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Speaker 1: Reach your customers and the places they love to be

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Speaker 1: Discover Amazon ADS's new power of fandom research at Variety

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Speaker 1: dot com backslash Power Hyphen of hyphen Fandom.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 2: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm

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Speaker 2: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. Mike

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Speaker 2: as is Peter Kajowski, chairman of Focus Features. Kajowski is

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Speaker 2: a movie lover's movie executive. You can hear in his

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Speaker 2: voice how much he lives and breathe the film business

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Speaker 2: with Moviedom gathered this week in Las Vegas for CinemaCon.

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Speaker 2: I thought it was a good time for a sit

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Speaker 2: down with the film veteran to talk about the state

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Speaker 2: of the movie business. You'd be hard pressed to find

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Speaker 2: a business that has been through tougher circumstances in the

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Speaker 2: past five years, between the pandemic, the real estate bubble,

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Speaker 2: and now strike related movie delays. But the outlook isn't gloomy.

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Speaker 2: From where Kajowski sits in his office overlooking the Universal

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Speaker 2: Studios Theme Park, he believes that recent lessons from the

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Speaker 2: box office indicate that the industry is going into a

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Speaker 2: new golden age of distinctive filmmaking. He has a lot

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Speaker 2: of thoughts about what marketers and exhibitors can do to

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Speaker 2: bring new oomph to the moviegoing experience. Peter has a

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Speaker 2: faith that's infectious, as you'll hear right after this break

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Speaker 2: and now here's my conversation with Focused Features Chairman Peter Kajowski.

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Speaker 2: Peter Kajowski, Chairman of Focused Features, thank you so much

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Speaker 2: for having me to your beautiful office. Here we have

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Speaker 2: a lovely view of a good chunk of the Universal

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Speaker 2: Studios Theme Park. I guess if you need a little

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Speaker 2: inspiration or a little whimsy in your day, you just

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Speaker 2: look at here and see what's going on with the

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Speaker 2: minions and Harry Potter and Jurassic World.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm like living a childhood fantasy getting to like

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Speaker 3: look at Super Mario worlds, all day while on my

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Speaker 3: phone calls.

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Speaker 2: It's a value add to your job. The kind of

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Speaker 2: movies that Focus features is so well known for adult movies,

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Speaker 2: mid budgeted dramas. I don't have to tell you as

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Speaker 2: we sit here a couple of weeks before Cinema con

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Speaker 2: that those movies are very challenged right now in the marketplace.

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Speaker 2: That's my perception, as you are the steward of, you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the most well regarded makers of adult dramas,

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Speaker 2: of movies that really touched the heart and you know,

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Speaker 2: tell really important stories. How do you feel as you're planning,

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Speaker 2: you know, as you're drawing out your next three year plan,

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Speaker 2: your five year plan, do you think that these movies

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Speaker 2: have a future at the old fashioned box office?

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Speaker 3: Oh, one hundred percent. And I'd even push back some

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Speaker 3: on the premise of the question. I'd say in a

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Speaker 3: sense of, you know, I think if you rewind maybe

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Speaker 3: too about a year and a half ago or even

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Speaker 3: before that, the recovery of you know, kind of quote

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Speaker 3: unquote specialty film was pretty equally mirroring the recover of

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Speaker 3: you know, the broader kind of main slate studio movies,

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Speaker 3: commercial films, things like that, and then we got into

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Speaker 3: the fourth quarter in two twenty twenty two, where I

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Speaker 3: think there was like quite a few and certainly we

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Speaker 3: had our share of them in that quarter that didn't

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Speaker 3: connect to the level that you might have anticipated in

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Speaker 3: sort of quote the old world, you know, connecting right,

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Speaker 3: And there was a lot of ink about that out there,

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Speaker 3: for sure, and I think a lot of anxiety of

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Speaker 3: does this represent the turning point that maybe you're referencing of,

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Speaker 3: you know, is this now permanent state for these movies

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Speaker 3: and things like that. But actually it really didn't take

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Speaker 3: long for that you know, kind of brief window to

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Speaker 3: then disappear and to be back on that track of

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Speaker 3: the same sort of rate of recovery that you're seeing

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Speaker 3: in the larger market, where if you look at, you know,

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Speaker 3: some of the films that came out of Sundance of

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Speaker 3: twenty three that weren't ours, you know, you look at

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Speaker 3: what our friends and competitors at a twenty four we

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Speaker 3: want to do with past lives, you know, a really

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Speaker 3: great success story. You know, we feel really proud of

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Speaker 3: what we did with Asteroid City, you know, releasing that

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Speaker 3: right after premiering it, can putting that out in a

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Speaker 3: really eventized sort of release where we had the biggest

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Speaker 3: purse green average of a release for any movie, not

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Speaker 3: only since the Pandemic, but I think since going back

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Speaker 3: all the way to Mama Land or something like that.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's one of the top per screen opening

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Speaker 3: weekends or a limited release ever, you know, the top

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Speaker 3: five or six or something like that. And then when

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Speaker 3: we went wide with the movie, you had the biggest

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Speaker 3: box office weekend that Wes Anderson has ever had in

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Speaker 3: his career. Right, you know, so it maybe looks and

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Speaker 3: feels different in terms of the pathway to getting there,

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Speaker 3: And certainly I think the bar is higher in terms

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Speaker 3: of what we need to be doing as studios in

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Speaker 3: the space what you know, the filmmakers need to be

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Speaker 3: sort of thinking about in the ways that they're going

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Speaker 3: to connect with an audience that obviously there's a real

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Speaker 3: threshold on still being entertainment forward and being something that

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Speaker 3: I think audiences are going to feel the urgency to

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Speaker 3: go to theaters. But if you have that thing, it's

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Speaker 3: not only coming back, but I think coming back with

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Speaker 3: the potential to maybe be stronger than ever in that space.

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Speaker 3: You know, insomuch as you look at the end of

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Speaker 3: the year performance that we had with the holdovers that

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Speaker 3: Searchlight had with Poor Things A twenty four had with Ironclaw.

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Speaker 3: You know, we look at the sort of rising tide

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Speaker 3: of all of that as great news and something that

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Speaker 3: really points to an audience engagement that to me speaks

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Speaker 3: to the broader picture of what's happening culturally right now,

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Speaker 3: right in the film business in general, where again there's

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Speaker 3: maybe a sense that the playbook of you know, franchise

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Speaker 3: repeatability and the you know kind of like spin these

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Speaker 3: characters and stories through all these different versions of themselves,

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Speaker 3: you know, that's now starting to struggle a little bit

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Speaker 3: in a way that you know isn't entirely unexpecting. I

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Speaker 3: think everyone's doing a good job to keep that part

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Speaker 3: of the business, like, you know, thriving by being smart

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Speaker 3: to what those movies need to become. But I think

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Speaker 3: it also points to the desire and the appetite for

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Speaker 3: an audience to really have something that feels like an

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Speaker 3: original experience and an experience that has some edge to it,

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Speaker 3: and an experience that you know is coming from a

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Speaker 3: completely unique voice.

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Speaker 2: The universe. Zone Oppenheimer exactly made a little noise last.

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Speaker 3: Year yeah, you know, and and yeah, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 3: you look at like the big cultural story of the

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Speaker 3: movies last year, you know, being the Barbenheimer effect. Both

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Speaker 3: of those things in their way are unexpected, right, you know,

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Speaker 3: there's kind of like wholly original in terms of like

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Speaker 3: conception and execution, and they were not only embraced but

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Speaker 3: literally devoured by an audience. Right. So I truly believe,

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Speaker 3: hand on heart. I realize it may sound self serving

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Speaker 3: given the chair I sit in and things like that,

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Speaker 3: but I truly truly believe that we might be coming

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Speaker 3: into the very beginning stages of a golden age of

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Speaker 3: you know, movies that are filmmaker driven, original visions, original

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Speaker 3: voices being the thing that defines the biggest movies of

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Speaker 3: our era, you know, and the sort of most exciting

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Speaker 3: kind of audience experiences of our era, rather than something

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Speaker 3: that you're trying to like find a pathway for despite

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Speaker 3: the sort of you know, dominant, you know, kind of

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Speaker 3: brand ip hegemony of an era like like we've had

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Speaker 3: for a while.

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Speaker 2: I think one thing that's been interesting just from my

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Speaker 2: perspective is seeing going through the pandemic period, and of

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Speaker 2: course last year with strike didn't help in terms of pipeline,

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Speaker 2: but seeing that it really is true that that the

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Speaker 2: box office feeds on itself. The idea of like, oh,

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Speaker 2: there's no other features, I'm gonna put my movie out.

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Speaker 2: You need. It's like a supermarket that only had one

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Speaker 2: brand of toothpaste, Like you can't you know, people aren't

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Speaker 2: good At some point they're like, I'm going to go

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Speaker 2: to another store because I don't want that brand. That

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Speaker 2: you need a lot of titles to maintain a robust

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Speaker 2: box office. I think that that that has that even

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Speaker 2: in this era when people have many different avenues to

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Speaker 2: get their content, or they're going to wait a few weeks,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna watch it home. We've all heard the stories

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Speaker 2: on my screen is better, the floors are sticky, all

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Speaker 2: of that. But you you're sensing that there's a real

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Speaker 2: hunger out there for these kind of movies, and almost

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Speaker 2: as an offset to the big spectacle, people just want

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Speaker 2: to see a good intimate, intimate story, a good comedy

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Speaker 2: story like The Holdovers.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, no, absolutely, There's there's a lot to be

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Speaker 3: said about a few things in They're One is generally

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Speaker 3: a number of movies in the marketplace, and the concept

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Speaker 3: of movie going as a habit, right, you know, certainly

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Speaker 3: it's a big story coming into this year because of

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Speaker 3: the strikes and things like that. It's just the volume

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Speaker 3: and the reliability of audiences who are still out there,

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Speaker 3: who are the kind of audience who will go to

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Speaker 3: what's playing that weekend, you know, and if you're not

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Speaker 3: providing sort of enough things to sort of satisfy that, yeah,

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Speaker 3: you can kind of make a plan you know, either

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Speaker 3: every weekend, a couple times a month, whatever it is

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Speaker 3: to go and you're going to find something for you.

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Speaker 3: Then that habit starts to slow down a bit, So

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Speaker 3: we want to be careful as a business to get

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Speaker 3: that back, you know, up and running as quickly as possible.

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Speaker 3: And we know those structural challenges as to as to

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Speaker 3: why we're in that moment of time that we are,

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Speaker 3: which aren't permanent. Is the good news, right, you know

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Speaker 3: that the solution has already happened.

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Speaker 2: The pipeline issues will eventually.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, on the level of like

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Speaker 3: types of mo movies, we actually you know, have seen

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Speaker 3: real data that says that the most frequent moviegoers, right,

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Speaker 3: the kind of like true habitual moviegoers, not just you know,

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Speaker 3: ones who are you know, four or five times the

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Speaker 3: other people go to movies twelve times year, fifteen times year.

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Speaker 3: They actually rate kind of specialty films as it were,

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Speaker 3: you know, as a category among the very highest of

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Speaker 3: movies on the scale of things that they like and

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Speaker 3: go for, you know. But these are people who then

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Speaker 3: also go to all the other movies as well. So

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Speaker 3: there's something about the fact that the most white hot

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Speaker 3: core of theatrical moviegoers actually are are largely the people

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Speaker 3: who are the cinephiles who kind of are primarily driven

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Speaker 3: by movies that are original movies that are completely unique

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Speaker 3: and also embrace all the rest. It's not that they

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Speaker 3: embrace all the rest and then kind of go around

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Speaker 3: the edges to the rest of the stuff that's out

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Speaker 3: there on the specialty side. So I think again, like

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Speaker 3: if we as as a business enter this kind of

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Speaker 3: phase that I think is coming of a marketplace that

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Speaker 3: is providing more and more things like that on every size,

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Speaker 3: you know, from from the low budget end of the

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Speaker 3: spectrum of what we do here at Focus or at

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Speaker 3: other specialty companies, all the way up through the Oppenheimer's

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Speaker 3: of the world, you're going to find that that muscle memory,

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Speaker 3: you know, developing in an audience to to really you know,

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Speaker 3: I think have an exponential, you know, pathway for people

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Speaker 3: to be at the theater, love that experience of that,

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Speaker 3: want to repeat that experience of that, have seen the

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Speaker 3: trailers for more options to repeat the experience of that,

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Speaker 3: you know, the kind of the whole kind of flow

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Speaker 3: of the currents that happens once once it's up and running.

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Speaker 3: I think I think you're going to start to feel

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Speaker 3: that happening in a real way. And obviously, you know

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Speaker 3: there's going to be the periods where you know, that's

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Speaker 3: really spiky, right, you know, And certainly I think there

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Speaker 3: was a nice high point in the fourth quarter for

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Speaker 3: this kind of movie. I think in the first quarter

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Speaker 3: we haven't seen that kind of you know, cut through

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Speaker 3: happen yet as a sort of breakout specialty box office

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Speaker 3: movie to come along and things like that. But to me,

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Speaker 3: doesn't say that it's anything other than that's the natural

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Speaker 3: kind of pattern of movie going rather than a trend

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Speaker 3: that's going to be with us for.

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Speaker 2: The long long. Do you have a sense in terms

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Speaker 2: of the audience. Obviously, you know it's an article of faith.

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Speaker 2: The teenagers and young young people go to the you know,

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Speaker 2: go to the movies on Friday night and Saturday. But

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Speaker 2: do you have it is that habit still as strong

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Speaker 2: in the forty to fifty and sixty year olds if

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Speaker 2: they have sixties out beyond the demo, But the forty

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Speaker 2: fifty year olds, that habit is strong is still in

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Speaker 2: there if they see something that they want to.

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Speaker 3: See exactly that's what it is.

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Speaker 2: And the.

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Speaker 3: Bargs raised for sure about what will be the thing

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Speaker 3: that that is worth you know, buying the tickets the

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Speaker 3: night before to get the good seats, to then drive

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Speaker 3: the car and do all the things that you know,

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Speaker 3: going to to see a movie in a theater, you

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Speaker 3: know asks of you. But there's a real appetite to

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Speaker 3: do that for those things that hit that bar, you know,

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Speaker 3: and and you know, I think that's driven by certainly

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Speaker 3: for that older crowd that that we feel like we've

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Speaker 3: got a good active relationship with on a lot of

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Speaker 3: the films we're making and things we're trying to appeal to.

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Speaker 2: Them with.

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Speaker 3: You kind of get the sense that once again that

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Speaker 3: that that that that are in the flow of doing

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Speaker 3: it right. What the takeaway from the theatrical experience is

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Speaker 3: uh is something that we don't I think talk enough

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Speaker 3: about as an industry. You know, there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: discussion again because of what the mainstream of movies is of.

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Speaker 3: You know, the theatrical experience is the best sound, it's

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Speaker 3: the best visual experience, it's the best you know, sort

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Speaker 3: of like you know, wrap of the screen in terms

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Speaker 3: of the imax experience, and all those things which are

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Speaker 3: real and the important and and and they are meaningful

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Speaker 3: to the experience of the movie. What I don't think

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Speaker 3: we talk enough about, though, is the experience of digesting

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Speaker 3: a story as part of a communal response to that story,

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Speaker 3: rather than as an individual response to that story. And

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Speaker 3: and for that older audience you're speaking of, I think

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Speaker 3: that's actually particularly important, you know, I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: there's there's a sense that the kind of maturity of

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Speaker 3: the read of knowing that a movie is not just

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Speaker 3: perceived somehow differently by watching it that way, but is

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Speaker 3: actually a different thing. It's a different watch anyway. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I go a step further than that. And and maybe

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Speaker 3: not to sound by fastic or too philosophical, but the

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Speaker 3: movie is ultimately the thing that you're experiencing in your mind.

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Speaker 3: That is what the screen is providing. You bounced off

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Speaker 3: of all the rest of the stuff of life. Right,

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Speaker 3: So everyone has a different take and experience and an

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Speaker 3: actual definitive relationship to a movie that is a different

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Speaker 3: thing to each individual person. Right.

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Speaker 2: It's going to hit you where you live in that day.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and when part of the feedback loop of digesting

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Speaker 3: that film is a recognition of how others are doing

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Speaker 3: that with you. It's just a different movie. It is

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Speaker 3: a different movie than that same series of images and

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Speaker 3: sounds played you know at home, on the biggest screen

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Speaker 3: and the best you know home theater setup. You know

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Speaker 3: that that anyone can have without the wrap of the

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Speaker 3: giggle in the back of the room to the joke

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Speaker 3: that you didn't quite get as a joke, but now

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Speaker 3: you understand what it is, or the sort of gentle

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Speaker 3: gasp of shock or awe of some emotional beat that

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Speaker 3: happens in the movie that hits you differently because it

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Speaker 3: hits someone three rows down differently. You can't recreate that,

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Speaker 3: you know, And I think I think that that is

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Speaker 3: why to me, the actual movie going is never going away,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean. We're not on some like,

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Speaker 3: you know, pathway for that to decay, because it's fundamental

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Speaker 3: to how we're meant to digest stories as a people's.

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Speaker 2: Since the days of the Greeks, I've gathered exactly. Don't

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Speaker 2: go anywhere. We'll be right back after this short break.

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Speaker 1: of fandom. Research at Variety dot com backslash power hyphen

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Speaker 1: of hyphen fandom.

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Speaker 2: And we're back with more on the future of the

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Speaker 2: movie business from Focus Features chairman Peter Kojowski.

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Speaker 3: We came on board the holdovers at the Toronto Film

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Speaker 3: Festival in twenty two when they did a buyer screening.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't part of the festival, but it was. It

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Speaker 3: was a screening they set up and it was a

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Speaker 3: room full of us and you know, our competitors and

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Speaker 3: things like that. The movie moved us so profoundly, so deeply,

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Speaker 3: you know, and and there were great laughs along the way,

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Speaker 3: and it had that full wrap of this movie. And

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Speaker 3: then we were lucky enough to you know, emerge with

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Speaker 3: with the rights of the film and working with Alexander,

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Speaker 3: and we had said, our plan is we want to

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Speaker 3: sit tight for a full year release it this time

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Speaker 3: next year, even though you're sort of basically done the movie.

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Speaker 3: And in the meantime, what we did is, you know,

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Speaker 3: let's let's put it in front of some other audiences

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Speaker 3: and kind of do some some some tests to you know,

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Speaker 3: help craft a campaign as best as possible. And it

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Speaker 3: wasn't until we left the forum of a bunch of

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Speaker 3: film buyers and distributors sitting in a room at a

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Speaker 3: film festival and digesting it in that community and brought

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Speaker 3: it into just a community of regular moviegovers out in

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Speaker 3: Pasadena watching the film that I personally realized that a

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Speaker 3: movie that I thought was funny and full of heart,

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Speaker 3: was actually raucously funny, you know what I mean. It

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Speaker 3: was actually like big guffaws funny, you know. And and

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Speaker 3: and and that was this eye opening moment of boy,

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Speaker 3: this is really connecting. This is not just like some

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Speaker 3: humor that's sprinkled through this in order to like, you know,

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Speaker 3: get to this, this this kind of emotional core of

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Speaker 3: the movie.

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Speaker 2: It is this.

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Speaker 3: Fundamental broad approach to like big big laughs that that

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Speaker 3: I learned from other people. And and and it was

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Speaker 3: it was the same setup. It was a movie theater

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Speaker 3: play in the movie. It was just different communities, different people.

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Speaker 3: It was different experiences, and it was a different movie.

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Speaker 3: And I think that that's always going to be the case.

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Speaker 3: And it's part of the fun of what we do,

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Speaker 3: you know, is getting to like see see films be

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Speaker 3: different things in different places as at different time.

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Speaker 2: I hear you. Since we've mentioned the holdovers, I am

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Speaker 2: going to just say that I acknowledge that there has been,

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Speaker 2: of late a dispute over a dispute has arisen over

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Speaker 2: the screenplay that film. We're not going to labor that subject.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to acknowledge it now. We're going to move

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Speaker 2: on that. It's a good segue to sort of the

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Speaker 2: other half of the equation of movie going. Exhibition. Obviously, exhibition,

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Speaker 2: it's been it's been a really tough season. Like I

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Speaker 2: don't think you could script worse business conditions for us,

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Speaker 2: for a business, for an industry or a sector. What's

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Speaker 2: the state of the art in exhibition, in the in

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Speaker 2: the business of getting people to drive to that, to

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Speaker 2: the multiplex or to the theater and getting them in

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Speaker 2: the door and and you know, all the all the

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Speaker 2: things that we've been talking about, the process that can

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Speaker 2: be so joyous when it goes well, and you know,

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Speaker 2: not so when it's when it's more of a struggle

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Speaker 2: or the cost is an issue. What do you think

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Speaker 2: just in general kind of what are you feeling about exhibition?

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Speaker 3: Again, I actually think that it's it's fair and right

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Speaker 3: to say that that there's challenges there, of course, right,

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Speaker 3: you know, but I actually think that the challenge is

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Speaker 3: the exist more on the spreadsheets, you know, than they

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Speaker 3: do in reality. Insomuch as as you know, there's there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of screens in the country, there's you know,

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Speaker 3: high rents and leases, there's you know, there's all of

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Speaker 3: those challenges that that that are are real, But I

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Speaker 3: don't think anything is fundamentally different based on everything else

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Speaker 3: I'm saying, and like what the pathway to success is

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Speaker 3: that that still I consider it to be very real

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Speaker 3: and and that I think we as a business, being

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Speaker 3: the studios, the exhibitors working together to kind of craft

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Speaker 3: one what the message of that experience is, but then

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Speaker 3: to build the relationship into those local communities together in

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Speaker 3: in smart ways. I think we all continue to sort

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Speaker 3: of like evolve and learn those lessons and work better

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Speaker 3: together to really maximize what that relationship that of individual

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Speaker 3: living in community X, Y or Z can have with

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Speaker 3: their local theater, you know. And I think as we

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Speaker 3: learned those lessons and see that continue to evolve, it

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Speaker 3: requires a different kind of work maybe than what we

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Speaker 3: could all rely on before. Just you know, people will

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Speaker 3: show up because the theater is there, and they'll pick

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Speaker 3: the movie on the marque that's playing at the time

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Speaker 3: that you know, like is around when they arrive. I

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Speaker 3: think those days are probably behind us. But I think

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Speaker 3: if you look at what for instance again appoints but

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Speaker 3: again what we did on Asteroid City, where you know,

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Speaker 3: here we are about to go into CinemaCon again. At

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Speaker 3: CinemaCon last year, you know, the Landmark team came to

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Speaker 3: us and said, hey, we have really exciting news. We're

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Speaker 3: reopening the Sunset five, you know, which literally was music

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Speaker 3: to our ears, and we thought that was it. We

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Speaker 3: thought that was the exciting news. That was the conversation.

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Speaker 2: Because in a world where there's a lot of screens

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Speaker 2: in this country, there are there a real drought in

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Speaker 2: Los Angeles. It's crazy, yeah, you're saying.

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Speaker 3: And what they then pitched to us was, you know,

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Speaker 3: right now, we're scheduled to open a week before Asteroid

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Speaker 3: City comes out, but we have this idea that Asteroid

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Speaker 3: City could be a major event for the audience of

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Speaker 3: that theater that we would delay the week to open

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Speaker 3: if you guys would work with us to create a

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Speaker 3: full experiential rap of the theater, you know, which, which

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Speaker 3: truly was. We played all five screens, you know, for

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Speaker 3: I think the first couple of weekends of them reopening.

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Speaker 3: The entire lobby was was fully recreated to be Asteroid City,

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Speaker 3: and it became this cultural not only event, but actual

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Speaker 3: physical destination for the kind of passions and energies of

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Speaker 3: the Wes Anderson fans of LA to really rally around, right,

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Speaker 3: you know, And and you saw a huge response to that,

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Speaker 3: you know, And I think that that it's going to

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Speaker 3: be things like that that we all build and come

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Speaker 3: up with together, which maybe don't have to be as

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Speaker 3: big and grand as that, but certainly are the ideas

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Speaker 3: that you know, are acknowledging that. It takes all of

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00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 3: us working in unique ways to kind of harness an

435
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 3: energy that is out there, but to get it focused,

436
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, to get it focused to

437
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,879
Speaker 3: like a specific time in a specific place in a

438
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 3: world where, again the dominant narrative of humanity these days

439
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 3: is no one has any focus anymore at all about

440
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 3: anything at any time in any place, because you know,

441
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 3: everything is just kind of available and hitting you, and

442
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 3: you're getting notifications here and this is pinging you there

443
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 3: and all those things. So so it truly is a

444
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 3: game of the psychology of specificity of time and place

445
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 3: being a meaningful experience for a community that I think

446
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,439
Speaker 3: is going to be what wins the day for all

447
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 3: of us, getting you know, back to truly what I

448
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 3: believe will be where we were in ticket sales, Yeah, exactly,

449
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 3: exactly in this space and Beyon feel very very fortunate

450
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 3: as focus being part of the overall universal family, right,

451
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 3: because it kind of gives us this this superpower of

452
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 3: existing within what I consider it to be the best

453
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 3: current business model in the film business, of preserving the

454
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 3: primacy of the theatrical release as the key cultural moment

455
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 3: for the movie, right, but being smart to you know,

456
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 3: the new world of attention spans and windows and things

457
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 3: like that, and having you know, our premium VOD come

458
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 3: along a few weeks later rather than a few months later,

459
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 3: having you know, the the the the PayTV windows you know,

460
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 3: start maybe a bit sooner than they wear in the past,

461
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 3: and things like that.

462
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 2: I think, you know, those marketing dollars, which just makes

463
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 2: sense in this world exactly.

464
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 3: But all driven first and foremost from the notion that

465
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 3: it is the cultural moment and the kind of the

466
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: the metabolizing of a movie in to the broader ether

467
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 3: as a theatrical experience first, right, that then that then

468
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 3: lifts everything else up so meaningfully and creates a sense

469
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 3: that this movie will then exist for years to come.

470
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 2: And we've been talking mostly about the domestic box office,

471
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 2: but I would love your perspective on international, which for

472
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 2: so long had been seen I know, as like, you know,

473
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 2: international is going to save Hollywood. International is the is

474
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 2: you know, if the movie's on the border, international will

475
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 2: will kick it over to the you know, to the

476
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 2: successful side of the ledger. Do you still see that

477
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 2: as or was that too simplistic an equation for how

478
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 2: Hollywood exported its product? I'm talking specifically. Obviously, I know

479
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 2: there's a very robust world of global cinema, but I

480
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 2: am talking about, you know, Hollywood exporting titles overseas. What

481
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 2: what's the what's going on there?

482
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 3: Well, I'll say a few things. I'll say I think

483
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 3: any one of us who's ever worked in the international

484
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 3: side of the business.

485
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 2: And you work for Universal, Big Universal on the international side.

486
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 3: Of it, well sort of both. The first ten years

487
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 3: of my time at Focus, when we became Focused, after

488
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 3: being sort of good machine in USA films and all that,

489
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 3: was doing international sales. So I literally became the junior

490
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 3: international sales guy. And you know, I was fortunate to

491
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 3: be able to work my way up and had done

492
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 3: by the end of ten or eleven years of doing that,

493
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 3: sold movies to literally every country in the world and

494
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 3: every kind of distributor of independent distributors in the world

495
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 3: and things like that, and the lesson from that that

496
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 3: happens pretty early on. And you know, even on the

497
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 3: studio side, when I was then doing acquisitions and buying

498
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 3: a lot for international and things. Is it's always kind

499
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 3: of oversimplified in the broad Hollywood mindset, just even represented

500
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 3: by calling it domestic and international, right, because boy, you

501
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 3: learn real quick that like there's no such thing as international.

502
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 3: That is a blanket umbrella term that covers a ton

503
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 3: of different countries with different cultures and different appetites and

504
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 3: different ways of distribution and different laws that you know,

505
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 3: have different windows. All these things are laws. Yeah, yeah,

506
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 3: these these these are these are real and they're important.

507
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 3: And again they're ingrained into the kind of like DNA

508
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 3: of the movie going habit in all of those individual

509
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 3: territories for sure. So I think if you then say, okay,

510
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 3: where are we now in that actually, I mean again,

511
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 3: certainly in our space, in the specialty space, there's a

512
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 3: lot of success stories if you look at all side

513
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 3: us again as the first example, if you look at

514
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 3: the holdovers, where we have a good playbook that we

515
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 3: sometimes run with our partners on the universal international side,

516
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 3: who are again fully baked into the DNA of our company.

517
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 3: It's not like we sort of do a domestic release

518
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 3: and then throw a briefcase with the poster and over

519
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 3: the wall and see what happened to those guys. I mean,

520
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 3: they fully are part of how we buy our movies,

521
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 3: how we like, you know, read our scripts, how we

522
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 3: discuss what what movies we should be making, and then

523
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 3: and then building a global release strategy to them, and

524
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 3: and the notion that we start a movie here sometime

525
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 3: in the fall, and the case of Holdovers, it was

526
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 3: late October and platformed up through through November, while deliberately

527
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 3: holding back on any international releases until January and letting

528
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 3: sort of that perceived possible awards momentum turn into actual

529
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: real awards momentum, you know, And then and then you

530
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 3: can get a real you know, sort of pop on

531
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 3: a movie that that otherwise might have gone out earlier

532
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 3: internationally and being digested as a bit more of a

533
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 3: kind of like American boarding School. You know, what is that?

534
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 3: I don't think that would have been the case here

535
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 3: because of what the movie was, but you know, you're

536
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 3: sort of like trying to like philosophize in a holistic way,

537
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: and and then they really overperform and and actually have

538
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 3: grossed I think twenty four twenty five million dollars internationally,

539
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 3: which is a phenomenal number for that movie and puts

540
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 3: us you know, at you know, forty five or something

541
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 3: like that, forty maybe more e than close to fifty

542
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 3: as a global box office number. Look at Poor Things

543
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 3: another great example, right, you know, like the international number

544
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 3: on that movie was very very strong, you know, and

545
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 3: I think put that movie up near one hundred million

546
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: dollars of global box office, which is a huge success

547
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 3: story in the space, you know, and et cetera, et cetera.

548
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 3: There's a ton of those examples of I think for

549
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: us in the specialty space, we've always had this sort

550
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 3: of knowledge of there is a robust audience here in

551
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 3: the US, and you know, the domestic marketplace with Canada

552
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 3: that has a voracious appetite for this kind of movie,

553
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 3: and we've got a good relationship with them. When we

554
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 3: flow with them, we sometimes try to, you know, get

555
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 3: a movie to break out beyond them into the kind

556
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 3: of broader commercial audience that will sort of go into

557
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 3: this space. And things like that but internationally, there's there's

558
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 3: a lot of places where that kind of ethos that

559
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 3: sort of like thoughtful cinema from an O tour director

560
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 3: is much more naturally a mainstream kind of a stepic.

561
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 2: Let me ask you my last question for you is

562
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: I love to ask people in the job you have now?

563
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: Is there an experience early in your career, or in

564
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 2: your education, or in your life, anything that you can

565
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 2: think of that you look back on and think that

566
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 2: was great training for the job I have now, Anything

567
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 2: that stands out to you in terms of just an

568
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 2: early experience that now you look back and like that

569
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 2: was good experience or training or a good lesson learned.

570
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 3: It's a great question, and I'll maybe answer it more

571
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 3: generally than you're asking it, because I can't think of

572
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 3: the one specific story of this experience. But I can

573
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 3: say that my entire career has been built on, you know, candily,

574
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 3: the shoulders of giants who I feel lucky to have

575
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 3: learned from. And you know, there's a reason I've always

576
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 3: been here, you know, I you know it was good.

577
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 3: Machine was bought, we became Focus Features. I had that job.

578
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 3: Donna brought me from Focus to Universal. But I was

579
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 3: still working closely with Focus and then back to Focus

580
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 3: and all of that, and every single step along the

581
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 3: way where there was maybe an opportunity to look elsewhere

582
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 3: things like that, I never wanted to do it because

583
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 3: I knew I was among people like James Seamus, like

584
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 3: David Lindy, like Donna Langley, who really took seriously the

585
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 3: idea and responsibility that if you're doing this job, well,

586
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 3: it's actually it's a service job. You know, it's a

587
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 3: job of acknowledging that what you are doing is helping

588
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 3: a filmmaker unleash their vision into the world, helping them

589
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 3: shape what the kind of cultural moment of what it

590
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 3: is they've created can be in the world, and being

591
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 3: I mean full partner in that, being you know, someone

592
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,719
Speaker 3: who's not afraid to sort of push back on some

593
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 3: ideas or things like that, but ultimately not treating it

594
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 3: as we're here to generate, you know, a slate that's

595
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 3: built on a spreadsheet. We're going to find the people

596
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 3: who do that, and they're going to do it our

597
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 3: way or not like that. That has just never been

598
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 3: the ethos of anything that we've ever done. And I think,

599
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 3: but keeping myself in the domain of people who constantly

600
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 3: taught me that lesson and taught me ways to approach

601
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 3: those individual situations that you face in a job like this.

602
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 3: That's defined the entirety of what we've done since since

603
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 3: I've been running Focus, because it was the reason Focus

604
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 3: was founded. And you know, I think is part of

605
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,479
Speaker 3: the longevity of what we've been able to achieve here

606
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 3: is it's not built on some sort of strategy deck

607
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 3: business plan right as much as the quarters a quarter, yeah,

608
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 3: as it's built on the kind of continuum of artistry

609
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 3: and the evolution of artistry that happens naturally in the world,

610
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 3: and providing a home and a safe haven for those

611
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 3: artists to come in, you know, and tell that story

612
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 3: that they want to tell in their way. You know,

613
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 3: that becomes the key thing that you are sort of

614
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: operating in service of.

615
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review

616
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 2: at Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. We love to hear

617
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 2: from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign

618
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't

619
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 2: forget to tune in next week for another episode of

620
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: Strictly Business.