Welcome back to What I’m Hearing, and happy Succession Sunday to all. I’ve purposely avoided screeners and reviews, so I’ll only share James Andrew Miller’s recent ranking of all 29 episodes leading to tonight and, of course, the Times profile of Gerri.

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Discussed in this issue: Joe Drake, Alan Bergman, Nicole Kidman, Victoria Alonso, Bob Iger, Scott Z. Burns, Jay Penske, John McILwee, and Lauren Sanchez’s play for victimhood.

But first…

Scroll down for more on John Wick and Lionsgate’s important year. But first a few words on the week’s unresolved controversy…

Disney could have ended Alonso’s employment as Marvel’s president of physical, post-production, VFX and animation, and simply paid her out, for many reasons—her belittling behavior towards vendors, the relentless self-promotion, or the fact that the visual effects in Marvel productions (her actual job) have been specifically and repeatedly called out as lacking by fans, the media, and actual VFX professionals. (Vulture’s headline: “Honestly, I equate it to human greed.”) But instead, Disney chose to terminate Alonso without pay for what it said, on Friday, is “an indisputable breach of contract.” Basically, an invitation to fight in public. So here we are.

At the risk of giving this dispute too much attention—after all, Alonso never had that much power at Disney, despite her public profile and personal positioning, though she did lord over Marvel’s VFX contractors—here are the key facts, in my view: It wasn’t until mid-2021, when Alonso’s employment agreement was last renegotiated, that Disney found out she was producing a side project, Argentina, 1985, for Amazon Studios. Disney’s Alan Bergman and Marvel’s Kevin Feige were super annoyed at yet another example of Alonso prioritizing her personal endeavors over the company, and the bad precedent it would set for other Disney executives. Can you imagine if, say, Disney Studios president Sean Bailey decided to quietly produce the new Amazon pic Air with his buddies Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, then, when Disney found out about it, downplayed it as simply a “passion project”? Nonstarter. But not wanting to poke a hornet’s nest, and acknowledging Alonso’s 17 years at Marvel, Disney let her keep her name on the project while specifically inserting language in her deal that prohibited her from promoting Argentina, 1985.

So, no, Alonso didn’t get official permission in advance. She started the movie, then asked for permission, then got a reluctant OK…with specific contractual limits. Then she ignored those limits. And was admonished for ignoring them. She did the infamous Indiewire interview. She flew to the BAFTAs in London. Contracts are still contracts, right? And she signed hers.

Glaser teased Friday that Alonso was asked by Disney to do something “reprehensible” and refused, and that’s why she was fired. OK, that’s intriguing, so what was this reprehensible ask? (Team Alonso declined to tell me, no doubt wanting to use the public disclosure in a potential lawsuit for leverage.) But until we know, speaking out about Florida at a GLAAD event seems like a bit of a misdirect. After all, the only person who would have been pissed about that, former C.E.O. Bob Chapek, is no longer at the company.

There’s a grand tradition of Hollywood executives using their perch to build a personal brand: everyone from Robert Evans at Paramount of yore to, more recently, Bozoma Saint John at Netflix. Even Michael Eisner walked that line at Disney with the TV appearances and books. Alonso fits in this mold. But, who knows how much tolerance Disney will have for this public fight. I’m told settlement negotiations are now active, so maybe Alonso will get that go-away money after all.

More: A couple people emailed me asking if Majors was “done.” Uh, what? It’s so early. I have no inside info here, but if the charges are dropped and no additional accusers come forward, I doubt Marvel, Amazon, or other studios will take any action.

Runner up: “You skied directly into my fucking back!” –Gwyneth Paltrow, on the stand, in Utah, recalling her reaction to being run over. I’m proud to say I did not watch this testimony live.

Now for more on Lionsgate’s big year…

The Lionsgate film division basically bailed on theaters during the pandemic, which led me to kinda write it off. But, as I learned when I had motion picture chairman Joe Drake on my podcast this week, the division pivoted to PVOD, direct sell-through, and selling off movies to streamers, like J.Lo’s Shotgun Wedding, which went to Amazon. Now Lionsgate is back in theaters, and John Wick 4 opened to a series-best $138 million worldwide this weekend.

Drake, who’s now in his sixth year of his second stint at Lionsgate, is a good talker, and we had to cut some stuff from the pod, so I’ve excerpted our chat below (and edited for length and clarity)...

Joe Drake: I don't think we’ve seen the ceiling yet. I really don’t. We have this idea of the High Table. We have Continentals all over the world. Keanu’s and Chad’s vision is broad and wide. We certainly got very intentional about knowing that he can’t just keep grinding out movies like this every year, it’s harder. I think there’s room for another John Wick movie and I think there’s room for a lot of expansion.

John Wick will likely be the only film from an independent U.S. distributor—not one of the majors, not a Chinese company—to get into the top 20 of worldwide box office this year. And if you look at last year, we had to get all the way down to No. 35—Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, from A24— to see a non-major studio on the box office list. Lionsgate wasn’t there. How hard is it to compete now in the theatrical market post-pandemic, when the bar for what is theatrical has been raised?

If compete means I need to be in the top 20 films, there’s no doubt there’s a lean towards big franchises. What’s interesting about the business is that those middle-range movies are better than ever before, and so a movie that maybe did $50 million, if it does $35 million, it is still a very, very profitable exercise. And what is lost on people is we release another 30 to 40 movies every single year in our multi-platform business, a streaming partner, or we might do an AMC exclusive, we might do something with Fathom, we might do a shorter window thing. Whether it’s [electronic sell-through] or PVOD, AVOD, there’s an opportunity to reach audiences a bunch of different ways. We also leaned into international, and we doubled down on production so we could be ready to come back into theaters, which has set us up really nice for this year.

Do you regret a little bit selling Shotgun Wedding to Amazon? It’s doing crazy numbers there.

We could’ve played it in theaters. We were able to generate what we believe are the same returns [by going with Amazon] we would’ve been able to generate theatrically, and we didn’t end up having to spend the P&A to do so. I think ultimately it probably reached its biggest audience that way.

Can you explain why a five-year-old Lionsgate movie starring Mel Gibson called Dragged Across Concrete has been the No. 1 movie on Netflix all week?

Audiences are all over the place. They’re not just in theaters. That movie appeals to a very specific demographic audience.

Sadists?

[Laughs] Our team works furiously. They don’t care whether it’s five years old, they don’t care whether it’s 10 years old. If there’s an audience in a place, they make sure [the right movie] is in front of them.

You’ve got a raunchy R-rated comedy Joy Ride coming this summer. Why does everyone think comedy is dead in theaters?

I believe this business is cyclical. I don’t think comedies are dead in theaters. I don’t think anything is dead in theaters. I think you just have to be a great movie with great execution, and have a marketing team that knows how to communicate to its intended audience.

The only R-rated comedy last summer was Bros, and it flopped. Studio people say you need to pay a star $20 million to get audiences interested. But with Joyride and The Blackening [a horror comedy, also for this summer], you’re targeting specific audiences in the Asian American and Black audience. And hoping to build out from there.

Correct. That is certainly part of the strategy. I would also say, though, that these are stories that have big concepts to them. Any movie well executed can take off. You just need to have a marketplace that allows you to take these kinds of swings.

Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? The marketplace has so contracted for theatrical films that it limits these swings.

I believe the complete opposite of your statement.

OK, but you’re not gonna do a whole slate of movies that are original and take big shots. You’ve got John Wick, you’ve got Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, a title that everybody knows. You’ve got Expendables 4, new Saw, a new Hunger Games. These are your version of franchises.

Yes. But Joyride, complete original. Blackening too. We just did a movie with Gerry Butler called Plane. We just did a movie called Jesus Revolution. Those movies are incredibly successful for us, and they were all original movies. Did they become the next John Wick? No. But Wick at one point was one of those original movies.

What’s your break even number for a movie like Joy Ride? I’d think that you have to gross $50 million in theaters to break even.

It’s a very small fraction of that.

Really? How?

Let me give you a different example because it’s already been released. Plane, the Gerry Butler movie. That movie did $30 million at the box office domestic and that movie is extraordinarily profitable. And that’s a result of the changing economics of film. Very simple.

Lionsgate has been for sale for awhile. You’re now planning to spin off Starz, which will leave the studio business separate. Is this big 2023 slate designed to be helpful to the company in finding a buyer?

Well, the company’s not actually, to my knowledge, looking for a buyer. I think any company in this business is for sale. What they’ve actually said is they’re separating the companies. Separate companies with separate valuations, separate balance sheets, essentially separate stocks. It’s undeniable when you do the math that we’re worth a lot more than is reflected in our stock price. The marketplace has continued to be confused—or, unclear—on how to value these pieces together. But separate, you’re gonna see a pure content and distribution business. There’s clear visibility into what each company is generating and doing, and they can be properly valued. And if we have the year we expect to have, and we continue to line up content like this, that should be very good for the company.

Speaking of Apple, what’s the environmental impact of burning money? That was my thought trying to watch Extrapolations, Scott Z. Burns’ super-expensive climate change polemic featuring a dozen or so Oscar and Emmy nominees. Who is this for? [Rotten Tomatoes]

Taylor Lorenz talks to the not-so-hidden victims of a TikTok ban: The studios, music labels, and creators that are desperate to reach young and diverse audiences. [WaPo]

Let’s go through all the awards shows that are currently homeless: American Music Awards (ABC deal expired), Billboard Music Awards (NBC deal not renewed), Golden Globes (NBC and streamers still mulling), Film Independent Spirit Awards (IFC passed, went to YouTube). Why, again, did Jay Penske want to take over the Dick Clark Productions shows? [Deadline]

I finally caught up to Courtney Love’s evisceration of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (aka the “Boomer tomb”) for its lack of women. [Guardian]

In Ticketmaster’s America, Beyoncé fans are buying tickets for her Europe show because it’s cheaper to go there and not pay the outrageous upcharges. [NBC]

The Romy Coppola pasta TikTok is more entertaining than anything her famous family has created in the past decade, including Nic Cage’s Pig. [Polygon]

Business manager John McILwee and producer Bill Damaschke sold John Lautner’s amazing Garcia House to a Pritzker for $12.5 million. [WSJ]

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon need to keep making movies together so they can continue to do delightful joint interviews like this. [The Ringer]

Vulture ranked all 42 of Nicole Kidman’s wigs, and while I’d forgotten about the No. 1 movie (2004’s Birth), I think we can agree The Hours was disrespected at No. 3. [Vulture]

The next day, Page Six reports that Sanchez is a “victim of ‘sexism’” because I noted that she was “inexperienced” and had never produced a feature. Again, fine, whatever, publicists often gripe in blind quotes to tabloids when they don’t like a story. Everyone knows the “pal” or “inside source” is usually the person’s rep, but the more obtuse flacks (or their clients) think this tactic helps.

What’s more concerning: in that same article decrying sexism, Sanchez and Jones felt the need to slime the film’s female director, whom the “sources” blamed for the chaos on set. The D.P. who quit “wasn’t feeling the creative vibe of the director.” Same for the assistant director. Now, I know from my reporting that this allegation wasn’t true, and the photo that Page Six used of the filmmaker was a demeaning costume party shot taken from social media that made the filmmaker look unserious. I recognized it because it was the same photo Jones tried to direct my attention to.

So Lauren Sanchez is paying a publicist to falsely denigrate a female director in a New York Post article that paints her as the victim of sexism. All because, I assume, they thought the filmmaker was the source of my column. (She wasn’t.) Then, as a perfect coda to this sad media display, two days later, the Post, champion of women’s rights, did a follow-up story about Sanchez: “Plastic Surgery Experts Reveal What Work Lauren Sánchez May Have Had Done.” And…scene.

“There are a lot of hard working people at Disney that are about to be laid off. Victoria made a movie for a competitor without permission and thought she was immune from consequences. Apparently “a gay Latina woman with a passion project,” per her lawyer, doesn’t have to abide by the same rules as everyone else? I hope her being let go can save employees that actually did the jobs they were paid for.” –A Disney employee

“Why are you so quick to accept Disney’s explanation here? If [Alonso] was such a problem employee, why did Disney promote her in 2021?” –A (non-Disney) executive

“As a long time VFX exec who has worked with Marvel, let me tell you how it is…Victoria knew what she was doing. She knew she was breaking her contract and went around telling people she was going to get fired. She just didn’t think Disney would do it.” –A VFX executive

“Where is Bob Iger in this? His first move as C.E.O. was to fire his highest-ranking Black executive [Kareem Daniel], and now he’s letting Marvel fire the company’s top Latina. What’s the opposite of progressive?” –Yet another Disney employee

“[Alonso] is a great litmus test of whether diverse employees are untouchable.” –Another executive

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a good Tom/Greg theory? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.