The Big Picture - Emergency Pod: Did Movie Theaters Just Die? Why Warner Bros. Is Dropping Its 2021 Releases on HBO Max

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

Major news in Hollywood: Warner Bros. has announced it will stream all of its new films in 2021 on HBO Max, including 'Godzilla vs. Kong,' 'In The Heights,' 'Space Jam: A New Legacy,' 'The Suicide Squad,' and 'Matrix 4.' Why did this happen? What does it mean for movie theaters? Will other studios follow suit? Amanda and Sean do their best to parse a historic day. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, an emergency conversation show about the death of movie theaters. There has been a major announcement in the world of movies by Warner Brothers today, and we are going to talk about all of it on The Big Picture. It's all coming up. Okay, Amanda. So we got some big news.

I would say, honestly, what feels like some very sad news. Warner Brothers announced that its entire slate of 2021 film releases is going to move to HBO Max while also opening in movie theaters next year. We're going to walk through that entire statement, what this means, what movies are going to be appearing on your HBO Max screens if you are a subscriber, and also some of the long-term ramifications of which there are many. But what was your immediate reaction to this news? Set the stage. Well, you and I were in a meeting and by meeting, I mean a Zoom meeting. And because we are living here in the year 2020, and that is an important fact to remember for everything else we're about to discuss. But you and I were in a Zoom meeting and you let me know, and then you used the chat function

to share the info with me. And we just read the statement and reacted in front of, it was like a pre-podcast just for some of our colleagues. They didn't seem particularly interested. No, they were just like, cool, when can I see Dune?

Which honestly is a useful thing to keep in mind is that there is what this means for the business and for movie theaters and for a lot of people who are employed in this industry. And that like, let's not underestimate that because it's going to be tumult and that is serious and we take it seriously. But there is the business industry

side of it. And then there is how can I watch things? And you said that you felt sad. I think that I do feel sad because it's upheaval and because I too miss going to the movies, but I received it more as a business decision than it is anything about my life. I don't know what that says about me, but here we are and people can't go to the movie theaters. So what do you expect them to do? Yeah, you're always a realist, I think, in this conversation. And this was a realistic decision. And we talked through a lot of these, what informed the decision to move Wonder Woman 1984 to HBO Max release on Christmas Day. Just a few weeks ago, this decision was made. And at the time, it really did feel like a cataclysmic decision.

This is that tenfold. The idea of saying a movie that we are planning to release in December of 2021 is going automatically to the streaming service. And if you want to go to the movies, you can. You can see it in the movie theater. But really what it's doing here, I think, is going to shape the viewing patterns of generations to come. Now, this is only Warner

Brothers doing this. We also have Netflix that is extant. We have Apple TV Plus that is extant. We have Hulu, which has been releasing movies directly to its service. There are now a number of places, Amazon Prime, that are releasing their movies as a long-term strategy at home. Happiest season seemed to be the movie event of the weekend last weekend. And that was a movie that if you were a Hulu subscriber, you could watch at home and there was no expectation you ever had to go to a movie theater to see it. And this is a huge, huge part of that

because let's just talk about the movies right now that this is going to affect. Because as lovely as Happiest Season is, that is a drop in the bucket in the worldwide box office economy relative to these releases. So here's the movies. I'll read the list that Warner Brothers shared. The Little Things, which is a Denzel Washington garbage crime movie that I look forward to speaking with Chris Ryan about. And maybe if you want to join us in exploring garbage crime,

you can. We can do that in January of 2021 because that movie is going to be in our homes. Justice for Dribble Frontier! Judas and the Black Messiah, which is a movie that we talked about a little bit on tomorrow's episode of The Big Picture. And I should say

there will be one tomorrow about the movie Manc, which is also appearing on a streaming service called Netflix. Also on this list, Tom and Jerry, which is an animated adaptation

of the famed Tom and Jerry cartoon. Godzilla versus Kong. Could there be a bigger, more theatrical movie than a Godzilla meets King Kong Colossus? No, that movie is probably going to be watched mostly at home. Mortal Kombat, an adaptation of a video game. And this is telling us a little bit about what Warner Brothers' slate was too, which is that there's a whole shitload of IP going on here. Those Who Wish Me Dead is also on this list. The Conjuring, The Devil Made Me Do It is here.

In the Heights, which is John Chu's adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical. Space Jam, A New Legacy, the LeBron James starring Space Jam follow-up, which I know you have been waiting just, it must be decades for. Are you excited? Excuse me, I am the number one fan of LeBron James's cinematic work, okay? Like give that man a supporting actor for train wreck. Thank you. Okay. In addition to that,

the suicide squad, reminiscence, malignant, Dune, arguably the most anticipated movie of 2021, the many saints of Newark, which is the, the Sopranos prequel,

King Richard, a Will Smith biopic of Richard Williams, Venus and Serena's father. Cry Macho, which is the forthcoming film from nonagenarian Clint Eastwood. And Matrix 4, the fourth Matrix movie, is coming to HBO Max. I sound apoplectic because I am. This is staggering to me. Staggering.

That Matrix 4 is coming to fucking HBO Max. You were yelling at me before we started this podcast. Like I did it. Like how could I possibly let this happen? It's not your fault. It's not my fault. Robin Williams and Goodwill Hunting Voice. It's not your fault. It's the pandemic and the industry like reality, which is number one that people watch movies at home, especially in the next year. You know, I think it's interesting. In the Heights was a movie that was supposed to be released in 2020 and was delayed. There is a little bit of backlog.

There is a little bit of, well, we just need to put some of these somewhere. And it was probably prudent in some way to at least get it in front of as many people as possible and also boost our streaming service, which as we have discussed before, you know, didn't take off like a rocket immediately. And I think you said something when you were talking about, I believe it was Godzilla versus

King Kong and how angry you were that people would be watching it at home. But you were like, most people will end up probably watching that at home. That's true for most things now. That's, that's really, honestly, that was true before the pandemic for anything except for an MCU movie, as most people were watching it at home. So I don't love it and I love the theaters, but it's just common sense a little bit, except for some of the financials and how much money they spent on these movies. And whether they can recoup that and how they're choosing to recoup that and where they see the future of their business, which is apparently on streaming, which is perhaps surprising until you remember that Warner Brothers is now owned by AT&T, a cell phone company, and they want you to stream. They want you to use your internet. I was singing a song before we recorded and no one was recording it. And quite frankly, the muse has left me. So you can just imagine me being like,

they're a cell phone company. They want you to stream. There you go. Thank you for singing the Amanda cell phone song. You recreated that perfectly. You're absolutely right though. I mean, this is of course informed by corporate strategy. And when we saw a house cleaning a few months ago

of the HBO Max leadership, and when we saw a house cleaning a few months ago of the HBO Max leadership, and when we saw an additional movement at the Warner Brothers leadership a few weeks ago, it was pretty clear that there was some sort of, I don't know, I don't want to say there was a power struggle necessarily, but a difference of opinion about what the future of the company should be. And corporate parenthood at this company clearly believes that HBO Max is the gambit. And because HBO Max did not launch with a House of Cards or a Mandalorian, a show that you absolutely had to watch that took on a cultural weight, and also because the service was not available on some streamer editions like Roku, there were just not a lot of HBO Max subscribers. Now, there are a lot of

existing HBO subscribers, but to get into that realm of Netflix, which is 150 million people subscribing and hundreds of millions around the world, potentially, HBO Max had to make some big moves. Wonder Woman 1984 was a big move. This is the biggest possible move in my mind. Moving Godzilla versus King Kong and The Matrix 4 and The Suicide Squad,

knowing that those movies are going to be available in those services means if you want to see those movies, you should probably sign up. It's frankly a good deal relative to what it costs to go to a movie theater. Now, you're never going to get the same experience that you would get in a movie theater. But just from a financial perspective, you're guaranteed to get every single Warner Brothers movie for, I don't know, what is the going price for HBO Max right now? Is it $15 a month, I think? I have literally no idea.

And I don't know how many times I'm paying it right now, which is a separate conversation. I don't know. Well, hopefully not multiple times. Because some of it is like if you are an AT&T customer in a different way, you're offered a subscription. And then if you're paying for HBO, you know, I did my best to account for these and I am not a responsible consumer, which is maybe another thing to talk about is that once people actually start figuring out what they're paying for and what they're not,

which is going to start happening on an increased basis if this is the primary distribution system. But no, I have literally no idea what it costs. You know what's interesting about talking about the money aspect of it? This is a long-term play. This is about projection. It's about saying what we need to be solvent and profitable long-term

is to get all these people to be using this service. And then once you're hooked on the service, we can up the price on the service. And we can say from $15 a month to $17.99 to $21.99 to $24.99. And then when it's crack cocaine and you can't get off it, you're willing to pay more and more and more. And that's the only way long-term that they're going to be able to make up the difference in the box office receipts that they are evacuating now. The box office receipts for The Suicide Squad were going to be good. That movie was going to make a lot of money. And they're punting on that, just like they're punting on the box office receipts on Wonder Woman 1984. So short term, you're basically giving up on hundreds of millions

of dollars in an effort to create a system that everyone agrees is the future. Now, here's the thing. HBO Max had a lot of issues in terms of its launch. I think The Watch has done a great job of elucidating what some of those problems were, and you should listen to their show to hear them describe it. But specifically, I don't think anybody knew what HBO Max was. They just did not know why they needed it. It was totally unclear. And part of that was they didn't have that show that I'm describing. And part of it was there was not a strong marketing effort to explain that this was something that resembled Netflix or Hulu, that it was a competitor. It just seemed like, and you've talked about this too, you were just kind of confused. You were like, do I have it? Do I not

have it? Where do I get it? What shows are HBO Max? What shows are HBO? And in a way, they almost should just rebrand as Warner Brothers Max because these are going to be the most watched things on the service. Wonder Woman 1984 will be the most watched things on the service. Like Wonder Woman 1984 will be the most watched thing on the service in 2021. I would be shocked if an HBO series comes along that has as big an audience as that movie is likely to have. And so now I don't think that they necessarily have an identity crisis on their hands. They were already kind of evaluating what their identity was, but it's so fascinating that HBO is believed to be this jewel

of television. Warner Brothers, of course, one of the most historic studios in movie history, and frankly, has been incredibly successful weathering the theatrical storm over the last five or 10 years. And they have a group of executives that are really savvy. And now they're both part of HBO Max, which is this big corporate nothing. And they're converging together on a service that does not have a strong public identity. And I find that just so fascinating. We're kind of talking through bullshit high-level Hollywood jargon, but it actually matters, I think, to whether or not the service can be successful. Do you think that people will immediately say now, consumers, people listening to this show, people on Twitter who see the news, are they going to say, all right, well, this is it. I got to sign up. They might say it now. They might say it on Christmas Day when they're like, oh, how do I watch Wonder Woman 1984? And then spend some time on your smart app of choice, like doing the click, click, click, click, click until you find HBO Max. I think that it will be more of capturing people's attention in the moment and getting

them through that hurdle of just like, okay, I'll sign up because there is the money and the money is really important. And as the prices are increasing and more people start cord cutting and people actually do start looking at their receipts, which is something that I have just vowed to myself I'm going to do, they will start prioritizing. People do not have endless budgets. But I think for now, they're just trying to as much get people over the hurdle of signing up for something that they don't have. I mean, that's annoying, right? Part of the appeal of Netflix is that it's frictionless. Most everyone has it at this point and you just kind of click around and

it's mindless. And then you say, sure, I'll watch this random, you know, baking show for apparently 18 hours. Congratulations to everyone who enjoys that. But I do think that you, there's something interesting in whether it, and whether it should be or what it means that it's HBO Max instead of Warner Brothers Max. Number one, Warner Brothers Max is just like way too long of a name, Sean. That's like very bad rating. It's not a good name.

I agree. It's not a good name. No, but you know, I do think that before we started recording, you were very angrily just being like, they're just putting Dune on TV. Why are they putting Dune on TV? It shouldn't be on TV.

That's not a fair representation of my voice or my attitude. And how dare you? You're right. I'm a very sweet man. It's okay. I don't know about that, but it was not good voice work. I'm no Chris Ryan.

And I was kind of dismissive of you. Like, no, they're not. They're not putting it on TV. But I do think that there is something embedded in the idea of like, HBO is what you watch at home. And people, there is a lot of learned behavior on that. And to the extent that they can capitalize on HBO, just being something at home. And sometimes HBO has movies.

And I think it's easier to change the brain of what does HBO encompass than it is to like create a new thing from scratch. and so they need people to watch things at home um i and and how they do it they clearly do because they're giving us however many movies basically for free next year there are some details in this announcement that we should probably talk to in that respect too because it's not this isn't just the movie hits hbo max and it stays there forever and that's the way it goes. The announcement is effectively saying this is for 2021 only and then we'll reevaluate because we are all living through the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a massive air of uncertainty and numbers are surging again. And things just seem very terrible when it comes to the pandemic, despite some positivity about the vaccine.

So there's a lot of hedging in this statement. And one of the things that you pointed out in the statement that I think is really notable is following the one month HBO Max access period domestically, each film will leave the platform and continue theatrically in the US and international territories with all the customary distribution windows applying to the title. That's interesting. I'm trying to figure out what... I guess that that's basically the new version of on-demand viewing. Sign up for this

service. You have one month to watch it. And what we're going to do is we're going to schedule a new movie every month so you never cycle out. So you never say, I want to churn out of my subscription because I only want this one movie. What we're going to do is we have 14 movies we release a year. and every month you need one of our movies. Once that movie has done its job in that month, it can go back into movie theaters where we can hopefully make more money

from super fans who want to see the movie again and again. Otherwise, you'll have a new product for you the following month, which is an interesting approach. I would say it's kind of creative actually in terms of the way that we're staggering and the way that we're reinventing Windows with this streaming future.

It just seems like a short-term thing. It just seems like where we are inevitably going, and tell me if you agree, is just what Netflix does, which is the day that the thing hits the service, it's there in perpetuity, and that's what really matters because we are building a massive library

and we want you there for the library at all times. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the question, because we are building a massive library and we want you there for the library at all times. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the question. Is it, are you building a library or are you building a distribution service? And I think they're trying to do both. And it looks a little awkward in the middle. I mean, this, this clause was like a classic Amanda Dobbins. I have some questions situation.

I like what, what are you doing? Okay. So you'll give everybody something for a month and then devalue that investment by, and I said, by sending them to the theaters. Now, I suppose the flip side is that's an agreement to kind of try to placate theaters and be like theaters, you know, we haven't totally forgotten you. And also frankly, to hopefully try to keep theaters open as a revenue stream for them going forward because it still is a way to make a lot of money um and maybe in the short term if they can make some money off the

people who need to see suicide squad for the eighth or ninth or 32nd time and if the end theaters are the only way to do it i mean so you for example that's like i just i'm sorry for the pause. I just like spend a minute there thinking about the people who will spend $18 at a time to go see Suicide Squad in a pandemic three months after it's been released. And I like want to have a meeting with those people. And I just like, I want to talk and I want to see what else we can figure out for them. But I suppose that option will be open to them. I think you're right that it's just kind of an intermediary strategy and trying to build two things until they can,

until they have an established library on HBO Max and they have a more long-term release and distribution strategy. So one, let's make a date. Summer 2021, me and you, we get the vaccine together. We do our first in-person pod one-on-one, and then we go watch The Suicide Squad. James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. And I will have watched it probably 14 or 18 times on HBO Max at that point, but we'll just sit for an all-day marathon. We'll watch it three, four, five times. Does that sound good? Sure. Yeah. I love the part where you're just like, sure, we'll do the vaccine live like Boris Johnson, which like if that's what people need in order to believe in science,

sure, like I'll do it too. But you know, that sounds great, Sean. I can't wait for your birthday Suicide Squad marathon. That sounds exciting. Okay. So you mentioned the movie theaters. What does this mean for the movie theaters? I think we need to talk about what it means for the movie theaters, what it means for the other studios and their plans, and then what it means for me and you as fans of movies. So movie theaters. I am loathe to overstate this, but I think that this is the end. I know that that sounds really melodramatic. I don't think it's the end insofar as there will never be another movie theater again. I think movie theaters will exist for another hundred years because the power and the relationship and the cultural significance is meaningful. But we've used

the comparison to jazz before and I feel like we are now entering the jazz phase, the 1970s, 1980s jazz phase of theatrical movie going where if it's not the center experience of this art form and it probably hasn't been honestly even though 2019 was such a massive year at the box office you've been saying this pretty much since we started doing this show that everybody watching at home is the future and the present it just seems like it's going to be really

really hard to make a business case to say open open a new movie theater in the year 2021. Where are the new screens coming from and who's paying for them? And how is that a good business decision given where things are headed? It just seems hard to envision. I agree, except I think we probably actually will see new screens or reorganizations of theaters just because the current organization like can't hold. And so if there is that kind of movie theaters or a treat model going forward, then I, I do think that from like a basic commercial real estate perspective, they're going to, they're just going to have to rearrange some things. I mean, like what happens to malls? I know I keep saying that, but what happens to malls? So I agree with you. I

don't think that this was the day that it was all decided. I think this is the confirmation and of a lot of things that have been building for a long time and a lot of like sad events. Again, this is going to affect a lot of people. A lot of people will probably lose their jobs. That is a tragedy. And our thoughts are with these people. And that's in movie theaters and that's in the industry. And that's just an entire reorganization of a system. And that is a real shame and a loss for those people. And it is a loss for people who like to go to the movie theaters.

So I don't mean to underestimate this historical moment. I just think when the historians are writing this, we got to look analytically at the last five years. I think Wonder Woman 1984 was like the Rubicon, as we said, and this is the event that will allow all the business people to actually make the decisions that they knew they were going to have to make. It's really fascinating too that they made this decision before seeing the data on Wonder Woman 1984. You would have thought that they would have at least waited to

see whether they could penetrate the audience that they want to. And there's been some speculation that they made this announcement because they still have not come to an agreement with Roku, which has a lot of eyeballs, and that this will finally clinch the ability to make a deal with Roku to get more

HBO Max and more homes. We'll see. On Twitter, someone reminded me of a conversation that you and I had back in March, which I think is relevant to this conversation. Here's a rough approximation of the interaction that you and I had. Sean, Amanda, how much would you pay for No Time to Die on your TV? Amanda, maybe $50. Sean sean i'm thinking no less than 100 december 2020 colon we're recording an emergency podcast and that's how quickly things change and the reason for that and how that affects every other studio is super fascinating to me because no time to die is not a warner brothers movie and has not come in hbo max it's an mgm release and we

don't know where it's coming or when it's coming necessarily. It's slated for next spring. And I don't know necessarily if there will be a domino effect here. I think it's a little bit hard to say. HBO Max, Warner Brothers, AT&T, that entire organization was in a different spot than, say, the spot that Disney is in or the spot that Sony is in. Sony, for example, doesn't have a significant presence on a streaming service. And so they sold Happiest Season, for example, to Hulu. Disney has taken a huge hit because their parks have been closed,

but they also have a thriving streaming service thanks to shows like The Mandalorian, which is wonderful. Will Black Widow go to Disney Plus next year because this becomes the new paradigm of viewership? like The Mandalorian, which is wonderful. Will Black Widow go to Disney Plus next year because this becomes the new paradigm of viewership? And because Warner Brothers has made this decision, does Disney feel we need to go from 60 million subscribers to 90 million next year? And so the MCU experience is both the WandaVision and Falcon and Winter Soldier TV shows, and it's also Black Widow and Eternals and Shang-Chi and all the

other films they have coming. Do you think that we'll now see a ripple effect based on this decision? Yes. I mean, this is part of the same ripple effect, right? Disney has already been putting Soul straight on demand at Christmas, and Universal has not made this major streaming shift, but they were the ones who released Trolls World Tour, which is a film I still can't pronounce. And Universal has figured out the new, the windowing. Like every studio that has any sort of leverage is doing something.

I think that the plans will be a little different based on the economics and how Disney, which is not owned by a cell phone company and does have the parks and how Disney, which is not owned by a cell phone company and does have the parks and has other merchandising and things to rearrange will kind of look a little different than HBO Max that will look a little different than Universal, you know, but yes, it's, it's all changing. And I think there will be more streaming and we're not going back to the way that theaters were before. Like I, I saw on Twitter for the very brief moment

that I looked at Twitter, someone just did a tweet that was Chris Nolan blew it. But it is pretty amazing that we spent so much time yelling about Tenet and the theatrical releases and the sanctity of the theater experience. And I too believe in the sanctity of the theater experience, but this is not what Christopher Nolan imagined.

And I don't think Christopher Nolan or Warner Brothers or anyone else who was pushing for that tenant experience, like, will have a say in much again. The unwitting author of his own demise. Imagine what a Shakespearean turn for Nolan, who fought so sincerely to get his movie and to keep movies alive in the movie theater. And I'm not saying they're going away necessarily in full, but that was such a... I mean, he wrote an entire op-ed in the Washington Post about the power of the cinema, and he pushed his movie and he pushed that studio, as we understand it, to get Tenet out in the world during a pandemic. And its relative non-success clearly was a factor here in the decision-making of AT&T. There's no question that that was a factor.

This is one of those things where I admire the idea and the principle and the execution. The strategy was just so wrong. It just like, you completely misread the year. You completely misread the science. You completely misread like your own You completely misread the science. You completely misread like the, your own business and, and it had real consequences and that's a shame.

Okay. So what, what does this mean for what we're doing on this podcast? What? I mean, we have movies like that's, that's a silver lining to me. I don't know if you feel this way that we recorded our podcast about mank which is coming out tomorrow yesterday wow i'm doing my dr strange

timeline yeah you're teneting i still haven't seen dr strange i just i don't even really know what he does i just kind of gesture around um we finished that podcast and i was in a like i was in a much better mood and i realized that it was because we got to talk about a movie that we were both excited about. And there was like real substance and we just like nerded out about a movie, which is the point of this podcast. And that's great. And it's been harder for us to do that this year. So in the sense that a lot of these movies are movies that you want to nerd out about. And then King Richard is a movie that I want to nerd out about.

I'm excited. That's great. But like, we get to have movies and there has been a loss this year for theaters and for the experience and the industry. And I'm sympathetic to all that. But like, we also have lost movies

as people who still like to watch movies. So like, great. Send them my way. The sooner, the better. Okay. So that sounds great. Send them my way. The sooner, the better. Okay. So that sounds great. Here's the thing. Okay. I mean, don't business me, Sean. Okay. I know how the reality works. I know I started this, but go ahead. I have to because we did this episode about mini series a couple of weeks ago and the thing is is that the telephone company that owns warner brothers and owns hbo max wants not just your data which is well understood and

not just your monthly subscription they want something that i've talked about on the show before they want user time they want minutes they want a a they want you to turn your brain over to the stuff that they make on a full-time basis. And movies are a clearly defined period of time. They exist not in perpetuity, though you can rewatch them, but for the most part, they're two hours, they're 90 minutes, they're three hours, maybe. Mini-series, ongoing series, those things demand more attention over a longer period of time. They demand engagement. Now, I don't think that usually when you stretch things out, you necessarily get quality, but this is not a bid for quality. If it was a bid for quality, we wouldn't be talking

about the fucking Tom and Jerry movie, which I'm sure will be nice and no disrespect to the people who made it, but that's not what this is about. This is about growing the amount of mind share that HBO and HBO Max and AT&T has over all of these people. And so sure, we're getting movies next year, which is fantastic. I look forward to that Garbage Crime Denzel Washington movie. I'll watch it probably three times. But in 2022 or 2025 or 2030, are we going to get more movies? Or is this going to be the cycling out of movies? I know that sounds drastic and I'm overstating things, but I feel like that's the trend. That's fine.

I think it's really valid. And if you want to talk about the data-ing of Hollywood and of everything we watch, I mean, danger, Will Robinson, for sure, because it just, that's not how creative enterprises work. And I think that the data is very interesting and it can, and I love having 40 episodes of The Crown and like, please give me 3000. I'll watch all of them. But it, that long-term, if those are the only way that we're making decisions in terms of keeping people glued to the screen as long as possible, Yes, we're all screwed. Should we be concerned that the tech companies are slightly more in charge of it because of what we know of how they optimize

user behavior and modify behavior? Yes, we should. On the flip side, Happiest Season, you mentioned it. I would just love to talk some more about how much I loved Happiest Season. And Happiest Season, a movie that I, a minute out of it, have seen twice. Okay? Because you can rewatch movies. And some movies are actually enjoyed over and over again. And we all talk all the time about Netflix and how you can just watch something over and over again. You could watch Ballad of Buster Scruggs or people could watch The Irishman several times if they wanted to. And that can happen. And that adds time and

that adds, you know, you know, hours spent or whatever. And ultimately, there are a lot of different ways to catch people's attention. And if movies do actually catch people's attention, then you have to hope they'll keep making them. I hope so. The other thing that I have been fascinated by, and I'm very curious to see how this evolves, even in terms of the movies that are announced over the next two to three years, is what kinds of movies will we get? Will this mean that the budgets shrink or grow? Will this mean that the intellectual propertyization of Hollywood will change? Will an MCU movie not be as meaningful because you don't have to do the zero-sum game of get every possible living human into a theater,

otherwise the movie isn't meaningful? Is it possible that Happiest Season is actually a better play at $7 million than King Kong versus Godzilla at $180 million when they basically both count for the same level of engagement on a respective streaming service. Now, it's impossible to know. The other thing that this means, which I find fascinating, and I wonder if there will be any kind of reckoning around this, is what does this mean for what we understand to be popular? Because one of the worst things that ever happened to Hollywood is also one of the most insightful things that ever happened, which is the reporting of box office receipts, the identity of a movie's success. When that started taking place in the 70s and in the 80s, and it became really prominent,

and then it came to dictate the strategies of Hollywood and corporations continue to buy up studios in an effort to make profits rather than make art. We got a sense of kind of what the pecking order was. How will we know the pecking order if we have to rely on Netflix's press releases about the 87 million people who watch three minutes of extraction? I don't know what the ramifications of that will be. And I think that that affects, as much as it affects kind of the viewer and the clock watchers like us, it affects the talent.

It affects the people that make this stuff about what information are they getting about the thing that they made and what matters most. And how do you negotiate your deal if you don't know how many people watched and you don't know how many people went to the theater? I think that that's a,

it's a complete unknown to me, but it's a huge piece of the puzzle here. Yeah. I would say it's not a complete unknown because it happened in TV already 10 years ago. And they, they do just live in a world, at least on the streaming services where you have no idea beyond what Netflix says or what's on your little top 10 Netflix or Amazon. And then also the kind of segmentation happened where we do have TV ratings, but they are meaningless because they are measuring kind of the mode of television watching that is completely outdated or separate from the creative aspect of television at this point, with all respect to The Masked

Singer, which I do think is creative in its own way. But there are ratings for, say, The Undoing or for whatever HBO show or AMC show, but they're so much smaller as to be irrelevant. And you're comparing against a smaller audience size. You can have a sense, but also it's like, really, who knows? And people are watching streaming and people catch up and people watch three weeks later or three years later or whatever. And it seems pretty rocky. And it seems like, listen to the watch again for an accounting of the various existential questions. But it does also seem like people are still making a lot of cool television. They are, but I find that the business is different because there is this extraordinary crevice

between Leonardo DiCaprio and Addison Rae Leonardo DiCaprio when he negotiates a deal for a movie certainly he gets his salary and let's say that salary is anywhere from I don't know 10 to 30 million dollars who can know in addition to that he negotiates

every single film he makes because he is the most successful box office star in the last 20 years. Right. Points, back end, based on box office. And Leo's movies are almost always hits.

And so he always eats on that. You know, we didn't talk about that as a particular aspect of the Wonder Woman 1984 decision, but I thought that that was fascinating because you know

that Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins have back end on that movie. They make money from Jenkins have back end on that movie. They make money from the box office success of that movie. So did HBO Max buy out that back end? And what does that look like? And how do agents decide what that is?

Because at Netflix, when you sell something to them, you sell it all. You don't get the international rights dollars. You don't get the DVD dollars. You don't get the what happens when this movie goes to TNT and it airs in syndication for 30 years. That money's gone. This is a one-time buy. And so if HBO Max now is going into the one-time buy business on King Richard and Dune and

the Suicide Squad and all the other stuff they make in the future, if you're an agent in Hollywood and you're trying to figure out what to do with your client, how do you even figure out what the financial incentive is? Because it's all projection. It's all based on fake money. It really does make the whole reality as a construct, and we're living in this simulation stuff. It makes it feel real when it comes to Hollywood, which at least had, even though it was an unfair and monopolistic system, it at least was a coherent system. And now I don't even know how to understand what is and isn't success.

Yeah, it's completely changing. I think Leo's deals are going to change. With all respect, probably not Leo's. Like, number one, he'll be okay. Number two, love Leo. Hope he's doing great. Number three, if anyone's deal doesn't change, it's probably Leo, right there.

Except for, and I do think they'll have to invent some sort of huge payday to make up for the backend deals. But I think established people of whom there are very few will probably figure that out and everybody else, it'll look different. I'm okay with that. They have to reinvent it. I mean, this business completely changed. I don't mean to be like I told you so for however many years, but here we are. It's different.

Our experience is doing this podcast and watching movies and TV shows and whatever the hell else they put on my screen is really different. And it is going to be tumultuous and it's not going to look like it did 15 years ago. But the cat's out of the bag on that, my friend. Are you happy or are you sad? I don't, I can't pick those terms. I mean, you want to do therapy right now? I don't know how to feel. I don't know how to feel about anything.

What am I supposed to do? Okay. Like King Richard will be on my screen in November in 2021. Where am I going to be in November 2021, Sean? Like what's going to be happening? I have no idea. And like, you're laughing and I'm trying to make it funny, but doesn't everybody else feel this way? Like, how are you supposed to plan six months in advance? I think I find this, I'm not amused by it, but HBO Max just being like, here is the future of cinema. I'm like, okay, you don't know the future of anything. Neither do I. Good luck to you and to your shareholders. In the meantime, I look forward

to seeing Will Smith and I hope he wins an Oscar. Yeah. I mean, to your point about In the Heights being a movie that was supposed to come out this year and now it's coming out next year on a streaming service, that is as indicative of anything as of the total unknown going on here. So maybe four months from now we hop on another emergency podcast and we're like hbo max has changed its mind in fact dune will only be available on your phone and you have to watch it for a two-hour period and after that period expires you won't be able to see it for five years like who the fuck knows i this could change in a heartbeat and i'm not comfortable with that at all. Just to be clear, I hate change. And it's a time of great anxiety for me personally and globally. But also,

here we all are. And that's all you can say. I have no idea what's going to happen to the Oscars. I have no idea what's going to happen in movies. I have no idea what's going to be on my screen. I'm just trying to make peace with it and to not have to watch Suicide Squad. I was honestly going to make a Suicide Squad joke just to take us out. So it's amazing. We are truly at least

on the same wavelength when it comes to that. Amanda, thank you for chatting with me, helping me exercise my demons about this frankly, hugely important piece of information

about the future of movies. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. Please tune into the big picture tomorrow because like Amanda said, we made a whole episode about Mank, which is one of the best movies of Bobby Wagner. Please tune into The Big Picture tomorrow because like Amanda said, we made a whole episode about Manc,

which is one of the best movies of the year. I hope you'll listen to that and then we'll see you down the road.