Real-life “Succession”: Jim Stewart on Sumner Redstone’s sordid saga
Channels with Peter Kafka
ViacomCBS - What's the Alternate Scenario?
Viacom remained stagnant throughout this entire era of turmoil in media, and Viacom remained unchanged. You can make the same argument about a CEO of Viacom, Philip DeMann, who did what Sumner Redstone wanted him to do,. And basically miss the entire digital and streaming era. The consensus is that it will be sold either in pieces or in one chalk.
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Speaker 3
So we'll be, we'll be talking about both of them in a few weeks. Yeah. And then real quick, lastly, we have a message here from Adam
Speaker 2
Oh, who, who has been our, uh, you know, he's been monitoring our magnificent Anderson, by our, I mean, my, my, magnificent images.
Speaker 3
And he says, I just saw this article and I couldn't not share it with you.
Speaker 2
Apparently the magnificent Amberson isn't even the man.
Speaker 1
I saw this article too, by the way.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, and this is, we talked about it before about how, you know,
Speaker 2
the original cut of, of, of Amberson's has been lost to the ages. And so it's kind of this, this mythical thing. And I've said before, I'm
Speaker 3
like, it's a testament to how good what Orson Well is made is that even kind of this,
Speaker 2
this bold, lorized version of what, what, you know, what was released at the time is
Speaker 3
still pretty darn good. Yeah.
Speaker 1
It's funny. In my head, I was like, yeah, the reader's digest version somehow still ends up being yes revered. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3
So this is an article at NPR. It says, a well super fan named Brian Rose, himself
Speaker 2
an accomplished filmmaker, has used animation and countless hours of painstaking research to recreate missing footage from the magnificent Amberson's.
Speaker 3
And it's this whole, I mean, it, it, it, the, the original cut that Orson Well is made,
Speaker 2
131 minutes, which is not that long, by the way.
Speaker 3
But RK, it was like, no, no, no, it's too long. So they cut it down to 88 minutes. And then they just, they
Speaker 2
just like flushed the, you know, the, the cut footage down the toilet or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Devastating.
Speaker 2
It's just gone, you
Speaker 1
know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and
Speaker 3
so this right here, this is my release the Snyder cut, you know what
Speaker 8
I mean?
Speaker 1
You're right, right, right.
Speaker 3
I'm like, I want to see this. So it's fascinating. I think it's kind of,
Speaker 2
uh, this combination of, of CG and animation, all this other stuff, to try to approximate what, what was actually intended by Orson Welles.
Speaker 3
And I'm like, man, I want to find a way
Speaker 2
to see this. I
Speaker 3
love, I love the quote
Speaker 2
from, from the guy. He's like, uh, there's, there's, you know, the, it's unclear who owns the rights and, and whether this thing is even legal. He says, well,
Speaker 3
uh, the thought was to beg forgiveness later.
Speaker 2
Like just do it and then figure it out later. I, I'd love to see this.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I, to me, I've not seen the original. I want to watch the original first, but I think this is sort of like that Donnercut thing where you're like, look, this is an approximation, right? Like you can't say that this is exactly finally the version you always wanted to see, but like how cool that someone brought you as close as possible. Right.
Speaker 4
Exactly. Right.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Did you see the animated footage?
Speaker 2
I, I, I glanced at it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4
It's kind of cool.
Speaker 2
I'm, I'm again, I'm all
Speaker 3
about it. I'm all about,
Speaker 2
uh, uh, as many people seeing the magnus and amber sense as possible. That's, that's, that's not the comment.
Speaker 3
I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, I
Speaker 1
got a, I hate to give RKO this, but hearing that it's 88 minutes, I'm like, well, I can do that.
Speaker 3
Well, speaking of lost cuts, I mean, I thought this was interesting. You and I were texting about this earlier, how
Speaker 2
there's the, the, the original Joel Schumacher edit of forever, which Kevin
Speaker 3
Smith got his hands on and he's been screening at, at his, uh, Smod Castle Theater in, uh, in New
Speaker 2
Jersey.
Speaker 1
Fascinated by this, because this is one of those things where you hear that, yeah, there's a Schumacher cut and you're like, yeah, probably in a locker somewhere. We'll never see it, but then when, you know, it's, it's no, like, no, I have it. And, uh, I'm going to show it. Right. You know, then it becomes like, oh, well, can
Speaker 9
I see it?
Speaker 4
You know.
Speaker 3
And I mean, just from the description, it, it, it sounds like something because, you know, you and I, we, we talked through Batman forever a couple of years ago. And I'm, my sense, correct me if I'm wrong, we're both kind of
Speaker 2
like, no, we, we like it.
Speaker 1
You know,
Speaker 8
I
Speaker 2
don't mind it,
Speaker 3
you
Speaker 2
know, but there's definitely stuff in there that separates it from, from the next one, you know, Batman, Robin, which was more,
Speaker 4
it was
Speaker 3
just more.
Speaker 8
Yes.
Speaker 4
Yes.
Speaker 3
Whereas Batman forever, there, there's the DNA of the previous films is much more present.
Speaker 2
And so I, a little bit darker and sort of, uh, you know, letting Val Kilmer be more broody and whatnot in the context of a bit
Speaker 3
more of an arc. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2
that sounds interesting to me. Like I, I don't, I
Speaker 3
don't imagine my opinion of the movie is going to change that drastically.
Speaker 4
No, but
Speaker 1
if there is a slightly different version of it, just to, to observe that as sort of like a curiosity, like I am curious. I would, I would happily watch that. I can't believe that we were saying this that Smith can even screen it. Like that feels weird to me that it's not being shut down, which I almost take to mean maybe Warner Brothers is like testing the waters a little bit. Like maybe we could make money off of this, you know, like let them show it once or twice. And if people say they want to see it, maybe we could, it could be content for our streaming service.
Speaker 3
Well, we'll see about that.
Speaker 1
Before we watch it quickly before they yank it. Before they pull it for tax reasons. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2
I agree with that. I feel like this might be closer to happening than not. You know, I keep a Goldsman who wrote, who wrote the movie has said that the cut that exists is basically done with the exception of one or two inserts.
Speaker 3
And I think they have like temp music from the Elfman movies. Right. For the Elfman scores.
Speaker 2
And yeah, I mean, I can't imagine that there's a ton of effects work or whatever that would need to be done because it sounds like most of the stuff they cut
Speaker 4
is the character moments. Right. Right. And I certainly am like, well, that's the stuff I'm interested in. Same.
Speaker 1
Same. Yeah. And I think,
Speaker 4
you know, we're also in a
Speaker 1
moment in time where people are really savvy with stuff, like filmmaking more than ever. And I think especially the audience for this type of thing
Speaker 4
would forgive,
Speaker 1
you know, stuff, you know, like cables in the background or whatever that they haven't cleaned up. Yeah.
Speaker 3
I love that the
Speaker 2
opportunity exists for stuff like this to potentially be released. You know what I mean? I mean, because of the multiple streams, literal streaming and just the ways in which they can monetize the stuff, I mean, like, why not make it make it accessible, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 1
Same.
Speaker 3
So that should be interesting. But and if
Speaker 2
there is news for that, I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about it in future episodes of something actually happening. Oh, definitely. Definitely.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Veteran business journalist James B. Stewart specializes in getting behind the scenes to tell the stories of rich, powerful, and complicated subjects. He has a doozy with “Unscripted”, the new book he co-wrote about the last days of media mogul Sumner Redstone, who at one point was one of the most powerful men in the industry, and whose decline fueled years of fighting between his family, his employees, and his mistresses. If you like tawdry tales of sex, avarice, and greed — or wanted to know some of the real-life backstories behind HBO’s “Succession” — this is for you. Stewart also talks about other massive media stories he’s covered, including Bob Iger’s rise at Disney, and the AT&T/Time Warner shotgun marriage and divorce. Stewart also offers reporting tips and explains why his background as a lawyer helps him as a journalist.
Featuring: James B. Stewart (@jamesstewartnyt), Columnist for New York Times and Author
Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode
More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.
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