Horror Genre Success and Final Thoughts

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 is presented by AMC Network A new chapter in Anne Rice's Immortal universe begins with AMC's The Vampire Lestat Get a backstage pass to the iconic frontman who Pace magazine calls a bowie inspired rocker that will have fans screaming. Don't miss the legendary vampire Lestat de Leencps In his own electrifying rock saga, watch the vampire Listat Sundays Only on AC and AC plus. Learn more at amCplus. com It is Monday, july sixth. We've reached the halfway point of twenty twenty six in Hollywood. So far, I think it's been a year of recovery Deal volume in the entertainment media space hit one hundred twelve billion dollars, highest since twenty twenty one at this point. Box office is up about fifteen percent over last year. and is on track for the first ten billion dollars domestic year since twenty nineteen. And the World Cup viewership is setting new records in this country But don't get me wrong, this is still a hugely challenged industry. Job losses have continued. Even Netflix is now struggling with its viewership numbers For all the success of the box office, just in the past month, we've had minions and Supergirl and masters of the universe, all disappointments at the box office, at least domestically. So at the halfway point, it's time for the midyear winners and losers report. Gve got Lucas Shaw here from Bloomberg and we're going to go through our picks one by one, winners, losers and some of the WTF moments so far in twenty twenty six From the Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellaney and this is the Town. All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg, back again. I gotta say, Lucas, I for the second weekend in a row, a big flashy wedding that I was not invited to. First yours And then Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey'. You were not there, correct? I was not You know, I spoke to some people who were going, whom both of us know, but I' and I have yet to get my full debrief from the people who were there. I'm I tried I don't care. I know you want I know the public does and so we're going to talk about come on It made me feel easy. Come on, the guest list was fascinating to me And we're not going to get into it. G to jam session if you want that. they have a great recap We got to discuss our guy, Adam Aaron, my friend, CEO of AMC Theaters. Go online Posting about the whole thing, revealing the dress, revealing the tugs And then he deleted his LinkedIn Amazing stuff. We'll never get invited to a Taylor Swift related event ever again. Maybe her next movie will be exclusive to Regal you know, after his behavior today Oh, I hope not. Don't say that. Yeah, it's amazing. I talked to a couple other executives who are like, I can't talk to you because I don't want to get the Adam Earin treatment It's crazy though the number of execs that were there. I mean, sort of revealing. basically all the top excs at Disney were there exxcept Josh Jamaro. He doesn't have a relationship with her. But all the GMA people, you know, she used to reveal her album stuff on GMA, the Disney film people that are working on the film with her Interesting stuff there. She invited the head of the Academy. Lynette How Taylor, she was there She wants faster She wants an Oscar for that Toy Story song. I know. I think there they may be they may have another relationship there, but U Yeahah. I all the UMG people were there, record label people, concert promoters, actors that she's barely met. It's gross. Sorry. I know Unfortunately for us, we were not invited. All right, that's enough about that. We're not going into that. We are here to talk about the winners and losers of the year. Adam Aaron not on that list. He might have been a good candidate for a winner until now. They've had a box officeices up. although shaky shaky weekend. I know, that's true. Trust me. I'm monitoring this. I have minions in the draft And now Moana's got to work. It really does. But I'm hoping that the minion softness will help Moana. Okay. Let's go through our winners and losers. and this is our own subjective selections, our criteria is Who has had the best business year so far Persal stuff outside. Let's go let's start with losers. Is that okay, Craig? Yeah, I'll allow it. sureure. You're such an optimistic guy. Instead of calling it winners and losers, we're going to call it losers and wners. the mas. That's why I think this is the most interesting loser of the year because You and I both identified these people as winners earlier this year And I'm talking about Ted Serandos and Greg Peters, the co CEO's of Netflix. when the whole Warner Brothers Sing didn't work out. They walked away with two point eight billion dollars. They ran up the price on Paramount to buy the asset. And we both said, okay, they they came out of this pretty well to a few months later, the stock is down nearly twenty percent this year, forty percent since they started going after Warner Brothers.'ve sort of their hand to cause Wall Street to be nervous about the company They you reported this weekend about their engagement problems on Netflix. Yeah, and particularly the fact that they're experiencing these huge drop offffs from season one to season two. And it's not just like a lot of people say, Oh, it's because shows have been they take too long in between seasons or binge. Those don't really explain it because it applies to shows came back after year, the binge model's been around forever. There are very real engagement concerns at Netflix right now that are getting talked about inside the company and with their partners. So that's the question I have for you is what is the solution here What are the possible paths for Netflix to reverse and and you know, gain the conf regain the confidence. Do they have to go out and buy NBC Universal Do they have to launch a free tier of Netflix, I think that's a more likely scenario What do they have to do here? As it pertains to the programming in particular, I don't think that they would say they have to do anything drastic at least not right now. I think they would argue that this is just part of the normal ups and downs that they have where they I' I'm just saying what I think they would say where they have You know months where they don't have anything, and then guess what? rightight now they do in fact have like a huge hit this Harlan Cobin adaptation. and maybe they have a few more out the rest of the year. and we stop talking about it because their engagement, even if it's not growing at what I think they hoped it would be, it still has been inching in the right direction. But I think to me, the bigger question is like the target for Netflix used to be Basically replacing cable And that just didn't happen, right? They are the number one paid streaming service. they are next to YouTube, the number two streaming service But their share of television in the US is like eight percent and it's not going to suddenly jump to ten or fifteen. So it feels like, you know Yeah, they they may do something more significant. It's why they're experimenting with vertical videos. It's why they're experimenting or doing more in live sports. It's why they're trying podcasts. I think, you know, they had teas doing free before and then ultimately didn't do anything. I think it's totally reasonable to think that they would look at it again and what that might Well, look at who they're losing to They're losing to YouTube, which is free. They're now going to be facing Fox and Roku combined and they have a pretty formidable free offering And the content mix that they have been offering lately is leaning towards that direction. podcast stuff is lower cost, lower you know, return, we think, but it could be the basis of a free service that maybe put some of this old library content that Netflix has been unwilling to license out onto a free service that serves as a pretty significant funnel to the paid service. I mean, Netflix is talking all about ads these days. A free tier would give them lots of ads. So would adding peacocks Netflix they could do some kind of a deal where they like they ingested the TF one network in France and are now showing that in the Netflix ecosystem You know, they could things up Brandon Ross the analyst. He said last week that they should replace Bella, the content chief with Casey Bloyys from HBO. I don't know that that would help make them more populous. Casey does a lot of more highbrow shows. Muno maybe replaceed Ted. I don't know. L what like how long does this go on before they do something? They have obviously had well publicized talks with Casey, I don't think that Bella necessarily welcomes the idea of Casey joining the fold. and I don't see Casey at this point wanting to report to anyone but a CEO. So I don't know how that would resolve itself. I don't think Casey wants to be making twenty murder docs a year. and I don't think the other want I could be wrong, but I don't think he wants to be overseeing a slate of hundreds of titles I mean, you know, doing a spinff of the big Bang theory is populist enough. And most that pop popular stuff he pushes on as an HBO max original anyways, so he doesn't paint the HBO brand. Yeah, but they're doing a lot of those. I've you know, I've noted they're doing a lot of the franchise spinoff stuff, which seems to be working Well. I know. I don't think it's panic time at Netflix yet It will be interesting to see how they act in the next six months, especially after earnings come out, especially after the new engagement report comes out And they need to do something. So we'll see what they do Let's move on to are do you want to do your first loser or do you want to do a winner? Let's Let's lighten things up. Let's do a winner. a winner. Okay. Well then I'll just keep it in the we'll do the n keep it in the Netflix family. I feel like Ben Affleck is a huge winner for the first half of the year. Oh good one. I mean He takes a company that nobody knew he had and sells it for more than six hundred million dollars to Netflix But that also, by the way, manages to allow them both do an AI deal that doesn't cause huge outrage because Ben Affleck is a filmmaker and so people trust that he is doing things sort of the ethical right way. I mean, that's what I've always wondered about this deal. Is this a game changer in the tech categ orr is this a six hundred million dollars press release? I think it's in between those two. I don't think people who really know AI video would necessarily describe it as a game changer. I mean, this is not, you know a new video platform. It's not something that we're hearing everyone talk about, you know using to make their videos. but I think if it comes to sort of professional film content. It's something that Netflix hopes they can use across a lot of their projects or at least gets their division started. It's sort of like it's also a little bit of an aqua hire. I don I think it's more than just you know, a nice press release, but I don't think this is going to you change how everyone makes movies. And do they get the rip two, three, four and five out of this as well. This is starting a pretty significant relationship with a guy who has previously not made movies for Netflix. And who makes the type of smmart, populist type entertainment that Netflix says is its bread and butter. Yeah it's a good move All right, so I'm going to then pivot to a winner here I'm going to do as one of my winners, and this is going to pain me because he's been pretty awful to me during this entire process. I'm going to say Graham King is a big winner of the year, the producer of Michael, the Michael Jackson movie. That movie is going to get to a billion dollars andt hasn't gotten there yet. We have not seen the big triumphant press release This is a movie that hit the abbsolute worst possible speed bumps on the way to theaters having to scrap the entire third act having to deal with all of the, you know, the lawsuits and all the they finally just went full populist give the fans what they want. a performance movie avoids all the controversy We in the media jumped up and down, stomped our feet about how lame it is they did that And then boom, a billion dollars. So Graham was right, you view him as singularly responsible or just the most responsible. He was driving this train. And I think anyone associated with the movie, even Antoine Fouuqua, the director who gets credit here Graham on this project early, championed it as a, you know full believer in Michael Jackson's innocence. I believe. I don't he has not said that publicly. but he wanted to make this film. He got the Bohemian Rhapsody writer to get involved, John Logan When everything fell apart, he put it back together. They are definitely going to do a second movie the question is just when they're going to get everyone back together. They he found The star Jafar Jackson, who turned out to be amazing in the film. and I do think the movie will probably get some awards attention. I don't know that he'll get a nomination It'll probably get makeup and hairstyling and it could get some other nominations there Overall, huge win. Yeah. Would you consider that bigiggest. Maybe not surprised. I don't think people were shocked by it, but it's sort of like the biggest win relative to expectations for any movie so far this year. No. It's got to be obsession. we'll get We'll get that. Do to do Do you wantan to do a winner for yourself? I am going do Well, I feel like I should do a loser. I haven't done a loser yet. All right I do a loser and then we'll get to the This will do a los stay in the movie business. We'll just do a long run of movie stuff I mean, I think that the an obvious loser have to be James Gunn and Peter Saffrin, the DC guys Oh the D Supergirl after two weekends is that a hundred million worldwide? Barely. Barely a hundred million world wide. C clearly the bomb of the year. Well, maybe Matt, along with Matt, I would actually say this is bigger than Masters's Universe. Do nobody thought Masters of the Universe was really going work other than maybe a couple of people at Mattel at Amazon. you know, DC this was supposed to be the, you know, the the rebooted DC under these two guys who knew what they were doing. They took a big victory lap after Superman, which was a hit, but not the massive hit that they made it out to be especially given the cost and then huge flame out on the second movie. It doesn't mean that they're going to necessarily abort the strategy If you're David Ellison and you get your deal done, how much faith are you putting in these guys to know what they're doing if they can't make Supergirl work? I know Peter Saffrin did a rare statement to the New York Times the Sunday after the movie came out saying, Well, Supergirl did not meet our box office expectations. It's just one component of a broader long term strategy, . e D David Elson, we've got a long term strategy. Please do not fire us. We have a vision. We know what we're doing. We remain confident in. this is Peter Sffrin's quote. I don't know. I know it's the worst possible timing for them to have the bomb of the summer. The only question is why didn't you give me this movie? You had the opportunity to give me this movie and you chose Digger in our box office draft I thought about it I just figured clearly incorrectly the floor on a superhero movie was still like three hundred like I didn't this movie's not gonnaou sniff too. I kind of liked Millie Alcock. I thought the movie could potentially be decent, but yeah You weren't at Cinemacon It was kind of a disaster. I was not at Cinemac Con. Clearly I need to go to Cinemacon. You do. honestly, we kind to get you there next year. It's kind of ridiculous that you don't go. I'm probably going go next year. We always do an outing. The ringer people with the big picture people. We went to Wizard of Oz this year. Last year we did David Copperfield I'm trying to get us to go to cararrotop, but Craig's Craig keeps putting his foot down. I throw my body in front of that every every year, yeah It will happen. We will see Karratop before he retires All right, so that's your loser. Now is it time for a winner for me or whichever direction you want. All right, L, You know what? We're doing movies. Let's do another loser. And I'm this is going to go in the sort of bomb that says more about where the company is going And I'm gonna go with my old friend Kathleen Kennedy. the former head of Lucas Film. O final kiss off disaster she left behind before she'd stepped down at the beginning of this year The Mandalorian and Grogu three hundred thirty million do worldwide, not great for a Star Wars movie, by far the lowest grossing of any Star Wars project The thing is The movie was fine Fabro did a good job. It's just The appetite for a TV show movie was not there This is now a TV franchise. You just had to kick her on the way out. I did because you know what noobodybody was talking about the fact that she did this. Now Dave Falloney, who is currently running Lucas Film with another executive. He was very involved in this movies too. He's a Mandalorian guy as well. And so he is not blameless here strategy, they didn't have a Star Wars movie for seven years and to relaunch the movie franchise with a TV show episode didid not work. And we blame the leadership of Lucas film more than your buddy John Favreau. I do 'causeuse the movie's fine. The movies, I mean I'm biased I like Fabreu, I think he's great And he's a very commercial filmmaker when he wants to be He was a director for hire on this one. They came to him and said, why don't we do this as a theatrical movie? That was coming from Disney And whether it was Kathy or whether it was Alan Bergman or even Eiger that said, let's play it absolutely safe. This is the problem with Star Wars. They played it absolutely safe And it's blown up in their face. They couldn't do a Lord and Miller Star Wars movie. It was too outside the box. But yet they're bringing the emperor back in Rise of Skywalker because it was just the bottom line base, what will the fans be okay with? And they thought that was the same with a Mandalorian movie. turns out I he you and I encourage risk taking, but you just praised Graham King for playing it safe on Michael Jackson and now we're We' pping Disney for playing a sh. That' But that's a different scenario. That was a That was a scandal hot potato And who knows, mayaybe the original version of Michael would have also done a billion dollars, mayaybe engaging with The allegations against him would have done a million dollars, maybe Probably not, but maybe With Star Wars with a fifty year old franchise, you got to do something new and interesting with it And you know, the movie didn't you didn't learn anything about the Mandalorian. There was nothing new. There were no big stars in it. There was not they did an episode two episodes of the show. They were good episodes of the show, but that's not enough. That's not the actual end. We'll see what Sean Levy does next year with Gossling. One final kiss off from Kathy Kennedy. Okay, you want to do a winner or a loser? Let's let's do a pallte cleanser. do a winner U I'm going to save one for the later because I think it's too obvious. I feel like we got to do Greta Gerwig as a winner. Okay, give me your argument. My argument would be that. She is getting the biggest theatrical release in the history of Netflix and that Weher sure, maybe it was timing, maybe it was Wright Movie, but she proves to be the one director who gets Netflix to do what they've never done for any other director And I think it speaks at least partly to some of the power that she and the producers on that movie had in the marketplace to be able to push it, right? She's not Nolan But she's definitely in that next tier of directors who can kind of call her shot on a lot of this stuff. And she has the IP card to play with Netflix as well. Netflix doesn't have A lot of IP and she is' not she's attached to this big piece of IP in Narnia that Netflix would like to turn into a major franchise Do think that Ted is coming around to this notion that you need this big splashy theatrical marketing moment to create real IP value And I think we're seeing it with what you reported this past week about their TV shows losing consciousness with their audience between first and second season It's not just that they wait a long time to produce the second season of a show. It's that the binge model encourages You suck it down You enjoy it, you instantly forget about it and you're hungry again. It's the Chinese food. I've TV shows. So You you with with something as important to Netflix as Narnia They're going to give re theaters. That's what Ted is des saying. I think the also the only reason I pause is I think for television They are still kind of reluctant to really do the pre release marketing. And one of the issues on the seasons is like they just basically tell people who watch the first season to watch the second one. They don't put in a lot of effort to expand the tent Which is something that HBO does a lot, right? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but shows like industry grow over time. Succession grows over time. Netflix shows generally don't grow. But with movies, you got no choice. You got one shot at it. You either got to get people to show up that first weekend or they don't. And if they don't, sure, maybe something will get discovered online like happen with certain movies, but usually in those cases There was a robust marketing budget and it just like pays dividends later, right? Like with Encanto and Disney pllus, it did okay in theaters and then it blew up at home, but it had a real marketing budget. Fun little factoid from the Taylor wedding I am told by someone who was there and witnessed it that our friend Adam Aaron wentin up to Greta. and started bowing. in front of her It was apparently very awkward He is a big fan, no doubt of Greta Gerwig and the theaters that she got right her movie. She accomplished what he could not Exactly. This episode is brought to you by Accenture When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales usings automation analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. too learn more Check out acccenture dot com slash spotify. 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Call one eight hundred five two six seven seven thir six to learn more. or visit Tmphiaradio d. com This summer, Fanool is the best place to bet on goals. Including equalizers. Uhuh. Vollies? Yeah Bters. Every goal is worth more on fan dool. So let there be bals. New customers get up to one thousand dollars and bet reset tokens when you bet five dollars five daily. Cort one plus and present in select states, often required. Refund issue does not withdrawal bonus bets that expire seven days after receivt. M minimum five dollar wage are required for five consecutive days. Max refund two hundred dollars per day. Restrictions apply, including token expiration, sea fful terms at fanool dot com slash sports book Gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred My R reset All right, let me go on to another should I do a winner? You should do a winner because I w want to do a couple of losers. I'll do a winner Um I am gonna get a little wonky on this one. I'm gonna do someone not famous. De Greg Hessenger who is the new head of the AMPTP, the studio coalition that negotiates with talent This year, everybody was afraid that the three main talent guilds, actors, writers, directors We're going to threaten to strike The AI situation has only gotten worse Industryes in a pretty tough spot. Not only does this guy come in as the new negotiator But he extracts a fourth year in these deals That I thought was just going to be a non starter These kilds are going to be like, no, why would we give up our leverage of negotiating with you every three years And one by one started with the writers, which was the biggest surprise to me. F year deals. And yes, they had to agree to fund their pension plans, which were in a very tough spot because of all the unemployment And there are gaines that you know, they the guilds have been very happy about To a lesser extent, I think the heads of the guilds are also winners here Greg Hessinger, AMPTP guy comes in and kills it in this first negotiation. Well, it definitely helped that nobody wanted another strike, right? Like the last time everyone just decided there's going to be a labor stoppage and we're okay with it. And this time it was like the opposite. Both sides wanted to do deals. Nobbody want no There was no appetite for some protracted dispute or stoppage And so I think both sides did a good job of identifying like, okay, this is what matters the most to us and we're going to get it and what can compromise on a lot of the other things. So for a lot of the unions, it was pension, health care, that kind of thing. and for the studios it was getting that extra year. so they didn't have to worry about it and they would give a little bit more money on the areas that mattered and it made it Kind of a non story this year, which I think was very reassuring for most of the people who work in the business. And us We don't have to talk about it forself. I don't know For the health of an industry that we both care about, yes, fpeishally as a journalist, those strikes were great stories. That's true. I know all the writers coming after us for not, you know, one hundred percent buying I've been on fresh air once in my life and it was because she wanted to talk about the labor race from Hollywood. So I know I miss Adam Connover. I like having Adam Conover on the show. He's fun to fight with All right, so give me your next one. G me your losers. I have a couple, but I'm gonna to go with one that I think is a little more interesting, which is I feel like Brendon Carr is a loser for the first half of the year. Oh wow, the FTC Chairman. why? Yeah, Al keeping it wonky because Well, one, he he tried to go at it he and Trump tried to go at it with Kimel again and just got completely smackged down. Um And I I think the D They reduction in approval of the current administration has weakened their ability to just sort of force things. There was a feeling in the first six to twelve months of Trump too where the media companies had no back didn't feel like they could stand up because the kind of populist sentiment was behind the administration And that has changed where I think media companies. Yes, they one, they've seen that the administration is generally not is like open for business. And so they view that as a good thing. the same time There's, I think, less fear of the administration's ability to push them around And I think as Brendan Carr as sort of the face of Trump's war on the media He just has a little less juice than he did six months ago. I think Disney growing a pair and fighting back a little bit more on this stuff is a factor here I mean, I don't think Brendon Carr expected Disney to launch this campaign on all their stations to get people to submit public comments about whether the view is a news program And that I mean you could see him on Twitter like fighting back to them fighting back, which suggests that these's surprised are standing up or he's distracted or just he's got more of a fight whereas before it was like, we're going to sue you. Okay, we'll settle. This time you've got Disney pushing back. I don't you know, I just don't think companies are going to lie down in the same way. They will either find a way to get deal kind of like a side deal like Live Nation did in their case Or if they think it's something really egregious, they'll just, you know they'll fight back. And depending on what happens in November, becomes a question of like whether they're even relevant at all whether if the, you know, Congress turns is he going to even be able to to go after these companies at all. Or is the opposite going to be the case Is Elizabeth Warren and all of her friends therere they going to start coming after the Paramounts and these other companies that have settled or given concessions Totally possible. I think it would really only work if bothoth houses slip. What do I know I'm surprised that Paramount hasn't done more outreach to the Democrats. Aren't you a little surprised What by that? Yes, they've met with Rob Bonta and they've done the basic minimum. I would think we'd see at least a little more outreach from the paramount side on this merger. Well, I think they were when they were trying to get the deal. My understanding is they spent some time with a bunch of the state agGs, but you're talking about trying to make sure that, you know senators and Congress people like the Cy Bookersve whove and Adam Schiffts and people who've said what is happening with this deal, why not make sure that they're on their side? Yeah or at least like with them and say This is what we're prepared to do to assuage your concerns. Yeah. One, it's possible that they have done a lot of it behind the scenes and we just don't know about it. The other is those people are not really in a position to block the deal right now. And so I think they're very focused on the people who can get them what they want, right Although that may be short sighted. be. All right. I'm going to go to my final loser here, and this is going to be a conversation I've got to pick Brian Roberts the CEO of Comcast For now. you're not buying into the spin. You're you're we'll get there. We'll get there. But just from a macro perspective, regardless of what happens, we're going to have One company with all the cable networks, one company with NBC Universal and the theme parks One company with Comcast and the connectivity Robert's family will own controlling shares of each of these companies. but era of Brian Roberts as this larger than life mogul that controls all of these things in one company and is a player that everyone in Hollywood has to deal with and care about kind of coming to an end. I don't totally agree with that. I understand why you would make them a loser It doesn't make him any less of a mogul that they're crowling three separate companies. It didn't make John Malone or Barry Diller less of moguls that they had of these conffederations of assets. Um, you know, he still what it ends is sort of the yah, this sort conglomerate era in media where you would try to combine distribution or at least old fashioned content in distribution. And I think it's also part of this very gradual changing of the guard as to who matters, right? know ten, fifteen years ago, it was Brian Roberts and Rupert Murdoch and Bob Egger and a couple and Jeff Buchas. and the and Sherry Redstone or really then maybe Sumner Redstone. And on that list, like only one or two of those people really matter anymore and Brian is in a transition phase where he's having to think about succession at his companies. He's having to think about how to position them. And they also have to make a decision probably where like if they want to keep, if they want to please Wall Street, they either need to get bigger, you know, merge some merge Ccast and charter, merge NBC Universal with something, buy a couple of things and fold it in, or decide to cash out on a couple of those assets and focus. And their key continues to take a very sort of methodical and unflashy approach to figuring out some of the challenges at his business. Well and doing whatever he can do to maintain control Yeah of those businesses, which seems to be the primary goal here I guess it just comes down to What you think the future is for these assets and whether you think NBC Universal is a buyer or a seller now, whether you think there is some kind of roll up to do in the cable and connectivity business. And it just feels like from now on with this company, we are going to be talking about the potential disposition of it We're not going to be talking about all of these great assets and the synergies and everything else. It's who's going to buy what?ight? What are they going to potentially buy? And that's going to be the narrative around this once great media company. Yeah. Although we would have thought at this point we might be having more conversations about deals with Verscent and that's still been a relatively quiet company. They just bought a golf technology company today. What are you talking? how can I com? Side note Big winner, Mike Kavanaugh Gting to be the CEO of NBC Universal and a quasi permanent basis. He's been kind of acting CEO. this guy Not a lot of media operation experience. He's a JP Morgan deal maker who's been at comomcast a long time can't say that his track record has led to a lot of price growth over the past ten years at Comcast And now he's running NBC Universal. Doesn't that suggest? This is just a company looking for deals now. Maybe. but the big comcast, which Mike Kanu well one, take a step back. wouldould you say it is a promotion or a demotion? because he was co CEO of the whole company alongside Brian Roberts, but getting to be CEO on his own is better? I think so because Brian Roberts was the kind of de facto guy' been there running the company for twenty years. I don't knowcast alwaysways looked at big deals And I do think, you know, they're putting kind of a financial in a lot of and an operations steward in place, not a kind of core entertainment person It also means they don't have to pick between the various people. But you have to imagine that at a certain point, you know, Dononna Langley is sitting there and going, well maybe I want that job. Yeah. And if the goal was to actually grow the company and really turn it into a powerhouse in media, the experienced film and now television executive in charge of it, you don't put the deal guy in charge of it. unless your goal is deals. Well yeah. I mean, the guy who's now running Ccast, Brian Roberts stepping down, the guy running Comcast He's a deal guy as well. Yeah, Michael Elockiff. Yeah. He's the one that did the original deal to buy MBC Universal Well with. It just feels like this company is now going to be an M andA story. Whereas before it was a media Hollywood story. The comcast story for the last few years has been a or many years, has been a cable and internet story, not a Hollywood story But it's definitely the case now that deals are going to hang over everything this company does for the next couple of years, like it happened with Warner Brrosers Discovery as soon as they talked about splitting things up or really like's been happening with Warner Brothers Discovery for ten years I know. And the question is will they even get to the split? which I'm skeptical. I think if Netflix is really serious about NBC Universal. they'll do it now rather than wait the couple years for tax benefits We'll see Are any other winners and losers here U I had Bill Ackman as a loser foring the private equity guy hedge fund guy for who kind of agitated for change in Universal Music Group, part maybe as part of trying to help his own. company and it just like Universal did a couple of things to make him happy Um selling some of the Spotify steakakes and buybacks, but for the most part, big whiff didn't get a deal done I mean, I would have brought it up earlier, but I feel like we've talked about it a lot. Obvious winner is the, you know, curry part Kane Parsons and Curry Barker the directors of Backrooms and Obsession, kind of the two horror movies of the year so far Yeah, do you think that the entire horror landscape is a winner this first half of the year, I think so Isn't it always a winner? No, we were talking last year about oversaturation and Blum came on the show and talked about Megan two original movies, original horror wasn't working and yeah, okay. Horr has had a very good year. Yeah, and and it's had this kind of original comeback in the sense that, you know, the feeling was that it was going to be tougher and tougher to open original horror and that everyone needed to do branded And now we've got two big horror hits. Obsession just got to four hundred million. Obsession is like going to wipe the floor with the Spielberg movie. This is a dumb question because I should know this. It's gott to be the biggest movie Focus is ever released, right? Have you ever had one of those like random movies that actually got to you know hundred million. Yeah, It's F focus is biggestvie ever, according to the Hollywood. Okay So maybe we have Jason Kjoski the head of focus as a winner for the year Peter is Peter. So maybe we have Peter Kjowski the head of focus for a winner of the of the first half of the year. That's a pretty good is for Cujo Justice for. I know. And because I was making fun of they had a lot of bombs last couple years. although they did well with Noferatu, like the elevated horror seems to be their thing. It was the biggest movie in the history of Foccus when it crossed two hundred millionars After like two weekend So it's doubled the biggest movie focus has ever released. I have a bunch of other winners actually that I'm happy to run through. Well, my other winner was Ryan Gosling. Yeah because Project Taail Mary Not just a massive hit, but a massive hit that we can legitimately hang on him. He's been a star now for twenty years. He's never had a movie that you could say that is a Ryan Gosling vehicle that people showed up for that is a massive hit. He's either done IP with Blade Runner and Barbie or he's done these kind of like Ensemble movies or two handers like uh the, you know, Lala land or What was the Emma Stone one? Oh crazy, stupid love? Crazy stupid love. likeike he's been a star for a long time, but this is all him and he's going to get an Oscar nomination I would say that is as close to a shoing as possible. And coming off of one or two movies that hadn't done as well as people wanted this reasserted his primacy as a star who can get movies made Almost on his own. Exactly. I also think that's got to be a win for Courtney Valenti, the head of the movie division at Amazon because Amazon had really never had a big hit movie. Yeah. Andddie Jassie was tweeting about the home video release on prime this past weekend. Although Courtney Valenti takes a hit for the artificial debacle The Sam Altman movie there. Although do you think that that decision was ultimately certainly not her decision. but she it will hurt her with filmmakers and It's not going to be great for her next time a piece of edgy material comes through her door Sneaky winner RJ Sipriani. The really to generate gambler who brought down Jeff Shell, the head of Paramount, the presresident of Paramount through his claims. he want his wife's reality show to get green lit and he then got the, you know to the company fired over his claims. I refuse to hail that guy a winner, sorry. trust me, I'm holding my nose right now He also is probably getting a settlement I don't know who's paying that settlement, but probably has something to do with the insurance policy of Patty Glazer, Shell, and Sipriani's mutual lawyer. I don't know that for a fact All right, Any other winners. the only other one I had a couple of sports media ones. I mean, Jim Dolan reviled Nick owner who finally gets his win and N and the doing well and the Seers doing well. alsoso you know, anyone involved in this World Cup because of how well the ratings are doing. So the Eric Shanks at Fox spports, the Telundo people, their winners Telamundo people, I think, especially because of how big those numbers are. And you know, those numbers are going to flow to Pacock. I think we're going to see a big spike in peacock subs this next quarter because of the World Cup. Now the churn rate is probably going to be gigantic after that But if you know Peacock says they're almost profitable, it would be amazing if Peacock announced we're profitable and we had a you five million subscriber spike. And by the way, we're never announcing subscriber numbers again All right, any other sneaky losers? U, I mean O some obvious ones that I don't feel like we need to rel litigate like who I mean, I feel like this has not been a good start year for Alex Cooper with podcasting and a lot of the reporting ye around her Maggie Gillenhal for the Bride, notot a great. although she did get another movie at Warners. Jonah Hill had his movie bump from the summer cut off. We could also menture Casey Wassermman forced to sell his company after the, you know, the revelations of his Epstein emails that were twenty years ago, twenty years ago and it's still coming back to haunt him U Still no still the word on who's buying that company. No I think we're going to get some news in a couple couple days or weeks on that. All right, well, Pretty eventful first half of the year. I think we're going to see a lot more come in the second half. Lucas, thank you for your assessment. Thanks, Matt. All right, that's the show for today. no call sheet. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Sha P producer Craig Horback, arditors Jh Jones Jesie Lopez, and I wantan to thank you. We'll see a couple more times this week