Part 2: Sony Film CEO on Marvel’s Decline and Hollywood’s Originality Crisis

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Avatar Fire and Ash now playing in theaters, and now nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design. It is Tuesday, February 24th. Today's part two of Tom Rothbin, head of the Sony Movie Studio, reported it live at AFI with me in Lucas Shaw and Tom's very cool Columbia Picture's Bomber Jacket.

That is definitely not for sale, he told me. If you haven't heard part one, go do that first. Today, it's the future of the Spider-Man franchise. Marvel's recent struggles. The movie stars should make movies for streamers.

And the biggest crisis facing the movie industry right now. He's definitely got opinions. From the Rear and Puck, I'm that felony, and this is the town. Where are we in this Spider-Man franchise?

“Not at the animated Spider-verse, is the larger Spider-verse dead?”

Are you going to go back to those at some point? Yes, you will, but it'll be a fresh reboot. Yes, new people, okay. Yes, yes. And how is the partnership with Marvel going?

It's great, because that was a big moment. It was sort of a tale between the legs moment to have to go to Disney and say, listen, I think it was, we, we kind of ran this into the ground. We need you to bring that back. I think that's been, you know, speaking of that, putting that question that way.

We have a character, it's called Mr. Negativity. You need to be really good for that. You should come in audition. Studios don't typically say, here's our number one franchise. Let's bring in another studio to part on it.

I can't take much credit for it.

“Was it the very beginning of my tenure and the tail and of Amy's credit tenure, but I think”

it was an extremely smart and mature decision by Michael Linton and Amy Pascal who were excellent excellent executives first rate.

But the part that I quarrel with running to the ground, no, I gave you to $800 million

movie. That's some ground. I think again, this was a question of opportunity, because yes, first of all, Marvel's great Kevin Feige's genius, and I can talk about that in a second. But it wasn't just bringing Marvel into, uh, reduced for us, it was actually, we were able

to introduce the new Spider-Man with Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man and acted to the narrative. So, it had big upside for us and it's been one of the great deals for both companies ever. A true win-win deal to the point where the third one just did and pisses me off. That I have to say this, that it did a billion nine. You'd say billion nine, what's the matter with two?

Well, it didn't get into China. So otherwise, but in my mind, it's over two, because I know what we would have done in China. They just small thing, they said no problem, just cut out the statue of liberty, which is where the client was. That was the request.

That was the request. And I said, yeah, well, the last 20 minutes of the movie. Yeah, there was that. And also, I really didn't look forward to standing, sitting in air in front of Congress, telling them why I'd cut the statue of liberty out at the request of the Chinese Communist

Party. So it's been a really, really, it's been a great partnership. And I have to say it's because they've been great partners. I'm going to make a prediction that there is no, there is no statue of liberty in the new Spider-Man.

Let me think about that, actually coincidentally, that's true. Totally coincident. Totally coincident. We're very privileged that Amy's been a producer on the Spider-Man movies and she's probably the best, if not one of the best producers in the business and ever, a woman I've known

all my 30 plus years in Hollywood.

But Kevin, I like to tell this story because the first Marvel movie was the first big

successful modern Marvel movie, not the cheap German ones, was not Spider-Man. It was X-Men. X-Men came before Spider-Man and we made X-Men as Fox and X-Men was the real initial

were taken seriously. And it was the first time that the emotionality of those characters were honored. We won't talk about the director of that movie, no, yes, keep going. And there was this skinny little junior assistant assistant for Lauren Donner, who was like sitting in the back of the room and during the story meetings and everyone's in a

while he'd be like, what about, and I go, that's a good idea, what about this kid, that's a good idea.

That little person was Kevin Feige, and when I always say to him, as I'd known you were

really such a fucking big shot, I would have been so much nicer to you, but he's gifted. I'm curious because he had kind of a generational run. How do you diagnose sort of the recent challenges or slight decline and how a lot of those movies have done? I just think he would say the same thing.

I would say it this way, that when we always have to balance this, we balance this and answer to your question about Spider-Man, scarcity as value. You've got to make the audience miss you, you know, it's the old thing. I would say trouble getting girls to go out with me twice, but, you know, until fortunately my wife took pity on me, but it's like absence makes the heart grow fonder.

But it's an interesting dynamic as you mentioned how much of a benefit it was to Sony to introduce Spider-Man with doubt. I feel like the opposite went too far. It's true now, where they need Spider-Man to introduce Avengers and that storyline will hopefully for them carry over. I think, look, I'll just tell you this, there are two people about whom I would say this.

And maybe more if I think about it, but these are two that come to the top of my mind.

Never bet against Jim Cameron, okay, and never bet against Kevin Feige.

And those what he's doing, you know, certainly they've engaged. You can see it in a course correction, less television. I think it was really the television and the elaborateness of that interconnection that

“made you have to be so inside, you know, or else you felt excluded.”

And that was a mandate that he was given by a prior administration at Disney and he's a good corporate soldier. He did what he was asked to do, but I think he knows very well that now, to a degree, less will be more, and it'll be very more, have no worries for Avengers, guys. It's going to be, if you don't you have some kind of game where you do, I have it.

I have the movie in the draft. Okay, it was my number one, but it was number two. I have Spider-Man, he has Avengers, he's going to do better. I love all my children. Well, one of them is actually not your children, but Spider-Man, do you think so?

So I had you on a roundtable in 2019 of all studio executives. It was a very good one, it's actually fascinating to look back on it today. Okay, I asked the question, is there any movie star that is important as strong IP?

“And you said, yes, I think there are lots of movie stars.”

It's one of the great myths propagated out there that movie stars don't matter. Seven years later, is that still true? And is it, yes, and that's true. Okay, no, it's more true, there are less of them. Seven years later, there are fewer of them thus making the ones that there are even more valuable.

Okay, care to list them. Sure, why not, I'm here under subpoena, right? So listen, I had a lot of good summer jobs, I can go back to it. I was a surveyor, I was a long boy, I can do all those things. I'm going to regret asking you this, but is Sidney Sweeney one of them?

I think in the right thing. So let's talk about movie stars.

And it has always been this way.

When Bill Murray did go through the biggest comedic star, the world, and then the Razor's Edge, nobody gave a fight, okay? So it has to be stars in the right material. Sidney in the right material, absolutely. We look at anyone, you and Housemaid, Housemaid terrific hit, that's a big hit movie.

And here's the significant thing about Housemaid that people don't probably pay much attention to in the same with anyone, but you, it's a global hit. That movie's huge international. So I would say yes, and it's always this way, movie stars in the right thing. Not as many as we would like, but they're clearly emerging young movie stars, Timothy

Alamey, Tom Holland, Zendaya, there are emergency, emerging young movie stars. And then there are the established, unquestionable stars who continue, and this is the key about continuing to be a movie star.

“You have to continue to reward your audience and continue to let your audience trust”

the choices you make. People don't quite understand that. It's not just what they are.

makes good choices, right?

I know Leonardo DiCaprio, he makes good choices. If it's good enough for Leo to do it, it's probably going to be pretty good, right? Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, these people don't make free for five movies a year, you know? It's their scarcity and value, Tom Hanks, the same thing. There's a quality and premature, and then come on, who doesn't want to see Brad Pitt

drive a car really fast? I do. Brad Pitt's 60 years old. Yeah. But Clint Eastwood was a star until he was, you know, well into, well, well into his late

70s.

“But he raised a point, and that's why I said fewer because going to the conversation we had”

before, categorically streaming does not make movie stars. That just didn't, in the case. Streaming does it.

So as movie stars, we were talking about if they do a streaming movie.

Hey, no, many yes. I had a meeting in my office with a very significant movie star who's, will go unmentioned, who referred to his career in that, and when he would do a streaming movie or not, as a tax on the brain, T-A-S, and I think that's true. It was Mark Wahlberg.

No, it wasn't. Kevin Hart, we're not, I'm not going to guess, I actually agree with you. I think you can do it. Like Leo did a streaming movie. Don't look up.

So I'm there top 10 list. Right. But he did one. Correct. You see, we're occurring theme here.

“I think, you know, scarcity value, these are recurring themes, particularly with”

respect to movies, you want to go out, you're going to go and be over that bar, it should be special. It shouldn't be every day. This, on streaming service, this is every day. So I think you can do it, spare.

You talked earlier about the need for collective action on the part of the studios. Do you feel that your peers at the other studios share your belief or do you find yourself having to spend a bunch of time trying to convince them to think the way that you did? Well, because you're in a different business. You don't have a streaming service.

Universal. Well, you were talking about 17 days. They do this 17 days. Yes. They've had movies, right?

Or Warner Brothers, not this current regime, but the previous regime put a lot of movies direct to streaming. And may now be owned by streaming service. We'll find out. Disney has experimented more with Windows.

Let me correct just that last thing, but answer it, which is to say that I can't do any of that because they're anti-trust walls. So, and so, no, I can't do that because there's a possibility that that wouldn't be allowed for a trade organization. Yes.

And the trade organization has to represent everybody. Put Netflix and Amazon. Or in the trade organization. Yes. I perfectly free to answer your questions.

“What I think is that it's a learning process.”

Okay. I was given some of your interrogations to listen to before I came on because my comms, people are very concerned about me and my survival on this. So they gave me a few. And I heard on something on one of them, sorry, I wasn't paying strict attention, that

it was a settled question that theatrical movies do better on streaming. And I think it is a settled question that statistics show that. And I think this is what's happened. I think it's been a learning process. Coming out of COVID, I can just say for ourselves, we actually did some movies on 17

days. I actually didn't realize. I had to learn because there's a misleading statistic, which is if you look at the box of us on the weekend following the 17 days, the drop is no greater than what it is not for the 17 days.

So for a number of times, we thought, oh, well, maybe they're different consumers to realize we're looking at the wrong thing. You're not losing them in that weekend, you're losing them in the opening weekend. That's what's happening. And when you compare like movie to like movie, which you have very sophisticated models

that can do this, it's the openings that are diminished because of Casa Blanca. So we stopped. So the customer can tell on opening weekend, whether this is coming from a studio. No, you're doing a habit. But they can tell the difference between a studio that doesn't and a studio that doesn't.

Absolutely not. That's why it's all over all. That's why it hurts all of us. So let me just, but I got to go back to the last thing you said, actually Disney has the longest windows in the business.

Oh, I just said they experimented, which they did do. They did, during the Pixar thing. Yeah. Mr. Igor realized he's a very smart man and realize it.

When you get under the hood, it's why I'm very confident, ultimately, that with what Netflix

is said should they end up owning Warner Brothers about maintaining proper windows, not just

It's why I believe what they're saying and Netflix, remember, it's not just 45 days. It's 45 days to transactional, it's 100 days to free. And you believe Ted Cerando, when he says that that will be the model for the Warner's movies. I do because they're very smart at Netflix.

And when you get under the hood, they're going to pay, I don't know, what are they paying? $72 billion. $82 billion. $83 billion.

$72 billion for it. You want the company to work and they're smart. And when they get under the hood, they're going to learn the same things we learn, which is the value chain in motion pictures is from successive windows. So what I was going to say Disney now has the longest, most firmest windows in the business,

right? And it's even where it's their own service.

There are 100 days to Disney plus who has the only billion dollar movies this year, Disney.

I don't think it's a coincidence.

“So what I think is happening, it's an evolution.”

We went through a once-in-a-generation crisis with this COVID-jip. And people are learning, we're learning. And we've learned that collectively, listen, gang, when you go out and you make the movies, there are only two reasons people go to the movies. One is the experience.

I want to see it on the big screen. I want to see what Kim Cameron's done. I want to take my kids out of the house because they're driving me crazy. I want to kiss a girl or a boy, right? I want to have an experience when we do it well.

I want to laugh with other people. I want to have an experience. The second reason is story-based. It's a story-based reason. I want to see that story.

I want to see that star. I want to experience that emotion. If you take away the window, you take away the story-based reason to see it, leaving only the experiential reason. So what does that do?

What's the crisis in movies now? It's not the amount of movies. It's not the big, grossing movies. Spider-Man's going to do great for the middle ground. It's a originality.

The crisis is originality.

“The crisis is where is the next franchise coming from?”

Because original movies don't have a built-in fan base. And we're getting to a place that, without cultural urgency, you're going to have cultural urgency to kill over the bar. Why? Why is Timothy Chalamet such a movie star?

Well, because A is great. It's a great actor. My daughter's theater producer put him in his first play. There you go, Elizabeth. Give a plug.

He's a great actor.

He's never been anything less than great.

And he's a fantastic cultural... Sales. He's a great agency. Creates urgency. Cultural urgency.

But it doesn't seem like your fellow studios share your passion for originality. Because my fellow studios get the... and me, we get the shit beat out of ourselves all the time. When you try for originality. But you've got to keep trying.

And we do try. But... I read today. You greenlit a Charlie's Angels movie. No.

Are you a developer? You do development. And they're talking about originality. But if you look at the slate and no shame, but it's pre-branded stuff, it'll do a Garfield movie.

You'll do your biggest movies at the year, we'll probably be what Spider-Man, Jubbanji, because I have shareholders, and I have fiduciary obligations, and I have 6,000 employees. This is bonus.

You're basically the guy on the studio.

You want to do certain movies, and you want to also keep your job. No. No. I want to be clear about that, because I was widely misquoted on that. Oh, you're working.

Why? So I get a chance to correct the record now, because they took half of my quote from that. Please. Dad, very clearly, on every episode of the studio. So please use this first part of the quote.

There is a brilliantly blinding truth in every episode. And there is. And then I said, but the rest of it is worshiped. And what I should have said was the rest of it is silly, because they only use the

“crosswork look. I think it's a brilliant show, and I think the set tire is actually jeans.”

But some of the most devoted film-loving, smart people I've known in 35 years in Hollywood or studio seconds. And not all of them, but most of them are in it for the same reason I am. It might not have been Lawrence of Arabia, but I could have done lots of things. So I had multiple careers before I came here, but I loved movies.

I dreamed some day. And this part of the studio is true. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? I sit in Louisville, Mary's Office.

Every day, I drive onto the lot, and the lot was MGM.

And today, I visited Jumanji on the same stage, the same stage that they saw at the Wizard of Oz. Are you kidding me? How lucky can one person be?

“So, and I think a lot of the people are like me.”

My father claimed that he hated this job. His whole life. I don't know if he really did, but he said he was miserable. He was a lawyer and he pretended to be miserable. He had four children, and he would look at us at the breakfast table every morning.

He would say, "It was kids don't do this. Don't work. It's something you don't love." And as I look out here at students at the AFI, I'm a person who's vocation and advocating of the same.

And hence, it's the old cliché.

Yes, I have worked days in my life, believe me.

But it's great. So striving still for originality, trying to do it, and often, by the way, failing. Made a Darren Aronovski original movie last year, I loved the movie, caught stealing. I loved Darren. I thought it was great.

It was in Netflix. Yep. Because it wasn't over the bar. It wasn't culturally urgent enough. It's a really good movie, it tested well.

People loved it. So what do we have to do? We have to set high standards for ourselves, but collectively, collectively, to preserve originality. We need to re-establish robustness.

I do want to ask whether you fear at all that this Warner's sale, if they do go to Netflix,

“doesn't that make Netflix less inclined to do a big deal with a studio like Sony?”

Well, luckily the answer to that, we have facts. They have done a very big long-term deal with us. But I'm talking the next deal. Well, I'll be dead. It's only seven years.

You won't be dead. Maybe professionally. But you won't be dead. Well, they've been saying that about me for a long time, Matt. They've been trying to kill me off professionally for a long time, and nobody succeeded yet.

So, but you know what you get when I'm saying. If Netflix is eye-forging up all of the library, I think it's proof positive, proof positive. I wondered about that. Yeah, because I could have sold the library.

I wonder what the end was on. Absolutely. I wondered about that. We have proof positive, because the deal we did with Netflix was done right in the heart of their not just bidding for runners, runners, but our deal was closed, subsequent

to the Warner Board awarding the deal to them. So they wanted it. Obviously, I think they were sports. They did a big long-term, global deal with us. At the same time, I'm sure they were very confident that they were going to have Warner

Brothers. There, between Netflix and Paramount, do you think one of those is better or worse for the industry? No, I don't care. I think they're very different.

Let me put it that way. I think they're very different. I think that it brings us back maybe to the very first conversation. What is this moment, right? I think it's a product of what the current world is and the hyper scale of companies that

are in our business. You're fortunate at Sony to be part of 130 billion dollar company. So we're already firmly protected in that way. That's great for us. Yeah, I'm like you guys.

I don't know what's going to happen, and I think it's always hard to predict the future,

but I think it is representative of the moment we're at. Do you use the phrase settled question about the importance of theatrical streaming earlier? Do you have gone down? Yes, they have.

Do you think it is a settled question that attendance is in extribal decline? I think it, again, I'll parse that, if I may. I think it's a settled question that is declined. And the reason they've raised prices, so it masks the decline a little bit, right? And the better way to look at it, in my judgments and missions.

“Yeah, that's what I'm talking about that, not having it.”

So let me speak to that, if say in 2019, a billion won, I think domestic now in the high 700's, right? So there is a definite decline. No question about that. Is it inexorable?

I don't believe so. That returns to what I've said before. Will it ever get all the way back up? Let me tell you, this particular year is going to be great. And in some ways, in that regard, elusory, right?

This is going to be an incredibly great year. It's going to be great for us. It's going to be a great year for the business. It's going to look rosy. I will still stick with what I said.

We don't fix the windows.

Fix the windows. Fix the windows. Listen, as this has happened in France, this has happened. You're pointing up. You're pointing up.

You're pointing up. Sorry. Podcasts. This shit. I'm used to live.

That is because they have government and force windows. Okay. So you are elected, the mayor of Hollywood, what is the edict that comes down from mayor

“Rothman on windows that the entire industry must adhere to?”

45 days to transactional, 100 days to best mom. But let me answer the other part of your question, because I think we haven't talked about exhibition, and they have a part to play in this, a big part, which is to avoid your word of inexorable, the part of what concerns me about exhibition is a pricing spiral. Because admissions have gone down, they raise prices.

The more they raise prices, the more admissions go down.

And a threat to the movie business is movies have always been counter-inflationary, always.

If they go from being a regularly affordable leisure activity to a luxury leisure activity, the overall breadth of the business can be in trouble. So I think exhibition, and I'm not saying anything, I haven't said to the leaders of all of them, they've got to be really careful with respect to the pricing, the quality of experience and not going down that vicious circle.

But no, I don't think it's inexorable, and then there's one other thing, which is fair enough, and maybe the most important thing of all. We've got to make dope shit. All right, thank you to Tom, we will open it up. We are back with the call sheet, Craig, do you consider the Doomwall website and Instagram

page to be a legitimate news source?

“I consider an entertaining news source, and I often send you DMs and say, is this real?”

Yes, you do, and I want to slap you in the face when you do, because the answer is almost invariably, no, it is not true. Sometimes, sometimes they are. Okay, sometimes. But I feel like when it comes to casting news, the fact that the entire internet goes nuts

when Doomwall posts that some actor has been chosen for some role, it's insane. It's insane, it happened last week again with the James Bond stuff with Jacob Alordi. I know, it does feel like an easy way to quickly gain 10,000 followers. I should just start tweeting my predictions for who's going to be James Bond, and I could probably double my following in a week.

It's insane. So just so people know, there has been no actor cast as James Bond. There has been no script delivered, yeah, it's even night is still working on the script. They will not choose a James Bond likely until the spring or summer I am told. So we do not have a James Bond yet.

And honestly, my prediction is it's probably not going to be Jacob Alordi. The guy's two famous at this point, he's six foot six, like six foot five, six foot

“six, would you believe a spy that sticks out in every room that he's in?”

I just feel like there's no discovery in that. They're going to pick someone in my opinion that is good actor up and coming in the 27 to 32 ish range, because they want to start over with a younger bond. It's more likely going to be someone like a talent turner than it is a Jacob Alordi. Lordy very tall, he would stick out in a casino and Monocar Loe for sure.

I note, you know, back, he's a good actor. Looks good to Tuxedo, but I do absolutely. He's also not rich. He's Australian. He's Australian.

Daniel Craig was 38 in the first bond.

Pierce Bros. Do Daniel Craig was not as nearly as much of a household name as Jacob Alordi is now, who is very famous. He has an Oscar nomination this year. He's in a massive TV show and that's not the way bond usually goes.

Also, count him turner a little older. He's 36 years old. Yeah, maybe he's too old. I know they want to go young, they want, and they also want someone to sign a pretty owner's deal with him, Amazon, where they would get him for a TV spin-off.

They would get him for, you know, multiple movies. And like, is Jacob Alordi going to sign on to that? Like, I don't know. He's already dealing with having signed on to you for yet having to go back and sell that.

He's not going to do the same thing with bond. I know. They're all milking it. But whatever, I just, it's so funny. This is the one casting.

It's like bond and Batman, where people just go nuts over it. Batman and bond is the two coolest, most prestigious roles you can book and Hollywood still. Although these days, you can do Batman and still do other stuff. I guess Craig did other stuff too. So he's going to certainly going to make more money off the knives out movies than he did

off the bond movies, like his deal for knives out is insane.

But also, if you book column Turner, you're basically guaranteeing Duolipug is doing the

bond song.

For sure.

“Not that they can get people to do a bond song, but she would be great.”

Yeah.

I mean, she could be a bond girl.

Maybe that would be too weird. But she will be involved in some way. Yes. Okay.

“We're not going to make any other predictions on that.”

The prediction is just it will not be Jacob will be.

Yeah. I don't believe it will be Jacob will. Okay. Watch out. I'll be big news.

“Maybe you'll come tomorrow just because Amazon wants to piss me off.”

Well now Duolipug in report that Jacob will already is out as James Bond.

According to the town pod guest, yes, this is a prediction. I am not saying I have insight information. All I know is that nobody has been cast yet. All right. That's the show for the day.

I want to thank my guest Tom Rothbin and Lukashoff. Mr. Craig Horoback, our dude is just his little beds and John Jones. And I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.