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 June 20, 2023.

Where hopefully Wyndham Clark has finished counting the $3.6 Million he took home in his fantastic US Open Golf victory this weekend…

Any chance he’d spot me the $250k LA COUNTRY CLUB membership initiation fee? Oh and the annual $50k in dues 😁. Um and… however much the tailored golf pants cost that the LACC requires all members to wear (hey not too tight in the seat buddy).

Eh, maybe I’ll just call my accountant from the club and see if I’m good for it. Err, from my car… or the locker room phone booth (the only 2 places at the LACC where members are allowed to make calls).

The Huddle-Up has a fantastic roundup of all of the LACC membership peculiarities here… including how they avoid spending tens of millions 💰 in taxes each year.

PLUS: The Jonathan Majors trial will begin Aug 3 in NYC.

ALSO: The Agent biz can be pretty good outside of Actor and Showrunner paychecks in HOLLYWOOD:

CASE 1: Lionel Messi is set to make $50 Mil to $60 Mil a year at MLS’s INTER MIAMI (this includes contract, signing bonus and TBA equity in the team). Or essentially a smidge more than LeBron will make on the LAKERS next season (depending how those Messi #s settle out).
CASE 2: Top TWITCH gamer Félix Lengyel, aka xQc, is getting $35+ Mil a year from rival service KICK in a new 2-year deal.

AND: Hope you all enjoyed your JUNETEENTH holiday yesterday! Sadly it doesn’t seem like Gayle King was able to…

“Is it lost on anybody that the only white guy at the table is off today to celebrate Juneteenth, and we are still here? Glad to be here. I hope Tony is celebrating his Juneteenth holiday!”

WAKEUP BOX OFFICE CREW:

The Flash optimism was nice…. but wrong.

IN TODAY’S EDITION:

Yes, WB couldn’t quite save The Flash. But the rest of 2023 isn’t exactly 🌞🌈 for DC either – a look at the huge looming Q3 and Q4 DC costs & question marks.
Trevor Noah sets (another) podcast deal as SPOTIFY alters their approach.
UTA expands its efforts in getting jobs for executives.
The Cable TV business gets a pretty daunting #s forecast from an industry leader, and more.

🪧 STRIKE FORCE

1923 season 2 ain’t happening until the strike is over – it was expected to start shooting this month. /Deadline
APPLE TV’s big Sam Esmail series Metropolis isn’t happening… at all. APPLE pulled the plug entirely as it was in pre-production in AUSTRALIA, as final scripts were not done and massive production costs were mounting. /Deadline

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

The Flash: An admirable try, but… what lies ahead for DC is also 😳

Briefly, WHAT HAPPENED:

Audiences disagreed with WB (and CINEMACON) on the quality of the movie – not only in post-exit polling, but you can also see this in the weekend $$ projections falling as the weekend went on.
No personal press narratives to sell to audiences here. This is a B/B+ level superhero played by an actor no one knows… who could also do no press.
- Yes The Flash Ad spend was impressive/WB did what it could, and…
- 2nd tier chararacter comps like Ant-Man can do great… when you have Paul Rudd playing them, or a great personal narrative to sell like Simu Liu in Shang Chi (having the MARVEL brand on these also helps).
- But when even “the Batmans” weren’t doing press about returning to their iconic roles… yeah it was always gonna be a tough go outside of just buying a boat-load of TV Ad time.
DC is ice cold unless it’s a Batman movie (which remember did open to $134 Million just over a year ago). The Flash had the equivalent of Joey as its lead-in.

LOOKING AHEAD 🥴:

DC has a reported $120 Million Blue Beetle coming in 2 months, also starring… an actor no one knows. And no Batman’s at all in this one.
- Admittedly this is not my genre, but I’ve never even heard my fanboy people ever mention this character… and spending $120 Million on a movie like that?
  - Quick: name an actor in this movie.
  - Although presumably Xolo Maridueña (he’s playing Bluey) can at least do the available morning show press… in August when everyone’s not watching TV. Assuming SAG isn’t on strike.
  - We’ll also see if the first Latino DC hero factor has special pull here.
    - The potency of this in International markets will be getting a keen 👀. Definitely some unique potential upside… but again, no movie stars here.
- EOne is involved in the pic, which may defer some costs for WB?
Aquaman 2 is reportedly coming in at a cost of $205 Million in December.
- Yes, the original did $1.14 Billion…
  - But $290 Million of that was CHINA (if it can do 1/4 of that this time out, that’d be a win), and another $20 Mil from RUSSIA which won’t be there this time.
  - So you’re looking at what was a The Batman / Guardians sized movie here. In the 2018 marketplace.
  - US was $335 Million (29% of total).
- It also was preceeded in 2017 by 2 of the biggest DC pics of all time, in Wonder Woman and Justice League.
  - The sequel here has the Black Adam / Shazam 2 / Flash trio… and TBA biz on Blue Beetle.
- The Amber Heard X-factor.
  - See now this was a court proceeding America has heard of… where she testified that her role in this was “pared down” significantly.
  - TBA what her take on the movie is come the holiday season.
- In the end… quality will win out, which we obviously don’t know yet, and a lot of people saw the original. But a lot of people also saw Shazam! and skipped Pt2.
- But just a reminder on where audiences shook out on the original: