☀️ Ghostbusters Nails Tracking, Dune 2 blows past Wonka
March Madness gets big debut #s / Sundance leader out / PAR sets David Ayer for new pic
Evenin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on SUNDAY, March 24, 2024.
Where there’s gonna be a lot of chatter at the PAYSON High School prom in Utah this year along the lines of “Who’s the old guy by the punch bowl? 👀” and “Why is he in a crimson tuxedo? 🤷♂️” as . . . Ren McCormack is finally coming home!
Yes, Kevin Bacon announced he’s coming back for the prom at the school where Footloose was filmed, as the film celebrates it’s 40th anniversary (no word if Brian Robbins will be attending on the studio’s behalf — may be time to put those renown DJ skills to use).
It’s also the final year for the school’s location — it’s moving to a new home next year — and the kids reached out to Kevin online to attend and say farewell (they’re also doing a fundraiser for his non-profit, which supports local communities), so Kev said “yes” on the RSVP.
SJP — you want in on this? Just don’t tell Chuck mmmkay, we don’t want any trouble . . . 😳.
AND: Gotta love when NETFLIX trends on China’s socials when the show driving the chatter, and NETFLIX overall, isn’t legally available in the country.
It seems the depictions of Chinese government brutality in the 1960s portrayed in 3 Body Problem (that were pretty much censored in the Chinese/TENCENT adaptation of the book) were generating some conversation.
China, any more statements you want to issue about the U.S. censoring voices through the proposed TIKTOK legislation (which is not a ban)?
OH: UTA has amended its complaint against former MEDIALINK CEO Michael Kassan — removing many lawsuit claims, but still insisting that he “erased any line between his personal and business expenses,” and that he threatened to breach the non-compete clause in his contract. UTA has also moved a good deal of the process to arbitration, while also pursuing damages in state court.
David and Peter have a great Ankler dive into the full background on Kassan and how we got to the current UTA situation — starting with his taxpayer-funded PPP loan in the pandemic, for a man who sold his company for $69 Million in 2017.
WAKEUP BOX-OFFICE POLL
Kudos to the 17%! Granted . . . just a smidge above the 25% here, but a smidge is a smidge.
March Madness Weekend One:
WHO’S BUYING 💰 (again, based on my ad experience watching games all weekend):
UNI’s Monkey Man ad spending definitely went up a notch this weekend vs. Thu/Fri, and WB’s Godzilla vs. Kong spending was still prevalent.
SONY’s Ghostbusters spending understandably fell to a dribble this weekend #NotMyBestPun.
AMAZON’s Road House ad spending seemingly ended on Friday, and no more NETFLIX 3 Body Problem or DISNEYFOX Apes spending either.
WHO’S WATCHING 👀:
Men’s March Madness had its best opening day since 2015, averaging 8.5 Million viewers per window on linear TV across the four networks. No word on MAX or PAR+ viewership.
OAKLAND’s upset of KENTUCKY was the biggest first-round game with 6.2 Million viewers on CBS, making it the most-watched first-round game since 2019.
The “First Four” games on Tue/Wed on TruTV had a cume audience of 6.2 Million, up from 5.4 Million last year.
AND: My MAX streaming experience for the T-Nets games over the weekend was a bit more annoying — the quality was fine, but the UX needs work. When I entered the MAX app, it often teed up games for me to click into that were, uh, already over.
This could also be a lot more customized for known MAX B/R Sports tier users (I stream NBA games weekly via MAX), and again — a multi-view screen in 2025 🙏!
GET PAID: Kudos to Caitlin Clark for the (hopefully) sizable STATE FARM and COMCAST/XFINITY ad campaign NIL checks 💰. Very curious to see if there will be a college football player to rise to this level of awareness anytime soon given the much larger size of the TV audience for college 🏈.
THINKING OUT LOUD HERE: While the bonanza of games to choose from this weekend between the men’s and women’s 🏀 tournaments going on at the same time is fun . . . with the long overdue rise of the women’s tournament, is it time to stagger the start of the women’s tourney a bit from the men’s tourney by a week to raise the prominence (and potential audience size)?
The men are only in primetime next Thu-Sun, giving the women full reign over the total-day experience, vs. directly competing all day this year. Just a thought.
Either way — a shout out to IOWA STATE freshman Audi Crooks, who scored 40 points in her team’s win over MARYLAND this weekend, going 18 for 20 (that’s 90%) from the field. The only other college player ever to do this in the tournament? Bill Walton.
THANKS NORTH CAROLINA!: Yes, The Wakeup does have some readers in NC! Thanks to those of you who sent me emails, and said pretty much across the board that they’ve been bombarded primarily by FANDUEL ads all March long. I asked about ESPN BET, and it sounds like a smattering of ads at best.
REMINDER: ESPN BET is just a licensing deal for DISNEY — PENN ENTERTAINMENT would be the one doing, or apparently not doing, the ad buys, and perhaps there were more ads in the women’s March Madness games on ESPN 🤷♂️.
MEANWHILE IN NYC . . . : I saw zero gambling app ads all weekend (the biggest state for gambling app revenue in the U.S.). It almost felt weird.
SPECIAL KUDOS: To the NC Wakeup reader who sent me an ad break via his HULU+LIVE TV feed of CBS March Madness, which literally had 4 back-to-back gambling app ads — all promoting pretty much the exact same “just a taste” teaser offer, and 2 of the ads were for the same app! (Yes, looking at you FANDUEL 🙄)
Yeah, there’s no problem here America. What a 🤬 joke, and take a good look, California — this is what’s in your future if/when you legalize online gambling 👀 (gambling app ads start at 1:12 in the video).
#FunFact — the CMT Awards promoted in this CBS ad break in NC 👆 were not promoted at all in the CBS games I watched in NYC all weekend. Wonder why that is? 🧐 The power of local ad targeting in action, folks.
AND: Start with a killer block, end with a killer block.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
