Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY December 21, 2021.

Where it’s officially the Darkest day of the year, with just 9hours & 15minutes of sunlight today.

So what better day for some Day Drinking with Seth & Will… at a NYC classic no less - PETER MCMANUS.

AND: “Hamilton”, “Aladdin” , “Dear Evan Hansen” and “MJ” have now cancelled their BROADWAY shows thru Saturday/CHRISTMAS.

• And“Jagged Little Pill” is throwing in the towel entirely.

PLUS: QUEBEC closed their movie theaters - rest of CANADA theaters are now limiting capacity to 50%.

• And no more NHL games until at least Monday.

• The AFI Awards have postponed their annual lunch ceremony from Jan 7 to…?

• The PALM SPRINGS Film Fest canceled their gala set for the same weekend.

But the CRITICS CHOICE awards are still doubling down on their event on Jan 9 that weekend. As for who shows up for it…

OTHERWISE: It’s a super quiet day otherwise so… I’m combining all the categories to speed things up. Some fun new trailers though!

📽 📺 💻 THE SILVER TV BIZ

5 ITEMS OF NOTE:

• PARAMOUNT NETWORK’s one-time airing of the new PAR+ series “1883” on Sunday got 4.9 Million viewers. It held onto 65% of its “Yellowstone” lead in (2X the size of the audience who watched the “Mayor of Kingstown” launch preview last month).

  • Makes “1883” the biggest Cable TV series premiere in 6 years. A show made for Streaming - although the next episode is scheduled to air after “Yellowstone” once again this Sunday.

  • Also “Yellowstone” is still getting 7.5 Million live+same day viewers... 🤯. Don’t know the % of which are under 60 50 years old.

• SHOWTIME gets Bill Cosby 4-part docuseries from W. Kamau Bell, “We Need to Talk About Cosby”. Episodes will premiere at SUNDANCE next month, and it’ll premiere on SHOWTIME Jan 30. /THR

• CBS axes Chris Noth from his role on “The Equalizer”. He will still be in one upcoming episode that is already finished. /THR

• Jeff Garlin will still have a presence in the final 6 episodes of ABC’s “The Goldbergs” still to be shot this season, using previous alt-takes or unused footage, and already-recorded audio lines inserted with his stand-in’s back to camera. Thusly, Jeff will still be paid by ABC/SONY TV for the rest of this year’s episodes. /Variety

• AMAZON STUDIOS sets Jennifer Malloy as Head of Story. Not much detail as to exactly what that position entails other than she’ll be working on AMAZON Film development. She comes over from Sue Kroll’s KROLL & CO. production outfit, after a run at THE WEINSTEIN CO. /THR

PLUS: I admittedly missed this item from the weekend

CNN+ is looking at a March launch and $6 a month price point according to BLOOMBERG

Plan is to pull all CNN content from HBOMAX in advance (Bourdain, Tucci shows, docs etc).

FOX NEWS’s streaming service FOX NATION has the same $6 a month price point.

And a #GoodRead this morning: How #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is turning TIKTOK into a must-buy advertiser platform from an occasional one

Outside of the really solid user engagement on the platform, the fact that it’s really hard to tell the difference between an #Ad and regular video are leading more companies to put TIKTOK as a regular line item in their advertising budgets. /NY TIMES

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

Relatively down day for Media Stocks along with the rest of the market at large #omicron + #ThanksManchin.

Though no major drops, only 2 decent ones of note:

AMC NETWORKS -5% ($33.50)

DISH -5% ($31.35)

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

FOX - NFL FOOTBALL (covid-rescheduled) at 7p

• East half of US gets WASHINGTON at EAGLES

• West half gets SEAHAWKS at RAMS

AMAZON PRIME “Being the Ricardos” hits streaming, Watch or Add to Your List here

NETFILX “Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster” special - Watch or Add to Your List here

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🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

HBO“Euphoria” Season 2 trailer - Premieres Sun Jan 9. Well at least the song they used in this wasn’t anxiety inducing. Nice cut tho!

FOCUS FEATURES “The Northman” trailer - Looks like it was a 2fer on intense trailers today… Alexander Skarsgard as a man intent on getting revenge for the murder of his father, but eh taken up a notch. With Ethan Hawke, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor Joy and Willem Dafoe. In theaters April 22

AMAZON PRIME “I Want You Back” trailer - Now onto a very welcome palate cleansing Rom-Com, with Jenny Slate & Charlie Day starring as new friends who team-up to break-up the new relationships that their ex’s are in. Premieres Fri Feb 11.

HBOMAX “Return to Hogwarts” trailer - 20 year reunion special drops on New Years Day.

NETFLIX “The Witcher: Blood Origin” teaser - Premieres tbd 2022

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

RAY CONNIFF SINGERS“Let It Snow” - A light poppy track ideal to decorate along to, from one of my favorite old-school classic Christmas albums.

If you need new tunes:

THE WAKEUP Spotify playlist

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

-SEAN MCNULTY

@theseanmac on TWITTER

@TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM