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☀️ NETFLIX Crushes Q1: Where Its New Ambitions Lie
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The Wakeup

☀️ NETFLIX Crushes Q1: Where Its New Ambitions Lie

AMAZON takes 'Highlander' from LGF / JLo + Zemeckis / UNI re-enlists Apatow, Powell

Sean McNulty's avatar
Sean McNulty
Apr 18, 2025
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The Ankler.
The Ankler.
☀️ NETFLIX Crushes Q1: Where Its New Ambitions Lie
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Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKEDIN if ya like or email me seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY, April 18, 2025.

Where we’ve almost made it to both Easter and 3 full months of Trump administration economic tactics. Only 45 more to go. 🫣

Hope those of you on Spring Break have been enjoying your week off, and that those celebrating Easter have a good weekend ahead with family and friends.

While these things are disgusting, gotta love a good ad throwback. Via Giphy

THEN: SPOTIFY CEO Daniel Ek made his 8th large stock sale this year alone, divesting another $28M worth of SPOT this week, essentially selling a huge tranche every other week. He’s sold $239M of stock this year so far . . . and $778M since July 2023.

PAYDAY 🤑: NETFLIX is up on the circuit, and so are Ted & Greg’s ’24 comp packages:

  • Ted Sarandos: $61.9M (up from $50M)

    • $3M base, $12M bonus, $42.7M stock, $2.2M options, $2M “other” (mostly use of the NETFLIX PJ 🛩️)

  • Greg Peters: $60.3M (up from $40M)

    • More or less the same, except for a few less options, and much less “other”/PJ use

      • COMPS: Zaz came in at $52M, Iger at $41M and Andy Jassy was $40M.

  • CFO Spencer Neumann: $22.9M (up from $17M)

    • $20.5M is in stock in bonus. Far less “other”/PJ use for Spence.

  • CLO David Hyman: $17.3M (up from $14M)

  • Reed Hastings: $1.7M (down from $11M)

    • Reed is also nudging his separation from the company along, going from Executive Chairman to a Chairman of the Board title and non-executive director status.

      • 27-year board member Tim Haley is also not seeking board re-election.

THEN: GOOGLE just can’t catch a break in court, with a District Court judge ruling that it illegally monopolized some ad tech markets, violating antitrust laws. GOOGLE, how could you?! 😱 This is the 2nd time GOOGLE has been called a monopoly in a year.

OH: Just gotta love the latest ringing endorsement of the actions of the Trump administration from a U.S. appellate court:

  • “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

  • (Yes, this is related to the guy they sent to El Salvador.)

WAKEUP POLL

Lotta thoughts all over the place on Sinners . . . count me in with the 23%.

IN TODAY’S EDITION

  • The film biz came back early from Spring Break with a barrage of new deals, and TV development was no slouch either yesterday. 💪

  • NETFLIX pulled a classic overdeliver with its Q1 numbers . . . but looking at some specific exec comments on the call definitely nods to what we should be expecting from NETFLIX’s “content ambitions” in the 2nd half of the 2020s.

    • Take a look at who and what is likely on the horizon.

NEW ANKLER PODCAST EPISODE


🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN

Gotta say, Devin, I did not see this one coming either. Via Giphy

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