Rebecca Kearey and Martha Morrison talk about the Searchlight and Disney partnership
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00:00Rebecca, I, you know, sort of in this vein of symphony and larger, you know, corporate, the firehose of corporate power, I think as a longtime sort of devotee to Searchlight, how has Hulu really been for you guys in terms of not only introducing more people to the brand, but also in sort of helping you underwrite your ambitions as a company?
00:21It's been pretty incredible actually for us because obviously we're on Hulu, we're now Hulu on Disney+, we're on Disney+, around the rest of the world, outside the US, and to be able to collaborate with in-company partners on windowing, marketing on platform, what provides kind of the best for both worlds.
00:49We had our 30th anniversary last year, we worked on a big 30th anniversary campaign with them, we have Black Swan anniversary coming up this year, we have lots of stuff in the pipeline, that, and Hulu obviously has a lot of our catalogs, so we're able to work really, really closely with them on marketing and publicity, which is just incredible for us, and it's given us an additional spoke to our business that we've never had before.
01:18Obviously our old deal was with HBO, that was our old Fox Payone deal, which was great, they were also really good partners, but there's nothing like being able to literally walk over to somebody's office and go, hey, what do you think about this date, and could we cycle back in X, which would really help, we think, with that.
01:38And, you know, we have a searchlight hub on Hulu, it's been phenomenal.
01:44Do you think that's going to lead to an increased output from you guys at any point, at least on the acquisitions front, even?
01:49Well, theatrical is still the driver for us, obviously, for everything.
01:54So, in terms of increased output, theatrical will always drive our movies, and I, you know, we like producing our own movies, we like acquiring, obviously the acquisitions market is much more challenged than it's ever been.
02:10It's been challenging for a long time, actually, but it doesn't get any easier.
02:15So, it's really about, you know, partnering on, sometimes we'll partner on movies that work well for them, like Summer of Soul, The Doc, that we loved theatrically distributing.
02:28But it also, it was a partnership kind of acquisition with Hulu.
02:33So, there are certain things that we can work on together, but a lot of it is really about us producing and acquiring and then working with Hulu as that streaming pay-one destination.
02:44It's also, you know, having all of our films in both these ecosystems, in Hulu and Disney+, it is, everybody's success begets everybody else's success, which is, I think, something you guys were speaking to as well.
02:56Now, you know, we have a massive hit in Moana 2, and I think we've been very open about Moana working really well on our service and streaming, having a billion streams, being the first movie to have a billion streams.
03:06And we saw another massive surge of success with what was happening on the service with Moana and all Moana-related content.
03:12And a similar thing happened with Inside Out and the Apes movies and the Aliens movies on Hulu.
03:16So, everybody sort of benefits whenever there is a level of success, and having Disney+, and Hulu within our family means that we can all capitalize on it in a great way.
03:28It's also pretty incredible in terms of what it means around the world, right?
03:31The fact of the matter is Disney+, exists around the world.
03:35We're able to speak to our Disney+, partners and affect change or come up with strategies that benefit both of us.
03:43And, again, you know, take us back six years ago, and we would have to talk to, like, pay TV partner in exterritory, exterritory, exterritory, you know.
03:54And it's just not that easy to coordinate that around the world.
03:58So, it's been pretty life-changing.