☀️WB Revamps Q3 🎥 Slate, Enlists Jonah Hill

Big APPLE TV+ losses in new report / MLB looks at splitting TV package / CA film tax credits awarded

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY, March 20, 2025.

Where men’s March Madness begins at 12:15 p.m. ET today — so the barrage of harassment and threats of violence entering the DMs of the (mostly) unpaid teenagers playing the games from pissed off gambling addicts should start somewhere around, oh, 1:45 p.m.?

Thus, maybe lock those social inboxes this morning, kids. Oh no wait — the NCAA has now actually produced a video asking people to please not do that this year. That should fix it. I’m sure it’ll run right after a FANDUEL ad.

But hey — perhaps after graduation, the harassed players can get a job at one of the gambling apps where those people are losing their money! Or . . . maybe not:

• “My cofounder said to me the other day, he goes, I think our jobs are all gonna evolve into managing teams of AI, not even managing teams of people anymore.” — DRAFTKINGS CEO Jason Robins

Well, at least that should go a long way to finally making these apps actually turn a real net profit at some point. 🤷‍♂️ $3.1B is projected to be bet on both men’s and women’s college 🏀 tournaments this year combined.

Kids today gotta learn from their elders. Via Giphy

AND: Online gambling services spent about $130M in TV ad buys in a 90-day period alone at the end of 2024/early 2025, according to EDO AdEnGage data.

• FANDUEL: $45M

• DRAFTKINGS: $32M

• PRIZEPICKS: $18M

• BETMGM: $15M

• ESPN BET: $12M

  • 2024 TV gambling ad spending overall was $416M, +3.4% YoY.

OH: High school kids — you may be outta luck too. With college players now essentially being able to trade themselves 🤑 on the open market every year with the transfer portal — some coaches like ST. JOHN’S Rick Pitino have said they don’t plan to recruit any high school players this year and will just buy recruit the best current college players in the portal with handy NIL money. ☹️

• 297 players who previously went through the transfer portal process are playing in this year’s men’s 🏀 tournament (i.e. they initially came to college playing for another school). Quite a chart here from FOS:

Via FOS

PLUS: Your next 3 SNLs:

• March 29: Mikey Madison / Morgan Wallen

• April 5: Jack Black / Elton John & Brandi Carlile

• April 12: Jon Hamm / Lizzo

THEN: Here is the list of films screening at this year’s TCM Fest in L.A. Apr. 24-27, including The Empire Strikes Back, Apocalypse Now and The Fabulous Baker Boys.

OH: Enjoy your DISNEY annual meeting today. Break away from your March Madness watching workday to watch it live here at 1 p.m. ET — although without a 133-page deck from Nelson Peltz about how to “fix” the company . . . is this meeting even official?

AH: The Skimm was sold to the EVERYDAY HEALTH GROUP, owned by ZIFF DAVIS. No price was reported, but the company had raised $29M from investors over the years. Founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin will stay at the company, which is in its 13th year.

SO: Anyone else getting this classy, full-screen pop-up ad (where that pig literally pops toward your face with an animation) on every story on Deadline this week . . . and also having it pop up a second time even when hitting the X to close it, or just me? Though it’s nice to see PENSKE just putting the money asks right in the ads now.

The cutoff at the top is not me doing that — but rather how it looks on my screen.

HUH: Quite a chart here from the NYT in a story about the change in birth rates in states that banned abortion since 2023, although overall abortions have risen nationwide overall since. Very interesting, nuanced read.

Via NY Times

WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL

Alto Nights, WB’s De Niro gangster movie greenlit by Zaz not long after he got the WBD keys in Aug. 2022 (basically between the Emmerich and Mike & Pam eras), is tracking in the “single-digit millions” — with WB running zero ads as far as I saw during the First Four college hoops games on WBD’s TruTV this week, always an interesting sign.

So yeah, let’s go with Snow White! It’s now looking at about broadly $45M to $55M, down a bit from early tracking predictions. BTW, if you haven’t checked out Richard’s piece on the brouhaha around Snow White — A) I have very similar sentiments all around and B) I highly recommend it.

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💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

Maybe if we had a better sense of the overall business objective . . . that would at least help. Via Giphy