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00:00Hello and welcome. My name is Peter White. I am the executive editor of television at Deadline.
00:05We're heading to Beast City next for our next show. Mr. Beast is an online phenomenon.
00:11He has over 380 million YouTube followers, which makes him the largest creator on that platform.
00:18And last year he partnered with Amazon to create a show called Beast Games, a reality competition series.
00:25That show saw a thousand contestants competing in a series of challenges, some physical, some mental,
00:31initially to win a five million dollar prize that during the show may have raised a little bit.
00:37Joining us today to talk about Beast Games are Mr. Beast himself, Jimmy Donaldson,
00:43Sean Klitzner, who is an executive producer and co-creator of Beast Games, and Jeffrey Randall Allen, one of the contestants.
00:50Thanks for joining us today, guys. Before we get into the competition, let's watch a clip.
00:55I am standing on five million dollars. The grand prize of the most insane competition show you've ever seen.
01:03And competing for it are these 1,000 contestants.
01:08Are you all ready? Start the timer.
01:14With massive challenges. Welcome to the elimination trade.
01:18That has never been done on TV before.
01:20The stakes have never been higher.
01:23If he misses, your entire team is gone.
01:25I feel terrible. I let down my whole team.
01:27Who is going to drop?
01:28I'm in a literal insane asylum.
01:30This challenge might be the most cutthroat thing I've ever done.
01:34There are Navy SEALs coming for you.
01:36And if they find you, you will be eliminated.
01:39Oh my gosh.
01:41I don't know why you're here. Go!
01:42You can feel the tension.
01:45Y'all are both selfish.
01:47Why would you go against the team?
01:48My heart is broken into pieces right now.
01:50I don't trust anyone. I'm here for myself and my family.
01:54Everything is on the line.
01:56The mind games have begun.
01:58Which one of these players will make entertainment history and win five million dollars?
02:03Do whatever it takes. There's only going to be one winner.
02:06And it all comes down to this.
02:14Jimmy, let's start with you.
02:16You have tens of billions of views on YouTube.
02:19What was it that made you think we're going to make a quote-unquote traditional television series?
02:25Yeah, it's a great place to start.
02:28Truthfully, when you make videos on YouTube, they're usually not episodic.
02:32You usually just do one YouTube video.
02:34So if I put 100 people in a circle and say,
02:37last one to lead the circle wins a million dollars,
02:39that's a single 40-minute video.
02:42And in that one video, you have to build the characters and set the stage.
02:46And then by the time you start building the characters,
02:49it's already winding down and then the video ends.
02:51And it's very hard to get a lot of depth in a single 40-minute YouTube video
02:55or 30 minutes, however long it is.
02:57And so I've just always been really excited about taking the big spectacles we do on YouTube
03:03and these really cool sets, but being able to do it over an episodic series
03:07where we could actually get to know the contestants and have more depth and story
03:11and just get more invested into the challenges and games.
03:16And so that was kind of the idea.
03:18Take what we do on YouTube, but make it 10 times bigger and 20 times better.
03:21And it was really nice to be able to flex that creative side of my brain.
03:27I mean, the scale of this, it's interesting to hear you talk about the episodic nature.
03:31I mean, the scale of Beast Games is just absurd, really.
03:35Some of the challenges and some of the things that you've done.
03:39What was the development process like?
03:41How similar or how different was it to evidently longer?
03:45Because you're doing more episodes.
03:47But what was that process like?
03:48Yeah, you know, I'll tell you that a lot of people, when they watch the YouTube videos,
03:53you know, you hear the word YouTube and you think, oh, they're YouTubers.
03:57They're making YouTube content.
03:58But really, these are massive productions that Jimmy has kind of led and built into.
04:02So when we create these videos on YouTube, we are doing things that have just never been done before.
04:08So now, really, all we were doing was transferring that kind of concept and mentality
04:12and doing what we've, you know, always do on YouTube,
04:16but now transitioning it over to, you know, 10-episode arc where we're actually going to tell that story like Jimmy said.
04:22So, you know, there were a lot of similarities in what we did.
04:25But now, as we're scaling it, because obviously we had more money to create things that are much bigger and better,
04:30you know, you're now faced with a lot of new challenges.
04:33But the good thing is we have always pushed through the idea that we can do whatever we put our minds to.
04:40So I would just say that it was the same mentality.
04:43Finding people who had the same mentality to create this stuff,
04:46it was just bigger and took longer and more detailed and more, you know, more care had to go into all of it.
04:53How did you think about that episodic nature?
04:55Because it's not like those YouTube videos are necessarily cheap.
04:58I appreciate that this show might have popped slightly more.
05:01But in terms of thinking about how does this work in an episodic basis?
05:05We have somebody who is just incredibly brilliant when it comes to a lot of the ideation.
05:11And his name's Tyler Conklin.
05:12And, you know, everything that we put into a show will have a why.
05:18We'll put thought into it.
05:20So it's not just the nature of, well, we're just going to create 10 random episodes of a television show and hopefully it hits.
05:26There was a story that we were trying to tell throughout the whole thing.
05:30And, you know, we had said this before, but the nature of how we create our content,
05:35whether it's one episode of a YouTube or 10 episodes of a series,
05:38is always done through creating a sandbox first and then constantly creating as we go.
05:45And a great example is, the first example is, in episode one or episode two,
05:49there's always these choices that contestants can make,
05:52but we don't know how many people are going to be left over after the choices are made.
05:56In episode one, when, you know, Jimmy offers a million dollars to whoever wants to take it,
06:01what if everybody took it?
06:02No show, right?
06:04Right. So it ended up, I think, 49 or 51, something around that took it.
06:09And then we had the rest of it, you know, we all meet and we go,
06:13OK, how does this affect the rest of not only the episode,
06:16but potentially episode five, six, seven, eight as we go down?
06:19So, yeah.
06:21That's something there.
06:23Talking of money, I know the show cost over a hundred million dollars to make.
06:26And Jimmy, you gave away more than $20 million in cash prizes.
06:29Sometimes, giving away money on the spot, it seemed.
06:33You've said in a previous interview that it was not a good financial decision to make these games.
06:39Having said that, you seem pretty glad you did it, right?
06:43Oh, of course.
06:44And I was joking a little bit when I said that.
06:47We did factually lose a ton of money filming it,
06:49but we did that intentionally because our goal, well, I guess not as intentional.
06:55Let me rephrase that.
06:57Our goal was just to make, you know, the best season of a competition show possible.
07:02And it wasn't to make money.
07:03And so, you know, I knew building a city, for example,
07:07that housed the contestants between the challenges
07:09so we could have this cool, spectacle, massive city throughout the show.
07:14Obviously, that was very expensive and we could have opted for something cheaper.
07:17I mean, honestly, we could have had them just rented a hotel and have them lived at a hotel,
07:20but it just wouldn't have been the same effect.
07:22And our goal was just to make season one as great as possible
07:25and just do whatever we thought people would find the most entertaining
07:28and really set the foundation for future seasons of the show.
07:32So, yeah, if I could go back, you know, I still would do the same thing,
07:37just focus on making the best content possible
07:39because when I see people's reactions to it online and see how they, like,
07:44one of my favorite things to do is watch other people watch the show.
07:47And when we reveal all these big sets,
07:50you can always just see the expression on people's faces where they're like,
07:53usually they'll go like, whoa, or they'll, like, literally physically say something
07:57because they're so in shock at how cool what we did was.
08:00And I think that's very important for when you're starting a new show
08:02to, like, really, like, make a good first impression.
08:05And, yeah.
08:07Yeah, no, I get that.
08:08During the casting, I know some of the contestants were asked
08:11whether they would be willing to travel to outer space.
08:14Was that ever a consideration for a challenge or was that just legal language?
08:18No, no, no.
08:19Honestly, what we're looking for is, like, very adventurous people.
08:23And, you know, we have – basically, you don't know who of these thousand people
08:28is going to win.
08:28Obviously, Jeff over here ended up winning.
08:30He was phenomenal on camera and everything.
08:33But you have to assume that any person, when you pick them, could be the winner.
08:36And so there are a lot of questions in the casting forums that we – you know,
08:40like that, going to space.
08:41No, there's never a world where they would go to space.
08:43But it's, like, how the – you want people who would be down for that kind of stuff
08:49because those are typically more adventurous, people who are more outgoing
08:52that would, you know, read that and be like, yeah, I'm going to sign up.
08:55And the people who would be like, space, that – and not do it.
08:59Like, then it kind of, you know, subconsciously dissuays the people we don't want,
09:03if that makes sense.
09:04Season five.
09:06Season five.
09:07Season three.
09:08That was for season one.
09:09I mean, in the future, I'm not ruling out space.
09:11I mean, that would be cool.
09:12Three, four years from now, we'd do a challenge in space.
09:15You know, SpaceX, Blue Origin.
09:17Like, if you're hearing this, hit me up.
09:19Totally down.
09:20I was going to say, I wouldn't normally ask it to most people,
09:22but there is a chance that you might have thought about an episode there.
09:28You mentioned Jeffrey.
09:29That's a good link there.
09:31We can tell people now, the show's over.
09:34You won $10 million, a life-changing amount of money.
09:38You talked about wanting to use that money to help people who suffered from creatine
09:42transporter deficiency, CTD, including your son, Lucas.
09:46Has it sunk in, you know, just how much you'll be able to help?
09:51Yeah.
09:52It has, but also at the same time, like, I think there's a kind of a qualitative side
09:58that I never even thought of.
09:59Like, quantitatively, it costs like $50 million to try to cure a rare disease.
10:04And so $10 million is going to be a huge jumpstart.
10:08But the qualitative side is, like, so much awareness.
10:12I mean, I've had researchers from all over the world DM me and say, hey, here's a little
10:15abstract that I created.
10:17You know, who's working on it at this university?
10:19Can I connect with them?
10:20So the stuff that, like, you can't measure with dollars and cents, I think, could be
10:25even more powerful than the prize, which is awesome.
10:30But it's my job to kind of continue to carry the torch and spread the awareness and ultimately
10:36try to find a treatment for these kiddos.
10:38And it's genetic.
10:39It's going to take some time.
10:40But this is my journey from here on out.
10:43Yeah.
10:43How grueling was it?
10:45You went through some challenges there, Jeffrey.
10:47Oh, yeah.
10:48I thought I was eliminated in episode two.
10:52I was mentally prepared to go home during the ball drop on floor four.
10:57Episode three in the cubes, that was the most broken I was psychologically.
11:05I thought for sure I was, in my mind, I was like, I'm going to get cuffed.
11:08And then after that, I kind of just go, I got to get through it.
11:11Pulling the monster truck was the hardest thing I've done physically in years.
11:14And, yeah, it was everything that in the first episode, I remember Jimmy said, this is going
11:22to be the most intense, emotional and psychological experience of your life.
11:25And it truly was.
11:27And fortunately for me, I ended up on top with $10 million and a ton of new friends and
11:32a platform to talk about my son's rare disease.
11:35Yeah, that's nice.
11:36You beat T in the final challenge when you found the check in the suitcase.
11:39Now, I have to ask you, was that skill or was that luck?
11:45I think maybe a little bit of both and maybe some divine inspiration.
11:48You know, who knows?
11:50I was remarkably calm.
11:52And the number six kept talking to me in the days before.
11:56I was actually in bunk number six.
11:57I had key number six, the top six.
12:00So when I saw the lazy Susan with the sixes, I'm like, it's going to be six.
12:04So my job was to pressure test T, 830, and see if she would give me a read to not choose
12:10it.
12:10And she didn't.
12:11And when I opened it up, the light shined on my face and I heard Jimmy scream and that
12:16was it.
12:17Do you have dreams about that moment?
12:19I think I was so out of body.
12:24It was unbelievable.
12:25Like, I almost ran over Mac trying to jump on the pyramid.
12:29And I just wanted to hug everybody.
12:31I was just so elated.
12:32And I thought Jen and my oldest son, Jack, already went home.
12:36So when I looked down and saw them there, I lost it again.
12:39So it was just, yeah, it was an unbelievable experience.
12:42Jimmy, you even said in the show you were surprised that he did it at first go, right?
12:49The way that you sort of planned it out that that was an unlikely, how surprised were you
12:54that he made it?
12:55I was flabbergasted because I didn't know what it was in either.
12:58So I was just assuming he was going to open it and it'd be empty.
13:01Obviously, just statistically, only a 10% chance.
13:04And we obviously test these games before we play them.
13:07And every single test we had done at least went like two or three rounds.
13:11Like one went five rounds.
13:12And so I was like, it's definitely not the first briefcase.
13:15Like in my head, okay, maybe it'll be the second, probably the third.
13:18But there was no universe in my head where that first one, like we were just one and done
13:22in this.
13:23But I think that's also what made my reaction so crazy because when it was the first one,
13:28I wasn't expecting it.
13:29And I was a little speechless in the show because I was like, oh.
13:33So I think it made it even better because it was more unpredictable.
13:36I do feel bad for T, though, because she didn't even get a shot.
13:41You know, and maybe that would help her with coping a little bit.
13:43If ideally he missed the first one, then she missed one, then he hits it.
13:48At least she would have felt like she got a shot.
13:50But that's why we did the coin flip beforehand so everything was fair.
13:54But yeah, I mean, it turned out great.
13:56And I was a little nervous.
13:58People would feel a little blue balled at the end that it was so short.
14:01But I mean, no one I didn't see anyone online complaining about it.
14:04They all loved it.
14:04They all love his story and they loved how it ended and the shot being on top of the
14:09money and everything.
14:11So I'm very happy with how it turned out.
14:13You you talked about wanting to do more.
14:14How close are you officially to doing seasons two and three?
14:19Klitschner is kind of my boss in this regard.
14:21And he told me I wasn't allowed to speak about that subject during this interview.
14:26So, well, I'll tell you, Peter, you know, that last moment you were just talking
14:29about it's the nature of what Beast Games really is.
14:32It's like anything can happen.
14:34So you're doing you're changing the subject.
14:37Yeah.
14:37Yeah.
14:37I didn't hear the last question that was asked.
14:40But no.
14:40But in all honesty, every challenge, if you really go back and watch Beast Games, anything
14:45can happen, you know, from like like we said, from episode one, episode two, episode six.
14:50We have no idea who's going to pick physical, mental chance.
14:53Just like that.
14:54Another season could happen.
14:55Another 10 seasons could happen.
14:57Who knows?
14:57No, it's fair.
14:59I understand you're not allowed to say to say those sort of things.
15:02But going forward, there must be the ideas in your head and ideas in your team's head.
15:06You're thinking, do we do this as a video?
15:09Do we do this as a YouTube video?
15:10Or do we keep this, you know, in case we're going to do more episodes down the line?
15:15Are you constantly I mean, you're evidently constantly thinking of things to do in this
15:20way?
15:22Yeah.
15:22Klitschner, you want to take that one?
15:23Yeah, so I'll tell you, we have I mean, look, there's unlimited amount of good ideas.
15:28And I learned that from Tyler, who is, you know, kind of one of the masterminds behind
15:32ideation here.
15:33And what he has always said is you do the good idea in front of you.
15:37You don't hold it.
15:38You don't save it.
15:39So if the good idea is in front of us, and there's a YouTube video that needs it, we're
15:43going to film it for the YouTube video.
15:44Another good idea is right around the corner.
15:46So the short answer is we're always coming up.
15:48Yeah, we're a big believer in there, there is infinite amount of good ideas, right?
15:52Like, I'm on year five of people telling me, aren't you going to run out of ideas?
15:56Aren't you going to like your YouTube channel is eventually going to get stale.
16:00But if you're constantly, you know, innovating, adapting, and like actually trying to push
16:04the boundaries, like there are plenty of ways you can.
16:07Yeah, well, look, that's a good place to end.
16:09So Jimmy, Jeffrey, Sean, thank you for joining us and good luck.
16:12Good luck with the Emmys.
16:14Thank you for having us.
16:15Appreciate it.
16:16Thanks, Peter.