☀️DISNEY Impairment, Severance 💰 & Other Q3 Numbers to Know
☀️DISNEY Impairment, Severance 💰 & Other Q3 Numbers to Know
A big movie trailer challenge met / Local Sports TV Biz gets lifeline / AMAZON + Sophie Turner
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKED-IN if ya like or email me seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY, November 15, 2024.
Where I gotta say our AI future is looking pretty bright!
First — TACO BELL’s new AI-driven personalized email campaigns are actually showing positive returns for the company with the elusive & choosy fast-food customer. Finally, someone who understands that you only eat Crunchwrap Supremes on Wednesdays! 🙄
But in This is Actually Kinda Awesome AI news — U.K. telecom company O2 has created a British grandma AI called Daisy, which is built to waste the time of telephone scammers by telling them endless stories about knitting and the grandkids, along with needing a lotta time to be guided through using digital platforms . . . and then giving a bunch of false banking information.
Ah, that was fun. Okay, let’s get back to figuring out better ways to create porn with celebrity likenesses.
ALSO: Bob Iger said he might sell up to $41M worth of DISNEY stock, so let’s really hope that the BILLS cover the spread on Sunday. 🤞
OH: Conan O’Brien is your 2025 Oscars host.
GOOD NEWS!: Your burning questions from the end of NETFLIX’s hit Jaws on the Seine pic Under Paris will be answered! NETFLIX has put a 🦈 sequel in the works.
WELL: This is new — “pop-up saunas” are the new place to hold business conferences and make deals in Silicon Valley, according to this new WSJ story. Way to keep it real, Bay Area.
UH: Streaming ad tech, you still have a ways to go — watching the Call Me Ted docuseries on MAX last night, I gotta say hearing Ted Turner reveal that his dad shot himself in the tub when Ted was a young man . . . immediately followed by a hard smash cut into “Never Ending Pasta Bowls at OLIVE GARDEN!” coulda used a little more finesse.
BTW: The EU handed out another real fine to a #BigTech company — this time it’s $843M for META due to anti-competitive practices in its Marketplace tool. META is appealing . . . but is also already changing the tactics under fire. Okay fine, yes, META made $15.6B in profit in Q3 alone 🙄 — but you’re missing the point, people!
Here in the states — META is appealing a court ruling allowing lawsuits from states over its apps causing addiction issues among minors, news that I’m sure your tween will be overjoyed to hear just as soon as they put their phone down and listen to you.
AND: Here on the big fight night, count me in for every future installment of Mike Tyson’s #RealTalk 4 the Kidz. It’s about time someone started talking truth to Gen Z — good on ya, Mike.
PLUS: This chart below from Yahoo Sports certainly shows how IRL experiences and the power of sports continues to show strength with the habits of Americans going into the mid-2020s.
Even the PGA’s Ryder Cup is having no problem selling $750-a-day tickets to the every-four-years event back on U.S. soil on Long Island in September — that’s over a 2x 💰 increase from the 2021 event (granted, that one was in Wisconsin).
And the WNBA’s new GOLDEN STATE VALKYRIES have gotten more than 20k season ticket deposits for its first year in 2025, a new women’s sports record.
ALTHOUGH: As 2 MLB teams will be playing in minor league stadiums in 2025 . . . that MLB number may be challenged next season (A’S and RAYS).
WAKEUP POLL RESULTS
Lotta Red One bears out there this weekend . . . I’ll go with the $29M to $35M crowd for the, uh, $250M movie.
NEW ANKLER PODCAST EPISODE
The DISNEY end of FY24 numbers highly suggest that we’re going to need a new narrative on the streaming business, folks.
We dive into what’s afoot — plus make our Holiday Movie Season box office predictions! NETFLIX you’re involved this time out, too.
So, every day in The Wakeup, as paid subscribers know, I round up — and often comment on — all of the new TV series & movie trailer releases of the day at the bottom of this newsletter, which I’m still doing today too . . . there are actually a couple of very good ones in there from HULU, NETFLIX and DIS+!
But I wanted to highlight this one from PARAMOUNT, which . . . I didn’t particularly see a lot of chatter about yesterday, so I’m bumping it up here.
PARAMOUNT Better Man trailer — Okay, there’s a lot going on here, but first off — I like this cut! This movie is a very hard needle to thread, and it kinda made me forget about “the monkey thing” about 15 seconds in, which is job #1.
Additionally though — say what you will about the movie’s creative approach, it’s certainly a needed fresh take on the music biopic genre that’s kinda been run into the ground at this point. When watching this, imagine if it took a much more straightforward approach with a young up & coming Brit actor playing Robbie Williams . . . and I think eyes would have glazed over already. So, consider me intrigued to check this out!
Mind you . . . PARAMOUNT still has to find a way to remind Americans who Robbie Williams is (and to come out to theaters to see a movie about him, or err, a version of him — a challenge that no amount of storytelling creativity can fix).
But I’ll at least keep a good thought for originality here (it’s from the director of The Greatest Showman, another film that beat many naysayer odds). IN LIMITED THEATERS CHRISTMAS, AND WIDE JAN. 17
DISNEY Q3 TV biz Impairment among earnings reveals
So, having a little more time to dig through the DISNEY Q3 report, a few numbers stood out. First, some $$ numbers not making any headlines yesterday.