FREE GUY has best Week 2 hold of all Summer Movies

DIS+ reveals BLACK WIDOW rental revenue / Bo Burnham leaves HBO 80's LAKERS show / 4 companies now run 80% of all US Broadband service

Sean McNulty

Aug 23, 2021

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on MONDAY August 23, 2021.

Where it’s hard to think of a more apt analogy for Covid than NYC’s “We’re Back!” concert shutting down about half-way through on Saturday because of massive storms ⛈🌂.

In fact 10p - 11p on Sat was the wettest hour ever in Central Park, with 1.94 inches of rain. Who says mother nature doesn’t have a sense of irony?

ALSO: Covid vaccine skeptic Nashville conservative radio host Phil Valentine died from covid this weekend at 61 years-old.

AND: APPLE pushed their Return-To-Office to January, joining FACEBOOK and AMAZON.

AND AND: One of the biggest acts in Country Music - FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE has now cancelled their Fall tour due to rising covid cases.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

MGM moves “The Addams Family 2” animated film to PVOD & In Theater release on Fri Oct 1

The first MGM movie to do the hybrid $20 rent-at-home & same-day Movie Theater release thing. The first film did about $200 Million globally. /Variety

“Black Widow” made $125 Million in DISNEY+ Premium Access rentals

US Box Office: $180 Million
International Box Office: $190 Million

Back of the napkin math means that about 4 Million of DISNEY+’s 72 Million subscribers with access to “Black Widow” actually paid the $30 to rent it. Or about 5%. (the film was not avail to the 44 million DIS+ INDIA subscribers).

DISNEY also requested to move the Scarlett Johannson lawsuit to private arbitration. Her lawyers… were not so down with that.

BOX OFFICE

“Free Guy” : $19 Million ($59 Million in US, $112 Million global)
- Only down a slight 33% from its opening weekend, the lowest Week 2 drop all Summer.
“Paw Patrol: The Movie” : $13 Million ($34 Million globally)
- This despite #2 US Theater chain REGAL not playing the film (due to dispute over the movie also streaming on PAR+)
“Jungle Cruise” : $6 Million ($92.5 Million in US)
“Don’t Breathe 2” : $5 Million ($20 Million in US)
“Respect” : $4 Million ($16 Million in US)
- 57% drop from opening weekend

The weekend’s new releases all tanked:

LIONSGATE’s “The Protege” : $2.9 Million
SEARCHLIGHT’s “The Night House” : $2.8 Million
WB’s “Reminiscence” : $2 Million, and another $3 Million from 48 international markets
- Side bar - did Hugh do any major press for this? 🤔
Sean Penn’s “Flag Day” had a low $1,600 per screen average from 24 screens in major cities.

DISNEY PIXAR’s “Luca” hit CHINA and made… $5 Million. (China is at about 70% theater capacity, “Luca” already has $30 Mil from other global territories where there is no DIS+).

ALSO IN MOVIES

AMAZON gets queer teen comedy film project “To Be Real”, to be directed by Billy Porter, produced by Gabrielle Union - 3 queer teen friends leave their hometown for Pride Weekend in NYC. “Superbad” / “Booksmart” hijinx ensue. /Variety

📺 THE TV SET

Rachel Maddow staying at MSNBC, ending brief contract standoff & threat of leaving

Her new agent Ari Emanuel sets “multi-year” deal for Rachel to stay at the network, but not many terms disclosed other than a broad NBCU production deal included as well. /Insider and WSJ coverage here

Bo Burnham leaves role as Larry Bird in HBO 1980’s LAKERS series from Adam McKay

Replaced by newcomer Sean Patrick Small. “Scheduling conflicts” given as the reason for the departure. Series is currently in production. /Deadline

ALSO IN TV

Josh Duhamel joins Renee Zelwegger in NBC limited series “The Thing About Pam”. Based on a “Deadline” story, a husband is convicted of killing his wife, but later overturned when a woman named Pam is revealed to be behind it all. Josh playing the husband’s lawyer. /Deadline
“Succession” returning to HBO in October - but they’re not telling us what day. I mean sure, the month is a whole… 5 weeks away - why rush things? /THR
Lawsuit from THE SEX PISTOLS’s Johnny Rotten to prevent Danny Boyle from using their music in his new FX limited series is shot down by the UK courts. Project can proceed as planned with support from the other 2 band members. /Variety
EMMYS now requiring negative Covid test within 48 hours of the show in addition to proof of vaxx for all attendees. /THR
OWN seeking to revive cancelled CBS legal drama “All Rise” for a Season 3. Negotiations ongoing. /Deadline
Carrie Ann Inaba leaves CBS’s “The Talk” after 3 seasons. No word on a replacement, Carrie took a leave from the show “to focus on my well-being” in April after the whole Sharon Osbourne thing and never returned. /Variety
“Tamron Hall” syndicated show moved under ABC NEWS division, alongside “The View”. Wait “The View” is in the news division??? /Deadline
HULU adds Chloe Sevigny to “The Girl from Plainville” limited series about the woman charged in the infamous texting-to-encourage-suicide case. Elle Fanning starring. /THR
And as I’m sure you’ve seen… “Jeopardy” is now host-less again. The 5 Mike Richards-hosted episodes shot last week will still air when the show returns Sept 13, but it’ll be guest hosts after that. I mean who’da thought letting the show’s Executive Producer choose himself as the new host could somehow backfire? Mike is still keeping his EP job, for now. /WSJ /CNN

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

4 companies now run about 80% of all home broadband connections

COMCAST, CHARTER, AT&T, and VERIZON (Fios) control the broadband wires reaching 4/5th’s of US homes.

Cable Companies run 70% of the 107 Million US wired broadband connections, Telephone companies run the other 30%.

20% of those 107 Million US wired broadband connections are still under 100mbs. Basic/decent service is 200-400mbs, but the good news is that % is down from 40% about a year ago. #thanksCovid.

On the other side of the Spectrum (just gonna ignore that pun): 10% of connections are now 1 gigabit speeds, up from 5% last year. /Next TV

Local TV station owner NEXSTAR buys political news site THE HILL for $130 Million

NEXSTAR owns about 200 TV affiliate stations in the US, reaching about 40% of viewers.

It also owns the recently-launched… but rarely-watched NEWS NATION newschannel, formerly WGN AMERICA. /Deadline

ALSO IN MEDIA

Michael Eisner’s TORNANTE company suffers major blow, as TOPPS subsidiary loses MLB license to make baseball cards as of 2026. TOPPS was set to go public via a SPAC in the next couple of weeks… but that deal is now dead.
- FANATICS sports merch company… that’s also looking to venture into sports gambling won the rights instead - it has a valuation 14X of TOPPS, which has made baseball cards for the past 70 years. /ActionNetwork
VIACOM cancels video creator convention VID CON for 2nd year in a row. Was set for October. /Deadline

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

SPOTIFY +5%, and VIMEO finally got some love +9%, but otherwise a pretty uneventful day.

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

It’s the end of August… not a lot goin on.

But of note for “Almost Famous” fans - ROLLING STONE published the STILLWATER cover story written by "William Miller”, pretty fun!

Of course as we all know, it starts with “I am flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi, with America’s hottest band … and we are all about to die.” Mmmm, dark…