Charlie Munger lived near Paramount Studios—and never once took the bait. While others got starstruck by Hollywood, he stayed unimpressed and uninvested. At the 2023 Daily Journal meeting, months before his passing, Munger didn't just dodge questions. He dropped truth bombs.
By then, he'd seen it all: the Great Depression, tech booms, dot-com busts, and Bitcoin hype. But nothing rattled him quite like showbiz.
So when CNBC's Becky Quick asked him about Disney, she got the kind of answer only Munger could give.
"Practically every business that Disney has has gotten tougher than it used to be," he said. "Again, welcome to human life."
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That's how he opened. No dramatic buildup. Just a clear, cold observation: nothing stays easy forever—not even for a company that once "owned the world," as Munger put it. He recalled Disney's era of dominance—"The Lion King" conquering Broadway, content triumphs stacking up, victory after victory.
"They went from triumph to triumph, marching, marching, marching," he said. "All of a sudden, on practically every front, it's more difficult. This is what happens."
Munger wasn't writing Disney off. He noted the company still had real assets. But he didn't sugarcoat what they're up against. "How would you like running the sports, ESPN, now at Disney compared to its heyday?" he asked. "It's going to be way harder for them."
Even the movie business, he warned, looked grim. "Movies look, to me, like it's going to be a bloodbath, too. It's not a bit easy."
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That wasn't nostalgia talking. It was analysis. "In the heyday of ESPN, Disney made nothing but money out of ESPN. It was a total goldmine," he said.
When the conversation shifted to Paramount—a large Berkshire holding at the time—Munger distanced himself fast. "I live within a few blocks from Paramount Studios and I don't even know anybody at Paramount," he said. "I have avoided the movies like the plague as an investor all my life."
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He was just getting started.
"I've never made an investment in the movie business in any way, shape, or form. It always gives me the willies," he said. Then came the Munger rundown: "I don't like the unions, I don't like the crazy agents, I don't like the goddamn crazy lawyers, I don't like the crazy movie stars."
Even after his passing, his instincts seemed to echo. At the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, Warren Buffett revealed he had finally pulled the plug on Paramount —and paid the price.
"I was 100% responsible for the Paramount decision," Buffett admitted. "It was 100% my decision, and we've sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money."
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While Munger had taken a lifelong stance against Hollywood, Buffett took a position—then an exit.
For Munger, it wasn't just the numbers—it was the culture. "Everything about it is not my culture," he said. "I liked those old English actors when they came over. I grew up with them. But, basically, movies are not my scene, so I've avoided it."
He wasn't against performers or artists making a living. "It may be a very good place to make a living as an actor or a writer or a musician," he allowed. "But it's a hard place to make money if you're an investor."
Munger never had time for chaos, hype, or industries run on personalities and promises. He wanted a margin of safety, cash flow, and predictability—and for him, the movie business had none of it.
Even in his final year, he kept doing what made him a legend: stripping things down to what they really were—and walking away when they didn't make sense.
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