Donna Langley, Chairman and Chief Content Officer of NBCUniversal Studio Group. Donna, welcome to our conference. We're thrilled to have you.
Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
Great. So you've been at Universal for over two decades. Over that time, you've had many owners, and that your current owner, and hopefully final one is Comcast. How does being part of a Comcast is a very different company than the prior owners, so how does being part of this company benefit NBCU on the film side, and also if you could take it from the TV and streaming sides?
Sure. Well, I remember very distinctly when Brian bought the company, and he and Steve Burke addressed everybody and said, "We're here to stay. We think like owners, not renters, and we're investors," and that is as true today as it was back then, so you know, they do invest in our businesses, and they understand our business, which is unlike some of our previous owners, you know, they really do understand the media business, and it's complementary to their other businesses, and for me, personally, as a leader, you know, they do something really extraordinary, which is they trust in us as a leadership group and management team, and they give, you know, they give us the confidence to take swings and to, you know, make bold choices.
So movies like Oppenheimer, not easy choices, but, you know, we really always feel that we have the full weight of Comcast behind us when we do something like that.
Right. And maybe you can talk a little bit about how content drives NBCU's other businesses. I mean, it seems pretty obvious on the theme park side and consumer products, but you know, and like, maybe you can talk about how your content affects the other businesses, but then how the other businesses play into how you think about what you-
Sure. Well, I think that we're uniquely positioned as a company. Maybe Disney, you know, has similar assets, but the fact that we do have this great flywheel of multiple platforms, different audiences, and a theme park, of course. You know, to your point, there is this sort of obvious symbiotic relationship between our IP and the theme park. But it's obvious, and it's not obvious. Actually, to go back to two thousand and eleven, when Comcast bought the company, I think as a studio, we had one bona fide franchise. And if you think about franchises, really IP that exists in multiple different ways, right? So it's content, long form, short form, theme parks, you know, publishing and just whatever.
Today, we sit with a plethora of franchises, whether it's, you know, the reboot of Jurassic Park, now Jurassic World. Illumination, the purchase of DreamWorks Animation, has really super served us with these great IP opportunities, and so that's why you saw last year the release of Super Mario Bros., the movie, which was a huge hit, that was timed to the opening of the theme park, ride in Los Angeles. Next year, as Epic Land opens at the theme park in Orlando, we will be releasing a live action How to Train Your Dragon. So these things are not coincidental. They are intentional, and I think we've built that muscle, and we continue to build it as we go and as we grow. There's real growth opportunities there for us.
You know, again, both across the sort of landscape of IP and, you know, and consumer products and experiences.
So I don't even know if you use the, this word anymore to describe it, but, you know, when Steve Burke was there, you, it was Symphony? Do you still... So how does Symphony play into all of this as well?
Symphony is our. It's our secret weapon. It is our superpower, and you saw it on full display with the Olympics.
Right.
Right? So not just were we able to use multiple platforms and multiple different ways to advertise that the Olympics were coming and eventize the Olympics, we were also in and out of there with TV shows. Fight Night, that is gonna be streaming on Peacock, Day of the Jackal, and our Pay One movies that are gonna be coming onto Peacock, but also the full schedule for NBC. So it really is, it's unique to the industry. Nobody else does it like this, and it is, it's also an amazing recruitment tool for talent. They look and see what we're doing, and they want a piece of that.
So, you know, when it comes to us being out there in the competitive landscape, you know, bringing showrunners and directors in, filmmakers, you know, they look and see what we've done with Symphony, and proof is in the pudding.
So in your role as Chief Content Officer, you oversee NBCU's unified content strategy, which brings the film-
Mm-hmm.
and TV studios together. What do you think makes content work? Is it IP? Is it talent? How does the interplay of talent and IP change as you kind of look ahead?
You know, there's... I wish there was a formula, right?
Right.
I wish it was like all IP makes a hit movie or, you know, all talent, you know, is gonna open a movie, and it just doesn't really work like that. So the way that we look at our slates and how we build them is really like a, almost like an investment portfolio. It's very varied across multiple genres, budget ranges, appealing to all different types of audiences. So there's sort of pillars in there, whether it's animation or all audience, kind of blockbuster-type movies like Fast & Furious or Jurassic, and then we kind of pepper around it. But we've got our specialty division, Focus Features, and then you've got the main studio slate. You know, again, doing everything from Jason Blum's horror films to catering to maybe a female audience.
But we sort of look at it really across the breadth of the whole thing. So, you know, it's not. There's never one movie that's gonna make or break a year. Maybe a couple could, but yeah, it really is a very diversified approach.
Got it. And does Hollywood need to concentrate more on original content, original IP?
This is a great paradox, because the short answer is yes. I think what we're seeing with the audience is that, you know, the pandemic taught them to stay home and watch streaming, and we have to habituate them back into going to the movies. You know, we kind of say people used to go to on a Friday night. You probably all remember this, the movies. You would go to your local multiplex and kind of pick what was going on. Maybe you'd heard of one or two that you wanted to see. That's no longer the case. It's really destination viewing. We're gonna think ahead of time. Oppenheimer is opening, Barbie is opening, we're going to that movie.
So, you know, that as it, you know, as it pertains to that question, we do look at originality, but then you, if you go... If it's too original, and it doesn't seem familiar, then it's harder to market, and it's harder to get people to sample it, right? So we talk a little bit about the sort of familiar surprise. You know, so you take something that is familiar, and you put a little top spin on it. An example of that is a competitive movie this year is Disney Fox, with Deadpool & Wolverine. Putting those two characters together gives everybody a little of what they want. They understand what it is. There's a value proposition there, but putting them together, you haven't seen that before. So we're constantly challenging ourselves to think outside of the box.
How has the evolution of theatrical consumption, windowing, and the streaming environment altered your views on which projects to greenlight?
You know, there's great opportunity, and we discovered this during the pandemic, where we were able to, you know, it's now well documented, we were able to shift our windowing system, right? So, movies no longer go into the movie theater and then go to home entertainment before they can go in for a long period of time. So they're now available on multiple platforms sooner, right? Is the bottom line of that. That's been really good for us. In particular, we created this PVOD window, which is basically an additional revenue stream that occurs, you know, seventeen to thirty days after theatrical release. We're seeing it with a movie like Twisters. It's playing gangbusters in the movie theaters still, and it's available in the home with this premium window, and it's doing really well.
It's actually our third highest grossing PVOD film to date, and so it suggests that it's not cannibalistic. So it's really less about thinking which movies can we make, and it's more about actually looking at the business model of our slate in general, and it's not just about the monetization of one specific window. Of course, theatrical, that's really where the big money is, but it's the sum of its parts as it makes its way all the way through that different windowing system.
What constitutes a film being worthy of, like, a theatrical release versus something that would go direct to streaming?
We look at films primarily as the threshold really is theatrical, and a couple of reasons for that. I'm a firm believer that a big global marketing campaign is what makes a movie matter. I think films that go direct to streaming. It's not to suggest they don't work, and they can work at different companies because their metrics are different. We still look at the profitability of a film based on how much it costs, how much we're spending on it to market it, and what its, you know, return is, so profitability on the film and on slates is still, you know, that's our metric, but it's, you know, I think that, again, we're really looking at each film. Launching a film is like launching a small business.
You know, it's even if it's a franchise, you're still in a different competitive landscape and environment, and so you have to really think about how you're gonna launch that thing. So we really focus in on theatricality and what makes it urgent.
I guess a kind of a similar question, but for television would be, you know, how do you decide what shows to put directly on Peacock versus, you know, putting on linear first through your NBCU and then, you know, how do you decide which window?
Yeah. Well, it, it's mostly obvious, right? Because the audience for the linear platforms, NBC, for instance, is 50, 60 plus in terms of age, and then the audience for Peacock is much more broad and diverse. And so there is some overlap, but it's very little overlap. So as a for instance, when we air next day, our Bravo content, it's actually on Peacock after it being on Bravo, it's finding a new and different audience. So, you know, and I think that combined also with, you know, Peacock just having less of a threshold in terms of language and length and things like that, we can do things. So when content comes in or when projects come in, it's usually fairly obvious what, you know, what would be destined for Peacock.
Where there's overlap is actually where there's great opportunity for the company in general, right? Which is we can kind of play with our platforms and play with, with, you know, with different combinations of Peacock first, then to NBC, NBC first, then to Peacock.
And is there like a perfect? Perfect is the wrong word, but you know, like a really desired or the most profitable? Like, where would you get the most windows, the maximum use? Where, you know, meaning cable, linear broadcast cable, Peacock.
I think that's the, that is the golden question, and I think that's something that the entire industry is trying to figure out at the moment. You know, looking at, not just how we're gonna monetize in the first window, but also library value, long-term library value, and things like that, right? So if you look at the old television model, where you had multiple seasons of things with a lot of episodes, that seems to have gone away. There's only one or two shows that do that, whether it's Yellowstone or Abbott Elementary, to name a couple of competitors. But it really is trying to actually figure out that monetization model that, certainly keeps me up at night.
Right. How does having access to... Well, soon to have access to the package of NBA games that both NBCU and Peacock recently won, how does that alter your content selection and programming decisions? Because it will take a lot of time.
Yeah, it will. Which I think is a great thing. I'm actually very excited about it, and primarily because it appears that the audience for the NBA is different to the NFL. It's gonna open up a whole new opportunity or set of opportunities to invite new audience members in. And so, you know, figuring out how to cater to them, to keep them there after the games, and use that to our benefit is. It's really kind of thrilling, actually, to think to contemplate.
Interesting.
Yeah. Yeah, and then also just figuring out the, you know, the sports personalities involved in much like the NFL, involved in the NBA. There's, you know, we're already in business with Steph Curry, LeBron James. You know, they're, these are incredible storytellers in their own right. You know, we have a great show on Peacock at the moment called Mr. Throwback, that Steph Curry stars in and produced. And so, you know, being able to be a home, you know, to these creators, you know, in and around their sport, is also really thrilling to think about.
Right. I'm just thinking about what you just said, because the NBA, in a sense, can change the demographic profile of your viewers.
Yes.
Like, that's just incredible.
Yes.
It's-
Yeah. Yeah.
So the landscape of film and content has changed significantly since the advent of streaming. How do you balance creative objectives for artists and filmmakers with commercial reality? I mean, you obviously did a great job with Oppenheimer last year.
Yeah, this is not a new thing, right? It is our job to manage the economics of any, you know, of our slate, our overall slate and of our movies. And some filmmakers are very attuned to the economics, and particularly the new economics that you know that you allude to. And some, it's just not the way they're gonna think, right? So it's really the onus is on us to understand what the project is and understand who it can be marketed to successfully and who's gonna show up to see it. And then build that plan and build that, you know, economic sort of set of criteria around the movie, you know? So it happens very early in the process, usually before we're green-lighting, actually, those conversations start. But yeah,
Right.
That marriage of art and commerce is, you know, it's a balancing act.
Right. We were talking about movies going direct to theatrical or direct to streaming before, but is there a where you can synthesize the impact of a movie going, you know, how much more successful it will be in streaming if it's in theatrical first? How do you think about that?
Yeah. You know, there's not a ton of real data around it. We haven't done a lot of it, and the industry hasn't done a lot of it, right? So it would be what we would call a day-and-date release. We did it last year with Five Nights at Freddy's. It's a horror movie that Jason Blum produced. Great movie, very clear audience. We released it in movie theaters, and it went on Peacock, and it performed excellent, very, very well in both areas. And so that was a really big success. You know, but we've done other experimentation where it's been less successful.
So hard to know whether there's cannibalization by doing that, but without question, the movie going onto a platform at the same time that it's been in the marketplace with a big marketing campaign around it, there's no question about that, you know, as opposed to a movie being made directly for streaming-
Right
... just going on the platform and having a kind of, you know, a moderate type of campaign.
Right. So just in terms of, like, the thinking about the broader theatrical market, you've had a lot of, like, things going on that, that you know, highly unusual in the last four years, beginning with the pandemic and then, you know, the two strikes last year. It's just been like, absolutely-
Relentless.
Yeah, it really has. So, you know, box office is not surprisingly down, well, maybe versus last year, it's down 16%.
Mm-hmm.
But it is still down, you know, almost double that. Like, it's down almost 30% versus 2019. You know, it seems like things are picking up. 2024, you know, is still softer, but, I guess where I'm going with this is, like, what's your view, maybe rest of the year, but more importantly, just over time, do you think that theatrical recovers to prior levels? Like, how do you view theatrical?
... Yeah, I mean, the challenges and the headwinds are clear and obvious, and again, just refer back to what I was speaking of earlier, that you know, the habituation that we all had as moviegoers has you know dissipated. I do believe that volume in the marketplace gets that back, but to what extent is really the big question. I can you know say that you know, because we want to be very sort of eyes wide open about our challenges and not Pollyanna-ish about it at all, we're sort of mapping our business to the assumption that we are not coming back to 2019 levels, that we'll you know we'll sort of stay in the range that we've been in you know, 2022, 2023. I do think 2024 is an anomalous year.
That the impact of the strikes cannot be overstated. It was devastating because, again, we just didn't have the volume that is required for the audience to feel like there's something worth showing up to see, you know, so they just get out of the habit. But we've seen, you know, some very good signs this summer with our own movies, with Super Mario... I'm sorry, with Minions and Twisters and with Disney Fox, you know, with Wolverine and Deadpool and Inside Out.
Right.
So.
What's the right number of film releases or range of film releases for Universal?
For the main slate of Universal, it's anything from, you know, we can be as low as 12, we can be as high as 17. So it really does depend on the slate. We've maintained our volume all the way through the pandemic, and it served us well.
Right. And then you kind of talked about like, kind of not getting back to 2018. How do you, like, you know, so it's a different business, really. So how do you, when you think about your priorities on the film side, how do you, like, can you kind of talk to us about how you think about that?
Yeah, I mean, again, it, it's everything that we've sort of touched on, right? It's, it's slate mix, you know, the kind of movies that, you know, there's no surefire bets, but, you know, animation, by and large, works, and we're very fortunate to have two of the best animation studios in the world with DreamWorks and Illumination, and we've got some really exciting movies. We're rebooting Shrek that we announced a couple of weeks ago. It's a great hoopla, which is exciting, and, you know, there's a lot more in the Despicable Me canon. And yeah, DreamWorks has other great things. And then, you know, we're in production on a sort of a redo of Jurassic.
So the trilogy with Chris Pratt is over, and this is a new one that Steven Spielberg is very involved in. And so, you know, we're certainly prioritizing those all audience types of films, but we're also looking really closely at, you know, who's showing up regularly to the movie theater. And the one thing I'm very interested in, and we're digging into it, is that the young audience goes to see movies. You know, Gen Z audience goes, and Millennials, they go to see movies. They're discerning, but if something strikes a chord with them, they're gonna show up. And then also, we've had great success with Twisters this year, and it's a movie that, you know, is working all over the country.
You know, it's just a good reminder that, you know, folks like to see themselves represented in a film. You know, that movie is a real kind of good taste of Americana and kind of what makes America great. It's you know, in a real way, just, you know, good values and that kind of thing, and it's been pretty interesting to see how the audience has reacted to that.
You have been so incredibly successful, but particularly the last few years, so consistently and incredibly successful, and it's without any of the... Well, by and large, without any of the superhero, kind of like the, that genre. So you mentioned animation, which, of course, you've been incredibly successful in. I don't know that any studio has been more successful consistently than Illumination. Like, you know, can you maybe talk about, like, Chris Meledandri is just incredible-
Yeah.
-like, his entire career.
I mean, it's really crazy when you think about, you know, only a few short years ago, you know, less than two decades, I mean, fifteen years ago, the world hadn't seen a Minion. You know, and now they're ubiquitous, and they're everywhere, and his films do really well consistently at the box office. And again, you know, consumer products and theme parks all over the world. You know, so he is a real hit maker and a franchise-making machine, and he does so at a great price point as well. So his business model is fantastic. He produces all of his animation in Paris, and keeps the production costs lower.
So he really, Illumination has been around less time than Pixar, and there's been fewer movies than there have been Pixar movies, but he's pretty much neck and neck with them in terms of success.
Really, you know, quietly, I mean, because it's under your umbrella. But you also mentioned Shrek, and I just wonder, so animation for you seems, is that your largest of your genres, and like, what are the plans for, let's say, the next three to five years?
Yeah, it's, you know, I would say from a box office perspective, it is certainly something that really, you know, again, it's reliable. It's a very reliable genre, the family space. In terms of volume, it's not the most because of how the production, you know, how long it takes. So we generally have three to four a year. Two from Illumination, two from DreamWorks, or it's usually two to three, I would say. You know, and horror as an, you know, a sort of contrast-
Right
You know, we can make twenty movies in a year, you know?
Right.
We don't release all of them, but we do very, very well with horror as well.
And maybe just on sticking with animation for one more second, but what, what's the ripple effect or the kind of the universe like that affects the economics? Like, there's consumer products, it's theme parks, it's television. Like, what are, what are the kind of the what's the business of animation?
The business of animation is, again, pretty reliable at the box office. Reliable in at the home entertainment windows as well, because they're very ownable titles, generally speaking. You know, kids and, you know, whether it's streaming or, you know, even hard copy DVD, you know, they want to watch it over and over again.
Mm-hmm.
So that works really well for us. Consumer products, our Despicable Me franchise is a really strong contender there. And then as you said, theme parks. On the DreamWorks Animation side, they do also do some episodic. They make a lot of television, and they've actually created, in-house, a very robust preschool animated show that they produce, and it streams on Netflix. But they've built up a consumer products business with that that is growing and is a fairly sizable revenue, and they've done it mostly in partnership with YouTube, and it's an amazing success story. So we're certainly looking to do more of that with DreamWorks.
And then they're also able to help us exploit our bigger franchises, so they've also produced episodic TV from Fast & Furious and also Jurassic. We have this great Jurassic show on Netflix called Camp Cretaceous, which is really good. And so what it does is it just broadens our audience. You know, some kids, Jurassic movies are too scary for them, so they can interact with Jurassic by virtue of this animated show. So it's a very big part of our portfolio, and it's a big part of our growth strategy and our strategy.
And then, you know, obviously, AI was gonna come up at some point in this conversation. How does it relate... Before we get to the bigger picture of AI for films, but for animation in particular, is it, you know, how is it applied? Or how do you expect it to be used?
You know, I mean, the way that we're looking at AI across different disciplines in the filmmaking process is that, you know, it, it's a technology that's been around for a long time. It's just obviously now exponentially growing and becoming more ubiquitous. It's really important to us, though, that, you know, content creation is, it's gotta be human-centered. It, it just does. Storytelling, the creation of a story, the making of anything, it's just, it's just gotta be, it's gotta be all driven by human beings, and so if there are products developed out there that can enable efficiency, great, we'll be all about that, but it's really important for us to protect our filmmakers, and it's really important for us to protect our IP.
And so, on the broader topic of, like, AI for films...
Mm-hmm.
Like, what are the efficiencies? Is it... And are there any revenue opportunities, or is it all just kind of like efficiencies?
At the moment, it's mostly efficiencies, and we're looking at different ways that it could enable, you know, post-production processes. As for instance, dubbing.
Right
You know, some visual effects work that we do in post-production and things like that. So it should be, you know, just much, much like when computer-generated imagery came along, CGI, you know, it was a way that you know, in the world of animation, it, you know, instead of doing hand-painted drawings that it would take five years, you know-
Yeah
-you could sort of do it much faster. We're looking for all of those types of innovations to, again, to enable efficiencies.
Right.
But we want the quality to stay-
Of course
-the same.
And then just sticking with cost as a theme, it feels like, especially coming out of the strikes, that, you know, the cost management has changed. There's, you know, like, less, a little less content, a little more focus on efficiency. So what are you seeing or what do you expect to see in terms of like, whether it's negative costs, marketing costs, talent participation, like, you know, kind of a-
Yeah. I think this is showing up most acutely and immediately in the television world of production, and it's across the board, right? So the economics shifted by virtue of the new deals, so the new guild deals, appropriately. But it has an impact, you know, again, on all of our bottom lines, so we've got to take a close look at that. And then, you know, so that's really, I think, what we're mostly focused on. But, you know, for us, it's not like we haven't sort of said, "Okay, we're gonna make X amount of, you know, fewer shows," or anything like that. It is, again, you just have to look for efficient and smart ways to produce, whether that's going to a location that gives you a tax benefit and-
Mm-hmm
-you know, so the show becomes more affordable. Same with films. You know, or you're going out of country, where perhaps the labor costs are a little lower. Like, those things, you know, those things are having an impact on our industry right now.
Maybe going back to one of the original questions, which is, like, the Comcast umbrella. How does being part of Comcast, not just NBC, all of Comcast, how does that impact your marketing costs? I mean, you obviously have a lot of touch points with consumers.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll just go back to Symphony. I mean, you know, it's not. When we're looking at a marketing campaign for film or television, it's not an either/or. You know, we don't go, "Oh, okay, we've got Symphony, so we can spend less on our basic costs for our marketing campaigns." But it is a way for us to really supersize a campaign and to generate interest and urgency, right? So it just makes your dollars that you're spending on marketing work that much harder for you. But you know, we run our business, and we've got our balance sheet, and we've got our P&L, and we have to make it work, right?
You know, we're not really looking at the broader Comcast ecosystem for help with that. But, you know, the thing with marketing that's tricky is that it's a big bucket of money, so, you know, whenever we're looking for efficiencies, it's a big bucket of money. It's tricky, though, because the more that the world becomes disrupted and people are, you know, they've got many things to occupy their time and attention, the louder you have to be, the more you have to spend. You know, it becomes a sort of almost a waste if you go down below a certain marketing spend. You're just not gonna get critical mass.
Right. The fragmentation has to be so-
The fragmentation-
Yeah
-is the is a constant, yeah.
How many films a year make it into, like, qualify to be a Symphony, you know, in the Symphony?
There's no kind of magic number. It just really depends on what the slate is that year. But by and large, everything that we have that is, you know, Wicked this year, for us, for instance, is really good. Yeah. It kind of opens in-
We can talk about it.
-November. So that's a big Symphony priority, and, you know, it was a big part of we did a big activation at the Olympics and with Cynthia and Ariana there at the Olympics, and so we were able to push that and to launch a trailer and teaser and stuff. So it was... Yeah. Yeah, so-
Let's talk about Wicked for one second.
Yes, we can talk about Wicked.
I mean, I'm not sure everybody's interested, but so how did you make that decision to make it into two films?
It became very obvious that it was what was required. You know, the fans of the stage musical are so rabid that there was no way that we could cut story, cut characters, or cut songs. And also, our rights holders would not have been interested in making that version of the film, you know, appropriately. And so it was either have a four-hour, you know, four or five-hour running time, which we did not think was prudent with a big all-audience film that we want children to come to, you know, or cut it into two.
The creative talent behind it were actually excited to do that because in the stage musical, I think they always felt that there were areas of the story that they wanted to be able to explore that they couldn't, and so they've got to be able to do that, and then there's also extra songs, new songs, and things like that, so.
So excited.
Yeah, it's good.
On the last thing on the slate, and then I have two more questions. So as you think about your slate, maybe Wicked is obviously one, but could you talk about kind of, like, the next year or so, like, what some of the highlights to look forward to?
Yeah. Well, we on the animation side, we've got some great things coming. We've got a couple of original films from both Illumination and DreamWorks. And then, I mentioned Shrek, and then also How to Train Your Dragon is actually a live-action version of the animated film-
Mm-hmm
-which I'm very excited about, too, because it's such a sort of a beautiful perennial story. And then we have more horror from Jason Blum. We've got a couple of great action movies. We're in business with a great action director, and he did a film for us a couple of years, actually, it was in 2020, called Nobody. And we're doing a sequel to that, and it's sort of a lower-budget action film, but the action is amazing, and we have another film by that same producer that we're also doing with another idea. So those, I love those little programmer movies because you can kind of slot them in anywhere, and they're moderately priced, but they are very appealing internationally and globally, so hopefully we'll get a good return on those.
Yeah, lots of good stuff coming.
And then one thing, just gonna try to sneak in two questions, but one thing that almost never gets discussed is the Universal Television library, which is really very strong.
Yeah.
It's, like, very deep and very strong. How do you think about monetizing that? Have you thought about FAST channels? Have you thought about... Like, what do you do with that library?
Well, I mean, at the moment, it's, you know, it is about monetizing the library, right, and through licensing. And, you know, as you're looking at the questions of, you know, do you license out your, you know, your top IP and properties to third parties or not? I mean, we do, but, you know, that's really, I think that's really the biggest monetization driver that we're focused on.
Right. Okay. And then I guess, you know, we've covered a lot of ground-
Mm
-sort of all over the place, so thank you for everything. But how would you, like, summarize NBCU's competitive position and, you know, like, future growth? Is it streaming? Or like, how do you think? I don't want to put words in your mouth. How would you phrase it?
I mean, I'm always going to look at it through a content lens, right? So, but I'm gonna start, first of all, by saying as we look at the media landscape with all of the disruption and then the state of some of the companies around us, I would say our greatest strength is just the stability of the company, and it starts with Brian and Mike, and, you know, it's, like I said earlier, it really enables us as leaders to be able to do what we need to do in a very difficult and tumultuous time in, you know, in our industries. But I... Yeah, I look at it and I think, you know, just the role that I have, I'm only just getting started.
I've only been in it for a year, and a good portion of that was taken up by the strike, and so I feel like I've just sort of scratched the surface of that.
Things can only pick up from there.
Exactly. But when I look around our company's ecosystem, and I think about all of the assets that we have, where all of the talent, everybody we're in business with, and how sort of multifaceted they are, whether it's, you know, Jimmy Fallon or, you know, or, you know, our directors who we're in business with, our producers. And then I put that up against all of our platforms and the theme park, and then you put Symphony and the way that we think about franchise management, I just believe there is so much growth. And if you think about taking somebody, you know, who walks into the company, who's just got so much to offer, and you think about ways that you can deploy them across film and television and streaming and sports, and look what we just did with Snoop, you know, at the Olympics.
Oh, my God!
You know, I'm making a biopic with him on the film side. There's television ideas that he's got. So we can really offer talent, this sort of suite of assets available to them to maximize them, could use our platforms to amplify what they're doing, and in turn, that's great business for us.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you. It was a great conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.