Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine
Speaker 1: that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies,
Speaker 1: and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business finance
Speaker 1: and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Har Everyone, Welcome to a special weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week, looking at some of our favorite guests from
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg screen Time event in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Screen Time gathers the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the
Speaker 3: next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a
Speaker 3: half in the heart of Hollywood, we discussed and debated
Speaker 3: the future of Hollywood studios, the boom, and sports and
Speaker 3: live music, and of course, the effect of AI on
Speaker 3: the creative industries.
Speaker 2: AI is everywhere. We're going to hear from actors, studio heads, investors,
Speaker 2: and even a late night host.
Speaker 3: Not just any late night hosts.
Speaker 2: No, he's been in the news a lot lately.
Speaker 3: His name rhymes with Miimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 4: That was the lame, but yes, indeed we are talking
Speaker 4: about Jimmy Kimmel. We begin though in the media space,
Speaker 4: and a conversation between our Lucas Shaw, who organized the
Speaker 4: event with the Bloomberg Live team, and the CEO of
Speaker 4: Skydance Media, David Allison, the two of them in a conversation, we.
Speaker 5: Got to start with Paramount.
Speaker 6: You chase this company for a couple of years, if
Speaker 6: not longer.
Speaker 5: If you look at what they own.
Speaker 6: They have a bunch of cable networks that have been
Speaker 6: in decline for almost as long as I've been doing
Speaker 6: my job. They have a movie studio that is, by
Speaker 6: most metrics, the last place movie studio the last few years,
Speaker 6: and a streaming service that in terms of at least
Speaker 6: engagement is sort.
Speaker 5: Of in the third tier.
Speaker 6: So why were you so interested in what do you
Speaker 6: see in the company that investors and a lot of
Speaker 6: other potential bidders did not.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, absolutely, it's a great question.
Speaker 8: First, I just want to say we couldn't be more
Speaker 8: excited about the place that we're starting with the asset
Speaker 8: that we purchased, right, we have eighty million streaming subscribers.
Speaker 8: We have one of the best basically content libraries in
Speaker 8: existence with the Paramount and CBS. And I also think
Speaker 8: you need to distinguish when you talk about the linear business.
Speaker 7: Right, there's the cable, which.
Speaker 8: Yes, has been declined, but if you look at CBS,
Speaker 8: it actually is a remarkable asset that's been number one
Speaker 8: in prime time for seventeenth straight seasons. Incredible sports rights
Speaker 8: which we're growing and is still highly highly profitable and
Speaker 8: cash flow perspective, and I agree with you, has not
Speaker 8: been run in the best manner for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 8: And for me, that's all opportunity, an opportunity to really
Speaker 8: reignite the creative content engines, to navigate the transition that's
Speaker 8: required to really turn Paramount Plus into a leader in streaming.
Speaker 7: And we believe we have the ability to both win.
Speaker 8: In content and also become the most technologically capable media
Speaker 8: company to effectively navigate this transition. We always looked at
Speaker 8: you know, you can look at the music business ten
Speaker 8: years ago. We believe we can navigate that. We also
Speaker 8: really looked at where traditional tech company were, you know,
Speaker 8: call it ten fifteen years ago, and there is a
Speaker 8: period of time where you know, the Microsoft's.
Speaker 7: The world, the oracles of the world were.
Speaker 8: Being disrupted and those companies that actually disrupted themselves and
Speaker 8: transitions are now all traded at all time highs. We
Speaker 8: believe we have the opportunity to do the same thing.
Speaker 6: So you talked about streaming. You mentioned that the eighty
Speaker 6: million subscribers earlier. You know, you look at it, those
Speaker 6: those monthly Nielsen reports that people pay a lot of
Speaker 6: attention to. Right, are youtubes at thirteen percent of TV viewing?
Speaker 5: Netflix? Is that between eight and.
Speaker 6: Nine most months Paramount and you combine Paramount plus and
Speaker 6: Pluto it sort of sits around two percent.
Speaker 5: You can correct me if I'm off there. I think
Speaker 5: it's about right.
Speaker 6: So how do you get that up forget about thirteen
Speaker 6: or eight like Disney's in the four or five range.
Speaker 5: How do you get that up there?
Speaker 6: And you've talked about content and tech? Can you get
Speaker 6: specific on those fronts like what you're going to do?
Speaker 7: Absolutely?
Speaker 8: So, Look, one of the things we really believed in,
Speaker 8: like what I'll say, we're nine weeks in and I'm
Speaker 8: really proud of the momentum the team has been able
Speaker 8: to build over the last nine weeks. One of the
Speaker 8: things we really believe being the first own and operated
Speaker 8: studio to my knowledge since actually Walt Disney built his
Speaker 8: own shop, was that we would have the opportunity to
Speaker 8: really think long term. That means long term partnerships with
Speaker 8: talent where you can basically say, don't just think about
Speaker 8: your next movie or your next show.
Speaker 7: We want to build a relationship with.
Speaker 8: You over a decade and actually say we're going to
Speaker 8: make your next four or five movies, your next four
Speaker 8: or five series, and really think long term and invest
Speaker 8: for long term growth. The great news and when you
Speaker 8: look at we had to win in content, I think
Speaker 8: we're well on our way to being.
Speaker 5: Able to do that.
Speaker 8: If you look at specifics right, we're able to get
Speaker 8: the Obviously, the UFC deals one of the first things
Speaker 8: we announced we came over. We're incredibly proud that Activision
Speaker 8: chose to partner with us on Call of Duty, which
Speaker 8: is the most successful video game franchise of all time
Speaker 8: with five hundred million units sold. We're able to have
Speaker 8: James Mangold come over and obviously call his you know,
Speaker 8: one of the greatest filmmakers working to call Paramount Home
Speaker 8: Boulder Light, who obviously had incredible hits like Weapons earlier
Speaker 8: this year. In addition to that, you know, we've been
Speaker 8: able to secure high profile packages for streaming with basically
Speaker 8: paramount plus. And then we're also really reinvigorating what we're
Speaker 8: doing in news with CBS News with the acquisition of
Speaker 8: the Free Press. And then I think when you look
Speaker 8: at CBS's broadcast lineup, I think we have the strongest lineup,
Speaker 8: maybe arguably in the company's history. And so I think
Speaker 8: we've really successfully reinvigorated the creative content engines of the
Speaker 8: company in a really short period of time.
Speaker 7: And I think we're going to be able to do
Speaker 7: that at scale. So that's one two.
Speaker 8: You know, I think when you look at kind of
Speaker 8: ten thousand feet, Silicon Valley has done an excellent job
Speaker 8: of really coming into Hollywood. I mean the platform that
Speaker 8: Netflix has built, the platform that basically Amazon is built,
Speaker 8: and these are incredible companies.
Speaker 6: I'd say the platform that Amazon has built is not
Speaker 6: very good, but they do have the benefit of Amazon behind.
Speaker 6: Even people who work at Amazon but acknowledge the product
Speaker 6: could be better.
Speaker 8: I think when you look at the number of subscribers,
Speaker 8: I think they're doing okay. And you know, from from
Speaker 8: that standpoint, but what we really want to become. We
Speaker 8: talk about becoming the most technologically capable media company.
Speaker 7: Believe we have the capability to do that. We're bringing
Speaker 7: in the prior leadership.
Speaker 8: We just obviously hired our CPO Dan Glasgow, who was
Speaker 8: formally obviously.
Speaker 7: Running product at metaphor.
Speaker 8: Facebook, who is obviously a phenomenal leader, to come into
Speaker 8: the business. And we have really deep tech partnerships that
Speaker 8: are really going to enable, we think Paramount for the
Speaker 8: first time to actually build platforms that are competitive with Netflix,
Speaker 8: that are competitive with Amazon, and actually successfully grow in scale.
Speaker 8: And I think you've said this, You've talked about this
Speaker 8: a lot, given this moment in time that we exist in,
Speaker 8: great art and great technology need to work hand in
Speaker 8: hand together to effectuate the transition the overall businesses in
Speaker 8: Is there.
Speaker 6: Some things like concrete about the Paramount plus platform right
Speaker 6: now that you think is clearly substandard, And how like
Speaker 6: I've heard you talk about the recommendation algorithm right and
Speaker 6: how you think that could be better. Does having us
Speaker 6: a better recommendation algorithm really going to like bring in
Speaker 6: ten million new customers or make people spend an extra
Speaker 6: two hours a day with your with your service.
Speaker 7: So you have to do two things.
Speaker 8: One like, let's just talk about the asset that we acquired.
Speaker 7: We inherited right.
Speaker 8: Paramount as it exists today operates three streaming platforms, three
Speaker 8: separate stack tech stacks on two different clouds, which is
Speaker 8: both inefficient and wildly expensive. So if you actually said
Speaker 8: I'm gonna if I had unlimited resources, this is not
Speaker 8: how you do.
Speaker 6: For those who don't follow, the three services are Paramount Plus,
Speaker 6: Pluto TV, and b BT plus correct.
Speaker 8: So we're in the process right now of basically consolidating
Speaker 8: all of those onto a single into a single stack,
Speaker 8: which will both significantly improve the operational capabilities of the product,
Speaker 8: and we're doing a lot to basically overhaul every single
Speaker 8: aspect of the stack. But also the more data that
Speaker 8: you obviously get in there, which is the more users,
Speaker 8: the better you're going to.
Speaker 7: Be able to recommend content.
Speaker 8: So we are we are definitely overhauling basically the product
Speaker 8: right now. But in addition to that, to me, technology
Speaker 8: is really in service of the content, not the other
Speaker 8: way around, and we're going to make significantly more shows
Speaker 8: at Paramount Plus. We are investing in sports rights, and
Speaker 8: when you look at the acquisition of the UFC, that
Speaker 8: is the largest sport that is basically not shared between
Speaker 8: multiple platforms, and to basically, and they have one hundred
Speaker 8: million fans. They've grown twenty five percent from twenty nineteen
Speaker 8: to date. They grew at that level sitting behind a
Speaker 8: double paywall. So we think when you eliminate that double paywall,
Speaker 8: it's going to open it up and make it much
Speaker 8: more accessible. Literally, one paper you fight is what a
Speaker 8: Paramount Plus subscription is. And then basically those hundred million
Speaker 8: fans are going to be able to get access to
Speaker 8: everything they love. And in addition to that, when you
Speaker 8: look at the overall sports strategy, which cannot be more
Speaker 8: important to us, Paramount had a really strong fall and
Speaker 8: spring sports calendar, but really light in the summer.
Speaker 6: The football In the fall, you have March Madness.
Speaker 8: In the spring, you have the Masters, which which we're
Speaker 8: incredibly proud to be partners with, and now with UFC,
Speaker 8: we have a year long sports strategy and that in
Speaker 8: addition to all of the new originals that we're going
Speaker 8: to be making for P plus, there's going to be
Speaker 8: more content, there's going to be a better tech product
Speaker 8: that's going to yield additional engage and scale.
Speaker 6: So I won't I have a follow up on that,
Speaker 6: but I'm curious because you mentioned Pluto. You've talked a
Speaker 6: lot about combining the back end. How likely is it
Speaker 6: that you just combine all those services into one consumer
Speaker 6: facing app where if you want to watch Pluto, you're
Speaker 6: just going to Paramount Plus.
Speaker 8: So right now we're basically combining the back the back end.
Speaker 8: It's certainly something we've discussed and explore, but not.
Speaker 7: Something we're planning to do right now.
Speaker 6: Got it? And you're in the like the fun spending money,
Speaker 6: showing people you're here to reinvigorate the company phase.
Speaker 5: When does the less fun part?
Speaker 8: So, look, one of the things that I think is
Speaker 8: actually important is this business can be operated a lot
Speaker 8: more efficiently than was operated in the past. And you know,
Speaker 8: we've obviously announced you know, two billion dollars and obviously
Speaker 8: run rate synergies. We've said we're going to meaningfully obviously
Speaker 8: exceed those targets, and from our perspective, we intend to
Speaker 8: do that as quickly as possible, so that we can
Speaker 8: basically get that behind us then have the entire team
Speaker 8: just building for the future.
Speaker 6: So does that do cuts start before the end of
Speaker 6: the year.
Speaker 7: You know, I can't answer that question.
Speaker 6: Let's go to a couple other questions you probably can't answer.
Speaker 6: Have you we're going there already, all right, Have you
Speaker 6: made an offer yet for Warner Brothers Discovery?
Speaker 7: All right, we'll talk about tennis.
Speaker 5: We'll get to tennis at the end.
Speaker 7: I already I don't know if you saw it.
Speaker 6: I asked Greg Peters who is better at tennis?
Speaker 5: Him or Bill Gate.
Speaker 6: You can probably answer that question he dodged, But.
Speaker 7: The adotention, I actually can't ass attention.
Speaker 8: I've never seen either of them play tennis, so I
Speaker 8: don't feel equipped to be able to do.
Speaker 6: Let's go back to the offer for Warner Brothers Discovery.
Speaker 8: So so, look, we're a publicly traded company, and I
Speaker 8: think you know, we're not in a position to be
Speaker 8: able to comment on rumors speculation of any kind, because
Speaker 8: there's a couple of rumors and speculations obviously out there
Speaker 8: in terms of what we may or may not be doing.
Speaker 8: But look, what I can't comment on is people to
Speaker 8: kind of understand our mindset, right, And I actually think,
Speaker 8: you know, ironically, it was David Zaslov last year that said,
Speaker 8: you know, consolidation the media business is important, and the
Speaker 8: way we approach everything is first and foremost what's good
Speaker 8: for the talent community, what's good for our shareholders and
Speaker 8: value creation, and what's good for basically storytelling at large.
Speaker 8: And so from our standpoint, whether we were approach any acquisition,
Speaker 8: I actually do think there's a lot of options out
Speaker 8: there in terms of what actually might be actionable in
Speaker 8: the near future. We would approach that through the lens
Speaker 8: of wanting to make more, not less, you know.
Speaker 6: Because the natural conclusion if you were to merge with
Speaker 6: one of those Discovery is you take two companies that
Speaker 6: combines I don't remember the content's been between the two
Speaker 6: of them, but spend billions of dollars. And much as
Speaker 6: you're combining Guidance and Paramount, you take money out. You
Speaker 6: would take money out there. Companies that merge don't tend
Speaker 6: to spend more money on the other side of it.
Speaker 8: So what I would say, and again I'm not going
Speaker 8: to comment on one of brothers Discovery, but you know
Speaker 8: you said it when you talked about Paramount actually need
Speaker 8: more content to yield more engagement, and so we would
Speaker 8: actually want to be in the business throughout whatever lens
Speaker 8: we're looking at of actually producing more, you know, more movies,
Speaker 8: more television series, more to get to scale, because you
Speaker 8: need that content, you need that great storytelling to yield engagement.
Speaker 8: And from that standpoint, we're also in the business first
Speaker 8: and foremost of creating long term value creation. And you know,
Speaker 8: in one of the things I think I hope we've
Speaker 8: proven obviously with our family is we are in the
Speaker 8: business of building long term value for shareholders, and I
Speaker 8: think we've done that successfully.
Speaker 2: That's Guy Dance Media CEO David Ellison speaking with Bloomberg's
Speaker 2: Lucas Shaw.
Speaker 3: Coming up, more from our conversations at the Bloomberg screen
Speaker 3: Time event in Los Angeles. Up next, we'll hear from
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers co chairs and co CEOs Pam Abdy and
Speaker 3: Mike de Luca.
Speaker 9: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: We are back on Bloomberg Business Week looking at some
Speaker 2: of our favorite guests from the Bloomberg screen Time event
Speaker 2: held this past week in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Our Lucas Shaw sat down with the duo behind this
Speaker 3: year's blockbusters, including Sinners, f One, a Minecraft movie, and Weapons.
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers Motion Picture chiefs Pam Abde and Mike de Luca.
Speaker 3: They break down the high stakes business of filmmaking and
Speaker 3: an era of shifting audience tastes and streaming disruption.
Speaker 6: I want to start on the state of the movie
Speaker 6: business because you were two of the biggest semophiles in
Speaker 6: the world, I'd say, and I was listening to an
Speaker 6: appearance you guys made on this SmartLess podcast earlier this year,
Speaker 6: and you were talking about how there are not enough
Speaker 6: movies being made and you're sort of I was struck
Speaker 6: because you guys run a movie studio that would seem
Speaker 6: to be within your power to decide how many movies
Speaker 6: you make, So why don't you and your peers make
Speaker 6: more movies?
Speaker 10: Well, we have made more movies, so you know, are
Speaker 10: one of the first things we were tasked to do
Speaker 10: when we got to the study it was increased the output,
Speaker 10: and I think we increased it from I think when
Speaker 10: we got there it was four to six movies and
Speaker 10: we're up to twelve this year, heading towards eighteen hopefully.
Speaker 11: So we're doing our part, I feel like.
Speaker 10: And one of the most amazing things the reason we're
Speaker 10: so optimistic about our business is Warner Brothers achieved four
Speaker 10: billion in worldwide gross this year, the first time since
Speaker 10: twenty nineteen, so at least in terms of our studio,
Speaker 10: we're already at pre pandemic levels. But I think the
Speaker 10: most significant metric is we did it on nine less
Speaker 10: movies than twenty nineteen. We did it on eleven movies,
Speaker 10: and they had twenty shots at it, which I think
Speaker 10: shows that there's a robust theatrical audience just waiting for
Speaker 10: more movies to get made.
Speaker 11: They always talk about, you.
Speaker 10: Know, box offices down anywhere from twenty five to thirty percent,
Speaker 10: but there's also twenty five percent less movies in the marketplace.
Speaker 10: So that's why we always feel like it's a it's
Speaker 10: a glass half full situation, and if there were more movies,
Speaker 10: you'd see that box office climb.
Speaker 6: Well. One of the reasons that I assume that the
Speaker 6: number of movies is down is how expensive it has
Speaker 6: become to make them. So, as someone who's not part
Speaker 6: of the the sausage making process, why does it feel
Speaker 6: like every major studio release now costs two hundred million dollars?
Speaker 11: I don't think every.
Speaker 6: Weapons did not, But can we agree that the cost
Speaker 6: of making movies has gone up.
Speaker 12: A lot, sure, we can absolutely agree. I think the
Speaker 12: way we look at it is a diverse slate, right,
Speaker 12: and we look at different metrics and different size movies,
Speaker 12: and it's really about balancing the slates. So there's no
Speaker 12: one size fits all approach to budgeting of film. You
Speaker 12: have to meet with the filmmaker. You have to look
Speaker 12: at what the story is, who the audience is, what
Speaker 12: genre it is. We share it with our teams around
Speaker 12: the world, and we all come up with the right
Speaker 12: size budget for that film. And it's really it really
Speaker 12: leads with being based on.
Speaker 6: The vision of the filmmaker.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Okay, that does make me want to I wasn't going
Speaker 6: to get here yet, but I want to zoom ahead
Speaker 6: to the movie you just released, one battle after another,
Speaker 6: Paul Thomas Aason movie.
Speaker 5: Great movie.
Speaker 6: Everyone thinks it's, if not the front runner for Best Picture,
Speaker 6: one of them. You gave one hundred and thirty five
Speaker 6: million dollar budget to a director who never had a
Speaker 6: movie gross one hundred million dollars. Can you walk me
Speaker 6: through how that worked in your the formula you were
Speaker 6: just talking about.
Speaker 10: Not confirming that that's the budget. However, to point take
Speaker 10: in that it's certainly Paul's most expensive movie. And I
Speaker 10: think when you know, when we all read it in
Speaker 10: this Pam set in our organization, you know, we are
Speaker 10: really big on sharing the script with our teams, both
Speaker 10: international domestic. Everybody who's got a stake in that movie's
Speaker 10: success gets to weigh in, and we arrive as many
Speaker 10: studios as all the studios do with a model that
Speaker 10: basically informs the green light process. So we read this
Speaker 10: two and a half years ago as a satirical action
Speaker 10: comedy with Leo, and you know, because it read like
Speaker 10: the masterpiece it is, we leaned in, like if we
Speaker 10: we set up the kind of you know, rigorous analysis
Speaker 10: that enables us to trigger a green light, but if
Speaker 10: it's a if it's a you know, a bold provocative swing,
Speaker 10: we're just our dna is to lean in and give
Speaker 10: it a shot.
Speaker 11: So Leo's comps kind.
Speaker 10: Of gave it the credibility to say, well, we can
Speaker 10: aim for the high case. But really what carried the
Speaker 10: day was just it read like the movie it is.
Speaker 11: It just read like a masterpiece.
Speaker 10: And one of the overriding operating principles at the studio
Speaker 10: is to is to continue that legacy of warners whether
Speaker 10: it was Stanley Kubrick or Quean Eastwood or Ben Affleck.
Speaker 10: But get into these situations with the best filmmakers of
Speaker 10: the day and try to bring people, try to bring
Speaker 10: audiences or a star for originality, you know, new masterpieces,
Speaker 10: new modern masterpieces, and that's that's what we feel like
Speaker 10: Paul's given us.
Speaker 6: So we're going to set aside the masterpiece part of
Speaker 6: the conversation for a second. Do you think that the
Speaker 6: movie will be a commercial success?
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 10: I'm a believer. It's a marathon with this movie, not
Speaker 10: a sprint. I think it's going to lag out to
Speaker 10: a number that we'll be happy with.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but it's hard. We can't divorce.
Speaker 10: I'd be lying if I said we're divorcing it from
Speaker 10: the pride we have in it, and you know it's
Speaker 10: it's it. And also with Weapons and Centers, what those
Speaker 10: three movies say about the chances for original films to
Speaker 10: get made, you know, from the best directors working today.
Speaker 11: It's it's where Warner Brothers wants to be.
Speaker 12: And it goes into our overall strategy. You know, when
Speaker 12: we met with David three years ago, we sat down
Speaker 12: and we said very clearly let's bring the best storytellers
Speaker 12: to Warner Brothers. And that's what we've done, and we've
Speaker 12: tried to do a mix of IP movies genre films.
Speaker 12: It's really about the balance of the whole slate, and
Speaker 12: you know, David us he's been so supportive in that
Speaker 12: and I feel like this year our slate really, you know,
Speaker 12: shows what our mission is.
Speaker 6: Would you say that David has always been supportive.
Speaker 12: Yes, from day one?
Speaker 6: Well, okay, we have to address the fact that earlier
Speaker 6: this year he was out there meeting with people. It
Speaker 6: was he was not being very subtle about potentially looking
Speaker 6: for replacements for you.
Speaker 12: Listen, we can't we can't address the speculation and rumors
Speaker 12: and all that stuff. All I can say is David,
Speaker 12: Mike and I had the privilege of seeing all these
Speaker 12: movies early. We knew what we had with the filmmakers
Speaker 12: and with these stories worries, and we just couldn't wait
Speaker 12: for audiences to see them.
Speaker 11: So we David was completely.
Speaker 12: Supportive of every film and of Mike and I and
Speaker 12: the choices we made.
Speaker 6: Well, you got re upped yesterday. So clearly, when you
Speaker 6: go in a tear, whatever your boss may or may
Speaker 6: not be thinking for just a strategy.
Speaker 11: Well, it got announced yesterday, but it had been done.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the.
Speaker 6: Hot streak for the year I feel like started with Minecraft.
Speaker 5: Is that fair to say? For a long time.
Speaker 6: Movies based on video games, TV shows based on video
Speaker 6: games didn't work, And that's totally flipped in the last
Speaker 6: couple of years. We just had David talking about about
Speaker 6: Call of Duty. What do you think has there been
Speaker 6: some change in culture as to why these movies are
Speaker 6: now working or is it.
Speaker 10: I think it all goes back to talent, you know,
Speaker 10: like we don't. I think it's dangerous to traffic and
Speaker 10: blanket statements for any any genre, any adapting from any medium.
Speaker 10: So I don't know how other people do it, but
Speaker 10: we look at adapting from a video game the way
Speaker 10: you look at adapting from a book or a play
Speaker 10: or anything that's not a movie, and just try to
Speaker 10: apply the same basic rules of common sense. Do we
Speaker 10: have the right writer, Do we have the right writing team,
Speaker 10: do we have the right filmmaker. I think anything can
Speaker 10: become a great movie if the filmmakers or castwell got it.
Speaker 6: That was followed by Sinners Big Swing. Were you at
Speaker 6: any point nervous about how it.
Speaker 3: Was going to do.
Speaker 11: No.
Speaker 12: I mean, I think from the moment we read the script,
Speaker 12: Ryan is just a singular visionary filmmaker. The moment we
Speaker 12: read the script, we saw it on the page collaborating
Speaker 12: with him. I mean, I just think what this movie
Speaker 12: has meant to audiences and how it's ignited them in conversation.
Speaker 12: I mean, there was this amazing moment that happened over
Speaker 12: the course of the film. When it was released, there
Speaker 12: was an open letter written to the studio and to
Speaker 12: Ryan from a young man from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who drove
Speaker 12: ninety minutes twice to see the film because Clarksdale doesn't
Speaker 12: have a movie theater, so we brought a movie theater
Speaker 12: to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and we went down there for the
Speaker 12: weekend and we met members of the community and this
Speaker 12: young man who is an organizer, and it was, honestly,
Speaker 12: it was one of the most special moments of my career.
Speaker 12: I can't tell you the conversations that were had, and
Speaker 12: the audience feeling that movie, feeling that music, Meeting the
Speaker 12: musicians who live and who Ludwig and Ryan gathered for
Speaker 12: the you know, from the Delta Blues to create this movie.
Speaker 11: You can't take that away.
Speaker 12: That is the power of storytelling.
Speaker 6: You talk about wanting to be in business with the
Speaker 6: best filmmakers. We have Ryan coming on later today, so
Speaker 6: I'm curious what like you've worked with between the two
Speaker 6: of you, probably most of the best directors in Hollywood.
Speaker 6: What is it that sets Ryan apart from his peers.
Speaker 6: Is there something specific about him that you feel.
Speaker 11: Like, you know, we love all our children kind of
Speaker 11: a thing.
Speaker 5: But but I'll tell you. I'll tell you straight up.
Speaker 11: Ryan is all heart.
Speaker 10: And you know, he did a thing we didn't think
Speaker 10: it was going to become a marketing tool, but he
Speaker 10: did a thing where he explained it was for kode Act.
Speaker 10: You know why he picked the film formats he picked
Speaker 10: and why. I mean he's just talking about purfs and
Speaker 10: things that I should know. I mean, I kind of know,
Speaker 10: but he makes it completely not only understandable, but he
Speaker 10: managed in an instructional thing for Kodak to connect with
Speaker 10: cinophiles of like, Hey, the subtext was I made this
Speaker 10: for you. I took the time to really pour over
Speaker 10: what would be the best presentation of this story for
Speaker 10: you with theatrical audience, and they felt Wow, this guy
Speaker 10: made it for us.
Speaker 11: I'm going to go see it on a big screen.
Speaker 10: Ryan's ability to connect with his audience, both in the
Speaker 10: material and then just talking about his movies is really
Speaker 10: unique to Ryan, and we're now making every director do it,
Speaker 10: even if they have to get training.
Speaker 6: One thing that was really well publicized leading up to
Speaker 6: the film's releases. In order to get the rights, you
Speaker 6: had agreed to give him ownership, I think twenty five
Speaker 6: years after the fact. Why do you think that became
Speaker 6: such a talking point and have you done that with
Speaker 6: other filmmakers previously.
Speaker 12: I think I just think there was an outsized spect
Speaker 12: you know, conversation about it because it was unique. But
Speaker 12: it was unique to this movie, and it was unique
Speaker 12: to Ryan's you know, to this deal. I think the
Speaker 12: importance of this movie and how it's affected audiences is
Speaker 12: what we should all be talking about, because, honestly, I
Speaker 12: went to the theater that opening weekend and seeing audiences
Speaker 12: on seventy MILIAMUIN or Imax, it's the greatest feeling in
Speaker 12: the world.
Speaker 6: Both of you talked about the codec video. One of
Speaker 6: the things that I think Mindcraft and Centers shared is
Speaker 6: they both developed a lot of momentum online, which felt organic,
Speaker 6: and so I'm curious when it feels like a lot of.
Speaker 5: Things become hits almost.
Speaker 6: Beyond your control, how do you plan for that when
Speaker 6: you're thinking about green lights, when you're thinking about marketing,
Speaker 6: because you obviously can't factor in like, well, this one's
Speaker 6: going to go viral on TikTok and this one's.
Speaker 11: Vert well, you know.
Speaker 10: The first one of the things David tasked us with was,
Speaker 10: you know, even though we inherited the organization, what's the
Speaker 10: right balance for the era that we're in. So that
Speaker 10: involved a reorg of marketing and distribution. So when we
Speaker 10: elevated the next generation of marketing leadership at the studio,
Speaker 10: we talked about virality a lot.
Speaker 11: We talked about where.
Speaker 10: Audiences are getting their movie advertising now and what the
Speaker 10: kindling is for each project to light those bonfires online
Speaker 10: and getting that core audience, whether it was the gamers
Speaker 10: on Minecraft or the African American audience on Sinners, really
Speaker 10: white hot over something that we knew they were going
Speaker 10: to like, and being able to amplify that heat to
Speaker 10: the general audience really became the coin of the realm.
Speaker 10: In our new marketing department, so while you can't plan
Speaker 10: for it, you can arrange the chess pieces to take
Speaker 10: advantage of it if it happens.
Speaker 6: Are we going to get sequels to either Minecraft or Sinners?
Speaker 10: You're definitely going to get a sequel to Minecraft. You know,
Speaker 10: Cinners is such a singular vision from a signature filmmaker,
Speaker 10: and it wasn't really set up to be an expanded universe.
Speaker 10: We just think it's again another cinematic masterpiece we're lucky
Speaker 10: to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's Pam Abdy and Mike de Luca, the co heads
Speaker 3: of Warner Brothers Motion Pictures, speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.
Speaker 2: Coming up, more from Bloomberg screen Time, held this past
Speaker 2: week in Los Angeles. Up next, Lucas Shaw sits down
Speaker 2: with late night host get Ready for This, Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 3: They spoke just after coming off of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension
Speaker 3: by ABC.
Speaker 13: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: Week looking at some of our favorite guests.
Speaker 6: Actually they were all our favorites.
Speaker 2: Let's just put it out there because they are unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The conversations the people who are at Bloomberg screen time
Speaker 2: that was held this past week in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Late night host Jimmy Kimmel joined at Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.
Speaker 3: This in the wake of his controversial and temporary suspension
Speaker 3: by ABC. Kimmel reflected on the evolving future of late
Speaker 3: night TV and media in the resident Trump era, divided audiences,
Speaker 3: and the high stakes of satire in today's charge climate.
Speaker 5: Thanks for being here. I know it's been a weird
Speaker 5: few weeks, has it. Yeah, I can sell.
Speaker 6: I want to start at the beginning if we can.
Speaker 5: When I was born, Yes, it was in a manger. Well,
Speaker 5: so since you.
Speaker 6: Brought it up, we're gonna talk about everything that happened.
Speaker 6: Have you listened to this AI podcast about your life?
Speaker 5: No? I found it doing some research.
Speaker 6: They have an AI voice that just narrates that first
Speaker 6: episode is your life until you get hired on ABC.
Speaker 6: The second episode is your career at ABC until recently,
Speaker 6: and the third episode is very recent. We can fact
Speaker 6: check it.
Speaker 5: Does it have the details of my divorce?
Speaker 6: No, but it does have a line The Kimmels weren't wealthy,
Speaker 6: but they weren't struggling either. They were in that sweet
Speaker 6: spot of American middle class life where dreams seemed achievable
Speaker 6: and laughter came easily around the dinner table.
Speaker 5: That's pretty spot on. This AI is terrifying. How long
Speaker 5: after the.
Speaker 6: Initial episode where you made the comments about the assassination
Speaker 6: of Charlie Kirk the Monday episode, Yeah, did you realize
Speaker 6: there was a problem.
Speaker 5: I didn't think there was a big problem.
Speaker 14: I you know, I just saw it as distortion on
Speaker 14: the part of some of the right wing media networks,
Speaker 14: and I was I aimed to correct it. I have
Speaker 14: problems like all the time, and it's kind of funny
Speaker 14: because sometimes you think, oh, this is not a problem,
Speaker 14: and then it turns into a big problem. And then
Speaker 14: sometimes it goes the other way where you think like, oh, oh,
Speaker 14: this is gonna be a problem nobody really notices.
Speaker 6: And so at what point did you realize this was
Speaker 6: a problem?
Speaker 14: I think when they pulled the show off the air, Well,
Speaker 14: that's unusual.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And what were the conversations that Data and Bob
Speaker 6: that led to that.
Speaker 14: I hate to disappoint you, but they were really good conversations.
Speaker 5: I'm not acting.
Speaker 14: I mean, like really good conversations they are. These are
Speaker 14: people that I've known for a long time and who
Speaker 14: I like very much, and who were you know, who
Speaker 14: wanted we all wanted this to work out best. And
Speaker 14: I will tell you like I mean, first of all,
Speaker 14: I ruined Dana's weekend. It was just NonStop phone calls
Speaker 14: all weekend. But I don't think what I don't think
Speaker 14: the result, which I think turned out to be very positive,
Speaker 14: would have been as positive if I hadn't talked to
Speaker 14: Dana as much as I did, because it helped me
Speaker 14: think everything through and it helped me just kind of
Speaker 14: understand where everyone was coming from. I can sometimes be reactionary,
Speaker 14: I can sometimes be aggressive, and I can sometimes be unpleasant,
Speaker 14: and I think that it helped me. Really having those
Speaker 14: days to think about it was helpful.
Speaker 6: I have a dumb question about this as someone who
Speaker 6: is kind of reporting on it in real time, trying
Speaker 6: to figure out what's happening. So the show goes up
Speaker 6: there you have all these conversations, and when you made it,
Speaker 6: or when you all made a decision put the show
Speaker 6: back on the air, as my understanding at the time
Speaker 6: was it still wasn't exactly clear what you were going
Speaker 6: to say. They still hadn't resolved the issues with the affiliates.
Speaker 6: So what do you resolve in those conversations to know
Speaker 6: you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot
Speaker 6: of the things that come out of it.
Speaker 14: I think just the spirit of what I'm going to say,
Speaker 14: rather than specifically what I was going to say, And
Speaker 14: I think that's something that we all agreed on, and
Speaker 14: I think that ultimately I wanted to kind of cover
Speaker 14: every base if I could, and sometimes you can do
Speaker 14: that and sometimes you can't do that. And it was
Speaker 14: something really that had to come from inside me.
Speaker 5: It had to be truthful.
Speaker 14: And I had to lay it all out out there
Speaker 14: and just be honest about what I was feeling and
Speaker 14: what I'd experienced. And I think I did, and I
Speaker 14: think that it probably went about as well as it
Speaker 14: could go. I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect,
Speaker 14: and there were always going to be people that didn't
Speaker 14: like it and didn't accept it, But the important thing
Speaker 14: to me was that I was able to.
Speaker 5: Explain what I was saying, what I was trying to say.
Speaker 6: If you felt like your initial comments had been mischaracterized.
Speaker 5: I didn't feel like it anywhere.
Speaker 14: It was intentionally and I think maliciously mischaracterized.
Speaker 6: Yesh, did you I mean, do you feel like you
Speaker 6: have become more political in your commentary on the show
Speaker 6: over the course of hosting it.
Speaker 5: What do you think? I think?
Speaker 6: I think if you talked to me when my first
Speaker 6: interaction with Timmy Kimmel was The Man Show, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: which is you and Carola at this point, as best
Speaker 6: I can tell, around and complete opposite ends of the
Speaker 6: political spectrum, but still friends. Yeah, yeah, and it's you know,
Speaker 6: it feels like you became far more comfortable and insistent
Speaker 6: on talking not just about politics, but about personal things.
Speaker 6: Maybe because you got older, maybe because you've got more
Speaker 6: comfortable in the role, maybe because the world around has changed,
Speaker 6: all of those things.
Speaker 14: All of those things for sure, I think maturity is
Speaker 14: part of it. I think you figure out who you are.
Speaker 14: I think that when I started the show, I was
Speaker 14: mostly My homepage was ESPN dot com. It's kind of
Speaker 14: all I really cared about was we've been a radio
Speaker 14: sports guy. I've been a sports guy. I did football
Speaker 14: picks on Fox NFL Sunday for years in radio.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was on k Rock with Kevin and Bean.
Speaker 14: I was mostly interested in sports, and I was interested
Speaker 14: in politics. I've always been a you know, even as
Speaker 14: a kid. My parents are very liberal. I've been a
Speaker 14: Democrat since I was a little boy. I think the
Speaker 14: first like political cartoon I ever drew was of Jimmy
Speaker 14: Carter and John Anderson. You know, It's like I was
Speaker 14: like twelve or something, and I've always been interested in politics,
Speaker 14: but I was.
Speaker 5: Never a particularly political person.
Speaker 14: I also think maybe maybe he did, but maybe he
Speaker 14: didn't have to be back then, you know. I mean,
Speaker 14: I think this is a very different situation that we're
Speaker 14: in now. And also my job, as I see it,
Speaker 14: is to talk about the news of the day, and
Speaker 14: these are the big stories of the day right pretty
Speaker 14: much every day.
Speaker 6: And how much of that, Like, can you see a
Speaker 6: difference because we're in Trump too? Do you feel like
Speaker 6: it was the need to talk about politics is greater
Speaker 6: when he has been president as opposed to when other people,
Speaker 6: Like if you started when Bush was president and you
Speaker 6: had Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, it does feel like I
Speaker 6: thinks they've got more political over time. But do you
Speaker 6: think it is also sort of a I don't want
Speaker 6: to use the word quirk, but a facet of Trump
Speaker 6: and his relationship at the media.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he's on TV all day, every day,
Speaker 5: so he gives us a.
Speaker 14: Lot to use to deal with. You know, that's unusual.
Speaker 14: That's not how it used to be. You occasionally get
Speaker 14: a video of George Bush, like walking the wrong way
Speaker 14: on stage, and then you'd make a week out of it,
Speaker 14: you know, or or somebody trips or something like that.
Speaker 14: But now it's just you hear him, you see him.
Speaker 14: You He's just presented himself so frequently at it makes
Speaker 14: it it's just more digestible and it's more digestible and
Speaker 14: less digestible at the same time.
Speaker 6: Right, do you feel like you interact with a lot
Speaker 6: of comedians. Do you think there's there's some writers and
Speaker 6: comedians I've spoken with who feel like comedy has actually
Speaker 6: been harder with him as president. What you just said
Speaker 6: is in a way, it's in something there's more material
Speaker 6: to work with. What would you say his impact on
Speaker 6: comedy hasn't.
Speaker 14: Well, is there more I don't know if there's more material,
Speaker 14: it's just more focused in one area. I'm not a
Speaker 14: stand up comic, I know for stand up comics, you know,
Speaker 14: you work out their material and they do mostly that
Speaker 14: material every night. So politics change so quickly, it doesn't
Speaker 14: necessarily lend itself to that job. For me, I've always
Speaker 14: been more interested in doing new jokes every when I
Speaker 14: started on the radio every day and doing new jokes
Speaker 14: every night. I don't love the idea of repeating myself.
Speaker 14: It feels more like acting to me than broadcasting, and
Speaker 14: I think essentially I'm a broadcaster and I'm more interested
Speaker 14: in that. So I can't speak to whether it's made
Speaker 14: their job more difficult. I know a lot of them
Speaker 14: just try to stay away from it. And I get it,
Speaker 14: you know, I get it. You're walking into a town
Speaker 14: and you don't know who's in the room, and you
Speaker 14: just want to make people laugh, and they're not necessarily
Speaker 14: on a crusade, And I get it.
Speaker 5: And I don't think any.
Speaker 14: Of those guys should be required to speak the way
Speaker 14: I do, or the way Stephen Colbert does or John
Speaker 14: Stewart does. And I think that applies to people on
Speaker 14: television too.
Speaker 6: They don't. You don't have to do this. I choose
Speaker 6: to do it. Since you came back, have you asked
Speaker 6: Trumper Car to come on.
Speaker 5: No, I haven't.
Speaker 14: I wouldn't necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show,
Speaker 14: but yeah, I'd love to have Trump on the show
Speaker 14: for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean I feel like he knows that he wants.
Speaker 5: I don't know, all right, I'll ask him. I'm curious
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 6: You had these I'm sorry on this week and you
Speaker 6: asked you pressed him a lot on the Rion Comedy
Speaker 6: Festival that a bunch of comedians went. And did do
Speaker 6: you ask and who interviews for a living? Did you
Speaker 6: give him a heads up you were going to ask
Speaker 6: him about that?
Speaker 5: Yes? I mean, you know how talk shows are.
Speaker 14: We basically understand, there's an understanding of what you're going
Speaker 14: to talk about. Sometimes it veers off into various directions,
Speaker 14: but you always they always know basically what the topics
Speaker 14: are going to.
Speaker 6: Be and why. I guess did you feel it's important
Speaker 6: to ask him about that? Because you had a point
Speaker 6: of view on comedians going to that festival. It seemed
Speaker 6: like you were against it.
Speaker 14: I wouldn't have gone, but I wanted to hear his reasons,
Speaker 14: and I thought he had some compelling reasons. And it's
Speaker 14: nothing's black and white. It's not something I would do.
Speaker 14: But I do understand the idea that if we close
Speaker 14: ourselves off to the world or we isolate somebody, that
Speaker 14: maybe it's not good. I don't know that my my
Speaker 14: reasoning is the correct reasoning. I also, you know, we
Speaker 14: see it and we see it happening in this country too.
Speaker 14: I mean, we travel abroad, many of us don't want
Speaker 14: to be held accountable for what our president does and says.
Speaker 5: As an American, you know, going someplace.
Speaker 14: I'm fortunate enough to be well known and people know
Speaker 14: where I'm coming from.
Speaker 5: But I think it would be a different situation if
Speaker 5: people didn't know who I was. And I think I'd.
Speaker 14: Probably be the first thing I'd say as I got
Speaker 14: into every cab is I didn't vote for him? Just FYI,
Speaker 14: you know, so I do think that there's you know,
Speaker 14: that kind of makes me understand right that position better.
Speaker 3: That's Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.
Speaker 2: And if you missed any of it because it was
Speaker 2: a longer conversation, be sure to check it out. You
Speaker 2: can find it on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 3: That does it.
Speaker 2: For the first hour of our special edition at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week, we've been checking out some of our favorite
Speaker 2: conversations from Bloomberg screen Time, that event held this past
Speaker 2: week in Los Angeles, with the whole Bloomberg News team.
Speaker 3: Still to come. Actor Mark Duplas on making indie movies
Speaker 3: and the co CEO of the most valuable entertainment company,
Speaker 3: Netflix on how the business plans to maintain its lead.
Speaker 2: Plus director Ryan Kougler on how he is looking to
Speaker 2: push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. You're listening
Speaker 2: to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. We continue with more highlights from screen Time.
Speaker 3: I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovec's day with us.
Speaker 3: Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week, Daily reporting from the magazine
Speaker 1: that helps global leaders stay ahead. With insight on the people, companies,
Speaker 1: and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance
Speaker 1: and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We
Speaker 2: are continuing with some of our favorite conversations from the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg screen Time event. It was held this past week
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Screen Time gathers the mogul, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the
Speaker 3: next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a
Speaker 3: half in the heart of Hollywood. We discussed and debated
Speaker 3: the future of Hollywood studios, the boom in sports and
Speaker 3: live music, and the effect of AI on the creative industries.
Speaker 2: Got to say, it's a really fun event. They've been
Speaker 2: doing it the last few years and it's just so
Speaker 2: fun to see the people and the cross section of
Speaker 2: folks that are there. When it comes to content creation,
Speaker 2: we'll hear from an actor, studio heads, and content creators.
Speaker 2: We begin with a conversation with Mark Duplas. He's a filmmaker, actor,
Speaker 2: and producer. We spoke about balancing indie spirit and Hollywood collaboration.
Speaker 2: You do it all. Is there one that I'm sure
Speaker 2: you get this up a million times that you like
Speaker 2: more than most in terms of doing producing, directing, Or
Speaker 2: do you love how everything kind of helps.
Speaker 3: The other thing?
Speaker 13: I do like the blending of all the things.
Speaker 15: And I come from the independent sector, you know, I
Speaker 15: came into this business making three dollar movies in my
Speaker 15: kitchen with my brother on our parents' video camera. So
Speaker 15: I'm no stranger to doing at all. But that said,
Speaker 15: I think that as I've been fortunate enough to do
Speaker 15: both indie projects and also be on a show like
Speaker 15: The Morning Show, which you know, one day's catering on
Speaker 15: that show is more expensive than most of the work
Speaker 15: I make.
Speaker 13: I like the balance, you know.
Speaker 15: I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on
Speaker 15: my indie projects.
Speaker 13: But then I like when my burrito has.
Speaker 15: Brought to me in the trailer of the Morning Show
Speaker 15: and I'm taking care of So these are the things.
Speaker 2: Well, someone who likes burrito.
Speaker 3: Is yeah, it doesn't like a burrito delivery. Also a
Speaker 3: trailer pretty nice.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business
Speaker 3: right now and how that would be different. It's like
Speaker 3: you're making movies in your kitchen with your brother, but
Speaker 3: maybe you'd be using an iPhone, you'd be editing it
Speaker 3: using AI.
Speaker 15: I think the headline is the democratization of the technology
Speaker 15: has made it so wonderful that you can make anything
Speaker 15: you want now so much more cheaply than I had it.
Speaker 13: So you have it a lot better.
Speaker 15: Than me on that front, but you have it way
Speaker 15: worse than I had it in two thousand and five
Speaker 15: when I came in because to talk about that. But
Speaker 15: the distribution channels are not there, right, and so we're
Speaker 15: now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic television movement.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 15: And we staffed up and we got all ready for
Speaker 15: it and here we are, and then it just dried
Speaker 15: up on us. So now we're going to have to
Speaker 15: start hacking a new road of direct consumer distribution. You know,
Speaker 15: we're working in so many different models now. We're making
Speaker 15: television series completely independently and taking them out and selling
Speaker 15: them afterwards because it is the wild West.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, because
Speaker 2: I think about something like YouTube and how much I
Speaker 2: want YouTube and specific channels and like anybody can put
Speaker 2: anything up there. When you think about distribution channels, what
Speaker 2: seems to provide the most opportunities for you, especially since
Speaker 2: you say you play a bit more in the indie world.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I'm very very fortunate and
Speaker 15: that I've been doing this for twenty years, so you know,
Speaker 15: I at least have somewhat of a name that people.
Speaker 13: Are interested in working with us.
Speaker 15: But I think YouTube is certainly exciting because you can
Speaker 15: put it up, it can catch fire, But the monetization
Speaker 15: of that and sustain ability is really questionable in my opinion.
Speaker 15: But then you have these smaller substreamer services, like you
Speaker 15: look at Dropout TV and what they're doing in comedy,
Speaker 15: and you look at Shutter. You know, they've become the
Speaker 15: home of horror fans as a subsidiary under AMC, you know,
Speaker 15: and they're doing things in a low cost model. So
Speaker 15: I think the future here is going to be figuring
Speaker 15: out how to make things relatively cheaply, cutting your big
Speaker 15: producer fees, cutting a lot of everybody's feet across the board,
Speaker 15: and then when you're in a position to be on
Speaker 15: top and power, really share that back end with people.
Speaker 15: And that's how I came up an independent film. We
Speaker 15: would make movies for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 15: Everybody would make one hundred bucks a day. It was
Speaker 15: creative communism. And then you get points. We could take
Speaker 15: them to Sundance and sell them for a couple million bucks,
Speaker 15: and the sound guy would make fifty thousand dollars and
Speaker 15: buy a home.
Speaker 13: It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 15: It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in
Speaker 15: that model that.
Speaker 13: Will still work.
Speaker 3: I talked to somebody who lives out areas in the industry,
Speaker 3: has been doing this for thirty years, and he was like,
Speaker 3: I've got award winning casting directors, walking dogs, rover to
Speaker 3: make ends meet.
Speaker 13: No, it's real, I see that bad.
Speaker 15: I mean I live in the valley, which is, you know,
Speaker 15: the place where basically below the line union heads were
Speaker 15: able to buy their homes, you know, And and that
Speaker 15: was under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry
Speaker 15: would continue to boom. Strikes fires, but not just that
Speaker 15: the death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable from them.
Speaker 15: That was just an arms race to see who could
Speaker 15: chuck somebody.
Speaker 3: Out right that picks an apple. Are the winters I.
Speaker 15: Mean TVD because we could see a merger happen in
Speaker 15: five minutes after this that changes everything, and there's I
Speaker 15: won't I won't go that far. But yes, there are
Speaker 15: certain people that have interests in those mergers and don't
Speaker 15: have interests.
Speaker 3: So does do you see the industry getting better?
Speaker 15: I think the industry is going to change. Look, I've
Speaker 15: been in this for twenty years. I know people who
Speaker 15: are been in this for much longer than me, and
Speaker 15: we there are times when, oh my god.
Speaker 13: It was the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 15: If you had a movie that had, you know, a
Speaker 15: gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could
Speaker 15: take it to VHS and you'd make your money and
Speaker 15: it was a killer.
Speaker 13: In the nineties, it was that for DVDs.
Speaker 15: In the two thousands, the streamers came in and I
Speaker 15: got to all these cool movies for Netflix and TV.
Speaker 15: But it's going to change. We don't know which way
Speaker 15: it's going, but we got to be vigilant.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It's We've seen it in the media industry, and we
Speaker 2: still like being in it. It's incredible to be thirty
Speaker 2: seconds still having fun.
Speaker 3: You like it.
Speaker 15: I love it. I don't say I'm having fun all
Speaker 15: the time. I feel a deep responsibility for like my
Speaker 15: brothers and sisters in la and in New York and
Speaker 15: everywhere who are just getting choked out by this business.
Speaker 2: That's actor Mark Duplas. We also got a chance to
Speaker 2: hear from Elena Mayo, the head of Arian Pictures. She
Speaker 2: spoke with us about reviving a legacy studio with a
Speaker 2: modern mission.
Speaker 3: This is like the underlying theme of the entire day.
Speaker 9: How why are we here?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 16: I think we're here because we have so much change
Speaker 16: in so Dyna, so much dynamism, and the reality is
Speaker 16: that no one really knows what the next wave of
Speaker 16: media content Hollywood is going to look like. So we're
Speaker 16: at this incredible inflection point and having to innovate in
Speaker 16: real time and build new systems while the previous systems
Speaker 16: are being dismantled, are evolving, are changing so well. I
Speaker 16: wish I had a quick answer to your question of
Speaker 16: how do we do it? What we ended up talking
Speaker 16: about mostly is how do we just create enough sustainability
Speaker 16: for artists so that everyone can sustain this moment in time?
Speaker 9: And so whatever is on the.
Speaker 16: Other side of this, whatever that looks like that the
Speaker 16: creative voices that build our industry can still survive.
Speaker 3: Does it get worse before it gets better?
Speaker 16: I mean, if you look at it with a long lens,
Speaker 16: you know define worse, right, if you look at a
Speaker 16: long with a long lens.
Speaker 9: It's always This business has always been challenged.
Speaker 16: This business has always gone through dips, It's always gone
Speaker 16: through ebbs and how long this moment of uncertainty lasts
Speaker 16: is probably longer than any of us would love. And
Speaker 16: if that's how you define worse, then yes, But I think,
Speaker 16: you know, I think it's just going to always be changing.
Speaker 16: I don't know if it's going to get worse or better.
Speaker 16: I think we're going to continue to change and evolve.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I always think about supplying demand cycles. I've got to
Speaker 2: do green economics, and I think about the world in
Speaker 2: that way. And I think there was a period where
Speaker 2: we thought, man, if you're a content creator, you are
Speaker 2: good as gold because there's so many, you know, different
Speaker 2: platforms that need your services, they need your content. And
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of content, and maybe I don't know, there was too
Speaker 2: much content and the oversupply. So where is the rebalancing
Speaker 2: or or how do we get back to a different level.
Speaker 9: I think we're seeing the rebalancing now.
Speaker 16: I will say I personally am a little bit worried
Speaker 16: about the level of consolidation that we have because I
Speaker 16: do think that it is hard to keep saying swayed
Speaker 16: in the favor of the creators and of the artists,
Speaker 16: which is really the community that we need to continue
Speaker 16: any sort of.
Speaker 9: Artistic endeavor and idea.
Speaker 16: But you know, I think Mark said something He may
Speaker 16: have already said this to you guys earlier, but that
Speaker 16: I think is a really important bit of context, which
Speaker 16: is the past ten years of the streaming arms race
Speaker 16: was a boon, like that was a spike, that was
Speaker 16: an that was an abnormal state of our industry. Right,
Speaker 16: So this is a little bit corrective, right, It's not
Speaker 16: completely just the you know, Earth has fallen out underneath us.
Speaker 16: This is a little bit of a correction of something
Speaker 16: that was a real kind of an aberration in of itself.
Speaker 2: So a good thing a little bit maybe, but not
Speaker 2: kind of your content.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I was going to say, I think the good
Speaker 16: thing is that there are more ways to monetize content, right,
Speaker 16: And we talked about everything from direct to consumer models
Speaker 16: to YouTube. There are a lot of different platforms in
Speaker 16: addition to Hollywood where you can monetize content.
Speaker 9: How you do that, right? Is the thing that a
Speaker 9: lot of us don't yet know is, you know, oh, when.
Speaker 2: It pauses, this could be serious.
Speaker 3: It's political too.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The President has weighed in recently and he said the
Speaker 3: way to fix this is to put tariffs on films
Speaker 3: that are made outside the US. You're shaking your head.
Speaker 9: I don't think that's the way.
Speaker 3: To stay this. Why should we be filming scenes about
Speaker 3: Brooklyn in Vancouver?
Speaker 9: I think that we listen.
Speaker 16: I definitely am personally invested in US keeping production inside
Speaker 16: of the communities that you know, where the people that
Speaker 16: make them live, right, because it's not just about are
Speaker 16: we maintaining the integrity of the film itself by locations
Speaker 16: based shooting. This city is where the majority of people
Speaker 16: that make stuff live, and we've got to keep this
Speaker 16: city healthy and the economy and the infrastructure of that
Speaker 16: has to be supported by films being made here, and
Speaker 16: we've got to figure that out. At the same time,
Speaker 16: if we're going to make the path of supporting these
Speaker 16: artists is to be able to make more, to increase.
Speaker 9: The amount of stuff that is being made.
Speaker 16: We've got to be nimble and if that means that
Speaker 16: sometimes shooting things outside of the States, or shooting things
Speaker 16: outside of.
Speaker 9: LA and New York is the way to do that.
Speaker 16: You know, a lot of the films that we've been
Speaker 16: able to make that are really innovative and original and risky.
Speaker 16: Have to find ways to cost less, and some of
Speaker 16: the ways that we find to make them cost less
Speaker 16: is to shoot them elsewhere. And then you have American Fiction,
Speaker 16: which is a Boston set story that shot in Massachusetts.
Speaker 16: So you know, we can figure it out different ways,
Speaker 16: but we've got to have some plex to.
Speaker 3: Figure out what college that was?
Speaker 5: What college?
Speaker 9: And do it Bayden.
Speaker 16: I don't believe they shot I would I would be
Speaker 16: lying to you. I knew exactly where that location was,
Speaker 16: but it may not have been a college at all.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I guess.
Speaker 2: So being able to film wherever in the world, like, that's.
Speaker 16: Part of it, right, one hundred percent. We're you know,
Speaker 16: we're a global commut.
Speaker 2: Without a penalty, whether it's a terror for one of.
Speaker 9: One hundred percent.
Speaker 16: And also what about the movies that we produced out
Speaker 16: of Hollywood that are not set in the US.
Speaker 9: You know, we also produce movies that are set all
Speaker 9: over the world.
Speaker 16: You know, Mission Impossible doesn't just all take place here, right,
Speaker 16: So I think we have to be a global industry.
Speaker 16: We have to, you know, be a global economy with
Speaker 16: artisans that are working all over the world. But the
Speaker 16: argument that I understand is that shouldn't be to the
Speaker 16: expense of the film industries locally.
Speaker 9: Really, I feel very strongly.
Speaker 3: About that you came of age in an industry while
Speaker 3: it was like undergoing this massive shift to streaming, which
Speaker 3: you alluded to when you began your career. Did you
Speaker 3: ever think that you'd be making movies at a company
Speaker 3: that was owned by Amazon.
Speaker 9: No, I couldn't.
Speaker 16: I shouldn't say this, but I remember when Amazon first
Speaker 16: started making television shows. I was at Fox and I laughed.
Speaker 16: I was like, this is ridiculous, this will never laugh
Speaker 16: and everyone was like and then pretty good, they started
Speaker 16: making incredible TV shows. And then you know, to track
Speaker 16: from that moment to now working at a film studio
Speaker 16: that is under the Amazon umbrella.
Speaker 9: I couldn't have predicted any of this.
Speaker 16: I will say, though, when you talk about all of
Speaker 16: those places that I worked, part of the reason why
Speaker 16: I got my dream job, the best job that I
Speaker 16: thought you could ever have in film.
Speaker 9: I was a movie studio executive at Paramount.
Speaker 16: I was on the Paramount lot, and after being there
Speaker 16: for five or six years, I realized that the world
Speaker 16: around me had changed, and I went to Vimeo very
Speaker 16: intentionally because I thought there's all of this cool stuff
Speaker 16: that is happening in this digital space that I need
Speaker 16: to understand it. And then I said, I got to
Speaker 16: work with close to the talent, and I've got to
Speaker 16: produce and be able to be scrappy and produce for
Speaker 16: different platforms in different mediums. I went to go work
Speaker 16: with Michael B. Jordan and so it's been ever changing
Speaker 16: for the entirety of the time that I've had the
Speaker 16: you know, blessing of having a career in this industry,
Speaker 16: which is why I think it's not falling. You know,
Speaker 16: it's not all falling apart.
Speaker 3: That's Elena Mayo, the head of Orian Pictures. Coming up
Speaker 3: more from the Bloomberg screen Time event in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: earlier this week. Up next, we hear from the co
Speaker 3: CEO of the world's most value entertainment company, Netflix.
Speaker 2: That will we continue with highlights from Bloomberg screen Time
Speaker 2: held this past week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We
Speaker 2: are all in on screen Time. Bloomberg screen Time. It
Speaker 2: was held this past week in Los Angeles, at.
Speaker 3: Screen Time, we heard from Greg Peters, the co CEO
Speaker 3: of Netflix. Greg joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss the
Speaker 3: company's growing investment in live sports and video games, as
Speaker 3: well as its efforts to keep viewers engaged for longer.
Speaker 3: He shared how the business plans to maintain its lead
Speaker 3: well investing in what's next.
Speaker 6: Everyone acts like Netflix has won everything, right. I get
Speaker 6: a lot of people don't. People, even people at Netflix,
Speaker 6: don't like it when you say that Netflix has won
Speaker 6: the streaming war, as they think it's the wrong But
Speaker 6: I wanted so I want to start with something. Let's
Speaker 6: let's go negative.
Speaker 17: All right, it is you're speaking to my personality here.
Speaker 5: What is something that Netflix needs to do better?
Speaker 17: We need to do everything better.
Speaker 18: And I think you know the reason I hate, like,
Speaker 18: you know, when I hear we've won everything whatever. I
Speaker 18: actually think the worst position for a company to be
Speaker 18: in is to feel like they've actually won everything, because
Speaker 18: I think success has this, you know, vulnerability where you
Speaker 18: start to breed, you know, complacency, error against and things
Speaker 18: like that. And I think in the world that we
Speaker 18: live in entertainment, this has been the most competitive entertainment
Speaker 18: environment that's ever existed in the planet, you know, in
Speaker 18: the history of humankind. It's getting more and more competitive,
Speaker 18: and if you don't maintain the sense that you are
Speaker 18: constantly vulnerable, I think you will lose.
Speaker 6: So I think the biggest thing that people point to
Speaker 6: as perhaps a sign of vulnerability, at least that I noticed,
Speaker 6: is that your engagement, the amount of time people spend
Speaker 6: on the service has been pretty flat over the last
Speaker 6: couple of years. And then you look at the regular
Speaker 6: drops from Melsen and you see that streaming share of
Speaker 6: TV has gone up quite a bit, and your share
Speaker 6: that's gone up is a pretty small fraction of that.
Speaker 6: A lot of the growth has gone to these free services.
Speaker 6: So how do you address that?
Speaker 18: Well, I think you just essentially explained it right, which
Speaker 18: is that we moved on demand very early on in
Speaker 18: the process, so we sort of got the benefit or
Speaker 18: basically built our business around that benefit. And then you know,
Speaker 18: everyone over a period of time caught up, and you know,
Speaker 18: essentially from our perspective, they're all now moving to that
Speaker 18: model and moving to that benefit from consumers. So you know, frankly,
Speaker 18: the fact that we were actually keeping pace in that
Speaker 18: sort of you know, shifting tide if you will. I
Speaker 18: think it's a reasonably good thing. It's not great, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean good thing, But from everything I've heard inside
Speaker 6: the company, like the goal was basically to replace television,
Speaker 6: right like have Netflix be the ones or if you
Speaker 6: can watch basically anything on television on Netflix except for
Speaker 6: news and until recently.
Speaker 18: Sports, Well, I think, you know, expressing that as an
Speaker 18: ambition and also that as a way to organize how
Speaker 18: the company thinks about what we're trying to go do
Speaker 18: is great.
Speaker 17: I also think that that's not.
Speaker 18: Consistent with saying that we thought it was realistic that
Speaker 18: we were going to be the only thing that people
Speaker 18: were going to watch, right, because I also don't think
Speaker 18: that that's realistic at the end of the day. So
Speaker 18: I think there's always going to be like multiple sources
Speaker 18: of entertainment, even in the categories that we serve. We
Speaker 18: want to be you know, we want to win as
Speaker 18: more much of that as we possibly can. So I'm
Speaker 18: you know, don't back to being complacent. I'm not happy
Speaker 18: with the fact, you know that we're not growing engagement.
Speaker 18: We should grow more engagement. I think we will. I
Speaker 18: expect you'll see engagement numbers will go up for us.
Speaker 18: But also I don't think that I don't think there's
Speaker 18: a world in which we be the only thing that
Speaker 18: people watch.
Speaker 6: A big project I assumed to help grow engagement was
Speaker 6: the new user interface UI that you rolled out over
Speaker 6: the last year plus.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 6: Can you point to some key ways in which that
Speaker 6: has already helped or you think it will help?
Speaker 18: Well, I would say a lot of what we've been
Speaker 18: doing is essentially re architecting the entire stack. This is
Speaker 18: from sort of how algorithms get calculated. We used to
Speaker 18: calculate overnight everyone's recommendations. When they show up in the morning,
Speaker 18: we would have that baked. Now we do it dynamically
Speaker 18: on the fly. And now we've created a UI where
Speaker 18: essentially you can you know, connect those those algorithmic pipes
Speaker 18: in and also launch new modules.
Speaker 6: Can you use words that I'm not even going to
Speaker 6: insult the audience here that I will underserved.
Speaker 17: Yeah, so thank you.
Speaker 18: Basically, what happens now is that when we think about
Speaker 18: what titles do you want to watch?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 18: We used to do that overnight and you'd show up
Speaker 18: and we'd give you those titles. But now the way
Speaker 18: that we do it essentially is as you're navigating the UI,
Speaker 18: we think about, oh, what are signals that you're giving.
Speaker 6: I skipped over this thing really quickly. I'm not interested
Speaker 6: in that, right right, That's right.
Speaker 18: So I think that's something that's going to take us,
Speaker 18: I think, a while to really build the fullness of
Speaker 18: how that delivers, you know, benefit for our users. But
Speaker 18: the thing that I can point to right now that
Speaker 18: the new UI structure is designed to go do and
Speaker 18: is doing for us, is serving new content needs. As
Speaker 18: we expand beyond just film and series. We spanned a
Speaker 18: live events and the UI has to do a different job,
Speaker 18: which is like, why you want to show up at
Speaker 18: Thursday at seven pm? Because oh you're going to watch
Speaker 18: a you know, a boxing match that you know you
Speaker 18: would not otherwise get to see. Or why do you
Speaker 18: want to play a game or those kind of things.
Speaker 18: That's that's what it's that's what it's doing for us
Speaker 18: right now.
Speaker 6: Right when it comes to to live that was something
Speaker 6: that you sort of famously said you weren't going to
Speaker 6: do sports for a while. And I know it's not
Speaker 6: just sports, you also do other live events, but the
Speaker 6: sports have been the biggest, right, your NFL game was
Speaker 6: really big, boxing match was huge, or both boxing matches,
Speaker 6: the logan or the the Jake Paul one will decide
Speaker 6: if it's really a boxing match or.
Speaker 5: I'll refer it. But how much more are you.
Speaker 6: Going to invest in live events over the next few
Speaker 6: years and are there things that you know that you
Speaker 6: want to add to the service that you don't have
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 18: So it's a start with you know live we think
Speaker 18: of as an important additional form of entertainment that we
Speaker 18: can deliver members. It's sort of a different style of entertainment,
Speaker 18: you know where. Actually it's interesting because, in contrast to
Speaker 18: our on demand service, which has tremendous benefit because you
Speaker 18: control the entertainment when you want to watch it, the
Speaker 18: big benefit alive is that we're all experiencing the same
Speaker 18: thing at the same time, and that has tremendous sort
Speaker 18: of social and conversational relevance. Right, so we want to
Speaker 18: do more of it. It represents a very small fraction
Speaker 18: of our total investment.
Speaker 17: It represents a small.
Speaker 18: Fraction of our total hours, but we think it also
Speaker 18: does a different job, so.
Speaker 6: It sort of comes does it have a different impact,
Speaker 6: like do you see because from the third party data
Speaker 6: I've seen you tend to see huge surges and sign
Speaker 6: ups around some of those bigger events.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I think we expect that it will do the
Speaker 18: same work ultimately that our other content does, which basically
Speaker 18: is a reason to sign up and a reason to stay.
Speaker 17: That's you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker 18: Now, I think we back to your point about like
Speaker 18: what do we know we want to get and stuff
Speaker 18: like that. We're still really learning in this space, so
Speaker 18: we're really trying to figure out like, Okay, what how
Speaker 18: is this delivering value to members? How is this delivering
Speaker 18: value to the business. And there's definitely a different phenomena
Speaker 18: where these are punctuated moments to your point, right, which
Speaker 18: people go like, Okay, if I'm maybe on the edge
Speaker 18: of signing up for Netflix, this might be the thing
Speaker 18: that pushes me over, you know, to actually do that.
Speaker 18: So I think we'll see different things for sure, but
Speaker 18: we really are learning as we go.
Speaker 6: I want to throw one poll to the audience before
Speaker 6: we ask the next question, because.
Speaker 5: They are related.
Speaker 6: So I just want to I promise Greg I would
Speaker 6: do this. Keep in mind how much these sports cost.
Speaker 6: Football is the most expensive, Tennis is the least expensive.
Speaker 6: Everything else sort of fits in between there. So even
Speaker 6: though Greg and I both like tennis probably smallest audience
Speaker 6: but also.
Speaker 17: Least expensive international audience.
Speaker 6: What would you say the odds that you make a
Speaker 6: bid for one of the football packages when the NFL
Speaker 6: ops out of its current deal in twenty nine.
Speaker 18: Or you know, it doesn't really fit with our strategy
Speaker 18: as we understand it right now. So again back to
Speaker 18: your point, we think about what we're doing as an
Speaker 18: events strategy, and turns out, as you said, sports are
Speaker 18: big event and so we can plug those into that strategy.
Speaker 18: But we also want to make sure that we're being
Speaker 18: really really disciplined about you know, are we buying, are
Speaker 18: we investing in ways that are profitable for the business
Speaker 18: and some of the big league sports things. We don't
Speaker 18: actually have a way to figure out that math.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right.
Speaker 6: Although it doesn't I mean, isn't the sort of the
Speaker 6: magic of football. I get that the NFL is maybe
Speaker 6: tricky for you and that it's not global and how
Speaker 6: expensive it is, But the reason it's so successful it's
Speaker 6: the one sport where like every Sunday sort of is
Speaker 6: an event.
Speaker 18: It's amazing in that regard, right, But I think to
Speaker 18: some degree that lack of substitutability is of course what
Speaker 18: gives the rights holders the leverage.
Speaker 17: And it's done a pretty good job.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know you have.
Speaker 6: I can tell that you guys have this vision of
Speaker 6: where like you have more leverage than the sports leagues
Speaker 6: that are negotiation and that has basically never happened in media.
Speaker 18: That's right, until it happens, I would say you should
Speaker 18: have some skepticism about that.
Speaker 6: Okay, one other thing that you guys have basically never
Speaker 6: done as large scale EM and day. But the bigger
Speaker 6: you get, the more you tend to get tied to
Speaker 6: different companies, different deals. There's been some reports around you
Speaker 6: guys being interested in Warner Brothers Discovery. Is there any
Speaker 6: truth to that?
Speaker 18: I would say this, you know, we come from a
Speaker 18: deep perriage of being builders rather than buyers. I also
Speaker 18: think that it's you know, one should have a reasonal
Speaker 18: amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don't have
Speaker 18: an amazing track record over you know, the history of time,
Speaker 18: so you know, I would say it's our also, it's
Speaker 18: our responsibility to evaluate all our options.
Speaker 6: In so you'll look, you'll have a conversation, but the
Speaker 6: odds of an offer are pretty low. Yeah.
Speaker 18: Our job is to figure out, like what's the best
Speaker 18: way to grow our business right and we have to think,
Speaker 18: you know, really carefully, like how do we invest our capital,
Speaker 18: our time and our attention and if that's the best
Speaker 18: way to do it, great, and if it's not, then
Speaker 18: we should do something else.
Speaker 6: What area you're investing a lot of capital right now?
Speaker 6: Or you might quibble with a lot, but it is.
Speaker 17: Gaming small fraction of our total investment. But yeah, I
Speaker 17: appreciate you saying that.
Speaker 6: You've been offering video games for four years? How would
Speaker 6: what would you what grade would little?
Speaker 5: Over three? But over three? Sorry? What grade would you
Speaker 5: give your gaming efforts so far?
Speaker 17: I'll give us a B minus.
Speaker 5: How's that okay? Yeah?
Speaker 18: I would say, look, you want to maybe just to start.
Speaker 17: Where we're at right one.
Speaker 18: You know, it's a big market you one hundred and
Speaker 18: forty billion dollars X China X Russia. That doesn't that's
Speaker 18: just consumer spend that has include ads. So we think
Speaker 18: it's a real opportunity for us to try and earn
Speaker 18: a percentage of that over a period of time. A
Speaker 18: lot of what we've been doing is really just building
Speaker 18: the foundation, right, We've been doing a lot of like
Speaker 18: you know, real hard plumbing work. But now we're getting
Speaker 18: to a really interesting place where you know, we're going
Speaker 18: to deliver more of what our vision of.
Speaker 17: What we should be doing in the space is.
Speaker 18: And we call it games because that's a you know,
Speaker 18: a rubric.
Speaker 17: Or you know, a name that we all can relate to.
Speaker 18: But really I would look at this as how do
Speaker 18: we add more interactive capability? So that means even things
Speaker 18: like taking our live program back to a live program
Speaker 18: and how to add interactivity with live So we got
Speaker 18: voting right now that we're in testing on with David
Speaker 18: Chang and his live clicking show. You'll see that interact
Speaker 18: those interactive features come up with star Search when we
Speaker 18: do a lot another live event and non sports live
Speaker 18: event of star Search. So that's an exciting place to be.
Speaker 18: And then it gets also, yeah, so you can see
Speaker 18: this is sort of how the Dave Chang experience is working.
Speaker 18: And you know, again this is you know, the tip
Speaker 18: of the iceberg, and we'll get deeper into this as
Speaker 18: we go. We're also i think more clear around what
Speaker 18: are the gaming areas back to the you know, the
Speaker 18: more traditional gaming areas that we are operating in. You know,
Speaker 18: it's a lot of interactive games around our IP. So
Speaker 18: you think about what you did with Skid Squid game.
Speaker 18: I don't know if you saw Thronglets based on the
Speaker 18: Black Mirror universe, but it's worth checking out because if
Speaker 18: you're a Black Mirror fan, it's so in universe it's
Speaker 18: and the fans of Black Mirror just loved it because
Speaker 18: it was like they were having a meta experience there too.
Speaker 17: But even like Happy Gilmore, we did a golf.
Speaker 18: Game with Happy at Gilmore that got a remarkable amount
Speaker 18: of consumptions.
Speaker 6: Do most of the people who use Netflix know you
Speaker 6: offer games?
Speaker 18: I would say, I mean that's part of frankly, what's
Speaker 18: been hard about this, And I think it's it's hard
Speaker 18: for any brand that has a deep consumer sense of
Speaker 18: what are you doing for me?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 18: And then you're like, well, I'm going to do this
Speaker 18: as well, and you have, it takes a while.
Speaker 17: To really build up that sense of what's happening.
Speaker 2: That's Netflix co CEO Greg Peters coming up on Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week. More from the Bloomberg screen Time event held
Speaker 2: this past week in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Coming up, director Ryan Kogler on the state of Hollywood,
Speaker 3: the vision for his multimedia company, and now he's looking
Speaker 3: to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. Sinners anyone,
Speaker 3: well done, Well done.
Speaker 2: That's all coming ahead as we continue from Bloomberg screen Time.
Speaker 6: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: We are back on a special edition in a Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week. We are highlighting and checking out some of
Speaker 2: our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg screen Time event. It
Speaker 2: happened all this past week in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Ryan Kugler and Sevohania and are the creative forces behind
Speaker 3: Proximity Media in films like Judas and the Black Messiah,
Speaker 3: Creed three, and this year's Oscar front runner Sinners. Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: Lucas Shaw caught up with the pair and heard from
Speaker 3: them on the state of Hollywood, the vision for their
Speaker 3: multimedia company, and how they are looking to push the
Speaker 3: boundaries to tell stories that resonate.
Speaker 6: But I want to start with the origin of your
Speaker 6: relationship and your company. So you guys met at USC. Right,
Speaker 6: where did the idea for a proximity come and what
Speaker 6: was the mission for it when you started it?
Speaker 19: Such a great question. So an enormous circumstances is going
Speaker 19: to be three of us sitting here. We're going to
Speaker 19: talk about our partners, jay Z Coogler quite a bit.
Speaker 19: She's our partner and she's my wife. But it really started,
Speaker 19: you know, I really started year man like, I went
Speaker 19: to to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
Speaker 20: I started in two thousand and eight. Said when did
Speaker 20: you come in, bro, was you fall two thousand and eight?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 20: Yeah, So I.
Speaker 19: Started in the spring and we met in the in
Speaker 19: the Roberts of Mecca's Center for Digital Arts, especially like
Speaker 19: our where we heard our stages and we were in
Speaker 19: equipment and Staid was working in the front desk there.
Speaker 19: I was working in the equipment room. And before that,
Speaker 19: you know, I found out I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 19: make make movies. In Zenz Coogler, she was zen Z.
Speaker 19: Evans then bought me my first final draft screenplay software,
Speaker 19: you know, help me, help me to start writing screenplays.
Speaker 20: I found out that said had already made a.
Speaker 19: Feature film before he even came to film school.
Speaker 20: If we want to talk about, uh, talk about that
Speaker 20: first movie you made.
Speaker 21: Yeah, Before I got to film school, I started making
Speaker 21: little YouTube videos poking fun of my arming In parents
Speaker 21: out of love. At the time, it would have today
Speaker 21: they would have been probably like TikTok videos. But these
Speaker 21: videos got really viral in the in the global armen
Speaker 21: In population. So it led to me making a feature
Speaker 21: film on my dad's mini DV camera. I say this
Speaker 21: all the time, but I wrote it, I directed it,
Speaker 21: I shot it, I produced it. I did everything except
Speaker 21: for makeup, and then the makeup artist quit, so then
Speaker 21: I did that too.
Speaker 11: It's an awful makeup but that but that movie was.
Speaker 21: It was called My Big Fat Armenian Family, totally love
Speaker 21: letter to my to my people, and I had screened
Speaker 21: it locally in Glendale and it had you know, it
Speaker 21: did really well with my community, and that empowered me
Speaker 21: to want to go to film school.
Speaker 11: It's where you know where we.
Speaker 19: Met, you said, recently got the keys to the city
Speaker 19: in Glendale too.
Speaker 5: But got nothing for it.
Speaker 6: Nothing in the fun payperlanth the k.
Speaker 19: But yeah, so so you know, ZIZI was she was
Speaker 19: doing sign language interpreted in at Fresno State. But she
Speaker 19: was basically like auditing classes as she all was sneaker
Speaker 19: in the class all the time. So we got we
Speaker 19: got two degrees for the price of one technically, and
Speaker 19: in seven I became friends.
Speaker 20: He started producing, uh movies for a.
Speaker 19: Lot of a lot of my classmates, got a big
Speaker 19: reputation as one of the top, you know, top.
Speaker 20: Producers at the school.
Speaker 19: Uh So we always wanted to work together, and I
Speaker 19: got the opportunity to make my first feature film, you know,
Speaker 19: shortly after I graduated. I was Frouville Station and we
Speaker 19: made it back in Oakland.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 19: Zens was kind of like, you know, help we were
Speaker 19: living together. We just got our apartment. She was on
Speaker 19: set every day, you know, leaving her day job instead
Speaker 19: actually came up and produced that that film for us.
Speaker 20: So it was it was a it was a fantastic
Speaker 20: startar relationship.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 19: After that, we kind of went our separate ways. I
Speaker 19: made a movie called Creed after and it had a
Speaker 19: lot of Create had a lot of black time.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 19: Created had a lot of story producers on there, you know,
Speaker 19: like like Sylvester Stallon Or and Winkler, Kevin King, Templeton
Speaker 19: and and I tried to get my buddy on. I
Speaker 19: tried to get sev out there to help, but they,
Speaker 19: uh we weren't able to get that and make that happen.
Speaker 19: Uh So, you know, mad Creed and then I got
Speaker 19: Then I got the opportunity to work on Black Panther.
Speaker 19: At the same time, Sevok was making movies with a
Speaker 19: young man named Anische Choking Team, and they made a
Speaker 19: film that was all on screens called search that ended
Speaker 19: up being getting acquired to becoming Searching. One of won
Speaker 19: a couple of awards at Sundance Child. Yeah, and and
Speaker 19: right around that same time, a good friend of ours,
Speaker 19: Charles King, who is my manager, he was just really
Speaker 19: hard on me and Zenzi to to start a company.
Speaker 20: He was like, you guys, gotta do it.
Speaker 19: Now's the time I was pulling my hair out trying
Speaker 19: to trying to finish a Marvel movie. I thought he
Speaker 19: was crazy, but but we took his advice, and Zenzy
Speaker 19: and I sat down and and and coming up with
Speaker 19: the concept for the company. You know, we we kind
Speaker 19: of said, hey, the only way we would do this
Speaker 19: is if we could if we could have sev come
Speaker 19: join it.
Speaker 20: Come join it with us.
Speaker 19: We can kind of reunite the team that worked on
Speaker 19: Fruval together and seven a Niche came to screen searching
Speaker 19: at Natalie and Natalie and Nato Kasabi.
Speaker 20: And who Who's who?
Speaker 19: Said who Sav's wife and an incredible producer in our own right.
Speaker 19: They all came up to screen searching at the Castrup
Speaker 19: Theater in San Francisco. I think I'm about to open
Speaker 19: the San Francisco Film Festival, and we kind of sat
Speaker 19: save down in San francsco me and ins and pitched
Speaker 19: him on proximity and thankfully he said, he said yes.
Speaker 20: So that's kind of the game.
Speaker 6: And what a lot of filmmakers, actors talent when they
Speaker 6: create their own company. And I think it's especially it's
Speaker 6: especially tricking for directors. It can be hard to have
Speaker 6: the company be more than just like Ryan Kubler movies.
Speaker 5: So how do you approach it?
Speaker 6: How have you tried to diversify and do you have
Speaker 6: models that you look after other filmmakers who and you
Speaker 6: think I've done that?
Speaker 20: Well that's such a great question.
Speaker 19: Yeah, absolutely, you know, and honestly, for us it kind
Speaker 19: of worked out because you know, Black Panther two wasn't
Speaker 19: a Proximity movie. We actually started the company like right,
Speaker 19: you know, right before the pandemic kicked off in late
Speaker 19: twenty eighteen, and our first three movies that we made,
Speaker 19: I didn't direct them.
Speaker 20: You know, it was it was a crash course in producing.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 19: We did a Spice Jam in New Legacy, we did
Speaker 19: Judis in the Black Messiah, and then we did Creed three,
Speaker 19: which was Michael B.
Speaker 20: Jordan's directing debut. You know.
Speaker 19: So it was really really a great opportunity for us
Speaker 19: to kind of show to the marketplace is that, you know,
Speaker 19: the Proximity wasn't just about movies.
Speaker 20: That I wrote and directed.
Speaker 19: We actually had a chance to put you know, three
Speaker 19: out that I didn't write and direct.
Speaker 20: I'm going to talk.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 21: I mean, as a matter of fact, we've we've made
Speaker 21: a number of movies, a lot of shows now documentaries,
Speaker 21: and only one of our projects has been you know,
Speaker 21: Ryan Kugler directed film. So, like Ryan said right out
Speaker 21: the gate, we had Judas in the Black Messiah, that
Speaker 21: that was a film that honestly was one of the
Speaker 21: reasons we were sparked at starting the company. We realized
Speaker 21: that there was an opportunity here to help support incredible
Speaker 21: filmmaker Shaka King and getting that movie made. And I
Speaker 21: think Judas is a good example, like a lot of
Speaker 21: the projects that we make, the ones that Ryan directs
Speaker 21: and not are not necessarily films that on papers seem
Speaker 21: like obvious hits or or sure things. And I think
Speaker 21: having that beer first film really as a company, I
Speaker 21: think it helps out the tone for what we were
Speaker 21: trying to do.
Speaker 5: Both correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 6: Both Space Jam and Judas and The Black Nocize Or
Speaker 6: came out into COVID, and Judas was part of the
Speaker 6: whole Warner Brothers experiment where it was on streaming in
Speaker 6: theater at the same time.
Speaker 5: I forget Space Jam.
Speaker 20: Was it was cool?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Did you feel like and I realized pandemic excused all
Speaker 6: of this a little bit, but having had movies come
Speaker 6: out in all different ways, do you feel like having
Speaker 6: a drop in theaters and streaming at the same time
Speaker 6: was a different experience as a producer, as a filmmaker
Speaker 6: didn't have any more or less of a cultural impact.
Speaker 20: And that's such a great question.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 19: It was our first time doing it, you know, so
Speaker 19: you got to remember, man, people were dying.
Speaker 20: Bro like it was.
Speaker 19: It was everything was shut down. You know, I remember
Speaker 19: uh talking with Malika Andrews. She was talking about going
Speaker 19: into the COVID bubble. Yeah, so yeah, like like the
Speaker 19: NBA wasn't like nothing was happening. We didn't even know
Speaker 19: if our if our careers would exist anymore, to be honest,
Speaker 19: So when we had to make when we got when
Speaker 19: we found out on both films that that was what
Speaker 19: was happening, you know, we called both filmmakers, Malcolm de
Speaker 19: Lee on Space Jamming and Shaka King on Judish And
Speaker 19: I remember, you know, Shaka.
Speaker 20: God bless him.
Speaker 19: He was caretaking for his parents, trying to keep them
Speaker 19: because they were already trying to keep it from getting sick.
Speaker 20: He was in the heart of New York.
Speaker 19: New York was going through all that they were going
Speaker 19: through while he was trying to finish the movie, and
Speaker 19: he was just happy that people were gonna see you
Speaker 19: know what I mean, Like that was kind of his
Speaker 19: kind of his reaction.
Speaker 20: You know, looking back on it, the world was going
Speaker 20: through a lot.
Speaker 19: We were blessed to have the opportunity to have Creed
Speaker 19: three come out, you know, theatrically with Amazon MGM, you know,
Speaker 19: and there is that there is a difference, you know,
Speaker 19: when when when folks have a chance to see the
Speaker 19: film in theaters and it gets to be a moment
Speaker 19: before it actually goes to the streaming streaming space, you know.
Speaker 19: But at that time, you know, we were just getting
Speaker 19: started and it was kind of happening to so many
Speaker 19: different so many different films and filmmakers.
Speaker 20: You know, it was kind of just.
Speaker 5: What it was.
Speaker 20: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm curious on that.
Speaker 6: Have you have you ever thought about or would you
Speaker 6: make a movie for a streaming service and you make
Speaker 6: a Netflix movie?
Speaker 20: Man, that's that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm waiting for one where I ask and
Speaker 5: you're gonna that with it.
Speaker 19: Yeah, I mean, you know, you get at your job, bro,
Speaker 19: Like this is just actually the first time anybody's ever
Speaker 19: asked me that.
Speaker 20: You know, I'm not here to shit what I would
Speaker 20: and wouldn't do in the future, you know.
Speaker 19: But but the theatrical experience is uh one that that
Speaker 19: that means a great deal to me.
Speaker 20: It means a great deal to to.
Speaker 7: To us, you know.
Speaker 19: And you know, like I think that I feel a
Speaker 19: certain responsibility like if if Fruitville had happened a calendar
Speaker 19: year later, it probably would have come out on streaming.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 19: I've been fortunate enough that that everything that I've written,
Speaker 19: in directed has been a theatrical release. So I feel
Speaker 19: like I feel a duty to try to try to
Speaker 19: protect that, you know. But that's where I'm at today.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that theatrical experience triggered. We were talking with Mike
Speaker 6: and Pam earlier about that video with that you made
Speaker 6: willated to Kodak before so, which sort of went viral
Speaker 6: on the internet. How did how did that come about?
Speaker 6: And why do you think that resonated with people so much?
Speaker 6: Probably a lot of people who have no idea what
Speaker 6: you were talking about.
Speaker 19: Yeah, I mean it came about from from just convererces
Speaker 19: with us, you know.
Speaker 20: Internally. One thing that I thought, I thought it made.
Speaker 19: Sense to do was to let audiences know why we
Speaker 19: shot the film know way that we did, let audiences
Speaker 19: know that it was a it was a unique thing
Speaker 19: that hadn't happened before in this In this day and age,
Speaker 19: everybody's fighting for everybody's attention, you know, and it's a
Speaker 19: lot of really compelling things that anybody can find on
Speaker 19: their phone and they nose feed. There's so much happening
Speaker 19: in the world. There's so much, so many talented creators.
Speaker 19: I saw y'all had Twitch streamers on here, and you know,
Speaker 19: all of that stuff is incredibly compelling and addictive, and
Speaker 19: people need a reason, you know, to to hire the
Speaker 19: baby sitter, to to you know, to to make the
Speaker 19: day and to go out stand in line and go
Speaker 19: you know they you know, for us, you know, we
Speaker 19: felt that we should put it all out.
Speaker 20: There for folks.
Speaker 19: You know, we never in a million years, like like
Speaker 19: Zenzi and said whatever with me. That's actually Zinzi's handwriting
Speaker 19: on the on the on the whiteboard, because my hand
Speaker 19: writs chicken scratch.
Speaker 20: You know what I'm saying. But you know, they were
Speaker 20: right there that day.
Speaker 19: We all, we all worked on it and Warner Brothers
Speaker 19: was incredibly supportive with the video, gave us our our
Speaker 19: gave us their BTS team to shoot it and stuff.
Speaker 20: We never thought that that millions of people would see,
Speaker 20: you know, we were hoping that, you.
Speaker 19: Know, who would be happy with a few thousands, you know,
Speaker 19: like people who were really interested in and you know,
Speaker 19: in film projection and interested in theatrical experience.
Speaker 20: But it really, it really took off on a way
Speaker 20: we couldn't have we couldn't have imagined.
Speaker 3: That's Ryan Coogler and Sevohnian, co founders of Proximity Media.
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