Box Office Analysis and Superhero Fatigue

This summer, fan dool is the best place to bet on goals. Including equalizers. Uhuh Vollies? Y, Petters. Every goal is worth more on fan du. So let there be goals. New customersk get up to one thousand dollars in bet reset tokens when you bet five dollars five daily. Total one plus and present in select states often required, Refund issed is n not withdrawal bonus bets that expire seven days after receivt. M minimum five dollarars wage are required for five consecutive days. Max refund two hundred dollars per day. restestrictions apply including token expiration, seatful terms at fan dool dot comot slash sportsbook gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred my reset This episode of the Town is presented by HBO Max. For your awwards consideration, Max presents Hacks, the Emmy Aard winning series starring Gean Smart and Hannah Einbinder In the aftermath of mistaken news reports that Deborah passed away She and Ava return to Las Vegas, determined to secure Deborah's legacy as a comedian Don't miss the series Variety is calling one of TV's best comedies ever Hax is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now It is Friday, june twenty sixth Throughout the ongoing saga, Paramount buying Warner Brothers There's been one figure quietly hovering over everything Larry Ellison. He does no media interviews and is rarely photographed, and he's been one of the richest men in the world for decades now as the founder of Oracle Ellison used to make headlines for his extravagant malibu homes or buying Hawaiian island or bankrolling the Indian Wells tennis tournament, America's Cup sailing competition But these days at eighty one years old, he's in the news mostly because he's helping his son David buy two legacy Hollywood studios and roll them up into what the Ellisons hope will be a technology empowered media mega studio that can incredibly take on Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and the others And to do so, Larry has leaned hard into his relationship with Donald Trump He's always been a Republican donor, but we learned in the Wall Street Journal this week that just before David's Sky dance media went after Paramount, Larry quietly made more than forty five million dollars in donations to Trump's election campaign He's donated more since, and he's also cultivated a close friendship with the fellow Octogenarian billionaire who seems to share a political and social worldview with the Elder Ellison So much so that to understand the Trump Larry relationship is to sort of understand why the president has been such a cheerleader for the Ellison's owning paramount and why the Trump Justice Department just gave an OK to the Warnermount merger pretty much site unseen. I've been curious about the Larry anngle. So I asked Emily Glazer to come on the show. pure a surpriz winning reporter, the Wall Street Journal, our second journal reporter this week, sort of a coincidence. She co wrote that story on Larry Ellson and she covers powerful people as her beat So today it's the Larry Angle on the Warermmount merger and the personal relationship behind the biggest deal in Hollywood history. From the Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Belleney, and this is the Town We are here with Emily Glazer, who is an enterprise reporter at the Wall Street journal and a genuine honest to God Pulitzer prize winner. Welcome. I'll take that welcome any day. Thanks, Matt. You know, the Pulitzer commommittee never gets back to us. We submit our box office draft every year. and nothing. I'm still waiting. Lucas is very disappointed I wish I could tell you I had an amazing inn, but I'm not powerful. Someeday Maybe this episode, Someday, we'll use your clout. Right. it could all change after this. All right, so we have you on today because I want to talk about the Larry angle in the Paramount Warner Brothers Larry, I mean, Larry Ellison. Where is he now on the list of richest people? Is he still top ten? He is still top ten. So for a hot second, he was number one, as you can imagine with Elon and the spaceX IPO, he is notot number one anymore, but you are you and I are on the same page because I did pull up the Bloomberg Billionaires index before this podcast. and he's number six, according to them behind Elon Larry Page, the other Larry, Sergei Bra, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell a whopping two hundred and eleven billion. Sad for Larry. He needs to pick up the pace. We need to get him into that top five. We'll share that. He is above Mark Zuckerberg though. That must feel good. I want to have you on because Larry has always been painted during all of these discussions around the deal as sort of a periphery figure At least from the Hollywood perspective, this has been David Ellison's show Obviously Paramount is very interested in promoting. This is David' show. He's making all the decisions. He's the mastermind behind all this. But then You and your colleagues at the journal dropped this story this week essentially painted a picture that was a little different than what has been out there Larry First of all has kind of greased the wheels here with a Undisclosed forty five million dollars donation to the Trump campaign. otherther Heretfore undisclosed donations after that He's had several meetings with Trump And is sort of at least how I read your story, been the, if not the puppeteer behind this, certainly a big and powerful voice beyond just putting up the money and guaranteeing this one hundred and ten billion dollars. Am I right in that reading? I think you are, I mean, you know There's always the nuances around it, but Here I would say Larry is not just the money man, although he obviously has an insane amount of money and the money has helped. But when it comes to Larry Allllison and President Trump actually a genuine friendship and they genuinely like each other. You think that does a guy like Larry have any real friends? I truly do. So Let let me like paint this for you a little bit. Okay. These are friends with benefits and a different kind than what we're usually. Don't say that I' gonna go for I'm sorry sor Friends with business benefits Larry, Ellison, and Donald Trump, from what I hear from what my sources tell me, genuinely enjoy spending time together. Trump just turned eighty, Larry is eighty one. I'm not saying they're friends, just because then they're eighties. I'm just trying to like paint a little picture for you. They have similar ideological beliefs They actually have things that they get along about. And I think that what I've heard is that Trump doesn't just view Larry as someone that like needs something from him, even though he does. But like Larry's got his own power, he's got his own money, he's got his own influence, he has his own relationship. So I feel like I don't want tona say they're equals, but I think that in some cases, like there is actually genuine connection that they have, which when I learned that, I was like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. And that was kind of a kernel for me of exploring this more. It's funny you say that because I'm thinking now to this new book that just came out, regime change which has some pretty entertaining moments in it where Trump is showing off the fact that he's getting text messages from all of these billionaire tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, you don't hear in that book Trump making fun of Larry Ellison And they do talk a lot. I know for a fact they talk on the phone quite a bit. They also see each other. Larry Ellison officially changed his his like residence to Florida just about twenty minutes south of Mar aago. He still has his Hawaii residence, but he's got this like huge compound very close to Palm Beach. So they're physically close, but they also do talk on the phone a lot And to your point about what's the deal with paramount, you better believe that they were on the phone around a lot of the ins and outs and shenanigans as that went down. And that's some of what we report Yes. And when you mention that they have ideological shared beliefs. What do you mean by that? Is it just Israel because we all know Larry is a big supporter of Israel. And in fact, some of my reporting I've done suggests that That, not the Trump stuff. That is really the ideological driver of a lot of this stuff at CBS News, where they taken the direction of CBS News in a very different way with Barry Weiss and even the entire kind of goal of the company. they they feel very strongly, both Larry and David that there needs to be a a protector of Israel in the media So And kudos to your reporting. I've seen a lot of that great reporting. There's Definitely an Israel connection. Obviously, Trump's relationship with BB right now is much more fraught than it has been, but they do have a longstanding rapport. Larryot and Netanyah who have a longstanding rapport. There's that connection. But it's not just that. My understanding is that they also both have a shared dislike for some mainstream media to travel back in time quite a bit when Larry was really in like the heyday of his tech years, he got a ton of press and I've been told over the years that he just absolutely despises that and like really eschewes a lot of that. So's always it's very interesting to see David building this media conglomerate when it's something that Larry hases especially with legacy media is like really not a big fan of most of those organizations. And so I think that's something that he and Trump bond over. And I think that they also genuinely both have, like I said before, they're kind of like from a similar generation. They both have a lot of money, they both have a lot of power. They both need things from each other, but I think they both have a shared respect for one another. It's very odd. I mean, it's always really interesting when you see friendships at this level of power because I think people are always used to when you have a lot of money or power, like someone wants something. There's got to be like the favor or the ask. Their rapport has that, but there's also been all these bumpy years too and money at least has solved that for Larry Ellison So it's not always been a pretty friendship. Yeah, I've always thought that Larry, who's by all accounts, extremely intelligent, sort of identified Trump as a useful idiot. could cozy up to and get a lot of out of unlike previous presidential regimes where he could not and in fact Larry has had other candidates that he's supported not Donald Trump and has managed to kind of win his way back into the good graces. I just don't I think I'm more cynical. I just have a hard time believing that a guy like Larry Elson wants to hang out Donald Trum So Honestly, I'm having flashbacks a little bit of I remember yearsars ago, I was talking to Andrew R Sorgan and he was like grilling me about this article I wrote about Elon Musk potentially becoming an adv a political advisor to Donald Trump. Sould Donald Trump win? And he was like, I don't believe it, I don't believe it. And I was like, no, this is like a real thing. And I will tell you, Matt, I'm having some flashbacks here. L I really also is I am a very skeptical person. I am a very paranoid person Fust like, you know, ask anyone who knows me. I'm always just like wondering like could that be true I think they genuine I think that Donald Trump and Larry Ellison like genuinely like each other. But that's not, I mean, that's so simple, right? This is obviously just way more complex than that. And let's not forget In the nineteen nineties and two thousands, Larry Ellison was like a huge Clinton guy. Oh ye Okay? Like Bill Clinton spoke at this big orracle event. I was looking up this story from, I think it was like two thousand one where there were all these reports that there were rumors that Larry wanted Bill Clinton to join the Oracle board. So like Even though we all think of Larry Ellison as this like Trump guy and Republican, which he has been for a number of years. You know, you mentioned he supported other candidates. He was a huge backer of Tim Scott going into the twenty twenty four presidential race, onlyn switched to Trump, only gave that forty five million donation toward his reelection once, at least our understanding is once he saw that the writing was on the wall and Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. But going back to twenty sixteen, he was a Marco Rubio supporter. So like he's popped around. I just think it's interesting that he's also supported Democrats like back in the day as has. That is widely known. David Ellison. Yeah, David gave to the Harris Biden campaign And he also has given to other Democrats. He was like a fixture on the LA. Democratic fundraiser circuit. Although pointedly, he has not given to either party in the Trump years And now he's a fixture. He's a fixture at the UFC Yes. now U So we'll get into that. I just remembered when I saw Gavin Newsom a party in DC for the correspondence dinner I said I asked him what he thought of Larry Ellson and he's like He just like rolled his eyes like donon't even get me started on that guy It seemed like there was a long history between the two of them I got, I feel like I need to like pull up the federal election commommission records and see if there's anything there. I'm sure. But any of the good stuff would not be there, right? And Oracle is so heavily invested in California. I'm sure he's annoyed by the taxes and all the, all the stuff that there's We couldn't even start this conversation without being like, and then they're annoyed about the billionaireress tax like come on O of course All right, so let's take this towards Paramount and now Paramount Warner Brothers because ye. I want to know and just getting into the psychology of Larry Is this just? His son, his only adult son wants to do this and he is going to do everything in his power to make sure his son fulfills his dream of owning a big media company. or Is Larry the mastermind here and sees a roll up of media assets, combined with what he can do with the technology angle at Oracle, combined with what he is building with TikTok now And he is the one who sees this in the big picture and that this could be a real media Powerhouse definitely more the latter than the former, as I presume you know. Let's take each piece of that apart for a moment as is widely out there Larry Ellison and David Ellison have not just had some like happy go lucky father son rapport their whole lives. think it's as simple as Larry just trying to do this to like please his son or repair anything with his son. I have not heard that I do think that Larry is an absolute mastermind. I've heard that he is someone, even when I've talked to people that have worked with him at Oracle over the years, that is amazing as like a strategic mind and connecting the dots. And even now he's executive chairman and like chief technology offfficer, he's still calling the shots at Oracle, Sorry to the Oracle, co CEOs and staffer cats. I'm just saying, that's what I have heard I am sure, you know, day to day it's always different, but he's still extremely powerful and he's still very Um thoughtoughtful and putting a lot of effort into what he sees as the future of media and tech. And I think that it's very poignant that you mention TikTok and that you also mention the media elements of this because for many years, you know, Larry's been the Oracle guy. and it's sort of been this like kind of boring big tech company, but like very B to B, you know, it's not as sexy as like a Facebook or Google or even what like, you know, Elon's building the SpaceX or Tesla, you know, it it's kind of been able to do its own thing and largely stay out of the news. I think a lot of that is by design And he has tiptoed more and more into these other elements of media and technology where they overlap. and administration has helped him a lot along the way. And it's not just getting, you know access and running this US part of TikTok. It's not just Oracle getting in on Stargate and getting access to this massive AI project. I mean, there's government contracts that Oracle has gotten. and it's not just what's happened with CBS, what's happened with Paramount, what's happened with Warner Brother. Like there's just so many elements of this So yes, I think we should give a lot of credit to Larry Ellison is a very long way to answer your question then the other question is why didn't he bankroll more of this certainly has the money Why force them to go out and get Saudi money, Abu Dhabi money, Qatari money And in the original deal, he wasn't even going to backstop it Ultimately, he came in and guaranteed a lot of these loans and the overall deal But I was wondering if you're that rich What are you doing dealing with this other money? Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall in those conversations, Matt? I'm sure you have been a little bit. I know. I'm asking you things that are unknowable. I think that with anyone who is extremely wealthy, there's only so much liquid cash to go around number one Um So there's just like that part of it to consider. Well, and the Ogon stock is dictating a lot of this and it has come down significantly since the highs a year or two ago So his personersal wealth fluctuates a lot. It's funny. I had some readers, Wall Street Journal readers or maybe they just found this on the internet after that were like Yeah, we saw that story, but did you see Oracle's stock is down? So like really none of this matters? I was like, okay, that's one way to look at it So yeah, I just think no matter how wealthy you are, there's always how much of that cash is liquid. I think that's the best answer I could give to that. Otherwise, I wish I had the magic ball and like you better believe I wish I were in on all those conversations. But listen, like Larry is spending his money in lots of different ways. And part of why we wrote the story is that there's a lot more money he's spending toward Trump and Trump efforts than was known. And so he's not putting all his money in the paramount basket, that would be really odd if he did, right? It would be. It would be very odd. So I get it. It's you know, and you don't get to where he is without making smart deals and he probably wanted to provide just enough financing with Redbird and with the others to make this happen without providing a penny more I guess there's a reason why he is where he is, you know This episode is brought to you by Fanual Predicts. You can predict the summer soccer showcase action all the way to the final match, with Fan dual predicts All you have to do is sign up to get your twenty five dollars bonus From the opening game to the final whistle, stay locked in with every pass, every goal, and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion Sign up now for your twenty five dollars bonus on fanual Predicts. 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Or they think they do Be though they have the same name, they've got a whole new energy. to the global icon status and upgraded pretty much everything else We're talking modern rooms with real reset mode vibes Spaces that feel like your living room, just a little more low key chic And dining done right, from breakfast to dinner and drinks. Whether you're traveling for work or getting away for a minute, it's comfort that hits different. So yeah, holiday In. It's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day at holiday In d. com So let's get into some of the things in your story. someome of the additional things that were surprising to me about Larry and David. One thing that surprised me was the willingness of David Ellison to contact board members or at least one board member of Paramount. Before he owned the company to try to get this Trump litigation settled That was unknown to me and suggested that there was u that he has sort of he had sort of like, laimed clean hands on that one That happened before his time at the company David has said, this was a Sherry Redstone thing. They decided to pay off Trump to get his blessing for the Paramount acquisition by Skydance And now we learn that he was behind the scenes pushing for that. Paramount downplaying that, but it seems like pretty active there We're getting spicy.. So first of all, I just want to note that I wrote this story with two incredible colleagues, Anmny Linsky, White House reporter and Jessica Tunkel, who is a senior media and tech reporter. I have to shout out my colleagues because so much of the reporting here is like a team effort, not to sound corny, but I just wanted to say that. So let's travel back in time as you started to bring us, David Ellison You know, he was his company then was Sky Dance. They're in the midst of merging with CBS' owner, Paramount. He meets with Trump at this UFC event Al twenty twenty five. Brokkered by Ari Emanel Gight. Let's not forget that. Don't forget Ari is there. Ari is the where's Waldo in all of these deals. Love it I love that And so o, and sorry, And Elon Musk is also inside, I think with a child, one of his children, ex. And behind the scenes, we report that David Ellison was getting pretty frustrated as he was waiting for this regulatory approval for the merger. And Paramount has negotiated a high stake settlement with Trump And again, Trump had filed this lawsuit against CBS because of the alleged deceptive editing of the interview with then VP Kamala Harris. Sorry, I just want to set the stage here for those that are not familiar with this. Unless we forget. So around this time, David Ellison calls a paramount director named Barbara Brne And he is on this call expressing his frustration because he was very eager for this merger to close And he heard it would take forty nine point five million dollars to settle. And this is according to our sources Brurn then tells Ellison they should not be talking and goes to inform Paramount's general counsel And the board about this. This is all according to our sources. Y they paid it. What was the ultimate number? forty five? In july twenty twenty five, Paramount settled for sixteen. Oh dollars. R. That one was sixteen. Yes. And the merger was approved by regulators soon after. So it's actually a fraction of that forty nine point five mill So Barbara told the Wall Street Journal in a statement David called to Vent about how protracted the settlement process had become. There was no intend to transmit information, intervene, or collude in the settlement. In fact, the settlement negotiations were well known to us as the company was negotiating via outside counsel with the plaintiff's counsel. through a mediator Love it Just excellent work on all sides. Yeah, hot tip to my colleagues on that. So they're just not doing themselves any favors when it comes to the appearance of corruption. I don't want to use the corruption word. I just want to like the close ties. You don't want to use it, but you did say it. I did say it, but then but then I qualified it by saying, I don't want to call it corruption. I just want to call it an extremely close relationship that has emerged. between this very wealthy powerful family and the head of the government that they need prove the creation of a massive media company Is that a fair way to assess it? Yeah, I mean, a big question is like, is this the way that business is done these days Is this being normalized? Is it not? I mean, so much of why we're writing this story is to like connect some of these dots. And look, I'm not naive. I think that you know you could ask anyone whether it with Democratic presidents or Republican president. There's always money that changes hands from companies to administrations in different ways. lobbyists have their job for a reason. N even saying that doesn't happen, but the scale here the amount of money. And by the way, it wasn't just the forty five million dollars that Larry Ellison wrote to Trump's twenty twenty four reelection campaign. We also report that Larry has given millions since then, and some of that money has gone toward Trump's legacy projects. So there's millions that are really coming through here. It's the scale of the money, and then there's some very clear what seemed to be advantages that that are happening. And as you pointed out earlier, it's not like one company. It's so fascinating. there's like different big large companies here that are doing pretty well. And I don't want to be naive either. I mean, I obviously we're not going to be naive on this podcast, Matt okay. We are not. This kind of stuff does happen. It's just usually a little more laundered or discreet as with everything with Trump. It just everything seems to be out in the open now And Well it is, but it isn't because don you know, don't forget these millions were not out in the open. I didour federallection Commission. You know, I was that person, like I'm sure there was a faster way for AI to do this, but I also really did manually look to make sure I wasn't missing anything. So this was dark money. and this is not the first time that someone to use like C fours and not disclose political donations in different ways Yeah, it's it's different. and that's what we hear from people. It's different. It's more money, there's more closeness. There's also like different ways to give because there are all these different legacy projects now. It's not just like this one C four that everyone just gives to. It's like there's all these different buckets. So yeah, it's a pretty it's the wild West out there right now. So ultimately does any of this matter? That's the real question like will These machinations ultimately Come back to haunt them. I doubt it I mean, this there are this antitrust case that the California attttorney generenal spring and The problem here is that None of this is antitrust, really It just kind of smells terrible, but like the the underlying antitrust case is like from everything I've read, like not that strong Let's not have a short memory about Larry Ellison also tapping his ties to the White House because the Department of Justice had launched a probe into whether Netflix engaged in anti competitive tactics when Netflix was trying to do the deal with Warner Brrosers and that ultimately chilled that Netflix deal and cleared the path for the Ellison led Paramounted. So I know that's like old news now, but like that happens. Well, it chilled it, but I don't think that's what really stopped it. I think the fact that Paramount came over the top and outbid them was the bigger factor, but I guess They saw problematic path for themselves at Netflix and dropped out. I agree. I'm not saying it's the only thing I'm just saying Larry Eison had ties to the White House and this DOJ probe, like that those are just not isolated situations. So if you're like Elizabeth Warren, Or any of the antitrust people, are you just waiting for Congress to turn to go after Paramount, Warner Brothers? God, I'm gonna be so annoying with this. I'm sorry. I wonder if the bigger question is and what I hear from a lot of my sources, whether it's paramount or other sectors, is whether the Democrats are going to take power in the House or the Senate come November or both, and then what will happen with not just a deal like this, but a lot of other deals because there have been a lot of deals that have gone through very quickly. There's been a lot of business practices that have happened. Obviously, it's no secret. This is a much a lower regulatory environment that businesses and companies are very happy about. And I'm not saying whether that's good or bad. All I'm saying is I know companies are thinking we might have just a couple months to go before things could change. So what do we need to do to get our stuff over the finish line and be in the clear? have to imagine Paramount' having some of those conversations too And look, we know David Ellison has made his case for the deal to various state agGs. like it's not just on the federal side. he's like working his, you know, his connections and trying to get you know, approval and trying to get people to be on his side elsewhere in government. Um And You know, time will tell. I hate saying that, but it's true. I get it. And it seems like that's where we are where this is the normal for right now, but it could change. and I just wonder what The Democrats can actually do once these deals are consummated. Not very much. I don't think. Yeah. I mean, the Democrats have to first organize their party Um, And there's so many other things after that, but let we should just stop there because that has to happen first. Yeah, we'll see. All right. well, this is all fascinating. appppreciate you coming on and give us your insights. We are officially submitting this one for a pulitzer. I love it. I'll try to get as much intel on that as I can. Thank you, Matt. Thank you We are back with the call sheet, Creg, first a little accountability. Big squeaker last weekend with Toy Story I took the over on one and sixty and on Sunday, the estimate was exactly one and sixty and then brutal kick in the nuts on Monday morning. The actuals came in And it was one fifty nine point seven. for the weekend. So I will take the loss on Toy Story We also said that we felt like it would get into the one hundred sevententyies. We thought it would blow past one hundred sixtyies. So it is a real We did. I know. I was a little too bullish. I am frankly a little surprised it wasn't higher even though it's an amazing opening. But this weekend, we've got the opposite of that. We've got a franchise that seemeems to not be connecting Supergirl. Tracking is at about fifty, honestly This one I mean, what are the comps for this? We can't go back to Captain Marvel or Wonder Woman, right? That was one hundred fifty three for Captain Marvel and one hundred three for Warner for Wonder Woman. That was twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen, like completely different time. Now it's like I don't know if you want to compare it to the Marvels, the sequel to Captain Marvel to Thunderbolts. I don't know what The point the fact that there's no comp is the point, which is we're in such a weird place right now and I've I stand by the fact that I think the Marvel and the DC superhero universe is heading towards the cliff and will probably end up being a good thing long term. but I think is where we are right now. Even if Avengers Doomsday is big, I don't think that means superheroes are back. If I'm Peter Saffrin and James Gunn at DC, this is not the movie I want coming out right before the company is sold to Paramount and the Paramount people are deciding my fate going forward. Yeah, also I don't know, like going in, I feel like this was just sounded like a risk the second it was announced. A supergirl movie with a Star who's, you know, not super famous yet, even though she's I heard she's good in the movie, but this just felt like a long shot. from the beginning Yeah, and they thought by planting it in Superman that that movie was well received and did okay, ended up, you know, open to one hundred twenty five and ended up in like, I believe it was almost eight hundred. No, six something worldwide They thought that that was all they needed and that they could reset the franchise and then start coasting Turns out people want quality every time. The rot tomato score on this one is low. The metacritic is, I think below fifty at this point And I'm going to take the under on fifty million. I will take the under two. I'm honestly, I'm not even that sure how quality dependent it is. Obviously that matters. I just think The superhero storyline is stale. It's been going on for almost twenty years.'s There are natural ebbs and flows to things, you know, in genres in Hollywood. And I just think we're at the end we're at an ebb right now So you're not excited for Clayface in the fall, an R rated DC movie U mayaybe that'll do better. Maybe it'll play more horror and people will go see it because it's all rated and like the ceiling will be lower, but people will like it But these like big broad stududio, superhero movies. I just feel like it's gonna be really hard. Even if doomsday is holding on for dear life and hits a billion and a half. I don't feel confident that like the next ten years are just going to be filled with great superhero movies Well, sad for DC because that's kind of the only value that they have. but I do think they could be reinvented. I do think it's quality. I think if it's cool it's cool and good and resonates, then people will show up. This one just feels lazy and I haventen it. haven'ten the premi was in New York It does feel lazy. They did a good job hiding it I will say as of like Tuesday, I had not talked to anyone who had seen it And I was asking around. And finally after the premiere, people started to see it lo and behold, the late Critical embargo classic there They put out a story in the trades about how lucrative all the marketing partnerships were. The big tell was that Craig Gespie, the director. He announced his next project or a project that he is loosely attached to A day before the reviews for this movie came out. It's a Glenn Powell movie. He's like, I got something lined up. I got something lined up. It feels like it's a rockking a hard place. You say, oh, it needs to be new and good and people will go see it. But the only way people go to the movie is if it has the old stars, which is the Doomsday approach. So how do you make it new and cool with the same actors? That is the challenge of the superhero universe these days and we'll see Spider Man is about to come out. It's going to be gigantic. So we'll probably be talking differently then. All right, that's the show for today. I want tona thank my guest, Emily Glazer, producer Crag Horllbeck, artitor, Johon Jones and Jesse Lopez, and I wanna thank you. We will see you next week Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to twenty degrees hotter. Stay cool, and save up to fifty percent off custom window treatments during the fourourth of July mega saale at blinds dot com. From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. 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