| Brian Robbins has a serious case of jet lag. The head of Paramount Pictures and co-chief executive officer of Paramount Global spent the past two weeks traveling the world in advance of the opening of Gladiator II. The film, a sequel to the Oscar-winning original from 2000, has already opened overseas, where it is grossed $87 million this weekend. It will debut on Nov. 22 in the US, in competition with Wicked from Universal, and it’s looking like one of the year’s biggest films. “So far the reception has been great,” Robbins told me. Robbins has run the movie studio for four years, weathering the pandemic, strikes by actors and writers, and the imminent sale of his company. A sequel to Gladiator was just a kernel of an idea when he took over. Director Ridley Scott wanted to do it. Producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher wanted to do it. But they needed a script and a young actor to replace Russell Crowe. Hours before he hosted a party at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, Robbins spoke about the film, the state of the movie business and the future of Hollywood. What is the biggest risk in revisiting such a beloved movie 25 years later? The first and most important one is, is the story good enough to warrant a sequel that fans and non-fans would want to see? Does it have a good enough reason to exist 20 years after the fact? With both Gladiator II and Top Gun: Maverick, the answer is an enthusiastic yes. Was this your first time working with Ridley? I’d never worked with him before. I was so impressed by his energy level and his passion at this point of his career. How involved did you get in the development and production? I don’t imagine Ridley Scott welcomes lots of notes. He was extremely collaborative. We were all involved in making sure we had a script that delivered the emotion. That was really important. A script that delivered and lived up to the first film. Now, the creative process is never easy. If it’s easy, it’s probably not going well. What did you think of the casting of Paul Mescal? That was the big thing. How do you get an actor to step into that role and fill those shoes of Russell Crowe? Paul has this amazing ability to have vulnerability, but he also has tremendous gravitas and emotional depth that the actor in this role needed to have. A lot of women I know are excited about this movie because of Paul. Have you leaned into his sex appeal in marketing the movie? We go through a testing process with these movies. It was surprising to see how much women loved the movie even though it has a great deal of testosterone and violence. Women really love it. They love Paul. They love Pedro [Pascal]. They love the mother-son story emotionally. Is there any demographic that isn’t into this movie? For us, our competition will be younger women; they are all in on Wicked. Certainly, we have the men. As far as older women go, they’ll get split up. Why aren’t there more weekends with two big movies? Competition for the best screens? Everyone wants large format screens. But also, there aren’t as many big films in the marketplace like there used to be, and there’s only certain great weekends of the year for big films. We spend so much time talking about the state of the movie business. What’s your current diagnosis? The first half suffered from the hangover from the strikes. Product was very thin to start the year. As the year went on and the big movies started to show up, clearly people went to the movies, a lot of movies really worked. Like any year, some films didn’t work. But that’s the movie business. Theatrical is poised for a great Thanksgiving season; this holiday corridor is probably stronger than last year. We’re currently down 11% to 12% from last year. We will close the gap a little bit. When you took over the studio, everyone was trying to make movies for streaming and compress windows for theatrical releases. It’s moved back a little bit. What is the right amount of time for a movie to be only in theaters? Every movie is different and it’s not a zero-sum game. I look at Wild Robot. It’s been available at home for weeks now. It has not affected the box-office run at all. You might say it’s enhanced it. So selling movies at home doesn’t necessarily cannibalize theatrical sales. What about streaming? When we launched Paramount+, [then CEO] Bob Bakish wanted movies to go at 45 days. We’ve now pushed it to 60. In a lot of cases, it’s 75 and 90. Training the consumer that it will come fast is probably not a good thing. Our job as movie marketers is to create FOMO, to make films and market them in a way where you want to be part of the conversation, and you don’t want to wait 90 days or longer to see it. If you could convince theaters to change one thing, what would it be? Make the consumer experience better. From the minute I walk in the door to the concession line to the seat. I just wish that the experience was more amazing than it is. That is their product. Our product is the movie. We sweat blood to make the movies. I wish the theaters were a better experience. You had a lot of singles and doubles this year. No huge failures and no home runs. Is that enough, or do you need bigger tentpoles? I’m very comfortable with that. This is our biggest bet of the year, Gladiator. But our strategy is to offer audiences a slate of movies with some tentpoles, but many genres and price points. Each one has a definable audience. I’ve been very focused on the overall slate profitability, not the profitability of any single movie. Sometimes the movies that gross the biggest aren’t the most profitable. Last year we had Top Gun and Smile. Top Gun was certainly our most profitable, but Smile was a very close second. When you took over, you got a lot of crap for being the Nickelodeon guy. The Awesomeness guy. I know that bothered you. Have you gotten over that? Yeah I’ve gotten over it. I am extremely proud of the work that our team has done over the last four years. We’ve had a really great run. We’ve had some huge hits. We’ve been consistent. If you look at the overall reviews of our movies, I’d put it up against any other studio. What’s it been like managing a studio and a company during a year of sale rumors and talks? It has not been easy. This is already a difficult industry and gig. Doing it in the face of that noise was not without its challenges. Kudos to our teams for being able to stay focused and stay the course. It would have been very easy for the wheels to fall off and they haven’t. You’ve been very complimentary of your staff. Your company has fired a lot of people though. Is that over? Is there anything left to cut? It’s basically done. We are not alone. Disney fired thousands of people. Warner Bros. fired thousands of people. It’s the sector. Almost every major streaming service is profitable. Warner Bros. and Disney both got credit from Wall Street. You didn’t. Why not? Because of the transaction, investors are taking a very wait-and-see approach. I’ve talked to a lot of investors. They are impressed with what we’ve been able to accomplish with two profitable quarters in a row. We’re set up to have a successful run at streaming. What the run will look like and what partnerships might occur, time will tell. What do you mean by that? I don’t think everybody’s strategy is fully laid out yet. So what will it look like? There will be more strategic partnerships and probably some consolidation. You’ve had a lot of talks with peers about partnerships and consolidation over the past year. Why has nothing come of it? These are very complex and complicated conversations. Because the business is still so new, we’re in the early innings of those conversations. Will these streaming businesses grow enough to replace your cable business? For some, over time. It depends on how partnerships play out. How long has been Netflix at it? It’s almost 20 years. We’ve been at it three or four. See how quickly we’ve been able to scale? It’s early. You oversee Nickelodeon as well. I feel like streaming services aren’t investing a lot of money into kids programming. Am I missing something? No, you’re so right. Kids and family shows really are good engagement drivers. They prevent churn. But people don’t sign up for it. I think all these streaming services, including ours, were addicted to subscriber count. Investment went towards programming that garnered sign-ups more than engagement. Most streaming services have at least tried to make a couple kids shows. But the biggest kids hits on TV are all pretty old. The only new ones are from YouTube or outside the US. That goes with the decline in linear TV. Linear TV used to really be the thing that created kid hits. Kids are now spending more time on YouTube than any place else. It gets harder to drive a hit from a series. I realized we need to focus on theatrical to break kids hits. We relaunched [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] theatrically. Those marketing campaigns bring the audience. I know you can’t really talk about the Skydance deal, but I have to ask: How’s your relationship with David Ellison? David and I have a really good relationship. He’s easy to talk to. We are pretty straight with each other. We’ve definitely had hard conversations. I respect him. I think he respects me. Ok, what’s your Oscar plan for Gladiator? We have a film that is already in the Oscar conversation. First and foremost, Ridley has never won. Maybe this is the year for him. There’s a lot of talk about all the craft categories and a lotta buzz around Denzel [Washington]. You said this is your tentpole this year. What numbers does it need to hit to make money for you? At a price point of $250 million, we need a significant amount of business, which we are poised to do. We are well on our way. That feels good; these are scary bets. Apple has hired an executive to license its original productions to other companies, a strategy designed to increase sales from its film business and improve the visibility of its content. Maria Ines Rodriguez, who previously worked at Disney and Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, joined Apple earlier this year to work on content distribution. In a job posting from earlier this year, Apple said it’s looking for someone to “develop and implement a global strategy to enhance revenue for Apple TV+’s award winning original content off-Apple platforms.” Apple is focused on licensing its movies to other companies, such as foreign TV networks and stores, where viewers can rent or buy them, according to a person familiar with the plans. The company isn’t planning to license its original TV shows to third parties. (At least not yet.) Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and services boss Eddy Cue have pushed the team overseeing Apple TV+ to lower costs, improve the financial performance of the service and deliver more hits. The company has spent billions of dollars on original films and TV shows and has received strong reviews and praise from critics. Yet few of its titles have attracted a large audience and its streaming service doesn’t make money. Apple has already started selling TV+ via Amazon in a bid to increase the audience for the service. Licensing to third parties will generate additional revenue and introduce Apple movies to people who don’t yet pay for TV+. Hollywood studios have long taken shows and movies that debuted on TV or in theaters and sold the rerun rights to other companies. Streaming services like TV+, Netflix and Amazon Prime have largely avoided doing so, opting instead to make shows exclusive to their services in order to attract customers. Yet there are signs that the aversion to sharing is fading. Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Disney have increased the number of titles they sell to third parties, while Amazon is licensing some of its shows and movies to other TV networks and streaming services. Disney wipes away $4 billion in lossesDisney just proved why it is the best positioned of the legacy entertainment companies. Its streaming business will generate sales of more than $20 billion this calendar year and is now profitable. While smaller than Netflix in subscribers, viewership and revenue, it’s the second-biggest player out there (unless we include Amazon). It actually spends more money than Netflix on programming, though that is largely due to sports.
The company still has problems. Its theme parks are struggling, and the linear TV business is collapsing. ESPN’s subscriber base has shrunk to 66 million. But Disney's streaming business is now larger than its TV networks, and the company is growing despite the collapse of cable. This contrasts with Paramount and Warner Bros. CEO Bob Iger also let something slip. About 60% of new Disney+ customers are signing up for its advertising-supported tier, and nearly one-third of all subscribers watch ads. Europeans love American cowboysThe new season of Yellowstone debuted to more than 13 million viewers in the US, adding together the audience from multiple networks. But while its popularity in this country is well-known, its popularity abroad is a bit more of a surprise. The season premiere was the most-watched international series premiere ever on Paramount+. The show was already one of the most popular titles on both Paramount+ and SkyShowtime, a European joint venture between Paramount and Comcast. Hannah Miller has a piece breaking down the show’s appeal in Europe. Spotify is pulling a NetflixThe world’s largest audio streaming service continues to defy gravity. It added 14 million users and now has 640 million globally, including has 252 million paying subscribers. More importantly, the company posted a profit for the third quarter in a row. It will earn more than $1 billion this year. Spotify hosted an event in Los Angeles this week to make its latest pitch to YouTube creators. The audio platform is taking another run at video and Ashley Carman has the details. Deals, deals, dealsThanks to those of you who recommended HBO’s documentary series about Stax, the iconic Memphis record label. I visited Stax more than a decade ago on a trip to Memphis and its brassy soul sound ranks is one of my all-time favorites. | 
