What Scares Hollywood’s Top Producers the Most About the State of Movies

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Live from CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Matt is joined by producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Emma Thomas and Cinema United CEO Michael O’Leary to discuss the petition to block Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros., the impact of PVOD and SVOD on the theatrical industry, the benefits of working with a major studio, the Ryan Coogler ‘Sinners’ deal, and what scares them the most about the state of the industry right now. Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Jerry Bruckheimer, Emma Thomas, Michael O’Leary Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jon Jones Theme Song: Devon Renaldo This episode is brought to you by AMC+. Start your free trial today at join.amcplus.com. Half Man premieres April 23rd on HBO Max. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of The Town is presented to you by AMC Networks.
0:08.7	Billy Magnuson and Zach Galfinacus star in the new series The Audacity on AMC and AMC Plus.
0:15.1	Influence rises, people unravel, and CEO meltdowns are business as usual among Silicon Valley Elite,
0:21.6	executive produced by Jonathan Glasser, a writer-producer of succession and better call Saul.
0:26.4	Watch new episodes of The Audacity, Sundays exclusively on AMC and AMC Plus.
0:32.9	It is Wednesday, April 22nd.
0:35.6	Today is the second of our two live episodes recorded at CinemaCon, the theater convention last week.
0:41.7	Posted John Favreau on Thursday, you can check out that episode in our feed.
0:46.2	And today it's two very different kinds of filmmakers.
0:49.4	Jerry Bruckheimer has been one of the most prolific producers of the past 50 years,
0:57.7	starting in the 70s through his partnership with Don Simpson in the 80s,
0:59.0	Top Gun, Days of Thunder,
1:02.1	then the action movies of the 90s and 2000s,
1:03.8	the Pirates of the Caribbean movies,
1:07.7	CSI for TV, and most recently last year's F1,
1:11.7	a big hit that earned him his second Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
1:15.9	Our other guests won Best Picture in 2024 for Oppenheimer.
1:21.0	Emma Thomas has produced all of the films directed by her husband, Christopher Nolan.
1:27.0	Both were in Vegas last week for CinemaCon and were joined on a panel with me and Michael O'Leary of Cinema United, the theater
1:29.1	industry's top lobbyist. He's been on the show before. We talked about the new filmmakers
1:33.9	council that both Jerry and Emma are supporting, and then we got into a bunch of industry topics,
1:39.4	the Windows question, the whole petition to block the Warner Brothers Paramount merger, the hot
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