☀️'Beetlejuice' Boom Keeps Box Office on a Roll
A24 makes big fest buy / NFL gets huge ratings start / Arquette to star in HULU limited series
Evenin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on SUNDAY September 8, 2024.
Where outside of today’s GIANTS game 🤬, it’s nice to have the NFL back! But gotta say — having a Sunday newsletter to write so I could keep . . . whatever the GIANTS were attempting to do today in East Rutherford, NJ 🤷♂️ in the background was very helpful.
#SadFact: The GIANTS haven’t won a season home-opener since 2010.
#SadderFact: 2010 was 14 years ago.
But, given the huge box office result on a weekend that I’m sure will also have huge sports TV audiences (initial Thurs and Fri NFL game numbers are below today’s box office) — see Hollywood? You can co-exist quite well with the sports overlords!
YEAH: Also not a great weekend for America in tennis — both U.S. players lost their U.S. Open 🎾 final matches. Congrats to Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, who are both $3.6M richer.
PLUS: Kendrick Lamar will be performing at the Super Bowl halftime show this year, so you have 5 months to explain the Drake thing to your parents. And probably who Kendrick Lamar is too (although he was on stage at the game in 2022 as well).
AND: The NY Times did the #longread treatment to ins and outs of the Iger-Chapek era, aka how not to transfer leadership at a company. Kinda curious why the Times didn’t hold this until November #2YearAnniversary . . . but use the insights in the piece to make your CEO pick this time around as ya like. Wonder if it’ll come up on the next Iger-Walden Brentwood walk. 🤔
One of the bigger looming process questions this time out — will the choice be given the CEO title off the bat . . . or be given the COO step first, which is cited among the many arguable missteps in the Chapek hand-off.
BUT: Hopefully Shari’s $180M in severance and benefits will cover her health insurance premiums after the PAR deal closes.
OH: DIRECTV is raising prices #GoodTiming. As of October 6:
Streaming bundle: +$6 for the Choice package to . . . $115 a month 😳, and +$10 for the Ultimate package to $130 a month (the entry package costs $95)
Satellite TV packages: Going up from +$2 to +$10 a month.
AND: Curiously DIRECTV is providing its customers with a $30 credit to sign up for a FUBO account, a competitor to DIRECTV’s streaming service.
There’s also a $10 credit for SLING.
BUT: There are zero signs that this dispute is anywhere near an end.
HUZZAH: Here are your Venice Film Fest winners.
THEN: ONLYFANS revenue was +19% to $6.6B in 2023. Ya know, maybe Americans do have some discretionary spending left after all 🤔.
OF owner Leonid Radvinsky got $472M in dividend payouts from the proceeds, +40% YoY.
Its “creator” base is up to 4.1M folks.
The company’s in-house staff is just 42 people (although hundreds of contractors work with the business).
PLUS: Tom Brady was back on NFL Sunday today, albeit in the announcer booth. And this promo that FOX did to promote it . . . totally isn’t creepy and cyborg-like at all.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
My fellow 26%’ers and I accept all of your accolades.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
