00:00You called it. I mean, we were being glib with you.
00:02Look, I don't think anyone doubted this was going to be a big movie.
00:04It's a record-setting movie. It's huge.
00:06Just talk about just sort of the process, though, of getting this movie out the door
00:10and why you had so much confidence that it was going to do so well.
00:14Well, it's my job to be confident, but I was because I'd seen the movie.
00:21And ultimately, I thought we did a really terrific job in the marketing campaign
00:26and distributing it, and it would be interesting for you probably to know
00:31that it was the widest release in movie history, if you include China.
00:37It was on over 80,000 screens worldwide on the same day, and that's a big undertaking.
00:43But the reason I was confident is the reason the movie's done well,
00:47and that is it's very, very good.
00:50Well, I mean, obviously there's always this concern when it comes to these superhero franchises
00:55that after so many iterations of it, it's hard to come up with something novel
00:59and unique to excite audiences.
01:01So when you saw the script and when you started to sort of see this mapped out here,
01:06was the sense of, like, let's really try to do something different?
01:09Yes.
01:10Yeah, the sense was.
01:11So you pushed for that, yeah.
01:12Yeah, I mean, everybody involved did, and the credit really goes.
01:16You know, a marvelous director, Destin Daniel Cretton,
01:19a name with which you will become much more familiar as the years go.
01:24I think it pushes him into the first rank of filmmakers.
01:29Yeah.
01:30And Tom Holland himself was very involved in the development of the script.
01:34Yeah.
01:34And everyone in the studio felt that we did need to do something different,
01:39but not necessarily bigger in a conventional sense, not necessarily louder,
01:45but actually what we went for was something more emotional, something deeper.
01:51And the audience has responded.
01:54It's not just the record-setting box office.
01:56It's that our audience metrics coming out are just through the roof.
02:02Well, I am curious about that.
02:04I mean, obviously on a revenue basis, box office basis, record.
02:07Yes.
02:08Correct me if I'm wrong, but the budget for this was like $225 million.
02:12Well, I don't comment on the record on that, but you see I'm not disagreeing with you.
02:18Well, I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is what is the potential profitability of it?
02:22Because for a movie of this magnitude, that actually seems somewhat light.
02:26I mean, you know, Christopher Nolan would have came back to you for a couple hundred million more.
02:29But you managed to make this on that budget based on Bloomberg reporting.
02:33So, I mean, anyone could do the simple math here.
02:35I mean, this is setting up to be one of your most profitable movies.
02:37Yes.
02:38Yeah.
02:38Okay.
02:40We'll leave it at that.
02:41So, good for you.
02:42And not to just sort of minimize this, but for the rest of the year, I mean, I know you've
02:48got like Resident Evil and a couple other ones.
02:50But do you have anything that's going to even come close to this?
02:52Well, we have a very, very big movie at Christmas, which is the conclusion really of our Jumanji trilogy.
03:00And that's a franchise that's done, I believe, well over a billion and almost a billion and a half, between
03:08a billion and a quarter and a billion and a half in global box office.
03:12Tremendously popular.
03:14And we're right on Christmas Day with that, as this sort of all audience fun, have a good time at
03:21the movies alternative.
03:22Well, you were banging this drum back in June on this idea that people want to go back physically to
03:27the theater.
03:28And maybe not just Spider-Man, but Odyssey, a lot of things outside of Sony as well also have done
03:33great.
03:33And obviously, if you're in the Tom Holland Zendaya household, you're having a great summer here.
03:37That's for sure.
03:37But what's, I mean, what's driving that?
03:39Can you articulate what's driving that?
03:41Yeah, I can.
03:41You know, I think it's the old line.
03:43And I never knew, you probably would know better than me, whether it was in fact Mark Twain or W
03:49.C. Fields who said reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.
03:54Reports of the movie business's death were greatly, greatly exaggerated.
03:58We went through COVID, an impossible circumstance.
04:01Then we went through a terrible strike, which was extremely destructive and really compromised the amount and the variety of
04:10product that was in the theaters.
04:11And now it's back.
04:13There's great product.
04:14And I think the thing that's really encouraging about it is that young people are going back to the movies.
04:212019, right before the pandemic, $11.5 billion in the box office for North America.
04:27Right now, based on Bloomberg estimates, we're tracking at around $10.2 billion for 2026.
04:33That's up 15% from 2025, still short from what we saw in 2019.
04:38You think, A, we're going to surpass $10 billion, and B, do you think we could potentially get to $11?
04:43I think eventually we'll get to $11, although I must say, in being fair, that I believe we will get
04:53back there in terms of revenue.
04:55Will we get back there in terms of admissions?
04:58Because a lot of the revenue makeup has come from raising prices.
05:02And this is something which I don't think is good for our business.
05:06I think we have to push, and we have to push exhibition.
05:09You know, the studios don't set prices when we're allowed.
05:14The theaters themselves set the prices.
05:17And I'm not saying anything that my friends in exhibition don't know, I think, which is that it's important that
05:24we keep going to the movies affordable.
05:28And that we push to make it more affordable again.
05:31Well, that gets to the idea.
05:33And when we were talking last time about why you would go to the theater as opposed to watching it
05:36at home.
05:37I mean, the price proposition is one reason why streaming kind of took off for a lot of folks.
05:41And there's still a lot of competition there.
05:43And I'm just curious about your relationship with the streaming services and how you're balancing out theatrical releases with whatever
05:49you're sharing with the streamers.
05:51Well, I think it's a mutually, done right, I think it's very mutually beneficial.
05:56So we have a, we at Sony have a very big, very lucrative, very valuable deal with Netflix.
06:02They're excellent partners of ours.
06:04But that is what we, to use the movie term of art, that is windowed, which is it comes after
06:10a period of exclusivity in the movies, in the movie theaters, and after a period when there's transactional home entertainment.
06:17Done in that way, it can be a very healthy ecosystem.
06:22But you're also fighting for this exclusivity over talent.
06:25I think about David Fincher being attached to that last Netflix piece with Quentin Tarantino, which is one of your
06:30guys.
06:30And he's kicking around, right?
06:33I heard he's going to do a new play.
06:35That's true.
06:36In the West End.
06:36I forgot the title of it.
06:37It sounded ridiculous.
06:38It's called, well, I, it's not ridiculous.
06:42Yeah.
06:42It's very, very funny.
06:43But I'm not sure if that's public.
06:45Sony is producing that, along with Sonya Friedman, who's the top West End producer.
06:50And yeah, Quentin is a very, he's a very, very dynamic artist who likes to do lots of different things.
06:59He's published several books, best-selling books.
07:02Yeah.
07:02Obviously, tremendous screenwriter, film director, and now playwright.
07:07A playwright, and as a film director, he says he wants to make one more film and be out.
07:11Is this play going to end up being the next Quentin Tarantino film?
07:14I hope you get him in this seat and you ask him.
07:16I mean, you probably have more of a direct line to him than I do.
07:21I do want to ask you, like, you know, you mentioned kind of the relationship with theaters.
07:25I mean, this has been a great year for all around.
07:28And I do wonder if, forgive me for phrasing it this way, if the theaters owe you something.
07:34No, no.
07:35No, no.
07:35Well, do they owe me something?
07:37No.
07:38They don't owe me, you know, the studio is something.
07:41Do they owe their customers something?
07:43Yes.
07:44Yeah.
07:45And I think there are a couple things they owe their customers.
07:48One, incumbent upon us, they can't give them customers programming that the studios don't supply.
07:56So we owe their customers a variety and a range of programming so that everything isn't the same.
08:03And then they owe their customers.
08:05Yeah.
08:06And then they owe their customers quality experience.
08:08They owe their customers nice theaters.
08:11And a lot of them invested a lot of money in them, you know, nice seats, good theaters, good food.
08:17But they also are the more reasonable pricing.
08:20Before I let you go, Tom, I do just have to ask you about kind of just the state of
08:23Hollywood as an industry.
08:24Sure.
08:24I mean, obviously, we're still awaiting whether Paramount, Warner Brothers gets combined here.
08:28But what's the net effect of all of this with regards to that merger and just everything that's been happening
08:33in Hollywood with regards to jobs
08:35and whether those jobs will still be there in any sort of material way?
08:39Well, I think it's been it's obvious that it's been reported.
08:43I'm sure it's been reported by Bloomberg that there's been a significant net loss of jobs, certainly in Los Angeles.
08:51Certainly Los Angeles has suffered.
08:54And I don't see that consolidation lessening, whether it's this particular merger or others.
09:03We've gone through a strong period of consolidation ever since basically Fox and Rupert Murdoch chose to sell the assets,
09:16the studio assets of Fox to Disney.
09:19That began a period of consolidation.
09:22So and that's resulted in a net loss of jobs and runaway production has also cost jobs.
09:29And I think that's a very significant factor, which is it's very difficult for us to make movies in California,
09:35because even though they have increased their tax credit, the way the tax credit works is simply not competitive.
09:43It's not competitive with other jurisdictions.
09:45And until it gets competitive and until there is a tax creditor and what we refer to as above the
09:51line,
09:51which means the name talent, it's not going to be competitive.
09:57So all of that has definitely put pressure on the employment picture, certainly, certainly in California.
10:05There's no question about that.
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