Michael De Luca & Pamela Abdy [LIVE]

22:20Michael De Luca:I don't know if any of you have enjoyed this neighborhood. And shame on you if you have. But it's right by the Port Authority in Manhattan. And at that time, when I showed up in the 80s, it was the kind of place where on the corner there'd be a luggage store, but it also sold samurai swords and throwing stars. Whereas it was just a port authority, you'd be stepping over bodies in front of the street. It was just so raw and alive in a weird way, New York City back then. So I thought, well this was a big mistake. It looks like they financed porno films here. It was barely an office, it was really 16 people.

22:57Michael De Luca:It was really small, it was a really small operation. And then I got to know all the people and they were all film enthusiasts and just really lovers of movies. And the company had a history, not only doing Nightmare on Elm Street but distributing foreign films like Bertrand Blier films. And it was a film lover's paradise. And I got to learn every part of the business at that time, independent film business.

23:16Pamela Abdy:And to that point, I'm just going to run through the various jobs you held there over the next 16 years, if I can. So initially, that first year you were an intern for, was it Janet Grillo and Sarah Risher? Next year, promoted to a full-time story editor, which I guess means... Coverage. Coverage, yeah. Then senior story editor, director of development.

23:37Michael De Luca:Boston Reed is around. Yes, Boston Reed.

23:40Pamela Abdy:VP Creative Development, SVP Production, EVP Production, and then in October 93. We did all the P's together. All the VPs, yeah. We did all the VPs, yeah. It's covered between the two of you. The VP, the S's, the E's. That's it. But then here's the big, you know, one which. The P? The P, exactly. But, I mean, this is kind of, I mean, even to you now in hindsight must sound a little, more than a little amazing. October 93, you're just 27. and you become president of production at the company, New Line, where you had started out as an intern. That's the same job that Thalberg had held at MGM at 26, only a year younger, decades earlier.

24:21Pamela Abdy:And like him, people who were writing about you at the time used a phrase called boy wonder a lot. That comes up a lot in the articles. I mean, what just talk about... I didn't ask for that. Wasn't in the contract, no. But just how do you explain how someone who, I mean, I've read things where you say you were so shy when you showed up there that even initially going to apply for the internship.

24:48Michael De Luca:I didn't leave the hallway to go to interview for my internship. I was too shy to face grownups. I thought this was a bad idea.

24:56Pamela Abdy:So how does that guy within just a few years come out of his shell?

25:05Michael De Luca:Whenever I get a job, whenever I go to work with people that I grow to like and really get to know, I feel like it's a surrogate family or a family. So I get very comfortable with my colleagues because it feels like family. So all the people that worked at New Line at the time, who I'm still friends with, they were all... When I started, I was, I think, 19. So they were all... These were young adults in their mid-20s, 25, 26. I thought they were the coolest people because they were like grown up and they were like all using bad language and looked like they had cool apartments in Manhattan. They helped me.

25:42Michael De Luca:They just gave me like a safe island to come out of my shell.

25:45Pamela Abdy:So you talk about it being a family. If it was a family, I guess the surrogate dad in a way was a guy named Bob Shea who founded and ran this company initially solo and later with Michael Lynn. But tell us about him because it's one of these weird things in Hollywood where the person who gives you your break can also be the person who ends up firing you. And you can still have a nice relationship, I guess. But just how would you describe his role in your life?

26:15Michael De Luca:Well, he was incredible. He gave me a lot of opportunity. He gave everyone at the studio a lot of opportunity. There was a guy, there was a kid named Jeffrey Reddick in our mailroom who came up with the idea for the Final Destination movie that's still running. We just had a gigantic hit with Final Destination 425. This guy loved movies, very egalitarian. Door was always open. Didn't matter what your title was. Didn't matter your station at the company. Any idea was welcome. All good ideas were taken. So there was tremendous opportunity at New Line. And New Line set a pattern of allowing people to grow in their job and to take on more and more responsibility.

26:49Michael De Luca:I think that's why we've had so many people come out of that era running studios. Now, Donna Langley came from New Line, Mary Parent, who Pam mentioned, partnered with Stuber first, and then ran MGM and producing with Legendary Now for us with Dune and Minecraft, another ex-New Liner. So it was just that kind of vibe where you got to do more and more things. As the company grew, you got to grow with it.

27:13Pamela Abdy:Let's talk about some of the ways in which you made your name there. You came out of the gate with two of Jim Carrey's three breakout films, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, both in 1994. and at the time a lot of people thought you were dumb and dumber for giving him as much. Nothing's changed, Scott.

27:32Michael De Luca:Everybody's so mean all the time. They were mean in the 90s. They're mean now. I don't know what about me inspires. I was supposed to be the boy wonder. Exactly.

27:41Pamela Abdy:Well, why did they, what was the skepticism of that move, of what you were doing with Jim Carrey, and how in the end did that kind of give you a little credit?

27:52Michael De Luca:Well, I mean, not to bore you guys, but I'll tell you, because everything stays the same. So we paid Jim Carrey nothing for the mask because that was before Ace Ventura opened. So I think he got like a quarter of a million dollars for the mask. Ace Ventura opened. The mask was testing well. Everyone in town knew it. So Jim was getting offers of$2,$3,$4 million before the mask came out. And then Ace Ventura came out, and the numbers started to kind of solidify at five. We had Dumb and Dumber. He had another offer for another movie and we offered seven, you know, and to the town who isn't privy to the other studio's offers of three, four, five, it looked like I took him from a quarter of a million dollars to seven million dollars.

28:46Michael De Luca:So it was like, oh, he's ruining the business. and the vindication came when the movie came out even paying Jim seven it only cost you know like 20 like slight or even last back in those days I think it might have been even 16 or eight maybe maybe maybe I want to say 14 but that means we paid Jim half the budget which I don't I don't think we did so just like today and all the years in in in between I mean, everyone second guesses your instincts and the deal making if you're first out of the gate and you do something decisively and you do it in a way where you don't really care what people say.

29:24Michael De Luca:Sometimes, you know, people can get jealous of you were allowed to operate that way and I'm not or I don't have the balls. Sorry, I don't have the courage to do it that way. And then you're vindicated by the audience. You always get, when it works, like you're always vindicated by the audience because it translates into box office. And then everybody talks about how smart you were.

29:43Pamela Abdy:Well, another, I think, plus of having a young guy in that role that you were in was that maybe you are able to relate more to younger filmmakers or connect with their work. Or I don't know. I mean, I'll leave it to you to say, but I just want to give some of the examples of where you were ahead of the game. David Fincher had made only one movie, Alien 3, which had not been successful when you hired him for 7, movie 7 in 1995. There were others who I think were not yet really on the map in the way they would be. Gary Ross with Pleasantville, another great movie. I believe that you were behind.

30:20Pamela Abdy:And then, of course, the example that we're going to talk about probably most of all tonight is a gentleman named Paul Thomas Anderson, who, let's just note, his only prior work had been a movie that had been taken away from him, which seems to have been a really traumatic thing for him, Heart 8, or as he had called it, Sydney. And then starting with his next movie, his next movie was Boogie Nights, and then Magnolia. I just want to, this is in 1999, what the New York Times wrote about you. Quote, DeLuca is Anderson's greatest advocate. He fought for Boogie Nights and made a blind deal for Anderson's next project, granting the director creative control without even hearing an idea for the movie.

31:05Pamela Abdy:Close quote. What was it that initially made you think this guy had a big future? And take us through your experience with Boogie Nights and Magnolia, if you would.

31:16Michael De Luca:Well, you know, Paul, when he brought Boogie Nights to us, first of all, the script read just like the movie. So he's one of those filmmakers, right, you would agree, who writes in a way that you can see the movie. in a weird way that Fincher, even though he doesn't write, came and did a verbal pitch of Seven, and you're, you know, he just, you're spellbound. David explained it in a way where you could see the movie in your head, and it was very close to the movie he made. So Paul, same thing, I mean, he wrote a script that was very much like the movie, and I thought, you know, he's this little skinny guy.

31:48Michael De Luca:I mean, he's not little, I mean, he didn't, it's not like he grew. He's not, he was just so young, I mean, he was younger than I was, and I didn't think there was anybody younger than me back then. But when he started talking about film and, you know, his face lit up and he talked about his influences and, you know, going back to, you know, directors that predated him by decades, he felt like he was born of film itself, you know, like the way Anakin is born of the forest from the midichlorians. It just felt like Paul was created by cinema. Anyone sitting in front of him in that meeting would have felt like this is someone who's destined to be one of the greats.

32:26Michael De Luca:And I just thought, wouldn't it be neat to have our own relationship with a Kubrick? Because I was always a big admirer of Steve Ross's relationship with Stanley Kubrick at Warner Brothers. And frankly, Pam's relationship with Alejandro Neritu is like this. When you're lucky enough in our line of work to come across voices and filmmaking talent that you feel like they're going to go on a run and have a body of work that any studio would be proud of to be around or to have affiliated with the studio. I thought Paul could be that for a new line. And also, even though he was younger than me, we were close enough in age where we became really close friends.

33:03Michael De Luca:And when you can work with your friends, especially the relationship I have with Pam, it just makes the career that you love already that much better.

33:11Pamela Abdy:I do want to underscore, though, for people who need a reminder or whatever, I mean, what exactly had he brought to you with Boogie Nights? This was on paper. Can you describe what, how did you basically have to, when you shared this idea that we should work with this guy with Bob Shea, I mean, how do you describe what it is? Don't worry, we're all grown-ups here.

33:40Michael De Luca:No, no, you couldn't, you can't spin people. So the same way you were with Babel, I was the same way with Bob, who respected enthusiasm. The man did – this is a guy who rolled the dice on shooting all three Lord of the Rings at once. So he was no stranger to being risk-friendly, which helps a lot. But he saw – he was also – Bob – I'm sorry. He's around. It's not like he was. He is – he was as far as – no, I'm kidding. He is a giant Kubrick fan as well. So I said, look, man, there's nothing else like it out there, which was always a great thing to feel and to say at New Line because we were all about where can we go where the big studios aren't going or what can we give the audience that's not getting from the other places.

34:29Michael De Luca:We were very inspired by the Fox Television Network at the time when they came out to be a fourth network. They were hitting in the culture with shows like Married with Children and Living Cholera. like you just knew that Fox was catering to a younger audience when they came on the scene and we thought well there's an opportunity for a studio to do that Miramax did that with their lineup of directors in the 90s there were so many independent studios in the 80s you probably you guys won't remember these or know these names but when I started at New Line there was Canon De Laurentiis New World Atlantic releasing Joe I don't know if you know remember any of these companies he's the white-haired guy sitting back there like like me by the 90s they were all gone except Miramax and us.

35:09Michael De Luca:Like pretty much all, Vestron, which did Dirty Dancing. Island, all gone. So there was an opportunity for ourselves and Miramax to grab the Gen X audience. You know, when the baton passed from Baby Boomers to Gen X in terms of entertainment choices, you know, I feel like every, and I believe this today, like every generation wants to create their own movie stars or certainly mint their own directors or decide these are the stories I want. I don't want to see your broke-ass stories anymore. I want to see new shit. so I just thought Boogie Nights walked in the door announcing itself as new shit and also the continuation of what Hard Eight, Sidney started with Paul and in that era you had Steven Soderbergh was coming online and Wes Anderson it was a great time, a great period for directors I thought Paul could be ours Boogie Nights is something new, it was about the 70s which I had grown up in, I thought well if I'm feeling nostalgia for the 70s as a Gen X citizen.

36:07Michael De Luca:Maybe there's more people like me out there. And it was very reasonably priced. I think that one was 14 million as well, which I guess was kind of our sweet spot until Ted Turner bought us and then we went crazy.

36:18Pamela Abdy:And it was really the, on paper, the main issue might have been the length of the script.

36:24Michael De Luca:I didn't mind it because I, again, I thought, well, it's an event because there's not, there's not a lot like it. I actually advocated for it to be a little longer and have a disco intermission. You know, like, because I thought, oh, it's so cool. Back in the day, you used to have Lawrence Arabian, Spartacus were these long ass movies that had intermissions and you could go to the bathroom and come back and they do like an overture with the score and I thought we could have a disco overture and Paul's like, no, we're not doing the disco overture because there's a whole section of that movie he cut out that nobody has seen that I thought was really brilliant but it settled into its three, whatever it is, three hours.

36:58Michael De Luca:And it was on, oh, sorry.

36:59Pamela Abdy:Yeah. No, I was going to say, is it three hours?

37:01Michael De Luca:It feels like it goes by in a flash.

37:03Pamela Abdy:And it was on the basis of your guys' experience with that that you then re-teamed for Magnolia.

37:09Michael De Luca:Yeah, I mean, I knew a little bit about Magnolia before I read it. The filmmaking he brings to bear was so obvious that even to my boss, we didn't have to twist arms for Magnolia. People just wanted to make sure that Paul stayed with the studio.

37:22Pamela Abdy:There weren't any questions about the frogs?

37:25Michael De Luca:I don't think my boss ever read the script.

37:28Pamela Abdy:well okay so just to quickly make sure that we we note the variety of other things that you were doing at new line hits from everyone from adam sandler with the wedding singer through championing black filmmakers at a time when there weren't many places doing that the hughes brothers with menace to society f gary gray with set it off working with ice cube and friday and ice well we're going to get the franchises, definitely. But I mean, this is pre, certainly Marvel, the idea of taking a comic book with Spawn and adapting that and doing with Mortal Kombat.

38:04Michael De Luca:Can we mention Blade instead of Spawn? We're coming, we're coming, we're coming.

38:08Pamela Abdy:And then the franchises with Friday, Blade, Austin Powers, Rush Hour, which became the biggest hit for the company.

38:16Michael De Luca:I hear Paramount's bringing that back. It's not even their film.

38:21Pamela Abdy:I guess, you know, and then the flip side is nobody can, and this I think every executive finds out, like nobody can stay hot forever and consistently. I didn't know that then, Scott. Well, so just tell me when after so much incredible success, you hit that kind of tough run, which I think I've seen you describe in other interviews is essentially like Little Nicky, 13 Days, and then Town and Country, which was, these are ones that just didn't...

38:57Michael De Luca:It was really Little Nicky and Town and Country. 13 Days was a domestic-only acquisition. Okay, we'll leave that one off.

39:03Pamela Abdy:But this leads up to this tough moment that comes for everyone at some point. January 2001, when just before that rollout of these Lord of the Rings films that became the biggest thing for New Line ever, and I'm sure you were intimately involved with, the chop came.

39:22Michael De Luca:Isn't that cold, you guys? On the eve of Lord of the Rings, I was asked to leave the studio before I could stay and enjoy it.

39:28Pamela Abdy:Well, so I guess in a variation of that moment where Jersey Films, the first thing is over for Pam and now it's like, who am I, what do I do? Take us into your mindset at that moment when for the first time in your now 16 years at that point in the business, you're on your own.

39:46Michael De Luca:well I mean it like all relations like most relationships the end was in sight before the end actually came so I think Bob and I just had enough of each other you know I he met me when I was 19 and for my 16 year history at that company I was all like I built this place you don't appreciate it and then he's all like we made you and you don't appreciate it and it was it was just so tired by the time that I had a few flops that you know they were all looking for a way to get me out the door and I probably knew deep down even though nobody, you always want to be the person who breaks up with the person, right?

40:19Michael De Luca:Not the person who gets dumped. I wanted to leave under my own, when my contract was up, which would have been at the end of the year and would have taken me through the release of Lord of the Rings. And they 86ed me. What does that saying come from? Like why is it? Have you guys heard that before? I'm not alone in saying it, right? It's Gen X.

40:36Pamela Abdy:Well, we said it most, Gen X. I don't know if they still say it.

40:40Michael De Luca:So they kicked me out the door in February, you know, but the funny, can I tell this story, Katie, about my contract at the time? It's okay, cool. What's great, you guys is, so I had stock options in New Line when it was an independent company, like a tiny company in New York and held on to everything because I had never, I didn't even know what stock was before I got a real job, an adult job. So everything I had that was in equity was New Line. And then when AOL bought the studio, it shot up before it came plunging down. So when they fired me, it hadn't plunged. It plunged a little bit from like$102 to$70.

41:20Michael De Luca:But it hadn't plunged all the way. And when they fired me, my business manager at the time, who's actually still my business manager, never mind at the time, he's still Randy, still my business manager. Randy's still around too. I'm loyal, unlike my old boss, Bob Shett. No, I'm kidding. I love him. He's great. Paternal.

41:38Michael De Luca:He's like, hey, you're all wrapped up in this one company. Now that you're not there anymore, you don't know how it's going to go. Meanwhile, it got way better after I left Lord of the Rings, a billion dollar movie franchise. But he goes, you're not there anymore. You should diversify. I was all like, boohoo, they fired me. All right, let's diversify. So he got me out at 70 bucks a share. And then after I left, the stock plunged to like from 102 to two. It was everybody at Warner's and New Line got wiped out. So Bob and I had, after he fired me, we had lunch like a year later to just do the man hug and pat on the back and be like, I love you, I love you.

42:18Michael De Luca:And he goes, I got to thank you for Lord of the Rings. I'm like, oh, here it comes. He's going to thank me. He's like, you annoyed me so much and made me feel like I wasn't in charge of my own company that I knew I had to throw down on something that was just me. And that's how we got Lord of the Rings. Oh, my God. So I said, I have to thank you, too, because had you not fired me, I would have been wiped out also. But thanks to diversifying after you fired me, I have a nest egg. That's great. Then he got rich again anyway by investing in Tesla. Because that's how it rolls for people like Bob Sheridan.

42:55Pamela Abdy:Well, you were back pretty quickly with another big job. DreamWorks has had a production there. This is Spielberg, Katzenberg, just getting going at that point. Overseeing Live Action Division, which included, I believe, this is the beginning of Todd Phillips and you with Old School, and Adam McKay and Will Ferrell with Anchorman, among others. But you've said you weren't totally thrilled with how you performed, with how it all went there, to the extent that shortly after that, you left to become an independent producer, Michael Toluca Productions, with a first look deal at Sony where for many years there was an association.

43:33Pamela Abdy:This was starting 2004, almost a decade. And I want to bring up, well, first of all, you'd technically only been an executive up to that point, even though you'd really essentially been a producer at New Line, right? But let's just talk about this run. One of the greatest, I think, four-year runs of any producer with The Social Network in 2010, Moneyball 2011, and Captain Phillips in 2013. Fancy Mike Fancy Best picture nominations He'll get to it

44:01Michael De Luca:He'll get to it The non-fancy

44:03Pamela Abdy:Three in four years Three best picture Oscar nominations In four years And I guess

44:08Michael De Luca:By the way When you lose the Oscar three times Winning a Globe Is like getting a Razzie

44:17Well

44:17Michael De Luca:I kid the Globe I love the Globe I kid the Globe

44:21Pamela Abdy:Well okay So your experience As an independent producer I mean Let's just take, you can obviously talk about whatever you want here, but I think Moneyball is kind of interesting because that was seven years in the making. And in a way, what Billy Bean is doing in that movie feels like what you were doing for your whole career up to that point, right?

44:41Michael De Luca:Yeah, I mean, Moneyball was an incredible experience for everybody that worked on it because we all came to that book with our own perception of how it spoke to us. Because at that point, I was having a midlife crisis of looking back on my choices and going, did I make the right choices? And what do I want the future to be? And it's what Billy Bean goes through in that book and in the movie. And I think Brad Pitt and Amy Pascal ran the studio and Bennett Miller, certainly. We all related to Billy Bean's story in our own way. And it was the universality of that premise of why Billy Bean wanted to stay in Oakland, why he didn't take the job in Boston, and what he was trying to do, what he deemed an unfair game, like how to win in a sport that his experience as a failed player taught him it was full of bias and unrealistic expectations.

45:32Michael De Luca:You know, we could relate it to our industry as well.

45:35Pamela Abdy:You've said when you guys, I think, won the milestone award at the PGA's, you know, you both thanked a lot of the people that you'd learned from along the way. And one of the people who had been also like you at an unbelievable age, a really young president of production, who then was your fellow producer on each of those three movies that I mentioned was Scott Rudin. And I guess you said that in terms of being a producer, you were able to learn a lot from how effective he was. What did you take away?

46:06Michael De Luca:I mean, Scott Rudin, I've never worked with anyone as brilliant. He could do the job of anyone at the studio. He could talk business affairs with the lawyers at the studio. He could talk marketing with the marketing executives. He just could do everything. and no one, I've never since met anyone that knows and understands story development as well as Scott. I mean, he's just like, as they say in Moneyball, a five tools player, you know, and he was very generous with his time and we had a great relationship and he was, he also, I was so impressed with his ability to manage his time properly and just, he just didn't waste an ounce of his time.

46:42Michael De Luca:Everything was scheduled for maximum effect because I have a bad habit of like really overscheduling. We both do. I'm a soft touch when it comes to meetings.

46:55Michael De Luca:We use up so much of our time on things that don't add up to the task at hand or getting a movie made. And I was just really impressed with how rigorous he was with his ability to manage his time. But also just, again, his day job was mounting Tony-winning Broadway productions. The fact that he pulled it all off, movies, theater, and then found time to kind of tutor me and how to be a better producer, I was just very grateful. Interesting.

47:19Pamela Abdy:And then at the end of that nine-year period of being associated with Sony, you become back on the executive side as the co-president of production at an interesting time at that studio when they went through the Sony hack. One of the odds, right? Never a dull moment.

47:36Michael De Luca:Amy Pascal, who ran the studio, invited me to be an executive because we had such a great run as my studio as a producer. So I was a producer for nine years. And she said, come be an executive. and the year I came, I said, oh my god, I would love to come. Thank you for that invite. I want to join the family. It's another family. I could be with the Sony family. And then North Korea hacked the studio. Like, what are the fucking odds, right? That's crazy. And that was that. And then when she left, I didn't want to be an executive anymore because I was only there for her. So I ran back into the arms of my best friend Donna Lively at Universal to have a production deal there.

48:11Pamela Abdy:Is it true? Had she started out? Was she your assistant? Donna?

48:17Michael De Luca:No, Donna actually was actually a friend of mine who was also an executive at New Line, Lynn Harris she was Lynn Harris' assistant her best friend who emigrated with her from the UK a woman named Tanya Landau was my assistant

48:33Pamela Abdy:I see, so meanwhile she rises to become the head of Universal where you go and produce movies that made a few bucks, the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy you happy now?

48:43Michael De Luca:Not fancy

48:45Pamela Abdy:and this brings us up to where we're going to merge the conversation because your stories merge so first of all when did you two first cross paths oh in the 90s i mean when i was at jersey and i was an assistant we became friends jersey films was producing a film when mike was president at new line called living out loud that richard lagravin ace made and danny was in and we met in the editing room and we became friends back then we just had a shared love of stories and movies and filmmakers we're both italian we both love food both grew up on the east coast had a lot in common in january 2020 another just wonderful uh calm before the storm of the pandemic january 2020 mike you get hired to become chairman at mgm april 2020 you reach out to Pam.

49:37Pamela Abdy:How did that go down and was there someone or some team that you were thinking about as a model for what you guys wanted to do? So maybe Mike and then Pam if you can tell that story.

49:48Michael De Luca:I was really excited about the MGM opportunity because I thought at the time that they called me I thought audiences were being underserved in the marketplace that studios you know Hollywood was corporatized once and then again and again but this the current iteration of corporatization in 2020, I just thought, you know, and maybe it was my bias as a producer, as a non-writing producer, as you can imagine, you know, you're trying to get affiliated with writers and really sing for your supper and try to take enough, you know, projects all over town to make a living. But so I was in rooms as a seller.

50:24Michael De Luca:I was in, I was basically, even though I had a deal at Universal, you know, what they considered to be criteria for a green light had gotten narrower and narrower in terms of the corporatization of Hollywood and like it's got to be a tentpole and if it can't be a tentpole it's got to be a sequel and if it can't be a sequel it's got to be you know something that could become a franchise it just was really narrow it had been narrow in times past but I thought personal opinion and maybe it was just me maybe I was a bad pitcher but I just thought gee the criteria seems awfully narrower than it used to be and this is frustrating and I know even as a movie goer I love me some franchises like I love going it's like hanging out with a friend that you've already made as opposed to making a new friend like also both great experiences very different but surely there's room for both like studios used to walk and chew gum at the same time and you know sequelize existing franchises well try to innovate within the genre and innovate within the franchise to keep it fresh but then also realize that everything was original once and if you don't refresh the audience's appetite for original films, you're gonna end up with decaying franchises and then your studio could go into a stall.

51:39Michael De Luca:I've also observed how certain studios would get really conservative about risks they would take or swings they would make or the desire to seed the ground with new franchises or at least new movies. And then you turn around and you got a four movie year, exhibition loses faith in you to supply a steady stream of movies, it's all pre-pandemic. But, you know, or you get studios in the third iteration of corporatization that really manage to the quarter as opposed to the year. Because I grew up in an era where you would take your shot with your slate and at the end of the year you would see if you were in the black or the red and then determine whether someone did a good job based on your net revenue at the end of the year.

52:18Michael De Luca:if you get into like managing to the quarter where oh we had a bad quarter so now we're going to pull back on development spending pull back on production spending pull back on marketing spending it kind of creates a self-filling prophecy and then the studio can go off a cliff so I thought well MGM is an interesting case study because it had a great library its international distribution was being handled by Universal and they had marketing people that I knew from my time at Sony on the domestic side, and they had the Bond franchise. So I thought, well, you've got a franchise or two, really, if you count Creed, which we do.

52:57Michael De Luca:So you've got two tent poles, and the whole idea behind the phrase tent pole was, when they came up with it, was it's a tent, and the pole holds the tent up. So if you carry that metaphor forward, the tentpole movies are the poles, but the other movies are the tent, but they just wanted all pole. Like the studio just became all pole, no tent. So I'm like, I want to put the tent back in tentpole at MGM. We got the safety of two franchises, you know, that'll pay the bills that you can rely on. You can take some swings and see if I'm right about the audience being ready for original swings. And this one I've been talking about movies with for 20 years.

53:43Michael De Luca:I know she loves movies as much as I do. and has worked with directors who took bold original swings like Alejandro, worked with Scorsese. Talent. Pam can say no to talent in a way where they want to work with her again and again and again, which is harder than it sounds because a lot of them don't want to hear no, but they race to hear no from Pam because they trust you and you don't bullshit and it's a sparse commodity. I wanted to use MGM as a testing ground for the appetite of the audience. So we got hired. Pam agreed to do the job with me. It wasn't an easy sell. She said, I've got to think about it a lot.

54:21Pamela Abdy:Pam, do you want to pick it up from there? Well, I guess at the time I was producing and had this company with Brad, and it was an independent company, I had just produced this film, Queen and Slim, which was, again, another profound thing in my life. meeting Melina and Lena and really seeing how they possessed their worth in a room and it was very inspiring. Mike truly is one of my best friends and I'm not just saying it like we've you know our kids are one of our kids are a day apart you know we've been to each other's weddings we've been through the ups and downs of life together.

55:02Michael De Luca:My ex-wife and I rolled into Cedars and I was about to have our son and I'm like oh my god it's Pam with a baby she just had her baby.

55:08Pamela Abdy:I have my baby. So, you know, we have real life friendship, you know. And we had worked together on and off for years. But honestly, I had been president of production already at two companies. And I just wasn't, I didn't know what this was going to be like. And I didn't want to do the same job again. Because you always want to keep growing and getting to the next place. And Mike said to me very clearly, it's not going to be like that. like how it was at these other places this is different and he pitched his vision for what he just told you and it was inspiring and he said we're going to do this together and and it really was a partnership even though it was president production at the time and we you know we took we went to work there under the craziest circumstances with covet with you know building a studio again from scratch really i mean they had bond already had been made the last bond and it was being moved and you know it was had to get keep moving it was the first movie one of the first things mike had to do as chairman there was move that date to preserve it and that was scary you know at the time because no one knew what was going to happen it was like whack-a-mole we were

56:23Michael De Luca:just trying to find an island between variants to land the bond movie yeah yeah well i guess another

56:31Pamela Abdy:challenge might have been the fact that I don't know from pretty early on there were indications that the studio might be sold? Well I think we knew that that was listen in the worlds we live in that's always a possibility everything's up for sale so we didn't look at it that way we looked at it as this is what we're doing right now and let's let's see if we can build a diverse slate. Except Google. Yeah. Right? And YouTube. You know, we said, let's see if we can build this diversely. And it was just the challenges of building it while COVID was happening as well. So Amazon acquired MGM March 2022.

57:15Pamela Abdy:You guys left in April 2022. And then in June 2022. 22 is a big year. 22 was a big year. June 2022. too you guys it's announced that you guys are heading over to uh Warner Brothers and I wonder if you can just share how that came about and what for you the kind of was what was the calculation is was there a calculator you know what were pros and cons well you know when Amazon came in

57:43Michael De Luca:and a lot of I guess a lot of spec I mean look the at the height of the pandemic this nobody in our industry knew for sure if the audience was going to come back I mean it was I I mean, I never understood that point of view because I just thought, well, the Spanish flu happened in 1918, and then, you know, it ended, and people went out of their house to go to the opera or whatever the fuck they did in 1918. The park, it's not like everyone decided, I love staying inside so much that I will not come out again. So this whole streaming strategy was built on the assumption that that was going to be the first choice to the exclusion of any other choice, and that there was going to be endless subscriber growth if you just channeled all your billions into content production.

58:31Michael De Luca:And as the pandemic progressed and then receded, and there were certain pockets of resistance to even obeying the protocols when the pandemic was in full swing in red state America in terms of, you're not going to tell me what to do, I'll go sit. There was even attendance in some movies earlier than there probably, you know, that you would have thought should have been. But as the pandemic receded, you know, of course people came back out. You know, they came back out to the Bond movie. We had Creed III, Dog, this movie we did in MGM with Channing Tatum, all did really well. A couple of variants hit.

59:06Michael De Luca:You know, it was shaky ground for a while. But Pam and I didn't believe that the pandemic had irrevocably altered what's hardwired into the human brain about social compacts. and an affinity for communal storytelling. Even if you can't put your finger on it, what drives you to want to experience something communally, whether it's a movie or a concert or a play or sitting in the park with your friends and other dog owners or whatever? It gets people to parks. I'm more of a movie theater person.

59:43Michael De Luca:So when Amazon came in, And their desire to integrate MGM into Prime Video and the way that they would adjudicate what's theatrical and what's streaming, we didn't think that that was a good fit for us. So we were going to go produce together. And then on the way to figuring out where we wanted to do that, David Zaslav called. And we went to meet with him. And he felt like we did that the future of that studio, of Warner Brothers was going to be, at least as far as motion pictures went, theatrical. He was all in on theatrical. They had been making, or had plans to make, a fair amount of streaming originals for HBO Max, and he pivoted the entire studio back to theatrical for motion pictures, and that appealed to us.

1:00:29Michael De Luca:So that's why we kind of leapt at it.

1:00:32Pamela Abdy:And we shared, I think, a vision of, it was, again, it was being able to bring this idea of a diverse slate with the right franchises and sequels, but focusing and investing in original storytelling. And I think he shared that vision with us and supported that vision, and it got us really excited to go to work at Warner Brothers, which is the Yankees and is one of the greatest. I'm sorry if you don't like the Yankees, but... And then it was really fun.

1:01:05Michael De Luca:Nothing wrong with the Yankees. No, I love the Yankees.

1:01:07Pamela Abdy:Because there's probably other people here that, like the Dodgers. What was fun is New Line, which had fired me, came back to be work under me.

1:01:18Michael De Luca:Like I was now back in charge of New Line and my boss was gone.

1:01:24Pamela Abdy:And presiding over a new Lord of the Rings. Yes. So there you go. You finally got your Lord of the Rings. That's right. But, you know, that part was really exciting to us. And I think what we've been doing, you know, we inherited some stuff, but this year, 2025, this year is a real illustration of this vision that we, you know, the two of us and David talked about in 2022. to. So to state what you guys know very well, but just to break it down for folks, I mean, at least as it lived out in the public eye, it's been a roller coaster of a year. And obviously, the good part is that it's ended or continued into 2026 on the highest of highs.

1:02:10But can we

1:02:11Pamela Abdy:just talk about where it's all come from to get to that point? And also, again, I think the lesson for somebody thinks almost, or sounds like almost, or could have worked out definitely, which would have been terrible. But talk about what led up to, we're reading on March 30th, 2025 in Bloomberg, that you guys are, while you're in this job, that replacements are being interviewed.

1:02:38Michael De Luca:See how mean, it's so mean. The time is so mean.

1:02:41Pamela Abdy:And that's, I guess, because at that point, there had been a few that hadn't clicked as well as you might have wanted i think you guys inherited mickey 17 that's correct yeah then there was furiosa mad max saga and then there was joker foliadu take me nice pronunciation you got it take me as opposed to my friends

1:03:05Michael De Luca:in brooklyn who went like what's this joke of foliadu ducks there are ducks in this thing Foley ducks, Joker ducks.

1:03:13Pamela Abdy:Well, so just, you know, these are each made by world-class filmmakers, Bong Joon-ho, George Miller, Todd Phillips. You are the same people who make the decision to make the movies that we're going to come to in a minute. What happened with those?

1:03:33Michael De Luca:Well, no one has a crystal ball, right? So the reason I also don't, I don't like this demarcation of, oh, we inherited those, we made these. Because the same people that greenlit Mickey 17 and put Joker 2 together, which we liked and endorsed and I still like. I still love it. And think it's a misunderstood movie that will be appreciated soon. They also greenlit Barbie. and Wonka. So nobody bats a thousand. We certainly don't bat a thousand. So this, I think it's a false equivalency. And all during that period when the town and pundits and the snark industrial complex, I call it, you know, not you, but a lot of your peers.

1:04:16Michael De Luca:Yeah. Actually, you're peerless. The pearl clutching that went on because we made a couple of original movies with Ryan Coogler, with Michael B. Jordan and Paul Thomas Sanderson with Leonardo DiCaprio, for less than the industry average of what a movie costs most studios, certainly 10-pole movies, it seems so silly. When we got a 60 ,000-foot view of it, it seemed like, oh, this feels like it's about the clickbait industry, and we know those algorithms are driven by negativity. People only click on, it's like watching a car accident, someone's slowing down the highway. They know that negative clicks are the only thing that creates traffic and it doesn't get you any traffic to write like things are great at warner's mike and pam are wonderful a lot of it was fake news a lot of it was speculation before the movies even came out as you know a lot of it were were you know i feel bad for a lot of the pundits because i think they were carrying the water for for people with agendas you know and we're kind of being puppeted by by people with agendas so none of it was about the actual work these filmmakers had poured into the movie so i just felt i mostly felt bad that the films and the filmmakers were being dragged into some of the clickbait stuff that was going on.

1:05:30Michael De Luca:And it's such a bubble community, our industry, that it's not like it got out of the Hollywood blogosphere and made it into like the ticket buying general public. My friends at home didn't know about it. Even at CinemaCon, when, you know, I thought I would try to amuse some exhibitors with, I'll break the ice with self-effacing humor about all the shitty press about us. They were like, what are you talking about you know so that was a good reminder of like this isn't the real world this is just like

1:05:56Pamela Abdy:the hollywood high school newsletter mentality but for you guys you're human beings it has to to some degree affect you when you're hearing and i don't know if you knew or know what was true or what wasn't true but the fact that it's even in the ether is that how do you keep doing the job when because because we're doing the job and that's what we have to do and listen yes we're human we have feelings like everybody in this room but we're professional and we have nine you know we have a lot of people that work for us so he and I have to show up every day as leaders and we have a job to do and we have movies to finish and we have filmmakers to support and we have marketing campaigns to plan and the thing that was just unfortunate is that you know not no one who was writing about us at the time we're privy to we have test screenings we have experiences we know what films are coming.

1:06:49Pamela Abdy:We know what's working for an audience. So they didn't have any of that knowledge. So at a certain point, you just have to, you know, we're, we're veterans. You have to have a thick skin. We're in the job. We're privileged to have the job and there's going to be criticism and that's okay. And there's going to be movies that work and don't work. I just hope that everyone, at least from this experience, waits until the movie comes out and and then decides if we're morons or not. That's it.

1:07:17Michael De Luca:But also I thought we'd be such weenies if we bast in the good press and whined about the bad press. That's what I kept telling myself. You can't only like it when it's complimentary. You have to have a thick skin because we're so privileged to be in the job. And the only boss you really have in our line of work and the only thing that really matters at the end is the audience. And if they liked it as much as you did when you first read it, Or you're, you know, at Warner's, we have a fellow named Jesse Ehrman who runs Warner Brothers. Richard Brenner runs New Line. We have Bill Demashki who runs animation.

1:07:53Michael De Luca:And they'll bring us projects. There's so much reading that goes on inside the studio. It's not just the two of us. Like, Rubber Stamping movie is like Elmer Fudd and a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's a constituency. It's marketing weighing in of like, hey, I know you like this, but we can't sell it. it goes through so much good vigorous advocacy and debate and discussion before we decide to move forward with something not in a crippling way but in a really healthy way where it's kind of a group decision so we just you know try to just suck it up and do our jobs and and let people know that the bets that they made with their reputations of like you know putting numbers down on a piece of paper and saying I'm behind this movie I mean a lot of people had a lot of things writing and they always do on every movie we make it's their professional opinions people that put down estimates for international grosses and domestic grosses before we make something and what the marketing budget is going to be.

1:08:43Michael De Luca:The marketing people saying this is what we're going to spend to get this open around the world. Their reputations are staked on those numbers that they put down because they like the thing. But it's got to start with I like the thing. And that's a really personal decision.

1:08:56Pamela Abdy:Well, you guys certainly got the last laugh, if we can say it, with this. March 30th was again the date of the kind of tough article

1:09:08Michael De Luca:April 4th by the way we called everybody who was rumored to be up for a job and they're like not only we didn't get a call for your job we don't want your job

1:09:16Pamela Abdy:so we're like ha ha well less than a week later a Minecraft movie opens 163 million dollar opening weekend unbelievable

1:09:25Michael De Luca:you're too kind thank you

1:09:28Pamela Abdy:later that month sinners thank you very much And the thing you, I think, were alluding to earlier is people were saying, you know, what is this, giving somebody the rights revert back to them after 25 years? And go ahead. It's Ryan Coogler. It's like he walked in the door with a very personal story. It was very specific to this story. This movie was about black ownership. And Ryan says it best. You can listen to any of his interviews. is, you know, this was an original story that came from his mind, and it was specific to this movie. And it was Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan who walked in the door with a commercial film that spoke to us on the page emotionally, and we couldn't be more proud to be part of this, that movie with him.

1:10:23Michael De Luca:Also, what doesn't get reported is everything that we bid on and won, there was a runner-up bitter that was right there and about to do what we did we just did it faster i guess that would

1:10:34Pamela Abdy:apply to weapons maybe yeah which was a little later but after sticking chronologically was after centers was then in may final destination bloodlines uh june f1 the movie july superman which i think you'd quietly put into well it's you know i think i don't know if anybody knows

1:10:57Michael De Luca:James Gunn and Peter Safran are a separate unit. They report directly to David Zaslav. We had, we, before they took the job, we did engage James to start writing his Superman because we didn't know if we were going to continue with Henry Cavill and that, you know, like kind of a universe that Zack started.

1:11:14Pamela Abdy:Yeah. Then in August, Weapons, as I mentioned, another one that you guys went out and got at auction, Conjuring, Last Rites in September, I think in its opening weekend, made more than some of the others had made in their entire run.

1:11:27Michael De Luca:That goes back to my exorcist experience. Catholics love horror when it's set in the Catholic religion.

1:11:33Pamela Abdy:They do.

1:11:33Michael De Luca:We're gluttons for punishment.

1:11:35Pamela Abdy:Also that same month, September, one battle after another, back with PTA. Do you, just anything you want to say about the, you know, continuing this now almost 30 years, I guess, approximately of you working with Paul, but also both of you at Licorice Pizza? My second, yeah. Your second, which I didn't mention I should have, that that was MGM's first Best Picture nomination since Rain Man, like 31 years earlier. But sorry, please.

1:12:05Michael De Luca:It's so silly to compare artists to other artists, but Paul became the Kubrick that anyone could have seen he was going to become if they had met with him in Red Boogie Nights back in 1996.

1:12:17Pamela Abdy:Last two things for me, and then we'll just close with the student questions if you don't mind. You have all this incredible year that we've talked about, and from what had been rumored, it ends up you guys instead extended for multiple years in October. We were invited to stay. We were invited to stay. Invited to stay.

1:12:35Michael De Luca:You like me, you really like me.

1:12:38Pamela Abdy:And I wondered if you can take us into your thought process in December when it was reported that you're very, I can understand why everybody would now want in on Warner Brothers, but it was actually acquired by Netflix. Can you just, I assume you knew it was?

1:12:56Michael De Luca:No, you know, at our level, you know, we're kind of kept in a great way, just cocooned off from the corporate shenanigans. It's just the motion picture group, you know, which is under our purview, you're so laser focused on making sure Warner Brothers is getting their, you know, act together and having enough green light candidates to decide on their portion of the slate. Same with animation, same with new line. And it's such a time intensive, could be 24-7 if you allowed it to be a job, that in a way we're grateful that the steering of the larger corporation, you know, including the Discovery, all the Discovery networks, it's so far above our pay grades that we're just, you know, we find out about most things, you know, when it's reported in the press.

1:13:40Michael De Luca:You know, we're kind of spoken to the same day. So we're just kind of, it's all the business units at the company, and it's probably true of every media corporation. and the business units are kind of on a need-to-know basis, which is good for everybody because it helps tamp down leaks and speculation and the snark industrial complex.

1:13:59Pamela Abdy:Can I ask, though, how you process the news? Because theatrical, I know, is so important to you guys, as you've talked about all night tonight. Emerald Fennell, for instance, I think went with you guys instead of Netflix for The Bride, which is about... The Wuthering Heights. Excuse me, The Wuthering Heights, coming out this weekend. This weekend. Yeah.

1:14:19Michael De Luca:Go see it?

1:14:20Pamela Abdy:Yeah, go see it this weekend.

1:14:22Michael De Luca:It's truly the kind of romantic movie you could bring someone you love or hate. It's got both bases covered.

1:14:28Pamela Abdy:But knowing that, what's your thought process on just where this could all go? How do you reconcile all that?

1:14:39Michael De Luca:I have always been an admirer of Netflix just because I worked within the system. I produced a TV series called The Babysuiters Club at Netflix. It was one of the best experiences I ever had as a producer. And they were an incredible ecosystem to work in. So I knew Ted Sarandos a little bit. He said the same things to us at Warner Brothers. He came and spoke with Zaslav that he said publicly. The fact that however they felt about it before 2025, and whatever they decide is the course for their growth or what's best for their company, he has said that our 2025 and the fact that we got box office for the studio back up to$4 billion in global receipts for the first time since 2022 on seven less movies show that there's a healthy theatrical audience.

1:15:30Michael De Luca:the way we run our business, you know, with the theatrical release, and then a P-Vod debut, and then to the platform with the S-Vod debut, or Three Bites of the Apple, and with movies that are right-sized in terms of their price point and their budgets, with marketing spends that reflect the way people consume advertising now, not 10 years ago, in terms of how much lives in the digital space, and meeting audiences where they are, that there's a real business there. and so we're optimistic that the value of what we've done and that other studios certainly do also, the other theatrical studios, Universal and Sony and Paramount, in preserving the theatrical experience, I feel like Netflix sees it as a growth opportunity for a business they weren't in.

1:16:15Michael De Luca:They'll do their business, they do a very good job at their business and I think that they see the value in our business.

1:16:22Pamela Abdy:Last one for me. About three weeks ago, for the first time in 51 years since Paramount had The Godfather 2, which you mentioned earlier, sneaking into, and Chinatown. This is the first time since then, in 51 years, that one studio had the two most nominated films, and they were also the two horses in what I think most people would say is a two-horse race for Best Picture. This is Sinners, again, with a record-breaking, 16 nominations, and one battle with 13, which in any other year is also insane. how did you how did you guys kind of receive that news and and how are you approaching this unusual problem of having the the two that are up against each other well pam pam has to

1:17:06Michael De Luca:adapt to it more because she has one child i have two children so you love all your children but we experienced it from a place of pure joy for the filmmakers because first of all ryan Coogler. I mean, they're both, Paul is like a brother to me. Ryan is the, got the biggest heart and is the most soulful, genuine, generous person. You know, that whole movie popped out of his head as a tribute to his uncle. You hear his stories about what he wanted to pay as a tribute to his uncle and how he feels about the blues. And just, and then also wanting to play with all the toys that he sees Chris Nolan play with in terms of changing aspect ratios and IMAX and VistaVision.

1:17:45Michael De Luca:these are incredible artists at the top of their game you know ryan is the kind of person he on that day where he became the most nominated movie movie in oscar history i mean by two that's counting lawrence arabia citizen kane like every single classic movie since the formation of the academy he topped all he cared about was convening a zoom call to thank our marketing department for the job they did on the movie his initial instinct was to thank the studio which is you know just makes you love him even more because he cares about how everyone else is feeling. So being able to call him and say, just take a moment and just really absorb what this film means to people who see it, to audiences around the world, certainly what it's done for Warner Brothers, but then also where it sits in the history.

1:18:35Michael De Luca:No matter what happens on March 15th, what he achieved with that movie and that record amount of nominations, I don't think it's going to ever be surpassed. you know?

1:18:44Pamela Abdy:I just feel gratitude, immense gratitude. I woke up early in the morning and sat with my, my daughter woke up with me. She's 13. And I mean, I'm just going to be honest. I cried sitting on the couch, listening to all the nominations for the talent, because every single one of them, all these movies, everybody's a family. They're all so wonderful, generous, supportive of each other. And really, honestly, they've all been really supportive of us and Mike and I. And And after making all the calls, like getting to call all the talent that day, Mike and I talked to every single one of them and calling the sound people and calling the DPs.

1:19:21Michael De Luca:I mean, to call Delroy Lindo. Yeah, and call Delroy. And say, dude, overdue. Yeah. Or Amy Madigan, 40 years between nominating. These were incredible phone calls. I mean, you feel so honored to make those phone calls.

1:19:34Pamela Abdy:And at the end of the day, I'll get emotional. At the end of the day, we shut the door and we gave each other a hug. And we got emotional. because it's easy to get caught up in the hecticness and the chaos and all of it. And for both of us as our 30-year friendship to take a moment that this time has happened, I will forever feel grateful no matter what happens.

1:19:59Michael De Luca:Because post-pandemic, we were all, and it's not just us, there are other people in town that felt this way and certainly our friend and colleague, Donna Langley at Universal, feels this way. After the pandemic, we're like, if you build it, they will come. And then there's a whole other faction that's like, they're not coming. Don't build it. And we're like, we gotta build it. And then the fact that audiences showed up for these movies meant the world to us because it means we can continue trying to do it and that other studios can keep doing it and not let people starve in a wasteland of chapter nines and tens of things that they've already moved past.

1:20:34Pamela Abdy:I'm so grateful to audiences.

1:20:39Pamela Abdy:Okay, the home stretch. Mirabel Fisher. Hi.

1:20:46Michael De Luca:Hi, my name is Mirabel. I'm a creative producing major here.

1:20:49Pamela Abdy:And my question is, what does the Seth Rogen show, the studio, get right and wrong about being an executive? He gets a lot right.

1:21:00Michael De Luca:We're all about that good-looking, probably. Seth typifies the matinee out of qualities of all of us. He gets the pettiness right. like that episode about are they going to mention my name if they win an award i'm like that fucker i've felt that feeling and i'm not i'm not proud of it i'm ashamed of it how do they know so i think

1:21:19Pamela Abdy:he gets the petty shit right he gets it really right i mean that moment at the end when he's in the car and his mom calls him and goes i didn't hear your name and his the look on his face is

1:21:28Michael De Luca:priceless but what you know it's a comedy so what they what they don't what they're not interested in getting is, you know, all the, like the, the stuff about the job that makes it feel like, you know, you're a patron of the arts, but you're also the curator of a slate for a business that can monetize the art and the, the, the push pull of that and the responsibility you feel to be both responsible for, to the fiscal side of things, but also the artistic side of things. I, that would be an hour long drama, you know, that would be a lot less fun to watch. So he gets, he gets the, funny petty shit right yeah he does lauren trapier thank you so much for coming my name is lauren

1:22:05Pamela Abdy:i'm a graduating senior with a degree in film and television production i know you guys are super busy which leads me to my question can you walk me through kind of your average day from the time you wake up to when you go to bed i'm sure it's just jam-packed i guess i wake up early to get my daughter up for school when i can drive her and i don't have an early meeting it's one of my the most sacred times. We drive in the car, we listen to music, we talk about our day, we talk about the day before, and I get to just chill with her, and that's one of the best parts of my day. You know, we're pretty busy, like, from 8.30 on, and it's really, like, staff meetings, and it's project meetings, and it's watching director's cuts, and it's just really jamming from one meeting to the next, and marketing meetings, and solving problems, and making phone calls and trying to have a moment to eat and think.

1:23:00Pamela Abdy:And then we go home and sometimes have to watch a cut or sometimes read a script and do notes and then get up again and do it all over again.

1:23:09Michael De Luca:Or watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

1:23:11Pamela Abdy:Or Mike doesn't sleep. It's my guilty pleasure.

1:23:14Michael De Luca:I got to meet them at the Wuthering Heights premiere at Radio City Music Hall. But every day is different. The way it's structured is we try to do... So the staff meetings Pam mentioned, and we do early in the morning, like 8.30, 9.10. Last one is like 11.30, but it's creative meetings with the new line, the different labels, new line animation, all the internal housekeeping, whether it's meeting with business affairs or physical production, we try to get done before noon. Then over lunch, the kind of noon to 2, 3 p.m., sometimes we're having lunch with people we're trying to convince to come to the studio to bring their next project.

1:23:53Michael De Luca:we're always on the kind of the hunt for what writer directors are kind of free balls and haven't placed their latest project that we think would be great at the studio that is going to be a competitive situation we try to get them in and kind of you know sing for our supper a little bit and talk about why warners would be a good home for them and then in the afternoon sometimes now that we're up to like around between 15 and 20 movies a year there's usually a rough cut or a second cut screening you know that can take up the afternoon before movies go to a test screening which are all in the evening and then sometimes there's a work dinner you know but we try to limit those because Pam has a child.

1:24:28Pamela Abdy:Sophia Caliento. Hi I'm Sophia Caliento. I'm also producing major here. My question is as co-CEOs how does it work when you guys are working together? What are you delegating? What are you working on together and how does what does that look like?

1:24:44Michael De Luca:There's like a zen energy to it. We don't we haven't mapped out hard borders but there are There's some projects that have like a Zen energy that pull them more towards Pam. There's some that get pulled more towards me. So when that happens, Pam will deal with most of the calls from the agents or the managers in terms of the talent deals or any troubleshooting that needs to happen at her level. For certain projects, I do the same thing on another batch of projects. And then we come together on disseminating instructions to the staff. And when we go over and talk to marketing, we talk as one voice.

1:25:17Michael De Luca:distribution in terms of the date picking you know it's really important more than ever of like choosing when a movie opens globally so we try to speak with one voice to the studio and to the people that report to us but then we try to divide and conquer with the needs of the talent and the

1:25:32Pamela Abdy:individual films and you actually are in the same physical office yeah we share an office so it's actually a really efficient and great it's it's really fun but it's also really efficient and great because a lot of times agents or managers or director or whatever will call one of both of us leave messages for both of us and one of us gets it we'll like yell across the office and you know

1:25:57Michael De Luca:sometimes they try to divide and conquer and i'm like oh oh wait what did you say pam say she's

1:26:02Pamela Abdy:right here let me put you on speaker can you say that again yeah they try to you know think we're we don't talk 24 hours a day and we do nick eikhoff hi there uh i'm nick uh thank you both for coming tonight. My question for you, Mike, is you produced with Jennifer Todd, the 89th and 90th Oscars telecast in 2017 and 2018. The 89th is the one that ended with the wrong best picture being announced. Can you give us the play by play of what was going through your head?

1:26:29Michael De Luca:Mean, mean, mean Hollywood.

1:26:35Michael De Luca:So traumatic, man. So I've always wanted to produce the Oscars because I love Broadway musicals and I'm not a theater producer like Scott Rudin, so I thought this is the closest I'm ever going to get to a live experience. Jen Todd, another really great friend of mine. I like doing things in teams. We had a great time doing it. We're big on clip reels. You know, the show was packed with clip reels. So we thought, even though it produced a long show, we thought it was going great. We had a really good time doing it. We get to the end. I guess it might have been a Bonnie and Clyde anniversary year.

1:27:10Michael De Luca:I forgot how this idea happened, but it seemed like a fun idea. Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway. However, I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to name names because at this point, it's not worth it. The man has gone on with his life. Brian from Pricewaterhouse. Call it in. I'm not going to name last names. Brian. N.D. N.D. Brian. Maybe his name is Brian, maybe it's not. You don't know for sure, right? Brian was a celebrity enthusiast. He was very happy to be the accountant on the Oscars. It wasn't just our year, but he had a habit of trying to pitch a sketch for the Price Waterhouse people. Wouldn't it be fun if the Price Waterhouse accountants came out and we did a bit?

1:27:56Michael De Luca:He pitched one to Jimmy Kimmel.

1:28:01Michael De Luca:And he got a little distracted, I guess, meeting Emma Stone. And allegedly, I wasn't there. This is all grapevine-y gossip stuff. Maybe this didn't happen. It probably did. I heard it from like 10 different people who were on scene. We had an extensive forensic. you know, I mean, the JFK shooting didn't get as much Zapruder film scrutiny of like the tape of Warren Beatty opening that envelope, the back and to the left and back and to the left. We did, I guess, you know, allegedly, Brian felt the need to text or a friend about meeting Emma Stone or seeing Emma Stone or whatever, whatever impressions were for him of Emma Stone.

1:28:52Michael De Luca:And he gave Warren Beatty... So the way the Oscars work is there's two sets of envelopes. One goes to stage left and one goes to stage right. It's just for insurance, just in case the show decides to change up who comes out from stage left, who comes out from stage right. You don't have to send the same envelope to the other side of the stage. You're ready with both identical sets of envelopes on either side of the stage. they memorize, Pricewaterhouse accountants memorize all the winners they go into that show, they're the only ones who know in advance who the winners are and they memorize both sets of envelopes so Emma Stone had already won Best Actress for La La Land but her duplicate envelope was on the side of the stage Warren Beatty exited from and Brian still in a tizzy from being around Emma Stone gave Warren Beatty the duplicate Emma Stone envelope instead of best picture envelope.

1:29:47Michael De Luca:So Warren Beatty opens the envelope, obviously reads best actress Emma Stone, Lala Land, if you look at the footage like the Zapruder film like we all did. He looks a little like oh this is weird. And then he shows it to Faye Dunaway who, bless her, thinks he's doing a bit of like oh you're gonna let me read the name, you want to read the I'll read the name. I'll read the name, Warren. And her vision being what it was or is, just saw in big letters La La Land because the title of the movie, this has since been rectified, the new envelopes don't have this problem. The name of the movie was in big print and Emma Stone was in littler print, so she just read the big print title of La La Land.

1:30:33Michael De Luca:And then since you asked for blow by blow, I'm like, oh, La La Land, that was a fun movie. and I took my headset off. Jen and I were at the producer's table backstage. I'm like, oh, great show. High five. Popped my Diet Coke. And then I heard a scream. I thought, I mean, it was the most, it cut through my soul. I thought a child had been killed backstage. And it was Jen Todd, my friend and partner. And I'm like, what happened? And she's like, they read the wrong envelope! And then I just thought, well, that can't be, because I asked Price Waterhouse, Mr. Price, Mr. Waterhouse, I asked Brian and his associate, what would happen, just for shits and giggles, what happens if the wrong envelope is read?

1:31:21Michael De Luca:That never happens. That'll never happen. It's the most ridiculous question that'll ever happen. I'm like, well, you remember me. What happens? Well, we memorize all the winners. So if that, God forbid, ever happened, we would rush out on stage and give the right envelope before the talent from the mistaken movie got up. But the best laid plans, right? Just they froze as human beings do. And nobody came out to stop the La La Land people from coming up to start giving their speech. And then the rest is history. We all learned a valuable lesson. Everybody was so I mean, you learned how gracious the La La Land people were.

1:32:01Michael De Luca:Yeah, it was amazing. Calling the Moonlight people up. Everybody behaved so well and supported each other.

1:32:06Pamela Abdy:They were lovely. Last two, Penny Epstein. Hi, I'm Penny. I'm a creative producer. I'm curious because years ago, there were so many producer deals under the studios, and that created a path for young creative executives to gain the valuable experience of reading specs, doing notes, and taking baby steps up that ladder. Where do you see the paths now for the next generation that wants to become studio execs? It is challenging. I mean, listen, I was a total beneficiary of a time in the business when there were big production deals, you know, with non-writing producers as having production deals.

1:32:46Pamela Abdy:And I just think with certain contractions in the business, some of those deals have become less and less. I think there are opportunities with, there's still producers, though, that there's opportunities with that even though there's not these big production deals where you can get that on-set experience. And I always recommend trying to get on set as much as possible because I really do think you learn so much because you get to touch every department before you try to navigate your way into a production company or producing or a studio. It just gives you, and again, I'm only speaking from my experiences is that I really felt like learning on-set experience and working on as many productions as possible was a great way to learn and to learn about story and to learn about script and TV.

1:33:44Pamela Abdy:And I think that's an avenue to try and take as well.

1:33:48Michael De Luca:Yeah, I would just add, if you can get work with literary agents or literary managers as an assistant or get in there, The only reason I got offered the presidency of New Line when I did was I had a competing job offer from Paramount at the time. I was going to go be a VP over there, and then to get me to stay, they offered me president of production. So it's always great to have a job offer you can leverage. But that only happened because agents and managers recommended me because they enjoyed dealing with me as a junior executive. And I was part of a grapevine of agency and manager assistants who would speak for me and vouch for me.

1:34:23Michael De Luca:And so getting recommended by agencies and management companies that are on the phone with studio executives constantly is a good networking thing. Because studios are always looking to refresh the executive ranks and to especially get young executive candidates in. I find that that's still a good way, a good route in.

1:34:40Pamela Abdy:Yeah, and even if you don't think you want to be an agent, it's great experience.

1:34:44Michael De Luca:And between all the streamers too, like Prime Video and Amazon, I mean Amazon and Prime Video and Apple and Netflix, their output is bigger than the Legacy Studios and are also looking for new executives at a faster clip sometimes than the Legacy Studios.

1:35:01Pamela Abdy:Closing us out, Sydney Gillum. Gillum. Hi, thank you both so much for being here. First of all, my question is, do you think your success with betting on unique original filmmaker driven projects will cause other studios to change their approach? I mean, we sure hope so. I mean, I think, I think two things.

1:35:21Michael De Luca:I think, I think we did a, we did a fair share of it in 2025. But we also most of the slate in actuality were legacy sequels at New Line to existing franchises in Minecraft, which was a big honking IP adaptation. So I think the good news is we didn't reinvent the wheel to the extent that sometimes it's talked about the same way I didn't think it was fair in the beginning of last year to talk about, oh, they were just making high-risk originals. I'm like, we made three out of 14. The rest are like Final Destination in Minecraft. But I do think in the other studios, you'll see films as varied as Cocaine Bear to Oppenheimer at Universal.

1:36:01Michael De Luca:Tom Rothman at Sony just greenlit four Beatles movies in a row with Danny Boyle. Oh, sorry, Sam Mendes. With Sam Mendes, Danny Boyle was the 28 years latest. They'll take their share of original swings. I do think that Sinners and Weapons and Paul's movie hopefully will point towards taking more original swings because as franchises that were started 10 years ago and 15 years ago start to get really long in the tooth, it's what we saw happen to the Terminator franchise and the Transformers franchise and the G.I. Joe franchise and all the poor, dearly departed franchises that I'm forgetting. It's great to refresh that slate.

1:36:42Michael De Luca:And I think for theatrical audiences, we call it convert. What's going to convert people that you can make aware of your movie to convert to buying a ticket, like buying it, as you guys know, like actually getting up and going to buy a ticket and get out of your house and go sit there and experience something where you have to surrender to that experience. It better be worth your fucking time. And that's just scarier to some executives because it means you can't point to an algorithm or a predictive model and go, well, that worked before. So it should work again. It's actually the opposite. You have to do the job like you're not afraid to lose it.

1:37:21Michael De Luca:And hopefully more of that attitude will sink in. That's how we do it. That's how you get, I think the studios will reap the rewards of that, but it's in the long term. In the short term, it can be a little scary, but that's also the exciting part too.

1:37:32Pamela Abdy:Yeah, we like the gamble of it a little bit. Not too exciting, yeah. Not too much gambling, but you know. We have children. Yeah, no, no, no. But you do, Mike's right. Sometimes you have to just take risk, right? Because if you're constantly questioning yourself and not trusting your heart and your gut sometimes, then you get paralyzed and you can't and then indecision is the worst you know doom for creativity so you just got to sometimes take the swing and and know that sometimes it's going to work and and maybe sometimes it's not but but i hope i think it will because we proved that the

1:38:07Michael De Luca:market share is there and the box office is there and the audience the audience is there they're

1:38:11Pamela Abdy:starved well on behalf of all of us thank you so much for an incredible year at the movies

1:38:15Michael De Luca:and for coming here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody.

1:38:37Pamela Abdy:Thanks for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. And to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.