Mornin! I’m Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY April 30, 2021.
Where wouldn’t you rather be waking up in JJ Abrams’s house today (legally)? Well just scrape together $22 Million and get your ass to the Pacific Palisades. Bonus incentive: comes with a “Star Trek” script hidden somewhere in the house. Anyone know what the monthly payment is on a $20 Million mortgage? Asking for a friend.
And a job well done to the LAPD – they arrested 5 people for the dogwalker shooting, and subsequent theft and extortion of Lady Gaga’s dogs back in February.
And just putting this handy button here because sharing is caring. And lets face it I need all the help I can get.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE re-opening 15 locations by end of May (including LA and Brooklyn)
Plans to reopen total of 30 “this Summer”. /Variety
Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen joining David Cronenberg’s next movie “Crimes of the Future”
NEON is the studio. Sci-fi project set in the not-so-distant future, where a performance artist has developed the ability to re-grow organs, which are removed in front of a live audience.
The family film will shoot this Summer. /Deadline
ALSO IN MOVIES
PARAMOUNT adds Dominique Fishback (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) to the new TBD “Transformers” movie with Anthony Ramos (“Hamilton”, “A Star is Born”). Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”) directing. /THR
Director Rian Johnson’s (“Knives Out”) production company T- STREET partners with MRC on new label for low budget indie movies. Goal is 3-4 /year, no name for label yet. MRC has a minority stake in T-STREET already. /Variety
STX promotes Keri Moore to President of Marketing. Previously an EVP but getting the bump up to run the department after the departure of Alissa Grayson to WB this week. /Variety
📺 THE TV SET
HBOMAX adds Toni Collette to “The Suitcase” limited series with Colin Firth
Based on real life murder case of husband accused of killing his wife, previously a NETFLIX docuseries in 2018. /Deadline
TRIBECA FEST sets TV programming events
There’s a “Girls5Eva” showrunner panel including Tina Fey, premiere of PEACOCK’s “Dr Death” (based on the podcast) as well as a bunch of other pretty cool stuff. Fest kicks off Wed June 9. /THR
ROKU removes YOUTUBE TV streaming bundle app from store
Dispute with GOOGLE went public earlier this week, apparently they want more user data. Don’t you have your own TV streaming device GOOGLE?
So if you were gonna download YOUTUBE TV to watch the Derby this weekend.. well let’s just hope you have plans to watch it elsewhere. /Deadline
ALSO IN TV
Lena Heady joins HBO Watergate limited series “The White House Plumbers”, will play wife of E. Howard Hunt (played by Woody Harrelson). Justin Theroux and Domhnall Gleeson already cast as well. /Variety
“Mrs Maisel” adds Reid Scott (“Veep”) in a TBD recurring role this season.
“The Conners” cast re-ups for a 4th Season at ABC. /Deadline
Biden speech gets 27 Million viewers. Trump’s first Congressional speech was closer to 47 Million. Good government/lack of crazy = eh ratings. Although considering there are no ads in it 🤷♂️. /CNN
AMAZON renews Robert Kirkman animated series “Invincible” for 2 more seasons. The Season 1 finals hits the service today. /Variety
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
AMAZON finally releases a PRIME VIDEO subscriber usage number. Sorta.
175 Million PRIME members have watched something on the service in the past year (out of 200+ Million PRIME accounts). So… not exactly a Monthly Active User number… which is not a great look.
Especially when they were also happy to tell us that 35 Million people use TWITCH daily.
Oh the company also took in $108 Billion in the first 3 months of 2021 With $8 Billion in Net Profits. Money made from 3rd Party Sellers was up 70% in one year. /Variety
AMAZON also hired a head of Sports Marketing to make “Thursday Night Football” a thing – Marc Patrick, former SVP of Marketing at BEYOND MEAT (he had an extensive marketing career at NIKE before that). He’ll report into AMAZON PRIME VIDEO marketing head Ukonwa Ojo. /Variety
PEACOCK reveals it has 14 Million Monthly Active Users
Which means an additional 28 Million people signed up for PEACOCK accounts… but use it less than once a month. It took in $100 Million in revenue in its first year, but lost $700 Million overall.
Still no official word on how many people pay for PEACOCK PREMIUM and/or have access/signed into PEACOCK PREMIUM (COMCAST customers get free access). /THR
ALSO: COMCAST lost a lot more video/cable TV customers in the first 3 months of the year than I saw in early numbers yesterday: 491k from Jan thru March 😲.
DISH lost 230k subscribers from Jan thru March
130k were DISH SatelliteTV subscribers, 100k were SLING streaming bundle subscribers.
DISH now stands at 8.7 Million subscribers, and SLING at 2.4 Million. Stock was +8% because losses not a steep as Q1 2020, plus their revenue rose considerably. /THR
TWITTER hits 199 Daily Active Users
Adds 7 Million in the first three months of the year.
Revenue hit $1 Billion for the quarter. While SNAP has about 80 Million more daily users, TWITTER Makes about 25% more in revenue than SNAP.
Stock down 11% in after hours trading as it slightly missed expectations, and didn’t give a strong guidance for 2nd Quarter growth. /Deadline
AND WITH THAT…. QUARTERLY EARNINGS WEEK IS OVER!!! 🙌🙇♂️ (Or at least it’s down to a trickle – no dis CHARTER).
ALSO IN MEDIA
SPOTIFY’s recent CLUBHOUSE-ish acquisition LOCKER ROOM to be rebranded as SPOTIFY GREENROOM.
The Biebs cancels-er… “postpones” his Summer 2021 tour. Pushes to Summer 2022. I mean, when you plan an indoor arena Summer tour… /Variety
But GENESIS shows the youngster how its done… sets November US tour (Sept/Oct in UK + IRE). Phil’s son Nic will play drums. /Variety
🏦 STOCK NOTES:
ENDEAVOR stock popped over 11% yesterday morning… but ended the day +5% at $25/share on its first day of trading.
FACEBOOK +7% on its positive revenue/subscriber news Wed evening.
COMCAST +4% on beating analyst expectations on revenue.
IMAX -4% on IMAX’s Q1 revenue numbers that were slightly below expectations. AMC THEATERS comes along for the ride -6%.
🎥 TRAILER HOUSE
NETFLIX – “The Kominsky Method”, final season trailer. Premieres Fri May 28.
NETFLIX “Sweet Tooth” series trailer. Based on the DC Comic about animal hybrid kids (and one in particular named… well see title), with Will Forte as the dad. Premieres Fri June 4
👩💻 THE FSS FEED:
(new Stuff to Watch this weekend)
FRIDAY:
IN THEATERS:
OPEN ROAD “Separation” horror/thriller movie.
STREAMING:
AMAZON PRIME”Without Remorse” – Michael B Jordan kicks ass for 2 hours, based on Tom Clancy book. Watch or add to your list here
APPLE TV+“The Mosquito Coast” Series premiere – Justin Theroux plays a radical inventor on the run from the U.S. government who uproots his family for Mexico, co-starring Melissa George. First 2 eps drop today. Watch or add to your list here
NETFLIX“The Mitchells vs. The Machines” – Family animated movie, previously a SONY movie. Watch or add to your list here
DISNEY+ “22 vs. Earth” – Short-film prequel to “Soul” featuring Tina Fey’s character. DISNEY+ has to work on the searchable links thing so… look for it on the app if you are a subscriber.
CODA COLLECTION “What Drives Us” – Dave Grohl directed music docu, talking to musicians about everyone’s early career driving in a van from show to show. CODA is a $5/month streaming service with music docus & concerts, avail via Amazon Prime. Direct link to the movie here
Or go here for more info on CODA. (note: CODA has a 7 day free trial…).
ALSO… DISNEYLAND re-opens!!
ON TV:
CBS “MacGyver” series finale airs at 8p.
SATURDAY:
NBC Kentucky Derby – Race at 6:50pm, or tune in at 230p to see how the hell NBC fills over 4 hours of pre-show for a horse race.
“Tenet” comes to streaming! The little movie that could goes up on HBOMAX today. They’re still not great with the searchable links thing so… gotta find it yourself.
DROPKICK MURPHYS doing a livestream concert at 830pm. Go to DKMstream.com to watch
SNL is off.
SUNDAY
FX “Pose” Season 3 premiere. Giving us 2 episodes starting at 10p
STARZ “The Girlfriend Experience” Season 3 premiere at 8pm
CNN “The Story of Late Night” – 6 part docuseries, premieres at 9pm
Followed by… “United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell” new season at 10pm
🙋♂️ MY ONE FRIDAY ASK
If you’re new to THE WAKEUP, Share it with your work team. 🙏 It’s free (but totally fine if you tell them you bought them all subscriptions).
🕵️♂️ THE WEEK AHEAD
MON – NEW FRONTS digital advertising pitching begins. ROKU is the big name to start off.
And… APPLE vs EPIC GAMES/FORTNITE begins – APPLE now also facing anti-trust charges in Europe over policies around not allowing music apps to advertise to people about cheaper options for their services This mainly comes from SPOTIFY. Either way… #LawyerUp
TUE – “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” hits DISNEY+ (you know what day it is in May)
THU – “Girls 5Eva” hits PEACOCK
FRI – “Mythic Quest” season 2 hits APPLE TV+; “Shrill” Season 3 all episodes hit HULU
🎧 PLAYING ME OFF
Brand new BILLIE EILISH “Your Power” – from her new album coming out in late July.
Have a fine weekend ya’ll and if you’re reading this – hit that Heart below my name at the bottom. No one’s still reading are they. Really gotta move this ask up before the trailers.
-Sean McNulty
@theseanmac on TWITTER or also here on CLUBHOUSE or on IG @TheWakeupNews or connect here on LinkedIn
