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00:00Hi everyone, I'm Katie Campione, a senior TV reporter at Deadline. I'm joined by the folks
00:05behind Prime Video's Beast Games, the new competition series whose debut season quickly
00:09became the streamer's most-watched unscripted show ever. It offers the largest prize of any
00:15competition series ever as well. In Season 2, 100 of the world's smartest minds and 100 of the
00:22planet's strongest competitors battle it out for a $5 million prize. With me today, we have Mr. Beast
00:27himself, Beast Games creator, host, and executive producer Jimmy Donaldson, and executive producer
00:33Michael Miller. Before we get into the conversation, we have a clip to show you.
00:37Turn on the lights!
00:41Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games.
00:50Heartbreak!
00:53Twist!
00:55And betrayal!
00:58Controlin' me!
00:59Maybe we want to play an honor game, we can.
01:01We'll take it under consideration. I consider it, and the answer's no.
01:06These two friends now turn rivals.
01:08What you got, Eric? Come on!
01:12Let's go!
01:13Bury another line!
01:15Oh my god.
01:18Oh my god, yeah!
01:20You're on my island now. You're not in the big city anymore.
01:23Beast Games Survivors, ready!
01:28Yuck!
01:29Alliances are crumbling.
01:30The boys are teaming up.
01:31She could be lying.
01:32My little lion.
01:33You're taking control.
01:34I don't want to go home.
01:36I'm going to share it the end.
01:37Sayonara.
01:38It's going to be okay.
01:39Just breathe.
01:42I should win my mom, I wake up.
01:44It's going to be cutthroat.
01:45I don't like the little love couple nonsense.
01:48I'll tell you, I want you!
01:57Are you going to sit down and lose, or take a risk?
02:05So you really came out of the gate swinging with Season 1.
02:08It quickly became Prime Video's biggest unscripted show ever.
02:12How did that shape your perspective going into Season 2?
02:15Jimmy, maybe we can start with you.
02:16The interesting thing is in Season 1, we have to figure out every little thing.
02:21You don't know what people are wearing, how I'm acting, what the sets look like.
02:26The beauty of Season 2 is we get to take what worked in Season 1, and then we just get
02:29to
02:30figure out how do we reinvent it?
02:31How do we make it bigger, better, or how do we tweak things?
02:35Season 2, from a creative standpoint, was a lot easier, because we're not having to go
02:41from 0 to 1.
02:42We're going from 1 to 2, in a mental model.
02:45But the more interesting thing, and the thing that I spent a lot of my time on, is figuring
02:51out how do we really get to know these contestants?
02:55How do we build up these contestants?
02:57Because in Season 1, people loved the massive sets we had.
03:00We had some of the literally biggest sets ever in history.
03:02I mean, we built an actual city that the contestants stayed in, and they loved the giant cash prize
03:08and the spectacle of the whole thing.
03:09One thing I thought we could improve on in Season 2 was just really getting to know the
03:14contestants more.
03:14And so it was like, how do you keep these larger-than-life sets and these massive spectacles
03:19and all this stuff, but then also zoom in all the way in, where you hear about someone's
03:24kids, and you really hear the granularity of their story, and you get to know the contestants.
03:28And so that was a lot of what I was focused on for Season 2.
03:31Well, I think for me, it's all about working with these guys.
03:36It's always, how do we raise the bar?
03:37How do we make it bigger, better?
03:40And whatever better means, we have to do it.
03:44It's not like, oh, you know what?
03:45As long as we do what we did last year, everybody at home will get it.
03:48And it's, no.
03:49We have to make bangers.
03:51It has to be bigger.
03:52We have to make it better.
03:53We have to deal with all of the financial implications, safety implications, crew implications,
04:00everything that goes around that.
04:02And it's a challenge, but we're all here.
04:05We're all up for it.
04:06Michael, I want to do a challenge in space.
04:08Okay.
04:09See?
04:10Season 3.
04:11You're already renewed.
04:12So there you go.
04:14Let's do it.
04:15Can you tell me a little bit about how that Survivor crossover came to be?
04:18I'm sure fans will love that one.
04:20It's still hard to believe that that even happened.
04:23One of the people on my team reached out to their team and started talking with Jeff
04:29and honestly never really believed it was going to happen.
04:32They were like, yeah, Jeff Probst is actually very interested in.
04:35And their team kind of likes the idea.
04:36And I was like, sure.
04:38Yeah, whatever you say.
04:40And honestly, even though things like as it got closer, we were working on it, we were
04:46planning it.
04:46I always just assumed he was just going to back up and be like, this was never really
04:51real.
04:52And even as I'm flying to Fiji and I'm on the boat going to his island, I'm like, any
04:57second now, I'm just going to get a text.
04:59I'm like, yeah, Jeff Probst is backing out.
05:01This isn't real.
05:03And it wasn't, honestly, until I got on his island and I saw him and he told me he was
05:09excited to work together and blah, blah, blah and showed me around the island that it
05:13wasn't until that exact moment that I even remotely believed it was real.
05:16Up until that point, I was just like, ah, this is just like a fairy tale.
05:19I don't know.
05:20My entire team's pranking me.
05:21I'm kind of surprised still to this day that it came together.
05:24I'm very grateful that he was willing to work with us.
05:27And I think it was truly a win-win.
05:30And I think our Survivor episode that we're dropping in the new season of Survivor comes
05:36up soon.
05:36And I'm super excited.
05:37Michael, what's something that production pulled off this season that you're still impressed
05:41you managed to get by doing?
05:45Oh, you can run the first minute of episode one to the last minute of episode 10 and like
05:52point at something.
05:53It'll be like, wow, we pulled that off.
05:55I think one of the biggest things is in Beast City, we made it bigger.
06:00We made it better.
06:01It was like a luxury kind of resort that we also had to deal with one of the wettest months
06:08in like the last 50 years in North Carolina.
06:11So you saw some rain on the show, but what you didn't see is all of the massive stop downs
06:16that we had.
06:17And anytime there was a lightning storm, hundreds of crew members had to like go into safety
06:23and like wrap the gear quickly.
06:25And, you know, we were sometimes stopped down for eight hours waiting for the lightning.
06:30Eight hours.
06:31You mean sometimes we were stopped down for 18 hours.
06:33I remember those nights where we were sitting there as it was raining all night and you had
06:37to sit in those big tents.
06:38Yeah, we had to sit in tents or the crew had to sit in charter buses that we had parked
06:42there.
06:43It was wild and stuff like that that will never make it on camera.
06:47I look back at it and go, everybody was safe.
06:50We made awesome content from it.
06:52And like those are some of the proud moments that I have that I felt like, wow, we actually
06:57pulled this off.
06:58I mean, you've built so much of your audience, you know, always trying to outdo yourself.
07:02I'm curious how that translates to Beast Games and, you know, how you've kept that idea going
07:07through this competition series.
07:09I mean, it's a great question and I think it translates the exact same to Beast Games.
07:15Every single season, you know, I'm going to read every review out there, all the positive
07:20reviews, all the negative reviews.
07:21I'm going to watch each season, you know, probably 30 times.
07:24I watched season two.
07:26I probably watched season one 40 times, 50 times.
07:28Like it's ridiculous how many times I've watched these and every single frame, every single
07:32thing said, every single thing done.
07:33I mean, I just hyperanalyze it and I just ask myself, how could we have done it better?
07:37You know, and the thing is, it's, you know, until you do something, it's very easy to go,
07:41oh, well, this is the optimal way to do this or the optimal way to do that.
07:44But until you build a city, you don't know the optimal way to build a city, right?
07:48Like season one was our first time ever building a city, you know?
07:51And then season two, you know, now we have this like foundational knowledge of how we
07:55built the city last time we can build upon it.
07:57And like, okay, maybe now we can save money in doing these things because it's not our
08:01first time, which means we now have extra money to go do this thing, which makes it
08:04even more grandiose.
08:05And, you know, so everything as macro as building the city to down as micro of how do you shoot
08:11the contestants?
08:12How do we do takeaways?
08:13How do we do the wide shots?
08:14And, you know, that kind of stuff.
08:16And so my response is yes.
08:17Just like on YouTube, we have the same mindset here.
08:20And I hope that every single season, no matter how long we do this, we're always improving.
08:24Yeah.
08:25How did the new theme this year of, you know, strong versus smart influence the types of
08:31challenges that you wanted to design?
08:33The influences that the challenges a lot more at the start, and then it kind of weans off
08:37throughout the show because, you know, it would get a little repetitive throughout the
08:41show if every single thing was just revolved around those two things.
08:44But I mean, if you watch it, I mean, you can see, I mean, the first game, we literally
08:48have the strong people climbing up a pole and pulling up blocks, the smart people doing
08:53a memory challenge.
08:54And so especially the first half of the show, it's pretty woven into it.
08:58How do you imagine that, you know, the show will continue to evolve?
09:01You've already been renewed, and it's, you know, been so popular so far on Prime Video.
09:06Amazon, go ahead and renew for season four, five, and six, seven, eight, nine, and 10.
09:10Why don't you?
09:10I hope that we're able to keep things fresh and keep things where you never really know
09:17what's going to happen.
09:18You know, I feel like a lot of modern reality shows, like, you can kind of predict what's
09:22going to happen, and it's just different people in the same thing.
09:24And I think, I hope, with Beast Games, you never truly know what's going to happen.
09:29You can never crack the formula, and it's always massive, big spectacles that have you
09:32going, wow, how did they do that?
09:35That is so freaking cool.
09:37Slash, I also wanted to have some of the best contestant storytelling, you know, of any
09:41show ever.
09:41And so that's the one I really want to just obsess and become world class at.
09:45Like, how do we get it where you know these contestants better than anyone else and, you
09:48know, really feel emotion?
09:49Michael, how have you, you know, worked with Jimmy to pull that off and really dive into
09:54that competition, you know, competitor storytelling and weave that into the spectacle you've got
09:59with this series?
10:00I came out of traditional TV that I worked in for 20 years until I came to work with these
10:05guys, and there is not a group of people that work harder on the creative, on little
10:10things that, like, traditional TV folks don't even take into consideration sometimes.
10:15We will spend hours and hours and hours going over things.
10:19One of the big things that we do is, like, on a regular traditional TV show, when time's
10:25getting kind of late, you're end of the day, and you need to get something from your contestants,
10:30you know, you'll send out a story producer, and it'll be like, they know to ask a contestant
10:34a few questions, and they can produce the answer.
10:37We do everything super authentic, and we do not do that.
10:41Under very strict rules, we do not do that, and we let it play out.
10:44And sometimes, that rolls into hour 17 of the night, or hour 18 of the morning.
10:49Now the sun is coming up.
10:50But we're doing it that way until we get these authentic moments that everybody's happy with,
10:56and then we can be, you know, finished.
10:59It's a different, the way that they elevate things.
11:04There's nothing, it's all so authentic that it makes it really tough on, you know, the
11:11production crew that's off camera and really trying to keep up with it all.
11:16But it's challenging, but it all pays off in the end, right?
11:20The creative that we have and the things that we pull off, nobody else is doing that.
11:25You know, Jimmy, how has your approach to long-form competition storytelling evolved
11:30as you've moved from YouTube into this streaming space and kind of producing for television?
11:36Well, I mean, it's just obviously, it's a completely different skill set, you know,
11:39telling a story over a one-minute YouTube video versus over a 10-episode show.
11:43And so, I think, I mean, it's just evolved a ton.
11:49I mean, it's, I don't even know where to begin to answer it.
11:53I mean, it's just completely different, you know?
11:56What's been most challenging to you about, you know, exploring the TV production space
12:01and producing for television versus for online?
12:04One thing that's interesting is, you know, there's like, you have to think about like
12:10building these contestants through these 10 episodes, you know, there's some people you're
12:15going to build up that are going to get out in episode three, four, five, and six.
12:18And there's others that are going to make the top 10.
12:20And so, there's kind of like what I would call short-term character building.
12:23And long-term character building is that you just focus on the top 10, then like,
12:27you're not going to know any of the people who get out in the first, whatever, eight
12:30episodes, theoretically.
12:31And so, then it's kind of lame.
12:33And so, it's like, you know, really figuring out, because you only have, you know, like
12:3640 minutes to an hour for each episode.
12:38You only have so many people you can show.
12:40And like strategically picking which characters, you know, you develop and which ones you don't
12:45develop and that kind of stuff.
12:46That's the thing that I think we could still improve on and that I've been thinking about
12:50if I can, I can give you a little insight as like an observer on the outside when I first
12:55got here.
12:56They make these huge videos and they, you know, drop 26 or 30 of them every year.
13:03But the cadence that you needed on a TV show and the amount of effort and dedication that
13:10they put into everything, it made it, there was a learning curve season one to where it
13:16was, we're not just prepping and shooting episode one, we're also prepping those nine
13:21other episodes at the same time.
13:23That was challenging season one, season two, everybody, like as an outsider, who's now
13:29an insider, I saw how they, how they grew from that and how they really embraced it and
13:34became excellent at it.
13:36And, you know, we're well into prep of season three and the way that things are going now,
13:44every year progresses and gets a little smoother.
13:47The systems get a little bit better.
13:49Where everybody knows we're going to raise the bar somehow, we have to figure out how
13:52to do it.
13:53And the growth there has been really interesting to see.
13:56Yeah.
13:57That was a good, a good tease for season three.
14:00I was going to ask, you know, what, what we might expect.
14:02I, space maybe is an option.
14:05So what else do, what else do you think we can expect maybe from season three?
14:09Miller, you answer it.
14:10I don't want to get in trouble.
14:13Awesomeness.
14:14Yeah.
14:14We obviously can't share what the creative is.
14:16It is way bigger than season one and two.
14:18That is all I'll say.
14:19We have, uh.
14:21I don't think it's anything that's been done before.
14:23Yeah.
14:23I wish I could tell her about the finale and this and that.
14:27Don't say anything.
14:28I know.
14:29Well, you're setting us up really well.
14:31Now I'm really excited to see, you know, where we're headed with all of this.
14:35I wanted to just end with one more question for you, Jimmy.
14:38How has this shaped your aspirations for, you know, further TV producing?
14:42What else have you got in the works, do you think?
14:44I've definitely learned that I really, really do love telling stories and making, you know,
14:50not just YouTube videos, but I've learned I love just making content in general.
14:53And so our company will definitely be producing other shows in the future, whether it's with
14:58me as the host or with other people, or even if it's a scripted show or something, like,
15:02I think it's just so much fun to put out, you know, like 10 episode series or 12 episode
15:06series and just see how the world reacts.
15:08Totally.
15:09Awesome.
15:10Well, thank you so much for being with us.
15:12I really appreciate it.
15:13Thanks for having me.
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