The 2025 Movie Franchise Draft

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0:30Matt Belloni:This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com slash Spotify. It is Monday, November 3rd. Two of the most dreaded words in Hollywood are franchise fatigue.

1:11Matt Belloni:The modern movie business and increasingly TV is built on repeatable franchises, properties that the audience knows and they can come back for year after year over and over. But lately, there have been major signs that audiences are kind of getting sick of what Hollywood has been peddling over and over. Everything from the decline of Marvel movies and other superhero properties to IP failures this year, like the third Tron movie and the fifth Karate Kid movie and recent horror misfires like Megan 2.0 and the Exorcist debacle. The hierarchy of franchises seems to be remaking itself post-COVID. even established and reliable franchises like jurassic world and john wick they've been showing their age a bit and they're being replaced by new franchises not as many of them of course but there are new ones so if you were starting a studio today and money was no object you're david ellison which franchises would you bet on that's what we're doing today with lucas shaw from bloomberg we've done ip drafts in the past this one is slightly different we're picking individual properties.

2:13Matt Belloni:You can't pick Marvel. You can't pick DC. You need to pick franchises like Spider-Man or Batman. You can't pick people. So no Chris Nolan, no Greta Gerwig, only things they create or things that already exist. Your top five movie franchises. Then we'll also pick one TV franchise to round out our teams. And we're going to let listeners vote on social media to see whose team is better. And yes, there will be no prize for the winner. Today, it's the 2025 franchise draft From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Belony, and this is The Town.

2:49Matt Belloni:Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg, and we're going to do another draft. It's been a while. First of all, we're taping this on Halloween. Craig, how is your Bob Ferguson costume coming along? Very slowly. Do you have the robe? The robe is easily attainable or something similar. This is the Leo from one battle after another. It's the glasses that are tricky. I have to find the glasses. yes it's the so it's just the new excuse after the big lebowski to wear a bathrobe on halloween it's the lazy millennial halloween costume it's the best one of the past like 10 years it's pretty good it's pretty good and i just wish you had longer hair so you could do the man bun thing i know i know one battle after another eked out now over 200 million worldwide it's a oh is that true i don't know that's what i that's what box office mojo says but that's not what i thought I was getting from Warner Brothers on the emails.

3:41So I'll have to look.

3:43Matt Belloni:Yeah, I'll probably get to 200, but that's not, I mean, we're not going to get off on a one battle after another rant here, but that's not enough. That's not enough for a movie that costs, you know, 140, 150. Yeah, but it's probably going to get 10 Oscar nominations. So I think it's probably fine. And they will gladly take those. All right. One thing that one battle after another is not is a franchise. Pretty hard to imagine a sequel there. Lucas do you understand the rules for this draft I think so I only asked Craig like 75 questions Yeah we had a very robust text chain about this There are a lot of caveats to this franchise draft We're going to go through And you know you cannot pick things that are larger than one property Like you can't just pick all Marvel You have to pick individual franchises within Marvel Yes, you can take Super Mario Brothers.

4:38Matt Belloni:You cannot take Nintendo. Exactly. Thank you. You can take Despicable Me, not Illumination. Correct. You could take, not that I would do it, an individual Blumhouse movie, but you cannot take all of Blumhouse. Exactly. And that distinguishes it here. And I think it makes it more difficult and more interesting. And it's going to illuminate, I think, where we are in the franchise game, which obviously is the entire game in movies. And we're going to pick one. So we're going to do five movies and then one TV franchise. and the rule, Craig instituted this rule. It's a little controversial. We can only have two animated franchises.

5:13Matt Belloni:Yeah, I wanted to showcase how difficult to spot live action franchises are in right now and how it's kind of a transition period because I think if we allowed it, most of these picks would be animated. And we're basically saying next, you know, this is like next 10 years. Yeah, if you were building your starting five with an alternate, who would you pick? Money is no object. Right. All right. So we're going to start with a trivia question. Craig, do you have a trivia question teed up? I do. Speaking of franchises, how many James Bond films have been released, including the non-Eon ones? There's two of those.

5:48Matt Belloni:Go one, two, three, and then we'll both scream our number. Yeah, I'm going to lose this one. Three, two, one. Twenty-five. Twenty-seven. If you include the non-Eon films, it is 27, but it is 25. I actually knew, did know the number. I just didn't. I only know this because they don't name the Bond movies until the last minute. So throughout production, it's always referred to as Bond 25. So this last one, No Time to Die, was Bond 25. Well, it was Bond 27, right? No, they don't acknowledge. Oh, they don't acknowledge the non-E. Yes, exactly. So I had to do some math there. Okay. Well, congrats to Matt.

6:28Matt Belloni:You won first pick. I'll let you guys go. I am going to start with the most powerful franchise in Hollywood that others, you can say that it's on the downswing. You can say superheroes are in trouble. There will never be anything like Spider-Man. Yeah, that was the obvious first choice. It is the number one franchise. I was a little bummed that you got to go first because I did want Spider-Man. I mean, we don't even have to go through the numbers. I mean, the last one did, what,$2.4 billion. They're doing another live action. We haven't really addressed whether this includes the Spider-Verse movies.

7:02Matt Belloni:Is that a separate franchise? I think it includes it. Okay. I'll take it. I'll take them. Yeah. That would be the argument for it because otherwise you're only getting one movie every three or four years. No, but you will get them forever. Yeah. I mean, Spider-Man is never going away. The interest in Spider-Man. I just came from my kids' Halloween parade. the number of spider-mans cruising around at his parade is extraordinary considering like what two years ago was the last movie it's just it will never it is something about that character appeals to globally to everybody and it will never go away it's hilarious that it's like the main asset of sony pictures and they and that's the other thing is they have to make a movie every few years in order to keep the rights so they are going to keep making them yeah i will take because i just think it it continues to be a machine that churns i'll take the despicable me minions oh see i okay number one you're taking that yeah after four despicable me's and two minions movies you are choosing that one you don't think that's a little long in the tooth I don't give me evidence.

8:14The evidence is that all of them do well.

8:17Matt Belloni:They do well, but this last one did not do as well as the previous. I think that had come hot on the heels of the previous minions, like going viral and doing crazy. I have a lot of confidence in that franchise. I'm not worried about it. You do. Okay. And you don't think that Melodondry will be, you know, focused elsewhere. Uh, I mean, this is why I debated doing another live action because there's another animated franchise that he's involved in that i think is every bit as big which i'm about to pick which you're about to pick um and that's totally fine no you know what you know what i'm gonna mix it up my my second pick is gonna be avatar okay only because we know that there are three movies coming one this december and then two more the argument against avatar for me is a simple one which is that those movies don't exist without jim cameron so it's like it's a great pick for the next seven to eight years, but it doesn't exist beyond that.

9:13Matt Belloni:You don't think so. Movies that have, that grossed two billion dollars worldwide. I think you can, I just don't think it matters without the guy who makes them. I'm picking Avatar is basically taking Jim Cameron. Not necessarily. I mean, he's saying he's doing other stuff. He's doing that World War II movie and he's already talking about possibly not directing one of the next ones. So, that would be a baton pass, potentially. the franchise though i feel like the making of those movies is such a heavy lift you can't really continue that without him i feel like i agree maybe now maybe technology will make it a little easier um i don't know craig's whole thing is that the avatar movies don't have cultural relevance which i get people see them and then they forget about them which is fine but they keep coming back and it's considered a thrill ride and people and i i am not doubting that franchise one bit i know i think disney's a little nervous because the second one came what 12 years after the first one so there was a lot of pent-up demand and then this one is coming three years potentially over exploiting it there's not going to be the same level of interest it'll obviously do well it's just like if it goes down another 500 million dollars what do you what does the next one after that do and by the end of it it's just basically dead dead grossing a billion dollars is dead no no if it keeps going by the fifth one i'm just saying yeah i'm just but but the last one did 2.3 so even a decline is still the biggest movie of the year by far yeah i think i i think i'm regretting my picking because i flipped my animated at the last minute no not because of avatar i think i wish i took super mario brothers over despicable me and minions so you're not going to fight me on avatar you think that's a smart pick i think i'm fine with it i wouldn't pick it i had i had it on my list you hate money you just you just dislike money i think i had it in the like number six range okay coming to the parks in anaheim as well i don't think it has long-term potential it is true you know how many navi i saw at my kids parade today for halloween zero zero that's true um which is you know the the bar now is where the kids dress up i'm you're gonna you're gonna be weirded you're gonna shit on my next pick i'm gonna seed that your number your next pick can be super mario brothers because i have a different animated franchise i want to do oh please do i'm gonna take bond james bond yeah i have a lot of confidence in the franchise i think there's pent-up demand for you have a lot of confidence in amazon.com to make a great james Bond movie?

11:55I have no confidence in Amazon.com, but I have a lot of confidence in the producers and the directors that they've hired.

12:00Matt Belloni:Okay. And that, and you think that this will be the start of a full on Bond explosion movie every two years, TV shows, consumer products, theme parks, the whole thing. We're talking about long-term franchise. You, you, your case for Spider-Man is that over the last 20 years, it has never gone out of style, right? Yes. My case for james bond would be that over the last 60 years it has never gone out of style yeah well it's age it's the audience for bond is much older now yeah but it has remained you put out a bond movie and it makes 600 to 800 million at the box office every time and if you can actually get one out there every couple years every three years now that it's fully controlled by one company i i have a lot of confidence in it interesting uh i think there's a lot of risk variables here the casting i think the execution denise totally is a great director excited to see his bond movie but maybe it's commercial maybe it's not maybe the broccolis were onto something and they knew what they were doing even if it's even if it's not even if it doesn't do everything they want you think amazon's gonna give up they at this point they basically bought mgm for james bond and so yeah i have uh they could also buy it and ruin it they could do a dumb reality show tv Actually, they did do a reality show, but they could do a dumb TV thing that cheapens it.

13:26Matt Belloni:There's a lot of ways that Amazon could say we need a full court press on this franchise and blow it. They could. Yeah, look, it's risk. We're having fun with franchises. You're asking me which franchises I want to collect in my stable. I would take Bond over Avatar. I think Avatar has an eight-year shelf life. Bond can keep going for the next 30. So you're in the Jacob Elordi as Bond camp. You believe that? Nobody's been cast. No, I know. It's all nonsense. Like, don't believe what you read in the Daily Mail. I much more believe Sydney Sweeney will be a Bond girl than I believe Jacob Elordi will be Bond.

14:03Yeah.

14:04Matt Belloni:She seems like she'd be game for that. Why not? Exactly. Why not? They just need to give her a meaty role so that people don't only think of her for how she looks. True. All right. So my next one, I'm going to go with Mario. Yeah. Super Mario Brothers. Sequel is coming. It's a fresh franchise. Appeals to all ages, but kids think it's cool. There's potentials for spinoffs like Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, all of which would be in the Mario world. I'm not counting Zelda. I'm not counting any of the other Nintendo games. Those are separate franchises. But anything coming out of Super Mario Brothers, I think, could be a viable film.

14:45Matt Belloni:They've got illumination on it. and the next one is as close to a guaranteed billion dollars as you can get the fringe the spinoffs are why i regret i i actually had super mario's higher and then i flipped it and overthought it but because i i think the second one will probably regress from the first one the first one was a good not great movie that i feel like benefited from like so much enthusiasm for mario oh you think the second one's gonna decline i think so i think the opposite i think people love the first one and it had the peaches song and i think they're gonna flock to the second one i think it's gonna be bigger could be right unless it really sucks there it's like got a gal it's called the super mario galaxy movie yeah but um but yeah i think i think super mario brothers is the best animated franchise going forward even as an idiot who picked something else first okay well there we go he said it on the town yeah okay so let's go with your next one my next one i'm gonna take the animated and you're gonna say why are you taking it now because you would never touch this and i'm just having fun with this i'm taking demon slayer i had that on my list yeah i was so give me your argument huge anime franchise but they're on the fourth movie this is the japanese anime franchise that did well in in this country when it played here but I don't, I mean, do you think it's going to go on forever?

16:06I think it is. It has been a popular franchise for a decade now. And yeah, I think the movie that just came out, I believe was actually, I know you said it's like fourth movie. I believe it is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. Okay. And I just, I think anime is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

16:26Matt Belloni:Deep insights on the town. The anime is getting bigger. Of course it is. but is it going to be as big as these billion dollar grocers what anime fran what animated franchise it is a guaranteed billion dollar grocer for the next 10 years well nothing is guaranteed but i would say despicable me i would say frozen i would say you know uh toy story okay frozen and toy story this is like me drafting one of those after the first movie yeah okay but it's not the first movie it's the fourth but you say but it's the first of a trilogy so yeah there's two frozen movies coming the demon slayer movie made almost 900 million dollars at the box office almost as big as as minecraft uh and it has more of a track record than minecraft because there have been movies and tv shows before it and we know that they're going to make at least a couple more so you can you can scoff at my uh non-insight insight but i i think that anime is one of those genres that as it continues to grow it will travel better and better and people will figure out how to exploit it it's got the full muscle of sony behind it now and i just i i think that's a if you are if you want to bet on the future of anime and there being movie franchises this is the best way to do it okay i agree they're gonna be big i just think there's kind of a ceiling uh it can't get to that upper upper echelon uh of billion dollars at least not the culture is not quite there yet i'm i'm not i i'm deliberately taking things where the ceiling on each movie is maybe a little bit lower but the longevity of the franchise is higher because that's what i would want as as a studio chief my next pick maybe controversial maybe not i'm taking minecraft no that was my next pick oh okay so even though you scoffed at me for taking it in the box office draft this year i did but i've come around i mean it did 950 million worldwide yeah and it's it's a real franchise like this is the new games and the new superheroes i'm on board with that i think that they are going to make many many sequels to this they will give it the full lego treatment and do a spin-off and a sequel and this is speaks to a young generation and i think this there's a lot a room to run with this one.

18:53Another one that I think will suffer from the fact that the first movie was not great, and so I question what will happen with the future films. Wait,

19:03Matt Belloni:you say the Minecraft movie was not great? You're not the audience for this. My kid thought it was the greatest thing he'd ever seen. That's fine, but for those... Jason Momoa, man. Comedy genius. For those franchises to continue to get bigger, it can't just appeal to your kid. I know, but I think parents, I think, listen, the appeal of that movie went beyond just little kids. I think families liked it. I think moms like Jason Momoa. Jack Black has a big audience. We've talked about him. I think they'll bring them all back. They'll all get paid a ton. And they could do three of these in five years.

19:41They could. I'm curious if there's the opportunity to spin it out and do all sorts of different things. Maybe there is. But, yeah. I don't have any issue with the bet. I think it's, it's the next one is a sure thing to do well beyond that. You know, we'll see. But you've taken a couple of video game franchises, which I totally get.

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21:23Matt Belloni:batman oh okay i thought you were gonna take jurassic world no no fuck that i mean the last jurassic did more than the last batman it did but batman has been going now for 40 years it's the one dc franchise that people show up for basically no matter what yeah no i i'm surprised it's not taken already like um batman is batman there there will always be batman movies there will there will always be batman movies there are there will there are ways there you can do things with the different villains um which obviously have been done but it net like they work one after the other um and it's just so much more interesting than it's it's the one problem if spider-man is the one marvel movie that we know that people will show up for over and over again batman is the one dc movie and it similar to spider-man has already spun off lots of different uh films and franchises which kind of speak to its enduring appeal and they haven't even gotten there yet with sort of the reboot of dc in part because they had like already started the batman thing under matt reeves but well and he takes forever i mean that's kind of the problem on the film side is that but that's a short-term problem it is exactly they just put all their eggs in this basket and he's a great filmmaker but he just takes forever so they got to sit there and you know meanwhile their schedule is languishing because they don't have a batman movie but they say 2027 they say it's on the calendar it is officially on the calendar um and i'm sure there'll be more of the penguin show and i'm sure they'll try to reverse engineer movies off of that so right we're not counting the tv shows though right we're not no but it's certainly value what What is your level of optimism in Supergirl next year?

23:08Matt Belloni:Not high. You're a Millie Alcock hater? I'm not, but it's execution dependent. Am I going to a Supergirl movie? If I don't hear that it's great? No. Are lots of people? It's not Superman. Everybody gave Superman a chance. Right. And I don't know that they're going to give Supergirl a chance. They just need to be told that it's good. Maybe it'll be good. Interesting. Neither of us picked Superman. Why? It's a boring franchise. it it's it's so much worse than batman yeah but there are already announced movies that are coming you know we have a supergirl movie next year that counts that's a spinoff yeah but this first one for all the fuss and song and dance it did what all the superman movies do which is like hit like 600 to 700 million dollars okay so my final one i'm gonna be pissed if you take the one i want to do but so i i am gonna take this it's a bit of a flyer because there won't be another movie for a little bit but i'm gonna take k-pop demon hunters interesting the first netflix movie franchise i'm gonna take it i mean i i just think that this is the new like disney juggernaut every kid knows this every kid knows the songs they are going to be able to do these movies the first one you know the first sequel will take a few years but if they're smart they will plot them out and there will be a ton i know it suffers because it doesn't get theaters at least now but i'm gonna i you know the next k-pop demon hunters is going to be instantly the biggest opening week for a netflix movie ever so i'm taking it i get it you get it you do get it No, I mean, I'm a little surprised because...

24:55I hate Netflix movies. Yeah, there will be no box office, which is what you use as the metric.

25:02Matt Belloni:Maybe there will be. Maybe there will be. You never know. Well, the other... We kind of do know. There will be box office when they put it in theaters two months after it came out. And there'll be... I guess I don't think it has a lot of... There's not a lot more you can do with it. I think you're just going to... I know Netflix will push back on that and they'll have stuff that they put out between now and the second one and whatever. But it feels like one of those things where you can just make the movies every three or four years and that's kind of it. And there's not a ton to spin out. Oh, I don't know about that.

25:37Matt Belloni:They could do a tour. I'm kind of shocked they haven't done a little tour. Oh, I just meant in terms of the film and television prospects. I also do worry a little bit. and I guess this hasn't been true with their TV franchises, but Netflix sometimes has a habit of like beating things dead. Like what? Well, like... They haven't had any movie franchises to beat dead. No, no, no, no, no, not in the franchise. Knives out, maybe. More like they have, and that's why maybe it's thrown, but like, you know, they have a hit with a sports documentary and you follow along and then they make like 12 of them.

26:12Oh, so you think they're going to make

26:13Matt Belloni:a bunch of knockoffs? I don't know. No, because... it's harder for them to make knockoffs of this because they don't do a lot of animation in-house. So maybe they won't. Maybe that's unfair. I just, you know, Netflix has no experience with the franchise. So, like, they just did a huge Mattel deal. Like, that is apparently a gigantic deal for K-pop Demon Hunters merch. I know they got caught flat-footed when the movie came out. The dolls will come out second quarter next year. But the upside of that is they got to negotiate these merch deals from a position of strength and saying this is our number one franchise.

26:50Matt Belloni:What will you pay us for the toy rights? Right. Look, I get it. It's a flyer. Craig, am I allowed to do this? Why not? Of course. I'm shaking things up, man. Well, there's no box office. Yeah, but this experiment is as if you are starting your own studio and you can get the K-pop Demon Hunters franchise. You can put it in theaters. You can put it in theaters. How much money do you think it would have made in theaters? Oh, we can't have this debate again. I mean, I think it would have done well. I think it could have gotten up to like two, 300 million in theaters and maybe more if the music really caught on.

27:25Matt Belloni:I've heard people say, no, it would not work at all. They needed this. I think two, 300 is fine, but two, 300 is not a fucking franchise. No, it's not. But for Netflix, if you're talking about, you're talking about like, if, if Netflix had, if this movie had been a Disney movie and they had given at the usual Disney treatment, it could have gotten way more than that. But I'm just saying, Netflix, given its lack of skill in theatrical releases, I think they could have gotten a few hundred million out of it just doing a theatrical run before on Netflix. Yeah, if I could take animation, I actually have two things that don't exist yet.

28:04Can I tell you what the two of them are? Sure. So the two things that don't exist yet that I do think will be big, I think the Hello Kitty movie could be huge. No, really? You know how the depth of fandom for Hello Kitty?

28:18Matt Belloni:But again, like, execution, execution. That could play very, very young. Could. The other one, which I think, because I think I'm not allowed to take Hello Kitty, which is near and dear to your heart, because you've been writing about it nonstop, is I do think the Call of Duty movie will probably work. Okay, but again, what does that mean? Like, is that$200 million? $400 million? But if you're asking me as someone starting a studio, do I want to take Jurassic Park, which I'm so tired of? Or do I want to try something new? I want to try something new. Call of Duty has no story. Well, that's why Taylor Sheridan's on it.

28:55Matt Belloni:Exactly. It's going to be murdering cowboys set in a video game shooter world. All you need is someone to break the story. That's not easy. Okay. All right. I just don't. I would not pick something that has not proven itself yet. Yeah, I totally get it. I looked at it all. It's like, okay, Jurassic World, no. Barbie, Jurassic, I get that it's probably the safer bet, but it bores me. Barbie is not really a franchise because you're not going to have the same creative team back. Zelda, I have no confidence in. Superman, boring. Fast and Furious. We're also not even talking about Star Wars. Well, because you wouldn't let me take Star Wars.