Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY May 9, 2023.

Where some new economic reality signals keep popping up these days… from BNPL (buy now pay later) services like KLARNA and AFFIRM tightening standards and now cutting off deadbeats… to shares of TYSON taking a huge hit because Americans bought 8% less meat in Q1 #RedMeatSoPricey.

PLUS: Jonathan Majors appears before an NYC judge today regarding his assault incident last month.

ALSO: HULU will drop The Bear Season 2 on June 22.

AND: DISNEY found a few of these 💰 behind the popcorn machines on Sunday, bumping the Guardians Vol. 3 weekend take to $118.4 Mil.

BAD NEWS / GOOD NEWS: You may become less popular this month, but your dream TW handle may finally come back into reach!

note: tomorrow’s newsletter will also be out a little later due to AM Earnings Calls.

IN TODAY’S EDITION:

• FOX CORP takes a small DOMINION loss in Q1, as Revenue growth is almost entirely due to the SUPER BOWL (and TUBI to a much smaller extent).

  • A look at some back-of-napkin math on what $$s would have looked like without the Big Game, the TUBI growth story update, and more.

• AMC NETWORKS takes big Ad Revenue and Cord-Cutting $$ hits, but content licensing saves the quarter, alongside increased Streaming Revenue vs. a year ago (even though subs dipped from Q1).

  • And AMC beat Wall Street expectations which is of course the most important thing in the world – a #medianerd🤓 dive into the things to know.

• DISH adds a big shot of fresh hot lava to the Cable TV bundle Q1 2023 meltdown.

• UNI makes some Comedy pic release changes.

• AMAZON makes yet another move to mirror the business of traditional Studios, and more

Correction: The next movie from SONY PICS is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse on June 2, then it’s No Hard Feelings on June 23 – my apologies for the mental lapse yesterday.

Thus – SONY has 5 pics coming out in a 6-week period starting Memorial Day weekend, and will have released 9 movies in a 12-week period from mid-April thru early July.

🪧 STRIKE NOTES

• APPLE TV’s Severance season 2 hit pause on production in NYC due to other guilds not crossing strike picket lines. /Deadline

• PAR+’s Criminal Minds: Evolution will also not make it into production for Season 2 until the strike is resolved. /Comicbook.com

• DISNEY+’s Andor Season 2 does plan to shoot… albeit without Tony Gilroy on set. But he will be doing non-writing Showrunner duties like casting and overseeing the score etc. /Variety

FOX CORP CEO Lachlan Murdoch on the strike on this morning’s Q1 Earnings Call: “We’re well positioned” and “The audience will pivot.”

It sounds like they would further deploy their Sports and Reality/Unscripted resources to fill out the FOX NETWORK schedule as needed.

As Lachlan pointed out… FOX is really not very reliant upon Scripted programming anymore as a driver of total FOX CORP Revenue #actualtruth.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN