Insider's Guide to and Recap of CinemaCon 2025 | Ticket to Ride Podcast – S2 EP9 Part 2

[Music] i'm Paul Garedian senior media analyst for Comore and I'm here with Thaddius Buchard of Screen Dollars and Mike Polydoris of Paper Airplane Media and we're in a super sized edition of Ticket to Ride season 2 episode 9 part D yes nine and uh so we're we're giving you the we're continuing our Cineacon wrap up but before we get to that I want to ask particularly Mike Polydoris what did you hear what were the takeaways that you heard during and coming out of Cineacon which was just last week interesting you should say that Paul going into Cineacon wasn't really sure what the key you know we knew that the the performance of the box office was going to be a topic but the real kind of industry issues that at some point will need to be addressed it feels like there were three things number one were I think everybody's read about it it's the windows and exhibition is really looking for a 5-day window the studios kind of like it the way it is there's a big debate over you know what those windows actually mean to the box office and it really you know I talked to a lot of different people from all sides of the aisles so so to speak last week and it really depends on who you're talking to on what the viewpoint is on that would you say Mike that's the hot topic or hot button issue that is the hottest topic right now and I think though the good news is unlike where we were you know six seven years ago where you know there were lines being drawn in the sand regarding the windows i think this is more of a discussion at this point and I think that there are there is optionality that will be you know one one u one prominent exhibitor I talked to said we just have to be in a place where we're not conditioning the consumer to expect it to be available to him in a couple of weeks somewhere right and I thought that was a very astute way of looking at it so they weren't totally against every now and then a window you know being a little more aggressive or whatever it was but they did not want it to be like it's going to go this this this and this because that's going to train the consumer like you have to you know if you keep them guessing you know and you want to see a movie you're going to go you know because if let's say happy hour is every 5:00 p.m at a certain restaurant you're going to come to expect that so then if suddenly you know the windows are x y and z then the like you just said that paraphrasing what somebody said about the if the consumer starts thinking well if I wait a couple of weeks or you know 3 weeks I can just watch this movie at home but we have obviously seen examples where audiences knew the movie was available at home and still went to the theater well the argument on the other side of that is that's right so the portion of the audience that is coming to the theater doesn't really care that it's going to be on on transactional at home what they're saying is there's a portion of the audience that would come to the theater but is not you never even see them because they're like I'm just waiting the two weeks until it's it's or 3 weeks until it so I don't know if there's any data really to pack you know to back all of it up but that is the that is kind of the argument now conversely the studio argument because everybody's going to wonder like well what's the studio argue the studio argument is very simple and that is we are spending millions and millions of dollars to market these movies right a lot of times now and there's we can go into all the reasons but you know movies don't necessarily have the long tale they used to have as far as how they play out a lot of that has to go with out with the old in with the new and and that kind of thing so the studio is saying after 3 weeks Mr exhibitor is basically saying I'm off screen in 90% of my locations and now I've got to wait another 30 days before I can actually start monetizing it again after I've spent all this awareness in marketing to you know so it would be better if I can just kind of dovetail off of that i'm going to be able to do better on my margins which ultimately means I'm going to bring more movies to the movie theater and it's not going you know and to your point Paul it doesn't affect the box office because we see it actually gets a lift so those are the two kind of competing arguments that on the studio side and on the uh theatrical side or the exhibitor side is very well said i think too the whole idea of having the percentage of box office earned within the first two or three weeks of a movie's debut is pretty significant that you could argue and I'm not arguing this but if you just look at the data a lot of movies do make the lion share of their box office in that first two weeks but the point is is that they need to remain theatrical that builds in my opinion that prestige factor the want to you know the want to see factor and all that I think so here's the key thing and this goes back to you know we've We've talked about this before and that is if there was any silver lining that came out of the pandemic and there were very few silver linings the one would have been that both the studios and the exhibitors were in a position to try every distribution pattern they could think of there was we're going day and date we're actually going to go streaming seven days before we're going to go into release we're going to go 30 we're going to go so yeah it was like a test kitchen to do that in that you know it's an experiment that was enabled via the pandemic and and we came back to something that you know my gosh who would have thought if you go exclusive theatrically for any type of window you elevate the IP and do exactly what you said Paul and that is you create a want to see you know in the waterfall you know whether that's pod whether that's SVOD whether it's Avod whether it's Avon it doesn't matter you know Yeah Avon calling what do you think of Snow White then i mean Snow White famously underperformed it had so many issues swirling around it we don't have to go into all those but I argue and I've seen this that a lot of movies that did not do well for whatever reason on the big screen can often are often bigger on streaming because of the people have heard about all that that that's that that's going to be something for Disney to have to sift through when they get done with it and I don't think it's gone to streaming or to pe yet if it did it just got there but you know I guess the point to the story is the studios are getting squeezed just as much as the exhibitors are now and I know it's hard for everybody to believe but you know just look at what's happening with some of these bigger bigger companies you mentioned Disney you know they're going to take it on the chin pretty well you know the if the numbers are right on Snow White you know that one's not going to pencil out the way that they probably would like so the margins for the studios are tough the margins for the exhibitors are tough and they all you know while they're playing in the same sandbox they have kind of different financial models of how it all works and I think what it comes down to is we just need to come up with a way that works for everybody i think we're close you know i mean I think we're a lot closer today than we were six seven years ago when it was you got to be 90 days and it's you know we're going to go to war if you're not i don't I don't feel that i feel it's a conversation and I feel there's some creativity that's going to have to happen to make to make that but but it was it was it's important enough that it was it was probably the number one topic that came up this week the number the number two topic that came up this week is something that I've been hearing rumblings from for the last probably year and a half as as talking to people and that is pricing and that is that the value proposition of going out to the movies needs to be what it always has been Paul and that is the best value proposition in the entertainment space and I think a lot of individuals are starting to feel that's not necess necessarily the case that when you start adding up how much I'm spending on a ticket and especially if you're going to a premium format what I'm spending on concessions what I have to spend on the babysitter what I have to spend on you know parking and everything like that whatever it is you know you add it up and in the old days and you know we were just talking before we uh before we uh hit the record button guys uh this is the old group here but in the old days when we were going you know going to the movies you could take a flyer it didn't cost that much and you could go and see a movie and if it was if it wasn't great it was like yeah but it was a fun night out but now you know if it's a couple hundred bucks for you to go to the movies and take the family that's a significant investment and taking the family to Hawaii I mean it is cheaper than taking the family to a sporting event but that's true you but if you're going to compare us to going to a concert or a sporting event which are maybe once a month right or once once a quarter or or twice a year then we're going to lose because we need to be it's Friday night i can go to the movies it's not going to break the bank and I'm going to maybe see something that wasn't an appointment movie and I'm going to enjoy it we need to get back to that you know I know that Film Frog Brandon Jones was was mentioning or was it him i I forget who it was but somebody said "We have bargain Tuesday why not have bargain Wednesday?" Like that was Chris that was Chris brought that up aronson brought that up chris Chris brought that up in the Caramont thing that's right he's not wrong and you know you look at it and you know the way we price movies again it's like everything we do you know we're based and you know some people are going to get mad at me for this one but it's true you know a lot of our business practices are all based on a 35 millimeter business an analog business we're in the digital world and we should be doing things that other industries do and the pricing model is it doesn't matter if it's Minecraft or if it's you know Joe Blow went to the movies the price is the same for that ticket right is that is that the smartest way for us to be doing business and again the issue always becomes well you know a human can't sit there and say you know I'm going to say this movie is worth this and this movie is worth that and I'm not suggesting that But you know with technology today when we go to a sporting event when we go to the movie or uh I'm sorry when we fly on an airline when we go to a hotel all those prices are determined based on market availability and what has happened it's all supply and demand but it's real time supply and demand yeah it's digital so there's your there's your analog versus digital cuz it can all be calculated and the argument for the longest time has always been that Paul is not going to be happy if he knows he spent 12 bucks for a ticket and that he has spent 11 it happens on every time I fly on an airplane you could be spending 400 for your seat and the person next to you paid 100 or or more you never know and it doesn't matter is what it comes down to it just doesn't matter anymore so I think that that argument really needs to be taken into consideration and we need to figure out a way to make when Minecraft is opening the value proposition on that is a lot higher than the value proposition is on I'm I'm not picking on the movie i'm just saying because the way it performed Novacade so if you look at how Novacaane did Novacaane would have benefited probably from having a more aggressive price or Black Bag or Black Bag either one of those would have would have probably had more people come see it and would had a higher gross meanwhile you probably could have got a higher gross by a little bit out of Minecraft because the demand was a little higher there well you know I just came up with the solution guys it's price it's how many dollars per minute of uh screen time the brutalist would like be really expensive right there there are there are you get your money's worth you get no easy solutions in any of this hey so Mike what what's so what's another And so we talked about talked about the windows pricing if you have any more on pricing go ahead no the the last thing that really came up and this one is again going to be a much tougher one to to come up with and that is the the general marketing of movies and how movies are marketed today versus how traditionally movies have been marketed and you know Paul you and I have talked about this for years going back to you know pre- pandemic about you know in the olden days when I had air linear TV was the majority of what it would be you would have 65 70% would go to the TV campaign and because people were watching TV network TV even cable TV on a regular basis it was it was I'm not going to say easy but you knew where these people were and you could get ads to them now everybody's watching their streaming shows the only thing people are really watching live these days are sporting events so if you can't reach them via a sporting event you know it's digital media it's connected TV it's YouTube you know it's it's those ways that the studios are having to resort to and it's much less not effective but it's harder to make that initial you know pop because if you're sitting there on YouTube I think everybody is very familiar with skip the ad after 4 seconds unless there's something that grabs you in that 4 seconds you're skipping the ad it really goes to show you because then I guess when you look at it you take a step back and you look at you know IP you know original IP versus what I would call you know established IP the established IP tends to be able to break through a little bit better it sure does Mike i mean look at Novacane Last Breath Black Bag all well reviewed yep the Looney Tunes movie did quite well but Looney Tunes is a brand so well that's the thing is if you have a brand you're ahead of the game and like Minecraft like Minecraft absolutely had a brand and I think as you as you know taking a step back as an industry we're going to have to figure this one out and that is it's not just spend more money it's how do we efficiently spend to identify the audience you mean when you talk about marketing and I want to ask Thaddius this too because you work with exhibitors all the time so there's the studio marketing right they have that marketing budget but then there's the in the marketing and let's talk about that what theater managers and their staff and can do to go beyond the studio marketing and get it in the theater i think there's a couple different sort of thing to me anyways that come to mind here one is that coming back to what you said Mike is that you know if you're on YouTube and you've got the sort of you know skip after 5-second ad experience that you're that you're having you're not putting a 30-se secondond spot on someone's linear television right in front of them so that they follow from beginning to end you've got 3 seconds to get your message across and if it's existing IP it's like "Oh yeah Looney Tunes I know what that is there's a movie coming out got it." Whereas if it's Novacane it's like "I don't know what that is skip." So I think you have to talk in a different way you not only have to reach the audience online where they live but you have to talk to them in a very very different way than the studios or coming back to what you were asking about Paul the exhibitors are used to i think the studios have pretty sophisticated marketing departments that have built up over the decades so they have a sense for how to communicate although there's a lot of learning going on on the studio side too and I'm sure you guys are hearing that all the time but from exhibitor's point of view exhibitors you know if that's like a whole podcast is how exhibitors do their marketing to their community to their customers and potential customers the exhibitors that are used to just opening the doors and letting people come in for the latest movie are really struggling because that's not much marketing even old school marketing let alone new school marketing so now they have to identify you know how to reach out to and communicate with folks and then they have to talk to them in the right way yeah they they have two challenges that is I mean that is what what you're saying is I mean that's the whole basis of paper airplane that's what we do we work with talk about that well we did what we work with the studios the exhibitors what I would call the thirdparty content partners and we work to best utilize all of the exhibitor channels to reach movie goers using their movie goer data retargeting people who have seen similar movies being able to send a message to someone who wants to receive the message to me Daddius that goes back to what you were talking about on the YouTube skip if we can get a message to someone who wants to receive the message you know twothirds of the battle is done so how do you do that on a movie like Mickey 17 Black Bag Last Breath Nova not put anyone on the spot but No no no i mean they're great they're great they're great questions you need to go and figure out okay Mr exhibitor has you know eons of movie data on what people are coming to they know you know if you're a member of any of these loyalty clubs you know or if you've used the credit card they've got a pretty good idea what you're buying tickets for so the idea would be you know let's take last breath okay what movies are we going to comp that to you know what movies that have come out and you really have to use a a subset that's within the last three or four years you can't go much much underwater diving movies but but it's Woody Harelson it's this that so you create a comp list of reasons that somebody would want to come to that movie you then dissect that and you figure out what exhibitors are good at certain things you know who's good at a push notification who's good at an email you know there's a secret sauce to how all of this stuff works and then what you've got to do is you then reach out with the right you know the right messaging to those people and the idea to engage and to be able to get them you know to do a call to action and to actually purchase a ticket it's none of it is easy that that's what it comes to and none of it new product every week right so but you've got to be planning ahead it's new product every week and to what Thaddius says is it's out of the norm the norm used to be studio's got to do all the heavy lifting i'll do a little bit but for the most part the studio is going to do it and and that model is not going to work anymore and exhibition realizes it and they know they have all this data i think they're still figuring out exactly how they want to use it and how I can slice and dice it and you can't over send information to somebody you know you can't sit there and send Paul a email blast you know five times a day because you're just going to be immune to it after a while it really has to be sending you know Paul a message that he wants to receive i I can't emphasize that enough and then how do we engage consumers to talk to their friends and family more because the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary for example Mike you turned me on to that i didn't even know it was coming out and we were on the podcast you're like Paul I'm not really a Zeppelin fan but I saw this trailer i go what like you would think social media should be the answer to that question right so people share share information right and again you're you're you're both right um you know we we don't do a very good job as an industry of tapping into that word of mouth that we could and I think again that is getting outside our comfort zone creating you know creating ways that people can share and people can talk about I was at this movie I saw this this was great or I've heard about this movie and I think dig it but but it's important that the content providers and the exhibitors are able to provide this you know these nuggets that the that the that that their movie goers could use that to me is you know that that is a a important kind of of way of doing you know looking forward but again I'm going to say what I said at the top and that is none of this is easy there are no easy solutions to any of this transfer of word of mouth that used to go through the reviews right the film reviewers i mean that's how you that's how you learned about a film well but but so now you have those things you still have them you know and you know you have letter box you have uh Rotten Tomatoes you have ways that you know the quality of a movie is being shared for for better and for worse because I think the other thing that happens too now Paul is that if a movie isn't that great word gets out pretty quick well and and conversely if a movie doesn't do well that's that box office wise that is then conflated by many people with the quality of the movie and I always say you know Mickey De's sells the most hamburgers are they the best hamburgers well that's up to interpretation so I mean just cuz a a movie doesn't do well in terms of the box office but again that happens though people go "Oh that movie must be no good." No it probably wasn't properly marketed or the word of mouth didn't get out in the way or the I'm not going to blame the movie i'm not going to blame properly properly marketed cuz I I think that's a copout in a lot of ways cuz I think you know marketing a movie is very very difficult i think if anyone's going through wash and repeat marketing that's a problem because I do I do believe that the days of you know I'm just going to do this I'm going to do this and it's all going to work you can't you can't put it on autopilot right now no i think every movie needs to be treated what about release dates too i mean that's really important as well well the release dates we we've we've done podcast on that before where we've talked about the strategy that goes into the giant puzzle that is the release calendar and that can make or break movies uh just as just as much as all the other pieces but it all kind of comes together and you know it is now I'm going to segue us back to kind of the the cinemon of it good i was just about to go there it it is looking at all the product we saw last week to me it's an exciting time to be you know in the in the uh in the indust when I was seeing some and in the theater seeing that those you know it makes a huge difference but we talk about TV spots and all that but oh my god like that Running Man footage on that big screen and the Jurassic World and we'll get more into that cuz we're going to segue into this because this is part two of our super size and boy is it we're already at 30 minutes we we're just getting to the Cineacon continuation of our our recap i forget where we left off but I think we're starting with Angel perhaps but we right angel is is next up um the I didn't see the whole presentation but one movie that I feel really stood out for me well there's two movies in The Angel angel's got one opening this week uh King of Kings which is it's going to be their best performing film since Sound of Freedom and then the other piece is going to be or the other movie that I'm looking forward to uh is Sketch and Sketch is a throwback to like a Goonies Gremlins type of movie you know it'll be interesting to see how that one plays out later this summer and they had a I mean for Angel this is huge to be at Cineacon and well they were there last year yeah but I mean that's actually it was great they were not in the Coliseum they actually did a a breakfast presentation in the ballroom you know it's you know all of my you know as I as I talk with all of our friends in exhibition you know they're all it's all about content you know we all talk about they you know they can't rely on you know the top six providers they need everybody to be pitching right and to have a company like Angel or to have a company like Amazon step up is really important that's great what's next what was the next student the next one is uh Paramont I think is what we missed or was Universal i'm Did we talk about Universal yet no we did not you know what you're right we did not talk about Universal let's Let's Okay and Disney that's our That's our list disney wrapped up universal Paramount and Disney so Universal did something that Mike can I jump in yeah so walking into the coliseum and seeing a like I don't know 70 piece orchestra on or the not and I don't know if the orchestra just the the chairs were out there i'm like whoa something big's going to happen the musicians came out and these were the musicians from Universal that play the themes for all these uh you know great films mike I didn't articulate that very why don't you take over but really to to have a live full orchestra on stage for the Universal presentation was just amazing it was like the Oscars it's like the Oscars right it was better than the Oscars so it was a 42piece orchestra led by Ricky Miner and the best thing I can compare it to for anyone who has ever gone to the Hollywood Bowl over the summer and saw John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl it was it was similar to that so they opened up with about a five six minute montage of identifiable universal themes jaws Jaws Back to the Future Back to the Future Psycho ET and and the orchestra playing the theme music while clips from the movie played um above it was you know there were many people who said you know they did not have a dry eye when that was it was amazing mike have they ever has any studio ever done that like when Never i've never remember well you know let let's take a step back i want to say the level of the productions this year or the presentations was incredible i mean I don't think I've ever been to a cinema con where a full concert like the weekend broke out with the you know at Lionsgate or where we had a full orchestra that came in or uh you know we'll get to Paramont where you know Tom Cruz was you know took the stage and basically held it very eloquently for almost 30 minutes as he as he impassionately spoke about theatrical experience and about what Mchu has meant but going back to Universal thought it would was again a really you know the the orchestra was fantastic i thought their lineup was you know again really good jurassic looks kickass man they look like they're kind of you know after kind of being tongue and cheek for a while they basically are are making this a little darker this one which is Johansson came to play man she She just looks like I mean she kind of looked Laura Croftish in the movie but I think it almost feels like a reboot in a way cuz it just felt very different like you said it very much did but uh I I Yeah me too me too and Focus Features had some cool cool movies on display i mean I love the combination of the very And this has been like a Universal like a mainstay strategy from Universal and all the studios do this to an extent of course well and I I thought they did a really good job too of showing the diversity of their slate including um you know the announcement on the new Shrek movie and then talking about Gabby's dollhouse that uh is coming up as well so it looks like they've got a lot coming up and the Blumbhouse stuff some of it was a little out there I will say what What was that movie called soulmate soulmate yes that is out of the Megan universe yeah it's like an R-rated Megan that was uh that was a Megan 2.0 and then a Black Phone 2 those movies look awesome so I mean going back to Universal's roots of horror they were the horror studio back in the day while Warner Brothers was the gangster studio mgm was the musical studio and that that identity remains through mostly through Blumhouse with Universal but what a great Oh hey we got to go back hold on editing i got the wrong movie in there gabby's Gabby's dollhouse is Nickelodeon i think that's a paramount one that's not a uh that's So please take that out okay okay not a movie i'm It sounds weird well and and you know so now uh for the editor 5 4 3 2 1 and then picking it up Paul wrapping up with uh Wicked you know wicked wicked for good i mean um you know right now yeah that's that's probably my pick for highest grossing film of the calendar year that trailer or the footage I guess it was a it was a trailer cuz then the release date at the end of it that trailer on that big screen with that sound that's when people are in theaters i don't know when they're going to start running that trailer but holy crap man that was amazing that was a great trailer and I agree with you Mike that movie is going to blow the doors off y Universal great job great presentation jim Moore shout out to Jim and their entire team uh then everybody over there yeah so our friends at Paramont kicked off Thursday morning okay can I play Chris Aronson for a second uh yes please do comes out he goes "Okay everybody." And he does this and he goes "This year we're going to play it straight." And everyone's like you could hear the whole place like "Yeah right." And then Mike what happened well I want to set that up real quick so yeah Chris who is a great guy he has a reputation of being a showman going back to his Fox days when he came out for The Greatest Showman and did a big dance number you know Chris does not disappoint when it comes to his entrance at Cineacon so for Chris to say "We're playing it straight." And then all of a sudden it was uh the Mission Impossible stunt team that came out and an electric bikes that sounded like motorcycles they had the sound and Chris even took off on one and put on a helmet yeah and there was a whole stunt show that uh they were doing the one guy did a backflip there were ramps yeah i would have been I I would have been nervous if I was in the front row you know I would have been nervous think about the pressure on those stump performers to do that on a stage which is a pretty tight well by the way so I' I've been on that stage numerous times um you know working some of these presentations and the other thing you don't realize is you don't have the full stage because you have a screen that comes up so you've really got almost a third you've only have about a third of the actual space to work with it is you know it it it's tight up there and uh for them to do what they were doing that's writing i mean there were like how many of them Mike seven or eight of these guys on the And they And they rode through the audience too i mean not through the audience but through the aisles next to the audience and I'm sure I'm sure the insurance writer on that was Chris Denson you guys played a I think they got the Cirus LA team over right yes and then Mission Impossible obviously was a big part of this and Mike you alluded to this earlier i was sitting next to someone who said "There's no way Tom Cruz will be here." I'm like "Well you just wait." Sure enough he was there to give the director of Cineacon director of the year award to McHugh Christopher McCrory who famously wrote The Usual Suspects and well here here's the funny thing so they referred to McHugh's first movie that he directed several times they never said the title of the movie right do you know what the title of the movie was no it was Way of the Gun it was an artisan release way of the Gun ryan Phipe and Benio Del Toro in it and I remember this movie because I worked on the movie Way of the Gun if you haven't seen it go watch the opening scene mhm i mean it is Ryan Philippy and Bonitio they get in like a rumble with a bunch of people and this woman in particular i remember I haven't seen the movie in years i haven't seen the movie since but remember that scene we'll link it in the comments we'll link it in the comments of our podcast that movie Way of the Gun you didn't mention that that that was Tom mentioned that movie my buddy Tom I'm going to call him Tom by the way so side note I had heard I don't know this for a fact but I had heard the night before Tom Cruz was actually at the bar that used to be Cleopatra's bar he was hanging with Mchugh and they were just they were just having a couple of drinks call me Mike with the you know with with all the convention guys just hanging around and I think everyone was like "My god that's Tom Cruz." Oh man I wish I had known that yeah I met Tom Cruz once i have a photo of him with my mom my late mother we were at one of the J.J abrams Star Trek movie premieres and Tom because he supports his directors man he was obviously not in the movie but showed up and you know usually stars I know we're getting I'm going on a tangent but that's why people listen to Ticket to Rider all these experiences but Tom Cruz walks in everybody's like "Holy crap that's Tom Cruz right there." And then as what happens at a lot of premieres and I haven't been to one in years I used to go all the time he started walking away and everyone's like "Tom Tom come back." And usually a star once they're heading for the door they're done yeah they're done like like fully done and he had no people with him no entourage and he came back and I used my mom I hate to say it as bait to meet Tom Cruz i'm like "My mom loves you." And he came up we took a picture she talked to him for about 30 seconds which was amazing and so my mom she used to have a picture of she and I in her purse she took that one out ploop and put the one of her and Tom Cruz in there and Tom Cruz and I have that picture for Tom when somebody's nice to your mom i mean that I'll never forget how gracious he was and he Mike you talked about this earlier he went on stage and was so great what What were you going to say at that i was going to say these star appearances whether it's filmmakers or actors or both to Cineacon that's one of the reasons why people come to Cineacon as well that's right well that is one of the big attractions too so tell us about the Tom Cruz there so Tom you know he's he's no it's it's not a secret how passionate he is about the theatrical experience and he he went on a passionate plea with Exhibition on how important it was you know to keep this medium alive and and all the different movies and I thought as he was talking about the windup of Mission Impossible as a series at least up till now he thanked every director every key executive who had worked on the on on his movies like it was it was probably one of the most true to the heart he held that whole stage and he did a tribute to Val Kilmer and had us all do a moment of silence for about 15 20 seconds yeah you could have only Tom Cruz could get that everybody's just like you could hear it was quiet yeah going back to the presentation and mission looks fant obviously you know you know it looks it looks great final reckoning what the movie I walked out and it's one of the top movies I walked out of the week going I was so so going in and I am now all in and can't wait and that is Running Man the the reboot it's not a it's not a remake i think they went back to the source material and they're they're going to try to do the movie very close to that and probably it stars the guy right now who's the closest thing to the next Tom Cruz and that's Glenn Powell that guy is great in everything that he's in and I don't know about you guys but I walked out of there going Running Man is on my the top of my list so Edgar Wright is one of my absolute favorite all-time directors baby Driver of course Last Night in Soho this movie looks so good running man again on the big screen was so impactful when we were watching the footage and that one is just and then Josh Brolan and Glenn Pal the stars of the movie did a Q&A on Thursday midday at a lunch jacqueline Coley interviewed them and wow what a movie man this looks so good so good yeah so I thought they were they were you know that was that was another one where you walked out of there going that you know Paramont's you know definitely got the goods on on what they've got going and then that would take us to our final presentation of the week and that was our good friends at Disney coming out and anyone who had any doubts that the liveaction adaptation of Lilo and Stitch was going to be a home run um you know those fears were put away by the way I don't think anybody had those fears but that footage wait can I mention one thing before I forget going back to Running Man Coleman Domingo as like the game show host oh yeah yeah that was great he was so good and he was part of the the Q&A um with Josh Brolan and and Glenn Pal but sorry to interrupt you i just want to make sure to mention Oh yeah yeah no and uh the Lilo and Stooot footage looked fantastic so now for for Disney Absolutely i'm a mid-century modern fan that retro futuristic thing going on fantastic 4 looks fantastic if I They look like It looks like they finally got that one right doesn't it it's like the Jetsons meets the I don't know Frank Lloyd Wright or something or the mid-century it's just so cool that one looking of course Thunderbolt what's the asterisk for on the Thunderbolts i should know this right that is funny that has been the topic of the week you don't know either no no i had a few people come to me and say they have theories i'm not going to put them out there of what it is but it is great marketing right it is great marketing but it is something that is supposedly will be answered in the movie you know I'm glad I asked that cuz I usually I want to cover up when I don't know something don't sound stupid when I ask an obvious question but I'm glad we don't really we have rumors but we don't know the actual answer to it that looked great as well the cast came out on stage i mean there was a lot of star power at Disney that's so my my favorite movie and this will you know this will surprise no one but who knows who knows me it's my favorite movie of the week I have no idea how it's going to do from a box office standpoint is Deliver Me from Nowhere and that is the the Springsteen bio and unlike the Dylan bio which basically was about his beginnings right this is about the period in Spring in Springsteen's uh life where he was going from being you know a a strong rock and roll performer to being a mega star and coming to terms with his own um ego and everything like that and Bruce has been very vocal you know recently about his struggles with mental health and this this really focuses on the struggles he went through through this period and for anyone who's a Springsteen fan like myself this basically covers the period after Nebraska I'm sorry uh during Nebraska after Born in the US or leading into Born in the USA so it's after the river leading into Born in the USA it's when he it's when he did this very personal acoustic um album Nebraska which is fantastic for anybody and in the trailer they showed how he recorded that like in a in a hotel room with a four no he he recorded it on a four track at his home oh at his home in a room and with the idea it was all going to become the next big studio album and these were just the tracks to play them for the band the band was then going to add in the full and and they actually did record them as full band bruce decided it didn't convey what he was feeling he went back to he couldn't get the sound that he got when they recorded in in the bedroom so they ended up that's what got released on Nebraska last night I listened to State Trooper and listened to the whole album it's incredible jeremy Ellen White plays the boss yep steven Graham plays his dad right douglas Dutch Springsteen david Crumbaltz is Al Teller and notably Jeremy Strong is John Landau let's talk about John Landau i mean famously Bruce's producer and friend yeah and Landau for again in Springsteen lore had been a writer for Rolling Stone and he had seen Bruce early on and he had the famous quote I have seen the future of rock and roll and he and Springsteen actually became very close and you know to this day Landau is his partner in all decisions that get done on on in Springsteen i think the casting in a biopic is so look look I mean again I am a huge Springsteen fan you know anybody do you give it your approval Mike then just you know and just to to you know I had somebody ask me the other day say yeah how big of a fan are you and my question back to them was this is how you can tell how many shows have you been to and they were like I got you buddy it's like I've been to 32 and I go yeah when you go to another 20 beyond that let me know and we can talk how many how many shows and how many years do you figure you've Bruce Springsteen and the East Street band that you So uh first show was 1980 at the sports arena didn't really know anything it was the River Tour and uh the latest show was last year in Barcelona and uh between those two um you know I've seen 52 different Springsteen shows uh across the world across the world yeah mike a lot of people go to shows a year a Exactly or they'll go to a local show i have some friends i'm gonna give a shout out to Dave Germaine and and and Jack my friend Jack uh anyway they they go to see Van Morrison all over the world mac Martin it's nothing like you know can I do that over i screwed that up yeah go ahead the editors editor Mike yeah just as you love the boss and you've traveled the world seeing the boss my friends Dave Germaine and Jack Martin they traveled the world to see Van Morrison and I've even met them in a couple like up in Toronto and other places so when you love somebody you're willing to travel like that like you are for the boss I think you'll be first in line for uh deliver us from deliver me from nowhere deliver us from evil but deliver me deliver us from evil i very rarely try to get to the point where I can crash a premiere or something like that kind of over that these days but this is one where u I'm going to do everything I can to try i'll go with you Mike all right i want to be your plus one that that passion is what makes these sort of musical biopics what they are right it's sort of like the passion for your favorite superhero or or Minecraft or anything like that you know you've get this sort of built-in intense personal feeling about the subject matter so that's interesting well for the for the nonspringsteen nuts probably the the in addition to Lilo and Stitch the the big footage out of the Disney presentation was they showed us a few minutes of Avatar and yeah I thought you know it looked great it look like a continuation of what we've seen you know and and I feel like if you look at the summer or at the Christmas season and we talked about it in the last part when we talked about Lion's Gate between having Housemade and Avatar your theaters are going to be so busy holiday and Wicked well yeah Wicked will still be playing i mean it's going to be an insane Christmas season so you know I think we I think we should wrap it in a few minutes because we've gone almost an hour guys so yes we may have any more takeaways from Cineacon or anything else before we wrap this superersized episode of Ticket to Ride with Thaddius Buchard from Screen Dollars Mike Polydor paper airplane i can read it on his hat and I'm Paul Garedian senior media analyst for comore episode oh no season two episode 9 we're almost to wrap any other thoughts guys before we wrap cine is great i guess I want to come back and just say a thing about the three points that you made Mike because I think that of those three points you've got Windows you've got pricing and you've got marketing i think the first two are it's not easy to get to a resolution on but it's easy to understand what the issues are right so pricing is pricing you know you charge whatever you decide to to charge windows or windows how many days is it going to be from which studio on which film marketing I think is the most challenging one because it's not straightforward you have to have teams of people to explore and analyze it and they'll all come to different conclusions so it's interesting how that I feel it's interesting and Paul you're talking to the press all the time how the press writes about these things or whether the pre the press writes about all of these things yeah so well I I'm going to go back to all three of them and it's going to be something that our industry needs to get out of its comfort zone a little bit to tackle the best way possible and there are no easy answers on any of the three but they are all issues that definitely need to get addressed in some fashion so that you know we look here's I I again using the buzzword i think that the number one thing as an industry we need to do is grow the top of the funnel and we need you know that's been a shrinking top and we need to make that the biggest possible top of the funnel and you know the competition for the entertainment dollar has never been greater people are still consuming more entertainment than they ever had we need to reintroduce them that you know the theatrical experience is not only the best experience but it's the best value proposition experience there you go well I think we'll leave it there wow what a put a nice bow on that guys nadius and Mike i have nothing to add believe it or not so that's it for this episode super sized episode part two of our Cineacon Rap and make sure you go and listen to part one as well of this episode Wherever Records and Tapes Are Sold thanks guys have a good one guys take care see you later everyone bye bye bye [Music]