1:54

ratings

2:00

and the billions of dollars in profit it generates

2:02

for the Murdoch's. Which is why it's always been

2:04

interesting to me how much Rupert really dislikes

2:07

Trump and his populist brand of conservative

2:10

politics. He's called Trump a moron

2:12

and has taken a bunch of steps to sabotage

2:14

Trump, basically, according to this new book called

2:17

The Fall, the End of Fox News

2:19

and the Murdoch Dynasty, which is by Michael

2:22

Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury and two

2:24

other Trump White House exposés, as

2:26

well as the previous biography of Murdoch, which

2:28

Rupert also hated. Wolff

2:30

is a controversial figure in conservative media

2:33

and Trump land. The fall is basically

2:35

a chronicle of the past couple of years at Fox

2:37

News and the larger Murdoch empire, including

2:39

the 2020 election lies, the Arizona

2:42

call for Biden that Rupert personally okayed,

2:44

although there's some confusion about that, the $800

2:47

million defamation settlement in

2:49

the Dominion case, and the firing shortly

2:51

thereafter of Tucker Carlson, Fox's

2:53

top rated host. There's also

2:56

a lot about the succession style jockeying

2:58

amongst Rupert's four children to determine

3:00

what will happen to the empire when Murdoch dies,

3:03

which might happen soon. Rupert

3:05

is 92 now and Wolff describes him as frail

3:08

and often disoriented, so much so

3:10

that he sometimes fades in and out Mitch McConnell

3:12

style. I'm a Murdochologist. I've

3:14

interviewed James and Lachlan over the years and follow

3:16

the family pretty closely. I also edited

3:19

Michael Wolff when he wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter

3:21

a few years ago. So I'm happy to have him on the

3:23

show today to discuss the new book, which I

3:25

should say Fox News is not a fan of won't

3:27

comment on the specifics, but in a statement to

3:30

CNN, it said, the fact that this author's

3:32

books are spooked by Saturday Night Live is

3:34

really all we need to know.

3:35

Okay, so today it's Michael

3:38

Wolff, the state of play in Murdoch world,

3:40

and what the future holds for this very peculiar

3:42

and powerful media empire. From

3:44

the ringer and puck. I'm Matt Bellamy, and

3:47

this is the town.

3:51

All right, we are here with

3:54

Michael Wolff, author, journalist,

3:57

power broker, man of the world.

3:59

Welcome, Michael.

3:59

How are you? I'm doing

4:02

well. I have to reminisce before we

4:04

talk about your very interesting new

4:06

book, The Fall. I have to reminisce a little

4:08

because one of the highlights when I was

4:10

at the Hollywood Reporter was getting

4:13

a chance to work with you on your column

4:15

that you were writing for Hollywood Reporter. And

4:17

one of

4:18

the fun things that... And likewise, one

4:20

of the highlights for me was working with

4:22

you. Okay, well, thank you. I was reminiscing the other

4:24

day because if you remember,

4:26

the

4:27

whole Trump saga,

4:30

and I'm sure there are missing 25 different

4:33

steps and layers here, but the whole

4:35

path that led to fire and

4:37

fury and you getting to be embedded

4:40

in the White House for the first hundred days

4:42

started with a cover story

4:45

that you wrote for Hollywood Reporter on Donald

4:47

Trump when he came to California to

4:49

do Jimmy Kimmel for the California

4:52

primary. And you ended up

4:53

after the show

4:55

sitting in Trump's Beverly Hills

4:57

house interviewing him over the

4:59

only piece of food that was in that house, which

5:01

was Haagen-Dazs ice cream, which is still my

5:03

favorite detail.

5:05

Totally random event that would dictate

5:07

the next seven years of

5:09

my life.

5:10

Amazing.

5:11

Just the call came,

5:13

you want to interview Trump? Sure. From

5:17

there on in and hasn't stopped.

5:19

It's pretty amazing. And you would call me, you were still

5:21

doing your column. It's your

5:23

fault. Exactly. I know. Send

5:26

all the hate letters to me. But I remember you were still

5:28

doing your column for THR and you would call

5:30

me and you'd be like whispering and be

5:32

like, what's going on? I'm in the

5:34

Oval Office. I'm sitting right outside the Oval

5:37

Office. No, totally.

5:40

I mean, to even remember God. Again,

5:43

I can only say your fault.

5:46

All right. Well, thank you. OK,

5:48

so let's talk about this book. As you know, I am a Murdochologist.

5:51

I try to read everything there is about the

5:53

Murdoch family. I'm fascinated by them. You

5:57

have a lot of details in this book.

5:59

We're getting up there where Rupert is

6:01

now 92. His health

6:03

is pretty spotty. You describe

6:06

a scene at his granddaughter's wedding where he

6:08

was dressed by his daughter, quite

6:10

peculiarly, and he wasn't all

6:12

the way coherent. So

6:14

give me your big picture state

6:17

of play with the Murdoch

6:19

siblings and how they relate

6:22

to Rupert.

6:23

You know, okay, so

6:25

understand that the structure of the Murdoch

6:28

holdings is as follows.

6:30

Upon his death, the power

6:33

ownership of the company, the voting

6:36

majority of the company, passes

6:38

to his four children in equal

6:41

amounts, and there is no tiebreaker.

6:44

So these four people, and Murdoch

6:46

has six children, but two have no

6:49

political participation, the

6:51

two youngest ones. So the four

6:54

older children, the oldest

6:56

being 65, James

6:58

is the youngest and he will be, I

7:00

think he turns 50 relatively

7:03

soon. So they have

7:05

to agree. I mean, there is literally

7:07

no other way to go forward

7:10

in this except that without

7:13

the agreement of three of them. Now,

7:17

so at this point, it

7:20

seems to be, the division seems to

7:22

be Lachlan Murdoch, who is now the

7:24

CEO of Fox and

7:26

the executive chairman of News

7:28

Corp, the newspaper side of

7:30

the Murdoch holdings, wants

7:33

to keep his job. His brother

7:35

James has very

7:38

clearly vowed to take the job

7:40

from him. And this is

7:43

for probably many reasons,

7:45

but also political reasons. He believes

7:48

Fox is a cancer on the American

7:51

political body. He wants to turn

7:53

it into a force for good. You're right.

7:56

His sister, Elizabeth,

7:58

who lives in Lachlan,

7:59

London tends

8:01

to side with her brother James because

8:03

she's a relatively liberal normal person,

8:06

hates Fox as all Europeans do.

8:09

But her feeling is, hey, this is cable

8:11

television. It's not going to ever get more valuable.

8:14

Why don't we just get out of it? Let's

8:16

sell. She wants to sell. Yes.

8:19

And the oldest sister, Prudence, the one

8:21

of the older children who has never been

8:23

part of the company, never been

8:26

in the media business, lives

8:28

in Australia, and she tends

8:30

to side with the two votes. So

8:32

in other words, whatever the majority is,

8:35

that's where she tends to be. So

8:38

given that, it does not look very good

8:40

for Lachlan Murdoch. Right.

8:42

So does that mean that

8:45

within a year or two after Rupert

8:47

dies, we will see the end or

8:50

the sale of Fox?

8:52

Yes. I think inevitably, indubitably,

8:56

there is no situation in which

8:58

Lachlan can maintain control

9:01

over a right wing US

9:04

network. No situation in which that

9:06

happens.

9:07

I can't find one. Interesting.

9:11

So let's play this out. Let's say James

9:14

convinces

9:15

the sisters

9:17

to side with him.

9:18

He

9:19

takes over. He might not

9:21

sell it. You write in the book that James's

9:24

worry is that selling it doesn't really

9:26

solve the problem. Exactly. It

9:28

just passes it on to private equity.

9:30

He does not want to sell this company. He

9:32

wants to make it a force for good.

9:35

But okay. I mean, that's

9:37

nice. Great for him.

9:39

But a force for good would alienate

9:42

the audience and turn a billion

9:45

dollar grocer into what, CNN?

9:47

Yeah, exactly. It

9:49

would probably cost the family

9:52

a billion dollars in earnings anyway.

9:55

And he's willing to do that. He knows that and is willing

9:57

to do it.

9:58

Yes. I mean, I think. he sees,

10:00

well, what option is there?

10:02

Now, there's an interesting wrinkle here, because

10:06

the Murdoch family, while they have voting

10:08

control, does not control that

10:10

much. So, James doing

10:13

this, I mean, it's actually a great deal

10:15

for him, is that he could

10:17

get control of this

10:20

relatively substantial cable

10:22

channel for very

10:25

little. And if they cut off

10:28

significant amounts of profits of Fox,

10:31

it would have relatively little

10:33

impact on him personally. Shareholders,

10:36

on the other hand, would be screwed.

10:38

Yeah, wouldn't they sue? I

10:39

mean, this is the classic case. If you're a shareholder

10:42

in Fox or News Corp, and they're tanking

10:44

the company, wouldn't you just sue

10:46

and win?

10:47

Well, you would sue, you wouldn't necessarily

10:50

win. Right. It's family controlled,

10:52

you buy the stock knowing it's controlled by the

10:54

family.

10:55

Exactly. And management makes certain

10:57

decisions. They're made reputably

11:00

and honestly. But they

11:02

tried to recombine the two sides,

11:05

and the shareholders freaked, and they abandoned

11:07

the plan.

11:08

Exactly. But that was a different situation

11:11

in which the shareholders, in

11:13

order to do that deal, the

11:16

shareholders, all of the shareholders, 100%

11:19

of the shareholders, instead of just

11:21

the voting shareholders, had

11:23

to approve the deal.

11:25

Interesting. I'm just fascinated how that's

11:27

going to play out. But let's talk about the current

11:29

state of Fox News. And you

11:32

have a lot of somewhat comical

11:34

or alarming, depending on your view of Fox details

11:37

in your book.

11:38

Rupert doesn't really like watching Fox.

11:41

You're right.

11:42

He certainly doesn't like Sean Hannity.

11:44

He called him, well, this is his word, a retard

11:48

and stupid, just like Americans.

11:50

A famous Australian term of endearment.

11:53

Right. He can't watch the channel for

11:55

very long.

11:56

Everyone who works there seems to be drunk

11:58

a lot. The general... of Vietnam

12:00

was drunk at lunch a lot.

12:03

Laura Ingraham drunk on Sean Hannity's plane

12:05

going to Roger Ailes' funeral. No, no,

12:07

no, no, no. He didn't let her on the

12:09

plane because she was so drunk he

12:11

feared that she was going to have her head in the toilet

12:14

the whole on the trip. She

12:16

was banished. Key clarification there. Yes,

12:19

thank you.

12:19

Why doesn't Rupert

12:21

change the tenor of Fox

12:24

if he

12:25

is

12:26

unhappy with the product?

12:28

Is it the situation where the

12:30

audience is more powerful than the

12:32

owner at this point? Yes, and

12:35

remember he has tried to change.

12:37

The DeSantis bubble is a Rupert

12:39

bubble. So he

12:41

is in there pitching in as

12:44

much as he can. Remember he's 92 years old.

12:47

The other thing that's important to remember about

12:49

Murdoch is he's not a television guy.

12:51

He's never been interested in television.

12:54

He's not a television executive.

12:56

He's not a television programmer. And

12:59

this is likewise true of Lockman.

13:02

So in some sense, I don't

13:04

think they really know how to change the Fox

13:06

News, not to mention it makes

13:09

so much money. And among

13:11

the things that Rupert is addicted

13:14

to are money and power.

13:16

So being willing

13:19

to sacrifice that is a

13:22

painful notion and maybe an impossible

13:24

notion for Murdoch.

13:26

It's amazing. This is a guy who's tried

13:28

his entire life to be

13:30

in such a powerful position in media that he's

13:33

able to elect a president.

13:34

And then the president that his network

13:36

elect is a president that he doesn't even like.

13:39

A phenomenal irony. There it is.

13:42

So that's the lesson about power.

13:45

In the end, it

13:46

screws you.

13:47

It's funny you say that

13:49

about television because it's so

13:51

clear. I mean, Rupert never likes the Hollywood stuff.

13:54

He lived out here. He has the winery.

13:57

But I went to an event at the winery

13:59

a couple of years ago.

13:59

ago and

14:00

I talked to him and it was funny the phrasing

14:03

I remembered when he when I was talking to

14:05

him about the industry and stuff and he

14:07

kept using the phrase you people

14:09

and you and you guys out

14:11

here and

14:12

I was like you are one of

14:14

the most powerful media people in the world

14:17

and for

14:18

decades you owned the studio

14:20

and the network it's not you people you're

14:22

part of this community

14:24

when he was actively involved with

14:26

the studio and that was always a moment

14:28

where everybody at the studio was trying to keep him

14:30

out of meetings because he would

14:32

complain about the stars and then always

14:35

propose that they do

14:37

a remake of crocodile Dundee

14:39

I mean this is comical stuff you can't

14:42

you cannot make it up

14:43

you know a famous meeting just before

14:46

Titanic came out and you know

14:48

in Titanic would basically change the fortunes

14:50

of Fox the studio and of the

14:52

company and you know but he

14:55

was furious about cost overruns

14:58

and sold half of it to Paramount

15:00

yeah and one of the financial executives

15:03

in the meeting started to

15:05

well what what Rupert thought was this was

15:08

a smirk on had had a smirk on his

15:10

face and Rupert demanded the

15:12

executive in question be fired

15:15

because he dared

15:16

laughs or be amused by

15:18

his cost-cutting

15:20

exactly and at that point

15:22

everybody knew this was going to be a

15:24

major a major hit

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16:41

Getting a little bit into the weeds here at Fox,

16:43

you described the scene on

16:45

November 8th, 2020,

16:47

where

16:49

the decision desk at Fox News has

16:52

determined through technology

16:55

that Rupert was

16:56

very excited about, that

16:58

they were gonna be able to beat everybody on their election night

17:01

calls. His journalistic instinct

17:03

was very powerful there, and he said, this is what we

17:05

want. So, the technology

17:07

worked, or was about to work. They

17:10

got the data, Arizona

17:12

was gonna go for Biden.

17:14

The CEO of Fox, Suzanne

17:16

Scott, is told. She goes to Lachlan,

17:19

Lachlan goes to Rupert,

17:21

and then Rupert, according to

17:23

the scene in your book,

17:25

says,

17:26

fuck him,

17:27

and gives the okay to call

17:29

the election. Now, there's some

17:31

confusion based on his mumbling or what

17:34

he actually meant by fuck him, whether

17:36

that was, yeah, go call it for Biden,

17:38

which essentially meant Trump was gonna lose

17:40

the election, or whether he was just saying,

17:42

fuck him, like, fuck this guy.

17:45

What do you think Rupert wanted

17:47

to say there? Did he wanna make the call?

17:50

There's a couple of important

17:52

context points here. Number one

17:55

is you never know what Rupert

17:57

is saying.

17:58

So.

17:59

Here's the story. When I was writing

18:02

my Murdoch biography in 2009,

18:04

I was there with Murdoch one morning.

18:10

We were talking over coffee,

18:12

and then we finished, and then we both left

18:15

together. So we're on the elevator. The elevator

18:18

goes down a couple of floors, the

18:20

doors open, and Donald Trump

18:22

gets on. Rupert

18:24

says something to him, something that sounds

18:26

neighborly or nothing, small

18:30

talk.

18:31

Trump

18:32

turns to me and says,

18:34

do you ever understand

18:37

anything he's talking about?

18:42

Yeah, Donald Trump's not exactly the world's

18:44

greatest communicator either.

18:45

No, but he does say exactly

18:48

what's on his mind. That is true. And that's what

18:50

everybody who's speaking to Murdoch, that's

18:53

what's on their mind. What is he saying?

18:56

But this sounds like a succession episode

18:58

where he says, fuck him,

19:00

and nobody knows what that means, and

19:02

they end up calling the election for Joe Biden, and

19:05

history is made. Exactly. And then

19:07

remembers after this,

19:09

the network goes into a turmoil

19:11

because Trump is attacking the network.

19:14

There's sudden surges in Newsmax

19:16

and the other conservative channel, and

19:19

Rupert starts to backtrack on this.

19:21

But do you think he wanted to make that call?

19:24

Yes,

19:25

actually.

19:26

I do too.

19:27

I think he's still deep down as a

19:29

journalist.

19:30

Also, he's still deep down

19:33

hates Trump. You

19:36

know, so I don't know about the the journalist.

19:38

I mean, Rupert is very capable of

19:40

throwing over his journalism sensibility

19:43

at any moment, and especially

19:46

one that might cost him money. But I

19:48

think in that moment, it was

19:51

Trump. He hated Trump. The idea

19:54

that Trump would become the president

19:56

again was anathema

19:58

to him. This was his

20:00

moment of control over something

20:02

that he could not control, which is to say

20:05

the presidency of Donald Trump.

20:06

Now he's back in the same situation.

20:09

The same. It's

20:12

apparently eating at him even more.

20:14

But he's stuck. He tried. He

20:16

tried to make

20:17

Ron DeSantis happen.

20:19

It's like fetch, it's not happening.

20:21

Right, but he's still all over the, Nikki

20:23

Haley is, I mean, it's like he

20:25

tried to last couple of weeks, turn

20:28

it into the Nikki Haley network, which

20:30

is

20:31

quite a programming concept. Right.

20:33

One other thing you write in the book, you believe

20:36

that James and Lachlan

20:39

conspired in a premeditated

20:41

way

20:42

to

20:43

get behind Gretchen Carlson

20:45

and her suit against Roger

20:47

Ailes to bring down Roger Ailes

20:50

at Fox News.

20:51

Is that accurate?

20:52

Well, I would, I would phrase it somewhat

20:54

differently. It's certainly what Roger Ailes

20:57

believed and many

20:59

other people at the network believe.

21:03

So I'm representing that point

21:05

of view.

21:06

Okay. Well,

21:06

but Roger had a lot of conspiracy

21:09

theories in his head. I want your

21:11

take on what the facts suggest.

21:14

The facts that you have reported them.

21:16

Absolutely. I mean, the boys

21:18

hated Ailes. He hated

21:21

them. There was nothing but bad

21:23

blood there. Ailes was always

21:25

trying to push them out and

21:27

had succeeded in several instances

21:30

before and was

21:31

unwilling

21:33

to cede

21:35

the authority that they demanded

21:37

and that they thought they deserved, and that they thought

21:40

that they earned. They were

21:42

the co-managers of the company

21:44

at that point. Ailes

21:46

was always, always undermining

21:49

them. Yeah. Offered

21:51

the possibility that they could

21:54

get rid of him. They seized it. They

21:56

seized it in a way that when-

21:59

around their father who

22:02

they suspected would have reversed

22:04

this.

22:05

But there's another irony there because if

22:07

James was behind this and

22:09

the whole push to get Roger Ailes out because

22:12

he wanted to make Fox a force for

22:14

good, the leadership

22:16

vacuum at Fox

22:18

has

22:18

arguably, or maybe not arguably,

22:21

made it worse for James. I mean, without

22:24

the Roger Ailes hand guiding things

22:26

and someone who could say no to these hosts,

22:29

they basically do whatever they want and

22:31

say whatever they want. And that's

22:33

kind of what led to 2020 and

22:35

the Dominion case. Yes. And

22:37

even more so, I mean, without Ailes there

22:40

regulating things and being the

22:42

voice, the message, the

22:45

voice and the message became Donald Trump

22:47

himself.

22:48

So it's one of those kinds of things. You

22:50

overthrow the dictator and the situation

22:53

after that and you think, okay, you know, Saddam

22:56

Hussein is gone.

22:58

But in fact, the aftermath

23:01

is worse. Right. The devil

23:03

you know. And it's funny because it

23:05

seems at least the picture that you

23:07

paint in the book is that there is

23:09

a leadership vacuum at Fox.

23:12

No one really knows what to do.

23:14

They have no digital strategy really

23:16

for how to evolve this network for

23:18

the digital times. They can't control

23:21

the hosts really. They don't

23:23

really know what to do with the tenor

23:25

of the programming, which is what led to the

23:28

push into the conspiracy theories, which led

23:30

to the Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits.

23:33

The general counsel, Viet Dinh,

23:36

up until nearly the end of that case

23:38

was still telling people not to worry about

23:40

it and that they're going to go all the way to the Supreme

23:43

Court and they're going to win. All

23:45

of it seems to be a classic

23:47

case of legacy

23:50

media rot

23:51

and mismanagement. And

23:53

on top of that, there is really

23:56

only one decision maker and

23:58

he's 92. Right.

23:59

What is Rupert's state of mind?

24:02

You described some troubling scenes,

24:05

but

24:06

you don't come right out and say

24:08

the man has lost it. Do you think he's lost

24:11

it?

24:11

You know, I think he's 92. So

24:13

yes, he has considerably lost

24:16

it. 92 is not 82.

24:20

But I think at other times he can be on

24:22

top of things. But we've all known 92-year-olds.

24:25

And they don't run

24:27

a significant public company. And

24:29

actually, he runs two.

24:31

And you say in the book that this will almost

24:34

certainly be Rupert's last

24:36

election.

24:37

So

24:38

you don't believe he's getting to 96.

24:40

Do the math.

24:42

All right. So let's wrap this up

24:44

with big picture.

24:46

What does the end of Fox or the

24:49

diminishment of Fox mean

24:51

for the media ecosystem

24:54

in this country

24:55

and around the world?

24:57

Well, I mean, I think there's two questions.

24:59

What does it mean for the political system? And

25:01

what does it mean for the media system? I

25:03

mean, the media system, you know, I mean,

25:06

it's cable television. Whatever

25:08

happens, whatever replaces cable

25:10

television supersedes the

25:13

fate of Fox here. But

25:15

is it replicable? Can someone

25:17

come along if Fox is turned into

25:19

a, quote, force for good?

25:21

Will one of the other rivals step in?

25:23

Will somebody else be able to launch something

25:25

or is this the end of that?

25:27

I think what happens now, I mean, Fox

25:30

is kind of a laggard here, which is

25:32

to say it has been able to maintain

25:35

its monopoly hold on

25:37

its audience far longer

25:39

than it should have been. And this is a result

25:42

of its own market share.

25:44

It's a result of that its audience

25:47

has traditionally been older,

25:51

you know, less technologically adept

25:53

than all of those things. And

25:56

because Roger Ailes, I guess,

25:58

was so good at his program.

25:59

programming job and because

26:02

Trump stepped in and the

26:04

Fox audience became the Trump audience

26:07

and that all Held together

26:09

but that's in that kind of anomalous

26:12

in in media terms And I think

26:14

what happens there is the same

26:16

thing that's happened to all other media.

26:18

It's fragments And I think

26:20

we are seeing now the beginnings

26:23

of a fragmented conservative

26:25

or right-wing media that there will

26:27

be a lot of other channels and a

26:30

lot of other voices and

26:31

a lot of You talk about Ben

26:33

Shapiro in his right and a lot of other

26:36

platforms and a lot of other

26:38

ways for people to make money and Probably

26:41

actually more money than they would be able to

26:43

make at Fox

26:44

and at some point

26:46

Donald Trump will go away

26:48

I know he's like a like one of these cockroaches

26:50

that you can't kill But at some point he

26:53

will not be the driving force of ratings on

26:55

Fox

26:55

at some point. Yeah You

26:58

don't see that time coming anytime soon. Well, no,

27:00

and I think it's a problem That's one of the one of

27:02

the contradictions of within

27:04

the network itself But the network

27:06

is opposed in a way more and more

27:09

and more and more implacably in Opposed

27:12

to its biggest star who

27:14

is Donald Trump? so it's just another

27:17

one of those contradictions at the

27:19

center of Of

27:21

Fox that that if you play this out

27:23

you say well, this is just not sustainable

27:26

James trying to remake Fox as

27:28

a force for good would be probably the

27:30

funniest thing in the history of American media

27:33

I am so here for that It would

27:36

the reactions and him installing,

27:39

you know straight news anchors or hiring

27:41

Rachel Maddow or something like that would be amazing

27:43

But

27:44

remember James is two billion dollars

27:46

in his pocket as do his siblings

27:48

So, you know, it's that other

27:51

form of of media just

27:53

get a really rich. Alright, right

27:56

Alright, Michael. Thank you very much. The book

27:58

the fall is out

28:00

on Tuesday and it's

28:02

another barn burner. Congrats. Thanks.

28:06

We're back with the call sheet.

28:08

Craig are you a fan of the Expendables

28:11

franchise?

28:12

I don't know why I missed these. I guess that's

28:14

a blind spot for me. They all came out when I was in high

28:16

school and college and I think this is more in the

28:18

dad genre.

28:19

I think so. Yeah I mean Stallone is 77

28:22

now. He's starring in this thing Expendables 4

28:24

comes out this weekend. I don't know. I mean

28:27

yeah it was a thing 10 years ago and

28:29

I think getting all

28:31

these older action stars into the

28:33

same movie was kind of cool but these

28:37

have had diminishing returns. The last

28:39

one Expendables 3 came out in 2014 opened

28:42

to 16 million ended up grossing 214 worldwide.

28:46

So profitable

28:47

but not what the first two

28:49

did

28:50

and the tracking for this one I'm surprised

28:52

the tracking is at 18 for the weekend.

28:55

I'm gonna take the under. I don't think it's gonna

28:57

get 18. I mean there are a lot

28:59

of stars in it. I didn't realize how many people they

29:02

just plucked and dropped into certain movies. It's like those

29:04

old remember those movies like Valentine's Day that just

29:06

had a celebrity. The Gary Marshall movies or like

29:08

Cannonball Run or whatever. It's like the action

29:10

movie equivalent of that. Yeah. You

29:13

shoot for a week in Bulgaria and they can put

29:15

you on the poster and like Harrison Ford

29:17

was in the second one. Like I guarantee you that

29:19

guy is not shooting. Oh he's in the third one? Yeah

29:22

along with Mel Gibson and Wesley Snipes and

29:24

the second one is Bruce Willis and Jean-Claude Van

29:26

Damme. There's a lot of people in these. Yeah

29:29

I saw the first one. I think I went to the premiere of the first

29:32

one.

29:32

They're fun. Unfortunately the

29:35

planned all-female spin-off called

29:37

the Expendables never came

29:39

to fruition sadly. So after

29:42

nine years the third one came out nine years ago. Who

29:44

was the one who you think kind of got things

29:46

going for this fourth one? Was it Stallone being

29:48

bored? Was it the studio being like all right we

29:51

have nothing really to cook right now? Yeah the studio is probably what do we got?

29:53

Lionsgate which is releasing this is

29:55

in the process of trying to sell

29:58

itself and they want

29:59

as many franchises on

30:02

their calendar as they can. That's why they

30:04

got another Saw coming out. They got another Hunger

30:06

Games. They're trying to

30:09

telegraph to investors and potential

30:11

buyers that they can have real franchises

30:13

just like the big studios do. So

30:16

they're digging up anything they can and

30:18

they have this expendables property

30:20

that hasn't been done in nine years. Stallone's

30:23

still alive. He's, you know,

30:26

I guess in good shape, 77, but he can still pretend

30:28

to be an action hero.

30:31

And here we are.

30:32

They should get Rupert Murdoch in here. Why not? They should get Rupert

30:35

Murdoch. He would be great. He could be

30:37

the villain.

30:38

He honestly might be. I don't know what the plot of this movie is, but

30:41

there's a decent chance.

30:42

Well, no, there was a Bond movie, The

30:44

World is Not Enough, that basically had

30:46

a Rupert Murdoch style media

30:49

billionaire who was trying to take over the world. So I

30:52

think that's already been done. Okay. But

30:54

yeah, so I'm gonna take the under on 18 million

30:57

for expendables for, I

30:59

think that's right.

31:00

It's a slow time right now. It is. People

31:03

are going to movies. It's depressing. But

31:05

all right, that's where we are. That's the show for today. I want

31:07

to thank my guest Michael Wolf. I want to thank producer Greg

31:09

Horbeck and our editor Jesse Lopez.

31:12

We will see you next week.