December 9, 2025 • 15 mins
JIMMY KIMMEL'S SAD CONTRACT EXTENSION And I don't mean it's sad because he got an extension, I mean it's sad because it's pretty clear that ABC is just kicking the can down the road far enough to make it look like Donald Trump isn't he boss of them. Christian Toto writes about it here. Christian joins me at 1 to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time to check in with my favorite entertainment pundit,
the man who has his finger on the pulse of
all things entertainment and loves to write about them and
talk about that. He does so at Hollywood Intoto dot
com and the Hollywood in Toto Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
He is Christian Toto. Everyone, Hello, Christian, good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, it's too bad you're not actually in the studio
because I'm having cheesecake.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't know if you know this. You're rubbing it
in my face and I don't like it one bit.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I am I am rubbing it in your face, yes, completely,
but it is delicious. But I wanted to have you
on today because I saw this story and I think
it's interesting what's happening right now when it comes to
Jimmy Kimmel, and we all saw we'll call it the
Rise and Fall of Jimmy. When all of a sudden,
Jimmy after being attacked by the Trump administration for saying
(00:52):
rotten things and insensitive things about Charlie Kirk's death right
after his death, and there was this massive outpouring of
support from all of these Jimmy Kimmel supporters for like
five minutes and then his ratings fell back down to earth.
And now we're talking about a contract extension. But this
isn't exactly a huge win. I would think, you know,
(01:14):
what is your take on all this?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, it's a placeholder at best. He basically has been
extended for about a year or so. And usually when
big names sign big contracts, you get three years, four years,
five years. I mean a one year contract is odd. Now,
just some context, he is toyed with letting go of
the Late Night Crown for a while. He's been a
(01:39):
little kind of back and forth about it. And also,
you know, this is the in the wake of CBS
canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Not only is
Stephen Colbert retiring in a sense in May of the
twenty twenty six, the show is going away too. So,
you know, I think there's two things going on. One,
I think CBS doesn't want to ABC doesn't want to
(01:59):
show that Trump won or that we're really silencing in
so they have to keep them on air for a
little while longer. But they also know this is a
dying revenue model. It's just not making the cash it
used to, and they don't want to sign them up
for this extensive contract. So I think there's lots of
things to read between the lines.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Do you think that there's part of this is they
kicked it a little bit down? I think one hundred
percent to tell Trump, you know, Trump's not the boss
of me, right, that was a big part of it.
But I also think there's there's probably some conversation around
whether or not they're going to be able to pull
what's left of Colbert's audience, right, because if you pull
what's left of Cobert Colbert's audience to your program, now
(02:39):
you're talking, you know, numbers that are decent, numbers that
are that are that are pretty good, that may at
some point justify extending, you know, as long as you're
making money.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think that's part of it as well.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Completely agree it's a gamble to risk and it may
pay off. I mean, Colbert is getting around two or
so million in night and Kimmel's been getting like one
point six or so rough estimates. So if Colbert's gone,
I don't think those people are going to go to
Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show because he isn't as
politically driven as Kimmel. It's sort of light version of
(03:14):
those two but kim But you know, Kimmel's a true
believer and he's a propagandist, and as is Colbert. So
if you want that and Colbert's gone, then you got
to go to Kimmel. So it'll be very interesting to
see how the ratings shakeout once Colbert finally says goodbye.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, this late night battle for me is sort
of I don't know, it's in a discussion I'm never
really a part of because who stays up that late
anymore Christian?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I mean, who's still on a school night?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Who is up at eleven thirty at night on the
East Coast?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
And I think that's part of the problem. Yeah, that's
part of it.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I think that people can get you know, breaking entertainment
news and satire on social media. They can go to
YouTube and find some podcasters and comedians who are actually
pretty funny and who don't play by the rules set
up by the system, and you don't know what you're
going to get. I mean, if you listen to Tim Dillon,
he's a little bit right, he's a little bit left,
he's a little bit ornery, and you don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Where the jokes are going.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But when to turn it to Colbert or Kimmel, you
know exactly the angle you made ano the punchline, per se,
and you know there's going to be a lot of
op edism as opposed to reals just plain out comedy.
So I think there's many, many reasons why this format
is fading, and part of it is self inflicted wounds,
and part of it's just the way that we consume
digital content now.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
That's you know, Christian, that's something that everyone who's working
in the media landscape is trying to wrangle with. It's like, Okay,
people have the attention spans of a goldfish now, so
you've got to figure out a way to be entertaining
every minute of every second of every moment, or they're
going to turn and go to something else because there's
so many other options. You know, back in the day,
it was well, I'll punch a different button on the radio,
(04:49):
but you only had six presets, right, so you just
punch that button, you keep punching those six. It's a
much different place to be. And I actually think another
reason that they're doing it this way is it allows
Kimmel a graceful off ramp as well, and ABC still
has a pretty significant relationship with him outside of the show.
(05:10):
He hosts the Oscars for them, a job no one
else wants. Let's be real, no one wants to host
the Oscars anymore. So I think that this allows him
to say in a year, well, you know, I only
ask for a year extension because I wanted to retire.
So there's a lot. I think this is actually probably
the best move that Disney ABC could have could have
(05:31):
made here.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, I agree, And also I think that the heat
over Trump and Kimmel will be much cooler, I assume
in six months to a year. And also they could say, hey,
we give it a try. This format is still dying.
The revenue isn't what it used to be, the ratings
haven't perked up like we thought. We wanted to honor
Jimmy Kimmel, and it's not really working out. So we're
going to part ways on unfriendly terms. I think that's
(05:55):
a possible solution here as well.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right, let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I mean, I haven't The Golden Globes came out out
yesterday and I looked through the nominees and once again,
I've seen nothing of the nominees I've seen K Pop
Demon Slayer, which was phenomenal, but you know the Hunter
excuse me, excuse me, k Pop Demon Hunters, Thank you, Anthony.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
What are are?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Is there any indication in the Golden Globes from your perspective?
And I don't know how much of this stuff you've
seen that we're moving away from those highly sort of
intersectionality based, you know, dramas that they kept nominating that
no one actually went and saw, but they kept nominating
and telling us they were great. They were great, even
though they were rejected by most people.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
No, that's the culture of Hollywood right now, and that's
the culture of Award season. These are smaller films, intimate films,
niche films. They're often very good. I'm not going to
criticize them collectively. They're fine, but they don't have mass appeal.
The one movie that's going to steam roll everything this
year is One Battle after another. That's the senor Ar
DiCaprio pro anti Ice movie. That one just looked to
(06:59):
I don't I don't see anything stopping it or.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Coming near stopping it at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And that one made about think about seventy million state side,
so it got some attention from.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Local theaters here, not a blockbuster.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So but yeah, that that is just the culture of
the industry right now, is that they the mass popular
movies just don't get nominated, and if they do, it's
more of a token, you know, like Top Going Maverick
got Best Picture nomination but no one expected it to win.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, so, I mean, Zouotopia is probably over a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Zutopia two is probably over a.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Billion dollars at this point, and at some point you
have to wonder Zootopia was a fantastic movie.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Zootopia two yet, but I probably will because I enjoyed
the first one. But what doesn't Hollywood hear that billion
dollar message a little louder. Give families movies that they
can go to with their kids, and everybody can go
and nobody's going to be offended. And you don't have
to make, you know, the lead come out as trans whatever.
You can just let the fox be the fox and
(07:58):
the bunny be the bunny. Right, And why does that
message still seem to bounce off the skulls of some
of these people who want to force this crap nobody
wants to see down our throats.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, in the Hollywood's defense, I think they've actually gotten
a little wiser to the situation where we're a little
bit exhausted by the messaging that's been coming out in
theaters for a while, and I think you're seeing less
and less of that. And you know, even with animated
films from Disney, there was messaging, and now I think
they're going to step back from that. So I do
think they've gotten the message belatedly about that issue. Generally speaking,
(08:29):
I mean, I think Hollywood will still continue to crank
out family friendly movies. I think most do really well
of them. Some clunkers here and there, but there's going
to be a wide variety of films.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I think the bigger issue is that.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I almost you know, I mentioned remember Hillary Clinton did
a listening tour back in the day when I think
she's running for the Senate, and you know, whether it
was real or imagined or just an artifice, that's fine.
I think that the studio executives, the people who are
green lighting these movies should go into listening tour of
America and really find out what we want to say.
So I think there's a real significant disconnect right now.
(09:03):
With what's greenlit, what's in theaters, what's the oscar bait movies?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And what regular people want to see.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I mean I hear all the time the same thing
you said, Oh, look at all these nominated movies, never
heard of them.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Never see what they are? Yeah, not interested? That's not good.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I mean, Christian, this is just going to be you know,
book number two of Virtue Bombs, the book that Christian
has out about how Hollywood going woke and they continue
to go broke. I just want to see movies that
I enjoy. I want to see movies that have good
stories and good characters and interesting you know, these plot lines.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's just what's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Though, Christian is it feels like what I just described
is happening in streaming in the form of series. You know,
these short series that we're getting, they're like eight episodes,
four episodes, whatever. That's where some really interesting storytelling is
taking place.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Couldn't read more.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I think a lot of the storytellers see television as
a better venue for them. I mean, you know, the
budgets are pretty darn big. They get a list actors often,
and they're able to kind of spread their wings have
less studio notes and be able to tell their stories.
And it could be a limited series, it could be
a multi series situation. But you know, like Vince Gilligan
(10:13):
is a major storyteller, he'd a better call Saul and
you know Breaking Bad. He's doing Pluribus right now on
Apple TV Plus. And i'd guess maybe ten twenty three
years ago, he'd be writing from the movies, yeah, and
making these really beautiful films and eloquent stories, and we'd
be all talking about him as a Spielberg like character.
But instead he's not as popular as far as the
(10:35):
public goes, and he just makes great TV shows.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think he's pretty happy with that.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But you know that goes right back full circle to
what we talked about earlier in this interview, like attention spans. Right,
we don't have the attention span for a three hour epic,
but we have the attention span for eight hours of
content in a row, as long as it's musted up
into our segments.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I mean, that's what God's kind of where we are.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, and some of the TV shows bank on that,
where the last last few minutes or seconds of an episode,
we'll set something up where you think, oh gosh, I
need to find out what's going on next. I need
to kind of stick around watch the next installment. So
I think that's part of it. It's kind of built
into the system there. But you know, great content remains
great content, and movies like Sinners and Weapons both from
(11:18):
this year. And I'm going to tout a movie coming
very soon called Marty Supreme with Timothy Shallam.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
May I really want to pretty long, yeah, loosely in
a true story about ping pong prodigy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I was mesmerized, and I really do hope people see
that and give it a chance, because it's terrific.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You know what, you don't see a lot of movies
about ping pong prodigies.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Chris not enough.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
The guest.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I can explore genre really when you get right down
to it. Well, have you seen the new Neil Diamond
tribute Guy Flick yet or that comes out of Christmas?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Right? Yeah, it comes out in a couple of weeks.
I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I'm not allowed to officially review it. It's got Hugh
Jackman and kat Kate Hudson, and I will say after
seeing it, I googled the true story and the film
is remarked close to the true stories, So if you
want to tease, you can kind of google what happens.
There's there are different things in the ending that'll leave
it more entertaining for you in general. But you know,
(12:10):
it's almost like a jukebox musical where they have a
ton of Neil Diamond songs and there's nothing wrong with.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is the best well.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I saw Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman on The Graham
Norton Show and they talked about the fact that Neil
Diamond not only knew about this guy that the movie
is about. The movie's about a guy who has a
whole career as a Neil Diamond tribute act. I mean,
that's what his whole life was. And Neil Diamond not
only knew about that guy, he loved that guy, and
he was excited about the movie. And Kate Hudson showed
(12:41):
a picture of her sitting with Neil Diamond like he
met with her to talk to her after the movie
has made.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So I always like stuff like.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
That where everybody's kind of excited about it instead of
like lawsuits flying. You know, it's always and I'm sure
Neil Diamond's getting the grease for the songs, so yeah,
I'm sure he all wants us to go see his movie.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, And you know, I'll be curiously how the younger
generation responds to his music. You know, through the years
has been deemed a little corny. You know, he was clean,
But man, those songs and lyrics, the harmonies, I mean,
it's just magical to hear them again in any format.
And Hugh Jackman's got a great voice as those Kate
Hudson apparently so.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Just before I left Louisville in twenty thirteen, we went
to go see Neil Diamond perform at the KFC Elm Center,
which is their arena and Christian I have never seen
more oxygen tanks and walkers in one pace in myself.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And you know, when you're in a concert and.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The band comes out and everybody stands up for the
first song. Everybody stood up, clap, sat back down. But
the show was phenomenal. He was phenomenal. So I don't know,
it's one of those things. I think some artists are
bigger than their generation.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
My daughters just discovered Billy Joel and I made her
listen to The Stranger all the way through that album
and she was just like whoa you know, and the
music is different, and some of that's kind of corny lyrically,
but I think Neil Diamond.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is one of those people who transcends it all. I agree.
I fell in love with his music via The Monkeys.
He wrote several songs for the band back in the day.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And by the way Billy Joel's lyrics and me listen
to them, there's so much wisdom and so much maturity.
And he was a very young man at the time
writing those just banger of his songs, and I just
I was amazed that artists who had that wisdom and
that sense of proportion at such a young age.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's a rare gift and insight.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
His insight as a storyteller is what gets me every
single time. And I just again, we just listened to
the whole Stranger album and every song I.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Was like, oh my god, I forgot this song was
on here. Oh I forgot this song was on here,
And I just I sang along to every single one.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It was just fantastic. All right, Christian total, I'll let
you go. I know you've got stuff to do today.
You can find Christians writing at Hollywood Intoto dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You can find his podcast at.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
That same website or on all of your podcast platforms.
You can all so hear him occasionally on the Hot
Air podcast you can.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
He's pretty much. Christian is a ginormous media whore. You
can hear him, see him everywhere. You say it with
love and I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I'm proud of you for all that you've accomplished Because
of it, Christian, I'll talk to.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Again soon, my friend, guiltiest charge. Thanks man,
It's time to check in with my favorite entertainment pundit,
the man who has his finger on the pulse of
all things entertainment and loves to write about them and
talk about that. He does so at Hollywood Intoto dot
com and the Hollywood in Toto Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
He is Christian Toto. Everyone, Hello, Christian, good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, it's too bad you're not actually in the studio
because I'm having cheesecake.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't know if you know this. You're rubbing it
in my face and I don't like it one bit.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I am I am rubbing it in your face, yes, completely,
but it is delicious. But I wanted to have you
on today because I saw this story and I think
it's interesting what's happening right now when it comes to
Jimmy Kimmel, and we all saw we'll call it the
Rise and Fall of Jimmy. When all of a sudden,
Jimmy after being attacked by the Trump administration for saying
(00:52):
rotten things and insensitive things about Charlie Kirk's death right
after his death, and there was this massive outpouring of
support from all of these Jimmy Kimmel supporters for like
five minutes and then his ratings fell back down to earth.
And now we're talking about a contract extension. But this
isn't exactly a huge win. I would think, you know,
(01:14):
what is your take on all this?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, it's a placeholder at best. He basically has been
extended for about a year or so. And usually when
big names sign big contracts, you get three years, four years,
five years. I mean a one year contract is odd. Now,
just some context, he is toyed with letting go of
the Late Night Crown for a while. He's been a
(01:39):
little kind of back and forth about it. And also,
you know, this is the in the wake of CBS
canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Not only is
Stephen Colbert retiring in a sense in May of the
twenty twenty six, the show is going away too. So,
you know, I think there's two things going on. One,
I think CBS doesn't want to ABC doesn't want to
(01:59):
show that Trump won or that we're really silencing in
so they have to keep them on air for a
little while longer. But they also know this is a
dying revenue model. It's just not making the cash it
used to, and they don't want to sign them up
for this extensive contract. So I think there's lots of
things to read between the lines.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Do you think that there's part of this is they
kicked it a little bit down? I think one hundred
percent to tell Trump, you know, Trump's not the boss
of me, right, that was a big part of it.
But I also think there's there's probably some conversation around
whether or not they're going to be able to pull
what's left of Colbert's audience, right, because if you pull
what's left of Cobert Colbert's audience to your program, now
(02:39):
you're talking, you know, numbers that are decent, numbers that
are that are that are pretty good, that may at
some point justify extending, you know, as long as you're
making money.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think that's part of it as well.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Completely agree it's a gamble to risk and it may
pay off. I mean, Colbert is getting around two or
so million in night and Kimmel's been getting like one
point six or so rough estimates. So if Colbert's gone,
I don't think those people are going to go to
Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show because he isn't as
politically driven as Kimmel. It's sort of light version of
(03:14):
those two but kim But you know, Kimmel's a true
believer and he's a propagandist, and as is Colbert. So
if you want that and Colbert's gone, then you got
to go to Kimmel. So it'll be very interesting to
see how the ratings shakeout once Colbert finally says goodbye.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, this late night battle for me is sort
of I don't know, it's in a discussion I'm never
really a part of because who stays up that late
anymore Christian?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I mean, who's still on a school night?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Who is up at eleven thirty at night on the
East Coast?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
And I think that's part of the problem. Yeah, that's
part of it.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I think that people can get you know, breaking entertainment
news and satire on social media. They can go to
YouTube and find some podcasters and comedians who are actually
pretty funny and who don't play by the rules set
up by the system, and you don't know what you're
going to get. I mean, if you listen to Tim Dillon,
he's a little bit right, he's a little bit left,
he's a little bit ornery, and you don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Where the jokes are going.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But when to turn it to Colbert or Kimmel, you
know exactly the angle you made ano the punchline, per se,
and you know there's going to be a lot of
op edism as opposed to reals just plain out comedy.
So I think there's many, many reasons why this format
is fading, and part of it is self inflicted wounds,
and part of it's just the way that we consume
digital content now.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
That's you know, Christian, that's something that everyone who's working
in the media landscape is trying to wrangle with. It's like, Okay,
people have the attention spans of a goldfish now, so
you've got to figure out a way to be entertaining
every minute of every second of every moment, or they're
going to turn and go to something else because there's
so many other options. You know, back in the day,
it was well, I'll punch a different button on the radio,
(04:49):
but you only had six presets, right, so you just
punch that button, you keep punching those six. It's a
much different place to be. And I actually think another
reason that they're doing it this way is it allows
Kimmel a graceful off ramp as well, and ABC still
has a pretty significant relationship with him outside of the show.
(05:10):
He hosts the Oscars for them, a job no one
else wants. Let's be real, no one wants to host
the Oscars anymore. So I think that this allows him
to say in a year, well, you know, I only
ask for a year extension because I wanted to retire.
So there's a lot. I think this is actually probably
the best move that Disney ABC could have could have
(05:31):
made here.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, I agree, And also I think that the heat
over Trump and Kimmel will be much cooler, I assume
in six months to a year. And also they could say, hey,
we give it a try. This format is still dying.
The revenue isn't what it used to be, the ratings
haven't perked up like we thought. We wanted to honor
Jimmy Kimmel, and it's not really working out. So we're
going to part ways on unfriendly terms. I think that's
(05:55):
a possible solution here as well.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right, let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I mean, I haven't The Golden Globes came out out
yesterday and I looked through the nominees and once again,
I've seen nothing of the nominees I've seen K Pop
Demon Slayer, which was phenomenal, but you know the Hunter
excuse me, excuse me, k Pop Demon Hunters, Thank you, Anthony.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
What are are?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Is there any indication in the Golden Globes from your perspective?
And I don't know how much of this stuff you've
seen that we're moving away from those highly sort of
intersectionality based, you know, dramas that they kept nominating that
no one actually went and saw, but they kept nominating
and telling us they were great. They were great, even
though they were rejected by most people.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
No, that's the culture of Hollywood right now, and that's
the culture of Award season. These are smaller films, intimate films,
niche films. They're often very good. I'm not going to
criticize them collectively. They're fine, but they don't have mass appeal.
The one movie that's going to steam roll everything this
year is One Battle after another. That's the senor Ar
DiCaprio pro anti Ice movie. That one just looked to
(06:59):
I don't I don't see anything stopping it or.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Coming near stopping it at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And that one made about think about seventy million state side,
so it got some attention from.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Local theaters here, not a blockbuster.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So but yeah, that that is just the culture of
the industry right now, is that they the mass popular
movies just don't get nominated, and if they do, it's
more of a token, you know, like Top Going Maverick
got Best Picture nomination but no one expected it to win.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, so, I mean, Zouotopia is probably over a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Zutopia two is probably over a.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Billion dollars at this point, and at some point you
have to wonder Zootopia was a fantastic movie.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Zootopia two yet, but I probably will because I enjoyed
the first one. But what doesn't Hollywood hear that billion
dollar message a little louder. Give families movies that they
can go to with their kids, and everybody can go
and nobody's going to be offended. And you don't have
to make, you know, the lead come out as trans whatever.
You can just let the fox be the fox and
(07:58):
the bunny be the bunny. Right, And why does that
message still seem to bounce off the skulls of some
of these people who want to force this crap nobody
wants to see down our throats.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Well, in the Hollywood's defense, I think they've actually gotten
a little wiser to the situation where we're a little
bit exhausted by the messaging that's been coming out in
theaters for a while, and I think you're seeing less
and less of that. And you know, even with animated
films from Disney, there was messaging, and now I think
they're going to step back from that. So I do
think they've gotten the message belatedly about that issue. Generally speaking,
(08:29):
I mean, I think Hollywood will still continue to crank
out family friendly movies. I think most do really well
of them. Some clunkers here and there, but there's going
to be a wide variety of films.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I think the bigger issue is that.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I almost you know, I mentioned remember Hillary Clinton did
a listening tour back in the day when I think
she's running for the Senate, and you know, whether it
was real or imagined or just an artifice, that's fine.
I think that the studio executives, the people who are
green lighting these movies should go into listening tour of
America and really find out what we want to say.
So I think there's a real significant disconnect right now.
(09:03):
With what's greenlit, what's in theaters, what's the oscar bait movies?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And what regular people want to see.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I mean I hear all the time the same thing
you said, Oh, look at all these nominated movies, never
heard of them.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Never see what they are? Yeah, not interested? That's not good.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I mean, Christian, this is just going to be you know,
book number two of Virtue Bombs, the book that Christian
has out about how Hollywood going woke and they continue
to go broke. I just want to see movies that
I enjoy. I want to see movies that have good
stories and good characters and interesting you know, these plot lines.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's just what's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Though, Christian is it feels like what I just described
is happening in streaming in the form of series. You know,
these short series that we're getting, they're like eight episodes,
four episodes, whatever. That's where some really interesting storytelling is
taking place.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Couldn't read more.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I think a lot of the storytellers see television as
a better venue for them. I mean, you know, the
budgets are pretty darn big. They get a list actors often,
and they're able to kind of spread their wings have
less studio notes and be able to tell their stories.
And it could be a limited series, it could be
a multi series situation. But you know, like Vince Gilligan
(10:13):
is a major storyteller, he'd a better call Saul and
you know Breaking Bad. He's doing Pluribus right now on
Apple TV Plus. And i'd guess maybe ten twenty three
years ago, he'd be writing from the movies, yeah, and
making these really beautiful films and eloquent stories, and we'd
be all talking about him as a Spielberg like character.
But instead he's not as popular as far as the
(10:35):
public goes, and he just makes great TV shows.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think he's pretty happy with that.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But you know that goes right back full circle to
what we talked about earlier in this interview, like attention spans. Right,
we don't have the attention span for a three hour epic,
but we have the attention span for eight hours of
content in a row, as long as it's musted up
into our segments.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I mean, that's what God's kind of where we are.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, and some of the TV shows bank on that,
where the last last few minutes or seconds of an episode,
we'll set something up where you think, oh gosh, I
need to find out what's going on next. I need
to kind of stick around watch the next installment. So
I think that's part of it. It's kind of built
into the system there. But you know, great content remains
great content, and movies like Sinners and Weapons both from
(11:18):
this year. And I'm going to tout a movie coming
very soon called Marty Supreme with Timothy Shallam.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
May I really want to pretty long, yeah, loosely in
a true story about ping pong prodigy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I was mesmerized, and I really do hope people see
that and give it a chance, because it's terrific.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You know what, you don't see a lot of movies
about ping pong prodigies.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Chris not enough.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
The guest.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I can explore genre really when you get right down
to it. Well, have you seen the new Neil Diamond
tribute Guy Flick yet or that comes out of Christmas?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Right? Yeah, it comes out in a couple of weeks.
I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I'm not allowed to officially review it. It's got Hugh
Jackman and kat Kate Hudson, and I will say after
seeing it, I googled the true story and the film
is remarked close to the true stories, So if you
want to tease, you can kind of google what happens.
There's there are different things in the ending that'll leave
it more entertaining for you in general. But you know,
(12:10):
it's almost like a jukebox musical where they have a
ton of Neil Diamond songs and there's nothing wrong with.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That is the best well.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I saw Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman on The Graham
Norton Show and they talked about the fact that Neil
Diamond not only knew about this guy that the movie
is about. The movie's about a guy who has a
whole career as a Neil Diamond tribute act. I mean,
that's what his whole life was. And Neil Diamond not
only knew about that guy, he loved that guy, and
he was excited about the movie. And Kate Hudson showed
(12:41):
a picture of her sitting with Neil Diamond like he
met with her to talk to her after the movie
has made.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So I always like stuff like.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
That where everybody's kind of excited about it instead of
like lawsuits flying. You know, it's always and I'm sure
Neil Diamond's getting the grease for the songs, so yeah,
I'm sure he all wants us to go see his movie.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, And you know, I'll be curiously how the younger
generation responds to his music. You know, through the years
has been deemed a little corny. You know, he was clean,
But man, those songs and lyrics, the harmonies, I mean,
it's just magical to hear them again in any format.
And Hugh Jackman's got a great voice as those Kate
Hudson apparently so.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Just before I left Louisville in twenty thirteen, we went
to go see Neil Diamond perform at the KFC Elm Center,
which is their arena and Christian I have never seen
more oxygen tanks and walkers in one pace in myself.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And you know, when you're in a concert and.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The band comes out and everybody stands up for the
first song. Everybody stood up, clap, sat back down. But
the show was phenomenal. He was phenomenal. So I don't know,
it's one of those things. I think some artists are
bigger than their generation.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
My daughters just discovered Billy Joel and I made her
listen to The Stranger all the way through that album
and she was just like whoa you know, and the
music is different, and some of that's kind of corny lyrically,
but I think Neil Diamond.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is one of those people who transcends it all. I agree.
I fell in love with his music via The Monkeys.
He wrote several songs for the band back in the day.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And by the way Billy Joel's lyrics and me listen
to them, there's so much wisdom and so much maturity.
And he was a very young man at the time
writing those just banger of his songs, and I just
I was amazed that artists who had that wisdom and
that sense of proportion at such a young age.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's a rare gift and insight.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
His insight as a storyteller is what gets me every
single time. And I just again, we just listened to
the whole Stranger album and every song I.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Was like, oh my god, I forgot this song was
on here. Oh I forgot this song was on here,
And I just I sang along to every single one.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It was just fantastic. All right, Christian total, I'll let
you go. I know you've got stuff to do today.
You can find Christians writing at Hollywood Intoto dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You can find his podcast at.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
That same website or on all of your podcast platforms.
You can all so hear him occasionally on the Hot
Air podcast you can.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
He's pretty much. Christian is a ginormous media whore. You
can hear him, see him everywhere. You say it with
love and I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I'm proud of you for all that you've accomplished Because
of it, Christian, I'll talk to.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Again soon, my friend, guiltiest charge. Thanks man,
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