| | | | | | What's news: David Zaslav believes the second Trump administration offers opportunities for deal making and media consolidation. WBD has hit 110.5m global streaming subscribers. Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is set for an Imax rerelease. Milla Jovovich is set to headline action movie Protector. — Abid Rahman
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How Trump Won the First "Influencer Election" ►"This is the first election where the media landscape has really shifted." Moments after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, Dana White, the UFC CEO, took the stage to thank those who helped deliver him the victory. “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With The Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan,” White said. For THR, Taylor Lorenz writes that while both campaigns worked overtime to court influencers, Trump invested early and heavily in relationships with podcasters and livestreamers in a strategy that ultimately proved more successful. The story.
—Sharp drop. Adding further credence to the new media landscape, TV viewing on election night dropped off considerably from four years ago. Primetime coverage of the presidential election averaged 42.29m viewers across 18 cable and broadcast networks from 7-11 p.m. ET, according to final same-day ratings from Nielsen. That’s a steep, 26 percent decline from four years ago, which drew 56.92m viewers, and the least watched election night since the ratings service began keeping total viewer tallies in 2000. Nielsen also says 22.6 percent of TV households (28.45m) watched election coverage Tuesday, the lowest percentage ever dating to 1960. The ratings.
—Reboot incoming? The legacy media is in crisis as it continues to lose relevance, audience share and faces constant attacks in the Trump era. THR's Alex Weprin writes that Trump's decisive victory Tuesday will cause media outlets — particularly those that fashioned themselves as nonpartisan — to rethink their strategies. The analysis.
—Brat summer was a bust. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Eminem, Lizzo, Bruce Springsteen, Megan Thee Stallion, Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Bad Bunny, Usher, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stevie Wonder and many, many more big names backed Kamala Harris to no avail. THR's James Hibberd writes that A-list Hollywood endorsements didn't rescue Harris' presidential campaign, yet there's some evidence that Joe Rogan's podcast interview gave Trump a boost with young voters. The story. |
Late Night Reacts to Trump Winning Election ►"F***, it happened again." Late night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers offered their takes on Trump's win for the first time on Wednesday night. "It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go," Kimmel said, trying to hold back tears. On the Late Show, Colbert said: "All day yesterday, I was walking around proudly wearing my ‘I Voted’ sticker. Today I wore my, ‘I am questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity’ sticker." The reaction.
—"We need to start listening more about the concerns of everyday Americans." ABC’s first post-election episode of The View was very sober and, at times, intense. The show’s hosts had a diverse mixture of reactions to the news that Trump has captured the presidency once again. While acknowledging that none of the show’s five hosts wanted Trump to win, they each had a unique take on the news. The strongest reaction came from Sunny Hostin: "I’m profoundly disturbed. In 2016, we didn’t know what we would get from a Trump administration, but we know now, and we now he will have almost unfettered power." The story.
—"There was no cheating; everybody said it was honest." Jay Leno isn’t a fan of Donald Trump, but he has positive words for Election Day overall. The former Tonight Show host appeared on Wednesday’s episode of CBS‘ daytime show The Talk, where he said the results of the Nov. 5 presidential election marked “a great day for democracy.” The story. |
TikTok's Canada Business to Be Dissolved ►Security threat. Canada announced Wednesday it won’t block access to the popular video-sharing app TikTok but is ordering the dissolution of its Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind it. Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said it is meant to address risks related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. Champagne said it is important for Canadians to adopt good cybersecurity practices, including protecting their personal information. The story.
—Maxing out. Warner Bros. Discovery posted a Q3 profit gain of $289m for its direct-to-consumer unit, which includes its streaming and premium pay-TV services, compared with a $111m year-ago profit. The company also said that it ended September with 110.5m global streaming subscribers, including for Max and Discovery+, compared with 103.3m as of the end of June. The gain of 7.2m users was the largest ever quarterly growth in subscribers since the launch of Max, with subscriber growth across all regions. The results.
—"Opportunity for consolidation." WBD CEO David Zaslav sees potential upside for Hollywood if the second Trump administration allows for more dealmaking. Discussing “outright consolidation of an industry that is in a generational disruption” during the company’s Q3 earnings conference call on Thursday, Zaslav said: “We have an upcoming new administration. It’s too early to tell, but it may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different, that would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that’s needed.” The story.
—"We must acknowledge that our studios business must deliver more consistency." Also on Thursday, WBD boss Zaslav talked about strengthening his studios' business going forward, after Joker: Folie à Deux flopped at the box office. “There have been some real bright spots in our studios business. Our TV studio is on track to have its most profitable year in scripted content in the last five years,” Zaslav argued. And he talked up the movie side of the studio after the recent release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The story.
—Mixed bag. U.K. TV giant ITV reported a 20 percent drop in revenue for its ITV Studios production arm on Thursday, “impacted by the phasing of deliveries and the 2023 U.S. writers’ and actors’ strike.” ITV Studios is on track to deliver “an unusually high number of productions” in Q4, CEO Carolyn McCall said. It is expected to include The Better Sister for Amazon Prime Video and Hell’s Kitchen for Fox. Other shows include Shetland for the BBC, Destination X for the BBC and NBC, and The Forsytes for PBS Masterpiece. The results. |
Paris 2024 Boosts Endeavor Earnings ►Olympian effort. Sports were the big growth driver for Endeavor in Q3, with the company’s owned sports segment (primarily its stake in TKO Group Holdings) growing by 53 percent, and with the Paris Olympics bolstering the company’s events and experiences division. Endeavor had revenue of $2.03b in the quarter, and a net loss of $420.4m, with adjusted EBITDA of $277.6m. The company’s owned sports segment had revenue of $735.2m, up more than 53 percent, largely driven by TKO and growth at Professional Bull Riders (which will soon be a part of TKO). The results.
—Punching up. With a pair of major deals on the horizon in early 2025, TKO Group Holdings continued to see year-over-year growth in its Q3 earnings. The Endeavor-controlled company, which owns UFC and the WWE, reported revenues of $681.2m, net income of $57.7m, and adjusted EBITDA of $310m, all up substantially from the year prior. With the results in hand, Endeavor told the Street that it expects to hit “the upper end of the range of $2.670b to $2.745b” for revenues, and $1.220b to $1.240b in adjusted EBITDA for the year. The results.
—Dipping. AMC Entertainment Holdings has seen its Q3 revenues fall and a swing to a net loss as Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2 played on its screens. On Wednesday, the parent of AMC Theatres reported overall revenues at $1.34b, down 4.1 percent from a year-earlier $1.4b on higher cinema attendance when the exhibitor got a boost from Oppenheimer and Barbie in its theaters. Total admissions revenue fell to $744.2m, compared to a year-earlier $798m, but that was offset by higher food and beverage revenues at $490.4m, compared to a year-earlier $482.7m. The results.
—Ripping. Canadian exhibitor Cineplex outpaced its 2019, pre-pandemic overall revenues during Q3, even as it swung to a loss on a $39.2m provision for a deceptive marketing practices fine imposed by a market regulator. Cineplex reported $395.6m in revenues, down 4.6 percent from year-earlier revenues at $463.5m when Barbie, Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning played on its screens. Cineplex did exceed Q3 2019 revenues of $373.7m as the exhibitor continues to benefit from a slow Hollywood box office rebound from the pandemic. The results.
—Looking good. As a number of new Broadway shows gear up for opening and the holiday season, Death Becomes Her, the musical adaptation of the 1992 film, saw a promising early start last week. The production, starring Jennifer Simard, Megan Hilty and Michelle Williams, brought in $1.07m in its first week of seven performances, which also included a Halloween tie-in for the supernatural production. The musical is scheduled to open at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Nov. 21. The story. |
WB Moves 'Mickey 17' Again ►📅 All change 📅 Parasite director Bong Joon Ho‘s Mickey 17 is on the move again. Warner Bros. announced Wednesday it is pushing back the film’s release from Jan. 31, 2025, to April 18, 2025. Mickey 17 will be released in Imax theaters globally. The news came one day after Lionsgate said it is pushing back the release of its Michael Jackson biopic Michael from April 18 of next year to Oct. 3, 2025. "When the April 18 date became available, we quickly moved to secure it for Mickey 17 . We’re thrilled with the new date, and very happy the film will be available to audiences in IMAX," a WB spokesperson said in a statement. More and more, premium large-format screens are contributing a huge percentage of a film’s earnings, so are in high demand. The story.
—🎭 Milla time 🎭 Milla Jovovich is set to headline Protector, a Taken-esque action thriller that Highland Film is pitching to buyers at this year’s AFM. Rambo: Last Blood director Adrian Grünberg is set to helm from a screenplay by Bong-Seeb Mun. Production is slated to begin this winter in New Mexico. The film’s log line has Jovovich playing Nikki, a former war hero who believed she had left her violent past behind to raise her daughter, Chloe, in peace. When she wakes up in an abandoned factory and learns that Chloe has been kidnapped, Nikki has to navigate the city’s criminal underworld, pursued by both the cops and the military, to get her daughter back. The story.
—🎭 Star quality 🎭 Korean actress Hoyeon is joining Theo James in Kim Jee-woon’s The Hole thriller. The indie follows Owen (James), a successful professor living in South Korea and bedridden after a devastating car accident killed his wife, Sandy (Hoyeon). Owen is cared for by Yuna, his Korean mother-in-law, who starts to unravel the truth behind Owen and Sandy’s marriage, only to threaten his road to recovery. Hoyeon made her acting debut in the first season of Netflix’s Squid Game series, and also appears in Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller Disclaimer for Apple TV+. The story. |
Ridley Scott Will Never Stop Directing ►"Shut up and go make another movie." THR's James Hibberd spoke to legendary director Ridley Scott, who turns 87 this month. Scott looks back on his five-decade career: From Alien to Blade Runner to his best film in years — Gladiator II. The interview.
—Sold! Well Go USA has snatched up North American distribution rights to the Chinese action movie Striking Rescue, starring Thai star Tony Jaa. The film is produced by Chinese streamer Youku, which is releasing the film to its subscribers in China on Friday. It will be the first film from Youku to get a U.S. theatrical release. The project is a first step in Youku’s planned expansion into theatrical film production for international markets. Directed by Cheng Siyi, the action revenge movie follows An Bai (Jaa), a veteran Muay Thai expert who goes on a take-no-prisoners mission of revenge after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered by mysterious forces. The story.
—Shut up and take my money! Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar is set to for an Imax rerelease to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the film's theatrical debut. Commencing Dec. 6, Imax will host a one-week exclusive rerelease of the Paramount Pictures movie in 70mm film and digital in select cities in states including New York, California, Texas, Arizona, Indiana and Florida. Tickets go on sale Nov. 7 for the 70mm film screenings. Advance ticket sales for digital screenings will be available later in November. The story.
—"Sterile aesthetics." Parthenope, Paolo Sorrentino’s new film and an ode to his hometown Naples, is facing a backlash in Italy from the Catholic Church. The film, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival this year, is by no means about the church, but toward the end of the film, there is a single sex scene that involves a cardinal, and the blood of San Gennaro — the purported recurring miracle that is a sacred cow to many Neapolitans. Prominent Italian Catholics have denounced the sacrilegious sex scene as not only demeaning to the faith, but Naples itself. The story.
In other news...
—BTS' RM reflects on career in trailer for doc RM: Right People, Wrong Place
—Paramount+ to roll out premium and ad tiers in U.K. and Ireland
—Marrakech Fest unveils lineup, Luca Guadagnino new jury head
—F1 revenue falls at Liberty Media
What else we're reading...
—Will Trump enact Project 2025? Amber Phillips outlines what’s in it [WaPo]
—Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke go inside Trump's plan for mass deportations [Reuters]
—Brian Spegele and Austin Ramzy write that Trump's win signals more confrontation with China [WSJ]
—With Latino men swerving right, Zak Cheney-Rice writes that Trump's multiracial coalition of men is here [Intelligencer]
—Brandon Miller and Ella Nilsen report that new data confirms 2024 will be the hottest year on record [CNN]
Today...
...in 2003, the ensemble romantic comedy hit theaters across America. The film, Love Actually, would later become a (much-debated) holiday staple on television screens. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Adam Devine (41), Lawrence O'Donnell (73), Kiran Rao (51), Calam Lynch (30), Yunjin Kim (51), Lindsay Duncan (74), Sophia Ali (29), Will Gluck (46), Amybeth McNulty (23), Franck Dubosc (61), Natalie Madueño (37), Jason and Jeremy London (52), Rachele Brooke Smith (37), Ronen Rubinstein (31), Reid Ewing (36), Christopher Daniel Barnes (52), Denise Capezza (35), Shannon Whirry (60), Lucas Neff (39), Esther McGregor (23), Andrea Londo (32), Michelle Veintimilla (32), Hannah Zeile (27), Michelle Clunie (55), Holmes Osborne (77), Dara Reneé (24), Billy Gallo (58), Michael Papajohn (60), Mary Chieffo (32) |
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