Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on MONDAY May 2, 2022.

Where tomorrow’s email may be a bit late if things get a little out of control for me at the MET GALA tonight.

Ok fine 🙄 I’ll be doing a VIACOM PARAMOUNT GLOBAL subscriber and ARPU refresher to get ready for the earnings call tomorrow AM while eating popcorn on my couch tonight… but I’ll have you know I’ll be looking very fashionable while doing so.

AND: NEWFRONTS are this week so should be a decent amount of digital publishing & streaming news on tap.

• AND AND: TCA will also be July 27-Aug 13 back in Pasadena

ALSO: THE JUDDS joined the COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME last night, one day after the death of Naomi Judd at 76 years old, due to “the disease of mental illness”.

PLUS: “Almost Famous” is coming to Broadway this year… date TBA. Crowe wrote the book & lyrics – and I personally can’t wait for the “Fuck It! I’m Gay!” number on the plane.

• Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cinderella” is closing in London in June, a “revamped” version will still come to Broadway in 2023… again TBA.

OH AND: Happy first official day at work for new CNN CEO Chris Licht. 🥳

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📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

BOX OFFICE

1. “The Bad Guys” : $14 Million ($44 Million US, $119 Million global)

   • Very slight 33% week 2 drop

2. “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” : $11 Million ($161 Million US, $324 Million global)

   • Even slighter 27% drop from last week.

   • These 2 movies also have the pure-play Family Film crowd to themselves for… 7 weeks. (although “Doctor Strange” will certainly cross into the Family venn diagram this weekend)

3. “Fantastic Beasts… Dumbledore” : $8 Million ($80 Million US, $330 Million global)

   • 41% drop from last weekend. Should crawl to $100 Million US… eventually, which will only make up 25% of the total box office.

4. “The Northman” : $6 Million ($23 Million US)

   • 50% drop from opening weekend

5. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” : $5.5 Million ($35 Million US)

   • Actually a slight uptick vs. last week, although they returned briefly to 256 IMAX screens (til “Doctor Strange” comes in) which helped.

   • This is the movie of the Spring, huge win for A24 👏.

6. “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” : $4 Million ($13.5 Million US)

   • 45% week 2 drop.

ELSEWHERE AT THE BOX OFFICE

OPEN ROAD’s“Memory” starring Liam Neeson opened to $3 Million in 8th place. More on this 👇.

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LIAM NEESON: Covid Box Office’s patron saint, Post-Covid Box Office’s casualty

When most studios were selling their pics off to streamers and treating the Box Office like Ronald Miller at the New Years party in “Can’t Buy Me Love”… Liam Neeson pics were often the only thing going for movie theaters during the true depths of the pandemic, with 3 of them dropping at various drought points for movie theater product. (ah remember 25% capacity rules?).

So – “Memory” was his first pic released in a normal box office environment this weekend and… had the same opening total as his pics that opened in the Covid-era.

Which got my mind going – where exactly did the Liam Neeson train go off the rails? (which is also probably the plot of his next film).

It looks like he was still actually opening pics pre-Covid. Granted – they dropped off quickly, but they often matched or exceeded their US $$ totals overseas to average about $50-$60 Million, so obviously that production budget math worked for his backers. However now at $20 – $30 Million… maybe not so much

So… taking that $18 Million check from NETFLIX for “Ice Road” last year looks to have been the smart call.

• NOTE: I’m just tracking “Liam Neeson movies”, not big movies he had smaller roles in (“Widows” etc).

1. Feb 2022 – “Blacklight”: $3.5 Million open, $10 Mil US total

2. June 2021 – “The Ice Road”: Sold to NETFLIX for $18 Mil in the US ($5 Mil int’l BO)

3. Jan 2021 – “The Marksman”: $3.1 Million open, $15 Mil US total

4. Oct 2020 – “Honest Thief”: $3.6 Million open, $14 Mil US total

5. Feb 2019 – “Cold Pursuit”: $11 Million open, $32 Mil US total

6. Jan 2018 – “The Commuter”: $13 Million open, $36 Mil US total

7. Mar 2015 – “Run All Night”: $11 Million open, $26 Mil US total

8. Jan 2015 – “Taken 3”: $39 Million open, $89 Mil US total

9. Sept 2014 – “A Walk Among Tombstones”: $12 Million open, $26 Mil US total

10. Feb 2013 – “Non-Stop” : $29 Million open, $91 Mil US total

11. Oct 2012 – “Taken 2”: $50 Million open, $140 Mil US total

12. Jan 2012 – “The Grey”: $19 Million open, $50 Mil US total

13. Feb 2011 – “Unknown”: $22 Million open, $63 Mil US total

14. Jan 2009 – “Taken”: $24 Million open, $145 Mil US total

1ST – Liam really loves the first quarter. 10 of his 14 pics were released in the Jan – Mar window.

2ND – His action movie Box Office career is basically over. And given his 70th birthday is in June… it probably should be. He got an understandable pass for the low box office returns of the Covid movies, but “Memory” shows this is actually the new reality for him.

BUT: He still has 3 “Liam Neeson Movies” to come – 2 already shot, 1 in pre-production. TBD if these see the light of day in US movie theaters.

THOUGHT – Is it too late for him to take a big Adam Sandler-style deal from a streaming company for say 5 more movies? Gotta think these have a sizable streaming value to squeeze out for the right price. If Liam is still up to the task that is… and hungry for the payday.

PLAN B – There’s always the ‘direct-to-DVD’ route that Nic Cage and Bruce Willis were living in that is in need of a fresh former A-Lister to support international pre-sales. Or uh… ya know, pivot back into prestige.

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ALSO IN MOVIES

• MARVEL’s ‘reinvention’ of “Fantastic Four” needs a new director – Jon Watts (“Spider-Man: No Way Home”) is dropping out. He apparently ‘needs a break’ from superheroes… although no reason as to why he just recently discovered that. /Deadline

• SEARCHLIGHT sets Blake Lively to make her directorial debut, adapting the book “Seconds”. Edgar Wright is doing the screenplay & producing.

  • It’s about a woman who gains the ability to fix past mistakes by writing them down in a notebook, eating a mushroom and going to bed. Swap in “newsletter” for “notebook” and you have the genesis for what I was hoping for with this thing. Sounds like the idea goes about as well for her as it did for me. /THR

IN THE HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE SUITE

DISNEY Chief Corp Affairs Officer Geoff Morell is out after 3 months. Funny how Chapek picking a guy with… Zero Hollywood experience didn’t work out. So just as the Marketing head is the first one to roll when a Studio has a bad run at the Box Office… same goes for the Corporate disaster of a 2022 so far for DISNEY. /THR

• Bob Chapek is replacing Geoff with current EVP, Kristina Schake moving up to Global Comms Head, someone who… also only has a background in politics. Bob’s current contract is up in December. /THR

• Government Relations however… will now fall to the legal department, namely DISNEY General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez.

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📝 IN OTHER WORDS…

“I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way… As of now we are talking, and we are trying to make peace with each other.”

– BILL MURRAY talking to… CNBC (?) as part of the… BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY annual shareholders gathering(??) in… Omaha (???). Yeah that couldn’t be more on brand for Bill.

Either way – his full remarks regarding the incident on the set of the Aziz Ansari pic that is under review at SEARCHLIGHT are here for the inclined.

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And here is Biden’s 10 minute set from the WHCA event on Saturday (Trevor’s set is on the C-SPAN page as well, though that one runs 25 mins).

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🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

So yeah my brain definitely checked out early for the weekend on Friday morning and I forgot to, ya know, actually include a song from the new KNOCKS album.

So – ‘Stay Gold’ brain! We were both enjoying this one over the weekend.

If you need some new tunes:

Email me anytime – just Reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.

-SEAN MCNULTY

@theseanmac on TWITTER

@TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM