Could Movies Start Skipping Netflix to Go Straight to YouTube?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Indian superstar actor and producer Aamir Khan to discuss his bold strategy to release his newest film exclusively on YouTube despite an eight-figure offer from a traditional streamer. He explains how this decision fuels his own creative responsibility for the film, the rationale of sacrificing money for reach, the drawbacks of the presale model, and why there needs to be a stop between theatrical and streaming video on demand (03:23). Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the theatrical release of ‘Hamilton’ (25:42). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Aamir Khan Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Bill Simmons, and I want to tell you about my movie podcast, The Rewatchables.
0:03.8	We're each week, I'm joined by Ringer movie lovers, Chris Ryan, Sean Van Van Lathen, Kyle Brandt, Matley Rubin, we have a whole bunch of people on. We talk about movies. We can't stop rewatching. And now you can watch us cover these movies on video in the Spotify app. We have covered over 350 movies,
0:21.5	including Keat, Goodfellas,
0:22.7	Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction.
0:24.3	We have some real heavy hitters
0:25.5	coming up here in 2025.
0:27.2	Make sure to follow us on Spotify
0:28.9	where you can watch every new episode right now.
0:33.3	Just head to the rewatchables on Spotify,
0:35.7	now on video.
0:39.2	It is Friday, August 8th.
0:41.5	We've talked a lot on the show about the battle between YouTube and Netflix for the most attention in streaming video.
0:48.0	That war is being fought for engagement, of course, or time spent on the platform.
0:52.3	And YouTube is winning that war because the service is filled
0:55.1	with a huge volume of user-generated non-premium content. Netflix may have less engagement,
1:01.4	but it's premium, curated, special. Netflix pays for the content it carries rather than people
1:06.5	who upload for free and get revenue shares. No real star or filmmaker would take their movie to YouTube
1:11.8	before it debuts on Netflix, right? Well, not always. A new Bollywood movie called Stars on Earth caught my eye,
1:18.6	not because I'm particularly into Indian movies, no disrespect. It's a fun sports dramedy about some
1:23.6	kids with disabilities who compete in a basketball tournament. It's because Stars on Earth went to theaters in June in India,
1:30.4	where it grossed about $30 million, one of the higher grossing movies of the year there.
1:34.4	And then it went directly to YouTube, not Netflix or Prime Video or any of the other
	...

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