☀️ AMAZON MGM's Shockingly Original Movie SlateUNI drops stacked 9 months / NLC revives ‘Friday’ / APPLE adds to series list
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, April 3, 2025. Where there’s nothing quite like an unprecedented global tariff policy implementation about 6 weeks before an industry’s biggest ad-selling season for the year ahead kicks off. Ah, I’m sure no marketers are taking the conservative move of cutting their rest-of-2025 forecasts and long-term 2026 ad commitments. I mean, it’s not like the biggest-selling beer in America is made in Mexico, or foreign car companies buy ads in sports, right? And . . . the S&P 500 is already - 4% as I’m sending this newsletter out this morning.
AH: Always nice when Variety’s ad sales team knows my interests when I travel. Be sure to catch my Sapphire, uh, presentation review tomorrow alongside PARAMOUNT and DISNEY. Our programmatic advertising future is great, isn’t it, folks?
THEN: MICROSOFT is already pulling back its spend and progress on AI data centers globally, although it says it’s still committed to spending $80B on data centers in FY25 which ends in June. NEXT WEEK:I’ll, uh, still be here in Vegas (hide your jealousy) at NAB, doing conversations with Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs of CANDLE MEDIA on Monday, and Nick Khan and Paul Levesque of WWE on Wednesday. Come join! WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLLOkay, box office, time to shape up! Lotta heat on Minecraft from WB/LEGENDARY, and looking at anywhere from $70M to $80M or more, although one trusted industry box office tracker told me he’s thinking the number is closer to $95M+.
AMAZON: Theaters, We’re Comin’ For Ya!
Uh, they mean comin’ for ya in the good way, naturally. Although nothing quite like the announcement of making runs at 2 different industries in one day — good luck with that TIKTOK bid, AMAZON! Enjoy any, say . . . oh I dunno, rival social media commerce data you may get in a due diligence phase. 😉 Although I personally love that one of your competitors in the process is a company whose name is Superbad-influenced: good luck, APPLOVIN! Remember movie folk — people don’t name companies after IG Reel videos. But yes, back to the clearly more important industry of the two — after watching last night’s presentation, I will say AMAZON MGM really seems to have joined CINEMA UNITED for a reason! Here’s what to expect from Hollywood’s new favorite tech company, what stood out most, and what lies ahead for AMAZON... Subscribe to The Ankler. to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of The Ankler. to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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