Neon, along with A24, have carved out a niche for themselves feeding an appetite for intense independent horror, but the $910 million opening day total “Longlegs” earned from 2,510 theaters is catapulting the film to an opening weekend that is more than double the $7-9 million that trackers had projected. It is also more than triple the previous top opening weekend for Neon, which came this past March with the $5.3 million opening of Sydney Sweeney’s “Immaculate.”

Acquired by Neon at the 2023 European Film Market, “Longlegs” has enjoyed rave reviews from critics since its premiere at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles this past May. Those reviews have been boosted by a highly effective digital marketing campaign that shrouded Nicolas Cage’s appearance as the titular satanic serial killer in mystery while displaying the film’s chilling and relentlessly tense mood and playing lead star Maika Monroe’s actual heartrate when seeing Cage for the first time while the cameras rolled.

It is possible that “Longlegs” will have a frontloaded run, as opening night audiences are split on whether it lived up to the hype with a C+ on CinemaScore and a 68% audience Rotten Tomatoes score. But with a reported budget of less than $10 million, it is already a theatrical success.

“Despicable Me 4,” meanwhile, continues to lead the way with $44 million this weekend, dropping just 41% from the $75 million Fri.-Sun. total it earned last weekend. The Illumination film now has an estimated domestic total of $210 million as it pushes the lifetime grosses for the “Despicable Me” franchise past $5 billion worldwide, becoming the first ever animated franchise to reach that mark.

Less impressive this weekend is Sony/Apple’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which is estimated for an opening weekend of just $10 million from 3,356 locations against an Apple-financed budget of $100 million. As with previous films like “Napoleon” and “Argylle,” this Greg Berlanti-directed period romantic comedy is the latest high budget film brought by Apple to theaters through a distribution partnership with a legacy studio.

By normal metrics, this opening would be the sign of a major bomb, but Apple has used its Silicon Valley largesse to throw down immense amounts of money on these theatrical releases in the hopes of drawing interest in seeing these films on Apple TV+, and the studio has kept its metric of success on that front extremely opaque.

As for “Fly Me to the Moon,” the silver lining is that audience reception for the film is considerably strong, earning an A- on CinemaScore to go with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 68% critics and 89% audience. There is still a possibility that the film might be able to save some face if older audiences, who are much more likely to see this film set during the space race of the 60s, turn out in later weeks.

The post ‘Despicable Me 4’ Is No. 1 Again, But ‘Longlegs’ Shines at the Box Office appeared first on TheWrap.

One way to analyze concentration is by examining the demand share for the most in-demand movies in a market. According to Parrot Analytics’ Demand 360, in the first half of 2024, the top 1% of movies in the U.S. accounted for 11.4% of total demand, the lowest figure since 2021. Meanwhile, the top 10% and 20% of movies generated 49% and 67% of demand, respectively.

The data indicates a decline in demand share for top movies during 2020 and 2021, the years most impacted by the pandemic. The top 1% of movies experienced the most significant drop in demand share, which continued even post-pandemic. While the top 20% maintained a similar demand share in 2024 as in 2018, around two-thirds of the total demand, the top 1% share fell by 3.5 percentage points in 2024, and the top 10% share decreased by one percentage point.

The halt in movie releases during the pandemic, particularly big-budget blockbusters that typically dominate audience attention, led to more widespread distribution of attention across a broader set of titles during those years, including older movies.

This trend is also evident in the increasing supply and demand share for streaming-released movies over the past seven years. Streaming movies reached a peak demand share of around 7% in 2023. In the first half of 2024, the share decreased to 6% of the total demand for movies, still double the 3% demand share in 2019. Despite this growth, streaming movies continue to underperform, with their demand share remaining lower than their supply share.

The post Moviegoer Tastes Grew More Diverse, Pivoted Away From Blockbusters After the Pandemic | Charts appeared first on TheWrap.

At 29, the host of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on Spotify — the third-biggest broadcaster on the platform, with 3.7 million followers, behind Joe Rogan (14.5 million) and Ted Talks Daily (5 million) — is on the precipice of a big media moment. As the host of an online interview show for NBC during the Olympics, she will be talking to star athletes from Paris — and broadening her audience to NBC platforms and the sports world.

The timing is no coincidence, as she and her business team are aiming to close an extraordinary $100 million podcasting deal. Her three-year deal at Spotify, signed in 2021 for a whopping $60 million, ends in December.

Industry insiders told TheWrap that both Spotify and SiriusXM — the home of Howard Stern, Megyn Kelly and Kevin Hart — are negotiating to sign Cooper as their platform’s star, which would make her the highest-earning woman in the podcasting space.

But the aspiration comes as podcasters like Spotify are cutting costs to generate more profitability after overspending on talent and infrastructure on podcasting, in the hopes of creating a revenue windfall from the audio sector.

Last year Spotify had two massive layoffs — cutting 6% and then 17% of the company’s workforce — including Chief Content Officer Dawn Ostroff, a Hollywood veteran who was hired to develop Spotify’s podcasting business. Spotify spent more than $1 billion on podcast expansion starting in 2019. But as the stock has climbed back to $300 per share, from $150 a year ago, and the platform has shown strong user growth, it’s not clear if Spotify is ready to go back to its free spending ways.

Still, mega-podcast deals aren’t going away. Just Thursday, Dax Shepard announced an $80 million deal with Amazon’s Wondery podcast network for his “Armchair Expert” podcast, after spending three years under Spotify’s banner. “I could not be more excited about making Wondery our home,” Shepard said in a statement.

Spotify declined to comment on negotiations to renew Cooper’s contract, but an insider confirmed that talks were ongoing.

The insiders told TheWrap that agents for Cooper are angling to get her a deal that is similar, or beyond, that of Rogan, her Spotify stable-mate. That deal— estimated to be worth as much as $250 million — involves an upfront minimum guarantee, plus a revenue-sharing agreement based on ad sales. More importantly, it includes a video format on YouTube. Cooper is also looking for a revenue-share deal, plus an agreement to do other TV work, the insiders said.

They also said that she intends to develop TV and digital streaming along with her audio deal. As a broadcasting insider said, “Alex is a rock star on audio, and a star-in-waiting on visual. This new deal could change everything for her business.”

A spokesperson for Cooper at her agency UTA declined to comment for this story.

Cooper is the most-listened-to female podcaster globally, with a loyal fanbase dubbed the “Daddy Gang.” Recent guests on “Call Her Daddy” have included Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shay Mitchell, Christina Aguilera, John Mayer, John Legend, Rebel Wilson, Adam Devine and Chelsea Handler.

And the Olympic show “Watch with Alex” on Peacock is expected to feature her signature style of unvarnished conversations with Olympic athletes.

From soccer player to podcast powerhouse

Cooper, who grew up in Newtown, Pa., played soccer at Boston University, where she graduated with a degree in film and television. After moving to New York City, she struck gold with her raunchy “Call Her Daddy” podcast about sex and dating, which she created with her roommate Sofia Franklyn in 2018. Barstool Sports distributed the podcast until June 2021, when Cooper signed an exclusive $60 million deal with Spotify.

“There’s a passion that Alex Cooper’s audience has for her, and when she said, we’re going to Spotify, everyone picked up Spotify…and they had to become Spotify subscribers,” Rich Greenfield, a Partner and Media and Technology Analyst at LightShed Partners, told TheWrap.

“Her fans have a relationship with her almost like she’s their best friend,” Greenfield continued. “She talks about her life and there’s a level of connection that you make with a podcast. It’s very intimate and personal, and it allows for a far deeper connection with the audience that you really don’t find in other forms of media. And Alex Cooper’s one of the best there is in the world at that.”

Cooper and Franklyn got into a much-reported dispute with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy in 2020, which ended with Franklyn leaving the show. Cooper continued to host the podcast on her own. She took a new direction, focusing on celebrity interviews, women’s rights and mental health.

Last year, she and her producer husband, Matt Kaplan, founded Trending, a media company aimed at Gen Z audiences. Kaplan is the founder and CEO of ACE Entertainment and producer of Netflix’s “XO, Kitty” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” Through her subsidiary company Unwell, Cooper has a stable of influencers hosting podcasts including Alix Earle, Madeline Argy and Harry Jowsey. The couple is also optioning books and developing reality shows.

In January, Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast was made available on major audio platforms after two and half years exclusively on Spotify. Full episodes were made available on Apple Podcasts, iHeartPodcasts, Amazon Music and other services, while Spotify would continue to have exclusive distribution rights to the video version of “Call Her Daddy.”

Drawing on her background as an athlete, Cooper is also leading “Watch with Alex Cooper,” a series of interactive watch parties that will stream on NBC’s Peacock during the Paris Olympics, which run from July 26 to August 11. She is also doing more in-depth interviews with athletes including gymnast Simone Biles, which will air in prime time during the Games.

Cooper landed the Olympics deal after she was introduced to Molly Solomon, the executive producer and president of NBC Olympics production, by her agent, UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer. “I was just so impressed,” Solomon told The Wall Street Journal after they met. “She’s this generation’s Oprah Winfrey.” 

Cooper’s Olympic broadcasts, Greenfield said, are “a brilliant move by the team at NBC Sports. It is one of those unique moves solving the problem of how do you get younger people to care about the Olympics. Who can we bring in that young people, especially young women, are passionately connected to? And that’s Alex.”

Greenfield foresees Cooper becoming a tour de force in doing high-level interviews. “She can get the young stars, she got Miley Cyrus, and she can get the talent that Barbara Walters would have got in her day,” he said. “The media world is literally Alex’s for the taking.”

The post Can White-Hot Podcaster Alex Cooper Ride an Olympics Gig to a $100 Million Audio Deal? appeared first on TheWrap.

Look no further than the streaming top 10 on the Samba TV Weekly Wrap for the week of July 1-7, where three of the top four most-watched programs are spinoffs or sequels. They’re led by “House of the Dragon,” the spinoff from HBO’s culture-dominating hit “Game of Thrones.” The second season of the prequel series reigns over the streaming chart for the third consecutive week.

It’s followed by “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” the fourth film in Eddie Murphy’s “Beverly Hills Cop” film series that started 40 years ago. The latest installment, on Netflix, comes 30 years after we last saw Axel Foley in “Beverly Hills Cop III.” Fans clearly had built up anticipation, as 3.1 million U.S. households watched the film between its debut on July 3 and July 7. Black households, in particular, were interested in seeing Murphy reprise one of his most famous roles, over-indexing above the national average by 36%.

When we talk about sequels and franchises, few can compare to Godzilla. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” sits at No. 4 this week after it landed on Max on July 4. The film is a direct sequel to 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong,” and is also the 38th Godzilla film and 13th King Kong movie.

Sitting ahead of Godzilla and Kong on the chart is “A Family Affair.” The buzzy romcom starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron has been in the top half of the charts since it debuted on Netflix in late June.

The critically acclaimed Hulu/FX series “The Bear” comes in at No. 5 this week, followed by season four of Amazon’s “The Boys” at No. 6. Season two of “Worst Roommate Ever,” the Netflix true-crime docu-series, is No. 7.

No. 8 is “Supacell,” a Netflix original superhero series building word-of-mouth buzz since it debuted on June 27. 

Courtroom drama owns the final two spots on the streaming chart. The Apple TV+ legal thriller “Presumed Innocent” continues to build a following as its season moves toward its finale, putting it at No. 9 this week. It’s followed by the left-field streaming hit “Your Honor.” The Showtime series aired its last new episode in 2023, and has remained on the Top 10 for five straight weeks since it was added to Netflix.

There are fireworks atop the linear Top 10 in the form of “Macy’s 4th of July Spectacular.” 

There’s less flash and sizzle in the rest of the top 10 as the networks relax for the summer. “Jeopardy! Masters” is second this week, while the original “Jeopardy!” holds the 10th spot. “America’s Got Talent” slides to No. 3 this week. Four airings of “Wheel of Fortune” made the chart this week. Other tried-and-true programs like “American Ninja Warrior” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” round out the top 10.

The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba TV’s panel of more than 3 million households, balanced to the U.S. Census.

The post ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Soars Up the Streaming Chart — But It Can’t Beat ‘House of the Dragon’ | Charts appeared first on TheWrap.

“The Boys” debuted its fourth season to over 1 billion viewing minutes on Prime Video.

Amid the June 13 launch of the superhero show’s first three episodes, “The Boys” scored 1.19 billion viewing minutes during the week of June 10-16, according to Nielsen streaming data. Prime Video previously touted “The Boys” Season 4 had exceeded its previous season’s viewership by 21% in its first four days on the streamer, with its fourth season reaching No. 1 on Prime Video in 160 countries.

“The Boys” was the No. 3 most-watched streaming program of the week, clocking in behind “Bridgerton” and “Your Honor.” Viewership for “Bridgerton” nearly tripled that of “The Boys,” with the Netflix romance series scoring 3.47 billion viewing minutes during the week.

While “Bridgerton” had slid down to the No. 9 spot on the Nielsen charts last week with Season 3 out for several weeks, Part 2 boosted “Bridgerton” back to the top of the Nielsen streaming list. While the over 3 billion viewing minutes includes viewership across the show’s three installments, the four new episodes accounted for nearly 2.5 billion minutes — over 70% — of this week’s viewership. 

Meanwhile, Bryan Cranston-led “Your Honor” continued to gain buzz, logging 1.89 billion viewing minutes across Netflix and Paramount+ in its third week on Netflix, ranking as the week’s No. 2 most-watched series. That’s up 24% from the previous week, when the Showtime original scored 1.53 billion viewing minutes.

Disney+ staple “Bluey” took the No. 4 spot on the streaming list with 1.16 billion viewing minutes, while Glen Powell’s “Hit Man” came in fifth place with 1.06 billion viewing minutes in its second week on Netflix, up slightly from the 984 million minutes the show scored during its debut week.

“Hit Man” also ranked as the most-watched streaming movie of the week and nearly doubled the viewership for “Inside Out,” which saw an uptick during the opening weekend of “Inside Out 2.” “Inside Out” was the second most-watched streaming movie of the week with 613 million minutes viewed, while Netflix’s “Under Paris” took third place with 482 million minutes viewed.

The post ‘The Boys’ Season 4 Cracks 1 Billion Viewing Minutes on Nielsen Streaming Charts appeared first on TheWrap.

From a book I recently read I learned this: “Jack and Harry Warner” — yes, those Warner brothers — “loathed each other. Harry once chased Jack around the lot with a lead pipe, shouting that he was going to kill him and had to be forcibly, restrained and disarmed to keep him from making good on his threat.”*

But in modern times, whether it was called Viacom or CBS or Paramount Global, Paramount has been an actual family business. It was listed publicly on the stock market, but has very much been in the control of the Redstone family since 1994. 

Since the death of her father Sumner Redstone in 2020, with whom she had a close but complicated relationship, Shari Redstone has been the controlling shareholder of National Amusements, Inc., which owns 77% of Paramount voting stock. Her stamp has long been on the company — from facing down a legal challenge to her control by former CBS chief Les Moonves in 2018 to firing CEO Bob Bakish earlier this year to finally deciding to sell it at all. 

If the deal that Paramount’s board agreed to on Sunday goes through, the historic studio will pass into the hands of another family, the billionaire Ellisons family, who will not only hold Paramount’s purse strings but also control the company.

While Sumner Redstone’s fortune was built off the early wealth his father Michael created by building a chain of movie theaters in the Northeast — the Ellisons built their fortune in a single generation on the gargantuan riches amassed by early technology titan Larry Ellison, the co-founder of software giant Oracle. Ellison, the fifth-richest man in the world, according to Forbes, is backing his son David to the tune of $6 billion in his merger of Skydance Media with Paramount Global. 

“My father and I talk all the time,” David Ellison told TheWrap in a call with media on Monday after the deal closed. “He is an incredible advisor, across the board, and he has been throughout the process… I’m incredibly grateful for his leadership and advice.”

This dynamic feels considerably more personal than, say, a big telcom stepping in, or a hedge fund. But as one analyst told TheWrap, it matters a lot how big that stake is, and who the family is. 

“There is a huge difference in the Redstone control compared to the Ellison control, and it is this: The Redstones only owned 10% of Paramount despite having voting control; the Ellisons and co. will own as much as 70%,” observed Matt Dolgin, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar Research.

“That means that their economic interests will be much more aligned with the majority of other shareholders, whereas the Redstones were not necessarily. The voting control plus so much skin in the game makes for a better ownership structure for Paramount long term than a traditional structure, because it can do what it believes is best for the company’s long term health amid the industry disruption without feeling pressure that executives’ jobs may hinge on near-term results,” Dolgin added. 

Larry Ellison has been investing in Hollywood for some time. He helped bankroll — and then took over — daughter Megan Ellison’s Annapurna, which made several high-quality pictures but lost lots of money and saw her step back from the business in 2019. (The company still exists and appears to be focused on indie gaming.) 

*****

Family control of a Hollywood studio may hark back to the origins of Hollywood, but it contradicts the shift in the last 50 years toward a more professional, corporate entertainment industry. In general, these have been led not by swashbuckling mogul figures but by CEOs with advanced business and law degrees advised by Wall Street experts recommending mergers with related or unrelated businesses. (To wit, AT&T, internet company AOL or video gaming giant Sony.)

But it’s not at all clear that the pressures of the market produce notably better outcomes for Hollywood. The AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000 was a notorious blunder. AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, which closed in 2018, lasted all of four years. 

It’s equally unclear that private equity or hedge fund capital or foreign investment — all of which have come flooding into Hollywood over the decades — create reliable profits and stability. 

That may or may not have been on Shari Redstone’s mind when Apollo Global Management and Sony Pictures Entertainment came in with a rich counter-offer to Skydance. 

One thing seems clear. Of all the suitors who came for Paramount, Redstone had a clear bent toward the Ellison option. Practically every Wall Street analyst recommended the break-up of Paramount Global for parts. The math of this calculus is unassailable. The various divisions — whether Pluto, or BET or Paramount Pictures — are worth far more when broken into pieces.

But Redstone did not want that to happen. For her, the Ellison-Skydance option will preserve, for the most part, the integrity of what her family built. 

Which raises a different question. 

What will be the legacy of these fortunes created by the tech economy? Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook/Meta, Bill Gates at Microsoft, Jeff Bezos at Amazon — their riches have come so fast and in such vast quantities that dynasty has not had time to enter the picture. 

Several of the early tech billionaires have found themselves drawn to media and entertainment, whether Lorene Powell Jobs who now owns The Atlantic magazine and Anonymous Content; Bezos who bought The Washington Post; or Elon Musk who owns Twitter/X.   

They join other dynastic families in Hollywood and media. NBCUniversal is controlled by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and the Roberts family; the Sulzbergers still reign at The New York Times.

It remains to be seen if the Ellisons will create a legacy.

For what it’s worth, the founder and driving force behind Paramount (which started under the name Famous Players in 1912) was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant named Adolph Zukor. He started out as a lowly furrier, but by the time he got to Hollywood he was a wealthy entrepreneur with an 800-acre estate in New York’s Rockland county. 

Zukor ran the studio until he finally retired from Paramount Pictures in 1959. In 1964 he became the chairman Emeritus. He stayed in that role up until his death at 103. 

Lucas Manfredi contributed to this column.

*From “An Empire of Their Own,” by Neal Gabler

The post Hollywood’s Family Business: Paramount Passes From the Redstones to Ellisons   appeared first on TheWrap.

Three weeks later, Clooney called for Biden to step aside on Wednesday in an explosive op-ed in The New York Times that could prove a decisive moment for celebrities and high-profile Democrats who have thus far stayed silent about the president.

“We are not going to win in November with this president,” Clooney wrote. 

Democratic advisors and commentators said the Clooney op-ed was significant, not just because the actor cuts a large profile, but because he made the statement in the Times, and that doing so provides cover for others who have been reluctant to say what they really think. 

“It’s a big blow,” said Donna Bojarsky, a longtime advisor to Democratic donors in Hollywood. “Because he’s so respected and because he did it in such a public and devastatingly honest manner, this will make it easier for others to offer their opinions, both within Hollywood and, I hope, among elected officials.”

Experts said that Clooney’s essay could trigger other influential Hollywood fundraisers to join the calls for Biden to step aside and have a significant impact on Democratic fundraising efforts.

“The dam of support for Biden has not burst,” Kamy Akhavan, executive director of the USC Center for Political Future, told TheWrap. “But there are holes in it, and Clooney has poked a big one.”  

The op-ed immediately set off ripples on Wednesday. Director Rob Reiner, another prominent Democratic donor, also said Biden should step aside, as did actor Michael Douglas. 

“The more important thing is paying attention to which donors are saying they will not fund him anymore,” Steve Ross, USC history professor and author of “Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics,” told TheWrap.

If Hollywood power broker Jeffery Katzenberg, a co-chair of the Biden campaign, decides to pull his funding support, Ross said, “then you’re going to have a very serious problem, because how is [Biden] going to fund his campaign in the last few months?”  

TheWrap previously reported that after Biden’s debate performance Katzenberg had fielded calls from angry donors, who told him they were moving their money to Congressional down-ballot races. Katzenberg has been silent since the CNN debate two weeks ago.

Biden has resisted calls to pull out of the race, saying in a letter on Monday to fellow Democrats that he was “firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.”

In response to a query from TheWrap on Wednesday about Clooney’s essay, a person close to the Biden campaign pointed to “pre-existing tensions with Clooney” related to potential sanctions against his wife Amal Clooney for her legal work related to Israeli military action in Gaza.

The Hollywood donor machine

Hollywood endorsements, and the dollars that follow, have proven influential for Democratic candidates in the past. When then-Sen. Barack Obama was campaigning for his first presidential run in 2007, Oprah Winfrey hosted a sold-out fundraiser for the Democratic nominee at her Montecito estate with over 1,500 A-listers in attendance. The endorsement was so pivotal for the two-term president, it became known as “The Oprah Effect.”

Pop superstar Taylor Swift broke her political silence in 2018 when she spoke out in favor of the Democratic party in her home state of Tennessee in hopes of protecting queer rights.

Hillary Clinton received over 150 celebrity endorsements during her campaign in 2016, but it still wasn’t enough to beat former president (and a celebrity in his own right) Donald Trump in the electoral college.

“Celebrity endorsements don’t decide an election,” Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC told TheWrap. But, she added, Biden’s “reelection bid right now, obviously, is on shaky ground.”

Douglas, a longtime Biden supporter, appeared on “The View,” where he said the Clooney essay made “a valid point.” The actor added: “I’m deeply, deeply concerned. I mean, especially, it’s difficult because the Democrats have a big bench. They’ve got a lot of heavy-hitters.”

Reiner joined Clooney in urging Biden to step down, despite all the “love and respect” he said he has for the president. “Democracy is facing an existential threat,” Reiner wrote on X.  “We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.”

My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.…

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) July 10, 2024

The actor-director’s latest tweet was a shift from Reiner’s earlier support for the president. “If we see the Joe Biden that appeared on ‘Morning Joe’ today every day until Nov. 5, he’ll be able to shut up people like me who think he should step aside,” he said in an X post on Monday.

Reiner also hosted a “pride-themed” garden party with Vice President Harris on June 29 at his Brentwood home.

The celebrities joined a chorus of other big-ticket Democratic donors and celebrities in Hollywood, including Reed Hastings, Ari Emanuel and others, in publicly voicing concerns about Biden’s ability to not only beat Trump in November but to serve out the four years of a potential second term.

The dam of support for Biden has not burst. But there are holes in it, and Clooney has poked a big one.”  

Kamy Akhavan, executive director of the USC Center for Political Future

The calls from inside Hollywood make it clear that concerns about Biden’s mental acuity, exposed during June’s disastrous debate, have not been quelled in the days and weeks since, despite the campaign’s aggressive effort to assert that a decision has already been made that Biden is the Democratic nominee.

But as prominent politicians in Washington, D.C., and Democratic party officials continue to back Biden or find ways to evade publicly asking for him to step aside, the swell of Hollywood elites coming forward could tip the scales.

The impact of Clooney’s op-ed “is drawing eyeballs to candidates, which is what traditionally movie stars have done, to get voters to pay attention,” Ross said. “In this case, it’s less about voters paying attention, then getting Biden to pay attention and step down.”

But while the “Syriana” actor is a cultural influencer, “he is not the person that is going to compel Joe Biden to do or not do something,” Akhavan said. That message would have to be relayed by top Democratic leaders to compel any legitimate consideration from the campaign, he said.

Clooney was direct and unvarnished in his op-ed on Wednesday, noting the reluctance of Democrats to say publicly what he has been told privately. 

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Clooney continued: “This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

Top Biden Democratic Party officials have yet to officially break ranks and call for Biden’s withdrawal, providing far more muted responses to questions about his ability to win the race and lead the country. 

When asked about the president and his fitness for another term, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday, “I’m with Joe,” declining to comment further at his weekly press conference. Rep. Jim Clyburn echoed Schumer’s sentiments, saying “We’re ridin’ with Biden,” as he exited a closed-door meeting with House Democrats. 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and a longtime Biden ally, gave one of the strongest public signals yet from a high-profile Democratic member that the party remains divided on Biden’s insistence on staying in the race, saying on “Morning Joe” that “time is running short” for him to make a decision.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said, asserting that Biden has not yet made an official decision.

Meanwhile, the campaign has been clear that the opposite is true. 

“This has made it a greater challenge for him to win and I think he is weakened,” Romero told TheWrap. “This decision is still his, but the longer these conversations go on, the harder it gets [for him].”

The post Hollywood’s Democratic Dam Breaks: As Biden Loses Celebrity Donors, Will DC Crack? appeared first on TheWrap.

ScreenShare, a data partnership between Screen Engine/ASI and TheWrap, tracks the Top 10 most-mentioned entertainment options every week and whether each has gained or lost momentum compared to the prior week. The chart lives on the Data & Analysis page of the WrapPRO Members Hub.

With only two weeks until its July 26 release, “Deadpool & Wolverine” has reclaimed the No. 1 position as “Inside Out 2” eases into the No. 2 spot. The “Paris 2024: Summer Olympic Games” makes it into the Top 3 for the first time since joining the list. “House of the Dragon” holds its position at No. 4 while “Despicable Me 4” moves up one spot to No. 5, and “The Boys” lands at No. 6.

Fans can’t stay quiet about “A Quiet Place: Day One.” The Joseph Quinn and Lupita Nyong’o-led horror film debuts at No. 7 following its release in theaters. Coming in fast at No. 8 is “Twisters.” Directed by “Minari” filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, the “Twister” follow-up hits theaters July 19.

It’s time to dust off your blue aprons and prepare to binge Season 3 of FX’s “The Bear,” which debuted on June 26. Coming in at No. 9, all episodes of “The Bear” are available to stream on Hulu. Lastly, Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto VI,” which is expected in 2025, rounds out the Top 10.

Weekly Top 10

The post ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Knocks ‘Inside Out 2’ Out of Top Spot on List of Titles Consumers Are Most Excited About | Chart appeared first on TheWrap.

On that day — seven months before the company launched Disney+ — executives gathered on the Disney studio lot in Burbank at their annual Investor Day and laid out their plans to Wall Street for how the entertainment giant was going to try to catch up to tech-entertainment company Netflix.

Wall Street was ascribing massive value to Netflix, a Silicon Valley creation, for the ballooning subscriber revenue it was generating, not just in the U.S., but all over the world. And Disney executive Kevin Mayer had lobbied inside the Disney C-suite for his company to get in the game now. 

“It was intoxicating,” Mayer, then Disney’s chief strategy officer, recalled to TheWrap about Wall Street’s growing love affair with Netflix, which in a competition-free zone of 2018, had a market cap of $116.85 billion — roughly 78 times the company’s $1.6 billion operating profit and 7.3 times its $16 billion in revenue that year.

That day Disney introduced its pricing scheme for Disney+, talked about the exclusive content it would feature and the trajectory to initially grow the platform to between 60 million and 90 million paid subscribers by 2024.

The audience cheered. 

“You could just taste it,” Mayer said. “This is going to transform our company, transform the industry, and our shareholders are going to massively benefit from it. We were sure of it. And we were right, by the way. It did happen that way — until it didn’t.”

Five years after Hollywood made a huge strategic shift to streaming, the studios are facing persistently low stock prices, a moribund theatrical business for the fourth year in a row and a streaming business that has yet to turn a profit, with the notable exception of Netflix.

The global theatrical box office for the seven major studios plummeted 31% from $27.5 billion in 2018 to $18.9 billion in 2023, according to Comscore. Disney topped $11.1 billion in 2019, but no studio has reached even $5 billion since.

TheWrap spoke to analysts and executives at the traditional studios that took the streaming plunge — Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Universal and Paramount — and took a hard look at balance sheets and the prospects of growth in Hollywood and asked: Was that fateful pivot the right decision?

“You saw the industry take a ‘scale at all cost’ approach, and I don’t believe that is the right way to look at this,” said David Ellison, whose Skydance Media secured a deal to buy Paramount Global on Sunday. He spoke to reporters on Monday about his plans for Paramount+. “Scale is important, but it has to be achieved while maintaining profitability,” he said.

At the time, studio executives didn’t seriously consider how the move to streaming would ultimately affect its theatrical arms and train consumers to experience movies in their homes rather than theaters. And while the COVID-19 pandemic and the double strikes also have played critical roles in accelerating that shift, the Hollywood majors now find themselves in a race to make streaming profitable to offset theatrical revenue that may never fully recover, amid mounting debt and linear television divisions that are in an inexorable death spiral. 

“The strikes clearly extended the pain at the box office, but rushing into streaming exacerbated the problem,” Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told TheWrap. “The box office must suffer if a cheaper alternative is offered within a reasonable period of time, just like eating out suffers from food delivery services.”

The question for Hollywood now is can it adjust the streaming pivot? Or reverse course altogether? 

TheWrap found that, so far, at least, streaming has proved a salve rather than a savior.

“Most of these companies were losing money anyway,” Ross Benes, senior analyst at eMarketer, told TheWrap. “WBD and Paramount would still be in dire straits even if they didn’t launch streaming services. But being unable to sufficiently make money on their streaming services just made their financial situations grimmer.”

And some studio executives are resigned to being in this new world.

“Consumer behavior has shifted, and it is probably not coming back,” Universal Studios Chairwoman Donna Langley noted in May in an address at UCLA. “One of the things we’ve focused on is that pre-pandemic, the majority of the moviegoing audience would see four or five films in theaters a year. That same number of people are now seeing one or two films. We’re meeting the consumer where they are and with a lot of flexibility, giving them different ways to engage with our content.”

The road to the future

At the time Disney was considering a push into streaming, Netflix was gaining viewership and spurring consumers to cut the cord from their traditional cable-TV viewing, threatening not only premium cable revenues but all home entertainment revenue, including high-margin DVD and Blu-ray sales. In 2010, consumer home entertainment spending on physical media was $10.3 billion, according to DEG. In 2023, that total was down to $1.6 billion.

“There’s a big component of revenue that essentially disappeared for studios, Daniel Loria, SVP content strategy and editorial director at Box Office Pro, told TheWrap. “I don’t think studios ever went into the streaming conversation to address an issue that they had found in theatrical. It was a necessary step to plug a hole on the boat that was basically created when the home entertainment sales started dissipating.”

Linear television’s share of TV viewing fell below 50% for the first time last August. Streaming made up a record 39% of viewing, compared to 22% for broadcast and 28% for cable, according to Nielsen.

The London-based research firm Ampere Analysis has predicted that streaming revenues could overtake pay TV revenues as early as the third quarter of 2024, bolstered by recently launched ad-supported offerings.

That poses a huge challenge, since for most of the major studios traditional linear television still represents a large chunk of overall revenues, but less and less of their profits. Paramount Global’s TV Media division, for example, accounted for 68% of the company’s $7.69 billion in revenues in the first quarter, with WBD relying on linear for 51% of its $41.32 billion in revenues.

Paramount’s linear pressures combined with ongoing streaming losses prompted S&P Global to downgrade the company’s credit rating to junk status in March, and Moody’s warned on Tuesday that it may follow suit.

At first, the studios were content simply to license their movie and TV content to Netflix, which needed to fill its pipeline to keep scaling the business. But as cord-cutting accelerated, by around 2017 they realized they needed to plan for a streaming-dominated future.

Some executives, like Mayer, clamored for a disruptive approach, figuring that consumers were declaring by their actions that they wanted to enjoy more content at home. Movies seen in theaters would increasingly be reserved for big-budget tent-pole action films —including a heavy dose of superhero fare — where an elevated experience, with stadium-like seating and Dolby-infused sound systems, would better justify the ticket (and concessions) price. 

Mayer said that Disney’s leadership had not counted on the decline of theatrical revenue when deciding to pivot to streaming. 

You could just taste it. This is going to transform our company, transform the industry, and our shareholders are going to massively benefit from it.

Kevin Mayer, former Disney executive , on the push into streaming

“We weren’t thinking at the time that we would change or disrupt the theatrical experience,” Mayer said.

“There was a lot of belief at Disney and elsewhere that theatrical was going to shift in any event,” he continued. “Streaming was just a manifestation of the fact that authority had shifted dramatically from producers and distributors to consumers. And it was quite clear that consumers preferred watching a lot of these movies at home than in the theaters. In my view – and shared by many — Hollywood had this paternalistic attitude that we decide where people see movies.”

So, Warner Bros, Disney, NBCUniversal and Paramount all began to create streamers from the ground up, with Disney acquiring a majority stake in Hulu in 2019. (It first launched publicly in 2008 as a joint venture between NBCUniversal and News Corp.) 

The one outlier was Sony, which went the route of being an arms dealer — licensing its content agnostically to all the streamers — which allowed it to be nimbler, Benes said.

“They don’t throw away money at a streaming service,” Benes said of Sony. “Instead, they profit off other legacy companies trying to compete with the new kids. They license the hell out of ‘Spider-Man’ for good reason.”

Sony had dabbled in streaming in 2015 with a service called PlayStation Vue. It also owned an even older platform, Crackle, which it sold in 2019 to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. (Crackle never accrued a serious subscriber count or received a significant investment in original content.) 

In late 2019, Sony revealed it would shut down PlayStation Vue to focus on its core gaming business. It cited a “highly competitive” industry and “expensive content and network deals” that had been “slower to change” than expected. Since then, the studio has said it does not plan to create a general entertainment streaming service, though Sony does control the anime-focused streamer Crunchyroll through a joint venture with Japan’s Aniplex. Crunchyroll has over 13 million subscribers and has been described as a “top growth area” for Sony Pictures, according to CEO Tony Vinciquerra. 

In April of 2021, Sony doubled down on its strategy by striking a deal with Netflix to release the studio’s theatrical titles on the streaming service six months after they hit the big screen. As other studios began building their streaming plans, “It did become clear at a certain point that many companies were going to lose many billions of dollars beating each other’s brains out,” Sony Pictures’ Motion Pictures Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman told The Wall Street Journal.

Big Tech got in the streaming game as well, but with different motivations. Looking for another way to market their consumer products and later seeking Hollywood prestige, Apple launched SVOD streamer Apple TV+ in 2019, and Amazon continued to expand its video-on-demand offering, which started in 2006 in the U.S. as Amazon Unbox. In 2011, the service became a perk for Prime members, offering access to 5,000 movies and TV shows, and it later was rebranded as Prime Video.

Currently, Prime Video boasts 200 million monthly viewers, including 115 million in the United States. The tech giant has not reported the streamer’s metrics on a quarterly basis. But Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in February that the company has “increasing conviction that Prime Video can be a large and profitable business on its own.” AppleTV+ has offered no insight into its profitability or subscriber figures — Apple lumps it in the results of its services division.

Project Popcorn and the post-pandemic theatrical shift

In 2021, after the pandemic had shuttered theaters throughout the world for the better part of a year, it wasn’t clear that the theatrical industry could recover. 

Complicating matters, China, the second-largest market for American films, continued to scale back on the number of U.S. films it exhibits in theaters to prioritize its growing local film output. In 2019, U.S. films earned $3.3 billion at the Chinese box office, or a 36% share. That plummeted to $1.2 billion, or about 16%, in 2023, Sony noted in a presentation.

Each studio took a significantly different approach to how it released films, resulting in a wide range of strategies. In December 2020, then-CEO of WarnerMedia Jason Kilar abruptly dumped the studios’ traditional movie release strategy, moving instead to release all 17 of Warner’s 2021 theatrical films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. The strategy was dubbed “Project Popcorn,” and it was partly viewed as a temporary but necessary move because of the uncertainty inflicted on the theatrical market by COVID-19.

But it was also a choice that suggested Kilar was moving Warner decisively into a digital future that sacrificed current-day revenue for future state streaming profits, and it rankled top talent like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve in the process.

Universal deployed a dynamic windowing strategy and deals with movie theaters that continues to this day, and it has also leaned into Premium Video On Demand (PVOD).

Disney’s plan has been to release films on digital rental roughly 60 days after their release in theaters, followed by a release on Disney+ about 100 days after theatrical release. It started with the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in theaters in December 2022, one month after the ousting of Bob Chapek as CEO. 

Before the pandemic, Chapek experimented with day-and-date PVOD releases on films like “Mulan” and full pivots from theatrical to streaming-exclusive titles like Pixar’s “Luca” and “Turning Red.” Except for Disney subsidiary Searchlight Pictures, the studio has for nearly a decade focused almost entirely on big-budget films with production price tags of $200 million or more. 

Insiders at Disney say that current CEO Bob Iger sided with executives in the company that favored a renewed dedication to theatrical with firm windows, seeing that model as the key to turning its films into franchises that spawn years of downstream ancillary and theme park revenue.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Universal, with a more varied slate of films in terms of genre and budget size, has made PVOD a significant element of its theatrical strategy since the studio pulled “Trolls: World Tour” out of theaters in the early days of the pandemic. Universal settled a dispute with AMC Theaters with a windowing deal, later signed by other theater chains, that gave the studio the option to release a film on PVOD as early as 17 days after theatrical release if the domestic opening weekend earns less than $50 million. If it clears that mark, the PVOD window extends to 31 days. 

The impact such PVOD windows have had on the box office has been debated. Films that get released on PVOD at the 17-day mark, like the recent flop “The Fall Guy,” are not seeing a major drop in theatrical revenue afterwards. Still, some exhibitors who spoke to TheWrap said they’re concerned that the practice may train audiences to expect that certain films, even at a premium price, will be available in their living rooms faster — and that may factor into their decision on how they see an upcoming film that interests them. 

“My worry is that if there’s another film like ‘Fall Guy’ that isn’t a sequel but is getting good reviews, they’ll think, ‘Well, it will probably come out at home in a couple of weeks’ and then they’ll see it that way, maybe with some friends,’” said one theater executive who spoke anonymously. “The theaters get a cut of that, but we lose out on any concessions they would have bought.” 

Insiders at Universal say that “optionality” is at the core of their strategy. They continue to orient the marketing strategies for all their films around encouraging audiences to see them on the big screen, while maximizing potential revenue among those more disinclined to buy tickets than before the pandemic.

Three years later, the differences between studios’ strategies aren’t as stark. There’s widespread agreement that day-and-date doesn’t work and that the box office needs to be rebuilt. But there’s also a general consensus that the moviegoing habits that helped push the domestic box office to $11 billion per year in the 2010s aren’t coming back. 

How exactly to work around those new habits is something the major industry players can’t agree on, because the gaps in theatrical output caused by the pandemic and the double strikes have muddled the data. 

The path forward

Most of the streamers have yet to reach profitability in even one quarter, let alone two in a row. To try to turn those businesses around, the studios have been cutting costs by laying off workers and removing content from the platforms. 

Warner Bros. Discovery reported an $86 million profit in its direct-to-consumer business in its latest quarter, though that included traditional HBO cable subscriptions in the results. WBD is targeting $1 billion of streaming profit in 2025. Disney has said it’s on track to reach streaming profitability by the end of fiscal year 2024. Paramount is aiming for domestic profitability in fiscal 2025. Peacock has offered no timeline.

Further exacerbating these challenges are heavy debt loads and tumbling stock prices. Disney, with a market cap of $176.9 billion, has seen shares climb 10% in the past year, but fall 31% over the past five years. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, which has a market cap of $17.9 billion, have plunged 43% in the past year and 70% since the April 2022 merger. Comcast, owner of NBCUniversal, has a market cap of $147.2 billion, and has watched its stock slip 10% in the past year and 15% in the past five years. And shares of Paramount, which has a market cap of $8.1 billion, have fallen 29% in the past year and 78% in the past five years.

By comparison, Netflix shares have soared 55% in the past year and 83% over the past five years. The company’s market capitalization sits at $295.5 billion, up two-and-a-half times from 2018. Netflix has $13.2 billion in long-term debt, compared to Paramount’s $14.6 billion, Warner’s $39.1 billion, Disney’s $39.5 billion and Comcast’s $94 billion.

Even for Netflix, the road to streaming success has delivered some speed bumps. In April of 2022, Netflix’s first sequential loss of subscribers in over a decade sank its stock to its lowest levels in more than four years — flashing how tenuous streaming viability appeared to Wall Street.

Lately, Netflix’s competitors have been hiking subscription prices, licensing more content and opting to team up through bundles — or offering their streaming services through deals with pay TV providers like Spectrum owner Charter Communications or telecoms like Verizon or T-Mobile. 

Peacock, Apple TV+ and Netflix will be made available through Comcast’s StreamSaver bundle, while Disney+, Hulu and Max are teaming up for a bundle launching this summer. Paramount’s new co-CEOs have said they are in talks with other streamers and technology platforms — including WBD’s Max, according to CNBC — about packaging struggling Paramount+ in a joint venture or strategic partnership.

A recent spurt of theatrical grosses from two animated films won’t totally alter an expected down year at the box office in 2024. But next year a horde of big films will give Hollywood more data to finally understand whether the new lower box office is the new normal — or just a blip on history.

Pachter, for one, believes that even as they continue to chase Netflix’s tail, the major studios could still opt to dramatically change course. He suggested they create a three-year window for streaming, put only catalog TV and older movies on their streaming platforms, and maintain the theatrical and broadcast windows. 

“We’ve reached a point of no return for studio heads to understand this, as they are hopelessly clueless,” Pachter said, “but a new generation of studio leadership can salvage this.”

The post Hollywood’s Pivot to Streaming 5 Years On: Fatal Error – or Key to Survival? appeared first on TheWrap.

Eddie Murphy’s “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” debuted as Netflix’s most-watched title of the week.

After arriving on the streamer on July 3, the action-comedy scored a whopping 41 million views during the week of July 1, ranking as both the most-watched title and movie of the week as it reached the Top 10 list in 93 countries.

“Axel F” booted “A Family Affair” out from the top spot on the English films list, with the Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and Joey King-led flick scoring the No. 2 spot on the list this week with 31.9 million views, up from the 26.8 million views brought in during its first week on Netflix last week. Third place on the English films list went to Jessica Alba’s “Trigger Warning,” which hit 8 million views in its third week on the list.

After dominating the non-English film chart in early June, French thriller “Under Paris” — which depicts a giant shark making the Seine river its home — regained popularity ahead of the Paris Olympics. The flick moved up from the No. 4 spot to No. 3 on the most popular non-English films list ever with 88.2 million views to date, just behind “Troll” with 103 million views and “Society of the Snow” with 98.5 million views.

“Under Paris” jumped back up to become the most-watched non-English movie of the week with 3.6 million views in its fifth week on the list, surpassing the 3.2 million views brought in by Argentinian film “Goyo” and Indian drama “Maharaj,” which sat in the second and third spots on the non-English list this week, respectively.

“Bridgerton” Season 3 also saw some movement on the most popular English TV list, with the newest installment now standing as the No. 8 most-watched TV show on the streamer with 95.8 million views to date. “Bridgerton” Season 3 outpaced both “Bridgerton” Season 2, which sits in the No. 10 spot on the list with 93.8 million views, as well as “Stranger Things” Season 3, which took the No. 9 spot with 94.8 million views to date.

After months of “Bridgerton” hype across Season 3’s two-part release in May and June, viewership Season 3 fell slightly with 4 million views this week, positioning Season 3 in the No. 4 spot on the week’s most-watched English TV shows. Instead, “Supacell” scored the top spot on the list with 11.8 million views, while limited series “The Man With 1000 Kids” came in second place with 6.6 million views and “Worst Roommate Ever” took third place with 5.4 million views.

The post Eddie Murphy’s ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’ Debuts as Most-Watched Netflix Title of the Week With 41 Million Views appeared first on TheWrap.