Podcast: Don't Kill the Messenger with Movie Research Expert Kevin Goetz
Guest: Bob Greenblatt

Interview Transcript:

Announcer (00:03):

From script to screen, every film is brought to life by visionary creatives and executives. All sharing one mission, to captivate the audience. Hosted by award-winning movie strategist Kevin Goetz, our podcast, Don't Kill the Messenger, offers a filmmaking masterclass through intimate conversations with Hollywood's most influential voices. And now, your host, Kevin Goetz.

Kevin Goetz (00:29):

At its heart, this show is about audiences, what they respond to, what moves them, and what makes them come back for more. And there are a few people in the entertainment industry who have understood that relationship as successfully, and for as long as my guest today. Bob Greenblatt is one of the most influential television leaders of his generation. For more than 35 years, he has been at the forefront of a changing culture, helping shape not only what audiences watched, but many of the shows that became part of our lives. At Fox, he helped develop Beverly Hills 90210, the X-Files, and Party of Five. He went on to executive produce HBO's Six Feet Under, transformed Showtime with series like Dexter, Weeds, and Shameless, and later led NBC Entertainment where his tenure included The Voice, This Is Us, The Blacklist, Chicago Fire, and the return of live musicals to network television.

(01:36):

He later led Warner Media Entertainment, helped launch HBO Max, and along the way became a, oh yeah, a five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer. From broadcast to premium cable, streaming to Broadway, Bob has had an extraordinary ability to understand what people seem to want, often even before they know it. Bob, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here today.

Bob Greenblatt (02:07):

It's so nice to be here, and I think we have to end right now after that introduction. <laugh> It doesn't get better than that.

Kevin Goetz (02:12):

I was starting to say to you before the show that I think I've done a lot in my life for my years, and when I look at your resume and hear your credits, I just go, "Oh, what a schlepper I am."

Bob Greenblatt (02:22):

No. <laugh> Oh my God, I think that about other people that I look up to in this business. I just think, "How do people do all this stuff?" And then you go through my resume and you realize we've been working a long time.

Kevin Goetz (02:35):

We have been. We have been. So you and I are, I believe, kindred spirits, because we both were kids with big dreams from little towns, you, Rockford, Illinois, me from East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Bob Greenblatt (02:49):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (02:49):

Both loving the theater, both loving musical theater. Tell me how it all began.

Bob Greenblatt (02:58):

I grew up in a small town outside Chicago and just always wanted to be somehow involved in theater, primarily theater.

Kevin Goetz (03:09):

So your parents had a piano?

Bob Greenblatt (03:11):

I coerced them into buying me a piano. We could barely afford a piano. I don't know how they did it either. 

Kevin Goetz (03:17):

And what age were you when you started playing?

Bob Greenblatt (03:19):

I was like six or seven years old and our neighbors two houses away had a grand piano in their living room. And I used to go there and I played by ear. So I would play - 

Kevin Goetz (03:28):

You had that natural ability.

*Bob Greenblatt (03:29):

Yeah. I would play at their house and one day they called my mother and said, um, you know, "We love how well your son plays the piano." And my mother said, "What are you talking about? He doesn't play the piano. We don't have a piano." And they said, "Well," she said, "They play, he plays over here." And so my mother was the greatest, and she's like, "Do you wanna start taking piano lessons? Do you wanna study?" And they found some used spin it piano that they bought for me as a little kid.

Kevin Goetz (03:59):

And you ultimately learned how to read music?

Bob Greenblatt (04:01):

I did. In high school, I played piano in all the orchestras for the shows. That was my introduction to theater. I was never an onstage performer, but I loved playing in the orchestras. And, you know, thought, well, that's the direction I'm gonna go. 

Kevin Goetz (04:16):

Did you sing too?

Bob Greenblatt (04:17):

I sang too, yeah. But I wasn't really a singing performer. I was really an accompanist mostly, more than anything. What I wanna mention about my hometown in Rockford, Illinois, it was a small town. We had a lot of culture in this town. We had a dance company. We had a symphony orchestra. It was a town of about 180,000 people, not tiny, but not a major, major city. We had community theaters, and I had this incredible high school theater program, little Catholic high school with a director and a choreographer who worked there. And we were all encouraged to just kind of go for it. So out of my high school comes Joe Mantello, who is a three-time Tony-winning director on Broadway now, directed Wicked, and Marin Mazzie, who became a great, great Broadway actress. 

Kevin Goetz (05:05):

Wasn't your best friend or something?

Bob Greenblatt (05:05):

My best friend, she passed away about eight years ago.

Kevin Goetz (05:08):

Unbelievable talent.

Bob Greenblatt (05:09):

Joan Benson. So all of us were doing shows together when we were in high school in community theater, and we were all encouraged to kind of go for it. And everybody left town. Many people went to Broadway. I went to Hollywood because I wanted to be in the film business. I got a master's in business at University of Wisconsin first. I didn't know how to get to Hollywood, so I kept going to college.

Kevin Goetz (05:32):

You have this rare left brain, right brain balance. Your beautiful creativity when you are so creative. I mean, the respect and admiration I have for you creatively is like - Thank you. Second to none. And then your business brain that you've run networks.

*Bob Greenblatt (05:50):

Yeah. I sort of like both sides. I mean, if you put a gun to my head, it's gotta be the creative side, but knowing the business and being able to be in that side of it gave me the opportunity to make all those shows and put them all on. So it was a way to get things through the system. But I love sitting with writers. I love being on the set. I love playing music. I mean, I really do like the creative side. Where did

Kevin Goetz (06:15):

You learn the creative side of the business? Because you weren't a product of Hollywood.

Bob Greenblatt (06:22):

No.

Kevin Goetz (06:23):

You had the wherewithal to say, "I've got my MBA. I need to go to film school."

*Bob Greenblatt (06:28):

Right. I guess it was just doing show after show after show as a young person and being in the middle of these productions, many of which weren't great, but some were. And we had some people like Marin Mazzie and Jodi Benson on stage as I was a teenager, literally, and I could see what's good and what isn't good. And I had good teachers and mentors to help sort of refine that thinking. And then I went to film school, which was, again, the business side of it. But I'll tell you where it really started and it took off in a big way for me. And I'm gonna jump ahead, but it was working for Peter Chernin. That was the first time where I got to sit in a room and see somebody who was the head of the studio, but he could sit with a writer and give notes to a writer or look at a cut of a movie and give notes on a cut that were so perceptive and smart. And I just soaked all of that up for the two years I worked with him at Lorimar, and then I went to the Fox Network. He brought me there in the early days of the Fox Network. And I just, you know, film school was great, but it didn't teach me how to tell a better story or make a better cut of a movie or a pilot. That's, I think, a lot of instinct, but you also learn that from the people around you. And I was so lucky to be kind of in his presence early in my career. And I really wanted to emulate that, and I think I have to a large degree. And he's a dear friend of mine all these years later.

Kevin Goetz (08:04):

Peter also helped guide me. He understood that I was different, I guess, than some of the other people he worked with and said, "What the hell do you wanna do? Come see me tomorrow." This was 30 years ago. He had just moved to Fox.

Bob Greenblatt (08:20):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (08:21):

And we've been friends since.

Bob Greenblatt (08:23):

And what were you doing those 30 years ago?

Kevin Goetz (08:24):

I was moderating, but I was a part-time moderator and I was a hyphenate. I was an actor and a moderator. Then I was a producer and a moderator. I started my own theater and I said, "Hmm, this is interesting. I think I could and would love to go to a studio and have a deal there as a producer." And he said, "Well, would you consider being an executive?" And it was like that kind of. And I, so he kind of got my mind -

Bob Greenblatt (08:49):

Thinking.

Kevin Goetz (08:50):

Thinking in a different way.

Bob Greenblatt (08:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (08:51):

But he, his belief in me is where I have always been, um, really moved by and, and appreciative of.

*Bob Greenblatt (08:59):

He's one of the greats. And he's the other person that I've noticed in my career who is equally good at running the company and sitting with the creative people and getting the best out of them and talking their language. Not, not as an executive trying to force something on them, but as like a creative person in the, in the mix with them. And that's what I wanted to be. And I, I like to think that, you know, to some degree that is what, what I became.

Kevin Goetz (09:29):

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Who else has been sort of really instrumental as a mentor or as a figure that you really looked up to as an early Bob coming into the business?

Bob Greenblatt (09:43):

You know, he was the prime example, but the other person that I worked with briefly was Scott Rudin when he was head of production at the age of 28, of 20th Century Fox when I was an intern from USA Film School. And it was a rough time at the studio. This would have been 1986 or maybe 87. Barry Diller there

Kevin Goetz (10:05):

Then?

Bob Greenblatt (10:05):

Barry was his boss, right? And Rupert had bought the studio, so it was, it was all under Rupert. 

Kevin Goetz (10:11):

From Marvin Davis.

Bob Greenblatt (10:12):

Right. So it was a transition for Fox. There were not a lot of movies were made and it was struggling, but I went in there and was an intern and Scott was head of production. Amy Pascal was a young executive there. Other great people like Sarah Coliton and Larry Mark was still there. And I got to see these people working and coming up with movies and finding scripts. And Scott was very, very helpful to me and encouraging and I went from him to PeterChernin. So I feel like early on, I zeroed in on some of the people who I think are the best in the business. 

Kevin Goetz (10:48):

Game changers, taste makers.

Bob Greenblatt (10:50):

Yeah. But really smart executives and producers. I mean, Peter's a producer now and Scott's obviously been a producer for years. And Amy now.

Kevin Goetz (11:00):

You think?

Bob Greenblatt (11:00):

Yeah, right? But it was -

Kevin Goetz (11:01):

Spider-Man, Narnia.

Bob Greenblatt (11:04):

James Bond. Back in the day, I was in the story department at Fox when I was an intern. Do you remember what the weekend read used to be?

Kevin Goetz (11:12):

Oh, God, yeah. What do you mean used to be? They don’t still do it?

Bob Greenblatt (11:14):

I don't know. I, I, it seems like a thing of the past because I'm not a film executive anymore, but -

Kevin Goetz (11:19):

Well, you did it for television though, didn't you?

Bob Greenblatt (11:21):

We didn't do a weekend read, but it was a real formalized thing where all the executives would bring their favorite scripts of the week and they'd put them out to all the executives for the weekend. You had to read 10 or 12 scripts on the weekend and then come back on Monday and discuss them. And I remember every Friday it was a mad dash to get all those scripts Xerox - Is that what you had to do? Yeah. We had to make copies of all them, like stacks of scripts for all the executives. She would come in on a Friday afternoon and it would be like, "Hey, I got another one for Weekend Read now. I've got another one for We-" She would bring three or four scripts at the last minute of things she was passionate about. <laugh> And I don't know even what those scripts led to back then, because I'd forgotten, but I do remember her as a whirling dervish of activity.

Kevin Goetz (12:03):

So you were on the film side for two minutes.

Bob Greenblatt (12:05):

Yes, that was the film side. And I, I was a film snob out of film school. I didn't even think I was ever gonna go into television.

Kevin Goetz (12:12):

Did you have a seminal film that you remember watching as a kid?

Bob Greenblatt (12:15):

Yes. I will tell you, and it's a documentary and I've talked about it over the years, but did That's Entertainment, which was the documentary about the MGM Musicals was the thing that kind of -

Kevin Goetz (12:29):

Right?

*Bob Greenblatt (12:30):

That's Entertainment for me blew my mind because not only was it all those great MGM musical clips in one movie, but the realization for me was one studio made all of these movies. I couldn't believe it. And then I thought, what is this MGM? I didn't know from MGM, really. I was a kid. I was literally 14. And at that moment I said to myself, one day I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna run MGM. That was my dream. As a studio, I love the idea of this studio. I did not realize that MGM was, this was 74, MGM was out of business and they were selling the back lot and, you know, it was, it was kinda all over.

Kevin Goetz (13:07):

Oh yeah.

Bob Greenblatt (13:08):

But my dream was I'm gonna go to MGM and run that studio - 

Kevin Goetz (13:12):

You've run every one except MGM. You literally have run every studio except -

Bob Greenblatt (13:18):

I've run a few. Except MGM. But I did when I worked for Peter Chernin at Lorimar back in the day, Lorimar owned that lot - 

Kevin Goetz (13:26):

And Lee Rich, right, was there?

Bob Greenblatt (13:27):

Lee had founded the company. Yeah. It was Merv Adelson who was running the company. But remember they famously bought the MGM lot. Of course.

Kevin Goetz (13:35):

Lorimar. Where are you gonna do a screening tech? In Lorimar.

Bob Greenblatt (13:37):

Lorimar, right. But I had an office in the Thalberg building, and it was not lost on me that that's where Arthur Freed and all the great musical -

Kevin Goetz (13:47):

Freed units.

*Bob Greenblatt (13:48):

Producers, right, used to work. So I was into the studio of it. So there's a part of me that loved the factory mentality of making, how do you make art in a factory? And that studio, and many studios figured that out. So I was fascinated with the studio and I loved the art. So I kind of, you know, my dream job was to be an executive. And I'm so happy to say that it happened. Not in film, really. It was television because of Peter Chernin. Two years at Lorimar were films, and that's where I worked for Peter at first. And we made Dangerous Liaisons and The Witches and some nice movies. But after that studio was sold to Warner Brothers, Peter went to the Fox Network, and he was my mentor. And he said, "Why don't you come to the Fox Network with me?" And I thought, "Well, why do I wanna go into television?" And he had been from television. He had come from Showtime before he went to Lorimar. He went to the Fox Network and said, "You know what? You're gonna learn so much at a new place like this network, and it'll happen really fast." And I said, "Okay. I'm just gonna follow you wherever you want me to go." And I became the junior executive in drama series programming at, at Fox at a moment in time where things were about to change. The second year I was there, we launched 90210, In Living Color and The Simpsons, all in one, like, one year period. And suddenly the network that was -

Kevin Goetz (15:18):

It was only like five years old, wasn't it?

Bob Greenblatt (15:18):

Correct. Yes. 

Kevin Goetz (15:21):

Married With children, I think was one of the first. That was running, that was on. 

Bob Greenblatt (15:21):

Right. And a couple of other things were on, but nothing had broken through. Like Married was the thing that kind of put them on the map. And then Peter's job was to kind of take it to the next level. And, you know - 

Kevin Goetz (15:34):

Who found those shows that you just mentioned?

*Bob Greenblatt (15:36):

Well, 90210 was not me, but in my little drama department. Yeah, that was me. And a guy named - Who brough it to you? It was, it was Barry Diller's idea, because he'd gone to Beverly High, right? And he said, "I wanna do a show about kids in high school, in Beverly Hills High School." And we had a deal with Aaron Spelling, who was the god of programming at ABC, but nobody wanted to work with Fox. We were the network that wasn't gonna last, but Barry had somehow forged a relationship with Aaron to come and do a show at Fox. And he said, "Why don't you do this high school show at Beverly Hills High School?" So we tried to find a writer and we found a young guy named Darren Starr who had really done nothing at that point except a couple of movie scripts and commissioned Aaron to write the script. And we made this pilot. And I'm gonna go right to the testing because I'll never forget it, but we made this pilot. It was rough. It was sort of like a little bit all over the place. We had a really good cast. All these young kids were terrific. No one had ever heard of them.

Kevin Goetz (16:45):

Were they the same cast?

Bob Greenblatt (16:45):

That cast, all that cast, yes. Jason Priestly and, you know, Luke came later, but that cast - 

Kevin Goetz (16:52):

Shannen Doherty.

Bob Greenblatt (16:52):

Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling and Jenny Garth. Wow. We found all those kids. And the pilot was uneven. It was the story of these two twins who moved from the Midwest and they relocate and suddenly they're in, you know, the fast track world of Beverly Hills High. 

Kevin Goetz (17:10):

So what'd the audience say?

Bob Greenblatt (17:11):

They loved it. It was a 90-minute pilot, which I'll tell you was supposed to be a two-hour, but we kept cutting because we took things out that weren't working. So we had this kind of weird pilot, and we went to ASI back in the day.

Kevin Goetz (17:25):

Listeners, which is the company I now own.

Bob Greenblatt (17:28):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (17:28):

I bought about 13, 14 years ago.

Bob Greenblatt (17:32):

It was the one place you could go to test your pilots. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (17:35):

You probably spent more time in the testing facilities over the years.

Bob Greenblatt (17:39):

I did behind the two-way mirror. 

Kevin Goetz (17:40):

With Beverly Bolotin.

Bob Greenblatt (17:41):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (17:41):

Right? Yeah. Elliot Rosenberg.

Bob Greenblatt (17:44):

I remember going to the testing of it, and we screened it for, I don't know, it was, I guess it was 50 people or so, right?

Kevin Goetz (17:50):

48.

Bob Greenblatt (17:51):

The technology existed back then with the dials that people would turn into the right if they liked something and they turned to the left if they didn't. Right. You would watch the pilot with the people watching it. So you were behind the two-way mirror, right? And they had their dials and it was forming a graph in front of you of the average of the likes and dislikes. 

Kevin Goetz (18:11):

Looks like a heart monitor, folks.

Bob Greenblatt (18:12):

Yeah. But you could see as a scene was happening in the pilot, do they like it? And you could watch the likes and dislikes - Yeah. And you could follow it. This trajectory started at the mid-range where it starts and it just ascended - Wow. For the 90 minutes. Little dips here and there. Minor dips. Of course,

Kevin Goetz (18:30):

But it needs to. 

*Bob Greenblatt (18:30):

It needs to. But it went almost straight to the top. And I came with such disbelief because I thought, "Well, this scene doesn't quite work, and I don't think this character's working." And I had a million criticisms. And I thought, "It's gonna tank." <laugh> And one of the, one of the monitors came back during the, the screening of it and said, "This is a phenomenal test. The audience is so dialed in. They believe this is reality."

Kevin Goetz (18:58):

No pun intended.

Bob Greenblatt (18:59):

Yeah, exactly. Dialed in. They believe this is reality. They, they're, they're buying it as is, as if this is a real life, you know, experience for them. And I thought, wow, that's amazing. And of course, I walked out thinking, "Well, that was 48 people. How do we know what that really means?" 

Kevin Goetz (19:17):

Well, then it goes to the larger test, the network test, right?

Bob Greenblatt (19:20):

We didn't do that back then. Oh. Back then, this was 1990, 1989. We just did -

Kevin Goetz (19:26):

So it was just the studio test.

Bob Greenblatt (19:26):

We did focus groups. You know, we got some people to do a little -

Kevin Goetz (19:29):

A breakout for 10 or 12 men, 10 or 12 females, Right? 

Bob Greenblatt (19:32):

Right. Two different groups. We can really dial into their, their opinions and talk about - 

Kevin Goetz (19:36):

But you heard the quality of the response, right?

Bob Greenblatt (19:37):

Yes. Yes. We did.

Kevin Goetz (19:38):

So you had to walk away as a believer then. 

Bob Greenblatt (19:40):

I did, but I was always skeptical because I just -

Kevin Goetz (19:42):

Barry must have just been beside himself, Barry Diller. 

*Bob Greenblatt (19:44):

I think we told him the research. I don't remember now. But we made the show, we put it on. We were a little network that really was hard to get an audience. So it kind of struggled along during the first season. And I thought, "Oh, I don't know if we're gonna get this thing renewed." This was Peter Chernin's idea. We put on some original episodes in the summer. We took four episodes - In the summer. Very risky then, right? Nobody was doing original programming. We put them on and the show took off. And by the fall, the second, beginning of the second season, it was a bonafide hit. New York Times was writing about it. And it was about this 18 to 49 demo, which was a new demo in the late '80s. It was a hit with young people, which was kind of the first show of its kind. There were no teen soap operas back then. And I give Aaron Spelling credit for kind of inventing this whole genre, which then we ran away with. And we did Melrose and Party of Five, and we developed Dawson’s Creek.

Kevin Goetz (20:42):

I wanna go further back and say Barry Diller had the -

Bob Greenblatt (20:45):

Barry. I give it to. Yeah. Barry thought...You know what I mean? You know, we, we knew we had to get a different audience in order to compete with ABC and CBS and NBC. They were, they had the whole market. So the only way to eke out some presence for ourselves - 

Kevin Goetz (21:00):

Some white space.

Bob Greenblatt (21:01):

We gotta get a, we gotta get an audience that isn't watching mainstream television. And the conscious decision was go after the young people. 

Kevin Goetz (21:09):

Go after the young people. Genius. When we come back, we're gonna continue our conversation with Bob Greenblatt. Back in a moment. Listeners, the Motion Picture and Television Fund is a nonprofit charitable organization that supports working and retired members of the entertainment community. This wonderfully run organization offers assistance for living and aging with dignity and purpose in the areas of health and social services, including temporary financial assistance, case management, and residential living, and has been a crucial lifeline to thousands during and beyond critical times that our industry continues to experience. To learn more, visit mptf.com. Please join me in helping others in our industry during times of need. There are so many ways to offer support and get involved. Thank you. We're back with Bob Greenblatt. Bob, what was it like when you first heard that you had ascended to run the network at Fox?

*Bob Greenblatt (22:21):

Well, I was the head of Primetime Programming in the mid - 90s. It was like 96. But I will also say Peter Chernin had left the network and he'd gone to the movie studio by now. And I had a couple of other bosses, and I was getting tired of being an executive. It was a relentless job. And we were having success. I mean, I will say along came the X-Files and Melrose Place and Party of Five and wonderful shows that really put us on the map. But after about seven years of it, I decided I wanna try producing. I loved being in that place at that time because we really got respect from the business. We initially started out as a network that nobody wanted to -

Kevin Goetz (23:07):

But people were really paying attention to you at this point.

Bob Greenblatt (23:10):

Yes. And in fact, before I left the network in 97, we had one quarter where we were number one in 18 to 49, which was a miracle, because we were, seven years earlier, we were - 

Kevin Goetz (23:22):

You didn't even think you were gonna last.

Bob Greenblatt (23:23):

No, we didn't even have seven nights of programming when I first got there. So we won the demo. 

Kevin Goetz (23:28):

So you, but you did run the network for a little bit.

Bob Greenblatt (23:31):

Couple years. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (23:32):

Couple years.

Bob Greenblatt (23:32):

But I was head of drama for several years, and then I became head of drama and comedy. 

Kevin Goetz (23:36):

So it wasn't really like a moment where it was just sort of an evolution when you ran it?

Bob Greenblatt (23:40):

Yeah. It was an evolution. Got it. I just got more and more responsibility and people left and it's like, "Oh, you should do this now."

Kevin Goetz (23:47):

And then you decided to become a producer -

Bob Greenblatt (23:48):

Correct.

Kevin Goetz (23:49):

Full-time.

Bob Greenblatt (23:49):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (23:49):

Leave the executive ranks at that moment.

Bob Greenblatt (23:51):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (23:51):

And partnered with -

Bob Greenblatt (23:53):

David Janollari, a dear, dear friend of mine who was also a colleague. 

Kevin Goetz (23:56):

Greenblatt Janollari.

Bob Greenblatt (23:57):

Greenblatt Janollari. Yes. David was a colleague of mine at Fox. He was in comedy and I was in drama initially. Very smart. That's how we got to know each other.

Kevin Goetz (24:04):

And where was your deal?

Bob Greenblatt (24:06):

Peter Chernin made the deal. It was a Fox company. He, he set us up as our own production company. 

Kevin Goetz (24:10):

And what did you make as two producers?

*Bob Greenblatt (24:13):

Our first show that we put on ABC, thanks to the late great Jamie Tarses, was a wonderful show called The Hughleys with starring DL Hughley, which was kind of a breakthrough because it was a show starring a black lead. It was a black comedy. That was our first show. But the, one of the first things we did as a young production company was make an overall deal with a writer named Alan Ball.

Kevin Goetz (24:37):

Oh, Lord.

*Bob Greenblatt (24:38):

Who was a playwright that we knew, and I'd known him personally because he was a writer also on the sitcom Sybil on CBS. But Alan was sort of really unknown to Hollywood then. And I was friends with him socially, and David and I, we said, "Let's make some deals with some young talent that we think could produce something extraordinary." And we planned only to do sitcoms with Alan because that's what he was doing. He was doing comedies, right? But we knew him as a playwright, and at the same moment, having nothing to do with us, he had written the screenplay to American Beauty, which he just wrote as a spec. While he was on Sybil, he would go home at night and write American Beauty. And right at the time we made a deal with him to do television shows, he had taken the American Beauty script to the market - 

(25:31):

With Dan Jinks and, and Bruce Cohen, and Amblin jumped on it to make it as a film. And one of the meetings - 

Kevin Goetz (25:39):

That was Bob Cooper, actually.

Bob Greenblatt (25:40):

Correct.

Kevin Goetz (25:40):

Bob is the one that found that. No one wanted to do it.

Bob Greenblatt (25:43):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (25:44):

Bob just said it was such an extraordinary script.

Bob Greenblatt (25:46):

Well, it was a unique family. I don't know. You talk about The Feathered Fish, you know, it's, it's something that you can't quite - 

Kevin Goetz (25:52):

Oh, it would be no reason why one would make the movie - 

Bob Greenblatt (25:55):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (25:55):

Unless it was a script that just blew the socks off you.

Bob Greenblatt (25:58):

And then was executed to the degree that it was executed. Exactly. Right. But we thought, "Oh, we have this sitcom writer." One day, Alan said to us, "I'd love you guys to read my screenplay." And I think both David and I rolled our eyes and thought, "Oh, we have a writer who now thinks he's a screenwriter." <laugh> Right? Oh my God. And then I remember reading that script on a plane flying to New York one day, and I just was blown away. And I said to David, "Oh my God, we're in business with a writer that is so much more talented than I even imagined. He wouldn't like-" 

Kevin Goetz (26:30):

To me, he's like Tracy Letts -

Bob Greenblatt (26:32):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (26:32):

Who is just so talented.

Bob Greenblatt (26:35):

Beyond.

Kevin Goetz (26:35):

Can do anything.

Bob Greenblatt (26:36):

I mean, that American Beauty script still stands as one of the places. 

Kevin Goetz (26:39):

So you read it and you were like, "Oh my Lord."

Bob Greenblatt (26:40):

Blown away. Blown away. But - 

Kevin Goetz (26:43):

And then you're like, "What else do you have?"

*Bob Greenblatt (26:44):

Well, we were in the process at the same time of like setting up a sitcom with him at ABC called Oh Grow Up, which of course you don't remember what it is because it was 13 episodes and out at, at ABC. Really nice show, but it was not destined to become a great comedy. And at that same moment, while American Beauty is about to be released, our great friends at HBO, Carolyn Strauss and Chris Albrecht, Carolyn said to, she had lunch with Alan one day and she said to him, "You know, we've always wanted to do a show at HBO about dying and death and how we react to death in America and what that is." And there was a book she recommended he read and he read it and he, he immediately had the idea that ultimately became Six Feet Under. And he said to us, "I have this idea for this family drama about a funeral home, and I'm worried that if we go pitch it, everyone's gonna pass on it." And we said to him, "You know what? Just write it. Just go home to Atlanta over the holiday and write it." Meanwhile, Oh Grow Up is on the air and not doing that well. And American Beauty is just about to be released and becomes the phenomenon of the year. And he writes - 

Kevin Goetz (28:02):

Wins the Academy Award.

Bob Greenblatt (28:03):

Wins the Academy Award in probably February of that year, right? But it hasn't quite exploded yet. He

Kevin Goetz (28:10):

Wins the Oscar too.

*Bob Greenblatt (28:11):

He wins the Oscar for screenplay, correct. But he delivers us this Six Feet Under script and the movie has just been released and we called Chris and Carolyn and said, "We have a script we want you to read by arguably the hottest writer in town right now." And they were like, "Great. We can't wait." We sent that script over and literally, I'm gonna say two days later, they called us and said, "Not only do we love the script, we wanna make it." There was no, you know, let's, let's do some notes or let's think about this. They were like, "We wanna make it."

Kevin Goetz (28:50):

Have you ever heard that?

Bob Greenblatt (28:51):

No. It had never happened to us before. And I, you know - Or since. I'm not sure it's happened since.

Kevin Goetz (28:57):

Did you ever do that as an executive?

Bob Greenblatt (28:59):

I didn't. 

Kevin Goetz (29:01):

Did you ever make that call?

Bob Greenblatt (29:02):

I don't know that I made that call that immediately, but I will say in my career, I have been much more gut-driven than a lot of executives that I've worked with. And I'd roll the dice on things, maybe sometimes a little frivolously to some degree. But I will say HBO at that time was the greatest network. Sopranos was in high gear. Sex in the City was already on the air. 

Kevin Goetz (29:27):

You had something to do with The Sopranos, by the way. Even though you didn't make it -

Bob Greenblatt (29:30):

I did. 

Kevin Goetz (29:31):

You didn't produce it?

Bob Greenblatt (29:31):

I developed that script - You developed it. With David Chase, the original pilot script - That's incredible. At the Fox network. Yes. 

Kevin Goetz (29:36):

Was Terry Winter involved in it then?

Bob Greenblatt (29:38):

Nope. Nope. It was just David Chase writing that script. Wow. And then we realized we probably couldn't put that show on a broadcast network at the time, because it was edgy. And it ended up landing in the right place at HBO. But at the time of Six Feet Under, HBO was the, the bomb. That was the place you wanted to be. And remember, there were four networks and like two cable companies then. That's the only place you could sell a show. There was Showtime and HBO. FX was brewing but hadn't happened yet. So if you didn't get picked up by a major network or HBO or Showtime, you were out of luck. We made a pilot. They looked at the pilot. They called us a few days after seeing it and they said, "We wanna order a season of episodes." And David and I said, "Well, how did it test?" 'Cause that was our first.

(30:33):

You only, you tested everything. And they said, Carolyn Strauss said to us, "We didn't test it." And we said, "What do you mean you didn't test it? It's like you're gonna make a decision to pick up a show without some testing?" And she said, "We never test our shows." That is true. We just believe our gut. And Chris and I love it. 

Kevin Goetz (30:52):

I remember talking to Richard Plepler about that.

Bob Greenblatt (30:54):

Right. And they, they haven't in all these years.

Kevin Goetz (30:58):

Since COVID, I think everything's shifted. I mean, you were there, by the way, before we move on to Showtime and I'm going out of order a little bit, you were at HBO. It had to be the least fulfilling time of your professional life. 

Bob Greenblatt (31:10):

You mean later on when I was there at Warner Media in the early 20s? Yeah. Yes. Yes. 2020.

Kevin Goetz (31:15):

You were kind of really caught - 

Bob Greenblatt (31:17):

Yes. It was tricky. 

Kevin Goetz (31:18):

Between a rock and a hard place, weren't you?

Bob Greenblatt (31:19):

Yes. I love all those people and I really loved working with them. Casey Bloys and Franny Orsi, Glenn Whitehead. I love them. And, you know, HBO was still the bomb in 2019, 2020. You know, Game of Thrones, some of those shows are still the best.

Kevin Goetz (31:35):

You were at the precipice of the streaming revolution at that point. And that really was a game changer. And so nobody knew what the hell they were doing. 

Bob Greenblatt (31:44):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (31:44):

And you were caught in that, right?

Bob Greenblatt (31:46):

Yes. And I will say, among the people who didn't know what they were doing, I would put AT&T at the top of that list. <laugh>

Kevin Goetz (31:53):

Fair play.

Bob Greenblatt (31:54):

Fair play.

Kevin Goetz (31:55):

They were -

Bob Greenblatt (31:55):

They were our owners. They bought the company because they wanted to create all this synergy from their telephone customers. And again, some great people I got to know at AT&T, but they were really not in the right business for them, nor did they have the stomach for it, because it's a business of mostly failure. And their mandate was we need to get a streamer out the door very quickly. HBO Max was ultimately the name we came up with for all the right reasons. I don't know why the HBO was ever pulled out of the name subsequently, but HBO Max is what I was - 

Kevin Goetz (32:33):

Well, obviously they realized their mistake and put it back in. 

Bob Greenblatt (32:35):

And put it back in. Yes. But, you know, what's funny is we did a lot of research and a lot of smart people came to the conclusion that HBO was the brand. It was not elitist. 

Kevin Goetz (32:44):

Yeah, but somebody then overrode that.

Bob Greenblatt (32:45):

Correct. But I was gone. I don't know what happened at that point. But the mandate was get a streamer built quickly with all the technology and all the programming we had to acquire and produce. 

Kevin Goetz (32:59):

And it usually takes at least a cornerstone show. 

Bob Greenblatt (33:01):

And a cornerstone show. We had nothing.

Kevin Goetz (33:02):

Which takes a long time. 

Bob Greenblatt (33:04):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (33:05):

Unless you're exceedingly lucky.

Bob Greenblatt (33:06):

Yes. We had HBO and we had those shows, but that was a linear network. So we couldn't just end the linear network and pu those shows on a streamer. So we had to figure out how do the HBO shows work alongside of new shows and the Max originals. It was a long, complicated -

Kevin Goetz (33:25):

Were you there when Ann Sarnoff was there?

Bob Greenblatt (33:27):

Yes. I was there slightly before her and then she joined the company in the movie and TV side. Yeah. 

Kevin Goetz (33:32):

'Cause she's been a guest on our show. Yeah. Yeah. She was very candid. I think she also was part of a changing world - Yeah. That she couldn't control. No. She did a great job while she was there, but what are you gonna do when you have a corporate behemoth?

Bob Greenblatt (33:50):

Every nine months or so, they would change direction. And it was like, "Oh, now we need to do this." 

Kevin Goetz (33:56):

Yeah, they call it pivoting.

Bob Greenblatt (33:56):

Pivoting, yes.

Kevin Goetz (33:57):

Let me ask you something about being a buyer versus a seller. Which do you prefer and why?

*Bob Greenblatt (34:03):

Well, this is easy. Buying is better just because you control the board. 

Kevin Goetz (34:09):

I know, but you said earlier you left Fox because you were tired of being an executive.

Bob Greenblatt (34:14):

Yes. And I got overwhelmed by it.

Kevin Goetz (34:16):

It was a grinder.

*Bob Greenblatt (34:17):

And that's me. Every eight or so years, I get either overwhelmed in a job or bored, and then I need to change - 

Kevin Goetz (34:26):

What happened at NBC?

Bob Greenblatt (34:27):

NBC was one of the great jobs of all time, but I realized after eight years of it that it wasn't gonna change. And I knew there was - 

Kevin Goetz (34:37):

But they had the Peacock was there then.

Bob Greenblatt (34:39):

That was after I left. 

Kevin Goetz (34:41):

Peacock started after you left?

Bob Greenblatt (34:42):

Yeah. I wanted the company to move into streaming much sooner. We started talking about it with them, with Steve Burke and Brian Roberts as early as 2015, 2016. Who hired you? Steve Burke did.

Kevin Goetz (34:54):

And what was that like to get that job? 

*Bob Greenblatt (34:55):

It was great. On the recommendation of Peter Chernin, who was advising them when Comcast bought the company. And Peter said to Steve Burke and Brian, "You cannot buy NBC Universal if you're gonna get rid of NBC. If your plan is to get out of the network business because it's becoming old hat or it's declining, you cannot buy this American company and get rid of NBC." And they embraced that thinking and they said, "Who do you think we should get to help us turn NBC around?" Because it was in dead last place. And Peter said, "There's one guy, if you can get him." And they hired me. And it was a joy. It was a joy.

Kevin Goetz (35:37):

You were so good at that job. And you - 

Bob Greenblatt (35:39):

Oh, thank you. 

Kevin Goetz (35:40):

No, but you really, from an outside, outsider's perspective, you really turned it around. You became number one - 

Bob Greenblatt (35:46):

We became number one.

Kevin Goetz (35:46):

In the core demos. What was your most successful reason for the turnaround?

*Bob Greenblatt (35:51):

The thing that made it all possible was The Voice. The Voice was a show that was so big in 2011. It gave us air cover for two years and huge ratings to not only propel the basic viewership of the network, but it gave us time periods to launch other shows behind, strong lead-ins. This is back in the day when a lead-in mattered.

Kevin Goetz (36:16):

Oh, Jeff Bader headed -

Bob Greenblatt (36:16):

You know? 

Kevin Goetz (36:17):

Yeah. Programming and scheduling.

Bob Greenblatt (36:18):

Yeah. Jeff Bader was my other secret weapon.

Kevin Goetz (36:21):

Ah.

Bob Greenblatt (36:21):

When we lured him from ABC to come to NBC.

Kevin Goetz (36:24):

But he taught me all of that stuff about the, the lead-in and - 

Bob Greenblatt (36:28):

Where you put the show is all that matters.

Kevin Goetz (36:31):

He, he's amazing.

Bob Greenblatt (36:32):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (36:33):

So wait a minute. First of all, you put together a great team.

Bob Greenblatt (36:35):

The best team.

Kevin Goetz (36:36):

Right.

Bob Greenblatt (36:37):

George Cheeks, Jennifer Salke. Yes. That was you, babe. Yeah, it was a dream team. With a thousand percent support from Steve Burke and Brian Roberts. They were like, "Do what you need to do. We're gonna support you. We're gonna spend." They were out there spending money on the Olympics and on sports because we knew live sports were open. Those were the days, huh? Yes. They, it was, it was sort of the last hurrah before the streaming thing kinda took over. 

Kevin Goetz (37:02):

Was that your favorite job?

Bob Greenblatt (37:04):

Yes, but I also loved the Showtime job because - 

Kevin Goetz (37:07):

Oh. 

Bob Greenblatt (37:07):

We did something - 

Kevin Goetz (37:08):

We glossed over it, but I have to say -

Bob Greenblatt (37:09):

Out of nothing.

Kevin Goetz (37:10):

The creative risks you took - 

Bob Greenblatt (37:13):

Yeah, it was fun. 

Kevin Goetz (37:14):

There was no one else that could make the things you were making. Right.

Bob Greenblatt (37:16):

Except HBO, that my competition. 

Kevin Goetz (37:19):

Well, exactly. Yeah. But I have to say, God love Jerry Offsay, because if it wasn't for Jerry, I would never have made the movie that I had done -

Bob Greenblatt (37:24):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (37:25):

Yeah. With Laura Linney and Gena Rowlands and Emile Hirsch called Wild Iris.

Bob Greenblatt (37:28):

Wild Iris, yeah. What was interesting about Jerry was, and it was a smart strategy at the time. He was an amazing guy. He is an amazing guy. Amazing guy. Yes. Yes. And I know his daughter now. She's a lovely executive.

Kevin Goetz (37:39):

We all have a lot to be grateful for, for Jerry Offsay. 

Bob Greenblatt (37:42):

Oh yeah. He made hundreds of movies. 

Kevin Goetz (37:45):

Yes.

Bob Greenblatt (37:45):

Which anybody who makes hundreds of movies is a hero, right? 

Kevin Goetz (37:49):

But he made movies that no one else - 

Bob Greenblatt (37:51):

No one else would make. 

Kevin Goetz (37:52):

Would make or could make. Right.

Bob Greenblatt (37:53):

Because they were in their own niche.

Kevin Goetz (37:55):

Except for HBO. They got the creme de la creme and they only made very few movies.

*Bob Greenblatt (37:59):

Right. Mostly series. But that's what I was gonna say. Jerry and Matt Blank, who was Jerry's boss for all those years, strategically said, "Let's zig when everybody else is zagging. We're gonna be a movie network." And Jerry made all those movies. When I came there in 2004, HBO had really blown everybody away. And the goal was how do we get some of that real estate from HBO? And the only way I could see to move forward and turn Showtime around would be to go into series in a big way. And we cut back the movies and made virtually no movies when I was there. It was put all the resources into series. And if we do that, maybe we have a chance to compete in HBO's backyard. And along came Weeds and then came Dexter and - 

Kevin Goetz (38:53):

Did subscriptions rise?

Bob Greenblatt (38:53):

Yes. Oh yes. The company - 

Kevin Goetz (38:55):

Big time as a result of the series?

Bob Greenblatt (38:56):

Yes. Yes. In a major way.

Kevin Goetz (38:57):

Did you ever do movies while you were there?

Bob Greenblatt (39:00):

I did a couple here and there. We would acquire a couple.

Kevin Goetz (39:02):

Mm-hmm. And you were the output deal for many a studio, weren't you?

Bob Greenblatt (39:06):

We were. We had the Paramount deal. Yes. We had the Weinstein deal. We had movies, features - Sure. Would play on the network. 

Kevin Goetz (39:13):

Right, but not the home -

Bob Greenblatt (39:13):

But not original business. Homemade

Kevin Goetz (39:15):

Homegrown -

Bob Greenblatt (39:16):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (39:16):

Product.

Bob Greenblatt (39:17):

I didn't have the resources to do all that and series. And once the series took over, we became, and I will say, I love HBO, but there was a period there where Showtime was as competitive creatively as HBO. 100%. HBO went into a bit of a fallow period. And HBO became. I mean, look at Dexter. It's been 20 years. It's still going. 

Kevin Goetz (39:38):

How about Shameless?

Bob Greenblatt (39:38):

Shameless ran for 10 years. 

Kevin Goetz (39:40):

That was the longest running show. 

Bob Greenblatt (39:41):

Yes, yes. God bless John Well. Who was always behind the greatest - 

Kevin Goetz (39:46):

Have you seen The Pitt, by the way? 

Bob Greenblatt (39:47):

Yeah, it's amazing. It's unbelievable. I can't even imagine how you write that or produce it.

Kevin Goetz (39:50):

It's unbelievable.

Bob Greenblatt (39:51):

It's so impressive.

Kevin Goetz (39:52):

I love it so much.

Bob Greenblatt (39:53):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (39:53):

May I ask you to share with me, who would you say, other than yourself - <laugh>. Was the best network executive from the history of television? 

*Bob Greenblatt (40:04):

Oh my God. Well, I have to go to Brandon Tartikoff, who I'm happy to say I knew him, not when he was at NBC, but after when he was a producer at Paramount. You knew Brandon. And I was at the Fox Network, yes. We developed some things together, and I just admired him and Grant Tinker. And I'm happy to say when Grant passed away, his sons gave me something of his, which I treasure and I have in my office. But that moment of NBC, when Grant took over a- and brought the philosophy of the MTM studio with him, which was writer first, his liner, it was his or Brandon's was first be best, then be first. It's like if you can create the greatest shows, you'll become the best network and the first place network. 

Kevin Goetz (40:51):

Oh, it's always the work, the work, he work.

Bob Greenblatt (40:53):

It's the show. The show's the thing, right? So I worshiped those guys. I was so proud to have won the Tartikoff Award, the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. I knew Lily. For me, those were the guys. And those shows still stand up from - Fred Silverman. Seinfeld. Fred. Fred was a fun character. Yes. I mean, Fred's an icon. He ran every network. And I knew him as well. He was a really funny, great character.

Kevin Goetz (41:18):

What did the Tinker boys give you?

Bob Greenblatt (41:20):

They gave me this NBC logo, the Peacock logo that was framed, and it hung right next to his desk in his office. I never met Grant. I wish I had, but I knew the sons, because they're directors and writers, and they told me that he was very proud of what I did at NBC. And that was really meaningful to me. 

Kevin Goetz (41:41):

That's beautiful.

Bob Greenblatt (41:41):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (41:41):

Man, is that beautiful?

Bob Greenblatt (41:42):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (41:43):

How do you reconcile the failures? Because not everything's a hit. We talked the entire last many minutes about all your - 

Bob Greenblatt (41:54):

All the hits.

Kevin Goetz (41:54):

Successes. But you have to have a philosophy or a philosophical way of looking at the things that don't work.

*Bob Greenblatt (42:01):

Yeah. Well, the great thing about failure is, in our business, it's quickly forgotten, right? I mean, there's been some, you know, massive failures. I think the movie failures stick longer than the TV failures, because the TV shows just, you know, they end and you move on.

Kevin Goetz (42:16):

What was your biggest heartache show-wise? 

Bob Greenblatt (42:19):

There was a show I did at the Fox Network called Profit, which people don't remember. It was only 13 episodes. Adrian Pasdar was the star of it. I was experimenting with, can you make an antihero the star of a show, the lead character? Tony Soprano proved that you can do it, right? But this was a show about a guy who was a psychopath. 

Kevin Goetz (42:39):

Really flawed.

Bob Greenblatt (42:40):

Really dark, twisted kind of psychopath. 

Kevin Goetz (42:43):

Like Dexter?

Bob Greenblatt (42:43):

Like Dexter. This was before Dexter, but yes. And he was a corporate executive, and he rose in the corporate ranks. He looks like the boy next door, the greatest guy in the world, but he would do all these malevolent things, including murder, to get ahead in the company. And his name was Jim Profit, and that was the name of the show. 

Kevin Goetz (43:03):

I'm running to see this somehow. I’m not kidding you.

*Bob Greenblatt (43:05):

It's out there somewhere. I'm not kidding you. It's so dark and so cool. And it was in the Fox tradition. We were the Bad Boy Network, but it didn't catch on, and I've always regretted that. But doing that gave me the courage later on to try it again with Dexter, because that's a flawed main character. <laugh> And by all rights, you should not embrace that guy, but yet a tragic backstory, so there's a little bit of empathy you can give to him, and he was killing people who deserved to be killed. But that was a show that I still to this day love and wish it had, it had worked. But failure outweighs the successes by some huge, you know, exponential number. And they, they fade. You just come in

Kevin Goetz (43:48):

Monday morning and say to your team -

Bob Greenblatt (43:50):

Move on. Cancel. 

Kevin Goetz (43:52):

We gotta move on. And we did it together. 

Bob Greenblatt (43:53):

But you learn. 

Kevin Goetz (43:54):

It's like you don't blame someone.

Bob Greenblatt (43:55):

No, you don't. And that's what I learned from Barry Diller and Peter Chernin. If you're not comfortable failing a lot in this business, you're in the wrong business. But you have to learn from your failure and, you know, spend the rest of your life thinking about what went wrong. But you learn and then you go to the next one and hopefully you've hedged your bet a little bit better on the next one.

Kevin Goetz (44:15):

What's the one that got away?

Bob Greenblatt (44:17):

I famously passed on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I thought - 

Kevin Goetz (44:21):

Gail. How could that ever be?

Bob Greenblatt (44:21):

Yeah. 

Kevin Goetz (44:23):

Gail Berman. Are you guys great friends?

Bob Greenblatt (44:23):

No, I love Gail.

Bob Greenblatt (44:24):

Totally. She's a theater - 

Kevin Goetz (44:26):

She's one of my fa - She's theater person. Joseph.

Bob Greenblatt (44:28):

Totally. She's working on a show right now heading to Broadway. I love that woman.

Kevin Goetz (44:31):

I just love that woman.

Bob Greenblatt (44:32):

Yeah, I do too.

Kevin Goetz (44:33):

I'd love to ask you about your favorite comedies and favorite dramas of all time. They could be things you'd worked on or had a hand in. You know, let's just focus on dramas because we could be here forever.

*Bob Greenblatt (44:47):

I do think Dexter's one of the great all-time dramas, and Six Feet Under, if they're from my list. This is Us also, is one of the great dramas of all time, I think. 

Kevin Goetz (44:57):

It is. 

Bob Greenblatt (44:57):

But shows I've admired that I didn't have anything to do with, you know -

Kevin Goetz (45:01):

The Sopranos.

Bob Greenblatt (45:02):

The Sopranos, which I had a little to do with. Mad Men is an extraordinary show. Breaking Bad to me is an incredible show.

Kevin Goetz (45:10):

 Of course the antihero again.

Bob Greenblatt (45:11):

Yeah. Right. That's the antihero in spades. 

Kevin Goetz (45:14):

Better call Saul.

Bob Greenblatt (45:15):

And created by a guy who was on our writing staff of the X-Files. You know, I skipped over the X-Files. What about the X-Files? Yeah. Amazing show. Again, coming back to life, Ryan Coogler's doing a new series, rebooting it again. It's had movies. It's had a rebooted series already. I mean, it's the concept that will never go away. And that's not sort of groundbreaking. It's the old franchise of the disbeliever and the believer sort of forced together to solve crimes. 

Kevin Goetz (45:40):

Was there a TV show that informed you as a kid or as a young person, like ER, LA Law, any of those?

Bob Greenblatt (45:47):

I loved all those shows. LA Law, ER. I loved all the spelling shows. I loved the Dynasties and the Falcon Crests and Dallas, all those soap operas. The soapies, yeah. Yeah. I didn't love so much the procedurals or the detective shows, but I liked the character driven. I grew up loving a show that people don't remember, and it really affected me as a kid. The Waltons. 

Kevin Goetz (46:11):

It's a show.Right?

Bob Greenblatt (46:11):

It's one of the great.

Kevin Goetz (46:12):

Oh my - 

Bob Greenblatt (46:13):

Family dramas. 

Kevin Goetz (46:14):

Gnat Jim Bob. Gnat Mama.

Bob Greenblatt (46:15):

Gnot Mary Ellen.

Kevin Goetz (46:16):

Gnat Mary Ellen.

Bob Greenblatt (46:18):

Yeah. But I, I mean, it's, it's a show that built the Lorimar Company, right? That was Lee Rich's show. 

Kevin Goetz (46:24):

I mean, I would cry every episode.

Bob Greenblatt (46:26):

Loved It so much. 

Kevin Goetz (46:27):

And Richard Thomas. Oh my god.

Bob Greenblatt (46:28):

Who's still working. Still acting. And the mother. Broadway. Michael Learned.

Kevin Goetz (46:33):

Michael Learned.

Bob Greenblatt (46:34):

Loved her. She's still alive and well and doing well. Ellen Corbett. I mean, all those great actors.

Kevin Goetz (46:39):

Will Geer. Yes.

Bob Greenblatt (46:41):

Yes. 

Kevin Goetz (46:41):

I have to ask you about, because I can keep you forever and we are -

Bob Greenblatt (46:45):

I know.

Kevin Goetz (46:46):

This is gonna be my longest episode.

Bob Greenblatt (46:48):

You can cut all the boring parts.

Kevin Goetz (46:49):

Yeah, sure. Like nothing. Broadway, you've won five Tony Awards. Have you been on stage five times? 

Bob Greenblatt (46:56):

No, I didn't go up every time. And a couple times I wasn't even there. Um, but I was very happy to be there this year with Ragtime, which is a, a glorious.

Kevin Goetz (47:06):

It's only gotten better since it opened. In other words -

Bob Greenblatt (47:08):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (47:08):

It found its legs and people found it. Found it. ‘Cause I thought the first one was unstoppable.

Bob Greenblatt (47:16):

You mean the one from 30 years ago? Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (47:18):

Yeah.

Bob Greenblatt (47:18):

Like Brian Stokes-Mitchell 

Kevin Goetz (47:20):

Audra McDonald.

Bob Greenblatt (47:21):

For me, that is a benchmark. It also had one of my friends from high school from Rockford, Illinois, Marin Mazzie, was in the original company. 

Kevin Goetz (47:30):

She played Mother.

Bob Greenblatt (47:30):

Ragtime. Correct. Yes. And I've always loved the show, so I'm so happy to be part of bringing it back to Broadway. 

Kevin Goetz (47:36):

And Marcia Mitzman, my friend, did it, I think on the road at first, on tour, I think.

Bob Greenblatt (47:39):

Yeah, I think so, right? Yeah, yeah. I love Broadway. It's just another outlet for creativity and - 

Kevin Goetz (47:45):

Wait, how do you say yes to a show? Because there's so many offers that come your way, but you say no to a lot of them and you say yes. Is it your stomach brain?

Bob Greenblatt (47:53):

I don't know what that is. I think it's just your gut instinct and, you know - 

Kevin Goetz (47:58):

Have you lost money on shows?

Bob Greenblatt (47:58):

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (48:00):

But if you look at your balance sheet - 

Bob Greenblatt (48:02):

It's pretty good. I mean - 

Kevin Goetz (48:03):

You know, you're unusual.

Bob Greenblatt (48:04):

Dear Evan Hansen was a great success commercially and I'm, I'm a happy investor. 

Kevin Goetz (48:09):

I loved that movie, by the way. 

Bob Greenblatt (48:10):

You did? 

Kevin Goetz (48:11):

Yeah. I loved it. And I thought it was -

Bob Greenblatt (48:14):

I'm curious what your insights were, would be on. I'm sure it was tested, and it didn't ultimately work as a f - as a commercial. 

Kevin Goetz (48:20):

Dear Evan Hansen? Yeah. I worked on it. Yeah.You did? With Mark. Yeah. Mark Platt. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was fantastic. I know that there was a lot of criticism of casting Ben- Ben.

Bob Greenblatt (48:31):

Because he was too old.

Kevin Goetz (48:32):

Right. And I didn’t find him too old. To me, it touched me so deeply, and it should have done better.

Bob Greenblatt (48:38):

Why do you think it missed?

Kevin Goetz (48:39):

I, I think it's - 

Bob Greenblatt (48:41):

Musicals are a whole other -

Kevin Goetz (48:42):

Well, but then you say, "Why did Wicked hugely kick butt?" Right. I think it's because there were certain shows that have penetrated the zeitgeist. But then again, Cats penetrated the Zeitgeist. Correct. And it was an unmitigated disaster. 

Bob Greenblatt (48:53):

And that's execution failure.

Kevin Goetz (48:54):

Before we break, I do wanna ask you about The Green Room, which is your production company today.

Bob Greenblatt (49:00):

Yep.

Kevin Goetz (49:00):

What are you excited about?

Bob Greenblatt (49:02):

A whole bunch of things that I probably can't talk about. 

Kevin Goetz (49:04):

Give us one.

Bob Greenblatt (49:06):

We're developing a show at FX about a family that's sort of like a succession family set against the backdrop of the incredible real estate market with those tall skyscrapers and big money and just a really rich group of characters. 

Kevin Goetz (49:24):

You got me. 

Bob Greenblatt (49:25):

Yeah, it's called The Tower.

Kevin Goetz (49:26):

You got me.

*Bob Greenblatt (49:27):

This brings it full circle. Back to that's entertainment, which is the thing that kind of blew my mind when I was a 14-year-old kid. Michael Wright at MGM+ called me a year ago and said, "MGM is our brand, and I wanna do some documentaries that are about the classic MGM movies. Would you do a documentary for us about the classic MGM musicals?" And I said, "Would I?" I mean, it's like a dream come true. And we are in the early stages now of putting that together, and hopefully with Damien Chazelle as a producer, who is another aficionado of the MGM musicals - I did know that. Since you've seen his work.

Kevin Goetz (50:05):

No, I've done all of his movies.

Bob Greenblatt (50:06):

Yeah. His first movie, the black and white film that he made when he was right out of, when he was just a young - 

Kevin Goetz (50:12):

That one didn't test. No.

Bob Greenblatt (50:13):

And I'm sure you didn't test it. And I'm sure it wouldn't test well, but it's kind of a very old-fashioned MGM musical in black and white about a jazz musician.

Kevin Goetz (50:21):

Well, Babylon is genius. 

Bob Greenblatt (50:23):

Yes. I know,

Kevin Goetz (50:23):

It didn't do business, but it's genius. Yes.

Bob Greenblatt (50:26):

That guy's got it going on.

Kevin Goetz (50:26):

Anyway, so you're gonna work with Damian on it.

Bob Greenblatt (50:29):

Yes. We're just in the early stages of getting him on board, but he said he wants to do it. Gotta figure out a way to make it different enough from that’s entertainment.

Kevin Goetz (50:35):

Oh, it's gonna be so different. 

Bob Greenblatt (50:36):

It's not just gonna be clips of the old musicals. We've got a whole new way into it, but - 

Kevin Goetz (50:44):

Oh, man.

Bob Greenblatt (50:44):

We Wanna bring these movies to - 

Kevin Goetz (50:46):

Stop teasing me with all these insanely great things. 

Bob Greenblatt (50:49):

It's gonna be great. There's a whole audience that doesn't know the history of these musicals. And if you trace it through, have you seen Michael, Michael Jackson movie?

Kevin Goetz (50:56):

I worked on it, yeah.

Bob Greenblatt (50:56):

Yeah. Okay. There's a scene where Michael's watching Singing in the Rain in his bedroom. There's a scene when he's doing Thriller, and he says to John Landis, "I wanna shoot the number wide like Fred Astaire shot his numbers." I mean, the legacy goes through to Lady Gaga, and these fundamental musicals are still part of our culture. Steven Spielberg doing West Side Story and Wicked, the biggest movies in the last three or four years.

Kevin Goetz (51:21):

Are all an homage. 

Bob Greenblatt (51:23):

Yeah, exactly. 

Kevin Goetz (51:24):

To that Golden age of Hollywood.

Bob Greenblatt (51:26):

You're gonna see all of the connection to the present. Anyway, it's a passion project and a nice full circle moment.

Kevin Goetz (51:32):

You excited about our direction of our business, by the way? 

Bob Greenblatt (51:36):

Well, that's probably a whole other, a whole other conversation. It's tricky. 

Kevin Goetz (51:40):

It's hard.

Bob Greenblatt (51:41):

It's really tricky. 

Kevin Goetz (51:42):

Has it ever not been hard?

*Bob Greenblatt (51:44):

I think it's always been hard, but something about the volume and the breadth of these tech companies, which of course have given us billions of dollars to make shows and movies, so that's a good thing. But it's just a different animal than it was. Somehow the fun has been squeezed out of it.

Kevin Goetz (52:06):

That's 100% correct, in my opinion. You think it's because we're of a certain age now? We, we're past 60? Do you think that's the reason -

Bob Greenblatt (52:13):

Probably. We feel that? Probably. We're - 

Kevin Goetz (52:14):

I don't know. I'm not sure. 

*Bob Greenblatt (52:16):

I think hopefully the young people who are coming up and who are going to run this business in the future will think it's the greatest thing that they ever did, and they're having great fun, and they're loving every minute of it. 'Cause that was my perspective. I couldn't wait to get to Hollywood. I couldn't wait to wake up every day and drive into the studio. I know. I know. And go to my parking space and go to my office in the Thalburg building. And I was part of this incredible cultural business that was art, but it was also business. It was the American culture, spreading it around the world, to whatever degree that's useful to people.

Kevin Goetz (52:55):

But we were - We were the cultural export. I mean, the major- Major. Innately American export. Yeah. Arguably since the beginning of the 20th century. 

Bob Greenblatt (53:04):

Yeah. Clearly. And the other thing is, in television, you know, the idea of millions of people watching a show at a certain time all together in their houses. We skipped over the live musicals. The Sound of Music Live, Thursday, I think it was December 12th, 2012. 

Kevin Goetz (53:24):

You were there.

Bob Greenblatt (53:25):

19 million people - 

Kevin Goetz (53:27):

Oh my Lord. 

Bob Greenblatt (53:28):

We're watching this musical live. It wasn't on a streamer. 

Kevin Goetz (53:32):

Which is chump change compared to what we grew up with. Right.

Bob Greenblatt (53:36):

With 30 or 40

Kevin Goetz (53:36):

All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore. Correct. And those shows were like seen by 50 million people or something. 

*Bob Greenblatt (53:42):

Yes. But now if you can get three million viewers on a broadcast show, that's a hit show. But we had millions of people who couldn't wait. I remember sitting there that night during the Sound of Music, and Tina Fey is texting me going, "I'm watching with my daughters. This is a great moment for NBC." And people are live texting me on my phone going, "We couldn't wait all day long. It was leading up to this. We couldn't wait to get home." I mean, that shared experience of millions of people is just not ever gonna be there again. 

Kevin Goetz (54:14):

I was actually nervous watching it. Like, how are they gonna get through this? And it's live.

Bob Greenblatt (54:18):

It was flawless. It was flawless.

Kevin Goetz (54:20):

It was fantastic.

Bob Greenblatt (54:21):

We had one person go off on a line once, but it was like - 

Kevin Goetz (54:24):

Didn't you have some backup? You did it the earlier in the day or something? 

Bob Greenblatt (54:27):

No, we only did it once. Really? We rehearsed it earlier in the day.

Kevin Goetz (54:30):

Ah, got it. 

Bob Greenblatt (54:30):

We had taped a rehearsal, so we had something ready to go if, like, there had been some transmission error or the machine that broke it down. Right. That's what I'd heard. We could switch to the rehearsal, because you don't wanna go to dead air. Of course. Right? But no, it was the high wire act. It was the combination of my love for live theater and television kind of fusing. And all. The whole point of it was, how do we get people to watch NBC? We were in a terrible period. We gotta create events. We gotta create things that people are just gonna be talking about. And it could've been a huge failure. It could've not worked. Yeah. But lo and behold, people were talking about it. 

Kevin Goetz (55:12):

I can't end this podcast without bringing up the fact that we're both authors. <laugh> Yes. I've got Audienceology and How to Score in Hollywood, and you have a marvelous, marvelous book called The Rockford Files. And folks, not to be confused with the James Garner show, The Rockford Files. Rockford, Illinois, baby. Tell us about it real quickly, because it's your upbringing, right? 

Bob Greenblatt (55:35):

Yes, Rockford, Illinois is where I'm from, so I just thought that was a fun title. And Rockford Files is being rebooted this season on NBC. 

Kevin Goetz (55:43):

With?

Bob Greenblatt (55:43):

David Boreanaz. 

Kevin Goetz (55:44):

Oh, okay. 

Bob Greenblatt (55:45):

And during COVID, I had some free time, and I thought, "You know what? I've just left Warner Media. We've just launched HBO Max. I'm gonna sit down and write my memoir about this crazy journey in this business. And it sort of starts with Fox and kinda ends with - 

Kevin Goetz (56:05):

The Gilded Age. 

Bob Greenblatt (56:06):

With, with The Gilded Age, which I'm a proud producer of, which season four, I'm gonna plug it, is coming - 

Kevin Goetz (56:11):

It's my husband's favorite show.

Bob Greenblatt (56:12):

Yes. Yes. It's all in the book.

Kevin Goetz (56:14):

Well, I gotta tell you something. It's 400 pages of sheer delight by the book. You are a pretty extraordinary human, and I speak for most of our listeners when I say we are grateful for all of the incredible work that you've brought - Thank you. To culture, to audiences, not only in this country, but around the world. You're a fellow ginger. Yeah. I must say. It's still there.

Bob Greenblatt (56:37):

Little ginger is still there. 

Kevin Goetz (56:39):

Yeah, I know. A little ginger. Yeah. 

Bob Greenblatt (56:40):

I hear the new James Bond might be a ginger. Have you been following that?

Kevin Goetz (56:43):

I am following that. Yeah. Bob, I wanna thank you for sharing these insanely cool stories.

Bob Greenblatt (56:50):

It’s been so much fun, and I know we have hours and hours more to talk about. <laugh>

Kevin Goetz (56:55):

Absolutely. Let's do that over dinner. To our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. For more insights into filmmaking, audience testing, and the business of Hollywood, I invite you to check out my books, Audienceology, and How to Score in Hollywood at Amazon or through my website at KevinGoetz360.com. You can also follow me on my social media. Next time on Don't Kill the Messenger, we come full circle for our 100th episode as I welcome back the show's very first guest, Academy Award-winning producer, and GK Film's founder, Graham King. I cannot wait to talk about the massive success of Michael. Until then, I'm Kevin Goetz, and to you, our listeners, I appreciate you being part of the movie-making process. Your opinions matter.

Host: Kevin Goetz
Guest: Bob Greenblatt
Producer: Kari Campano
Writers: Kevin Goetz, Darlene Hayman, and Kari Campano
Audio Engineer: Gary Forbes (DG Entertainment)