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- [00:00]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
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.
- [00:09]
Matt Belloni
Videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself and the guests will come.
- [00:13]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing.
- [00:16]
Matt Belloni
I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?
- [00:21]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
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 bit.
- [00:31]
Matt Belloni
This episode of the Town is presented by FX's Alien Earth. Set in the year 2120, the planet's greatest threat is discovered after a mysterious space vessel crash lands on Earth. Hailed as a dizzyingly haunting epic by the Wrap, the series stars Sidney Chandler, Timothy Oliphant and Babu Sise. FX's Alien Earth is now streaming on Hulu. RogerEbert.com declares that the series from Noah Hawley shatters already high expectations with standout performances. FX's alien Earth is now streaming on Hulu. This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Cool temps are here. Time to level up your wardrobe at Nordstrom. You'll find the best cold weather must haves, including thousands of styles under $100 shop head to toe cozy from faves like Ugg, All Saints, Nordstrom skims the North Face. Free shipping, free returns and quick order pickup make it easy in stores or online. It's time to go shopping at Nordstrom. It is Thursday, October 30th. You'd never know it in Hollywood these days, but the US Economy is experiencing a pretty massive bubble. You take out the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on artificial intelligence infrastructure, this country would almost certainly be in the middle of a recession, according to most analysts. But when will this bubble burst? And could it make the current content recession in entertainment even worse? I thought of that while reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's new bestselling book, 1929 Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation. Some pretty eerie parallels to what's going on today, and smart insights from Sorkin. You don't know Andrew. He's the co host of Squawkbox on cnbc. That's their popular morning show. And and he's a reporter and editor at the New York Times. He founded their excellent DealBook newsletter and recently has been reporting on the overtures from David Ellison and Paramount to Warner Brothers Discovery. He's also a film and TV producer. He's An EP on Billions and the adaptation of Too Big to Fail, his last book as a CNBC host. He's also a current employee of an NBC Universal cable network that is soon to be part of Versant. That's the spinoff or so called Crapco company. You might dispute that term. So I figured Sorghum would be great to come on the show to talk about it all from a big picture point of view. The boom time in tech and how it relates to the bust time in Hollywood, this awkward consolidation moment, what the Ellisons really want in entertainment, the future of cable and all these chess pieces currently in play. So today it's the macro economy view of the industry. Will big tech and AI save or kill Hollywood? From the ringer and puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Andrew Ross Sorkin, who is anchor of Squawkbox on CNBC and the founder of the Dealbook newsletter and a celebrated author, including the new book 1929 about the stock market crash. Am I missing anything, Andrew?
- [03:34]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Producer of sorts, you know, for Hollywood purposes.
- [03:36]
Matt Belloni
Oh, that's right. Producer of Billions.
- [03:38]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And I helped produce Too Big to Fail.
- [03:41]
Matt Belloni
That's right. Okay, I apologize. We are nothing if not accurate on credits here.
- [03:46]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
No. But I just figure for our Hollywood listeners.
- [03:49]
Matt Belloni
Absolutely. So you have many, many jobs. I'm actually jealous of how you balance it all because I have difficulty balancing my written stuff, you know, with my podcast and all the other stuff I do. How do you do all that?
- [04:04]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
It's hard. You know, I. I think I breathe the work. That's the truth. And in a way, I don't feel like I'm working. I think I'm like. Like you and I, I think, are like, we love the work so much.
- [04:14]
Matt Belloni
Yeah.
- [04:15]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And therefore, you know, sometimes I think to myself, am I out of balance? Not in balance. I don't think I'll ever be, quote, in balance. I don't know what in balance. I'm balanced because I'm balanced for doing the thing I like to do.
- [04:28]
Matt Belloni
Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. I'm turning the tables a little bit.
- [04:32]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Please.
- [04:33]
Matt Belloni
It's not three in the morning like I'm usually. It usually is when I come on your show.
- [04:37]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Throw them overhand and hard.
- [04:39]
Matt Belloni
Yeah. So I'm a little. I'm a little. I've had coffee. I'm a little more excited. I want to talk about the book. I want to talk about this current moment in Hollywood. I want to kind of go big picture and look at the landscape and what you are seeing as someone who covers the entire financial world and what is going on in Hollywood and what honestly what people in the market think of Hollywood right now. But I want to start by talking about the bubble question, because obviously 1929 is about a bubble, essentially. And a lot of the things that were handled poorly when there was a bubble. And you got to look at what's going on today. I mean, are we really talking about Nvidia getting to $5 trillion as a valuation? Like, are we talking about these big tech firms being allowed to get bigger and bigger and bigger with essentially no pushback from the government? And we're talking about people getting rich on crypto and all of these things that are just flashing gigantic warning signs. And the implications go all the way down to Hollywood. A major studio has just been taken over essentially by a big tech company in Oracle with the Ellisons, and perhaps another studio is going to be taken over by big tech. The other studios are terrified of these large tech companies and are remaking themselves in order to better compete with these companies that have been allowed to grow larger and larger and larger. What are you seeing with respect to the bubble that we are pretty clearly in and how it might trickle down to the entertainment industry?
- [06:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
There's no question that we're in some kind of a bubble. And just to be fair, when I wrote this book, I started this eight years ago, I had no sense that I was going to be publishing it into what clearly does feel like a bubble. What I don't know is whether we're in 1929 or I think we're probably more likely in 1999, which is to say that there's just so much spending in one particular space that seems very much like the Internet bubble. And the question is, when's it going to pop? It would be hard to believe that it won't pop at some point, just given the almost indiscriminate religious like spending. I think when I talk to most of the leaders in Silicon Valley today, if you ask them to do the math, what is the return on investment? They can't. They don't know what it is.
- [07:12]
Matt Belloni
No one knows. It's like a roulette board. Everyone's just putting their trillion dollar bets down and a couple numbers are going to come up and the rest are going to get washed away.
- [07:22]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And that's the prayer. It's a prayer and a hope. And that's not to say that AI and this whole revolution is not going to change our world the same way the Internet did, it will, in 10, 20 years from now, I imagine we'll be living with AI in all sorts of ways we can't even fathom. So it's not that we shouldn't be excited about this technology, though, frankly, I think the technology will have some huge transition costs, especially for those of us who are in creative endeavors like those in Hollywood. But along the way, will there be a hiccup or worse? How could there not be? The question, of course, is, when does it come? What is the inflection point? And I don't think we know typically. I would tell you that the inflection point comes when somebody can't pay their bills. So all of these companies that are basically buying Nvidia chips and leasing data centers, when they can't make the payment, at some point someone's going to say, ah, they can't do it. Well, what about everybody else? So they can have the same problem later.
- [08:17]
Matt Belloni
Yeah, it's almost a little bit like when Netflix had that bad quarter in 2022.
- [08:22]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Exactly.
- [08:23]
Matt Belloni
And Netflix recovered and is doing great. But the other Hollywood companies really haven't recovered because all of a sudden everyone was looking at profitability and streaming, and they're like, wait a second, we were told we were supposed to just greenlight shows and movies ad nauseam and the investor community would come along for the ride completely.
- [08:40]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
That's actually a great analogy, to put it in the Hollywood context. But the other flip side of this for me is it's not just is there indiscriminate and overspending taking place that will invariably create some kind of correction along the way, it's in success. If AI is as successful as the leaders of these companies say it will ultimately be, and they grow into these valuations which are extraordinary, they have to create extraordinary amount of productivity. Well, what does productivity mean? Productivity is a euphemism for cutting costs. Well, what are the costs? The costs are us, Matt. The costs are us. And so even in success, success could also look like failure. And that, to me, is the great conundrum of this moment.
- [09:24]
Matt Belloni
Yes. Well, nobody can create the chemistry that you and Joe Kernan have on Squawkbox. AI is not doing that.
- [09:32]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
God bless you. God bless you.
- [09:35]
Matt Belloni
What is going to be the AOL Time Warner of this moment? Because obviously, people look back at the Internet bubble and look at some of the dumb corporate maneuvering that was done at the time. And AOL buying Time Warner essentially is considered one of the worst mergers of all time. You know, are we going to look back in the media world and is, you know, the Ellison takeover of two Hollywood studios going to be looked back as dumb or a necessary consolidation in this moment?
- [10:06]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Look, I think that what David Ellison's doing with Paramount is extraordinary and ultimately could work. It probably only works, and I put works in sort of air quotes. If, in fact he's able to consolidate more.
- [10:20]
Matt Belloni
You think so you think he needs more for this to work?
- [10:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I think on its own, he wouldn't say it's a subscale play, but on a relative basis to a Netflix. I think you'd have to invest an extraordinary amount in content if you're not going to own some other platform and you're going to have to spend an extraordinary amount of money to market that platform and do all of that. So there's a reason why he wants Warner Brothers as much as he does and how aggressive he is in terms of approaching that company. So I think even if he doesn't get Warner Brothers ultimately, I would even imagine there might have to be some other transactions that take place probably that are smaller or ultimately. I mean, we keep talking about, you know, what happens to the parent company, at least the current parent company of cnbc. It's going to be spun off soon. But everybody thinks that, you know, Brian Roberts is going to want to buy Warner Brothers if he could buy Warner Brothers. But you could also eventually see maybe a peacock deal with Paramount too. Like that would be a possibility. It's not off the table.
- [11:20]
Matt Belloni
Yeah.
- [11:21]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And by the way, I speak as a journalist, not as an insider. I don't.
- [11:24]
Matt Belloni
Of course, yes. I mean, and I was gonna add another title. You are still doing reporting and you actually had the letter from Ellison to the Warner Brothers discovery board for a story in the New York Times just showing that it's actually pretty overt. He is telling them that our two companies together can be a scaled operation. So he's sort of admitting that he needs this. How high do you think he's willing to go to get this company? The last rejected offer was 2350 a share. Zaslav said, thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate the fake job that you are willing to offer me, but we're not going to do that. He's telling his staff in a town hall yesterday, Lucas reported that they think that they can get a lot more money for this company. Ellison, via the New York Post, is saying, we're willing to walk away. Although he was also willing to walk away from Paramount, we were told. How high do you think he goes?
- [12:23]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I don't know, I mean, I think the investor class and some of the analysts would love to get $30. And I think if the company was offered $30, they'd probably just have to take it and that would be that.
- [12:34]
Matt Belloni
And Mike Cavanaugh said today on the Comcast earnings, or it didn't say, but at least suggested that they would be interested in the studios and streaming half of the company. But it doesn't sound like Comcast is interested in the entirety of the company. Which leaves Paramount as so far the only company that is interested in all of Warner Discovery, including cable.
- [13:00]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
So the big question for the board of Warner Brothers, I think is going to be this. You're either going to be sitting with a bid from David Ellison and Larry Ellison and let's call it 25 even, $26. And you would either take that for the whole thing and call it a day, or would you be willing to take the following risk? You split the company, the legacy cable assets continues apace as a publicly spun out company. And you sell the studio business effectively to either a Comcast to a Amazon. I don't know how interested really ultimately a Netflix or an Apple would be in that business.
- [13:47]
Matt Belloni
I don't think they are.
- [13:48]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I think we've gotten a lot of mixed views about that. But could Comcast make a play for just effectively the studio business, the business that David Zaslav was going to run? Could Amazon make a play for those businesses? I think that's possible. And then the question is, if you're the board of Warner Brothers and you can either take the full takeout price or you could take the sort of split the baby and take half on the studio business from Comcast or Amazon and then see what happens to the publicly traded company. Is that a better path? And that is going to be a question depending on what kind of number you could get for the studio business.
- [14:27]
Matt Belloni
And that is where I believe money wins. Because I think Ellison will nudge higher and higher until it becomes so attractive and that every model they run and every banker they talk to and every interview they do, it becomes inevitable that that is the most beneficial path. The money now versus the potential for a little more, but a lot of uncertainty later.
- [14:53]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I do think that if you are potentially a Comcast and potentially an Amazon and maybe others that you might think to yourself, this is our last big chance. I mean, Peacock, in fairness, is a. Is a subscale business as well. They've talked about that. They've talked about wanting to do joint ventures and mergers.
- [15:12]
Matt Belloni
41,000,000 subs as of today, if you.
- [15:15]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Take that business and you will never have the opportunity to merge it with a Warner Brothers and that chess pieces off the table, your options become more limited. And so how much would you pay or frankly even overpay for the privilege of both preventing your competitor from getting that chess piece and getting that chess piece yourself? And then throw Amazon into the mix. I could see them also potentially for that asset and that library bid relatively competitively because it would then put them really in a very similar place to a Netflix potentially, or at least a Disney.
- [15:56]
Matt Belloni
Right. And that's the dream that Brian Roberts has always had. He seems to be obsessed with Disney. And then if they don't get it, at least they've run up the price for a competitor and made them pay a lot more, which is what happened with Fox and Disney.
- [16:11]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
That's exactly what happened with Fox.
- [16:12]
Matt Belloni
Yeah, maybe I'm cynical about this. You know, I wrote in my newsletter about Ellison. I just, you know, he's just like the natural byproduct of this current age. It's like it's, I made the analogy to the Industrial Revolution to bring it back to your book. Like the railroad trusts that emerge and the, you know, the fact that they consume the entire economy. That's what's going on with Big Tech right now. It has essentially gobbled the advertising industry, which is the media industry. And it was only a matter of time before it came for the professionally produced content industry.
- [16:44]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Hollywood, do you believe that there's a larger play for the Ellison family that ultimately relates to having Oracle and Paramount and maybe Warner Brothers merged into that and TikTok all as sort of one monolithic thing? Or do you see these as sort of disparate parts that just happen to be owned by, by one family?
- [17:10]
Matt Belloni
I think they see it as a strategic play to have all of these companies under one roof. And the magic fairy dust of the Oracle Tech is going to boost all of these content businesses and perhaps they can get a distribution partner with TikTok and they can have a narrative of a content company fueled by the power of Big Tech. Now I think the what, what they're going to message to Hollywood and we've already started to see this is, oh, well, we're just going to have these companies under one roof, but they're going to operate separately. Warner Brothers, they will not even know the difference. We're just going to buy it. They will still release 15 movies a year. They'll still have HBO. All the things you love about Warner Brothers Discovery will still be there. It'll just be a Skydance corporation. I don't know how realistic that is. I think that they feel they need to say that to get this through regulatory review and through. Not have people in Hollywood with pitchforks in the streets. But I think the real vision here is take the money and technology of a big company like Oracle and the connections they have to the Trump administration and get as big as they can while they can. And then all of a sudden, we're gonna turn around in three to four years and there is a new dominant player in town that can battle big tech and battle Disney and really set themselves up for the next generation of entertainment.
- [18:40]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Could it be akin to Netflix in the following way? Netflix shows up and starts spending money. What people thought was almost indiscriminately and it was exciting for Hollywood.
- [18:51]
Matt Belloni
Right.
- [18:51]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
They were buying project after project after project. They were ratcheting up these auctions for different series and films and all sorts of things. And for a couple of years, more than a couple years, it was great. It was like boom times. And by the way, that forced everybody else to also spend more, to buy more, to pay more, all of the things. But as Netflix got more and more successful, there was a moment when at which they therefore didn't have to do that anymore. So there was sort of a sugar rush. And then the downside of a sugar rush is it's. It. You. You know what that feels like we're.
- [19:29]
Matt Belloni
Experiencing in Hollywood right now. It's a. It's depression out here.
- [19:33]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Well, but my question is, right now, there's an element of the Ellison family actually putting some sugar back into the system, at least for this moment, that might actually force some other players to. To. To do things that might be a little bit more interesting that they would do otherwise.
- [19:48]
Matt Belloni
I think that's totally true. And I think people were very excited when the Ellisons bought Paramount because of exactly that fact. There is now activity. You know, the fear was that Netflix and Amazon were gonna run away with the business, and then there were gonna be three or four major buyers, and that's it. Now, with Paramount being reinvigorated with some money, you have things like the Duffer Brothers getting poached from Netflix. You have things like NBCUniversal going after Taylor Sheridan to take a big piece of talent that wasn't happy with the new ownership. You have UFC getting $7.7 billion to move over to CBS and Paramount, plus. So there is a. A. A sense that a new buyer of Paramount has been good I think a lot of that goodwill has kind of been flushed down the toilet with the prospect of Warner Brothers going away if, if it gets sold to another studio owner. But that has been a good thing in a very, very depressed content industry right now. I just don't know how long that's going to last. This episode is brought to you by.
- [20:54]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
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- [21:06]
Matt Belloni
And the entire time you're sitting there.
- [21:07]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
You know deep down that your car's favorite place is on the open road singing its favorite song while you sing along to yours.
- [21:13]
Matt Belloni
Mobile 1.
- [21:15]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
For the love of driving, visit LoveOfDriving us to learn more. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana lets you buy your next car on your terms. Explore a massive inventory online filter for what matters and find your perfect match. Then choose delivery to your home or pick it up at one of Carvana's iconic car vending machines. Every car also comes with with a seven day money back guarantee so you can make sure it's the right fit. Buy your car on Carvana. Delivery or pickup fees may apply. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our 7 day return policy@carvana.com Carvana I keep wondering when one of the big sovereign wealth funds from the Middle east shows up in Hollywood for real and says you know what, we're also going to bid for this asset. Or maybe by the way, we even partner with somebody else to bid for this asset. And whether Hollywood, if you will, would get their pitchforks out and say hell no, we would never work for a company like this. Or whether they'd get excited and say these guys are going to breathe even more life into this industry.
- [22:20]
Matt Belloni
Yeah, it's funny you say that because there has been a rumor that some Middle Eastern entity is going to emerge as a suitor for Warner Discovery. I have not pegged who that would be. I heard it's not Saudi, but it's another entity in the Middle east that would would have a face of a private equity firm or someone else. But the real money is there. We saw this. The, the, the Saudis just launched a billion dollar play for content to develop their IP that they own via games. And I broke that news in my newsletter and I got a lot of feedback from people saying like this is terrible but also like at least someone cares. At least someone's putting that money into Hollywood and not just launching an AI studio to put us all out of business, which is where a lot of the money is going right now. So I think people in Hollywood are really conflicted. I have my own thoughts on the Saudi stuff. I am not a fan. I think that it's tough to be in business as artists with a regime that dismembers journalists. But there are people that are like, where else is the money coming from? Hollywood has a long history of taking money from people all over the world. The Japanese, the Germans. There's been phases. This is the moment where the Saudis are investing in this kind of stuff. And there is a lot of people that say, where else are we gonna get it?
- [23:39]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Okay. You think the administration would be happier with a Middle Eastern fund owning Warner Brothers? Or Brian Roberts?
- [23:46]
Matt Belloni
Or Brian Roberts? I don't know. That's a tough one for Trump. It's very difficult. I mean, we're not even talking about the regulatory stuff. We're talking about rational businesses. We're talking about who might buy Warner's. But, like, you gotta take into account, I mean, it's not a coincidence that Comcast donated to the ballroom. It's not a coincidence that the Ellisons are so closely aligned with Trump now. It's so much so that I think they're a little embarrassed about it. But, you know, they see that that is a huge opportunity, being able to get these deals through. And I agree with them. I think it is. That's why they're moving so fast. And they know the clock is ticking on Trump and never know what's going to happen. They want to do it while they can, structurally.
- [24:26]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
One of the interesting things that I keep hearing is if there were to be a transaction that involved Comcast, that Comcast would keep the NBC stations inside of Comcast so that the FCC wouldn't have to approve a transaction, meaning you would effectively merge Peacock and the NBC main flagship channel, the network, and the Parks into Warner Brothers almost as potentially a separate company. I mean, Rich Greenfield and a whole bunch of other people have been talking about how structurally, you could put a transaction like this together. But one of the features that people are talking about in that context is if you own these O and Os, these affiliates that are regulated by the fcc, maybe you hold them back so that you don't have to deal with Brendan Carr.
- [25:15]
Matt Belloni
Yeah, I get it. But Trump will find you somewhere, and they will.
- [25:19]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
By the way, the Department of Justice still has to approve the transaction ultimately.
- [25:23]
Matt Belloni
And they will figure out Some way to extract money or concessions or something, or just block it entirely. But speaking of as a employee of CNBC and not as a journalist, what's the vibe on Versant right now? Are you optimistic? Are people afraid? What is it?
- [25:42]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
So maybe take it with a grain of salt or get an entire salt shaker out. When I say this, I actually am super excited about it. I think there's a sense of a. Almost like a new startup feeling. There's sort of an entrepreneurial feel to it right now. And the truth is, here's a business that's throwing off $2 billion plus a year. That money historically was never reinvested in the business itself. Right. I used to always say that money went off to Comcast heaven. Now you're going to be able to invest that in these assets themselves and maybe make all sorts of interesting acquisitions. So I think the next couple of years with what Versant's going to try to do is genuinely try to turn this thing into a growth company. I'm not going to say that's an easy task at all, but I think it's pretty exciting to see what could possibly happen.
- [26:34]
Matt Belloni
But it's interesting that they don't seem to be interested in getting more cable assets. Like, why isn't Versant a potential bidder for the Warner Brothers stations?
- [26:46]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
For two reasons. One is the Warner Brothers, the global business is what they're calling it. The linear channels have an extraordinary amount of debt on their books.
- [26:54]
Matt Belloni
That's true.
- [26:55]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And actually one of the great things to the credit of Comcast and this first transaction is this new business is going to have very little debt on its books. The other thing is the truth, as we all know, is the linear channel business, the cable business, carriage fee business, is going down. That is going to be a melting ice cube. It just is. Now, I think that there's a much higher floor on that than I think some other people do. You know, I'm not somebody who believes it actually ultimately goes to zero, because I think actually things are going to continue to get repackaged. I think people are using YouTube TV and other kinds of ways to sort of get packaged cable. So I'm not as negative as maybe some other people are on that score unto itself. But I think the opportunity set is to take that money and invest it in all sorts of interesting digital businesses and other ancillary businesses that touch on the media landscape. I mean, one of the great examples is the Golf Channel a couple years ago. Maybe more than that. I actually don't know the full history of it. I believe they own the equivalent of open table, if you will, for tea times in America. And that, that's become an enormous business.
- [28:03]
Matt Belloni
And they have rotten tomatoes and they have, you know, Fandango, by the way.
- [28:08]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
To me, Fandango is like the dark horse that, like that thing, I think has great value and you could turn it into all sorts of interesting businesses.
- [28:17]
Matt Belloni
I know. You know what, though? That's great. I just feel like those are small potatoes compared to the channels business, which is a much larger business, just shrinking.
- [28:29]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
No question. The singular question is going to be, if I gave you $2 billion on an annual basis, what would you go buy? That is the question. And it will be a combination of a capital allocation story, meaning can you find the right assets and what are those assets? Is that in tech? Could be an AI. I mean, I think there are things that you could do that are pretty interesting. And then, of course, you have to execute once you have those assets in terms of either merging them with current assets or continuing to let those assets operate independently.
- [29:03]
Matt Belloni
Last topic, you as a producer, has anyone optioned 1929 yet?
- [29:09]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Not yet, but we're in talks on a couple of fronts. There's been a couple of folks who've come with some different ideas, some in the straight film business, couple in the sort of limited series scenario, and actually an interesting one in the sort of series universe. So I think it actually could be pretty interesting. So stay tuned.
- [29:29]
Matt Belloni
As they say, does the Ellison regime change the plan for the billions universe? Remember, Chris McCarthy at Paramount was talking about billions, Miami and trillions. Remember trillions?
- [29:42]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I do.
- [29:44]
Matt Belloni
Is that still happening or is Cindy Holland at Paramount going a different direction?
- [29:49]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
I don't know the answer to that question, so I don't have a great answer for you, but one can always hope.
- [29:54]
Matt Belloni
Well, I hope for the sake of you and your various jobs that they. That they do that and that you have to spend a lot of time on four different billion shows and make a lot of money doing it.
- [30:04]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
God bless you.
- [30:05]
Matt Belloni
All right. Thank you very much, Andrew, very much. Enjoyed the book.
- [30:09]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.
- [30:12]
Matt Belloni
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, it's Halloween this weekend. I want to start with a quiz. What would you say, according to Nielsen, is the most viewed horror movie during the first week of October? October 1st through October 7th of this year? Most viewed not on streaming, but on streaming. And Linear Hereditary? Nope. Not even in the top 10. It is Megan 2.0. Really? Our guy, Jason Blum, one of the biggest flops of the year. It is the number one title for horror movies. According to Nielsen, on linear and streaming. 115 million minutes viewed. Not bad. And it's only on Peacock. I think that is a testament to the fact that when something gets a lot of attention, this happens all the time on home video. When something gets a lot of attention for flopping people, check it out.
- [31:06]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Does that mean a movie like Madame Web did well on?
- [31:08]
Matt Belloni
Oh yeah. Madame Web killed it on Netflix. Yes. The top five are Scream. The original is number two. That one is on various streamers and also on Paramount Network and Showtime for Linear, something called Bring Her Back, which I believe is a recent Warner Brothers movie. It's on HBO and HBO Max 28 years later, which makes sense. That is the zombie sequel from the summer. It's now on Netflix. Whatever happened to Baby Jane? That's old. Why is that number five? 1962, bizarre, slenderman. Netflix is on Netflix. I believe that's a Sony title. Tremors, amc, IFC and various streaming platforms. Sinners. That makes sense. It's a new movie. The 2018 version of Halloween, which is on Hulu. And the Intruder. What is the Intruder?
- [32:01]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Intruder is a 2019 film with Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy.
- [32:07]
Matt Belloni
It's on something called Bounce. Bounce is the digital streamer for Scripps Networks. Was not aware of that. It targets African Americans. Michael Ealy, the star. So I guess that makes sense. And actually my prediction is, given this list and given the fact that this is a new title on Peacock, I'm going to say that when we look at the October ratings for linear and streaming, M3GAN 2.0 will be the top horror movie of the month. And that's only R rated. Like Hocus Pocus 2 does amazing on Disney every year. There are other things that are perennially popular like Nightmare Before Christmas and Simpsons episodes for Halloween. But for R rated horror movies, I'm gonna go with M3gan 2.0 for the the rest of October.
- [32:53]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
It's a good example of a movie that doesn't necessarily work in the box office. Doesn't mean it might not be successful down the road and is useless to a studio. And that these things can actually come back around and profit you in other ways.
- [33:03]
Matt Belloni
Oh yeah, of course. And like I said, the notoriety around being a bomb can sometimes help on home video. The opposite is also true. Some of these big summer blockbusters that do a billion dollars, they don't end up being huge on streaming. I know Warner Brothers was really disappointed with Barbie and how Barbie did on streaming, it just was not as big of a phenomenon. Even Superman? Superman, like the viewership. Warner Brothers was touting it, but, like, it wasn't that big. Most Netflix movies are bigger than what Superman did.
- [33:31]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
But are you talking about once it goes to streaming or are you talking about, like, EST and stuff like that?
- [33:36]
Matt Belloni
I'm talking once it's on subscription, video, on demand.
- [33:39]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Because a lot of these movies do well on est, right? Like, Wicked made a ton of money the second it was available for rent.
- [33:46]
Matt Belloni
Yes. Depending on when they make it available, if it's right after the release or if they hold it for a little while. Yes.
- [33:51]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Why do you think that is? For movies like whatever, Mission Impossible, Barbie.
- [33:55]
Matt Belloni
It depends on when they put them make them available. Like, Mission Impossible was not available on any home video platform for months, but then it was. I'm sure it did fine. But, you know, if they had made it available like they did for Wicked. Wicked was available on P VOD a month after it was in theaters, and I'm sure that really helped. They were putting out press releases about how much they did on P VOD because of how close it was to the release, and theaters hate that.
- [34:20]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
But you basically ride the marketing wave while it's still relevant, as opposed to letting it, quote, unquote, die in the narrative before going on streaming. It's like a delicate balance of how long you need to keep a movie in theaters to kind of hit the profitability as much as you can in theaters versus capitalizing on streaming.
- [34:34]
Matt Belloni
And I'm sure there are models that they have the studio. I'm sure many, many management consultants have advised on what the exact right date is for a P VOD release. But I'm going with Megan 2.0 as the champion of the horror movie season of October. We'll see. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Andrew Ross Sorkin, producer Craig Horlbeck, Arter, Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you next week.
- [35:03]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained.
- [35:09]
Matt Belloni
One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly.
- [35:13]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New team the new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you this episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's cybersecurity awareness month, and Lifelock has tips to protect your identity, use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let Lifelock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free trial@lifelock.com podcast terms apply.