ENDEAVOR / WME's big Q1 results shows up the haters, stock +12%
SPINAL TAP getting a sequel / TWITTER sale "on hold" / Ton of Fall TV cancellations - renewals
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY May 13, 2022.
Where the NFL season will kick off in LA on Thu Sept 8 with the RAMS vs BILLS, and TAMPA BAY vs DALLAS on Sunday Night Football the subsequent Sunday.
DENVER’s new QB Russell Wilson will go back to his old home in SEATTLE for the first game on Monday Night Football. The GIANTS will start with… ok fine they didn’t make the press release.
AND: Expect to see a lot about this today. Don’t worry - he subtweeted “Still committed to acquisition”. Also kinda fitting on a Friday the 13th #goodluck.
TWITTER also fired their GM & Revenue Product leads as the CEO instituted a hiring freeze. Elon is not thought to be involved with the decision. /Platformer
PLUS: “Top Gun: Maverick” early reviews stand at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes as the PARAMOUNT PR gears continue to ramp up 2 weeks out.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
“This Is Spinal Tap” is getting a sequel…
For some reason. Rob Reiner is returning to direct & co-star as the director of the documentary being made in the Mockumentary. Shearer / Guest / McKeon all returning to star, I’m sure alongside a plethora of current music acts.
CASTLE ROCK is financing and CAA is selling at CANNES next week, to be released March 2024 on 40th anniversary of the first film’s release.
Plot is the widow of their manager inherits a contract saying SPINAL TAP owes one more concert, so they re-unite to avoid a lawsuit despite not having seen each other in years. /Deadline
AMAZON PRIME sets cast for BLUMHOUSE comedy-horror pic “Totally Killer”
Julie Bowen, Randall Park, Kiernan Shipka and Oliva Holt lead the cast.
Think “Back to the Future” meets horror movie - A teenager whose mom is haunted by a resurgence of a killer from her youth, goes back in time to team up with the teen version of her mom to stop the killer.
Nahnatchka Khan (“Always Be My Maybe”) directing, pic now shooting. /THR
ALSO IN MOVIES
WB adds Christopher Walken to “Dune: Part Two”. Will play “Emperor Shaddam”. /THR
SONY’s “Bullet Train” moves one more week to Aug 5 this Summer. /Deadline
Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) adds Jacob Elordi (“Euphoria”) and Barry Keoghan (“The Batman”) to her new movie “Saltburn”, which is apparently an MRC production. Rights for sale at CANNES next week, now will shoot this Summer. /Deadline
Francis Ford Coppola sets Adam Driver, Nathalie Emannuel (“GOT”) to co-star in his $100 Million self-funded “Megalopolis” pic, about “a modern world unable to solve its own social problems” . Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker and… Jon Voight also co-starring. /THR
HOLLYWOOD BUSINESS AFFAIRS
MANAGEMENT 360 is now called ENTERTAINMENT 360. Ah dammit… I just got my tattoo and everything. /THR
WB layoffs hit International group - GM of Int’l Johannes Larcher, GM of LATAM Luis Duran, and HBOMAX US GM Brad Wilson among the names. /Deadline
Scarlett Johannsen’s lawyer John Berlinkski moves to BIRD MARELLA as a partner. He was the lead figure in the “Black Widow” payment lawsuit last Sumer. /Deadline
DEL SHAW law firm Unscripted / Digital partners Tara Senior and Todd Weinstein leave to form their own firm. /Deadline
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📝 IN OTHER WORDS…
“You spend our members’ money wisely.”
- Title of the JUDGEMENT section from NETFLIX’s update to their infamous “Culture Memo”, the first one in 5 years.
📺 THE TV SET
FALL TV Moves
CBS (has Wednesday Upfronts)
“Magnum P.I.” after 4 seasons
“B Positive” after 2 seasons
“Good Sam” & “How We Roll” after 1 season
3 Dramas, 0 Comedies. CBS likely going with just 1 hour of comedies on Mon, and 1 hour on Thurs.
“East New York” - Cop show with Jimmy Smits
“So Help Me Todd” - Mother / son legal show with Marsha Gay Harden, and award winner for new show whose title sounds most like an SNL sketch.
“Fire Country” - About inmates who team up with firefighters to fight NorCal fires.
PLUS - “True Lies” the series is still in contention for mid-season
NBC (has Monday Upfronts)
“Mr Mayor” after 2 seasons
“Kenan” after 2 seasons
“The Endgame” after 1 season
“Young Rock” for Season 3
“Grand Crew” for Season 2
“American Auto” for Season 2
ORDERED
“Lopez vs. Lopez” and “Night Court” & “Quantum Leap” reboots. Their 5 drama pilots remain in consideration for mid-season orders as well.
TheCW (has Wednesday Upfronts)
First the TURNER Networks… now Zaslav is coming for TheCW. Although given their shows often get 0.2 ratings, it’s hard to make an argument.
Lotta house cleaning - going from 19 shows this year to 11 in the Fall as the ownership mostly falls to the NEXSTAR TV station group.
NETFLIX dropping “Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special” comedy special on May 30
All new material, shot in 2020, one take performed in his living room that he did “just in case” on the eve of a surgery for his cancer.
The surgery went well but he never got to shoot the material in front of a crowd due to Covid so… here we are. /THR
ALSO IN TV
Another creative head leaves SHOWTIME’s Jon Bernthal series “American Gigolo” - Co-EP David Bar Katz is departing, as the show shuts down for 2 another weeks to re-group. The show shut down for a week about a month ago when showrunner David Hollander was fired for misconduct. /Deadline
COMEDY CENTRAL renews “Nora from Queens” for 3rd Season. Guessing the streaming stays with HBOMAX. /Deadline
APPLE TV+ adds Archie Panjabi to “Hijack” limited series, starring Idris Elba. About a business negotiator who must put his skills to use on a hijacked flight from London to NYC. /Deadline
NETFLIX renews “Somebody Feed Phil” for a 6th Season. Season 5 drops on May 25. /Variety
NBC set Maria Taylor to replace Mike Tirico as host of the Sunday Night Football pregame show from 7-8p.
HULU gets live-streaming rights to LOLLAPALOOZA, BONNAROO, and AUSTIN CITY LIMITS this year and next year. No price disclosed. /Variety
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
ENDEAVOR stock pops 12% on Q1 Earnings report
Essentially - the company is starting to fire on all cylinders as the live-event world returns. Not gonna say that Ari almost sounded happy on the Earnings call… but gotta think he was smiling.
REVENUE:
EVENTS & EXPERIENCES: $825 Million, +53% vs a year ago
WME: $357 Million, +44% vs a year ago
More revealing - this Revenue is also +29% from pre-pandemic 2019.
Ari called ENDEAVOR “the proxy for (streaming) content spend” and sees no slowing of content spends… though notably he mentioned the tech company streamers (APPLE, AMAZON) when saying it.
#FunFact: Revenue from Podcasting has 3X’d vs a year ago (no specific $$ number cited).
SPORTS (UFC, PBR): $296 Million, +5% vs a year ago
UFC never really stopped during Covid…
The company still has $5.7 Billion in debt… but they’ve managed to over 2X their Cash on hand to just over $2 Billion. A year ago, they had only $880 Million.
ENDEAVOR debt was seen as potentially business-crushing when it went public, but they now seem to have this much better under control. The company turned a Net Income of $518 Million in Q1 which helps as well.
They also upped their 2022 Revenue guidance slightly (by about $35 to $200 Million) citing nothing but optimism for the year ahead, so maybe that “proxy for streaming” thing is a bit approximate.
SPOTIFY sets Bill Simmons as Head of global Sports content for podcasting
Will keep his role also leading THE RINGER and recording 3+ hours of podcasts a week, and be tasked with growing Sports pods on the global stage. He’ll report into their head of “talk studios” Julie McNamara, who oversees all of SPOTIFY’s Original Podcast content.
SPOT also promoted Max Cutler from head of PARCAST… to head of Talk creator content and partnerships (ie their relationships with folks like Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy etc).
He reports into CCO Dawn Ostroff. /Variety
ALSO IN MEDIA
TIKTOK hiring A&R Execs in select global cities (LA, London etc), looking like they have plans to start a label of some sort. /MBW
VIZIO now has 15.6 Million active accounts for their SmartCast Smart TV OS. That’s +16% vs a year ago. /Deadline
🏦 STOCK NOTES:
NETFLIX +5% ($174.31)
SPOTIFY +5% ($97.08)
AMC NETWORKS +6% ($33.94)
ALTICE +6% ($9.35)
AMC THEATERS +8% ($11.20)
ROKU +11% ($87.50)
WARNER MUSIC +13% ($28.77)
DISH +14% ($20.01)
ROBLOX +19% ($28.58)
and… BUZZFEED -7% ($3.90)
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👩💻 THE FSS FEED:
(new Stuff to Watch this weekend, Friday - Saturday - Sunday)
WEEKEND READS
This VOX story on YouTubers who can’t seem to quit the platform was an interesting read on some names we heard a lot more about in the mid-late 2010’s
FRIDAY
STREAMING:
MOVIES
PEACOCK “Firestarter”- STREAM HERE or also In Theaters
NETFLIX “Senior Year” - Rebel Wilson comedy - STREAM HERE
SERIES
APPLE TV+ “The Essex Serpent” - STREAM HERE
NETFLIX “The Lincoln Lawyer” - STREAM HERE
SATURDAY
SNL is Selena Gomez and POST MALONE
SUNDAY
New “60 Minutes” CBS at 7p
NBC Billboard Music Awards from Vegas at 8p
🎥 TRAILER HOUSE
HULU “The Orville: New Horizons” series trailer. Premieres Thu June 2
APPLE TV+ “Cha Cha Real Smooth” movie trailer - This year’s big SUNDANCE winner with Dakota Johnson, about an aimless college grad / bar-mitzvah party DJ who falls for a single mom. Drops on Fri June 17
NETFLIX “Resident Evil” series teaser - Premieres July 14
HBO “Pause with Sam Jay” Season 2 trailer - Premieres Fri May 20
🎧 PLAYING ME OFF
New FLORENCE + THE MACHINE album dropped today - stream it here on SPOTIFY, and here’s a track I liked this morning.
If you need some new tunes:
Email me anytime - just Reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.
-SEAN MCNULTY
@theseanmac on TWITTER
@TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM
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