← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Why Spider-Man Broke Records, and Why Peacock Partnered With YouTube
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This episode of the Town is presented by HBO Max. HBO Max presents hacks nominated for 25 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series. In the aftermath of mistaken news reports that Deborah passed away, she and Ava returned to Las Vegas determined to secure Deborah's legacy as a comedian. Don't miss the series Variety is calling one of TV's best comedies ever. Hacks is now streaming on HBO Max. This episode is brought to you by Accenture when your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com Spotify it is Monday, August 3rd most of the chaos in the entertainment business these days can be attributed to the desperate battle for scale. The old cable TV model is dying. The Internet has enabled massive hyperscalers like Google and Amazon to gobble up attention in advertising, and what's left of the remaining Hollywood studios are scrambling to figure out their place in the new hierarchy. See the warnermount merger for an example of that. That's why this latest deal between peacock and YouTube is so interesting. If you didn't see it. Last week, Comcast announced that it would allow Peacock, its US only streaming service that has struggled, to rise above 48 million subscribers and only just recently became profitable. It's going to be available on the premium tier of YouTube. That's the ad free tier that currently costs about 16 bucks a month in this country for the individual plan, and it has about 125 million subscribers worldwide. That will instantly put Peacock in front of a lot more people. Good for Peacock, though we'll have to share that revenue with YouTube for the privilege. And on the YouTube side, this is probably even more beneficial. When the deal kicks in early next year, YouTube will have a whole bunch of premium programs and universal movies and sports like Sunday Night Football and the NBA without having to pay explicitly for them. It also sets a precedent where all of a sudden in a few years from now, most of the other streamers content could live on YouTube Premium for a price, of course. So who's the real winner here? We're gonna get into that today with Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy. We'll hit the massive Spider man opening weekend as well. 360 million domestic and 932 million worldwide, the biggest ever. And we'll get into a little on the warnermount merger as well. So today it's a news dump day, and mostly it's the peacock YouTube deal. Is this really a game changer? From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Back again. Welcome, Lucas. I was out last week on vacation, so I have not seen Spider man, but did you see Spider Man?
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B
Yes. The folks at Sony were kind enough to invite me to the premiere they had in Hollywood a week ago. I guess it's excellent.
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A
So you were not surprised that it became the biggest movie of all time?
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B
No, I am surprised. Cause I don't. You know, it's so funny how this stuff works. It feels like, culturally, for the last few weeks, right, like the Odyssey has been ubiquitous. You know, the press tour and the stories about the lengths people have gone to for the right tickets. And some of that is also just sort of our probably age group and social class where it's like, everyone I know wants to see that movie or is talking about, should I see that movie? All that.
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A
I listened to Derek Thompson's interview with Emily Wilson, for God's sake.
- [03:50]
B
I heard her on a different podcast. But, yes, silence on Spider Man. It's not something that people I know are talking about. And so it's hard for me to judge. I knew it would be big. It's why I ended up taking it first in our box office draft.
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A
Oh, you already went there. All right. So you took it first. You were going to win the draft. I am not conceding. The year is not over.
- [04:13]
B
I thought it would be big because all Spider man movies are big. I just, like, it's hard to know how or why a movie goes from, like, yeah, it's going to make, you know, a billion two, a billion four to biggest opening ever, at least domestically. Avengers is still going to be bigger globally, but this movie is now on a glide. Like, now it's going to hit 15 to who knows how big it's going to get. Like, what accounts for that movie being that big? Why have the last two Tom Holland Spider man movies been the biggest movies since the Avengers?
- [04:47]
A
That is the question. And I have theories on this one. I actually think there are a few factors. Obviously, the star power. This movie caught two of this generation's biggest stars right at the beginning of their ascent and has followed them upward. They had a huge movie two weeks ago. People, you know, knew them, knew they were in this movie that was coming and it just all everything hit at the same time. And they benefited from the star power of Tom Holland and Zendaya. But I think there's more going on here. First of all, the scarcity issue. This is the first Spider man standalone in almost five years. And that matters these days. You know, the theatricality question is all about feeling special and unique. Gotta see it now, gotta see it on the big screen. And when you don't do a movie for five years, you build up that anticipation. And there wasn't even a spider verse animated movie for the last three years. I mean that's more for the delays that they've had with Lord and Miller. But they've very nicely spaced this out where they have five years of pent up demand for this. And it's something that I think other franchises could learn from given what we've seen this summer. You know, Supergirl tanked a year after a Superman movie. Minions and Monsters is disappointing because they had a previous one two years ago. And you go back even something like Mandalorian and Grogu that, you know, obviously there hasn't been a Star wars movie in seven years, but there has been Disney Star wars shows recently, including Mandalorian. Moana is another example where they had Moana 2 and that completely usurped the demand to see this live action remake. So I think the scarcity issue is real.
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B
I think scarcity and time Away is one of the sort of defining stories of the summer. Actually, I'm kind of a colleague and I are doing an essay for the upcoming issue of BusinessWeek all about sort of the lessons from the year in movies. And one of them is about this issue and sort of this. There has been a rushing of titles or we've sort of exiting the MCU era of where everything is interconnected and you get something new every six months. And people like sort of the. It was, it's in, it's in music. Sort of like the what, what Drake did where he just like flooded the zone with new music every six months. And then at a certain point people got a little burnt out. Right. And I think now it makes more sense to sort of take your time with franchises. You can have touch points with people, whether it's on social or something like that. But people don't want a new installment of a movie every year. They just don't.
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A
And they don't want to have to follow along. It feels like homework. And these Spider man movies, they exist in their own universe. You don't have to have seen all the other stuff. You can be a casual Spider man fan and all you have to know going into this one is that he forgets his friends and he's got to start over. So there you go. Like it's all there. Plus, I do think, and I know this sounds a little bit of a shill for Sony, but the movies are good. Like people generally have liked the past three Spider man movies and you build up that brand equity when the movies are good. They like Tom Holland and the partnership between Marvel Studios producing, Sony Distributing and producing, that has worked. So you get that built up demand.
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B
You know, it's funny, people in Hollywood love to say that the reason, like if you're trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, it's about what's good and what's not. And I think that's kind of total bs. We see bad movies do well all the time and we see good movies underperform. But yes, they have done a very good job with the franchise where by and large, the Spider man movies are kind of well made. They get solid reviews, they're entertaining, and they don't have the problems that some of the DC and Marvel movies have had in recent years.
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A
And again, they haven't overdone it. Spider man has not popped up in Thunderbolts or Fantastic Four or any of these other movies where they could have diluted the brand value. Now obviously they're using Spider man to, spoiler alert, launch X Men and lead into Avengers Doomsday. So good for them. Maybe it will rub off on my big movie for the year, Avengers.
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B
This one also did pretty well in China, which is like unusual for Hollywood movies these days. I think it hit north of $100 million there or something like 121 for
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A
the opening five days. Yeah, not bad. All right, issue number two, I feel like John McLaughlin here. Issue number two, we're moving on to things that I missed while I was on vacation. Updates in the warnermount merger. We're now waiting for the trial date. Paramount wants November. The state has said they want April. We're probably gonna see something in the middle. Right.
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B
Can I ask you a question off that?
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A
Yeah.
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B
If you are Paramount and Warner and you want a trial like tomorrow, why throw out November?
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A
Well, they don't want a trial tomorrow. It takes time to put together the factual record that they want, that they feel they need to show this judge that their merger is pro competition. Yada, yada yada, all the things they say.
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B
So even though they think it's such a slam dunk case. You think they need, you know, they need two or three months to get their get ready.
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A
That's what they. Yeah, I do think. Listen, having been a litigator, it's not easy. You got to get the witnesses, you got to depose them. You got to get all the stuff together. You put together your, you know, your. Your motions, all of it. And that's going to take time. I mean, I think they would have loved to have an early determination that the preliminary injunction was denied, but they saw where this was going with the judge and. And if they feel that this judge is inclined to side with the states on that issue, then they've got to really put together a great case. That's why they brought in this new lawyer, Beth Wilkinson. She has tons of experience on antitrust trials. She got the Microsoft Activision deal approved, or she won that case and she's working on a bunch of others. Tenga, and she actually went up against the state's lead lawyer, James Weingarten, in that Microsoft Activision case. So it doesn't surprise me. They're going for November. What's interesting now, though, is the impact of this delay because everyone's focused on the ticking fee, and after October 1st, it's $7 million a day. What people are talking about less, I think, is the impact of this delay on the two companies. They're sort of paralyzed here, like you. And a good example, you and I both know that they're planning at hbo, they're planning a massive subscriber acquisition event for Harry Potter.
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B
Yep.
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A
The Harry Potter show is going to be, they hope, the biggest subscriber acquisition moment in the history of HBO Max. That's scheduled for December. Paramount wanted to take advantage of that to help bring people into their ecosystem and start, you know, getting them accustomed to whatever the Paramount HBO Max joint service is going to be. Now, they can't do that. They got to operate separately. And there's a million different examples. We saw it this past week. My colleague Kim Masters wrote about these dueling Nightmare on Elm street movies where Paramount has the domestic rights now to Nightmare on Elm street, while Warner Brothers has the international rights. And they're currently developing competing projects like, that's insane for companies that want to merge. So there's all sorts of reasons why this is going to F up these companies if this lasts six to eight months in additional purgatory, because Warner Brothers
- [12:46]
B
is the kind of the talisman for all the problems and changes over the last decade. Think Back to the AT&T Warner Brothers deal, where that deal got held up by a legal challenge in many ways led by the man who is now Paramount's top lawyer. And the two year delay on that deal really handicapped HBO in its efforts to build up its streaming business and figure out kind of the response to Netflix. Yeah, these deals are not the biggest argument or not the biggest, but one of the big arguments against these deals when folks say that we need them in order to compete is that if there's a legal challenge, they. That is time consuming and it delays you. And even when you then do merge, it takes years to figure out how to properly integrate your backend technology, your front end technology. What is the strategy? We're going to rebrand all this stuff. It slows you down and it does not make you nimble and it does not, in fact let you really address the problem. You have to be really confident that you have a clear strategy that's going to work. And yeah, this only weakens both companies. You know, I guess the, the good news for them is who. It's not like their competitors have entered a place where they're sort of like racing ahead. We're in a slightly more stable place.
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A
Yeah, the situation AT AND T was in was that was a key moment in the development of the streaming wars and putting them back two years really let Netflix just go to town now. I think they overstated the fact that, that this was a problem for them. I think AT&T was doomed with WarnerMedia from the start. They just were not equipped to do it. But it definitely didn't help that they got, they got held up for two years. The Larry Ellison question is hovering over this entire deal now. Because your point is, you know, the company they're buying in eight months may not be the same company or even worth the same amount of money as it was when they announced this deal months ago. The Larry question is really fascinating. Did you read that New York Times magazine piece about Larry's finances? Very good story. Listeners should read that story. $130 billion in debt that Oracle has taken on in the AI race. The stock of Oracle is down more than 50%. There's lots of speculation about how Larry Ellison could end up becoming the face of the AI bust or the bubble. And that trickles down to this deal. He has backstopped $47 billion worth of this $110 billion deal. All the partners that came in, all the Middle east money, they're all there because of these relationships that Larry Ellison has in the region due to Oracle and their efforts in AI. And if that company comes crashing down, how likely is it to trickle into the willingness or the ability even to close this deal?
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B
Well, obviously if Larry has real financial problems, it dooms the deal, right? It is. This deal is contingent upon him financing it. Some of the recent coverage of Larry Ellison and the state of Oracle is probably the first time I've really had any doubt because I think the, when people make the point about oh, Oracle stock is up or like, is down, however, much like I, I don't think that someone who is as wealthy as Larry is and who has access to the financing that he does is going to allow the day to day fluctuations of the stock price impact whether he is backing his son in doing this deal. Right. He has made this commitment along. He made the commitment, he's going to stick with it. He knows that if he needs money, he can get it. The thing that would really get in the way is if Oracle entered a tailspin that was sort of more dramatic than just what we're at now. Right?
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A
Yeah, the dot com bubble.
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B
Yes. If there is in fact the AI bust that people are predicting, then yes, things get really, really hairy. But we are not there yet.
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A
Now to be clear, when you ask Paramount about this, they say the money is all lined up, everything is locked, the deal was consummated with certain things contemplated and that the fluctuations of the Oracle stock will not impact this deal. But I agree with you that if this starts to get really bad, I mean, according to this story, I didn't know this, of how much Larry has borrowed against his shares and to the point where the board is monitoring how much and he's the only Oracle employee that gets to do this and he spent a lot of money borrowing against those shares. Now he's still among the richest people
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B
in the world and he's best buddies with the richest person in the world who will undoubtedly help him out if he needs it.
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A
Elon.
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B
Yes.
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A
Yeah, that could be true. Although that, that would be, that would add another regulatory issue if Elon Musk somehow becomes involved in the ownership of cnn.
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B
Yeah, well, when, when people push for the sale of cnn, that's, you know, that's one of the possible outcomes.
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A
Oh, that Elon buys it.
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B
Yeah. That's hilarious.
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A
It would be funny if all of these Democrats are like, sell cnn. Okay. Elon. Yes. It's going to be part of Twitter and Grok is going to now host, you know, the CNN morning show.
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B
What, what has your ratio of confidence in the deal changed at all.
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A
I was actually just going to ask you that.
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B
I.
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A
You know, listen, I have been hesitant to declare that this deal will or won't happen. I do think there's still a high likelihood, especially if they can come to some kind of settlement that makes everybody happy. I think that that's where this has all been headed. I did notice in your newsletter you did not cite the Journal's reporting on Gavin Newsom's reluctance to back this deal. I assume that's because you are skeptical of that. Or are you Just until he says it publicly, you are not willing to put words in Gavin Newsom's mouth.
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B
Well, so there was the Journal story, which I think followed a California Post story, which is all about Gavin Newsom's silence on this issue.
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A
No, the Journal story said that he has internally said that he does not support the.
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B
That he's been trying to broker a settlement.
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A
Yes, he would prefer that Rob Bonta settle this matter. He's. He's worried about jobs in California, Although it's kind of weird because this merger is going to kill thousands of jobs.
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B
I don't think Gavin Newsom matters that much.
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A
Oh, he does. He's the leader of the party in the state.
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C
Yes.
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A
If he went to Rob Bonta and said, would you like a future in the Democratic Party, especially in this state?
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B
Fair.
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A
Do what I say. But I don't think. I mean, that's. That's not the way it should work. Obviously, in the federal government, it seems that that's the way it does work. Now, that is true.
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B
But also, he will. If this trial actually happens, he will no longer be governor when it happens.
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A
That is true also. And he is a lame duck, and he is running for president. And he's been saying lots of things that might not be that popular in California, but are much more popular nationally.
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B
I was. Yes. I mean, I did not intentionally omit the Journal piece. I was more focused on the. I guess the rhetorical war of words. Including the column in the Wall Street Journal by your friend Ari Emanuel.
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A
Oh, yes. Ari has amazingly come out in favor of the David Ellison takeover of Warner Brothers. I can think of 7.7 billion reasons Ari would write that piece. Yeah, the exact price of the UFC deal he got from David Ellison. But whatever. Listen, everybody's got an agenda here.
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B
What do you read into Gavin Newsom's silence? You think that he is actively against the suit?
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A
I do, actually. I think that Newsom has always been savvy about balancing the Silicon Valley contingent with the rest of the state. And he does see what's going on. This is why he's against the billionaire tax.
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B
Yeah.
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A
He sees risks here to the state. If these billionaires get really pissed off and start leaving for Tennessee or Florida or Texas or wherever, that, that could impact the state. And he, he is, you know, I don't know that he'll come out in favor. He's going to be asked about it publicly, but he sees this as a potential problem and he's not running for anything right now in the state. Rob Bonta wants to appeal to all of these people in California that want him to be populist and progressive. Gavin Newsom is trying to position himself as the centrist.
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B
Right. The rational guy. Yeah, yeah.
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A
The pro business Democrat. And that's where he is right now. That's, that's my take at least.
- [21:31]
C
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- [22:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Presenting Beef now nominated for 16 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Esquire raves it's hands down the best TV show of the year from Emmy nominated creator, writer and director Lee Seung Jin, starring Emmy nominated lead actor Oscar Isaac, lead actress Carey Mulligan, supporting actor Charles Melton and supporting actress Yoon Ye Jung. IGN hails it a masterpiece. Lee Seung Jin's series remains an untouchable force. Beef the most nominated limited series of the year. All right, issue number three, the Peacock YouTube deal. This happened last week. I think it's a pretty significant move here because for the first time I think Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast Co CEO, and he is throwing up his hands here. He is saying, we have tried to build Peacock. We have spent billions and billions of dollars acquiring sports rights and original programming and putting the Universal movies there first. And they are stalled at 48 million subs. They are barely profitable. They are not a scaled player. It's us only. And this is why he makes the call to Neal Mohan at YouTube and says, Bring us your sweet, sweet subscribers. We are willing to give you our content and let's do a deal. Is that, is that the correct take?
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B
I understand your reaction and Why? A lot of people have framed it that way. I think it's a little over the top.
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A
On which side? Let's go. Let's go both sides. So let's take the, the Peacock Comcast side. Why do they do this deal?
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B
Because they are trying to incrementally add customers to Peacock and they have structured the deal in a way where they are going to get paid a bunch of money, even if it's not directly to do this. But that basically offsets Peacock's NBA commitments
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A
and allows them to pay for the NBA and allows Peacock to sort of
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B
be profitable, remain profitable, because they don't want to. Suddenly, you know, they finally got their first profitable quarter at Peacock. They want to go back to reporting losses. Look, YouTube Premium in the US is a big service. Globally, it's a relatively small service in the U.S. i haven't confirmed this, but I've heard they're sort of in the 20 to 25 million range in terms of subscribers.
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A
And to be clear, this is us only.
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B
Us only.
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A
That's a US service. However, there is some provisions overseas for the international streaming services of NBCUniversal to join the international version of YouTube Premium.
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B
I mean, look, Comcast with Peacock, the first five or six years, Comcast was pursuing a strategy that is similar to what Netflix and Disney have done, which is you come and you sign up to us and you watch to us and you are not getting us through these third party distributors. Right? You can watch us on an Apple device or on an Amazon device, but we are not integrating into their services. Our service is the standalone. And they got to a point where they have now changed that and they have done a series of deals, this being the latest where they are now available via many of these third parties. And in the case of this YouTube one, you can watch all of Peacock now within YouTube Premium. And I think they see it as
- [25:27]
A
a way ingestion our term of the year ingestion. The service is being ingested into YouTube.
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B
They see a path to use this to go from 40 million to 60 or 70 million subscribers and do so in a way that is more economical because getting the next 20 million customers direct to them gets harder and more expensive. And they're essentially asking other people to do it for them. Now the argument against it is you're just training a bunch of people to watch peacock content within YouTube, within Roku, within Amazon, whatever, without.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah. To me, that's why I think YouTube is the big winner here. Because if I'm Netflix, this scares the shit out of me because not only is all the peacock content, including by the way, Sunday Night Football and the NBA and MLB and the universal first run movies, all of that is going to be available in YouTube. And the customer, if they pay this $16 or whatever the price is going to be, the customer is going to be trained to go to YouTube to watch this. It just gives YouTube another argument for why it's the new television and it's going to be the place that everybody goes to watch whatever they want, including all this stuff, and they're getting it without having to spend any money to make it.
- [26:50]
B
Well, I want to talk about the Netflix angle of it in a second, but I'm curious because I remember you being generally supportive of HBO going back in with Amazon channels. What do you see being the difference? It's the same thing where HBO does a deal to increase its subscriber base, expose itself to more people get paid and but it, but people. That means people are watching HBO within Amazon instead of within hbo.
- [27:20]
A
It's just my only argument there is that Amazon is not YouTube. YouTube is the everything video app. Amazon Prime Video is still a streaming service. You may consider it free because you get prime, but it's still a streaming service and the HBO branding or whatever can travel there and survive here. The Peacock branding is not the same. You don't really associate any particular type of show with, with peacock. Sports is sports. You go click around until you find the sports you want. And what this deal does is it makes YouTube the end all destination for more of what you watch. It's not just the place you go to kill time, it's now the place you go on Sunday evenings to watch your favorite football team. And that to me is the end game here for YouTube. They, they want in five years, who knows who else is going to have a deal with YouTube. Is Fox One going to be next where all of a sudden the afternoon football games on Sunday are also going to be on YouTube? I mean where does this end? And if I'm Netflix, I'm looking at this and seeing all of this ingestion going on, going on and thinking yes, we are not only competing with user generated content and creators, we're competing with Sunday night football on YouTube.
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B
Yeah, I, I think YouTube is even even though they're having to pay a lot of money for it, I think it's a clear win for YouTube. Although it does require. It's not as simple as just offering the NFL on YouTube. You have to pay for premium, which we'll see. We'll see how many people adding Peacock converts into paying.
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A
Right, Good point.
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B
I'm a YouTube TV customer. I don't really then have a reason to go and pay for YouTube Premium as a result of this or if you are someone who was, you know, if you are one of the ten tens of millions of people who do not pay for YouTube Premium, does them adding Peacock mean you're suddenly going to be paying YouTube 15, 20 bucks a month? I don't know. I do think that Netflix feels like a loser in this just in the sense that, you know, there is a.
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A
We are.
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B
We have entered an aggregation phase of streaming where you have a small number of people who are playing to be competing to be your first stop. Right. Netflix has been the first stop in streaming for the longest time.
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A
And for premium content.
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B
Yes. On a television. Right. YouTube's rise on television has been more recent.
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A
Yes.
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B
Um, and they. But they now need, I think, to integrate and build on. They build on more things into their service to make it the first place that you go. It's one of the reasons they have forever expanded the types of programming they offer. It's why they've done deals in certain countries, like the one they just did in France with TF1, where you gotta come here, because we have kind of not only all the Netflix stuff, but all the stuff from them. And I feel like they need, you know, they're interested in doing deals like this with. With Comcast, Riff. Yes. If they could just sort of add Peacock to their service, that would be great. And I'm curious, and it's in a lot of ways what they were going to do with HBO if they bought Warner Brothers Discovery or the assets from Warner Brothers Discovery. So I don't know. And with HBO off the table, Peacock off the table. Unless they can, like, there's some provision that allows them to do it too. Like, who else is out there for them to do that type of arrangement with?
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A
Yeah, I mean, this is all new, but it's part of the overall consolidation that we knew was coming. Seven, eight services are too many for most people. And the ease of going to 1, 2, 3, maybe 4 apps total with all of the content being available within those apps. That's where we're going. And this is yet another step towards that future.
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B
Sure. Disney has its version of it where it's trying to bring together, in its case, basically its own services with Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN.
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A
It's just funny. We did an episode two weeks ago about whether YouTube would care that Netflix is Poaching all this talent for Netflix, for the digital talent. Like, this deal makes the Netflix efforts seem very small. Right. Like, if you're looking at who's becoming who first peacock on YouTube is a much bigger step.
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B
They just absorbed a direct competitor to Netflix in the course of one deal instead of doing a one off.
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A
Right. And obviously they don't own it and they're, you know, they're, they're getting the value out of it for subscriber acquisition. But that could all go away if this deal isn't renewed. Still, it feels like a pretty big moment for YouTube at the expense, largely, I think, of Netflix.
- [32:08]
B
I just, I'd be very curious how many people actually sign up for YouTube Premium for this. Like, are they going to market the shit out of it? Are they going to, like, I just. Yeah, that's the question.
- [32:19]
A
To me, if I were them, I'd get the commercials going right now. Sunday Night football starting on YouTube, tune in. All you got to do is click here and pay your $16.
- [32:29]
B
Love island on YouTube Premium.
- [32:31]
A
Exactly. Love island and YouTube. They would get Craig in 20 seconds. That's all he watches on Peacock. All right, thank you, Lucas.
- [32:39]
B
Thanks, Matt.
- [32:42]
A
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, are you. How interested are you in a Barbie sequel?
- [32:49]
D
Only interested if Greta Gerwig directs it and writes it. Otherwise I'm not interested.
- [32:53]
A
Well, Warner Brothers very interested in a Barbie sequel, as you might imagine. It's sort of amazing that it hasn't happened or at least gone into active development yet. But we had a New York Times piece this past week saying exactly why that hasn't happened. Namely, there's a money standoff. I mean, this is always hilarious to me when these things spill into the press because clearly the agenda here is to put some pressure on Warner Brothers to get this deal done. The way it works is the rights deal with Mattel is up at the end of December. So Warner's has essentially five, six months now to get these deals with the talent done so that they can greenlight or put into development officially the sequel to Barbie and have Greta Gerwig return. The problem is they all want a lot more money because this original did 1.5 billion worldwide. They're all huge stars and Gosling wants 20 million. We don't know what Gerwig wanted. I have not done any reporting on what she wants, but it's going to be a crap ton of money, plus points of the movie and probably huge back end. Yeah, yeah. Either massive box office bonuses that kick in at a Low number or she wants points on the movie. And this is, you know, the story makes it seem like this might not happen. My prediction is this will 100% happen. They will come to a deal. This is posturing in the press. This is CAA wanting it out there that Warner's is being cheap. They specifically fingered David Zaslav, our guy, as having balked at the terms agreed to by his executives. Now, Warner denies that David Zaslav, notoriously cheap, does not want to hand over the entire studio to get a Barbie sequel. But you got to do it. This is just the way of the world. You got to pay everybody on the sequel.
- [34:51]
D
I mean, look, if Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach and Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie want to do a sequel, you have to let them do a sequel and pay them what they want.
- [35:01]
A
Of course. Give them each 20 million, give them each points.
- [35:05]
D
Yeah, most of the time it gets stripped down, there's a new director. It's not Margot Robbie in the next one or something. It's like there's not Ryan Gosling. The fact that all of them are interested in doing it. You have to do it.
- [35:15]
A
Yeah. If I'm. If I'm David Ellison looking at this and David Zaslav is holding up a Barbie sequel and your entire model is built on franchise development and you're buying Warner Brothers for its franchises. Barbie's a big franchise. Last thing you want is for Mattel to take that franchise elsewhere. There already is an animated Barbie movie that I am told is not going to Warner Brothers. That will be developed elsewhere. Particularly in particular at Illumination with Margot Robbie voicing Barbie. I don't believe so, but they have to. The way it works is if Mattel were to take Barbie elsewhere, they couldn't have a movie that used any of the elements of the Warner's movie. So they couldn't have the same cast. They couldn't have the same scenarios or storylines. They'd have to do a completely re conceptualized version of Barbie. So Mattel.
- [36:04]
D
So Mattel could not do a Margot Robbie Barbie movie if the rights reverted back to them?
- [36:09]
A
No, they would. They would be. They would have to completely redo and reconceptualize what the Barbie movie is.
- [36:16]
D
Interesting. So it would essentially die. The franchise would really kind of die.
- [36:19]
A
No, they could do another one. There's some auteur director that wants their take on Barbie to be out there. They could do it elsewhere. But my point is Mattel is also incentivized to get this deal done.
- [36:30]
D
Of course.
- [36:30]
A
Yeah, because Warner owns the representation, the movie. And if they all of a sudden did a Barbie movie elsewhere and it was Margot Robbie with the in the exact same world, the exact same characters, Warners would have issue with that. But my prediction, this will all get resolved. They'll get paid, CIA will be happy, and we will get a Barbie 2 announcement before the end of the year.
- [36:50]
D
And I like that. Gerwig and Bombach have said they have a story ready to go, but they're not going to reveal it until the deal is done.
- [36:56]
A
I love it. Very savvy, very savvy. Especially if it's total bullshit and they're just like, oh, I guess we should say we should. We have an idea. Yeah, that would be very funny. All right. That's the show for today. I want to thank my guests, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horlebeck, artist Jesse Lopez and Stefano Sanchez. And I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week. This episode is brought to you by Peacock presenting All Her Fault, nominated for seven Emmy Awards, including outstanding limited series and nominations for both Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning. NPR praises the series exceptional performances and the Wrap calls the series an adrenaline filled psychological thriller full of jaw dropping twists and turns. All Her Fault is streaming now only on Peacock.
- [37:38]
E
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