Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY November 19, 2021.

Where Kevin Hart is about take on his most challenging role yet… Arnold Drummond. Ok that’s just 👏🙌👌. ABC is doing their next round of Norman Lear TV series live performances on Tue Dec 6 with “Different Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”.

“Facts” cast is still TBD, but “Strokes” will be

• John Lithgow as “Mr Drummond”

• Damon Wayans as “Willis”

• Kevin Hart as “Arnold”

• Ann Dowd as “Mrs Garrett”. No word yet on Kimberly.

ALSO: Your final 2 SNL hosts of 2021 are Billie Eilish (Dec 11) and Paul Rudd (Dec 18). One of them is also singing. What can’t Paul Rudd do?? 🎤 Ah wait - Charli XCX will also be there on the 18th.

AND: Let’s send a Happy Birthday to Pete Davidson who celebrated with Kim and Kris and… Flava Flav!!! ⏰

flavorflavofficial

A post shared by Flavor Flav ⏰ (@flavorflavofficial)

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

Jonah Hill to play Jerry Garcia in Scorsese movie about the GRATEFUL DEAD at APPLE TV+

Not much known outside of this, other than that it’ll be Marty’s next film and the band is supportive of the project. /Deadline

ALSO IN MOVIES

• A24 buys US rights for “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” movie (based on the popular YouTube short films). Played at TELLURIDE in September, no price disclosed. /THR

📺 THE TV SET

AMAZON PRIME sets Christoph Waltz to lead dark comedy/thriller series“The Consultant”

Broadly about a sinister relationship between boss and employee, “asking how far we will go to get ahead” - but not much avail beyond that. So… “Swimming with Consultants” 🤔?

Created by Tony Basgallop, the guy who did “Servant” at APPLE TV+ so there ya go on the “dark” aspect, and Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”) is directing. Soon-to-be sister company MGM TV is producing. /THR

FX ON HULU sets Jessie Eisenberg for “Fleischman is in Trouble” limited series

Will co-star as the Fleischman of the title with Lizzy Caplan in the project based on the Taffy Brodesser-Akner book.

Taffy also writing the scripts, Jonathan Dayton, and Valerie Faris (“Little Miss Sunshine”) are the lead director team. /Variety

ALSO IN TV

• Author James Andrew Miller says HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” was actually not given a season 2 due to a toxic/hostile workplace on the set, not budget or lack of story for a Season 2. “LC” showrunner Misha Green declined to comment. James has a new 975 page book coming out on the history of HBO next week called “Tinderbox” (he previously did books like this on SNL and ESPN). /THR

• STARZ doing 8 episode docuseries on their scripted series “BMF” - will focus on the story behind the characters in the 1980’s Detroit drug/crime family series from 50 CENT. /Deadline

• Yvonne Orji sets deal for HBO variety special, but not many other details known. /Variety

• 2022 ACM Awards moving up a month to March, and into a football stadium. AMAZON PRIME will stream the awards exclusively on March 7 from ALLEGIANT STADIUM (home of the RAIDERS). /Variety

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

NBCU gets PREMIERE LEAGUE SOCCER rights in the US for another 6 years for $2.5 Billion

This is basically about 3X their current deal, or $415 Million a year (current deal is $150 Million/year). This is far above the expected $2 Billion pricetag but hey… live sports rights amirite?

Games will air across NBC, USA, and PEACOCK as well as TELEMUNDO, so business as usual come Fall 2022, save for NBCSN which is RIP come 2022.

Of course the games will only stream on PEACOCK in the US - UK streaming rights are on AMAZON PRIME. /Bloomberg

ENDEAVOR sells 80% of production arm ENDEAVOR CONTENT to South Korean media company CJ ENM for $775 Million

This values the company at $970 Million, close to the valuation Reese Witherspoon’s HELLO SUNSHINE when it sold to Kevin Mayer + Tom Staggs’s SPAC.

To note - this is just for the ENDEAVOR CONTENT scripted business. ENDEAVOR is keeping the unscripted/docu biz, as that’s allowed under their WGA agreement.

Now - who the f is CJ ENM?? In US terms, they are the backers behind Bong Joon Ho films “Parasite” and “Snowpiercer”, but also produce many local productions of South Korean projects. /Deadline

Roughly 80 Million people still pay for a Cable TV bundle in the US as of Oct 2021

This assumes YOUTUBE LIVE TV has about 3-4 Million subscribers in addition to this list (GOOGLE did not report an updated number this Fall). AND - doesn’t account for the a few million more from small rural cable TV operators. So figure maybe about 82 million ish overall.

Granted this number used to be well over 100 Million circa late 2000s/2010, and people are still cutting the cord / going without a TV channel bundle at a 3+ Million a year clip. Great chart in the read for fellow #medianerds🤓

But a good snapshot at how many people in the US still like having a TV bundle… and are ok paying $65 a month for it as we end 2021. /NextTV

ALSO IN MEDIA

• Why has NETFLIX streaming tech always worked better than everyone else? THE VERGE has an interesting read on their long-ago established OPEN CONNECT program, consisting of over 17k servers sent to Broadband Service providers around the world which gives NETFLIX content special attention and allows them to avoid bottlenecks other streaming services have to deal with. NETFLIX has spent over $1 Billion on it over the past decade.

• SPOTIFY adds 6 more countries, to hit 184 total. So the Adam Lambert fans in Iraq, Libya, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Republic of the Congo, and Democratic Republic of the Congo will finally be able to enjoy his music in legit streaming form. /MBW

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

ALTICE lost 6% to make up for the unexplained 6% rise on Wed.

VIMEO dropped 7%, now at half the price it was at in early September.

👩‍💻 THE FSS FEED:

(new Stuff to Watch this weekend, Friday - Saturday - Sunday)

FRIDAY

IN THEATERS:

• WB/HBOMAX “King Richard” - Wide release In Theaters or Stream or Add to Your List here

• SONY “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” - continues in theaters

• A24 “C’mon C’mon” - Joaquin Phoenix, directed by Mike Mills, Only in Theaters
  

STREAMING:

MOVIES

• NETFLIX “tick, tick… BOOM!”  - Lin Manuel Miranda directed movie about “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson hits the service. Stream or Add to Your List here

SERIES

• HULU “The Great” Season 2 - Stream or Add to Your List here

• AMAZON “The Wheel of Time” - First 3 episodes go up today, Stream or Add to Your List here

• NETFLIX “Cowboy Bebop” - John Cho led series that just looks cool, excited for this one. Stream or Add to Your List here

TV:

FX (and HULU) NY Times docu “Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson” - Airs at 10p, or you can stream it on HULU … at some point. No link avail today.

TCM “Dean Martin: The King of Cool” documentary - Premieres at 8p

SATURDAY

• NBC - SNL is Simu Liu and SAWEETIE

• HBO “Rock n Roll Hall of Fame” Induction show/concert at 8p

SUNDAY

• New “60 Minutes” at 7p on CBS

• NBC Sunday Night Football - STEELERS at CHARGERS at 8p

• PBS “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” at 730p

• STARZ “Power Book II: Ghost” Season 2 premiere at 9p

WEEKEND LISTEN

This Bill Simmons chat with Tom Hanks was pretty awesome. Great stories from making “Castaway”, “A League of their Own” and just a great listen overall.

If you were sent this newsletter or… just kinda found it:

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🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

HBO “The Gilded Age” teaser trailer - New series from Julian Fellows (“Downton Abbey”) set in 1880’s NYC. This spot really makes me miss “The Knick”. Premieres Fri Jan 24.

SEARCHLIGHT “Nightmare Alley” trailer - A trailer that has a… 12 second promo for the movie attached before it starts . Anyway - next pic from Guillermo Del Toro and part of Bradley Cooper’s year-end twofer with PTA’s “Licorice Pizza”, though several other heavy hitters also involved here incl Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, and Toni Collette. In theaters Fri Dec 17

NETFLIX “Emily in Paris” Season 2 trailer. Premieres Wed Dec 22

LIONSGATE “American Underdog” trailer - Zachary Levi as SUPER BOWL winning QB Kurt Warner. In theaters on Christmas

FOCUS FEATURES “The Outfit” trailer - Period piece about a tailor who has some sort of mob consortium dropbox in his shop… in which someone drops something that a lot of mobsters show up to get. Starring Mark Rylance, directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Graham Moore (”The Imitation Game”). In theaters Fri Feb 25.

ROKU CHANNEL “Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas” trailer - The holiday special drops on Wed Dec 1

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

ADELE “30” is here… curious what the response is on this outside of the obligatory social media fawning.

Stream the album here on SPOTIFY or here is “Oh My God” one of the very few more energetic tracks on the album.

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