☀️ OpenAI Drops Potential Voiceover Work Destroyer
Ryan Reynolds involved in new $6B sale / LGF & STARZ tighten AMAZON ties / SEARCHLIGHT sets 80s comedy reimagining
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY, April 2, 2024.
Where I hope you “enjoyed” everyone’s hot take on an April Fool’s social post yesterday (Ad Age has a roundup here in case you actually love this stuff).
I’m sure they were all well worth the several hours of time put in by the marketing department to execute the “great idea” the CEO had at the “amazing” dinner he was at on Saturday night.
Although NETFLIX — can you please call off your Leave the World Behind deer already? They’re starting to really freak out my afternoon park walks, 4 months later.
AND: WBD and Air Mail will be hosting another Cannes party this May, but it’ll be Furiosa-centric, and officially held by Mike & Pam — not David Zaslav, whose attendance is “currently TBD” according to Page Six’s “studio insider” source. Place your bets . . .
ALSO: Ryan Reynolds continues to show Hollywood how it’s done — sure, liquor is great . . . but do you process payments, bro?
NUVEI, the Canadian payment-processing company that Ryan bought into about a year ago (and agreed to become the pitchman for, of course — I’m sure he’s inescapable on Winnipeg TV), just got bought for $6.3 Billion . . . a 56% premium on the stock price (although no word on what Ryan’s stake was).
Ryan’s mobile service investment, MINT MOBILE, was purchased by T-MOBILE last year for $1.35 Billion (again, size of Ryan’s stake was not disclosed).
NEW DATE, WHO DIS: The Golden Globes will take place Sunday, January 5 on CBS (once again up against NFL on NBC) — related submission/voting/etc. dates are in the link.
READER PERSPECTIVE: Thanks to reader Ben Miller (whom I know has a very extensive TV subscription setup), who sent me this stat he counted up while scanning around his TV dial Sunday night — there were just 7.5 hours of original new scripted TV on the entire cable bundle on Sunday night by his count, here at the end of March with TV back in full swing, post-strikes (note: FOX had NASCAR / no animation):
CBS: 2 hours (Equalizer, Tracker)
AMC: 2 (TWD spinoff, Parish)
HBO: 1.5 (Curb, Regime)
PAR+SHO: 1 (Gentleman in Moscow)
HALLMARK: 1 (Way Home)
AHA: Fellow AT&T current and former customers, the data for 7.6 Million current AT&T customers — and 65 Million customers pre-2019 — leaked to unknown dark web entities, including their social security numbers.
OH: Just another TRUTH SOCIAL financial update, as it just released its full-year 2023 results:
Revenue: $4.1 Million
Profit/Loss: -$58 Million
Market Valuation: Still over $6 Billion
DJT Stock: -21% yesterday
As Dan Primack put it in his Axios Pro Rata newsletter yesterday: “At this point, owning TMTG (DJT stock) is basically an in-kind donation to Donald Trump. Both financially and reputationally.”
THEN: My daily Connections habit is finally paying off . . .
OH: How about a YOUTUBE revenue snapshot? An entertainment firm that operates multiple YT channels told The Information that its March revenue looked like this:
Regular YT videos: $1.1 Million from 2 Billion views
YT Shorts: $41k from 1 Billion views 🥴
Another creator said regular YT revenue per thousand views was $7.43. That number on Shorts? $0.03. Hmm. Where do you think they’re putting their efforts?
AH!: Don’t forget, vote early and vote often today in the final day of DISNEY Board voting (the voting period ends at midnight), which . . . shocker, sounds like DISNEY is winning thus far — but tune in tomorrow for all the fun.
Today in March Madness
First, if you’re not watching the women’s 🏀 tournament this year, you’re really missing out. Another two fantastic games last night, and ESPN has a really great studio team for these games too.
SO: We now have a pretty great women’s Final Four on ESPN Friday night.
NC STATE vs. SOUTH CAROLINA
IOWA vs. UCONN
ALSO: Friday night’s men’s March Madness games averaged 10.5 Million viewers across CBS/TBS/TruTV, +11% over the same night last year.
Note: CBS games got nearly 2x the audience of the games on TBS/TruTV #PowerOfBroadcast (okay, yes, and DUKE)
Sweet Sixteen games were +6% in audience this year vs. 2023, at 10.35 Million.
ALTHOUGH: Hollywood, where ya at, brah? 🤷♂️ Granted, I missed Q1 of the first game, but otherwise I saw just one UNI Monkey Man ad last night in the women’s games on ESPN.
AND: As far as I saw — DISNEYFOX didn’t even advertise the young-demo leaning horror movie it has opening this Friday . . . on its own network 🤦♂️ (and if DISNEY isn’t gonna tell you about the movie on ESPN, I’m not gonna write the name here either).
HUH: AMAZON MGM — no advance spending for your Zendaya-led sports movie coming out in 4 weeks? Seems like a huge awareness whiff. Maybe we’ll see you in the ad breaks Friday night or Sunday afternoon.
FREE IDEA: Invite USC’s own JuJu Watkins to the Challengers LA premiere — she just set the all-time NCAA freshman year hoops scoring record with 920 points. Caitlin Clark in her first year? 799.
At least Ted Lasso Jason Sudeikis was in the house in Albany last night 👏. Anyone know where the celebs are staying in Cleveland on Friday night?
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
The latest new AI “tool” just needs 15 seconds of your voice to replicate it . . . in any language. Check out the new demos, and what it portends for Hollywood — and the music business, who just sent a new open letter to the AI industry to cut it out, signed by several big names.
Let’s talk about that Road House “view” number.
LEGENDARY’s parent company takes a bath on Real Estate division due to debt issues.
LIONSGATE tightens ties with AMAZON in new overseas deal, and much more.