Box Office Predictions for The Mandalorian

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And make laundry day easier with two in one washer dryer combo innovation that completes laundry in about ninety minutes Shop topop brand appliances now at the Home Depot. offer about june seventeenth to julyeth, US N C Store online for details It is Thursday may twenty first As long as I've been covering the entertainment business, the politics of Hollywood have been almost totally separate from the politics of the physical place where Hollywood is located Many of the big industry players, most of them Democrats, and a lot of them transplants from elsewhere. They raise money for Senate campaigns in Michigan or Pennsylvania, but largely ignore state and local races here in LA And for the most part, the feeling has been mutual California politicians have always taken Hollywood as a job creator for granted. state production incentives, which have become so important in the business, have typically hit a wall in the California legislature. And local politicians have made it complicated and onerous and expensive to shoot in the city contributing to the exodus of jobs over the past few years That's all kind of changing now. If you listen to the candidates, especially those running for governor and mayayor of LA They love Hollywood now Each of the major contenders for Governor wants to increase state production incentives, which were already raised to seven hundred fifty million per year by Governor Newsom All the major candidates for mayayor in LA are talking about bringing back these Hollywood jobs Of course, they were largely silent as the jobs left in the first place, but there's definitely a feeling that Hollywood is a winning political issue now Just yesterday, Aoti, the powerful below the line union, they endorsed Karen Bass, the current LA mayor And The teamsters have also backed her And then there's Donald Trump, who endorsed Spencer Pratt, the reality show villain, and turned influencer, turned mayor candidate. Nm not sure Pratt really wanted that one, but he's got it So how do this political shift happen Is it just that the industry has been hit so hard or is it something else going on? Today I've got Peter Hamby here to discuss. He's a political writer at puck based in L.A. and he's also the host of the podcast The Powers the Be and the very popular Good Luck America Show on Snapchat We're gonna have a very civilized and no BS discussion of Hollywood and politics, The governor and mayor's races from the industry's perspective, and of course, the Spencer Pratt question. From the Rger and Puck. I'm Matt Bellaney, and this is the town Okay, we are here with Peter Hamby, writer at Puck, where I work. A video star at Snapchat What else am I missing here? Man about town, the mayayor of Venice Beach, The mayayor of Venice Former CNN. Former CNN guy. Yes. Reds fan, unlike you. Yes, you are Reds fan. My condolences Thank you for coming on because we don't do a lot of politics on this show But I feel like it has been shhoved in our faces now for a few weeks It is Hilarious to me All of these candidates for governor and for mayor of L.A. All of a sudden discovered That Hollywood is a thing and that maybe it could use some help from the government because it's in kind of a bad place right now All of these candidates have fallen over themselves to declare themselves allies of the entertainment industry How did this happen Because for years, this was an industry that was sort of foreign even to the leaders of LA There wasn't a lot of interaction A lot of the big industry power players that donated to candidates. they would donate to national races. They didn't really pay much attention to state and local races All a sudden now you can't turn on the TV in L.A without seeing an ad from some politician promising to fix Hollywood. Yeah. I mean, well, first of all, I should say that I mean, this isn't something that Gavin Newsom ignored. I want to point out Gavin Newsom two years ago expanded the state tax credit for film and TV production you know, with an eye on the numbers that true. But he did that after the fires and after the strikes and after it got to a place where he couldn't ignore it And you and I you talk to him all the time, but I talked to him at the Puck event in DC and he was describing it as always a challenge to get anything pro Hollywood through the state legislature because they just don't care And most, you know, LA's the biggest constituency, but most of the people in the state legislature are outside of Southern California. So they're not going to care about it, but all of the sudden they do. So look, I think that Newsom was hip to the fact that as you cover all this time on the pod on this town that The numbers are bad. I mean, people are going not just to New York and Georgia, but now New Jersey, all these other states. So I think he just became aware of the fact Governor Newsom that this was happening pretty recently. I think the cline you tell me, Matt, I think film and TV production peaked what year twenty twenty two and it's been downhill ever since. Yeah. and I think The difference maker is when you start to look at the numbers and you see that fifty seven thousand jobs have been lost in the past four years, and it's starting to bleed into other aspects of the economy, the restaurant economy and the services economy. And even you know a lot of the tertiary ancillary businesses around entertainment That's when you start to see the politicians get involved because it's no longer the, you know, the the Beverly Hills liberals or or the Westide liberals that are not necessarily the focus, but it's regular people. And it's always been regular people, but that was not the impression in government. So what are the specific candidates talking about? Because there's a lot of things on the table now. there's everything from a push to reuce or eliminate the cap. production incentives. there's, you know, a separate bill that is moving forward to add an incentive for below the line or post production. brring that back to the state What are the individual candidates talking about. Let's go first to governor and then we'll get into the LA Mor I'm ex I'm more excited talkking the mayayor's race. I know I know. But let's talk about the governors because this is the one that actually matters. this the LA mayor, like, yes, they can do things to cut red tape and everything. But what really matters is whether California is going to become competitive for production incentives. So what are the candidates saying? It really all comes back to that. ax c Most candidates want to maintain it. There is some differential between all of the different candidates running for office. And again, the these are mostly Democrats in this jungle primary. Steve Hilton is probably going to advance because Trump has endorsed him on the Republican side. But he's been very aggressive. He's talking about like doubling or or eliminating the cap. He wants the most aggressive but I don't think I don't think he totally realizes how difficult that would be with the state legislature. The other one is Javier Bera, who jumped in this race and kind of didn't have a ton of detailed policy plans. I spoke to his policy team the other day and they gave me some insight into what's different from from the other candidates because this is again, important because he might actually become the governor. Yeah, he has the best chance of winning. Yes. A lot of Gavin Newsoms people are also helping Javir Bisera His plan also, you know focuses on keeping the tax credit. He said he would be a little more mindful of the budget and keep sorry, his team said this at least that they would be mindful of the budget and revisiting how it affects the budget unlike Mayhan, unlike Viaagosa. One thing that they said differentiates Bisera's ideas around helping the Biz is He would wants to create a lot of transparency for how shows perform in the streaming world, so that would basically help with residuals and other payments for workers. Oh that's a big topic. We talk about that a lot on the show. He essentially wants there to be more transparency and data consumption where talent would get access to more of what their work is generating. and which is a great thing, but I don't know how he would force that You'd have to enact some kind of a law that you don't get access to certain things unless you reveal it or something like that Um seemems kind of difficult. But what is he saying? Is Bisera saying anything about the cap on production incentives because that's the big issue. with Bisera, again, the front Democratic front rununner who if you put betting money on Kelci right now is probably going to be the governor. They're pretty vague about what he's going to do. They say that they're going to keep an eye on how it's going to impact the economy good California paying jobs and the budget. Mhanna Via Rgosa are saying no cap. Like, let's just figure it out later Katie Porter is saying this kind of the same thing as Bisera that they want to keep keep the cap at seven hundred and fifty, but you know, she's been endorsed by the teamsters, by the way. I should say that they work on a lot of sets around town here Look, Matt, this is all the bottom line is this is all very. very vague. And I think A lot of these candidates, Democrats and Republicans have come around to the idea that Hollywood and this is this is sort of a Trump take that Hollywood isn't just something that's important for California It's important for the country. like it is a very symbolic thing and all these candidates, including Bisera and the folks I talked to on his campaign the other day said that he's one of the only guys with experience in Washington. Not that he's going to have an open door in the Trump administration, which by the way will be over in two years, but that he knows how the levers of power work e people in the Biden administration might like disagree with that from his time as HHS seecretary. Some have said that publicly. But you know, the candidates who do have experience in Washington are saying that it's important to have somebody who can go to DC shake some hands, knows whose office is where, knows which budget is where, et cetera and that they can sort of keep that relationship going. All right, well, it's all frustrating. This is why we don't do politics that much on the show because there's a lot of platitudes, not a lot of specifics This episode is brought to you by Holiday In by IHG Whenever I'm traveling for work, holiday In has always been my go to And now even more so than ever, it has a whole new energy, especially for business travelers. sppaces that feel like your living room 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. Holiday In, It's a new day and a new st. Book you next day at holidayn. com The LA Mayor race Who is the normal candidate that is gonna to help the industry here? I mean, what are people supposed to make of this? You got study and play comeome together on a Windows eleven PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows eleven PC's. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft three hundred sixty five Pmium and a year of Xbox GamePass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller Learn more at windows. com slash student offffer. whilea suppupplies last ends june thirtieth terms at aka. ms slash collllege PC Karen Bass, the mayor who was roundly criticized for being out of town during the LA fires. And from my vantage point, hasn't really done much to help the industry during her time. She's now cutting fees by twenty percent at Griffith Observatory and things like that. that don't seem like a lot of a lot of benefit there. She was not really a factor in helping to get the Riterss guild and Sag A strikes settled When that was a thing. she was mayor then. Let's set back a little bit. So in the mayor's race, you have the incumbent. and I agree with you. Karen Bass has been an extremely poor communicator. When she came to Los Angeles in twenty twenty two from Congress. I think this was even one of her TV ads She was here, she said, Los Angeles is on fire And I'm here to save it. Well, you know, Los Angeles then was actually on fire and she was in Ghana. Her approval rating is in the pits. I think it's in the thirties right now She might emerge after being left for dead politically after the fires U as one of the luckiest candidates in recent memory because we have this open primary and she's got two challengers Spencer Pratt who is not going to win the primary and is not going to win the mayor's office, but has captured the attention of enough Angelinos that he has crept past City Councilman Nithia Raman progressive, you know, half half foot in DSA, half foot out at DSA. But she she came into the race earlier this year as the palatable progressive alternative Karen Bass and has completely failed to launch. She has no message anyt timee you run for office in for any office at any level, you need to have a clear compelling rationale for running for office. It's the whole bumper sticker thing, Matt. And she's got the backing of plenty of people, including a lot of Hollywood people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not necessarily like moguls like back in twenty twenty two You know, Ari Emmanuel and Jeffrey Katzenberg and Ted Serandos were publicly having fundraisers for Karen Bass or Rick Caruso. This is more like famous faces. You know, I'm thinking of, for example, Mindy Kaling or Colin Joe's like actors and Ni Raman, every time she's on Instagram, it's, you know, she's hanging out in Silver Lake at a DJ set. Yeah. Her husband's are a screenwriter. Yes, exactly The thing with Nithir Raman is There's no message in the first place and we saw this in the debate. It's you can't just run and say, I'm running against Karen Bass And you have to have a very clear contrast message, which she has failed to present. And so you have Spencer Pratt creeping past Nithi Raman in the horse race in every pole, etcetera. and the top two make the runoff Karen Bass would love to run against Fencer Pratt. in the runoff because he's a registered Republican, even though it's a nonpartisan race And she would probably smoke him U Nithi Raman would probably could be Carass, but back to your original question Bass only in like the last six months has started to flick at here's what I've done for Hollywood As you mentioned, she, you know, appointed this film and TV board. She's talked about, you know, she appointed somebody to be a liaison and Nith Ramman has criticized her for this. What's the guy's name Mat? Steve Kang Steve Kang who doesn't have experience working in Hollywood, but he understands how the different agencies you know, do permitting and streamlining and all these processes. Film LA is notorious Everybody hates them Yeah. They have this exclusive contract to run film shoots and permit and it's just a huge hassle and their fees are gigantic compared to some other jurisdictions and doesn't seem like there's much change there despite them saying they're streamlining the process. And it's just I don't know. it doesn't it's not convincing. Yeah. Well and just to go back to what we're talking about before. A lot of this just goes back. the tax credit. in Sacramento. And even Niffi Raman gave an interview the other day where she said she would be a loud advocate for that tax credit. And by the way, one other thing about Niffi Raman, the city cououncil again, has started to pay attention to this a little bit more. and I think Karen Bass has been trying to do streamlining fee things and lower parking costs. There were seven Matt votes on helping, you know, the film industry in Los Angeles in March of this year of march twenty twenty six. And then Nthia recused herself from four of those votes. And so Bass's team is pointing to that saying she doesn't have anything to talk about on this. She doesn't care about the industry. Now Nithia Raman's take is that because her husband is a screenwriter and a showrunner that she didn't want it was a conflict of interest for her to be involved. And but at the same time, it's left her without something to point to that I did this, I did that. Um mayaybe that was principleal politics and principled governing, but it's left her really without anything to stand on in the mayor's race. Now, I think the Baywatch episode from a few months ago illustrates what's going on here a little bit, a little bit and also some misinformation stuff that's happening too. E explain what happened there. So over here where I'm in Venice, you know, the state and the mayor's office and our city councilwoman, Tracy Park and CD eleven. came together By the way, using money from this tax credit program to land this Baywatch reboot that Fox is doing and film a lot of it on Venice Beach And then I guess there's some anonymous Instagram account. anyyone listening to this town can can write in and tell me what this is, but some someone working on the set said They showed up to film And the night of or the day before, you know, they were told, well you haven't paid the proper parking fees And someone leaked this and said this film shoot is about to collapse because they haven't abided by permitting process or whatever fees. And then again, this was only a couple months ago Karen Bass keen to the fact that this is a real issue in the race, snapped to attention, worked with Tracy Park, who was one of her antagonists on the city cououncil, a little bit to her right. and, you know, got this together because it was such a big story for Karen Bass and something she could point to in the Mayoral that, hey, we're bringing this work back to Los Angeles. The minute There was a whiff of this chute collapsing Uh, you know, she really got to work, but It just illustrated how many little fees and processy things there are beyond just know, California giving people tax credits. once you get to Los Angeles, you do have to go through film LA for, you know, a bunch of different reasons and Niffi Raman is also saying this too. She wants to streamline the process, but this gets to what this gets to what Bass is smartly doing despite being very unpopular is any timee Spencer Prat to her right or Nithurama to her left says something. She kind of co ops it. And as the incumbent mayor, Even though she's not a great communicator, she's still a sitting mayor. She has many more millions of dollars to spend on paid media is kind of co opting most appealing parts of each side's message inst taking it as her own. The other thing I will say to Bass's credit or at least something that is one of her calling cards is that she used to be the spepeaker of the state Assembly way back in the day before she went to Congress during you know, post recession, California's huge budget crisis, and she was one person who pushed through the original tax credit back, I think in twenty ten. And so that's something she's also saying. as she goes around town Although that wasn't clearly very effective if the decade that followed were some of the mostost runaay production that we've ever seen. But it is something. You wrote a piece for Puck last week that was G good overview of this race And you explained a concept called the shy Pat boat And that resonated with me because I talk to people and people text me around Hollywood and they are those people. the shy Prat voters. They're not going to announce that they are voting for this guy. You can call him an eccentric candidate He' putting out these AI videos of himself as Batman. He's got these billboards around town of, you know, an apocalypse happening and he's the only savior Explain the Prat phenomenon and what is going on? Is this just pure grievance? Is this a sign that people in LA want change and are fed up with the leadership? Or is this some kind of weird celebrity thing going on Um So many threads to pull in there. Let's start with Is this a grievance thing? Yes But at the same time That gives him a clear and compelling point of view on the race. And like I said Ni Raman gotten in the races and hasn't really been able to articulate why she is The most compelling alternative to Karen Bass with all of her you know, failures, real are perceived. Spencer Pratt his house burned down in the palisades partly because the Santionez reservoir was empty. and him and Bass have fought over the, you know, wind speeds and whether you could fly planes, etcetera. So he is coming at this from I am a victim. And then that activism and on social media. by the way, a lot of people get this take a little bit wrong in my opinion. and I wrote about this. Spencer Pratt was obviously The villain in the Hills, whenever that show was on in the two thousands on TV. People call him a reality star. they compare him to Trump. There's some of that. Spencer Prat loves nicknames. under He knows how to break the fourth wall. He's funny at times. But he's really the first influencer candidate. Ever since he was famous on cable television, he has gone over to Snapchat Instagram, TikTok and really leaned into the vertical video content creator thing for many years before the fires. He was he would film hummingbirds at his house. Yeah, wasasn't he selling crystals? He loves crystals. You know, he would be a hype woman, like a big wife guy for his wife, Heidi Montag. And so he is just native to the cell phone camera. And so once the fires happened, he used that criticize Karen Basura, as he says and Gavin Newsom. And then by the way, and this gets to what I think is a real question, is the Spencer Pratt phenomenon and the phenomenon is limited. He's only polling at like fifteen twenty percent. Actually, it should, I think it iss around twenty percent, according to the most recent Emerson poll ahead of Nithi Raman Is this just a white Westide phenomenon? Is this just people in Frentwood and palisades and other white pocks of the city whether they can vote or not in the city itself because we know Santa Monica and Culver and Weho. broke off many years ago, Pasadena, but people with gardeners, people with nannies who, you know, have kids and don't to see homeless people or drug addicts near their schools, near their playgrounds. I see it in Venice all the time. Of course, it's a real concern And so Spencer Pratt's strength, I will say, is just forcing Democrats, including Karambas to pay attention to these issues and exposing I think the frailty of democratic politics and polite, tolerant responses to street homelessness that clearly aren't working Rat. And so like I think that's the phenomenon. However, the question for Spencer Pratt is is do they have any appeal in black or Latino neighborhoods in the rest of the city to win and this is Karen Bass's calling card, you know, she's got, you know, decades, half of her life being an activist in South Los Angeles. She's got unions, she's got Churla, she's got activists of all races and Spencer Pratt And by the way, on the different side of the spectrum, Nith Raman both feel like white voter phenomenons. And the question in the primary, and I can't wait to see what these precinct returns look like because the Spencer Pratt is able to get over thirty percent in Latina neighborhoods Wow, that's impressive. But for now it does feel like the quote unquote shy prat voter donor also that you're talking about. you know, they, if he was a Democrat Maybe they'd be more willing to put their name on it and plenty of people are But he's not Rick Caruso Rick Carusso spent, you know, millions of his own dollars. He's a billionaire. and still you know is more palatable to Democrats, ran as an independent turned Democrat and still lost to Karen Bass by ten points. D different environment. This is a different election. But Pratt is still Spencer Pratt one And two is a registered Republican in a city that broke overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders over Joe Biden in the twenty twenty presidential primary. That's how liberal the city of Los Angeles is. But yet we see here a dichotomy. when I put this in Hollywood terms Spencer Pratt is the Westide Hollywood person And Nithia Raman is the Eastide Hollywood person. Yes. And you see it in the donors where you've got, you know, Mitty Kaling, and the sort of creative class on the East side are for her. And then Spencer Pratt has like Himm Sabon and Luccian Grange, the head of Universal Music. Yes. Geannie Boss, Bobby Code. Right. Brian Grzeractly the sort of money West side people who frankly didn't have any real reason to care about city politics until theirir neighborhood in the palades burnt down And they felt that the government that they had paid taxes to all these years wasn't there the one time they needed them and they don't like homelessness. And well, nobody likes homelessness, but they are particular attentive to the homelessness issue and quality of life issues that are now at the forefront thanks to this guuy with a megaphone.. Yeah, that's exactly right. And look this gets back to me saying he's not crazy. Like He is a outsider in politics. He doesn't really have a filter Except when he does. and that's the thing when you talk and by the way, there are plenty of loud Trump voters. those AI videos you mentioned, he's actually not making those. his supporters are and then he's retweeting them and reposting them and sort of getting donations and going viral off of other people's creations. And you know, I've talked to some people by the way, this is kind of testing the boundaries of independent expenditure groups. and sort of fundraising disclosures. Like those AI ads created by his supporters who don't live in Los Angeles, many of them. and are going really viral with national conservatives like Meghan Kelly or Clay Travis or whatever, peoplee who don't live here or vote here They're kind of doing the same work as independent expenditure television ad is doing, which have to disclose their donors, have to disclose, you know,s who's funding the ad. And this is just like free AI slop that is helping them go mega viral, raise money, get attention. He's really Breaking a lot of boundaries. So again, I sound like a political hack who's sort of obsessed with process and whatnot. But the thing to Spencer Pratt's credit is yes it's a grievance. driven campaign against It's Democrats, yes, but also corrupt insiders who aren't doing anything. about these people on the street who the slow police response times, animal abuse and skkid row. It's very easy to run against somebody and just point at what's wrong without necessarily having a huge vision for the city and governing the city. Like in my piece about this for Puck I referred to the competing jurisdictions that occasionally like manage to govern this city. There's the county. there's the city council. There's the mayor. There's the water commission. Like L.A. I mean, this goes back to like Chinatown. I mean, like L.A is kind of an un governable place where there's different fiefdoms who have different power and it's not New York City And so it's very hard to govern and hard for Karen Bass to even govern You have to be a ceremonial leader and that's one reason she's failed is she's not a great communicator who hasn't communicated vision Well, it's definitely gotten worse in the last four years. I mean post COVID, many cities have recovered from COVID. LA has not recovered from COVID and you see it where you look. And I think that's what's fueling a lot of this openness to someone like Spencer Prat. Absolutely. And look, Karen Bass will say the homelessness countount has dropped for the last two years. That's in her paid media ads. but Spencer Pratt says that's a lie, that the RA corporation has different figures. You just have to live here. I mean, even my wife says it and she's a big Democrat. and she's like people outside the country don't understand why peopleeople gravitate toward someone like Spencer Pratt, but There are some moderate Democrats and people who would never vote for Trump. who have told me, who have been in room with Spencer Prad, who are like, I'm going to vote him. I'm going to give him some money because it's so visible here, Matt. and all of us have a story. It leads to local news every night. Look, violent crime is down the city. like credit to Mayorabas, credits to Chief McDonnell, homicides are down att their low level like forty years Their home invasions are still up and that's on The local news every night. you don't have to go ten feet in the city without seeing something. And that's where Prat's powers come in as an emotional communicator Those things might be anecdotal They might not be backed up by any like widespread statistics, but you go and see the homeless like on my street in Venice, I was walking my baby the other day in her stroller. We have a swing over here. Nar Abot Kenney by the way And there was a guy who was drugged out with his pants down sitting on her favorite swing formerly favorite. L like I'm like, I don't want that guy on my kid's swing. Like what? Like that's anecote. Yeah. But he's tapping into that and visualizing it on all of his social media channels and his his powers as a communicator are clearly having an impact. You couple that with what's going on in Hollywood with the content recession and all the problems that the industry is having and all of the residual effects that we've talked about and it It leads a lot of Hollywood people, I think to consider someone like him. Yeah. No, absolutely. But does he have a plan? What is his plan for Hollywood and for homelessness? Or is this just empty calories trolling to get yourself into the national spotlight? Well, I said this to you before we got on the pod here. He wrote a subsect post, whether he wrote it or not, by the way Basically complaining about all the things we're talking about, the fees. he called the he calls Film LA. a bunch of he calls them permit narks They show up on a set like sort of scrutinizing what's wrong and they figure out ways to delay your shoot and make you pay more. He talks about all the fees that get gobbled up from the budget. like even before filming starts. againg, it's a lot of pointing the finger and saying, this is what's wrong. His plans, this is where he does sound like Trump or I'm going to bring the smartest people in. and we'll figure it out. I worked in entertainment. I know people. I'm going to get this done There are people like Brett Ratner and Bobby Kodk and Him Saban, who is by the way a huge lifelong Democrat. It's surprising that he gave money to him, but there's a lot of, you know, pro Israel Jewish folks in this city who have drifted to the right in recent years because of anti Semitism, because of you whatever reason this happened in the Trump election in twenty twenty four and the Persian community. but Spencer Pratt is vowing to put more cops outside of synagogues. you know, he's vowing to like use the cops to go after hate crimes. Anti Semitism won't be tolerated. And so I think a lot of the Jewish votes in this city Yeah I talked to two entertainment executives, Matt for my piece who are like I know a lot of people who voted for Biden and Kama who were voting for Spencer Preat. Yeah, they text me. I've heard from them too But of course, they don't want to be public. Totally. It's funny. There are so many loud Spencer Prat supporters on the interternet and obviously there's people putting their names on their donations, like you know, Luci and Elliot Grange and Jenie Buss and Bobby Kodic. theirir names are in the reports. They can see them But then there's also people who you know, live in Brentwood or Venice or palisades or used to live in palisades and don't want to offend their polite society, liberal friends, so they're quietly voting for Prat If he was Rick Caruso, they wouldn't be quiet about it. Right. Rick Caruso was much more palatable to polite society. But the New York Times reported that Nicoola Vaunt was going to support Pratt And she was Obama's ambassador to the Bahamas and is married to Ted Serandoos. They are very prominent Democrats. And although Ted supported Carusso in the last race That would be a very big deal if she supports Spencer Prat. Well, look, here's a look, here's a I know this isn't a politics ps, but in recent years Especially after Kamala Harris' loss in twenty twenty four, a lot of pragmatic Democrats, strategists and politicians have been really stressing. Democrats need to get back to basics. goovernment should work. The streets should be safe. We don't need to defund the police And we should, you know, there shouldn't be drug addicts next to year. I interviewed the former LA County sheriff. who was very controversial. Alex Villenueva a couple of years ago. I think during the twenty twenty two Mayoral race. He's a former Democrat, turned Fox News Republican. He gave me an all time quote that sums this up He said, and he was talking about Los Angeles, but he goes, everyveryone is a Democrat until a vagrant takes a shit in your yard And that just gets to the PrAT phenomenon, which is There are lots of, you know, high falutin out ideas out there on the left. There's lots of High in the sky, do good or progressivism out there on the left. But at the end of the day, if you're paying taxes as a homeowner, you want the cops to show up on time You want your kid to be safe when they go to school. These might be the concerns, again, of white people on the west side of Los Angeles. willll see if Spencer Pratt can cut into bllack communities or Latino communities in the city, which are very important, especially in the general election when the turnout is higher I'm skeptical, he can't At least, I think the Democrats in DC have told me this again, privately. they don't want their name on this, but they really respect the fact that Spencer Prdt is a forcing mechanism. He's forcing Democrats who are running against him to speak to The concerns around public safety and homelessness in the city, which have been endemic for decades. you know, none of this stuff is new, but it has gotten worse visibly. And if Democrats can figure out a way to talk like normal people and relate to normal people around public safety. Um that I think can help the party in the long run instead of talking about things like defund the police or prison abolition, which are clearly outside the mainstream. Well, and if it doesn't work out for Spencer Pratt, his price on cameo will probably go up a lot thanks to this. So'll sell more crystals and hummbirds or whatever he' And Heidi Montag will release more albums, exactly. All right, thank you, Peter. Appreciate it Today's call sheet is brought you by Holiday In by IHG, the global icon you love but with a whole new energy and comfort that hits different than before. Craig We missed you at the Mandalorian and Grogu preremiere last week in LA. I took my kid instead. Um, He loved it. Do you think that was a wise move? Do think your son liked it more than I would have? I think he did. Yes. He loved the show. and had to be told that this was a movie, not a show, but once he was into it, he really liked it Critics, not so much. It's hovering around the sixty, high fifties, not quite splatter territory on rot tomatoes. Not rotten. it is one percent above rotten Yeah, tryry putting that in a blurb. I don't know, man. This one is tough. likeike Favreau amazing did a nice job with this movie, but the energy just isn't there. The seven year break became a TV franchise and now they're trying to get the gang back together and I think it's going to be tough man. The tracking is about eighty to eighty five for the four day, according to NRG. I've seen higher. I've seen some that think it will get into the nineties, maybe even close to one hundred for the weekend. It does skew younger, which sometimes the tracking does not reflect But man, that's tough because the Star Wars story that The comp here solo That one opened to one hundred and three. the fouray. And that was back in twenty eighteen over the same meemorial weekend. And that one got to I believe it was almost four hundred, like three hundred ninety do. difference, this movie considerably cheaper than the two hundred seventy five million do or so that they spent on solo after all the reshoots and the chaos on that movie. So they don't have to get to a huge number. but if you release a Star Wars movie and it doesn't get to four hundred million worldwide This feels like the last vestige of this previous era of Star Wars that we're in that that we all can't wait to end. the Kathy Kennedy era. Well The era of turning all of the Star Wars properties into TV shows and now kind of extracting one and throwing it on the big screen Like this is not something anybody hasn't said before, but I think this movie will probably do really well in streaming and not going to do well in movie theaters. You know what? I think I hope for Fabreau's case, you know on Fabreu's behalf that it does fine. I fear that it's not. So I let's set the line at eighty five for the four day. I think I'm going to take the under Under an eighty five even. I know I know. Now I feel like I've lowballed a little. the line should probably be ninety. But I think I'm going to take the under on eighty five. It's just hard. I mean Even solo and Rogue one, that was still in the heyday of like Force Awakens was a huge hit. Rogue one made a billion dollars. twenty eighteen theaters were in a completely different place. I mean, this just has everything going against it. otherther than Favrer who's a great director, but like this is a TV show. There's a movie star in it whose face you don't see. No stars. Well, it's Petro Pascal, but you don't see his face. Yeah, you don't even you do see it at one point. spoiler, you do see his face But like, why is Jeremy Allen White in this movie? He didn't even show up at the premiere. He's probably filming that one episode of the Bear. No. It's his voice. This is gonna sound ridiculous, but he plays Job of the Hud's son. Oh, okay who was like at one point there's like a CGI fight amongst slugs in this movie. It's kind of ridiculous, although that was my kid's favorite part Um yeah, no stars, nothing really to hang this on except Star Wars. And I don't think that's enough these days. We'll see. arere you taking the over or under on ' eighty five? onn eighty five, that feels really low. I'll take the over on eighty five. It does. I know. I think you're going to win this one, but we'll see I just get I'm getting some bad vibes. Yeah, we're going to look back on this movie as like just the last gasp of the Star Wars streaming era, unfortunately. Although next summer they've got the Ryan Gosling one, the Star Fighter movie. Yes. And that will be the beginning of hopefully a new era A new hope. New hope. A new hope for Star Wars. All right, todayoday's call she was brought to you by Holiday In. They kept the global icon status and upgraded pretty much everything else From ffresh rooms to dining andun rightright. It's a new day and a whole new day at Holiday Inn. book today, holidayn d. comot All right, that's the show for today. I wanna thank my guest, Peter Hamy, producer Crary Horlbeck, All editor, Matt Pevick. And I wantna thank you. We will see you next week