☀️COMCAST, VERIZON, AT&T choose to quickly settle film copyright lawsuitZuck's huge 2022 net worth loss / Anne Hathaway gets on-the-rise AMAZON co-star / SNL loses another cast member
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY September 20, 2022. Where the “DWTS” hosts did a live on-air toss on ABC at 8pm sharp last night, right to their… DISNEY+ live-streaming premiere - while also promoting a special $2 DIS+ teaser offer that expired at Midnight last night. They also casually dropped that ahem - there will be no commercials in the show on DIS+ (well, maybe until December). 🔥
The subsequent ABC“Monday Night Football” pre-game then very quickly cut to 5+ mins of the early NFL MNF game that was live on… ESPN, thus DISNEY made full corporate utility out of ABC last night. It’s a new era we’re living in folks. #flywheel Too bad both games were blowouts throughout. 😴 ALSO: Still waiting for our AMAZON PRIME Thurs Night Football NIELSEN ratings… ahem. 🥱
PLUS: Sean Hayes is coming to BROADWAY in April as the lead in “Good Night, Oscar” which has been in doing shows in Chicago. Hayes plays pianist & actor Oscar Levant. AND: The conviction of Adnan Syed (of 2014 “Serial” fame) was overturned in MARYLAND yesterday, after being incarcerated for 23 years.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
AND: If you like getting The Wakeup every morning as part of your Ankler subscription… and want to share that with someone who works or interns for you, here’s a button:📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
AMAZON sets Nicholas Galitzine to co-star with Anne Hathaway in “The Idea of You” picNicholas of course starred in one of the biggest movies of the Summer… anyone? No? 🤔 He was the male lead in NETFLIX’s hit military romance pic “Purple Hearts”. He was also “Prince Robert” in AMAZON’s (nee SONY’s) “Cinderella”. This one is about a mom who takes her daughter to COACHELLA when her deadbeat dad flakes, and ends up meeting the 24 year-old singer of a hit boyband group and… well things go from there. Michael Showalter is directing, Jennifer Westfeldt (”Kissing Jessica Stein”) adapted the book into a script and it shoots next month. /Deadline ALSO IN MOVIES
If you’d like to Share this newsletter 🤝 - here’s a handy button:📺 THE TV SET
HBOMAX sets Sarah Paulson to play cult figure Gwen Shamblin in limited seriesIt’s an adaptation of their docuseries “The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin”. Gwen led a Christian-based diet program called the WEIGH DOWN WORKSHOP who was accused of emotional, psychological & physical abuse and exploitation, before dying in a plane crash with her husband last Summer. Michelle Dean (HULU’s “The Act”) will be the showrunner here, although this is still technically in development. /Deadline ALSO IN TV
📝 IN OTHER WORDS…
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
COMCAST, VERIZON and AT&T choose to settle copyright lawsuit with production outfit VOLTAGE PICTURESThey filed it only about a month ago, essentially saying the internet providers declined to ban / prevent their customers who were illegally downloading VOLTAGE pictures (“Dallas Buyers Club”, “I Feel Pretty” etc) using their internet service, even when the ISP’s were notified of the infractions. /THR
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT: The 2019 COX ruling from the music business hasn’t spurred too many similar lawsuits from the movie business to date about previous inaction to stop piracy, but clearly the broadband companies know their legal footing here is tenuous at best. It’s doubtful the Studios would ever actively pursue something like this (not to mention the country’s largest ISP COMCAST, ya know, owns one of those Studios), but it’s certainly possible other smaller copyright holders could bring cases in the future, necessitating payouts at a time where the Broadband business is already feeling a pinch of subscriber saturation. A #goodread on the increasing popularity of TIKTOK as a search engineEspecially among younger demos of course, even if this is mostly anecdotal. But there is a research stat cited by GOOGLE in that 40% of GenZ’ers went to TIKTOK or IG to look for a restaurant reco instead of traditional search. 🍕 Certainly an interesting perspective shift to keep in mind about TIKTOK as a burgeoning utility, and not just an entertaining time suck. /NY Times ALSO: TIK TOK parent BYTE DANCE bought back $3 Billion of existing shares out there to try and up existing investor morale (And employee morale), as it sounds like growth may finally be hitting the “not explosive” stage, putting a big question mark around an IPO situ. 🧐 The company’s valuation is still around $300 Billion. Granted, this is a private/not public market given valuation. /Reuters META is currently around $400 Billion. NETFLIX is at about $110 Billion, and DISNEY around $200 Billion these days. TWITTER and SNAP aren’t even in the conversation here. ALSO IN MEDIA
AND JUST SOMETHING BIGGER TO WATCH AS WINTER APPROACHES…
Get The Wakeup each weekday morning ☀️It’s part of your subscription to The Ankler:Hits your inbox weekdays by 8:30am (ish) East Coast time🏦 STOCK NOTESA slightly up day for most, as a the street had a late day push after a pretty quiet start. 👩💻 NEW TO WATCH:CBS Tuesday night lineup premiere (“FBI” shows) NETFLIX “We All Scream” Payton Oswald special - STREAM HERE HULU “Reboot” series - STREAM HERE 🎥 TRAILER HOUSEnil 🎧 PLAYING ME OFFLittle new country from ASHLEY COOKE, “back in the saddle”.  If you need some new tunes: Email me anytime at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com or connect here on LINKED IN. -SEAN MCNULTY @theseanmac on TWITTER @TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM
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