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The Ringer-Verse

Armchair CEO: Paramount and Warner Bros. | The Midnight Boys

05 Mar 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

5.161 - 19.598 Unknown

Welcome into the Ringerverse. This is, of course, the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. We are Steve, the architect, Almond, the builder, and Tinker of things. Jomie, the explainer, and Dineron. You've got questions, he's got answers. Oh, man, man, he has a receding researches hairline. Come here, Chuck. 24 carry closer. Together we are known as the Midnight Boys.

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20.44 - 39.03 Unknown

We'll be right back after this. Follow us on socials, Insta, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok.

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39.05 - 43.736 Steve Ahlman

Show me. Guys, you've seen the House of R set up in the new studio. You know what I'm saying?

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43.916 - 53.267 Unknown

Sycamore. Sycamore. It's an I. It's an I. CK Amore. Have you guys been to Sycamore before? I haven't been to Sycamore. You been? Nope. Sycamore? Hey, bro, Sycamore is sick.

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53.287 - 56.211 Jomi Adeniran

Sycamore is sick, man. Wait, have y'all seen the new Midnight Boyz set yet?

56.326 - 60.836 Unknown

I have. Well, I've seen where we're going to shoot. We have decisions to make about our set.

60.856 - 69.955 Steve Ahlman

Yeah, but it's going to be cool. So long story short, guys, get ready, man. We upgrading from this little small little booth, man. The table will be no more.

70.456 - 79.954 Unknown

I'll say this. It's going to be nice. I'll say this. The shot is different. Have you guys seen the way higher learning looks?

79.994 - 82.116 Van Lathan

Yeah, very sexy. It's very low light.

Chapter 2: How does the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger impact the film industry?

84.058 - 88.582 Jomi Adeniran

I was just like, dog, this is some fucking after dark fucking shit.

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88.602 - 96.889 Unknown

It works for higher learning. I think it gives us a visual style. But maybe for the Midnight Boys, we do something a little bit more sterile. Brighten the lights up a little bit.

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96.909 - 103.455 Jomi Adeniran

No, no. It's fucking Midnight Boys to men. Come on, bro. On bended knee. After midnight.

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105.837 - 130.105 Unknown

We're on YouTube. Like, comment, subscribe, share. You can watch every Midnight Boys and House of R episode on YouTube.com backslash at Ringiverse, also on Spotify. Programming reminders this Friday. But... This Friday, Bud Mash returns with looks at Marathon and Pokemon... Pokapia. All right, all right. First of all, first of all.

130.125 - 132.089 Charles Holmes

Pokimane. Pokimane. You did that over 40 times.

132.109 - 138.118 Jomi Adeniran

Why does every dude over 40 be like Pokimane? Pokimane. You know what it is. You know what it is. You know it's Pokemon.

138.138 - 143.387 Unknown

Pokapia. What the fuck is Pokapia, though? It don't stop. Hold on for a second.

144.042 - 148.968 Jomi Adeniran

See, this is the problem. First you didn't know Jackie Chan Adventures. Now you calling it Pokemon. I'll be honest with y'all.

Chapter 3: What are the potential consequences of media consolidation?

157.358 - 159.841 Charles Holmes

You know how to say Pokemon. You know how to say it.

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159.902 - 169.674 Unknown

You know how to say it. What happened is, it wasn't necessarily the Pokemon situation that got me. Oh, it's the second one? It was the Pokemon Pokepia.

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169.694 - 169.894 Van Lathan

Pokepia.

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169.914 - 190.596 Unknown

So when I was trying to... do the Pokepia part, Pokeman slipped out. And I apologize to the Pokemon fans everywhere. But I need you guys to understand, like, there's stuff that you guys didn't do. Have you guys ever played an Intellivision? A what? So shut the fuck up then. No, a what? An Intellivision, right?

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190.636 - 192.698 Charles Holmes

Yeah, we weren't painting on cave walls either.

192.718 - 220.559 Unknown

There was stuff that happened like that when I was a kid, right? Like a video game? Yeah, so bust this. So... There was this lady that lived next door to us. Okay. Next to the triad front. This was when we were living in Broussard Plaza, which is an apartment complex on Coy in Baton Rouge. Lady that lived next door to us. And she had like a nephew, right? It wasn't her son. She had a nephew.

220.899 - 226.647 Unknown

And the nephew would come over and stay with her. It was a white lady. Because the poor whites and the poor blacks in Gardia were together.

228.128 - 230.752 Jomi Adeniran

Were these ethnic whites? Italian? Irish?

230.912 - 235.538 Unknown

Nah? Well, they might have been Italians because Louisiana got a lot of Italians. Okay. So they might have been. I'm not sure.

Chapter 4: How do the hosts pitch their ideal projects for Paramount and Warner Bros.?

235.798 - 261.428 Unknown

But my mom used to hang out with this lady. They would smoke weed and all that stuff. And so her little brother or her nephew or whatever would come over and he had an Intellivision. This is the first home video game system that I had ever played. Who were the games? There was only like one boxing game that we would play. And the boxing people on the television would, they were like stick men.

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261.61 - 263.153 Unknown

Right. It was this era.

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263.494 - 266.559 Van Lathan

Mm-hmm. This was around, like, the Atari 2600 era.

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266.74 - 280.125 Unknown

There were stickmen. It was this era that you would play. And you were like, it's never getting better than this. And then I remember we were playing it in television. By this time, though... By the way, this is what it looks like. God damn! By this time, just to let you guys know...

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280.105 - 304.594 Unknown

uh by this time just let you guys know the nintendo is fully out by the way yeah yeah okay the nintendo is fully out i just didn't know anybody who had one right i didn't know anyone who had a nintendo the nintendo is fully out at this point the nintendo hadn't got to the point to where niggas i knew had the nintendo but the nintendo was out you mario was out everybody knew all this stuff was happening so you knew mario you just couldn't play it i just i wasn't playing it right the

304.76 - 329.263 Unknown

He had the Intellivision and I was all into the Intellivision, going crazy, we going crazy. And then one day, he came over and he went, no more Intellivision. And then he opened up his bag, and he had a Nintendo in his bag. Oh, my God. Changed your life. Brother, Jesus. When was the first game y'all played? It was Mario. Right. So on the, bruh, I was in that bitch.

329.283 - 346.64 Unknown

I was like, yo, I came back over. I'm sitting down in the house. I'm on the, like, it was like I was detoxed from heroin. You were tweaking. All that for Pokemon. Also, House of R returns back with Crispinolan. What's that? The Crispinolan winter. Oh, Crisp. Oh. Crispinolan.

Chapter 5: What ideas do the hosts have for Game of Thrones adaptations?

346.66 - 347.001 Unknown

Crisp.

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347.502 - 349.387 Jomi Adeniran

Ooh, I like that. Yeah.

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349.407 - 354.68 Steve Ahlman

Crispinolan summer. Crispinolan winter. Well, it's barely winter anymore.

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355.281 - 357.827 Jomi Adeniran

Eh, it's still cold. It's damn near spring. It's 85 degrees out there.

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357.847 - 361.475 Steve Ahlman

That's here. We live in L.A., brother. It's always 85. Oh, yeah.

361.495 - 388.584 Unknown

You don't know what the world's out there. Yeah. I don't know that I like it. Okay. I'm just joking. And looks back at Interstellar. I think I'm on that. Are you? I like it. Actually. Yeah, I think I'm on that. Can't wait. Also, Midnight Boys give you their Oscar episode with a very special recast. All right, that's enough. On today's episode, we are bringing back Armchair CEO.

389.305 - 403.026 Unknown

Steve's done a lot of work on this episode, guys. Armchair CEO with a look at the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. Now, before we get into this, I would like to say that I hope that everyone out here listening to us knows that while we talk about this,

403.377 - 428.968 Unknown

And while we discuss the Paramount Warner Brothers merger in a very lighthearted and jovial way with some of my favorite people to talk with, I just want everyone to know how dramatically destabilizing this merger is for the entire industry. Yes. And not just from the standpoint of some of the politics that you guys might not agree with, with the people that run Skydance.

429.248 - 431.511 Jomi Adeniran

I mean, having state-run media. Yeah.

Chapter 6: How do the hosts envision a new Harry Potter series?

567.757 - 580.374 Jomi Adeniran

we love this, blah, blah, blah. You look a little later and it's like, oh, this is a very, very fat company that is, it cannot move quickly, pivot quickly. And I see the same things potentially happening.

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580.715 - 608.226 Unknown

Let's, let's talk about that real quick. How those acquisitions, the acquisition of Lucasfilm, acquisition of Marvel, how maybe they are not a one-to-one here, but they do sort of prime you for like, I guess they are their primer for this type of move. Those are essentially places that are more...

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609.218 - 633.285 Unknown

directly creative i mean they're production companies they're not necessarily full studio entities with all of those things they're production companies um you could argue that they're smaller production studios it's marvel studios looks film had all kinds of but they're not gigantic conglomerates with all of these properties like these others however when we start to see

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633.822 - 662.493 Unknown

Disney or other companies like that grow big by acquiring these things, it did sort of like normalize the idea of that. I mean, Fox is probably the better example when Disney bought Fox. Fox was a legacy studio. Yeah. And then Disney acquires Fox. And we're like, oh, okay. And then what we did was go, hey, Disney acquired Fox. So that means that... the X-Men can all exist in the MCU.

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662.914 - 675.085 Unknown

So we looked at it. All I'm saying is, and I know there are going to be people out here that are more conservative leaning that are going to listen to us say some of this and go, hey, the media has been liberal, left-coded for a long time.

675.689 - 697.25 Unknown

And because it has been, this is you guys getting your just desserts because the Trump administration has a strategy to curry favor with the people at the top of these mergers and then use the FCC as a weapon to decide how big they want these companies to get that they can then wield influence over. I get all that. I understand all that.

697.811 - 726.056 Unknown

What I'm talking about is these companies are too fucking big. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's strangling multiple industries. These companies are too fucking big. They're too big. And this has a tremendous amount of effect. Jobs. Just that much control and that much influence, particularly in this town.

726.356 - 726.837 Steve Ahlman

Exactly.

726.997 - 753.798 Unknown

Where everything is downstream from entertainment. The personal trainers, the valets, the... the servers at restaurants, the management of restaurants, all of that stuff, all of those people, it's downstream from how this town flows and how the entertainment business works. And we're putting it in the hands increasingly of like three people, two people, one company, two companies. It's nuts.

Chapter 7: What are the hosts' thoughts on the future of the Transformers franchise?

832.654 - 839.841 Jomi Adeniran

And we like Martin. We partnering you with the director. Come on, man. Do your vision.

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839.861 - 840.443 Van Lathan

That's okay.

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840.463 - 845.213 Jomi Adeniran

You never finish in these books. You never finish in the books, but you had a lot of problems with this last season.

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845.253 - 849.041 Van Lathan

I mean, if we talk about anime that's not going to get finished or manga that's not going to get finished, we'll be here all day.

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849.522 - 863.845 Steve Ahlman

Here's the thing. Actually, you bring up, it's funny you bring that up. I have a question for you specifically, Charles. Would you rather, like, as a Game of Thrones fan, be somebody like have the books not finish a la George.

864.125 - 881.852 Steve Ahlman

And like, we're just like, no one's a winter it's over or have the one piece thing where you never find out what the one piece is, but the books keep going and going and going and going and going. Where you like never, you never see an ending to your story. But either the books just don't finish or they just keep going.

882.052 - 899.86 Jomi Adeniran

Here's the thing. One piece. Easily. Really? Easily. It's because here's the thing. It's not about the one piece. It's about the journey. Okay. So it should be the friends we made along the way. Exactly. All right. Y'all know. Fucking battle show is nothing but boys being like French. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. So yeah. Wait. So you not fucking with it. Fucking with what?

899.84 - 916.199 Jomi Adeniran

Yo, bring back Kit Harington, killing it on industry. Bring back Emilia Clarke. Bring them back, all of them. Live action? Live action. And Martin is basically like, we're partnering him with the director, screenwriter, and we're just like, Martin, you in charge of it. We might give you a movie, too. Come on.

916.219 - 916.439

OK.

Chapter 8: How do the hosts address the impact of cultural representation in media?

948.571 - 952.955 Jomi Adeniran

I mean, we're literally getting a Harry Potter TV series next year.

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953.136 - 956.779 Van Lathan

I've got thoughts on Harry Potter for my CEO.

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957.282 - 964.334 Steve Ahlman

I can see it. I don't think they'll do it. Like, a lot of the cast talked about how they don't want to come back to this.

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964.374 - 975.634 Jomi Adeniran

Nah, if the check clears and also it's the thing, Martin ain't finishing these books. So, hey, give him one last big check and be like, hey, bro. Get the fuck out of here, yeah. You think he's finishing these books?

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975.654 - 995.848 Steve Ahlman

No, no. I've been talking to a bunch of people, some of my friends, and they'll be like, hey, I think he did finish the books, but he don't want to release them. Like, once he's dead, don't you release them? Yeah. Just so he can't see, like, all the ops. And I'm like, yo, stand on business, big dog. You're the man. Release the books, get the cash, bro. Run up to the sunset.

995.868 - 1000.175 Steve Ahlman

You already did your big thing, bro. Just take, if it's slander, just take it.

1000.195 - 1004.282 Jomi Adeniran

Nah, he letting the showrunners take the fall. He's just like, damn, they fucked my shit up.

1004.65 - 1006.573 Van Lathan

All right, I got to go back to the drawing board now.

1006.633 - 1022.22 Steve Ahlman

That's your excuse? I mean, he said this. There are characters that have died in the move of the show that didn't die, and vice versa. And he's like, oh, I might have made a mistake or something like that. Oh, gee. Because we didn't like the ending. And it's not that. Again, I think I've said this on this podcast, but I think the ending

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