Matt Belloni
Appearances
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I think we can split credit. I'd say Craig's moment really was his three-minute rant about risky business at the end of a Rewatchables. That was the moment. That was the moment he became a star.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, did you discuss James Corden? James Corden as Dumont? No, James Corden as Luca. That's not a thing? I'm a passive observer here, but it seems like Corden is born to play the role.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Well, yeah, that and Corden might have to lose a few pounds, but Luca might have to gain a few, but maybe we, uh, we get Luca at one of his post beer drinking sessions.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I mean, is there a murder he hasn't exploited yet?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
But Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer never really feuded. Don Simpson just sort of went off the rails. Actually, they did end up splitting, but I don't know. Ovitz?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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If he does another Hollywood one, I mean, he could do the Harvey Weinstein story. Like Harvey barreling through Hollywood in the 90s and 2000s, knowing what we know now about his downfall. Maybe he could do that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I get that. I mean, you could do the comedic version. Although, Harvey, you can't do comedy with. No, you can't. Like this new Lakers show that Jeannie Buss made with Mindy Kaling on Netflix. When I saw that Netflix was doing a Jeannie Buss show, I just winced. I was like, oh, no. But they went full comedy with it. And that worked.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I haven't watched it yet, but at least the trailer looks funny because it's just a total joke, the whole thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
It's 300 people in 8-H, and it is turning out to be the toughest ticket I have ever seen in Hollywood. Like, I don't know that there's even any sports equivalent of how exclusive this is. There are 300 seats. There are, I mean, hundreds of former cast members of the show. Guest hosts, musical guests, executives that want in on this, friends of Lorne, Paul McCartney, all of them want musicians.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Right. There's no there's no room there. The overflow room is going to be a tough ticket.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And Hamm probably didn't tell you this, but he's probably only in because he's hot right now. Like, he's... After Landman, after Morning Show, after Fargo, he's a hot actor right now, so he's in. But there are probably some frequent guest hosts from the 80s and 90s that are not in because they are not cool anymore.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You'd think so. But remember, at the 40th, there was a whole controversy over Victoria Jackson being in an overflow room. And she freaked out. So the cuts are going to be tough. They're doing it right now, actually. I heard they're doing it today and tomorrow.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Taylor and Travis, they gotta be there. I mean, you just go down the list of people that are either super famous and just nobody ever says no to them or they're friends of Lorne or they're important to the show. I can't even imagine. I would not wish this on anybody to have to pick that room.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Oh, hell no. No, there's not going to be an extraneous person in that room. Maybe the CEO of Comcast. Maybe his wife comes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You need NBC people. Ted Saranda told me he's going. The CEO of Netflix. And he has nothing to do with the show. He's just a fan. But he's powerful enough in Hollywood that he can get in.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
He's never doing that. Ted loves comedy so much. There's always the rumor that he will just decide to do a Friday night or a Sunday night version and just steal all the people from SNL. I think he has too much respect for Lorne to do that. But post Lorne, all bets are off.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And NBC will walk right into it because once Lorne leaves, they will start cost cutting on the show because it's hugely expensive for what it is. And Lorne has been able to beat them back, but they will start to cut costs and Ted will recognize it and he'll swoop in.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And they started this after the 45th. I mean, the the entire this is the culmination of Lauren's life work. Like they have been planning this. Comcast is giving this the whole symphony treatment where every aspect of the company tries to promote this thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
They've been planning, they set this whole, you know, three day weekend thing with the music and then the documentary premieres and all this stuff around the live show. They've been building this thing up. Like it's bigger than a sporting event for TV. And they have, they have, Lauren, I guarantee you has been thinking about every single person who will be in that room for more than a year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
He has said he is not. He has said he's going to do the fade out thing where he slowly brings in people to help him with certain things. But he is the ultimate decider and push comes to shove. He is in charge. We'll see.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And I have some thoughts on what I mean to the culture, too, because I only knew about the cowbell sketch from columns that you wrote 20 years ago.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
right which caused me to check it out um i thought they were generally good better than might be expected for promotional documentaries the the one with the uh the old footage of their auditions i thought that was super fun i hadn't seen a lot of that stuff uh the cowbell one was my favorite just because it was amazing the season 11 one
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Like it raised a lot of questions to me that I don't think the documentary answered. They did a whole documentary just on this lost season where everybody kind of got fired at the end. And it was it was a little bit like you felt like one of those docs where they're not telling me the whole story here. That was the most frustrating one to me. Yeah. Lorne, huge flex.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Didn't even appear in any of the documentaries promoting his show. They had to use archive footage of Lorne. Like he didn't sit for his own documentaries.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Oh, yeah. I mean, Ebersole is still alive. Apparently, he's not doing great, but that's another mystery is will he show up at the 50th?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You know what? You would think so, but I don't know how well he's doing these days, and I don't know what the state of that relationship with Lorne is. I don't think they are close. It may be a respect thing that he invites him, but... I don't know if he'll be there. The season 11 thing is amazing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I actually didn't know about that whole thing where they ended the season on a cliffhanger of firing all the... Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
It's amazing. And you can imagine they did that today. It's just like so much happened on SNL in the 80s and 90s, where if it happened during the social media era, it would it would be gigantic. And it just kind of came and went at 10 to 1 in the morning. And maybe people talked about it the next day. Maybe there was a newspaper article and then it was on to the next.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Yeah. And I think that that coincides with the rise of TikTok and online comedy and things that have sort of put SNL in the rear view. Also, COVID didn't help a live show like that. That depends on spontaneity. Like those were rough years. They've also the cast has gotten too big. And I think Lorne would probably admit that. They just have too many people.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
He lets them go off and do other things during the season now. If you look at someone like Bowen Yang, who they tried to make a star and didn't really work out, they had a show two weeks ago, and he was in L.A. on the Thursday before the show announcing the Oscar nominations. And then he gets on a plane and he goes back to SNL for the show on Saturday night.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And then on Sunday, he was at Sundance promoting a movie that he had done. So is Bowen Yang even part of that cast? Part of the whole SNL ethos is that you're there all the time. You're pitching, you're writing, you're coming up with bits. He was in and out of New York during that week doing his other projects and is sort of like kind of on the show.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
It's just a different thing now than when you had these tight 10-person casts that had an identity to them. Now it's like sort of a revolving door.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Will Ferrell did a couple of things, but like, yeah, Will Ferrell decided to be a movie star. He left SNL. Adam Sandler left SNL. It was a thing. Someone like Aidy Bryant. Aidy Bryant had a Hulu show that was greenlit, aired, and was canceled all while she was on SNL. Right. She had this whole side career going.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Alec Baldwin killed SNL.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's like heroin. It is. It worked really well. People loved it. Lorne got the zeitgeist back for these big stunty moments. He started to get news articles out of who was playing who on SNL. And we saw it during 2015, 2016 with the whole Trump White House and Melissa McCarthy coming in to play Sean Spicer. Yeah. Matt Damon doing Kavanaugh.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
All that stuff was so alluring to them that they kind of got addicted to it. And it was like a drug. You get a high off it, but there's a definite downside. And the downside is the show itself suffers. And the people that are on there for four or five years, you don't even know who they are.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Probably wouldn't happen today.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You look back at some of those David Spade monologues. Oh, yeah. Those would never...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
happened today the entire culture of celebrity has changed where if you do that stuff now you have to expect that you will get blowback from those people and some of the they court those celebrities so much now that they can't parody them like who are the two most famous people in american culture right now i think i've said this either on the town or i forget where before but taylor and travis snl should be going after taylor swift and travis kelsey relentlessly
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Totally going after them. But no, they don't because they want them to come on the show.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I know. It's the thing that everybody in the culture is having. But Blake is married to Ryan. Ryan has a lot of friends. They're in the Taylor Swift universe. Totally.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You know, the show was counterculture and then it became the culture. And now it's sort of it's ripe for disruption, to be honest. And you could argue that everything online and TikTok and everything has disrupted it. But now it is ripe for something sitting there. In Living Color, sort of did it. Lauren had a huge blind spot with diverse people, with Black people in particular on the show.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And then in Living Color comes on, taking Damon Wayans, who was on the show and famously was fired... They disrupted them in the 90s and had a thing going, and I think that was the last time that someone directly took on SNL and won, and not beat them, but had their own success. There is a version of SNL for today's audience that would work, I think, and it's beyond something that's on TikTok.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You could say that TikTok is SNL for today's audience, but there's something in a format, in an hour, hour and a half format, that would work and is just... SNL's just sitting there like a buffalo wandering the Serengeti.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Yeah. So like, you know, summer summer stock or call it do it as a stunt in the summer. Yeah. And then you don't even have to compete with SNL. And all of a sudden you've got the political conventions. You've got all the campaign stuff to yourself.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Yeah, I know. It's amazing. Fan duel line. Who opens the show?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I think they will do a traditional cold open.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Oh, I do not think they will do that because... I don't think they would either. Because all that does is beg the question of who is the best ever. And that's a question that Lauren does not want to answer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Maybe. And it's like the five.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Maybe. Here's an option. What if they do an original sketch with the surviving originals from the 1975 cast?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Jane Curtin's still alive. Dan, Lorraine Newman, Jane Curtin, and Garrett Morris. Garrett Morris is still alive. Yeah. So, there's five of them still alive. And I believe they'll all be there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
But that but that eliminates any political problems because you don't have to deal with people who think they were the best cast member ever. You don't have to deal with the Eddie Murphy issue. You don't have to deal with any of these other things. You just say, you know what? We're going to go with the we're going to go with the five originals and then have something written for them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
You know, Al Franken can write it, Donahoe or someone like that. And then you start the show with the rest of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Yeah. Or here's another idea. What about something with Kenan? Dude's been on the show longer than anyone else. They could do a whole sketch around how long Kenan's been there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Are you aware of what's going on here?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
It is sort of remarkable what is happening with the Oscars this year. The number one nominated film, 13 nominations for Amelia Perez, this Netflix movie about a transgender woman drug lord who has an adventure in Mexico. That movie has completely imploded over a Twitter scandal. So the favorite for Best Picture has basically been taken off the map for most of the nominations.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Zoe Saldana could still win. They could still win Best Song. But... This Twitter scandal involving Carla Sofia Gascon, who is the lead of the movie and just had some reprehensible old tweets that came up, has basically taken out the movie. And it is a five movie race now for Best Picture. And nobody knows what's going to win.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Thank you. Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
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The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I used to handle these cases.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There has to be actual malice is the standard or reckless disregard for the truth. And the other element is it's got to be false. If it's just unflattering, it doesn't matter. It has to be false. And I think in many of these cases, the stuff that was resurfaced by Baldoni's team, allegedly, was old interviews of Blake Lively speaking in her own voice. So that's not false. It may be unflattering.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
And there's some other stuff that they say was false. But... it's very unclear who would actually win if this case ever does go to trial because the causation here, even if you're hiding, even if you're hiring shady characters to see the internet with unflattering comments, is that actionable? Yeah. I was thinking more of the New York Times piece of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Oh, you mean what the New York Times published and whether that's defamation? Oh, that to me is a BS case. I don't believe that's real. I don't think the New York Times would lose a defamation case for going with a story based on interviews with a subject and a legal proceeding that was actually filed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
But, but again, the standard is whether the reporting was false. Right. Was it false? You could argue that it was slanted. You could argue that it may even be misleading if you don't include the full context of something. But was it does it rise to the level of defamation? And should the New York Times have known?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And did they purposely disregard certain facts in order to create a portrait of this guy that was false or or misleading? Yeah. I'm not. I mean, during the discovery process, we will see what comes out. But from the complaint itself, I'm not convinced that the that Baldoni has a case against the times.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
My advice to them both is settle now, go away for six months, and then come back. Do some settlement agreement where they agree to never say each other's names again. They will never be in the same room, and they can try to salvage their reputations afterward.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Because before this felt like he was going to end his career. Depends on who you talk to. I think that his campaign has helped him after the New York Times piece. Keep in mind, when that piece came out, his agency dropped him. He had a bunch of movies set up that went away. Like, that New York Times piece did actually hurt him a lot. So...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
understandably he returned fire the the the end result now though is that they are just like machine gunning each other from 10 feet away and they're they're killing each other There's a Taylor Swift piece, too, that's kind of fun. Oh, my God. I mean, do you believe that she's masterminding the whole thing? No, I don't. I do think that she's probably she probably encouraged it from the beginning.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Everything that she has done in her career has been to stand up for herself. Go on the offensive. Yeah. Fight back if she's especially against if there's if there's a guy who's been mistreating her in the public. She's going to fight back. And she probably said to Blake, fuck this guy. Go after him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So I did enjoy that the paparazzi happened to see him on vacation with his family and happened to photograph him shirtless in a like beefcake pose. And those photos happened to be circulated about how he was spending time with his family on vacation. So that's it. The machinations going on here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's the really interesting thing is just the whole underground PR world with these crisis people are fighting for the essentially the share of mindsets of people online. And that to me is a new world in crisis PR that is pretty fascinating.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Oh, I know everybody involved here. The woman who repped him, Steph Jones, who also repped Tom Brady, she is just the worst. The worst. She slimed me. The level of depravity of some of these crisis PR people is you think it's a low and then they go lower.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I mean, that was a lawyer, but scandal was good. They had, remember there was the Courtney Cox one or she was the one I was thinking of. She was like an editor of like an us weekly type, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I mean, Drake's got to fight back, right? He's got an album.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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No. It's a music industry thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But I think that people in the music industry definitely care. Certainly Universal Music Group cares because they have both of them on their label and they got sued by one of their own artists for defamation.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
They wouldn't let him say pedophile on the Super Bowl.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Maybe. I mean, it's pretty remarkable that that Super Bowl performance aired. It was an openly political diss track. I mean, that would have never aired on the Super Bowl 10 years ago.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Maybe even four years ago. I just feel like the fact that his fans loved it. I think there were probably a lot of older white people in America who didn't get it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Donald Trump not rocking along to the Kendrick set. But honestly, that's kind of great. I kind of love that that happened on the Super Bowl.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
Very different.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Mavericks Fans Revolt, ‘SNL 50’ Guesses, Oscars Watch, and Super Bowl Leftovers With Bryan Curtis and Matt Belloni
I think Hollywood is sort of in this weird place where people just don't know what's going on. The whole vibe shift people talk about, how the culture is changing and all these DEIs under attack and all the whole diversity movements under attack. Hollywood people are...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think a little more cautious to speak out against Trump than they were the first time around where the whole resistance movement and there was, you know, he barely won and, you know, there was this, this feeling of, of, you know, this, this, This guy squeaked into the White House. And who is he in the chaos now that Trump has been more normalized?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I feel like Hollywood is kind of figuring out how to respond. And you've got these big media companies that are like openly paying him off.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Totally. I mean, this is a president that's like purely transactional. It's what are you doing for me? And Disney, which had this open lawsuit with Trump over the George Stephanopoulos claims on GMA, they just said, you know what? It's not worth dealing with it. We're going to pay him $15 million, settle this. And
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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If I'm Bob Iger, that's kind of an easy decision because the last thing you want with this president is to have a politicized brand. Disney thrives on being a non-political brand and it had been politicized by Trump and others. So, Just pay him off and he'll leave you alone.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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We saw today Disney put out a revise on their DEI initiatives to change their diversity language to more like talent focus to kind of soften what they are doing in the diversity space. I think a lot of Hollywood companies are looking at Disney and what they're doing to see where they are going to go on this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They don't want to get sued by the Justice Department because they are looking to make shows with diverse people of color voices. They want to avoid any problems like that. And now we've got this Paramount sale. Paramount, the studio is for sale. Actually, they have a deal that they're selling to David Ellison.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And Trump is now threatening to hold that up based on the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris on CBS, which he claims was biased. So there's a whole there's a whole like dealing with Trump issue now in Hollywood that I think people don't really know how to deal with.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It would be. I look at everything through the lens of is this good or bad for Babydoll.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Something like that, where if the president said, I want you to fire Stephen Colbert, something like that, I think they would probably stand up against. But it's the more new. Are you sure? I'm not sure. I'm not. I'm not sure.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But Trump would probably brag about it. And then who's next? And then it's a purge. Would you be surprised? I would be surprised with that. I think if you're running a media company, you have to think bigger picture than that. And what's the implications for a move like that?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Something like what Sherry Redstone is dealing with right now at Paramount, where Trump has this $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News over the Kamala Harris interview. Everybody I have talked to in the legal world said it is a totally bullshit lawsuit. would never win. But Trump is doubling down. He's screaming about it on social media.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So if you're Sherry Redstone and you can get rid of this by donating $20 million to the Trump Presidential Library and it takes away a threat to your $8 billion merger with Skydance that you want, I think that's an easy answer. You do that. You pay him $20 million and you make that go away. That's more likely the kind of stuff that's going to go on.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think they already are. I mean, there's this proposal in California to double the tax credits. And that was a Gavin Newsom thing that he put in place after the strikes, because the production was already really hurting in the area. Oh, yeah. And the strikes were awful.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And they had this, you know, go up to about 700 and something million in tax credits, which would be good, but wouldn't change the calculus for most productions. I mean, they're shooting reality shows.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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outside of california now because the economics are so much better that rob low game show yeah the game show for people who can't read uh that that aired after the super bowl that that thing shoots i believe in ireland because it's just cheaper to go there and fly all those people there and that's what i think the movement now within the industry is to try to
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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use some of the momentum from the fires. I hate to use that word momentum when you're talking about fire aftermath. But there is this recognition that if they want the industry to come back in L.A., there's going to need to be investment. So I think that there will be a state investment. I don't know about federal. I mean, you never know what Trump and them are going to do. But statewide, yes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And then some of these companies, you know, imagine the goodwill if Disney or Universal, one of these said, you know what? Not only are we going to make five more movies in L.A., but we're going to build a soundstage in Altadena and it's going to employ 300 people and buy jobs that people don't have to go to Bulgaria for the summer to do their jobs in movies.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I think there'd be a lot of goodwill around that. Ultimately, push comes to shove, it's money. And if the economics make sense, they'll do it. But there is momentum now to at least make the economics better.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And this is not a new thing, but it has become more pronounced as the incentive to, to exit has gotten bigger. You shoot in the UK, it's like a 40% rebate on everything, on star salaries. Star salaries are currently excluded in California, so you can't get a rebate on paying Tom Cruise $20 million. But in the UK, you can get 40% of that back. And, you know, like everybody I know is impacted.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Lucas, Lucas Shaw, my Monday guy on the town, his fiance is in Chicago for a bunch of months because they're shooting a show she's producing and they're, they got credits to do it there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Oh, you noticed my hat.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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All revenue streams that are readily available to any Major League Baseball team should they choose to invest in their own team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You just get everybody now. Listen, we'll see. You know, best laid plans. A lot of by the midseason, we might have five pitchers on this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Why would I not? As long as you can sleep at night. I get it. I get it that other teams are upset about this, but this is not a, like, they're not cheating. These are the rules. You can do what you want to do. And, you know, now that football's over, everybody in LA, it's Mookie Betts season for everybody in LA except one guy, you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I get it, but we've won one championship. We won the 2020 championship in, you know, sort of booby prize fashion. It doesn't guarantee anything. And if the Dodgers want to pay that, they are making so much money by investing. Yes, they have a great local TV deal. Yes, they have private equity owners that can structure these deals in a way that defers all this money and they can make that work.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But this is not some... system that is out of reach for most of these owners. They are choosing not to invest. And if your owner chooses not to invest, scream at your owner.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That arena's great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So you don't subscribe to this whole... theory that the NBA is suffering because Americans don't root for the foreign players like they do for the American players?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Do you think Luka can get to LeBron levels of fandom? I don't.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I will defer to you on all things NBA, but I just have a hard time believing there's going to be appetite for Luka to star in a Space Jam sequel.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, but he got it greenlit. He got it greenlit, and people were buying shows from him for a while. Yeah, and now they're not. Steph Curry has a production company, and people think he's a media personality. I just don't know that the foreign players have as much cachet as the U.S.-born players.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's funny. We're talking about the appeal of foreign players when who's the biggest star in L.A. right now? Shohei Ohtani. Right. And like no one seems to give a shit that he doesn't even speak English. He does, but not very much. And like my kid, you know, has three Ohtani jerseys like the frickin bobblehead night. That's going to be Luca. It was like the Beatles.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Oh, Taylor Swift.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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She's clearly the number one most famous celebrity in the world.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Two is a tougher question. I mean, I think it's generational if it's for you and me, Leo, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. Or maybe a music star. Honestly, the music stars are just so much bigger.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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No, Mahomes is boring. And maybe someone like Selena Gomez for young people. She's just so immensely popular. And she means nothing to me. And I don't even really get her as an actress. But for young people, she means a ton. Same with Zendaya. Beyond that, it's just so generational now. Tom Cruise, probably the biggest movie movie star out there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Can you think of anyone else? No, no. I'd say probably most famous person in the world other than like the Beyonce or Donald Trump. Beyonce second. No, I'm saying as number two, maybe Beyonce is a huge star, but Beyonce doesn't actually sell that many albums anymore.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Um, she's, you know, Taylor was the, had the number one album of last year and the number one tour and is the number one, you know, celebrity on paparazzi radar. So I think she's just in another league.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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He can bowl a 300. He makes $300 million. He makes a $300 million contract, and he just has a kick-ass house in the Valley and lives his life.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, the NBA guys obviously have a huge advantage.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And you can also probably push him over. A light breeze would push him over these days. Come on. All right. Matt Bellamy. I know you're friends. Can you tell him to eat a sandwich, please? Not friends with Brady. No, I'm not. You just idolize him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. Listen, if he played for my team, I would idolize him too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't know. That's it. Yeah. Listen to the town. Listen, uh, read my puck newsletter called what I'm hearing. That's it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It may, it may, it may be a TGA Friday.