BONUS EPISODE: Building a Creative Career w/ King Bach

For over 35 years Todd Garner has overseen Blackbuster films like Conair, Anchor Management, Triple X, 13 Going on 30 and the Mortal Kombat franchise. Why are they letting you make these movies? Join Todd as he shares tips and stories from the front lines of producing in Hollywood. I'm Adam Sandler. I'm Rebel Wilson. This is Jeff Broke. I'm Kaley Quoco. I'm Eli Roth. This is Mala Waynes. Hey, it's Ed Helms. This is Shay Mitchell. Everybody, this is Kevin James. And this is the producer's guide. The producer's guide. The producer's guide with Todd Garner. Todd Garner. Todd Garner. Todd Garner. What a combination. All right, hello. Welcome back to the producer's guide. I'm your host, Todd Garner. And today, I have a really special guest, Andrew Batsler, better known as King Batch. The internet-born comedy star, who has parlaid 70 plus million followers into a thriving film and TV career. You've seen him in coffee and cream, the babysitter, killer queen, holiday, Greenland, and a movie that I worked on, vacation friends, and many, many, many more. He's an actor, producer, a touring stand-up comic, and creator behind hit digital content. He's a Forbes and Time-Noted influencer, Streamy and Shorty winner, Guinness World Record Holder, and the founder of the Roojohn Foundation. Andrew is the epitome of the creator to Hollywood star journey. So today, we're going to be talking about how AI is affecting him, how he has built his career, making his own content, and how he has parlaid that into a fantastic, producing, and acting career. Enjoy. All right, I'm here with King Batch. Hello, Andrew, how are you today, brother? I'm doing good. Let me take off my glasses. Yeah, man, this is. I can't pretend to be an intellect. So you're on location right now. You're shooting Roadhouse 2, and we're about. So where do you graphically are you? We're in London, and we've been shooting all over the movie, shoots in Malta, Georgia, London. It's everywhere. Amazing, amazing. Well, we're going to get to your acting career in a moment. I wanted to have you on today, because there's a lot going on in our industry. There's a lot of conversation about the shrinking of theatrical, the rise of streaming, and now AI is sort of coming for all of us, you know, depending on which side of the coin you fall on that argument. And so before we get to all of that, I wanted to go back to the beginning. You went to Florida State. You theoretically couldn't be further from the movie business. Tell me about like growing up, what inspired you to do what you're doing now? I was three years old, and I watched a little movie called The Mask. And I had no idea what that was, but I was like, I want to do what that guy is doing. Because it was so freeing, it was so much fun. And ever since then, my objective was to be the biggest movie star in the world. Coming from, you know, born in Canada, raised in Florida, coming from the background of having no connections in the industry, my parents were like, it's impossible. Like you have to be Will Smith to be an actor. I'm like, what do you have to be Will Smith? They were like, no, you're not going to be an actor. You're going to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, and you're going to follow in our footsteps. You know, as a kid, you're like, all right. Yeah, I'll do that for now. But I'll do that. But can you also put me in these acting classes? And can I perform in these theaters and do these plays and things along the way? So, you know, ever since I was a teenager, I've been like, trying and pursuing the dream of acting. And I remember my first role, I was a, I was background. Your way was background acting. Come on now. Getting nice. Nice. I was background actor on a show called Burn Notice. I don't know if you know that's where you remember that. Sure. I remember the scene. I was in a hospital and I was walking by. And when I walked by the camera, I did this or something because I wanted to see. And the, the, the AD came to me and said, hey, hey, you're doing too much. You go, I'm like, I'm an extra. The fuck I was supposed to do. I was supposed to be extra. So, I learned that, you know, I'm learning in the industry about how to do things and not do things occur to see. And, you know, at a certain point, I go from high school to taking some drama classes in, and I can't remember. It's called drama in high school, I think. I'm, look how old I am. You know, I remember my first, like, real, like, feeling of popularity was, I read the school news. Like, I was the person doing that. And it was to the point where I wasn't just doing the school news. I was doing skits, like, more skits. And I remember walking through school and like, oh, shit, that's a really kid from the school news. I think it was called CCTV or something like that. Yeah, closed circuit television. It was closed circuit inside of your school. So, you had, you had a captured audience, literally. Yeah, literally. And then I was like, the school people would recognize taking pictures with me. I think, yeah, we had flip phones back then. So, it took a while, click 30 seconds to develop. And then I was like, oh, wow, this is crazy. Now, it just kept my, the, the fuel going, like, it kept me wanting to pursue, like, acting and more and more and more. So, I go to college, Florida State University. I get a track scholarship there because, you know, parents, like, you got to do school. So, I'm doing a finance degree, but I'm doing the finance degree. And I'm also looking for extra curricular acting opportunities. So, I joined a group called Black Actors Guild. And we performed around campus, like, like, little plays around campus. Then I joined another group called 30 and 60. And we performed 30 skits in 60 minutes. And the format was kind of crazy and fun. It's the back wall had a list, a number, one through 30. And the audience will yell at a number. One, eleven, seventeen, six. And they, six, maybe the majority of six, they picked up six. And we look and it says Klondike. And then we do the Klondike skit. "What would you do for a Klondike?" One guy's like, "Oh, I read a book." And another one's like, "I run a mile." And I'm like, "I suck a dick." "What would you do?" And it's like next day. It was like really quick like stuff like that. And we performed that around campus. You know, after that, I graduated. And, you know, I didn't really make any dance. The only credit I had was the extra on background on burn notice. And I was like, "I got to move to LA." That's where it's all happening. And my parents were not going to let me move to LA. At all. So I did what, you know, I thought they would agree with. And that was due school in LA. So I did New York Film Academy and Masters program for acting MFA. And they were like, "All right, cool. Well, if you're going there for school, you go." And, you know, I went for school. I dropped out early because I kind of got discovered a little bit. Well, not really. I was at a basketball gym. And I guess I'm just kind of like, you know, a wild silly person. And there was this guy kind of looking through the glass watching me play in a rack. And he was like, "Hey, you got an agent?" And I was like, "Nah." He's like, "Well, here, take my card. I want to represent you." And then I was like, "All right, cool." His name was Daniel Hoff. And he had like a boutique agency where you do commercial agent. And then I started booking commercials. And I was like, "Oh, now I really, I dropped. Right when I started booking commercials, I dropped out of school. I was like, "Okay, I'm in now." You got to finance a degree. You know how this works? You know how it works? You can live in a morning. Yeah. You know, I dropped out. And then the school, they were telling me like, "No, you can't drop out. You're not going to make it this industry. It's cutthroat. It's this. It's that." And then my parents were telling me the same thing. They were like, "All right, you drop out. You got a year to make it. Or you coming back to Florida." And I was like, "All right, let me figure this thing out." I really looked up to Donald Glover. Childish Gambino. And I don't know if you knew this, but he started off on YouTube. So I was watching his career and I started studying his career. I was like, "Okay, start off doing YouTube skits." And then he started writing for a 30-rock. And then from 30-rock, he got a role on community. So I was like, "Oh, okay." So maybe if I start doing social media, people will see that and I'll get a writing job. And then I'll be able to get like some kind of TV show or something. So I did that. I did stand-up, I was trying everything. And then the social media started to kick off. And then once that started to kick off, then the doors opened and I started to get into movies and stuff. Well, let's talk about the social media because that's so fascinating to me. The new word is content. Like, when I was your age and I was coming up in the business, I didn't exist. It was movies and television. Now it's content. And let me back up for one second. What I love, man, is this is exactly the spirit of this podcast. It's like faith over fear, man. It's like everybody in the media and what you hear mostly is the business is collapsing. It's going away, which is people have been saying for a hundred years. And you hear that from everybody. You heard that from your friends. You heard that from your parents. Everybody was telling you, "Man, you're not going to make it. You're not going to do it." And you said, "Well, I'm going to go do it." And you just pulled yourself up by the bootstraps and did it. And kept thinking of, "Okay, well, if I can't be more than an extra here in Florida, I'm going to move to LA to see if I have more opportunity. If I can't have opportunity getting auditions, I'm going to go do a child's scambina. I'm going to do a social media. I just love that about you. And I'd always have, by the way, and you and I have been friends for a long time. And I've always admired that. In you that you've never just rests on your laurels. You're always always trying to figure out the next win, which is probably why you've done more movies and television than any other content creator out there. So let's talk about that. So you've fallen, "Child's scambina, sweet steps." Great. Everybody has YouTube and everybody has a phone. What was your mindset? Because this is also about producing. You have a production company. You've produced your whole career. When you're going to go produce these things, what's in your mindset? Because you could have done anything. You could have been a food influencer. Walk me through the thought process of how you did it and actually how you got it off the ground. So I believe that your parents play a major role in who you are. I watched my mom struggle from nothing. Well, she was working a nine to five, and she was an accountant, right? She was an accountant at this accounting firm. Working a nine to five. And what she did at that nine to five was she would get the contact information of the clients that were going to the large accounting firm. And she would give them a discount. Hey, come to my house and I'll give you discount. I'll do your accounting work and all that at this rate. So she started collecting clients, collecting clients. And as a kid, I just see, oh, people are coming to the house and my mom is having meetings. Then all of a sudden, these meetings get more people. She puts tile into the garage, right? And I'm like, okay, cool. Then she gets more money for more clients. And then she puts dividers into the garage. Then she puts air condition into the garage. So she turns our garage into an office, right? And then she got more clients to a more clients where she was able to get an office, an office space. And then now she has her own accounting firm called Bachelor in Associates. And in my mind, I'm a kid. So I just think you're supposed to do that. You're supposed to start from nothing and build something. That's just because I don't know any better. That's what I saw. So taking me to now, California, where, you know, I see like the struggle and now it's like, oh, no, no. It's not there's no excuse. I have to make it. So I'm looking. I'm studying everything I studied. I studied, you know, the phrase of, oh, you need the Tim Allen. You've got to do stand up. You do stand up. You get your sitcom. Okay, cool. You do the Fresh Prince model. You music. Doom. Then the the childish Gambino. So I'm trying all different blueprints and seeing which one works. Throwing everything at the wall because there is no failure for me. And then the social media started to work. Now, the thing about me being a food influencer, influencer thing, where, which is really interesting about today's generation, is a lot of people are seeking social media for the fame. And they're seeking it for the fame and the money and all of that. For me, that wasn't the case. My only objective was to be an actor. That's one of the reasons why I have more credits. Because for me, social media wasn't the goal. The goal was acting and social media was just a means to get there. That's why it's like, you look at some of the other people who are like large social media influencers. They'll do a movie and cool. People may come see the movie but they're like, "Oh, there's something that's, you know, it's just, they're not connecting with me." It's because they're not an actor. They're a social media person. I was like, "Oh shit, acting, that'll be fun to do." Where for me, no, acting wasn't a fun thing to do. Acting was, it's my disease. That's the only thing I want to do. When you started your social media career for lack of a better word, did you go right to comedy and thought, "I think to yourself, I'm going to show my acting chops in comedy." Because you, did you start the skits right away and start writing and producing them? How did that get kicked off the ground? The funny thing is, in acting school, they don't ever teach comedy. It's only a drama and, you know, film acting technique and all the serious stuff. I remember we had a class where the objective of the class was for today, we are going to imagine you're at your parents' funeral and you're going up and you're walking to the casket. And the table in the front of the room was a casket. We all had to take turns walking to the front. Imagine the person we loved the most was in the casket. So I remember hating film school. Because I was like, "Bro, I'm going to school and I'm crying six days out of the week." I'm like, "This is torture." Doing the comedy skits, that was what I knew. So I needed to do comedy to take a break from all the drama I was doing. You know, that came kind of easy to me. So, you know, I started doing comedy skits and comedy skits. And, you know, some would get. I remember, I would get like, 5,000 views. And I'm like, "Yeah, 5,000 views?" I was like, "I don't know 5,000 people. I got 5,000 views." I would start to see like, "Oh, okay. I do a video like this. It does that." And I was like, "Okay." So then I started, I did a thing called the flight parody, which was a parody of Denzel Washington's movie, "Flight." And I did it, like maybe a week after the film came out. And I remember just using all my resources. So I went to film school and just subconsciously, all the things I learned from working with all the film students and film directors. I was like, "Okay, we shoot like this. Don't break the 180 rule. Do this. Gotta make sure we're mic'd up, sound, boom, boom, boom." Edit it together. And then I was like, "Oh, shit. 100,000 views. What? What just happened? How did I get 100,000 views?" I was like, "All right, cool. What's another movie that's coming out? Oh, Django. All right, cool. Let me do Django. I call up like a ranch or whatever. And hey, I'm like, I'm a film student. I would really love if I can use your place for a little bit. And I got a couple of people coming and they're like, yeah, we were supportive, right? Because at that time, it's like, okay, film students. There's no YouTubers. There's no YouTube coming out and doing that. So, bro, I had horses. I had costume. I had makeup. I had everything because I went to film school. So I know exactly what to do. And when I got there, there was like, is this a movie set? And I was like, "No, this is just like a short film thing for my school." And I put that on YouTube and then I got a million views. And I'm like, "Well, I didn't understand what was happening." I was just like, "Oh, I was just calculating." But what was happening was, I'm taking Quentin Tarantino's fans. I'm taking the Django fans. I'm taking the Jamie Foxx fans. I'm taking all those fans. And I'm putting it on YouTube because nobody's making a Django parody. The only people that are going Django parodies is SNL. So it would be SNL and King that. So I was getting all views. And I figured out this formula from early on. So I continued to do that. And then Vine came out. And the thing with the Vine was, I didn't have to spend $5,000-$10,000 on a video. I could do it for free. And I got shooted on my iPhone. I was outputting so much more because of my brain. This is all I would think about. And at this time, my YouTube channel, even though I was getting millions of views, I only had 22,000 subscribers. I remember. And I remember shooting the Vine videos. And it was the same thing. I was calculating everything because at the end of the day, it's like, my mom said, I have a year to make it. And then by this time, I'm going in. Vine came out. I started making these Vine videos. I started calculating, okay, I do a video like this. It got me 50 followers. It gets me 100 followers. It gets me 1,000 followers. Okay, let me do more videos like this. Then I deleted everything to the point where I was getting 100,000 followers a day. I went from nothing to a million followers in like six months or less than six months. And then I got the Guinness Book of World Records for the most Vine followers. And then I was like, Mama looks like I'm staying. That was your definition of make it to your mother. It was the Guinness Records. So was Django your first quote-unquote viral video? Is that would you consider your first viral video? Yeah. Because I didn't even exist as a term when it happened. And where did you come up with the moniker, King Batch? I played sports in high school. And in sports, I always call you by your last name. My last name is Bachelor. Bachelor is too long to say. So they just called me Batch. So ever since middle school and high school, Batch, Batch, Batch. That's what I went by. And then I remember we were doing like a history school project. It was about like, you know, the back of the days. And I was the only one that dressed up. I had like a cape on. I brought in a crown, like a little a staff or whatever. And then my teacher goes, oh, because I was the only one that dressed up. He was like, oh, King Batch over there. And I was like, oh, I like that. That sounds good. That rolls off the tongue. What was the difference of getting 50 followers or a thousand followers? Do you remember? Do you remember like the adjustments you made? Yeah. I remember essentially relationships. Stuff that, you know, like when you make your movies, it's like sometimes it's like the relationship stuff. People love a good, like, mmm, a good love, feel good. So relationships was a high one. Relatability of course, but the relationship was a key for me. And not just like anything about the relationships. Like the little annoying stuff that would happen in relationships. So I would figure out what was like really toxic in a relationship. So I'd do a series about red flags. I would do insecure boyfriend. Those types of like captions and titles. Another thing that I've made sure that some of my videos, you can watch and understand even if the sound was off. So I would do, I would purposely do a lot of videos where I didn't say anything just so I could be universal. And also if I was lacking a fan base in a certain area, I would figure out what I would do. So like if I wanted to tell you in bands, I would do a video with an Italian girl and she's speaking Italian. So I remember one of my, one of my first buying videos was a girl and she's speaking to me and talking to that. And I was like, I don't, I don't understand that shit really. She's like, I was like, what the fuck are you saying? And then I go like this, I go, huh? Like making the sex symbol. Yeah, and this is just skipping down the street. That's hilarious. And then everybody in Italy loved that. And then I went to Italy and I was like, oh, you did that video. You did that because no one else in America is doing an Italian video. And you were looking to be global to expand your subscriptions to create your foundational audience. So at that period of time in Vine and YouTube, how were you monetizing? How were they monetizing back to you? How did that work? Because I can see you building your business and you're building your business from the creative side. But you're also thinking like a finance person because you're thinking, I need an audience in Italy. I'm going to, I can add a thousand followers. If I do this, let me adjust my content. How were you thinking business mindedly to monetize all this? As far as the monetization that would come through the brand deals. But in my mind wasn't really thinking about the money. I was thinking about the strategy, which was Will Smith. When he would do his movies, he would do his own press torso. He would fly there and do that. So I was like, oh, I can just get Italian fans by doing this. My first TV show, like real like gig. I did six episodes on the show, House of Lies with Don Cheetle. And then I'm like, oh, I'm here because I'm talented. Because I auditioned. I got it. I'm like, boom. And then when I got to set, everybody knew who I was. And they were all talking about the Vine stuff. And then Don was like, come on, let's do a Vine video. So I did a Vine video with. I'm like, hell yeah, I'm doing a Vine video with Don Cheetle. So I remember on set, we're doing Vine videos. And then I started to realize at this time, I had like maybe six million followers or whatever. And I was like, oh, shit, I'm a billboard. And I was like, oh, every one of my Vine videos was getting 12 million views. And the network TV shows is getting whatever. So for them, it's this. And then every time I was on TV, I would like do like a post for it. You know, my first Netflix movie was, it was called the babysitter. And then I did it and I would do this thing where I'm on TV and I'd do like a little dance. And this is so sweet. And I was reaching so many viewers, right? So of course, every movie I do is going to be number one. So the babysitter was my first movie I did on Netflix. I put it on my social media. Hey, I'm in this movie, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then it's a number one movie on Netflix. Not only is it number one movie on Netflix, but it becomes Netflix most viewed movie ever. I'm like, oh, shit. That's crazy. And I'm like, all right, maybe it's a fluke, right? So then I do another Netflix movie. Oh, shit. That one's a number one movie on Netflix too. And it keeps going. It's just like, I'm realizing all the power of social media. You know, of course, my producer friends, they know and they understand what's happening. But sometimes these people don't know. But my producer friends were telling me. They were like, hey, Netflix came back. They said that people are clicking on your picture, your thumbnail, the most. And I was like, oh, okay. And I'll, yeah, because like, you know, even on my YouTube videos, I put my thumbnails in the face. And people just recognize the face. They're like, oh, shit, that's a guy. And I'm not knowing the movie world and movie industry. But you guys already do this. Like you guys know, like, oh, they put Mac and Macon hay boom on the build room. They know his fate. They're gonna watch this movie. I'm learning all of this. And then they come back and they're telling me, hey, Batch, your character tested higher than some of the leads in this movie. And I would be a movie where I have like a smaller role. And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, because I know instantly what people laugh at and what they don't laugh at because I get comments and I see immediately what people respond to. So I'm just applying what I'm learning in that to the movies. But the difference between me and some other like YouTuber influencer is I'm only doing acting content. I'm not a chef doing this. I'm not doing this type of vlog or whatever. I'm literally doing skits that are only acting. So I'm getting feedback on only acting with comedy. So I'm just getting data in my head. And then now I'm in the point of my career. It's like, all right, I wrote short stuff. Now let me start writing some movies. So now I'm in the process of trying to write my own movies. So that's where I'm in my career now. I mean, it's such an interesting way to think about it. And then you were so early on, early days in this of like building your fan base before you actually had done the work. I mean, to, you know, I mean, the work you wanted to do. And so you already were like, "Looks, and when I get there, I'm going to have all my fans in Italy already." Yeah. Which is a very, very interesting way. And I think really you could do it only in the modern times because social media didn't exist before. Probably models sort of had some fans before they, you know, there's other things that are maybe kind of parallel. But nothing like doing acting content, building your fan base so that by the time you got the work you always dreamed about, you already had that fan base there. It's a very interesting way of going about it. And as you're producing these videos, you're also directing them and writing them. Do you feel you're acting getting better because of the comments that you're reading online? Are you leaning into your film school friends? How are you getting feedback on your acting that's making you a better actor? Obviously, by just 10,000 hours, by doing it over and over again, you're more comfortable in a set, you're more comfortable in the camera, which will, by its very nature, make you a better actor. But what kind of things were you still going to acting class? Like, what were you doing to continue getting better at your craft? Yeah, so the interesting thing was because I'm such an analytical and strategic person, I would make a YouTube video. And because I'm doing a Django parody, I'm going and I'm watching Django five times in a theater. I'm going watching this Marvel movie five times. Or, you know, I'm just going to theater. And I'm going to theater and I'm taking notes. I'm filming a little bit of it. And seeing, okay, they did this shot like this. So I'm, I'm studying. I'll go home and I'm watching movies. And I'm not watching movies for entertainment. I'm watching movies to study. And I'm noticing, okay, uh, Edgar Wright shoots like this. He does quick. Clinton Tarantino does this. And he snaps boom. This director does this. Guy Richie's writing style is this. And I'm like gathering all this information. I'm like, oh, I have the money. Let me just try and like, do this on a smaller form. Because to me, it was all a form of practice. Like my YouTube turned now from that to just practice for when I get to the movies. So, um, I learned how to write direct, produce all from the YouTube. And I was doing it in a form where I was just having so much fun. I remember I did a video called, uh, my favorite director is Edgar Wright. And I shot a whole video, um, with his style. And then he saw it. He retweeted it and I was like, oh, shit. Oh, you know, so I am in doing that. Now it just may be a stronger, uh, and more efficient, um, actor and performer. Because now I'm aware of, okay, this camera angle. What lens is he shooting on this, uh, you know, where other actors, they would just come and they would, they would do their thing and they would waste time. And I'm like, yo, they're trying to make the day. What are you doing, baby girl? You gotta come out and get so shit together. You know, I'm doing the, the research and, and the homework to make sure like, okay, uh, I'm going to have three different takes where I'm going to have three different, uh, things to say. I want to know how to do everything. So if they put me in a position to, to do something, yeah, I know how to do that too, you know? So you're on these big movies now, even literally as we speak, you're on Roadhouse too. And you know how the business has evolved. You've seen you were, you've obviously been a huge part of the streaming, uh, processes. You said you've had a lot of number one movies on different streaming platforms. You've been, we had a number one movie come on now. We did have a number one movie. We did have a number one movie for sure on Hulu. And so you know this system very well. You've been in theatrical movies as well. You say you're a very strategic person. I've witnessed it personally given the state of the business now on what you've been hearing versus what you've been witnessing. What's your strategy now? What is your strategy as an actor, producer, creative person? I was talking to Jake Gyllenhaal about this today actually. There was a point because he's a, he's a movie star, right? And there was a point where, you know, movies where boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, something happened. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Marvel, uh, destroyed the, the movie industry. Not their fault, not their fault. I'm not blaming Marvel, but the reason is it's because, you know, as a kid, uh, I saw Spider-Man, uh, like four times. Tobin McGuire, Spider-Man, OG. And the reason was because it was an event. Bro, we're, we're going in the costume. We're going there. We're seeing it Friday, having a great time. What are we doing next weekend? Oh, we're going to see it again. And we're going to dress up as a villain this time. We loved it again. We're going next week and we're dressing up as this. We're going to go and we're just going to go back because we can and let's see how many of the words we memorized. And that's what it became. And this is like, I don't know, eighth grade ninth. Well, I don't know what, what grade I was in, but I was young. But I was conditioned to, to, to view movies as, oh, if it's an event, I'm going to go see it, you know? And that became the standard, I guess, for everyone else. Because then, uh, you know, the movies that would be an Indian that would take risk, um, they would start to not make as much money. Streaming came around. And then now it's like, oh, we're going to have to leave our homes. We can just sit, sit here and watch a movie. And then COVID came and forced you to sit home and watch a movie. So those who were like, no, I'm a theater goer. I'm a theater goer. Well, yeah, where you're locked in your house for a year or more. It's like, all right, let me just see what is Netflix things about. Let me see what this school of things about. Oh, shit, this Netflix movie is kind of good. I like that King Batch guy. He kind of funny. Oh, all right. Let me, let me get a bigger TV. Let me get a bigger stream. Exactly. So it's like, maybe watching movies at home. Isn't that bad? Okay. You know, and then that became like, you know, then when stuff opened back up, it was like, I don't need to. Unless it's like a really, really great movie. You know, Marvel or you still got like your, your A-lister. There's some A-listers where you're just going to go support. Something like Tom Cruise. I don't think I've seen like a streaming movie that he's done. Everything he's done has been theatrical. So if you want to see Tom Cruise, you have to pay money to see Tom Cruise. Yeah. It's an event. As you said, it's your people are coming out of their house for an event of whatever type. Exactly. You know, there's always the debate of, ah, man, movies haven't done what they did back in the day. But then you have sinners which broke records that we're standing for. However, like a decade or I don't know how many years, but a long time before the pandemic since before the industry is doing that. So there is a way to do it. And if you think about sinners, it's a unique movie. So there has to be something unique about it where they take a risk, where it's kind of different. You know, as far as the AI situation, AI can't replace an actor. They can try. They can do like, they can do maybe quick and witty lines in this. But you're not going to get emotion. You know, you're not going to have the trauma that someone else did. Like, you know, it's like, you program them to drink a bottle of water. You know, drink it happy. Ha ha, drink it sad. Drink it and think about it poison thing. Who poisoned it? This is the ex-girlfriend that poisoned it. Let's fuck it. I'm right, you know, AI is not going to get that deep with it. If they do, it's just going to be like, you know, very like you'll see its AI. So the reason why I say not to get mad at AI is because I look at it as it's a different category. You go see a cartoon. You go see the live action, you go see AI one day. It's like a video game. It's, you know, it's like maybe people who like looking at video game. But it's not going to take away. It's like, what's Squid Games? Cool, Paypal Demon Hunter. Cool, the two very different movies, very different styles. It's like, there's some, but it's not AI is not going to kill the industry in that, in that sense. The way I see it, it's just a category. So what strategy are you taking for yourself in your career in all of this change to make yourself an event? So the industry focuses on a movie is making this much money or it's losing this much money. That's, that's the focus now. It's like, ooh, this movie flop. This is Sydney Swinney's second flop in a row. Like they're just focusing on the flops and this and that. And they're trying, it's not really helping. The rock, this movie flopped. And, you know, the biggest movie starting the world is flopping. There's no such thing as movie stars anymore. No, no, no. So my strategy is to make a guaranteed success. I'm not going to be spending 30 million, 25 million dollars. I'm going to spend low amount of money. And I'm going to make sure that I'm using all the elements that I know are successful. And that will bring no matter what success. That way, any amount of money I make on the movie, any kind of success it has, it will be profitable. So the only thing you can say was, oh, this movie made money. You know, and I'm going to make sure I test, I show it to my friends. You know, I send them to script, make sure they read it. I'm getting all like the critiques and criticism from my peers. You know, V, I don't want to lose. So I'm not going to lose. And you've already built your fan base. And so you're going to take the money conversation off the table. It'll just be judged on its merits of its creativity, which you're going to use your network to help make sure that you're further along in that endeavor anyway. Yeah, exactly. Tell me how you're getting feedback, because I know that you love data. How are you improving as an actor as you go here, given that you're in such a different medium than real-time feedback you're getting? Because I know you're still making those videos that's still producing those. But as an actor, how are you taking the feedback to get better? So I do the same thing. I watch one movie every day. I've been doing that for so many years. I don't know, but every day I watch a movie before I go to sleep no matter what. Now I've switched and I'm more strategic where now I've figured out what are the, and I have this list right here. These are the 30 most profitable movies as far as like profit margins. And I'm specifically said under 10 million. So I have this list and I notice one thing in this list. They're all horror, all psychological thrillers. They're all that. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to do psychological thrillers. So now I've studied horror, psychological thrillers, thrillers, everything. And I'm studying their acting technique and their acting style. And I'm watching what the critics say about their acting style. Because if you realize the Rotten Tomatoes often drives the sales too, because our generation loves to see what is this movie rated? What is the IMDB? What is this? What is that? I'm comparing and I'm and I've compiled a list of the greatest movies that either are driven by plot or by acting. It's a whole different medium and it's a whole different style. So I'm studying them now, rather than my comments. And I'm picking and choosing how I'm going to do it. I'm used, I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses. And it's like, okay, do I want to play a lead? Or do I want to give the lead to someone else? Do I want to direct it? Do I want to, you know, do this? I need to make my version of the get out where it's, you know, he made it for $4.5 million and it made $255 million. There's all these different movies. Top to me, those were made by YouTubers. They're actually YouTubers. Seven on the most profitable movie list and they're YouTubers. So someone took a chance on them and they know YouTubers know. They see these instant, they just know what people are going to look at. I mean, you're really thinking like a producer in every way. You're producing your own career. You're not sitting back and waiting for auditions. You're not sitting back and waiting for people to tell you if you're a good actor and not you're going making it happen by studying and researching and figuring out the next path, which is the same thing you've always been doing. It's taking that feedback and iterating it and making it giving yourself the best option to succeed. Exactly. And another thing I realized is social media now is irrelevant. I have, let's say, I have like 70 million followers combined. 70 million, right? Let's call that 70 million followers organic followers. You take someone like Brad Pitt, who let's just say he doesn't have social media. That's false. He has a following that it will call it paid following, right? So let's just say, you know, he makes a movie. It's 50 million. They spend 50 million on marketing. So let's just say he has 50 million dollars behind his name now, Brad Pitt. He makes another move. They spend another 50 million on marketing. Now he has 100 million on his name. So to the point where Brad Pitt has maybe a billion dollars or more behind his name, but brand. And it's not here. It's the studios that's his social media. Mine is called, you know, it's let's call that, you know, the organic. But now since I'm getting into the studio movies that are going theatrical, you know, I just did, you know, Violet Night 2, you know, I don't want to say their numbers. But let's just say it's a 50 million dollar movie and they spend 50 million dollars on their marketing. If I'm starting from scratch, now I'm starting from scratch. Now I have 50 million dollars behind my name, right? Because they're going to be billboard. My commercials, my everywhere. So now I'm working on building up my, my paid social media following, which is the studios paying to put my face everywhere. So that way it's like when my movie comes out, this, this movie I'm going to spend a little bit of money on and make sure it hits all the boxes. They're going to be like, oh, we know that face because he has 400 million dollars behind his name by now. You know what I mean? So that's why I'm focusing on doing the studio movies now. And it's all strategy. It's how we're all thinking. So building your career. So you mentioned AI. I want to dig into a little bit more because I've talked about it a few times on this iteration of the podcast. And I've been saying there's kind of two boxes that people fall into. The first box is the professional people that are leery of it, that want to use it as a tool, that see the limitations as you point it out. You know, are worried that there's going to be jobs that are being taken away. Then the uncertainty makes everybody uneasy. There's that side. Then the other side is all of the gamers, all of the people who feel like they've been looked over the extras that were in Florida. They feel like they haven't gotten their chance and what's being sold to them is what's being sold to them is exactly. Don't worry about it. You use this technology. All those barriers are over. You can just do it with AI. You're going to be the next Steven Spielberg. Nobody can stop you. And the world is your oyster. But you got to subscribe for 100 bucks a month or whatever they're going to charge them. The thing that's not been talked about that much. And I find it fascinating. Although Mr. Beast touched on it. Is it would seem to me that you, as a content creator, dealing in YouTube and something that should be the most worried? Because in theory, they're smaller bites. I could make a clone of King Batch. There's enough of you on the internet that I could clone you. And then I could just put your skits up and steal your audience. Are you are you thinking about that? Are you concerned about that? No, not at all. The more people that see my face, the more popular I will be. The only concern is if it's used for bad. So it's promoting, hey, get these Rayban glasses. Boom, then it comes out. Rayban does XYZ. That's really bad. Oh, King Batch supported them. No, that wasn't me. That was AI. Then I have to do that whole debate. That's the only thing that would worry me. People using it for harmless stuff and skits and making money. I don't care. That's how I got to where I am. Because, so for instance, I make my buying videos. I had a fan reach out to me. She's being a muse. And she said, "Where I'm from, you're known as the Funny Black Guy." Because there's a Facebook account that is basically far with my picture and all my videos. And the account's name is just Funny Black Guy. And it's got like millions of followers. And it's all in being a muse. I could watch it. And it would be, they dubbed everything. Right? So, for me, that's a version of AI. But now, I have Vietnamese fanbase. I have a Vietnamese fanbase, which is thanks to a version of AI, right? That thing is, yeah, that if they use it for evil, they could be doubling my lips and saying, "Real racist shit," or whatever. And it could be bad. As far as it's taking away jobs, that's something to be afraid of for the writer. Now, right now, it's not good enough to do writing. It'll give you something generic and blah, blah, blah. But who's to say, in five to 10 years, it won't be able to write a script. And then the studio is like, "We don't need to pay a writer X, Y, and Z. We'll write it ourselves." And maybe that'll enhance where it eliminates a writer. And it hires a, we'll call them AI engineer. So now, studios are focused on, we're going to hire the best AI engineers, which is what some companies are doing. I think that's where it will go. Eventually, some studio is going to be greedy enough where they're going to be like, "No, we don't, we need to win. We need to buy Netflix, we want to buy, who we want to buy Disney." And all we can do this is if we outperform them, we have enough money to do it. But that's the thing about outperforming them. You've mentioned several times that you're strategic, that you put in the hours, you watch all these things, you're a student of film, you listen to the audience, you adjust, you said yourself that the most jump in subscribers came from when it was relationships, human connection, your red flag series. And you also say, "AI can't do that," right? So there's like this weird gap where people go like, "Well, yeah, all people are going to do is hire this AI engineer and AI is going to do it." But all those things that you do, Andrew, every day watching a movie before you go to sleep, studying the things, those are the things that those assholes that are going to hire an AI engineer to replace us all, they haven't done that, man. They have not done that. So if somebody's got to be the person that watches it and goes, "That's good enough," and if that person hasn't done all the work that you've done, Andrew, to make you who you are, it's never going to be good. I mean, to sure it can do it in theory, it can maybe even do it in practice. But as you said, people weren't saying, "We just want you to do dumb shit where you fall down of the highest cliff and land into a glass of water," which is like, right? What can you just get chased by bigfoot through the woods? That would be cool. You know, I just want to see you, you know, in space. Like, that's not what they said. They said, "We love when you're interacting with people on the relationship level." And because you've watched all those movies and you studied all of that and you're listening to the content, the comments about your content, you're adjusting and those are the things that are bringing you closer to your audience is that human connection. But even for the smaller bites on that end of your career, yes, in theory, that's the cell. Is they don't worry about it. They're going to be able to do it. You're going to be able to be King Batch in a month. You did so much work to connect with your audience and they feel close to you and your fanbase feels close to you because you've connected them on a human level. And I've seen a lot of the AI stuff and I'm like, "To me, I don't want to get crazy, but to me, AI is kind of like an NFT." I'm like, "All right, cool, it's here now, but eventually people are going to be like, "All right, we want to see the real estate." Like, there's no way you can duplicate that. It's impossible. As of right now, like, AI doesn't stand a chance with like taking away like, there's no way you can make another Chris Tucker. Like, you know what I mean? You could, you could, but it'll just be Chris Tucker. Like you could rip it off. You can rip it off. It's going to be a, you're too young to remember this. So used to be at time, even before CDs, where you'd make a record and you put on a cassette tape and then you'd make a copy of the cassette tape and then the copy of that tape. And there's a degeneration every time you make a copy. So AI is just that. It's just a degeneration every time you make a copy. And what's great right now is people are going, "Oh my God, I can see Bigfoot telling a joke." But if the joke isn't funny, it doesn't matter how clever it is. 'Cause with visual effects, you can do anything. So how many times you've seen a movie that can do anything in visual effects is still sucks. 'Cause the story's not good. The connections aren't good. Your audience is a big audience. It's a younger audience. I want to talk to them directly because it's important because I want there to be more Andrew Bachelors. I really do, man. I admire you. I, like I said, we've been friends for a long time. You're funniest shit in vacation friends. And you're great. And I love the strategy. And I love that you're just your outlook on a career. For all those young people that follow you that are in Florida, that are just right now, like background actors, what advice you have given all the tools that are out there now? Like even when you started out, you didn't have the tools that you're using now. What advice do you have for younger people or people that are in the business that are younger? I have to say, anybody who's in the business, whether you're an assistant or a young executive, do what Andrew Bachelors does. Watch movies. Look at those lists of what are the most profitable movies. Find your taste. Find what you're good at. Be passionate about it as you are Andrew. And like really do the research and do the work because it'll just make you a better executive and make you find your people and be just better at your job. But even before that, the younger people that are just wanting to figure out how to be the next king batch, what is your advice to those people and how would you use the technology that's available today to succeed? You have to be a nerd for the craft. Like I tell people it's a disease. Like I can't live without it. Like if I have to watch a movie every day, I have to study it. I have to know how to do everything in the business. I know how to have to know how to write. Even if you're not a writer because I'll tell people that are like trying to get into acting and I'm like, do you write anything? I was like, no, I was like, do you know how to direct? I was like, no, I was like, and I don't say anything. But in my head, I'm like, why not? Like, you're not using all of your potential. And I try to like, come on, just learn how to do it. Read a book on it, you know, take a writing class. But try and learn and study the craft every part of the craft. Even if it's not, you don't have to be a professional. You don't have to be the best at it. But just no little basics enough where you can like grasp it and really just keep going and keep driving because, you know, God forbid, you're an actor and you lose, you know, you get a burn on your face and you can't act anymore. And you still want to be in the industry, okay? You know how to produce, start producing, you know? Oh, you know how to direct. You can direct now. I just believed like, you should know every part of the industry and use the tools to figure out like Google. Like, all right, how do you become a producer? And then I'll show you list of books. What are the top 30 movies that have the highest profit margin? Boom, why doesn't Google show me what a marketing budget was spent on this? Like, you got to learn all these, like, oh, yeah, just because they said the movie costs $4 million, doesn't mean they didn't spend $10 million on marketing. It's like, so the movie really was $14 million. But they're saying that, why are they saying that? Oh, to make it look like this, you know, it's just, you have to be a nerd for the craft. And that would be my advice. Can you think of one person or in particular that you learned the most from? And what was it that you learned from that particular person? Could be an actor, producer, director, anyone in particular besides myself, of course. Yeah, besides, I learned from success, but I learned mostly from failure. And I'm a big fan of learning from other people's failure. So I will try and see, I will study careers. It's what got me into watching a movie a day was Robert De Niro. And what fascinated me about him so much was how his acting style changed. When he was younger, like, he talked regular. And I was like, oh, and then eventually over the years, he kind of started doing that thing. And I was like, what? It was so interesting to me and seeing what happened. And there has to be something along the line happened where that started working. That was a box off. I was like, oh, and then I went through the, I went through a phase of watching every actor, every a-lister actor, their movies from the beginning. You know, Japanese, Leo, Brad Pitt. It's so important to, yes, Angie right here. It's, I always talk about this. It's so important to watch people's filmography in order because you really can see the arc of their career. And really can see the arc of how these things, oh, they found this thing that they liked. And they used that, I wanna say trick, but trick later. And they kept adding tools to their arsenal and kept getting better and better as filmmakers and/or actors and/or artists. Sorry, so I just wanted to say it's so important to watch stuff in order. Yeah, so that's what got me into watching because I started doing that so much. I started, that's what got me into watching a movie a day. So I did it with actors. Then I started doing it with directors. And then I would see like boom. And then I learned how, you know, Momento was, it was actually his brother's idea or short film. And then then he was like, all right, I'm gonna film the feature. Well, you're gonna film the short film. And then he filmed the feature. So it was, I started studying each director's like filmography. And so it just, to me, I think, so I would guess, you know, Robert De Niro would be the, because that's the reason. It was so, it was so interesting. I was like, wait, why is he talking? Like, he talks regular? It was, it was, it was, it was a mind. My mind was blown that he talked regular at some point. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Andrew, I appreciate you. I know you're London and it's late there. And you're, you're just coming off of set and you got your life to lead. So I really appreciate you taking the time. I always like to end with one question, best memory on set. Best memory on set. Hanging out with John Cena, vacation friends. That was pretty fun. That was pretty fun. So cool, man. Such a nice guy. And he's so like, free spirited, smile, works hard. Doesn't give a shit about anything negative. Like, it's all positive with him. And I love that. I remember because when I was doing the movie, like I was doing like the, the YouTube's and the, the TikTok's and all that. And then he saw me doing so much because I'm a, I'm gonna work a highlight. And he was like, batch. Your existence fascinates me. I was like, like, I'm a squid. What does that mean? That sounds like John Cena, man. That's exactly. And you know what? He's, he's, he's like you. I mean, he, he studies. He's, he plays piano in his spare time. He obviously is physically a crazy specimen and takes care of himself. He studied dance. He studied wrestling. He studied acting. He's just, he's just, he's a sponge. He just takes it all in. And he just shows up on time, works his ass off. He has that great work ethic as do you. So yeah, that would be one of my best memories too, man. Hanging out with you guys in Atlanta over that summer. Again, thank you, King You Are the King. And I really, really appreciate it, brother. Thank you for doing this. What happened to me? Thanks for tuning in for this episode of The Producers Guide. If you're a fan of this podcast, make sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share with your friends and family. And if you've got any questions about producing, send me a DM on x@tod_garner. I want to thank my producer, Steve Delamater. And until next week, I'm Todd Garner. See you then. [BLANK_AUDIO]