I want to talk about people going back to the movies this year because this

something, something interesting is happening.

You wrote about this recently, and I'm and I'm wondering one, why people, in

your view, are going back to the movies and to whether or not this is

sustainable. Uh, first one is tricky to answer.

You know, the good slate of movies, uh, things that people are very excited

about. So you had probably the highest volume

of high caliber summer blockbusters in a long time.

You know, we tried to capture the lessons from those in an essay for

Business Week, and it's everything from having an appropriate window to lay

before or lay between when a movie appears in theaters and when it's

available at home. Um, to bringing something fresh and

different to the table, which sounds trite and obvious, but Hollywood has

been in this pattern of releasing cinematic universes for the last ten

years and look up about a lot of the thing.

A lot of things that work this year are either new movies that haven't been

around in 5 or 6 years. Something felt fresh in terms of whether

it's sustainable. I think that just depends on whether

Hollywood learns the right lessons from this, right?

You know? Are they going to see obsession and

instead just make a million different deals with with other YouTube

filmmakers, or are they going to find the right filmmaker and put the right

infrastructure around them? Yeah, and we're still down a lot right

from the pandemic. Lucas.

Yeah. The, uh, the sales are off

in the meantime. 1,015%.

Um, the I should say the revenue is off. The ticket sales are off considerably

more. But one of the reasons why revenue has

recovered is higher ticket prices, the popularity of Imax.

You know, one of the things that seems to happen is there's a little bit of,

um, enthusiasm around being a cinephile and filmmaking people who are excited

about going to see a Christopher Nolan movie in 70 millimeter, or going to see

Ryan Coogler in Imax. You.

You said. Yeah.

You said. In other words, as you write, being a

film nerd is cool again. Yeah,

I have to say, I haven't seen Odyssey yet, but I want to get to going next

week. I want to get to it in the theater.

I really don't want to see it at home. Yeah, but it's 70 mil or just normal

Imax. I don't know.

What should we do? You've seen it, right?

I saw it in 70 millimeter. No Imax, which is not what Christopher

Nolan would want. Uh, I may go see it again in 70

millimeter Imax, but there are only a there are only like, 40 screens in the

country that have that. So you come to New York, Lucas.

Okay, that's what we'll do. There's no.

Hey, listen, what I really think is cool is in this, um, story business.

We actually polled people, um, studio chiefs, producers, talent agents,

filmmakers, analysts and diehard filmgoers on the lessons.

And one of the things I did think was I go to the first one.

Young people still want to go to the theater.

So it is interesting, like we talked about this being kind of cool, but I

think we keep thinking that some of these trends, you know, young people are

going to be doing things differently, but we still now hear like they weren't

going to buy houses. Well, now they were maybe going to buy

houses if they can afford them. But same thing for the theater.

They're going back. Yeah.

I look it's a feeling that there was a feeling that young people would not be

going to the movies anymore. Uh, and that has, I think, mostly

dissipated. That was like a that was one of those

pandemic era, uh, moments where because of the popularity of video games,

because of all these other entertainment offerings at their disposal, people

thought that that young people had had moved on.

And I'm still reluctant to say, like moviegoing is, is as popular with young

people as as it was before. But I think the notion that young people

are just not interested in movies was clearly false.

They just are interested in particular types of movies.

You know, making Minecraft, which a property that they love with something

that could get them to go to the theater and get them excited about it.

What about this idea of like the YouTubers starting to get into to films

and these one offs? And if they are one offs?

You mentioned obsession, uh, directed by 26 year old YouTuber backrooms, directed

by a YouTuber. I haven't seen either of these films

I've heard about, especially heard about backrooms.

Um, but I'm just curious, Lucas, about what that tells you about where the

industry is and if there's like this, if this, there's a new route to the big

screen or if this is just like, this is a, you know, kind of a one off.

Yeah. I mean, look, there's a, you know,

saying in journalism three is a trend. And so if you look at this year, you had

this movie Iron Lung from a popular YouTuber named Markiplier that he mostly

self distributed earlier this year, that did really well for the kind of that

type of, of property. And then you had both backrooms and

obsession. And so you had to have three YouTube

adjacent films in a row. It's it's tricky because there have been

filmmakers discovered on YouTube for a decade now, if not more than that.

So the notion that there is the crossover potential is not new.

But I do think when you have three movies hit in the way that they did at

the same time, that some legacy franchises like Star Wars or DC comics

underperformed, it certainly open Hollywood's eyes.

They were, you know, a lot of producers trying to find that, you know, the next

Reddit meme or fortune meme that can become a movie or that that next YouTube

star, um, you know, uh, the truth is, is that each one of these stories is

distinct. Um, but I think that that for me, the

biggest lesson was you took kind of talent and IP that resonated online,

that knew how to speak to an audience and then plug them into the system in a

way that gave them the freedom to sort of stay true to their vision.

Um, but had all the intelligence and bells and whistles of a proper Hollywood

release. And to me, that's the the right formula.

Do you agree that audiences really want happy endings.

I mean, I kind of do. I do.

I do too. I feel like there's enough stuff in this

world that kind of stresses me out that when I go home, I want a happy ending.

I think that Hollywood fell in love. Part of this was a result of television

where, you know, particularly after House of Cards on

Netflix. Um, it and and maybe, maybe Breaking

Bad. But I'll get back to that.

People fell in love with this idea that, like, nobody had to be likable.

And it was it was fine to make projects about all of these kind of loathsome

figures. But if you think back and this is more

television then than film, if you think back about, you know, the the

anti-heroes of that first era of the golden age of TV, you know, Tony

Soprano, Don Draper, Walter Wright, Walter White, um, from The Sopranos, Mad

Men and Breaking Bad, respectively. These were folks who were very flawed

and in many cases like kind of despicable, but you were rooting for

them. The series did a really good job of

making you care about them, and you almost like felt bad, but you couldn't

help but kind of want to see them succeed or do well.

And I think we, we, we tilted too far away from that, where there were

projects that were just very dark and bleak and depressing and where nobody

was redeemable, and that just it ultimately is going to turn people off.

It doesn't mean that everything should be sunshine and rainbows, you know, look

at all the problems in the world around us.

And I do think people are craving stories that reflect some of those, um,

but they they don't want to walk out of the theater constantly feeling

depressed. Okay.

So let's shift gears a little bit and talk sports and the connection between

sports and Hollywood. You reported this week on, uh, Bob Iger

and Josh Kushner and their huge purchase of more than $12 billion of the LA

Lakers. Uh, what was your first reaction when

you saw these two? I think we know these guys are close,

and Iger has been an advisor to thrive. But what was your reaction when you saw

this duo team up to to to buy the Lakers?

I mean my first reaction would involve an expletive that you're not going to

want in the family. So I'll just skip that one.

Um, let's just say it was a surprise. I'll leave it a mystery as to which one,

uh, which which four letter word. It was a it was a surprise.

You know, Mark Walter had had bought the Lakers just, uh, less than a year ago at

this point, um, and I think Laker fan, which I am, we're excited about the idea

that the owners of the Dodgers and the Dodgers have been one of the best brand

franchises in all of professional sports for since the the Guggenheim Group took

over, that they would sort of apply that formula and fairy dust to the Lakers

because the Lakers had struggled a little bit the last few years.

You know, it's hard in pro sports being owned by kind of a family where their

entire net worth is tied up in the team because they just don't have the

resources that some of these massive new ownership groups have.

At the same time that my main takeaway was, man, Mark

Walter must be in trouble, because there had been reporting by Bloomberg and by

others about some of the investigations into his kind of insurance company and

how he was moving money around. And I just find it hard to believe.

And again, I don't have the inside track on this, but I find it hard to believe

that he would sell the team back quickly if there wasn't some something

precipitating that if he did. And we've had reporting since then on

kind of his need for cash. Um, as for the Kushner Iger duo, um, you

know, we knew that they were trying to get an NBA team and have been trying to

do things in sports. It's a little bit of an odd combination.

Um, you know, in particular, like when I think of Bob Iger, he's probably one of

the most prominent Clipper fans in Los Angeles.

So the idea that he's now going to be the owner and face of the Lakers is a

little odd, but we also know that he is, as the former CEO of Disney, was sort of

looking for that next act in some way to stay in the public eye, and this is a

good one for him. Hey, before we wrap up, um, just got

about a minute or so to to, uh, go Bloomberg screen time, the live event

coming up. Yeah.

Uh, September 30th, October 1st in L.A. We're going to take one of our

favorites. I think it's fair to say it's an

incredible event. I have to say on and all kicks off, um,

on the evening of September 30th. Anything you can tee up for us or how

you're thinking about kind of content and the creators of content and how it's

delivered and all that good stuff. I mean, look, we have, um, one of our

certainly one of our best lineups yet. We've got a couple of returning

champions or guests, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and NBC's Donna Langley.

We've got a bunch of new people like Dana Walden from Disney and the head of

HBO, Casey Bloys and Jerry cardinality, who's involved in one of the biggest

shareholders in Paramount. So I'm sure the Paramount and Warner

brackets will come up quite a bit. Uh, you know, we've got one of the

mayoral hopefuls in LA. So I imagine if you're Ramon.

So I know we're going to talk about sort of production flight leaving Los Angeles

and what the city and state can do to leave or keep it there.

You know, we'll talk about AI music with the CEO of of sumo, Michael Schulman,

who's someone that my colleague Ashley Carmen and I just profiled.

So we'll we'll touch on a lot of different topics.