☀️NETFLIX doubles down on Over-40 Female-led action pic muscle
Nanjiani & Mandy Moore doing INSIDIOUS pic / WB PICS Mktg EVP departing / UNI sets live-action HOW TO TRAIN... pic leads
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY May 31, 2023.
Where apparently everyone was too busy posting #SpoilerAlert items on Succession yesterday to break much news - the finale got a series high 2.9 Million viewers across HBO Linear & MAX Streaming btw (Barry had 700k on Sunday and 1.3 Mil including Monday encores).
Can’t wait to see what the Ted Lasso finale does to the news cycle today (although gotta say the chatter about this show in my own circles is probably -80% this year). Either way - definitely gonna miss gifs like this.
ALSO: Everyone working on AI warned the world that what they’re doing has a decent risk of destroying civilization. If you need to reach them, they’ll be back in the lab working to advance it further.
Look Avatar is great… but thinking maybe we need Cameron back in the saddle on a 3rd Terminator movie at this point no?
PLUS: You’ll have to pay Sam Jackson a lot more 💰 to curse in your house - AMAZON is discontinuing their $5 ALEXA celebrity voice add-ons as of the end of September (for the right price, I’m sure Sam would stop by to do it IRL come October).
AND: JIO CINEMA had 32 Million Streaming viewers for the IPL Cricket Championship on Monday (it was unfortunately rain-delayed from Sunday - advantage SUPER BOWL). This is a new Streaming audience record for the sport.
No word on the likely much larger Linear TV audience on DISNEY’s STAR, and congratulations to the CHENNAI SUPER KINGS who won by 5 wickets (which… I think is close?).
CONGRATULATIONS #1: To Al Pacino, who announced he’s having a baby with his 29-year-old girlfriend Noor Alfallah. The baby is due this Summer, and I’ll leave the Godfather comments to you.
CONGRATULATIONS #2: To NETFLIX stockholders (which are probably mostly just Reed, Ted and Greg at this point #StockCompensation), as NFLX stock has finally climbed back up to about $390 a share - the same price it was in late Jan of 2022, around their Q4 2021 earnings call (ie. the last good one before the bad ones).
All Studio stocks are down anywhere from -20% to -50% since that timeframe.
I mean… not quite TWITTER’s -66% valuation drop in 6-ish months, but still.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
The NETFLIX Film chart is led by two pics with over-40 female leads, as SONY’s Missing shows unusual strength in its first full week. My dive into this week’s global viewing insights, including NETFLIX really tripling down on a certain action genre this Spring.
Longtime WB Pics Marketing exec is exiting.
UNI sets leads for their step into a live-action version of an animated hit.
SCREEN GEMS takes step to create an Insidious universe
A big new trailers morning and more.