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October 11, 2025 76 mins

Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show “Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.” 


Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec 


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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine
that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies,
and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business finance
and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Har Everyone, Welcome to a special weekend edition of Bloomberg
Business Week, looking at some of our favorite guests from
the Bloomberg screen Time event in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Screen Time gathers the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the
next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a
half in the heart of Hollywood, we discussed and debated
the future of Hollywood studios, the boom, and sports and
live music, and of course, the effect of AI on
the creative industries.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
AI is everywhere. We're going to hear from actors, studio heads, investors,
and even a late night host.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Not just any late night hosts.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, he's been in the news a lot lately.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
His name rhymes with Miimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
That was the lame, but yes, indeed we are talking
about Jimmy Kimmel. We begin though in the media space,
and a conversation between our Lucas Shaw, who organized the
event with the Bloomberg Live team, and the CEO of
Skydance Media, David Allison, the two of them in a conversation, we.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Got to start with Paramount.

Speaker 6 (01:23):
You chase this company for a couple of years, if
not longer.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
If you look at what they own.

Speaker 6 (01:30):
They have a bunch of cable networks that have been
in decline for almost as long as I've been doing
my job. They have a movie studio that is, by
most metrics, the last place movie studio the last few years,
and a streaming service that in terms of at least
engagement is sort.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
Of in the third tier.

Speaker 6 (01:45):
So why were you so interested in what do you
see in the company that investors and a lot of
other potential bidders did not.

Speaker 7 (01:52):
Yeah, no, absolutely, it's a great question.

Speaker 8 (01:54):
First, I just want to say we couldn't be more
excited about the place that we're starting with the asset
that we purchased, right, we have eighty million streaming subscribers.
We have one of the best basically content libraries in
existence with the Paramount and CBS. And I also think
you need to distinguish when you talk about the linear business.

Speaker 7 (02:10):
Right, there's the cable, which.

Speaker 8 (02:12):
Yes, has been declined, but if you look at CBS,
it actually is a remarkable asset that's been number one
in prime time for seventeenth straight seasons. Incredible sports rights
which we're growing and is still highly highly profitable and
cash flow perspective, and I agree with you, has not
been run in the best manner for the last fifteen years.

(02:32):
And for me, that's all opportunity, an opportunity to really
reignite the creative content engines, to navigate the transition that's
required to really turn Paramount Plus into a leader in streaming.

Speaker 7 (02:42):
And we believe we have the ability to both win.

Speaker 8 (02:44):
In content and also become the most technologically capable media
company to effectively navigate this transition. We always looked at
you know, you can look at the music business ten
years ago. We believe we can navigate that. We also
really looked at where traditional tech company were, you know,
call it ten fifteen years ago, and there is a
period of time where you know, the Microsoft's.

Speaker 7 (03:05):
The world, the oracles of the world were.

Speaker 8 (03:06):
Being disrupted and those companies that actually disrupted themselves and
transitions are now all traded at all time highs. We
believe we have the opportunity to do the same thing.

Speaker 6 (03:15):
So you talked about streaming. You mentioned that the eighty
million subscribers earlier. You know, you look at it, those
those monthly Nielsen reports that people pay a lot of
attention to. Right, are youtubes at thirteen percent of TV viewing?

Speaker 5 (03:26):
Netflix? Is that between eight and.

Speaker 6 (03:28):
Nine most months Paramount and you combine Paramount plus and
Pluto it sort of sits around two percent.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
You can correct me if I'm off there. I think
it's about right.

Speaker 6 (03:36):
So how do you get that up forget about thirteen
or eight like Disney's in the four or five range.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
How do you get that up there?

Speaker 6 (03:42):
And you've talked about content and tech? Can you get
specific on those fronts like what you're going to do?

Speaker 7 (03:47):
Absolutely?

Speaker 8 (03:48):
So, Look, one of the things we really believed in,
like what I'll say, we're nine weeks in and I'm
really proud of the momentum the team has been able
to build over the last nine weeks. One of the
things we really believe being the first own and operated
studio to my knowledge since actually Walt Disney built his
own shop, was that we would have the opportunity to
really think long term. That means long term partnerships with
talent where you can basically say, don't just think about

(04:10):
your next movie or your next show.

Speaker 7 (04:11):
We want to build a relationship with.

Speaker 8 (04:13):
You over a decade and actually say we're going to
make your next four or five movies, your next four
or five series, and really think long term and invest
for long term growth. The great news and when you
look at we had to win in content, I think
we're well on our way to being.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
Able to do that.

Speaker 8 (04:27):
If you look at specifics right, we're able to get
the Obviously, the UFC deals one of the first things
we announced we came over. We're incredibly proud that Activision
chose to partner with us on Call of Duty, which
is the most successful video game franchise of all time
with five hundred million units sold. We're able to have
James Mangold come over and obviously call his you know,
one of the greatest filmmakers working to call Paramount Home

(04:48):
Boulder Light, who obviously had incredible hits like Weapons earlier
this year. In addition to that, you know, we've been
able to secure high profile packages for streaming with basically
paramount plus. And then we're also really reinvigorating what we're
doing in news with CBS News with the acquisition of
the Free Press. And then I think when you look
at CBS's broadcast lineup, I think we have the strongest lineup,

(05:10):
maybe arguably in the company's history. And so I think
we've really successfully reinvigorated the creative content engines of the
company in a really short period of time.

Speaker 7 (05:17):
And I think we're going to be able to do
that at scale. So that's one two.

Speaker 8 (05:23):
You know, I think when you look at kind of
ten thousand feet, Silicon Valley has done an excellent job
of really coming into Hollywood. I mean the platform that
Netflix has built, the platform that basically Amazon is built,
and these are incredible companies.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
I'd say the platform that Amazon has built is not
very good, but they do have the benefit of Amazon behind.
Even people who work at Amazon but acknowledge the product
could be better.

Speaker 8 (05:45):
I think when you look at the number of subscribers,
I think they're doing okay. And you know, from from
that standpoint, but what we really want to become. We
talk about becoming the most technologically capable media company.

Speaker 7 (05:56):
Believe we have the capability to do that. We're bringing
in the prior leadership.

Speaker 8 (06:01):
We just obviously hired our CPO Dan Glasgow, who was
formally obviously.

Speaker 7 (06:05):
Running product at metaphor.

Speaker 8 (06:07):
Facebook, who is obviously a phenomenal leader, to come into
the business. And we have really deep tech partnerships that
are really going to enable, we think Paramount for the
first time to actually build platforms that are competitive with Netflix,
that are competitive with Amazon, and actually successfully grow in scale.
And I think you've said this, You've talked about this
a lot, given this moment in time that we exist in,

(06:28):
great art and great technology need to work hand in
hand together to effectuate the transition the overall businesses in
Is there.

Speaker 6 (06:35):
Some things like concrete about the Paramount plus platform right
now that you think is clearly substandard, And how like
I've heard you talk about the recommendation algorithm right and
how you think that could be better. Does having us
a better recommendation algorithm really going to like bring in
ten million new customers or make people spend an extra
two hours a day with your with your service.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
So you have to do two things.

Speaker 8 (06:56):
One like, let's just talk about the asset that we acquired.

Speaker 7 (06:59):
We inherited right.

Speaker 8 (07:00):
Paramount as it exists today operates three streaming platforms, three
separate stack tech stacks on two different clouds, which is
both inefficient and wildly expensive. So if you actually said
I'm gonna if I had unlimited resources, this is not
how you do.

Speaker 6 (07:17):
For those who don't follow, the three services are Paramount Plus,
Pluto TV, and b BT plus correct.

Speaker 8 (07:22):
So we're in the process right now of basically consolidating
all of those onto a single into a single stack,
which will both significantly improve the operational capabilities of the product,
and we're doing a lot to basically overhaul every single
aspect of the stack. But also the more data that
you obviously get in there, which is the more users,
the better you're going to.

Speaker 7 (07:41):
Be able to recommend content.

Speaker 8 (07:43):
So we are we are definitely overhauling basically the product
right now. But in addition to that, to me, technology
is really in service of the content, not the other
way around, and we're going to make significantly more shows
at Paramount Plus. We are investing in sports rights, and
when you look at the acquisition of the UFC, that
is the largest sport that is basically not shared between

(08:06):
multiple platforms, and to basically, and they have one hundred
million fans. They've grown twenty five percent from twenty nineteen
to date. They grew at that level sitting behind a
double paywall. So we think when you eliminate that double paywall,
it's going to open it up and make it much
more accessible. Literally, one paper you fight is what a
Paramount Plus subscription is. And then basically those hundred million

(08:28):
fans are going to be able to get access to
everything they love. And in addition to that, when you
look at the overall sports strategy, which cannot be more
important to us, Paramount had a really strong fall and
spring sports calendar, but really light in the summer.

Speaker 6 (08:41):
The football In the fall, you have March Madness.

Speaker 8 (08:43):
In the spring, you have the Masters, which which we're
incredibly proud to be partners with, and now with UFC,
we have a year long sports strategy and that in
addition to all of the new originals that we're going
to be making for P plus, there's going to be
more content, there's going to be a better tech product
that's going to yield additional engage and scale.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
So I won't I have a follow up on that,
but I'm curious because you mentioned Pluto. You've talked a
lot about combining the back end. How likely is it
that you just combine all those services into one consumer
facing app where if you want to watch Pluto, you're
just going to Paramount Plus.

Speaker 8 (09:14):
So right now we're basically combining the back the back end.
It's certainly something we've discussed and explore, but not.

Speaker 7 (09:23):
Something we're planning to do right now.

Speaker 6 (09:24):
Got it? And you're in the like the fun spending money,
showing people you're here to reinvigorate the company phase.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
When does the less fun part?

Speaker 8 (09:33):
So, look, one of the things that I think is
actually important is this business can be operated a lot
more efficiently than was operated in the past. And you know,
we've obviously announced you know, two billion dollars and obviously
run rate synergies. We've said we're going to meaningfully obviously
exceed those targets, and from our perspective, we intend to

(09:55):
do that as quickly as possible, so that we can
basically get that behind us then have the entire team
just building for the future.

Speaker 6 (10:01):
So does that do cuts start before the end of
the year.

Speaker 7 (10:06):
You know, I can't answer that question.

Speaker 6 (10:08):
Let's go to a couple other questions you probably can't answer.
Have you we're going there already, all right, Have you
made an offer yet for Warner Brothers Discovery?

Speaker 7 (10:18):
All right, we'll talk about tennis.

Speaker 5 (10:21):
We'll get to tennis at the end.

Speaker 7 (10:23):
I already I don't know if you saw it.

Speaker 6 (10:24):
I asked Greg Peters who is better at tennis?

Speaker 5 (10:26):
Him or Bill Gate.

Speaker 6 (10:26):
You can probably answer that question he dodged, But.

Speaker 7 (10:30):
The adotention, I actually can't ass attention.

Speaker 8 (10:32):
I've never seen either of them play tennis, so I
don't feel equipped to be able to do.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
Let's go back to the offer for Warner Brothers Discovery.

Speaker 8 (10:40):
So so, look, we're a publicly traded company, and I
think you know, we're not in a position to be
able to comment on rumors speculation of any kind, because
there's a couple of rumors and speculations obviously out there
in terms of what we may or may not be doing.
But look, what I can't comment on is people to
kind of understand our mindset, right, And I actually think,
you know, ironically, it was David Zaslov last year that said,

(11:02):
you know, consolidation the media business is important, and the
way we approach everything is first and foremost what's good
for the talent community, what's good for our shareholders and
value creation, and what's good for basically storytelling at large.
And so from our standpoint, whether we were approach any acquisition,

(11:23):
I actually do think there's a lot of options out
there in terms of what actually might be actionable in
the near future. We would approach that through the lens
of wanting to make more, not less, you know.

Speaker 6 (11:34):
Because the natural conclusion if you were to merge with
one of those Discovery is you take two companies that
combines I don't remember the content's been between the two
of them, but spend billions of dollars. And much as
you're combining Guidance and Paramount, you take money out. You
would take money out there. Companies that merge don't tend
to spend more money on the other side of it.

Speaker 8 (11:52):
So what I would say, and again I'm not going
to comment on one of brothers Discovery, but you know
you said it when you talked about Paramount actually need
more content to yield more engagement, and so we would
actually want to be in the business throughout whatever lens
we're looking at of actually producing more, you know, more movies,
more television series, more to get to scale, because you

(12:14):
need that content, you need that great storytelling to yield engagement.
And from that standpoint, we're also in the business first
and foremost of creating long term value creation. And you know,
in one of the things I think I hope we've
proven obviously with our family is we are in the
business of building long term value for shareholders, and I
think we've done that successfully.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
That's Guy Dance Media CEO David Ellison speaking with Bloomberg's
Lucas Shaw.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Coming up, more from our conversations at the Bloomberg screen
Time event in Los Angeles. Up next, we'll hear from
Warner Brothers co chairs and co CEOs Pam Abdy and
Mike de Luca.

Speaker 9 (12:50):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
We are back on Bloomberg Business Week looking at some
of our favorite guests from the Bloomberg screen Time event
held this past week in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Our Lucas Shaw sat down with the duo behind this
year's blockbusters, including Sinners, f One, a Minecraft movie, and Weapons.
Warner Brothers Motion Picture chiefs Pam Abde and Mike de Luca.
They break down the high stakes business of filmmaking and
an era of shifting audience tastes and streaming disruption.

Speaker 6 (13:29):
I want to start on the state of the movie
business because you were two of the biggest semophiles in
the world, I'd say, and I was listening to an
appearance you guys made on this SmartLess podcast earlier this year,
and you were talking about how there are not enough
movies being made and you're sort of I was struck
because you guys run a movie studio that would seem
to be within your power to decide how many movies

(13:50):
you make, So why don't you and your peers make
more movies?

Speaker 10 (13:55):
Well, we have made more movies, so you know, are
one of the first things we were tasked to do
when we got to the study it was increased the output,
and I think we increased it from I think when
we got there it was four to six movies and
we're up to twelve this year, heading towards eighteen hopefully.

Speaker 11 (14:07):
So we're doing our part, I feel like.

Speaker 10 (14:10):
And one of the most amazing things the reason we're
so optimistic about our business is Warner Brothers achieved four
billion in worldwide gross this year, the first time since
twenty nineteen, so at least in terms of our studio,
we're already at pre pandemic levels. But I think the
most significant metric is we did it on nine less
movies than twenty nineteen. We did it on eleven movies,

(14:30):
and they had twenty shots at it, which I think
shows that there's a robust theatrical audience just waiting for
more movies to get made.

Speaker 11 (14:37):
They always talk about, you.

Speaker 10 (14:38):
Know, box offices down anywhere from twenty five to thirty percent,
but there's also twenty five percent less movies in the marketplace.
So that's why we always feel like it's a it's
a glass half full situation, and if there were more movies,
you'd see that box office climb.

Speaker 6 (14:51):
Well. One of the reasons that I assume that the
number of movies is down is how expensive it has
become to make them. So, as someone who's not part
of the the sausage making process, why does it feel
like every major studio release now costs two hundred million dollars?

Speaker 11 (15:06):
I don't think every.

Speaker 6 (15:07):
Weapons did not, But can we agree that the cost
of making movies has gone up.

Speaker 12 (15:12):
A lot, sure, we can absolutely agree. I think the
way we look at it is a diverse slate, right,
and we look at different metrics and different size movies,
and it's really about balancing the slates. So there's no
one size fits all approach to budgeting of film. You
have to meet with the filmmaker. You have to look
at what the story is, who the audience is, what
genre it is. We share it with our teams around

(15:35):
the world, and we all come up with the right
size budget for that film. And it's really it really
leads with being based on.

Speaker 6 (15:40):
The vision of the filmmaker.

Speaker 5 (15:42):
Right.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
Okay, that does make me want to I wasn't going
to get here yet, but I want to zoom ahead
to the movie you just released, one battle after another,
Paul Thomas Aason movie.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
Great movie.

Speaker 6 (15:52):
Everyone thinks it's, if not the front runner for Best Picture,
one of them. You gave one hundred and thirty five
million dollar budget to a director who never had a
movie gross one hundred million dollars. Can you walk me
through how that worked in your the formula you were
just talking about.

Speaker 10 (16:07):
Not confirming that that's the budget. However, to point take
in that it's certainly Paul's most expensive movie. And I
think when you know, when we all read it in
this Pam set in our organization, you know, we are
really big on sharing the script with our teams, both
international domestic. Everybody who's got a stake in that movie's
success gets to weigh in, and we arrive as many

(16:29):
studios as all the studios do with a model that
basically informs the green light process. So we read this
two and a half years ago as a satirical action
comedy with Leo, and you know, because it read like
the masterpiece it is, we leaned in, like if we
we set up the kind of you know, rigorous analysis
that enables us to trigger a green light, but if
it's a if it's a you know, a bold provocative swing,

(16:51):
we're just our dna is to lean in and give
it a shot.

Speaker 11 (16:54):
So Leo's comps kind.

Speaker 10 (16:56):
Of gave it the credibility to say, well, we can
aim for the high case. But really what carried the
day was just it read like the movie it is.

Speaker 11 (17:04):
It just read like a masterpiece.

Speaker 10 (17:05):
And one of the overriding operating principles at the studio
is to is to continue that legacy of warners whether
it was Stanley Kubrick or Quean Eastwood or Ben Affleck.
But get into these situations with the best filmmakers of
the day and try to bring people, try to bring
audiences or a star for originality, you know, new masterpieces,
new modern masterpieces, and that's that's what we feel like
Paul's given us.

Speaker 6 (17:26):
So we're going to set aside the masterpiece part of
the conversation for a second. Do you think that the
movie will be a commercial success?

Speaker 5 (17:32):
I do.

Speaker 10 (17:33):
I'm a believer. It's a marathon with this movie, not
a sprint. I think it's going to lag out to
a number that we'll be happy with.

Speaker 11 (17:39):
Yeah, but it's hard. We can't divorce.

Speaker 10 (17:42):
I'd be lying if I said we're divorcing it from
the pride we have in it, and you know it's
it's it. And also with Weapons and Centers, what those
three movies say about the chances for original films to
get made, you know, from the best directors working today.

Speaker 11 (17:57):
It's it's where Warner Brothers wants to be.

Speaker 12 (17:59):
And it goes into our overall strategy. You know, when
we met with David three years ago, we sat down
and we said very clearly let's bring the best storytellers
to Warner Brothers. And that's what we've done, and we've
tried to do a mix of IP movies genre films.
It's really about the balance of the whole slate, and
you know, David us he's been so supportive in that

(18:21):
and I feel like this year our slate really, you know,
shows what our mission is.

Speaker 6 (18:26):
Would you say that David has always been supportive.

Speaker 12 (18:29):
Yes, from day one?

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Well, okay, we have to address the fact that earlier
this year he was out there meeting with people. It
was he was not being very subtle about potentially looking
for replacements for you.

Speaker 12 (18:45):
Listen, we can't we can't address the speculation and rumors
and all that stuff. All I can say is David,
Mike and I had the privilege of seeing all these
movies early. We knew what we had with the filmmakers
and with these stories worries, and we just couldn't wait
for audiences to see them.

Speaker 11 (19:03):
So we David was completely.

Speaker 12 (19:05):
Supportive of every film and of Mike and I and
the choices we made.

Speaker 6 (19:09):
Well, you got re upped yesterday. So clearly, when you
go in a tear, whatever your boss may or may
not be thinking for just a strategy.

Speaker 11 (19:19):
Well, it got announced yesterday, but it had been done.

Speaker 9 (19:22):
Yeah, the.

Speaker 6 (19:27):
Hot streak for the year I feel like started with Minecraft.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Is that fair to say? For a long time.

Speaker 6 (19:32):
Movies based on video games, TV shows based on video
games didn't work, And that's totally flipped in the last
couple of years. We just had David talking about about
Call of Duty. What do you think has there been
some change in culture as to why these movies are
now working or is it.

Speaker 10 (19:48):
I think it all goes back to talent, you know,
like we don't. I think it's dangerous to traffic and
blanket statements for any any genre, any adapting from any medium.
So I don't know how other people do it, but
we look at adapting from a video game the way
you look at adapting from a book or a play
or anything that's not a movie, and just try to
apply the same basic rules of common sense. Do we
have the right writer, Do we have the right writing team,

(20:08):
do we have the right filmmaker. I think anything can
become a great movie if the filmmakers or castwell got it.

Speaker 6 (20:16):
That was followed by Sinners Big Swing. Were you at
any point nervous about how it.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Was going to do.

Speaker 11 (20:22):
No.

Speaker 12 (20:23):
I mean, I think from the moment we read the script,
Ryan is just a singular visionary filmmaker. The moment we
read the script, we saw it on the page collaborating
with him. I mean, I just think what this movie
has meant to audiences and how it's ignited them in conversation.
I mean, there was this amazing moment that happened over

(20:43):
the course of the film. When it was released, there
was an open letter written to the studio and to
Ryan from a young man from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who drove
ninety minutes twice to see the film because Clarksdale doesn't
have a movie theater, so we brought a movie theater
to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and we went down there for the
weekend and we met members of the community and this

(21:04):
young man who is an organizer, and it was, honestly,
it was one of the most special moments of my career.
I can't tell you the conversations that were had, and
the audience feeling that movie, feeling that music, Meeting the
musicians who live and who Ludwig and Ryan gathered for
the you know, from the Delta Blues to create this movie.

Speaker 11 (21:26):
You can't take that away.

Speaker 12 (21:27):
That is the power of storytelling.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
You talk about wanting to be in business with the
best filmmakers. We have Ryan coming on later today, so
I'm curious what like you've worked with between the two
of you, probably most of the best directors in Hollywood.
What is it that sets Ryan apart from his peers.
Is there something specific about him that you feel.

Speaker 11 (21:45):
Like, you know, we love all our children kind of
a thing.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
But but I'll tell you. I'll tell you straight up.

Speaker 11 (21:52):
Ryan is all heart.

Speaker 10 (21:53):
And you know, he did a thing we didn't think
it was going to become a marketing tool, but he
did a thing where he explained it was for kode Act.
You know why he picked the film formats he picked
and why. I mean he's just talking about purfs and
things that I should know. I mean, I kind of know,
but he makes it completely not only understandable, but he
managed in an instructional thing for Kodak to connect with

(22:17):
cinophiles of like, Hey, the subtext was I made this
for you. I took the time to really pour over
what would be the best presentation of this story for
you with theatrical audience, and they felt Wow, this guy
made it for us.

Speaker 11 (22:31):
I'm going to go see it on a big screen.

Speaker 10 (22:33):
Ryan's ability to connect with his audience, both in the
material and then just talking about his movies is really
unique to Ryan, and we're now making every director do it,
even if they have to get training.

Speaker 6 (22:45):
One thing that was really well publicized leading up to
the film's releases. In order to get the rights, you
had agreed to give him ownership, I think twenty five
years after the fact. Why do you think that became
such a talking point and have you done that with
other filmmakers previously.

Speaker 12 (23:00):
I think I just think there was an outsized spect
you know, conversation about it because it was unique. But
it was unique to this movie, and it was unique
to Ryan's you know, to this deal. I think the
importance of this movie and how it's affected audiences is
what we should all be talking about, because, honestly, I
went to the theater that opening weekend and seeing audiences

(23:21):
on seventy MILIAMUIN or Imax, it's the greatest feeling in
the world.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
Both of you talked about the codec video. One of
the things that I think Mindcraft and Centers shared is
they both developed a lot of momentum online, which felt organic,
and so I'm curious when it feels like a lot of.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
Things become hits almost.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
Beyond your control, how do you plan for that when
you're thinking about green lights, when you're thinking about marketing,
because you obviously can't factor in like, well, this one's
going to go viral on TikTok and this one's.

Speaker 11 (23:51):
Vert well, you know.

Speaker 10 (23:52):
The first one of the things David tasked us with was,
you know, even though we inherited the organization, what's the
right balance for the era that we're in. So that
involved a reorg of marketing and distribution. So when we
elevated the next generation of marketing leadership at the studio,
we talked about virality a lot.

Speaker 11 (24:11):
We talked about where.

Speaker 10 (24:12):
Audiences are getting their movie advertising now and what the
kindling is for each project to light those bonfires online
and getting that core audience, whether it was the gamers
on Minecraft or the African American audience on Sinners, really
white hot over something that we knew they were going
to like, and being able to amplify that heat to
the general audience really became the coin of the realm.

(24:35):
In our new marketing department, so while you can't plan
for it, you can arrange the chess pieces to take
advantage of it if it happens.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
Are we going to get sequels to either Minecraft or Sinners?

Speaker 10 (24:46):
You're definitely going to get a sequel to Minecraft. You know,
Cinners is such a singular vision from a signature filmmaker,
and it wasn't really set up to be an expanded universe.
We just think it's again another cinematic masterpiece we're lucky
to have.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
That's Pam Abdy and Mike de Luca, the co heads
of Warner Brothers Motion Pictures, speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Coming up, more from Bloomberg screen Time, held this past
week in Los Angeles. Up next, Lucas Shaw sits down
with late night host get Ready for This, Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
They spoke just after coming off of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension
by ABC.

Speaker 13 (25:21):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business
Week looking at some of our favorite guests.

Speaker 6 (25:38):
Actually they were all our favorites.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Let's just put it out there because they are unbelievable.
The conversations the people who are at Bloomberg screen time
that was held this past week in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel joined at Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.
This in the wake of his controversial and temporary suspension
by ABC. Kimmel reflected on the evolving future of late
night TV and media in the resident Trump era, divided audiences,
and the high stakes of satire in today's charge climate.

Speaker 5 (26:05):
Thanks for being here. I know it's been a weird
few weeks, has it. Yeah, I can sell.

Speaker 6 (26:10):
I want to start at the beginning if we can.

Speaker 5 (26:13):
When I was born, Yes, it was in a manger. Well,
so since you.

Speaker 6 (26:16):
Brought it up, we're gonna talk about everything that happened.
Have you listened to this AI podcast about your life?

Speaker 5 (26:23):
No? I found it doing some research.

Speaker 6 (26:25):
They have an AI voice that just narrates that first
episode is your life until you get hired on ABC.
The second episode is your career at ABC until recently,
and the third episode is very recent. We can fact
check it.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
Does it have the details of my divorce?

Speaker 6 (26:39):
No, but it does have a line The Kimmels weren't wealthy,
but they weren't struggling either. They were in that sweet
spot of American middle class life where dreams seemed achievable
and laughter came easily around the dinner table.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
That's pretty spot on. This AI is terrifying. How long
after the.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
Initial episode where you made the comments about the assassination
of Charlie Kirk the Monday episode, Yeah, did you realize
there was a problem.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
I didn't think there was a big problem.

Speaker 14 (27:15):
I you know, I just saw it as distortion on
the part of some of the right wing media networks,
and I was I aimed to correct it. I have
problems like all the time, and it's kind of funny
because sometimes you think, oh, this is not a problem,
and then it turns into a big problem. And then

(27:36):
sometimes it goes the other way where you think like, oh, oh,
this is gonna be a problem nobody really notices.

Speaker 6 (27:41):
And so at what point did you realize this was
a problem?

Speaker 14 (27:44):
I think when they pulled the show off the air, Well,
that's unusual.

Speaker 6 (27:51):
Yeah, And what were the conversations that Data and Bob
that led to that.

Speaker 14 (27:58):
I hate to disappoint you, but they were really good conversations.

Speaker 5 (28:02):
I'm not acting.

Speaker 14 (28:04):
I mean, like really good conversations they are. These are
people that I've known for a long time and who
I like very much, and who were you know, who
wanted we all wanted this to work out best. And
I will tell you like I mean, first of all,
I ruined Dana's weekend. It was just NonStop phone calls
all weekend. But I don't think what I don't think

(28:27):
the result, which I think turned out to be very positive,
would have been as positive if I hadn't talked to
Dana as much as I did, because it helped me
think everything through and it helped me just kind of
understand where everyone was coming from. I can sometimes be reactionary,
I can sometimes be aggressive, and I can sometimes be unpleasant,

(28:51):
and I think that it helped me. Really having those
days to think about it was helpful.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
I have a dumb question about this as someone who
is kind of reporting on it in real time, trying
to figure out what's happening. So the show goes up
there you have all these conversations, and when you made it,
or when you all made a decision put the show
back on the air, as my understanding at the time
was it still wasn't exactly clear what you were going
to say. They still hadn't resolved the issues with the affiliates.

(29:21):
So what do you resolve in those conversations to know
you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot
of the things that come out of it.

Speaker 14 (29:29):
I think just the spirit of what I'm going to say,
rather than specifically what I was going to say, And
I think that's something that we all agreed on, and
I think that ultimately I wanted to kind of cover
every base if I could, and sometimes you can do
that and sometimes you can't do that. And it was

(29:51):
something really that had to come from inside me.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
It had to be truthful.

Speaker 14 (29:58):
And I had to lay it all out out there
and just be honest about what I was feeling and
what I'd experienced. And I think I did, and I
think that it probably went about as well as it
could go. I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect,
and there were always going to be people that didn't
like it and didn't accept it, But the important thing

(30:20):
to me was that I was able to.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
Explain what I was saying, what I was trying to say.

Speaker 6 (30:29):
If you felt like your initial comments had been mischaracterized.

Speaker 5 (30:32):
I didn't feel like it anywhere.

Speaker 14 (30:34):
It was intentionally and I think maliciously mischaracterized.

Speaker 6 (30:38):
Yesh, did you I mean, do you feel like you
have become more political in your commentary on the show
over the course of hosting it.

Speaker 5 (30:49):
What do you think? I think?

Speaker 6 (30:52):
I think if you talked to me when my first
interaction with Timmy Kimmel was The Man Show, Yeah, yeah,
which is you and Carola at this point, as best
I can tell, around and complete opposite ends of the
political spectrum, but still friends. Yeah, yeah, and it's you know,
it feels like you became far more comfortable and insistent

(31:16):
on talking not just about politics, but about personal things.
Maybe because you got older, maybe because you've got more
comfortable in the role, maybe because the world around has changed,
all of those things.

Speaker 14 (31:26):
All of those things for sure, I think maturity is
part of it. I think you figure out who you are.
I think that when I started the show, I was
mostly My homepage was ESPN dot com. It's kind of
all I really cared about was we've been a radio
sports guy. I've been a sports guy. I did football
picks on Fox NFL Sunday for years in radio.

Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, I was on k Rock with Kevin and Bean.

Speaker 14 (31:50):
I was mostly interested in sports, and I was interested
in politics. I've always been a you know, even as
a kid. My parents are very liberal. I've been a
Democrat since I was a little boy. I think the
first like political cartoon I ever drew was of Jimmy
Carter and John Anderson. You know, It's like I was
like twelve or something, and I've always been interested in politics,

(32:13):
but I was.

Speaker 5 (32:14):
Never a particularly political person.

Speaker 14 (32:18):
I also think maybe maybe he did, but maybe he
didn't have to be back then, you know. I mean,
I think this is a very different situation that we're
in now. And also my job, as I see it,
is to talk about the news of the day, and
these are the big stories of the day right pretty
much every day.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
And how much of that, Like, can you see a
difference because we're in Trump too? Do you feel like
it was the need to talk about politics is greater
when he has been president as opposed to when other people,
Like if you started when Bush was president and you
had Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, it does feel like I
thinks they've got more political over time. But do you

(32:57):
think it is also sort of a I don't want
to use the word quirk, but a facet of Trump
and his relationship at the media.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
Yeah, I mean he's on TV all day, every day,
so he gives us a.

Speaker 14 (33:08):
Lot to use to deal with. You know, that's unusual.
That's not how it used to be. You occasionally get
a video of George Bush, like walking the wrong way
on stage, and then you'd make a week out of it,
you know, or or somebody trips or something like that.
But now it's just you hear him, you see him.

(33:29):
You He's just presented himself so frequently at it makes
it it's just more digestible and it's more digestible and
less digestible at the same time.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
Right, do you feel like you interact with a lot
of comedians. Do you think there's there's some writers and
comedians I've spoken with who feel like comedy has actually
been harder with him as president. What you just said
is in a way, it's in something there's more material
to work with. What would you say his impact on
comedy hasn't.

Speaker 14 (34:02):
Well, is there more I don't know if there's more material,
it's just more focused in one area. I'm not a
stand up comic, I know for stand up comics, you know,
you work out their material and they do mostly that
material every night. So politics change so quickly, it doesn't
necessarily lend itself to that job. For me, I've always

(34:24):
been more interested in doing new jokes every when I
started on the radio every day and doing new jokes
every night. I don't love the idea of repeating myself.
It feels more like acting to me than broadcasting, and
I think essentially I'm a broadcaster and I'm more interested

(34:45):
in that. So I can't speak to whether it's made
their job more difficult. I know a lot of them
just try to stay away from it. And I get it,
you know, I get it. You're walking into a town
and you don't know who's in the room, and you
just want to make people laugh, and they're not necessarily
on a crusade, And I get it.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
And I don't think any.

Speaker 14 (35:07):
Of those guys should be required to speak the way
I do, or the way Stephen Colbert does or John
Stewart does. And I think that applies to people on
television too.

Speaker 6 (35:18):
They don't. You don't have to do this. I choose
to do it. Since you came back, have you asked
Trumper Car to come on.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
No, I haven't.

Speaker 14 (35:29):
I wouldn't necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show,
but yeah, I'd love to have Trump on the show
for sure.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
Yeah. I mean I feel like he knows that he wants.
I don't know, all right, I'll ask him. I'm curious
about it.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
You had these I'm sorry on this week and you
asked you pressed him a lot on the Rion Comedy
Festival that a bunch of comedians went. And did do
you ask and who interviews for a living? Did you
give him a heads up you were going to ask
him about that?

Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yes? I mean, you know how talk shows are.

Speaker 14 (36:06):
We basically understand, there's an understanding of what you're going
to talk about. Sometimes it veers off into various directions,
but you always they always know basically what the topics
are going to.

Speaker 6 (36:22):
Be and why. I guess did you feel it's important
to ask him about that? Because you had a point
of view on comedians going to that festival. It seemed
like you were against it.

Speaker 14 (36:31):
I wouldn't have gone, but I wanted to hear his reasons,
and I thought he had some compelling reasons. And it's
nothing's black and white. It's not something I would do.
But I do understand the idea that if we close
ourselves off to the world or we isolate somebody, that

(36:52):
maybe it's not good. I don't know that my my
reasoning is the correct reasoning. I also, you know, we
see it and we see it happening in this country too.
I mean, we travel abroad, many of us don't want
to be held accountable for what our president does and says.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
As an American, you know, going someplace.

Speaker 14 (37:11):
I'm fortunate enough to be well known and people know
where I'm coming from.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
But I think it would be a different situation if
people didn't know who I was. And I think I'd.

Speaker 14 (37:19):
Probably be the first thing I'd say as I got
into every cab is I didn't vote for him? Just FYI,
you know, so I do think that there's you know,
that kind of makes me understand right that position better.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
That's Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
And if you missed any of it because it was
a longer conversation, be sure to check it out. You
can find it on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
That does it.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
For the first hour of our special edition at Bloomberg
Business Week, we've been checking out some of our favorite
conversations from Bloomberg screen Time, that event held this past
week in Los Angeles, with the whole Bloomberg News team.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Still to come. Actor Mark Duplas on making indie movies
and the co CEO of the most valuable entertainment company,
Netflix on how the business plans to maintain its lead.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Plus director Ryan Kougler on how he is looking to
push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. You're listening
to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. We continue with more highlights from screen Time.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovec's day with us.
Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
right now.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
This is Bloomberg Business Week, Daily reporting from the magazine
that helps global leaders stay ahead. With insight on the people, companies,
and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance
and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We
are continuing with some of our favorite conversations from the
Bloomberg screen Time event. It was held this past week
in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Screen Time gathers the mogul, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the
next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a
half in the heart of Hollywood. We discussed and debated
the future of Hollywood studios, the boom in sports and
live music, and the effect of AI on the creative industries.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Got to say, it's a really fun event. They've been
doing it the last few years and it's just so
fun to see the people and the cross section of
folks that are there. When it comes to content creation,
we'll hear from an actor, studio heads, and content creators.
We begin with a conversation with Mark Duplas. He's a filmmaker, actor,
and producer. We spoke about balancing indie spirit and Hollywood collaboration.

(39:37):
You do it all. Is there one that I'm sure
you get this up a million times that you like
more than most in terms of doing producing, directing, Or
do you love how everything kind of helps.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
The other thing?

Speaker 13 (39:46):
I do like the blending of all the things.

Speaker 15 (39:48):
And I come from the independent sector, you know, I
came into this business making three dollar movies in my
kitchen with my brother on our parents' video camera. So
I'm no stranger to doing at all. But that said,
I think that as I've been fortunate enough to do
both indie projects and also be on a show like
The Morning Show, which you know, one day's catering on

(40:08):
that show is more expensive than most of the work
I make.

Speaker 13 (40:12):
I like the balance, you know.

Speaker 15 (40:13):
I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on
my indie projects.

Speaker 13 (40:17):
But then I like when my burrito has.

Speaker 15 (40:19):
Brought to me in the trailer of the Morning Show
and I'm taking care of So these are the things.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, someone who likes burrito.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Is yeah, it doesn't like a burrito delivery. Also a
trailer pretty nice.

Speaker 13 (40:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business
right now and how that would be different. It's like
you're making movies in your kitchen with your brother, but
maybe you'd be using an iPhone, you'd be editing it
using AI.

Speaker 15 (40:41):
I think the headline is the democratization of the technology
has made it so wonderful that you can make anything
you want now so much more cheaply than I had it.

Speaker 13 (40:49):
So you have it a lot better.

Speaker 15 (40:50):
Than me on that front, but you have it way
worse than I had it in two thousand and five
when I came in because to talk about that. But
the distribution channels are not there, right, and so we're
now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic television movement.

Speaker 5 (41:05):
Right.

Speaker 15 (41:05):
And we staffed up and we got all ready for
it and here we are, and then it just dried
up on us. So now we're going to have to
start hacking a new road of direct consumer distribution. You know,
we're working in so many different models now. We're making
television series completely independently and taking them out and selling

(41:25):
them afterwards because it is the wild West.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, because
I think about something like YouTube and how much I
want YouTube and specific channels and like anybody can put
anything up there. When you think about distribution channels, what
seems to provide the most opportunities for you, especially since
you say you play a bit more in the indie world.

Speaker 15 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I'm very very fortunate and
that I've been doing this for twenty years, so you know,
I at least have somewhat of a name that people.

Speaker 13 (41:52):
Are interested in working with us.

Speaker 15 (41:54):
But I think YouTube is certainly exciting because you can
put it up, it can catch fire, But the monetization
of that and sustain ability is really questionable in my opinion.
But then you have these smaller substreamer services, like you
look at Dropout TV and what they're doing in comedy,
and you look at Shutter. You know, they've become the
home of horror fans as a subsidiary under AMC, you know,

(42:15):
and they're doing things in a low cost model. So
I think the future here is going to be figuring
out how to make things relatively cheaply, cutting your big
producer fees, cutting a lot of everybody's feet across the board,
and then when you're in a position to be on
top and power, really share that back end with people.
And that's how I came up an independent film. We
would make movies for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

(42:36):
Everybody would make one hundred bucks a day. It was
creative communism. And then you get points. We could take
them to Sundance and sell them for a couple million bucks,
and the sound guy would make fifty thousand dollars and
buy a home.

Speaker 13 (42:46):
It was a beautiful time.

Speaker 15 (42:48):
It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in
that model that.

Speaker 13 (42:51):
Will still work.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I talked to somebody who lives out areas in the industry,
has been doing this for thirty years, and he was like,
I've got award winning casting directors, walking dogs, rover to
make ends meet.

Speaker 13 (43:01):
No, it's real, I see that bad.

Speaker 15 (43:03):
I mean I live in the valley, which is, you know,
the place where basically below the line union heads were
able to buy their homes, you know, And and that
was under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry
would continue to boom. Strikes fires, but not just that
the death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable from them.
That was just an arms race to see who could
chuck somebody.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Out right that picks an apple. Are the winters I.

Speaker 15 (43:25):
Mean TVD because we could see a merger happen in
five minutes after this that changes everything, and there's I
won't I won't go that far. But yes, there are
certain people that have interests in those mergers and don't
have interests.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
So does do you see the industry getting better?

Speaker 15 (43:40):
I think the industry is going to change. Look, I've
been in this for twenty years. I know people who
are been in this for much longer than me, and
we there are times when, oh my god.

Speaker 13 (43:47):
It was the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 15 (43:48):
If you had a movie that had, you know, a
gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could
take it to VHS and you'd make your money and
it was a killer.

Speaker 13 (43:55):
In the nineties, it was that for DVDs.

Speaker 15 (43:57):
In the two thousands, the streamers came in and I
got to all these cool movies for Netflix and TV.
But it's going to change. We don't know which way
it's going, but we got to be vigilant.

Speaker 5 (44:06):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
It's We've seen it in the media industry, and we
still like being in it. It's incredible to be thirty
seconds still having fun.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
You like it.

Speaker 15 (44:12):
I love it. I don't say I'm having fun all
the time. I feel a deep responsibility for like my
brothers and sisters in la and in New York and
everywhere who are just getting choked out by this business.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
That's actor Mark Duplas. We also got a chance to
hear from Elena Mayo, the head of Arian Pictures. She
spoke with us about reviving a legacy studio with a
modern mission.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
This is like the underlying theme of the entire day.

Speaker 9 (44:36):
How why are we here?

Speaker 6 (44:37):
Well?

Speaker 16 (44:37):
I think we're here because we have so much change
in so Dyna, so much dynamism, and the reality is
that no one really knows what the next wave of
media content Hollywood is going to look like. So we're
at this incredible inflection point and having to innovate in
real time and build new systems while the previous systems
are being dismantled, are evolving, are changing so well. I

(45:01):
wish I had a quick answer to your question of
how do we do it? What we ended up talking
about mostly is how do we just create enough sustainability
for artists so that everyone can sustain this moment in time?

Speaker 9 (45:11):
And so whatever is on the.

Speaker 16 (45:12):
Other side of this, whatever that looks like that the
creative voices that build our industry can still survive.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Does it get worse before it gets better?

Speaker 16 (45:20):
I mean, if you look at it with a long lens,
you know define worse, right, if you look at a
long with a long lens.

Speaker 9 (45:25):
It's always This business has always been challenged.

Speaker 16 (45:27):
This business has always gone through dips, It's always gone
through ebbs and how long this moment of uncertainty lasts
is probably longer than any of us would love. And
if that's how you define worse, then yes, But I think,
you know, I think it's just going to always be changing.
I don't know if it's going to get worse or better.
I think we're going to continue to change and evolve.

Speaker 6 (45:46):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I always think about supplying demand cycles. I've got to
do green economics, and I think about the world in
that way. And I think there was a period where
we thought, man, if you're a content creator, you are
good as gold because there's so many, you know, different
platforms that need your services, they need your content. And
then all of a sudden, I think there's a lot
of content, and maybe I don't know, there was too
much content and the oversupply. So where is the rebalancing

(46:08):
or or how do we get back to a different level.

Speaker 9 (46:10):
I think we're seeing the rebalancing now.

Speaker 16 (46:12):
I will say I personally am a little bit worried
about the level of consolidation that we have because I
do think that it is hard to keep saying swayed
in the favor of the creators and of the artists,
which is really the community that we need to continue
any sort of.

Speaker 9 (46:25):
Artistic endeavor and idea.

Speaker 16 (46:27):
But you know, I think Mark said something He may
have already said this to you guys earlier, but that
I think is a really important bit of context, which
is the past ten years of the streaming arms race
was a boon, like that was a spike, that was
an that was an abnormal state of our industry. Right,
So this is a little bit corrective, right, It's not
completely just the you know, Earth has fallen out underneath us.

(46:48):
This is a little bit of a correction of something
that was a real kind of an aberration in of itself.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
So a good thing a little bit maybe, but not
kind of your content.

Speaker 16 (46:57):
Yeah, I was going to say, I think the good
thing is that there are more ways to monetize content, right,
And we talked about everything from direct to consumer models
to YouTube. There are a lot of different platforms in
addition to Hollywood where you can monetize content.

Speaker 9 (47:13):
How you do that, right? Is the thing that a
lot of us don't yet know is, you know, oh, when.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
It pauses, this could be serious.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
It's political too.

Speaker 9 (47:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
The President has weighed in recently and he said the
way to fix this is to put tariffs on films
that are made outside the US. You're shaking your head.

Speaker 9 (47:32):
I don't think that's the way.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
To stay this. Why should we be filming scenes about
Brooklyn in Vancouver?

Speaker 9 (47:37):
I think that we listen.

Speaker 16 (47:39):
I definitely am personally invested in US keeping production inside
of the communities that you know, where the people that
make them live, right, because it's not just about are
we maintaining the integrity of the film itself by locations
based shooting. This city is where the majority of people
that make stuff live, and we've got to keep this

(48:00):
city healthy and the economy and the infrastructure of that
has to be supported by films being made here, and
we've got to figure that out. At the same time,
if we're going to make the path of supporting these
artists is to be able to make more, to increase.

Speaker 9 (48:14):
The amount of stuff that is being made.

Speaker 16 (48:16):
We've got to be nimble and if that means that
sometimes shooting things outside of the States, or shooting things
outside of.

Speaker 9 (48:21):
LA and New York is the way to do that.

Speaker 16 (48:23):
You know, a lot of the films that we've been
able to make that are really innovative and original and risky.
Have to find ways to cost less, and some of
the ways that we find to make them cost less
is to shoot them elsewhere. And then you have American Fiction,
which is a Boston set story that shot in Massachusetts.
So you know, we can figure it out different ways,
but we've got to have some plex to.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Figure out what college that was?

Speaker 5 (48:45):
What college?

Speaker 9 (48:46):
And do it Bayden.

Speaker 16 (48:47):
I don't believe they shot I would I would be
lying to you. I knew exactly where that location was,
but it may not have been a college at all.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
I'm sorry, I guess.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
So being able to film wherever in the world, like, that's.

Speaker 16 (49:02):
Part of it, right, one hundred percent. We're you know,
we're a global commut.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Without a penalty, whether it's a terror for one of.

Speaker 9 (49:08):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 16 (49:09):
And also what about the movies that we produced out
of Hollywood that are not set in the US.

Speaker 9 (49:13):
You know, we also produce movies that are set all
over the world.

Speaker 16 (49:16):
You know, Mission Impossible doesn't just all take place here, right,
So I think we have to be a global industry.
We have to, you know, be a global economy with
artisans that are working all over the world. But the
argument that I understand is that shouldn't be to the
expense of the film industries locally.

Speaker 9 (49:32):
Really, I feel very strongly.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
About that you came of age in an industry while
it was like undergoing this massive shift to streaming, which
you alluded to when you began your career. Did you
ever think that you'd be making movies at a company
that was owned by Amazon.

Speaker 9 (49:44):
No, I couldn't.

Speaker 16 (49:47):
I shouldn't say this, but I remember when Amazon first
started making television shows. I was at Fox and I laughed.
I was like, this is ridiculous, this will never laugh
and everyone was like and then pretty good, they started
making incredible TV shows. And then you know, to track
from that moment to now working at a film studio
that is under the Amazon umbrella.

Speaker 9 (50:06):
I couldn't have predicted any of this.

Speaker 16 (50:08):
I will say, though, when you talk about all of
those places that I worked, part of the reason why
I got my dream job, the best job that I
thought you could ever have in film.

Speaker 9 (50:16):
I was a movie studio executive at Paramount.

Speaker 16 (50:18):
I was on the Paramount lot, and after being there
for five or six years, I realized that the world
around me had changed, and I went to Vimeo very
intentionally because I thought there's all of this cool stuff
that is happening in this digital space that I need
to understand it. And then I said, I got to
work with close to the talent, and I've got to
produce and be able to be scrappy and produce for
different platforms in different mediums. I went to go work
with Michael B. Jordan and so it's been ever changing

(50:41):
for the entirety of the time that I've had the
you know, blessing of having a career in this industry,
which is why I think it's not falling. You know,
it's not all falling apart.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
That's Elena Mayo, the head of Orian Pictures. Coming up
more from the Bloomberg screen Time event in Los Angeles
earlier this week. Up next, we hear from the co
CEO of the world's most value entertainment company, Netflix.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
That will we continue with highlights from Bloomberg screen Time
held this past week.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with
Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We
are all in on screen Time. Bloomberg screen Time. It
was held this past week in Los Angeles, at.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Screen Time, we heard from Greg Peters, the co CEO
of Netflix. Greg joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss the
company's growing investment in live sports and video games, as
well as its efforts to keep viewers engaged for longer.
He shared how the business plans to maintain its lead
well investing in what's next.

Speaker 6 (51:45):
Everyone acts like Netflix has won everything, right. I get
a lot of people don't. People, even people at Netflix,
don't like it when you say that Netflix has won
the streaming war, as they think it's the wrong But
I wanted so I want to start with something. Let's
let's go negative.

Speaker 17 (52:00):
All right, it is you're speaking to my personality here.

Speaker 5 (52:03):
What is something that Netflix needs to do better?

Speaker 17 (52:07):
We need to do everything better.

Speaker 18 (52:08):
And I think you know the reason I hate, like,
you know, when I hear we've won everything whatever. I
actually think the worst position for a company to be
in is to feel like they've actually won everything, because
I think success has this, you know, vulnerability where you
start to breed, you know, complacency, error against and things
like that. And I think in the world that we
live in entertainment, this has been the most competitive entertainment

(52:31):
environment that's ever existed in the planet, you know, in
the history of humankind. It's getting more and more competitive,
and if you don't maintain the sense that you are
constantly vulnerable, I think you will lose.

Speaker 6 (52:43):
So I think the biggest thing that people point to
as perhaps a sign of vulnerability, at least that I noticed,
is that your engagement, the amount of time people spend
on the service has been pretty flat over the last
couple of years. And then you look at the regular
drops from Melsen and you see that streaming share of
TV has gone up quite a bit, and your share
that's gone up is a pretty small fraction of that.

(53:04):
A lot of the growth has gone to these free services.
So how do you address that?

Speaker 18 (53:09):
Well, I think you just essentially explained it right, which
is that we moved on demand very early on in
the process, so we sort of got the benefit or
basically built our business around that benefit. And then you know,
everyone over a period of time caught up, and you know,
essentially from our perspective, they're all now moving to that
model and moving to that benefit from consumers. So you know, frankly,

(53:32):
the fact that we were actually keeping pace in that
sort of you know, shifting tide if you will. I
think it's a reasonably good thing. It's not great, you know.

Speaker 6 (53:39):
I mean good thing, But from everything I've heard inside
the company, like the goal was basically to replace television,
right like have Netflix be the ones or if you
can watch basically anything on television on Netflix except for
news and until recently.

Speaker 18 (53:53):
Sports, Well, I think, you know, expressing that as an
ambition and also that as a way to organize how
the company thinks about what we're trying to go do
is great.

Speaker 17 (54:01):
I also think that that's not.

Speaker 18 (54:03):
Consistent with saying that we thought it was realistic that
we were going to be the only thing that people
were going to watch, right, because I also don't think
that that's realistic at the end of the day. So
I think there's always going to be like multiple sources
of entertainment, even in the categories that we serve. We
want to be you know, we want to win as
more much of that as we possibly can. So I'm
you know, don't back to being complacent. I'm not happy
with the fact, you know that we're not growing engagement.

(54:23):
We should grow more engagement. I think we will. I
expect you'll see engagement numbers will go up for us.
But also I don't think that I don't think there's
a world in which we be the only thing that
people watch.

Speaker 6 (54:33):
A big project I assumed to help grow engagement was
the new user interface UI that you rolled out over
the last year plus.

Speaker 5 (54:39):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (54:40):
Can you point to some key ways in which that
has already helped or you think it will help?

Speaker 18 (54:45):
Well, I would say a lot of what we've been
doing is essentially re architecting the entire stack. This is
from sort of how algorithms get calculated. We used to
calculate overnight everyone's recommendations. When they show up in the morning,
we would have that baked. Now we do it dynamically
on the fly. And now we've created a UI where
essentially you can you know, connect those those algorithmic pipes

(55:07):
in and also launch new modules.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Can you use words that I'm not even going to
insult the audience here that I will underserved.

Speaker 17 (55:15):
Yeah, so thank you.

Speaker 18 (55:18):
Basically, what happens now is that when we think about
what titles do you want to watch?

Speaker 5 (55:23):
Right?

Speaker 18 (55:24):
We used to do that overnight and you'd show up
and we'd give you those titles. But now the way
that we do it essentially is as you're navigating the UI,
we think about, oh, what are signals that you're giving.

Speaker 6 (55:35):
I skipped over this thing really quickly. I'm not interested
in that, right right, That's right.

Speaker 18 (55:39):
So I think that's something that's going to take us,
I think, a while to really build the fullness of
how that delivers, you know, benefit for our users. But
the thing that I can point to right now that
the new UI structure is designed to go do and
is doing for us, is serving new content needs. As
we expand beyond just film and series. We spanned a
live events and the UI has to do a different job,
which is like, why you want to show up at

(56:00):
Thursday at seven pm? Because oh you're going to watch
a you know, a boxing match that you know you
would not otherwise get to see. Or why do you
want to play a game or those kind of things.
That's that's what it's that's what it's doing for us
right now.

Speaker 6 (56:11):
Right when it comes to to live that was something
that you sort of famously said you weren't going to
do sports for a while. And I know it's not
just sports, you also do other live events, but the
sports have been the biggest, right, your NFL game was
really big, boxing match was huge, or both boxing matches,

(56:31):
the logan or the the Jake Paul one will decide
if it's really a boxing match or.

Speaker 5 (56:39):
I'll refer it. But how much more are you.

Speaker 6 (56:43):
Going to invest in live events over the next few
years and are there things that you know that you
want to add to the service that you don't have
right now.

Speaker 18 (56:51):
So it's a start with you know live we think
of as an important additional form of entertainment that we
can deliver members. It's sort of a different style of entertainment,
you know where. Actually it's interesting because, in contrast to
our on demand service, which has tremendous benefit because you
control the entertainment when you want to watch it, the
big benefit alive is that we're all experiencing the same
thing at the same time, and that has tremendous sort

(57:13):
of social and conversational relevance. Right, so we want to
do more of it. It represents a very small fraction
of our total investment.

Speaker 17 (57:23):
It represents a small.

Speaker 18 (57:24):
Fraction of our total hours, but we think it also
does a different job, so.

Speaker 6 (57:27):
It sort of comes does it have a different impact,
like do you see because from the third party data
I've seen you tend to see huge surges and sign
ups around some of those bigger events.

Speaker 18 (57:36):
Yeah, I think we expect that it will do the
same work ultimately that our other content does, which basically
is a reason to sign up and a reason to stay.

Speaker 17 (57:48):
That's you know, at the end of the day.

Speaker 18 (57:50):
Now, I think we back to your point about like
what do we know we want to get and stuff
like that. We're still really learning in this space, so
we're really trying to figure out like, Okay, what how
is this delivering value to members? How is this delivering
value to the business. And there's definitely a different phenomena
where these are punctuated moments to your point, right, which
people go like, Okay, if I'm maybe on the edge
of signing up for Netflix, this might be the thing
that pushes me over, you know, to actually do that.

(58:11):
So I think we'll see different things for sure, but
we really are learning as we go.

Speaker 6 (58:14):
I want to throw one poll to the audience before
we ask the next question, because.

Speaker 5 (58:19):
They are related.

Speaker 6 (58:20):
So I just want to I promise Greg I would
do this. Keep in mind how much these sports cost.
Football is the most expensive, Tennis is the least expensive.
Everything else sort of fits in between there. So even
though Greg and I both like tennis probably smallest audience
but also.

Speaker 17 (58:36):
Least expensive international audience.

Speaker 6 (58:41):
What would you say the odds that you make a
bid for one of the football packages when the NFL
ops out of its current deal in twenty nine.

Speaker 18 (58:48):
Or you know, it doesn't really fit with our strategy
as we understand it right now. So again back to
your point, we think about what we're doing as an
events strategy, and turns out, as you said, sports are
big event and so we can plug those into that strategy.
But we also want to make sure that we're being
really really disciplined about you know, are we buying, are
we investing in ways that are profitable for the business

(59:10):
and some of the big league sports things. We don't
actually have a way to figure out that math.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 6 (59:17):
Although it doesn't I mean, isn't the sort of the
magic of football. I get that the NFL is maybe
tricky for you and that it's not global and how
expensive it is, But the reason it's so successful it's
the one sport where like every Sunday sort of is
an event.

Speaker 18 (59:31):
It's amazing in that regard, right, But I think to
some degree that lack of substitutability is of course what
gives the rights holders the leverage.

Speaker 17 (59:39):
And it's done a pretty good job.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
Yeah, I know you have.

Speaker 6 (59:44):
I can tell that you guys have this vision of
where like you have more leverage than the sports leagues
that are negotiation and that has basically never happened in media.

Speaker 18 (59:51):
That's right, until it happens, I would say you should
have some skepticism about that.

Speaker 6 (59:56):
Okay, one other thing that you guys have basically never
done as large scale EM and day. But the bigger
you get, the more you tend to get tied to
different companies, different deals. There's been some reports around you
guys being interested in Warner Brothers Discovery. Is there any
truth to that?

Speaker 18 (01:00:13):
I would say this, you know, we come from a
deep perriage of being builders rather than buyers. I also
think that it's you know, one should have a reasonal
amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don't have
an amazing track record over you know, the history of time,
so you know, I would say it's our also, it's

(01:00:33):
our responsibility to evaluate all our options.

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
In so you'll look, you'll have a conversation, but the
odds of an offer are pretty low. Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:00:41):
Our job is to figure out, like what's the best
way to grow our business right and we have to think,
you know, really carefully, like how do we invest our capital,
our time and our attention and if that's the best
way to do it, great, and if it's not, then
we should do something else.

Speaker 6 (01:00:54):
What area you're investing a lot of capital right now?
Or you might quibble with a lot, but it is.

Speaker 17 (01:00:59):
Gaming small fraction of our total investment. But yeah, I
appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:03):
You've been offering video games for four years? How would
what would you what grade would little?

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Over three? But over three? Sorry? What grade would you
give your gaming efforts so far?

Speaker 17 (01:01:14):
I'll give us a B minus.

Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
How's that okay? Yeah?

Speaker 18 (01:01:17):
I would say, look, you want to maybe just to start.

Speaker 17 (01:01:19):
Where we're at right one.

Speaker 18 (01:01:21):
You know, it's a big market you one hundred and
forty billion dollars X China X Russia. That doesn't that's
just consumer spend that has include ads. So we think
it's a real opportunity for us to try and earn
a percentage of that over a period of time. A
lot of what we've been doing is really just building
the foundation, right, We've been doing a lot of like
you know, real hard plumbing work. But now we're getting
to a really interesting place where you know, we're going

(01:01:44):
to deliver more of what our vision of.

Speaker 17 (01:01:47):
What we should be doing in the space is.

Speaker 18 (01:01:48):
And we call it games because that's a you know,
a rubric.

Speaker 17 (01:01:52):
Or you know, a name that we all can relate to.

Speaker 18 (01:01:54):
But really I would look at this as how do
we add more interactive capability? So that means even things
like taking our live program back to a live program
and how to add interactivity with live So we got
voting right now that we're in testing on with David
Chang and his live clicking show. You'll see that interact
those interactive features come up with star Search when we
do a lot another live event and non sports live
event of star Search. So that's an exciting place to be.

(01:02:17):
And then it gets also, yeah, so you can see
this is sort of how the Dave Chang experience is working.
And you know, again this is you know, the tip
of the iceberg, and we'll get deeper into this as
we go. We're also i think more clear around what
are the gaming areas back to the you know, the
more traditional gaming areas that we are operating in. You know,
it's a lot of interactive games around our IP. So

(01:02:39):
you think about what you did with Skid Squid game.
I don't know if you saw Thronglets based on the
Black Mirror universe, but it's worth checking out because if
you're a Black Mirror fan, it's so in universe it's
and the fans of Black Mirror just loved it because
it was like they were having a meta experience there too.

Speaker 17 (01:02:53):
But even like Happy Gilmore, we did a golf.

Speaker 18 (01:02:55):
Game with Happy at Gilmore that got a remarkable amount
of consumptions.

Speaker 6 (01:02:59):
Do most of the people who use Netflix know you
offer games?

Speaker 18 (01:03:02):
I would say, I mean that's part of frankly, what's
been hard about this, And I think it's it's hard
for any brand that has a deep consumer sense of
what are you doing for me?

Speaker 5 (01:03:15):
Right?

Speaker 18 (01:03:16):
And then you're like, well, I'm going to do this
as well, and you have, it takes a while.

Speaker 17 (01:03:20):
To really build up that sense of what's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
That's Netflix co CEO Greg Peters coming up on Bloomberg
Business Week. More from the Bloomberg screen Time event held
this past week in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Coming up, director Ryan Kogler on the state of Hollywood,
the vision for his multimedia company, and now he's looking
to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. Sinners anyone,
well done, Well done.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
That's all coming ahead as we continue from Bloomberg screen Time.

Speaker 6 (01:03:45):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
We are back on a special edition in a Bloomberg
Business Week. We are highlighting and checking out some of
our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg screen Time event. It
happened all this past week in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Ryan Kugler and Sevohania and are the creative forces behind
Proximity Media in films like Judas and the Black Messiah,
Creed three, and this year's Oscar front runner Sinners. Bloomberg's
Lucas Shaw caught up with the pair and heard from
them on the state of Hollywood, the vision for their
multimedia company, and how they are looking to push the
boundaries to tell stories that resonate.

Speaker 6 (01:04:30):
But I want to start with the origin of your
relationship and your company. So you guys met at USC. Right,
where did the idea for a proximity come and what
was the mission for it when you started it?

Speaker 19 (01:04:47):
Such a great question. So an enormous circumstances is going
to be three of us sitting here. We're going to
talk about our partners, jay Z Coogler quite a bit.
She's our partner and she's my wife. But it really started,
you know, I really started year man like, I went
to to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Speaker 20 (01:05:06):
I started in two thousand and eight. Said when did
you come in, bro, was you fall two thousand and eight?

Speaker 5 (01:05:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 20 (01:05:10):
Yeah, So I.

Speaker 19 (01:05:11):
Started in the spring and we met in the in
the Roberts of Mecca's Center for Digital Arts, especially like
our where we heard our stages and we were in
equipment and Staid was working in the front desk there.
I was working in the equipment room. And before that,
you know, I found out I wanted to, you know,
make make movies. In Zenz Coogler, she was zen Z.
Evans then bought me my first final draft screenplay software,

(01:05:35):
you know, help me, help me to start writing screenplays.

Speaker 20 (01:05:36):
I found out that said had already made a.

Speaker 19 (01:05:38):
Feature film before he even came to film school.

Speaker 20 (01:05:42):
If we want to talk about, uh, talk about that
first movie you made.

Speaker 21 (01:05:45):
Yeah, Before I got to film school, I started making
little YouTube videos poking fun of my arming In parents
out of love. At the time, it would have today
they would have been probably like TikTok videos. But these
videos got really viral in the in the global armen
In population. So it led to me making a feature
film on my dad's mini DV camera. I say this
all the time, but I wrote it, I directed it,

(01:06:05):
I shot it, I produced it. I did everything except
for makeup, and then the makeup artist quit, so then
I did that too.

Speaker 11 (01:06:10):
It's an awful makeup but that but that movie was.

Speaker 21 (01:06:13):
It was called My Big Fat Armenian Family, totally love
letter to my to my people, and I had screened
it locally in Glendale and it had you know, it
did really well with my community, and that empowered me
to want to go to film school.

Speaker 11 (01:06:22):
It's where you know where we.

Speaker 19 (01:06:23):
Met, you said, recently got the keys to the city
in Glendale too.

Speaker 5 (01:06:27):
But got nothing for it.

Speaker 6 (01:06:29):
Nothing in the fun payperlanth the k.

Speaker 19 (01:06:32):
But yeah, so so you know, ZIZI was she was
doing sign language interpreted in at Fresno State. But she
was basically like auditing classes as she all was sneaker
in the class all the time. So we got we
got two degrees for the price of one technically, and
in seven I became friends.

Speaker 20 (01:06:49):
He started producing, uh movies for a.

Speaker 19 (01:06:51):
Lot of a lot of my classmates, got a big
reputation as one of the top, you know, top.

Speaker 20 (01:06:55):
Producers at the school.

Speaker 19 (01:06:57):
Uh So we always wanted to work together, and I
got the opportunity to make my first feature film, you know,
shortly after I graduated. I was Frouville Station and we
made it back in Oakland.

Speaker 5 (01:07:06):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:07:06):
Zens was kind of like, you know, help we were
living together. We just got our apartment. She was on
set every day, you know, leaving her day job instead
actually came up and produced that that film for us.

Speaker 20 (01:07:15):
So it was it was a it was a fantastic
startar relationship.

Speaker 6 (01:07:18):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:07:18):
After that, we kind of went our separate ways. I
made a movie called Creed after and it had a
lot of Create had a lot of black time.

Speaker 5 (01:07:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (01:07:29):
Created had a lot of story producers on there, you know,
like like Sylvester Stallon Or and Winkler, Kevin King, Templeton
and and I tried to get my buddy on. I
tried to get sev out there to help, but they,
uh we weren't able to get that and make that happen.
Uh So, you know, mad Creed and then I got
Then I got the opportunity to work on Black Panther.
At the same time, Sevok was making movies with a

(01:07:52):
young man named Anische Choking Team, and they made a
film that was all on screens called search that ended
up being getting acquired to becoming Searching. One of won
a couple of awards at Sundance Child. Yeah, and and
right around that same time, a good friend of ours,
Charles King, who is my manager, he was just really
hard on me and Zenzi to to start a company.

Speaker 20 (01:08:13):
He was like, you guys, gotta do it.

Speaker 19 (01:08:14):
Now's the time I was pulling my hair out trying
to trying to finish a Marvel movie. I thought he
was crazy, but but we took his advice, and Zenzy
and I sat down and and and coming up with
the concept for the company. You know, we we kind
of said, hey, the only way we would do this
is if we could if we could have sev come
join it.

Speaker 20 (01:08:29):
Come join it with us.

Speaker 19 (01:08:30):
We can kind of reunite the team that worked on
Fruval together and seven a Niche came to screen searching
at Natalie and Natalie and Nato Kasabi.

Speaker 20 (01:08:39):
And who Who's who?

Speaker 19 (01:08:39):
Said who Sav's wife and an incredible producer in our own right.
They all came up to screen searching at the Castrup
Theater in San Francisco. I think I'm about to open
the San Francisco Film Festival, and we kind of sat
save down in San francsco me and ins and pitched
him on proximity and thankfully he said, he said yes.

Speaker 20 (01:08:58):
So that's kind of the game.

Speaker 6 (01:09:00):
And what a lot of filmmakers, actors talent when they
create their own company. And I think it's especially it's
especially tricking for directors. It can be hard to have
the company be more than just like Ryan Kubler movies.

Speaker 5 (01:09:15):
So how do you approach it?

Speaker 6 (01:09:17):
How have you tried to diversify and do you have
models that you look after other filmmakers who and you
think I've done that?

Speaker 20 (01:09:25):
Well that's such a great question.

Speaker 19 (01:09:27):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, and honestly, for us it kind
of worked out because you know, Black Panther two wasn't
a Proximity movie. We actually started the company like right,
you know, right before the pandemic kicked off in late
twenty eighteen, and our first three movies that we made,
I didn't direct them.

Speaker 20 (01:09:46):
You know, it was it was a crash course in producing.

Speaker 6 (01:09:48):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:09:48):
We did a Spice Jam in New Legacy, we did
Judis in the Black Messiah, and then we did Creed three,
which was Michael B.

Speaker 20 (01:09:53):
Jordan's directing debut. You know.

Speaker 19 (01:09:56):
So it was really really a great opportunity for us
to kind of show to the marketplace is that, you know,
the Proximity wasn't just about movies.

Speaker 20 (01:10:03):
That I wrote and directed.

Speaker 19 (01:10:03):
We actually had a chance to put you know, three
out that I didn't write and direct.

Speaker 20 (01:10:08):
I'm going to talk.

Speaker 5 (01:10:08):
You know.

Speaker 21 (01:10:08):
I mean, as a matter of fact, we've we've made
a number of movies, a lot of shows now documentaries,
and only one of our projects has been you know,
Ryan Kugler directed film. So, like Ryan said right out
the gate, we had Judas in the Black Messiah, that
that was a film that honestly was one of the
reasons we were sparked at starting the company. We realized
that there was an opportunity here to help support incredible
filmmaker Shaka King and getting that movie made. And I

(01:10:30):
think Judas is a good example, like a lot of
the projects that we make, the ones that Ryan directs
and not are not necessarily films that on papers seem
like obvious hits or or sure things. And I think
having that beer first film really as a company, I
think it helps out the tone for what we were
trying to do.

Speaker 5 (01:10:45):
Both correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 6 (01:10:46):
Both Space Jam and Judas and The Black Nocize Or
came out into COVID, and Judas was part of the
whole Warner Brothers experiment where it was on streaming in
theater at the same time.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
I forget Space Jam.

Speaker 20 (01:10:59):
Was it was cool?

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:11:01):
Did you feel like and I realized pandemic excused all
of this a little bit, but having had movies come
out in all different ways, do you feel like having
a drop in theaters and streaming at the same time
was a different experience as a producer, as a filmmaker
didn't have any more or less of a cultural impact.

Speaker 20 (01:11:18):
And that's such a great question.

Speaker 6 (01:11:19):
Man.

Speaker 19 (01:11:21):
It was our first time doing it, you know, so
you got to remember, man, people were dying.

Speaker 20 (01:11:25):
Bro like it was.

Speaker 19 (01:11:26):
It was everything was shut down. You know, I remember
uh talking with Malika Andrews. She was talking about going
into the COVID bubble. Yeah, so yeah, like like the
NBA wasn't like nothing was happening. We didn't even know
if our if our careers would exist anymore, to be honest,
So when we had to make when we got when
we found out on both films that that was what
was happening, you know, we called both filmmakers, Malcolm de

(01:11:49):
Lee on Space Jamming and Shaka King on Judish And
I remember, you know, Shaka.

Speaker 20 (01:11:54):
God bless him.

Speaker 19 (01:11:54):
He was caretaking for his parents, trying to keep them
because they were already trying to keep it from getting sick.

Speaker 20 (01:11:58):
He was in the heart of New York.

Speaker 19 (01:12:00):
New York was going through all that they were going
through while he was trying to finish the movie, and
he was just happy that people were gonna see you
know what I mean, Like that was kind of his
kind of his reaction.

Speaker 20 (01:12:07):
You know, looking back on it, the world was going
through a lot.

Speaker 19 (01:12:11):
We were blessed to have the opportunity to have Creed
three come out, you know, theatrically with Amazon MGM, you know,
and there is that there is a difference, you know,
when when when folks have a chance to see the
film in theaters and it gets to be a moment
before it actually goes to the streaming streaming space, you know.
But at that time, you know, we were just getting
started and it was kind of happening to so many
different so many different films and filmmakers.

Speaker 20 (01:12:32):
You know, it was kind of just.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
What it was.

Speaker 20 (01:12:35):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:12:35):
Yeah, I'm curious on that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:37):
Have you have you ever thought about or would you
make a movie for a streaming service and you make
a Netflix movie?

Speaker 20 (01:12:43):
Man, that's that's a great question.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
I mean, I'm waiting for one where I ask and
you're gonna that with it.

Speaker 19 (01:12:50):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you get at your job, bro,
Like this is just actually the first time anybody's ever
asked me that.

Speaker 20 (01:12:58):
You know, I'm not here to shit what I would
and wouldn't do in the future, you know.

Speaker 19 (01:13:03):
But but the theatrical experience is uh one that that
that means a great deal to me.

Speaker 20 (01:13:10):
It means a great deal to to.

Speaker 7 (01:13:11):
To us, you know.

Speaker 19 (01:13:13):
And you know, like I think that I feel a
certain responsibility like if if Fruitville had happened a calendar
year later, it probably would have come out on streaming.

Speaker 5 (01:13:23):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:13:23):
I've been fortunate enough that that everything that I've written,
in directed has been a theatrical release. So I feel
like I feel a duty to try to try to
protect that, you know. But that's where I'm at today.

Speaker 6 (01:13:33):
Yeah, that theatrical experience triggered. We were talking with Mike
and Pam earlier about that video with that you made
willated to Kodak before so, which sort of went viral
on the internet. How did how did that come about?
And why do you think that resonated with people so much?
Probably a lot of people who have no idea what
you were talking about.

Speaker 19 (01:13:56):
Yeah, I mean it came about from from just convererces
with us, you know.

Speaker 20 (01:14:01):
Internally. One thing that I thought, I thought it made.

Speaker 19 (01:14:07):
Sense to do was to let audiences know why we
shot the film know way that we did, let audiences
know that it was a it was a unique thing
that hadn't happened before in this In this day and age,
everybody's fighting for everybody's attention, you know, and it's a
lot of really compelling things that anybody can find on
their phone and they nose feed. There's so much happening
in the world. There's so much, so many talented creators.

(01:14:28):
I saw y'all had Twitch streamers on here, and you know,
all of that stuff is incredibly compelling and addictive, and
people need a reason, you know, to to hire the
baby sitter, to to you know, to to make the
day and to go out stand in line and go
you know they you know, for us, you know, we
felt that we should put it all out.

Speaker 20 (01:14:46):
There for folks.

Speaker 19 (01:14:46):
You know, we never in a million years, like like
Zenzi and said whatever with me. That's actually Zinzi's handwriting
on the on the on the whiteboard, because my hand
writs chicken scratch.

Speaker 20 (01:14:55):
You know what I'm saying. But you know, they were
right there that day.

Speaker 19 (01:14:58):
We all, we all worked on it and Warner Brothers
was incredibly supportive with the video, gave us our our
gave us their BTS team to shoot it and stuff.

Speaker 20 (01:15:07):
We never thought that that millions of people would see,
you know, we were hoping that, you.

Speaker 19 (01:15:11):
Know, who would be happy with a few thousands, you know,
like people who were really interested in and you know,
in film projection and interested in theatrical experience.

Speaker 20 (01:15:19):
But it really, it really took off on a way
we couldn't have we couldn't have imagined.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
That's Ryan Coogler and Sevohnian, co founders of Proximity Media.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
And that does it for this special edition of Bloomberg
Business Week, featuring some of the highlights from Bloomberg screen Time.
It was held this past week in Los Angeles. If
you want to check out all of the conversations, just
check out the Bloomberg terminal oarhead to Bloomberg dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Daily Monday
through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on
Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and on Sirius XM Channel one
twenty one. Also check us out on Apple car Play
and Android Auto Free in the Apple App Store or
on Google Play.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just
search Bloomberg Podcasts, where simulcast on Bloomberg Originals available at
Bloomberg dot com, Slash Originals, and streaming platforms including Roku, Amazon, fireTV,
Samsung TV Plus and more.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
Find our Bloomberg Businessweekdaily podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple,
or wherever you get your podcasts and the latest edition
of the magazine is available on newstands now, at Bloomberg
dot COmON always on the Bloomberg terminal. I'm Tim Stenebeck
and I'm Carol Masser.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Have a good and safe weekend. Everyone, check out, watch
something streaming, a movie, a sports event.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
Check centers out if you haven't seen.

Speaker 6 (01:16:29):
That good idea, but do stay with us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
right now.
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Carol Massar

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