Muta’Ali on his documentary ‘MoviePass, MovieCrash’; CNN and Paramount step into the future

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kim Masters and Matt Belloni discuss the Paramount-Skydance merger. They also look at CNN’s digital future after the company lays off 100 employees, and weigh in on Kevin Costner’s sad “Horizon” rollout.

Plus, Masters speaks to Muta’Ali, director of the HBO documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash.” The filmmaker talks about his desire to center the story of the company’s two Black founders, while detailing the complex business dealings that led to MoviePass’s meteoric rise and fall.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.
0:05.4	When it first launched in 2011, MoviePass seemed like a dream for movie lovers.
0:11.3	Yeah, I watched Crazy Ridge Asians 14 times overall.
0:15.2	But for investors, the dream turned into a nightmare.
0:18.8	When documentary filmmaker Mutha Ali set out to tell that tale,
0:22.5	he wanted to center the two Black Movie Pass founders who wanted to run a legitimate business.
0:28.3	And then there were the two white guys, Mitch Lowe and Ted Farnsworth, who took over, tanked the
0:33.5	company, and got in trouble with the law. It was literally, I think, maybe a week or 10 days after we interviewed Mitch that he was
0:41.5	charged.
0:42.5	And so I'm sure if we had waited, he wouldn't have talked to us at all.
0:46.3	But at that time, he was happy to promote a book that he had just published.
0:51.5	Mutah Ali takes us behind the scenes of the making of his HBO documentary,
0:56.6	Movie Pass, Movie Crash.
0:58.5	But first we banter.
0:59.9	Stick around.
1:00.6	It's the business from KCRW.
1:04.0	I am joined by my colleague in Mantor, Matt.
1:06.8	Bellany, hello, Matt.
1:07.7	Hi there.
1:08.6	So, to the surprise probably of himself,
1:12.3	Catherine has announced that the second part of his multi-part movie effort,
1:18.8	which began not on a promising note with Horizon,
	...

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