Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY May 6, 2021.

Where if you had $16.25 Million… you could be having your Thursday night cocktail by this pool in producer Ryan Murphy’s former house in Reseda (err wait no - this is Beverly Hills. I always confuse the two).

And - what better way to spend time with friends under the stars than sharing your favorite scenes from “Baby Boom” (Diane Keaton used to live here).

ALSO: a Welcome Back to John Mulaney! He sold out a 5 show stand-up run from May 10-14 in NYC, will be his first shows since exiting rehab in February 👏.

And in case you need something to keep up your streak of sending things to friends now that May (the) 4th and Cinco (de) Mayo are over:

Share The Wakeup

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

BLAKE LIVELY to star in Dark Horse Comic movie at NETFLIX

Called “Lady Killer” - to be written by Diablo Cody (“Juno”, and upcoming Madonna biopic… also directed by Madonna at UNIVERSAL).

Blake will play a classic 1950’s housewife who secretly moonlights… as a killer for hire. As ya do. And then - free idea: Marty McFly shows up and- no wait hear me out! /Deadline

John David Washington set to lead next movie from director Gareth Edwards (“Godzilla”, “Rogue One” STAR WARS movie)

NEW REGENCY producing, no plot details other than it’s a “near future Sci-Fi” story. Gareth also wrote the script. /Deadline

NETFLIX sets Henry Golding for Jane Austen “Persuasion” movie with Dakota Johnson

However he’s not playing the love interest - will be the cousin of Dakota’s “Anne Elliot” character. Love interest still to be cast. /Deadline

ALSO IN MOVIES

• Ben Mendelsohn set to play Daisy Ridley’s father in STX movie “The Marsh King’s Daughter”. Man holds his wife and young daughter captive in the wilderness for years but is eventually imprisoned. Daisy’s character must deal when her father re-appears years later. Uh outside of prison. Now shooting. /Deadline

📺 THE TV SET

AMAZON sets Ken Jeong to star in dramedy series produced by Daniel Dae Kim

Called “Shoot the Moon”, loosely inspired by a real person who was an evangelical youth pastor who married his college sweetheart… but got divorced and became an atheist, and how his friends and family helped him put a new life together.

Half-hour series described only as “in the works”… so thinking it doesn’t have an official order yet, but is likely. /Deadline

DISNEY+ moves '“Loki” to a Wednesday premiere date

Will now premiere Wed June 9, with new episodes dropping on following Wednesdays, still at an ungodly hour. /Variety

ALSO IN TV

• Adrien Brody joins HBO’s “Succession” Season 3 in a guest role. For fans, he’ll play “a billionaire activist investor who becomes pivotal in the battle for the ownership of Waystar.” Between this and playing Pat Reilly in Adam McKay’s HBO 1980’s LAKERS show… someone’s definitely getting 50% off their HBOMAX subscription. I mean come on AT&T doesn’t just give things away for free 😏. /Variety

• Issa Rae sets the cast ensemble for her new HBOMAX comedy series “Rap Sh*t”. /Variety

• SHOWTIME casts Janeane Garofalo to recur in “Billions” Season 5 pt2. Will play the owner of a legal cannabis company. /Deadline

• WALT DISNEY TV prez Craig Hunegs choosing to leave the company in May. The DISNEY TV group re-org in December changed the role he came to the company to do… and sounds like it was less appealing. Next stop TBD. /Variety

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

Broadway re-opening on September 14 at 100%

Tickets go on sale starting today. Aaaand… “Hamilton” is already sold out. /Variety

• ALSO: While not Entertainment biz related per se, NYC Finance biz looking more like like the expectation is for most people to return to the office within the next 4-8 weeks. /CNBC

  • JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon expects offices to be back to at least 50% capacity by July (if not sooner), saying this at a WSJ CEO Council this week:“Yes, the commute, you know people don’t like commuting, but so what.” And then he hopped in his helicopter home.

SNAPCHAT steals D’Amelio sisters from TIKTOK for a SNAP ORIGINALS series

Called “Charli vs. Dixie”, the sisters will go head to head in challenges judged by their famous friends. 🙏 they know Howard Stern.

Megan Thee Stallion also getting an interview show called “Off Thee Leash With Megan Thee Stallion” with celebrity guests… and their pets. And there are a bunch of other new shows with people whose names I’m way too old to know, but the list is in the link if inclined. /Variety

VIACOM CBS added 6 Million streaming subscribers Globally from Jan thru March

This is a weak headline for an earnings report VIACOM imo, esp for a quarter where they spent tens of millions (#SuperBowl ads, #MarchMadness) rolling out a new streaming service/the future of the company.

No breakdown given of how many of the 6 Million were US or Int’l, how many were PARAMOUNT+ vs SHOWTIME, etc. Hopefully more details come in their actual earnings call today.

They now have a total of 36 Million streaming customers globally (again with no breakdown by services or US vs Int’l)).

Free Streaming service PLUTO ups their monthly active users to over 50 Million globally (again no breakout of US users).

Overall company revenue came in slightly above expectations at $7.4 Billion (about the same as NETFLIX took in); in streaming, they make more $$ from ad revenue, i.e. PLUTO ($428 Million) than subscriptions i.e. PAR+ ($388 Million). /YahooFinance

TWITTER sets a large # of content partnership deals

Allows advertisers to put ads around content from known brands (#BrandSafety) across different verticals like:

• Music: BILLBOARD (which will set up a chart/brand for hot trending songs, broken down regionally)

• Food: TASTEMADE will make culinary pros avail “on-call” on the platform to answer cooking questions

• Sports: Renewed or expanded Sports League deals with MLB, NHL, WNBA and The OLYMPICS (basically for live-ish video updates and highlights from games). /Variety

ALSO IN MEDIA

• NY TIMES morning email “The Morning” now has 5 Million daily readers. I also now feel a lot better about calling this thing “The Wakeup” if that’s the best name the TIMES could come up with for theirs. Now I just need 4.99 million more subscribers 🙌. /NYT

• CLUBHOUSE handing out $15k checks to creators for pilots, in first move to create original shows for the platform. All creators will retain rights to their ideas. /Deadline

• SINCLAIR looking to launch a sports streaming service with their collection of Regional Sports networks (recently all re-branded under the BALLYS SPORTS name) in first half of 2022. /Fierce Cable

• Ad spending on Streaming TV services (HULU, PLUTO etc) to increase 35-40% in 2021 to over $11 Billion. Unfortunately you’ll still always see the same 3 ads over and over again. /Bloomberg

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

AMC NETWORKS down 4%, continues its May decline trend.

ROKU down almost 5%. Possibly due to a report out this week that their share of the Global connected TV streaming device market is down 3% vs this time a year ago.

ENDEAVOR drops almost 7% as the market continues to go back and forth on the valuation of their business.

Although perhaps just invest in Jessica Alba instead? Shares of her eco-friendly baby and consumer goods company HONEST CO were up 44% on their first day.

🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

PARAMOUNT+ “Rugrats” reboot trailer. Hits the service Thu May 27.

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

PEACOCK “Girls 5Eva” - 90s girl band reunion show with Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips, Paula Pell and Renee Elise Goldsberry. Exec produced by Tina Fey & Robert Carlock. Got a lot of great reviews this week - Watch or Add to your list here. 1st episode is free for anyone to watch, other eps are PEACOCK PREMIUM only.

HBOMAX “Legendary” - Season 2 of ballroom dancing competition series. Watch or Add to your list here.

HBOMAX “That Damn Michael Che” - All 6 eps of comedy sketch show drop today. Watch or Add to your list here (I think. This is the teaser page so it should at least have a link from there to the show page if it’s not on this one).

PARAMOUNT+ “From Cradle to Stage” - New interview series where Dave Grohl and mom Virginia talk to musicians and their moms. PAR+ still hasn’t mastered the easily Google searchable link thing yet so… gotta find it on your own.

ROKU, NEWS CORP, and AMC Entertainment (movie theaters) release earnings after the bell.

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

SASHA SLOAN & SAM HUNT - “When was it over?”. Some really great songwriting here… a couple explores/asks each other when they knew the relationship was done, even as they’re both still not quite over each other.

Listen here on Spotify or:

If you need new tunes:

THE WAKEUP Spotify playlist

Enjoy your Thursday!

Email me anytime - just reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.

-Sean McNulty

@theseanmac on TWITTERor also here on CLUBHOUSE or on IG @TheWakeupNews