Paramount leadership announces a knockout deal for UFC rights

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Ellison’s Paramount is off to a loud start, rolling out a James Mangold/Timothée Chalamet crime drama and a $7.7 billion, seven year UFC deal. Will the studio’s bold strategies play out as intended? Kim Masters and Matt Belloni break down Paramount’s next act.

Plus, Masters talks to documentarian Petra Costa about Apocalypse in the Tropics, a follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2019 film The Edge of Democracy. What started as a look at Brazil’s COVID response became an investigation into how religious fundamentalism, conspiracy theories and foreign influence have undermined democracy in her home country. She also recounts documenting the rise and fall of Jair Bolsonaro and the risks her crew faced while covering the country’s January 8th attempted coup.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.
0:05.5	In her Netflix documentary Apocalypse in the Tropic, Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa explains how a project set in her home country was always intended to be about much more than just one place.
0:16.3	My intention with this film was never for it to be a story about Brazil, but as a fable of what
0:21.9	happens when democracy arose, when religion mixes with politics. And it's amazing the
0:27.9	amount of parallels with the United States. It was really uncanny. Petra Costa joins us to discuss
0:33.2	her follow-up to the Oscar-nominated 2019 documentary, The Edge of Democracy.
0:38.7	She explains how what began as a look at Brazil's response to COVID quickly evolved
0:43.0	into an examination of how religious fundamentalism fueled by conspiracy theories and foreign
0:48.0	influence have eroded democracy in her home country. Costa traces the rise and defeat
0:53.4	of far-right leader Yaira Bolsonaro
0:55.3	and talks about the dangers her crew faced while documenting the January 8th attempted coup in Brazil.
1:01.4	But first we banter. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.
1:06.7	I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt.
1:10.5	Hi there.
1:11.7	So the new management has taken over at Paramount, the Skydance team. They have made some noise early on.
1:19.2	They announced, first of all, a film with James Mangold and Timothy Shalame. That is apparently a crime drama described as in the vein of heat meets hell or high water.
1:30.4	But that's a splashy announcement, a kind of thing they want.
1:33.4	And then a much bigger and more dramatic announcement was that they had made this deal with UFC,
1:39.4	which is a seven-year deal for $7.7 billion for the rights to various iterations of USC fights.
1:47.9	That is a big swing. They snatched it away from Disney and Netflix, which had been interested.
1:54.1	I think it's a great deal for UFC. This is negotiated by Ari Emanuel, who plays a dual role here as kind of reping David Ellison, Skydance, and being an owner of UFC's parent company, TKO.
2:05.9	That was like a big noise. And it's certainly good. As I said for UFC, not so sure for Paramount, but it makes a statement.
	...

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