☀️ A24 Adds Life to Fall Theatrical Slate
SONY 👋 at AI to lower costs / A-List movie casting day / AMAZON, NETFLIX get animated
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKED-IN if ya like) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY, May 31, 2024.
Where you were all worried about the movie business . . . 🙄
NO: You really are worried. I’m with the 27% here — and some people tell me my industry takes are sometimes too negative! Jeez . . .
THEN: Leave it to, uh, a FAST service to be the one to bring some fresh thinking to encourage people to go to the movies this summer — PLUTO is once again doing its “Summer of Cinema” promotion to give free tickets to moviegoers at various independent movie theaters on given weekends throughout the summer.
AND: Just a shout out to PLUTO on the movie front — big fan of the 24/7 movie channels, often my go to at the end of a night to drop into a ‘rewatchable’ pic for a while.
BUT: If you really love spending 6 to 10 minutes just to find something to watch on SVOD streaming — there’s now a streaming platform called SHOWRUNNER that lets you do . . . more work! You can create your own AI-generated series and watch ones that others have created. Then you can continue to complain that there’s not anything new to watch.
ALSO: Comedian Matt Rife is taking 2 weeks off from his tour due to “extreme exhaustion.” The dates will be rescheduled.
CONGRATS: To the DALLAS MAVERICKS, who advanced to the NBA Finals last night. They’ll take on the BOSTON CELTICS in the series, which starts Thursday on ABC.
AND: The CHICAGO BEARS will be the team featured in HBO’s Hard Knocks later this summer.
OH: The Bear season 1 will get a linear TV run on FX for 4 consecutive nights at 10 p.m. starting this Sunday. You’ll then have 3 weeks to find a HULU account to watch season 2 before the premiere of season 3 . . . at which point you’ll, uh, still need that HULU account.
MO’ MONEY: Illinois just voted to raise the tax rate for online gambling revenues, and Ohio recently doubled theirs as well — NJ also has legislation pending to do the same. But hey, that’s really PENN GAMBLING’s problem, not ESPN’s — its annual branding check for ESPN BET is unaffected.
AND: The SKYDANCE-KKR-REDBIRD contingent ‘sweetened’ their offer for PARAMOUNT, but no real details here . . . other than the thinking is it gives more cash / value to current PAR common stockholders. The PAR annual meeting is on Tuesday.
PLUS: Cricket is coming to the U.S.! The Cricket T20 World Cup is being hosted by the U.S. and the West Indies this year — and the U.S. vs. Canada match starts things off tonight at 8:30 p.m. tonight in Texas.
The India vs. Pakistan match on June 9 is on Long Island, and the cheapest tickets on StubHub are currently $1,200+. The WILLOW streaming service has the matches here in the U.S., just as it does for the IPL in India each year.
This of course kicks off a run of World Cups in the U.S.:
Men’s
soccerfootball coming in 2026Men’s rugby in 2031
Women’s rugby in 2033
(Special thanks to reader Chris who gave me the heads up on all of this.)
IN THIS EDITION
Zero mentions of convicted felon ex-Presidents. Or James K. Polk for the record — try Variety.
NEW ANKLER PODCAST EPISODE!
Wherein Richard, Elaine and I dive into the PAR news still in the June ether, Richard and I debate the state of the movies, and we discuss some TV volume numbers that likely indicate the American public has no idea that there’s any kind of a “content pullback” going on.
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
