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Who Won the Summer—and Who Lost?

October 20, 2022
Notes
Transcript

On this week’s episode, CNN’s Frank Pallotta rejoined the show to talk about horror’s big summer, the winners and losers of summer, the ratings war between House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, and much more. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it with a friend!

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:07

    Welcome back to the Bulwark host of Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch from Culture Editor at the board. And I’m very pleased to be rejoined today by Frank Puloda. Frank, I was looking at my schedule. I was like, wait, it’s been it’s been three months.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:18

    It’s been three months. We gotta check back in with CNN’s Frank Poloda on the business of Hollywood. How are you doing, Frank?
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:25

    I’m good. You don’t call. You don’t. Right? I go three months without hearing from you.
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:29

    I was like, is is he ever gonna call me back? And I guess I guess I I guess, I’m opening my heart to hurt again, but I’m
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:35

    Okay. You know, I well, you’ve had enough heartache with the mets. I know it’s been a it’s been a bad it’s been a bad a couple weeks there, but we’ll we’ll try and we’ll try and make you happy. We’re gonna talk about fun stuff today. Box office.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:46

    Box we last time I had you on, it was a summer preview. Let’s look at the summer post view. How did the summer shakeout for everybody? From your perspective as as the preeminent business reporter of Hollywood News. Who was the big winner at the box office aside from Top Gun Maverick?
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:06

    I mean, I think we all know that Top Gun Maverick, Tom Cruise winner number one. Who was the big winner beside them? And who was one
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:12

    big loser from this test period? So let me start here by saying you asked how this summer went, and I have to say I cannot think of a better way for this summer to go for theaters and for studios. In this still kind of pandemic world we’re living in. Because there was a lot of questions coming into it. I remember talking to someone year about last summer and they were like, listen, this one’s kind of like the dress rehearsal for next year.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:35

    If next year isn’t very good, then we have big problems. I think if you take Top Gun away from it, this was really the year. I I think it was the summer of the multiple. And what I mean by that is a multiple is You take whatever the opening, you take whatever the final domestic grosses and you divide it by the opening and you usually get like a times multiple. Most movies are, like, three times or two times.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:00

    Like, Endgame, I believe, was about, like, three and a half times, and that’s one of the biggest movies of all time. There are multiple movies this summer. Obviously, the big boy is Topka Maverick that was, like, five and a half, the biggest multiple ever for something over that open to over a hundred million dollars. But take away that you have movies like Elvis, where the Crodancing, these other movies that did really well, these movies that were for audiences that, you know, aren’t your superhero type of audience. So you asked me what the big winner is this summer.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:32

    And to to really answer that question, I think the best way to kind of think about it is In my opinion, it’s the Black Phone. Now, Black Phone is a is a Blum House movie just distributed by Universal. It was made for very very little money as most Blum House does. And it’s brought back, you know, it brought back hundred and fifty nine million dollars worldwide. And eighty nine of that is just in domestic alone.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:02

    And I remember talking to some sources at some of the studios including Universal. And most people are telling me that you would think, oh, what’s the most profitable movie for Universal? This is just probably Jurassic World Dominion. That was a huge hit summer too huge success. It’s not.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:17

    It’s the black phone. It’s because it’s made for such a small amount of money and it brought in so much more money. And over you know, over the weeks and and and of the summer, it just kept bringing in. It was an example of, you know, started small kept small, but didn’t slow down. And it these are the type of movies that I think are potentially the future of Hollywood.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:39

    It’s kind of like everything Old is new again. This is how Hollywood used to work. You know, it used to be it people didn’t care about a huge opening weekend. That’s a very new thing. It’s kind of like a marvelous thing where success was based on how many records you broke your opening weekend.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:55

    It used to be is this movie profitable? How profitable it is? And to me, I think, you know, of all those movies, the Black Bone was the most successful of them. Now, if you ask me what the biggest loser was, it was also a horror movie that I thought was going to be a hit that you enjoyed, that I’ve enjoyed, and came from a studio that has huge call following, and that’s potties, potties, potties. I just think that that movie just never found an audience, but don’t know why it did.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:24

    It’s really funny It’s a really good time in the theater. It’s got horror elements to it. And it’s got a really great cast that’s young and upcoming. And it just it just did not stick, which is really weird considering that everything everywhere all at once. And I’m very impressed that I finally got that title right for once.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:43

    Did incredibly well earlier this year for a twenty four. And I I remember I think I might even have said this to you at a DM or something. I I think this movie is gonna be a huge hit for eight twenty four and it just never stuck. And you can make a lot of arguments why it didn’t. I think one of the main arguments is that maybe the audience that they were trying to cultivate was actively being made fun of inside of the theater, and it was maybe they had an allergic reaction to that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:07

    But those are the two kind of, like, if you take away all the blockbusters and everything like that, those are the two kind of things that I find really interesting about this summer is that you have these two type of, like, movies you want to see in theaters, horror elements, which is just a huge job right now. And one was incredibly successful that not a lot of people saw and another one was I mean, that excuse me. One was hugely successful that a lot of people saw over a amount of time, and another one was kind of set up for that and it just kind of did not work. When
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:36

    you when you say that the black phone is universal’s biggest movie of the year. Are we talking return on investment? Are we talking percentage? Not not
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:44

    like overall? Like No. No. No. No.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:46

    No. It’s not even close. I mean, I I’m I’m pretty sure, like, Jurassic World made more in one weekend domestic tour than Blackfone did its entire run so far. I mean, we’re jumping back. They’re gonna And and I’m happy to brought it up because I like, again, you know, it’s funny you thought we’re talking about this because I I’m thinking back to last week with March Screwsays he was talking about the focus on box office as this kind of, you know, weird thing that’s hurting cinema that’s almost kind of really disgusting.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:16

    And I grew them to a certain point. I’m a box office supporter. I mean, and he even says, like, listen, it’s a business, and I’ve always understood that. But he’s right to a certain extent that myself, even in people like of my ilk who cover the box office. We kinda got high on our own supply a little bit there where it was like, oh my god.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:35

    This Marvel movie broke another record. Oh my god. This Jurassic Park would be broken another record. And we kind of focused in on that and then we didn’t come back a month later or two months later to see where the movie kind of landed. And we didn’t give respect to some other movies that have done well.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:52

    Another great one this summer, this is a great example of this, is bulletproofing. Will it train opened to about thirty five million dollars. A lot of people were saying, oh my god, kind of a flop didn’t really do that well. And the movie costs ninety million dollars. It’s not a cheap movie by any means, but it’s brought in two thirty five million dollars globally.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:12

    So I don’t know if it’s I don’t know how profitable that is, but I’m not it’s definitely not a flop. It’s definitely not a bomb. But that’s kind of how the image was And that’s something that I think in us and media do have to change that come back to a movie a month later, two months later, or at the end of its run, see much money it brought in? Because at the end of the day, we’re seeing a transition now, I think, in the industry, from how many how how much did you bring an opening weekend? How many subscribers do you have to, is this thing making you money?
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:42

    And I think that’s a really important thing is we’re coming out of the pandemic type of era we’re in. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:47

    Mean, how much was bullet train helped by the fact that there just wasn’t a ton of stuff in theaters? I mean, I I think I tweeted something like, you know, bullet train getting to a hundred million on, like, pure nothing else to watch energy is pretty impressive. And there does I like, I asked because I do think that there is something to be said for reverting to a model where you have two big movies a month instead of a big tentpole every week. I mean, I I know I’m a broken record on this, but I I do think that there was a there was a marketplace glut that the pandemic is gonna clear out a little bit. And I think it’s good really for the for the industry.
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:26

    It’s weird to say that, like, because I’ve written about this, that it’s like
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:29

    why why aren’t they opening more movies? Why aren’t they not more movies? There is a certain level of over correction that we kinda saw in the nineties and two thousands, and we saw this with the amount of screens and the amount of movies where things kind of came out and it always kind of felt like, oh my god, all these all these movies are making money all and B Screen. We need more and more and more and more and more. And again, that kinda goes against what, you know, Hollywood had been for decades.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:55

    And let’s look at the fall. The fall had been completely desolate, but it allowed movies, some good, some bad dependent on your taste, to succeed in terms of their budgets. And if you look at the top three movies at the fall so far, they’re all original movies. Their it’s smile, which is horror, which we could get to a little bit later. Why horror says it’s a success?
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:16

    But that’s seventy one million dollars. Then you have the Woman King which brought in fifty nine million dollars so far domestically. And these are all domestic grosses, by the way. Then you have the much talked about, don’t worry, Darling, Halloween ends is up there now because it just had a huge weekend with forty million. And then Barbarian is is at thirty eight million dollars.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:36

    Like, these movies are not made for four hundred million dollars. These aren’t even made for a hundred million dollars. They’re made for a reasonable amount of money. They get some buzz. They bring in people in the third, the second, third, fourth week.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:49

    And I think it’s it’s weird to say that the summer was a huge success But the fall is maybe a better template for how this whole industry should work going forward where you don’t have five movies opening up on a weekend, and three of them do badly. Yeah. You know, maybe it’s best to have one or two and have them both find audiences that they both are trying to get. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:14

    Let’s talk about horror here because that we are in something we’re in we’re in the midst of a a mild horror boom right now. I mean, we we mentioned barbarian and smile. They not only opened better than expected, I think, but they did they have held well. Surprisingly well in the in the case of smile. I mean, smile is holding like get out held, you know, four or five years back.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:36

    So that that’s that is good news. But then you also have Halloween ends, which I think people looked at and were a little bit disappointed by the opening. It was open. It opened about I don’t know, twenty percent below tracking. People said, oh, well, maybe it was hurt by day and day.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:51

    What’s going on with horror? Why is horror still the only thing? That is that is really succeeding and getting folks out to the audit to the theater on a regular basis. And what happened with halloween ants? Do you think Okay.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:03

    So for right now, there’s really just two genres that you can take to the bank. And that is your big blockbuster Spectacles, mostly superhero movies, which we have talked ad nauseam about in this podcast and across many, many podcasts. And the other one is more. So why do these two genres survive when other things like romantic comedies, comedies in general, adult dramas? Why have those all gone by the wayside, and these two genres have really survived.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:30

    And it’s very simple. Watching a big spectacle in a theater and watching a whole movie in theater is much different than watching it at home. That simple. If you watch Top Gun at home, it’s much different than watching an IMAX screen. You watch Smile at Home.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:42

    You don’t have someone grabbing you next to you. You’re not screaming next to a stranger. You’re paying for that experience, which is, you know, why I think these movies have done incredibly well. Because they’re made for low budgets. And then they they force you to see them in theaters because you know what you’re getting.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:59

    At the end of the day, you know, what Hollywood really needs is more pre awareness. And that’s why you have such nostalgic things. That’s what brings in audiences to basically sell the movie. If I’m selling you smile, I basically say, it’s scary. You’re gonna have, like, you’re gonna be scared for two hours, but you’re gonna have a blast.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:19

    It’s gonna be like a it’s gonna be a theatrical haunted house. That’s an easy sell. You understand what that is. It’s usually, these movies are like an hour and a half to two hours long. Ding, bang, boom, in and out.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:29

    You have a great time, you get that blood rushing. And there’s also something psychological about horror that has to do with our society right now. And that when times are kind of scary in the real world, it’s actually kind of comforting to cathartic to be in a controlled horrific environment. We don’t know what’s going to happen with, you know, there’s wars going on, there’s political strife going on, there’s economic issues going on. There’s a lot of scariness in the real world that you cannot control.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:58

    I can control smile worst case scenario, if I really can’t take it, I just leave. I’ll just walk out. That’s a really good benefit to audiences. So now that brings us to how we meant, which was projected to bring in more than fifty million dollars. It brought in forty.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:15

    So where did that ten million dollars go? It’s very easy to say that, oh, well, people just stayed home and watched them on peacock. But with all due respect to peacock, it’s not Disney plus. It’s not Netflix. It’s hard pressed to find people outside of the Twitter sphere and out of the industry who really know what peacock is.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:33

    And my whole thing is, yes, people could have stayed home and I bet a lot of people did. But I would say, well, maybe the movie more is two other things that maybe aren’t getting disgusted enough about, and that’s one. It had a c plus cinema score. So what does that mean? That means that it doesn’t mean the movie was necessarily bad.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:51

    It means that it was not what people expected. And there’s I I haven’t seen Halloween dance yet. I’ve been trying to get to the theater to see it, but I’ve talked to some people who did it. And it sounds like it was not what a lot of people expected in terms of a finale to that franchise. But I think even bigger than a c plus cinema score, which can, you know, hurt box office returns.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:13

    We’re talking about diminishing returns here. The first Halloween opened to more than seventy million dollars in twenty eighteen, one of the biggest horror openings of all time. Then that, obviously, that was a pre pandemic, much different landscape. Last year, Halloween kills, once again, day in deep, open to close to fifty million dollars. This one open to forty.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:33

    At the end of the day, it’s like how many times can you watch Michael Myers stab somebody? What’s the thirteenth Halloween movie. It it loses freshness after a while. And even though this was, like, a epic conclusion, I don’t think it had the type of epic conclusion feel, let’s say, you know, some of, like, you know, the final fast and furious movie might have or endgame did. Where it’s like, I gotta see how this ends.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:56

    It’s like, you kinda got an idea that it’s gonna end either two ways, either Michael’s gonna go down. Or most likely since we’ve seen thirteen of these movies, he’s gonna find a way to survive. So I don’t want to place it all on streaming because last year we saw it it did pretty well and even over exceeded a little bit with the same exact playbook of going day and day. I think this movie was not what people expected. I think, ultimately, also just after a certain amount.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:23

    Even me, someone who loves Halloween Halloween is my the original Halloween is my favorite horror movie. I was just kinda, like, can I should I just stay home and watch this? Like, I’ve kinda got I kinda got the idea. Like, I kind of understand what this is. So that’s what I think really hurt it more than even just
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:39

    streaming. Yeah. I’m curious to see what the what the actual streaming numbers look like. Whatever whatever numbers we end up getting for from
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:45

    Some sources have told me that it’s it’s one of the biggest for peacock ever. So if you’re looking at if you’re looking at this from an a a b c universal standpoint, to win win. You know? Like, the movie brought in forty million dollars. It was budgeted at thirty.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:59

    All means to get to is probably, like, a hundred to a hundred fifty million dollars, which is not crazy to get to worldwide to become profitable. And then on top of that, you get this big benefits of peacock which is, you know, important to NBCUniversal. Yep.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:14

    Yeah. Another thing I think that people that need to keep in mind with this movie is that Halloween kills was not beloved, I would say. It was a lot of people who did not did not love that movie and and how we had ended. Which always ends up impacting the next film in the series. I mean, I you know, it’s funny whenever I tell people that Mission Impossible three has the worst gross of any Mission Impossible movie.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:36

    They always look at me like, what but that’s it went so good. It’s got Phillip Seymore Hoffman. It’s like, yes, but it came out for Mission Impossible two, which everyone hated. There’s been a reappraisal now. Everyone’s like, oh, the John Wu mission impossible.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:47

    That that’s great. At the time, I remember seeing it in theaters, and people were not we’re not stunned by it. So Yeah. I mean, the
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:55

    same thing happened with Fast and Furious. Fast and Furious four is not good. It’s a it’s a very it’s a tough movie. Fast Five comes out, and that’s kind of went against everything, changed the complete template. They went from street racers to international spies with the rock.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:08

    And then that’s how you get six, seven, eight. So it it depends. Like, sour taste in people’s mouths last because people are very cautious with their money. And if you saw Halloween kills and you didn’t like it, you’re just like, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna spend my money on something I’m not sure about that that’s the number one thing in Hollywood. It has been sustained one.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:27

    Yep. Alright.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:28

    So what are we what are we looking at for the next couple months here? Because I I we’re we’re getting back into block bus season. We’ve been in a blockbuster drought since basically Thor Love and Thunder came out at the beginning of July. But now we’ve got Black Adam coming out this weekend. The couple weeks after that, we got Black Panther two, we’re kind of forever.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:46

    And then new Avatar, new app new Avatar movie gonna sent us all back to Pandora. What are we what are we looking at at the box office? I
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:54

    think we’re looking at potentially two of maybe that top ten biggest movies of all time opening before the end of this year.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:01

    Whoa. That’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:02

    Yeah. Big prediction. Big prediction. Hot tip. I really do believe that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:08

    So let me start let me before I get to Wakanda and avatar, which is very easy to talk about. When we talk about a few other little things that are happening, so blackout is gonna be really interesting. You can throw rock and literally hit a photo of the rock as black Adam wherever you go. They are promoting the movie crazily. The rock is the hardest working guy in the business.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:28

    That should be interesting. I don’t know necessarily if it’ll be, like, DC is another one where it’s just, like, really hit or miss. I think it’ll depend on what the reviews are for that from both on social, from fans. The other interesting thing this weekend too is you have tickets to paradise. I wanted to talk about that a little bit because that’s George Cooney, Julia Roberts from manic comedy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:48

    And we’re coming off of Bose, which is probably the biggest mom of the year, and there was a lot of controversy about, like, you know, Billy Yacner said, you know, straight people didn’t come out for this movie blah blah blah. When my argument was, I don’t know if that’s the case, because if your movie opens four and a half million dollars. It’s not that straight people didn’t come out to support your movie. No one came out to support your movie. And it’s a much easier sell with Julie Roberts and George Cooney.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:12

    And I think it’s much easier to sell a movie by saying, hey, you like these people. Right? This is fun. Come see it rather than this is a groundbreaking movie you need to come see this. Support this type of movie being made.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:25

    And I’m curious to see if that does well. So now there’s a few movies like that opening in the next couple weeks that are going to be kind of like that, you know. But the biggest two going forward to get back to my prediction is we’re kind of forever. And let me start there. So Ocado forever opens next month.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:43

    I think that movie is gonna open to bigger than two hundred million dollars. I just I think it is. Because of two things. It’s it’s arguably probably the originals maybe one of the best films, and I do say films that Marvel’s ever made. Marvel’s made a lot of content.
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:00

    They haven’t made a lot of films. Ryan Cougar is one of the best directors in Hollywood. It’s a movie with a with mostly, you know, people of color cast. That’s very important. And it’s coming at a time when people have forgotten about going to the movies.
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:15

    They’ve gone to these smaller movies like smile and don’t read Darling and things like that. But this is the first event we’ve had since Thor eleven Thunder. And I think people are itching to see a movie and theaters of this level. Then there’s obviously the x factor, which is I know a lot of people who don’t even like Marvel, who are seeing this movie to see how they’re going to handle the tragic death of Chad Grossman as the main character. And I gotta be honest, I I get Disney credit here.
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:43

    They have marketed this movie beautifully. Everything they brought out. That first I was really iffy about this movie. I was just all summer long, I was kinda banging the drama of, like, I think Marvel has kinda peaked itself. And I think people there’s a lot of superhero fatigue, and then I saw that first trailer with Kentrick Lamar, and the Bob Marley, and this very, like, emotional field.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:03

    I’m gonna say, I I I gotta see this movie. This movie looks incredible. And I think every marketing material I’ve seen since then, it seems like the plot of this movie is, you know, Black Panther has died, and now the rest of the world is trying to take the resources of Wakanda, which is a really interesting movie and an interesting framing. And then on top of that, you have a new character with Namar who’s very popular among us Marvel fans who is the king of Atlantis. And you have this war going on.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:32

    It just seems really interesting and it seems like there’s a lot of secret behind it even more so than a normal Marvel movie. I just think the mixture of people desperate to see a big event movie. And I’d argue that there hasn’t been even a big event movie to this scale since Top Gun. Which was more of a surprise. This one has a bigger runway to not use a pun.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:52

    And then the Chad with Boseman x factor, it’s just gonna it’s gonna blow up in a big, big way. I really do leave that. And I think for Disney then, that it it it has about a month to do that. And I think anybody who wants to bet against James Cameron, go right ahead. People have been doing that for the last twenty years.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:13

    So I’m looking at the results of the rerelease of Avatar, which I saw at theaters again, and I kind of forgot. I kind of forgot why that movie is the biggest movie of all time because it is there’s a whole generation of people who’ve never saw that movie in theaters. Who don’t understand what the big deal is. They watched it on, you know, cable. They watched it on Disney plus.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:35

    And they’re just like, this this is kind of, like, pocahontas with blue people. I don’t get it. It seems lame. I mean, the action’s kinda nice, but whatever. When you see that movie in theaters, you leave you leave ours.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:46

    Like you just you just do. And, you know, I think that that is going to be a big, big thing for a lot of people who are gonna see this movie, people who are like seventeen, eighteen years old, who didn’t see the original theatres, who were gonna be like, this is I I’ve never experienced anything like this. And there’s gonna be an nostalgia factor for people my age thirty five, who did see the movie in theaters. And it’s like, wow, I’m going back to Pandora. And some of the footage I’ve seen, which I saw some at d twenty three, I saw some at the end of Avatar when they re released it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:17

    And I’ve never seen water scenes look like this. It’s really hard to do water. And the point that I try to convey to people is that you forget that this is a movie. You forget that it’s all not real that it’s all made in a warehouse. And I think James Cameron is one of our best directors ever.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:36

    And I think that we’re gonna see this have a huge, huge run over to January, February because there’s no movies really coming out and we could see people just keep coming back more and more and more. And I would not be shocked and mark my words if way of water and we’ll kind of forever somehow get into the top five biggest movies of all time. Do we
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:59

    have any idea if these movies are gonna get a release in China yet? I mean, I I know that’s always a a big question. What
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:06

    kind of I’m not sure about Avatar most likely about. And I think that’s a big part of it because China loves Avatar man. They they that movie just gonna do gangbusters over there. They re release it during, like, the height of the pandemic, and that’s when it took back title from Endgame. It’s just every time they re released this movie in theaters, people show up for it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:27

    And it’s wild to think about that because the movie’s two hours in, like, forty five minutes long. Yeah. And most of it is not like even like the type of actions that you’re used to. Like, I was I remember watching re releasing the movie, and just the flying sequences. I was like, this is incredible.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:46

    And, you know, I I think now, you know, weed is more legalized, so that should probably help it. I’ll just get into that one. But I think ultimately if that opens in China, I think it’s gonna be a huge hit. It will likely open in China from my my sources are telling me it will. I think there’s reporting out there that says it will.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:05

    So, yeah, my
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:06

    guess
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:06

    is is that Avatar is probably gonna become top five, and I would not be surprised if it kind of files it. And this year ends on an incredibly high note for for the movie industry. But we also need to be careful because I don’t see this movie opening up wave water opening to, like, two hundred million dollars. I see it opening to, probably, like, a hundred and maybe forty or fifty million dollars and then just having an incredible run over three months. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:35

    You mentioned I I wanna track back to something that you mentioned briefly just a a second ago. But you said that bros is the bottom of the summer — Yeah. — bum bum of the year.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:44

    Alright. Out of the year. Bigger flop, bigger flop than Amsterdam? Okay. So that’s a good question.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:54

    I would say they’re one in one a. Okay. So the thing is, is that if you go up to most people and say, hey, do you know what Amsterdam is? They’d be like the city and and the the European city, bros had this vibe around it that it could have done well. And I I would say, I First of all, I hate using the word bomb, so I should take that back because I I just hate it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:14

    I hate that. I think flop is a better word because it just comes with that connotation that it had expectations and then it just flopped. And that’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think any expectations came in to Amsterdam. I think whoever signed off on an eighty million dollar movie.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:30

    Like, that is Amsterdam. What are you doing? Think of it this way. Bose was made for very cheap. I think that only came with like a twenty million dollar budget.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:42

    And that and it’s going to struggle to make its money back. Yeah. Think about that. So, like, there was a lot of attention around it. And what sucks is is I haven’t seen Amsterdam, but I saw Rose.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:53

    I really liked Rose. It was really funny. It was actually surprisingly heartwarming. Especially for a Judd Apotab movie. Usually, those movies are more brachy than heartwarming.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:02

    Peter directed me producer, and she’s named Nicholas Stewart, who has made two of the best you know, comedies in the last twenty years with ForGainshare and Marshall and and Nabors. And I just think that ultimately it was it’s a bigger flop because it had the ability to be really a big hit. I don’t I think Amsterdam’s you know, ability to be a big hit was much less even though it had all these stars. I don’t think that stars matter as much anymore, as much as the vibe of a film. And I think the vibe of answering was like, hey, you like all these people.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:34

    They’re in this movie. While the vibe of Frozen was like, this could be a really important movie. It could be a surprising big hit and just it just didn’t get there, unfortunately.
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:44

    Yeah. Let’s let’s shift to talk about streaming just for a few minutes the the big the the the fight on everybody’s lips in the world of streaming, House of Dragon versus Rings of Power. Yeah. Where where do you come down on which of these shows have the bigger has had the bigger I mean, how some of the Dragon Stars one episode left rings power is? Wrapped up its first season.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:10

    Mhmm. I’m fully caught up on both. So I I don’t worry about spoilers with me. SMI. But but you know, Amazon was very excited for House of the Dragon and its its early numbers.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:21

    They were touting, you know, twenty five million, twenty million, you know, whatever users worldwide — Uh-huh. — watching it. Ring’s of power I’m I’m sorry. That was Ring’s power. How’s the dragon seems to have held better though?
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:34

    It seems to have be picking up audience as it goes. So where who who is who is winning in this this fight? So before
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:41

    I get my answer, let me let me get my disclaimer. I I work at Warner Bros. I work at Warner Bros. Discovery, which also owns HBO, which releases and produces House of the Dragon. Because the answer is House of the Dragon House of the Dragon.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:54

    And that’s not to say that Rings of Power is not a success. I think it’s a I think it’s a big success. I think they’re both really big successes. I just think that House of the Dragon it goes to show just how incredibly popular Game of Thrones was because that had a bigger hill to climb in my opinion. Because this we talked about bad taste in the mouth of movies like Halloween kills and that may have heard Halloween ends.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:20

    I don’t know if you can think of a bigger sour taste in people’s mouths over the last five years than how Game of Thrones kinda came to and I haven’t met one person who’s like, Yeah. That ended really well. I was really happy with it. How’s the dragon? It’s a completely different thing than than gaming thrones to a point where it kind of bugs me even a little bit because I kinda want Game of Thrones.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:38

    I want the many different families. I I’m not a huge fan of the Targaryens. This is more succession with dragons. And it’s worked really well for them. And I think the way you see this, and I I wrote a story about this, but basically, it’s not that it it just you know, premier to record numbers for HBO is that it’s gotten bigger over time.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:58

    And I think that really shows the quality of something is not just how big did it open to, but did it retain its audience. Now with Amazon and brings the power. It’s much harder to decipher their numbers. They keep it much closer to the best. I would also say that that had you know, that one’s gonna be fine.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:16

    I don’t think that’s gonna have a problem, but there is something here about it. It doesn’t feel like it’s very, like, dicey. And I think the reason why is because House of the Dragon is a better TV show. And what I mean by that is that it ends on these cliffhangers, it ends on these questions it it brings you back for more. It has you talking about them.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:35

    When it feels like, you know, Riggs of power has the has the disease that many of our pop culture has right now, which is like, just make a movie. Like, this isn’t a TV show, this is a nine hour movie. And I don’t think that people are really talking about it as much as they should be, especially for something that costs nearly five hundred million dollars for one season. Yeah. In terms including the rights to get Topian.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:01

    I will see how it keeps going, but in the first round of this battle, I’m giving it to House of the Dragon. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a company man. I’m saying that because, ultimately, I know more people who are talking about it. I I I see the data that shows that it’s growing. We week.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:17

    It’s definitely not Game of Thrones. I I think these are both a little bit diminishing returns from at the end of the day, I’d rather just watch Game of Thrones or Peter Jackson for rings that either of these shows, but I definitely think that House of the Dragon is the winner so far.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:31

    Yeah. I mean, the other
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:34

    The other
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:35

    thing that kind of keep in mind here, when when it’s funny when you mentioned, like, this should have been a movie instead of a TV show. Every the only thing I can think every time I watch greens of power and we get to, like, a big reveal or a big a big, you know, moment in the show is I remember seeing this from the first five minutes of fellowship of the ring. It’s a thirty hour it’s a
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:55

    thirty hour iteration of the first five minutes of fellowship of the ring. Like, And it’s weird because, like, the difference is is being how through Dragon. The surprises are are, like, story based. Right? Like, they’re just like, oh, I can’t believe that person, like, chopped that person’s head off.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:10

    Well, like, that dragon showed up in the middle of, like, a coronation. While the rings of powers do something, I a little very different that I haven’t seen before and also kind of unique but just doesn’t work for a TV based type of show, which works more for movies, which it’s like, It’s literally the Leonardo Caprio pointing at the screen mean, which it’s like, oh, is that Gandalf? Oh my god. Is that Elrond? Is that is that that character I know of, their their surprises are character based.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:38

    And I just think that’s a weird thing to do. And like I said, it just feels more like a movie. And to give the and the better way to do it, they’re both weekly releases. But I waited to watch pretty much all of Ring’s of Power over, like, a weekend while I’m watching House of Dragon week to week, I just think that even though both are released, I think that ultimately you know, one is better at being a television show than the other. And I think if that’s what your goal is, then how’s the dragon is the one who’s the victor there?
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:11

    Yep.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:11

    Yeah. Alright. Let’s let’s just touch on Netflix here for a second, a new ad tier. What are they what are they hoping for in terms of revenue and and new users from that? Because So we we were talking about this a little before the show.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:27

    But go go ahead. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:28

    So basically, I cannot describe a more nightmarish year for Netflix. Maybe in their history than this one. Literally in April, Reid Hastings was said something that he went was going against pretty much the entire history of Netflix, which is we’ll never have ads on this on this platform. And just in those six months, they’ve gone from never ever to Now it costs six ninety nine for our basic ad plan. They need revenue.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:54

    That’s that simple put. We’ve been talking I feel like the theme of this podcast has been, like, you know, you have these big numbers or is this thing profitable? And for the last five years, last decade really, Hollywood has been based on everything from streaming to movies to even television shows. It’s like, give me the numbers. You know, NFL brought in this much many TV ratings.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:15

    Marvin will be opened this big. Netflix has this many subscribers. And we’re seeing a transition now to more focus on ROI? What’s your revenue? What’s your profit?
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:26

    Are you bringing in money? Is that enough money for you to grow? And that’s what Netflix is really trying to do with this ad this ad plan, this ad strategy. But I have two major issues with it, which is I don’t know if this brings in new people. I think it brings in subscribers already who are paying fourteen dollars for Netflix and they’re like, oh, I can just pay six dollars for this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:48

    That’s fine. That’s what I think this is worth to me. And the other issues I don’t think people are talking about a lot, which I think is gonna become a major headache. Going forward is Netflix has always been artist friendly, artist friendly, artist friendly. We saw this latter in the Dave Chappell controversy with his stand up specials where it’s just like we support artists and whatever they say, and we’re gonna get people.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:09

    We’re not you know, Netflix is is is known for not giving notes to directors, like, do whatever the hell you want. You can’t do that if you have advertisers. If you have advertisers, advertisers are going to, you know, kind of, like, maybe be, like, we don’t want our our, you know, advertising on this product. And do I think that they’re gonna immediately start You know what? We got a really sensor stuff here at Netflix now.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:34

    I think it’ll be a slow drip. But if you have advertised, this is what broadcast television and to a certain extent cable have had to deal with for decades where it’s just like ads paid to bills and if advertisers don’t like your content, because you just kind of having a free for all, that’s gonna cause a problem. And how does that impact creators who have gone to Netflix specifically? And I’m talking about David Venture. I’m talking about March crusade.
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:02

    I’m talking about Ryan Murphy and Shout to Ryan. All these creators who went there because they had the creative freedom that the traditional places didn’t have. Because they were tied to ads and they were tied to the tradition systems. How does that impact creators? And are we going to see creators now basically go, well, if I’m going to have to deal with, you know, my stuff getting notes or censored or pulled back on, I might as well just go to the traditional guys that I know as well because I don’t know what the hell Netflix is doing.
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:28

    Yep. What do
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:30

    we think is the impact of knives out hitting theaters for a week. I mean, because I I I look at this deal and I don’t see I don’t see any difference between this and the release they did for the gray man. Yeah. Or the release they did for army of the dead or red notice except for the fact that it seems to be in a few more theaters, but it’s still it’s still a one week thing there I I will I will believe that they are advertising this like they mean it when I see it. And I haven’t seen it yet.
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:00

    So what do what do we think what do we think that this this actually means for Netflix in theaters. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:07

    think it is simultaneously a big deal and not a deal at all. That is how I feel about it. And what I mean by that is It’s not a deal at all because we’re only talking about six hundred theaters here across Cinemark, Legal, AMC. That’s nothing. Most you know, I mean, I think top gonna hit four thousand screens.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:22

    Like, it’s not a huge release. We’re not gonna see Netflix, like, start marketing the hell out of this. The reason I do think it’s a big deal, however, is I think it’s really interesting template for how streamers and traditional theatrical can come together because basically what Netflix is doing is having theatres kind of market this movie for them. And I don’t mean, like, in this traditional sense, like, you’re gonna see AMC, like, basically, be like, come see knives out. But just in the fact that it’s eight meters, you’re going to have people because we’re all listed.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:57

    We all have lizard brains. And at the end of the day, if I say to a friend of mine, like, I saw this movie. I’m seeing this movie this week and they go, oh, can I watch it on Netflix? And I’m like, no, you gotta wait a month. People are gonna go like, well, screw that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:11

    I don’t wanna be left out. I don’t wanna watch this movie now. And you’re basically paying a premium to see it a month early. If this movie opened two weeks later, I don’t think it would have really I I would have been like, okay, whatever. They’re just kind of like dipping their toes in to try out the answer.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:26

    A month’s a really long time, so a key for a murder mystery movie that has, like, potential spoilers to it. And I think this goes back to why a lot of, like, movies like Marvel do really well that first week and why Game of Thrones always does well on Sunday night. You don’t want to be left out of the conversation. And Knives Out has a really loyal following. I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t like Knives Out.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:44

    I like Knives Out. In I’ve heard nothing but good things about glass onion. I think it’s a big deal because I think if this works and we won’t know it works because Netflix is not gonna give up box office now. Right. But if, you know, theaters are happy and Netflix is happy, this could be an olive branch to maybe the next film being a thousand theaters and then fifteen hundred, then two thousand.
  • Speaker 2
    0:39:07

    And I don’t think it hurts Netflix at all because you can still wait till January I’m not January. December twenty third to watch the movie with your Netflix subscription. But for the freaks of us like me and you who wanna see everything in theaters, especially in this movie, we’re gonna pay the premium because we already probably have seventeen season passes. We might as well just work. And I think that’s really interesting.
  • Speaker 2
    0:39:32

    And I I think it’s a really big I think it’s a good step. It’s a you you got a crawl before you can walk, and this is a good crawl. Yeah. I
  • Speaker 1
    0:39:39

    as you know, I always like to close by asking if there’s anything I should have asked. What do you think folks should know about? What’s going on in the the industry right now, Frank, what what is something I forgot in my foolishness and haste to ask? We kinda talked about it a little bit, and I I always look at this and I always hate
  • Speaker 2
    0:39:56

    this question because I never know. And I’m just like, now I’m gonna take it. It’s like, what’s the theme that I’m trying to get at for when we talked to each other three, six months, a year from now since you don’t call me enough anymore. I think everything that all everything that was old is new again. I think that is what we’re gonna see I think we’re starting to see this at WBD where I work more for this discovery, where it’s we’re starting to see this at Disney a little bit, starting to see paramount where what I mean by it is we’re starting to see people go was going all in on streaming the right strategy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:28

    And I think most of these, you know, CEOs and studios are going, no. But I don’t think they’re going to throw the baby out with a bathwater either. I think they’re realizing streaming is what always was, which is a tentacle of a bigger monster. And I think we’re going to see in the next couple months more of a pullback. Like, we’re already starting to see, like, I’ll bring up Disney, for example.
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:50

    Armor what what is the name of the Marvel movie with Don Chico, Armor or something? Armor Wars. Arm rewards. Yes. They’re putting that in theaters.
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:58

    That was a movie. That was a Disney plus series they’re putting in theaters. And I saw that as a huge signal from Disney basically going like, listen. We love Disney plus. Disney plus is our most important asset in our portfolio right now.
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:11

    But we also really like making money. And I think we’re gonna start seeing this kind of pullback from studios just a little bit, not too much of this this is a way for us to make money. And we’re not gonna just give that up because you know, analysts and investors are telling us that this is the future. I think the future is always what the past is, which is how do you make money? Does this thing make us money?
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:38

    If it doesn’t, well, let’s keep making money the way we always have. It’s about it’s about future proofing, but I don’t think we’re gonna see as much you know, embracing the future as we have in the past have in the last ten years. I think we’re gonna start seeing the fever break a little bit and kind of the studios get a little bit less high their own supply. No. Frank,
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:58

    thanks for as always for being on the show. You can see his you can read his stuff at cnn dot com. He’s he is on the TV, go go watch and read. Frank Puloda, I am Sunny Bunch, culture editor at The Bulwark, and I will be back next week with another episode of The Bulwark goes to Hollywood. See you guys then.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:22

    Get an inside look at Hollywood with Michael Rosenbaum. Let’s get inside Deborah
  • Speaker 1
    0:42:28

    Ann Wall. If you have to choose with between true blood daredevil to do again. Partially because the Marvel
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:34

    series feel unfinished to me because we got canceled when we thought we were gonna have more. Whereas true blood, we did get to wrap it up. I knew that we were wrapping it up. I could say goodbye to everyone. I stole something from a set I know I didn’t gonna steal anything from our daredevil set.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:48

    Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum, wherever you listen.