Transcript: HBO & the Harry Potter Gamble
Casey Bloys talks a big game as questions abound for the prestige network
Elaine Low (00:04):
Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. It's Thursday, December 5th. I'm Elaine Low, author of the Series Business newsletter, joined here as always in L.A. by the Ankler himself, Richard Rushfield. Richard, how was your Thanksgiving last week? Tell us what you made for the big feast. Inquiring minds need to know.
Richard Rushfield (00:20):
Due to some family circumstances, we went to a restaurant for the first time in-
Elaine Low (00:25):
Oh, so did we.
Richard Rushfield (00:26):
. . . Family Thanksgiving history and got to say, not having to clean up, not having to sit around for eight hours after isn't so bad. And I ordered steak instead of turkey.
Elaine Low (00:36):
Oh, very nice. We did a Pan-Asian buffet. I was happy to have duck instead of Turkey.
Richard Rushfield (00:41):
Even better. Yeah, that's fantastic. The Thanksgiving curse may be broken forever.
Elaine Low (00:49):
Thanksgiving curse. What was the Thanksgiving curse? Oh, of having to make a turkey?
Richard Rushfield (00:53):
Having to cook and having to clean and having to entertain and sit around all day.
Elaine Low (00:58):
And in lieu of Sean McNulty, who is outside of the country right now, we have our international correspondent extraordinaire and my Series Business co-author Manori Ravindran, dialing in from London. Welcome, welcome.
Manori Ravindran (01:11):
Thanks for having me.
Elaine Low (01:12):
And it sounds like Sean is actually over on your side of the pond today, isn't he?
Manori Ravindran (01:17):
That is right. We literally met a few hours ago for the first time, although I was asked multiple times about Sean during the course of the conference. He's got a legion of international fans, which I thought was very sweet.
Elaine Low (01:29):
Yes, hello to our non-U.S. Wakeup readers.
Richard Rushfield (01:33):
And yes, he really does listen to all those earnings calls and seems to like them.
Elaine Low (01:40):
Inexplicably. Now, Manori, you and Sean have been all over the place today. I know Manori, you just got back from Content London. It's a big industry event with major executives from Warners and Amazon there. What were some of the highlights for you?
Manori Ravindran (01:56):
Yeah, so this was actually my first time covering Content London in earnest. They didn't allow outside reporters for a few years. That has changed in recent years, although it is still somewhat a struggle. However, we are in there now. And so it was my first time properly seeing how everything worked and it's a great conference. It's international trade C21, it's their event. All the big guns are there. There were a lot more American speakers from what I understand this year. A lot of the streamers were there. Netflix's Larry Tanz, Prime video was there, Lauren Anderson, Warner Bros. Discovery actually had a big showing. So it was certainly well represented on the American side. And of course, all the Europeans are there in terms of the producers especially. It's a really great sort of meeting point in terms of people really trying to think about their next projects and sort of fill the financing, and co-production was certainly the key word.
Elaine Low (02:58):
Oh yes. And we're going to talk about co-production later in our second segment where you gave us a co-pro 101 for The Ankler this week. But first I got to ask, with Content London, I mean, what was the energy like there? Does it sort of feel like everybody's back in business sort of after last year?