☀️WBD Sets Women’s 🏀 Deal as Sports Glut Looms
DISNEY's next money grab / PAR PICS shutters GER distro / A24 + Greengrass series
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, October 17, 2024.
Where good news — DISNEY has devised a way for you to give it more of your money! And people say suggestion boxes are a waste of time . . . 🙄
Yes, meet the new $400 per person Lightning Lane, uh, “Premiere Pass” in Anaheim and Orlando DISNEY theme parks, which . . . assuming you’d like your spouse and kid to join you on the rides 🤞, makes it the $1,200 a day Lightning Lane Premiere Pass.
Everyone else — be sure to wave to the upper class when they stroll by as you give your kid an economics lesson. You should have plenty of time with the hour-long wait times for some rides for ‘regular folk.’
Of course, this is only a test for now — ya know, to see just how much gouging the American public is willing to take 😁, with the full pricing plan being rolled out in 2025 once DISNEY has the data.
Throw in the 2nd DISNEY streaming price hike 💰 in a year’s time this month and — ya know, the “genius” of Bob Iger, Corporate Strategist is becoming a lot clearer.
BUT: NBCU announced that its new EPIC UNIVERSE theme park in Orlando will open in time for summer, on May 22. No word on how much the bougie passes will cost, but other broad details are here.
AND: Hugh Jackman will now be doing 24 shows at Radio City Music Hall next year because, well, he’s Hugh Jackman. Shows will now run from Jan. 24 until Oct. 4.
D’OH: While Rupert Murdoch may have sold 20TH CENTURY FOX at the peak of the market — his NYC apartment is another story. It finally sold for . . . $15M less than what he paid for it . . . in 2014, after being on the market for 2 years.
Speaking of selling low, the majority owner of the CHICAGO WHITE SOX is reportedly entertaining offers to sell his stake . . . yes, the same WHITE SOX that just had the worst regular season record in MLB history. #Goodtimingbro
THEN: Just a little podcast biz snapshot for ya — This American Life says that its advertising revenue is -33% vs. “a few years ago” (it is starting a premium subscription version of the show).
PLUS: Kudos to the WNBA for another great Finals game last night, with the NY LIBERTY showing the LYNX how it's done — particularly Sabrina Ionescu who nailed a logo 3-pointer with 1 second left to put the LIBERTY up 2 games to 1. The potentially deciding Game 4 is Friday night on ESPN.
ALSO: Shooting in L.A. from July-Sept. this year fell below 2023 levels according to FILM LA, and the lowest quarter this year so far — yes, that same 2023 when the town was on strike. The main culprit is TV production.
Every kind of scripted production this year is below the 5-year averages. (Note: 2020 was excluded from that number.)
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
PAR is back with Smile 2. The original opened to $22M, and tracking is broadly around upper teens to the low $20M range — obviously Terrifier week 2 puts a bit of a question mark over things, so what is your answer?
IN THIS EDITION
As WBD finds yet another sports deal to try and close the (likely) NBA gap it’ll face in a year’s time — this is making for a very crowded sports landscape in Q1, which goes into hyperdrive in 2026 once the new NBA schedule is in play. Take a look at what’s ahead. 🤯
PAR makes a strategy shift in Germany, SNL’s surge continues, The CW makes a change at the top, and a look at some NFL NETWORK math as the league considers its expanded future.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
