Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - October 11th, 2025

23:01It just read like a masterpiece. And one of the overriding operating principles at the studio is to continue that legacy of Warners, whether it was Stanley Kubrick or Clint Eastwood or Ben Affleck, but get into these situations with the best filmmakers of the day and try to bring people, try to bring audiences or star for originality, you know, new masterpieces, new modern masterpieces. And that's what we feel like Paul's given us. So we're going to set aside the masterpiece part of the conversation for a second. Do you think that the movie will be a commercial success? I do. I do. I'm a believer it's a marathon with this movie, not a sprint.

23:34I think it's going to lag out to a number that we'll be happy with. Yeah. But it but it's hard. We can't divorce. I'd be lying if I if I said we're divorcing it from the pride we have in it. And, you know, it's it's it. And also with weapons and sinners, what those three movies say about the chances for original films to get made, you know, from the best directors working today. It's where Warner Brothers wants to be.

23:56Carol Massar:And it goes into our overall strategy. You know, when we met with David three years ago, we sat down and we said very clearly, let's bring the best storytellers to Warner Brothers. And that's what we've done. And we've tried to do a mix of IP movies, genre films. It's really about the balance of the whole slate. And, you know, David, he's been so supportive in that. And I feel like this year our slate really, you know, shows what our mission is. Would you say that David has always been supportive? Yes. From day one. Okay. We have to address the fact that earlier this year, he was out there meeting with people.

24:38He was not being very subtle about potentially looking for replacements for you.

24:43Carol Massar:Listen, we can't address the speculation and rumors and all that stuff. All I can say is David, Mike, and I had the privilege of seeing all these movies early. We knew what we had with the filmmakers and with these stories, and we just couldn't wait for audiences to see them. So David was completely supportive of every film and of Mike and I and the choices we made. Well, you got re-upped yesterday, so clearly... When you go on a tear, whatever your boss may or may not be thinking, it's just a strategy. Well, it got announced yesterday, but as you can imagine... Yes, it had been done before. Fair.

25:24the hot streak for the year I feel like started with Minecraft is that fair to say? for a long time movies based on video games TV shows based on video games didn't work and that's totally flipped in the last couple years we just had David talking about about Call of Duty what do you think has there been some change in culture as to why these movies are now working or is it I think it all goes back to talent you know like we don't I think it's dangerous to traffic in blanket statements for any genre, adapting from any medium. So I don't know how other people do it, but we look at adapting from a video game the way you'd look at adapting from a book or a play or anything that's not a movie and just try to apply the same basic rules of common sense.

26:04Do we have the right writer? Do we have the right writing team? Do we have the right filmmaker? I think anything can become a great movie if the filmmakers are cast well. Got it. That was followed by Sinners, Big Swing. Yeah. Were you at any point nervous about how it was going to do?

26:20Carol Massar:No. I mean, I think from the moment we read the script, Ryan is just a singular vision, visionary filmmaker. The moment we read the script, we saw it on the page collaborating with him. I mean, I just think what this movie has meant to audiences and how it's ignited them in conversation. I mean, there was this amazing moment that happened over the course of the film when it was released. there was an open letter written to the studio and to Ryan from a young man from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who drove 90 minutes twice to see the film because Clarksdale doesn't have a movie theater. So we brought a movie theater to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and we went down there for the weekend and we met members of the community and this young man who is an organizer.

27:04Carol Massar:And it was honestly, it was one of the most special moments of my career. I can't tell you the conversations that were had, and the audience feeling that movie, feeling that music, meeting the musicians who live and who Ludwig and Ryan gathered from the Delta Blues to create this movie, you can't take that away. That is the power of storytelling. You talk about wanting to be in business with the best filmmakers. We have Ryan coming on later today. So I'm curious, you've worked with, between the two of you, probably most of the best directors in Hollywood. what is it that sets Ryan apart from his peers?

27:41Is there something specific about him that you feel like? You know, we love all our children kind of a thing. I'm not asking you to say why you decided it. But I'll tell you straight up. Ryan is all heart. And, you know, he did a thing. We didn't think it was going to become a marketing tool, but he did a thing where he explained, it was for Kodak, why he picked the film formats he picked and why. I mean, he's talking about perfs and things that I should know. I mean, I kind of know, but he makes it completely not only understandable, but he managed in an instructional thing for Kodak to connect with cinephiles of like, hey, the subtext was, I made this for you.

28:19I took the time to really pour over what would be the best presentation of this story for you a theatrical audience. And they felt, wow, this guy made it for us. I'm going to go see it on a big screen. I mean, Ryan's ability to connect with his audience, both in the material and then just talking about his movies, is really unique to Ryan. Yeah. And we're now making every director do it, even if they have to get training. One thing that was really well publicized leading up to the film's release is in order to get the rights, you had agreed to give him ownership, I think, 25 years after the fact.

28:52Why do you think that became such a talking point? And have you done that with other filmmakers previously?

28:57Carol Massar:I think I just think there was an outsized spec, you know, conversation about it because it was unique, but it was unique to this movie and it was unique to Ryan's, you know, to this deal. I think the importance of this movie and how it's affected audiences is what we should all be talking about, because honestly, I went to the theater that opening weekend and seeing audiences on 70 millimeter IMAX. It's the greatest feeling in the world. um both of you talked about the kodak video one of the things that i think minecraft and sinners shared is they both developed a lot of momentum online which felt organic um and so i'm curious when it feels like a lot of things become hits almost beyond your control how do you plan for that when you're thinking about green lights when you're thinking about marketing because you obviously can't factor in like well this one's going to go viral on tiktok and this one's not Well, one of the things David tasked us with was, even though we inherited the organization, what's the right balance for the era that we're in?

29:59So that involved a reorg of marketing and distribution. So when we elevated the next generation of marketing leadership at the studio, we talked about virality a lot. We talked about where audiences are getting their movie advertising now and what the kindling is for each project to light those bonfires online. And getting that core audience, whether it was the gamers on Minecraft or the African-American audience on Sinners, really white hot over something that we knew they were going to like and being able to amplify that heat to the general audience really became the coin of the realm in our new marketing department.

30:34So while you can't plan for it, you can arrange the chess pieces to take advantage of it if it happens. Are we going to get sequels to either Minecraft or Sinners? You're definitely going to get a sequel to Minecraft. You know, Sinners is such a singular vision from a signature filmmaker, and it wasn't really set up to be an expanded universe. We just think it's, again, another cinematic masterpiece we're lucky to have.

30:56Carol Massar:Yeah. That's Pam Abdi and Mike DeLuca, the co-heads of Warner Brothers Motion Pictures, speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. Coming up, more from Bloomberg Screen Time held this past week in Los Angeles. Up next, Lucas Shaw sits down with late-night host, get ready for this, Jimmy Kimmel. They spoke just after coming off of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension by ABC. This is Bloomberg.

31:22Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. like if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined.

32:01An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

32:32Carol Massar:When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more.

33:07Carol Massar:Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to.

33:42Carol Massar:If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.

34:16Carol Massar:Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how.

35:03Carol Massar:the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Nasser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week looking at some of our favorite guests. Actually, they were all our favorites. Let's just put it out there because they were unbelievable. The conversations, the people who are at Bloomberg Screen Time that was held this past week in Los Angeles. Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, this in the wake of his controversial and temporary suspension by ABC. Kimmel reflected on the evolving future of late night TV and media in the President Trump era, divided audiences and the high stakes of satire in today's charged climate.

35:47Thanks for being here. I know it's been a weird few weeks. Has it? Yeah, I think so. I want to start at the beginning if we can. When I was born? Yes. It was in a manger. Well, so since you brought it up, we're going to talk about everything that happened. Have you listened to this AI podcast about your life? No. I found it doing some research. They have an AI voice that just narrates that the first episode is your life until you get hired on ABC. The second episode is your career at ABC until recently. And the third episode is very recent. We can fact check it. Does it have the details of my divorce?

36:21No. But it does have a line, the Kimmels weren't wealthy, but they weren't struggling either. they were in that sweet spot of American middle-class life where dreams seemed achievable and laughter came easily around the dinner table. That's pretty spot on. This AI is terrifying. How long after the initial episode where you made the comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Monday episode, did you realize there was a problem? um i didn't think there was a big problem i you know i just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks and i was i aimed to correct it i have problems like all the time and it's kind of funny because sometimes you think oh this is not a problem and then it turns into be a big problem and then sometimes it goes the other way where you think like oh this is going to be a problem and nobody really notices and so at what point did you realize this was a problem i think when um when they pulled the show off the air well that's unusual yeah and what were the conversations with dana and bob that led to that um i i hate to disappoint you but they were really good conversations i'm not asking for you um anyone i mean really like really good conversations.

37:48They are, these are people that I've known for a long time and who I like very much and who were, you know, who wanted, we all wanted this to work out best. And I will tell you, like, I mean, first of all, I ruined Dana's weekend. It was just nonstop phone calls all weekend. But I don't think what, I don't think the result, which I think turned out to be very positive would have been as positive if I hadn't talked to Dana as much as I did, because it helped me think everything through and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from. I can sometimes be reactionary. I can sometimes be aggressive and I can sometimes be unpleasant.

38:32And I think that it helped me really having those days to think about it was helpful. I have a dumb question about this. As someone who was kind of reporting on it in real time, trying to figure out what's happening. So the show goes off the air. You have all these conversations. And when you made it or when you all made a decision, put the show back on the air, as my understanding at the time was, it still wasn't exactly clear what you were going to say. They still hadn't resolved the issues with the affiliates. So what are the what do you resolve in those conversations to to know you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot of the things that come out of it?

39:11I think just the spirit of what I'm going to say rather than specifically what I was going to say. And I think that's something that we all agreed on. And I think that ultimately I wanted to kind of cover every base if I could. And sometimes he can do that and sometimes he can't do that. And it was something really that had to come from inside me. It had to be truthful and I had to lay it all out there and just be honest about what I was feeling and what I'd experienced. And I think I did. And I think that it probably went about as well as it could go. I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect and there were always going to be people that didn't like it and didn't accept it.

39:59But the important thing to me was that I was able to explain what I was saying, what I was trying to say. Because you felt like your initial comments had been mischaracterized. I didn't feel like it was. They were. It was intentionally and I think maliciously mischaracterized. Yeah. Did you I mean, do you feel like you have become more political in your commentary on the show over the course of hosting it? What do you think? I think yes. I don't I think if you talk to me when my first interaction with Jimmy Kimmel was the man show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is you and Carola at this point, as best I can tell, are on complete opposite ends of the political spectrum, but still friends.

40:46Yeah. And it's, you know, it feels like you became far more comfortable and insistent on talking not just about politics, but about personal things, maybe because you got older, maybe because you got more comfortable in the role, maybe because the world around us changed, all of those things. Yeah, all of those things for sure. I think maturity is part of it. I think you figure out who you are. I think that when I started the show, I was mostly my homepage was ESPN.com. It's kind of all I really cared about was sports. Because you've been a radio sports guy. I've been a sports guy. I did football picks on Fox NFL Sunday for years.

41:28I in radio. Yeah, I was on K-Rock with Kevin and Bean. I was mostly interested in sports and I was interested in politics. I've always been a, you know, even as a kid, my parents are very liberal. I've been a Democrat since I was a little boy. I think the first like political cartoon I ever drew was of Jimmy Carter and John Anderson. I was like 12 or something. And I've always been interested in politics, but I was never a particularly political person. I also think maybe he did, but maybe he didn't have to be back then. I mean, I think this is a very different situation that we're in now. And also my job, as I see it, is to talk about the news of the day.

42:13And these are the big stories of the day pretty much every day. And how much of that, like, can you see a difference because we're in Trump too? Do you feel like it was, the need to talk about politics is greater when he has been president as opposed to when other people, like if you started when Bush was president and you had Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, it does feel like things have gotten more political over time, but do you think it is also sort of, I don't want to use the word quirk, but a facet of Trump and his relationship at the media? Yeah, I mean, he's on TV all day, every day. So he gives us a lot to use to deal with.

42:51You know, that's unusual. That's not how it used to be. You occasionally get a video of George Bush, like walking the wrong way on stage, and then you'd make a week out of it, you know, or somebody trips or something like that. But now it's just you hear him, you see him, you he's just presented himself so frequently at um it makes it it's just more digestible and it's it's it's more digestible and less digestible at the same time right do you feel like you interact with a lot of comedians do you think there's there's some writers and comedians i've spoken with who feel like comedy's actually been harder with him as president what you just said is in a way there's more material to work with.

43:41What would you say his impact on comedy has been? Well, I don't know if there's more material. It's just more focused in one area. I'm not a stand-up comic. I know for stand-up comics, they work out their material, and they do mostly that material every night. So politics change so quickly, it doesn't necessarily lend itself to that job. For me, I've always been more interested in doing new jokes when I started on the radio every day and doing new jokes every night. I don't love the idea of repeating myself. It feels more like acting to me than broadcasting. And I think essentially I'm a broadcaster and I'm more interested in that.

44:28So I can't speak to whether it's made their job more difficult. I know a lot of them just try to stay away from it. And I get it. You know, it's I get it. You're walking into a town and you don't know who's in the room and you just want to make people laugh. And you're not necessarily on a crusade. And I get it. And I don't think any of those guys should be required to speak the way I do or the way Stephen Colbert does or Jon Stewart does. And I think that applies to people on television, too. They don't you don't have to do this. I choose to do it. Since you came back, have you asked Trump or Carr to come on?

45:08No, I haven't. I wouldn't necessarily be interested in in Brendan Carr on the show. But, yeah, I'd love to have Trump on the show for sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like he knows that he wants. I don't know. All right. I'll ask him.

45:30I'm curious about you had Aziz Ansari on this week and you asked you pressed him a lot on the this Riyadh comedy festival that a bunch of comedians went and did do you as someone who interviews for a living did you give him a heads up you were going to ask him about that yes I mean you know how talk shows are we basically under there's an understanding of what you're going to about sometimes it veers off into various directions but um you always they always know basically what the topics are going to be yeah and why i guess did you feel as important to ask him about that because you had a point of view on comedians going to that festival it seemed like you were against it i wouldn't have gone um but i wanted to hear his reasons and i thought he had some compelling reasons and it's nothing's black and white.

46:22It's not something I would do, but I do understand the idea that if we close ourself off to the world or we isolate somebody that maybe it's not good. I don't know that my my reasoning is the correct reasoning. I also, you know, we see it and we see it happening in this country, too. I mean, we travel abroad. Many of us don't want to be held accountable for what our president does and says. As an American, you know, going someplace, I'm fortunate enough to be well-known and people know where I'm coming from. But I think it would be a different situation if people didn't know who I was. And I think I'd probably be the first thing I'd say as I got into every cab is I didn't vote for him.

47:06Just FYI, you know. So I do think that there's, you know, it that kind of makes me understand. that position better. That's late night host Jimmy Kimmel speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.

47:18Carol Massar:And if you missed any of it, because it was a longer conversation, be sure to check it out. You can find it on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg.com. That does it for the first hour of our special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We've been checking out some of our favorite conversations from Bloomberg Screen Time. That event held this past week in Los Angeles with the whole Bloomberg News team. Still to come, actor Mark Duplass on making indie movies and and the co-CEO of the most valuable entertainment company, Netflix, on how the business plans to maintain its lead. Plus, Director Ryan Coogler on how he is looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate.

47:53Carol Massar:You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek. We continue with more highlights from Screen Time. I'm Carol Masser. And I'm Tim Stenevec. Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.

48:07Support for the show comes from Public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined.

48:46An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., Member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

49:17Carol Massar:When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more.

49:52Carol Massar:Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to.

50:26Carol Massar:If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.

51:00Carol Massar:Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions.

51:41Carol Massar:Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are continuing with some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Screen Time event.

52:21Carol Massar:It was held this past week in Los Angeles. Screen Time gathers the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a half in the heart of Hollywood, we discussed and debated the future of Hollywood studios, the boom in sports and live music, and the effect of AI on the creative industries. Gotta say, it's a really fun event. They've been doing it the last few years, and it's just so fun to see the people and the cross-section of folks that are there when it comes to content creation. We'll hear from an actor, studio heads, and content creators. We begin with a conversation with Mark Duplass.

52:56Carol Massar:He's a filmmaker, actor, and producer. We spoke about balancing indie spirit and Hollywood collaboration. You do it all. Is there one that, I'm sure you get this a million times, that you like more than most in terms of doing, producing, directing, or do you love how everything kind of helps the other thing? I do like the blending of all the things, and I come from the independent sector. I came into this business making$3 movies in my kitchen with my brother on our parents' video camera. So I'm no stranger to doing it all. But that said, I think that as I've been fortunate enough to do both indie projects and also be on a show like The Morning Show, which one day's catering on that show is more expensive than most of the work I make, I like the balance.

53:39Carol Massar:I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on my indie projects. But then I like when my burrito is brought to me in the trailer of the morning show and I'm taken care of. I work with someone who likes when his burrito is brought to you. Who doesn't like a burrito delivery? Also a trailer. Pretty nice. I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business right now and how that would be different. It's like you'd be making movies in your kitchen with your brother, but maybe you'd be using an iPhone. You'd be editing it using AI. I think the headline is the democratization of the technology has made it so wonderful that you can make anything you want now so much more cheaply than I had it.

54:15Carol Massar:So you have it a lot better than me on that front, but you have it way worse than I had it in 2005 when I came in. Yeah, so talk about that, but. The distribution channels are not there, right? And so we're now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic television movement, right? And we staffed up and we got all ready for it. And here we are. and then it just dried up on us. So now we're going to have to start hacking a new road of direct-to-consumer distribution. We're working in so many different models now. We're making television series completely independently and taking them out and selling them afterwards because it is the Wild West.

54:55Carol Massar:Well, it's funny that you say that because I think about something like YouTube and how much I watch YouTube and specific channels. Anybody can put anything up there. When you think about distribution channels, what seems to provide the most opportunities for you especially since you say you play a bit more in the indie world yeah, I mean look I'm very very fortunate in that I've been doing this for 20 years so I at least have somewhat of a name that people are interested in working with us but I think YouTube is certainly exciting because you can put it up, it can catch fire but the monetization of that and sustainability is really questionable in my opinion but then you have these smaller sub-streamer services like you look at Dropout TV and what they're doing in comedy and you look at Shudder, they've become the home of horror fans as a subsidiary under AMC.

55:40Carol Massar:And they're doing things in a low-cost model. So I think the future here is going to be figuring out how to make things relatively cheaply, cutting your big producer fees, cutting a lot of everybody's fee across the board, and then when you're in a position to be on top in power, really share that back end with people. And that's how I came up in Independent Film. We would make movies for$150 ,000. Everybody would make$100 a day. It was creative communism. And then you'd get points. We could take them to Sundance and sell them for a couple million bucks. And the sound guy would make$50 ,000 and buy a home.

56:12Carol Massar:It was a beautiful time. It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in that model that will still work. I talked to somebody who lives out here. He's in the industry. He's been doing this for 30 years. And he was like, I've got award-winning casting directors walking dogs on Rover to make ends meet. No, it's real. Is it that bad? I mean, I live in the Valley, which is, you know, the place where basically below the line union heads were able to buy their homes, you know, and that was under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry would continue to boom. Strikes, fires, but not just that.

56:42Carol Massar:The death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable. That was just an arms race to see who could choke somebody out, right? Netflix and Apple are the winners? I mean, TBD, because we could see a merger happen in five minutes after this that changes everything. and there are I won't go that far but yes, there are certain people that have interest in those mergers and don't have interest in them So do you see the industry getting better? I think the industry is going to change I've been in this for 20 years, I know people who have been in this for much longer than me and there are times when, oh my god it was the 1980s, if you had a movie that had a gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could take it to VHS and you'd make your money and it was a killer in the 90s it was that for DVDs in the 2000s.

57:24Carol Massar:The streamers came in and I got to make all these cool movies for Netflix and TV, but it's going to change. We don't know which way it's going, but we got to be vigilant. You know, it's, we've seen it in the media industry and we still like being in it. It's incredible to be 30 seconds. You're still having fun. You like it. I love it. I don't say I'm having fun all the time. I feel a deep responsibility for like my brothers and sisters in LA and in New York and everywhere who are just getting choked out by this business. That's actor Mark Duplass. We also got a chance to hear from Elena Mayo, The head of Orion Pictures, she spoke with us about reviving a legacy studio with a modern mission.

57:58This is like the underlying theme of the entire event. I know, I know. How do we improve this?

58:02Carol Massar:And why are we here? Well, I think we're here because we have so much change and so much dynamism. And the reality is that no one really knows what the next wave of media content, Hollywood is going to look like. So we're at this incredible inflection point and having to innovate in real time and build new systems while the previous systems are being dismantled, are evolving, are changing. So while I wish I had a quick answer to your question of how do we do it, what we ended up talking about mostly is how do we just create enough sustainability for artists so that everyone can sustain this moment in time.

58:37Carol Massar:And so whatever's on the other side of this, whatever that looks like, that the creative voices that build our industry can still survive. Does it get worse before it gets better? I mean, if you look at it with a long lens, you know, define worse, right? If you look with a long lens, this business has always been challenged. This business has always gone through dips. It's always gone through ebbs. And how long this moment of uncertainty lasts is probably longer than any of us would love. And if that's how you define worse, then yes. But I think it's just going to always be changing. I don't know if it's going to get worse or better.

59:10Carol Massar:I think we're going to continue to change and evolve. You know, I always think about supply and demand cycles. I've got a degree in economics, and I think about the world in that way. And I think there was a period where we thought, man, if you're a content creator, you are good as gold because there's so many different platforms that need your services. They need your content. And then all of a sudden, I think there's a lot of content and maybe, I don't know, there was too much content and the oversupply. So where is the rebalancing or how do we get back to a different level? I think we're seeing the rebalancing now.

59:37Carol Massar:I will say I personally am a little bit worried about the level of consolidation that we have because I do think that it is hard to keep things weighed in the favor of the creators and of the artists, which is really the community that we need to continue any sort of artistic endeavor in media. But, you know, I think Mark said something. He may have already said this to you guys earlier, but that I think is a really important bit of context, which is the past 10 years of the streaming arms race was a boon. Like that was a spike. That was an abnormal state of our industry, right? So this is a little bit corrective, right?

1:00:11Carol Massar:It's not completely just the earth has fallen out underneath us. This is a little bit of a correction of something that was a real kind of an aberration in and of itself. So a good thing. A little bit maybe? But not good if you're a content creator. Yeah, I was going to say. I think the good thing is that there are more ways to monetize content, right? and we talked about everything from direct-to-consumer models to YouTube. There are a lot of different platforms in addition to Hollywood where you can monetize content. How you do that is the thing that a lot of us don't yet know. Uh-oh, when he pauses.

1:00:46Carol Massar:This could be serious. It's political, too. The president has weighed in recently, and he said the way to fix this is to put tariffs on films that are made outside the U.S. You're shaking your head. I don't think that's the way to fix this. Why not? Why should we be filming scenes about Brooklyn in Vancouver? I think that we, listen, I definitely am personally invested in us keeping production inside of the communities that, you know, we're the people that make them live, right? Because it's not just about are we maintaining the integrity of the film itself by location-based shooting. This city is where the majority of people that make stuff live, and we've got to keep this city healthy.

1:01:27Carol Massar:and the economy and the infrastructure of that has to be supported by films being made here. And we've got to figure that out. At the same time, if we're going to make the path of supporting these artists is to be able to make more, to increase the amount of stuff that is being made, we've got to be nimble. And if that means that sometimes shooting things outside of the States or shooting things outside of LA and New York is the way to do that, a lot of the films that we've been able to make that are really innovative and original and risky have to find ways to cost less. And some of the ways that we find to make them cost less is to shoot them elsewhere.

1:02:02Carol Massar:And then you have American Viction, which is a Boston set story that shot in Massachusetts. So, you know, we can figure it out different ways, but we've got to have some flexibility. I was trying forever to figure out what college that was. What was it? I went to college in New England. They didn't, I don't believe they shot. I would be lying to you if I told you I knew exactly where that location was, but it may not have been a college at all. It may have been a conference room. I'm sorry to pressure bubble. This is the magic of film, I guess. So being able to film wherever in the world, that's part of it, right?

1:02:30Carol Massar:100%. We're a global community. Without a penalty, whether it's a tariff or whatever. 100%. And also, what about the movies that we produce out of Hollywood that are not set in the U.S.? We also produce movies that are set all over the world. Mission Impossible doesn't just all take place here, right? So I think we have to be a global industry. We have to be a global economy with artisans that are working all over the world. But the argument that I understand is that shouldn't be to the expense of the film industries locally. I feel very strongly about that. You came of age in an industry while it was undergoing this massive shift to streaming, which you alluded to.

1:03:05When you began your career, did you ever think that you'd be making movies at a company that was owned by Amazon?

1:03:10Carol Massar:No. I couldn't. I shouldn't say this. But I remember when Amazon first started making television shows, I was at Fox and I laughed. I was like, this is ridiculous. This will never last. And then they started making incredible TV shows. And then to track from that moment to now working at a film studio that is under the Amazon umbrella, I couldn't have predicted any of this. I will say, though, when you talk about all of those places that I worked, part of the reason why I got my dream job, the best job that I thought you could ever have in film. I was a movie studio executive at Paramount. I was on the Paramount lot.

1:03:45Carol Massar:And after being there for five or six years, I realized that the world around me had changed. And I went to Vimeo very intentionally because I thought there's all of this cool stuff that is happening in this digital space and I need to understand it. And then I said, I got to work with close to the talent and I've got to produce and be able to be scrappy and produce for different platforms and different mediums. I went to go work with Michael B. Jordan. And so it's been ever changing for the entirety of the time that I've had the blessing of having a career in this industry, which is why I think it's not falling.

1:04:13Carol Massar:You know, it's not all falling apart. That's Elena Mayo, the head of Orion Pictures. Coming up, more from the Bloomberg Screen Time event in Los Angeles earlier this week. Up next, we hear from the co-CEO of the world's most valuable entertainment company, Netflix. That when we continue with highlights from Bloomberg Screen Time held this past week. This is Bloomberg.

1:04:47putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API.

1:05:24Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., Member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com

1:05:46Carol Massar:When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more.

1:06:22Carol Massar:Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges, whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Let's talk about health care for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to.

1:06:56Carol Massar:If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.

1:07:30Carol Massar:technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions.

1:08:10Carol Massar:Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are all in on Screen Time, Bloomberg Screen Time. It was held this past week in Los Angeles. At Screen Time, we heard from Greg Peters, the co-CEO of Netflix. Greg joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss the company's growing investment in live sports and video games, as well as its efforts to keep viewers engaged for longer.

1:08:51He shared how the business plans to maintain its lead while investing in what's next. Everyone acts like Netflix has won everything, right? I get a lot of people don't people even people at Netflix don't like it when you say that Netflix has won the streaming wars. They think it's the wrong. But I want to so I want to start with something. Let's let's go negative. All right. I like this. You're speaking to my personality here. What is something that Netflix needs to do better? We need to do everything better. And I think, you know, the reason I hate, like, you know, when I hear we've won everything or whatever, I actually think the worst position for a company to be in is to feel like they've actually won everything.

1:09:27Because I think success has this, you know, vulnerability where you start to breed, you know, complacency, arrogance, and things like that. And I think in the world that we live in, entertainment, this is the most competitive entertainment environment that's ever existed in the planet, you know, in the history of humankind. it's getting more and more competitive. And if you don't maintain the sense that you are constantly vulnerable, I think you will lose. So the biggest thing that people point to as perhaps a sign of vulnerability, at least that I notice, is that your engagement, the amount of time people spend on the service, has been pretty flat over the last couple of years.

1:10:05And then you look at the regular drops from Nielsen and you see that streaming share of TV time has gone up quite a bit. And your share that's gone up is a pretty small fraction of that. A lot of the growth has gone to these free services. So how do you address that? Well, I think you just essentially explained it, right, which is that we moved to on-demand very early on in the process. So we sort of got the benefit or basically built our business around that benefit. And then everyone over a period of time caught up. And essentially, from our perspective, they're all now moving to that model and moving to that benefit for consumers.

1:10:40So, frankly, the fact that we were actually keeping pace in that sort of shifting tide, if you will, I think is a reasonably good thing. It's not great. I mean, good thing, but from everything I've heard inside the company, the goal was basically to replace television, right? Have Netflix be the one. You can watch basically anything on television on Netflix except for news and until recently sports. Well, I think expressing that as an ambition and also that as a way to organize how the company thinks about what we're trying to go do is great. I also think that that's not consistent with saying that we thought it was realistic that we were going to be the only thing that people were going to watch, right?

1:11:17Because I also don't think that that's realistic at the end of the day. So I think there's always going to be like multiple sources of entertainment, even in the categories that we serve. We want to be, you know, we want to win as much of that as we possibly can. So I'm like, you know, don't back to being complacent. I'm not happy with the fact, you know, that we're not growing engagement. We should grow more engagement. I think we will. I expect you'll see engagement numbers will go up for us. But also, I don't think there's a world in which we be the only thing that people watch. A big project, I assume, to help grow engagement was the new user interface UI that you rolled out over the last year plus.

1:11:50Yep. Can you point to some key ways in which that has already helped or you think it will help? Well, I would say a lot of what we've been doing is essentially re-architecting the entire stack. This is from sort of how algorithms get calculated. We used to calculate overnight everyone's recommendations when they show up in the morning. We would have that baked. Now we do it dynamically on the fly. And now we've created a UI where essentially you can connect those algorithmic pipes in and also launch new modules. Can you use words that I'm not even going to insult the audience here that I will understand?

1:12:26Yeah. So thank you. Basically, what happens now is that when we think about what titles do you want to watch, right, we used to do that overnight and you'd show up and we'd give you those titles. Right. But now the way that we do it essentially is as you're navigating the UI, we think about, oh, what are signals that you're giving? I skipped over this thing really quickly. I'm not interested in that. That's right. That's right. So I think that's something that's going to take us, I think, a while to really build the fullness of how that delivers benefit for our users. But the thing that I can point to right now that the new UI structure is designed to go do and is doing for us is serving new content needs as we expand beyond just film and series.

1:13:06We expand to live events and the UI has to do a different job, which is like, why do you want to show up at Thursday at 7 p.m.? Because, oh, you're going to watch a boxing match that you wouldn't otherwise get to see. Or why do you want to play a game or those kind of things? That's what it's doing for us right now. Right. When it comes to live, that was something that you sort of famously said you weren't going to do sports for a while. And I know it's not just sports. You also do other live events. But the sports have been the biggest, right? Your NFL game was really big. Boxing match was huge.

1:13:40Or both boxing matches. The Logan or the Jake Paul one will decide if it's really a boxing match or elder. You can offer your own. I'll refrain. But how much more are you going to invest in live events over the next few years? And are there things that you know that you want to add to the service that you don't have right now? So I would say start with, you know, live. We think of as an important additional form of entertainment that we can deliver members. It's sort of a different style of entertainment, you know, where actually it's interesting because in contrast to our on demand service, which has tremendous benefit because you control the entertainment when you want to watch it.

1:14:18the big benefit alive is that we're all experiencing the same thing at the same time. And that has tremendous sort of social and conversational relevance, right? So we want to do more of it. It represents a very small fraction of our total investment. It represents a small fraction of our total hours. But we think it also does a different job. So it's sort of... Does it have a different impact? Like, do you see... Because from the third-party data I've seen, you tend to see huge surges and sign-ups around some of those bigger events. Yeah, I think we expect that it will do the same work, ultimately, that our other content does, which basically is a reason to sign up and a reason to stay.

1:14:58That's, you know, at the end of the day. Now, I think we, back to your point about, like, what do we know we want to get and stuff like that, we're still really learning in this space. So we're really trying to figure out, like, okay, how is this delivering value to members? How is this delivering value to the business? And there's definitely different phenomena. These are punctuated moments, to your point, right? Which people go like, okay, if I may be on the edge of signing up for Netflix, this might be the thing that pushes me over to actually do that. So I think we'll see different things for sure, but we really are learning as we go.

1:15:24I want to throw one poll to the audience before I ask the next question because they are related. So I just want to, I promised Greg I would do this. Keep in mind how much these sports cost. Football is the most expensive. Tennis is the least expensive. everything else sort of fits in between there. So even though Greg and I both like tennis, it's probably smallest audience, but also least expensive. It's a big international audience.

1:15:51What would you say are the odds that you make a bid for one of the football packages when the NFL opts out of its current deal in 29? You know, it doesn't really fit with our strategy as we understand it right now. So again, back to your point, we think about what we're doing as an events strategy. and it turns out, as you said, sports are big events, right? And so we can plug those into that strategy. But we also want to make sure that we're being really, really disciplined about, you know, are we buying, are we investing in ways that are profitable for the business? And some of the big league sports things, we don't actually have a way to figure out that math.

1:16:26Soccer. Okay, all right. Although it doesn't, I mean, isn't the sort of the magic of football, Well, I get that the NFL is maybe tricky for you and that it's not global and how expensive it is. But the reason it's so successful, it's the one sport where like every Sunday sort of is an event. It's amazing in that regard. Right. But I think to some degree that lack of substitutability is, of course, what gives the rights holders the leverage. And they've done a pretty good job. Yes, I know you you have. I can tell that you guys have this vision of where like you have more leverage than the sports leagues that are negotiation.

1:16:59And that has basically never happened in media. That's right. Until it happens, I would say you should have some skepticism about that. Okay. One other thing that you guys have basically never done is large-scale M &A. But the bigger you get, the more you tend to get tied to different companies, different deals. There's been some reports around you guys being interested in Warner Brothers Discovery. Is there any truth to that? I'd say this. We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers. I also think that it's, you know, one should have a reasonable amount of skepticism around big media mergers.

1:17:36They don't have an amazing track record over, you know, the history of time. So, you know, I would say it's our responsibility to evaluate all our options. So you'll look, you'll have a conversation, but the odds of an offer are pretty low. Yeah, our job is to figure out, like, what's the best way to grow our business, right? And we have to think, you know, really carefully. Like, how do we invest our capital, our time, and our attention? And if that's the best way to do it, great. And if it's not, then we should do something else. One area you're investing a lot of capital right now, or you might quibble with a lot, but it is gaming.

1:18:10Small fraction of our total investment, but I appreciate you saying that. You've been offering video games for four years. What grade would you give your gaming efforts so far? I'll give us a B -. How's that? Okay. Yeah. I would say, look, you want to maybe just start where we're at, right? One, it's a big market,$140 billion ex-China, ex-Russia. That's just consumer spend. That doesn't include ads. So we think it's a real opportunity for us to try and earn a percentage of that over a period of time. A lot of what we've been doing is really just building the foundation, right? We've been doing a lot of real hard plumbing work.

1:18:50But now we're getting to a really interesting place where, you know, we're going to deliver more of what our vision of what we should be doing in the space is. And we call it games because that's a rubric or a name that we all can relate to. But really, I would look at this as how do we add more interactive capability? So that means even things like taking our live program back to live program and how do we add interactivity with live. So we've got boating right now that we're in testing on with David Chang and his live cooking show. So you'll see those interactive features come up with Star Search.

1:19:21We do another live event, a non-sports live event of Star Search. So that's an exciting place to be. And then it gets also... This is the Dave Chang. Yeah, so you can see this is sort of how the Dave Chang experience is working. And again, this is the tip of the iceberg, and we'll get deeper into this as we go. We're also, I think, more clear around what are the gaming areas, back to the more traditional gaming areas that we are operating in. And it's a lot of interactive games around our IP. So you think about what we did with Squid Game. I don't know if you saw Thronglets based on the Black Mirror universe.

1:19:54I did not. It's worth checking out. Because if you're a Black Mirror fan, it's so in-universe. And the fans of Black Mirror just loved it. Because it was like they were having a meta experience there, too. But even like Happy Gilmore. We did a golf game with Happy Gilmore that got a remarkable amount of consumption. Do most of the people who use Netflix know you offer games? I would say, I mean, that's part of, frankly, what's been hard about this. And I think it's hard for any brand that has a deep consumer sense of what are you doing for me, right? And then you're like, well, I'm going to do this as well.

1:20:28And it takes a while to really build up that sense of what's happening. That's Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters.

1:20:35Carol Massar:Coming up on Bloomberg Businessweek, more from the Bloomberg Screen Time event held this past week in Los Angeles. Coming up, director Ryan Coogler on the state of Hollywood, the vision for his multimedia company and how he's looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. Sinners, anyone? Well done. Well done. That's all coming ahead as we continue from Bloomberg Screen Time. This is Bloomberg.

1:21:00Support for the show comes from Public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On Public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. or if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined.

1:21:38An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

1:22:09Carol Massar:When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more.

1:22:45Carol Massar:Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges. whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Let's talk about health care for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to.

1:23:19Carol Massar:If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a health care company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.

1:23:53Carol Massar:Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how.

1:24:40Carol Massar:moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are highlighting and checking out some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Screen Time event. It happened all this past week in Los Angeles. Ryan Coogler and Sev Bohanian are the creative forces behind proximity media in films like Judas and the Black Messiah, Creed 3, and this year's Oscar frontrunner Sinners. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw caught up with the pair and heard from them on the state of Hollywood, the vision for their multimedia company and how they are looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate.

1:25:25But I want to start with the origin of your relationship and your company. So you guys met at USC, right? Where did the idea for Proximity come, and what was the mission for it when you started it? That's such a great question. So under normal circumstances, it'll be three of us sitting here. We're going to talk about our partner, Zinzi Kugler, quite a bit. She's our partner, and she's my wife. But it really started there, man. I went to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. I started in 2008. I said when did you come in bro was it fall 2008 yeah yes I started in the spring and we met in the in the Roberts and Mecca's Center for Digital Arts especially like our where we have our stages and we were in equipment instead was working in the front desk there I was working in an equipment room and before that you know I found out I wanted to you know make make movies in and Zinzi Kugler she was Zinzi Evans then bought me my first Final Drive screenplay software you know I helped me help me to start writing screenplays I I found out that Sev had already made a featured film before he even came to film school.

1:26:36You know, if you want to talk about that first movie you made.

1:26:39Carol Massar:Yeah, before I got to film school, I started making little YouTube videos poking fun of my Armenian parents out of love. At the time, it would have, today they would have been probably like TikTok videos, but these videos got really viral in the global Armenian population, so it led to me making a feature film on my dad's mini DV camera. I say this all the time, but I wrote it, I directed it, I shot it, I produced it, I did everything except for makeup, and then the makeup artist quit, so then I did that too. Awful makeup. But that movie, it was called My Big Fat Armenian Family, totally love lettered to my people, and I screened it locally in Glendale, and it did really well with my community, and that empowered me to want to go to film school.

1:27:17Carol Massar:It's where we met. You said recently you got the keys to the city in Glendale, too. No, but he said he got nothing for it. He gave them nothing. You can just tell people he has the key. But yeah, so, you know, Zinzi, she was doing sign language interpreting at Fresno State, but she was basically like auditing classes at SC. I was sneakering in the class all the time. So we got two degrees for the price of one, technically. And Seth and I became friends. He started producing movies for a lot of my classmates. He got a big reputation as one of the top producers at the school. So we always wanted to work together, and I got the opportunity to make my first feature film shortly after I graduated.

1:27:57That was Fruitville Station. And we made it back in Oakland. Zins was kind of like helping. We were living together. We just got our apartment. She was on set every day, leaving her day job. And Sev actually came up and produced that film for us. So it was a fantastic start to our relationship. After that, we kind of went our separate ways. I made a movie called Creed after. And it had a lot of... Creed had a lot of big time. Oh, I've seen fans.

1:28:24Creed had a lot of story producers on there, you know, like Sylvester Stallone, Erwin Winkler, Kevin King, Templeton. And I tried to get my buddy on, I tried to get Sev out there to help, but we weren't able to make that happen. So, you know, made Creed, and then I got the opportunity to work on Black Panther. At the same time, Sevok was making movies with a young man named Anish Chaganty. And they made a film that was all on screens called Search that ended up getting acquired and becoming Search and won a couple of awards at Sundance. And right around that same time, a good friend of ours, Charles King, who was my manager, he was just really hard on me and Zinzi to start a company.

1:29:08He was like, you guys got to do it. Now's the time. I was pulling my hair out trying to finish a Marvel movie. I thought he was crazy. But we took his advice and Zinzi and I sat down and coming up with the concept for the company, And we kind of said, hey, the only way we would do this is if we could have Sev come join in with us. We can kind of reunite the team that worked on Fruitvale together. And Sev and Anish came to screen searching at... And Natalie. And Natalie Kasabian, who's Sev's wife and an incredible producer in her own right. They all came up to screen searching at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.

1:29:42I think I might have opened the San Francisco Film Festival. and we kind of sat Sav down in San Francisco Mian's Ends and pitched him on Proximity and thankfully he said yes. So that's kind of the game. And what a lot of filmmakers, actors, talent, when they create their own company, and I think it's especially tricky for directors, it can be hard to have the company be more than just like Ryan Coogler movies. So how do you approach it? How have you tried to to diversify and do you have models that you look after other filmmakers who you think have done that well? That's such a great question.

1:30:22Yeah, absolutely. You know, and honestly for us, it kind of worked out because, you know, Black Panther 2 wasn't a proximity movie. We actually started the company like right, you know, right before the pandemic kicked off in late 2018. And our first three movies that we made, I didn't direct them. You know, it was a crash course in producing. You know, we did Space Jam, A New Legacy. We did Judas and the Black Messiah. And then we did Creed III, which was Michael B. Jordan's directing debut. You know, so it was really a great opportunity for us to kind of show to the marketplace that, you know, the proximity wasn't just about movies that I wrote and directed.

1:30:58We actually had a chance to put, you know, three out that I didn't write and direct. You know, so I don't know if you want to talk about that.

1:31:03Carol Massar:No, I mean, as a matter of fact, we've made a number of movies, a lot of shows now, documentaries. and only one of our projects has been a Ryan Coogler-directed film. So like Ryan said, right off the gate, we had Judas and the Black Messiah. That was a film that honestly was one of the reasons we were sparked to starting the company. We realized that there was an opportunity here to help support an incredible filmmaker, Shaka King, and getting that movie made. And I think Judas is a good example. A lot of the projects that we make, the ones that Ryan directs, are not necessarily films that on paper seem like obvious hits or sure things.

1:31:34Carol Massar:And I think having that be our first film really as a company um i think it helped set the tone for what we were trying to do both correct me if i'm wrong both space jam and and judas in the blackness life sort of came out into covid and judas was part of the whole warner brothers experiment where it was on streaming in theater at the same time i forget space jam was it was too yeah did you feel like and i realize pandemic skews all this a little bit but having had movies come out in all different ways do you feel like having it drop in theaters and streaming at the same time was a different experience as a producer as a filmmaker did it have any more or less of a cultural impact that's such a great question man um it was our first time doing it you know so and you got to remember man people were dying bro like it was it was everything was shut down you know um i remember uh talking with malika andrews she was talking about going into the covid bubble to yeah like you know like the NBA wasn't happening.

1:32:31Like, nothing was happening. We didn't even know if our careers would exist anymore, to be honest. So when we had to make, when we found out on both films that that was what was happening, you know, we called both filmmakers, Malcolm D. Lee on Space Jam and Shaka King on Judas. And I remember, you know, Shaka, God bless him, he was caretaking for his parents, trying to keep them, because they were elderly, trying to keep them from getting sick. He was in the heart of New York when New York was going through all that they were going through while he was trying to finish the movie. And he was just happy that people were going to see it.

1:32:59You know what I mean? I thought it was kind of his reaction. You know, looking back on it, the world was going through a lot. We were blessed to have the opportunity to have Creed 3 come out theatrically with Amazon MGM. And there is a difference when folks have a chance to see the film in theaters, and it gets to be a moment before it actually goes to the streaming space. But at that time, we were just getting started, and it was kind of happening to so many different films and filmmakers. It was kind of just what it was. Yeah. I'm curious on that. Have you have you ever thought about or would you make a movie for a streaming service?

1:33:36Would you make a Netflix movie? That's a great question. I mean, I'm waiting for one where I ask and you go, that was it. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're good at your job, bro. Like, this is actually the first time anybody's ever asked me that. You know, I'm not here to say what I would and wouldn't do in the future. You know, but the theatrical experience is one that means a great deal to me. It means a great deal to us. You know, and, you know, like, I think that I feel a certain responsibility. Like, if Fruitvale had happened a calendar year later, it probably would have come out on streaming.

1:34:17I've been fortunate enough that everything that I've written and directed has been a theatrical release. So I feel a duty to try to protect that. But that's where I'm at today. Yeah. That theatrical experience triggered... We were talking with Mike and Pam earlier about that video that you made related to Kodak before soon. Which sort of went viral on the internet. How did that come about? And why do you think that resonated with people so much? Probably a lot of people who have no idea what you were talking about.

1:34:50Yeah, I mean, it came about from just conversations with us, you know, internally. One thing that I thought it made sense to do was to let audiences know why we shot the film the way that we did. Let audiences know that it was a unique thing that hadn't happened before in this day and age. Everybody's fighting for everybody's attention, you know, and it's a lot of really compelling things. that anybody can find on their phone, on their news feed. There's so much happening in the world. There's so many talented creators. I saw y 'all had Twitch streamers on here. And, you know, all of that stuff is incredibly compelling and addictive.

1:35:28And people need a reason, you know, to hire a babysitter to, you know, to make the date and to go out and stand in line. And, you know, for us, you know, we felt that we should put it all out there for folks. You know, we never in a million years, like Zinzi and Sev were there with me. that's actually Zinzi's handwriting on the whiteboard because my handwriting is chicken scratch you know what I'm saying but they were right there that day we all worked on it and Warner Brothers was incredibly supportive with the video gave us their BTS team to shoot it and stuff we never thought that millions of people would see it we were hoping that we would be happy with a few thousand people who were really interested in film projection interested in the theatrical experience but it really took off in a way we couldn't have imagined.

1:36:17That's Ryan Coogler and Seb Ohanian, co-founders of Proximity Media.

1:36:21Carol Massar:And that does it for this special edition of Bloomberg Business Week, featuring some of the highlights from Bloomberg Screen Time. It was held this past week in Los Angeles. If you want to check out all of the conversations, just check out the Bloomberg terminal or head to Bloomberg.com. Be sure to tune in to Bloomberg Business Week daily, Monday through Friday, starting at 2 p.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and on SiriusXM channel 121. Also check us out on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, free in the Apple App Store, or on Google Play. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube.

1:36:51Carol Massar:Just search Bloomberg Podcasts. We're simulcast on Bloomberg Originals, available at Bloomberg.com slash originals, and streaming platforms, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV Plus, and more. Find our Bloomberg Businessweek daily podcast at Bloomberg.com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the latest edition of the magazine is available on newsstands now at Bloomberg.com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. I'm Tim Stenebeck. And I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and safe weekend, everyone. Check out Watch Something, streaming, a movie, a sports event. Check Sinners out if you haven't seen it.

1:37:24Carol Massar:Good idea. But do stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.

1:37:32When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

1:38:07Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agents' identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent.

1:38:41Secure any agent. Okta secures AI.

1:38:44Carol Massar:As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth. And Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most. a resilient, innovative ecosystem, diverse communities that attract top talent, and a quality of life that supports work-life balance. With our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level. Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it.

1:39:21Carol Massar:That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person, how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com.