← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Murdoch Succession War is Over, and Fox Crowns its Next Leader
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A
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.
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B
Just be yourself and the guests will come.
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A
Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing.
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B
I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?
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A
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.
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B
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A
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B
Applecard.Com it is Tuesday, September 9th for years now, we've been talking about these succession issues plaguing the Murdoch family and their conservative media empire. So much so, they made a whole HBO show about it. Rupert is now 94, a spry 94, we are told. And for the past couple of years, he's been locked in family court in Nevada over the terms of his trust, which provided that the media company that includes Fox News, the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports, plus the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, a bunch of other assets worldwide. It would be split evenly amongst his four adult children. That's Lachlan, Rupert's preferred heir who currently runs Fox Corp. And James, Elizabeth and Prudence, the three kids who do not necessarily share their father's love of conservative politics and tabloid news. Rupert actually lost a key ruling in Nevada recently, meaning that if he died, Lachlan could be outvoted by his siblings and assets like Fox News could be sold or even turned into a more liberal version of itself. I never quite believed that part, but not anymore. Yesterday we got the bombshell news that the Murdaughs have settled. There will be a new trust ensuring Lachlan stays atop the empire. And the three other kids will be bought out to the tune of about $1.1 billion each.
- [03:27]
C
Each.
- [03:27]
B
Remember, that's on top of the 2 billion they each got when Rupert sold most of Fox to Disney in 2019. A good deal for the kids, right? That's more than what Rupert and Lachlan were initially willing to pay them, but it's only about 80% of what their shares were worth at the end of last week. And by creating a complex news structure of the company, Rupert is getting his long held wish here. Fox News will live on as the incredibly lucrative, incredibly influential media outlet that it is. And it will be free from all that succession drama. So much so that the stock price went up today on the news. So why did the three kids finally settle? And who's the real winner here? Also, what's next for the Murdoch empire under the eldest boy, Lachlan? I've got Jim Rutenberg here to discuss. Jim's a reporter at the New York Times and has been leading on all the coverage of the Murdoch mess, including the news yesterday of the settlement. So today it's peace at last in the Murdoch Fox family. From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. All right, we are here with Jim Rudenberg, writer at large at the New York Times and pretty intrepid chronicler of the Murdochs over. What is this, two decades now?
- [04:43]
C
Maybe a little more. A little more? Maybe quarter of cent. Quarter century.
- [04:47]
B
Well, I'm a Murdochologist as well. I have interviewed the brothers I have done a lot of reporting on them. And I was certainly surprised yesterday when I saw the settlement news. And you write in your piece with your colleague Jonathan Mahler that it was the expected outcome, meaning the most logical outcome of this broad family litigation was a settlement. But we hadn't gotten one because it was about more than money. I thought, turns out money wins. And the three siblings agreed to take $1.1 billion payouts. Why did they agree to take these payouts now? And why did they not want to continue this fight as we understood it?
- [05:40]
C
Jonathan Mahler and I, who've been covering this, this part of the story since 2019, the View, when Rupert. Let me take you back. Sorry, but to when Rupert very wisely sold his studio businesses to Disney.
- [05:54]
B
Yes. $85 billion deal.
- [05:56]
C
Yeah. And before that, you yourself had written a story about James and Lachlan were running the company together.
- [06:02]
B
Oh, yeah. It was a united front. We are doing this together. We have full support of our father, and he wants us to run this company forever together. Turns out, not so much.
- [06:12]
C
But, you know, they were giving it a go at that point, Right?
- [06:15]
B
Sure.
- [06:16]
C
But things did fall apart, and then Lachlan took over what was left of the company after the Disney sale. And the View, as we always understood it, especially from James, his brother James, who was primed to be the successor himself one day, was, okay, buy me out of this thing and you go, take it, Lachlan. Because all James fortune inherited from his father and his two sisters, Liz and Prue, was tied up in the trust that controls the Rupert Murdoch empire. And they are not free to sell those shares until the year 2030 to outsiders, at least. So they said to Lachlan, james, let it. Liz and Prue went along. Lachlan, buy us out, we'll go away. Bye, bye. You take it. In fact, as we reported in 19, they drew up bankers, drew up papers, they were close to doing it. Lachlan, at the end of the day, just said no. He cited cash. There were suspicions in the family that maybe he didn't even really want to do that. So the position for the beginning, to be fair, from Lachlan's siblings was, buy us out, we'll go away, but alternatively, don't buy us out. We don't want to be deriving our fortune from what Fox is.
- [07:28]
B
Yeah. James in particular was very embarrassed by the content of Fox News in the.
- [07:33]
C
US And James's thing was, and the sisters seemed willing to go along with this, but that wasn't solid yet, that when dad dies. Control would have reverted to all four siblings. Then Lachlan would be outvoted three to one potentially and James would have wrested the company back and tried to reorient Fox. Now it's over interpreted that James was. I never understood this to me. And James wanted to turn Fox News into CNN or the BBC or msnbc. Never.
- [08:03]
B
But he wanted a more sort of traditionally conservative network, less conspiratorial, less pro Trump, less of what we know as Fox News today.
- [08:13]
C
Yes. Like on January, January 6th would the lead up to January 6th especially Tucker Carlson show would have looked a lot different with James running. It still would have been conservative. He wasn't saying we're going to totally kill the golden goose, just let's make it more responsible. Maybe we'll lose some ratings points. That's as we understood it. So that was the position now in the popular conception it became James and the siblings will come in, sweep in and save the day. In liberal America this was the view save the day and reorient Fox. And that wasn't. They always had had this idea that we buy us out and we'll go.
- [08:46]
B
But they had this ruling in Nevada. The Nevada judge pretty summarily rejected Rupert's effort with Lachlan to revise the trust to put him in control. So the question then is the leverage was all on the objecting children, as they were called where they all they had to do was sit tight and wait for their father to die. He's 94 years old. That would probably happen before 2030 and if it did, they would have been able to wrest control of the company away from their brother. And. And if it was after 2030 then they would have been able to sell their shares on the public market and potentially screw them over by handing the company to outsiders. Why didn't they just sit tight and wait?
- [09:34]
C
The important thing to understand, Rupert and Lachlan tried to make this change to the trust which again supposed to be all four inherit control shared with Lachlan that they tried to change this indelible trust in Reno because Rupert and Laughlin and I always wondered about this, said we can't have that, especially Rupert. I can't have this liberal son in a position to potentially take over and change my legacy.
- [10:00]
B
Yeah, Rupert's quote is Fox and our papers are the only faintly conservative voices against the monolithic liberal media. I believe maintaining this is vital to the future of the English speaking world. Pretty big mission statement there.
- [10:16]
C
By the way, for all those who always said Rupert he's just a businessman. He doesn't care. Well, he definitely at this stage of his life, he cares.
- [10:25]
B
Yeah. And Lachlan has all sorts of quotes out there basically saying the same thing. And in my dealings with Lachlan, I've always, I always found him to be very pragmatic about it. When you sit down with him, I've said this before, it's all about we have the number one news network, we have the number one broadcast network, we have the number one sports group. Like he talked about it in numbers. But recently he's also talked about it in terms of us against them. Everyone's doing X, we are the only ones doing Y. We have to maintain that uniqueness of the Fox media brand very much.
- [10:59]
C
And he's believed to be a bit more ideological than he lets on. And some have said, I think this is disputed, but some have said, well, he's even more ideological than his father. I don't know. I mean, Rupert center pretty ideological and what you just read.
- [11:12]
B
But why didn't these siblings sit tight? That's my question. What, what about their psychology? Or has this always been about the money and it was all leverage and they just wanted to get that number high enough where they could feel good about themselves.
- [11:26]
C
There's a debate about that. Okay. But just to finish my thought and I'll get to is what their view of Rupert's attempt to change the trust was. Rupert and Lachlan are trying to get control for free without paying us. That was their view all along. When Rupert and Lachlan lose this bit, a commissioner in Reno says this is bad faith. This is unheard of. You can't do this. The three siblings were going to do exactly what you said. We've got maximum leverage. If Lachlan went out, he's going to have to pay us big time. But here's what happens. And we reported this in this morning's story. The case didn't end. The commissioner's ruling in Reno was never final. It always needed sign off from a higher up judge. And often what happens in these Reno probate, this was called probate court cases is the judge assigns it. Done. There you go. Rupert's legal team made a really aggressive bid to get this ruling thrown out. Bill Barr was very the former attorney general who had been involved in representing Rupert on the trust board. How these things work is part of this case too.
- [12:31]
B
Yeah. 50 lawyers, you noted 50 lawyers on the docket. Not cheap. Each billing two grand an hour.
- [12:39]
C
I tell you, there was a day I was there for the trial, which was closed to the press exactly a year ago. And there was one day all the press had left. It was like day four. I was like the only one left in town who was covering this. And I just went, took a walk at like 6 o' clock at night. And the black cars around the little courthouse in Reno went all the way around.
- [12:56]
B
That's hilarious. It's like the Toronto Film Festival for a premiere.
- [13:00]
C
Like, literally, it was insane how many black cars there were.
- [13:04]
B
So you're, what you're saying is it wasn't a certainty. They had leverage, but it wasn't a certainty. It was draining them financially to fight this fight. And when they got up to a number, they said, okay, we'll do that.
- [13:17]
C
Yeah. So they got to number. But one last thing I'll say is that there's a really nice wrinkle in this. Nice. I mean in terms of storytelling. Not or any of the members. When James Murdoch, after they won, spoke to the Atlantic magazine, we had written a story based on all the court transcripts. A lot of this stuff was already out there. But James went and talked to the Atlantic and put his name to sealed information from the trial that no one was supposed to talk about. And that drew potential sanctions against James in the ongoing appeals process. So things were starting to look very cloudy for them. So then there's a meeting at the Harvard Club. As they're. They're now the appeals moving along, they're all going to have to show up.
- [13:55]
B
It's like out of a scene from Succession. It's crazy.
- [13:57]
C
Of course, the Harvard Club. Of course the Harvard Club. But James, by the way, went to Harvard. Did not. Dropped out.
- [14:03]
B
Yeah. You can almost hear Rupert telling them that they're not serious people.
- [14:07]
C
Yeah. Now, like Harvard Club and Fox Brand do not go hand in hand right now unless Harvard emerges as a changed instance.
- [14:14]
B
Oh, but we all know the behind the scenes stuff doesn't match the Fox brand. We've known that forever.
- [14:20]
C
Exactly, exactly. Matches succession for good reason. So then finally they're able to come together. Now they meet at the Harvard Club. They're representatives. Not them. The representatives meet at the Harvard Club. Can we find our way to a deal? We're looking at these appeals. Things look pretty good. And the number, as I understand it, they're in the ballpark of this number. By the way, the Fox stock has gone way up, so Lachlan's in a bit of a better position.
- [14:44]
B
Oh, I imagine the stock is way up because it secures, you know, the future.
- [14:48]
C
Well, as they're talking negotiating terms. So then giving them each a billion dollars is less of a lift. But there's some disputes over taxation. Like, it gets really crazy.
- [14:59]
B
All right, but you know what? I think a billion dollars each is cheap. Like, I thought it would be more. This was 80% of what their shares were worth last Friday before the announcement. So it's not even what their current shares are worth. And this is forever.
- [15:16]
C
This is.
- [15:16]
B
Fox News is pumping out how much profit a year? 2 billion. Like this is forever. And they are walking away from their birthright here for a billion dollars.
- [15:29]
C
Well, it's 50% of their personal fortunes from the Disney deal.
- [15:35]
B
Yeah, they got 2 billion from the Disney sale.
- [15:37]
C
Yeah. But you know, the Murdoch family trust, by my math, big asterisks there. I'm a writer, not a mathematician. Was worth between 7 and 8. They have. Depending on the stock, they have half of it. Because three people. There are six members of direct inheritors of the trust. Lachlan, his two youngest sisters, Grace and Chloe, who have never had any voting.
- [16:01]
B
Power, who are now in their 20s. And they're the Wendy Dang children.
- [16:05]
C
Yeah. Who will be very interesting to watch maybe a decade from now.
- [16:08]
B
There'll be a sequel on hbo. On hbo, Peacock, Paramount. There will be a sequel to Succession.
- [16:16]
C
Will we be having this conversation as older men? But anyway, that'll be good, though the story always. This story never stops.
- [16:24]
B
Oh, it would be amazing if Wendy Dang's children end up outsmarting them all and Lachlan is on the street.
- [16:31]
C
This story does have a way of throwing those kind of twists. But anyway, yes, okay, it's $1.1 billion, but it's not that far off from their share of the trust.
- [16:40]
B
Yeah, maybe I was overestimating the ultimate value. I just see the positioning of Fox in the landscape right now. And they're the only ones making real money in cable news. And it is an outlier here. They're going to be able at some point. I mean, obviously, cable is going away. They will likely be able to transition that brand over. Lachlan's already laying the groundwork for the that. And yeah, the newspapers don't really make money except for the Journal, but this is a real business, at least for now. And now Lachlan gets it. So let's twist here. Let's turn to the future. This new trust will expire in 2015. So Lachlan is retaining control of this empire for a long time. And what can we expect? You say? No initial change right now. But freeing up the uncertainties around the company, I think is going to give him some headwinds here. Do you expect Lachlan to make changes or to kind of start to put his own stamp on the company?
- [17:49]
C
As long as his father's alive, I don't see him doing a ton. And I'll tell you why he is so devoted to his father.
- [17:57]
B
Oh, in his office, he had a giant picture of him over his desk.
- [18:01]
C
Yeah. Very, very devoted to his father and wants to see his father's vision. For instance, when we had written our story about this whole case earlier this year, we talked about the recombination effort. There was a point, I assume again, your listenership will remember this, but they tried to merge the two parts of their empire, which is News Corp. And Fox. And that was as I understood it. It's my opinion, so it's less like I couldn't really put it in a story, but I got the sense that was Lachlan wanting to bring the thing together for dad in Dad's final years, because dad never. They split those companies after the hacking scandal. But Lachlan's philosophy is the same as Rupert's, which is what? Give the audience what it wants. Don't get in the way of that. Don't let anything get in the way of that.
- [18:44]
B
Yeah, they always. At Fox News, they always talk about the audience. Oh, the audience won't like that. The audience doesn't want to hear opposing viewpoints, that kind of stuff, so those.
- [18:53]
C
Things will stay the same. But. But Lachlan's more digitally forward.
- [18:56]
B
Yeah. I mean, if you look at stuff that he's done, he bought this podcast company, Red Seat Ventures. They're trying to move into that business. He bought Tubi, which I think has been a very big boon to that company. Not really profitable, but it does lay the groundwork for a digital future there. They just launched Fox one, the streaming app. He took a stake in this Penske Entertainment, the IndyCar company. So they have made moves that I think could be attributed to Lachlan, although I'm sure Rupert is always in the background there with his opinions. I just wonder if they're going to move more into the digital space once Rupert leaves and maybe shuts down the New York Post, which doesn't make money. Maybe he, you know, goes into a different, more digital direction.
- [19:39]
C
Yeah. And I think even on those decisions, Rupert's kind of like, ah, boy, go. You know what I mean? Or however he.
- [19:44]
B
Well, Rupert loves the New York Post.
- [19:46]
C
Okay, so here's what I mean, by that he'll make all his moves in digital, yes. On the newspapers, he'll maintain those as long as Rupert's alive. By the way, the New York Post is like top 10 news property in the country.
- [19:57]
B
Online it is, but does it make money?
- [19:59]
C
I believe it started breaking into the black, but I don't want to venture out.
- [20:04]
B
I had always thought it lost money, but maybe they figured it out. Maybe all the pictures of wardrobe malfunctions and Page Six breakups, they're doing well. They're. They're moving to la. They're launching a California Post, I've heard. Yeah, they're looking for an editor. Maybe you should apply.
- [20:19]
C
I did work there early in my career and it was the most fun I ever had in this business, I'm sure.
- [20:24]
B
No, listen, everyone who works for Rupert, even the people who disagree with him politically, very much so always say good things about him, that he's very supportive, that the politics stuff doesn't enter the conversation. If you are not in one of his political arenas and he has great instincts.
- [20:47]
A
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- [21:16]
C
Here'S to me the most fascinating thing about Lachlan in this realm. Whatever the newspapers are doing, losing money, making a little what they do have still, especially in the uk, but somewhat here through the Post because it's actually had some. They have political impact.
- [21:30]
B
Oh, the Journal too. The Journal's the only one that's been like standing up to Trump in that arena. And Trump hates it.
- [21:37]
C
Right. I put the Journal in a different category than the bombastic hard right populists. They give him certain global. Like when Brexit happened in the uk, Rupert's papers split the difference. Right. The Times, the Daily Times of London was remain. The sun was leave and the sun, the populist voice is what always carries the day in this era. So does Lachlan have any interest in the influence he gets from those papers regardless of their out actual capital? What do they really do for the business?
- [22:09]
B
Right. Is he willing to lose money on outlets to give him political benefits?
- [22:13]
C
Does he want that Sway. I don't. And that he hasn't shown yet. And that's, to me, the tantalizing last question for now about does he want to be what his father was in terms of a political figure?
- [22:24]
B
Yeah. And with Fox News, he has both. There is not a close rival in terms of influence in this country right now. I mean, literally what they say is channeled to the president and put out there as gospel on a daily basis.
- [22:42]
C
You know what I wonder about sometimes too, though? Because when you write that sentence now you say Fox is still hugely influential. You have Joe Rogan, you have the influencers. And they are something that wasn't there. But Fox is still has a huge. Its audience is still growing.
- [22:57]
B
For what it's worth, when all the others are declining.
- [23:01]
C
They're out rating broadcast television. So now the most watched television. Over the summer, they were outdrawing the major broadcast networks in prime time.
- [23:10]
B
And because of the overall political climate, the advertisers have started supporting Fox in a way that they wouldn't even three or four years ago.
- [23:19]
C
Right. So do you think Fox is still hugely influential?
- [23:23]
B
Oh, absolutely. I think it's incredibly influential. Doesn't matter that its audience is old. It is the star around which the conservative media universe rotates. And if something is on Fox, all of the other conservative media outlets, including some of the podcasts, including all the. They are responding in many ways to what is on Fox and the stories that Fox highlights. And the president watches it. And not just watches it. The president watches it and takes his cues from Fox. If they're talking about a story, he thinks it's important and he emphasizes it. And if they are not talking about something, he won't know about it. And not to mention the fact that, like, there's a revolving door. The fricking defense secretary was hired because the president liked him on Fox News. I mean, that is insane. So you've got this revolving door plus the constant influence. I think it's still, despite the aging audience and despite all the other headwinds in cable tv, it is still the leading influential outlet.
- [24:30]
C
Yeah, I would agree. I also think there's something to be said still for the power of television. Not what it was, but you can't dismiss it. People sitting and vegging out in front of a screen.
- [24:41]
B
But have you seen the age demos on it? It's not pretty, but they've always been both.
- [24:46]
C
But cable news has always been.
- [24:47]
B
I know, I know.
- [24:48]
C
And they're the ones who vote more reliable.
- [24:50]
B
It's true. Yeah, it's True, I know. And you know, Lachlan, it'll be interesting to see how he treats some of the litigation and some of the risks that Fox has taken under his father. Where, although I Guess Lachlan was CEO during the Smartmatic and Dominion stuff during 2020. But Fox has been willing to serve the audience at the expense defense of their legal liability. And we'll see if that continues.
- [25:16]
C
And that's what James had argued, because James had said, hey, you say that my way would be bad for the business, but their way cost us a billion dollars almost in legal settlements. And that was James's argument always. But Fox plowed ahead.
- [25:29]
B
Yeah, there was, you know, remember around that time, there was a real threat from Newsmax. Oan of going harder. Right. The. The competition for Fox is not CNN or msnbc. It's on the other end from the more further right outlets. And they effectively quelled that uprising, I think, after the Dominion stuff and after the election. And I don't see those other outlets as being as competitive anymore. So much so that one of them sued claiming anti competitive practices, and that suit was tossed out.
- [26:01]
C
Right. There's one thing I'll just leave you with. On the court case we just heard about, there's this interesting moment. We saw the transcripts from the appeals hearings. And there's an interesting moment where the judge is saying, wait a minute, but Fox is the golden goose here. And whether it was a basketball company or whatever this is. If Rupert is the best basketball maker who ever lived and he thinks his son Lachlan's the one to do it, shouldn't he be the one to decide? Now? Interestingly, Rupert signed away his rights to determine that.
- [26:33]
B
Yeah, that's. The trust says differently. You know why? If he believed that, why did he say his four children will decide equally? That was deliberate and heavily negotiated.
- [26:44]
C
And we should remind people that he made that agreement. Cause he was leaving his second wife, Anna to marry his third wife, Wendy, and was clearly in a hurry to get that done. And I've always wondered if it was just like. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay, you got it. Because after he makes that deal, he tells Jerry Fabricamp, one of our great veteran media reporters at the time, well, yeah, that could be a problem one day.
- [27:05]
B
Oh, he did say that. That's hilarious. I just figured he figured that his children would always share his politics.
- [27:10]
C
I mean, I don't think he would have allowed it to happen if he saw. But he does say to Jerry Fabricant, I found it an old clip like, yeah, this. This isn't good. This isn't necessarily going to be great in the future.
- [27:20]
B
Amazing. All right, so biggest winners here. Rupert, biggest winner. Lachlan, biggest winner, or are James and Liz gonna go out and use their money and start up some other company that's gonna someday take down their brother?
- [27:36]
C
I don't okay on James. I don't know. Rupert is definitely the biggest winner because this was what he wanted all along. Rupert had been telling Lachlan years ago, buy out your brother.
- [27:47]
B
Once again, he comes out on top. It's just like succession. Money wins, and he's the big winner.
- [27:53]
C
Whether James and the others are losers, I'm not ready to say that, because what did they want?
- [28:00]
B
Yeah, hard to be a loser with a billion dollars in your pocket.
- [28:02]
C
And did they really want to come back and change Fox? I mean, again, to be fair to them, I never heard that was the overriding goal. But. But if they do care about that, they lose on that score.
- [28:12]
B
Yeah, maybe loser, maybe democracy. If that's your view, let's see how the midterms go. Yeah. All right. Anything else surprised you about this settlement? Anything that. That stuck out? As someone who has been chronicling them.
- [28:27]
C
I think what surprised me is what appears to have surprised you was, why did they finally do it now? But I feel like we got Jonathan Mahler, my writing partner and I on this, got our answer when we started looking at the court transcripts and saw whether you and I think there are. There's already. It's hard because people still don't want to talk until everything's settled. You could argue what's there trouble in court with. For. For the siblings who had won the first time? I don't know. But either way, this thing could drag on forever.
- [28:53]
B
I have a feeling we are going to hear from them pretty quickly. And the next red carpet, James is on for some charity event. Someone will ask him. Liz has her production company, sister. They have events. We will hear from them soon.
- [29:06]
C
Yes. And Liz and Pru, I think, win no matter what, right?
- [29:09]
B
Oh, Pru. I mean, Pru is sitting pretty. She has nothing to do with anything and is living her best life in Australia and getting, you know, mailbox money. That is more than anyone could ever dream of.
- [29:21]
C
Yes. She's the hidden character. She was. She was. He was the emerging star of this story and the last chapter.
- [29:28]
B
Amazing. All right, appreciate the time, Jim. Thank you.
- [29:31]
C
Thanks. Thanks. Take care.
- [29:34]
B
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, some big news I'm dropping today. I'm moving to Canada. I love it here.
- [29:39]
C
You're moving to Canada?
- [29:41]
B
Yes.
- [29:41]
C
Well, that might be a part of the United States soon.
- [29:43]
B
So you're not going to skip by now? I'm going to be a pioneer. I'm going to be an explorer and be the new governor of the great 51st state of Canada. No, I'm serious. I love Toronto. It's my favorite film festival. The people are great, everything's convenient. The movies are a little more populous than some of the hauteur stuff at Cannes in Venice. And it's just. It's a great experience overall.
- [30:07]
C
And the weather's nice. This is like the best time to go.
- [30:09]
B
It is the best time. I know. Not sure I'm coming here in February, but it is great. Unfortunately, though, I. I don't think we have an Oscar Best Picture winner out of Toronto this year. Everything has been sort of like getting good reviews, good buzz. Everything is kind of like on the. The level of. Of positivity. Same with Telluride and Venice, to be honest. But nothing is kind of popping out, at least from what I've seen, from what others have talked to me about. We. My prediction is that we will not get a Best Picture winner out of Toronto this year.
- [30:46]
C
So in the past last 10 years, there have been a few that have come out of TIFF that have won, gone on to win Best Picture. The audience award winner with Nomadland won Best Picture. Green Book won Best Picture. La La Land got very close to winning Best Picture that premiered at tiff. American Fiction was two years ago. The Fabelman's Belfast.
- [31:03]
B
Yeah, those got nominations. Jojo Rabbit got a nomination.
- [31:06]
C
Yes, it was last year, actually. The Life of Chuck was 2024, and that was probably the least successful audience award winner at TIFF in some time.
- [31:14]
B
Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of nice buzz about movies like the Brendan Fraser movie Rental Family got a lot of reaction. Sydney Sweeney got positive reviews for her. Her boxing movie Christie. There's, you know, a lot of the other festival movies, like Hamnet is doing well here. Sentimental value. A lot of those movies that kind of keep coming up, they have this weird, bizarre awards ceremony. TIFF does a tribute award thing that I went to, which is basically just stars of the movies at the festival getting introduced by other stars and then coming out and saying how meaningful the fake award is. It's like a fundraiser event, and it's basically a parade of people campaigning for Oscars. And Frazier was there doing his thing. It felt like the whale all over again.
- [31:59]
C
What is the buzz?
- [32:00]
B
What is the movie right now that.
- [32:01]
C
People are talking about the most at Tiffany.
- [32:03]
B
Oh, gosh, I hate that question because it depends who you're talking to. I mean, I went yesterday. I went to Frankenstein, the Guillermo del Toro movie, which I liked a lot. I saw Smashing Machine, the rock movie, which I liked a little bit less. But I see why people are liking his performance. He's good in it. And I saw Tuner, which was sort of a sleeper movie at Telluride. It stars Leah Woodall and it's like Good Will Hunting but with music. And it doesn't have a distributor. And I think that movie, everyone I talked to liked it. I wouldn't be surprised if that one was a kind of shocker audience award winner because people were really eating it up.
- [32:39]
C
Oh, yeah, that's Dustin Hoffman's in that.
- [32:40]
B
That's the Daniel disclosure. My wife has a client in that movie. But independently, I did like it. Not that anyone cares about my opinions of these movies. I don't think anyone wants to hear me as a critic. But the buzz here is that lots of good movies, there will be some nominations. I just don't think we're going to see a best picture winner come out of this festival. Which leads to the question of what are we going to see as best Picture winner? I don't know. I still think at this point, Sinners is probably the front runner. You're probably right.
- [33:06]
C
I mean, there's always the Palme d' or movie, I feel like always has a shot lately.
- [33:11]
B
Certain, certainly.
- [33:12]
C
And maybe it'll be one battle after another.
- [33:13]
B
The earlier I know the film bros like it and only letting the film bros and the enablers and sicko fans tweet about it.
- [33:23]
C
And Steven Spielberg.
- [33:24]
B
And Steven Spielberg. Yes. We'll see what the actual critics say and whether they can open this movie. But yeah, the initial tracking for one battle after another is at about 20 million, which for a movie that cost 150, not enough. But we'll see. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest Jim Rutenberg, producer Greg Horbeck, artist Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.