A special live episode of Strictly Business recorded Sept. 26 in West Hollywood at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit. Laura Martin, entertainment and internet analyst for Needham & Company, joins hosts Cynthia Littleton and Andrew Wallenstein for a conversation about the future of media and entertainment. Owl & Co consulting founder Hernan Lopez also weighs in for a deep dive into the economics of streaming content. Plus other conference highlights from the summit.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to a special bonus episode of Variety's podcast Strictly Business.
I'm Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Variety
held its annual Entertainment and Technology Summit in West Hollywood
on September twenty sixth. It was sro. It was a
day full of great interviews about where the business of
(00:27):
media and entertainment is going. The summit concluded with a
live Strictly Business podcast taping that we tried to have
some fun with. Call it a wonky Tonight's show. We
even had a couch. Andrew Wallenstein is my colleague of
more than twenty years and my co host since this
podcast began in twenty eighteen. He and I started off
(00:47):
by talking about the major themes that arose during the day.
Then we brought up our first guest, Laura Martin, senior
entertainment and Internet analyst for Needeman Company. She never has
a shortage of opinions of about the state of big
media and big tech. And then joining Laura was Ernan Lopez.
Ernan's an industry veteran who had a long run at Fox.
(01:09):
He then founded the wildly successful podcast network Wondery, now
owned by Amazon. His latest venture is OWL and Co,
a consulting firm that advises companies on how to understand
the new economics of streaming. It's a good conversation, we
don't agree on everything. After that, we have a selection
of clips from five of the day's sessions. You'll hear
(01:32):
from AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aarron, Scope Ly Chief Revenue Officer,
Tim O'Brien, Warner Brothers TV Group Chairman Channing Dungee, and
DC Studios co chair and co CEO Peter Saffron.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
We close with some.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Funny thoughts on serious matters from a group of actors
who also host podcasts, including Whitney Cummings, Lamore and Morris
and Eliza Slessinger. It's an action pack bonus episode this week,
and it's all coming up after the break. We're grateful
to our presenting sponsor, City National Bank and premier sponsor
(02:08):
Amazon Ads for their support of Varieties Entertainment and Technology Summit.
Thank you everyone, Thanks for sticking around. I know it's
(02:30):
been a long day. We really appreciate you sticking with
us and making this such a robust conversation we've both had.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We've had great panels up here. We've had great.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Hallway discussions, the hallmark of a great conference, and we
are as I hope you all know, we are the
co hosts since twenty eighteen of Strictly Business, which is
a labor of love, Thank you, thank you, thunderous applause,
a true labor of love podcast that we do. It's
a weekly interview and we as we bill every episode
(03:00):
leaders in the industry of media and entertainment, and that
is exactly what we have here today. This whole day
has been just a delight, a treat for both of
us love to geek out on the future of entertainment
and the nitty gritty. And that's what I love about
our events is we really dig into it. So we
have a so we're taping this. This will be a
(03:20):
bonus episode. If I do my job right when I
get home, it'll be out tomorrow afternoon. We're very excited
about a quick turnaround, and we just wanted to start
here by Andy and I chopping it up. This is
what we do in the office, and now we do
it for fun on podcasts. But we're just going to
chop it up a little bit on some of the
stuff we've heard today, we have some very very special guests,
(03:43):
and we have a couch, so we figured we're going
to do a Tonight's show thing and bring some folks
up and have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
But for right now, let's just get right into it.
Andy and I will start with start.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I'll start where the day started with Adam Aaron, the
CEO of AMC Things.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Shy retiring Wallflower CEO type.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now, he has obviously been through a roller coaster with
AMC and the stock I think everybody we all know
about the AMC stock dramas. He's certainly a very confident
He projected a great confidence about his company and the
future of moviegoing. I obviously, you know movies is a
core a variety and we are absolutely rooting for that
(04:22):
very important medium to thrive. But I have to admit it,
I was a touch skeptical. What did you think about
what Adam had to say?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, I think it's right for him to lean into
the fact that the movies right now have come roaring back,
and that is good for his business and others. It's
been remarkable when you compare the data from say the
first quarter of the year, which was I mean flatline
where people were like, the movie business is not going
(04:50):
to exist much longer. And then the summer came and
there was a few false starts, but it's been smooth
sailing ever since. And here we are in.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Fall beetled h beatle. Jew's doing great.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So I can understand if Adam Aaron comes out here
with some confidence, but I still, perhaps like yourself, feel
like there are some long term issues here where I'm
not so sure AMC is not going to be out
of the basement anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Stockwise, you know, we looked in there about about four
point fifty and that you know, that's a that's a
that's a very low market cap for a company that
has the reach and the footprint that they do. So
it was very good to hear that their debt, you know,
he sounded he projected a great confidence about the debt,
which was a huge issue, and I think that it
was another good sign that, you know, you either file
(05:41):
for bankruptcy or you don't, and speculation sometimes to the contrary,
you know, speculation about it obviously can be very harmful
for a company. I always, I always take note for
those kinds of things when you hear from CEOs, but
he sounded very proud to have escaped the chapter eleven
that the you know, the the trauma of going through
even a reorganization, you know. But I think he projected
(06:03):
a confidence about movie going coming back. I think it's
certainly as a summer thing, but in terms of in
terms of is it a you know, as a twelve
month a year business, I think it is still.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Not entirely out of the woods.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
But I did feel, like so many people we heard
from Peter Saffron other people, there is so much energy
and creativity and a sense that things It would have
been hard for us to believe five years ago about
will there be a future of moviegoing At the same time,
you and I wouldn't you know, you and I would
have been surprised ten years ago to be talking about
where the cable business is, the cable business that used
(06:38):
to be the envy of television with its famous dual
revenue streams.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So how far we have dropped change? Things can change.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Absolutely, Although I found I found Peter Saffron to be
really interesting. D C, of course has been in Marvel's
shadow for such a long time. But here we are
a week or two removed from the successful launch of
the Penguin, and I'm feeling good about the hand that
Peter is gonna play.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I thought that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I got confidence watching that he knows what he's doing,
and I'm looking forward to seeing DC gets the momentum.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It certainly you and David Zaslov for sure. Yeah, but
it is interesting. We heard from Channing Dungee, chairman of
Warner Brothers TV, an awesome, awesome executive, and she also
it was interesting to hear from her and then Peter
that there's much more coordination and a much more more
intricate plan for a true universe.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Gee. I don't know where they got that idea, but
it's much more.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Of a true universe than it we remember, you know,
Warner Brothers TV. It did Small Villa, it did, it
worked more in silos. The films did not connect with
the TV series and vice versa. Now that's gonna happen,
and you're gonna throw gaming in there.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it really is.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And now I'm very confident that Warner Brothers Discovery is
smooth sailing the rest of the way and their stock
will just come flying back. You know, there's nothing thing Channing,
who yes is terrific. UH could say that is going
to clear the uh, let's say the confidence issue I
have with the future of that company. There's so many
(08:12):
other pieces of that puzzle that are really troubling, particularly
on the sports side.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It'll be interesting. Obviously Q three earnings are just around
the corner. It'll be very the you know, the green shoots.
The indications for where Max is on its global rollout
will be very significant.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That is for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I don't think we have seen quite the end of
things changing there, but I definitely from today got the
sense that the studio, the Warner Brothers proper studio, is
revved up, and they they have their plans and their targets,
and now now it's.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
About execution, which is you could pretty much.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Say that about anything, but it is a very It
is a very I don't want to drag this on
because we have guests and we want to We also
we are the thin line between the cocktail party.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
We so appreciate you guys hanging in there with us.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I wanted to throw out one thing that I thought,
just throwing it out, there is so much interest in
predictive markets, anything that can kind of give a window
into where consumers where trends are. And something that I
heard from the Pinterest executive who was on a panel
earlier was a card Yeah, very a name certainly that
is known in entertainment as well. He was talking about
(09:17):
pinterest predicts, which is something that that sort of their
predictive service where you know, they have great visibility into
what arts and crafts and people, you know, are they making,
you know, Macroma, Taylor Swift paintings, are they doing you know?
Or has Charlie XCX taken over the you know? And
that's just a small example. I mean, there are so
many crafters on them, you know, tens of millions, and
(09:40):
it just just goes to show that anywhere you have
audience and you have people congregating, you have data and
data data, data that is the gold, that is the
pot at the end of the rainbow that everybody seems
to want.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Absolutely And obviously that came through in the that came
through the Pinterest panel, also came through in the Generative
a panel that Carolyn Giardina presided over. Data is the
new oil is the expression. And yeah, it was interesting
to hear on the Pinterest side that that is useful information,
(10:13):
but when Malik laid it out like that, I totally
got it. I could see marketers kind of falling all
over themselves for that.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, there's a lot of interest there.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Just real quick, I'm gonna run through some things and
we're going to bring up our first guest. I heard
an interesting phrase that I hadn't heard before, a share
of wallet, which is very interesting for a consumer direct
to consumer subscription business. Can only imagine how they go
about how they go about tracking that. But undoubtedly AI.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Tools will help possess sure.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Roadblocks, roadblocks, roadblocks. I heard roadblocks mentioned a number of times.
I think that is a clearly a platform to watch.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, lots of incredible activations. I think even in the
media business this year, Netflix, some other players, that is
the hot platform now.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Absolutely well, I think it's time we could go on.
But I think it's time. We would love to get
some perspective, and I would like to bring up our
first guests, Laura.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Martin, Come on up. Laura just stares right over there.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Laura, Laura, of course is from Needham and Company, an analyst,
peerless among and peerless and fearless, I should say in
her opinions. So let's just dive right in with her. Laura,
I guess I would want to start with You were
in DC recently and it got me thinking about what
(11:38):
the political environment is going to mean for the content business.
I would assume there's going to be a very big difference,
at least regulatorally. That's a word speaking based on which
president we end up with in November.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I mean, I think that's true.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
I think that the current administration and the White House
has Democrats at the head of the FCC, the FTC,
and the DOJ by law because those are sort of
agencies of the executive branch, and if Trump is elected
he will fire by law, he has to choose different
chairmen and therefore their agenda then takes precedent. So it
(12:20):
is my opinion that if Trump is elected president, you
will get more m and a activity, which would be
good for the traditional Hollywood businesses because they need to.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Merge because they're tiny and they have to the only
way to scale is to combine, right.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I would say that differently.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
I would say they're inherently growing low single digits, and
when they combine they can cut costs. They lay off people,
but at least their earnings growth instead of like if
even if their revenue is growing three to five percent,
at least their earnings growth can be ten and fifteen
percent while they cut costs.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And that makes it investable.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And what do you envision should Kamala Harris be president?
Does that mean regular Tory ice, I mean not going
to happen.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Yeah, I would guess that because she's sort of Biden protege.
She keeps a lot of the FTCFCC and DJ chairman
in place. So we'll just have status quo. No mergers,
big as bad. It takes Amazon fourteen months to buy MGM,
which is a ten billion dollar acquisition for a three
trillion dollar company in an asset they had nothing in before.
(13:25):
So it just makes it hard on a lot of
uncertainty to try to do mergers. And unfortunately that's just
going to put companies, more companies in the traditional Hollywood
space out of business because paramoun shouldn't be independent.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Fox is too small to be independent.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
A lot of these are just too small now given
their competitors, our YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Laura, given that you you primarily cover Google, Apple, you
covered the companies with the biggest balance sheets, in the world.
How when you and but you you know, you know
the entertainment marketplace, well you know your paramount if your
Fox or even if you're one of Brother's Discovery, right now,
what do you do?
Speaker 5 (14:05):
So one of the issues with the traditional businesses is
they're overlevered right because of acquisitions, so they really ideally
they could merge together. You know, ideally the as we know,
distribution and content are complementary. So if Apple, which has distribution,
could buy Disney, which has the ability to make content,
that of course is fantastic. But to the extent mergers
(14:29):
are not allowed because big is bad. Then what happens
is basically these companies have to figure out a way
to cut cost cut cost cut costs. But meanwhile, back
at the ranch, public investors have opportunities like with generatived
by driven assets that are much more interesting than the
traditional media business.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Do you think Tim Cook, if he could, would write
that check today to buy Disney.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
So the issue that both Apple and Disney have are
these cult cultures, which has a real.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Non invent here problem.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
The answer is that what I think happens next with
Apple is they have a library replacement cycle. I mean,
they either the iPhone seventeen or the iPhone eighteen have
a supercycle, and then what gets happens to growth. So
they have a big year and now growth goes negative
because structurally we have like penetration of smartphones. So he
(15:22):
then has to grow.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well, you know what a good way to grow.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Is or grow engagement length is to own a film
company or own a television company that's good at storytelling.
So I do think depending on the regulatory environment and
depending on where they are in the growth trajectory. But
Apple's doing nothing with jen Ai, which means to me
they think making pink phones is a cool idea, and
you know that's just not a thing and its way.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Say, isn't the new Apple sixteen supposed to have a
whole intelligence level to it?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I mean four months from now maybe, And who knows
what that means? Don't not launch it with the phone.
It's not there.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yet, I know, but it will be there, and I
think it will be a big deal for Apple.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I guess we'll see.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Oh, okay, let me ask you, Laura, what is your
sense Apple? Obviously they've made you know, they've made inroads
and they've made they've made some significant impact with their content.
They've had, you know, major hits like Ted Lasso winning Emmys.
They've had some shows that really break through, but it's
still the Hollywood sense is that it's still a very
very small business in the scheme of Apple. What is
(16:24):
your sense of how Apple views content? The content that
they produce.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
So they're and they do ninety billion dollars a year
a free cash flow, and they spend two billion dollars
a year on content, which means they don't care. And
when you look at who they work with, it is
the creme de la creme. Like they don't I don't
think they care what Tom Hanks is going to do.
They just know Tom Hanks is going to be safe
and it will not hurt the Apple brand or Jennifer Aniston.
(16:50):
They look at talent that is beyond reproach, that has
the triple A rating that Apple has because they are
deathly afraid of hurting their own brand. That's actually not
a content business. That's a affiliation with an influencer that
is got a triple A rating.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
But that isn't a mass business.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
I mean mass businesses take risks like these content this
panel you just had. They're cutting edge they're doing things
that are actually broader and edgier to attract audiences because
that is the diversity of the global audience.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
So no, they're not serious.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Is there anybody out there that you think, anybody in
the traditional or the new entertainment space, anybody in the
entertainment space that is really impressing you with their content?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
YouTube YouTube is impressed me with its content because.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
It's not with their content, with their content strategy.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
I meant to say, you know, I like what Amaton
on Prime is doing, but of course I focus on monetization.
That's my day job, so I really like it too
that on the CTV frame they're linking it to Amazon sales.
Like I think that's where advertising's going that more and more,
we are not going to have proxies like like Samba
(18:01):
TV or I Spot TV or Nielsen. We're not going
to have those anymore. We're going to have an ad
link to performance. So of course a lot of the
Facebook ads are linked to performance, but now that's about
to come to CTV, or it is coming to CTV
with Amazon Prime Video since January twenty fourth, they're going
to link it to online sales. When Walmart is allowed
(18:23):
to buy video. They're going to sell visio ads and
link it to both offline and online sales at Walmart stores.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
That would sad by the way, If TikTok can manage
to stay in this country, they will also be a
player in this space. They're already showing some nice progress
in terms of driving commerce opportunities off of the marketing
that is on the platform.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
My pushback is TikTok is not a CTV. Yeah, I know,
ad unit, which is a big difference. There's two dollars
CPM units on a mobile phone and twenty dollars CPM
units on a CTV.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Right, But I'm saying there's a I think a broader
commerce trend here that's broader than just ETV. And I
think the social players are going to be a factor.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Okay, And I think you see that on YouTube. I
mean I don't mean that, I mean meta, I mean
your newsfeed. You know how they're constantly trying to sell
you stuff. Sure in the news feed for Instagram and.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Absolutely, and I think all those players will be there.
I just think TikTok is taking it further now. They
just got to stay in this country.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, there's that We're.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Going to bring up our next guest, Ernan Lopez, who
is an analyst and founder and CEO.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Of OWL and Co Research. There you go.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
We should also point out that he bought and sold
a little podcast company called Wondery sou.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And the founder of Wondering.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That's right, So no better person to get into this with.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Ernan. Can you talk to you?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Just this morning on Variety dot com, just posted a
very interesting analysis of You've done a deep dive into
some of the into all of the numbers, the numbers
that Netflix has released and others, and you've got some
interesting analysis of how the marketplace is emerging, but also
some interesting ROI analysis. Can you talk about what you
have learned in all of your numbers crunching.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Yes, I started out in company with a framework called
stream onomics. It is essentially bringing unit economics into the
new stage that the business is in of television making
and remaking, television and film, licensing, marketing and merchandising. And
what I mean by that is traditionally, when I worked
at Fox International Channels, we used to think of the
(20:31):
unit as the movie, the television show, the hour of programming.
But when I started Wondering and All of my investors
came from the venture capital world. All of them had
tech backgrounds. The really thought of the unit as the consumer,
the customer or the hour of engagement and as all
the new entrance of large scale in the last years
(20:54):
in the streaming world had been companies from the tech world.
There be in Netflix, they've been new to Apple and Amazon.
They all think with that unique economics framework, and that's
I think it's the adjustment that all of us in
media need to make.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And that so it's not just about bragging rights you're
opening night numbers or your you know your your overnight
numbers anymore.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
It is really about how to make the most out
of each customer that you have and out of each
hour of engagement that you have, and how do how
to get that extra hour of engagement for less. So
our article that a publisher Variety talks about the streaming
for what I call the four core companies that are
(21:38):
competing in streaming, that each of them have advantages that
will be difficult for the other ones to replicate. And
there are Netflix, they have the privacy advantage. They are
the company that people think of first when they're trying
to decide watch watch their YouTube, and YouTube has what
I call the urgency advantage. They are the place where
(21:59):
people go for something that's trending right now and they
have reached They have format flexibility, you can watch from
short form to long form videos, movies. Then you have Disney,
and Disney have the creative advantage. They have four core
engines of great brands with their libraries and the creative
(22:22):
encies in Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Effects. And those are
just the top four and no concience that they launch
ailed at last ten or the top ten biggest gross
box office ever and they want six amis. And then
finally I add Amazon to the mix because Amazon has
what I call the marketplace advantage. They're the place that
(22:45):
because of the connection between Prime Video and the fact
that they're the biggest tvod the biggest video store in
the world. Essentially, when you search anyone title, you're more
likely to find in on Amazon than anywhere else. And
because of their economic one, every time a customer engages
with Prime Video, they're more likely to spend on Amazon.
(23:08):
That's half a trillion consumer business, So you can almost
think of it as a marketing engine for Amazon, and
one that is going to become profitable on its own
very soon.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
How do you think that that looking at rather than
the numbers of the audience, but actually the sort of
the quality and the size of your audience. How is
that going to change the way Hollywood operates, how the
way people decide what content they need and you know,
what trends to go after.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I think Hollywood and the media industry as a whole
is going, obviously, there's no secret through a period of
adjustment that comes from the fact that over the last
five years, there were so many projects coming into the market,
so many televisions shows, so many movies, and as a result,
each of them costs more to make, and they're all
chasing an audience that was growing, but wasn't growing as
(23:57):
fast as the cost of making the television shows and movies.
So we heard today in the panel where I think
it was Sora Aubrey that from Max that said that
they're starting to think about making shows with longer episode runs.
We're talking about procedural fifteen episodes. That's partially because everything
old is new again, partially because you actually need to
(24:20):
bring stream onnomics into every decision, and that will impact
not only that p owners obviously impacts the streamers, but
the streamers are the ones that are holding the pers string,
so to say, but impacts the powners. Even if your
production house that is working on a cost plus model,
you need to know what's going to maximize the chances
that you show gets renewed and it gets picked up
(24:42):
and then they call you again for for the next show.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Laura, when you hear me in your own research, and
when you hear things that like the analysis that Ernan
is doing, are there are there new metrics that you
think that are going to be more important to the
the future of entertainment, for whether it's discovery or deciding
what companies go after.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
I love his idea that, like the four horsemen, I
really like that differentiation of the creative, you know, the
one that's competitive advantages marketplace versus creative. It's a really
interesting I haven't read the whole piece so I have to,
but I like the idea. I do think Wall Street
believes bigger wins, and bigger accelerates growth and smaller doesn't
have competitive advantages over time. I agree with that. I
(25:29):
guess the question I guess the issue I guess I
would raise is are we defining the competitive field too
narrowly if we don't look at the Kardashians, which many
people in this room might think, oh, that's trash. Well
to the people who watch the Kardashians, that's premium content.
So are we too narrow? Are we forgetting Fortnite? Are
we forgetting things that use time that therefore siphons money
(25:53):
away from these massive budgets that everyone you're talking about
is the crem of the krem in this tiny little
space called premium content. But premium content is under assault
from user generating content, aided by Generative AI, which is
lowering their cost to make content. And then Fortnite, the
fifteen year old boys are gone, like, they're all in
video games and I don't know if they're ever coming in.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And the fifteen year old girls are on TikTok, and.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
The fifteen year old girls are on TikTok, which is
not premium videos. So I just worry that the Four
Horsemen is sort of you're right, but are you right
on the scale of that matters or is it just
within this Hollywood, you know, this bubble that we all
live in.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Here, right, Well, that's why I put YouTube us one
of them, because YouTube has really brilliantly executed on a
strategy of moving upstreaming every single possible format that they can. Obviously,
they started as a platform on desktops if you remember,
then they moved on mobiles and then and now they're
one of the largest platforms for viewership on television sets,
(26:51):
and they're really perfected that increasing format flexibility. At the
beginning was all videos that were three minutes to five minutes.
It then people start to upload longer videos and even
professional content you can find on YouTube today people are
uploading movies and television series. And then when TikTok became
a threat to them, what do they do. They created
(27:13):
a TikTok clone called YouTube Shorts, and arguably more successful
than TikTok in many respects because they have a business
model that supports the creators, that actually returns revenue share
back to the creators.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So I would push back a little bit and say
everyone ignored this company until they bought the Sunday ticket.
Right once they got the NFL, every brand said, oh
my god, you know, we've always been on DirecTV's NFL
Sunday ticket.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
So they came over.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
That's when actually Hollywood took them seriously is when they
got NFL rights, which are the most valuable rights. I
don't think it's any of this other stuff you're talking about.
Now they take it seriously. Maybe they should have, but
now they're actually viewed a threat.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Once they read her Nons article on writing dot com, it'll.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All be said.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I can't believe it, but we have to surrender this room.
I'm glad we brought up Generative AI because we're legally
obligated to mention it. But I really we need a
whole other hour to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I greatly appreciate you being here, greatly appreciate the audience
hanging in there with us. Please please look for Strictly Business,
subscribe to it, listen to it. Thank you both so much.
Thank you everyone. We are so grateful.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break,
and we're back with more from Varieties Entertainment and Technology Summit.
Our event opened with a big blast of enthusiasm from
AMC Theater CEO Adam Aaron. He sat with Variety Senior
(28:42):
entertainment writer Matt Donnelly. Aaron came equipped like an old
school movie circuit sales rep with facts and figures about
his business to make his case for the survival of moviegoing.
Here's two clips. In the first, Aaron explains why he's
bullish on an overall box office rebound this year. In
this second, he offers great detail about how AMC is
(29:03):
investing in technology and upgrades for its theaters to give
people a reason to go see movies on the big screen.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The box office in the first five months this year
was a bleak, and it was in the five months
January made. The mestic box office was one point five
million dollars in five months, one point five And you all,
not you personally, but many in your industry were writing
again about the demise of movie industry, in the movie
(29:32):
theater industry, and AMC was going to die. And I
went to CinemaCon, was interviewed, and I kept on saying,
it is inconceivable to me, as someone who's on the
inside and knows what's going on, that AMC is going
to have financial clubs. Inconceivable. And I made a public
prediction at CinemaCon and a panel that the industry is
(29:54):
going to come roaring back. Finally, we had long wait,
come back and here Unfortunately for us, it happened. The
prediction turned out to be true. And just here's just
two numbers and they're really important, and you write this
one down because this explains everything. The domestic box office
(30:15):
in the first five months of this year was one
point five billion dollars and that was all strike impacted
from production delays of caused by the five months of
strikes in twenty three. In the last four months June
to September, the four month box office, remember five months,
was a billion and a half in the first five
(30:35):
months this year, the domestic box office June to September
is going to be around three and a half billion dollars.
From one and a half billion dollars in five months
to three and a half billion dollars in four months.
And when we look at the slate of movies that's
coming out over the next remaining months in twenty four
and the incredible slate that's coming out in twenty five,
(30:56):
and the incredible slate that's coming out in twenty six,
this industry is back. And all of the you know,
the doom and gloom stuff, those are people who are
looking in the rear view mirror, but if you're looking
at the wind shoe, out the windshield to the front. Finally,
it's been a four and a half year long slog
(31:17):
from COVID and from strikes, but this industry has a
very bright future again, so we're a big believer in
the Obviously, what you've heard that the future of movies
going in theaters is a bright future. A little shaky
recent past, but a very bright future. Finally, and the
(31:39):
way to get moviegoers to continue to go to theaters
is to make the experience in theaters so wonderful that
they have to get off their couches and come to
a theater, and they're allowed to watch movies at home.
It's okay. Have you ever heard of a movie called
Avengers something whatever? Avengers movies that grossed two billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I checked.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Netflix was in business that same weekend that Avengers opened
for a two billion. When Avatar two came out with
its two billion dollars, Netflix was in business. The industry
is big enough that streaming and theaters can exist harmoniously.
But if we want to capture our fair share, that
share of the consumer viewing habits that we're entitled to,
(32:27):
we've got to make going to a theater at great experience,
and technology has been a big part of it. So
very quietly, we made a decision two three years ago
that we were basically going to turn all of AMC
all eight thousand of our seventy five hundred of our
US screens to laser projection. And we've already that's a
(32:50):
would be a half a billion dollar investment to switch
from old xenon bulbs to laser projection, and we've already
it's biddle, it's twenty four. We've already got a quarter
of all of our screens in the US are now
laser projection. And what laser projection does is it increases
the light levels on screen by fifty to one hundred
(33:10):
percent depending upon the system and replaced, which means that
the image on screen is brighter and sharper and better.
We've upgraded sound systems all over getting a and in
terms of PLFS premium large format screens, as I said,
we're half of all the Imax cinemas Imax auditoriums in
(33:31):
the US and Canada. We are one hundred percent of
the Dolby cinemas in North America. When I joined AMC
in since it seems like yesterday, but it was nine
years ago. We had three Dolby cinemas. We have one
hundred and sixty four today we have thirty one of
our own house brand primes. We have four hundred and
(33:54):
twenty three plfs at AMC in the United States. If
I have my brothers thirty six months from now, we'll
have seven hundred. So we're and again why it's a
bigger picture. It's a better sound system, it's better technology
in the projection booth. It's the best way to watch
(34:16):
a movie in theater. And and they by they cost
a fortunate it's like two million dollars a screen to
put in a PLF. But we're a big believer that
if we make movie going better at theaters, more people
are going to come to theaters.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
At the Variety Entertainment Technology Summit, I got to go
one on one with the chief revenue officer at Scope,
Lee Tim O'Brien, who talked about his approach to M
and A. He's done nine deals over the past six years,
enough to propel his company to the number one mobile
(34:57):
game player in the market, and he seemed quite bullish
about doing what he called a mega deal in twenty
twenty five, in part because he has the new parent
company for Scope ly Savvy Group that pledged to put
as much as thirty eight billion dollars in capital at
(35:20):
Scope Lee's disposal, which kind of makes Obrien something of
a kid in a candy store.
Speaker 7 (35:27):
Well, I hope that we announce at least one, you know,
mega deal. I think, you know, when I see megadeal,
I mean, you know, like scale global franchise doing hopefully
at least a billion dollars in revenue. I think we'll
continue to execute on our current slate of games that
are live, hopefully continue to grow those games. And I
(35:49):
think that, you know, ultimately, we want to be an
amazing place for talent to join, and so we have
we make a tremendous amount of investment, investment in the
culture and all the things that are happening to the
company on a daily basis, and then some education.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You know.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
I think that even though I think that we're relatively
young company that's kind of spent twelve years making ourselves
at the scale we are, but I think that there's
still a lot of people that are unaware of our
scale and the type of capital that we have to
deploy and the type of deals we're doing.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Warner Brothers TV Group Chairman Channing Dungee has no less
than ninety shows to manage right now. She's about to
get even busier next year when she takes on oversight
of Warner Brothers Discovery's domestic linear cable channels. Channing took
time out to share her thoughts on how the TV
marketplace has rebounded in the year since the writers strike ended.
(36:41):
In the second clip, she talks about The Penguin, the
new Batman adjacent series that just premiered on HBO. As
she explains, it's an example of how the new team
at DC Studios is coordinating much more with the largest
TV studio.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
Yeah, and I think the industry was due maybe for
a little bit of a resets in that way, you know,
just speaking about live action scripted six hundred shows.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Nobody can keep up with six hundred shows. And there's also.
Speaker 8 (37:08):
Something that's very disheartening. And I can say this is
you know, as the studio, but I feel for the
creatives and the talent. You know, if you spend the
better part of a year working on something that drops
over the course of a weekend and then sort of
fades from view three weeks later. It's it's over, right,
that is you know that that's hard. It's very disappointing,
and so you want to be able to feel like
(37:28):
you're in a space where your shows are going to
be sampled, where people are going to have the opportunity
to fall in love with them. So the fact that
there are maybe fewer things being made, I don't think
is a bad thing for the business overall. And I
think that when you are in a situation where the
platforms are making more deliberate choices, that's that's good, you know.
I mean that that is a good thing because they
(37:49):
don't think of the things that they're buying as you know,
as disposable, you know. I mean, if you only are
going to if you're only going to have you know,
twenty new shows on your development slate versus sixty, right,
you're going to be that much more invested in each
one of those twenty. So it's it's not as much
of a volume game, it's a quality game. But I
will say we're in a place right now. We have
(38:09):
over the course of this year, we've had close to
twenty new shows premiere and another twenty to twenty five
returning shows come back, and so there's still there is
a lot of momentum. You know, we're we're feeling like
there still is a lot of great opportunity. It's just
a little bit more. I think the platform is a
little bit more deliberate now than they were two three
(38:30):
years ago. The Penguin is is obviously, as you pointed out,
a huge property for us, and it is part of
the DC universe. And what's been really exciting having Peter
Saffron and James Gunn now at the head of DC Studios.
You know, these guys have honestly a master plan. You know,
they were like and here's the first ten years, and
here's the But what's nice is that we now feel
like everything's working in concert. The things that we're doing
(38:52):
in television, the things that we're doing for HBO are
dovetailing very nicely with the plans that they have for
the more theatrical experiences. You know, we have Creature Commandos,
which is coming right on the heels of this we
Peacemaker season two and it's it's it's wonderful because you
really feel like now there's a cohesive narrative that all
of these shows and films are playing into, which is
(39:15):
really exciting.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
That's a good segue into Peter Saffren talking about one
of DC's main men, Superman. Here, Matt Donnelly gets Saffron
to describe the latest in the studios effort to revive
The Man of Steel as a movie franchise.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Now tell us every single thing about Superman.
Speaker 9 (39:31):
Like I said, so fade in Metropolis, small office desque.
So the truth is, we really do want to preserve
the story for the for the fans and for the audience.
But what I can tell you is we wrapped a
couple of months ago. We're deep in posts now. It
(39:53):
of course is looking great, and you know, without giving
away the story, I can say that it is a
story that is rooted in love and in compassion and
in the essential goodness of the human spirit. There's a
lot of hope in there, which is a real hallmark
of Superman in general. But all of that is wrapped
(40:16):
in that kind of genre bending, crowd pleasing for quadrant
theatrical experience that James is so great at delivering. As
you know, everybody here, I'm sure a lot of you
have seen at least one, if not all, of the
Guardians the Galaxies movies. But he has that beautiful blend
of humor, empathy, genuine emotion and great action. So that's
(40:39):
where we are with it, and you know, it's a
very exciting time. We were incredibly fortunate to find David Kornsweat,
who is our Superman. We were incredibly fortunate that he
was born thirty years ago and that he was available
to us, because I don't know what we would do
without him. He's perfect, perfect for the role, and I
think everybody when they see the film will realize that
(41:00):
he is he is Superman.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
The closing act of the Entertainment and Technology Summit was
the strictly business conversation that you heard earlier. The second
to last session was a fun gathering of boldface named
multi hyphenates who all have podcasts. Two in the case
of Lamar and Morris, the actor who just won an
Emmy for his work on Fargo. He joined Varieties Features
(41:24):
editor Janelle Riley on stage with Whitney Cummings, Jesse Tyler, Ferguson,
Eliza Slessinger, and Jenna Uskowitz. In the first clip, Cummings
talks about the hard economic reality for touring comedians. In
the second Slessinger and Morris talk about the importance of
being extremely authentic behind the mic.
Speaker 10 (41:45):
Hi, you know a couple things, you know. I mean
I think that you know, and Eliza can speak to
this too. We're touring comedians, you know, and you know,
connecting with our fans and having an emotional connection to
them is a really big part of selling tickets. Engaging
with them. Literally some people think they're in goa to us,
you know, but it's a really big part. So it's like,
(42:06):
you know, getting someone to buy a ticket. These days,
there's so many options for entertainment. A lot of it
is free to get someone out of their house to
come spend you know, whether it's you know, fifty eighty
dollars a ticket and pay for babysitters and parking and
you know, drinks and you know, it could be three
hundred dollars at the end of the day. So people really,
I think, expect a very intimate connection with the person
that they're going to see. I sleep with every audience
(42:26):
member after the show.
Speaker 11 (42:27):
I'm kidding, but they do a lot of her shows.
Speaker 10 (42:30):
Yeah, And because there's also so many people touring right now,
you know, influencers and podcasters and stuff, so you know,
to get someone out of their house, they really want
to have a personal connection with you. So I think
that's been a big part of it. Also, you know,
the TV and movie business started changing a little bit,
and you know, comedians, I won't speak for everybody here,
(42:50):
comedic actors. You know, it's look, we want to be
on TV shows, we want to get cast, we want
to be in movies. But we're always you know, like
a little loud, a little too tall, I mean, taller
than every actor in Hollywood, Like I'm not. You know,
there's certain jobs I'm just never going to get when
they come up to hear. So I think we're always
looking for a kind of backup plan to feel like
we have some kind of power, some kind of agency,
(43:13):
you know, in creators, like you know, whatever happened in
our childhood to make us, you know, want to make
drunk people laugh at night.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
The same thing is, you know, even if you're on
a show, when you're working, you know, six months out
of the year, that's another six months where you still
want to create, You still want to connect with people.
The need for attention never goes away, you know, So
I think us having that opportunity to do that and
connect with our fans, as well as of movement towards
at least having some of our content be owned by ourselves.
Speaker 12 (43:41):
I think authenticity is something that we're short on in entertainment,
and I think when something breaks through, then you have
a million iterations of that because everyone hopes like, oh,
I'll be the next blank, but there is no next
whoever you are you And I think as an entertainer,
especially as a stand up and of course as an actor,
you roll the dice on that. We all move here,
we all want to do things, and the practice is
(44:04):
sticking to your guns and being yourself authentically and holy
and not giving into trends. And it doesn't always pay off,
but at least at the end of the day, you
know that you did it authentically and originally, and your
audience will find you. And the great thing about the
Internet that we're in now is that there are there
is something for everyone. So you may not find a
(44:24):
billion fans, but you might find one hundred thousand loyal
fans who will support you your whole career. And that's
personally something That's never lost on me having like a
very dedicated fan base is that you constantly serve them
honesty and yourself. And I think that there's a reward
for vulnerability because people can sense inauthenticity.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
I talk to actors all the time when they ask
for advice on how to you know, how to audition,
or how to break into the business, or how to
become a unique individual, And I say, it's you already there.
There's no one like you, So you have to trust
your humanity, trust that you don't have to pretend to
do a thing and be a thing unless you want
to be some wild, crazy character actor. But you're already unique.
(45:08):
And that's the same thing with podcasting. You know, there's
so many options people want to hear your perspective. I
can go through a million podcasts that are talking about
the presidency, but everyone has a completely different point of view,
you know what I mean. So it's interesting to just
hear how a comedian might feel about it, how a
politician might feel about, how an athlete might feel about it.
(45:29):
As long as you're staying authentic to yourself, I think
I think you got something.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
forget to tune in next week for another episode of
Strictly Business
Welcome to a special bonus episode of Variety's podcast Strictly Business.
I'm Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Variety
held its annual Entertainment and Technology Summit in West Hollywood
on September twenty sixth. It was sro. It was a
day full of great interviews about where the business of
(00:27):
media and entertainment is going. The summit concluded with a
live Strictly Business podcast taping that we tried to have
some fun with. Call it a wonky Tonight's show. We
even had a couch. Andrew Wallenstein is my colleague of
more than twenty years and my co host since this
podcast began in twenty eighteen. He and I started off
(00:47):
by talking about the major themes that arose during the day.
Then we brought up our first guest, Laura Martin, senior
entertainment and Internet analyst for Needeman Company. She never has
a shortage of opinions of about the state of big
media and big tech. And then joining Laura was Ernan Lopez.
Ernan's an industry veteran who had a long run at Fox.
(01:09):
He then founded the wildly successful podcast network Wondery, now
owned by Amazon. His latest venture is OWL and Co,
a consulting firm that advises companies on how to understand
the new economics of streaming. It's a good conversation, we
don't agree on everything. After that, we have a selection
of clips from five of the day's sessions. You'll hear
(01:32):
from AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aarron, Scope Ly Chief Revenue Officer,
Tim O'Brien, Warner Brothers TV Group Chairman Channing Dungee, and
DC Studios co chair and co CEO Peter Saffron.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
We close with some.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Funny thoughts on serious matters from a group of actors
who also host podcasts, including Whitney Cummings, Lamore and Morris
and Eliza Slessinger. It's an action pack bonus episode this week,
and it's all coming up after the break. We're grateful
to our presenting sponsor, City National Bank and premier sponsor
(02:08):
Amazon Ads for their support of Varieties Entertainment and Technology Summit.
Thank you everyone, Thanks for sticking around. I know it's
(02:30):
been a long day. We really appreciate you sticking with
us and making this such a robust conversation we've both had.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We've had great panels up here. We've had great.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Hallway discussions, the hallmark of a great conference, and we
are as I hope you all know, we are the
co hosts since twenty eighteen of Strictly Business, which is
a labor of love, Thank you, thank you, thunderous applause,
a true labor of love podcast that we do. It's
a weekly interview and we as we bill every episode
(03:00):
leaders in the industry of media and entertainment, and that
is exactly what we have here today. This whole day
has been just a delight, a treat for both of
us love to geek out on the future of entertainment
and the nitty gritty. And that's what I love about
our events is we really dig into it. So we
have a so we're taping this. This will be a
(03:20):
bonus episode. If I do my job right when I
get home, it'll be out tomorrow afternoon. We're very excited
about a quick turnaround, and we just wanted to start
here by Andy and I chopping it up. This is
what we do in the office, and now we do
it for fun on podcasts. But we're just going to
chop it up a little bit on some of the
stuff we've heard today, we have some very very special guests,
(03:43):
and we have a couch, so we figured we're going
to do a Tonight's show thing and bring some folks
up and have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
But for right now, let's just get right into it.
Andy and I will start with start.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I'll start where the day started with Adam Aaron, the
CEO of AMC Things.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Shy retiring Wallflower CEO type.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now, he has obviously been through a roller coaster with
AMC and the stock I think everybody we all know
about the AMC stock dramas. He's certainly a very confident
He projected a great confidence about his company and the
future of moviegoing. I obviously, you know movies is a
core a variety and we are absolutely rooting for that
(04:22):
very important medium to thrive. But I have to admit it,
I was a touch skeptical. What did you think about
what Adam had to say?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, I think it's right for him to lean into
the fact that the movies right now have come roaring back,
and that is good for his business and others. It's
been remarkable when you compare the data from say the
first quarter of the year, which was I mean flatline
where people were like, the movie business is not going
(04:50):
to exist much longer. And then the summer came and
there was a few false starts, but it's been smooth
sailing ever since. And here we are in.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Fall beetled h beatle. Jew's doing great.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So I can understand if Adam Aaron comes out here
with some confidence, but I still, perhaps like yourself, feel
like there are some long term issues here where I'm
not so sure AMC is not going to be out
of the basement anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Stockwise, you know, we looked in there about about four
point fifty and that you know, that's a that's a
that's a very low market cap for a company that
has the reach and the footprint that they do. So
it was very good to hear that their debt, you know,
he sounded he projected a great confidence about the debt,
which was a huge issue, and I think that it
was another good sign that, you know, you either file
(05:41):
for bankruptcy or you don't, and speculation sometimes to the contrary,
you know, speculation about it obviously can be very harmful
for a company. I always, I always take note for
those kinds of things when you hear from CEOs, but
he sounded very proud to have escaped the chapter eleven
that the you know, the the trauma of going through
even a reorganization, you know. But I think he projected
(06:03):
a confidence about movie going coming back. I think it's
certainly as a summer thing, but in terms of in
terms of is it a you know, as a twelve
month a year business, I think it is still.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Not entirely out of the woods.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
But I did feel, like so many people we heard
from Peter Saffron other people, there is so much energy
and creativity and a sense that things It would have
been hard for us to believe five years ago about
will there be a future of moviegoing At the same time,
you and I wouldn't you know, you and I would
have been surprised ten years ago to be talking about
where the cable business is, the cable business that used
(06:38):
to be the envy of television with its famous dual
revenue streams.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So how far we have dropped change? Things can change.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Absolutely, Although I found I found Peter Saffron to be
really interesting. D C, of course has been in Marvel's
shadow for such a long time. But here we are
a week or two removed from the successful launch of
the Penguin, and I'm feeling good about the hand that
Peter is gonna play.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I thought that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I got confidence watching that he knows what he's doing,
and I'm looking forward to seeing DC gets the momentum.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It certainly you and David Zaslov for sure. Yeah, but
it is interesting. We heard from Channing Dungee, chairman of
Warner Brothers TV, an awesome, awesome executive, and she also
it was interesting to hear from her and then Peter
that there's much more coordination and a much more more
intricate plan for a true universe.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Gee. I don't know where they got that idea, but
it's much more.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Of a true universe than it we remember, you know,
Warner Brothers TV. It did Small Villa, it did, it
worked more in silos. The films did not connect with
the TV series and vice versa. Now that's gonna happen,
and you're gonna throw gaming in there.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it really is.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And now I'm very confident that Warner Brothers Discovery is
smooth sailing the rest of the way and their stock
will just come flying back. You know, there's nothing thing Channing,
who yes is terrific. UH could say that is going
to clear the uh, let's say the confidence issue I
have with the future of that company. There's so many
(08:12):
other pieces of that puzzle that are really troubling, particularly
on the sports side.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It'll be interesting. Obviously Q three earnings are just around
the corner. It'll be very the you know, the green shoots.
The indications for where Max is on its global rollout
will be very significant.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
That is for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I don't think we have seen quite the end of
things changing there, but I definitely from today got the
sense that the studio, the Warner Brothers proper studio, is
revved up, and they they have their plans and their targets,
and now now it's.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
About execution, which is you could pretty much.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Say that about anything, but it is a very It
is a very I don't want to drag this on
because we have guests and we want to We also
we are the thin line between the cocktail party.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
We so appreciate you guys hanging in there with us.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I wanted to throw out one thing that I thought,
just throwing it out, there is so much interest in
predictive markets, anything that can kind of give a window
into where consumers where trends are. And something that I
heard from the Pinterest executive who was on a panel
earlier was a card Yeah, very a name certainly that
is known in entertainment as well. He was talking about
(09:17):
pinterest predicts, which is something that that sort of their
predictive service where you know, they have great visibility into
what arts and crafts and people, you know, are they making,
you know, Macroma, Taylor Swift paintings, are they doing you know?
Or has Charlie XCX taken over the you know? And
that's just a small example. I mean, there are so
many crafters on them, you know, tens of millions, and
(09:40):
it just just goes to show that anywhere you have
audience and you have people congregating, you have data and
data data, data that is the gold, that is the
pot at the end of the rainbow that everybody seems
to want.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Absolutely And obviously that came through in the that came
through the Pinterest panel, also came through in the Generative
a panel that Carolyn Giardina presided over. Data is the
new oil is the expression. And yeah, it was interesting
to hear on the Pinterest side that that is useful information,
(10:13):
but when Malik laid it out like that, I totally
got it. I could see marketers kind of falling all
over themselves for that.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, there's a lot of interest there.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Just real quick, I'm gonna run through some things and
we're going to bring up our first guest. I heard
an interesting phrase that I hadn't heard before, a share
of wallet, which is very interesting for a consumer direct
to consumer subscription business. Can only imagine how they go
about how they go about tracking that. But undoubtedly AI.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Tools will help possess sure.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Roadblocks, roadblocks, roadblocks. I heard roadblocks mentioned a number of times.
I think that is a clearly a platform to watch.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, lots of incredible activations. I think even in the
media business this year, Netflix, some other players, that is
the hot platform now.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Absolutely well, I think it's time we could go on.
But I think it's time. We would love to get
some perspective, and I would like to bring up our
first guests, Laura.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Martin, Come on up. Laura just stares right over there.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Laura, Laura, of course is from Needham and Company, an analyst,
peerless among and peerless and fearless, I should say in
her opinions. So let's just dive right in with her. Laura,
I guess I would want to start with You were
in DC recently and it got me thinking about what
(11:38):
the political environment is going to mean for the content business.
I would assume there's going to be a very big difference,
at least regulatorally. That's a word speaking based on which
president we end up with in November.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I mean, I think that's true.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
I think that the current administration and the White House
has Democrats at the head of the FCC, the FTC,
and the DOJ by law because those are sort of
agencies of the executive branch, and if Trump is elected
he will fire by law, he has to choose different
chairmen and therefore their agenda then takes precedent. So it
(12:20):
is my opinion that if Trump is elected president, you
will get more m and a activity, which would be
good for the traditional Hollywood businesses because they need to.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Merge because they're tiny and they have to the only
way to scale is to combine, right.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I would say that differently.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
I would say they're inherently growing low single digits, and
when they combine they can cut costs. They lay off people,
but at least their earnings growth instead of like if
even if their revenue is growing three to five percent,
at least their earnings growth can be ten and fifteen
percent while they cut costs.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And that makes it investable.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And what do you envision should Kamala Harris be president?
Does that mean regular Tory ice, I mean not going
to happen.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Yeah, I would guess that because she's sort of Biden protege.
She keeps a lot of the FTCFCC and DJ chairman
in place. So we'll just have status quo. No mergers,
big as bad. It takes Amazon fourteen months to buy MGM,
which is a ten billion dollar acquisition for a three
trillion dollar company in an asset they had nothing in before.
(13:25):
So it just makes it hard on a lot of
uncertainty to try to do mergers. And unfortunately that's just
going to put companies, more companies in the traditional Hollywood
space out of business because paramoun shouldn't be independent.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Fox is too small to be independent.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
A lot of these are just too small now given
their competitors, our YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Laura, given that you you primarily cover Google, Apple, you
covered the companies with the biggest balance sheets, in the world.
How when you and but you you know, you know
the entertainment marketplace, well you know your paramount if your
Fox or even if you're one of Brother's Discovery, right now,
what do you do?
Speaker 5 (14:05):
So one of the issues with the traditional businesses is
they're overlevered right because of acquisitions, so they really ideally
they could merge together. You know, ideally the as we know,
distribution and content are complementary. So if Apple, which has distribution,
could buy Disney, which has the ability to make content,
that of course is fantastic. But to the extent mergers
(14:29):
are not allowed because big is bad. Then what happens
is basically these companies have to figure out a way
to cut cost cut cost cut costs. But meanwhile, back
at the ranch, public investors have opportunities like with generatived
by driven assets that are much more interesting than the
traditional media business.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Do you think Tim Cook, if he could, would write
that check today to buy Disney.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
So the issue that both Apple and Disney have are
these cult cultures, which has a real.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Non invent here problem.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
The answer is that what I think happens next with
Apple is they have a library replacement cycle. I mean,
they either the iPhone seventeen or the iPhone eighteen have
a supercycle, and then what gets happens to growth. So
they have a big year and now growth goes negative
because structurally we have like penetration of smartphones. So he
(15:22):
then has to grow.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well, you know what a good way to grow.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
Is or grow engagement length is to own a film
company or own a television company that's good at storytelling.
So I do think depending on the regulatory environment and
depending on where they are in the growth trajectory. But
Apple's doing nothing with jen Ai, which means to me
they think making pink phones is a cool idea, and
you know that's just not a thing and its way.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Say, isn't the new Apple sixteen supposed to have a
whole intelligence level to it?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I mean four months from now maybe, And who knows
what that means? Don't not launch it with the phone.
It's not there.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yet, I know, but it will be there, and I
think it will be a big deal for Apple.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I guess we'll see.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Oh, okay, let me ask you, Laura, what is your
sense Apple? Obviously they've made you know, they've made inroads
and they've made they've made some significant impact with their content.
They've had, you know, major hits like Ted Lasso winning Emmys.
They've had some shows that really break through, but it's
still the Hollywood sense is that it's still a very
very small business in the scheme of Apple. What is
(16:24):
your sense of how Apple views content? The content that
they produce.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
So they're and they do ninety billion dollars a year
a free cash flow, and they spend two billion dollars
a year on content, which means they don't care. And
when you look at who they work with, it is
the creme de la creme. Like they don't I don't
think they care what Tom Hanks is going to do.
They just know Tom Hanks is going to be safe
and it will not hurt the Apple brand or Jennifer Aniston.
(16:50):
They look at talent that is beyond reproach, that has
the triple A rating that Apple has because they are
deathly afraid of hurting their own brand. That's actually not
a content business. That's a affiliation with an influencer that
is got a triple A rating.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
But that isn't a mass business.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
I mean mass businesses take risks like these content this
panel you just had. They're cutting edge they're doing things
that are actually broader and edgier to attract audiences because
that is the diversity of the global audience.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
So no, they're not serious.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Is there anybody out there that you think, anybody in
the traditional or the new entertainment space, anybody in the
entertainment space that is really impressing you with their content?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
YouTube YouTube is impressed me with its content because.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
It's not with their content, with their content strategy.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
I meant to say, you know, I like what Amaton
on Prime is doing, but of course I focus on monetization.
That's my day job, so I really like it too
that on the CTV frame they're linking it to Amazon sales.
Like I think that's where advertising's going that more and more,
we are not going to have proxies like like Samba
(18:01):
TV or I Spot TV or Nielsen. We're not going
to have those anymore. We're going to have an ad
link to performance. So of course a lot of the
Facebook ads are linked to performance, but now that's about
to come to CTV, or it is coming to CTV
with Amazon Prime Video since January twenty fourth, they're going
to link it to online sales. When Walmart is allowed
(18:23):
to buy video. They're going to sell visio ads and
link it to both offline and online sales at Walmart stores.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
That would sad by the way, If TikTok can manage
to stay in this country, they will also be a
player in this space. They're already showing some nice progress
in terms of driving commerce opportunities off of the marketing
that is on the platform.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
My pushback is TikTok is not a CTV. Yeah, I know,
ad unit, which is a big difference. There's two dollars
CPM units on a mobile phone and twenty dollars CPM
units on a CTV.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Right, But I'm saying there's a I think a broader
commerce trend here that's broader than just ETV. And I
think the social players are going to be a factor.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Okay, And I think you see that on YouTube. I
mean I don't mean that, I mean meta, I mean
your newsfeed. You know how they're constantly trying to sell
you stuff. Sure in the news feed for Instagram and.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Absolutely, and I think all those players will be there.
I just think TikTok is taking it further now. They
just got to stay in this country.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, there's that We're.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Going to bring up our next guest, Ernan Lopez, who
is an analyst and founder and CEO.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Of OWL and Co Research. There you go.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
We should also point out that he bought and sold
a little podcast company called Wondery sou.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And the founder of Wondering.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That's right, So no better person to get into this with.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Ernan. Can you talk to you?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Just this morning on Variety dot com, just posted a
very interesting analysis of You've done a deep dive into
some of the into all of the numbers, the numbers
that Netflix has released and others, and you've got some
interesting analysis of how the marketplace is emerging, but also
some interesting ROI analysis. Can you talk about what you
have learned in all of your numbers crunching.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Yes, I started out in company with a framework called
stream onomics. It is essentially bringing unit economics into the
new stage that the business is in of television making
and remaking, television and film, licensing, marketing and merchandising. And
what I mean by that is traditionally, when I worked
at Fox International Channels, we used to think of the
(20:31):
unit as the movie, the television show, the hour of programming.
But when I started Wondering and All of my investors
came from the venture capital world. All of them had
tech backgrounds. The really thought of the unit as the consumer,
the customer or the hour of engagement and as all
the new entrance of large scale in the last years
(20:54):
in the streaming world had been companies from the tech world.
There be in Netflix, they've been new to Apple and Amazon.
They all think with that unique economics framework, and that's
I think it's the adjustment that all of us in
media need to make.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And that so it's not just about bragging rights you're
opening night numbers or your you know your your overnight
numbers anymore.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
It is really about how to make the most out
of each customer that you have and out of each
hour of engagement that you have, and how do how
to get that extra hour of engagement for less. So
our article that a publisher Variety talks about the streaming
for what I call the four core companies that are
(21:38):
competing in streaming, that each of them have advantages that
will be difficult for the other ones to replicate. And
there are Netflix, they have the privacy advantage. They are
the company that people think of first when they're trying
to decide watch watch their YouTube, and YouTube has what
I call the urgency advantage. They are the place where
(21:59):
people go for something that's trending right now and they
have reached They have format flexibility, you can watch from
short form to long form videos, movies. Then you have Disney,
and Disney have the creative advantage. They have four core
engines of great brands with their libraries and the creative
(22:22):
encies in Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Effects. And those are
just the top four and no concience that they launch
ailed at last ten or the top ten biggest gross
box office ever and they want six amis. And then
finally I add Amazon to the mix because Amazon has
what I call the marketplace advantage. They're the place that
(22:45):
because of the connection between Prime Video and the fact
that they're the biggest tvod the biggest video store in
the world. Essentially, when you search anyone title, you're more
likely to find in on Amazon than anywhere else. And
because of their economic one, every time a customer engages
with Prime Video, they're more likely to spend on Amazon.
(23:08):
That's half a trillion consumer business, So you can almost
think of it as a marketing engine for Amazon, and
one that is going to become profitable on its own
very soon.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
How do you think that that looking at rather than
the numbers of the audience, but actually the sort of
the quality and the size of your audience. How is
that going to change the way Hollywood operates, how the
way people decide what content they need and you know,
what trends to go after.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I think Hollywood and the media industry as a whole
is going, obviously, there's no secret through a period of
adjustment that comes from the fact that over the last
five years, there were so many projects coming into the market,
so many televisions shows, so many movies, and as a result,
each of them costs more to make, and they're all
chasing an audience that was growing, but wasn't growing as
(23:57):
fast as the cost of making the television shows and movies.
So we heard today in the panel where I think
it was Sora Aubrey that from Max that said that
they're starting to think about making shows with longer episode runs.
We're talking about procedural fifteen episodes. That's partially because everything
old is new again, partially because you actually need to
(24:20):
bring stream onnomics into every decision, and that will impact
not only that p owners obviously impacts the streamers, but
the streamers are the ones that are holding the pers string,
so to say, but impacts the powners. Even if your
production house that is working on a cost plus model,
you need to know what's going to maximize the chances
that you show gets renewed and it gets picked up
(24:42):
and then they call you again for for the next show.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Laura, when you hear me in your own research, and
when you hear things that like the analysis that Ernan
is doing, are there are there new metrics that you
think that are going to be more important to the
the future of entertainment, for whether it's discovery or deciding
what companies go after.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
I love his idea that, like the four horsemen, I
really like that differentiation of the creative, you know, the
one that's competitive advantages marketplace versus creative. It's a really
interesting I haven't read the whole piece so I have to,
but I like the idea. I do think Wall Street
believes bigger wins, and bigger accelerates growth and smaller doesn't
have competitive advantages over time. I agree with that. I
(25:29):
guess the question I guess the issue I guess I
would raise is are we defining the competitive field too
narrowly if we don't look at the Kardashians, which many
people in this room might think, oh, that's trash. Well
to the people who watch the Kardashians, that's premium content.
So are we too narrow? Are we forgetting Fortnite? Are
we forgetting things that use time that therefore siphons money
(25:53):
away from these massive budgets that everyone you're talking about
is the crem of the krem in this tiny little
space called premium content. But premium content is under assault
from user generating content, aided by Generative AI, which is
lowering their cost to make content. And then Fortnite, the
fifteen year old boys are gone, like, they're all in
video games and I don't know if they're ever coming in.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And the fifteen year old girls are on TikTok, and.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
The fifteen year old girls are on TikTok, which is
not premium videos. So I just worry that the Four
Horsemen is sort of you're right, but are you right
on the scale of that matters or is it just
within this Hollywood, you know, this bubble that we all
live in.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Here, right, Well, that's why I put YouTube us one
of them, because YouTube has really brilliantly executed on a
strategy of moving upstreaming every single possible format that they can. Obviously,
they started as a platform on desktops if you remember,
then they moved on mobiles and then and now they're
one of the largest platforms for viewership on television sets,
(26:51):
and they're really perfected that increasing format flexibility. At the
beginning was all videos that were three minutes to five minutes.
It then people start to upload longer videos and even
professional content you can find on YouTube today people are
uploading movies and television series. And then when TikTok became
a threat to them, what do they do. They created
(27:13):
a TikTok clone called YouTube Shorts, and arguably more successful
than TikTok in many respects because they have a business
model that supports the creators, that actually returns revenue share
back to the creators.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So I would push back a little bit and say
everyone ignored this company until they bought the Sunday ticket.
Right once they got the NFL, every brand said, oh
my god, you know, we've always been on DirecTV's NFL
Sunday ticket.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
So they came over.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
That's when actually Hollywood took them seriously is when they
got NFL rights, which are the most valuable rights. I
don't think it's any of this other stuff you're talking about.
Now they take it seriously. Maybe they should have, but
now they're actually viewed a threat.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Once they read her Nons article on writing dot com, it'll.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All be said.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I can't believe it, but we have to surrender this room.
I'm glad we brought up Generative AI because we're legally
obligated to mention it. But I really we need a
whole other hour to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I greatly appreciate you being here, greatly appreciate the audience
hanging in there with us. Please please look for Strictly Business,
subscribe to it, listen to it. Thank you both so much.
Thank you everyone. We are so grateful.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break,
and we're back with more from Varieties Entertainment and Technology Summit.
Our event opened with a big blast of enthusiasm from
AMC Theater CEO Adam Aaron. He sat with Variety Senior
(28:42):
entertainment writer Matt Donnelly. Aaron came equipped like an old
school movie circuit sales rep with facts and figures about
his business to make his case for the survival of moviegoing.
Here's two clips. In the first, Aaron explains why he's
bullish on an overall box office rebound this year. In
this second, he offers great detail about how AMC is
(29:03):
investing in technology and upgrades for its theaters to give
people a reason to go see movies on the big screen.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The box office in the first five months this year
was a bleak, and it was in the five months
January made. The mestic box office was one point five
million dollars in five months, one point five And you all,
not you personally, but many in your industry were writing
again about the demise of movie industry, in the movie
(29:32):
theater industry, and AMC was going to die. And I
went to CinemaCon, was interviewed, and I kept on saying,
it is inconceivable to me, as someone who's on the
inside and knows what's going on, that AMC is going
to have financial clubs. Inconceivable. And I made a public
prediction at CinemaCon and a panel that the industry is
(29:54):
going to come roaring back. Finally, we had long wait,
come back and here Unfortunately for us, it happened. The
prediction turned out to be true. And just here's just
two numbers and they're really important, and you write this
one down because this explains everything. The domestic box office
(30:15):
in the first five months of this year was one
point five billion dollars and that was all strike impacted
from production delays of caused by the five months of
strikes in twenty three. In the last four months June
to September, the four month box office, remember five months,
was a billion and a half in the first five
(30:35):
months this year, the domestic box office June to September
is going to be around three and a half billion dollars.
From one and a half billion dollars in five months
to three and a half billion dollars in four months.
And when we look at the slate of movies that's
coming out over the next remaining months in twenty four
and the incredible slate that's coming out in twenty five,
(30:56):
and the incredible slate that's coming out in twenty six,
this industry is back. And all of the you know,
the doom and gloom stuff, those are people who are
looking in the rear view mirror, but if you're looking
at the wind shoe, out the windshield to the front. Finally,
it's been a four and a half year long slog
(31:17):
from COVID and from strikes, but this industry has a
very bright future again, so we're a big believer in
the Obviously, what you've heard that the future of movies
going in theaters is a bright future. A little shaky
recent past, but a very bright future. Finally, and the
(31:39):
way to get moviegoers to continue to go to theaters
is to make the experience in theaters so wonderful that
they have to get off their couches and come to
a theater, and they're allowed to watch movies at home.
It's okay. Have you ever heard of a movie called
Avengers something whatever? Avengers movies that grossed two billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I checked.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Netflix was in business that same weekend that Avengers opened
for a two billion. When Avatar two came out with
its two billion dollars, Netflix was in business. The industry
is big enough that streaming and theaters can exist harmoniously.
But if we want to capture our fair share, that
share of the consumer viewing habits that we're entitled to,
(32:27):
we've got to make going to a theater at great experience,
and technology has been a big part of it. So
very quietly, we made a decision two three years ago
that we were basically going to turn all of AMC
all eight thousand of our seventy five hundred of our
US screens to laser projection. And we've already that's a
(32:50):
would be a half a billion dollar investment to switch
from old xenon bulbs to laser projection, and we've already
it's biddle, it's twenty four. We've already got a quarter
of all of our screens in the US are now
laser projection. And what laser projection does is it increases
the light levels on screen by fifty to one hundred
(33:10):
percent depending upon the system and replaced, which means that
the image on screen is brighter and sharper and better.
We've upgraded sound systems all over getting a and in
terms of PLFS premium large format screens, as I said,
we're half of all the Imax cinemas Imax auditoriums in
(33:31):
the US and Canada. We are one hundred percent of
the Dolby cinemas in North America. When I joined AMC
in since it seems like yesterday, but it was nine
years ago. We had three Dolby cinemas. We have one
hundred and sixty four today we have thirty one of
our own house brand primes. We have four hundred and
(33:54):
twenty three plfs at AMC in the United States. If
I have my brothers thirty six months from now, we'll
have seven hundred. So we're and again why it's a
bigger picture. It's a better sound system, it's better technology
in the projection booth. It's the best way to watch
(34:16):
a movie in theater. And and they by they cost
a fortunate it's like two million dollars a screen to
put in a PLF. But we're a big believer that
if we make movie going better at theaters, more people
are going to come to theaters.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
At the Variety Entertainment Technology Summit, I got to go
one on one with the chief revenue officer at Scope,
Lee Tim O'Brien, who talked about his approach to M
and A. He's done nine deals over the past six years,
enough to propel his company to the number one mobile
(34:57):
game player in the market, and he seemed quite bullish
about doing what he called a mega deal in twenty
twenty five, in part because he has the new parent
company for Scope ly Savvy Group that pledged to put
as much as thirty eight billion dollars in capital at
(35:20):
Scope Lee's disposal, which kind of makes Obrien something of
a kid in a candy store.
Speaker 7 (35:27):
Well, I hope that we announce at least one, you know,
mega deal. I think, you know, when I see megadeal,
I mean, you know, like scale global franchise doing hopefully
at least a billion dollars in revenue. I think we'll
continue to execute on our current slate of games that
are live, hopefully continue to grow those games. And I
(35:49):
think that, you know, ultimately, we want to be an
amazing place for talent to join, and so we have
we make a tremendous amount of investment, investment in the
culture and all the things that are happening to the
company on a daily basis, and then some education.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You know.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
I think that even though I think that we're relatively
young company that's kind of spent twelve years making ourselves
at the scale we are, but I think that there's
still a lot of people that are unaware of our
scale and the type of capital that we have to
deploy and the type of deals we're doing.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Warner Brothers TV Group Chairman Channing Dungee has no less
than ninety shows to manage right now. She's about to
get even busier next year when she takes on oversight
of Warner Brothers Discovery's domestic linear cable channels. Channing took
time out to share her thoughts on how the TV
marketplace has rebounded in the year since the writers strike ended.
(36:41):
In the second clip, she talks about The Penguin, the
new Batman adjacent series that just premiered on HBO. As
she explains, it's an example of how the new team
at DC Studios is coordinating much more with the largest
TV studio.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
Yeah, and I think the industry was due maybe for
a little bit of a resets in that way, you know,
just speaking about live action scripted six hundred shows.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Nobody can keep up with six hundred shows. And there's also.
Speaker 8 (37:08):
Something that's very disheartening. And I can say this is
you know, as the studio, but I feel for the
creatives and the talent. You know, if you spend the
better part of a year working on something that drops
over the course of a weekend and then sort of
fades from view three weeks later. It's it's over, right,
that is you know that that's hard. It's very disappointing,
and so you want to be able to feel like
(37:28):
you're in a space where your shows are going to
be sampled, where people are going to have the opportunity
to fall in love with them. So the fact that
there are maybe fewer things being made, I don't think
is a bad thing for the business overall. And I
think that when you are in a situation where the
platforms are making more deliberate choices, that's that's good, you know.
I mean that that is a good thing because they
(37:49):
don't think of the things that they're buying as you know,
as disposable, you know. I mean, if you only are
going to if you're only going to have you know,
twenty new shows on your development slate versus sixty, right,
you're going to be that much more invested in each
one of those twenty. So it's it's not as much
of a volume game, it's a quality game. But I
will say we're in a place right now. We have
(38:09):
over the course of this year, we've had close to
twenty new shows premiere and another twenty to twenty five
returning shows come back, and so there's still there is
a lot of momentum. You know, we're we're feeling like
there still is a lot of great opportunity. It's just
a little bit more. I think the platform is a
little bit more deliberate now than they were two three
(38:30):
years ago. The Penguin is is obviously, as you pointed out,
a huge property for us, and it is part of
the DC universe. And what's been really exciting having Peter
Saffron and James Gunn now at the head of DC Studios.
You know, these guys have honestly a master plan. You know,
they were like and here's the first ten years, and
here's the But what's nice is that we now feel
like everything's working in concert. The things that we're doing
(38:52):
in television, the things that we're doing for HBO are
dovetailing very nicely with the plans that they have for
the more theatrical experiences. You know, we have Creature Commandos,
which is coming right on the heels of this we
Peacemaker season two and it's it's it's wonderful because you
really feel like now there's a cohesive narrative that all
of these shows and films are playing into, which is
(39:15):
really exciting.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
That's a good segue into Peter Saffren talking about one
of DC's main men, Superman. Here, Matt Donnelly gets Saffron
to describe the latest in the studios effort to revive
The Man of Steel as a movie franchise.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Now tell us every single thing about Superman.
Speaker 9 (39:31):
Like I said, so fade in Metropolis, small office desque.
So the truth is, we really do want to preserve
the story for the for the fans and for the audience.
But what I can tell you is we wrapped a
couple of months ago. We're deep in posts now. It
(39:53):
of course is looking great, and you know, without giving
away the story, I can say that it is a
story that is rooted in love and in compassion and
in the essential goodness of the human spirit. There's a
lot of hope in there, which is a real hallmark
of Superman in general. But all of that is wrapped
(40:16):
in that kind of genre bending, crowd pleasing for quadrant
theatrical experience that James is so great at delivering. As
you know, everybody here, I'm sure a lot of you
have seen at least one, if not all, of the
Guardians the Galaxies movies. But he has that beautiful blend
of humor, empathy, genuine emotion and great action. So that's
(40:39):
where we are with it, and you know, it's a
very exciting time. We were incredibly fortunate to find David Kornsweat,
who is our Superman. We were incredibly fortunate that he
was born thirty years ago and that he was available
to us, because I don't know what we would do
without him. He's perfect, perfect for the role, and I
think everybody when they see the film will realize that
(41:00):
he is he is Superman.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
The closing act of the Entertainment and Technology Summit was
the strictly business conversation that you heard earlier. The second
to last session was a fun gathering of boldface named
multi hyphenates who all have podcasts. Two in the case
of Lamar and Morris, the actor who just won an
Emmy for his work on Fargo. He joined Varieties Features
(41:24):
editor Janelle Riley on stage with Whitney Cummings, Jesse Tyler, Ferguson,
Eliza Slessinger, and Jenna Uskowitz. In the first clip, Cummings
talks about the hard economic reality for touring comedians. In
the second Slessinger and Morris talk about the importance of
being extremely authentic behind the mic.
Speaker 10 (41:45):
Hi, you know a couple things, you know. I mean
I think that you know, and Eliza can speak to
this too. We're touring comedians, you know, and you know,
connecting with our fans and having an emotional connection to
them is a really big part of selling tickets. Engaging
with them. Literally some people think they're in goa to us,
you know, but it's a really big part. So it's like,
(42:06):
you know, getting someone to buy a ticket. These days,
there's so many options for entertainment. A lot of it
is free to get someone out of their house to
come spend you know, whether it's you know, fifty eighty
dollars a ticket and pay for babysitters and parking and
you know, drinks and you know, it could be three
hundred dollars at the end of the day. So people really,
I think, expect a very intimate connection with the person
that they're going to see. I sleep with every audience
(42:26):
member after the show.
Speaker 11 (42:27):
I'm kidding, but they do a lot of her shows.
Speaker 10 (42:30):
Yeah, And because there's also so many people touring right now,
you know, influencers and podcasters and stuff, so you know,
to get someone out of their house, they really want
to have a personal connection with you. So I think
that's been a big part of it. Also, you know,
the TV and movie business started changing a little bit,
and you know, comedians, I won't speak for everybody here,
(42:50):
comedic actors. You know, it's look, we want to be
on TV shows, we want to get cast, we want
to be in movies. But we're always you know, like
a little loud, a little too tall, I mean, taller
than every actor in Hollywood, Like I'm not. You know,
there's certain jobs I'm just never going to get when
they come up to hear. So I think we're always
looking for a kind of backup plan to feel like
we have some kind of power, some kind of agency,
(43:13):
you know, in creators, like you know, whatever happened in
our childhood to make us, you know, want to make
drunk people laugh at night.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
The same thing is, you know, even if you're on
a show, when you're working, you know, six months out
of the year, that's another six months where you still
want to create, You still want to connect with people.
The need for attention never goes away, you know, So
I think us having that opportunity to do that and
connect with our fans, as well as of movement towards
at least having some of our content be owned by ourselves.
Speaker 12 (43:41):
I think authenticity is something that we're short on in entertainment,
and I think when something breaks through, then you have
a million iterations of that because everyone hopes like, oh,
I'll be the next blank, but there is no next
whoever you are you And I think as an entertainer,
especially as a stand up and of course as an actor,
you roll the dice on that. We all move here,
we all want to do things, and the practice is
(44:04):
sticking to your guns and being yourself authentically and holy
and not giving into trends. And it doesn't always pay off,
but at least at the end of the day, you
know that you did it authentically and originally, and your
audience will find you. And the great thing about the
Internet that we're in now is that there are there
is something for everyone. So you may not find a
(44:24):
billion fans, but you might find one hundred thousand loyal
fans who will support you your whole career. And that's
personally something That's never lost on me having like a
very dedicated fan base is that you constantly serve them
honesty and yourself. And I think that there's a reward
for vulnerability because people can sense inauthenticity.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
I talk to actors all the time when they ask
for advice on how to you know, how to audition,
or how to break into the business, or how to
become a unique individual, And I say, it's you already there.
There's no one like you, So you have to trust
your humanity, trust that you don't have to pretend to
do a thing and be a thing unless you want
to be some wild, crazy character actor. But you're already unique.
(45:08):
And that's the same thing with podcasting. You know, there's
so many options people want to hear your perspective. I
can go through a million podcasts that are talking about
the presidency, but everyone has a completely different point of view,
you know what I mean. So it's interesting to just
hear how a comedian might feel about it, how a
politician might feel about, how an athlete might feel about it.
(45:29):
As long as you're staying authentic to yourself, I think
I think you got something.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
forget to tune in next week for another episode of
Strictly Business
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