The End-of-Year Exec Survey: Next Disney CEO, Where to Sell Your Movie, and Worst Media Exec

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss the big Christmas weekend at the box office, including the big ‘Marty Supreme’ win and Sydney Sweeney’s box office bounce. Then they dive into Lucas’s recent Bloomberg survey polling 700 industry experts to answer the biggest burning questions around town, including who will end up owning Warner Bros., who will be the CEO of Disney in 2027, where you should sell your movie, and who is the worst CEO in media (01:42). Matt finishes the show with a prediction about whether we will get ‘Avatar 4’ (25:00). 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: Lucas Shaw Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you care about Hollywood, and I assume you do if you're listening to the town, you should really be getting the whole story about Hollywood. That's what you get with Puck. I'm a founding partner at Puck, and I write a newsletter called What I'm Hearing. It's got exclusive news for insiders and analysis of the biggest stories. Puck has a bunch of great journalists. We just hired Kim Masters, who also covers Hollywood from the inside, plus media, sports, fashion,
0:21.7	politics, and finance. It's a must have for plugged-in people. Fans of the town get a
0:26.6	discount on the description page of this episode or at puck.news slash the town. Go further into
0:32.1	Hollywood by becoming a puck member today. It is Monday, December 29th.
0:38.7	Happy holidays.
0:39.7	Hollywood may be shut down this week, but the town is always on.
0:43.2	Today, it's all about predictions.
0:45.2	Not our specifically.
0:46.3	It's the executives who run the entertainment business.
0:49.3	They're telling us what they think.
0:50.7	Or at least a survey of executives is telling us what they think.
0:54.3	Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy from Bloomberg, he and his team least a survey of executives is telling us what they think. Lucas Shaw, a Monday guy from Bloomberg.
0:56.1	He and his team did a poll of about 700 executives in Hollywood and the music industry and
1:01.4	ask some things like, who's going to end up with Warner Brothers, the Disney CEO endgame,
1:06.4	the worst executive in media.
1:08.5	I have my thoughts on that one.
1:10.1	It's interesting stuff, so I asked Lucas
1:11.6	to take us through some of the highlights and the biggest surprises. A little spoiler, our guy,
1:16.2	David Zazloff, not commanding a huge amount of respect in the industry. We'll also do a little on
1:21.6	the Christmas box office, how Avatar 3 is doing, the Timmy Chalamehourse, overall a pretty wild weekend at the Cineplex.
1:29.6	Lots to discuss.
1:30.5	So today, it's executive predictions and the holiday box office narratives.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Ringer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Ringer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.