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Brian, the name. Hooray for me. Podcast is over. Brian is here because he's got a new movie coming out on Netflix,

probably the day that you are listening to this. Brian, the name of this movie has changed a couple of times. What's the current name? Is nobody speak trials of the free press? Nobody speaks trials of the free press. Common parlance, this is the Gawker versus Hulk Hogan documentary movie. It's a documentary. It's not fiction. seems pretty dystopian though.

Many of you who are listening to this podcast were documentary movie. It's a documentary. It's not fiction. It seems pretty dystopian, though.

Many of you who are listening to this podcast will remember the Hulk Hogan versus Gawker trial,

which concluded just about a year ago. Then went on for a while. Eventually, Gawker went into

bankruptcy. It's now on by Fusion. It seems crazy. It seems like this happened years ago. And so you made that movie in between sort of the end of the trial and now. Yeah, basically. Yeah. This thing was in Sundance. That's beginning of this year. So how quickly did you make this movie? Yeah, it's been just under a year. Yeah. So we started, you know, I was really interested in the trial. I thought the Hulk Hoke and Gocker trial was just fascinated. You're a professional documentary. This is what you do. This is what I do. Yeah. So I was super, you know, fascinated by it. I thought just by itself was pretty interesting. It was the first time a sex tape case like this ever went to trial. Actually went to true yeah and um you know you know, as salacious and as tabloidy as that all sounded, it was pretty clear that

there was some big picture things at stake here.

I mean, privacy versus First Amendment.

So I was captivated by it, but really the documentary kicked in after this $140 million

verdict, which was paired with a requirement for Gawker to put up $50 million right away.

That was the death sentence of Gagher.

So let's back all the way up.

If you weren't following this for some reason, again, you probably have some recollection of Hulk Hogan sex tape Gawker trial.

But the trial was a privacy trial.

That's right.

A suit brought by Hulk Hogan for a blog post Gawker put up years ago. Most people that probably did not read it saying here's a Hulk Hogan sex tape. You can look at it. That was that. Hogan's lawyer told him to take it down. They didn't. Things went on. Gawker gets sued frequently or used to get sued frequently and things would get settled and people would go away. This one did not go away. And eventually with the trial started. It was going to go to trial a couple years ago and then finally with the trial last year. And so you were drawn to this right away. This is an interesting story. Yeah, really by itself. You know, it's not an easy story. You know, I had some sympathy for Hogan's case, but...

Because you would not like to have your sex tape put on the internet? Yeah, presumably. Yeah,

I see where he's coming from. So, you know, I just thought there was, it was something that was just

really, really compelling. It's kind of out the boundaries of acceptability and speech and all

of that. But it really, it became something very different after the big verdict, and then it was revealed

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