Don’t Kill the Messenger welcomes film and television producer and founder of Panoramic Media, Jonathan Glickman.

Jonathan is the founder and CEO of the production company Panoramic Media. With over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry, he has established himself as a creative force and a visionary producer with a keen eye for identifying and developing successful projects.

As president of the MGM Motion Picture Group, Jonathan Glickman guided a bankrupt company into a thriving studio. During his tenure, Glickman oversaw production on Skyfall and Spectre, the two highest-grossing installments of the James Bond franchise, as well as No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s final outing in the series. Other notable highlights of his tenure include overseeing the production of the Rocky spinoff Creed, the sequel Creed 2, and the 2019 animated hit recreation of The Addams Family. After his tenure at MGM, Glickman founded Panoramic Media. His productions became global phenomena, including Creed 3 and the Golden Globe-nominated tv series Wednesday, which recently became the second most-watched show in Netflix’s history.

Important lessons from growing up in a political family

Jonathan grew up in Kansas, where his father was a congressman, and he learned an important political lesson that carried over to his career in entertainment, the public is always right. Kevin and Jonathan discuss the intersection of entertainment and politics and how pleasing the public is critical to success in both fields.

At the end of the day, that’s always the number one thing in my head; how are we going to make something that the audience is going to accept and love and tell other people to go see?

– Jonathan Glickman

“All that matters are beginnings and endings, and in the end, the beginning doesn’t matter.”

Kevin and Jonathan discuss the importance of a good ending and leaving the audience satisfied. Jonathan goes into how vital it is to have a screenplay with a good ending and how everything should lead up to that moment in order to have people buzzing about the movie as they leave the theater.

Glickman on sticking the ending:

When we develop screenplays, I really focus on that last scene and how is the audience going to feel at this exact moment. It’s just so much more important than anything else.

The elevator pitch

Jonathan discusses how he landed his first internship at Caravan Pictures by cornering Joe Roth, the head of Caravan, in an elevator and asking him for the internship. The pair discuss Jonathan’s rise at Caravan, how, as an intern, he pitched the idea for a Jerky Boys movie followed by While You Were Sleeping, which ended up being a great success. Four years later, Jonathan became head of the studio.

The Creed Bake-Off

The pair discuss the film Creed and how screening two different endings led to the decision to have Adonis Creed lose at the end of the first film. Jonathan relates that the film was shot with two endings which were shown to test audiences. Both endings tested well, but one tested higher. He also shares a story of what happened when Sylvester Stallone joined the Creed focus group.

Glickman talking about the audience screen test of Creed:

I have never seen this happen ever in a preview, and I’ve had a couple of great previews. I’ve had a couple of scary previews where you’re hoping you get a police escort out the door. But the audience gave the preview a standing ovation when he lost, and it was incredible.

The most important questions asked at a screen test

Kevin asks Nancy about her favorite moderator questions during a focus group. Kevin and Nancy both share the questions that they find to be the most useful to the filmmakers. They also discuss focus group questions that aren’t helpful.

Kevin on his favorite focus group question:

My favorite question is, if you didn’t rate the movie excellent, you gave it a very good, which is still a good rating, or you gave it a good and you didn’t give it even a very good, why not? What’s holding you back? And sometimes the gold comes out of that.

Marketing and the streaming platforms

With the success of Wednesday, Kevin and Jonathan turn the discussion to streaming platforms and marketing. Kevin brings up how streaming platforms could benefit from theatrical-like marketing and promotional campaigns for their top movies and series.

What I believe is that people just want to see great movies, and they don’t want to see mediocre movies on any platform. They want to see great movies. And if you can then bring those to the attention, does it matter if they’re seen in a movie theater versus seeing them on a streaming service?

– Kevin Goetz

Wednesday as the main character

Glickman talks about The Addams Family and why he wanted to focus on Wednesday as the main character for the Netflix series.

One of the things that you saw about The Addams Family is A, it’s a very powerful brand, but the most important character of all of them is Wednesday by a mile.

– Jonathan Glickman

Tune in to hear Kevin and his guest, Jonathan Glickman, an accomplished film and television producer, discuss Glickman’s commitment to creating content that connects with viewers and how audience research impacts the final product.

Don’t Kill the Messenger, hosted by movie and entertainment research expert Kevin Goetz, brings his book Audienceology to life. This bi-monthly podcast takes a peek behind the filmmaking curtain as Kevin talks with famous filmmakers, studio executives, stars, and other creatives about movies, filmmaking, audience test screenings, and much more.