The Big Picture - Emergency Mailbag: The Oscars Are Streaming and Hollywood Is Fighting Over Trolls | The Big Picture

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

With a double hit of noisy movie-business news, Sean and Amanda dive into the mailbag to answer all your questions about the movie theater chain vs. Universal fight over windowing and 'Trolls World Tour' and the ramifications of the Academy's decision to allow streaming films to compete for Oscars at next year's ceremony. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy pod. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's TheRinger.com backslash WCK. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the future of the Academy Awards and the whole damn movie business. Amanda, we got a trundle of news yesterday.

First, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made some radical changes to its rules that could affect the Oscars for years to come. We'll address that with some questions provided by listeners in our mailbag later. But first, boy, we got to talk about the big old fight going down between the AMC movie theater chain, the country's biggest and Universal Studios. So early Tuesday morning, Amanda, a story appeared in the Wall Street Journal reporting that Trolls World Tour had garnered more than 5 million rentals at a 1999 price point and earned more than $100 million since it was released on VOD on April 10th. This matched the profits of the first Trolls film in

just a small month-long period. Universal CEO Jeff Schell was quoted in the story saying, as soon as theaters reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats. That curiously phrased sentence kicked off a firestorm. Now we will get to every single thing that happened since that story appeared. But just out of curiosity, when you saw this hit,

what did you think? How did you feel? What'd you make of this story? Did you buy it? Did you think it was a good move? And something that was coming for months and months and months. And obviously, recent events have accelerated all of the situations and also accelerated tempers, it would seem. There is a putting on a show element to all of this that, quite frankly, I have been in quarantine for a long time. And I just like some news. I'm grateful.

You know, great. Everyone just make really wild statements in public. Let's go. Thank you. I have something to get excited about on a Tuesday. I haven't left my house in over a month. But this is also, this had to happen. And this is just the breaking point in a way in a long struggle and negotiation between movie theaters and studios. I think in a lot of ways, this is just the kicking off point of a negotiation rather

than some world-chicking event. These were all strategic statements. And in a way, I respect the chutzpah of AMC just coming out. If you don't have a lot of leverage, you use what you have in a big way and you go public. But I don't think that this will be the world breaking event for movie theaters, but it might be part one in the world breaking event. Yeah. Everything that happened after shell made those comments. And that story was published for fascinating. Obviously as a background to this,

we also saw movies like the hunt and Emma and invisible man go direct to VOD after running in theaters for maybe a week or two. And then also announced shortly thereafter was that Judd Apatow's new Pete Davidson movie, The King of Staten Island, also a universal release, would still be arriving in mid-June, but coming directly to VOD. This is a significantly different choice than something like Trolls World Tour, where there's a lot of baked-in understanding of the IP. But this windowing period, this 90 day period that the theaters and the major studios have agreed upon between when a film can hit theaters and when it

can arrive at VOD has been a political football for the last five or so years in the movie business. And it coincides almost directly with the rise of the mega IP release and also the rise of the mega IP release. And also the rise of Netflix. So you're right. This really is. This was the opening shot. And a few years after Shell's comments were made public. AMC boss Adam Aaron. Fired off a fantastically petty letter. To Universal chairman Donna Langley.

This is what Aaron wrote in that letter in part. Quote. Going forward AMC will not license any Universal movies in any of our 1,000 theaters globally on these terms that also includes the US Europe and the Middle East Universal responded quote absolutely we absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and made no statement to the contrary but as we stated earlier going forward we expect to release future films directly to theaters as well as on pvod when that distribution outlet makes sense this seemingly coordinated attempt from amc and nato to confuse our position and our actions so nato of course is the north american

theater owners uh lobby and they represent all the movie theaters and they have been a a bulwark in this fight for a long time i suspect that there was a lot of work going on in their offices yesterday helping coordinate with amc a significant response um you know adam aaron who we should say has some experience working in the nba a former executive with the philadelphia 76ers and is a quite a strident figure in the movie business world i am so so fascinated by the decision to go this public this fast. You seem like you almost saw it coming, like this fight was ready to happen. I'm not sure I saw this specific strategy, which is a little bit like going nuclear in

public coming. And as I said, I do almost admire it as much as I can admire the actions of any large corporation, which is not very much because corporations aren't people, even though they employ people, which is important. And we'll come back to that. But to me, it really seems like AMC does not have a lot of options left. And all they really have is they have major financial issues, as I'm sure we'll discuss. And of course, all of their theaters are still closed. And of course, their business has been struggling for several years just because of the basic technological changes in how we watch movies. The COVID-19 crisis has been very grave for

the industry, both the movie industry and theaters. But in a lot of ways, these problems existed in a smaller fashion before this. And we were coming to a point where there would be this showdown over windowing. So I kind of dig that they went all in on the one thing they had left, which is that they are the biggest theater distributor in the world. And the studios still need them for their big movies. And they know that. And so they threw the gauntlet down.

And they did it in a really sassy way that would get a lot of attention and get everyone talking about it. And it's risky. I don't know if I would do it. But I am not a multimillionaire because I don't take a ton of risks. So we'll see. I do like it. Again, I think it's pure negotiation. I think that's all it is. And they already both walked back their statements.

And I think ultimately there will be some sort of deal that is not exactly what Universal wants. And it's very much not what AMC wants, but will be somewhere in the middle of these two things. But I don't know. Give me some drama. I'm enjoying the drama. It's notable that Regal Entertainment, which is owned by Cineworld, followed up this morning, joining hands with AMC on those statements that Adam Aaron shared, stating, we your team are worthless if we cannot trust you as a partner. So that underlines something really important, which is that there is a tacit agreement in what the studios and the theater chains have together. And in many ways, it is a virtuous cycle. They really need each other to thrive. Now, who needs each other more is kind of at the heart of this conversation and this issue that they've been having for years. So on the one hand, the movie studios right now make extraordinary profits from big tentpole

releases that go into theaters. Fast and Furious movies, we saw one get pushed to 2021. That got pushed for a reason. They're not putting the Fast and the Furious movie on VOD. Despite all of this fighting, that's not happening. The margin of profit is way too high in the theater experience to encourage Comcast to release that movie directly to your home in two weeks, even though you and I and Shea Serrano and all of our friends would love to have a Fast and Furious movie during quarantine. We're not going to get that. But it does exacerbate a lot of issues that we see in the industry right now, which is what movies get released into theaters? What is the theatrical experience? And if this only accelerates the question of, well, anything that is mid or small tier just

should go directly to VOD, that's kind of a fascinating and potentially frustrating situation. The pettiness is very entertaining. I love this. It's nice to have a fight, as you say. And there are some mitigating circumstances here. I think the fact that Trolls World Tour is a sequel that had already essentially had a massive marketing budget dedicated to it

and that people had been aware of the movie before we went into quarantine. In addition to all the other kids' movies that are going to be released in this format, we saw Warner Brothers was moving Scoob to May 15th. We see Artemis Fowl by Disney is going straight to Disney Plus. This stuff is easy to sell. It'll be very interesting to me to see what the King of Staten Island, the Judd Apatow movie does.

What do you think is going to happen there? Will Universal come out with a proud chest beating statement about how much profit they've earned on this standalone comedy from Judd Apatow and a guy who's on SNL? Yes, I'm sure they will because they are also in the sales business. And the Wall Street Journal quote that started this all off was about Universal trying to spin the decisions that they made to success. And it is interesting to me that the Wall Street Journal only speaks in terms of the domestic earnings of both Trolls and Trolls World Tour. I think that's because Trolls World Tour was only released in North America. But Trolls made $300 million plus worldwide and Trolls World Tour is not there yet.

So again, everyone is giving the data that they want to give in order to make themselves seem successful and like they got a handle on the business. And so I'm sure they will do whatever they need to do to make King of Staten Island seem successful. And maybe it will be.

I mean, I was thinking about Longshot, which is not a Judd Apatow movie, but is in the similar vein, similar like a comedy for adults that it's not a franchise. It's not for kids, not an action set piece. And it made so little money in theaters because so many people just last year at this time were like, well, can I just watch that on demand? So maybe more people will watch King of Staten Island on demand. Maybe our conception of what we watch at home is already changing and the distribution is just catching up to it.

It was funny to see in that video that Apatow and Pete Davidson did together. They did a sort of a Zoom conference announcing that this movie would go straight to VOD. Judd Apatow openly said, even if he was saying it in jest, that they were going to not make money on this movie, that this movie was not expected to earn a profit.

I find it to be a fascinating situation because there's been so little marketing around The King of Staten Island because they haven't released the trailer. This movie is going to be out in less than two months, and the level of awareness on it is pretty low. That being said, they do have SNL, which apparently is going to continue to air to promote this movie on. So there are some benefits, but there's some downside. Obviously, people like you and I,

we'll be devoting an entire episode to Judd Apatow because of this. I mean, it really is water in the desert for us. I'd much rather talk about Apatow and that movie than Scoob. Sure. And I think both King of Staten Island and Trolls World Tour are... Trolls World Tour is very hard for me to say. Trolls World Tour. But they are both benefiting from the novelty of, hey, you can get theater movies in your home now. And we're covering them. You and I actually watched both Trolls movies,

which I don't think we would have done if not for unusual circumstances. And Trolls definitely benefited from it being a franchise, from kids, from the marketing. But both of them are kind of event movies because of the circumstances in a way that perhaps the 10th or the 20th or the 30th video BOD release might not be. So a couple of other important things to consider here. A lot of the energy has been focused on Universal, but we did mention that Warner Brothers is moving Scoob. And something went somewhat unremarked upon last week when John Stanky, who was then the COO of AT&T

and now has been elevated to the top job at the company, said Warner Media is, quote, currently rethinking our theatrical model in light of COVID-19. He said, quote, don't expect that's going to be a snapback recovery. That is movie theaters to say. I think that's going to be something that we're going to have to watch. The formation of consumer confidence, not just about going back to the movies, just in general about being back out in public. So when that happened, there was obviously a massive panic within the movie distribution side

of Warner Brothers. Christopher Nolan, of course, longtime steward of Warner Brothers, and his new movie Tenet is supposed to be the movie that reopens theaters on July 17th around the country. And we've heard that he was not happy about Snanky's comments. And it underscores that this is not just a fight between theater owners and movie studios. It's a fight between creative people who make movies and business people who distribute movies. And there is this underlying tension around streaming and what streaming can and should do. In the case of Universal, Comcast has its own streaming service that is going to be available to the public at large at some point this summer called the Peacock. At some point, isn't it better to move Trolls World Tour? Maybe it's not now, maybe it's not next year, maybe it's not even five years from now, but at some point

to move something like Trolls World Tour, which demands a huge audience directly to its streaming service where it can grow its audience and get more users. That's exactly what Disney Plus did with the Mandalorian. And Disney Plus has tens of millions of subscribers in less than eight months of life. So I think if you're a theater owner, you've got to be terrified that the very state of movies is going to change. Trolls World Tour might just be a TV show

on the Peacock in 2024. This all goes back to this conversation we've been having for the last 12 months that it feels like this is over and it's all over but the shouting and we're just getting the shouting now. Yes, 100%. If theater owners aren't terrified and haven't been terrified for the past three, four, five years, then they're not doing their jobs. And to some extent, I would argue that they have not been doing their jobs because they have not adapted quickly enough to the fact that the way people watch movies has just changed. It's changed. And you can't change that behavior. And that

has changed long before COVID-19. So yes, this very entertaining back and forth, which I appreciate for content purposes, was inevitable. And it's just finally bubbling over. And I think this is the first of many such conversations that we're going to have. And I think things are going to change. Windowing, I'm certain, will change in some way. I don't know how. And I think there will be a lot more negotiating and a lot more rude letters before we find out how. But you're completely right that in five years trolls world tour god it's really really hard for me to say that anyway it's just it's the double r anyway the second trolls movie it's like the rural juror from 30 rock and now it's like the most important movie in the history of cinema

and i can't even pronounce it great it's great for my future as a movie podcaster. Anyway, Trolls 2, Trolls 3, Trolls 4 will almost certainly go to streaming services. And I think what you said, Fast 9 is going to be in movie theaters. The big tentpoles that are already planned, that they've already spent a huge amount of money on and have organized their businesses around will still be in movie theaters because that's how you make a lot of money. But what I worry about is five years down the road where studios decide,

okay, well, it's just not worth making those, as many of those giant tent poles and we'll just spend less money on Trolls 4 and King of Staten Island 3 and put it directly on demand. And you'll just get a lot more kind of genre confused or not genre confused, but medium confused, like not quite TV, not quite movie things on your streaming platforms for $15 because that's the safest way for these people to make money. I completely agree. That is my great fear, is that long-term, that's what we're pitching towards.

Now, I think that there's two mitigating factors that benefit the studios right now. One is obviously the Nolan types, the people who are going to continue to fight for theatrical release. And that's maybe even generational. There might be 10 years or 15 years of filmmakers who say, you're not putting my movie directly on VOD. You're just not. Now, there's only probably 20 people total that you can say have that kind of leverage in these situations, but they exist.

And then the other thing is, I don't know how to delicately describe this. Movie studio executives, media executives are among the most scared people in the universe. And they know that they're being judged on a 24-hour basis. Every decision that they make and the board that governs their opportunity to continue to earn profits in their very cushy jobs, they're afraid to make a mistake. And if profits dip for Universal and Comcast because they've decided to move more releases to VOD to kick off this revolution, somebody who's in a job now is going to suffer for this long-term transition.

And I think that the theaters basically need to count on and leverage that fear. And if you're a studio like Sony, for example, where you don't have as much of the market share, where you don't have as many movies that are meaningful to people, you might not be as willing to start trundling stuff into VOD. You might lean more aggressively into theatrical. So what we're going to have now is like, if AMC and Regal is serious about this, and Universal is not going to put, it's not going to have their movies in those theater chains,

and they only play at Alamo Drafthouse or La Landmark or whatever. No, I'm not saying that that's going to happen. But if it were to happen, there are other studios that stand to benefit. And Disney is not going to change its stance because Disney doesn't release small movies. They only release event movies. And that is part of their strategy is they believe in the theatrical experience, but only when the movie has a $300 million budget and a $1 billion box office return. So there is like a little bit of a window here.

What do you think? You know who I was thinking about last night was the person who decided that $19.99 was the right rental price for, I think, was it The Hunt and Invisible Man? Yes. And Emma. And those were the first three and they priced it at $19.99. And that came a week after

you were just mocking me, like viciously, for saying that I would only spend $30 to rent the Bond movie in my home and that it was going to cost $50 or even $100. And that's gone. No one can charge even $30 for any VOD and home ever again because now we have the $20 model and no one's going to pay even a dollar more. I mean, maybe they will. But I do think as soon as you set that price and start making all this attention about it, then that's locked in. And is $20 for like premium VOD enough to sustain the types of movies or to make them enough money to justify it. I don't long-term, I don't know. Well, so you've, you've underlined a very important part of this, which is that the Trolls World Tour number in particular was 1999 to rent the movie

for a 48 hour period, which was very smart. And what it did is parents showed their kids that movie and then it was over. And then the kids said, I want to watch it again. And I had people anecdotally tell me that they rented the movie three weekends in a row. That's $60 to spend for 18 viewings of Trolls World Tour. That's just good business for Universal. Can I just say my thoughts are with the parents of the United States always. But in these past three weeks, if you've spent $60 on Trolls 2,

God bless you. I support you. I hope that your children have left with the respect for country music as well as rock and pop. Not classical because they didn't feature it. That's okay. Maybe play your kids some Beethoven

because that movie sure didn't. But anyway, the only thing that I would say to that is that it's a great point and that that is very savvy. But wouldn't a lot of those parents just have to had to have rented it anyway over and over again? Like some of this is that it doesn't the VOD, especially with kids cut into the home rental and business that existed to supplement the theater runs of movies like Trolls 2? It's a really good point. This is something that Jason Blum talked about on the Bill Simmons podcast when he talked about putting the Invisible Man in the hunt directly to VOD.

I think that there are a lot of mitigating circumstances here. Now, typically with Trolls World Tour, they would release the movie to buy at the outset of the VOD window period. So you could buy it for $19.99 on iTunes unless they changed the pricing. And then you'd wait two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and then you could rent it for $6.99 or $4.99. And the rental period would be 48 hours. But if you wanted to own the movie and watch it in perpetuity, as many parents do over the years, ask Andy Greenwald, watch co-host, who has been buying movies on iTunes for his kids like Frozen 2

to watch over and over again. And now they don't even really have to do that because those movies go right to Disney Plus. So until the Peacock exists, they need to rely on this, you know, these intermediaries. And there are all these intermediaries. There's iTunes, there's Amazon,

there's Vudu, there's Fandango Now, there's all of these kind of middle organizations that are also taking in some profits from the sales of these movies. Long term, this stuff is just going to the O&O streaming services. That's where it has to live. I don't know

if that strategy is going to work well at all for something like King of Staten Island. I'm not going to be renting it three weekends in a row. But to your point about James Bond, Trolls World Tour is not James Bond. And Trolls World Tour is not Fast and the Furious. And if we get to a point, I mean, there's a lot of circumstances here in which this could happen. Let's say there's a second wave of COVID-19 outbreak. God forbid, I really hope that doesn't happen. I hope that people stay safe and are healthy. But if there is a second wave, and we realize, man, actually quarantine is going to extend through the end of 2020, a lot of these companies are going to have to make some different decisions about their release

schedule because it's going to be impossible to produce new movies. And also their bottom line is going to be really important. They're going to get really upset about their stock price when it goes down when they don't have any significant releases. So I do think if you see No Time to Die released directly to VOD, it will be for more than $19.99. That may not work. It might not be successful. But I do think that they're going to experiment with higher price points. And I think that's true. And I think probably probably like i said i i would pay 30 if anyone's listening and wants to go ahead and make that possible for me right now 30 in your pocket today maybe i would even rent it twice that would be illegal um let's not send amanda a pirated copy

of no time to die that she pays money for that would be a way to send amanda to jail and the big picture does not want that. That's true. I meant an official release. But anyway, but I do think and I think there will be exceptions in that vein for sure. But for the most part, I think the price has been set at $20 for most standard releases, because that's just what's ingrained in people's heads. And as soon as you set the price, people are gonna be like, well, I'm not going to pay more than that, unless it's something truly exceptional. And if you don't have the theater system and the entire

mechanism around marketing movies that you used to have, can you make that many movies feel special enough that people want to spend more than $20 for them. There are some movies that are grandfathered in, but I don't know how you do that in two or three years. It's funny. We're going to talk a lot about Netflix when we get into the Academy Awards stuff, but I feel like we should address that company briefly. Is there a company having a better 2020 than Netflix? I don't know if it exists. This is also just a massive net win for them. On the one hand, you could say, well, this is drawing more attention to the idea of VOD and original releases getting more attention in the last time on Netflix. But it's just one more sign

that they just completely upended the entire movie business and their stock price is up. 85 million people at least started Spencer Confidential. I'll never get over that. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. And we devoted two full episodes last week to the idea of the netflix movie and what it means to be a netflix movie and you just can't overstate how much they change the landscape of movies like what we're talking about here is essentially the financial transactional nature of the movie business we're not talking about movies that we love i'd much rather honestly be talking about movies that we love. We don't have a lot of those movies right now.

But Netflix just, they changed everything in under 10 years. It's just incredible. I don't have a comment beyond that. Just wow. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's the printing press of movies for sure. And maybe more generally. I mean, the internet is the printing press, but whatever.

Sorry, I've been reading Wolf Hall. It's set in that era. I'm really into the printing press. Okay. Gutenberg. Any final thoughts on this thing that I suspect we will be talking about again in the next week or two weeks because everything is changing here in the world of movies? Let's just keep having this conversation with the flair and slight rudeness that has been set out in the last 24 hours because we got to keep it interesting somehow. And I'm enjoying it. I want to see a Zoom debate between Jeff Schell and Adam Aaron. I would pay $49.99 for that. Just two powerful executives yelling at each other about how they lied to one another. That would be great content.

Okay, let's go to the mailbag. We're going to bring in our producer Bobby Wagner to read us some questions because what happened with the Academy Awards yesterday on any other day would be the biggest movie news of the quarter. Honestly, even the small changes that they made would have been, if they had not changed the rules that we're going to discuss here, even the sound category changes would have been massive.

But this is now somehow coming in second place. It was a really big deal for the two of us for like two and a half hours on Tuesday until the universal stuff happened and the AMC stuff. But we were really into it. We were really in the weeds and I think we'll get into the weeds

in this portion of the podcast. Okay, Bobby, where should we start? Before we actually do the mailbag questions, because I think all of the askers of the questions were assuming that people know the changes. Can you just delineate them really quickly yeah sure so I mean I'll read briefly from the statement that the Academy shared

specifically the most significant change by far is that this year or at least until further notice the Academy is willing to waive its demand that a movie play in at least one movie theater in Los Angeles to qualify for an Academy Award.

So what they're sharing now is the film must be made available on the secure Academy screening room member only streaming suite within 60 days of the film streaming or VOD release. The film must meet all other eligibility requirements. Now, this is completely tied to everything we were just talking about with Universal, which is that for years and years, every company that wanted to win an Oscar needed to put its movie in a movie theater. Now, there's like a lot of murkiness around this in terms of how they're going to litigate this. And I guess we'll get into that with some of the questions, because it's all about whether or not there was a planned theatrical release and whether that can be proven. And frankly, in some cases, it's easy to prove because, for example, some actors or filmmakers have clauses in their contract that say this film must play in a theater. But not everyone does. And not every movie has a document that says this

film will play in a movie theater. So especially stuff that is unfinished or is in a post-production process and isn't dated or has been moved. Like there's just a lot of unknowns here. Should I run through the other changes that the board made? Yes. There were a few more significant categorical changes that were made. The two sound categories, sound mixing and sound editing, have been combined after much speculation into one award for best achievement in sound that emphasizes the team effort.

The number of Oscar statuettes remains the same. Up to six statuettes may be rewarded. Eligible recipients may include one production sound mixer, two supervising sound editors, and three re-recording mixers. In the musical original score category, for a score to be eligible, it must comprise a minimum of 60% original music. Additional for sequels and franchise films,

a score must have a minimum of 80% new music. In a procedural change in the international feature film category, and this is very important, all eligible Academy members will now be invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting. For the first, which clearly indicated that there was some discontent with Les Miserables taking the space for France in that category after Portrait of a Lady on Fire has emerged as one of the most beloved films of the last 10 years and did not even appear at the Academy Awards. So, you know, these changes are all pretty radical. This is probably the best time to now turn to the questions. What do you say you say bobby yeah now that we have our rules of engagement okay so jerreen asks do the new rules mean more studio more studios actually will walk back the new fall release dates and spring for vod in the next couple of months instead and and jacob and a lot of other people ask does this mean that we're going

to start to see the release on vod of movies like the French Dispatch, The Green Knight, Mank, Tenet, those types of movies? My instinct right now is no. And Sean, you can correct me on this. And again, things have been changing so rapidly in the world at large and also in the movie world that it's still fairly early. But I think right now, as it relates to the Oscars, traditionally, Oscar season is September to December. You want to win an oscar you release your movie in in that window so that people remember it and it i think everyone is still holding out hope that we have time and that they can get back into that window theater theater wise or just in general you know i've been wondering like will netflix suddenly release mank and be

like you know what we really wanted to show you Mank in IMAX. That was very important to us. But given the situation, we're just going to release it now. I personally wouldn't do that because I think if you release Mank in June, then it's forgotten by December. I could be wrong, but I do still think the timing and the consciousness of when you release a movie is extremely important to win an Oscar. And if the goal is to win an Oscar, I don't know why you would move the release date up. So in addition to the end of the theatrical experience for a lot of movies right now, we also have the end of the festival experience and thus the hype machine. And so without the hype machine, it makes it a lot harder to draw attention to a lot of these movies.

A movie like Manc presumably was slated to play Telluride or Toronto or one of those film festivals. I'm almost certain that the French Dispatch was going to be a can. And that was that was going to be Wes Anderson's big coming out party for that film. And it was going to come out in July. And then they were going to coordinate a campaign for six months. So I think there are a couple of instances where you might see something. You'll definitely see at least a couple of Netflix movies get moved up, whether those movies are the movies that are tabbed for Best Picture.

I think you're right, Amanda. Mank is probably not moving off of its illusory late fall date. They'll definitely move some stuff up because there is a captive audience right now, as we saw from Spencer Confidential. It depends on the company, though. The French Dispatch is owned by Disney. It's a Fox Searchlight film. And Disney has not shown a desire to move films to the VOD format like this. Onward had already been released in theaters. Artemis Fowl was kind of a misbegotten project, and it a home on Disney Plus. But I'm not expecting any Marvel movies to make their way onto VOD and I'm not expecting the French Dispatch 2 either, though I'd like to have it. The Green Knight is an interesting question. A24 has not said a word about anything. They have not

made a public comment. They have still not moved the date of the Green Knight, which is supposed to be May 29th. That's one month from today. And I don't know what's going to happen to the Green Night. All of their other films have been pushed into later in the year and are largely undated. They've also got a slate of Oscar movies to keep an eye on, Boys State and Minari and a bunch of stuff that we saw at Sundance. I would guess that the theatrical experience is still really important to A24 too, but we just don't know. I think you'll see a little shuffling, but not as much as Jorine or even I would like to see just because I don't have anything to do from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. every night. So I'd be happy to watch The Green Knight immediately. What decade are you in right now on your going back through film

history? I'm ping-ponging like crazy. My letterbox is schizophrenic at the moment, but it's great. We are aware. I watched Preston Sturgis' The Great Moment last night about William Morton, the inventor of ether who revolutionized dentistry. I'm having a blast. I watched Law-Abiding Citizen, the terrible 2009 Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler film. I'm on a ping pong table of my own mind. I'm going to jump ahead to a question from Alex because Amanda, you mentioned or alluded to this a little bit in your answer just now. Will it still likely be in October through December award season or is that too early to tell? And are there any legitimate contenders that may have come out already? What do you think about this, Amanda I think right now yes. Because it's the only schedule that we have.

And people just don't know. If we get further into this. And the theaters are still closed. And everything continues to be pushed back. Then I think award season could be pushed back as well. I mean you know. I think it'll be the three months before. Whenever the ceremony is.

And yesterday as a part of the Academy announcements, they reiterated that for now there will be an Oscar ceremony on February 27th, I believe. 21st, 27th. But if that has to change for whatever reason, and there could be a number of reasons, it could be that ABC doesn't want to do it then. It could be that we can't have people together in a room then, in which case the Academy and or ABC or both decide that, okay, that's not how we want to do a ceremony. It could be pushed back for a lot of reasons. And then I think the season shifts with it.

I feel like it would be wise to caveat every single question here with a big fat red lettered, I don't know. Did I not just do that? No, you did. You did. I mean, I think that's the thing is like with every answer, we're going to have to say, here's what I think is going to happen. But if we're in quarantine in October, there is no Oscar season. It's not going to be the same thing that it was. If there are no fall festivals, it's going to be completely different. Now that prize is some a place like netflix over a place like focus features or searchlight which tend to compete just as aggressively i really

don't know but maybe that's the point i really don't know all right this next question comes from furnival hawk do you think easing the rules will lead to a backlash among voters and make them even less likely to give awards to streaming movies than they already were? I say no. I feel like the dam was about to burst anyway. Yeah, I agree. I think also we're talking about Netflix here, right? And Netflix is just really well positioned in this particular award season. They have a Spike Lee movie and a David Fincher movie that are going to be two of their major awards contenders whenever award season actually starts. So you're asking people to to do less by voting for one of films by one of those two directors who are so established and and respected. And I kind of think that the vitriol will perhaps go away a little bit. I don't think

that people will be thinking in terms of streaming versus traditional in the way that they did even two years ago, just because people will be glad to have movies and glad to have jobs. And it'll be about shoring up the industry as a whole, as opposed to shoring up just a particular business model. But never underestimate the pettiness of anyone, but especially the Academy. It's a lot harder to hold a grudge when the whole industry moves to the same format as Netflix, though. As this changes over time, I don't know how you could credibly say that Netflix, which is a studio that while they do make plenty of mediocre flotsam, also makes Marriage Story and pays $150 million to make The Irishman. I mean,

they are making those movies. They're making Mank, which is a black and white historical drama with no movie stars. Gary Oldman is the lead of Mank. And that's a movie that's going to cost a lot of money because it's a Fincher movie. And you know that it's going to be incredibly elegant and perverse, like all of his movies are. That's a big bet. Studios haven't been giving David Fincher money to make movies for the last seven or eight years for a reason. So at some point, you just kind of have to tip your cap and be like, you guys are doing the thing that we wish we could do. And holding that grudge, I don't think really is going to have value. But I think that this was already in play before we got to this moment. I think that given

the slate that they have, there's also a Ron Howard Hillbilly elegy adaptation, which, you know, kind of like makes my brain bleed, but also feels like such Oscar stuff. Um, and then,

and then I'm sure there's another movie or two. I'm sure there's a two popes esque thing coming down the pike that we're not even aware of, but there's going to be wonderful or at least going to be celebrated in some way. So I don't think that there will be a hard backlash here because there's going to be no such thing as screeners anymore. Everything is going to be streaming for the Academy to view on their screen. So if it's good enough to be viewed

on a screen by the Academy in a streaming format, why is it not good enough if it came from Netflix, a streamer? It's just that there's a fundamental philosophical disconnect there. 15 minute mini podcast that review the latest TV shows streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, FX, Apple TV, wherever else. We'll preview new shows that are launching. We'll break down the biggest shows that just launched. We'll review the biggest binge watch seasons that drop as they happen. It's our new TV concierge podcast from the ringer podcast network. Think of it like a little bit of a playlist. Pick and choose the ones you want to listen to.

It's available only on Spotify. Let's just do some Netflix questions because a lot of people asked a lot of them and we're already talking about Netflix. So Ron wants to know, does this mean Netflix has a better chance at winning Best Picture? Yes and no and

I kind of honestly think it doesn't change it I think that the situation in general had already made Netflix well positioned because they have so many more movies in the bank they have a distribution system that is not interrupted that's already in place they have the they know how to market their movies in this way because they've already been doing it. So, and you know, as I said, they also have a David Fincher movie and a Spike Lee movie coming out. So I thought they already had great chances. And I am curious to see what the ultimate final eligibility looks like because all of the Academy rules are caveated with, you know, basically for the time being until further notice. And it seems like they might not want to extend this all the way through December. At least that's how I'm reading it. Sean, maybe you're reading it differently. So if, you know,

if it's summer movies that are on VOD that are eligible for streaming, maybe that benefits Netflix in some way because they can put a movie up and not have to worry about a theatrical release and recirculate it and it's viable. But for the most part, I think Netflix has been in a great position for a while now and that continues. I think the first point you made is the most vital, which is they just have more movies done than anybody else. So if what we've heard is true and that all of those movies are at least have completed the production phase and they're all in post-production, they're going to have between five and eight contenders for Best Picture. And I don't think that Bad Boys for Life

will be contending for Best Picture this year's the movies that we've seen from the major studios much as i've enjoyed some of them are are not really there now it'll be interesting to see as if this extends for a long period of time if films like never rarely sometimes always that we've talked about on this show can contend um but there's no guarantee that i don't know what the state of west side story is steven spielberg's musical adaptation that I don't know what the state of West Side Story is Steven Spielberg's musical adaptation that was thought to compete I don't know if it's done I don't know if they're in post production I don't know if there needs to be reshoots I don't know

maybe we'll start to get a little bit more transparency into that process as the Oscar question comes to the fore but I mean we know Tenet is done we know the French Dispatch presumably is done since it was coming it was going to Cannes I think anything tabbed for Cannes theoretically was expected to be completed but that's not a huge list of films they didn't announce their slate before all this went down so yeah Netflix just

has more movies that will be ready and that's by nature gives them a leg up Nick wants to know will Netflix even bother to release their films theatrically now that they have no awards requirement to so I guess in theory this is only a question for the rest of this year because that's what the academy is maintaining but well yeah until the academy says that you have to again so i i think it really depends on how long until further notice turns out to be do you think netflix regrets buying the egypt the Egyptian theater eight months ago? It's probably a fairly costly endeavor so that they can own their own movie theater.

They did buy at the top of the market, I suppose. That's right. Yeah, I mean, they bought the Egyptian. They're refurbishing the Paris Theater in New York. I think I choose to believe Ted Sarandos when he says that he loves the theatrical experience as well and that he thinks that they can have both, but I'm also cynical enough to know

that those overtures were made to ingratiate themselves to the older members of the Academy or the more dugged members of the Academy who feel like they need to show their movies in theaters. I don't even know if there's anything there must be some sort of contractually bound language that indicates in Fincher's deal that the movie plays in a theater there. Like I would just be shocked if there wasn't. And so if they can use that as evidence to show to the Academy that, um, they were going to, and that it will qualify, then that's great. But I mean, if movie theaters aren't open, the Netflix movies certainly aren't going into movie theaters all right let's uh let's jump back out of netflix um here's the elephant in the room this comes from movies are my life

sean's burner uh do you think this is the nail in the coffin for traditional theater releases traditional yes i think things are going to change they were going to change anyway this definitely speeds it up like the windowing will change. Probably, unfortunately, the number of theaters will change, which is a real shame because those theaters employ people. And also because people need to people like going to see the movie theaters, movies in theaters, and people may not have as many options. And that's a bummer. So yes, I think it will change it. Do I think that this like erases movie theaters from the planet? I don't. Completely agree. I just think it theoretically becomes a more boutique business. I think if you look at what the Alamo Draft Houses of the world are doing,

which is to create a kind of cultural experience at a movie theater. If you go to the Alamo Draft House in LA, you can go to a movie. And at that movie, if you're me, you can have a whiskey cocktail and a big basket of French fries and some Sour Patch Kids. And then after the movie's over, you can go down to their video store and you can rent a movie from the same filmmaker who made the film that you just watched. And then you can sit down at the bar and have a tall beer. And then you can participate in a trivia night. and that is a six-hour evening in a movie palace that amc is not offering um the chairs are much more comfortable at elmo draft house and the food is better and the service is better and it's it's just not a massively expandable business it's not a there's not never going to be 5,000 Alamo

Drafthouse movie houses. There's never going to be 5,000 Alamo Drafthouse movie theaters. But there is a business model there. There's a way to make a lot of money in those buildings showing movies. And I do think that that is ultimately where the business is going to start to go. Because there's always going to be people,

myself included, who want to go to the movie theater, who want to go see a movie in that environment. It's a great place to see old movies and new movies, frankly. But I don't think that this wide scale version of movie going is going to exist in five years. And there's a reason that AMC is in a massive amount of debt and declaring for bankruptcy. This is just a hard business to run. The margins have been shrinking every year, despite the fact that there's a lot of chest beating about how the total box office numbers are going up every year. They're only going up because everybody's raising the prices on everything. And the pandemic, millions of people have lost their jobs. And the economy is fucked right now. So the idea of trying to get

people to come into a movie theater with no amenities and expect them to pay for their families north of $60 to see Trolls World Tour when they could just stay home and watch it for $20 is just nonsense. It's just not going to happen. So because of the changes to the Academy and because of the circumstances of the pandemic and what we're seeing studios do, I don't think it will ever be the same. It won't all happen in one shot. It's going to take years.

But it's definitely changing. So Matthew wants to know. Do you think the Academy streaming rules for this year. Will eventually become a permanent rule. In the following years. I'm not sure. What do you think? Not next year.

I think they'll make a point of making sure. That it's not next year. I mean they. These rule changes were made. With a lot of chest beating about how the Academy believes in the theatrical experience. And David Rubin and Don Hudson, who's the CEO of the Academy, did an interview with The Hollywood Reporter where they just, you know, yelled theater in all caps about 20 times. That's actually true. I thought it was

a very thoughtful interview. They seem they seem like thoughtful people. Um, but so I think the Academy will make a point of not including them next year, five years from now, I think things will be so different that, you know, who can say, I, again,

we both think that the theater distribution, I'm sorry, the movie distribution model is just going to dramatically change in the next five years. And it's starting now. And I, I think it might seem silly in five years not to count a streaming movie. Yeah. Think about the other services that we're going to have on our hands by the time we get to the end of this cycle. By the time we get to the end of this cycle, HBO Max and the Peacock will

exist. Sony still does not have a streaming service to its name, which is fascinating because Sony is the only one of these companies that is a true technology company. They've been a technology company for 40, 50 years and they could have built something and they never built anything, which is so strange. But you have to imagine that they're either looking to sell to a bigger studio or a bigger technology company or that they're putting something together that we don't know about. And then what happens when every studio has their own streaming service? What happens when HBO Max debuts the new Steven Soderbergh movie rather than putting it in theaters to qualify? Let them all talk, hopefully coming. Is that coming May 27th? I don't even know. You're already dancing, Amanda. Just as soon as you say Soderbergh, that's what I have to do. I don't know if it's at release. I hope so. I would love to see it. I would love to see it too.

I just think once all of these studios have their own playpen, they just don't need these. They don't need this machine as much. You know, they can convince you. I mean, The Mandalorian worked on me. I signed up for Disney Plus right away because I was like, I want to see Jon Favreau's TV show about bounty hunters because I'm 11 years old. You know, I just I needed to see it. And I have the same emotional feeling to the new Steven Soder you know i just i needed to see it and i have the same emotional feeling to the new steven soderbergh movie i need to see it i'll be subscribing to

hbo max so that that will have ramifications on the oscars too all right claire asked as they've merged the category what new category would you love to see in its place and then the most asked question of all of the mailbag questions. Will they add a stunt category now? I mean, we don't actually get to decide this, so we don't know. If we were in charge, yes, they would add a stunt category. I would also like them to add either best first feature or best breakthrough feature, which is just one of the easiest ways to clean up the enduring issues with best director. And to also possibly spotlight some of the smaller movies that are not going to get as much of a platform as they might have in this year or really in any year.

Because it's just harder to get attention to anything. We just went from 24 awards to 23 awards by combining the sound categories. You know my opinion about this, Amanda. There should be 75 awards. There should be a five-day festival of handing out awards i'm happy to host if the academy is interested uh i i will not be a zoom i will i'm happy to do advise whatever they need i'm happy to participate um yeah i agree there should be a best breakthrough performance there should be a best first feature there should be all manner of new awards we've pitched a bunch of them on this podcast before.

As far as the stunt category goes, I'm going to kind of zag on this a little bit. I feel like everybody now is like, there should be a stunt category and they don't even know why they're saying it. They've just become convinced because they're so like, just Google stunt category Oscars.

There's so many pieces that have been written like in the last two years. I'd be like, why isn't there a stunt cat? This is an outrage that there is no stunt category. It's like, do people even know how stunts work in Hollywood? Do they even understand what they're asking for? I don't know. It just it's a little much. Everybody's just settled down with pretending that they really like stunts in movies. Every movie is CGI. The only guy who's doing stunts at this point is either in a John Wick movie or Tom Cruise. So everybody just needs to fucking relax. That's

what I'm saying. OK, listen, I agree with the CGI stuff. I just want to watch Tom Cruise jump out of things. That's the only action that I'm interested in. I, you know, I hope he's well, I hope he wears a parachute or whatever they do. I don't really know. Cause I also don't really know how stunts works. I just go, Ooh, um, you need to chill out with the, I had this on vinyl, whatever of the, this is what happens when you start a cause and you toil for years on the message boards and in the podcast and the people come to you and they accept your worldview. You got to say, thank you. You got to say, yes, you got to go with the people. Okay. As, as you know, I'm Irish Catholic, which means I just do not know

how to be loved. I just do not know how to accept affection in any form. The one thing I will say about this is one thing that would be cool if they introduce a new category or a couple of new categories

would be to have some sort of honorary award or an acknowledgement of who should have won those awards through the years. And if they... They're not going to do that

more than likely, but the high time of stunt work in that more than likely, but the, the, the high time of stunt work in Hollywood is seventies, eighties and nineties. That's when the business was really figuring out how to pull off incredible stunts that were, you know,

very dangerous and, and created incredible experiences for people who went to movies. And a lot of those people who organized those stunts went on to become filmmakers. And there's been this revival of this with the guys who make the John Wick movies. And I have tons of admiration and respect for people who do this work. I actually just watched an episode of this series called Cursed, which is on Shudder, which is like a looking back at cursed horror films over the years.

And there's an episode devoted to Twilight Zone, the movie. The series is pretty cool. That episode, I thought, was very, very interesting because during the making to Twilight Zone the movie. The series is pretty cool. That episode I thought was very, very interesting because during the making of Twilight Zone the movie, one of the actors in one of the segments of the anthology was killed during a stunt.

A helicopter crashed during a stunt and Vic Morrow, Jennifer Jason Leigh's father, was killed along with two children during the making of this movie. There was a court case and a trial and John Landis was prosecuted in this case. And he was acquitted and it was deemed that the filmmakers were not responsible. But we're having fun here, but it draws a level of seriousness to the risks and the work that stunt people and production designers and production coordinators go to, to make these movies. Now, that's obviously a horrible tragedy, but most film sets are very safe. And most of the people who work on this

stuff give their bodies to these movies. So even though I'm zagging, I do think it would be cool to find a way to kind of honor these people through the years. Okay. Pitch for you. Okay. The Zoom Stunt Oscars hosted by Sean Fennesse 10 day affair you wear tux and you have to find you have to use your dvd collection right so you have to like find the the stunt on each of your many dvds and then we can hold the dvd up and there's finally used for it and then you talk for like an hour about why each stunt person is important to you oh there we go good amanda are you signing are you signing me up to produce this via zoom because i didn't sign up for that 10 days no breaks no no ads no no reads no throws

to how you should listen to spotify just just pure 96 hour pot potting, solo potting. Okay, great. Is that how many hours 10 days is? I have no idea. 10 days is 240 hours. Okay, let's move on. Owen wants to know, do you think these shakeups are a good opportunity for the Oscars to actually pay attention

to more genre fare? And then a couple follow-ups to this from Reed and Jackie. Is this clear a path for rom-coms? And with eased restrictions for eligibility, Does this clear a path for rom-coms and with ease restrictions for eligibility, does this bode well for diverse films from all over the world? No? Yeah, Reed and Jackie,

God bless you. I love the ideal world that you're living in and I want to live there too. And it ain't going to happen, my friends. Listen, if we spent the first 30 minutes of this podcast just talking about very powerful CEOs writing petty letters to each other. OK, that's the world we are in, not a place where we rediscover our love of romantic comedies

and smaller films and overlooked filmmakers. That's not where I want to be. That's just how it is. I do think that this is going to be an extremely traditional year at the Oscars in terms of the types of movies that are honored because people are just going to want to shore up this idea of Hollywood and that movies matter, etc. All the things that we make fun of the Oscars for every year. And in fairness to the Oscars, they have zagged a bit the last couple of years. Again, Parasite won Best Picture. Can you believe it?

And then I think Green Book was like a different type of win, but that we don't have to get into. But I do kind of think it'll be movies about movies and the power of storytelling and all and all of that nonsense and here's what great directors can do rather than neat finds you've been you've been on that almost since the parasite win and i i think that you're right i think that was very perceptive and there's always a a counter reaction to these sorts of big dramatic choices that the academy makes and you know we saw after 2007 when no country for old men won which was a righteous and true victory a rare victory in oscar's history and it beat there will be blood which is painful for me but still no country for old men incredible film and the ratings were low and then the academy was like we need to change the rules there's always a reaction of sorts to these kinds of choices and

I think you're right that something Mank is going to be an interesting test of that David Fincher God bless him makes just immensely perverse films and even though they're hits typically they're not always celebrated by the Academy

notably the social network being defeated by the King's Speech, which is a result that should die in a fire. Do you think that Mank is going to be extremely perverse? I don't know. I'm not sure what to expect. I'm curious about the father-son aspect of it, and I wonder whether that'll also be a slightly more accessible lane for people. I have not seen Mank. You know, it's in part inspired by that very famous Pauline Kael story, Raising Cain, about the true authorship of Citizen Kane and whether it's Mankowitz or Wells or who deserves credit for it. And it, you know, that's kind of a, it's kind of a pointy headed idea for a movie.

You know, like I'm looking forward to it, obviously. And I do think that there will be some sentimentality because of what you're saying, Amanda, which was written by David Fincher's father before he passed away. And that will be a marketable asset. But David Fincher has just never made a warm movie. Even Benjamin Button,

which is ostensibly very sentimental, is like just a very strange film. So we'll have to wait and see. Okay, so some questions about campaigning and release strategies. So Amaka wants to know, what do you think this means as far as campaigning?

If they're allowed to be released digitally for consideration? And then Cliff wants to know, why did the Academy expand the number of eligible screening cities beyond LA? Will that have any observable effect on release strategies?

The latter question is important. The first question, I think, probably means a lot of Zoom interviews on the big picture. I think that there will be plenty of campaigning. And I've seen, I think that thus far, you might have mentioned this in the past, Amanda, like publicists are concerned for their jobs think that there will be plenty of campaigning and i've seen i i think that thus far you you might have mentioned this in the past amanda like publicists are concerned for their jobs

and they need to prove that they are doing a good job and that the the campaign coordination can still happen the same way that this podcast can still happen between the three of us during this period so i do think that there will be plenty of campaigning assuming we go forward here and we stay in quarantine if we go out of quarantine i think there will be plenty of campaigning assuming we go forward here and we stay in quarantine. If we go out of quarantine, I think there will be fewer events because there's going to be fewer events around the world because social distancing is still going to be something that we have to keep in mind. Anything you would add to that specific aspect of things? No, I think it's a really great question because how to market a streaming movie is just something that very few people have figured out. And how to market a streaming movie is just something that very few people have figured out. And how to

market a streaming movie to win an Oscar is not yet something that Netflix has worked out. And you can go into all of the politics of the Academy and anti-streaming bias, etc. But some might argue that The Irishman and Meritory just peaked too soon last year. And part of that is because of the way it's released. And you everybody's attention and then it moves on. And if you don't have the rollout or physical places in order to kind of guide people's attention along, you lose it. So I will be curious to see how people decide to market because I think the person who figures it out will have really made a major breakthrough in terms of how we talk about streaming movies. I agree with you. I think that

The Irishman and Marriage Story and Roma as well were positioned as theatrical releases. And that was a big part of the campaign. And that got people to buy in. And you could make the case that those movies being available to everyone in the Academy over a long stretch of time on a service might have diminished their interest in it. I thought it would have the opposite effect. I mean, I personally, I talked about this when Ballad of Bruster Scruggs came out. I thought that movie actually got a few stray nominations because people were like, oh, I could just watch any segment of this I want. And there are certain aspects of it I really like, and that might have bolstered its chances. But that might have also just been that people love the Coen brothers,

and they're going to find ways to salute them whenever they can. Well, I think there's also a difference in terms of getting the Academy's attention and getting people who watch her movies attention. And ultimately, Netflix helps movies reach a lot more people. And that is one of its great, like, I don't feel like a corporate chill in saying that. It's just kind of more people can see their movies. My father, who loves to see movies and who lives in Atlanta, would always complain about how it would take two months for him to see anything, be able to see anything that we talked about on our podcast. So I think that is in Netflix's favor generally, but not when it comes to a small group of

people who are very political and how they're deciding to hand out awards. It's an interesting follow up there from Christian who who wants to know if this is going to encourage academy members or force them since there's nothing better to do to actually watch more of these movies that are in contention no i mean the people who love movies are going to watch movies and the people who claim to love movies but actually don't are not going to watch them no that's this is a true test of what kind of a cinephile you really are, whether you're in the Academy or not, because not everybody has all the time in the world on their hands. Those with kids have less time than ever on their hands. But for those of us who are childless, you know, if you like

movies, now's your chance. There, there are literally 15 streaming services that are, are offering hundreds of thousands of movies right now. Just to go back to the question about the eligible screening cities beyond LA, I haven't spoken to anybody about this. I'm probably going to ask a couple of people in the Academy why this happened. It's an interesting choice. And the decentralization of LA, the Academy is fascinating. We've already seen the Academy get way more international in the last five years. And then the idea that the films could play in,

I guess, was Seattle on that list? I feel like there were a handful of significant cities, obviously New York, Chicago. And maybe that just means that it's not about this Hollywood being the center of power. Maybe it's about the Academy realizing that it needs to have a bigger tent in all facets to get people interested in

what it's doing. Aside from that, what do you think, Amanda? I wondered whether there was some logistical aspect to it that I didn't really understand and whether it's easier for some movies or distribution studios to release something in a different city, whether it's just going to be because there are fewer theaters or fewer screenings available because of social distancing, that it's just it is making it more practically feasible for people to release. But again, I don't totally know. We've got a few more, Bobby. What should we do next? Next one comes from Raphael. Thank you, Raphael, for giving me the opportunity to finally drop a very familiar sound clip into this podcast for the first time in a very long time how does

all of this impact thanos's best actor chances i am inevitable sean you want to tell your uh story of trivia glory oh yeah sure so on saturday night um, Amanda and I participated in a round of trivia with some friends, virtual trivia. I believe the game is called Quizzo. We'll give it a big shout out. Yes. Well, I think Quizzo is like a Philly thing, which maybe you don't want to give a shout out to. But our host, Crazy Carl, was fantastic. Wonderful shout out to crazy carl yeah um and one of the questions was

who were the two characters who appeared in the first two films in the marvel cinematic universe now before you jump to conclusions dear listener i'm sure many of you were thinking oh is it captain america and iron man no it's the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, you fools. And happily, I got it and earned us eight points in trivia. Was that eight points? Just go with it, Amanda. It was 150 points.

Can I just give everyone a little context into how you answered this question? I have Zoomed with Sean a few times now in quarantine. And normal people use zoom in interpersonal reactions the way that you and I are using it now, which is the computer is fairly close to you and the people are framed within the screen. When Sean is zooming on personal time, he sits 20 feet away from the computer and projects it on his screen like he's some sort

of Bond villain. And he decided to do this for the entire trivia. So it's a bunch of like normal people being glad to see each other via their computer screens. And then Sean and his wonderful wife, my friend Eileen, just like in the corner in a blurry, like darkened room. But as soon as this question is asked, Sean, there's just like a grunt coming from the vague area where I believe Sean is sitting somewhere in his zoom and then you see this motion because Sean just gets up and

just like runs out of the frame and it's clear that he just like did a lap around his house and then comes back and yells the answers and then sits back down again and is not really seen for the rest of the night so I walked off and I pulled off a jordan-esque fist pump and i said let's fucking go i was very proud um thanks for revealing all of that about my my zoom etiquette amanda i'm just i'm just trying to have a cinematic experience at all times so my Zoom has to appear on my television. Yeah, but I can't see you. Like, what's the point? Why does the laptop have to be so far

for the Zoom to appear on the television? Oh, that's a great point. Thank you, Bobby. The cord length is not ideal. So I'm dealing with that. You've had like six weeks to figure this out.

Yeah. But I'm comfortable with it. I like it. I don't want to change anything. It's Amanda who i'm comfortable with it i like it i'm not i don't want to change anything it's amanda who has a problem with it it's not it's not uh causing me to not get trivia answers about mcu movies i'm still getting those answers correct despite my zoom circumstances i'm just really glad that you got the question right because if you didn't you'd still be recovering we wouldn't have been able to do this podcast or the earlier podcast from this

week it just would have been that's right that's true that's true i would have been able to do this podcast or the earlier podcast from this week. It just would have been homeless. That's right. That's true. That's true. I would have been in shelter. There was also just an entire category that was pictures of best picture winners of the last decade. I don't think that the trivia preparers were aware that Sean and I would both be on this trivia game or that we would have the knowledge base that we did. But that was pretty fun for us. We got a lot of other things wrong that we didn't do that well. Exactly. It was not a movie centric quiz game. But when the movie questions happened, I believe what I said was,

oh, crazy Carl, you brought a knife to a gunfight. Amanda and I are here to dominate all of these movie questions and dominate. we did. And then any question about what's happening in the real world, no answers. Just incorrect frequently. None. Just wrong. Yeah.

That feels right. That feels right. Congratulations to Thanos, I guess. I am inevitable. Two more questions. Shout out to Thanos. Quick ones. Steve wants to know,

not Oscar related, but I was wondering what movie theaters, when movie theaters are allowed to reopen, what movies do they have available to show well probably more than you think uh you know we've now seen should i pull up a spreadsheet amanda i mean how do i answer this question you can imagine what i've been doing in my spreadsheet why else do we have the spreadsheet okay so i've got a massive spreadsheet that tracks every film that's going to be coming out in the next three years as best i can so as of right now there have been 18 movies that have been postponed and are undated at the moment now theoretically all of

those 18 movies could be released the day that movie theaters come back. They include The New Mutants, Promising Young Woman, Bad Trip, The High Note, Run, Military Wives, Greyhound, Malignant. These are all smaller films. A lot of the bigger films have been pushed to new dates. And so those movies, I mean, if movie theaters open, they could put No Time to Die back in movie theaters. I think, you know, we got some messaging

from our governor, Gavin Newsom, yesterday about phasing the reopening of California and movie theaters fell firmly into phase four, which is going to be a while from now. So it could be a good long time before we're able to go see movies here in California, um, around the country. I'm not sure. I mean, you know, gyms are opening in Southern states in the in the u.s right now like well cafes are opening so we'll just have to wait and see but movie theaters i think specifically because of the extended period of time and the proximity effect it could be a while so i don't even know if we're gonna have to really worry about whether you know free guy comes to movie theaters anytime soon because it's just not going to be until the fall all right

let's close on this one out of the movies that have come out so far on vod what do you two want to win best picture this comes from quaid is is never rarely sometimes always eligible in that context yes i mean it technically did have a theater run but it was it was vod i'm i'm gonna go with never really sometimes always this is a hell of a plug for an episode we're going to do next week which is we're going to run through the absolute best movies released during quarantine on VOD but I think I agree with you that Never Really Sometimes Always is the best I mean that we sang its praises when we did our

preliminary but maybe not too preliminary 2021 Oscars episode last month we may have not gotten too far ahead of ourselves there preliminary but maybe not too preliminary 2021 Oscars episode last month. We may have not gotten too far ahead of ourselves there. There's not a lot of great choices here, frankly. Right. We gave the best picture to Portrait of a Lady, right?

But that... A lot of people were mad about that in the comments, I think. That you cheated. It technically came out last year. Call France. It's France's problem. I didn't do it, okay? So...

And I think that we're allowed to do whatever we want. But in terms of this question, which was strictly VOD, you know, I'm sticking to the terms of the question. I would go with never really, sometimes always. You know, the Academy movies over the years, the rules have changed around this stuff because once upon a time trying to remember what the film was there was a film that was nominated it was eligible for best international feature then called best foreign language feature that did not get nominated by its country. But then the following year.

When the film was released in the United States. That film then was nominated in other categories. And is there a world in which that could happen for Portrait of a Lady on Fire? But Neon released it in LA in December of last year. They did like a really, really, really limited release that I did not even see. I didn't see it until the wider release that they did in February. But yes, I believe that they did. And so it was last year, which I don't really understand, except Neon did also get Parasite's best picture. So I'm not going

to ask questions. Here's my message to all the people who are upset about our decisions around Portrait of a Lady on Fire winning best Picture. Fuck off. That's my take. And stop blogging about the stunt Oscar because we don't want to hear from you. No, no, no. We love the listeners of this show. And they're allegiance to rules. We love rules. We have a lot of allegiance to rules ourselves here on the podcast. But the truth is, is that that portrait of a lady on fire was robbed and so we want to support it as much as we can right also so many people have reached out to me being like we really loved it as a result of that podcast so i you are all seen and and special to me in my heart so thank you bobby have you watched trolls world tour yet i have not i'm uh'm going to pass on that $19.99 and spend it elsewhere.

What if it drops to $9.99? Would you pay for that? It's going to win Best Picture, so you have to make a choice here. I will watch. Do you want me to watch it? I'll watch it. Should I watch it? I need to understand music criticism.

What do you think about poptimism, Bobby? I'm in on poptimism. Poptimism is fine. It's good. I like pop music. You were raised in a poptimist world. You didn't even know what it was like before

when we had to deal with Barb. Okay? She was just around all the time yelling at us to, you know, ugh.

I can guess. You know, I went to NYU. I have enough people who are like snobs about things. Okay. There you go.

Well, I'm frankly delighted for a change to not have to invent a premise for this podcast, but to talk about something that is actually meaningful to the world that we cover on a regular basis. I suspect this won't be the end of conversations about the changing Oscar rules

or the battle between movie theaters and movie studios. Please stay tuned. Later this week, we're gonna... No, not later this week. Next week. Next week. Next week. We're going to have our top 10 courtroom dramas episode, which I've been doing a lot of research.

And frankly, I still don't know what my picks are. I'm still betwixt and between here. I've seen a bunch of movies. Amanda, how are you feeling about your lineup thus far? Okay. Well, we agreed on nine out of the 10. So if you're changing it, I'm going to need to know that sooner rather than later

or else we're going to have to do a whole point of order thing because I have been training. I've been watching these movies and I will get really argumentative with you because that's what they inspire in me. Okay. Well, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable approach to an episode about people yelling at each other in a courtroom. Bobby, thank you for all your help here. And thanks everybody for turning in those questions. This was a fun episode. We'll see you guys next week.