, they don't have the legacy IP that some of these other companies do. They know that's a weakness and they know that that's what those companies lean into. If you go to the Warner up front, they talk all about their IP and their upcoming Batman shows and every everything.
- [21:59]
Amy Poehler
They Disney, of course too.
- [22:01]
Matt Bellany
Disney is the leader with this stuff and the franchises. But you go to the Netflix up front and what did they lead with? Stranger Things Wednesday, Bridgerton, Squid Game. These are television, but these are big global TV franchises. You go to Amazon. What are they talking about? Reacher? They're talking about the MGM stuff that they've got. Like they brought out Michael B. Jordan, who's got a Creed TV show like, yes, these are the known properties that get advertisers excited. But, but to me, it was the increasing franchiseization of the streaming platforms that previously did not have franchises.
- [22:45]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, it speaks to the maturity of the platforms. Right. You five years ago you didn't have franchises because they didn't have any time to build franchises. But now these guys have been dominant long enough that they have their own IP that they're able to make into franchises and then really lean on it. I mean, it's the fifth season of Stranger Things now, so you have to be around for a while and build clout in order to get to the fifth season of anything.
- [23:08]
Matt Bellany
They're also offering ad packages where The Warner's thing was hilarious, where they basically opened up the cupboard and they're now willing to whore out all of their IP for advertisers to run wild with, like that State Farm commercial with Batman and Jason Bateman. That's like the model for what they want. They're like, yeah, you can have whatever you want. You want to do an elf commercial? Great. Harry Met Sally with mayonnaise. Great. Do it. We don't care. It's money. And I think Warner used to be a little bit more discerning about that stuff. Netflix was doing the same. They were like, yeah, come to us. We did a Stranger Things ad activation. We'll. So that. That, I think, is part of what their pitch was. Advertisers like franchises, Amazon and Netflix are.
- [23:49]
Amy Poehler
Are new at the whole ad game to begin with. We're. We're only in to, you know, year two or three for these companies, so the whole thing is kind of new to them. But, yeah, I absolutely feel like you're. You're seeing a maturity of content from these streaming services.
- [24:06]
Matt Bellany
All right, One place that did not have franchises, or at least not traditional IP franchises, but is. My fifth narrative was just the dominant force of YouTube. And we talked about this with Neil Mohan on the show, but I was there for their upfront and it was the first time I went to the YouTube upfront. And they call the brand Cast, but it is such a contrast from the others. It just feels younger, it feels cooler. They had a Lady Gaga concert. Every year they bring out some big artists and it was like a real Lady Gaga concert, not like, you know, Chris Martin from Coldplay playing a few acoustic songs like you sometimes hear, or Snoop Dogg rapping a little bit at the NBC up front, this was like full on concert. They had real. They had creators, they had a Mr. Beast stunt. It was a show, and it just felt like they have such a. A level of confidence now that they're pretty much the dominant force.
- [25:04]
Amy Poehler
This is maybe too extreme, but I'll take it there. It kind of feels like all the other stuff is a sideshow. It's like this other industry that still exists, and then YouTube is like the main event where all of the actual younger people Oxygen is right now and their business like MTV.
- [25:25]
Matt Bellany
It's like MTV in the 90s.
- [25:26]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, right. It's like, oh, all right. This is where, like, the actual center of attention is. And I don't know a lot of the people that YouTube brings up on stage still. My kids know them.
- [25:37]
Matt Bellany
Oh, we knew Sean Evans Hot ones. I was excited for that. No, but they had this woman hosting. I honestly, I already forgot her name.
- [25:44]
Amy Poehler
Who? I did a. I. I worked with her on a story last year about how YouTube was kind of the main event these days. So this is not a new story anymore. But the numbers, you look at that Nielsen gauge report every month and it tells you the streaming percentages of. In the US and YouTube took over as number one a couple of years ago. And the number, the percentage on YouTube goes up pretty much every month. It's up to like 12% now or so. And if you listen to this episode, in a year, like, it'll probably be at 15%. I just. There is no stopping the freight train of YouTube. And at some point there's going to be even more convergence between the traditional media model and YouTube because YouTube is defining a younger generation in terms of what they want and how they watch. And all of the other streaming services that exist are going to have to make their products look a little bit more YouTube.
- [26:42]
Matt Bellany
Like, well, Netflix is already trying. But the other thing, the thing that's surprising to me about YouTube is they've just like that whole content safety issue has kind of gone away. Like, I don't know if that was a tech issue that they've resolved, but five years ago we were talking about how brands were still wary of YouTube because they never quite knew what they were going to get. You know, there's the nightmare scenario of your brand appearing opposite, like a Hitler video or things like that. You never hear about the content moderation issues anymore.
- [27:16]
Amy Poehler
Yeah, I think they have cleaned that up to some degree. But, you know, I also think you're right that the issues kind of faded into the background as YouTube has become so big and so dominant that I think advertisers have kind of just shrugged their shoulders and been like, well, like.
- [27:29]
Matt Bellany
We have to be there. Yeah, it's better than X. It's better than Twitter, right?
- [27:33]
Amy Poehler
It's better than Twitter. Exactly. But look, there's. There's a stat that was shared at last year's YouTube upfront that I have quoted for the past year because I love it so much. And it really, I think, speaks to the modern media ecosystem and the potential ramifications for all of the legacy guys, which is that in the survey was for Gen Z, something like more than half of the people in Gen Z surveyed would rather watch their favorite creator talk about a live event, then watch the live event itself. And to me, that is just the YouTube.
- [28:07]
Matt Bellany
Well, now they're having these watch along things on YouTube that I think are going to be a pretty popular ad product.
- [28:12]
Amy Poehler
Yeah. I mean, all the billions and billions and billions of dollars spent on getting the rights to live events and then the YouTube model, which is basically $0 in essence, or other than the money paid to the creator for the views.
- [28:26]
Matt Bellany
To create, which is not insignificant. But yeah, it's not like doing a massive rights deal in the aggregate.
- [28:31]
Amy Poehler
It's very significant at the individual level. It's very insignificant.
- [28:35]
Matt Bellany
Right. All right, well, it was nice to see you at the events. Appreciate you coming on.
- [28:40]
Amy Poehler
Always a pleasure. Good to see you too, man.
- [28:44]
Matt Bellany
We are back with the call sheet, Craig. We already did Final Destination last week. There is another new release this weekend that I think we should talk about. And I did use the word weekend, and it's called Hurry Up Tomorrow, starring the Weekend. It is a companion movie to his new album. And sure, yeah. Reviews have not been great.
- [29:08]
Craig Horback
No, it started at zero on rotten tomatoes. I think it's up to 15% right now. I. I'm just dumbfounded by these weekend projects. I'm not sure why, but it feels more forced whenever the Weeknd puts himself in something compared to other musicians who give acting a shot.
- [29:23]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. This movie, the tracking is between 5 and 7 million. It only costs 15. It was weirdly funded by Live Nation, his. His. His touring partner. So they see it as promotional for his tour and they had him show up at Cinemacon. We got a little mini concert when we were there.
- [29:43]
Craig Horback
Yeah. I almost had an epileptic seizure.
- [29:46]
Matt Bellany
I wonder why. Why is Jenna Ortega in this movie?
- [29:49]
Craig Horback
Man, I have a lot of questions about everything Jenna Ortega has done. Coming off of Wednesday, I was. I was all in on her as a rising star. Can I read you the movie she's done since Wednesday came out?
- [29:59]
Matt Bellany
Oh, please, please.
- [30:00]
Craig Horback
Okay. She did scream six, but she was already a part of that franchise. She did a movie called Finest Kind. She did Miller's Girl. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, which is the only movie she should have done on this list.
- [30:13]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, that's not bad. That's good.
- [30:15]
Craig Horback
She did Death of a Unicorn and then Now Hurry Up Tomorrow. Those are the six of a unicorn.
- [30:20]
Matt Bellany
Was like an A24.
- [30:21]
Craig Horback
A24 comedy with Paul Rudd. I respect the attempt.
- [30:25]
Matt Bellany
Okay.
- [30:25]
Craig Horback
Otherwise, I'm not really sure what she's doing.
- [30:29]
Matt Bellany
H. Well, I'm sure Tracy Brennan at CAA will give you a call and explain it. All right. Now, after we outed her as making bad choices for her client, but that's not my prediction. My prediction is not about Jenna Ortega. I think this is it the weekend for a while. I think it has to be there. There's not going to be another big movie. He. I know he has 50 billion streams on Spotify. He's one of the biggest artists. Like, good for him. Maybe he can reboot with a supporting role here and there. But starring vehicles, the idol didn't work. This didn't work no more.
- [31:01]
Craig Horback
I agree. I think at the end of the day, you can be very famous, but you do have to be a good actor. And people like Lady Gaga, she's a good actor. Ariana Grande was a good actor. And the weekend, every time you see him on on screen, it doesn't feel right.
- [31:15]
Matt Bellany
I know. I guess I should do an over under on the movie. Let's say let's put the line at 7. I'll take the under the line at 7.
- [31:22]
Craig Horback
Is that where it's tracking?
- [31:24]
Matt Bellany
The tracking. The tracking is like five to seven. I guess we'll put the line at six.
- [31:27]
Craig Horback
Hammer the under.
- [31:28]
Matt Bellany
I know. And with those reviews. Yeah, let's. Let's take the ender. All right. That's the show for today. I want to thank my guest Alex Sherman, producer Craig Horback, artist Jesse Lopez and I want to thank you. We'll see you next week.