Factually! with Adam Conover - Ballet isn't dead, movies are.

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)Timothee Chalamet needs to be looking at his own industry.Visit https://groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. So it's the Oscars this weekend, and the closest thing we have to a living movie star under 40, Timothy Shalame, has a major nomination for his role as ping pong and prodigy Marty Supreme. But instead of talking about what a brave, special, important, groundbreaking actor he is for refusing a butt double, we're all talking about how Timmy put his teeny tiny foot in his miniature mouth.

And I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or, you know, things where it's like, hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore. Now look, I love making fun of Timmy Chowls just as much as the next guy. He did a movie about ping pong where his ass gets slapped by a ping pong paddle, and his little butt is so tiny, it's like two little ping pong balls. He is begging to be made fun of. I mean, his whole body of work is funny to me.

Dune, too? More like Dune a little too much, if you know what I mean. I don't really know what I mean, but I can't get that phrase out of my head. And I stand by it, and I promise I won't cut this joke in post. Now, look, Timothy. Timote? I'm going to be honest. I actually don't know how to pronounce his name.

Like, when people say Timothee, is that the real pronunciation? Or is that like when your mom calls Target Targe? It's whatever you'd like. You could say Doug, Alex, Rick, whatever words. Okay, Doug. You're just wrong about opera and ballet. Both art forms are alive and well with millions of fans around the world, including me. I'm actually personally an opera fan.

I love the beautiful music, the enormous spectacle, and because that's where I plan to meet and seduce a wealthy widow who will write me into her will. Guess what, Timote, A? You know what's really on life support? The movies. That's right, your business. Movie ticket sales, measured and tickets sold have only recovered about half of their former glory since the pandemic. And worse, formerly successful studios like Warner Brothers are now being sold for parts to the highest bidder. And in this case, that bidder is the right-wing fail son of a tech billionaire who bought another movie studio with Daddy's money.

I mean, David Ellison wishes he were Kendall Roy. At least Kendall could rap. The merger between Warner Brothers and Paramount threatens to kill the movie and movie and, industry deader than Ziegfried and Brunhilde at the end of Act 3 of Gertadammerung. That means very dead, you Philistines, but like the Mortal Realm after Ragnarok, there is still a chance for the movies to one day be reborn. And in this video, I'll tell you why, but first, real quick, to support the channel, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover, and hey, if you really like sitting in a dark room

and watching something fun, come see me on the road on March 20th and 21st. I'll be in Hartford, Connecticut, April 2nd through 4th in Sacramento at the Punchline Comedy Club. April 10th through 12th in La Jolla, California at the Comedy Store, and I will be taping my new special April 18th at the Den Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Don't miss it then in May, I'll be in Kansas City. Head to Adam Conover.net for tickets. Now, it seems kind of ridiculous that Warner Bros. One of the world's most renowned movie studios is being swallowed up by Paramount.

I mean, W.B. had an incredible year. They made sinners, for Christ's sake. A smash commercial and critical hit that is an Oscar favorite this year, and stars two Michael B. Jordans. I mean, how is that not good enough to keep a company afloat? Do they need three Mikey B's? Audiences wouldn't be able to handle the smolder. But that is what's happening.

Paramount Skydance is merging with Warner Brothers Discovery. And yes, you heard that right. They are merging two companies that have already merged before. These company names are more hyphenated than a Bay Area child of divorce. This merger is going to be a disaster for Hollywood. When it's over, Paramount will be 79 BOR, billion dollars in debt. And how will they try and recoup that debt? Through massive, massive layoffs of the people who make your favorite movies and TV shows. But don't take my word for it, Paramount's own

Larry Ellison has said so. He said, by combining our linear businesses, we will expect to boost cash flow, drive efficiencies, and help manage market pressures. Which is billionaire speak for, we're going to build a monopoly and fire a ton of people. And this merger is also a big fucking deal, because it consolidates even more shows, movies, cinematic universes, and even news networks under one billionaires' roof. And that means we're going to get fewer of all of those things, and there will be less diversity in the things that we get. I mean, look, Paramount CEO and Rich Daddy Havre, David Ellison, says that the combined companies

are still going to release 30 movies a year, and some of them might not even be Taylor Sheridan Westerns. But just think for a second. How is that fucking possible? I mean, Paramount is in so much debt. Wall Street actually downgraded their credit rating after the merger was announced. So how are they supposed to keep pumping out movies

when their credit card just got declined? You broke, bitch! Do I sound cool saying, you broke, bitch? It sounds so cool. I mean, if you think movies have gotten bad over the past couple years, wait until next year when you're watching Paramount Summer Blockbuster

ring doorbell footage too. I mean, let's be clear here. What we are watching is the death of a great... American industry. One of the big five movie studios is buying out its competitor. That's like Chevy buying Ford and saying, guess what? We're not making any more F-150s. So this merger isn't just bad for Hollywood. It's bad for America. I mean, movies are the biggest, grandest, most universal art form of the last century. The industry was founded here in America and they are a huge

cultural export, spreading American soft power around the world, if that's important to you. Oh, and by the they also make a shitload of money. And now we're letting this cornerstone industry in America die because one fucking family wants to own every piece of media in America? I mean, the Ellisons, who, by the way, are so tight with Trump, they basically live inside his asshole, already own TikTok. Now add to that, Paramount Skydance, whose assets include Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, Showtime,

BET, CBS, and that includes CBS Sports, CBS News, and hundreds of local TV stations. And now, by merging with Warner Brothers, they will also control DC Comics, Discovery Plus, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, HBO, Cinemax, Skinimax, TLC, Animal Planet, HGTV, the Food Network, CNN's worldwide news operation, and even my old show, Adam Ruins Everything. I mean, could I just buy that back from them at like a yard sale? I have $10. Adam Ruins Everything, by the way, was on the now-defunct network True TV, which was killed, not one, but two Warner Bros.

brothers mergers ago. All of those brands, all of those apps, all of those websites, all of those media outlets that we rely on for news and entertainment will now be controlled by one right-wing family. And the elezons have made it very clear that they are willing to use their power over all of that media to make whatever the president wants to see. For instance, they're making rush hour four, which was literally requested by President Trump and no one else. That's the world we live in now, one where the president gets to order movies like cheeseburgers, while the rest of us can't even get a single new episode of Mission Hill, no matter how many fan campaigns we start.

Gone too soon. And just set aside entertainment for a second. Think about the consequences of letting that much of America's news gathering operation be controlled by one right-wing family. It means that family can determine what news gets covered, and therefore what the public thinks about. what is happening in this country. I mean, the new boss of CBS News, Barry Weiss,

already killed a story about Trump's detention center, Cicott. What are they gonna do once they own CNN? Force Anderson Cooper to say he loves eating pussy? That's not gonna be the joke. As news consumers, we now have to be so careful about what news we listen to to make sure we're not being lied to by some goddamn billionaire.

And that is why I am so happy that Ground News is sponsoring today's video, because Ground News tells you who owns the media you consume. See, Ground News pulls headlines from all across the web into one space and then shows you bias and factuality ratings for each source. And if you subscribe, they have a really cool feature where you can also check out who owns the company that published a particular headline,

so you can see in what way they might be biased. For instance, check out this story about Rush Hour 4 starting production, published by TMZ. With Ground News, you can click on the ownership tab and see that TMZ is owned by Fox News, which might explain why the story that they wrote clearly has a right-leaning bias. So if you want to be a more informed news reader,

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So the Paramount Warner Brothers merger is pretty fluech and bleak, But there is one kind of amusing bright side because I think Paramount might have gotten more than they bargained for with this merger because they forgot about the Warner Brothers curse. See, if you look back at history, Warner Brothers has merged more than a Waymo in L.A. traffic.

And every one of those mergers has crashed and burned harder than a waymo in L.A. traffic. Back in the year 2000, Warner Brothers was part of the largest merger in history up to that point. It was with a little company called AOL, and you might have noticed, things went pretty bad for AOL after that. After only two years, the merged company reported a $99 billion loss, which is still the worst annual loss in corporate history. This genius, Ted Turner, the AOL Warner vice chairman, lost 80% of his total wealth and apparently 90% of his total mustache. But he wasn't the only one that suffered from that merger.

No, most of the company's employees also saw their retirement accounts crash out with over $200 billion in shareholder value disappearing. AOL itself died almost completely, but the Warner brand lived to merge another day. This time, in 2018, with AT&T in a merger that cost almost $90 billion. The two companies promised, quote, transformation. But instead, just a few years ago, AT&T again sold off Warner Media to Discovery at a full, $40 billion loss. Half of the company's value burned up in smoke. Variety called this one of the most disastrous mergers in media history,

perhaps second only to the AOL Time Warner merger of just a few years prior. And who was the next lucky mergee with AT&T and AOL's sloppy seconds? Why? A little slut named David Zazlov. This genius stripped the company for parts, shelving expensive movies that people actually wanted to see just to save money his taxes and cratering the stock. Fundamentally, David Zazlov was a house flipper. He gutted the place and painted the door orange so he could flip it to some other sucker for a nice little profit. And a

couple years later, the Ellison's became that sucker. So good luck, David and Larry. You guys just took corporate poison. Let's see if you're strong enough to survive it. But you know what's really, really frustrating about this? All of these decades of financial pain were unnecessary, because Warner Brothers, by itself, without being bought by another company at all, could have always been a viable company. I mean, this is one of the biggest movie studios in the world. These are the people who made Casablanca, for Christ's sakes, and their slate of IP is second only to Disney.

They own the Major League Baseball Network and the Sister Wise franchise, and somehow we're supposed to believe they can't make any money on their own? Give me a fucking break. But, I mean, we all know that just like so much capitalism, all of this is a farce. This merger is just another opportunity for a couple rich guys to play a shell game and walk away with more money while destroying other people's jobs and the things that they love. And I mean, why should we put up with it? Why should we, the public, pay to support these companies when they treat their employees and their customers like this? Well, you know, maybe we shouldn't.

I mean, yes, Paramount and Warner Brothers have shows and movies that I truly love. and yes, I would love to work for any of these brands if they ever buy another TV show again. I mean, hit me up, David. Daddy needs some health insurance. But you know, if there's one silver lining to this merger, it might be that it reminds all of us that these big old capitalist dinosaurs

are not the only way to make the films that we love. These guys don't get to decide the future of an entire art form. We do. Because remember, ballet and the opera are still living vibrant, wonderful art forms because the public that loves them supports them directly. And guess what?

We, the public, love movies too. We do. Even Gen Z loves them. The Gen Z film audience grew by 25% over the past year, which is the highest increase of any age group. And it's not just the youths. Look at letterboxed where subscribers are skyrocketing.

This is a service literally only designed to brag about all of the movies that you see. see. People are literally paying money just to prove that they went to the movies. And you know why we love them? Because movies still have the capacity to delight and surprise and energize us no matter what size they are. I mean, sure, there's all the movies that were nominated for Oscars this year, like one battle after another. I love you, PT, but you know what else came out this year? Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. A little movie made by two Canadians in bad clothes and a stupid hat running around with a couple of cameras. And guess what?

Not only was it one of the funniest movies I've seen in years, it was a goddamn hit. The theater I went to see that motherfucker in was full. And that's why this Oscar weekend, I don't really care what Timothy Ski Shaleigh thinks is art, or what David Ellison thinks is going to make him money. I care what you think is art, and I care what I think is art, because we are the ones who will decide the future of the art form we love. That is why I go to my local independent movie theater, to see little movies like Nirvana, the band, the show the movie.

That's why I subscribe to smaller independent streamers, like the Criterion Channel and Shutter. And that is why I actually buy movies physically on Blu-ray. And I love doing it because it gives me control over how I consume this incredible medium. And because I love to have to pack a lot of extra boxes when I move. And you know what? If Timitay wins the big prize this weekend,

maybe I'll even get Marty Supreme on Blu-ray. because you know what? It'll probably be on sale now that everybody's mad at him. That was a hate gum podcast.