Welcome back to What I’m Hearing...

I’m in New York for the TV upfronts this week, but it’s looking like a series of dramatically scaled-down events. Several networks are doing virtual hybrids, and even WME’s annual Peter Luger dinner, which had ballooned to 150 executives and stars pre-pandemic, will be pared down to around 50 people, I’m told, with a few key execs already having canceled due to either Covid or fearing it.

Discussed in this issue: Alan Horn, Roger Goodell, Emma Watts, Ice Cube, Jim Robinson, Morgan Wallen, Lachlan Murdoch, Elie Samaha, Tom Rothman, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Ezra Miller’s NFT crypto art…

But first….

A little more on this….

Fox pushed back a bit on that $375 million number, which, ironically, was reported by the Murdochs’ own New York Post. I’m told it’s “in the ballpark,” to mix sporting metaphors, and is dependent on Brady pursuing several non-football projects with Fox. A running theory in Murdoch-land is that the number is indeed a bit high, but Rupert and Lachlan wanted it out there as a middle finger to Troy Aikman, who talked publicly about being courted by Amazon and Disney before signing with ESPN in a reported 5-year, $90 million deal—just half the term and about half the per-year fee as the reported Brady deal.

Bonus Track: My Puck colleague Dylan Byers dives deeper into this deal here, including the rationale (differentiating CPMs, luring better games, keeping Roger Goodell happy) that made Brady a no-brainer for Fox.

—The latest Netflix “culture deck,” released Thursday, which addresses fallout from Dave Chappelle’s recent stand-up special.

Runner up: “Women are harder. It’s just not that strong a list yet.”—Jerry Bruckheimer, the Top Gun: Maverick producer, telling the Sunday Times that he still gets “the same list of ten men the studios want in a movie.”

Second runner up: "I film myself when I get assaulted for NFT crypto art."—Ezra Miller, The Flash star, in a recorded altercation with police during that recent arrest in Hawaii.

P.S. As a reminder, you're receiving the free version of What I’m Hearing at . For full access to Puck, and to each of my colleagues, you can subscribe here.

In the film world, that would be the executive equivalent of a blockbuster. Horn has enjoyed one of the great Hollywood careers. Over five decades, he co-founded Castle Rock, got rich on Seinfeld, then joined Warner Bros., where he is credited with popularizing the “tentpole” strategy of pouring huge resources into a small number of high-priority films, like Harry Potter or Batman or The Hobbit, that prop up the entire studio. Time Warner C.E.O. Jeff Bewkes pushed Horn out at age 68 in 2011, a decision that Bob Iger quickly capitalized on. During Horn’s tenure, Disney remade itself as a megahit factory, producing almost exclusively pre-branded tentpoles from the Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Disney Studios and Disney Animation units, releasing 20 billion-dollar grossers, and setting an industry high-water mark of $11 billion in global box office in 2019—a feat that few believe will ever be replicated.

So, yeah, it’s easy to see why Zaslav would be interested in Horn, especially since Zaz has made it clear to insiders that he wants to remake Warners in the image of Disney, with siloed units like DC, New Line and Animation, run by individual creative leaders, yet all reporting up to a film boss overseeing the total output...