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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, November twentieth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co

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Speaker 1: editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 1: LA He's in New York, and Vridy has reporters around

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Speaker 1: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we'll hear from Variety's Owen Gleiberman about his rediscovery of

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Speaker 1: an underappreciated Martin Scorsese classic. Casino. Joe Otterson unpacks his

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Speaker 1: reporting on the turmoil behind the scenes on Sylvester Stallone's

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Speaker 1: Tulsa King series as it shoots season four in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: But before we get to that, here are a few

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Speaker 1: headlines just in this morning that you need to know.

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Speaker 1: HBO unveiled a host of series renewals and programming tidbits

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Speaker 1: at its media presentation in New York this morning. Casey

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Speaker 1: Bloyse brought his usual enthusiasm to the stage at Hudson Yards.

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Speaker 1: By all accounts, bloys showed grace and humor under pressure

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Speaker 1: as his parent company faces another round of merger Mania.

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Speaker 1: HBO's presentation happened to fall on the same day that

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery Corporate Titans in Burbank are fielding the

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Speaker 1: first round of preliminary bids to acquire all or part

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Speaker 1: of the COMPANYBO another assets in Warner Brothers Discovery are

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Speaker 1: about to be carved up like a turkey in a

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Speaker 1: bidding process that is sure to bring out some unexpected players,

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Speaker 1: or maybe not, if David Ellison and Paramount have their

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Speaker 1: way in buying the company in its entirety. With CNNTNT

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Speaker 1: Discovery and other linear cable channels intact, we'll have a

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Speaker 1: full rundown in Monday's episode about the mood at HBO

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Speaker 1: and the latest in the Warner Brothers Discovery auction. The

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Speaker 1: other big news of the morning also involves Warner Brothers.

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Speaker 1: The lost episodes of Joey have been freed and are

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Speaker 1: now available on the Friends YouTube channel. Joey was the

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Speaker 1: two thousand four spinoff of Friends that had about a

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Speaker 1: one and a half season one run on NBC. The

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Speaker 1: show was canceled with eight episode in the can that

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Speaker 1: never aired. I'm sure we'll see a thousand means and

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Speaker 1: think pieces on it. Before the end of the week.

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Speaker 1: All of these stories and so much more can be

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Speaker 1: found on Variety dot com. Now it's time for conversations

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Speaker 1: with Friday journalists about news and trends and show business.

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Speaker 1: We'll hear from Owen Gleiberman, Variety's chief film critic, on

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Speaker 1: why he has come to have a very different view

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Speaker 1: of Casino in the thirty years that have passed since

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Speaker 1: he gave it a lukewarm review in nineteen ninety five.

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Speaker 1: He explains why he's seeing things in it now that

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Speaker 1: he missed the first time around. One thing you can't

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Speaker 1: miss is the greatness of Sharon Stone in this three

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Speaker 1: hour saga that revolves around her tempestuous relationship with the

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Speaker 1: casino boss played by Robert de Niro. Here's a snippet

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Speaker 1: from the original trailer, followed by my conversation with Owen.

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Speaker 2: You like your money a lot?

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Speaker 1: Yes, Alan, I was settled down.

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Speaker 3: I want a family.

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Speaker 2: You got the wrong girl.

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Speaker 1: You'll be sent up for the rest of you life.

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Speaker 2: You don't know me.

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Speaker 3: Do you know me?

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Speaker 2: Three months?

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Speaker 3: Can I trust you? Can I trust you?

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Speaker 1: I've got to the Vailand. Well, I've got to the police.

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Speaker 1: I am not protesting anything, Owen Gleiberman, thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for joining me.

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Speaker 3: Good to be here, Cynthia.

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Speaker 1: Well. As often happens, Owen, when I am proofing pages

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Speaker 1: at the end of the week, I'll read a column

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Speaker 1: from you, and I just know that we are going

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Speaker 1: to talk about it. You took a long look back

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Speaker 1: at Martin Scorsese's nineteen ninety five movie Casino. I remember

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Speaker 1: seeing in the theaters. It was quite a journey, and

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Speaker 1: you really dug deep into Scorsesees canon and put it

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Speaker 1: into context. You look back at how this movie was

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Speaker 1: interpreted in the day and how it holds up. Owen,

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Speaker 1: what sparked this rewatch of Casino for you?

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Speaker 3: I think Casino is a movie whose reputation and just

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Speaker 3: the whole way we think about it is kind of

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Speaker 3: out of sync with what's on screen. I reviewed it

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Speaker 3: what it came out thirty years ago, and like a

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Speaker 3: lot of people at the time, I gave it a

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Speaker 3: mixed review. In certain ways, I was dazzled by it.

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Speaker 3: It seemed to have the Scorsese bravora, But back in

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Speaker 3: ninety five, as the movie went on, I found it cold.

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Speaker 3: I thought it was too long, it felt almost too

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Speaker 3: jam packed. With underworld information, almost like an Encyclopedia entry,

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Speaker 3: and the Robert de Niro character was not exactly someone

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Speaker 3: you could cozy up to. So it all added up

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Speaker 3: to a film that seemed on the surface like it

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Speaker 3: was made in the style and spirit of Goodfellas, But

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Speaker 3: that was a movie people thought of as a joy

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Speaker 3: ride to the dark side, and Casino didn't feel like

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Speaker 3: it had that joy So I kind of wrote it

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Speaker 3: off ultimately as a mixed bag, and that's the way

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Speaker 3: I thought of it for decades.

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Speaker 1: I do remember that for a while there people were

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Speaker 1: saying that Martin Scorsese was making the same movie over

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Speaker 1: and over, but this column prompted me to think about it.

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Speaker 1: I have not watched all of Cassine since I first

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Speaker 1: saw it, but it is one of those movies that

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Speaker 1: when I'm flipping channels and I see it, I will stop.

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Speaker 1: And after reading this column, I closed my eyes. I

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Speaker 1: could think of more moments that really stuck with me

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Speaker 1: than Goodfellas, which I found interesting.

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Speaker 3: I do think people put Goodfellas on a special pedestal.

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Speaker 3: It's not personally my favorite Scorsese mob drama, but yes,

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Speaker 3: there was a feeling at the time that Casino, with

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Speaker 3: all that voice over and the sort of rushing plot

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Speaker 3: and the camera going everywhere, was made in the style

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Speaker 3: of Goodfellas that maybe Scorsese was dry was repeating himself

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Speaker 3: a little bit. I'll tell you what moved me to

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Speaker 3: watch it again. It was during the pandemic. For some reason,

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Speaker 3: I went through a gangster movie phase during a pandemic,

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Speaker 3: and I was just watching all these mob movies, so

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Speaker 3: I decided to revisit Casino. I watched it again late

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Speaker 3: one night, starting in around midnight, and for all three

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Speaker 3: hours of it, I found myself totally mesmerized in a

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Speaker 3: way that I hadn't the first time, and I thought

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Speaker 3: I was really seeing it for the first time. I

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Speaker 3: think expectation has something to do with it. I went

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Speaker 3: in this time knowing what I was getting, that I

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Speaker 3: was going to be watching a colder movie than Goodfellas.

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Speaker 3: But that said, I was amazed at how connected I

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Speaker 3: felt to everything that was going on. It was this

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Speaker 3: kind of sociological movie that showed you how the casino

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Speaker 3: operated and had all this fantastic construction of that world.

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Speaker 3: But I also saw that de Niro's performance was a

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Speaker 3: lot subtler than I realized I think someone had gone

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Speaker 3: right over my head. This cold fish of a character.

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Speaker 3: Ace Rothstein was very subtle and just fascinating to watch,

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Speaker 3: and I got more over on his side and got

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Speaker 3: drawn into the movie through that, and then I just

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Speaker 3: saw that the world that it depicts and where it

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Speaker 3: goes is fantastic.

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Speaker 1: DeNiro would seem to have a similar problem to Scorsese.

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Speaker 1: He's played so many mob characters that how do you

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Speaker 1: make it stand out so that people don't say Robert

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Speaker 1: de Niro's doing the same thing that he does in

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Speaker 1: all of these pictures.

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Speaker 3: That's right. I think that's what I admits the first time.

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Speaker 3: What I saw when I finally got Casino again is

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Speaker 3: that I saw what the movie was about, which is

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Speaker 3: that this is not just a film about the mob

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Speaker 3: or about the way Vegas casinos operated in the sixties

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Speaker 3: and seventies. The whole movie is really about money in

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Speaker 3: this obsessive way. That's what joins all the characters, and

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Speaker 3: I just saw a richness in that. Joe Peshi, for instance,

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Speaker 3: he is playing a character he's a hothead variation on

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Speaker 3: his Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas, but in many ways a

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Speaker 3: wilder and more complex character just mesmerizing to watch, and

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Speaker 3: Sharon Stone is off the hook. I think she gives

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Speaker 3: a magnificent performance in Casino, her character Ginger, who marries

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Speaker 3: de Niro's control freak of a casino operator. She is

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Speaker 3: unabashedly presented as a gold digger, very flawed, kind of

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Speaker 3: scurless at certain times, and yet she is portrayed in

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Speaker 3: this incredibly human way that makes her sympathetic and once

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Speaker 3: again very complex. We don't see, even in Scorsesese movies,

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Speaker 3: necessarily the female side of the mob equation. It's not

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Speaker 3: given that kind of weight, and in this movie it

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Speaker 3: really is. So it starts as a crime psychodrama, descends

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Speaker 3: into this kind of lacerating underworld scenes from a marriage.

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Speaker 3: It gets very dark, but it's very powerful.

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Speaker 1: It's earthier than Goodfellas, It's more grounded in the real world.

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Speaker 1: Your point about it, it's about money, just like Godfather, that

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Speaker 1: larger theme of who's the organized crime? Is it the mob?

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Speaker 1: Is it the government? Is it the senators that are corrupt?

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Speaker 1: Is it the corrupt business that has the patina of legit?

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Speaker 1: I mean, those are really important questions, and I think

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Speaker 1: Casino for sure also hits all of those in different

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Speaker 1: ways and from different povs.

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Speaker 3: It totally does. I mean, the whole world of casinos,

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Speaker 3: the whole world of Vegas is a world of such illusion.

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Speaker 3: But to go to a this is to participate in

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Speaker 3: the illusion the surface of it. What's going on underneath

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Speaker 3: is so much sleevesier in a way, which is that

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Speaker 3: the deck is stacked against us. I do think that

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Speaker 3: Casino at the time was experienced far too much through

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Speaker 3: the lens of Goodfellas. I think that is what has

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Speaker 3: is now changed. And certainly for me, Goodfellas is so

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Speaker 3: fondly remembered, in part because it is this violent mafia

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Speaker 3: party hangout movie, and that ensemble of bad guys from

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Speaker 3: Heaven just some of the greatest performances, and there's just

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Speaker 3: an exuberance to it. Casino seems to be a party

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Speaker 3: with the bliss chilled out of it, and yet in

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Speaker 3: that way, I think Scorsese gets closer to the reality

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Speaker 3: there of what is really going on. Well, when you

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Speaker 3: think about all the scor Mob movies, going back to

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Speaker 3: Mean Streets in nineteen seventy three, they're built on this

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Speaker 3: incredible paradox. Whereas Scorsese you could just feel that in

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Speaker 3: his very cells, he wants to live in these worlds.

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Speaker 3: He wants to feel as intensely as these do, and

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Speaker 3: in some ways he looks up to them and envies them.

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Speaker 3: That's what people remember best about Goodfellas, although an interesting

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Speaker 3: thing to note about that movie is that all the

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Speaker 3: scenes that people cherish most the camera following Raylioda and

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Speaker 3: Lorraine Brocco through the kitchen into the restaurant. Do you

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Speaker 3: think I'm funny? All that stuff happens in the first

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Speaker 3: forty minutes. Goodfellas actually turns very dark. But I think

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Speaker 3: that the more that Scorsese returned to the mob as

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Speaker 3: a subject, the more he wanted to demonstrate the price

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Speaker 3: that you pay. He wanted to show us that it's

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Speaker 3: not worth it. And he never scraped the varnish off

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Speaker 3: the underworld as powerfully as I think he does in Casino.

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Speaker 3: That's what makes the film rather forbidding. But I also

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Speaker 3: now see that that's what makes it a masterpiece. It

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Speaker 3: is really Scorsese's most direct reckoning of the wages of sin.

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Speaker 3: It gets very dark at the end, but by the

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Speaker 3: time it's over, you really feel like you have seen

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Speaker 3: the mob World as it truly is, and there is

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Speaker 3: something cathartic about that. I don't think think it his

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Speaker 3: thought of as quite the classic that it should be.

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Speaker 3: And now that it's thirty years old, this week I

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Speaker 3: thought it was time to go back and say, yes,

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Speaker 3: Casino really is, even for Scorsese, one of the true

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Speaker 3: highlights of his canon.

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Speaker 1: Again, folks, you have to go to Variety dot Com

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Speaker 1: or our November nineteenth print edition and read the whole

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Speaker 1: column because Owen has such great insight. I love reading

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Speaker 1: your deep thoughts about movies.

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Speaker 3: Well, thanks, I'd love it if people went out and

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Speaker 3: rewatched this movie and saw really the place it deserves

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Speaker 3: to have.

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Speaker 1: This starts the campaign for more respect for Casino. Thank you, Owen,

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Speaker 1: Thanks you, And now we turn to the Taylor Sheridan universe.

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Speaker 1: Joe Watterson TV news editor and discusses his reporting on

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Speaker 1: abrupt firings and a showrunner dilemma on Tulsa King. Joe Otterson,

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Speaker 1: thanks for joining me.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, and a quick apology to

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Speaker 4: our regular listeners. I have a bit of a scratchy

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Speaker 4: throat right now, so if I say funny, that is

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Speaker 4: why it's.

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Speaker 1: Going around on both coasts. Well, you've been doing some

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Speaker 1: good reporting on the strange goings on behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: at Tulsa King, the Sylvester Stallone Paramount plus Taylor Sheridan series.

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Speaker 1: Based on your reporting of late I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: too much of an exaggeration to say that pretty much

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Speaker 1: all hell's breaking loose on Tulsa King as they start

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Speaker 1: to produce season four.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of a mess. So going into

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Speaker 2: this season, they had not named.

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Speaker 4: An official showrunner. Going into the season, Dave Erickson was

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Speaker 4: the showrunner on season three, but as I recently reported,

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Speaker 4: he and Sylvester Stallone did not see eye to eye

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Speaker 4: with each other, so Dave Rickson ended up leaving the

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Speaker 4: show at the end of season three. And then you

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Speaker 4: have Terrence Winter returning to the show for I think

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Speaker 4: the third time under the title of head writer. So

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Speaker 4: he is running the writer's room out of Los Angeles,

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Speaker 4: but he's not spending time on set. So it's raised

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Speaker 4: a lot of questions for people on the ground in Atlanta,

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Speaker 4: where they're shooting most of the season, who is the

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Speaker 4: creative lead on this show at this time? Is not

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Speaker 4: a creative person on the ground running the show day

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Speaker 4: to day, and that's become a bit of a problem.

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Speaker 1: I think it's hard to imagine that an enterprise like that,

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Speaker 1: a television show is a small army of people that

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Speaker 1: need to be coordinated. You've got to have a central

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Speaker 1: vision or you don't have any idea what that soup's

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Speaker 1: gonna taste like at the end. So, in addition to

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Speaker 1: the showrunner issue, there was a big chunk of staff

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Speaker 1: that shortly before production was supposed to start in Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: that the big chunk of staff were told that their

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Speaker 1: services were not needed.

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Speaker 4: So twenty six crew members were pretty unceremoniously fired from

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Speaker 4: the show just before cameras rolled on season four.

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Speaker 2: Some were informed with as little as ten days notice.

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Speaker 4: Now, in fairness, like we reported this out too, that

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Speaker 4: none of these people had deals in place for the

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Speaker 4: new season. I didn't speak with everybody, but all of

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Speaker 4: them who spoke with me said they had essentially been

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Speaker 4: verbally promised like, hey, sign up for season three and

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Speaker 4: will take care of you going into season four, and

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Speaker 4: matter now can not be the case.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, it was just.

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Speaker 4: Handled in a way that everyone who was spoke with

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Speaker 4: said this was just incredibly unprofessional, incredibly just uncool. I mean,

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Speaker 4: people were counting on this work, oh to support themselves

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Speaker 4: and their families. A lot of these people had been

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Speaker 4: with the show since the beginning.

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Speaker 1: Some of these positions were stunt positions correct.

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Speaker 4: Well, someone I spoke with who was very candida on

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Speaker 4: the record was a gentleman by the name of Freddie Poole,

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Speaker 4: who has twice been nominated for an Emmy for stunt

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Speaker 4: coordinating for Tulsa King.

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Speaker 2: He's been with the show since the beginning. He's very

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Speaker 2: well respected for his role.

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Speaker 4: And again he was basically informed with notes in terms

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Speaker 4: like hey, well we'll bring you back in a much

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Speaker 4: smaller role for basically less money, but we are not

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Speaker 4: going to be doing what we've had you doing well.

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Speaker 1: Tulsa King is produced by Paramount. Paramount, as Daily Vardy

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Speaker 1: listeners know, has been through a big transition. There could

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Speaker 1: be perhaps some hasty decisions cut this cut. That is

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Speaker 1: your read that basically somebody laid down a huge budget cut.

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Speaker 2: So this is a one on one studios production.

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Speaker 4: One one Studios produces everything to do pretty much with

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Speaker 4: the Taylor Shardan universe, and obviously you know Taylor shar

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Speaker 4: is leaving his deal at Paramount when that expires in

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Speaker 4: a couple of years for a new deal at Nbcuniverse.

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Speaker 4: But the strange thing is a lot of people that

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Speaker 4: I spoke with said they were essentially told the reason

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Speaker 4: they were being let go was quote unquote creative differences.

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Speaker 2: Like Freddie Poole.

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Speaker 4: Said that to me that when he was informed he

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Speaker 4: wasn't being brought back in his same role that he'd

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Speaker 4: been in, that it was due to creative differences and

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Speaker 4: what exactly that meant. He couldn't get a straight answer.

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Speaker 4: And the lack of transparency, the lack of a clear leader.

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Speaker 4: You know, there's an executive from one of One Studios,

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Speaker 4: Scott Stone, who has become the de facto show run.

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Speaker 1: This is not a job where you can just interchange

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Speaker 1: leaders presuming that somebody has executed a creative vision for

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Speaker 1: this show. Actually, all right, Joe, My last question for

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Speaker 1: you is Tulsa king within the Taylor Sheridan universe. How

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Speaker 1: do fans talk about it?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: Is this a beloved show?

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Speaker 4: It definitely doesn't have the same draw as the Yellowstone

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Speaker 4: shows do as far as Paramount Plus shows, It's still

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Speaker 4: a massive show for them. I mean, because you have

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Speaker 4: Taylor Shardan involved, Sylvester Stallone is still Sylvester Stallone, So

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Speaker 4: I think it is definitely.

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Speaker 2: A popular show, relatively speaking.

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Speaker 4: Because as we know, Paramount Plus doesn't have the kind

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Speaker 4: of subscriber base that's saying Netflix does, But as far

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Speaker 4: as Paramount Plus shows go, it's definitely up there for them.

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Speaker 4: And if you look at the Nielsen streaming ranking the show,

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Speaker 4: it doesn't necessarily break through in the overall top ten,

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Speaker 4: but if you look at the streaming original charts, it's

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Speaker 4: on the chart, it's up there, so it's definitely popular.

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Speaker 4: They are working out a spin off right now with

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Speaker 4: Samuel L.

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Speaker 2: Jackson.

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Speaker 5: This is my real last question for you. Do you

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Speaker 5: think we'll see season four? Probably like Q three or

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Speaker 5: Q four of twenty twenty six. I would guess they

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Speaker 5: just started shooting it recently. Obviously, the holidays are coming up,

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Speaker 5: so I'm sure there's gonna be some breaks in there.

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Speaker 5: But the one thing about these shows is that you know,

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Speaker 5: Taylor Sheridan and his team know how to turn this

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Speaker 5: stuff around pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: Joe, thank you so much, and I certainly hope you

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Speaker 1: feel better soon. Thank you very much, As we close

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Speaker 1: out today's episode, here's a few things we're watching for.

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Speaker 1: Don't skip my call league Brent langs Q and a

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Speaker 1: with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Those two founders of

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Speaker 1: Imagine Entertainment are celebrating forty years of one of Hollywood's

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Speaker 1: most successful professional marriages ever. Next week, just for laughs,

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Speaker 1: righty will publish our take on the hundred greatest comedies

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Speaker 1: of all time. Let the social media debate ensue. It's

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Speaker 1: a fun list assembled by our terrific chief film critics

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Speaker 1: Owen Gleiberman and Peter de Bruce, and we'll hear more

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Speaker 1: from them on it next week. I can't wait to

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Speaker 1: see the reaction to our choices before we go. Congrats

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Speaker 1: to producer Maria Zuckerman. She's set up a first look

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Speaker 1: deal with Fox Entertainment Studios. Zuckerman is an HBO alum

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Speaker 1: who was recently president of Topic Studios. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 1: This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton,

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Speaker 1: with contributions from Owen Gliberman and Joe Otterson sticks Nick's

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Speaker 1: hick picks. Please leave us a review at the podcast

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Speaker 1: platform of your choice, and please tune in Monday for

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Speaker 1: another episode of Daily Variety.