☀️BLACK PANTHER hits mark, also beats FABELMANS on a per-screen average

DISNEY joins layoff warning siren / VICE lays off a dozen / NETFLIX spends on Glass Onion / Surprise AXIOS departure

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on MONDAY November 14, 2022.

Where NETFLIX Marketing was raising the eyebrows 👀 for 2 reasons this weekend:

1. They spent a few of these 💰 on NFL and College Football Ad time to promote their “Knives Out 2” “Glass Onion” one-week “marketing activation”. With no mention that the film will be on NETFLIX in December.

2. Anyone see any $7 NETFLIX Ad-tier Marketing over the past week+? Or maybe it was just me who… didn’t even get an email from NETFLIX about the new tier. Although given the very low-key nature of the language used by management on the Q3 earnings call around it, this tracks.

Michael Scott famously loves a great marketing activation promotion campaign. via Giphy

FOR THE RECORD: APPLE TV+ also splurged on the $800k+ for a NBC Sunday Night Football Ad for “Spirited” as well (broad ‘in theaters and streaming soon’ tag).

ALSO: Who had 24 hours in the office pool as to when Elon’s new “Anyone with $8 and a parody idea can sign up for a ‘verified’ TWITTER Blue account” policy would blow up in his face?

AND: While we wait to see what the FTX fallout will continue to be for the crypto biz this week (MIAMI HEAT arena naming rights, it was a nice run) - apparently a guy who’s had a very front row seat at the center of it… it is author Michael Lewis (“The Big Short”, “Moneyball”), as scooped by The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer yesterday. (👋 Peter!).

• For any other folks looking for a laymans breakdown of how FTX collapsed, and the steps ahead (hiring the guy who led ENRON through their bankruptcy as FTX’s new CEO should give you a good sense), Axios had a good distillation in their financial newsletter this AM.

• The Crypto.com exchange also sent $400 Million to “the wrong type of account” back in October, causing a run on withdrawals there this weekend too. Gotta love that blockchain being publicly visible.

IN TODAY’S EDITION:

• The full Box Office breakdown, including“Black Panther 2” beating Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” on a per-screen average.

  • Although a rare misstep for The Wakeup Friday Box Office Poll crew… 87% percent of you had it beating “Doctor Strange 2” for the 2022 opening weekend box office title holder. Close, but currently riding shotgun…

    • To note - the current number isn’t a precise report, but rather cited as an “estimate”. And hopefully this number isn’t an intentionally low estimate, so as to… lo and behold show a ‘late weekend surge’ of some sort that takes the title and extends the headline barrage. But hopefully that’s just my Jersey-sense tingling,

  • Also CHINA may want to re-think their MARVEL policy. Their box office biz is looking scary.

• DISNEY employees officially join WBD employees waiting for the ax to fall again by end of year, as austerity begins hitting AMAZON PRIME as well. Gonna be one hell of a Holiday party season.

  • (Curious - Does HBO still have a holiday party or did that leave with the AT&T folks? I always thought they did a great job.)

• A key departure at AXIOS, some layoffs at VICE and more.

OH AND: Jeff Bezos & Lauren Sanchez (#JLaur?) hit the PR circuit for the first time together… to talk about the difficulty of giving away all of Jeff’s money. He’s starting by giving $100 Million of his $124 Billion fortune to Dolly Parton. Yeah that should do it.

CNN International @cnni

Exclusive: Jeff Bezos tells CNN that he'll give away the majority of his $124 billion net worth during his lifetime, the first time he's made such a promise. cnn.it/3Ad3S8C

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📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

via Giphy