Awards Season SUPER THURSDAY dials in OSCAR nominations picture

CHARTER still resilient in cord-cutting age / SHOWTIME cancels 2 comedies / Weekend new Movie & TV preview

Jan 28, 2022

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY January 28, 2022.

Where if you’ve been seeing the pieces this week on how CHINA altered the end of “Fight Club” by putting in an end card saying the plot was foiled by the cops before the explosions begin… “Fight Club” book author Chuck Palahniuk reminded us that this “new” ending actually skews closer to his ending in the book than Fincher chose to do with the movie.

ALSO: Here are your DGA Award Film nominees:

Paul Thomas Anderson “Licorice Pizza”
Kenneth Branagh “Belfast”
Jane Campion “The Power of the Dog”
Steven Spielberg “West Side Story”
Denis Villeneuve “Dune”

AND… I’m not sure whose idea it was to create a #SuperThursday for Nominations, so take a look at the rest as ya like:

Your WGA Film Award nominees for Adapted & Original screenplays and Docus
Your PGA Award nominees here
Your ACE Film Editing Award nominees here.

WHAT’S NOT HERE: “Spider-Man” nowhere to be seen so… that blatant Awards season plea for OSCARS ratings narrative likely will go away.

Also nowhere to be seen - “Drive My Car”, the Japanese movie that topped pretty much every major Critics organization list this year. Granted I’m nowhere near the most Awards rules savvy person so perhaps it’s not eligible for some things… but a noticeable disconnect nevertheless.

OTHERWISE: In addition to the pics on the DGA list, “Tick… Tick, Boom!”, “Being the Ricardos”, “King Richard” and “CODA” seem to also be likely strong contenders along with a side of “Don’t Look Up” and “Nightmare Alley”.

OSCAR voting season began yesterday.

BUT: A pretty quiet Friday morning thankfully so this should be quick.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

📺 THE TV SET

PEACOCK orders supernatural series from Kevin Williamson & Julie Plec (“The Vampire Diaries”)

Called “Dead Day”, based on a comic about folks having to navigate the night every year when the dead come back to life, either to party… or to settle some scores the way the dead like to do.

Both will write & showrun the series. /Variety

ALSO IN TV

SHOWTIME cancels “Black Monday” after 3 seasons, and “Work In Progress” after 2 seasons. /THR
PEACOCK sets “Succession”’s Juliana Canfield (she plays Kendall’s assistant Jess) to co-star in David E. Kelley’s limited series “The Missing”. About a religious NYPD detective whose beliefs get challenged when an investigation turns upside-down. Canfield plays his new partner. /Deadline

IN OTHER WORDS

“I woke up one day and thought, ‘We are basically selling nuclear weapons technology to a third-world country, and now they are using it against us.’”
- BOB IGER on his realization that NETFLIX was helping to build their business on the back of DISNEY product, on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast (link in WEEKEND READS section below).

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

Ah nice, good to see APPLE finally put in that employee pool at headquarters. Via Giphy

APPLE makes $123 Billion in 3 months

But I mean that’s before “taxes”. #Slainté 🇮🇪

$34 Billion in Net Profit. From just Oct thru Dec.

Over 57% of their business is iPhones ($71 Billion), and… zero APPLE TV+ info shared, but I’m guessing that $15 Mil they just dropped for a SUNDANCE pic likely isn’t hitting the quarterly report. /CNBC

CHARTER / SPECTRUM Cable TV subscriber losses still low

The Q4 Numbers (all include business accounts as well as residential)

BROADBAND: +190k, now at 30 Million
- Q4 2020 was +216k
- Q4 2019 was +313k
CABLE: -58k, 15.8 Million total
MOBILE: +380k, 3.6 Million total
HOME PHONE: -154k, 9.9 Million total

The numbers at my former employer look good! They still are probably the strongest in class with mitigating Cable TV customer / cord-cutting losses.

ALSO IN MEDIA

WWE sets distro deal with DISNEY+HOTSTAR in Indonesia. Pretty much what they do with PEACOCK here (content included in standard subscription). No duration given other than “multi-year”.
- However in DISNEY+ HOTSTAR’s home country of INDIA, WWE has about 3 years left on their similar deal with SONY’s network SNE. SONY just combined all of their INDIA business with another local Indian media powerhouse ZEE, to create a formidable major DISNEY+HOTSTAR competitor. /MediaPlayNews
- DISNEY+ HOTSTAR reportedly has about 2.5 Million subscribers in INDONESIA, and approx 44 Million (+/-) in INDIA. /THR

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

NETFLIX +7.5% ($386.70)

AMC THEATERS -9% ($14.52)

CINEMARK THEATERS -8% ($14.26)

ROBLOX -9% ($57.06)

👩‍💻 THE FSS FEED:

(new Stuff to Watch this weekend, Friday - Saturday - Sunday)

WEEKEND READS + LISTENS

This was a nice read the other day from John Stamos in the NY TIMES on his friend Bob Saget, including fond anecdotes from their early years where their styles didn’t quite mesh initially on “Full House”. Lotta ❤️ here.

Aziz Anzari was dropping some good life knowledge on Kev Hart’s podcast, I found this an insightful and of course funny listen.

And I haven’t listened to this yet but Bob Iger is on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast, first interview since official retirement.

FRIDAY

IN THEATERS:

MGM “Cyrano” - In limited theaters
SEARCHLIGHT“Nightmare Alley” - The B&W version drops in about 750 theaters, amid an expansion for the film back over 1,000 screens.
On SUNDAY: IMAX The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert” - A movie of the The Beatles 1971 UK rooftop concert movie w/Peter Jackson live chat after. The audio is also being put on music streaming services for the first time.

STREAMING:

MOVIES

nil

SERIES

APPLE TV+ “The Afterparty” - 3 episodes to start, this one looked fun! Reviews also rather positive - Stream Here
NETFLIX “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” - Stream Here
ROKU CHANNEL “Doomlands” - Animated series, formerly greenlit at QUIBI, a self-described cross of “Mad Max” and “Cheers”. No searchable link avail