Oscars Winners and Losers, and Universal’s Pivot to Keep Movies in Theaters Longer

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1:07It is Monday, March 16th. Often the least sexy aspects of Hollywood are the most important to the business. In movies, I'm talking about Windows, the shorthand for how studios get the most value out of each title by releasing it first in theaters, then for rent on home video, then on subscription streaming services, and so on. As we know, the windowing system has been under attack since COVID. Universal first blew up the traditional window of 75 days or even 60 days to institute a system that guaranteed a movie only 17 days in theaters. Most got more, but it varied by title, and the message to consumers was pretty clear.

1:47This movie is likely going to be on streaming pretty soon. Other studios followed with variable windows, first to P-VOD, then to S-VODs like Netflix and Hulu, all to feed their streaming business. And meanwhile, moviegoers were getting the message and skipping theaters. Theater chains have all either gone bankrupt or been perpetually teetering like my friend Adam Aaron at AMC. But then last week, Universal announced a change. says it's going to switch to a minimum of five weekends of exclusive play for new movies, up from three. Next year, it will go to seven weekends before PIVOT. That's about 45 days, similar to what Paramount recently committed to for its movies and Warner Brothers titles, if that deal happens.

2:29Donna Langley, the head of Universal, she told the New York Times, Our windowing strategy has always been designed to evolve with the marketplace. We firmly believe in the primacy of theatrical exclusivity and working closely with our exhibition partners, to support a healthy, sustainable theatrical ecosystem. Tom Rothman, the head of the Sony studio who came on this show a few weeks ago to argue for longer windows, he followed it up with a Times op-ed piece last week where he revealed that in Sony's new Netflix deal, films won't go to subscription streaming till 100 to 120 days after theatrical release.

3:03The P-Vod versus S-Vod question is extremely important in this debate. But why the backtrack now? And what's the right window for movies to rent and watch on services many consider to be free. That's what we're talking about with Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy. Today, we're gonna do the Oscars, of course, our winners and losers, what Craig and I ate, important stuff like that. And we're gonna do the new shift in Windows strategy. How long is long enough? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Belony, and this is The Town.

3:34Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. how was your first Oscars? I cannot believe you haven't been ever. It's kind of insane. Take it up at the Academy. Take it up. I like having Oscar parties. I grew up with my parents having Oscar parties, making themed food. It's fun to watch at home with friends. And so that on a very, like, this is a very not town comment or not Matt coded comment. It's a privilege to be there as someone who loves movies and loves the Oscars. I found myself feeling at a certain point, like there is this more skeptical like cynical side of me that i'll get to in a second um but you take it all in and it's something that you grew up watching and so it is very fun to sit there and see it and and experience it in person i agree as cynical as we can be on this show about all aspects of hollywood there is something like very cool that this this thing exists and it's a hundred year old tradition and we get to go i did have the chicken pot pie at your recommendation is excellent.

4:37Delicious, right? Unfortunately, they moved the sushi bar at the Governor's Ball. It was not where it normally is. They moved it to the opposite side of the party, which caused me to have to search for it. And then by the time I got there, there was a little bit of a line which was disappointing. I still don't get why at a Wolfgang Puck catered event, you're going out of your way for the sushi. That's the Globes with Nobu. You don't need... I don't know. I don't know why. I just love it so much. Maybe it's because I haven't eaten in five hours, but And they added a little crispy rice station this year, which I found delicious.

5:10So overall, a little caviar cone station. So this is, I will say, because I've been to all the other major award shows. It doesn't, other than like the crazy security to get in, it doesn't feel any different. It's like the same thing. Oh, it does. Are you kidding? I feel like it's way, people take it way more seriously. First of all, everyone except you is dressed up. You, for some reason, were not wearing a tux. But everyone is full formal. And people care. Like, Michael B. Jordan brought his dad, who never comes to anything, to the Oscars. Like, that's the difference with the Oscars. People care.

5:49And it's taken more seriously, which is reflecting the security. I just mean as an attendee, what my experience is, is not that different. The red carpet part, sure. But then the, like, when you're in the show, okay, I'm watching the show. I'll go out to the bar. I talk to some people. I go back to watch it. You're at the governor's ball. Like it doesn't, like the star wattage there isn't necessarily higher than it is at the Globes or the Grammys or. And Ed Begley Jr. is there for some reason. I don't know why every year he's there. Before we move on, I want a couple winners and losers from the night.

6:24Sure. Just to get your sense. You can go with the first winner, which is obvious. I mean. The obvious winner, I'm going to do two in one because they're related. Mike and Pam, co-CEOs of Warner Brothers. One Battle After Another is their movie. Sinners is their movie. They were seen as kind of these risky bets because they were, one was original. The other, the Coogler movie was original and fairly expensive for an original movie. The PTA movie was an adaptation of a Thomas Pinchon novel, but also far and away the most expensive movie that PTA had ever made. The Sinners is not only a huge box office success, but goes on to be the second biggest winner at the Academy Awards.

7:00One Battle After Another. loses money in theaters. Yeah, I was about to say, that number isn't as great as people were hoping in box office, but it did pretty well. You throw in the big Oscar campaign, it's going to have a long life on streaming and rental, and so it'll end up being something that they're happy to have in the library. And so that is, and they get name checked on stage for believing in original work again and again and again. Four times I counted. Four Mike and Pam thank yous. Amy Madigan, Ryan Coogler, MBJ, thank them, and Sarah Murphy, the producer. So did you hear a Zaslav thank you?

7:34Yes. Someone did thank you. I forget which one of the ones you just said. I think it was maybe an early one, but someone did say thanks to David Zaslav. Maybe I have a blocker on my radar. The other one that I think, and I don't know if this counts as far as the same, but I just think it was so evident both from the crowd reaction, but also the way in which Michael B. Jordan spoke about him, the way the cinematographer spoke about him, like Ryan Coogler, huge individual. like i would say maybe even bigger than pta as a winner award season well certainly in the room the crowd was like three or four times bigger and more enthusiastic for sinners yeah than one battle which is i was like holy shit does this mean it's gonna win uh didn't happen that way i think a lot of the international voters fell for one battle yeah but um but in the room like he was the man of the hour and you know you got to throw zazlop in there as a winner did you hear what happened at the warner's party on friday about his speech yeah he he got up and at the warner's party in front of all the talent from all the movies and went on and on about one battle and sinners and didn't mention weapons and amy madigan and zach craiger were standing right there it's like dude i mean you have a whole team of handlers like get a speech together that's not gonna make mike and pam to their credit mike got up and like dutifully thanked them and made them feel special but man as long as your studio chiefs do it shout out amazing stuff yes shout out to david zaslav for dusting something off of my tuxedo that you don't think was a tuxedo oh that was nice of him yeah we had some nice chats this weekend uh he's very happy are you gonna go with a winner or a loser let's go losers i mean well i was gonna say the other winner first is the theaters if you look at these winners take out the netflix movies and take out the international winner.

9:21All of the narrative features that won Oscars last night were movies that grossed over$100 million worldwide. So these are movies that people saw. Well, and even if you don't want to count it for the theater reasons, the two Netflix movies that won most of the awards, Frankenstein and K-pop, were also very popular movies. They were not small movies. So everything that won was something that a lot of people saw. Yeah, exactly. And that, I think, is a huge win, both for movie going and theaters and Netflix and for the Oscars. Now, whether it leads to ratings, we'll see. Yeah, we do not have the ratings yet.

9:57Well, I'll get there for one of my losers. And then the quiet winner, we both saw him on the way in. It was Neil Mohan of YouTube. The least famous studio head there. Despite your gratuitous jabs at him. That was not gratuitous. I said, how does it feel that nobody knows who you are and you're the most powerful person at this entire show? no, that's not rude. His publicist didn't like that. I mean, that guy is just like stealth power. He knows that he is the most powerful guy there. YouTube people and Disney people were both in the room and kind of circling each other and trying not to interact too much.

10:33And it was funny because they've also traded executives where one of the top executives at Disney is this guy, Adam Smith, who used to be at YouTube. And one of the top executives at YouTube is Justin Connolly, who used to be at Disney. And that leads into one of my losers for the night. And we can go into that. Disney. I mean, come on. The amount of SpawnCon. All the promo. It used to be that Disney recognized that, you know, they are a television network and a film studio. So they were very cognizant of not using the Oscars to promote their own wares. That has gone out the window. Now they just do not care.

11:07They lost the Oscars to YouTube. So it was one after another. Grogu sitting next to Kate Hudson. The Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans thing where instead of introducing the category, they're basically just talking about the Avengers. It was pretty cringy. I knew that was going to happen once they walked out. It was unfortunate. I know, but I don't think they got a big boost out of that. If I'm a Marvel fan and I look at that, I'm like, wow, is Avengers not cool anymore? I don't know, man. That just wasn't... And then they got Anna Wintour to come to LA and promote Devil Wears Prada with Anne Hathaway.

11:41See, it reminds me, and we've talked about this in the past, like if they were just better about using the Oscars as a promotional campaign for the movie business and for the movies that are coming up, like if you had it with, you know, you had trailer debuts, if you had other things, it would feel less. I've talked about this. I know you've talked about it. It would feel less Spawn Connie and more natural if there was a way to do it. Well, this feeds into my other, I think one of the losers is the producers of the show in general for a couple of reasons. One, it ran way, way, way long. Yeah. And as a result - And they also managed to cut people off.

12:19And as a result of that, that K-pop moment was dreadful. You have this huge moment. There'd never been a K-pop song that had won. the woman on stage EJ who got it was like she's been such a sweetheart throughout the whole awards process because she's sort of like a hidden person because she's not in the movie and then she tried to hand it off they were not ever supposed to be a band that people watched live she tried to hand it off to someone else and they cut it and then they waited for like 45 seconds because they'd let other people pick it up and they didn't let it it was just so awkward and I felt so incredible I kept saying to Craig I was like oh nope he's trying he's trying to come back He's trying and oh, they're going to let him.

12:58They're going to let him come back. Yeah. I mean, there's I have a lot of thoughts like why bring out the women from Bridesmaids if you're not going to have them do something funny? Why have them just like, oh, I think they thought it was going to be funny. They thought that was funny. I just don't think it was my loser, which is an obvious one is obviously Marty Supreme. And I think A24 in general, because they also lost in a couple other categories, you know, I think they're going to do a lot of soul searching about where the Marty Supreme campaign went wrong. Because you have the number one film marketer out there right now in Timmy Chalamet, who could seemingly do no wrong and was everywhere and won a lot of the precursor awards.

13:38And then the campaign just hit a wall and all of a sudden it wins nothing. So I had that question, but not so much about A24, but about Chalamet. if you're him and you seem like a sure thing right and your marketing campaign which by the way one of the stories i wanted to do this oscar season that i didn't really get around to because was my understanding is a lot of what happened was actually him not the studio um meaning he was driving the campaign but that's why you hire him yeah he had people he works with who are who are setting up different partnerships and came about without even a24 needing to facilitate in some cases um and then you you kind of blow it at the last minute or it doesn't happen for you do you blame yourself yeah do you does that make you change your strategy at all or do you say look what i did meant that this movie opened it validated me as a major star i almost won again and one of these days the academy is gonna reward me because they know i'm great or does he like pull a cruise where he changes his behavior or changes his entire outlook what movies he's making all that new girlfriend new new strategy does he believe in the kardashian curse because of this or something i i don't know i mean first of all i think number one the movie opened and the movie performed worldwide the fact that this movie got above 200 million dollars is still opening around the world like that is number one you have to think of the money first and he is not any less of a bankable star because of what happened at the oscars now having said that i think you do if you are him and you care very much about marketing and you know, the trajectory of your career, you do a full autopsy on what happened and why they, did they do one too many things?

15:18Did they do 10 too many things is scarcity, the new, you know, ubiquity, all of that gets looked at the, the, the whole thing with the ballet stuff that happened so late that it didn't, I don't believe impact voting at all. People in the real world think it did, but I don't think it did. I think he was losing this regardless. this but what that did the ballet and opera thing although i don't think it affected him losing the oscar but it was a product of i think like overexposure and i bet you that is the takeaways he probably was like okay i did so much it worked to open the movie but for the campaign he did so much press that you're bound to like slip up every once in a while so i bet you whatever thing he does next i bet you he's going to disappear for a little while and whatever he does next is not going to be the same marty supreme full throttle over the top marketing campaign i bet you he will be a little bit more subtle next time well we've got dune coming up end of the year so does he pull back on that but that's not going to be an oscar play for his for acting maybe that's fine you never know it's the end of the trilogy and they talked about how the last one denis didn't get nominated because everyone's waiting for the third one like lord of the rings to go nuts on it so maybe there will be another oscar campaign it's just hard to ride that hot for so long i mean he's basically been doing press for two straight years from bob dylan through this yeah yeah and he's got yet another end of the year movie so i right and we're we're still team timmy on the show are we not yeah he's like the most bankable movie star under look 35 yeah i'm i'm happy that michael b jordan won i personally would have voted for chalamet i thought that movie was was really good and he was in every frame another loser was uh was amazon just the conan joke about how they had no nominations I, you know, again, I would say other winners.

17:02I'm going to give a shout out to security. Didn't have any mishaps despite all the threats. Sure. No drone strikes. No drone strikes. Norway won its first. I think they said it was that it was its first international film Oscar. Someone can someone. I believe that check me on that. In memoriam section was a highlight of the show. Yeah. Unfortunately, Craig and I watched that with drinks in our hands from the lobby. I did too. Because we got locked out. Yeah. And I would just say in general, people might not like it or not, but the international film people for documentary for the winners, Javier Bardem, were like the only people willing to say anything political.

17:40Whether you agree with what they said or not, I think it is notable that basically other than Jimmy Kimmel, no American had any stones to go there. So, yeah, I I'm mixed on that. I don't love the politics stuff. I just think it's preaching to the choir and alienates the audience. but uh you know maybe i'm maybe i'm just not progressive no a lot of people feel the way you do a lot of people and it was better than the globes like globes had nothing yes well also the first female cinematographer to ever win an oscar autumn archipaugh yeah that was a nice moment and i like that conan like because people at home wouldn't know that i like that they acknowledge that we're going to talk about another conan joke as a segue into what else you want to talk about do you think that sarando's do you think that people at home understood the ted sarando's joke oh yeah he made it very clear that this is netflix and it's the first yeah first time in a theater and you got it now the thing is ted laughed very heartily like good sport ted how furious on a scale of one to ten do you think he secretly was i'm gonna go not that furious only because he was the only studio chief to get like a moment in the sun during the show the flex and like it shows on on abc unless i missed it josh tomorrow the new ceo like didn't have a a moment for himself on camera they obviously and i didn't watch the broadcast but i don't even think they flashed to him usually they will flash tiger someone showed that they flashed there at least the camera got uh josh and dana oh they did okay all right um and he was at governor's ball for a little bit and then left but um i actually think ted was probably if he thinks about that joke a little bit i think he's gonna be a little mad about it i i'd put it like a six or seven because the whole i mean we know how much ted loves awards and we know how much they covet the best picture and this kind of thing it once again just puts them up against the wall when trying to appeal to voters because they are now the enemy of theaters and he's just come off a campaign of two and a half months where he tried to change that opinion and you know people and now he's going to go back to being the guy who's trying to kill theaters, at least in the public perception.

19:50I know he doesn't say that. And he says he loves personally going to movie theaters. But jokes like that don't help. I saw one of his movies in theaters over the weekend. My mom and I were the only people in the theater. Yes, that's really funny. This episode is brought to you by the Home Depot. Spring is starting, so it's time to wake up your yard. And at the Home Depot, they've got everything you need to do it with low prices guaranteed. Mowing your lawn is a dream with top brand outdoor power tools like the Ryobi 40-volt mower with up to 50 minutes of runtime. You can add a pop of color with spring blooms and fresh plants and refresh your garden beds with earth grow mulch, five bags for just$10.

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21:02So speaking of theaters and nobody in them, let's move on to windows because some developments this week. We had hot on the heels of Tom Rothman coming on this show, talking about how the windows issues needs to be addressed. We had Universal announced very publicly in The New York Times that they are moving their windows back, not quite to where they were pre-COVID, but they are going to guarantee seven weekends of theatrical exclusivity starting in 2027, five weekends until then. and that is a change from where they were. Why is Universal doing this? I think it's about optics and PR more than anything.

21:45I don't think it's - Yeah. I don't think that it's a huge business mover. I totally disagree. I think this is part of the retrenchment that is going on and people are seeing that the numbers, not like what Tom said on the show, it's not necessarily those later weekends that are suffering. It's the first weekend because people are being trained to know that the movies are coming sooner rather than later. And this is a parachute for the industry. They're pulling this to say, listen, we've got to slow down. We can't go towards our streaming services so much. We need to protect this window. This doesn't actually affect the streaming window at all.

22:25You mean the free streaming window? Yeah, we're going to talk about this. This is the window to PIVOT. This is to buy and rent at home, which is not streaming. I agree. The streaming window for Universal remains one of the longest in the industry. The ability to transact at home is where they were more aggressive because they believed that there were some people who were just going to, once you get to the third or fourth weekend, those people weren't going to come and we're going to stay. I think, I don't know that we totally disagree. I think that it is about reinforcing theatrical, seeing that even, you know, five years, depending on when you want to start the clock on COVID, but over the, you know, the industry has not bounced back to where it was in 2019.

23:08And if you want to try to reinforce it, you're going to do some things to help prop up the numbers. This is the biggest year of releases that the industry has had since then. And they're hoping that they can sort of help retrain the consumer a little bit. But I think when we're talking financially for the studio, like Universal was pretty clear that they were making good money from P-Vod. They didn't think it was cannibalizing the theatrical and that they have a longer window than some of their peers in streaming. And so I think this is... And now they're going back on that. Like that whole...

23:38No, no, no. Again, the streaming window didn't change. So I... No, no. That's what I'm saying. On P-Vod, they are going back on it. Like that experiment they did for Wicked, that won't happen. Where they release it on Thanksgiving and put it in P-Vod for New Year's. That won't happen under this model. I think part of it is trying to kind of signal to the consumer in the industry that we want to reinforce theaters. And I think part of it is also, you're competing for filmmaking talent. Look, the argument that they would make is a nuanced one, which is actually like, our windows are some of the best in the industry when it comes to streaming, but not as good when it comes to PVOD.

24:14But try to explain that to most people and they don't really get it. And it opens you up to potential attacks from Warner Brothers, from Sony, from whoever saying - Or from your talent. I mean, if I'm Chris Nolan - That's what I mean. But in regards to talent, if you have a project out there, you can have Tom Rothman, Mike Luke, whomever saying, you know, if you come to us, we're going to leave it in theaters for six weeks. Don't worry about it. Right. No, and Chris Nolan, who is arguably Universal's most important filmmaker, he's now the president of the Director's Guild. And he thinks that theatrical window should be 60 days.

24:46Is that even arguable at this point? Is that just because like out of deference to Spielberg? what do you mean that nolan is the most important i mean i only say that because it's not and it's not like nolan is under contract at universal fair he could take his next project if he if he wants to do another superman or batman movie he's got to go to warner brothers for his next movie but but he is he has now done two in a row and they would like to keep him and i think it's a nice message to talent who obviously they want this and i want to be clear here because you have said it The PVOD window is very different from the SVOD window.

25:19And the people that I have talked to in this space are saying exactly what you have said, which is the real issue is the SVOD window. And Tom Rothman at Sony, he put in this New York Times piece that he wrote this week that in the new Sony pay one deal with Netflix, they have a 100 to 120 day window for their movies. I have you know that is not what a lot of these other studios are doing they are having a variable SVOD window where sometimes on the movies that are not bigger hits they go to SVOD much sooner especially if it's an owned and operated platform but for the biggest movies for for Disney's biggest movies for Universal's biggest movies they're that long if not longer I mean I think well Zootopia 2 I think it was 100 biggest movie of last year it was 104 days yeah so and a lot of people in the industry think that it should be 120 that for those kinds of movies it should be at least 120 chris nolan has it in his deal that it's 120 yeah so that means that for universal with the odyssey it's 120 i think for a lot of the universal movies for streaming it's 120 but my point is is that i think the movement now in the industry is to get that svod window to be longer yeah that and it's less about the pvod and you know universal's statement is nice but it's more about the s-vod window because that is what the consumer sees as free if the consumer continues to see these movies hitting quote-unquote free streaming within a couple months that is what is hurting the box office they've been slowly walking back a lot of the changes they made during the pandemic basically where they they compressed these windows um universal had been a little bit of an outlier with with pvod which made it it which drove a lot of a lot of the theater owners crazy um i mean not as much as netflix drives them crazy obviously yeah i know and every time one of these movies flops it's an ex a chance for ted saranis to be like well look what the consumer is telling us the consumer doesn't want the theaters the consumer wants it at home but oh do you think this is an admission by universal that maybe peacock is not the priority that it once was um again i don't know because it doesn't change the streaming component of it i don't know that it's a commentary on peacock i do think it is more well but presumably that that if the pvod window is longer than maybe the the streaming window that will be long i think the streaming window for them is already quite long so i think it's i think it is trying to to to buttress the theatrical business at a time where it really needs some help.

28:03And Universal is most years the number two studio. And they'll have a nice announcement. It's a nice announcement. And the money that they sacrifice from two weeks of PIVOD is worth it to them for what they're doing. It's kind of signaling to the industry, to talent. Well, and they'll have a nice announcement at CinemaCon and they'll get a big ovation from the theater owners. And guess who will be at CinemaCon this year? I imagine Chris Nolan in some capacity. So he will get to hear that. Spielberg will get to hear that. All those filmmakers will get to feel good about Universal. And that could be enough.

28:35All right, Lucas, thank you. I'm going to get you a tuxedo for you to wear in the future. The town budget is now going to accommodate a tuxedo for Lucas. Just because I don't like bow ties, you know. All right. Well, there you go. Thank you. We are back with the call sheet. Craig, give me your take. I didn't ask you your take on the evening. Your third Oscars. How does this compare? I thought this one was the most energetic in the room in terms of suspense, what was going to happen next, not really knowing till the end who was going to win Best Picture. I think because the Sinners' contingency was so loud, even though it was expected when battle was going to win, there was still some suspense at the end that Sinners could potentially steal it.

29:17And they had kind of gone back and forth all night. Yeah. It's funny because I got some feedback from friends that said that it felt like there was not that much excitement or enthusiasm in the room yet in the room i thought it was of the three that you and i've been to together the most energetic of those three i agree i also think that there were just tight races that were more interesting to me like the best actor race was incredibly interesting a winner we didn't get to of the night it has to be leo's mustache oh yeah you're a big fan i was a little confused by it i know he's shooting the scorsese movie in prague but i thought he looked great i think leo has looked better than he has in years i don't know if he's like working out or doing whatever for the role but his the mustache and leo looks great he's back he is back and he had some nice memeable moments um what was your best moment we for the first time we went down to the lower lobby level yes where you were excited to see a bunch of stars boozing it up well it's fun because there are there There are real stretches where we were down there for, I don't know, maybe a half an hour during the show.

30:18And like Emma Stone's there with her husband, having a glass of white wine, Stellan Skarsgård's there just during the show. Timmy and Kylie were gone for like 45 minutes during the broadcast hanging out. It's very cool to see that they kind of, just like us, go in and out. Yeah, just like us, they're like hankering for drinks during the show and then get accosted by the security when you try to bring your drink back to your seat, which is not allowed. One other moment I want to shout out. I don't know what award we give this most professional moment, but I thought Kumail Nanjiani handled the tie very, very impressively.

30:49They clearly prepped him in advance. They told him when he walked out, like FYI, it's a tie. This is what we do. And he was good about that. My favorite moment was, do you remember when they announced the shorts and the second movie was announced that two people exchanging saliva, the guy in front of us immediately, clearly he was involved with the movie. I don't know what it was. We were on the second floor, so the mezzanine level. This guy got up and literally said to his buddy, I'm going for it. He got up and ran out to go down the stairs to try to get on stage with the rest of the winners.

31:25He had no shot. He had no shot. It was not happening. Did not make it on stage. But just the sheer balls to think that he could go from the mezzanine all the way down to the orchestra and get on stage with that movie, loved it. That's what's great about the Oscars. I think Lucas is wrong. I think that the thing that's different about the Oscars is everybody cares. They really care. And I know they care about any award, but they really care about the Oscars. It is meaningful. These people getting up there talking about how much it means for their country, how much it means for if they represent a particular ethnic or racial group.