☀️UNI sets The Rock for a new FAST & FURIOUS pic before FAST X 2
Music acts' Big $$ for Private Gigs / BALLY SPORTS Anemic Sports SVOD #s / NFLX Exec Pay gets meaningless rebuke
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKED-IN if ya like) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY June 2, 2023.
Where… first off - seriously Variety??? WTF. It’s June 2nd. And no I’m not linking to this.
Ok so… yeah let’s relax to round out this very quiet first week of Summer (next week’s gonna be insane now isn’t it? 🤦♂️) and have our Friday Morning Coffee ☕️ at Jeff & Lauren’s.
Oh I’m sorry - you probably use their full names: Jeff Bezos & Lauren Bezos Sanchez, who are renting Kenny G’s house in Malibu - which is a sentence that ChatGPT couldn’t even “think” up.
Though… maybe we have the ☕️ by the pool, and not on the deck of that lower (second?) house, that looks to be about 2 big waves away from falling into the ocean 😱.
ALSO: Look at big pockets on SONY PICS - impressive ABC marketing spend on the NBA Finals Game 1 last night for Gran Turismo ya’ll 👏 (a film that doesn’t hit theaters for 2+ months).
There was also The Flash. And MI: 7. And Spider-Man. And Transformers. And Strays. And Meg 2. And plenty of Oppenheimer. And MAX and NETFLIX… who is really doubling down on the Ahnold marketing spends 🧐.
INSIDE THE KINGDOM: While FX/The Bear and The Boogeyman also had spots… there were no Indiana Jones 5 ads on ABC last night (unless I missed one on a bathroom break) - a DISNEY property that’s in theaters in 4 weeks.
There was only a “Catch the previous 4 Indy films on DISNEY+” spot 🤔.
PLUS: Oppenheimer got an R rating, which should keep out… absolutely no one who was planning on seeing this movie.
AND: Liev Schreiber and Tyne Daly are doing Doubt: A Parable from John Patrick Shanley on BROADWAY starting in Feb.
JUST A REMINDER: Video games can have expensive duds too. 👀 on this new game called Redfall from MICROSOFT subsidiary ARKANE that… doesn’t sound like it’s going well since its early May release.
Honestly this piece reads like a classic bloated failed Hollywood blockbuster: unclear direction, staff stretched thin, changes on the fly, confusing genres… so hey - maybe Studios should get into the Gaming business after all!
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL RESULTS
Folks are big on Spider-Man! 64% are taking the over $91 Million this weekend which… I’m in for as well.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
WBD reveals MAX transition user data (and DISCO viewership on it).
The Rock is officially back in the Fast “family”. No word on the size of the check in his Christmas stocking by the fire this year.
A fascinating look into the big $$ world of A-List Private Concerts for folks definitely not feeling the “pain of inflation.”
BALLY SPORTS PLUS’ subscriber count shows worrisome road ahead for local DtoC Streaming services that NBA/MLB/NHL teams are going to need to rely on as RSN biz collapses.
VERIZON’s NETFLIX and PAR+wSHO bundle shows real value when factoring the Password Crackdown crusade
A look at the new things to watch this weekend and more!
FWIW: I’ve had 4 different non-industry folks this week so far tell me (unprompted) an approximation of: “Wow that NETFLIX password crackdown thing is real huh…?”
Suggesting that A) I have a lot more freeloader friends than I thought, and B) NETFLIX is really threading the needle tightly on any Subscriber count backlash between Q2 and Q3 #s.
🪧 STRIKE UPDATES
NETFLIX shareholders voted against the proposed 2023 Exec Pay packages
Exact voting %’s were not revealed yet.
AND YES: The WGA did issue that plea to shareholders earlier this week to vote against it… but keep in mind:
This is a non-binding vote, so it doesn’t really matter in the end.
It will not result in exec comp 💰 savings being given to writers.
It’s mainly just a #badlook, which is likely what the WGA was hoping for here.
BUT: When there’s a “no” vote, companies do try “address it” in the following year… somehow. Then go right back to doing the same thing 👇.
NETFLIX Exec Pay was also voted down by shareholders in 2019 (when the WGA did not make any public statements on the matter).
But most important to note:
48% Mutual Funds (VANGUARD, FIDELITY, etc)
34% Institutional Investors (other rich people groups)
And just 4% are Individual stakeholders (also I think Reed is 1% of this 4%)
So, this is not a vote “of the people against the HOLLYWOOD hierarchy”. It’s more just Wall Street happening to agree with the WGA - you can make your own wager as to whether that was their uh, intentional solidarity… or otherwise.
As for the 2023 compensation they were voting against:
Ted: $40 Million
Greg: about $34 Million
Reed: is now onto more of an ‘emeritus’ status so the pay here is down to a paltry $3 Million.
We’ll see if the cable company shareholders feel the same way next week with COMCAST, which the WGA also shook its fist at.
📽 THE SILVER TV
