The Townies, Part 2: Who Won the Year in Hollywood?

0:00This episode is brought to you by FX's Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissett. The critically acclaimed series explores the undeniable chemistry, whirlwind courtship, and high-profile marriage of one of the most iconic couples of the 20th century. With Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly leading a cast including Naomi Watts, Constance Zimmer, Alessandro Nivola, and Grace Gummer. Called A Stunning Portrait of Love by Variety, Love Story is Emmy eligible in all limited series categories. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. This episode is brought to you by Holiday Inn by IHG.

0:39Everyone knows Holiday Inn, right? Or they think they do. Because though they have the same name, they've got a whole new energy. They kept the global icon status and upgraded pretty much everything else. We're talking modern rooms with real reset mode vibes. Spaces that feel like your living room. just a little more low-key chic, and dining done right, from breakfast to dinner and drinks. Whether you're traveling for work or getting away for a minute, it's comfort that hits different. So yeah, Holiday Inn. It's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day at HolidayInn.com.

1:19Okay, we are here with part two of the townies. Craig, can we get a little bit more of the award show music. Sure. I have some exclusive news as well. The Townies have signed a deal to move to YouTube. Get ready. Yeah. I'm going to watch the Townies on your phone. We could do video for select episodes each year that you sell a hard core sponsorship for. The Townies live on YouTube, not a terrible idea. No, not a terrible idea. If everyone can have an award show on YouTube, ours would definitely stand out. Yeah, Bowen Yang started his own award show. Why can't we? That's true. Bowen Yang, you know, the innovator in the space.

1:52Right. All right. So we're going to go. I confuse you too often. We do do. We are going to get right into it with the answer to our big teaser question from the previous episode. If you haven't listened, go to that. What is the bigger embarrassment for a once dominant filmmaker of 2025? Alto Knights from Barry Levinson or Ella McKay from James L. Brooks? This is the Megalopolis Award. This is the Megalopolis Award. Alto Knights grossed$10 million worldwide. Big international release. Ella McKay is at what? Like three and counting? I think it's pretty clearly Ella McKay. You think so? Yeah. One.

2:28Ella McKay is like right in James Brooks' sweet spot. Okay, but you know what? De Niro playing twins? Pretty embarrassing. No, not twins. Playing two characters that are not twins. When is the last movie that Barry Levinson made that people liked or was good or mattered? That makes it even more embarrassing that he was given a studio movie. He hadn't made a movie. This was a David Zasloff special. He knows the writer from the Hamptons. He hadn't made a movie in 10 years. He hadn't made a movie with a major studio in almost 20 years. And that was Man of the Year starring Robin Williams, a very forgettable late career Robin Williams movie.

3:07And the last movie that he made that was probably good was Wag the Dog nearly 30 years ago. Unless you were a big Bandits fan, which I do remember. But James L. Brooks, what was his last big movie? How do you know? the Reese Witherspoon you know $120 million Sony movie that did nothing like he'll always have a place in the Hall of Fame for the Simpsons Mary Tyler Moore broadcast news but man but he's never worked as much as Barry Levinson it's true well he still works yes he's only he's only ever made like 10 movies and most of them were banged yeah okay so I think when you have a miss if you're Barry Levinson you've made like 5 clunkers having another clunker not so bad if you're James Brooks and other than how do you know, your Uber is pretty good.

3:54Kudos to their agents for getting them these movies and for Jim Brooks and telling Disney if they want another Simpsons movie, they got to make Ellen McKay. All right, we've already derailed this. So let's go, Craig, can we start in the categories for part two of the townies? Sure. My tux is getting very tight. I changed for part two. Oh, you did? Yeah. I should know that. And by changed, I mean I just took off my sweater because it's warm in here. No, don't ruin the illusion. We're wearing tuxedos. okay just like the oscars we're going to start out with a banger executive fail of the year all right i'm going to take this one to start and to me it's john branca who's not an executive per se but he is sort of he's the executor of an estate he's the executor of the michael jackson estate and it is his job to make sure that the very expensive movie that they are making about Michael Jackson's life is cleared and will not be the subject of lawsuits.

4:48And lo and behold, after they shot the entire movie, they realized that there is a clause in a settlement agreement with an accuser of Michael Jackson that prevents them from dramatizing that accuser's story at any point. So they had to completely reshoot the last third of the movie, re-conceptualize it. It was supposed to be this answer to the critics and, you know, denigrating all the accusers. Now it's just a straight Michael Jackson performance movie. And they're going to probably put it into two parts if it's successful. But it's costing tens of millions of dollars. And it all comes down to...

5:26It is on him. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously on their lawyers. They should have recognized this. Do you think that's why he sat for an FT puff piece to make himself look better when he screwed this up? Did you see his living room in that piece? It's like Donald Trump gone wild. It's like gold fixtures everywhere and thrones and vases as tall as people. It's amazing. He has an extensive Ferrari collection as well. Listen, John Branca, one of the best music lawyers of all time. Monetized the hell out of the estate. He did very well. Especially considering the complications of the accusations against Michael.

6:06but this is a fuck up and it's the fail of the year mine is the Colbert cancellation oh you think so really that was so badly mismanaged from my perspective where you mean the timing of it or the fact of it all of it okay so you would keep a money losing show on the air I'm not saying canceling it was a mistake but the way and the timing it's like they canceled it at a time and announced it in a way to make it look as bad as humanly possible. Because it was at the end, it was as Paramount was trying to get its deal approved by the Trump administration. So you cancel probably the most vocal or one of the most vocal critics of Trump on television.

6:50People are gonna, even if it is just for financial reasons, because of the timing, people immediately assume that it's politically motivated. And you don't buy the excuse that they had, which was that the deals for producers were coming up. And they also did it in a way where Colbert seemed not blindsided, but it's not like he had time to process it much. Although my reporting is that they knew that there were issues swirling around the cost. He became something of kind of a hero and Paramount and CBS became the villain. And to the question you were going to ask about the timing of the deals, sure.

7:27But you know whose deals were also up then? Jimmy Kimmel. And you know who waited to make an announcement? Jimmy Kimmel and Disney, right? You can manage it in a way where you don't have to affect it. And look, maybe that's just good management. But if you are trying to claim that there wasn't a political aspect to it, the way that they handled it made it almost impossible for them to convince people. But Kimmel is coming back. Colbert is being canceled. So if they knew Colbert was being canceled, they kind of had to tell the producers that their deals were not going to be renewed beyond the end of the season.

7:59Kimmel, they kept it secret because it was all handshake. We're going to come back. We're going to figure it out. Yes. I hear you. I just don't, I just, there had to be a better way of doing it. I agree. The timing was horrible. Oh, man. All right, Craig, next one. Okay, next category is the biggest self-inflicted wound of the year. This one's obvious to me. It's Carla Sophia Gascon, who was probably going to win the Best Actress Award of the Oscars last year and some bad tweets, some Islamophobic stuff some pretty horrendous thoughts came into the public we don't know how maybe it was you know a campaign that put them out there was I believe an IndieWire reporter or someone else who first found them and boom it's over and the movie doesn't win best picture and she doesn't win best actress.

8:48I was more skeptical of that movie's chances of winning than I think. You think there would have been a backlash? Maybe she would have won but I don't think that movie was ever winning best picture. The penis vagina and a song got pretty mocked on social media when it came out on Netflix. But, you know, the Academy has a long history of ignoring that stuff. And people liked it. Yeah. And James Cameron said it was amazing. And I don't know. I think that Netflix had a real shot of winning. And after that, it was no way. Yeah. Mine is also Netflix related. Oh. Which is Diddy taping himself during his final days and not securing the footage such that you now have this documentary featuring him in the final moments before he gets arrested and saying and doing things that he should not be doing.

9:35So you would advise him and his team to... Maybe don't record yourself when you're about to be arrested for allegations of sex trafficking. Allegations, nothing has been proven. Although he got... I have to look up. I forget what exactly. He did get convicted of a couple of things. So that's pretty good. That one, I think, was the clear own goal. The other one, this is where I thought about another K-pop answer, although I did it, which was Sony Music not getting the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack when it was a Sony Pictures animation movie. Although they would argue they have some publishing and they have some other things.

10:07I don't want a nasty email. But that often doesn't work that way. It's not like it's an anomaly. No, but it's just classic. It happens at a lot of these companies. I think it happens at Sony perhaps more than most where they operate these things totally separate until they don't effectively communicate with each other. Always fun when something becomes a gigantic hit and then everyone tries to credit grab and blame each other for not having a bigger piece of it. So, okay. Next, Craig. Next up is the Dairy Queen Award for the most effective milking of their fans. This one is obvious. I think we agree on this.

10:41This is Taylor Swift. Yeah. For selling 40 different versions of Life of a Showgirl. CDs, vinyl, colored vinyl, cassettes, digital editions, covers, bonus tracks. Not bonus tracks. No, she didn't do any actual... There were different versions of the same song, but there were no additional songs on this one. We know why she did it. She gamed the charts. Again and again and again. Well, she wasn't going to be... No, no. It wasn't that she wanted to be number one. She wanted to break her own record. No, she wanted to break the Adele record. Yes, you're right. And then stay number one for as long as humanly possible.

11:19Yes. And you left out your favorite, which is that she released a documentary about a tour that she'd already released a documentary about. Six episodes. No, I know. And actually, my runner-up for the year was going to be also Taylor Swift for the six-episode docuseries. But I will defend that. I am watching it, and I actually kind of like it. So the milking is working on me. Yeah. So is there anyone else in this category? The only other one that I... Look, Taylor Swift is number one, two, three, four, five. I do think that Netflix stretching the final season of Stranger Things across three installments trying to like take over all of the fall doing multiple they did fan events for each one like they're doing screenings on New Year's Eve which look I get it it's the biggest show that they've ever released this is the end of it it's been a long time since the last one and if you space it out this way it means that the odds of churn for your fourth quarter are great but for a show that had disappeared for so long then coming back this way it just it feels too much yeah I mean we could throw in there any unnecessary sequel.

12:23There's a bunch of sequels that people didn't ask for. You could say the Tron fans were milked. Although they didn't really show up. They were barren. They didn't get much milk out of them. All right, let's move on. I'd also like to add in the NFL for having us watch football. The NFL always. They are a perennial. We might have to name the category the NFL Dairy Queen Award for milking its fans. I feel bad for podcasters like Craig who have to literally spend their entire holidays watching football every day. Yeah, this Christmas We have three games on Christmas. We have two games on Saturday.

12:54We have 10 games on Sunday and then another game on Monday. That's Christmas weekend. Amazing. Your family must love it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Next award here is the PR fail of the year. So lots of contenders here. I'm going to go with The Rock at Venice for his tearful speech and his standing ovation comments about how he's been pigeonholed his entire career. And only now in the Smashing Machine is he fully allowed to reveal himself as the awards worthy actor that he has always been from the beginning. Put aside the fact that this dude has made literally dozens of big budget action spectaculars that pay him full freight and many of which he is a producer on.

13:40So it's not like he was given no choice. He developed these properties and put himself in there. his agent Ari Emanuel gets him top dollar for everything he does and now in the smashing machine he is finally able to be the actor that he has always wanted to be. I think it so we had a category in part one that was least believable announcement I think that that speech there's some like PR spin that this falls into I don't think the only reason it backfired. People were laughing yeah but I don't think that like that's why the movie didn't work. No. I think that's why he's not getting awards. He didn't get awards because he's not really believable in the movie.

14:19And the movie's not very good. But again, just personal opinion. There was a narrative that was better crafted around him. He could have been Brendan Fraser. He could have been some of these guys that reinvent themselves. We talked about having a movie marketing fail category, and I was going to put the Smashing Machine under that because I don't put it all on that speech. I do think that the way that that movie was presented, it ultimately did not live up to what it could have been. I also just don't think the movie was that good, but that's my personal opinion. They should have done a more traditional blockbuster-style rollout.

14:45and not done Venice. Not trying to make it an awards movie. Not trying to make it. They knew they had Marty Supreme. I'm betting that Benny Safdie said, I want the same treatment as Josh was getting. I'm betting that happened. I don't know that that's true. But it's hard to tell filmmakers their movie is better served by not going to a prestigious film festival. It's just hard to do that. And Joker 2. Joker 2. That's your job as a studio executive is to make those choices. My answer for this is Brendan Carr threatening Jimmy Kimmel slash telling stations to yank Jimmy Kimmel where you have... Indirectly.

15:18Indirectly. But Jimmy Kimmel made some comments that people got very upset about. It looked for a moment like, you know, the Trump administration was sort of going to get their way and make him look bad. And instead, they overplay their hand. They go in too hard. And then even Ted Cruz is like, guys, chill. Free speech is still a thing. You should not be dictating late night programming. Yeah, although he just last week went on, went before Congress and said that, you know, he wasn't threatening anybody. Well, he then tried to walk it back, which is the clear sign that you said something you shouldn't have said.

15:52And he tried to pretend like, oh, no, I didn't say it. I didn't say it, but he said it. He's not tweeting about this stuff as much as he was. No, because it didn't work for him. Exactly. All right. That's a pretty good one. The other one I had was Ben Stiller's Emmy campaign. I didn't even know he had an Emmy campaign. He was everywhere. I mean, you know, So Severance should have won, right? More ambitious, more like Emmy-style television making than The Pit, for sure, which ended up winning Best Series. But Stiller didn't even win Best Directing. He lost to Slow Horses. And it was because, I think, he has a bad reputation.

16:29Do we have to add something anytime you're going after a Kelly Bush client? She is the architect of this campaign. But this is irrespective of Kelly Bush being involved. as an observer, he was everywhere. And he was in the scrum like he was a regular Emmy contender. If you're Ben Stiller and you want to position yourself as being above that, you don't do all the little things. You do maybe one or two things and you are the thing that everybody else is aspiring to. And he was everywhere. It was too much and it backfired. And also he has a bad reputation. People know he's a jerk and they don't want to vote for him.

17:05But lots of jerks win. like his all caps next tweeting i mean i'm sure but you know but even with a guy like that it seems performative you know it's like that's a good thing for his image so he's doing that stuff but yeah maybe next year although there probably won't be a season of severance for like three more years and 500 million dollars or whatever he's gonna cost on it all right let's move on let's be let's have a nice category yeah yeah we'll flip the script here and now do the savviest pr our move of the year. All right. I will start with that one. I got it. I'm going to say Ryan Coogler's very effective aspect ratio video that he did in advance of sinners, which was very authentic.

17:44It was cool. It told people what the movie was. It made it seem special. It made it seem like it's an exciting event because there's different ways you could watch it. And he was explaining in a very relatable way why he did this movie the way he did. Genius. Yeah. I have, I have him as a candidate for a later award. So I'm not going into it. The first thing that came to mind weirdly was the first excerpt from the Barry Diller memoir, which I just thought sort of like framed the memoir perfectly. Got people very interested in it. It was New York Magazine. New York Magazine. It was him finally addressing his sexuality.

18:20Right, yes. And I do think that that helped the book a lot. Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah, it made him seem much more interesting. Now, for me, I read that excerpt and I was like, great i got what i need to out of this book i'm not going to read it but i bought it but a lot of other people bought i was not interested in having him on this show just because i kind of know what his shtick is at this point so many interviews exactly but i did read the book i liked it i thought it was interesting i gave it to craig to read too craig was shocked that 50 million people would watch a movie of the week in the 1970s and i'm like well that's what's happening on netflix now like it's the same thing netflix is making tv movies that millions of people watch.

18:57Okay. On that one, I had the David Ellison press conferences when he bought Paramount. Instead of doing an exclusive with a media outlet or going on TV or whatever. Bring everyone to a room. You all get to feel like you have time, but you really only get one question. Sure. But they had a lunch in LA and in New York. It was very effective. I thought that was good. They brought the usual suspects, you and me and everyone else that covers this, into a room. There were some questionable people invited. We won't have to name names. but everyone got to feel like they were brought into the tent. And even though Ellison's answers were mostly disappointing and a lot of like, it's early days.

19:33And, you know, we got to feel like we asked and then it's like, what, what else is there to do? You know? So I thought that was very good. And then I think the winner here is Blum coming on this show and just embracing the failure. The winner is the town. No, no, but come on. I got more feedback on that episode from people in the business than any other episode. Yeah. The fact that he would volunteer to come on and talk about the failure of his movie, huge win. The PR move of the year is to have a friend of Matt come on Matt's show. Matt, Matt, Matt. As always. I'm telling you, I will stand that up against any of these other choices.

20:12PR people were in awe. And it's not something that his own PR people would recommend. I guarantee you. No fancy PR firm would say, oh, you had a bomb? why don't you go on the podcast and have everybody talk about how you had a bomb? But he was authentic. He's in the place where he can do that because he knew he had Five Nights at Freddy's 2 coming. He knew he had Conjuring coming. He could do that and it worked. And the Dark Horse was wicked for holding off on the blitz that they did for the first one. Yeah, but then the movie didn't do as well. It did fine. It did fine. And I don't think it was ever going to do.

20:47I mean, we disagreed on this one. You thought it might be bigger. I didn't think it was going to be bigger.

20:55This episode is brought to you by Netflix, presenting Stranger Things. The beloved hit and 12-time Emmy Award winner that spanned a decade comes to a close with its fifth and final season. The rap raves, the Duffer Brothers achieved the impossible with an epic ending, calling the series a magnum opus and an absorbing cultural phenomenon. Featuring award-winning craftsmanship from the decorated team of artisans and heartfelt performances from the ensemble cast, IGN raised there will never be another show like it for your final Emmy consideration in all categories including outstanding drama series this episode is brought to you by Disney Plus the Disney Plus Hulu HBO Max bundle the best in entertainment all in one bundle this month stream Pixar's blockbuster family hit Hoppers on Disney Plus the hit horror comedy Send Help on Hulu I like that movie season 3 of the HBO original series House of the Dragon on HBO Max All you have to do is get the Disney Plus Hulu HBO Max Bundle today.

21:54All of these and more streaming soon available with Disney Plus Hulu. Max Bundle plans starting at$19.99 a month. Terms apply. Visit DisneyPlusHuluMaxBundle.com for details. The next two are, it's a two-parter here. We're going to do the mea culpa, I was wrong, and the suck it haters, I was right. Okay, I'll start with the I was wrong. I said on this show that Stranger Things 5 would not match the ratings of Stranger Things 4. Never bet against Stranger Things. I was wrong. Yeah, it's going to, I mean, it's a little bit weird because of the way they're releasing it. They're drawing it out. So like, as of now, it hasn't beat it, but it will 100 % beat it.

22:35Yeah. Mine was, I voiced a lot of skepticism. There were all these media people being happy about the shift from Biden and Lena Kahn to Trump because it would lead to more deals. And early in the Trump administration, all the chaos and all that, there was so much uncertainty that it didn't seem like it. But we have had, not just in media, but in general, a lot of deals this year. I think, so I guess I was wrong that while there was uncertainty, I was wrong that the Trump administration... A lot of those have not been approved yet. A lot of them have not been approved, but you have seen a healthy uptick in deal-making, which is what people want.

23:14Okay. All right. Let's move on. And I think the business community in general is like, even if they're not going to say it, tariffs aside, kind of happen. Tariffs are a big deal, though. Yeah. They are weighing stuff down. All right. You can continue with the suck-it haters. The suck-it haters, I was right. I was initially going to go with just being really early to Bad Bunny and now having him being a huge star and you giving me shit for it. I did give you shit. People were tweeting at me when he got the Super Bowl, like, oh, Lucas is going to be first in line. But I'll also say I reported in August that YouTube was making a push for the Oscars, and they got the rights to the Oscars.

23:48So that was good. And you didn't finish that thought. I said this won't happen because I thought that the backlash from the members would be so strong, which there is backlash from the members. And, you know, we have talked about this, but you were early on this. What were you right about? I said Glenn Powell is not a star. And The Running Man did not work. So you think he's done? No, not done. But I think that Glenn Powell as an action star who can open a movie, not happening. Okay. He's not getting another big budget action movie where he is the star. Right. I mean, this was IP, but it was pretty weak IP.

24:27They were really counting on him. And he sold the crap out of it and just didn't work. I mean, 37 million domestic, 68 million worldwide, like not enough for a movie that was marketed pretty heavily. Like can't happen. Yeah. Terrible. In his defense, I'm not sure who under 45 can open a semi-original movie. Okay. Or who under 45 gave two shits about the running man. No, but that's the reason why they cast him is because they thought young people cared about him. Maybe if it was him and Sidney Sweeney, it would have been different. Yeah. But I don't know. Do you think that he matters more to young men or young women?

25:02women. So then The Running Man would not be the right movie. No, but they thought that he's credible enough for men and that they would bring their girlfriends or wives. And that didn't happen. Okay. Next award here, we have the craziest executive move of the year. I wrote a lot of stuff down and I wasn't really sure what to do here. I had David Ellison fighting the South Park creators. I had Ari Emanuel buying a bunch of stuff from himself, the yanking of Kimmel off the air by Disney. That's mine. That's the craziest executive move of the year. To not project out how that would go down and see that it would become a cause celeb and it would be something that transcended just this one moment to become cultural and the president would get involved.