June 4, 2025 • 45 mins
Is the golden age of family entertainment over? This week on Arroyo Grande, Raymond sits down with Sycamore Studios founder Christian McGuigan, a veteran of Hollywood and father of five, who's leading a new movement to reclaim wonder, virtue, and timeless storytelling in kids' media.
From Disney’s recent box office flops and mass layoffs to the deeper reasons families are tuning out — we dig into the culture clash reshaping children’s entertainment. Christian explains why “eighty million Americans walked away,” what makes a movie worth staying in the room for, and how his new studio plans to win back trust by focusing on what’s “good, true, and beautiful.”
We also take a hard look at ideological overreach in modern media, the genius of Walt Disney’s original vision, and the danger of turning children into “a means to an end.”
If you care about what your kids are watching — or what’s missing from today’s movies — this conversation is essential.
🔔 Subscribe for more inspiring conversations: Arroyo Grande, available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and everywhere you listen, watch & stream.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are your kids watching?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Family entertainment, particularly for children, has hit a rough patch,
but a renaissance could be coming. Christian McGuigan has founded
a new studio that plans to reclaim entertainment for the
kids from the ideologues. Stay for this edition of the
Arroyo Grande podcast. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to
(00:34):
Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn the
notifications on so you know what's coming, and there's a
lot coming. We're starting a news segment this week before
our interview. You've heard of the counter culture, This is
the culture counter First up, Patti Lapone issued an apology
after trashing fellow thesbian's Audra McDonald and actress Keisha Lewis.
(00:56):
These are Broadway actresses that you probably never heard of.
But the only reason I bring this up is because
everyone deserves respect.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Stay with me.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Patty Lapone is a Titanic talent. She became a star
when she created the world of Avida, and though Argentina
wouldn't cry for her, she made a lot of other
people cry. I've seen her so many times on stage
and she's a supreme talent. Easily the best Mama Rose
and Gypsy I've ever seen that maybe the best it
ever was. She's a force of nature. She also has
(01:27):
a really big mouth and no filter. In a recent
New Yorker interview, Lapone complained about being in a Broadway
show that shared a wall with Alicia Keysa's show called
Hell's Kitchen. It was so loud during her songs that
Lapone went to the theater management, who fixed the problem.
Then she sent flowers to the cast of Hell's Kitchen,
(01:49):
which brings me back to Keisha Lewis, who was in
Hell's Kitchen and decided to land based Lapone on social media.
Miss Lapone, these actions, in my opinion, are bullying. They're offensive,
they're racially microaggressive. Audra McDonald, who is also an African
American Broadway star, liked that post. So in this recent
(02:13):
interview with The New Yorker, Lapone called Lewis the B
word and said McDonald and she were no longer friends. Well,
five hundred self titled theater artists signed a letter demanding
demanding that Patty Lapone be held accountable for her blatant
act of quote racialized disrespect against these two beloved artists.
(02:36):
In response, Lapone apologized in a statement for her demeaning
and disrespectful comments. That was the proper thing to do,
but it raises a few questions. In the same New
Yorker interview, Lapone called Glenn Close the B word and
said that her old boyfriend Kevin Klein was a lothario.
Why did the five hundred theater artists not care about
(02:59):
the tree?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And to those beloved artists, what.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Kind of microaggressions was Lapone engaged in there? They were
just as mistreated as MacDonald and Lewis, but no one
wrote a letter demanding accountability for those comments.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Here's the problem with all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Patty Lapone has for years and years yelled at and
assaulted her audience whenever she felt like it, for everything,
forgetting to wear face masks to taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Stop stop taking picture right now.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Put your mouth over your nose.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
That's why you're in a theater. That is the rule.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
If you don't want to follow the rule.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
ABC News even praiser for leaving the stage to snatch
a cell phone from a patron who was annoying her.
The legendary star re enacting the real life drama on
stage last night is this lady right here and I just.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Found the phone.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
They saluted her for her brazenness, news stories celebrated her audacity.
But when Patty Lapone turned that same rudeness, that same
audacity on her peers, she suddenly engaged in one microaggression
too many. Where were the five hundred theater pros when
the audience, their audience were yelled at and regularly demeaned,
(04:26):
degraded by Patty Lapon? I guess they were thrown in
the same pile as Glenn Close and Kevin Klein. I
have a curtain call out, a note that should be
inserted in the first page of every playbill You're ready.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Rudeness is rudeness, no matter who it's directed toward.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And if you want respect, try first defending the people
who have no speaking parts, the people who paid for
those expensive seats, who make your jobs possible. Fellow stars
may get offended by something said about them, but imagine
paying to I have someone berate you, and you're still
expected to applaud them to steal a line from Gypsy.
(05:06):
And this goes for miss Lapone and the five hundred
theater artists. Your mantra should be let me entertain you,
not let me defamee you. Next up on the counter,
actress Sidney Sweeney, the gen Z Bombshell, is selling a
new soap infused with her actual bathwater. I wish I
(05:26):
were joking.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
It's called Sydney's Bathwater Bliss. All I can say is
anyone but you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I don't care if it's the tub remains of j
Lo and Godzilla combined. Who wants to bathe in someone
else's bathwater?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Are you sick?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The only bath I would get into after someone else's
at Lurd's. And guys, if you're this desperate to get
next to a movie siren, hang out at a movie
premiere or check into The Four Seasons after she checks out.
Any product may with a runoff of somebody you've never
met before should probably include a disease.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Test and a Z pack.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Finally, before I close the Culture counter, it seems that
snow Whites poisoned Apple may have taken out more than
just a princess. In the wake of that disastrous live
action movie that frightened off families, Disney just announced that
it is laying off hundreds of employees from multiple divisions TV,
(06:29):
film marketing, staff, casting, and development and financial operations are
all getting acts. Sadly, this is what happens when you
don't give the audience what it wants, and year after
year defy them. They just stopped coming and people who
probably weren't responsible pay the price. Sad This is a
(06:51):
good segue to our deep dive. For a while, we've
been having a problem with family entertainment. What kids see
shapes their future and ours. Christian McGuigan is an executive
who's founded a new studio, Sycamore Studios, to bring the good,
the beautiful, and the true to a screen near you.
(07:12):
We talked about the state of family entertainment and how
to restore it. So Christian, Leelo and Stitch broke the
Memorial Day record with one hundred and eighty three million
dollar opening weekend box office, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Why did that live action work?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I think it's a combination of things. One, there is
a demand, particularly what we call like multi generational intellectual property.
If it's something that I grew up with and I loved,
I'm going to be much more apt to bring my
children or people to bring their grandchildren to see a
film like that. And ultimately it's it's Hollywood, remembering that
the family audience is here, and not only is it here,
(07:52):
but it's lucrative, and it's something that the family audience
if they're looking to go to the movie theater as
an outlet for not only entertaining but also bonding with
the family, they're just looking for good, true, and beautiful entertainment.
And the Lelo and Stitch movie, which has been one
of the most merchandised piece of IP over the last
twenty years. Unbeknownst to a lot of folks, they realized
(08:13):
this was a movie that I only I want to
see because it brings up a certain amount of nostalgia,
but it's also a movie I want to introduce to
my kids or my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, and people forgot that whole the I think it
was something like sixty three percent of the audience for
the movie. Somebody sent me the statistics. Sixty three percent
were gen xers and people with no children, meaning it
was a nostalgia play. These are kids who grew up
with it on television, there was a television series, or
saw the movie and replayed it. As you mentioned, and
(08:41):
I want to get to that later about that relationship
that families have with this kind of material. What did
Disney do wrong Christian in recent years and what ales
children's films today?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So what we've seen really over the last four to
five years, and maybe it's over a decade or so,
where families were starting to say, Wow, I don't like
the way that character speaks to their parents, or I
don't like the fact that no Disney princess has a mother.
There's been things that people have had bones to pick
with the Walt Disney Company, but it was still the
Walt Disney Company. It was still the brand that you
(09:15):
knew you could love and trust virtually no matter what.
And then over the last five years what started to
happen was they started introducing elements of the entertainment that
what we at Sycamore Studio is called the middle seat test,
where we say, if this is a topic that while
on a middle seat of an airplane you don't want
to have a conversation with a stranger about it, probably
(09:36):
shouldn't be in children's entertainment. And when you start introducing
that into children's entertainment, you start complicating parents' lives, you
start making it more difficult, and you start on the
really negative end of this, you start introducing topics and
conversations that parents need to determine when and where they're
going to have those conversations with their children, and you're
in some cases forcing them to have them before the
(09:58):
parents or most definitely the children are ready to have those.
And when that happens, especially with the Mama Bears, that's
when the clause start to come out and you start
to you know, broach that trap trust. And we've seen it.
Eighty million Americans last year avoided Walt Disney entertainment films
because of politics, and that's that's wild to even say that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, and I want to get.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Into some of that, but you know, you mentioned just
a momentary pit stop. You mentioned the princesses not having
mothers and or or fathers that disappeared in these movies.
There was a biography, Christian have you ever read this?
And it was spiked by the Disney company, but it
was called If the Memory Serves Hollywood's Dark Prince, and
(10:39):
it was about Walt Disney and his personal biography, and
they were talking about his parentage, which I won't get into,
but they thought, you know, he had very he had
very Hispanic looks, and they think his father may have
had an affair with you know, a member of the household,
not his mother, and that that may they have worked
(11:00):
its way out in his art.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Do you think there's any truth to anything?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah, I've read a lot of biographies on Walt. I
don't know. I haven't read that one, but I do
know that his relationship with his father was rough, to
say the least. It was very very dark. And then
you know, he bought his parents a house. He and
Roy bought his parents a house. His mother passed away
in the house because of the gas leak. You know,
they were the things that will never ever wanted to
talk about, not even with his own children. Now, in
(11:26):
some defense of the screenwriter, it's much easier to write
an empathetic character, as particularly a child who doesn't have parents, right,
you have to save the cat moment right off the bat.
And we've had this even we're doing the Doctor Doolittle film,
and as we've been talking with our writers, they were like, well,
it's much easier for them to make mistakes if they
don't have a mother there to make sure that they don't.
(11:47):
We say, no, absolutely not. In Sycamore Studios, movies, there's
always a mother and a father, and we just got
to figure it out. We got to work a little
bit harder to make that happen.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So funny that you say that.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
When I was writing my Will Wilder series, which is
an adventure fantasy series I wrote for Random House, they
initially they said they're too many characters here, because it's
one of the few middle grade stories where the whole
family goes on the adventure with the kid.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And I liked that idea. I wanted that idea.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Because it's a sense of continuum and you realize the
sins and the flaws of the parents work their way
out in the children, and sometimes they have to deal
with these things they never bargained for. I thought it
just made more interesting tale. But a very famous children's
writer who shall remain nameless, but I bet you can guess,
advised me against it, and she said, you really should
just have the kid and his friends. It's a simpler, cleaner, right,
(12:37):
And she was probably correct because it did cause.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
A lot of narrative problems along the way.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But I'm so glad I went down that path, and
I know you're committed to that idea. The kind of
the full family. Why do you think the recent live
action snow White floundered the way it did?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
What's your take on that.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
There's any number of challenges I think that that film
had from the very beginning, from certain casting choices, from
things that we're getting out in the media to I
personally wouldn't touch snow White. I mean, that film is
absolute cannon. It is timeless to this day. I mean,
you think about my co founders and I we have
(13:16):
let's see, we've got fifteen children under the age of
ten between our leadership team, and we talk about this,
the timelessness of not just snow White, but the timelessness
of animation. What other film from nineteen thirty seven Am
I going to show my children? Right? But I can
show them snow White seven days a week because it
has that timeless beauty and that timeless story. And it
(13:37):
was the film that if you go to this day,
if you go to the Walt Disney headquarters, on the
facade of the building, you see the seven dwarves literally
holding up the roof of the building, and that is
that is true, and the Walt Disney Company would not
exist today where it not for Snow White. So I
think touching it and trying to do anything different with
it was a problem in and of itself. And it
(13:57):
appears that that just it was one of folly after
another and it got away from them.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, and you can't shatter the narrative and change the character.
I mean, you can't do that on the audio. It's
pulling a fast one on your audience, and they would
punish you for that. Disney lost, by the way, and
you mentioned this one hundred and thirty one million dollars
between Wish in twenty twenty three. That was a flop,
an animated movie that really went nowhere. Light Year in
twenty twenty two. They all flopped. Did ideology capsize those productions?
(14:28):
Did the ideology overwhelm whatever good features remained in those projects?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, And I think we actually saw the inverse of
that with a lot of other movies that came out
at the same time. You take a movie like Super
Mario Brothers, which is not you know, I wouldn't argue
is redeeming it any way. It's not through any redemptive lens.
It's not. It doesn't have any political agenda, but it's
not touching any of those middle seat topics. It's just
a fun kids movie. And I can say definitively, I
(14:54):
took my children to see that movie because it was
it was co signed by another friend of ours who
had seen it, and they said, no, it's great, it's
not your kids are going to learn anything. They're not
going to be changed as people. But it's a fun,
entertaining movie. And Raymond I fell asleep in it, and
that in and of itself is a vote confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Christian.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I spent most of my time in children's movies falling asleep.
That's what, in fact, my children still joke we went
to I remember going to the first Despicable Me. And
you know, when you're in between sleep and being awake,
and I guess someone on the screen said, you know,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You're a great father.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Grew you're a great father, And in my half sleep,
half awake state, I yelled out, I guess at the
top of my voice, unbeknownst to me until the kids
were shaking me, I said, you.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Are a terrible father. My children still never let me
live that down.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
So I think it's a father's obligation to sleep at
least fifty percent through most of these children's films, which
is a terrible indictment of those movies.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is, but I was comfortable doing that, and actually
what woke me up, Raymond, similar to your children shaking up.
My children were laughing. That will raise me up out
of the stupor now what we're doing at Sycamore. The
way that I like to tell people is I say,
we want to create entertainment so good that you, as
a father or as a mother, or as a caregiver,
don't want to leave the room, but it is so
good that you can. And that's a challenge that a
(16:15):
lot of parents have felt in the last five to
ten years, where if they put something on, even if
it was a series that they grew up with or
it's a relaunch or something new that seems innocuous, most
parents at some point have come into the room and said,
what in the heck is are you guys watching? Or
a conversation or a question that's been asked to say,
what made you ask that question? And when they find
(16:36):
out it was the entertainment they were watching, again, this
has opened up an opportunity. It's like, let's just make
entertainment that's good enough for anybody in the room. But
if you do need to leave the room, or if
you're like me and you need to take a quick
cat nap on a Sunday afternoon, you can do that.
And if I can make that promise to parents, Katie
bar the door.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, it's like Snanislovsky, he said, I go to the
theater to nap.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
You know, your Sycamore Studios reminds me of my friend
the flaharities, Michael and Chick Flaherty, who founded Walden Media,
and they were committed to telling, you know, in their case,
these classic literary children's stories they wanted to bring to life,
and they did. They Narnia and Charlotte's Web. I mean,
(17:19):
they did a whole cannon of film, The Bridge to Terabithia.
Tell me there's a temptation I see now where folks
on the right side of the aisle are trying to
create kids entertainment that runs in the other direction. And frankly,
I'm not wild about ideological entertainment in either direction.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
What's the problem with that?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
In your estimation?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Is there a problem with that?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I think there is a problem with that. Now, granted,
anybody can make any entertainment they want it's we're not
trying to pass a law saying you need to make this,
you need make that, or here's what you're doing wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's up.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Everybody can make whatever they want. Let's let the market decide.
Let's let the audience decide. Yeah. Where we see an
issue with that is in reversing the sort of ideal
logical side of it is you're treating children as a
means to an end, and ultimately it's your own end.
We see children as a means in and of themselves,
and ultimately you're training them for ideological battles that aren't
(18:14):
even going to be relevant when they're of age. You're
thinking of ten, fifteen, twenty years down the line. And ultimately,
if these children don't know virtue, if they're not taught
about the good, the true, and the beautiful and real virtue,
it doesn't matter how pure their political ideological indoctrination is.
If they don't understand what courage means, what it means
to be truly humble, what it means to practice true friendship,
(18:37):
none of that training or that that indoctrination is going
to matter whether it's on the left or the right.
So for us, it's about telling timeless stories, right, If
you're talking about topical stories and this day and edge
for children, something's gone terribly wrong. If you're talking about
timeless stories like snow White, a film from nineteen thirty
seven that is as relevant today, and it's in its
beauty and its grandeur and in in the story that
(19:00):
it tells. That's ultimately what needs to happen in a
topical story. If we're telling something topical, we know we're
going the wrong direction. If it's timeless, if it's something
that we think our great grandkids are going to be watching,
those are the types of stories that really need to
be told, and we think we are in a position
to tell them no.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And I've seen it. I mean I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
When I go and read for children, they crave a
sense of wonder. They bond with entertainment and with a
story in the way no adult could ever do. I mean,
there's a giving themselves over to the imaginative reality of
that story that a child, a journey they go on
that no adult audience can ever really imbibe. What's missing
(19:42):
from children's entertainment today, from children's films, from the films
you're seeing now, What's the missing element, if you had
to identify one or two, I.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Mean, I think a big part of it. There is
a lot of great stuff that's been coming out of late.
There's a lot of films that have really been speaking
to audiences, and I think what we see as missing
is not only that timelessness and the entertainment, but something
that is you know, like the super Mario Brothers film,
which did tremendously well, did almost a billion dollars of
the box office. So this is not a critique on
(20:10):
that film in any way, but a lot of the
films that we see, even though sometimes the ones that
perform quite well at the box office, they're empty calories then.
And I have I have five children, so I have
a nine year old and eight year old, a six
year old to two year old, and a little baby
in heaven. And the way that I see it is
their reaction to those films. So the movies that after
(20:30):
we see them and they enjoy them and we have
a great time, they're never to be spoken of again.
Those aren't films that are going to have that lasting power.
But those films that you know as a father, where
the children they want to take on those characters. They're
not dressing up like Luke Skywalker, they're becoming Luke Skywalker.
They're not trying to take on the character of even
(20:51):
The Little Mermaid as it were. One of my my
co founder, Tim Record, his daughter's three years old. Why
does she love The Little Mermaid so much? A movie
that came out when I was in elementary school, is
because at bath time, she gets into the bath and
she becomes Arial the Little Mermaid, And when she gets
out of the bath and towels off, she becomes Arial
the Princess. And she relives She embodied that, relived it.
(21:14):
And she was actually on a cross country's flight with
Tim's wife, and Tim was like, oh my gosh, my
three year olds going across the country. I'm going to
download twelve movies on the iPad just to make sure
everything's taken care of. All she watched was The Little
Mermaid from Los Angeles to New York, over and over
and over again, because it has that nature. So if
we can imbue that in films, if they can be
(21:35):
films that kids can not only go back to time
and time again, but parents can be excited for them
to go back to time and time again. To point
to him and say, yes, conversations we can have about
that film are actually going to evolve as my chill
child ages. Conversations about that film will be able to
catalyze certain bigger conversations. I think what Mike and Ship
Flaherty did at Walden. If you watch The Chronicles of Narnia,
(21:58):
you can have a conversation where I read that book
with my children. I told him we're going to watch
the movie and I did no editorializing in the movie.
And when Aslan is being murdered and killed at the
end of the film, my eight year old turned to
me with tears in his eyes, true story and said, Daddy,
that's just like Jesus that he made the allegorical connection
(22:19):
without me having to do a Sunday school lesson. That's
that past Watchful Dragons that C. S. Lewis talks about.
If we can strip it of the stained glass, we
have opportunities to speak to the heart of these children,
and we think at Sycamore we have the responsibility to
do that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, no, I agree, it's important work.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
You were a vice president at Participant Media, a global
content VP at another company. Why did you decide to
start your own studio, why not just go to another
studio and work for them.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Yeah, I mean that would have been much easier. Frank Raymond.
When Tim Record and I got together and Tim had
been nominated for an Academy Award for a Beautiful Short
Animated Film, he directed a movie called The Star, which
is because one of the most beloved Christmas movies of
the last decade or so, huge Sony film and it
was watched for nineteen and a half million hours last
(23:08):
December on Netflix. That movie came out seven years ago.
Again talking about that timeless nature of it, but we
saw an opportunity because we knew that parents like ourselves
of young children didn't have those opportunities to engage with
films that they were excited to see on a monthly
basis or even a bi monthly basis. And we said, well, now,
(23:28):
what has stopped people from getting into this business before,
Because this is the most lucrative business that you can
get to in entertainment, kids and family IP is three
ps the size of live action and music combined. Right,
this is where what Walt Disney knew was his flywheel
of entertainment merchandise. Right, And we said what's stopping people?
And he said, well, one is the Walt Disney Company
is the eight hundred pound guerrilla. For the last hundred years,
(23:49):
it has dominated the kid's space. It has created the
American imagination for most children for multiple decades. And then
second is that cost of production and distribution. It's just
been a really, really costly thing to make animated films
and series. What's happened is both of those things have
changed dramatically. Now we have people saying I want something
different than the Walt Disney Company. And then secondarily, from
(24:10):
a business perspective, the cost of production has dropped so
dramatically that now we have an opportunity to compete on
equal footing. We looked at that took inspiration from people
like Mother Angelica. Your book was a huge inspiration, and
I thought, well, we got to do the ridiculous if
we expect God to do the miraculous, and so we
have to step out in faith and do it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, what are you doing differently? What do you envision
differently from other companies? Look, there are a couple of
other people in this space. I'm going to talk about
one of them in a second. How do you envision
separating yourselves from what they're doing currently.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
So you have the major entrench studios in the US,
and it's those are big battleships, right. They have a
lot of entrenched opportunities, both from a financial perspective and
the relationships that they've developed over time. But they're really
really expensive. The Walt Disney Company is an example. Their
movies cost about one hundred fift two hundred million dollars
to make. They cost you know, they take four to
six years. We look at something like Frozer, it takes
(25:05):
upwards of ten years to make that movie. It's difficult
to make an impact on society if we're only making
a movie every every decade.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Secondarily, there's a lot of beautiful independent animation coming out
of Europe which is actually very cost effective but looks
at the same high quality. But most of that is
coming from Western Europe, from French Belgian creators, and when
those films come to the United States and you watch them,
you're like, Wow, this is a beautiful movie. But these
jokes are very strange and this dialogue is very weird,
(25:34):
and you realize, oh, I'm watching a French film that's
been dubbed into English, and so we said, well, what
if we could combine those two things, What if we
create the long excellence of American writers and directors in
this filmmaking space. We combine that with beloved globally known
IP but then we're actually able to produce it at
the highest level, but for a budget that actually makes
(25:55):
sense from business perspective. We combine those things together and
Sycamore is actual creating a really unique model in the
space such that we have films that we can make
overseas and eventually back in the United States once that
makes sense from a technological perspective, but at the highest
quality level. So our first film is written by the
writers of the Paw Patrol movies, directed by Tim Recert,
(26:16):
my co founder. Our second film, which from your good
friend Ben Hackey, is being executive produced by Jeremy Latcham,
who produced every Iron Man, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy,
Spider Man Homecoming. So for the first time, we actually
have folks looking to make an impact in culture and
the market, but doing it at the highest level, not
just a bunch of guys that might believe what we
(26:38):
might believe, or they might even go to church where
we go to church and we're really pulling for him,
but actually working with folks who know how to do
this at the highest level and give ourselves and frankly,
our investors and our partners the best opportunity for.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Success and children and families.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Amen. Amen, Christian.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
What do you make of the success of that King
of Kings film? Over Easter, another animated film made over
sixty million dollars in its domestic run.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What did that tell you?
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, it tells us there's a there's a big hole
in the space. In January, we had dog Man, which
was a film from DreamWorks, which was the number one
film in the world, right based on a best selling
graphic novel series for kids. And then but for King
of Kings, we don't have another animated film in theaters
until June of this year. Wow. So if you were
a family of young children like we are, and like
there are one hundred and seventy million homes that are
(27:30):
very much in this space, they didn't have anything to
go see a movie theaters other than say, a movie
like the Minecraft film, which is going to do a
billion dollars, right, So there was an opportunity in this
space and King of King stepped in and said, you know,
faith is not a genre. Faith is an audience. And
so when folks, particularly on Easter weekend, they say, Hey,
what's a great movie that we could go see. That
(27:51):
movie was made for sub twenty million dollars in Korea
and it's a movie that is spoken to audiences in
a really meaningful way, and I think is going to
be one of those films that families want to watch
year after year after year.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Tell me how streaming has impacted all of this.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
How does streaming and the constancy of that cycle, if
you will, and the expectations, How has that changed family entertainment?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Has it? Yeah? I mean the dust is still settling
on streaming. I mean the streaming wars are over Netflix one,
so it's not war anymore. But the dust is very
much still settling in a few ways in good ways.
And that it's created an opportunity for more supply, for
more voices to be heard, for more opportunities for more
at bats. That's even started to settle down a little bit.
(28:40):
But where that change has happened, particularly in family entertainment,
is if you're working on a subscription model, you're not
judged by the quality of a single film and a filmmaker,
isn't it You're more or less judged on do I
keep my account? Am I going to stay subscribed? And
what they have found is the number one genre of
entertainment on streaming for retention, which is that's that's what
(29:02):
all these streamers are looking for is the kids in
family space. At any one time, if you look on
the top ten list, whether it's Amazon or HBO or Netflix,
you're seeing a lot of animated films because families and
kids are always looking for things they want to watch.
So it's increased the opportunity on the supply side. I
think it's changed that some of the demand metrics in
(29:22):
what people are expecting, and so that theatrical window is
still very much open in the kids in family space
and particular in the animated space. And if you're able
to crack that, if you're able to speak to families
in the theater in that theatrical environment, not only is
there a lucrative opportunity, but it builds, it builds a
connection to that intellectual property and to that story that
(29:44):
a streaming first movie hasn't quite been able to prap yet.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
No, there's a disposability in the stream or churn of content.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I mean, just by the nature of what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I mean, you know, Charlie Saren is once again saving
the world with her band of Militia. There's only so
many times you can redo and watch that movie and
you see a sameness creeping into the family space of
their offerings as well. So the theatrical film that can
break through has a huge opportunity, as you said, a
(30:17):
double play, and again you mentioned it earlier. It's so important,
such a great insight. Families really want a long term
relationship with these movies, and the children, by their nature
do they just connect and it becomes playtime, it becomes
their imaginative life.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's a much bigger thing than just an hour and
a half that they're spending in a theater.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Absolutely, absolutely, it becomes part of their world, quite literally,
a part of their world, and when it's really successful,
it becomes a part of every part of the world.
You need the backpack, you need the shoes, you need
the games, you want to go to the live show. Right,
this is what Walt knew, I mean, Walt sold I
think there was something like twelve million snow White commemorative
glasses that came out in nineteen thirty seven. I mean
(30:57):
that movie did, inflation adjusted close to four billion dollars
at the box office. And you know, the Walt Disney
company starting to merchandise, and that wasn't something they came
up with recently. Walt knew that from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
M Yeah, from the mouse sears to the coonskin hats
that yep, Davy Crockett pushed on all those children in
the throughout the fifties you are working. You mentioned it
a moment ago on an animated version of Doctor Doolittle.
Why that property, Christian? Yeah, thirty years old, Rex Harrison
did it? Robert Downey Junior did it?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Not long ago? Hasn't it already been done?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
That's a great question. Well, we look at that and
through a slightly different framing where I say, all right, well,
there's a property that has one hundred million copies sold
throughout history of the Doctor Doolittle franchise. The franchise as
a whole, non inflation adjusted, has done almost eight hundred
million dollars at the box office. And you and I
and my grandparents and my parents, everyone knows who Doctor
Doolittle is, Oh, yeah, you're the duologists who can talk
(31:52):
to animals, right, My children, my parents' grandchildren, they don't
have a touch point. Robert Downey Junior one just just
sort of predated the Gen Alpha young gen Z audience.
And so what we see is this is actually a story,
a piece of intellectual property that has multi generational appeal
that hasn't been done in the animation space which we're
(32:13):
looking at, and hasn't been told in the way. So
we're not doing a shot for shot retelling of anything.
Although a funny story. Raymond, my father in college, worked
as a grip on the Rex Harrison Doctor Doolittle movie.
He was in charge of carrying the stuffed crocodile from
set to set. So he's gonna have a little Easter
egg in the back of our film. But we see
(32:34):
it as a story that also is an amazing vehicle.
It's a toy box for us, for us to work
in and for us to use and say, how can
we tell a story here about vocation? How can we
tell a story about real friendship? And how can we
tell a story that using Doctor Doolittle as a character
and using the franchise as that toy box, that we
can tell a story that can have that timelessness shelf life,
(32:57):
so that parents are going to be wanting to go
back to this. They're going to be wanting to go
back to this, and it's something that every child at
a certain age believes they can do. Will just talk
to animals and so what would that look like?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Tell me about Zeta the space Girl. Yeah, has been
Hackey's graphic novel.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Why that property? What trew you all that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
That's another one again, three novels in the series. Actually
very few people know this, but Zita named after a
thirteenth century Italian saint Zita, and Tim and I, my
co founder, we fell in love with the book, and
my children fell in love with the book, and we
have this extraordinary test case and that we'll read scripts
and books to our children. And I get the nine,
(33:37):
eight and six year old together and I see what
they're responding to, and so I knew my daughter it's
a female heroine, Zita. She gets taken into this space
world to try to save her friend, and I knew
she was going to love it. By the next morning,
she had a green blanket tied around her back. And
she said, Daddy, look, I'm Zita now. My boys.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I was a little I was.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if they were going
to they were going to respond to it, And so
I waited for two weeks. I waited for two weeks.
I didn't say anything about the book. Two weeks later,
I said, boys, do you remember that Zeta the Space
Girl book we read? And they said yeah. I said,
do you have any favorite characters from it? And they
started rattling off all of these extraordinary characters that Ben
in his imagination had come up with. And I thought,
wait a second, we have something here. If a nine
(34:16):
to six year old boys and girls are drawing into
this and it's one of those properties that they're taking
it off the page and bringing it into their play,
there's a massive opportunity here. We sent it to Jeremy Latcham, who,
as I mentioned before, had done every Iron Man, Avengers,
Guardians of the Galaxy. He's done six billion at the
box office and the films that he's been affiliated with.
He read it to his daughter and he came back
(34:37):
to me and has said, well, my daughter said, Daddy,
you have to make this into a movie. And so
we said, great, let's make it happen. It's one of
those properties. And not every book we read has that
that special sort of fairy dust. But what Ben has
been able to create in this world with Zita, and
Zita doesn't have any superpowers, she gets taken into this
very brutal galaxy that she's not familiar with. She doesn't
have any superpowers, but what she can do is she
(35:00):
brings love, forgiveness, real virtue. Her ability to create friendship, alliances,
forgive even people that are her enemies, has the power
to not only save her and her friend, but ultimately
the power to save the world.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
That's a story I want to watch their fun books.
Who is okay?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I'm going to give you the Arroyo Grande questionnaire. I
asked everybody who comes on the show. I hope you
haven't been peeking. Who is the person you most admire?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Christian That's an easy answer. That's my wife Kara, to
see firsthand the quiet heroism that goes into motherhood. And
what I've learned more and more as I've gotten older
is the greatness in most things is not usually in
the spectacular, it's in the consistent and I would say
most mothers that I've seen this modeled with my wife,
(35:47):
both as a mother and as a wife and as
just an extraordinary person. It's her, ten times out of ten.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Who is the person you most despise?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh Lord, Luckily I could say, I don't have a
lot of people on my list, anyone who who abuses
or hurts children. This is probably the only place where
if I was in charge politically, I'd have to stand
before Saint Peter and have some explaining to do, because
there there is no depths. And I listen, I'm a
(36:17):
I'm a Christian. And Jesus was very very clear when
it came to misleading children and are all loving and knowing.
Lord made it very clear that one should have a
millstone tied around their neck could be tossed into the sea.
So needless to say, their top of my list.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yell, if Jesus agrees with you, you know you're on
safe territory.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I'll take that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I'll tell you what's your best feature?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Oh Lord? Uh? I think, uh, I hope it's there.
I don't have any duality. What you see is what
you get. I'm one of those people. There's there's there's
no other version of myself. It's Hey, our relationship is
what it is. You're not going to find out anything
about me later or you're Our interactions are always going
(36:59):
to be above board, and that's ultimately how I how
I'm wired and how I've been raised.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
What's your worst feature?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Oh gosh, can we extend this show by forty five minutes? Lord?
It would have to be Listen. I'm an Irishman through
and through. I've been able to keep my temper at bay.
I think I have a very long fuse, But when
that fuse is lit, I would have to say. That's
something that I work on on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
What do you fear?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Christian? The same thing that our dear mother Angelica feared
that I get to meet our creator one day and
he says, look at all the things you could have
done had you just trusted me more. That's the only
thing that I fear.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, the greatest virtue is what.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
It's got to be humility. I think that's that's the bedrock,
the found real humility. Not not woe is me, I'm
not worthy of anything, but actually understanding where you are
in light of this, and that not only is there
something greater than us, but that ultimately everything that we
have comes from the world. I think David Mammont, who
I know is a good friend of yours, I think
(38:03):
he embodies it. Because people who have real humility, they
ultimately have an extraordinary confidence because they know it's not
all about them and they know what they don't know.
And I've seen that embodied. I binge David mammontt interviews
anytime in one pops up and he I think he
really embodies it. For someone with his track record and
his background and the success that he's had to have
(38:25):
the true real humility in the small things and in
the big things. You can see why he's as great
as he is because he knows where his greatness comes from,
and he knows what he doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
No, there's a confidence in his not only his worldview,
but his opinion of the arts and life and the world.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
And I love that. You got the cross promotion in
Christian very good after this. Go watch David Mammot on
Royal Grande.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It was a funny, great interview and Christian getting him
to smile is a near impossibility, and they pulled it
all up.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Terrific.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
The word you could not live without.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
The word. I could not live without amen. Oh right,
I probably say that more than almost any word, right,
I believe that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
So your I couldn't live without word is very different
from mine.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
But I won't tell you what it is. We'll leave
it there. It would not be in one of your movies.
I can promise. What is your greatest regret? Christian?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
You know, I don't have any macro regrets about I
think I believe in God's providence, in God's will, and
even some wrong decisions that I've made, it's all in
the greater plan. Definitely, Mike. Anytime I've mistreated someone or
or been short with someone or haven't, I would go
back ten times out of ten and change those those,
you know, interactions or relationships that went sour that didn't
(39:45):
need to be and that was my fault. Yeah, I'm
not one of these people that says I have absolutely
no regrets. Those are absolutely regrets. I would love to
go back in time. But the big ones, jobs that
I've taken, decisions I've made, you know, school decisions, not
a regret. It led me to where we are right now,
which is where God needs me.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
To be a friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Mike, who is a very successful engineer, had a question
he would ask everybody interviewed, and it was this one,
what do you know that other people don't?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Oh gosh, that's a great like a Peter tile I question.
Great question. Yeah, yeah, I would go back to that.
It's it's probably greatness is not in the spectacular, it's
in the consistent. So much, I don't care if it's
Michael Jordan or my wife. So much of the greatness
that comes from that is not in that one moment
in time. It's in the consistent commitment to virtue, which
(40:36):
ultimately is is that excellence that we seek. I think
Mother Angelica is another great example of that. Granted there
were those moments in time, but it was it was
her her humble commitment to doing what she felt she
was called to do and understanding that I can't there's
no days off. I can't. I can't take off a
day from from God's calling. I have to just be consistent,
even in those times where I don't feel like it.
(40:58):
That's that's something that I think if more people knew,
they wouldn't be always seeking out the game winning shot,
but it would be parentually putting more of the time
in in the gym.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
I mean, when I went to work in Hollywood for
the first time, my mother who you know, Raymond, right
before I went. So I went to work in a
secular Hollywood studio and it was my first day of
work and I called my mom. I was excited, and
she said, don't forget Christian You're probably the only Bible
these people are ever going to read. And that stuck
with me. That was one of those opportunities where I
(41:33):
realized it wasn't just hey, you know, put out a
good showing because you're a representative of the family. That
type of thing was. It was understand that, particularly in Hollywood,
and it's not unique to Hollywood. It could be any
number of industries that you might be the only Christian
influence that they have on a regular basis. And that's
a lot of pressure, but it's also a lot of responsibility,
and that's something that I've taken seriously, not just in
(41:53):
that job, but in the industry as a whole.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Christian. What's your favorite book and the last one you read?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
The last book I read was actually a book called
An Empire of their Own by Neil Gaebler. Terrific book
about the history of Hollywood and in particular all of
the studio heads in the early Golden Age of Hollywood.
That's that's a time period that I find so romantic
and beautiful, and the early Louis B. Mayer and Adolf
Zucker and all that group. Just an extraordinary book about
(42:24):
the Testament to those folks and what they built in
that stage. The last book I read, I'm not gonna
lie this is now, I'm not trying to front here, Raymond.
It was your biography of Mother Angelica. I listened to
the audio version. Was your impression of Mother Angelica is
his second to none. So it was a tremendous because
(42:45):
we were in the middle of fundraising for our company,
so listening to that book and hearing about the history
of EWTN and the role that mother had in establishing
something and finding ways where sometimes she was stepping out
most time she was stepping on faith when not only
was the bridge not there, but she couldn't see it
if it were. And so that that was that's been
(43:06):
a really I've recommended that book to more people than
I can admit.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I love it. Well.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
No, she was obviously a great light in my life.
And I always think of that line and I guess
it applies to what you're doing now. You know, she
would say, you got to take the first step. The
grace only comes when you step. And that's the scary
thing about providence. You have to kind of go there
to get the grace, and it's a it's a faith walk.
(43:31):
Final question, what happens when this is over?
Speaker 3 (43:36):
My prayer is that I get an opportunity to give
an account, and you know, I can say to Saint
Peter before you say anything, and make my case right.
And and the hope is that when it's all said
and done, you you get the greeting of my good
and faithful servant. That's that's that's what I'm swinging for ultimately.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Well, Christian, I also hope that he will have seen
one or two of your films at that point and
realized good work and the good effects of that work.
So that'll get you a fast pass at least into purgatory.
And you can come sit in my suite. We'll be
together for a while.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
We'll do we'll do another interview Raymond. Yeah, the Purgatory Files.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I love it. Christian mcgreigan, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
For being here, my pleasure. Thank you, Raymond.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Here's the hole for me.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I loved what Christian mcgregan said about consistency, doing the
right thing, staying on the beam, doing it day in
and day out.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
It's not about the quick hit or the big goal
or the big swash.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It's about staying at the grindstone every day and doing
what's needed, what you're called to. And I love and
certainly that characterizes art. It's an important component of any
artist and really any parent. You got to be there
every moment. It's not about the quick hit or the
quick trip, it's about being there every day.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
I hope you'll come back to a royal Grande soon.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
WHI live a dry, constricted life when if you fill
it with good things, it can flow into a broad thrive.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Arroyo Grande. I'm reading at Arroyo.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Make sure you subscribe like this episode. Thank you for
diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande
is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are your kids watching?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Family entertainment, particularly for children, has hit a rough patch,
but a renaissance could be coming. Christian McGuigan has founded
a new studio that plans to reclaim entertainment for the
kids from the ideologues. Stay for this edition of the
Arroyo Grande podcast. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to
(00:34):
Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn the
notifications on so you know what's coming, and there's a
lot coming. We're starting a news segment this week before
our interview. You've heard of the counter culture, This is
the culture counter First up, Patti Lapone issued an apology
after trashing fellow thesbian's Audra McDonald and actress Keisha Lewis.
(00:56):
These are Broadway actresses that you probably never heard of.
But the only reason I bring this up is because
everyone deserves respect.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Stay with me.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Patty Lapone is a Titanic talent. She became a star
when she created the world of Avida, and though Argentina
wouldn't cry for her, she made a lot of other
people cry. I've seen her so many times on stage
and she's a supreme talent. Easily the best Mama Rose
and Gypsy I've ever seen that maybe the best it
ever was. She's a force of nature. She also has
(01:27):
a really big mouth and no filter. In a recent
New Yorker interview, Lapone complained about being in a Broadway
show that shared a wall with Alicia Keysa's show called
Hell's Kitchen. It was so loud during her songs that
Lapone went to the theater management, who fixed the problem.
Then she sent flowers to the cast of Hell's Kitchen,
(01:49):
which brings me back to Keisha Lewis, who was in
Hell's Kitchen and decided to land based Lapone on social media.
Miss Lapone, these actions, in my opinion, are bullying. They're offensive,
they're racially microaggressive. Audra McDonald, who is also an African
American Broadway star, liked that post. So in this recent
(02:13):
interview with The New Yorker, Lapone called Lewis the B
word and said McDonald and she were no longer friends. Well,
five hundred self titled theater artists signed a letter demanding
demanding that Patty Lapone be held accountable for her blatant
act of quote racialized disrespect against these two beloved artists.
(02:36):
In response, Lapone apologized in a statement for her demeaning
and disrespectful comments. That was the proper thing to do,
but it raises a few questions. In the same New
Yorker interview, Lapone called Glenn Close the B word and
said that her old boyfriend Kevin Klein was a lothario.
Why did the five hundred theater artists not care about
(02:59):
the tree?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And to those beloved artists, what.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Kind of microaggressions was Lapone engaged in there? They were
just as mistreated as MacDonald and Lewis, but no one
wrote a letter demanding accountability for those comments.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Here's the problem with all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Patty Lapone has for years and years yelled at and
assaulted her audience whenever she felt like it, for everything,
forgetting to wear face masks to taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Stop stop taking picture right now.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Put your mouth over your nose.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
That's why you're in a theater. That is the rule.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
If you don't want to follow the rule.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
ABC News even praiser for leaving the stage to snatch
a cell phone from a patron who was annoying her.
The legendary star re enacting the real life drama on
stage last night is this lady right here and I just.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Found the phone.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
They saluted her for her brazenness, news stories celebrated her audacity.
But when Patty Lapone turned that same rudeness, that same
audacity on her peers, she suddenly engaged in one microaggression
too many. Where were the five hundred theater pros when
the audience, their audience were yelled at and regularly demeaned,
(04:26):
degraded by Patty Lapon? I guess they were thrown in
the same pile as Glenn Close and Kevin Klein. I
have a curtain call out, a note that should be
inserted in the first page of every playbill You're ready.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Rudeness is rudeness, no matter who it's directed toward.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And if you want respect, try first defending the people
who have no speaking parts, the people who paid for
those expensive seats, who make your jobs possible. Fellow stars
may get offended by something said about them, but imagine
paying to I have someone berate you, and you're still
expected to applaud them to steal a line from Gypsy.
(05:06):
And this goes for miss Lapone and the five hundred
theater artists. Your mantra should be let me entertain you,
not let me defamee you. Next up on the counter,
actress Sidney Sweeney, the gen Z Bombshell, is selling a
new soap infused with her actual bathwater. I wish I
(05:26):
were joking.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
It's called Sydney's Bathwater Bliss. All I can say is
anyone but you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I don't care if it's the tub remains of j
Lo and Godzilla combined. Who wants to bathe in someone
else's bathwater?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Are you sick?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The only bath I would get into after someone else's
at Lurd's. And guys, if you're this desperate to get
next to a movie siren, hang out at a movie
premiere or check into The Four Seasons after she checks out.
Any product may with a runoff of somebody you've never
met before should probably include a disease.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Test and a Z pack.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Finally, before I close the Culture counter, it seems that
snow Whites poisoned Apple may have taken out more than
just a princess. In the wake of that disastrous live
action movie that frightened off families, Disney just announced that
it is laying off hundreds of employees from multiple divisions TV,
(06:29):
film marketing, staff, casting, and development and financial operations are
all getting acts. Sadly, this is what happens when you
don't give the audience what it wants, and year after
year defy them. They just stopped coming and people who
probably weren't responsible pay the price. Sad This is a
(06:51):
good segue to our deep dive. For a while, we've
been having a problem with family entertainment. What kids see
shapes their future and ours. Christian McGuigan is an executive
who's founded a new studio, Sycamore Studios, to bring the good,
the beautiful, and the true to a screen near you.
(07:12):
We talked about the state of family entertainment and how
to restore it. So Christian, Leelo and Stitch broke the
Memorial Day record with one hundred and eighty three million
dollar opening weekend box office, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Why did that live action work?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I think it's a combination of things. One, there is
a demand, particularly what we call like multi generational intellectual property.
If it's something that I grew up with and I loved,
I'm going to be much more apt to bring my
children or people to bring their grandchildren to see a
film like that. And ultimately it's it's Hollywood, remembering that
the family audience is here, and not only is it here,
(07:52):
but it's lucrative, and it's something that the family audience
if they're looking to go to the movie theater as
an outlet for not only entertaining but also bonding with
the family, they're just looking for good, true, and beautiful entertainment.
And the Lelo and Stitch movie, which has been one
of the most merchandised piece of IP over the last
twenty years. Unbeknownst to a lot of folks, they realized
(08:13):
this was a movie that I only I want to
see because it brings up a certain amount of nostalgia,
but it's also a movie I want to introduce to
my kids or my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, and people forgot that whole the I think it
was something like sixty three percent of the audience for
the movie. Somebody sent me the statistics. Sixty three percent
were gen xers and people with no children, meaning it
was a nostalgia play. These are kids who grew up
with it on television, there was a television series, or
saw the movie and replayed it. As you mentioned, and
(08:41):
I want to get to that later about that relationship
that families have with this kind of material. What did
Disney do wrong Christian in recent years and what ales
children's films today?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So what we've seen really over the last four to
five years, and maybe it's over a decade or so,
where families were starting to say, Wow, I don't like
the way that character speaks to their parents, or I
don't like the fact that no Disney princess has a mother.
There's been things that people have had bones to pick
with the Walt Disney Company, but it was still the
Walt Disney Company. It was still the brand that you
(09:15):
knew you could love and trust virtually no matter what.
And then over the last five years what started to
happen was they started introducing elements of the entertainment that
what we at Sycamore Studio is called the middle seat test,
where we say, if this is a topic that while
on a middle seat of an airplane you don't want
to have a conversation with a stranger about it, probably
(09:36):
shouldn't be in children's entertainment. And when you start introducing
that into children's entertainment, you start complicating parents' lives, you
start making it more difficult, and you start on the
really negative end of this, you start introducing topics and
conversations that parents need to determine when and where they're
going to have those conversations with their children, and you're
in some cases forcing them to have them before the
(09:58):
parents or most definitely the children are ready to have those.
And when that happens, especially with the Mama Bears, that's
when the clause start to come out and you start
to you know, broach that trap trust. And we've seen it.
Eighty million Americans last year avoided Walt Disney entertainment films
because of politics, and that's that's wild to even say that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, and I want to get.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Into some of that, but you know, you mentioned just
a momentary pit stop. You mentioned the princesses not having
mothers and or or fathers that disappeared in these movies.
There was a biography, Christian have you ever read this?
And it was spiked by the Disney company, but it
was called If the Memory Serves Hollywood's Dark Prince, and
(10:39):
it was about Walt Disney and his personal biography, and
they were talking about his parentage, which I won't get into,
but they thought, you know, he had very he had
very Hispanic looks, and they think his father may have
had an affair with you know, a member of the household,
not his mother, and that that may they have worked
(11:00):
its way out in his art.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Do you think there's any truth to anything?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah, I've read a lot of biographies on Walt. I
don't know. I haven't read that one, but I do
know that his relationship with his father was rough, to
say the least. It was very very dark. And then
you know, he bought his parents a house. He and
Roy bought his parents a house. His mother passed away
in the house because of the gas leak. You know,
they were the things that will never ever wanted to
talk about, not even with his own children. Now, in
(11:26):
some defense of the screenwriter, it's much easier to write
an empathetic character, as particularly a child who doesn't have parents, right,
you have to save the cat moment right off the bat.
And we've had this even we're doing the Doctor Doolittle film,
and as we've been talking with our writers, they were like, well,
it's much easier for them to make mistakes if they
don't have a mother there to make sure that they don't.
(11:47):
We say, no, absolutely not. In Sycamore Studios, movies, there's
always a mother and a father, and we just got
to figure it out. We got to work a little
bit harder to make that happen.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So funny that you say that.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
When I was writing my Will Wilder series, which is
an adventure fantasy series I wrote for Random House, they
initially they said they're too many characters here, because it's
one of the few middle grade stories where the whole
family goes on the adventure with the kid.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And I liked that idea. I wanted that idea.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Because it's a sense of continuum and you realize the
sins and the flaws of the parents work their way
out in the children, and sometimes they have to deal
with these things they never bargained for. I thought it
just made more interesting tale. But a very famous children's
writer who shall remain nameless, but I bet you can guess,
advised me against it, and she said, you really should
just have the kid and his friends. It's a simpler, cleaner, right,
(12:37):
And she was probably correct because it did cause.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
A lot of narrative problems along the way.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But I'm so glad I went down that path, and
I know you're committed to that idea. The kind of
the full family. Why do you think the recent live
action snow White floundered the way it did?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
What's your take on that.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
There's any number of challenges I think that that film
had from the very beginning, from certain casting choices, from
things that we're getting out in the media to I
personally wouldn't touch snow White. I mean, that film is
absolute cannon. It is timeless to this day. I mean,
you think about my co founders and I we have
(13:16):
let's see, we've got fifteen children under the age of
ten between our leadership team, and we talk about this,
the timelessness of not just snow White, but the timelessness
of animation. What other film from nineteen thirty seven Am
I going to show my children? Right? But I can
show them snow White seven days a week because it
has that timeless beauty and that timeless story. And it
(13:37):
was the film that if you go to this day,
if you go to the Walt Disney headquarters, on the
facade of the building, you see the seven dwarves literally
holding up the roof of the building, and that is
that is true, and the Walt Disney Company would not
exist today where it not for Snow White. So I
think touching it and trying to do anything different with
it was a problem in and of itself. And it
(13:57):
appears that that just it was one of folly after
another and it got away from them.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, and you can't shatter the narrative and change the character.
I mean, you can't do that on the audio. It's
pulling a fast one on your audience, and they would
punish you for that. Disney lost, by the way, and
you mentioned this one hundred and thirty one million dollars
between Wish in twenty twenty three. That was a flop,
an animated movie that really went nowhere. Light Year in
twenty twenty two. They all flopped. Did ideology capsize those productions?
(14:28):
Did the ideology overwhelm whatever good features remained in those projects?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, And I think we actually saw the inverse of
that with a lot of other movies that came out
at the same time. You take a movie like Super
Mario Brothers, which is not you know, I wouldn't argue
is redeeming it any way. It's not through any redemptive lens.
It's not. It doesn't have any political agenda, but it's
not touching any of those middle seat topics. It's just
a fun kids movie. And I can say definitively, I
(14:54):
took my children to see that movie because it was
it was co signed by another friend of ours who
had seen it, and they said, no, it's great, it's
not your kids are going to learn anything. They're not
going to be changed as people. But it's a fun,
entertaining movie. And Raymond I fell asleep in it, and
that in and of itself is a vote confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Christian.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I spent most of my time in children's movies falling asleep.
That's what, in fact, my children still joke we went
to I remember going to the first Despicable Me. And
you know, when you're in between sleep and being awake,
and I guess someone on the screen said, you know,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You're a great father.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Grew you're a great father, And in my half sleep,
half awake state, I yelled out, I guess at the
top of my voice, unbeknownst to me until the kids
were shaking me, I said, you.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Are a terrible father. My children still never let me
live that down.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
So I think it's a father's obligation to sleep at
least fifty percent through most of these children's films, which
is a terrible indictment of those movies.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is, but I was comfortable doing that, and actually
what woke me up, Raymond, similar to your children shaking up.
My children were laughing. That will raise me up out
of the stupor now what we're doing at Sycamore. The
way that I like to tell people is I say,
we want to create entertainment so good that you, as
a father or as a mother, or as a caregiver,
don't want to leave the room, but it is so
good that you can. And that's a challenge that a
(16:15):
lot of parents have felt in the last five to
ten years, where if they put something on, even if
it was a series that they grew up with or
it's a relaunch or something new that seems innocuous, most
parents at some point have come into the room and said,
what in the heck is are you guys watching? Or
a conversation or a question that's been asked to say,
what made you ask that question? And when they find
(16:36):
out it was the entertainment they were watching, again, this
has opened up an opportunity. It's like, let's just make
entertainment that's good enough for anybody in the room. But
if you do need to leave the room, or if
you're like me and you need to take a quick
cat nap on a Sunday afternoon, you can do that.
And if I can make that promise to parents, Katie
bar the door.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, it's like Snanislovsky, he said, I go to the
theater to nap.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
You know, your Sycamore Studios reminds me of my friend
the flaharities, Michael and Chick Flaherty, who founded Walden Media,
and they were committed to telling, you know, in their case,
these classic literary children's stories they wanted to bring to life,
and they did. They Narnia and Charlotte's Web. I mean,
(17:19):
they did a whole cannon of film, The Bridge to Terabithia.
Tell me there's a temptation I see now where folks
on the right side of the aisle are trying to
create kids entertainment that runs in the other direction. And frankly,
I'm not wild about ideological entertainment in either direction.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
What's the problem with that?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
In your estimation?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Is there a problem with that?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I think there is a problem with that. Now, granted,
anybody can make any entertainment they want it's we're not
trying to pass a law saying you need to make this,
you need make that, or here's what you're doing wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's up.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Everybody can make whatever they want. Let's let the market decide.
Let's let the audience decide. Yeah. Where we see an
issue with that is in reversing the sort of ideal
logical side of it is you're treating children as a
means to an end, and ultimately it's your own end.
We see children as a means in and of themselves,
and ultimately you're training them for ideological battles that aren't
(18:14):
even going to be relevant when they're of age. You're
thinking of ten, fifteen, twenty years down the line. And ultimately,
if these children don't know virtue, if they're not taught
about the good, the true, and the beautiful and real virtue,
it doesn't matter how pure their political ideological indoctrination is.
If they don't understand what courage means, what it means
to be truly humble, what it means to practice true friendship,
(18:37):
none of that training or that that indoctrination is going
to matter whether it's on the left or the right.
So for us, it's about telling timeless stories, right, If
you're talking about topical stories and this day and edge
for children, something's gone terribly wrong. If you're talking about
timeless stories like snow White, a film from nineteen thirty
seven that is as relevant today, and it's in its
beauty and its grandeur and in in the story that
(19:00):
it tells. That's ultimately what needs to happen in a
topical story. If we're telling something topical, we know we're
going the wrong direction. If it's timeless, if it's something
that we think our great grandkids are going to be watching,
those are the types of stories that really need to
be told, and we think we are in a position
to tell them no.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And I've seen it. I mean I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
When I go and read for children, they crave a
sense of wonder. They bond with entertainment and with a
story in the way no adult could ever do. I mean,
there's a giving themselves over to the imaginative reality of
that story that a child, a journey they go on
that no adult audience can ever really imbibe. What's missing
(19:42):
from children's entertainment today, from children's films, from the films
you're seeing now, What's the missing element, if you had
to identify one or two, I.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Mean, I think a big part of it. There is
a lot of great stuff that's been coming out of late.
There's a lot of films that have really been speaking
to audiences, and I think what we see as missing
is not only that timelessness and the entertainment, but something
that is you know, like the super Mario Brothers film,
which did tremendously well, did almost a billion dollars of
the box office. So this is not a critique on
(20:10):
that film in any way, but a lot of the
films that we see, even though sometimes the ones that
perform quite well at the box office, they're empty calories then.
And I have I have five children, so I have
a nine year old and eight year old, a six
year old to two year old, and a little baby
in heaven. And the way that I see it is
their reaction to those films. So the movies that after
(20:30):
we see them and they enjoy them and we have
a great time, they're never to be spoken of again.
Those aren't films that are going to have that lasting power.
But those films that you know as a father, where
the children they want to take on those characters. They're
not dressing up like Luke Skywalker, they're becoming Luke Skywalker.
They're not trying to take on the character of even
(20:51):
The Little Mermaid as it were. One of my my
co founder, Tim Record, his daughter's three years old. Why
does she love The Little Mermaid so much? A movie
that came out when I was in elementary school, is
because at bath time, she gets into the bath and
she becomes Arial the Little Mermaid, And when she gets
out of the bath and towels off, she becomes Arial
the Princess. And she relives She embodied that, relived it.
(21:14):
And she was actually on a cross country's flight with
Tim's wife, and Tim was like, oh my gosh, my
three year olds going across the country. I'm going to
download twelve movies on the iPad just to make sure
everything's taken care of. All she watched was The Little
Mermaid from Los Angeles to New York, over and over
and over again, because it has that nature. So if
we can imbue that in films, if they can be
(21:35):
films that kids can not only go back to time
and time again, but parents can be excited for them
to go back to time and time again. To point
to him and say, yes, conversations we can have about
that film are actually going to evolve as my chill
child ages. Conversations about that film will be able to
catalyze certain bigger conversations. I think what Mike and Ship
Flaherty did at Walden. If you watch The Chronicles of Narnia,
(21:58):
you can have a conversation where I read that book
with my children. I told him we're going to watch
the movie and I did no editorializing in the movie.
And when Aslan is being murdered and killed at the
end of the film, my eight year old turned to
me with tears in his eyes, true story and said, Daddy,
that's just like Jesus that he made the allegorical connection
(22:19):
without me having to do a Sunday school lesson. That's
that past Watchful Dragons that C. S. Lewis talks about.
If we can strip it of the stained glass, we
have opportunities to speak to the heart of these children,
and we think at Sycamore we have the responsibility to
do that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, no, I agree, it's important work.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
You were a vice president at Participant Media, a global
content VP at another company. Why did you decide to
start your own studio, why not just go to another
studio and work for them.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Yeah, I mean that would have been much easier. Frank Raymond.
When Tim Record and I got together and Tim had
been nominated for an Academy Award for a Beautiful Short
Animated Film, he directed a movie called The Star, which
is because one of the most beloved Christmas movies of
the last decade or so, huge Sony film and it
was watched for nineteen and a half million hours last
(23:08):
December on Netflix. That movie came out seven years ago.
Again talking about that timeless nature of it, but we
saw an opportunity because we knew that parents like ourselves
of young children didn't have those opportunities to engage with
films that they were excited to see on a monthly
basis or even a bi monthly basis. And we said, well, now,
(23:28):
what has stopped people from getting into this business before,
Because this is the most lucrative business that you can
get to in entertainment, kids and family IP is three
ps the size of live action and music combined. Right,
this is where what Walt Disney knew was his flywheel
of entertainment merchandise. Right, And we said what's stopping people?
And he said, well, one is the Walt Disney Company
is the eight hundred pound guerrilla. For the last hundred years,
(23:49):
it has dominated the kid's space. It has created the
American imagination for most children for multiple decades. And then
second is that cost of production and distribution. It's just
been a really, really costly thing to make animated films
and series. What's happened is both of those things have
changed dramatically. Now we have people saying I want something
different than the Walt Disney Company. And then secondarily, from
(24:10):
a business perspective, the cost of production has dropped so
dramatically that now we have an opportunity to compete on
equal footing. We looked at that took inspiration from people
like Mother Angelica. Your book was a huge inspiration, and
I thought, well, we got to do the ridiculous if
we expect God to do the miraculous, and so we
have to step out in faith and do it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, what are you doing differently? What do you envision
differently from other companies? Look, there are a couple of
other people in this space. I'm going to talk about
one of them in a second. How do you envision
separating yourselves from what they're doing currently.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
So you have the major entrench studios in the US,
and it's those are big battleships, right. They have a
lot of entrenched opportunities, both from a financial perspective and
the relationships that they've developed over time. But they're really
really expensive. The Walt Disney Company is an example. Their
movies cost about one hundred fift two hundred million dollars
to make. They cost you know, they take four to
six years. We look at something like Frozer, it takes
(25:05):
upwards of ten years to make that movie. It's difficult
to make an impact on society if we're only making
a movie every every decade.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Secondarily, there's a lot of beautiful independent animation coming out
of Europe which is actually very cost effective but looks
at the same high quality. But most of that is
coming from Western Europe, from French Belgian creators, and when
those films come to the United States and you watch them,
you're like, Wow, this is a beautiful movie. But these
jokes are very strange and this dialogue is very weird,
(25:34):
and you realize, oh, I'm watching a French film that's
been dubbed into English, and so we said, well, what
if we could combine those two things, What if we
create the long excellence of American writers and directors in
this filmmaking space. We combine that with beloved globally known
IP but then we're actually able to produce it at
the highest level, but for a budget that actually makes
(25:55):
sense from business perspective. We combine those things together and
Sycamore is actual creating a really unique model in the
space such that we have films that we can make
overseas and eventually back in the United States once that
makes sense from a technological perspective, but at the highest
quality level. So our first film is written by the
writers of the Paw Patrol movies, directed by Tim Recert,
(26:16):
my co founder. Our second film, which from your good
friend Ben Hackey, is being executive produced by Jeremy Latcham,
who produced every Iron Man, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy,
Spider Man Homecoming. So for the first time, we actually
have folks looking to make an impact in culture and
the market, but doing it at the highest level, not
just a bunch of guys that might believe what we
(26:38):
might believe, or they might even go to church where
we go to church and we're really pulling for him,
but actually working with folks who know how to do
this at the highest level and give ourselves and frankly,
our investors and our partners the best opportunity for.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Success and children and families.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Amen. Amen, Christian.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
What do you make of the success of that King
of Kings film? Over Easter, another animated film made over
sixty million dollars in its domestic run.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What did that tell you?
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, it tells us there's a there's a big hole
in the space. In January, we had dog Man, which
was a film from DreamWorks, which was the number one
film in the world, right based on a best selling
graphic novel series for kids. And then but for King
of Kings, we don't have another animated film in theaters
until June of this year. Wow. So if you were
a family of young children like we are, and like
there are one hundred and seventy million homes that are
(27:30):
very much in this space, they didn't have anything to
go see a movie theaters other than say, a movie
like the Minecraft film, which is going to do a
billion dollars, right, So there was an opportunity in this
space and King of King stepped in and said, you know,
faith is not a genre. Faith is an audience. And
so when folks, particularly on Easter weekend, they say, Hey,
what's a great movie that we could go see. That
(27:51):
movie was made for sub twenty million dollars in Korea
and it's a movie that is spoken to audiences in
a really meaningful way, and I think is going to
be one of those films that families want to watch
year after year after year.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Tell me how streaming has impacted all of this.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
How does streaming and the constancy of that cycle, if
you will, and the expectations, How has that changed family entertainment?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Has it? Yeah? I mean the dust is still settling
on streaming. I mean the streaming wars are over Netflix one,
so it's not war anymore. But the dust is very
much still settling in a few ways in good ways.
And that it's created an opportunity for more supply, for
more voices to be heard, for more opportunities for more
at bats. That's even started to settle down a little bit.
(28:40):
But where that change has happened, particularly in family entertainment,
is if you're working on a subscription model, you're not
judged by the quality of a single film and a filmmaker,
isn't it You're more or less judged on do I
keep my account? Am I going to stay subscribed? And
what they have found is the number one genre of
entertainment on streaming for retention, which is that's that's what
(29:02):
all these streamers are looking for is the kids in
family space. At any one time, if you look on
the top ten list, whether it's Amazon or HBO or Netflix,
you're seeing a lot of animated films because families and
kids are always looking for things they want to watch.
So it's increased the opportunity on the supply side. I
think it's changed that some of the demand metrics in
(29:22):
what people are expecting, and so that theatrical window is
still very much open in the kids in family space
and particular in the animated space. And if you're able
to crack that, if you're able to speak to families
in the theater in that theatrical environment, not only is
there a lucrative opportunity, but it builds, it builds a
connection to that intellectual property and to that story that
(29:44):
a streaming first movie hasn't quite been able to prap yet.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
No, there's a disposability in the stream or churn of content.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I mean, just by the nature of what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I mean, you know, Charlie Saren is once again saving
the world with her band of Militia. There's only so
many times you can redo and watch that movie and
you see a sameness creeping into the family space of
their offerings as well. So the theatrical film that can
break through has a huge opportunity, as you said, a
(30:17):
double play, and again you mentioned it earlier. It's so important,
such a great insight. Families really want a long term
relationship with these movies, and the children, by their nature
do they just connect and it becomes playtime, it becomes
their imaginative life.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's a much bigger thing than just an hour and
a half that they're spending in a theater.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Absolutely, absolutely, it becomes part of their world, quite literally,
a part of their world, and when it's really successful,
it becomes a part of every part of the world.
You need the backpack, you need the shoes, you need
the games, you want to go to the live show. Right,
this is what Walt knew, I mean, Walt sold I
think there was something like twelve million snow White commemorative
glasses that came out in nineteen thirty seven. I mean
(30:57):
that movie did, inflation adjusted close to four billion dollars
at the box office. And you know, the Walt Disney
company starting to merchandise, and that wasn't something they came
up with recently. Walt knew that from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
M Yeah, from the mouse sears to the coonskin hats
that yep, Davy Crockett pushed on all those children in
the throughout the fifties you are working. You mentioned it
a moment ago on an animated version of Doctor Doolittle.
Why that property, Christian? Yeah, thirty years old, Rex Harrison
did it? Robert Downey Junior did it?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Not long ago? Hasn't it already been done?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
That's a great question. Well, we look at that and
through a slightly different framing where I say, all right, well,
there's a property that has one hundred million copies sold
throughout history of the Doctor Doolittle franchise. The franchise as
a whole, non inflation adjusted, has done almost eight hundred
million dollars at the box office. And you and I
and my grandparents and my parents, everyone knows who Doctor
Doolittle is, Oh, yeah, you're the duologists who can talk
(31:52):
to animals, right, My children, my parents' grandchildren, they don't
have a touch point. Robert Downey Junior one just just
sort of predated the Gen Alpha young gen Z audience.
And so what we see is this is actually a story,
a piece of intellectual property that has multi generational appeal
that hasn't been done in the animation space which we're
(32:13):
looking at, and hasn't been told in the way. So
we're not doing a shot for shot retelling of anything.
Although a funny story. Raymond, my father in college, worked
as a grip on the Rex Harrison Doctor Doolittle movie.
He was in charge of carrying the stuffed crocodile from
set to set. So he's gonna have a little Easter
egg in the back of our film. But we see
(32:34):
it as a story that also is an amazing vehicle.
It's a toy box for us, for us to work
in and for us to use and say, how can
we tell a story here about vocation? How can we
tell a story about real friendship? And how can we
tell a story that using Doctor Doolittle as a character
and using the franchise as that toy box, that we
can tell a story that can have that timelessness shelf life,
(32:57):
so that parents are going to be wanting to go
back to this. They're going to be wanting to go
back to this, and it's something that every child at
a certain age believes they can do. Will just talk
to animals and so what would that look like?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Tell me about Zeta the space Girl. Yeah, has been
Hackey's graphic novel.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Why that property? What trew you all that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
That's another one again, three novels in the series. Actually
very few people know this, but Zita named after a
thirteenth century Italian saint Zita, and Tim and I, my
co founder, we fell in love with the book, and
my children fell in love with the book, and we
have this extraordinary test case and that we'll read scripts
and books to our children. And I get the nine,
(33:37):
eight and six year old together and I see what
they're responding to, and so I knew my daughter it's
a female heroine, Zita. She gets taken into this space
world to try to save her friend, and I knew
she was going to love it. By the next morning,
she had a green blanket tied around her back. And
she said, Daddy, look, I'm Zita now. My boys.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I was a little I was.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if they were going
to they were going to respond to it, And so
I waited for two weeks. I waited for two weeks.
I didn't say anything about the book. Two weeks later,
I said, boys, do you remember that Zeta the Space
Girl book we read? And they said yeah. I said,
do you have any favorite characters from it? And they
started rattling off all of these extraordinary characters that Ben
in his imagination had come up with. And I thought,
wait a second, we have something here. If a nine
(34:16):
to six year old boys and girls are drawing into
this and it's one of those properties that they're taking
it off the page and bringing it into their play,
there's a massive opportunity here. We sent it to Jeremy Latcham, who,
as I mentioned before, had done every Iron Man, Avengers,
Guardians of the Galaxy. He's done six billion at the
box office and the films that he's been affiliated with.
He read it to his daughter and he came back
(34:37):
to me and has said, well, my daughter said, Daddy,
you have to make this into a movie. And so
we said, great, let's make it happen. It's one of
those properties. And not every book we read has that
that special sort of fairy dust. But what Ben has
been able to create in this world with Zita, and
Zita doesn't have any superpowers, she gets taken into this
very brutal galaxy that she's not familiar with. She doesn't
have any superpowers, but what she can do is she
(35:00):
brings love, forgiveness, real virtue. Her ability to create friendship, alliances,
forgive even people that are her enemies, has the power
to not only save her and her friend, but ultimately
the power to save the world.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
That's a story I want to watch their fun books.
Who is okay?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I'm going to give you the Arroyo Grande questionnaire. I
asked everybody who comes on the show. I hope you
haven't been peeking. Who is the person you most admire?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Christian That's an easy answer. That's my wife Kara, to
see firsthand the quiet heroism that goes into motherhood. And
what I've learned more and more as I've gotten older
is the greatness in most things is not usually in
the spectacular, it's in the consistent and I would say
most mothers that I've seen this modeled with my wife,
(35:47):
both as a mother and as a wife and as
just an extraordinary person. It's her, ten times out of ten.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Who is the person you most despise?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh Lord, Luckily I could say, I don't have a
lot of people on my list, anyone who who abuses
or hurts children. This is probably the only place where
if I was in charge politically, I'd have to stand
before Saint Peter and have some explaining to do, because
there there is no depths. And I listen, I'm a
(36:17):
I'm a Christian. And Jesus was very very clear when
it came to misleading children and are all loving and knowing.
Lord made it very clear that one should have a
millstone tied around their neck could be tossed into the sea.
So needless to say, their top of my list.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yell, if Jesus agrees with you, you know you're on
safe territory.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I'll take that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I'll tell you what's your best feature?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Oh Lord? Uh? I think, uh, I hope it's there.
I don't have any duality. What you see is what
you get. I'm one of those people. There's there's there's
no other version of myself. It's Hey, our relationship is
what it is. You're not going to find out anything
about me later or you're Our interactions are always going
(36:59):
to be above board, and that's ultimately how I how
I'm wired and how I've been raised.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
What's your worst feature?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Oh gosh, can we extend this show by forty five minutes? Lord?
It would have to be Listen. I'm an Irishman through
and through. I've been able to keep my temper at bay.
I think I have a very long fuse, But when
that fuse is lit, I would have to say. That's
something that I work on on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
What do you fear?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Christian? The same thing that our dear mother Angelica feared
that I get to meet our creator one day and
he says, look at all the things you could have
done had you just trusted me more. That's the only
thing that I fear.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, the greatest virtue is what.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
It's got to be humility. I think that's that's the bedrock,
the found real humility. Not not woe is me, I'm
not worthy of anything, but actually understanding where you are
in light of this, and that not only is there
something greater than us, but that ultimately everything that we
have comes from the world. I think David Mammont, who
I know is a good friend of yours, I think
(38:03):
he embodies it. Because people who have real humility, they
ultimately have an extraordinary confidence because they know it's not
all about them and they know what they don't know.
And I've seen that embodied. I binge David mammontt interviews
anytime in one pops up and he I think he
really embodies it. For someone with his track record and
his background and the success that he's had to have
(38:25):
the true real humility in the small things and in
the big things. You can see why he's as great
as he is because he knows where his greatness comes from,
and he knows what he doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
No, there's a confidence in his not only his worldview,
but his opinion of the arts and life and the world.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
And I love that. You got the cross promotion in
Christian very good after this. Go watch David Mammot on
Royal Grande.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It was a funny, great interview and Christian getting him
to smile is a near impossibility, and they pulled it
all up.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Terrific.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
The word you could not live without.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
The word. I could not live without amen. Oh right,
I probably say that more than almost any word, right,
I believe that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
So your I couldn't live without word is very different
from mine.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
But I won't tell you what it is. We'll leave
it there. It would not be in one of your movies.
I can promise. What is your greatest regret? Christian?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
You know, I don't have any macro regrets about I
think I believe in God's providence, in God's will, and
even some wrong decisions that I've made, it's all in
the greater plan. Definitely, Mike. Anytime I've mistreated someone or
or been short with someone or haven't, I would go
back ten times out of ten and change those those,
you know, interactions or relationships that went sour that didn't
(39:45):
need to be and that was my fault. Yeah, I'm
not one of these people that says I have absolutely
no regrets. Those are absolutely regrets. I would love to
go back in time. But the big ones, jobs that
I've taken, decisions I've made, you know, school decisions, not
a regret. It led me to where we are right now,
which is where God needs me.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
To be a friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Mike, who is a very successful engineer, had a question
he would ask everybody interviewed, and it was this one,
what do you know that other people don't?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Oh gosh, that's a great like a Peter tile I question.
Great question. Yeah, yeah, I would go back to that.
It's it's probably greatness is not in the spectacular, it's
in the consistent. So much, I don't care if it's
Michael Jordan or my wife. So much of the greatness
that comes from that is not in that one moment
in time. It's in the consistent commitment to virtue, which
(40:36):
ultimately is is that excellence that we seek. I think
Mother Angelica is another great example of that. Granted there
were those moments in time, but it was it was
her her humble commitment to doing what she felt she
was called to do and understanding that I can't there's
no days off. I can't. I can't take off a
day from from God's calling. I have to just be consistent,
even in those times where I don't feel like it.
(40:58):
That's that's something that I think if more people knew,
they wouldn't be always seeking out the game winning shot,
but it would be parentually putting more of the time
in in the gym.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
I mean, when I went to work in Hollywood for
the first time, my mother who you know, Raymond, right
before I went. So I went to work in a
secular Hollywood studio and it was my first day of
work and I called my mom. I was excited, and
she said, don't forget Christian You're probably the only Bible
these people are ever going to read. And that stuck
with me. That was one of those opportunities where I
(41:33):
realized it wasn't just hey, you know, put out a
good showing because you're a representative of the family. That
type of thing was. It was understand that, particularly in Hollywood,
and it's not unique to Hollywood. It could be any
number of industries that you might be the only Christian
influence that they have on a regular basis. And that's
a lot of pressure, but it's also a lot of responsibility,
and that's something that I've taken seriously, not just in
(41:53):
that job, but in the industry as a whole.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Christian. What's your favorite book and the last one you read?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
The last book I read was actually a book called
An Empire of their Own by Neil Gaebler. Terrific book
about the history of Hollywood and in particular all of
the studio heads in the early Golden Age of Hollywood.
That's that's a time period that I find so romantic
and beautiful, and the early Louis B. Mayer and Adolf
Zucker and all that group. Just an extraordinary book about
(42:24):
the Testament to those folks and what they built in
that stage. The last book I read, I'm not gonna
lie this is now, I'm not trying to front here, Raymond.
It was your biography of Mother Angelica. I listened to
the audio version. Was your impression of Mother Angelica is
his second to none. So it was a tremendous because
(42:45):
we were in the middle of fundraising for our company,
so listening to that book and hearing about the history
of EWTN and the role that mother had in establishing
something and finding ways where sometimes she was stepping out
most time she was stepping on faith when not only
was the bridge not there, but she couldn't see it
if it were. And so that that was that's been
(43:06):
a really I've recommended that book to more people than
I can admit.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I love it. Well.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
No, she was obviously a great light in my life.
And I always think of that line and I guess
it applies to what you're doing now. You know, she
would say, you got to take the first step. The
grace only comes when you step. And that's the scary
thing about providence. You have to kind of go there
to get the grace, and it's a it's a faith walk.
(43:31):
Final question, what happens when this is over?
Speaker 3 (43:36):
My prayer is that I get an opportunity to give
an account, and you know, I can say to Saint
Peter before you say anything, and make my case right.
And and the hope is that when it's all said
and done, you you get the greeting of my good
and faithful servant. That's that's that's what I'm swinging for ultimately.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Well, Christian, I also hope that he will have seen
one or two of your films at that point and
realized good work and the good effects of that work.
So that'll get you a fast pass at least into purgatory.
And you can come sit in my suite. We'll be
together for a while.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
We'll do we'll do another interview Raymond. Yeah, the Purgatory Files.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I love it. Christian mcgreigan, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
For being here, my pleasure. Thank you, Raymond.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Here's the hole for me.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I loved what Christian mcgregan said about consistency, doing the
right thing, staying on the beam, doing it day in
and day out.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
It's not about the quick hit or the big goal
or the big swash.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It's about staying at the grindstone every day and doing
what's needed, what you're called to. And I love and
certainly that characterizes art. It's an important component of any
artist and really any parent. You got to be there
every moment. It's not about the quick hit or the
quick trip, it's about being there every day.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
I hope you'll come back to a royal Grande soon.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
WHI live a dry, constricted life when if you fill
it with good things, it can flow into a broad thrive.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Arroyo Grande. I'm reading at Arroyo.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Make sure you subscribe like this episode. Thank you for
diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande
is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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