← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
A
If you care about Hollywood, and I assume you do, if you're listening to the Town, you should really be getting the whole story about Hollywood. That's what you get with Puck. I'm a founding partner Puck and I write a newsletter called what I'm Hearing. It's got exclusive news for insiders and analysis of the biggest stories. Puck has a bunch of great journalists. We just hired Kim Masters who also covers Hollywood from the inside, plus media, sports, fashion, politics and finance. It's a must have for plugged in people. Fans of the Town get a discount on the description page of this episode or at Puck News thetown. Go further into Hollywood by becoming a Puck member Today. This episode of the Town is presented by HBO Max presenting the Emmy Award winning HBO original series Hacks for your consideration. Starring Gene Smart and Hannah Einbinder. The new season picks up with Deborah Vance's late night show finally in production and Ava Daniels stepping in as head writer. To Deborah's dismay, their ever complicated relationship is pushed to new limits as they clash over creative direction and get entangled in blackmail and betrayal. Don't miss the series Slate says has never been better. Now streaming on HBO Max, this episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Wayfair's Black Friday sale is the perfect time to score huge deals on all things home, no matter what your style. Starting October 31, you can shop Wayfair's can't miss Black Friday deals all month long. Plus you can sit back and relax with Wayfair's fast and easy shipping just in time for the holidays. I am loving my new stuff from Wayfair. I got a couch and cover for the outdoors so it doesn't get rained on. We've got some rugs for the indoor family room. Next up, my kid's room. He needs a new bed. Wayfair's the place. Gonna get a kid bed for my nine year old. We're gonna get him probably some new shelves, maybe a rug. Tie the whole room together. Everything's at Wayfair. Wayfair is the go to destination for everything home, no matter your style or budget. They make it easy with fast and free shipping, even on the big stuff. They'll even help you set it up. Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals. Head to Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. That's W A Y F A I R.com sale ends December 7th. It is Monday, December 1st. We're in kind of A weird place with the ongoing sale of the studio conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery. Our guy, David Zaslav, the CEO and architect of this fire. Sale or split, whichever comes first. He set a deadline of today for suitors to submit sweetened bids after the first round of offers a couple weeks ago. Those bidders remember it's Paramount for all of the company and Comcast and Netflix for just the one Warner Studio and HBO Max. They're now operating on two separate tracks. The dealmakers, the lawyers and bankers and other strategists. They're now furiously working up their bids and doing meetings with Zaslav and his team to pitch their version of a deal. And separately, these spin doctors are out there trying to get a narrative going in the media about which of these suitors will pass regulatory muster and get approved or even lobbying the government directly. I'm told Netflix is the leader in streaming. They'll never be allowed to buy HBO Max, the narrative goes or Trump hates Comcast. So good luck. Good luck there, guys. Larry Ellison is buddies with Trump. The other narrative goes. But the regulators overseas will punish him for that. Hearing a lot on all sides of this potential deal. And amid all the jockeying, we got a very interesting media leak last week to Lucas Shaw, our guy from Bloomberg. He reported that Netflix, in its pitch to Warners, had pledged to keep releasing movies in theaters. That's interesting, of course, because Netflix co CEO Ted Sarandos is considered the enemy of movie theaters. He won't honor a robust theatrical window, so the major chains won't play Netflix titles. The assumption has been that Netflix would just shut down Warner's as a theatrical distributor and funnel its IP and production teams to Netflix if it gets the studio? But maybe not. Is Ted ready to throw that all away just to win over regulators who might be wary about consolidation or eliminating a major theatrical studio? Or is Ted hinting that Netflix is ready to fundamentally shift the Netflix business model to if the company is able to buy a unique asset as premium as Warner Brothers. That's one of many questions being asked as the bidding for Warner Discovery hits the next phase, including how shameless can Paramount possibly be by agreeing to distribute Rush Hour 4 because Trump asked them to? Lots of questions. We got Lucas here to discuss it all today. It's the jockeying for Warner Discovery, a new phase. And would Netflix really change its business to get a deal done? From the ringer and puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. All right, we are here with Lukas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back. Lucas, you have A nice holiday. I'm sure you've been gloating about the Zootopia 2 performance.
- [04:54]
B
You know, I was really just trying to lick my wounds from being benched for Jim Cameron. That. That hurt me deep.
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A
It was a very, very tight schedule. Craig and I had to go to Manhattan Beach. I know that's like out of your 30 mile zone. It was, it was a nice day, though. We got to sit in his screening room. We got to, you know, partake of his popcorn. It was nice.
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C
He asked if he could be the typical Monday guy now going through.
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B
Oh, wow.
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C
Yeah, we consider it.
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A
I hate to do this live on the show, but I have some news to break.
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B
Okay.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Zootopia in China was. Was big. It gave me hope.
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A
Yes. Okay, so we're going to talk about that in the call sheet. That is not our main topic today. We are going to get into some news that you broke. Was it last week? Week before? We were off last week.
- [05:38]
B
It was the week before.
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A
Okay. You had a very interesting story about how Netflix is making some pledges. I don't want to call it a promise, let's call it a pledge to Warner Brothers Discovery. In their meetings, they're having these pitch meetings where they're going over how they would handle the company, what the deal terms and financial structure would be. And one of the things that the Netflix team said to the Warner's team is we will keep putting movies in theaters. And your story, which was very good, also caused a lot of questions. I wrote about it. Others were going nuts on social media. Because when you report that Netflix says that they will keep movies in theaters, what does that actually mean? First of all, do we believe them? Why should we believe them? And secondly, what does it actually mean when Netflix says, we will continue to put Warner Brothers movies in theaters if we own this company?
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B
There's two layers to it.
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A
Right.
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B
Which is. The first is the contractual obligations. So if Netflix buys Warner Brothers Discovery or parts of Warner Brothers Discovery, including the studio, those movies. Warner Brothers has agreed to release several of its movies in theaters and Netflix will honor those. So they do not get sued by talent.
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A
Right. Not just with talent, but also the theater owners. You have deals with exhibition.
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B
Yeah. They don't want to end up in a Scarlett Johansson, Disney situation. They don't want to end up fighting with the theater owners, although I think they're generally more comfortable with that than fighting with talent. And then there is the. Okay, once you get through some of those movies where they've already pledged to put them in theaters? What are they doing going forward? Does it influence, Is it just the Warner Brothers movies that they're going to put in theaters? Are they going to start putting some net original Netflix movies in theaters? What is the mix? And that's the one where, frankly, we don't know. Right. They are clearly saying this to reassure this potential company that they would be a good owner and also to deflect potential regulatory scrutiny. That because people would not like it. If a company that doesn't like, generally doesn't put its movies in theaters, buys one of the major studios, it gives deals even more damage to a struggling theatrical business.
- [07:53]
A
Well, yeah. And your story dropped just as some Republicans in Congress were putting out letters saying that they have grave concerns about the Netflix bid and the consolidation in the streaming market and how this is the dominant player and what, yada, yada, yada, yada.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Yes.
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B
My initial reaction when I heard that Netflix had said this to the Warner Brothers people was surprise, given all that we have discussed.
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A
Yeah. Not our model, Ted. Not our model, Sarandos.
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B
But I've, when I thought about it more, it didn't shock me quite as much because if you listen to what Ted Sarandos has said about theaters, there have sort of been two key reasons why he doesn't want to put movies in theaters. One of them is not our model. We want to deliver for people at home. And that's not going to change if they buy Warner Brothers Discovery. But the other is they mostly make original movies. Right. And those movies haven't performed very well in theaters.
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A
Well, partly because of Netflix. I mean, that's the whole thing is that Netflix has been actively contributing to the demise of movie theaters for over a decade now. This has been their whole M.O. in big negotiations with big filmmakers. I have talked to people who have been in those negotiations and Ted will say things like, if we do this, it sets our business back. Their whole model is to acclimate the customer to watching first run, high budget, a list talent movies at home. Why would they throw that out the window in order to acquire a studio? Is the IP and the studio that important to them?
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B
You're focusing on this very small issue. And I only say that because take a step back. Netflix has also always said it's not interested in major transactions that it would rather build than buy. And so the fact that they are contemplating a, let's call it a $60 billion deal.
- [09:53]
A
Yeah. See, what you're saying is the Warner Studio is that special to them. They're willing to throw out the model start over, add on this theatrical distribution apparatus and change themselves into a for the right movie theatrical distributor.
- [10:10]
B
They see an opportunity here that they need for their business. And we can argue whether it's coming from a position of strength, position of weakness, or a little bit of both, that they see an opportunity to do a transformational deal the likes of which the company has never done. And if they do that deal, then some of the things that they have long held sacrosanct or they've long said they wouldn't do, they would change their mind on. They might change their mind on theaters. It sounds like they will change their mind to some extent on syndication and producing for third parties because they'd be kind of crazy to buy the full Warner Brothers television studio and then keep it all for themselves. They could. But again, that's another one where they're telling Warner Brothers that they're not going to do that and it breaks with tradition.
- [10:49]
A
Yeah, they'd be producing like half the hits on Apple.
- [10:52]
B
Yeah. But also that's, you know, billions of dollars in revenue that they would be turning down if they just kept it all for themselves. And they have to do. I'm sure they've done the math on what is the net benefit we're going to get from adding all of this stuff to our catalog if Netflix does this deal? The price of Netflix will immediately will go up like $4 to $5 in no time. I mean, that might be too big.
- [11:13]
A
I also think it's a talent question. Ted can't like the fact that there is an upper echelon of filmmaker that not only will not work with Netflix, but actively endeavors to undermine Netflix because of the model, because of the fact that they are slowly killing theaters. And as they like to say, he's a cinema guy, loves filmmakers, loves movies, likes personally going to movies in theaters. He says, but he can't change the fact that we are all seeing through their awards campaigns and their two week theatrical window in 400 theaters. We all see through that and we know what their ultimate endgame is. And it's to boost Netflix at the expense of theaters. So maybe this will change that narrative.
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B
I think their end game is to boost Netflix and if it in some way affects theaters, so be it. I don't think they're goal, Sure. I don't think the goal is let's keep.
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A
They didn't write on a napkin, let's kill theaters. But neither did YouTube or TikTok write on a napkin, let's kill television. They just have their Model. And it's eyeballs at all expense. And the expense is television.
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B
So I'm curious, where are you on this?
- [12:25]
A
Are you a believer that Netflix is interested in this? Like you, I was. Not at all. I have been swayed by the not our model messaging for the last decade. But. But then as I started thinking about it more and as you look at the evolution of the Netflix business, you start to ask the question, okay, they've conquered streaming. They are the number one streamer. They have worked with pretty much all the talent, minus top filmmakers.
- [12:55]
B
Well, and even a lot of top filmmakers. There's a very small group of top filmmakers that. That hasn't worked with them.
- [13:01]
A
Yeah, it's bigger than they would like us to know.
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B
Who's on the list besides Nolan Cameron?
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A
I mean, there's a ton. We don't have to go through them all. But like, they lose packages all the time because of this.
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B
No, no, no, but that's different. They. They lose stuff because of it. But if you made a list of the 20 best filmmakers working.
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A
Oh, like the Never Netflix crew, like.
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B
17 of them have made a movie for Netflix. Doesn't mean they're going to rush back.
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A
Sure. I mean, but do you count Spielberg? Spielberg is produced for Netflix, but he ain't directing for Netflix, that's for sure.
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B
Who else is on the list?
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A
Joe Kaczynski, Tarantino, Coogler. People with top leverage. I bet Greta Gerwig would love to get out of that Narnia deal. If she.
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B
Del Toro, Fincher, they've all done that.
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A
No, Del Toro, Del Toro. I mean, those are all Netflix people. But they're putting their projects that they can't get made elsewhere on Netflix. That's the reality.
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C
Don't you guys think it's a much easier sell for Ted Sarandis to say, look, I know I said one thing before, but we're changing our tune because I think this is best for our company. And I actually think releasing movies theatrically is great. And it's easier to be like, we changed our tune. We said we weren't going to do ads, now we're doing ads. Like, isn't it better to evolve and adapt?
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A
That's the second half of what I would say. Like, if you look at the evolution of the company and you look at what the next 10 years might look like for the company, maybe it is time to. To evolve into a more full service entertainment company.
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C
He killed theaters and now he can save them.
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A
Sure, but. But it's not necessarily about killing or saving. It's about getting into different businesses. And while we think of that as maybe getting into gaming or experiential consumer products, maybe it also means getting into licensing titles to other outlets. Maybe it also means putting 10 movies in theaters and building up that business, which, as we know, can be a very lucrative business with the right movies. And maybe that is what they're thinking, that it's time for Netflix to evolve beyond just being the dominant streamer.
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B
If they end up doing this deal, I don't think that them saying we're going to put movies in theaters will feel even like an admission of failure or some like, huge switch because the deal is so big that of course, certain things about the, how the company operates would change. I guess it would be one thing if there was no deal and we woke up tomorrow and they said, we're going to start putting movie movies in theaters, but you go and buy one of the biggest studios in the world and of course things start to change a little bit.
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A
Right. But then it gets to the question of why are you buying it? If you have to change your entire model to buy, it's ultimately a choice. If we assume they're serious about Warner Brothers, which is a question, would you.
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B
Say it's a change their entire model if they're doing 60 movies a year and 10 of them are in theaters, but 50 of them are not?
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A
Yeah. Because then it gets to the question of, okay, which movies get theaters and what does it mean to put movies in theaters? I mean, Jim Cameron got into this in my chat with him where it's like, yeah, it's easy for Ted to say we are going to put movies in theaters, but does that mean a 45 day window? Does that mean 4000 theaters or does it mean 1500 theaters? Like, what does it mean? Is it going to be Warner Brothers as we know it, or is it just going to be theaters for the seven movies a year that they know can get to 4 or 500 million worldwide? And if that's the case, then what happens to the other Warner Brothers movies that do get a chance in theaters? And those filmmakers, Many, many questions here. And it's easy for people to say this during a Bake off process. It's a lot harder to know what's going to actually happen when the deal closes.
- [16:46]
B
Yeah.
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A
Unless there are specific concessions. And I've already heard people saying, okay, Netflix, you want to buy Warner Brothers, the government should put a condition on it that you have to release for the next 10 years 15 movies in theaters with full windows Full marketing expense. And we're going to have you account to us every year for whether you've done that.
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B
Are these people who are antitrust experts or people who are just wishful thinkers?
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A
Wishful thinkers, of course. But there are conditions that get put on. I mean, they're usually like, sell this or divest this.
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B
For any of the prospective buyers of Warner Brothers, there will be conditions on a deal. I don't know that they will govern theatrical, but I've certainly heard about certain things that Netflix has already said it would probably do to try to ease the deal through, much as I'm sure Paramount and Comcast have made similar promises on certain aspects. Right.
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C
Don't you guys think that the reputational risk for Ted of backtracking on a theatrical pledge after you acquire Warner Brothers would be irreparable in Hollywood? And instead he could be somebody who Champ, like if he says, yeah, we're going to release movies in theaters and then they acquire Warner Brothers, he's like, just kidding. We're going to do the bare minimum. We're going to do exactly what the. Once we fulfill the deals that Warner Brothers had with, with exhibition, we're going to put everything on Netflix. Don't you think the damage to his reputation would be, is it completely not worth it for him?
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A
I don't think that it would be a draconian statement like that. I think they would just kind of back into it. And yes, for Batman and Superman and Minecraft, they would do it, but it's everything else.
- [18:26]
B
Yeah, I think that's the most likely outcome, which is the proven franchise. Same way that like I've had this conversation with people at Netflix. Right. Like the whole Dan Lynn strategy of having like one tentpole movie a quarter. So if you take the four tentpole Netflix movies and like the five or six tentpole Warner Brothers movies, and that's your theatrical slate and the rest of it goes direct too. And yes, that'll include some movies that Warner Brothers puts in theaters right now that maybe shouldn't be in theaters. I'd be curious what they do with the horror movies. I have to say.
- [18:53]
A
Yeah. And some of these auteur driven movies, like, they certainly wouldn't give a chance to something like Sinners or One Battle After Another. I mean, those would go straight to the service with the requisite awards campaign.
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C
But those movies would never get made for the new Netflix because of Coogler and pta. They would never go to that studio if it couldn't be released theatrically.
- [19:11]
A
They would if they didn't have any other choices, which may be a world we're leading towards.
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B
Well, but Coogler clearly did on Finners.
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A
Yes, that is true. But the thing is we're talking about this without talking about the specifics. Like when you put a Batman movie in theaters, there is a $200 million marketing campaign associated with that, which is.
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B
Also something that Netflix really doesn't want to do.
- [19:33]
A
Exactly. And there is a entire three year plan of partnerships and marketing alliances and TikTok strategies. And does Netflix want to all of a sudden be in that business? I think it is a much larger change than maybe you're giving it credit for.
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B
Well, no, no. I'm not saying it's not a big change. I just think that the huge change would be Netflix buying Warner Brothers and this would be a downstream effect of it. Right. The change to Netflix and through the broader entertainment industry of Netflix buying one of these big studios is huge. And then that what flows from that are several changes to both how Warner Brothers operates and how Netflix operates. So I'm just saying this is like a derivative effect. Much as like we don't what would happen with any of these deals. What happens to HBO Max streaming service? Right. And in the case of Comcast, it probably gets combined with Peacock. In the combination use of Paramount, it gets combined with Paramount. Plus in the case of Netflix, maybe it doesn't exist.
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A
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B
I'm just curious because we haven't talked about this in a in a little bit Cause I feel like you and I, for most of or a lot of the auction process have been it's kind of Paramount's to lose. Have your feelings on that changed or wavered at all? They have.
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A
I think that the overseas regulatory issues and state regulatory issues are a bigger problem for Paramount than many might believe. You know, everyone thinks, oh, they're best friends with Trump, they're bending over for Trump. Whatever they want, Trump is going to let them do. And that may be true, but he's not the only player here. And if the other side of the aisle has all these state attorney generals that are looking at this and being like, how do we stick it to Donald Trump? Maybe we become the problem for his state sponsored media company, Paramount Skydance, and that becomes a bigger problem for them. Also.
- [22:41]
B
The.
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A
Or everyone dismisses it. But the fact that Oracle stock is down 30%. Larry Ellison's gonna be like, wait a second, you know, spending 60, $80 billion was a lot more palatable a year ago.
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B
Well, he's not spending it.
- [22:56]
A
I know, I know. He's bringing in partners, whatever.
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B
Well, or he's borrowing against and all that stuff.
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A
Yeah, I get it. Ultimately, it's. The money's not a problem, but maybe the, the willingness to let Junior do this is a little bit less strong than it once was. But I will. I gotta say that the fact that Paramount is altering its business as well. I mean, talk about Warner's altering their business. Paramount distributing Rush Hour 4, a movie that not only did Paramount pass on, every other company in town passed on. And Josh Greenstein, who was formerly at Sony, Sony passed on it when he was there. Now he's running film at Paramount and they are now doing this. That is a pretty clear sign that Paramount is willing to change its model if it helps Paramount get this deal.
- [23:43]
B
That's not changing its model. That's just buying a movie that's probably going to fail, right?
- [23:48]
A
Well, no, it's. But it's doing things that it would not otherwise.
- [23:51]
B
It is contorting itself in order to please the powers that be.
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A
I had one reader text me when I broke that news last week that this is the clearest sign yet that Larry is calling the shots and not David. Because David knows or would know this would be hugely controversial in town. There's a reason why Paramount passed on it. You know, Brett Ratner is not someone that he wants to stand next to at a premiere. He is pretty radioactive. And this movie, like, who's clamoring for Rush Hour 4? Anyone like that's a pretty clear sign that if Larry talked to Trump, Trump said, do it. Larry said to David, do it.
- [24:34]
B
You don't think it's just that David is a rational actor who sees it as a cost of doing business and the benefit of making a movie that could potentially work, although probably not to make the president happy, is good for him as he's going at his bigger. It's sort of like our debate a little bit about the theaters and Netflix. It's like, yes, this is something significant, but it's sort of tied into this larger pursuit. Like, the big target for all these people is Warner Brothers, and they're doing the things that they feel like they need to do to get that target.
- [25:04]
A
I get that, and I think David is on board with that. But because all the reporting suggests this is a conversation between Larry and the President, to me, that suggests that the message came down from higher ground to do this.
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B
I don't know that it's a you should do it conversation so much as, like, knowing how some of this stuff works. It could be a Donald Trump tells Larry, you know, I'd really love to see someone make this Rush Hour 4 movie. And Larry says, hey, David, Trump wants this to happen. I think it'd be a good idea because it could help with the other deal you're trying to do. I don't know if it's like a edict. Right.
- [25:42]
A
We don't know the father son dynamic. Or maybe it is. We don't know. We really don't know is the point. And nobody knows what they talk about, but there are huge ramifications for this.
- [25:52]
B
Why do you think Comcast, like all of the discussion is about Paramount and Netflix and just nobody's talking about Comcast other than Charlie Gasparino. Random Stories.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah, it's Gasparino. The funny thing is, Zaslav, I think, would prefer Comcast like that. To me, seems. It seems to be that he's kind of nudging towards this and the whole spirit split strategy was that so he could offload the studio and streamer to Comcast and then figure out what to do with the cable networks.
- [26:23]
B
Yeah. I just think the Comcast deal is the trickiest because from everything we've been told, the Warner Brothers Discovery board is most interested in cash. They don't want to hold a bunch of stock in another company. And Comcast is kind of the least able to give cash and their stock.
- [26:43]
A
You don't want stock in a broadband company either. Correct.
- [26:45]
B
You know, they have cash, but they have a lot more debt than Netflix does. And they don't have just sort of like liquid wealth like the Ellisons.
- [26:53]
A
Well, I think they'd have a partner. Partner that we don't know yet.
- [26:55]
B
Right. And I think there is an assumption, whether rightly or wrongly, that that would be the buyer that the Trump administration would like the least. For all the noise about the Trump administration and Netflix, that like the guys who own NBC and who control Ms. Now are the, are not the ones that he wants taking control of. Of wbd.
- [27:16]
A
Yeah. Although, you know, Rich Greenfield has been tweeting up a storm about how that doesn't really matter because the DOJ has lost many of these challenges to mergers, including the Time Warner merger. But I think that sort of misses the point here. Nobody involved here wants a two year litigation battle. The entire business is going to shift so much in the next two years that it really hurt WarnerMedia and AT&T losing those two years in that litigation battle.
- [27:46]
B
Yeah, two pivotal years.
- [27:48]
A
Yeah. And they want this to be clean. They don't want to have to fight against the Trump administration and spend all the money and waste all the time. So I don't totally buy that argument that we're overestimating the regulatory problem.
- [28:04]
B
Yeah, well, I, the Comcast folks I've spoken with have been, as you would expect them to say, confident that they can figure it out and that they have figured out how to do deals in every administration, which is true.
- [28:17]
A
Mike Kavanaugh, man, Trump must love Mike Kavanaugh. They keep putting him out there. The incoming co CEO looks like, you know, a classic Trump loving golfing executive. I don't know what his personal politics.
- [28:30]
B
Are, just cast and aspersions everywhere.
- [28:34]
A
I know I could see him putting him putting Mike Kavanaugh forward and be like, oh, don't forget about the Roberts family. You know, just this guy is the guy you're dealing with.
- [28:42]
B
He doesn't come with the baggage of Brian Roberts, whose political affiliations are better known and he did work at JP Morgan for a long time, is reasonably close with Jamie Dimon. I think Jamie Dimon is someone that Trump respects a lot of.
- [28:54]
A
So, yeah, I mean, it's not a coincidence that he's been out front in all of these meetings and stuff like that. I think. So let's update our percentages on whether, you know what's going to happen here. I believe I am on record, Craig, correct me if I'm wrong saying that, what was it a 60% chance or 70% chance that Paramount gets Warner Brothers?
- [29:14]
B
Are we at a Hundred percent that some deal happens.
- [29:18]
A
No, not necessarily. You know, I could see a couple of these falling apart over deal terms and then maybe Warner's decides that the offer on the table isn't big enough. I'm also not ruling out somebody coming in over the top and waiting for this nonsense to play out and then being like, oh, really? They only got to $24 a share. We'll do that deal. Let's outbid everybody else, which could happen.
- [29:42]
B
I'm going to say 75% chance the deal happens.
- [29:45]
A
Okay.
- [29:46]
B
Of the hundred percent pile of if the deal happens, I was going to say 60 Paramount, 30 Netflix, 10 Comcast, but I guess if I'm going to.
- [29:54]
A
Flip that, I'm going to flip that. I'm going to say 60 Paramount, 30 Comcast, and 10 Netflix.
- [29:59]
B
Okay.
- [29:59]
A
And my rationale is basically Netflix doesn't need this. And ultimately the cost is so high and the risk to the model and to disruption of a core business is so high that Netflix ultimately will not want it as much as others want it.
- [30:15]
B
Or maybe I would do like a 55, 25, 10 and then 10%, like some third party we haven't thought of. But I really don't see, like Amazon jumping in at the last minute to do it.
- [30:26]
A
No, but I could see some like, rich guy with Emirati money or something like that being like, oh, I have a hundred billion dollars. Like, wait, Warner Brothers is for sale and they're only going to get 60. Like, let's put in a bid. Well, no, one of these companies has the upper hand when David Geffen buys a bunch of their stock.
- [30:44]
B
Man's got great timing.
- [30:46]
A
He has amazing timing.
- [30:48]
B
Close advisor was an advisor to David Ellison at the beginning. Is friendly with David Zaslav buys Warner Brothers.
- [30:54]
A
He's on his calls. He does. He's in his mogul calls. It used to be once a week during COVID I don't know how often they do it.
- [31:00]
B
He bought Warner Brothers Discovery at the absolute bottom, and it's now almost guaranteed to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [31:07]
A
Amazing timing, the guy. It's almost like he knew it was going to happen. Almost.
- [31:12]
B
I was going to say almost like he definitely had a couple people call me and be like, you should really think about whether he broke the law here. And I was like, I can't in any way substantiate that.
- [31:22]
A
Yeah, that's not your job. Your job is to report the facts. And then, and then our job is to make fun of it on this podcast. Oh, God, everything sucks. All Right, Lucas, thank you. Please stick around for the call sheet. We're back with the call sheet. Lucas, as I mentioned, you must be gloating. Utopia huge. $558 million weekend, half of which came from China. Are we ready to accept that the Chinese box office is totally rigged?
- [31:52]
B
At least partially rigged for sure. The Chinese number made no sense to me. Hollywood has struggled to get anything to work in that country for like five years, basically since COVID And then suddenly right now as like, some of the people are a little restless and there's concerns about mall traffic and all this stuff, they have this US movie that they accept with open arms.
- [32:10]
A
Well, the last one did more than 200 million there, but this one opened to more than the last one made in its entire run.
- [32:17]
C
Well, and this box office draft is probably going to come down to how Avatar 3 performs in China.
- [32:21]
A
Yes. Okay, so give us the update on the box office draft.
- [32:24]
C
So for those of you who forgot or whatever, Matt and Lucas each drafted seven teams or seven movies, and then they saddled each other with a bomb as of right now. And we're doing total gross minus the production budget. And that final number is who wins the box office draft. Right now, as it stands, Lucas is up roughly about $1 billion. And he has the remainder of Zootopia 2 and Wicked for Good versus Matt. All Matt has left his avatar. So Lucas is hoping to kind of be up by ideally $2 billion to give him a shot.
- [32:54]
B
I would like to be up 2. 5, but I don't think I'm going to get there.
- [32:57]
C
I don't think you're going to get.
- [32:58]
B
Up2.5, but I could get to like 2 2.
- [33:00]
A
Yes.
- [33:00]
C
If you're up around 2, 2.2 billion, you have a real shot to win this. If Avatar comes in a little bit below where people expect.
- [33:07]
A
That's the thing. And actually my prediction today, I hate to do this. I think Lucas is going to win. I am not doubting Jim Cameron. I am not. But if you look at the trajectories, and the last one was down about 600 million from the first one and the Last one grows 2.3. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say this one's down 10% from the second one, that would have it come in around 2 billion. That's not enough. I think Zootopia is going to play and play and play.
- [33:36]
B
You think it is?
- [33:37]
A
Yes.
- [33:38]
B
The mystery part of all this is so much of that Zootopia number is China. And so like one. What are the legs, like for Zootopia in China. And two, does that mean that actually Avatar is also going to have like outperform the previous one in China?
- [33:55]
A
That is my saving grace.
- [33:57]
B
Like, what if Avatar makes $600 million in China?
- [34:01]
A
Well, they all saw the Avatar trailer in front of Zootopia 2, so maybe they just got all hot and bothered for the Na' VI and are making plans to see Avatar 3 when it comes out in a month or three weeks.
- [34:13]
C
The second Avatar made 250 million in China, right?
- [34:16]
A
Yeah, I think we could do better than that. That was at a weird time. Covid was still kind of a thing. Hopefully we can do better than that. But I think there'll be some trail off in other territories and you know, you just never know. You never know. But I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Lucas will win. I'm already preparing to have to buy Dodger tickets. I'm budgeting it for 26. Yeah.
- [34:39]
C
Lucas has never won.
- [34:40]
A
Now the Dodgers, our seats are so expensive. I have to budget it.
- [34:43]
B
Year. Year three.
- [34:44]
C
Matt is two zero. Yes. This is the third box office draft we only.
- [34:47]
A
Because we.
- [34:47]
C
We started the show halfway through 2022, so we couldn't do one that year. So we only have a 20, 23 and 24 box office draft result. Which Matt won both.
- [34:55]
B
I got blown out in 23. 24 was a nail biter and this one is looking like another nail biter.
- [35:00]
C
If you can take down Matt and avatar with the second pick in the 2025 box office draft, it'd be very impressive.
- [35:06]
A
I know. It's so funny to look at the numbers of what we picked. Like the order of picks for me were Avatar and Jurassic World, two solid hits. Then Fantastic Four, Mission Impossible, Thunderbolts, how to Train youn Dragon in F1.
- [35:21]
B
Your sequence made sense. Mine is the one that is all.
- [35:25]
A
Out of the book. F did a lot better than Thunderbolts.
- [35:26]
C
Lucas has Minecraft and Lilo and Stitch way late in his draft.
- [35:29]
B
In fairness, I actually wanted to take Minecraft third. I remember during the draft and then I was about to and Matt said like, don't do it, don't do it. And I think he thought I was going to take something else. And I took that to mean like, Matt is not interested and I can save this for later.
- [35:44]
A
Yeah, that's smart.
- [35:46]
B
You know, we'll see.
- [35:46]
A
Yeah, you have Superman, you have Captain America, Minecraft. You also had Snow White.
- [35:51]
B
Snow White. Snow White was the stinker. If I had taken the conjuring over Snow White, which I, I did debate I would be in pretty good shape.
- [35:59]
A
Yeah. And the bombs you gave me Mickey 17, which was a legit bomb I gave you. I initially gave you Alto Knights, but then we determined the budget was too low. So I gave you one battle after another, which is going to lose money, but did get to 200 million.
- [36:15]
C
It's not going to lose money for the purposes of.
- [36:17]
B
But it's not going to lose, not for our purposes. It's going to make like 60 million, $70 million for me. And Mickey 17 was basically neutral for you.
- [36:26]
C
So, Matt, you're going to treat us to the cheapest nosebleed seats available at Dodger Stadium.
- [36:30]
A
Well, you know what? We never actually said the game had to be at Dodger Stadium. This could be a spring training situation. This could be. We might be going to an Angels.
- [36:40]
C
Dodgers game the one time they play the A's in Sacramento. You'll take us?
- [36:43]
A
Yes. Make you fly to Milwaukee to see the Dodgers for cheap ticket prices. No, I will honor my bets. I honor my bets. But it's not over yet. Come on, Jim. I've never wanted Jim Cameron to succeed more than I do right now. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horbeck, Art Jesse Lopez and I want to thank you. We will see you a couple more times this week.
- [37:07]
E
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [37:29]
F
Of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy, taxes and fees extra. Cmtmobile.
- [37:37]
A
Com.