Paramount Trumps Netflix in Warner Bros. Sale; BAFTA’s Complex Controversy; Anticipating the Actor Awards

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Welcome to Screen Talk, IndieWire's weekly podcast, bringing you up to speed on what's going on in Hollywood. There's a lot going on. I'm Ann Thompson in Los Angeles.

0:36

And I'm Ryan Lattanzio in New York. And yeah, if you are reporting in the industry, it has been a somewhat brutalizing week. This week we're going to look at the impact of the BAFTAs on the Oscars and how I swear and John Davidson took over the narrative of the show. Meanwhile, the Berlin Film Festival has seen its own tempest brewing. And this weekend we're also going to preview two big guild awards. We've got the PGA and SAG's actor awards. Still getting used to calling them actors, not SAG awards. But first, we're going to need to talk about some seismic late breaking news that took place Thursday night, which is Paramount declaring victory over Netflix in the bid for Warner Brothers Discovery.

0:46

Well, the photograph that ran online that is haunting me is is a picture of Ted Sarandos. Well, there's two pictures. There's one of Ted Sarandos. It's sort of like one of those things they put online, Ted Sarandos arriving in Washington, arriving at the White House to have a meeting with Pam Bondi. And then there's the picture of him leaving. And he looks shattered, he looks crestfallen. I'm not, I mean, obviously I'm projecting onto his face, but he looks ashen. He looks haggard. Yes. And so I know, I'm reading into that, but he made this announcement. They made the announcement. Netflix withdrew from the bidding just a few hours after that meeting. So my sense, I think this is, you know, I'm guessing because I don't know what happened in the meeting, but the meeting had been set two weeks prior. So it wasn't new. It was something they had set up. And the thing about this is that Ted Sarandos really was trying to make this work. If you listen to his interview with Matt Bellamy. He's very competitive. He's very, he's trying to sell everybody on why it's a good deal and everything. But I think that the reality of the Washington politics and the regulatory oversight they were going to come in contact with, I think that just really doomed them. And, and he got out while the going was good. And he always did say, as we have a quote, that the transaction was always a nice to have at the right price, not a must have at any price. That's what the two co chief executives stated in there. But that's the thing, if you think about it, that meeting and then just a few hours later, the press release, they did not wait around. They had four days to make this decision. So basically what happened is that Netflix announced that it would not improve its $83 billion December offer to buy the Warner Brothers studio on HBO. The streamer walked away from the deal after Paramount Skydance upped its bid for the entire Warner Brothers discovery package, including Cable assets and CNN, to $31 a share. That's a $111 billion deal. And Netflix had initially won the bidding, had a chance to counter offer, but decline. So, Ryan, what is, what is your reaction to this?

1:26

Well, it's early days, but in this moment where corporate monopolies are de rigueur, I do feel somewhat numb. I know a lot of people are gutted and shocked and they have very confused feelings. Now I mostly am left with a lot of questions in this Paramount takeover scenario. This is not a vertical merger, which is the idea that Ted Sarandos was at least proposing with Netflix. Netflix was only going to take on Warner Brothers film and hbo, Max and hbo, and not necessarily all of its other linear channels and properties and so

3:53

forth, which are in decline in general. Yes.

4:24

Yeah, yeah. And so I don't know how Paramount, even though it is promised so, can maintain their respective studio output alongside Warner Brothers current output, especially as Paramount is taking on a huge amount of debt worth more than half of the sale price. And when you think about something like there's some parallels to the AT&T and Time Warner merger and that obviously didn't go very well, you know, almost 10 years ago now. And so I worry that offsetting that debt is going to portend an acceleration of all the existential threats that are already stalking the industry, such as relying on AI slop at all levels and regurgitating familiar IP once again. Also, we're going to see a lot of layoffs, cost cutting, consolidation. When Disney acquired fox, more than 4,000 people lost their jobs because you identified duplication and redundancy. Why would you have Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network when you could just have one family kids channel. And then, you know, what happens to Pam Abdy and Mike DeLuca who are coming off a great year and with Warner Brothers with an industry leading 30 Oscar nominations, or what happens to the recently created Warner Brothers contemporary specialty label led by those three Neon veterans? I think overall we are facing a situation where this company is going to own at least 40% of the box office and it just means we're going to see fewer movies and far less room for innovation.

4:27

Yeah, I mean, the scenario that you cite with Fox and Disney is unfortunately the likely scenario. And they have to get rid of billion. A lot of, I mean, I think it's. The number ranges from 6 billion to, according to Saranda, 16 billion in cuts. And they have to, you know, in order to function. And that means layoffs. That means getting rid of a lot of people in a time when a lot of people aren't already are struggling for employment here in Hollywood. Netflix looks smart. It's an interesting thing. At the very beginning of this, a lot of people were crying in their beer about Netflix. Oh, the horrible Netflix that hates theaters and everything thing. And of course, Sarandos was insisting that he would follow Windows and run Warner's as a separate studio. And I believe him. He was going to try to see if he could make that business work. But now they collect a $2.8 billion termination fee paid by Paramount. Their stock has already gone back up. It was struggling. The shareholder holders were reportedly nervous about the pending deal. So part of that face that Sarande had, I think was recognizing reality, that the world was telling him that he had to get out of this deal and not to pursue it further. And he may have been disappointed about that. But at any rate, he's a disciplined businessman and they come out ahead in the end and they look like they're disciplined people, I don't think. But, but in the end, the Hollywood reaction now after all these months have gone by that everybody was coming around to recognizing that the relatively quote, unquote, woke Netflix and having CNN go off into a different universe was a good thing. And there are good business people. They, to run a company. They, they're, they're forward thinking. I don't have any confidence in Paramount, you know, the, the Ellisons and what they're going to do with cbs, with cnn. This is part of Trump's agenda.

5:52

They want to control cnn. Is my, I mean, this is a highly plausible, fascinating and horrifying conspiracy theory going around that basically this is all on the heels of the midterm elections. Larry Ellison is bosom buddies with Trump. I mean, Ellison Greenlight, a fourth Rush Hour movie at Trump's behest and with Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual assault and was recently seen in photos with young women in the Epstein Files. So there are a lot of conspiracy theories to be had around this news aspect of it.

8:25

Now the head of CNN is denying that there's a merger with, with cbs or at least what he's really saying is don't, you know, don't jump to any, any conclusions until it happens. So we shall see. But it isn't going to be good. It isn't going to be good. It's going to mean that this administration is in control of most of the major news outlets culture. All right, on that dour note, we can return to discussing our usual beat. Is there more you want to say, Ryan?

8:56

No. So, yeah, Ann, there were some big surprises at baftas last weekend. What do you think their impact on the Oscars is?

9:32

Well, mostly it opens up the two supporting actor races because both winners were surprises. They weren't the front runners. 1mi misaku is the local hero and I think the voters wanted to give Sinners a win. Sinners did very well. I mean, obviously one battle after another got the six big awards, but they like Sinners too and gave it an original screenplay, which is what you would expect and score, you know, for Ludwig. But what we will look forward to at the Oscars is another matter, you know, is it going to be Tiana Taylor and is it going to be UNMI moving forward, going forward with that heartfelt, warm centerpiece performance that sort of holds Sinners together with the two brothers played by Michael B. Jordan? I don't know. Honestly, I want to see what happens at sag and that's the same thing as the Sean Penn win. Now the deal there is that Sean Penn never won at the Baftos and one battle after another did push him forward and he's probably the best known star of the bunch. He's won two Oscars, so that does matter back in La La Land. But he isn't beloved in Hollywood. He's been a bad boy for years, even if he has philanthropy on his side. Do you agree with that, Ryan?

9:39

I do. I don't know. Maybe. Those stories have not made it across the pond, though. I can't believe that they haven't I mean, yeah, it's not a very British role, obviously, and I certainly don't peg Sean Penn as a UK icon, but probably they were amused by this particular archetype of this racist colonel who had a fetish for black women. It's a complex, interesting role and a very good performance. Also. I don't know if that. That will repeat at the Oscars for the reasons that you're saying.

11:16

Is Sean Penn gonna win sag? He might. I briefly. I still say sag. I know it's called the Screen Actors Awards now, but they still say sag. I'm sure most people do, at least for the moment. But because they're the Guild Awards, that's, you know, SAG is the. You know, the thing about SAG is that it's not always predictive. It is often predictive, but not always. They don't always match up. And I do think in this case, you could see Sinners winning SAG for best ensemble. The SAG Awards voters have leaned into mainstream movies with black casts before, and that includes the Help, it includes Hidden Figures, and it includes Black Panther. So it's possible that they would go with Sinners in this case. It wouldn't be a surprise to me. Now, what's the one that's winning everything all the time, one battle after another? So it could go either way, but that's the other thing. I mean, is Teyana Taylor a given because she's in one battle after another? Or could it go with Wunmi Masaku or Amy Madigan, who's up for a SAG Award and is being talked about?

11:48

Amy Madigan's a long beloved actor who gave a very real transformation here, which they always love and has stood up for actors causes over the years. So it could be any of those three. This is a completely wide open.

13:00

I agree. The two supporting actor races are hard to call, and they're hard to. And when we see what happens at sag, we will have a better idea what might happen at the Oscars. So do you think Sinners could win best ensemble? Do you agree?

13:12

I was gonna say, I think Sinners will win best that category just because what you're saying, I mean, you're. All these other movies you. You're using as exemplars. In those same years, there were other movies that were also winning everything. So it's very possible for SAG to go in an errant direction in this category.

13:25

They often do. They. They often.

13:41

And there's a whole ground swell now that's suggesting that Sinners could win Best Picture. Well, we'll have to see what happens at the PGA Awards. I'm. I'm more.

13:43

That's what's going to tell us that answer. They are predictive. They are really predictive. Almost always. Not always, but almost always. And I will say here and now that one battle after another will win the pga and it will win the Oscar for Best Picture and Director and Adapted screenplay. Those things I'm confident about. I really am. And Sinners will win original screenplay, and it will win score and Frankenstein will win costume. You know, if you go down the BAFTA craft lists, they're pretty. You could just transfer them all over to your Oscar ballot, except for one category, which is cinematography that I'm pretty positive is going to go to Sinners.

13:51

Yes, I agree. Or Autumn Derald Arkapau. And this would also make her the first female cinematographer winner.

14:40

Correct. And that's one of the reasons why I think that's going to happen. And the other reason is. I mean, the only other thing is, I don't know about you, but if you just. Judging from what's coming in on my emails and social media, there are huge. I mean, Netflix does not give up. They do not abandon hope. They are pushing for Train Dreams to win in cinematography, pushing hard. And it did win at the Spirit Awards, but I think that's not likely. I still think it'll be.

14:47

Sinners is more of a niche choice, for sure. But, you know, I think Netflix has reason to hold out hope for Jacob Elordi also winning Best Sporting Actor at sag. And I realize you and I have kind of differed in our thoughts about where that will go at the Oscars, but he's still certainly a spoiler in that category. And I think.

15:19

I just think he's very young. I think he's very young. Hot right now, though, he's popular, and I think that's more likely to sway the SAG voters. I've toyed with the idea of picking Elordi for Best Actor at sag. Best Sporting.

15:37

I think he will win the SAG award.

15:51

You do? Over Sean Penn.

15:53

Over Sean Penn. Sean Penn's already got a few SAG Awards. I mean, not that that really matters, but in this case, I think Jacob Elordi, there's a lot of support for him.

15:55

No, he. Apparently, the screenings that he was.

16:04

People are going wild in these screenings.

16:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I don't know. I. You can't. As we say, these, these, these, these, these categories, these two supporting categories. So all Right, let's go back to Bath. But you agree that one, one battle after another will win the PGA and the Oscar?

16:08

Yes. God. And just me just consenting and agreeing. It's like it's getting really painful this award season. It's going on for a long time.

16:27

Well, the Olympics always mess things up when this happens.

16:36

All right, so the other story that has been dominating headlines all week, and why don't you just walk us through what happened when presenters Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan came out on stage.

16:40

So they were offering the first award of the night for vfx, which was of course won by Avatar, Fire and Ash. But the two of them stood there while the N word rang through the hall. And it was because John Davidson, who is the subject of a movie called I Swear, which I saw, and this man, went through terrible things and came out shining as an advocate for others with this difficult condition which puts every sufferer in the crosshairs of the people they manage to insult on a daily basis because they have no control over the words that come out of their mouth. And they're often the worst words, the words you should not say in each situation. It's a very strange and bizarre condition. And when you see the movie, you understand it. But most people haven't seen the movie, by the way, the.

16:51

I haven't.

17:45

The star of the movie, Robert Aramayo, won best actor at BAFTAs. That's how popular the movie was in Britain. And he beat Chalamet for Best Actor. So you can see how. I mean, for example, John Davidson, actually, you know, the movie begins with him worried about blurting the wrong thing as he accepts an MBE from Queen Elizabeth in 2019. So he's been through this stuff before. He gets it. But I understand why the BAFTA producers wanted him to share in the celebration of the movie. But in the end, the worst case scenario took place and he didn't do anything wrong. Given his condition, he had no control. But it was a perfect storm. Warners and others asked for the BBC to remove the slur for the delayed broadcast. Why that did not happen is a great mystery. As they suffered to remove a Free Palestine quote, It hurt people in the room and it hurt people watching around the world.

17:46

Yeah. And the person who said that Free Palestine quote was director Akinola Davies Jr. Of My Father's Shadow. A great movie, by the way. If anyone, you haven't seen it, so that is curious. I agree. And there was an interview in Variety, I guess, apparently it was the exclusive interview that John Davidson gave after the incident and though it read to me like an email interview, frankly. But it turns out he was positioned very close to a microphone, which is odd. And he also wanted to make it clear that the N word was not the only thing he said, shouting out things like boring. When the BAFTA chair started speaking also in this interview, that the N word was not the only thing he said. He had shouted out other things when the BAFTA chair came on. When Paddington came on stage, he had a number of homophobic tics that express themselves. But it does help you understand the condition as something that, as you explained, Anne, forces you to push the wrong word out at the absolute worst time. And what happened over the weekend raises some really tricky questions that I have no idea how to answer, which are, should presenters and nominees and winners be forced to endure racial and other epithets for the sake of inclusion and diversity and letting more people into these spaces? Or should those dealing with conditions like Tourette's be sequestered to a different space or have to sit their attendance out? I honestly have no idea. And all kinds of people are hashing out this argument in both directions.

18:44

Well, we saw what happened when, you know, the worst thing could possible, you know, happened. And I believe with 2020 hindsight that the BAFTA producers should have anticipated what was going to happen. Let Davidson do the red carpet, watch in a side room, join the parties. It would have avoided this unfortunate scenario. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were exemplary and dignified in how they responded. But the baftas, as you say, and the BBC just added insult to injury with every PR move they made. And people were hurt.

20:11

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20:47

I actually feel strongly that this should have been avoided. Even if you wanted to give him that chance to celebrate, he ended up leaving on his own accord the theater. He did?

21:16

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's also. It's depressing how much stories like this overtake what is supposed to be a celebration of film. It's similar thing that we saw with Berlin over the weekend. It's like these are no longer meant to be showcases of the art form. They are meant to feed the Celebrity machine somehow. And just these headlines that just overtake everything. It's very, you know, it really came down very hard on the situation in Berlin that is basically playing out ad nauseam at this point. There are these open letters that are flying around every which way. And after a very fractious festival that had some really good films and winners and it's very sad. So just to break that down, according to this German newspaper, build the artistic director Tricia Tuttle, who is actually only in her second year of a five year contract, maybe on her way out and possibly against her volition. And that's because the German Minister for the State of Culture, Wolfram Weimar, reportedly has called this meeting to discuss the future of her post, which, and the festival, which is obviously in a predicament now. So I think given the high quality of the films this year, which I think everyone agreed is one of the strongest Berlin lineups in years, and I wasn't there. But I think Trisha Tuttle did a great job and to take her out of her position, I think is very concerning because the German state, while it doesn't control the curatorial picks of the festival, the Ministry of Culture has a lot of influence on the funding. And so if they're forcing her out, who are they going to usher in the appointment of instead? And that and then becomes a question of censorship and government control of artistic freedom and free speech, which is what, you know, this festival is all about rallying against.

21:27

Yep. I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And also she, you know, isn't responsible for what other people said in the course of the festival. She made some statements in response which were perfectly reasonable and viable statements. It's, it's a, it's a no win situation these days. So I, I, I don't think I

23:12

had one thing I wanted to add just. Yeah, about that in response. Yeah. You know, you, you mentioned that we talked about there's these journalists asking pointed political questions and it's got me worried that some of these same journalists are sharpening their knives for the Cannes Film Festival and those press conferences where the talent are going to be subjected to the same kind of questions. And we know historically that Terry Frameaux's response to be, to this kind of thing tends to be that he is, you know, his lawn made a show out of eschewing polemics in politics even as the festival attracts them.

23:31

Yeah, he seems to have gotten away with that. I'm curious to see what happens. So basically that's it for this week. We have a couple of Sundance buys which are going to be. So what's going on there is that basically the longer you wait after Sundance, the lower the price gets. This is an old game that Sony Pictures has been playing for years. They ended up picking the only living pickpocket in New York, which features an awards worthy performance from John Turturro. And that's a good match for them. IFC got shitheads which neither of us saw, right?

24:04

No, I didn't.

24:40

And then I did like the rather quirky Scottish romantic comedy the Incomer starring Donald Gleason. You were avoiding that one. I remember it's divisive.

24:41

A lot of people told me not to watch that one.

24:50

But I mean, it's one of those things that's very tweet. You know, you have to go for it.

24:52

Somebody said Napoleon Dynamite in Scotland and that just.

24:57

No, it's not like that.

25:00

Twee is very. That's hard for me to really get through that. I find it pretty agonizing.

25:03

It's a lot like Wallace Island.

25:08

It doesn't, it doesn't inspire confidence.

25:12

All right, so it was picked up by record label turned film distributor Sumerian Pictures, which is the one that also bought Josephine. So we'll, we'll, we'll see how they do with this one. So what the for for this weekend, Ryan? What, what movies coming out do you, do you recommend?

25:15

The one that I recommend, I believe it's just in New York this weekend, but it will be expanding, is Michel Franco's Dreams, which I saw actually a year ago at last year's Berlinala. And you know, Mexican sicko filmmaker Michel Franco is. I love this guy. He also did New Order, he did After Lucia and he's done a number of films with Tim Roth. So this film Dreams. It stars Jessica Chastain who previously starred in Franco's Memory as a very wealthy, spoiled, believes herself to be a feminist arts patron in San Francisco who hooks up with a Mexican ballet dancer in Male ballet dancer in Mexico City and somehow entreats him to illegally cross the border and come and live with her or and start a relationship with her in San Francisco so that she can also help build up his career. Obviously, knowing it's a Michel Franco movie, it goes very badly. Their relationship turns very toxic. But there is, there are a lot of steamy scenes in this film and it gives Jessica Chastain an opportunity to play a kind of Isabel Hu per sort of role. And we know how much she admires that actress and they have worked together. But it just. Yeah, it really reminds me. People say this a lot about Michel Franco films, but this one felt the closest to a Michael Hanukkah movie. And these are two of my favorite directors, so, of course, it was a dream for me.

25:33

I look forward to seeing it. I like several of his movies very much. So the President's Cake is what I will recommend, which was the Iraqi submission for the Oscars. Sony Pictures Classics picked it up way back when, and it's Hasan Hadi's first ever feature. He developed the movie at the Sundance Workshop, which I attended that year, which was really fun. And I got to meet him, and I saw him working. I saw him working with the actors who were there and developing this movie, and it turned out very well. It's a lovely story. It's heartwarming. It's surprising because you just don't know what the terrain they're living in these sort of thatched huts by the water, and they're very poor. And the bad luck every year is whoever gets the assignment to cook the cake for the school for the president's birthday, because it's expensive in those worlds to find all the ingredients to make a cake, and so the little girl has to go into the city and somehow summon up the resources to do this. And it's a wonderful story. It works very well. I don't know if you saw it.

27:06

Still haven't seen it. Apologies to the SBC folks that are listening. No, it's just one of those ones that evades you for months. And also, you. You weren't sure that I would be super into it.

28:21

It's a little heartwarming for you.

28:33

Yeah. In other words, it's not a Michelle Franco movie.

28:37

No.

28:40

Okay. All right.

28:41

Well, I'd like to think you would like it anyway, because it's beautifully made.

28:43

Yeah, I know. I'm definitely. I'm gonna watch it.

28:48

And it has an edge to it. It's not cloying or anything. It's. It's well done.

28:50

I'm embarrassed that I haven't seen it, so I'm going to get on it.

28:55

Okay, so that's where we're going to send you off to this weekend. And next week, we are going to focus very much. I know we'd been talking about the Oscars for a long time, but we're going to get into it and do some predictions and give you some direction. If you're heading toward filling out your ballots next week is the time to listen in, then.

28:59