← Zero Hour with James Poulos
Zero Hour with James Poulos
Ep 78 | Co-Founder Reveals Why Angel Studios IS the New Hollywood | Jeff Harmon
00:52:32
James Poulos is joined by Jeff Harmon, co-founder of the Utah-based production company Angel Studios, to discuss the studio's new film, "Homestead," which was released on December 20.
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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks. Dutch Bros. Is all about you choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink. Plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for new app users only. Free medium drink Reward upon registration. 14 day expiration terms apply. See DutchBros.com Hollywood is dead. Long live movies. Jeffrey Harmon of Angel Studios is here. He's got a trailer. It's all happening. I'm James Polis. Welcome to zero hour.
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B
La la la la la la.
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A
Jeff Harmon, all the way from scenic Utah. Not only the co founder of Angel Studios, one of the very largest independent media companies in the country, known for projects such as the hit TV series the Chosen and the revolutionary film Sound of Freedom, but also a father, a filmmaker of course, and a key part in creating the skip ad button for YouTube. Truly a visionary of the visual media industry. How are you, Jeffrey?
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B
Good to see you.
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A
All right, so we're going to. Are we. Are we basically at the point where we have a skip Hollywood button now? Is that the game plan?
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B
Well, yeah, kind of. Yeah, I think that's. I think we're almost there.
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A
All right. Well, speaking of piping hot new content, you have an all new trailer for us for one of your forthcoming projects. It's right around the bend. Let's take a look and talk about it. Everyone wondered how the world ended.
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B
We got hit. Does the sun. America's just been attacked.
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A
But this, this is the story of how it began. Los Angeles has been struck by a bomb. It might be nuclear.
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B
I saw this.
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A
So what? We never come back.
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B
After today, our lives will never be the same.
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A
We have looting and wise for panic. Hey, Daddy has a place for us to go. We'll be together. The city's on fire.
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B
There's a guy been planning for the big one called a few months back. Needs security, people. What is this place?
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Welcome to Homestead your guys have to learn how to farm. We grow our food. We raise our animals. Can you handle yourself with a gun?
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B
This might be the most prepared location in the Rockies.
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A
Everyone's gonna want in. And I mean everyone.
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B
My family's out here and we're starving to death. I wish we could help, but we can't. You can or you won't. Our kids need us to be strong.
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A
Please.
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B
Hey. People are gonna die at this big.
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A
Trespassers in the hills.
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B
They're stealing your Grain. They've cut off your solar power. We need a world where people help.
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A
Strangers, not shoot at them.
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B
Sometimes we think we're doing the right.
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A
Thing and then it all goes wrong.
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B
It's the end of the world.
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A
It's time for you to take full control.
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B
It's complicated.
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A
Do you think that you're above the law? Do you think that the rules aren't for you?
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B
Is this an ark or is this a fortress?
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A
It's our home.
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B
It's the end of the world.
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A
Big swing.
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B
Yes. This is a fun one.
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A
Is this. Am I supposed to be understanding something about your read on what America is facing over the next five to ten years?
- [04:26]
B
Well, I don't know if it's so much my read or. But there's. There's a community at Angel Studios that's coming together and picking projects and they're picking stuff that's very prescient right now that like. And at Thanksgiving we have a movie coming out called Bonhoeffer.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. With the rise of anti Semitism is prescient this where there's an economic collapse and there's a nuclear bomb that goes off in LA in this movie. And what would happen for all the people who love homesteading? Homesteading's on the rise. Some of the largest influencers in the world now like ballerina farms, these huge influencers that have homesteads. And what happens if you're completely prepared with a homestead and then the end of the world actually comes and you can't save everybody, but everybody needs in. What do you do? It's a moral dilemma that's very, very entertaining. And it's done in a way that families can watch it, you know, and enjoy it together.
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A
Yeah. I mean, it's clearly, you know, you got characters in there who are obviously members of families. It's not just like Mad Max where, you know, one or two relationships left in the entire world. Yeah, I mean, it's. The prescience is obviously there. But a big thing for me about why, you know, you guys have been so successful Angel Studios is the content that you're putting out is also about right now. It's also reflecting the reality that we are all living in. And so much of what's come out of Hollywood and I think what's really sort of like made the kind of light go out of people's eyes over time, just over the past 10 years or so is either just total full bore fantasy. On the one hand, superheroes, galaxies far, far away, weapons that can destroy the known universe, or sort of like, you know, really depressing, like character driven. You know, you're going to watch these people get divorced for the next two hours, right? And like nothing in the middle, which is like, yo, you know, we actually live in a real world.
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B
We actually want to see real heroes.
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A
Right? We want to see real heroes. We want to see a reflection of the fact that we live in the moment that we're living in. And so much that has been lacking from Hollywood for so long. And just to see you guys, I think a big part of why people have responded so well is because you are clearly rooted in the world that we actually live in.
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B
Yeah, it's. It's. I think Hollywood lives in a bubble. They're in this big nihilistic bubble in LA where where everybody thinks like them. They're all nihilists and they all have the same worldview. And so they build movies that represent their worldview while Angel Studios, what we're doing is we're pulling out of that. We come from outside of that world. It's funded by people from outside of that world. It's built on stories that are outside of that world that represent the rest of the world. Humanity. Right.
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A
Yeah. The immediate comparison, I couldn't help myself between Homestead is, is that Obama produced film, an adaptation of a novel a while back. What is it? Leave the World Behind.
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B
Yes. Yeah, something like that.
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A
Yeah. Which, you know, I broke down and I watched that movie also sort of about a family trying to. Trying to figure out how to do.
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B
Things in how to survive.
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A
Apocalyptic environment, but very tight, you know, sort of like one house, like one. One or two families. Very, you know, kind of, kind of theatrical in that sense rather than. Than cinematic, you know. Did you see that? Did you have.
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B
I have seen it. It's the one where the Teslas are like all driving into like those little white fake computer castaways are all run.
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A
Do you really. What is our former president trying to say about what he thinks is coming around the bend?
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B
Yeah. At the end. That was a very depressing movie for me. It was very interesting in certain parts. That's the one with Julia Roberts, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So it didn't leave enough of a memory for me to be precise on the title, but I do remember the storyline and this does have some elements like that. And then the movie from A24 Civil War has some ELE. But this is a movie that middle America can enjoy. This is a movie that's got the intensity. When my wife watched it, she screened it and throughout the movie, she's like, I don't know if I want to be watching this. I don't know if I want to be watching this because it's intense and it's got some really hard moral dilemma. And at the very end of the movie, she was just like, I loved it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like this. Like moms. This movie's made for moms. Yeah, it is. It's a beautiful film.
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A
Not a film where the main characters are journalists.
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B
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
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A
Yeah. I mean, I. You know, I've watched my share of Alex Garland films, but, I mean, Civil War, you're put in the shoes of a journalist sort of making their way across America. And I'm one of those.
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B
But I mean, just think about it. Just imagine you're prepared and your neighbor walks up and you don't have enough food for everybody. And these are people that you went to church with, and they don't have anything. What do you do?
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A
Not strangers.
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B
Yeah, these are not strangers. These are your neighbors. And what do you do? What do you do when your local mayor shows up? What do you do when I ask some pretty challenging questions.
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A
Yeah. And it's not just hypothetical. I've got some friends out in Prepperville and everything. And they're not crackpots. These are serious people. And what they reference is you go back to Yugoslavia in the 90s, the guys who are the best prepared for something to go down, all their neighbors knew it. And so the minute things actually did go wrong, it was this situation. They were besieged by everyone in town saying, like, he's got the stuff, you know? And then you find yourself, like, going from the best prepared to the worst prepared.
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B
Well, and my personal belief. And this doesn't necessarily represent the movie, but my personal belief is that if you're prepared and as a Christian, that your job is not to pull out your gun and tell your neighbors to get out of your food.
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A
Right.
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B
Maybe you need to do that with the government. I don't know. But with your neighbors, your job is to just give. Like, God doesn't care about whether or not our physical bodies survive. He cares about our hearts. And when you can share with other people, you can change hearts and bring them to Christ.
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A
Yeah. And the heart's physical, but it's not just physical.
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B
That's right. That's right. And so there's. My personal belief is that if you're prepared, you should be sharing. Right. That's the opportunity. That's what God prepared you for so that you can share and change other people's hearts. But the movie takes it. There's characters coming from all different directions, so it's very fun. The other thing that we're doing that's really interesting with Homestead is the homestead team put together a package of a tiny home of all these supplies, and one moviegoer gets to win a $300,000 homestead in a box. Essentially, it's a tiny home. You get a bitcoin, you get all this food storage, you get this, this Polaris SUV thing. And just there's one person who buys a ticket that gets. Because everybody who buys tickets, if you go to angel.com homesteadgiveaway, everybody who buys a ticket early gets entries into the giveaway, and then one person is going to walk away with a homestead. So that's actually very fascinating because the tie together between the actual homestead and this giveaway, it's working really well.
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A
Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, the quality of your guys work speaks for itself. Otherwise people would not show up and watch the movies, or they would and they'd be throwing tomatoes. But that's not all that you're doing. You're changing the model too.
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B
Yes.
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A
And I didn't know about this bitcoin thing until you just said so. I mean, this is where I can sort of put on my orange hat and go into rant mode. It's not just about hoarding the bitcoin either. It's about sharing the bitcoin. We can use this thing to create our own markets and to reward our own people and to do it independently of the government that does want to be your neighbor when sometimes it's a little creepy when something shows up and it's not a person, it's an entity.
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B
So you're a bitcoin maxi.
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A
So I mean, bitcoin is special because of proof of work. And you know, this gets into the. But you know, there's proof of work and proof of stake for those who are not familiar. And so a lot of crypto, they said, well, you know, proof of work, like the. The left is saying that it takes too much energy. And so we're going to do this other thing, proof of stake. Basically, whoever has the most of the coin has the most influence over what gets added to the chain of the coin.
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B
And just like for a little bit, I bought into those arguments that there's like technology that could use less energy, but energy is the unlock. So all money. And we're on a tangent right now. Not about movies, but all money is energy.
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A
Yes.
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B
All of It. If you go back to gold, the reason why gold's valuable is because it's the cost of the energy, plus the tools and the ability to refine the gold. It's all of that cost, plus just a little percentage is the cost of gold. And every time we increase the energy, decrease the cost of energy, we mine more gold. And that's why gold was so valuable. If you look at the petrodollar, it's based on oil, loosely. It's loosely connected to oil, which is energy. And that's why the petrodollar has worked for so long. And so what bitcoin's done and what satoshi did is he brought together energy and time, which is what makes money. It's time and energy. It's the time that you put into making things, mowing your neighbor's lawn, and earning some money. That time and energy is hooked together in a time chain called blockchain and bitcoin. And they're inseparably connected, completely decentralized, and no nation state has control over. It's like I look at the satoshi white paper, which was published on the same day as Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis to the wall of the Catholic church. And that event, that moment, separated, finally freed religion from the state. It ended with the first amendment, but it freed religion from the state for the first time. Satoshi publishes his white paper on the same day on. On all all saints Eve. And he publishes it to separate money from the state forever with this new energy money. And I think we'll look back in history. This is just me. I've been studying bitcoin for a long time now. I think that we're going to look back and look at the. The satoshi white paper as. As significant as the Declaration of Independence, as significant as the Bill of Rights, and significant is the Magna Carta.
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A
Well, I think you're right. I mean, and this isn't about, like, church sucks. Don't trust the church. This is about a corrupt theocracy is bad.
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B
Yes.
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A
It makes church and state worse off, and then it makes people worse off too.
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B
Yes, that's right.
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A
And so you know, this is a tool. And why is proof of work so important? It's important because this is about trust.
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B
Yes.
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A
And do you trust someone who says, hey, I came up with my own cryptocurrency and because I have the most of it, because I gave it to myself, you can trust me to decide what gets added to this blockchain?
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B
That's right.
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A
Or do you trust the person who's like, look, I have skin in the game, I have time in the game, I have energy in the game. This is the way militaries work too. If you want to have control over land, what do you do? You're putting energy, you can even measure it in watts. Right. You're putting energy into deploying people and material over a certain land area. Same thing with the sea, same thing with the air. Now you look at what's going on with cybersecurity. Well, most of what is, is trying to project power into cyberspace is like some lines of code. It's like software.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This is like a big disconnect from the reality of human experience in space and time and what security is and what trust is. And if you want that trust, you got to have that proof of work.
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B
That's right. That's right. And, and bring it back to homestead. You can get a bitcoin if you. Potentially you can win a bitcoin if you, if you win the homestead. Yeah.
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A
And one, one bitcoin isn't chump change.
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B
It's a lot more expensive than it was when we started the.
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A
That's right. So my question, you know, to this point is like, who was it you, like, who was it who, who first suggested, you know, like, hey, you know, any, any homestead worthy of the name in, in 20, 24, 25 is going to have that bitcoin.
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B
I'm a bitcoin guy and Angel Studios has a bitcoin treasury. So. Okay, Y in we believe in bitcoin.
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A
Can you disclose the approximate size of your.
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B
I think the public amount is 300 Bitcoin. Yeah, we have about 300 Bitcoin in our treasury. We also, but we think that bitcoin, like what happens is bitcoin creates a. No, that's another time. I don't know.
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A
We got time. If you can do it in one or two minutes.
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B
Bitcoin makes you focus on long time preference. So when you have fiat currency, if you read the fiat standard by safety in the fiat standard explains that you have a short time preference or a long time preference. When, when your money's devaluing at 7% a year, your money, every dollar you earn is worthless within 14 years. Like there's just gone. Your money's gone within 14 years at 7%. And so when you have money that is finite and tied to energy, then that money increases in value over time, which makes your time preference longer. You start think, how am I going to save this for the long term rather than Spend it right today. My wife grew up in Brazil and she remembers as a young girl, her dad would go from work, cash his check, go straight to the grocery store, spend his check on groceries that night. And they would rush and they would just go through the grocery store and lots of things were not on the shelves. But they would spend it all that night because the next day they could buy 25% less. And so the value was decreasing so fast, you had to spend your money, you didn't save. And it doesn't create a saving economy. And a saving economy, a saving economy is a rich economy. And so that extends your time preference. So as soon as you have hard money, hard to make money, money that takes energy to make, like Bitcoin, then your time preference expands and you start thinking about your future and you start thinking about saving up for something else. And then it starts expanding to your kids, and then it expands to your grandkids. And then you start thinking about eternal things and legacy. And that's where if you look at history, all the great timeless art that we have today, this is tying back into movies and why Angel Studios cares about this is tied to hard money eras. When you have fiat money, you end up with fiat art. You end up with fiat food, you end up with art that's fast, fast fashion, you end up with clothes you throw away that aren't. They aren't.
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A
They're designed to be tossed.
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B
They're designed to be tossed. And that is a, that is a symptom of money, actually, when the fiat standard, it makes this argument that's a symptom of money. And that great art and timeless art requires energy and time and thought about beyond your, your time period. And Angel Studios, our goal is to create art that's timeless. We want films that are. That are timeless, that last for generations and that people can enjoy. Your kids and your grandkids can enjoy the same songs that you're enjoying because they're so timeless.
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A
Yeah. If you're tossing your clothes, you should be doing it for Christ, not for some currency that some guy made up one day.
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B
Yeah. And, well, think about most of the stuff on our streamers. Most of these TV shows and stuff, they're not timeless. Once in a while you get a timeless one. But I think there's going to be a lot more timeless stuff as, as our model develops.
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A
I agree. You know, this book right here, my book, Human Forever on Canonic xyz, only available in bitcoin, it's published on Chain. And, you know, it's we can do it with books now. And. Yeah, it takes a little more compute to do it with movies, but in theory, you can put those films on chain and they can be there.
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B
That's really interesting.
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A
Permanently. And. And more or less. Certainly. You know, I think about low time preference, and I'm a big monasteries guy, you know, and when you're thinking about homesteads and you think about, you know, the. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, how did society reconstitute itself? How did people return to that. That neighborly experience? They looked to who they could trust because they had the lowest time preference. And those are the monasteries.
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B
Yes, that's right. Time preference is critical to understand. And. And so anyway, yeah, it's. This is the reason why I pushed. But there's also gold backs in the giveaway for the homestead. Like the gold back little. You know, those little flat gold pieces trade. My kids have those.
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A
Yeah, no, it's.
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B
Yeah. Goldbacks are also part of the giveaway. So in case there's like zero ability to use bitcoin, then you can use gold backs. And it's for fun. Like, if you talk to the filmmakers of homestead, their goal, they have a whole TV series on angel about how to homestead, and they said it's fun to kind of larp the end of the world. You know that that's fun, right? We just larped a pandemic. We can larp the end of the.
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A
World.
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B
But it's kind of fun to talk about larping the end of the world. But they said the real benefits of homesteading are having your kids touching the ground. Like when Adam and Eve. When you look in ancient scripture, Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden, and they're supposed to work with the sweat of their brow. And there's something healthy about having your kids. My daughter's got like 12 chickens, and we live in the city, but she's got a bunch of chickens she bought. And having your kids still mow the lawn and, and take care of chickens and actually make things and pull things out of the earth, it grounds you. And it's a very, very effective parenting help.
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A
Well, it's rewarding, but it's also humbling. And it teaches you that the existence of. Of reward comes through the humility.
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B
That's right. That's right. And so. So the homestead guys, that's the way they think. They're not really thinking about the end of the world. That' part of the story. What they're thinking about is parenting, helping your kids, taking Little elements of the homestead world and bringing it into your world and teaching you how to do stuff, whether you live in a city or you live out on a farm. How to use this in your everyday life to help raise a family.
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A
You got another film coming up and I want to talk about that soon. But just to sort of finish on On Homestead. There is so much controversy and criticism right now in our culture. So much of it is driven by the discourse.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's been, I think it's been bad for you know, there's always going to be a give and take between producers and consumers and creatives and critics. That's not going away. And it's free society. Say what you want, you get on the Internet, go for it. But when the amount of criticism outweighs the creative output, then things start getting a little weird. And so when you have a project like this and what you're doing is you're offering something that is family friendly.
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B
Yep.
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A
That is controversial to a degree.
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B
Yeah.
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A
That is reality based but has a window, you know, is taking advantage of the possibilities of fiction.
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B
Yep.
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A
And. And for, for secular critics, Christian critics, critics of Hollywood, critics of indie critics of all descriptions can find something to complain about with a movie like this that you're making.
- [23:47]
B
Yes.
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A
Was that intentional?
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B
You'll have to ask the filmmakers. Yeah, I, I did. I, I'm Jason Orvis is the guy who wrote the Orig has built this film with Ben Kaska and some others. Very, very talented team. And I think this is just something they've been thinking about for a long time and it just happens to land at a very, very like. Like they're landing at a time period in history where it's like perfectly aligned with what everybody's thinking about.
- [24:18]
A
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- [25:27]
B
My kids still watch veg. It's timeless.
- [25:29]
A
It's silence. No disrespect to, you know, I mean, I've got friends who. Who are also big bitcoin guys and also big monasteries guys. And they're like, don't watch movies. This is how they get you. You know, like, you have to take your eye off of the screen, otherwise we're going to get sucked into the screen. And I, you know, yeah, I understand that that is a risk. And there's always a risk that, you know, human beings, the flesh is weak, and we're always apt to just look at the nearest thing or the newest shiny object and say, I will treat this as my God. I will give myself into. I will become a slave of this thing because it's new or it's right next to me. That's always a risk. But nevertheless, I think, you know, Americans are people who still look to the screen to get a quick and visceral understanding of kind of who they are in relation to the world around them.
- [26:20]
B
Well, look. Look back. Look at history and the way from a faith perspective God has always taught. Like, if you look at the scriptures, they're stories we always think of, like, specific verses that we love in the scriptures. But the old God teaches his what, how he wants the world to view it, how he wants us to view ourselves in relationship to Him. He does it through storytelling. And he gave the greatest storytellers in the world the job of writing the Bible. The Hebrew people, they are the greatest storytellers. And you can even see it today in Hollywood. Although there's a lot of corruption, these guys are the greatest storytellers. And that stories today are done mostly in film, the ones that reach the whole world. And so to think that God wouldn't want us to use stories to tell, to change the world to be a better place from a religious standpoint, from a. If I. So I think what we're trying to do, what Angel Studios is trying to do and what we are doing is we're putting the power back in the hands of the viewer. So there's been kind of this elite monopoly that's happening for the last hundred years, where the artist brings you what they think you want, and you don't really have much of a say other than what you buy in the box office. But with angel studios, every single movie is decided and greenlit. As an executive at the company, I can't pick a movie unless what the Angel Guild, we call the Angel Guild, first greenlights that movie. And so it's a process of, like, if you're a member of the Angel Guild, you get to pick the movies that come to angel studios. And so we're trying to flip it on its head and say, as long as the filmmakers are accountable to the audience, we're going to have much better content.
- [28:27]
A
Yeah. I mean, this is such an important piece of it, and not just because of kind of, you know, it's. Technology's taking us in this direction anyway, and to say, like, oh, no, we're just. We don't understand. Or like, this is from the devil or whatever. Like. Like you're gonna get left behind. And that doesn't mean you have to chase after technology. But these are tools, and we should be taking up those tools and using them to protect the things about ourselves that are the most sacred.
- [28:49]
B
Yeah. For. For as long as I can remember, every friend I know, everybody I know that goes to Hollywood, their parents are freaking out. They're like. And for good reason.
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A
Oh, yeah.
- [28:59]
B
Most of the people in la, like, there's a huge amount of depression. There's a lot of suicide.
- [29:03]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [29:04]
B
Same with the music industry.
- [29:06]
A
And those are the success stories.
- [29:07]
B
Yeah. And there's this fear of your kids going there because most of them end up losing their faith or it's just this very difficult culture to nourish faith in. But shouldn't the best creators in the world be the people who believe in the creator of the universe? Like, I don't understand why we shy away from it, rather than. I do understand because of the culture that's been created. But if we're successful, if I'm successful as a dad and a father and as a business person, I want it to. Where my kids and my grandkids have access to great stories that uplift them and teach them to be closer to God and teach them to be better people.
- [29:58]
A
And there are examples, you know, there's Terrence Malick out there, who is. Who is praised as a genius, visionary director. And, you know, his films are not for everyone, but they are coming from a place of soulfulness and putting the spiritual condition of man right at the heart of the film.
- [30:14]
B
Yes. Yes. And if we're successful, we're going to have those types of films and not cheesy, preachy stuff. I actually don't. If you watch angel stuff, you know, we don't. We're not into cheesy, preachy. We're into excellence. But also, if my kids and my grandkids, I've really succeeded. If my grandkids can go into this industry without worrying about losing their souls, like, then we've really been successful. And. But I tell my kids, like, when my kids are. I have six kids, I have five girls, one boy. And I tell them all the time, I say, when they're watching too much screen time, I say, harmons live on the other side of the screen. We don't live on the consumption side of the screen. We live on the creat side of the screen. We make the stuff that other people are watching. And Angel Studios with the Angel Guild, that's the whole idea behind it, is that the Angel Guild lives on the other side of the screen. When you become a member of the Angel Guild, which is this group of 450,000 people from 155 countries that have come together and it's growing very fast, they come together and they're voting on the movies that they want to be in this in Angel. And so, like, Homestead has had multiple rough cuts, many rough cuts that have been submitted and gone through. The guild got feedback. And then. So as a guild member, you've already. Many guild members have already seen Homestead, but they've seen an earlier version. And then they write notes, and then the director reads the notes, and you actually get notifications that says the director just read your notes, the filmmaker just read your comment, and then they comment back. And then you get to be part of this process of refining and getting something ready to go to theaters.
- [31:56]
A
Yeah, it's like a healthy version of what the studios end up, you know, having to sort of back themselves into anyway, which is doing sort of like the screen test.
- [32:02]
B
Yeah.
- [32:02]
A
You know, and you have like, I don't know, just a theater full of random people. And they're like, well, I didn't understand what this main character was thinking. And you're like, oh, you know, and then. Then no one's happy, you know, but.
- [32:13]
B
Now the filmmaker actually can take their film to the guild. So if you're a filmmaker, if you're the Homestead filmmaker, you get to submit your rough cut, and within hours, you're seeing dozens of comments coming in and people watching, and you're seeing where they drop off and you're seeing what they like, what they disliked. And you get a general score of a signal that says whether or not you're on the right track. And then you can adjust as a filmmaker to make it work. And every Guild member is. They agree that the kind of films that we're looking for. So the Guild is people that want this. We say it's anything that amplifies light and we define light, that it's anything that is true, honest, noble, just authentic, lovely, admirable and excellent. So every Guild member says, this is what I'm going to look for. I'm going to look for content that the films that represent this set of values.
- [33:02]
A
Yeah, I love that. Lovely is in there.
- [33:04]
B
Yes.
- [33:05]
A
It's become one of those words that, like, when you hear it, it's usually like, totally ironic and like, oh, lovely and great, you know. No, but there. It's important that there be things is including on screen that elicit that experience.
- [33:18]
B
Yes, yes. And so if you're. If, like, if anybody who's on board with that mission, if that's the kind of content you want and that those words mean something different to almost everybody in the world like it. But we call it the wisdom of the Guild, where you have 450,000 people all coming together and they're all casting their votes and they all have different views. And we're able to find generally loved movies that are timeless through this process. And it's to the point where Angel Studios average Rotten Tomatoes audience score. The popcorn meter, which is the one I actually look at, is 95. 95% on rotten tomatoes audience. The next closest one is paramount at 84. So our scores are at the top of the pack for audiences because the Angel Guild is helping us understand exactly what filmmakers are, what filmmakers should give them.
- [34:13]
A
What I love about this is two things, and one's a little more theoretical than the other. Monasteries, guilds, these are medieval institutions.
- [34:21]
B
Yes, that's where. Yeah, we pulled it from.
- [34:24]
A
You know, for a lot of people it's like, oh, the Dark Ages. And it's like, well, you know, maybe. And there's some sort of like, you know, like famines or whatever, pestilence and meteorological volcanoes, whatever. But this is. This is a period of time, a long period of time when people had recovered from the collapse of the Roman Empire and they were building new institutions.
- [34:44]
B
The Renaissance. Right.
- [34:45]
A
Well, I'm starting with the Middle Ages. You know, the Guild predated the Renaissance.
- [34:48]
B
Renaissance, yeah.
- [34:48]
A
And the monasteries predated the Renaissance. And you don't have the Renaissance without the Middle Ages.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah.
- [34:53]
A
The Renaissance rose up from a foundation that was laid over centuries.
- [34:56]
B
Yes.
- [34:57]
A
By institutions like monasteries and guilds.
- [34:59]
B
Yeah.
- [34:59]
A
And just recovering that. And, and like, you know, we are passing into a time when a lot of those kind of commonplaces about modern life that seemed so amazing. You know, follow your dreams and if you dream it, you can do it. Like, if you can imagine it, then you deserve to create it. What? All that stuff didn't really turn out to be correct about the way to live a fruitful life. And I think especially as digital technologies has ramped up, it's called, sort of brought back these ultimate questions. Who are we? Why are we here? Why bother doing anything? Why not just hand it all to the robots? Why not just wait for them to press the button and blow everything up? You know, those questions are ultimate questions that go back to our origins, modern life. You know, it's not just about buying a bigger fridge or buying a bigger car or adding another mistress or, you know, that materialistic or rat race thing. And so some of these, some of.
- [35:50]
B
That wisdom about leaving long term legacies, timeless legacies, some of that wisdom about.
- [35:54]
A
Timelessness and about institutions that reward people who have that, that longer time preference, some of that wisdom was in danger being lost in the Middle Ages. And I think now it's starting to come back.
- [36:05]
B
Yes, I think so.
- [36:06]
A
That's one reason that I'm hot. Not on the Guild stuff. The other reason is it's not mandatory and it's not trying to say, you know, we're going to destroy Hollywood and we're going to replace it with this system. This is the only system. And if you're not doing this, don't participate. Because, you know, I also want those auteurs who are like, I don't care about the audience, I care about my vision and I'm giving it to you and I don't care if you like it, I don't care if you hate it. Here it is.
- [36:30]
B
Yeah, but that's not going to be angel studios.
- [36:32]
A
No, that's not angel studios. But you leave room for those people.
- [36:34]
B
Those people, those people can, can build their films.
- [36:37]
A
I mean, Terrence Malik is one of those guys. Yeah, I saw the substance recently, which, you know, this film is definitely not for the faint of heart.
- [36:43]
B
I haven't seen it.
- [36:44]
A
I couldn't, you know, really opted out of looking at the screen for the last 20 minutes of the movie. But it is a strong creative vision from someone who knew exactly what they Wanted to say, and it is a serious fable for right now about the dangers of self love and self hatred.
- [37:02]
B
Interesting.
- [37:03]
A
And the way that that can spiral. You know, it starts out a little matter of degrees. Oh, you know, I, I want to be a little bit younger for just another classic Hollywood stuff. Right. I want to be younger for just another year. I want to extend my career for just another 10 years. You know, I'll. I'll take this substance to keep me young or whatever, but I'll. I'll be able to put it down, you know, and next thing, you know, interesting, you know, you've created a monster and the monster is, is yourself. So, you know, I, I want there to be. Be auteurs out there.
- [37:30]
B
Absolutely.
- [37:31]
A
And I want there to be angels buildings out there.
- [37:34]
B
We're building the system for general audiences and families that have this concept of amplifying light.
- [37:41]
A
Yeah.
- [37:41]
B
Which is anything that's honest, true, noble, just authentic, lovely, admirable and excellent like that is. That is our brand. And, and, and so. But the auteurs. Absolutely. There's a place for them. And every once in a while there's going to be an auteur that figures out how to make a connect with the big audience. And those will come to angel as well.
- [38:00]
A
Well, that's right.
- [38:01]
B
Those are happening.
- [38:01]
A
And you know, if you have those two poles, you get a balance and then you start getting harmony between them and that's when the magic really starts to happen.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah.
- [38:09]
A
Bonhoeffer.
- [38:10]
B
Bonhoeffer. Yes. So this is a film that's been many, many years in the making.
- [38:15]
A
How many years?
- [38:16]
B
I think it's. I think they said it's 12 year project so far.
- [38:21]
A
Yeah.
- [38:21]
B
Since the very, very beginning. They've been up through ups and downs and it's coming out right now, which I think is very, very. Like they kept saying, like this film, it feels like it should have come out years ago, but they're like, maybe it was meant to come out now.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah.
- [38:36]
B
Because the, the absolute rise, just the skyrocket rise in anti Semitism.
- [38:41]
A
Yeah. So for those who don't know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
- [38:44]
B
Yep. Pastor Spy Assassin. It's called Bonhoeffer Pastor Spy Assassin. And he is a pastor that spoke up against the anti Semitism in Nazi Germany. And he gave his life for it.
- [38:58]
A
Bit of a theologian too, right?
- [38:59]
B
Yes. Smart guy. He's the closest thing I could say, kind of in the Protestant world. Closest thing to a saint as you can get in the Protestant world. People love Bonhoeffer. And it's because when you read his writings. He was ahead of his time. He was so brilliant. But he has this moral dilemma of what do I do? He comes from a very, very wealthy family in Germany and a very prestigious family, and he's a concert pianist and he spent time in the United States in New York. And so for him to give up all of that and risk it all to go try to save the Jewish population who was being attacked was, you know, just, just gut wrenching. This, this movie is, it's a must watch because the, the story of Bonhoeffer is like, people need to know his story.
- [39:59]
A
Yeah.
- [39:59]
B
Only good can come out of knowing his story.
- [40:01]
A
Yeah. Well, classic Angel Studios. You're combining like moral profundity with entertainment. You've got like a special sort of package that you're doing well, this film too.
- [40:10]
B
So the, the cinematographer, Bonhoeffer, same cinematographer, is Gladiator. The writer and director of Bonhoeffer wrote Elf or produced Elf and he wrote Scully.
- [40:23]
A
Okay. Yeah.
- [40:24]
B
And so this guy, he's an Academy Award winning writer and he wrote Bob Bonhoeffer, Todd. And this film is. Is his first direct directorial debut as a director.
- [40:40]
A
And so if you are, let's say.
- [40:42]
B
And it's an all German cast. So these are all Germans. Yeah.
- [40:45]
A
Great.
- [40:46]
B
Yeah.
- [40:46]
A
So if you're, if you're trying to buy tickets for this film, there's a twist, right.
- [40:50]
B
Go to angel.combonhoeffer you can buy tickets. Or we have a campaign that we're running that we're giving free tickets to anti Semites. So if you're an anti Semite, you get a free ticket to come to the movie. So you can change your mind about being an anti Semite.
- [41:03]
A
All you got to do is click the button.
- [41:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Just there's a bunch of free tickets. You can go to angel.com free tickets.
- [41:13]
A
A powerful social experiment.
- [41:14]
B
Yes, yes. This is about fighting anti Semitism. And so that's the reason why we're doing this campaign. And Bonhoeffer is coming out on Thanksgiving. There's lots of theaters that are already selling out. And we're up against Gladiator 2 and Wicked on the same day, right?
- [41:33]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three very different kinds of heroes.
- [41:36]
B
Yes, yes.
- [41:39]
A
So speaking of a strange and unusual hero, Donald Trump is back.
- [41:43]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Donald Trump is back.
- [41:46]
A
And many want this to change everything, you know, or at least change it back to what it was. Do you think that creatives and that artists who have felt silenced or pushed off stage are coming back, are ready to come Back.
- [42:08]
B
We have seen there are a lot of filmmakers in LA that have been waiting. They're kind of in the closet. They actually use the word I'm in the closet. And we have a list film actors, a list directors coming to us and saying, as soon as I have a landing pad, I'm jumping. I've just been waiting for something like angel to happen. Just give me a landing pad and I'm jumping. And so I think we're gonna see as, as.
- [42:39]
A
What do you, what do you say to them? How many of them do you want to give a landing pad to?
- [42:43]
B
I, I, we tell them, like, come be accountable to the guild and you have a landing pad. Like, as long as you are accountable to the Angel Guild, there's a home for you here at Angel Studios.
- [42:55]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:56]
B
And they, and they, they love this idea.
- [42:59]
A
I cut you off a little bit.
- [43:01]
B
Yeah, it's fine. Go ahead.
- [43:03]
A
Oh, okay. So. So there's Trump. Right. There's also technology. Some people are looking at AI and saying, this is it. Hollywood's dead. It's going to be like the little guy creating whatever. Whatever they want. Other people not so sure. You know, there are a lot of folks in Hollywood are out of work right now or idle. I think it's like Production's dropped by 40%, I think, last time I checked.
- [43:25]
B
Yeah.
- [43:25]
A
And, you know, some of these people are idiot.
- [43:28]
B
A good thing. It was a big bubble.
- [43:29]
A
It was a big bubble. But there are also a lot of people who are, you know, whatever their, their partisan beliefs, they are skilled craftsmen.
- [43:36]
B
Yes.
- [43:36]
A
They know, they know how to do, make the movie, to do the production, to be the crew. And they're sitting around, you know, they, they didn't join this industry so that they could sort of lecture people on their beliefs. They joined the industry to create art.
- [43:49]
B
Yes.
- [43:50]
A
And they're sitting there idle.
- [43:51]
B
Yes.
- [43:52]
A
Do you encounter people like that?
- [43:55]
B
Idle ones? We know it's happening. When I look at AI, here's what, here's what I see with AI. AI is absolutely a tool. Everybody I interview right now for jobs at Angel Studios, one of the first questions I ask them is, how often are you using AI? Every week. Whether they're an engineer, whether they are a filmmaker, you know, a filmmaker that's helping us with the promotion of the product, or social media writer. How often are you using AI? And it's a very big indicator how much they've adopted AI, how fast they're able to work. Because the ones that are. If you can find someone who is the very Best top of their game writer that's also using AI to enhance and speed up their process. Those people can perform like nobody's ever performed in history. And coders, we're seeing coders that are increasing that are getting 300% better output from just working with the AI tools, these machines to help them produce faster. But it's not the junior coders. They're actually the top level guys that are using this. And the AI isn't replacing them at all. It's just accelerating them.
- [45:13]
A
Yeah.
- [45:13]
B
They're becoming way faster. I think the same thing is going to happen in the film world where it's. It's a tool to help us. So like Godzilla minus 1. This is not AI but it shows technology.
- [45:26]
A
Yeah.
- [45:27]
B
Godzilla. Have you seen it?
- [45:29]
A
I. I have not.
- [45:30]
B
Okay. It's one of my favorite movies of the last couple years.
- [45:33]
A
Real good things.
- [45:33]
B
It's great. It could have been an angel movie. God. It's like it's morally based. It's. It's got honor in it. And it's, it's, it's. It basically it's this pilot kamikaze pilot who didn't kamikaze. And he comes back and everybody blames him for everybody else who's died. Wow. Because he didn't kamikaze.
- [45:52]
A
Okay.
- [45:53]
B
And Godzilla is just this story in the background that represents the chaos of war.
- [45:58]
A
Yeah.
- [45:58]
B
But the real story is this guy's life of. I'm ashamed that I didn't kamikaze. And now everybody thinks I'm the reason why all their families died and why I'm a disgrace to my society.
- [46:12]
A
Wild.
- [46:12]
B
And so it's this super simple story. Very beautiful. But the movie looks like $150 million film and it costs $14 million to make.
- [46:23]
A
Wow.
- [46:24]
B
And so what's happening? It looks like Godzilla minus one has done better than a lot of the like. It's more believable than the Marvel movies.
- [46:31]
A
Hearing same things about the brutalists. Like something that looks like really just like hundreds of millions of dollars and made for.
- [46:37]
B
Yes. And this is happening more and more because the technology is decreasing the cost of special effects. And this is tied to machines and getting better and better. And so I think that what happens is it's going to boil us down to where the work that robots should be doing will be done by robots and the creative work, which is what makes us different. We are children of the creator of the universe, which means we are creators by nature. And so I think AI is actually going to be a big blessing and a boon to the world where we stop acting like robots and we act like what our destiny is, is to be creators. And if you look at children, they're all creators, they're all amazing creators. And then it kind of gets beaten out of us through this industrial revolution, leftovers of turning us into robots. And so I don't. I don't. I think we're going to become more creative. I think we're going to become. I think it's going to create a boom period. And I think AI is derivative. I don't think AI is creating. Let me just explain this from a. From a more high level point. Every single great piece of art, every time this movie you've ever seen, every time this piece of art that's from hundreds of years old, every poem that is decades, you know, generations back, these poems that were written that stir the soul. Like, my wife has a book on the Stoics, and every once in a while I read something in that book on Stoic. And it just is deep, deep understanding of life. And this comes through pain and suffering. Great art. All the great stories, the ones that are timeless. If you go look at It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, that movie is timeless. And it's because it comes out of deep pain and suffering from Capra's life and from Jimmy Stewart's life. And it comes through on the film in a way that's resonating for generations, long after they're gone.
- [48:41]
A
Tarkovsky on this stuff.
- [48:43]
B
It's all right there. Exactly. And until AI can suffer and feel pain, it will never be able to create timeless art. It just can't do it. Like, it has to, like, without pain and suffering, which is what makes us human. It ties back to the story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve partake of the fruit and they can suffer and they can feel pain, and that allows them to create art. That's philosophical, but.
- [49:14]
A
Well, I gotta say, Angel Studios is out there setting a new standard. That is awesome. But you yourself are out there, you know, proving that you can be like a normal human being and an extraordinary visionary at the same time. And I think that is a huge lesson that so many Americans are ready to receive right now.
- [49:29]
B
Thank you. I don't know if my wife would say I'm a normal human being, but.
- [49:33]
A
You are presenting as a normal human being, and that matters too.
- [49:38]
B
We have six kids. We believe in fighting the population collapse.
- [49:42]
A
Yeah.
- [49:43]
B
But there is a. I think. I think that it is important for, like, as a dad, I want my kids to be able to know how to talk with God, know how to hear him, and know that they can change the world. Like normal people can change the world. They can change the world around them. And. And I think. I think if. If everybody just realized, I think there's an unlock with the way Elon Musk thinks. Watching that rocket land in those chopsticks is a moment where you're like, we can do anything. Like, we can. We can change the world. We can make the world a better place. And it's really exciting to me, like, about what you were saying with Trump back is the people who are around Trump this time actually get me excited. I didn't vote for Trump the last two. I'm more of an independent guy. But this time I held my nose and. Well, I didn't hold my nose. I actually enthusiastically voted for him this time. But it started as hold my nose. And then seeing all the people around him, and then as I got deeper, I was like, no, I think this is going to be a good thing for the world. And I hope I'm right. I kind of expect to be disappointed because it's just politicians. Politicians always disappoint you. But.
- [51:01]
A
But you got hope.
- [51:01]
B
But I hope. I hope. And I'm voting for the policies that he's promised. And. But Elon is. Is helping with that. And it just feels like an exciting time where a lot of innovation is going to get unlocked. If Elon's able to do what. And. And the team that Trump's put around him is able to do what they want to do by dismantling this gigantic regulatory apparatus that is just suffocating entrepreneurs. It's. It's absolutely. Everybody's got, like, you're. Where you're breaking rules. You can't help but break rules because what is it, the law? Like, there's three felonies a day or something, by the average way you take a step over. Yeah, you just trip over rules. And so being able to dismantle that and allow human innovation to flourish is very exciting.
- [51:50]
A
That's as good a place to leave off as any. Jeffrey Harmon, thanks so much for joining us.
- [51:55]
B
Thank you.
- [51:56]
A
All right, that's all the time we got. Till next time around. I am James Polis. This is Zero Hour, and may God have mercy.