Little Gold Men's Unsolicited Advice for Hollywood in 2026

0:01Hey, Little Gold Men listeners, especially the ones across the pond. We're recording a Little Gold Men episode live in London on the evening of February 19th with the cast of Sentimental Value. We've got a select number of tickets to give out to our listeners. So if you'd like to join the fun, email us at littlegoldmen at vf.com. We hope to see you there.

0:30Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. Well, John, the Academy released its Oscar shortlist on Tuesday, and I know we say this a lot, but this is when things are really kicking off. The Oscar race is really coming into clearer focus, I think. Yeah, it's true. So the shortlists are for the below-the-line categories, and they're voted on by the membership of each of those branches. And it starts to give us a sense of what movies people across the industry are seeing, what they're liking. Rebecca, did anything pop out at you this morning when we went over the shortlist?

1:18Well, I don't want to be a downer to start off this, But I think we immediately texted about how one film is very much missing from this. And they should have appeared on some of the short lists, which is The Testament of Ann Lee. They didn't get score, which is very surprising because it's Daniel Blumberg. And they also had a song that was in the running. So I think that's a bad sign for that movie. Yeah, I agree. Especially the song, because it is a musical, you know. Right, right. So when the original song doesn't get in the shortlist, that is a sign. I just don't think people are seeing this movie.

2:03And Daniel won last year for The Brutalist. So I also look at it now as like, I don't know how locked and loaded Amanda is in the actress category. I kind of thought she was a lock, but that only is if people see it. and it's beginning to feel like people just are not seeing this movie. Well, I want to jump to casting because this is our first real look at this new category and what the nominees might look like. It's a mixed group on the shortlist here. I think a lot of the films we expected, you know, One Battle, Hamnet, Sentimental Values, Sinners, Wicked, like these are movies. And Marty Supreme.

2:48And Marty Supreme, yeah. Yeah, ensemble-y movies, movies that are in the best picture race. I wasn't surprised by any of those. Were you surprised by any of the others that were included? I guess I wouldn't say surprised, but it was nice to see three international films also get in there with The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Surratt. I mean, Surratt overall performed better than I think any of us would have expected. It got onto four shortlists, cinematography, score, and sound. And then also, like we just said, casting. So that bodes very well for that movie. It means that a broad group of people have seen it.

3:31And I think that it is a little like, when we talked about the casting in the mailbag episode, I said, I think they're going to go a little in the vein of like lifetime achievement. I mean, a lot of these casting directors are major players. Allison Jones for Weapons, Bernard Telsey and Tiffany Canfield for Wicked for Good. They're, you know, huge Broadway casting directors. Francine Maisler's for Sinners, Jennifer Vendetti for Marty Supreme, Nina Gold for Hamnet. So it is a lot of the like heavy hitters in that field that got recognized. Yeah, that's why it's such an interesting mix because I think those are all, you've listed all these really big names in casting, but then it's also with these international people, I would assume that sort of they're not as well known to the casting community.

4:26And so to include them, I think is a pretty significant surprise in my opinion. And I think speaks to how strong those international films are this year. And then I wanted to jump to song, which I always think is a really interesting category. Things that I was keeping an eye out for did happen. Like both Wicked songs got in, which are new, of course. Golden from K-pop Demon Hunters. Sinners got two songs, which I thought was pretty notable. I mean, there's a lot of strong music in that film. And it is such an important part of the story that that is not surprising. And then, of course, of course, Diane Warren is back.

5:04Another shortlist, maybe another nomination. That would be her 17th nomination without a win if it happens. And so, you know, that is one thing the Academy is very consistent on is making sure Diane Warren is included. That's true. I guess, you know, who do you want to see on the stage the night of? Obviously, we want to see a performance from K-pop Demon Hunters. Of course. I think that Sinners would be cool to see up there and would deliver something fun. The Avatar song is performed by Miley Cyrus, and she's, you know, always something to watch. I'm not sure that song will make it into the final five.

5:49What do you think? I kind of think it might. It might, yeah. I really, I think people are going to see the movie, and, you know, Miley Cyrus has been out there promoting the song and, you know, has the story, how she sort of ties it to the fires and lots of, like there's an emotional tie narrative for her there. So I think it could be possible. Do you think we're going to get both Wicked songs nominated or just one? I don't know. It's hard to... Wicked is a wild card this year. I don't... No Place Like Home is the slightly more liked song, right? No, Girl in the Bubble, I think, is the Ariana song.

6:27See, there we go. Okay, so this is the problem. Yeah. Like, I'm not so embedded in the musical. So honestly, I saw the second one and I couldn't really tell which ones were the new songs or not. I'm not sure they'll get two just because they got so much love at the Academy last year and they opened the show. The show, yeah. So I think that does play a little bit into your head when you're voting, but it's also like, you know, it's a musical with songs written for a musical, which I would hope sort of gives you a little bit of an extra bump. But that's not always the case as we just saw with Anne Lee.

7:12Yeah, I feel like Girl in a Bubble is pretty locked in for a nomination and maybe that gives us an Ariana performance. I don't know if she'd perform again. I mean, that's another question. Like, do you perform back to back at the Oscars or do you step out the second year? Hopefully. The Oscars hope so. Yeah. But there's a lot still to be determined here, but these short lists are giving us, I think, a lot of clues into what might happen up next. Yeah, overall, I would say just broad strokes. I think, you know, Train Dreams did pretty well, which is a good sign. Frankenstein up and down got all of this craft's love.

7:53We've been talking about that happening, but to see it come to fruition, I think bodes for me well that it will get in there for Best Picture. And I think it bodes well for Guillermo as well. Otherwise, I feel like it was kind of what we expected. Yeah, there weren't as many surprises outside of Anli as I thought there might be. So I think we're in a good place with our own predictions, which we'll get to in a little bit. Which is the most important. Is that we are right. Yeah, that's what I'm looking at it through that lens pretty much primarily. So today on the show, because it's our last episode of 2025, we're looking back at the whole year in entertainment.

8:40And this was a good year in a lot of respects, but we have some notes. So we're not making New Year's resolutions for ourselves. we're giving the industry some advice in the hopes that Hollywood will make some New Year's resolutions and fix some stuff that needs fixing. And we're also going to give our predictions for who we think the 10 Best Picture nominees will be. So to help us close out the year, we're joined by our wonderful VF Senior Editor, Hilary Buses. Hi, Hilary. Hi, everybody. I think I've been downgraded from your closest friend, but it's okay. But you're wonderful now. I mean, who's not?

9:20There's a lot of work you got to do this episode. We'll see how you're doing by the end. Oh my God, I'm being evaluated. Is this my year-end review? All right, so let's get into it. If you're going to distill this year in entertainment to one word or phrase, what would it be? Hmm. I mean, I guess chaotic, especially with the end of the year and the box office being so unpredictable. Yeah, or like conglomeration. things are kind of getting tighter and tighter together there's fewer and fewer players with every passing moment it feels like yeah I think it's like impossible not to have the Netflix Warner potential acquisition at the top of your mind when you think about this year just because it just feels like such a seismic change but that's only been the last couple months there was Paramount earlier this year too true true true it's just one after the other I feel like I would just summarize it as just like change.

10:19Like everything just felt so tumultuous a lot of the time. Tumultuous. That's a good word. There you go. Oh, yeah. That might be the best word. Because chaotic implies that there's no rhyme or reason. But tumultuous, I think, captures that things are happening. All right, Hillary, you don't need to edit me live on air. Don't I? Well, I think we're all hinting at the ways or saying flat out of the ways. It was sometimes a hot mess, but we did have a lot of successes in other ways. And as people who love this business, we love Hollywood, we want to do everything we can to help keep it on the right path.

10:57So today, we're offering up our little gold men unsolicited advice for Hollywood. So I'll kick it off. Obviously, there were a lot of things that struggle, especially towards the end of the year here. A lot of star vehicles really struggled at the box office. So I am putting it out there for distributors that it is time to put your faith back into the platform release. Movies that need a strong word of mouth need the platform release. They need the time in theaters for people to discover it and share their thoughts on it with other people and get those people to see it. And if you put these little movies in 2 ,000, 3 ,000 theaters on their first weekend, the narrative is going to become that they failed.

11:36And that is really, really hard to overcome in this current system where there's enough movies to choose from and not enough people who, you know, want to go to them every weekend. So you need to start off as a success in your narrative. And I think the platform releases the way to do that. And like a similar kind of a jumping off point from that is if you have a movie that has a big built-in audience and people are going to want to see it, then put it in a movie theater. I still can't believe that Universal did not put the new Bridget Jones movie in theaters, that it debuted directly on Peacock.

12:12And I just can't imagine all the enormous amounts of money left on the table from them not just putting it in theaters when the other three movies were all in theaters and all made lots and lots of money. Well, also, they did release it in theaters internationally. Right, where it performed. It was just domestically, yeah, it didn't release it. Which was even stranger, yeah. And it performed, yeah, like you said, Hilary, it performed internationally. So it was like Americans were deprived the ability to go see this movie. Yeah, deprived the pleasure of seeing Renee Zellweger and Leo Woodall make out on a big, big screen.

12:48Yeah. And she would tell a Giofor she got to make out with two very handsome men. And you had to watch it on your laptop at home? That's not fair. I feel like you should have been in the pitch room for this, Hilary, because it makes you wonder, like, are these execs or whoever's making these decisions underestimating who will go to the movie theaters? I don't know because I understand that while you're developing the film, it's hard to make these decisions. Like, of course, it's easy for us to say after success. Same with K-pop Demon Hunters. We can be like, of course, they should have known, but that should have gone to theaters.

13:19Well, K-pop Demon Hunters isn't a proven property. Like, obviously, there are millions of people who love K-pop and who would have responded to that movie if it had gone into theaters. but Bridget Jones is proven IP and so therefore that decision makes even less sense. I think for Bridget Jones, they were trying to pump up the numbers for Peacock actually. I'm sure they got subscribers out of it, yeah. Yeah, I think there was a little bit of a strategy there because this whole year for Universal has been about like how do they grow Peacock but I'm going to piggyback a little bit off of it on the whole movie theater front which is I think that movie theaters need to figure out some sort of dynamic pricing.

14:02We all know about like the AMC Club and people use that and it's pretty successful. But I think that part of the problem is that those smaller movies cost the same amount as seeing like a big Marvel movie on a Saturday night. And I think there has to be some sort of negotiation. we're in the age of dynamic pricing online and on our phone. And God knows we've all experienced dynamic pricing from Uber. And so I think that there's something that can be done there because I think this sort of flat pricing that's going on is affecting independent films the hardest. So you'd want those prices to go down.

14:48You wouldn't want the packed Christopher Nolan price. You have a ceiling. Right. No, I'm saying down. Yeah. Okay. I'm saying that they have to reflect the audience's willingness onto what they'll pay. Right. And I don't know anything about those budgets or how that works. I mean, I know that movie theaters make their money from the concessions, right? That's the whole thing we've been told. But I think that like if maybe in Weekend 3, a movie goes down to from$16 to$10, I have a feeling more people would go. I really do. I just think that we're, the cost of living is very, very high right now, as everyone knows.

15:36and this is sort of, they're not really responding to that in the theaters so that people feel that they can afford to go see Avatar in the same month as they see Marty's Supreme. This would also help with my platform release. Exactly. This could all go together. We are solving the theatrical problem. Finally. I don't know, where have you guys been? Why didn't you tell people these ideas in 2021? My first submission of unsolicited advice doesn't have anything to do with yours, John. This is an incredible segue. Great work. Thank you. Now who's the editor? I submit this for the approval of Midnight Society.

16:20A press tour is not a movie. You can hire the most charismatic actors. You can hire people who are great on the internet, who have big followings, who can give a soundbite, who love doing little videos like Vanity Fair's Lie Detector. You can have the most charismatic, beloved celebrities in the world going on a press tour, and it will be great. But if the movie itself is not as fun as the press tour, then you have a problem. Sometimes these things match. Sometimes, like with the first Wicked movie, that press tour was incredibly entertaining, and the movie itself really held up. But with, I'm just going to say it, Fantastic Four this summer, Materialist this summer, I know that, John, you are a fan of materialists in a way that I could not.

17:03And that movie made money. That movie did make money, but the movie is so much less entertaining than watching Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal have a conversation. This is like an old Gene Siskel line, which is like if the movie isn't as entertaining as watching the actors have dinner, then it's thumbs down. And like the modern corollary of that is, would I rather watch Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal talk to a vertical camera or would I rather see them in a movie? And if the answer is the first, then I think you have a problem. I think it makes it even more noticeable because when I watched Fantastic Four, I was like, these are the most charming, charismatic, talented actors that we have right now.

17:40So why is the movie so boring? Yes, it's almost like frustrating because you're like, I know this can be better because I've seen them, you know, sitting in a junket doing adorable interviews. And like, this is so stale. So, and we know that executives or producers or directors or whoever are hiring certain actors because they know that they're going to be great during the promotion of this. And they already have an online following. Right. And so they're banking on that press tour, helping the movie. But I think you're right. If people are expecting something that's charming and wonderful like those actors and then they don't get it, it's worse for everyone.

18:17I also think the nature of the press tour has changed. And there's a lot of internet-y stuff that's going on. and I think it's successful in that we're seeing it and it's breaking through on our phones. However, we don't know that it's related to the movie. So when you go on a talk show, you do the talk show interview and then they show a clip of the movie. You know, Timothy doing Marty's Supreme stuff is so about the name of the movie, the name of the movie, the name of the movie. So it'll be interesting to see. Marty's Supreme Christmas Day, yes. Yeah, so it'll be interesting to see if this version of it works better because it's been so movie-focused.

19:04Yeah, I mean, his vibe is matching the movie this time, which I think, because the story is all about a man's greatness, you know, aspiring to be great, it really works with the whole shtick he's doing this time around. Yeah, whereas, you know, Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence are promoting this movie about this very arty movie about postpartum depression. and so those are two actors that can give a very entertaining, very fun interview, but yeah, it's not going to match the movie. Yeah, right. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, more of Little Goldman's unsolicited advice for Hollywood.

19:38Don't go away.

19:51Come see Critics at Large live. On February 19th, we're going to be at the 92nd Street Y in New York City for a conversation about Wuthering Heights. There's a new adaptation coming up starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and we will certainly be getting into that. but we'll also do what we, humbly I'll say, what we do best. Returning to the text, we're going to go deep on the gothic and Emily Bronte. Join me, Vincent Cunningham, and my co-hosts, Alex Schwartz and Nomi Frye, for the discussion. And crucially, if you buy a VIP ticket, you'll join us for an after party too. Go to 92ny.org for more information.

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21:49Welcome back to Little Gold Men. Let's keep the advice coming. John, do you want to go next? Okay, I'm going to do one really quick. Like, we're not even, we don't even need to discuss it. The multiverse is dead. I don't want any multiverses. I don't understand what's going on. Nobody else does either. I feel validated now after 10 years of multiverses. You want a single verse. There's a single verse. When things were becoming like, who can forget in multiverse number four, Scarlet Witch did it. And I'm like, I can forget. I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this movie. I want an absolute moratorium on them.

22:30Like, they're not allowed at all. Well, but would that mean we wouldn't have things like Black Panther? But I think that the problem that John is pointing to is that something like Black Panther is really good and the parts of Black Panther that aren't as good are where it has to connect in with all the rest of the Marvel movies where there's like a weirdo extra scene that is necessary in order to serve as a lead up to the eventual movie where all of the superheroes are in the room together. All right. I see. I just want a Black Panther movie. Just focus on making that movie good, which they have.

23:06I mean, that's why Ryan has done. And like the most recent Superman movie is a standalone, and I think that that worked very well. It introduced a whole new universe, but it didn't feel like it had to tie in all of this other stuff. Like Robert Pattinson, Batman didn't like show up in the last minute or something. Yeah, like I think that that was refreshing. So you will not be seeing the upcoming Avengers movie of 2026, John? Because I assume that's going to be 50 % explaining how we got to where we are, which I won't know what is happening either. You know, I have to see it for professional reasons.

23:38I will see it. But you won't like it. Typically, I'd be seeing it on a plane, as you're supposed to. So you can Google the characters. Sitting there being like, what the hell's going on? Yeah, like, I don't know what the hell's going on. why is some of these people in 20s costumes? All right. That's a good one. I like it. Hilary, you got another one for us? Yeah, sure. Should we move our attention over to TV a little bit? We've talked a lot about movies. I mean, this is maybe kind of a truism, but I still feel like it's worth pointing out. People like network TV formats, and when they're done well, there's really nothing like them.

24:16I mean, we should have more streaming platforms leaning into that in a way where I have to emphasize the quality has to be high. It can't just be here's a cop show. It has to be something like The Pit, which is a medical drama that's very well thought out. And it's a high quality version of this very old format that's, you know, got a little extra zazz from, you know, being told in a real-time format. But just, yeah, just the procedural setting, the fact that a season is 15 episodes long instead of eight or six or something like that. Like network television has lasted as long as it has for a reason because these kind of formats are very comforting.

24:59And when done well, I just think that they scratch an itch that you're not going to get anywhere else. So it was encouraging to me to see that The Pit not only was something that a lot of people watched, but it got awards recognition. Like I would love to have more shows like that. And I'm going to add to that a little, which is these super short episode orders. are too short. So like overcompensating with its eight episodes, it should have been at least 12 episodes. It's getting a second season, but it would have built up even more of a fan base if it had what was the old proper amount of episodes.

25:35So like, you know, six or seven years ago, the shortest episode orders were 12 and then they brought them down to eight. And that's like what a limited series is. And so I agree with you, Hillary. Part of also The Pit's success was that it was more episodes too. So you really were getting into it. And that's what you want for television is you want the audience to get more and more invested. And it's hard to do that when they're like only eight episodes in a series and then you're waiting two years. And a weekly release format is very important. And yeah, you're right. The second season of The Pit is debuting next year.

26:14Like they are not waiting three years in between seasons. They are just going for it. And that is, I think, a great way to get people's attention because there are so few shows that are prestigy that are actually doing that. Yeah, I agree. Back to the old ways of making television that worked for, I don't know, 60 years actually worked for a reason. Yeah. That's why I've always been a fan of Abbott Elementary because I feel like they are doing so many episodes and it still feels fresh and it's possible, you know, and I think the success of The Pit and other shows is showing us that. I know it's a lot of work for the people on it.