transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:44] This episode of The Town is presented to you by AMC Networks. Billy Magnuson and Zach Galifianakis star in the new series, The Audacity, on AMC and AMC+. Influence Rises, People Unravel, and CEO Meltdowns are business as usual among Silicon Valley elite. Executive produced by Jonathan Glatzler, a writer, producer of Succession and Better Call Saul. Watch new episodes of The Audacity, Sundays exclusively on AMC and AMC+. It is Wednesday, April 22nd. Today is the second of our two live episodes recorded at CinemaCon, the theater convention last week. Posted to Jon Favreau on Thursday. You can check out that episode in our feed. And today it's two very different kinds of filmmakers. Jerry Bruckheimer has been one of the most prolific producers of the past 50 years, starting in the 70s through his partnership with Don Simpson in the 80s, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, then the action movies in the 90s and 2000s, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, CSI for TV, and most recently, last year's F1, a big hit that earned him his second Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Our other guests won Best Picture in 2024 for Oppenheimer. Emma Thomas has produced all of the films directed by her husband, Christopher Nolan. Both were in Vegas last week for CinemaCon and were joined on a panel with me and Michael O'Leary of Cinema United, the theater industry's top lobbyist. He's been on the show before. We talked about the new Filmmakers Council that both Jerry and Emma are supporting. Then we got into a bunch of industry topics, the Windows question, the whole petition to block the Warner Brothers Paramount merger, the hot genres at the studios right now, a bunch of stuff. Today, it's a couple of top producers live from Las Vegas. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Belloni and this is The Town. All right, welcome, first of all. Thanks for doing this. I wanna start with something that we announced on The Town last week, and you have been discussing for the majority of interviews you've done, Michael, and I wanna get the perspective of the filmmakers here, this new council of filmmakers that has been announced that is going to advocate on behalf of movie going and movies in theater. Jerry, why did you sign on to do this?

Speaker 3:
[03:08] Well, I think it's so important to support the theaters that show our product. I mean, that is the key. The fact that we have these huge theaters that we have to fill, and we want more of them. And fortunately, now the business is coming back. We had a long, terrible run starting with COVID, that kind of shut things, shut Hollywood down. And then just when we started coming up, we got hit with two strikes. So that hurt again. Now we're finally getting to a place where the studios and the independent producers are making more product, because they can. They have the writers are back, and everybody's back. Fortunately, the writers agreed to a new contract, which is great. Hopefully the other unions will also agree to something so we can keep going. And you could see the last, what, since the first of the year, even before, we're filling theaters again. And you know why? Because the movies are really good. And that's what we got to do. We got to make really good movies.

Speaker 2:
[04:08] What is this group going to do on behalf of the theater industry? Like, it's easy to say we're advocates, it's easy to put out a press release, but push comes to shove. What are you and this group going to do?

Speaker 3:
[04:17] I think we got to try to make everything better. In other words, make the theaters better, make what we do better. I mean, guide them and have them guide us and what they like. And look at, you go in some of these theaters, we went to a theater where we were previewing F1, and they didn't have the Dolby on. I mean, just, and it never had been turned on.

Speaker 2:
[04:39] That must drive you crazy.

Speaker 3:
[04:40] It drives us nuts. So it's those kinds of things that we have to help them be better at what they do.

Speaker 2:
[04:46] Okay. Emma, how about you? When you heard that this was happening, what was the conversation like that got you to sign on?

Speaker 4:
[04:54] I think, sorry, that was very loud. To me, I think that there's been a lack of focus on the ecosystem that we all survive within over the last few years. For too long, exhibition has been this kind of bastard stepchild held at an arm's length. The truth is that we as a business are really only operating at our healthiest if all the constituents of that business are in the best place they can be. We've had this terrible five, six years in which one side of the business did not, I think, value exhibition as much as they should have done.

Speaker 2:
[05:38] Are you referring to distributors or streamers?

Speaker 4:
[05:41] I'm talking, well, by the way, I think neither of them have valued it in the way that they should.

Speaker 2:
[05:45] Obviously, they're the same companies in most cases.

Speaker 4:
[05:49] Oftentimes, but just in terms of like the windowing alone, there was a moment in COVID where it gave everybody an excuse to compress windows. We've now come out of that period. I think it's been an unequivocal disaster for the business as a whole, and I felt very strongly that- Oh. I guess we all agree.

Speaker 2:
[06:10] That's what's known as an applause line.

Speaker 4:
[06:13] I felt very honored, frankly, to be included in a group of filmmakers who can advocate for obviously exhibition because I value it. I see what it means to our business as a whole. But also as Jerry said, filmmakers have a lot of opinions about what is working and what isn't working. Not only am I a filmmaker, I also go to the movies. It's one of my favorite things to do, and I want it to work as well as it can work.

Speaker 2:
[06:43] There are those videos of Chris sneaking into the universal city walk.

Speaker 4:
[06:49] I'm always right there with him. It's actually a great process. When we're finishing a film, we play our movie back every week in a cinema to see how the sound is working, how the picture is working, and we spend a lot of time at city walk right now because that's the biggest IMAX screen in LA.

Speaker 2:
[07:08] This can often start with the filmmaker. You and Chris are very vocal about the fact that a non-negotiable with you when you're setting a movie somewhere is a 120-day window, is what I understand. Is that correct?

Speaker 4:
[07:21] I'm not going to get into the details of the contract.

Speaker 2:
[07:23] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[07:26] But yes, it's something that's important to us. We definitely make that clear. To be honest, I'm not sure that we always get into, we don't get too prescriptive with number of days because you need to find the right date for your home entertainment release for the movie or for whatever. But no, it's absolutely something that we make very clear. We're very lucky. We're very aware of how lucky we are that we are able to go to, when we're looking for a partner on a film, we don't have a deal anywhere. We go out to a studio and we say, well, this is the movie. This is what we'd like it to be.

Speaker 2:
[08:08] You make them come to you, is what I understand.

Speaker 4:
[08:09] Yes, exactly. There is that. But we are always looking for a theatrical release, but we're also more importantly, frankly, looking for a studio partner who's going to understand what's right for the movie in its DNA. Something like The Odyssey, clearly it needs to be a theatrical movie, but every movie is different.

Speaker 2:
[08:32] You could make the argument that it wasn't obvious on Oppenheimer. Well, when you see it, it's obvious, but when you're selling a three-hour biopic, maybe not. I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[08:42] Yeah. No. When we did talk to many people on that movie about financing it, and to us, that was part of the sell on that film. It's like, yes, on the face of it, you could imagine that this would be a movie that you'd be happy to watch in the home, but we had bigger ambitions for it. So, there's windowing. There's also marketing. We're always looking for a partner who's going to want to fully market a film. And that, I believe, is another very pressing issue for theatrical at this point.

Speaker 2:
[09:15] The marketing spend.

Speaker 4:
[09:16] The marketing spend, no.

Speaker 2:
[09:18] That's one thing that is not being discussed in this conversation about Warner Bros and Paramount. Merging is what the marketing commitments are gonna be to these supposed 30 movies a year. I notice neither of you has your name on this petition that's going around to block the merger, so to speak. Have you thought about that or the position on it?

Speaker 4:
[09:39] Oh, Jerry, go on.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] You have a relationship with Ellison.

Speaker 3:
[09:44] Look, first of all, I wasn't asked.

Speaker 2:
[09:46] Oh, okay.

Speaker 3:
[09:46] Okay, so I started there. But I think the train has left the station. I think this is well on its way. You can sign all the petitions you want, but it's already being approved by European countries. It's happening. So, I mean, there's not much we can do about it other than take David at his word, that he's going to make 30 movies and that would be fantastic.

Speaker 2:
[10:08] You believe him?

Speaker 3:
[10:10] Listen, look, I know David. I know he loves movies. That's why he got in this business. He started as an actor and then he became a producer and he loves it. He gets very passionate about getting movies made and he tries to make a lot of them. So why would he change from being an independent producer to putting two studios together and not make enough movies?

Speaker 2:
[10:32] To be clear, there are people who believe that with enough momentum, that Democratic lawmakers could get involved and the attorneys general could at least delay and maybe the Congress turns over. So I don't want to dismiss those concerns, but I agree with you that it's going to be pretty tough at this point to block it. Maybe there are concessions to be made.

Speaker 3:
[10:51] That would hurt the business if they delayed it. That would really hurt us because we want them making movies. We want them really to stretch out and make as many movies as possible. But we have to create more stars. We have to create and streaming helps you in a way because you find directors, you find actors, the chances are you wouldn't see. So the more product that's out there makes the movies that we make that go into theaters better.

Speaker 2:
[11:16] You weren't asked either or you were asked?

Speaker 4:
[11:20] You know, I don't know the petitions are the right way to affect change is my sort of honest opinion. I do think that people are right to be skeptical about this merger. We've seen in the past that it doesn't always lead to what the people involved promise.

Speaker 2:
[11:39] Well, you have a very powerful carrot in the sense that you don't have a deal anywhere. And I know Warner's would very much like your next movie. And maybe it doesn't go to Warner's if they don't do the kinds of things that you want to see them doing.

Speaker 4:
[11:52] Maybe. But we're having a great time with Universal right now, I will say.

Speaker 2:
[11:58] Well, but that's interesting. It's interesting you say that because there was some speculation when Universal recently announced that they are going to lengthen their window to PVOD, to premium video on demand, that maybe behind the scenes you and your husband had some input on that.

Speaker 4:
[12:16] Well, first off, I can't speak for Chris, and I definitely can't speak for Donna. We do talk to everyone we can about the importance of windows. We've for a long time have believed that it's a real issue, the compression of windows. But most importantly, I do know that Chris in his position as DJ president is talking to all the studios about the importance of reinstating a clear window. I think they've been talking about 60 days, not 45. I also know that Donna is extremely smart, and I think that just looking at the data, it's very clear that windows needs to be reinstated. I don't think we've necessarily had anything to do with it, frankly.

Speaker 2:
[13:06] But you like that they did it.

Speaker 4:
[13:07] Very happy.

Speaker 2:
[13:08] Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about what could be done, because I agree with Michael that, as no disrespect, and I said this on the show, to the executives in this room and the people in distribution and the studios, but the thing that resonates with consumers is the stars, the filmmakers, the people that make the product that they love, and leveraging those people to advocate on behalf of movies. We all make fun of it, we laugh when we see it, but the Nicole Kidman ad worked. Like, Adam, if you're here, it worked. And stuff like that could make a difference. There's no version of the beef campaign. Beef, it's what's for dinner, or cotton, or any of these industry-wide marketing campaigns. Is that what this is about? Is an industry-wide marketing campaign needed?

Speaker 4:
[14:01] I think the best marketing for our industry is great movies, distributed with good, robust windows, and extremely healthy marketing budgets. I think that, yes, Nicole Kidman thing was fantastic, and honestly, I love it to this day when I go to AMC and everyone cheers when she comes on. It's the best. I love that. That came about in a moment in time where it was really necessary, and frankly, exhibition had been kind of abandoned. I think by the rest of our business. So, yeah, I go back to movies, windows, marketing.

Speaker 2:
[14:40] That would be you, Jerry. What do you think about that? Should there be an industry-wide marketing campaign?

Speaker 3:
[14:44] Absolutely. Why not?

Speaker 2:
[14:46] Sure, right?

Speaker 3:
[14:46] Sure. I mean, let's go out there and show the great movies we made in the past and how wonderful it was to see it in the theater with your family or your girlfriend or your first date or whatever it is. There's so many great memories that you've had in the theaters with you think of periods in your life about what movie you saw in the theater. That's what I remember. I remember where I watched the first time I saw The Great Escape, or the first time I saw David Lean's movies. Those are memories that are plastered in my consciousness, and the great experience of having my hand in the popcorn and a nice soda next to me, it's just fantastic.

Speaker 2:
[15:31] The question would be, who would pay for it? Who would pay for that campaign? But we don't have to get into that. You've worked a lot with Apple lately. What's your sense of the theatrical ambitions of Apple?

Speaker 3:
[15:41] Well, based on what they tell us, they want to make theatrical movies. They really do.

Speaker 2:
[15:48] Yet they have zero scheduled for the year.

Speaker 3:
[15:50] We have to give them the right product. We have to give them the right-

Speaker 2:
[15:53] But they're buying the movies.

Speaker 3:
[15:55] They haven't seen a movie that they wanted to make yet, and it's hard. It's hard to put packages together and try to sell them. It's very, very difficult because there's X amount of stars and X amount of directors that are go movies, and the same thing with actors. It's hard to get in that line to get them. It really isn't. Somebody who puts them together, look at, we'd all like the next Chris Nolan movie, but he's going to make one movie. That's it, and he'll decide where he's going to make it.

Speaker 2:
[16:24] Well, but what you're saying, essentially, is that there are only a certain amount of movies that feel theatrical.

Speaker 3:
[16:29] That have the juice that are theatrical.

Speaker 2:
[16:32] Right. And where do you think Apple sees that bar? Because they could put all of these movies. They had a Jonah Hill comedy with Cameron Diaz last weekend, and they kind of buried it. That could have been a theatrical release.

Speaker 3:
[16:45] I can't speak for them, but I think you're trying to look at something, A, that preview is great, something that deserves a huge marketing campaign. You never know that until you put it in front of an audience. We all think we're geniuses when we make a movie, and then the audience looks at it and tells us we're fools. But that's just part of the process. And I've been to previews where we had three people left in the audience, and we ended up making the movie a hit. But still, you go through that process, and not every movie can be destined for a theater. They just can't.

Speaker 2:
[17:23] I know, and it's difficult. But when you were selling the follow up to Top Gun, and you're coming off a big hit, you've got the same filmmaker doing this, it's called UFO Project. I don't know what it's about, but that's what the moniker is. In those deals, do you get a commitment from Apple? Do you get a window specific, or is it we'll do our best?

Speaker 3:
[17:44] No, no, we get commitments. And by the way, we had a commitment on F1, and they exceeded it. They just let it, and same thing with Top Gun. And Maverick, they just let it play. They left it out there.

Speaker 2:
[17:57] How close did Maverick get to going to streaming?

Speaker 3:
[18:01] Pretty close.

Speaker 2:
[18:02] Did you lay down on a train track or something?

Speaker 3:
[18:04] Tom did. It doesn't matter if I lay down.

Speaker 2:
[18:13] What's your sense of genres right now in the marketplace that do feel theatrical for the studios?

Speaker 3:
[18:20] I don't think it's the genre. I think it's the story, the arena, the emotion, the themes, the characterizations. There's so many different things that lead you into making a movie that you want to take out.

Speaker 2:
[18:35] But you must have projects that you think are theatrical, and then the market tells you differently.

Speaker 3:
[18:41] Well, yeah, sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[18:44] Is the process now for getting movies greenlit much slower than 10, 20 years ago?

Speaker 3:
[18:50] At certain places, yes.

Speaker 2:
[18:51] Why is there no Pirates movie happening? They talked about this for a decade.

Speaker 3:
[18:55] That's on us.

Speaker 2:
[18:56] Why is that on you?

Speaker 3:
[18:57] Not on them. We went through, I think, three different managements with three different versions of what they thought a Pirate movie was. And so I think now we have a management that is settled in and we're working very closely at getting it done.

Speaker 2:
[19:11] Yeah, there was a Margot Robbie version. There was bringing back Johnny. Then there's, yeah. So you're confident that'll be greenlit soon?

Speaker 3:
[19:18] We got to give them a script. It's on us.

Speaker 2:
[19:22] It's funny because we were just talking about this issue on The Town, on the length of movies. And I know that's a topic that exhibitors care a lot about. And our guest last week on the show, Todd Garner, noted that it really started with the Pirates movies. This notion of the blockbuster that is two and a half hours. Do you agree with that? And do you feel that movies are justified for the most part in their length right now?

Speaker 3:
[19:48] No, I think it depends on the movie. It depends on the story.

Speaker 2:
[19:51] But you've made a lot of longer movies lately.

Speaker 3:
[19:53] Yeah, but Oppenheimer, I would have sat there for another half hour. So it depends on the movie. And listen, some things you don't want to end. Other things you wish they ended after the first 30 minutes.

Speaker 4:
[20:07] I will say, I've been to 90-minute movies that have felt like they were three hours, and I've been to three and a half hour movies that felt like they were two. So it's entirely about the movie.

Speaker 2:
[20:16] Did you guys think of Oppenheimer? Did you think of cutting 20 minutes?

Speaker 4:
[20:21] Of course. That's the process that you go through when you're finishing a film. You screen it to audiences, you figure out what the right length is. We're very lucky that we've always, well, so far we've been putting movies out on IMAX on film. They have a three-hour platter. We can never go above three hours.

Speaker 2:
[20:44] Don't tell Jim Cameron.

Speaker 4:
[20:49] But you do get to the point where you cut a film so much that it actually begins to feel longer. I know that sounds completely counterintuitive, but it's true. You have to pick the right length for the story that you're telling.

Speaker 2:
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Speaker 2:
[22:00] The Times reported this week that Ted was here on Sunday and met with the theater chains. What was your impression of that meeting and what do you think? Now, he said it when they were going after Warner Brothers, so he honored the meeting even though they're not going to buy Warner's, movie theaters are still not their model, but they have done these stunts. Adam Aron seems to be excited about them. What is the Netflix game plan now from your impression of those meetings?

Speaker 6:
[22:27] That meeting was something, as you said, that was set up while they were still pursuing Warner Brothers. They withdrew and I expected that within a week, I'd hear that they didn't want to meet with us here at CinemaCon. There was no need to. On the contrary, the next day I got a note saying, we'd like to hold the meeting. It was still like two months out from CinemaCon. I thought it'll go at some point. To his credit, he came and we met. He met with our executive board. It was a candid.

Speaker 2:
[22:53] Was it like a divorce mediation?

Speaker 6:
[22:55] No.

Speaker 2:
[22:55] There's like pacing around and yeah, okay.

Speaker 6:
[22:58] It was more like, let's try and get along with those things. So I think, look, I think the importance of that meeting is the fact that the meeting happened.

Speaker 2:
[23:07] But what did Ted say?

Speaker 6:
[23:08] Well, he talked a lot about his, one of the things that I learned during the pendency while they were going after Warner Brothers, he and I talked different times on the phone. We didn't frequently agree, but I began to understand his worldview, and hopefully he started to at least internalize our worldview. So I think there's a greater understanding between the two. He doesn't want it to be an adversarial relationship, which I have not been adversarial towards Netflix. But I think there's a recognition there that their business model is different, our business model is different. If there's a path forward where we can accommodate both of those in the future, we could pursue it. But that's a big if. In the meantime, we could stop antagonizing each other.

Speaker 2:
[23:51] That sounds like a lot of talk.

Speaker 6:
[23:53] It was an hour long meeting.

Speaker 2:
[23:54] I know, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Do you think that Regal is going to play Narnia?

Speaker 6:
[23:59] I don't know if Regal is going to play Narnia.

Speaker 2:
[24:01] They have said they have not decided whether they're going to play Narnia in the IMAX theaters.

Speaker 6:
[24:05] But I think Eduardo and his team will make the best decision for Regal.

Speaker 2:
[24:09] Do you hope they do?

Speaker 6:
[24:11] I don't feel strongly one way or the other about it. I frankly wish-

Speaker 2:
[24:13] Yes, you do. Come on. You're being diplomatic. But if the goal is to have an olive branch to Netflix and say, we don't hate you. We're not going to put up blocks for you. The two-week window for this movie with a four-week exclusive, maybe we will let you do this.

Speaker 6:
[24:29] Here's the olive branch that I would love to have with Netflix. Everybody gets the film for 45 days.

Speaker 2:
[24:35] Okay. I agree with you. That would be great. But then they can't release it on Thanksgiving in theaters and put it on Netflix for Christmas.

Speaker 6:
[24:44] Okay. So you're giving me a timing problem. We're talking about, there's ways to get these things done. If they wanted, I think again, they could release it more widely.

Speaker 2:
[24:55] I have heard there have been discussions where they were interested in possibly doing even a global release in non-IMAX theaters, and it's just never gotten anywhere, and the studio that would distribute internationally needs a commitment of 45 days or more, and they're not willing to do that. So there's a lot of hurdles on this.

Speaker 6:
[25:15] Well, international rules are sometimes set in legislation, and it's much more complicated than here. I mean, you have places in the world where the government sets the window, and in the United States, when my members take a movie, they don't know what the window is going to be. And they ask, what's the window going to be? And they say, we don't know. So we don't even know when we take a movie what the window is going to be. So all of those things have to be accounted for and worked out. But there's a lot of reasons not to do anything differently. We need to start to find ways to do things differently that will benefit a wider group of people.

Speaker 2:
[25:49] Jerry seems bullish on whether Apple cares about theaters. What is your take?

Speaker 6:
[25:54] Well, look, I think that the success of F1 was great, we're kind of in a place where we need to see it. I think that they've said the right things, but we need to see it. We're in a kind of a bottom line place and.

Speaker 2:
[26:06] They have a Ryan Reynolds movie, Mayday, that seems theatrical.

Speaker 6:
[26:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:09] They have not set a theatrical release yet, not at least unannounced it.

Speaker 6:
[26:13] Well, I think it would be great for that Ryan Reynolds movie.

Speaker 2:
[26:16] They're here. Do you guys want to announce it right now? Sorry, that sound of the door closing as I'm leaving. So, what are some stunts or things that can be done to raise awareness or get people more excited about theaters? I keep citing what Ryan Coogler did in his video on aspect ratios for sinners and how effective that was. I asked a couple of sources this week, what should this council do? What are things they could do? A couple ideas were interesting. Warner Bros, for their filmmakers that they like, they allow them to select a film from the Warner Library and show it on the lot and have a Q&A and talk about it afterwards. Why isn't that in theaters? Once a month, a filmmaker, with technology now, you can beam a Q&A where Chris Nolan or Gamma del Toro or Joe Kozinski or someone selects their favorite movie from whatever library and they do an event. I know that's not going to cure.

Speaker 4:
[27:21] That's a great idea.

Speaker 2:
[27:22] But that's not going to cure the theatrical issues, but it's at least something that gets people excited and starts getting them to think about theaters like people think about live entertainment, as special, as something that's worth doing. I feel like that's an underdeveloped area. Do you agree of things like that, that people should start doing?

Speaker 4:
[27:43] I think that would be great. I mean, I think that it's interesting because everything that we're talking about is tied in together. I think that whether you're talking about Apple, or you're talking about other studios and distributors, it's a case of use it or lose it. Again, we go back to this idea of us being an ecosystem. We need theaters to be healthy in order for the rest of the business to be healthy. There are always going to be moments in time where something isn't programmed. It's a down week or whatever. We've actually had quite a lot of success putting our films out in those moments, re-releasing them. But I think that that thing would be amazing. Why not? I think that it would help to engage audiences with whoever their favorite filmmakers were or not. I just think that the other thing that really is very important is a diversity of movies going out to theaters. You know, we need to, we need as filmmakers, as financiers, as studios, as distributors, to be providing our audiences with a really varied group of films so that we're catching everybody.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] Do you guys have an opinion on whether PVOD hurts the theatrical business more or less or proportionally more or less than SFOD? Because a lot of filmmakers and people I talk to say, you know, PVOD doesn't matter. That's the transaction. And I mentioned this on the show to you, Michael. And it's the SFOD. It's when people think it's free. And I want the filmmaker perspective on this. Michael has his opinion. But I want you guys to talk about that.

Speaker 4:
[29:28] I think you're absolutely right to point that out. And I think that on the face of it today, that's absolutely the case. You know, when people...

Speaker 2:
[29:35] What's the case?

Speaker 4:
[29:36] That it's, you know, the streaming debut of a film is much more impactful, I think, than PVOD at this point. I think you disagree, I know. However, I would say that the cost of PVOD is not locked in. And whilst today that might be the case, there's no flaw on the cost of PVOD.

Speaker 2:
[29:56] You want it to be higher.

Speaker 4:
[29:58] Love it to be higher.

Speaker 2:
[29:59] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[29:59] But I'm realistic about the fact, because I've seen it happen with Blu-ray, with other formats in the past, we can't control what, you know, retail is pressing for those things to cost. And so there's a very decent chance that in six months time, because they want to up the volume of the PVOD, they're going to put the price down. And that damages us way more than it's damaging us right now.

Speaker 2:
[30:29] It's the long-term assimilation of viewing in home. That's what worries you.

Speaker 4:
[30:34] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[30:34] And I think the thing that really kills us is when they announce it, you're two weeks in the theater and all of a sudden.

Speaker 2:
[30:42] Fight at home.

Speaker 3:
[30:43] Yeah. Fight at home in a month. That's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[30:45] Yeah. I know. It's insane. You don't see as much of that anymore, but you do see it. And there are stunts that happened with Wicked, where they were still going strong in theaters. And then they knew that they could get a New Year's Eve bump on Peavod. So they put it on Peavod and then announced the number that they grossed on New Year's Eve. And I know they're changing that policy, but that was a Universal thing that they did and they made a lot of money on New Year's Eve from that movie, but it was still in theaters. I don't know that I see that changing though. I know Universal is doing it, but I think the PVOD thing is, the view internally is that it's different. And Michael, do you feel free to tell me on that?

Speaker 6:
[31:24] Well, you and I have talked about this, and we just disagree on this, I think. But look at it, step back for a second. In the scenario you gave me when we talked last time was, you don't go to the theater because you're gonna watch it on PVOD, then you turn on the TV and it's $35, and you don't wanna pay $35, so then you wait for it to be on the platform. What business model is where you pass up two opportunities and make money so you can make it in the third one? In a perfect world, you go see it in the theater, then you're going to grandma's for a long weekend and maybe you PVOD it because you're tired of talking to each other and you need something to distract everybody, and then the kids watch it five times on the platform. So I do think there's an impact and I think that it's not in the drops, it's in who goes on opening weekend. And we have an attendance problem and we're trying to charge our way out of it with the big screens and everything, but that's not driving the attendance up. So in a perfect world, what we should be trying to do is maximize each of those windows, not cannibalize them. And I think that, you know, the example that you gave me, the person only falls for that once, but who goes into a business model saying, well, we're going to confuse our consumer once and hope that's it. It just doesn't, it doesn't make sense, so.

Speaker 2:
[32:33] It's tougher. Both of you have the means, if you wanted to, to bypass the studios, make your own movies, go directly to theaters if you wanted to. You don't, you work within the studio system. Why is that?

Speaker 4:
[32:50] I'm happy to go. I think that all the resources that you gain by working with the studio are often unappreciated. To us, taking a film to a studio where they have so much expertise, whether that be marketing, I keep going on about marketing, I'm sorry. Marketing, but also distribution. The distribution department at the studio is, I call Jim Orr probably more often than I call anyone else.

Speaker 2:
[33:22] What do you ask him when you call?

Speaker 4:
[33:24] Well, he's a big part of the conversation around dating in the first place.

Speaker 2:
[33:27] You pick the same day for every movie.

Speaker 4:
[33:30] Well, no, but there are, no, not always.

Speaker 2:
[33:33] Not interstellar. You're right, not interstellar.

Speaker 4:
[33:36] But also we have conversations around, well, should it be the Wednesday or whatever. We do have conversations around that. And by the way, we've got luckier and luckier in that people tend to, at this point, like, you know, there's nobody around us, so it's easy. But also, more importantly, with Jim, like, once we're in it and the movie's coming out, I'm calling him every couple of days to say, are we keeping these screens? Are we, you know, there's the booking. It's like, where are we, where is, where are the right theaters to book this movie? This is all stuff that they have decades of experience doing. And you cannot overstate how important that is. Particularly, I think, when you're making a large scale summer movie.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] You could do the Coogler deals, though. You could get your movies back.

Speaker 4:
[34:24] I would not do that. I can't speak for Chris and Dan alone is over there, his agent. So we'll see. He might disagree.

Speaker 2:
[34:33] Don't give him any ideas.

Speaker 4:
[34:34] I personally would not do that because I want the studio to be as invested in that movie as I am. It's really important to me that that studio wants it to work because they want it in their library. That's probably an unusual.

Speaker 2:
[34:50] Well, and there are other ways to get value off the movie. But yes, that's interesting.

Speaker 4:
[34:53] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[34:55] Have you ever thought about that?

Speaker 3:
[34:56] No, not at all. I agree very much with them because they have an apparatus. They have a machine that is well-honed. They know every theater owner. They know just their marketing department, their social media department is enormous. The kind of things they tweet out and put out every single day. It would take us two years, three. I don't think we could even put it together, to put together marketing, the distribution, they have all the things that they do for us. And you want to encourage them to do their best work. And that's what me as a producer tries to do. I try to get them, look at this is a movie that we know is going to permeate the audience. You got to make sure that they're there that first weekend. That's what you got to drive them to the theater, give them a reason to go, excite them. Hit every, if you do a movie that we've done is something that hits every age group. So you want to hit everybody and you do that now more through social media than anything else.

Speaker 2:
[35:57] What scares you guys most about the business of making movies?

Speaker 3:
[36:05] We'll lose more studios. That's what scares us more.

Speaker 2:
[36:07] That scares you?

Speaker 3:
[36:08] Of course. The consolidation hurts. But if they make the 30 movies, that's great. But look, we lost one studio, we picked up Amazon. So there's always somebody else that comes in. There's A24 now that's making a lot of films. Look, if there's people that want to go see movies and want to fill the theaters, an exhibitor will pop up to fill that void if they're not making enough. If we get back to the habit of there's an interesting movie you want to see every single weekend, the audience will be there.

Speaker 2:
[36:47] What scares you?

Speaker 4:
[36:48] I think my greatest fear is disruption for disruption's sake. When I look at what's happened over the last few years, I have not seen a great deal of logic in the decisions that have been made.

Speaker 2:
[37:02] Well, the logic is they want to build a streaming service because that's what these companies traded on on Wall Street. They didn't trade on their opening weekends.

Speaker 4:
[37:09] But follow it through. Where are we now? Our business is a mess in a way that it hasn't been, and I think that's because the profit motive and the investment in the theatrical business, has sort of exited the picture. And I think that that sort of disruption, well, there's so many things wrong with the corporate world at the moment in terms of the decisions that are being made, that benefit a small number of people and nobody else.

Speaker 2:
[37:40] You can say David Zasloff, it's okay.

Speaker 4:
[37:43] I'm trying to be diplomatic here. And I just think that we've got to get back to taking a longer-term view, investing in the infrastructure of our business and being realistic about the ways that, yeah, it's a risky business. You know, sometimes movies work, sometimes they don't. But the only way we're actually going to continue to be able to make movies that have the best chance that they can have is to keep that pipeline going, to keep putting movies in theaters and to be rigorous about making sure that we are giving them the best chance that they can, whether it be through windows or spending money on marketing, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2:
[38:22] And I know you're very happy at Universal, but has Warner Bros done the types of things that you want to see them doing? They've committed to theatrical, they are not doing the day-in-date stuff, they have made a number of overtures to you. So you're okay with Warner Bros these days?

Speaker 4:
[38:37] I love what Warner Bros is doing. I mean, you cannot look at what they did last year and argue that they're doing a bad job. They're doing a great job. And the truth is, going back to the conversation about where our films are, they are the custodians of many of the films that we've made. We have a great relationship with them. We have ongoing work with them on that. And I think that they're doing a great job and they are fully invested in theatrical which makes me very happy with them.

Speaker 2:
[39:05] Did you just announce an Inception sequel?

Speaker 4:
[39:08] I wouldn't dare.

Speaker 2:
[39:09] Okay. All right. On that note, I want to thank the panel here. Thanks everyone for coming. Really appreciate it. All right.

Speaker 3:
[39:17] That's the show for today.

Speaker 2:
[39:18] No call sheet. I want to thank my guests, Jerry Bruckheimer, Emma Thomas, Michael O'Leary, Alex Bigler from Puck for helping us out in Vegas, producer Craig Horlbeck, art director Jon Jones and I want to thank you. We will see you one more time this week.