Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY May 25, 2022.

Where CBS pulled the school-shooting themed season finale of “FBI” that was to air last night, as we all awake to more detail on the 2nd large mass shooting in the US in 2 weeks. Please pardon the lack of gif opening today.

• AND: If you ever wondered why the UK bans guns or when it started - I was surprised to learn it was actually not until 1996. After a mass school shooting.

ALSO: Sending a supportive thought to Steven Tyler who entered rehab this week, after falling back into addiction after taking meds for a foot surgery. AEROSMITH has subsequently canceled their planned Summer residency in Vegas.

PLUS: Gaten Matarazzo (“Stranger Things”) will be spending most of his Summer on Broadway in “Dear Evan Hansen”, starting July 19.

OTHERWISE: Another relatively quiet news day in Hollywood yesterday, but definitely not on Wall Street as expected.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

Sam Jackson joins “Garfield” animated movie with Chris Pratt

From ALCON, and SONY is distributing globally. Chris is playing the titular feline and Sam is playing… his dad, Vic. Sure why not. /Deadline

CANNES BUYS:

A24 bought the Paul Mescal (“Normal People”) led-pic “Aftersun”

A father-daughter movie about a 30-something woman reminiscing about a trip she and her father had in TURKEY when she was 11, that got a lot of positive notices last week. Err the movie, not the trip.

Deal said to be about $4-6 Million for US / CAN rights. /IndieWire

NEON bought US rights to satire “Triangle of Sadness” for a reported near $8 Million price

About an influencer couple who’s invited onto a yacht after FASHION WEEK for an extravagant cruise for rich folks, whose captain is a “rabid Marxist” played by Woody Harrelson, and somehow things seem to take turn 🤔.

From the director of the OSCAR-nominated foreign pic “The Square”. /Deadline

ALSO IN MOVIES

• UNI adds Rita Moreno to “Fast X” as Vin’s grandma. /THR

• SONY adds Celeste O’Connor (“Ghostbusters: Afterlife”) to “Madame Web”, Dakota Johnson’s MARVEL pic in the Spider-Man universe, with a July 2023 release date. /Deadline

IN THE HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE SUITE

• WBD promotes DISCOVERY Comms head Nathaniel Brown to Chief Comms Officer for the new combined WBD entity. He reports into David Leavy, WBD Chief Corp Affairs Officer, not Zaslav. /Deadline

• And one of the few WB C-suite execs left is now also departing after a many-decade tenure - Chief Research Officer Liz Huszarik, who was there for 32 years. /Deadline

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📺 THE TV SET

JUST ONE THING

• APPLE TV+ adds Josh Lucas to “Mrs. American Pie” - Kristen Wiig’s 1970’s Palm Beach high society series. Josh is playing Kristen’s husband. /Deadline

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

PEPSI dumping their sponsorship of the SUPER BOWL Halftime Show

NFL now on the hunt for a new sponsor, who they hope will find ways to make the show “stand way outside of the 12 minutes”… uh, incase you have a take on that. /THR

NBC signs Al Michaels to a side broadcasting deal, described as “emeritus”

Basically it’s to still call OLYMPICS events, and be part of their NFL PLAYOFFS coverage… although not exactly spelled out how that’s gonna work with his NFL booth replacement Mike Tirico.

Also no word on $$. Al’s AMAZON PRIME Thursday Night Football regular season deal is unaffected. /THR

ALSO IN MEDIA

• Marc Maron moves WTF podcast to ACAST hosting platform from SIRIUS XM’s OMNY in a 3 year deal. Not much will change if you’re a fan except that most episodes from the archive will now be avail for free in the WTF feed as of July 1, save for a few that will be in something called ACAST+, which will also have TBD “bonus” WTF content. No deal price indicated. /THR

• SPOTIFY brings back political ads, a category which they suspended in early 2020. How much is that APPLE MUSIC subscription again? The need to do this is also not a great sign for the digital Ad market following the SNAP thing. /Protocol

• Montreal’s JUST FOR LAUGHS fest adds to headliner shows lineup. /THR

• FOX sees its future growth in expanding lifestyle content (WEATHER, books) and FOX NATION into a Conservative lifestyle streaming service.

  • Streaming division (FOX NATION, TUBI) won’t be profitable for “a few years” according to Lachlan Murdoch, who chimes in on a few other FOX related things in the link. /Axios

• Some MORNING BREW (free) subscriber number updates from AXIOS as well:

  • Morning Brew: 4 million

  • Marketing Brew: 250,000

  • Retail Brew: 180,000

• Jen Psaki’s MSNBC ON PEACOCK streaming show will launch in 2023, but she’ll be on MSNBC Network starting this Fall for midterms. /Variety

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

#SNAPCHAT Fallout

Essentially… any business whose Revenue is heavily reliant on digital marketing budgets took a hit on Wall Street yesterday. Basic thinking - whatever pullback SNAP is seeing… is likely going to hit everyone else (or already is behind the scenes).

And you know Elon is totally it’s happening at TWITTER too so he can try to find another way to legally back out of his deal offer.

While it’s hard to envision video advertising around premium scripted content (HBOMAX, HULU etc) as vulnerable (also - a business SNAP is not in), trying to launch an ad-supported version of your streaming product in Q4 2022 could prove out to be one of the worst times to do so… especially if the projected Recession headwinds take hold this Summer.

Particularly if you’re looking for immediate dividends to make up for growth shortcomings in other parts of your business. #Netflix

SNAP -43% ($12.79)

PINTEREST -23% ($17.25)

ROKU -13% ($79.16)

ROBLOX -10% ($27.07)

AMC THEATERS -10% ($10.39)

CINEWORLD (Regal Theaters) -9% ($0.28)

WBD -8% ($16.86)

FACEBOOK -7% ($181.28)

LIONSGATE -6% ($11.28)

SPOTIFY -5% ($103.50)

TWITTER -5% ($35.76)

NY TIMES -5% ($32.55)

WARNER MUSIC -5% ($27.56)

FOX -5% ($30.00)

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👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

PAR+ “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” - Now streaming… but link didn’t come up in a Google search so you’re on your own. Thanks to reader Dan for this heads up!

NETFLIX “Somebody Feed Phil” new season - STREAM HERE

ABC “The Great American Tag Sale with Martha Stewart” at 8p

• and “The American Rescue Dog Show” at 9p

🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

NETFLIX “The Gray Man” movie trailer - $200 Million worth of Gosling vs. Evans in a European cat and mouse action pic from the Russo Bros. Which thankfully addresses Chris Evans’s mustache situation here pretty early on. PREMIERES FRI JULY 22

HBOMAX “My Dead Dad” movie trailer - Indie film about an aimless twentysomething guy who inherits a rundown apartment building in LA when his… well, see title. Really nice spot - count me in for this one. And not just for the Simon Rex cameo. PREMIERES WED JUNE 1

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

Brand new KANE BROWN “Like I Love Country Music” - Kane going a bit more honkytonk here….

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-SEAN MCNULTY

@theseanmac on TWITTER

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