DIS Shareholders and Stock Info ONLY

[wabbott]

This story has DIS fingerprints all over it. When it comes to media self-promotion, they are as good as it gets.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/disney-box-office-billion-dollar-mark-avatar-2-1235528694/

Feb 19, 2023 12:35pm PST
‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ ‘Ant-Man 3’ Boost Disney to $1 Billion at Global Box Office in 2023
By Rebecca Rubin

Disney’s box office domination has started early in 2023. Six weeks into the new year, the studio has already cleared $1 billion globally, with ticket sales at $1.283 billion to date. It can take other major studios up to 12 months to hit that benchmark.

Thanks to the combined turnout for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” and the international re-release of “Titanic,” Disney’s 2023 box office tally stands at $383 domestically and $900 million internationally.

James Cameron’s enduring “Avatar” sequel is the main reason that Disney has surpassed $1 billion faster than its rivals. Over the weekend, “The Way of Water” reached a staggering $2.2433 billion worldwide, enough to overtake “Titanic” ($2.2428 billion) as the third-highest grossing movie of all time. Also during the President’s Day holiday frame, the third “Ant-Man” adventure opened across the globe, performing above expectations with $225 million worldwide.

It’s likely the first of many billions for Disney in 2023. Other blockbuster-hopefuls on the calendar include “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” (May 5), “The Little Mermaid” remake (May 26), Pixar’s “Elemental” (June 16), Harrison Ford’s return in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (June 30) and “The Marvels” (Nov. 10), among others.

But overall, the box office has yet to fully rebound from the pandemic. Before COVID, Disney broke records by generating $7 billion in 2016 and again in 2018. Then in 2019, it obliterated its own benchmark with $11.12 billion, by far the biggest collective result in history by a single studio. In that year, Disney had seven movies gross at least $1 billion.

By comparison, Disney ended 2022 with $4.9 billion at the global box office, including $2 billion domestically and $2.9 billion internationally. “Avatar: The Way of Water” has been Disney’s only pandemic-era release to power to the billion-dollar mark.

“Disney was coming off such a historic run of box office years that even without the pandemic or streaming-intense strategies, it would have been a challenge to duplicate” says Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at BoxOfficePro. “Nevertheless, this is an encouraging start to 2023. It will still take some time, but this may be the beginning of an important turnaround for the biggest studio in the world.”

 

[wabbott]

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/content-cuts-loom-at-disney-india-unit-11676915884985.html

Content cuts loom at Disney India unit​

20 Feb 2023, 11:55 PM IST Lata Jha

Walt Disney’s worldwide cost cuts may prompt its Indian streaming service Disney+ Hotstar to produce fewer originals and focus on regional content, at a time it has lost digital rights for the Indian Premier League tournaments. The company also hasn’t renewed its content deal with HBO, due to which shows like Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon will no longer be available for Indian viewers.

Challenges will arise from the imminent loss of subscribers due to loss of IPL rights, and price hikes not being possible since the tournament is streaming for free on a rival platform.

The company could also see some channel consolidation in the linear television space, over the next year or so, as the pay TV market shrinks.

“It is clear that a certain cost consciousness will come in internationally and will ultimately flow to India. The issue though is that digital hasn’t really taken off versus linear platforms in India and while Disney+ Hotstar is big in the country, it is low on ARPUs (average revenue per user)," said Anuj Gandhi, media analyst and founder of Plug and Play Entertainment, a media tech start-up.

Gandhi was quick to point though that these are pressures faced by all players, where tech costs are killing the business and eating into profits. “Disney is at the forefront of it. But then there are aggressive players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to compete with, and the company has already lost the IPL rights," Gandhi said. Disney India declined to comment on Mint’s queries on possible implications of the global restructuring.

Average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney+ Hotstar was at $0.74 in the December quarter, according to an earnings release. Bob Iger, who was reappointed chief executive of Disney last November, said during an earnings call that the company is targeting $5.5 billion of cost savings, including $3 billion on the content side.

Some industry experts say restructuring was necessary with the loss of the IPL that used to bring 70% of its India revenues. “The move seems to be in line with new developments. They should also not be looking at acquiring movies at hefty costs anymore and instead work with box office benchmarks. The focus on profitability should mean fewer shows and cuts on large Hindi series, while the regional pie continues to grow," said Karan Taurani, senior vice-president at Elara Capital Ltd. He added that the streaming service should lose about 30% of its older subscribers by June as eyeballs shift to the IPL on Reliance-owned platforms, but then, things should stabilize and bring in some new users depending on other content available. JioCinema is likely to reach 550 million consumers during the upcoming IPL.

A senior executive at a rival streaming platform said on condition of anonymity that Disney India should be looking at strengthening its AVoD (advertising video-on-demand) strategy. This could mean more weekly episodes, free content and more appointment-based programming, which was the idea behind live sports, the person said.

Iger had also emphasized that the company’s priority is the enduring growth and profitability of its streaming business.

“We will aggressively curate our general entertainment content, reassess all markets we have launched in and also determine the right balance between global and local content. We’ll adjust our pricing strategy, including a full examination of our promotional strategies and fine-tune our advertising initiatives on all streaming platforms. We will improve our marketing, better balancing platform and program marketing while also leveraging our legacy distribution platforms for marketing and programming," he had said.

 

[clarker99]

Ant-Man with over $100m domestically is huge. Did not see that coming. Saw it over the weekend Nothing life changing but I enjoyed and seems like a nice stepping stone for the new MCU phase.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ant-man-and-wasp-quantumania-marvel-1235330062/

‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Delivers Cautionary Box Office Win for Marvel Studios
The threequel opened notably ahead of the first two entries in the standalone series, but continues a recent trend of lower audience CinemaScores for MCU projects after a straight-A winning streak spanning 21 movies.

By Pamela McClintock
February 21, 2023 12:10pm

Director Peyton Reeds’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania certainly didn’t disappoint in its domestic box debut, with the film flying to a four-day opening of $120 million, one of the best showings ever for the Presidents Day holiday and by far the biggest start for Marvel’s low-key franchise.

Yet the third installment of the Paul Rudd-Evangeline Lilly series is still a cautionary win for Marvel Studios and Disney, which are at a critical juncture as Marvel kicks off Phase 5, and conquering hero Bob Iger returns as Walt Disney Co. CEO. With a 47 percent rating, the film is tied with Eternals (2021) for Marvel’s lowest Rotten Tomatoes score, and perhaps more telling, it earned a B CinemaScore from audiences, one of the few Marvel titles to do so.

Since the first Iron Man ushered in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios has been the envy of Hollywood. The MCU is the highest-grossing film franchise of all time with more than $28.5 billion in worldwide ticket sales, led by the marquee Avengers franchise.

Through the years, MCU movies have almost always drawn glowing CinemaScore grades from audiences, with nearly 70 percent of titles earning an A CinemaScore from audiences, or some variation thereof (A+, A and A-).

That has been changing in recent years. Of the five films with a B or a B+ (none have earned a B- or below) four are among Marvel’s most recent six pics. Among the recent batch, Quantumania and Eternals rank lowest with a B, while 2022 entries Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness each received a B+. (The first Ant-Man earned an A CinemaScore and the second received an A-.)

The fifth MCU movie to earn a CinemaScore in the B range was 2011’s Thor (B+). Put another way, the next 21 MCU films following Thor all landed in the A category.

It’s a concerning stat that comes after Marvel released a head-spinning 18 projects theatrically and on streaming during Phase 4, which spanned 2021-22.

“You have to start worrying about Marvel franchise fatigue,” says one rival studio executive.

As Phase 5 begins in earnest, Marvel is taking steps to slow down its output, pushing The Marvels out of summer and into November, and spreading out its TV shows. Next up is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, due out May 2.

CinemaScore is old-guard in that the Las Vegas-based company polls select theaters across the country on a Friday night, but the score is still monitored carefully by Hollywood studios. PostTrak, a more recent invention, polls a hundreds of cinemas across the country. Ant-Man 3 did receive solid exit scores on PostTrak, according to those with access to the data. And its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is in par with the first two films, or 80 percent, compared to 84 percent for the first installment and 85 percent for the second.

The big test will be to see how much the film drops in its second weekend. Last summer, Thor: Love and Thunder fell nearly 68 percent after drawing a B+ CinemaScore.

ComScore box office analyst Paul Dergarbedian notes the Marvel brand still holds a lot of sway “despite the many protestations about the execution of Phase 4,” and that fans wanted “to see the first step on the path for Phase 5 and hopes for even better and bigger things to come for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

The marketing for Quantumania focused on Jonathan Majors’ villain Kang, inviting audiences to “witness the beginning of a new dynasty” — a nod to the Kang-focused Avengers: The Kang Dynasty that is dated for May 2, 2025. Majors was considered a highlight of the film, winning over audiences and critics.

A fourth installment of Ant-Man isn’t out of the question, and even rival studio execs think Ant-Man 3 could approach $700 million globally (one sore spot is China, where it got off to a dismal start with $19.2 million). In 2015, the first Ant-Man launched to $57.2 million domestically over its first three-day weekend — the lowest start of any MCU offering — on its way to earning $519.3 million globally. Three years later, Ant-Man and the Wasp started off with $75.8 million in North America before topping out at $622.7 million worldwide. Quantumania’s three-day haul was $105.5 million, a nearly 40 percent jump from its predecessor.

While Quantumania may not have hit with critics, the turnout suggests that poor reviews did not hamper attendance.

“While critical success is great to have, it’s a secondary factor compared to what the broader consumer base paying for movie tickets thinks,” says chief analyst Shawn Robbins of Boxoffice pro. “That’s perhaps more true for a movie like this, which appeals to families.”

 

[clarker99]

“You have to start worrying about Marvel franchise fatigue,” says one rival studio executive.

The latest Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Thor and now Ant-Man all did better than their previous releases. Black Panther is the only sequel post-pandemic to not make more money than the original (Black Panther 1 went supernova domestically).

Instead of it being fatigue, we are actually seeing higher box office for the MCU than we seen before the Infinity War/End Game crescendo.

Plus, how many forget that it took 22 episodes to tell the Infinity Saga? The MCU is a long game plan. Also, I trust Kevin Feige.

EDIT: I did some looking and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Thor 4 and Dr. Strange 2 all put up darn good numbers and none of those films opened in China. Black Panther 2 only opened in China on Feb 7. Anyone stating the MCU is slowing in momentum isnt paying attention.

Thor Ragnorak did $112m in China
Spidy Far From Home did $199m
Dr. Strange did $109m
Black Panther did $105m
*All numbers taken from Box Office Mojo

And we havent even got to the Fantastic 4 or X-Men yet. Lol.

 

[bryaalre]

The latest Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Thor and now Ant-Man all did better than their previous releases. Black Panther is the only sequel post-pandemic to not make more money than the original (Black Panther 1 went supernova domestically).

Instead of it being fatigue, we are actually seeing higher box office for the MCU than we seen before the Infinity War/End Game crescendo.

Plus, how many forget that it took 22 episodes to tell the Infinity Saga? The MCU is a long game plan. Also, I trust Kevin Feige.

EDIT: I did some looking and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Thor 4 and Dr. Strange 2 all put up darn good numbers and none of those films opened in China. Black Panther 2 only opened in China on Feb 7. Anyone stating the MCU is slowing in momentum isnt paying attention.

Thor Ragnorak did $112m in China
Spidy Far From Home did $199m
Dr. Strange did $109m
Black Panther did $105m
*All numbers taken from Box Office Mojo

And we havent even got to the Fantastic 4 or X-Men yet. Lol.

Marvel phase 4 and now phase 5 when compared to phase 3 is under performing. Obviously, phase 3 was amazing and it was expected to pull back from those level but the biggest concern for people should be not just the quality but also the budgets on these movies.

Thor Love and Thunder did out perform its predecessor (when factoring out China and Russia) but also cost $70M more to make, a 40% increase.

Black Panther went down considerably but cost an estimated $50M more, 25% increase.

Depending on how Ant Man holds this weekend, it may not pass the previous movie and it cost an estimated $40M more to make, 25% increase.

Black Widow, Shang Chi and Eternals all cost somewhere near $200M but have so many variables at release that its impossible to make an accurate assessment about them.

Spider Man and Doctor Strange have been the 2 bright spots of the MCU since phase 3 ended but the profits that the MCU had been enjoying have contracted quite a bit.

To my other point about quality, the MCU did not have a rotten movie on rotten tomato until Eternals and now has 2 when including ant man. On top of that, the audience cinema score, had only once in 25 movies dipped below A- before eternals (the first Thor at B+). Now we have 4 of the last 6 MCU movies in the B range.

I fully expect Guardians 3 to be reviewed well and believe it will do better than Guardians 2 at the box office. But, The Marvels will certainly dipped a large amount for Captain Marvel.

Marvel needs to re focus on quality and reign in these budgets. The movies are performing box office wise like phase 2 but have budgets that dwarf everything besides avengers level movies.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...op-international-password-sharing-1235332333/

Streaming Services Are Raising Prices, So Why Is Netflix Dropping Them in 100-Plus Markets?​

This service's price drop affects "more than 10 million," or more than 4 percent of the company's more than 230 million subscribers as of the end of 2022, Ampere Analysis estimated.

By Georg Szalai
February 23, 2023 6:43am PST

As Hollywood giants focus on making their streaming businesses profitable, they have started raising the subscription prices for the likes of Disney+ and HBO Max. In contrast, streaming giant Netflix is dropping some of its prices in more than 100 international markets.

“Effective immediately Netflix is to drop monthly subscription pricing in more than 100 territories globally,” but not in North America and Western Europe where average revenue per user is higher, Ampere Analysis research manager Toby Holleran wrote on Wednesday. “The SVOD incumbent’s basic tier will record the highest percentage drop across a large number of territories. These territories, which span Central and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the Asia Pacific regions will see discounts for the basic tier range from 20 percent to nearly 60 percent, with the price drop kicking in instantly for new and existing subscribers.”

This Netflix price drop affects “more than 10 million,” or more than 4 percent of the company’s more than 230 million subscribers as of the end of 2022, the expert estimated.

While Netflix didn’t unveil the pricing changes in a big announcement, it communicated them locally. “Starting today, our Basic Plan in Malaysia is now RM28 per month for both new and existing members,” the streamer tweeted in that country, for example. The 28 Malaysian Ringgit ($6.32) is down from 35 Ringgit ($7.90) previously.

Netflix executives have also signaled in recent years that the streamer would be flexible on pricing to ensure the company’s service remains accessible to various types of consumers while management looks to optimize returns.

Ampere compared Netflix’s current pricing to its pricing at the end of January to identify the changes across markets. “From our research, it seems that a batch of price drops occurred across the Americas and Central and Eastern Europe last week, with the Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and Africa price drops occurring this week,” the firm explained.

Not all standard tier subscribers in markets receiving a discount to the basic tier will also get their price reduced. “Subscribers in Vietnam and Malaysia will miss out, whilst the remainder will receive discounts ranging from 13 percent (just in the Philippines) to almost 50 percent,” Holleran noted. And the Philippines joins Vietnam and Malaysia in receiving no price cut to the premium tier, while “all other discounted markets will receive a price drop of between 17 percent and 43 percent.”

But why is the streaming pioneer going counter to broader market trends? It surely doesn’t hurt that Netflix has been profitable, with its net income reaching $4.49 billion in 2022 after $5.12 billion in 2021. The move should also help soften the blow of the company’s rollout of its password-sharing crackdown, as well as high inflation that has hit consumers worldwide and the strong dollar that has affected users in territories where the streamer’s prices are dollar-based.

“These price drops potentially cancel out the extra cost to subscribers currently sharing accounts,” Holleran explained. “While this move will have a negative average revenue per user (ARPU) impact on Netflix in these emerging markets, it could drive subscriber additions amongst consumers yet to take the service.”

And he highlighted that “in many markets where the standard tier of Netflix has been discounted, the new price has been aligned to previous basic tier pricing.” What does that mean? “This essentially positions the discount as a free upgrade from basic to standard. This upgrade increases the resolution … and allows two concurrent streams. These markets include Indonesia, Egypt, Ecuador, Morocco and Croatia.”

Asked about the drivers behind the pricing changes, Holleran told The Hollywood Reporter: “High inflation will play a part, and more recently the strong U.S. dollar in many of the markets where Netflix pricing is presented in U.S. dollars – some countries could see a significant increase in cost in local currency terms, making a subscription less appealing and perhaps leading to churn.”

He also explained. “Virtually all of the markets where the price drop occurred are emerging markets, so this may serve as a means to drive subscriber growth — if Netflix drops its price by 20 percent, but it results in a 30 percent increase in subscribers, that is a net positive from a revenue perspective. It could also drive up potential eyeballs for Netflix moving forward, which could have it well positioned if it chooses to launch the ad-supported tier down the line.”

Enders Analysis’ Tom Harrington described the price changes as the next evolution for Netflix’s pricing following the launch of cheap mobile-only plans in some international markets. “It’s the next step in creating a nuanced, bespoke approach to pricing on a country-by-country basis – a far cry from how the product was pitched after the global rollout stage, where in many countries it was extremely expensive, uncompetitive against very cheap local streamers and only accessible by (their words) ‘western-oriented elites’,” he told THR.

“This is an admission that their pricing power in many locations is weaker than in the biggest markets,” he argued. “This move does chafe with Netflix’s attempts to redefine their corporate narrative with new metrics – they haven’t given up on subscriber growth just yet.” But it also shows that Netflix executives now have “a much more complete understanding of the propensity to buy and the needs of each of these markets, as well as how their different tiers work with and against each other.”

The expert expects the price changes to have been configured market-by-market with the “aim for subscriber growth” while avoiding as much as possible a “spin-down in tiers and ARPU decline of existing customers.” Concluded Harrington: “We would expect overall ARPU to be generally protected, i.e. countries with the biggest reductions will be those with the smallest customer bases on the affected tiers and the least likely to spin down.”

Ampere listed the territories that have seen Netflix drop its prices like this: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Botswana, British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Christmas Island, Comoros, Congo – Brazzaville, Congo – Kinshasa, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Palestinian Territories, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Pitcairn Islands, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé & Príncipe, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St. Barthélemy, St. Helena, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Wallis & Futuna, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/netfli...-over-30-countries-ae6d047c?mod=djemalertNEWS​

Netflix Cuts Subscription Prices in Over 30 Countries​

Move comes as streaming company says members ‘have never had more choices when it comes to entertainment’​

By Sarah Krouse
Feb. 23, 2023 7:43 am EST

Netflix Inc. NFLX -4.25% has reduced the cost of its service in more than three dozen countries in recent weeks, as it tries to appeal to customers around the world who have an ever-growing list of streaming options.

The streaming company’s recent price cuts span Middle Eastern countries including Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran; sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya; and European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

In Latin America, nations including Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela have seen reductions in subscription costs, as have parts of Asia including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The cuts apply to certain tiers of Netflix in those markets—in some cases halving the cost of a subscription.

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Major streaming services have spent recent quarters touting the value that they deliver to consumers relative to the monthly fee they charge, and several have raised prices in the U.S. in recent months.

“It definitely goes against the recent trends not just for Netflix, but for the broader streaming industry,” John Hodulik, a media and entertainment analyst at UBS Group AG, said of Netflix’s recent price cuts. “Some of these cuts on a percentage basis are substantial,” he said.

As recently as last month, Netflix executives talked about raising—not lowering—prices. In a January earnings call, co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company is looking for places where they can afford to raise prices, which feeds continued content investments.

“We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good,” Mr. Peters said.

Netflix also has an opportunity to add new subscribers in markets where it doesn’t currently have a large share, he said.

Netflix’s price changes are a sign that big streamers are still grappling with what pricing will deliver the best combination of subscriber growth and revenue abroad. Consumers can choose between local cable providers, regional streaming services and big global platforms. Big players including Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s HBO Max and Paramount Global’s Paramount+ are all expanding overseas.

“We know members have never had more choices when it comes to entertainment,” and the company is committed to delivering an experience that exceeds their expectations, a Netflix spokeswoman said. She said the company was updating the pricing of plans in some countries.

Netflix operates in more than 190 countries and territories, and has spent much of the last year adapting to growing competition and changing viewing habits as consumers returned to commutes, travel and other activities that the pandemic put on hold.

The company worked to cut costs and enact two major strategic shifts: Creating a lower-price ad-supported plan and requiring subscribers who want to share their accounts with someone outside of their household to pay more to do so.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company added subscribers in each of the four regions for which it reports results in the final quarter of 2022, but its global average revenue per user declined to $11.49 in the final quarter of 2022, from $11.74 a year earlier.

Netflix earlier this month rolled out the new sharing restrictions in countries such as Canada and Spain, and said it plans to roll those changes out more broadly in the coming months.

Executives have said they know that enforcing the sharing limits will be unpopular and may cause some people to cancel their accounts, though it hopes to win them back with hit content.

Netflix has lowered the price of its service in the past, particularly when it faced tough competition or wanted to add users faster. For example, it cut the price of subscriptions in India in 2021, after initially targeting more affluent users there with pricey plans.

Write to Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com

 

[wabbott]

RivShore writing under a pseudonym?

https://puck.news/what-if-disneys-fox-deal-wasnt-so-terrible/

What If Disney’s Fox Deal Wasn’t So Terrible?​

Matthew Belloni 2/23/23

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It’s funny how narratives develop in Hollywood. I was at a dinner this week with a few producers, when the topic turned to Disney, as it often does these days. One of them was quick to note, “The Fox deal—disaster, right?” At the table, it seemed obvious. Of course it was a disaster.

Was it, though? It’s true that Disney’s pricey acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox was premised on the 2017 streaming video landscape, where infinite content promised infinite growth. In March of 2019, when the deal finally closed, C.E.O. Bob Iger, then ramping up for the launch of Disney+, emailed employees that the Fox assets would help Disney “reach farther and aim higher—especially when it comes to building direct connections with consumers.” And it definitely did. Feel free to fight me on this, but I don’t think Disney+, a service that debuted with exactly one original show, would have notched 100 million subscribers in just 16 months without all that Fox content. By comparison, Netflix needed 10 years and more than $100 billion to cross 100 million subs.

We seem to have forgotten that. These days, moderation and discipline in spending are the north stars, at least at the for-profit entertainment companies—meaning not Amazon or Apple. These are the tenets that led investor Nelson Peltz, at the height of his recent megaphoning over Disney’s costs, to roast Iger’s “poor judgment” for “materially overpaying for the Fox assets.” Thanks to Comcast C.E.O. Brian Roberts, the initial $52.4 billion all-stock deal that Iger struck with Rupert Murdoch over wine at the latter’s Moraga Estate winery was run up to $71.3 billion, plus almost $14 billion in Fox debt. Waaaay too much, Peltz argued. “Fox hurt this company,” he barked on CNBC. “Fox took the dividend away. Fox turned what was once a pristine balance sheet into a mess.”

Peltz never really explained why the price was too much—especially when considering the long term value of top-tier Fox assets like FX, Avatar, and The Simpsons—and it quickly became clear that his real motive in making noise wasn’t to re-litigate a four-year-old transaction but rather to grease the return of that cherished dividend, which eventually came to fruition. But now the Fox narrative seems to have lingered, from Wall Street all the way down to my lunches and dinners. Cowan and Co. analyst Doug Creutz even connected the Fox deal to Disney’s recent announcement of $5.5 billion in cuts, 7,000 layoffs, and the demise of the DMED unit, telling the L.A. Times this week, “they’d be in a much better position, financially, without all of this debt sitting on their balance sheet. And they would not have needed as big of a reorganization.”

The Bull Case on Fox​

Maybe. There’s a lot going on in the entertainment economy that led to Disney’s cutbacks. But Iger didn’t do his cause any favors by telling David Faber on CNBC recently that he’s “concerned about undifferentiated general entertainment.” Sure, he might have just been trying to lowball Comcast for the eventual Hulu buyout in 2024. But if Bob is so nervous about the landscape for non-branded and non-family content, the thinking goes, why did he pay through Mickey’s nose for a company that specialized in exactly that? A fair point.

Still, it’s worth considering the bull case on Fox. First, it wasn’t actually a $71.3 billion deal. Disney, thanks to its ownership of ESPN, was forced by the government to immediately flip the Fox regional sports networks to a sucker—sorry, to Sinclair, the local TV station owner, which agreed to pay $10.6 billion for the largest collection of RSNs, an asset of such declining value that Diamond Sports, the company Sinclair created to hold the RSN assets, just missed a debt interest payment and is preparing to go bankrupt. I discussed this alarming situation today with analyst Brandon Ross on my podcast, The Town, and he thinks those RSNs may actually be worth close to nothing eventually, so good for Disney. Plus, Comcast then paid Disney $15 billion for Fox’s ownership stake in the European broadcast service Sky.

The jury’s still out on that deal, but the cash further helped alleviate sticker shock.

Taken together, Disney now places the cost of the Fox deal at $57 billion, for which the company took on about $25 billion in debt. It’s never great to lever up like that, and $25 billion is a lot of Disneyland churros, but for a company with a 2019 market cap of more than $250 billion, Disney wasn’t really considered overleveraged. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and then-C.E.O. Bob Chapek was forced to, you know, keep the lights on. As of the most recent quarter, Disney’s debt had grown to $45 billion, per company filings. Nearly double the churros, a reality that certainly puts the Fox transaction in a different light. But as my Puck partner Bill Cohan has explained, Disney’s debt obligation is not as distressing as the nearly $50 billion owed by Warner Bros. Discovery, a much smaller company with much less free cash flow.

That’s the downside. The upside has sort of been underplayed, in my opinion. Before the Fox deal, Disney had a good TV business with ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, and a few other networks in the U.S. and abroad, plus a studio that largely supplied its own outlets. But Disney had nothing like FX in terms of quality, and the 20th Television studio was far more prolific than, say, ABC’s studio, producing different types of shows and selling to multiple buyers. Plus, Disney got A-level TV executives Dana Walden, John Landgraf, Peter Rice (until Chapek stupidly fired him), and others. When Iger acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006 money, much was made of animation geniuses John Lasseter and Ed Catmull joining Disney and eventually revitalizing its lagging studio. Same with Kevin Feige in the $4 billion Marvel deal. Executives matter, and those Fox people have brought a lot, especially as Disney board chair Mark Parker tries to figure out who the heck might succeed Iger.

I’ll admit that the movies are still a bit of an open question. If you remember back in summer 2019, after Fox flops like X-Men: Dark Phoenix were blamed for dragging down earnings, Iger was forced to defend the Fox assets as a “short-term” problem. Four years later, with the exception of Avatar: The Way of Water and Free Guy, 20th Century still hasn’t delivered a big, Disney-style hit at the box office, and there have been tons more flops (Amsterdam, The Last Duel, West Side Story). Iger got mostly out of the non-I.P. movie business in the early 2010s for a reason, and that business is even more challenged now. If the appetite for mid-range movies on streaming is more limited post-Great Netflix Correction, where does that leave 20th Century? Though Iger does like winning awards, and the Searchlight film division still consistently does that.

Another thing Iger likes: franchises. Avatar 2 isn’t just a $2.2 billion-grossing movie. It will print money for a decade or more: the sequels, a new Disneyland attraction, and, perhaps most important, the full attention of Jim Cameron, the most successful film director of all time. The Simpsons isn’t just a great asset, it was the 15th most-streamed of all shows in 2022, according to Nielsen, with 15.9 billion total minutes. Family Guy, Modern Family, Bob’s Burgers, all the Nat Geo stuff, Home Alone, the Apes movies, Ice Age, etc. A lot of the stuff that makes Disney+ and Hulu compelling. And even if the strategy shifts from streaming nearly the full library to windowing it for off-platform monetization, those assets are still super valuable, and will be for a long time.

Plus, Feige is only starting to leverage Fox’s Marvel characters, like Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and X-Men, a potential treasure trove on its own. Last year’s Prey, a reboot of Fox’s Predator property, was a hit on Hulu. None of this should be news to Disney-watchers, it’s just weird how the analysts and investors often undervalue both the existing hits and the library that hasn’t been exploited yet.

The Hulu Question​

It’s true that Hulu, which Disney controls thanks to the Fox deal, is an enigma. It’s a great service with nearly 50 million subscribers and content that is differentiated from Disney+. But it’s U.S. only, expensive to populate, and there’s no real reason for it to exist as a stand-alone product when its content could be migrated over to Disney+. That’s why Iger has put “everything on the table” for Hulu. But even if it’s sold to Comcast or another buyer, that would be a big cash infusion that could be used to pay down that debt—and further justify the cost of all the Fox stuff that isn’t being sold.
In the grand scheme, even with all the challenges Disney faces, the issue of what to do with the Fox assets is a good problem to have. “Would Trian have preferred that a competitor own Fox?” Disney asked Peltz and his firm in its response deck. Exactly. Disney is now pretty much the only traditional entertainment company with the ability to actually compete with Netflix, and it can think long-term. That’s thanks in part to Fox. The only question now is whether that’s what Iger wants.

I hesitate to quote Jason Kilar, the former WarnerMedia C.E.O., whose all-in-on-streaming approach feels as dated these days as a trucker hat, but he succinctly framed the dilemma to the L.A. Times: “Do they want to be a scaled, broad entertainment company or the mother of all niche entertainment companies with family-friendly entertainment.” I can’t imagine Iger’s vision is less than turning Walt’s cartoon studio into one of the two or three big, broad and global entertainment companies for the next 30 years. Did he really come back to his old job to dismantle what he built, or to pare it down, Jeff Bewkes-style, and offload it to a phone company or a tech giant? Doing the Fox deal in the first place suggests no, and the power that comes with those assets should help make the decision an easier one now.

 

[clarker99]

Core PCE 5.4% vs 5% expected. Gonna be a rough day on Wall St.

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

RivShore writing under a pseudonym?

https://puck.news/what-if-disneys-fox-deal-wasnt-so-terrible/

What If Disney’s Fox Deal Wasn’t So Terrible?​

Matthew Belloni 2/23/23

---

It’s funny how narratives develop in Hollywood. I was at a dinner this week with a few producers, when the topic turned to Disney, as it often does these days. One of them was quick to note, “The Fox deal—disaster, right?” At the table, it seemed obvious. Of course it was a disaster.

Was it, though? It’s true that Disney’s pricey acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox was premised on the 2017 streaming video landscape, where infinite content promised infinite growth. In March of 2019, when the deal finally closed, C.E.O. Bob Iger, then ramping up for the launch of Disney+, emailed employees that the Fox assets would help Disney “reach farther and aim higher—especially when it comes to building direct connections with consumers.” And it definitely did. Feel free to fight me on this, but I don’t think Disney+, a service that debuted with exactly one original show, would have notched 100 million subscribers in just 16 months without all that Fox content. By comparison, Netflix needed 10 years and more than $100 billion to cross 100 million subs.

We seem to have forgotten that. These days, moderation and discipline in spending are the north stars, at least at the for-profit entertainment companies—meaning not Amazon or Apple. These are the tenets that led investor Nelson Peltz, at the height of his recent megaphoning over Disney’s costs, to roast Iger’s “poor judgment” for “materially overpaying for the Fox assets.” Thanks to Comcast C.E.O. Brian Roberts, the initial $52.4 billion all-stock deal that Iger struck with Rupert Murdoch over wine at the latter’s Moraga Estate winery was run up to $71.3 billion, plus almost $14 billion in Fox debt. Waaaay too much, Peltz argued. “Fox hurt this company,” he barked on CNBC. “Fox took the dividend away. Fox turned what was once a pristine balance sheet into a mess.”

Peltz never really explained why the price was too much—especially when considering the long term value of top-tier Fox assets like FX, Avatar, and The Simpsons—and it quickly became clear that his real motive in making noise wasn’t to re-litigate a four-year-old transaction but rather to grease the return of that cherished dividend, which eventually came to fruition. But now the Fox narrative seems to have lingered, from Wall Street all the way down to my lunches and dinners. Cowan and Co. analyst Doug Creutz even connected the Fox deal to Disney’s recent announcement of $5.5 billion in cuts, 7,000 layoffs, and the demise of the DMED unit, telling the L.A. Times this week, “they’d be in a much better position, financially, without all of this debt sitting on their balance sheet. And they would not have needed as big of a reorganization.”

The Bull Case on Fox​

Maybe. There’s a lot going on in the entertainment economy that led to Disney’s cutbacks. But Iger didn’t do his cause any favors by telling David Faber on CNBC recently that he’s “concerned about undifferentiated general entertainment.” Sure, he might have just been trying to lowball Comcast for the eventual Hulu buyout in 2024. But if Bob is so nervous about the landscape for non-branded and non-family content, the thinking goes, why did he pay through Mickey’s nose for a company that specialized in exactly that? A fair point.

Still, it’s worth considering the bull case on Fox. First, it wasn’t actually a $71.3 billion deal. Disney, thanks to its ownership of ESPN, was forced by the government to immediately flip the Fox regional sports networks to a sucker—sorry, to Sinclair, the local TV station owner, which agreed to pay $10.6 billion for the largest collection of RSNs, an asset of such declining value that Diamond Sports, the company Sinclair created to hold the RSN assets, just missed a debt interest payment and is preparing to go bankrupt. I discussed this alarming situation today with analyst Brandon Ross on my podcast, The Town, and he thinks those RSNs may actually be worth close to nothing eventually, so good for Disney. Plus, Comcast then paid Disney $15 billion for Fox’s ownership stake in the European broadcast service Sky.

The jury’s still out on that deal, but the cash further helped alleviate sticker shock.

Taken together, Disney now places the cost of the Fox deal at $57 billion, for which the company took on about $25 billion in debt. It’s never great to lever up like that, and $25 billion is a lot of Disneyland churros, but for a company with a 2019 market cap of more than $250 billion, Disney wasn’t really considered overleveraged. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and then-C.E.O. Bob Chapek was forced to, you know, keep the lights on. As of the most recent quarter, Disney’s debt had grown to $45 billion, per company filings. Nearly double the churros, a reality that certainly puts the Fox transaction in a different light. But as my Puck partner Bill Cohan has explained, Disney’s debt obligation is not as distressing as the nearly $50 billion owed by Warner Bros. Discovery, a much smaller company with much less free cash flow.

That’s the downside. The upside has sort of been underplayed, in my opinion. Before the Fox deal, Disney had a good TV business with ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, and a few other networks in the U.S. and abroad, plus a studio that largely supplied its own outlets. But Disney had nothing like FX in terms of quality, and the 20th Television studio was far more prolific than, say, ABC’s studio, producing different types of shows and selling to multiple buyers. Plus, Disney got A-level TV executives Dana Walden, John Landgraf, Peter Rice (until Chapek stupidly fired him), and others. When Iger acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006 money, much was made of animation geniuses John Lasseter and Ed Catmull joining Disney and eventually revitalizing its lagging studio. Same with Kevin Feige in the $4 billion Marvel deal. Executives matter, and those Fox people have brought a lot, especially as Disney board chair Mark Parker tries to figure out who the heck might succeed Iger.

I’ll admit that the movies are still a bit of an open question. If you remember back in summer 2019, after Fox flops like X-Men: Dark Phoenix were blamed for dragging down earnings, Iger was forced to defend the Fox assets as a “short-term” problem. Four years later, with the exception of Avatar: The Way of Water and Free Guy, 20th Century still hasn’t delivered a big, Disney-style hit at the box office, and there have been tons more flops (Amsterdam, The Last Duel, West Side Story). Iger got mostly out of the non-I.P. movie business in the early 2010s for a reason, and that business is even more challenged now. If the appetite for mid-range movies on streaming is more limited post-Great Netflix Correction, where does that leave 20th Century? Though Iger does like winning awards, and the Searchlight film division still consistently does that.

Another thing Iger likes: franchises. Avatar 2 isn’t just a $2.2 billion-grossing movie. It will print money for a decade or more: the sequels, a new Disneyland attraction, and, perhaps most important, the full attention of Jim Cameron, the most successful film director of all time. The Simpsons isn’t just a great asset, it was the 15th most-streamed of all shows in 2022, according to Nielsen, with 15.9 billion total minutes. Family Guy, Modern Family, Bob’s Burgers, all the Nat Geo stuff, Home Alone, the Apes movies, Ice Age, etc. A lot of the stuff that makes Disney+ and Hulu compelling. And even if the strategy shifts from streaming nearly the full library to windowing it for off-platform monetization, those assets are still super valuable, and will be for a long time.

Plus, Feige is only starting to leverage Fox’s Marvel characters, like Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and X-Men, a potential treasure trove on its own. Last year’s Prey, a reboot of Fox’s Predator property, was a hit on Hulu. None of this should be news to Disney-watchers, it’s just weird how the analysts and investors often undervalue both the existing hits and the library that hasn’t been exploited yet.

The Hulu Question​

It’s true that Hulu, which Disney controls thanks to the Fox deal, is an enigma. It’s a great service with nearly 50 million subscribers and content that is differentiated from Disney+. But it’s U.S. only, expensive to populate, and there’s no real reason for it to exist as a stand-alone product when its content could be migrated over to Disney+. That’s why Iger has put “everything on the table” for Hulu. But even if it’s sold to Comcast or another buyer, that would be a big cash infusion that could be used to pay down that debt—and further justify the cost of all the Fox stuff that isn’t being sold.
In the grand scheme, even with all the challenges Disney faces, the issue of what to do with the Fox assets is a good problem to have. “Would Trian have preferred that a competitor own Fox?” Disney asked Peltz and his firm in its response deck. Exactly. Disney is now pretty much the only traditional entertainment company with the ability to actually compete with Netflix, and it can think long-term. That’s thanks in part to Fox. The only question now is whether that’s what Iger wants.

I hesitate to quote Jason Kilar, the former WarnerMedia C.E.O., whose all-in-on-streaming approach feels as dated these days as a trucker hat, but he succinctly framed the dilemma to the L.A. Times: “Do they want to be a scaled, broad entertainment company or the mother of all niche entertainment companies with family-friendly entertainment.” I can’t imagine Iger’s vision is less than turning Walt’s cartoon studio into one of the two or three big, broad and global entertainment companies for the next 30 years. Did he really come back to his old job to dismantle what he built, or to pare it down, Jeff Bewkes-style, and offload it to a phone company or a tech giant? Doing the Fox deal in the first place suggests no, and the power that comes with those assets should help make the decision an easier one now.

I appreciate the balance this perspective brings to the conversation.

 

[wabbott]

Back below $100/share

99.58-2.15 (-2.11%)
As of 10:09AM EST. Market open.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DIS?p=DIS

 

[wabbott]

I appreciate the balance this perspective brings to the conversation.

Yes. Storytelling, intellectual property (IP), fantasy, tales, creativity - what ever term you choose to describe the depiction of events - is the basic starting point of a media organization. Any value additions to other products flows from that point.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.si.com/mlb/rangers/news/warner-brothers-discovery-regional-sports-network-houston-astros

Warner Brothers Discovery Set to Move Away From RSNs
WBD has given four MLB teams until March 31 to purchase their broadcast rights back, including the Houston Astros.

• Matthew Postins
• 2/24/23

Warner Brothers Discovery threw more uncertainty on the world of Regional Sports Networks when Sports Business Journal reported on Friday that WBD has informed its clients that it intends to pull out of the RSN business in a matter of weeks.

This comes just a couple of weeks after Diamond Sports Group, which owns the Bally’s Sports Networks, skipped its $140 million interest payment, triggering a 30-day grace period as the company plots its next move.

This is not the first time WBD has attempted to leave the RSN game, reported SBJ. But this time it appears the move is serious.

WBD’s RSN networks are branded AT&T SportsNet, which are positioned in the Denver, Houston and Pittsburgh markets, and has a state in Root Sports in Seattle. So WBD’s decision impacts 10 MLB, NBA and NHL teams, with the Astros, Mariners, Pirates and Rockies the MLB teams impacted.

WBD has reportedly given those teams until March 31 to reach agreement to buy their broadcast rights back. Afterward, WBD will look to liquidate the assets through Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In the same story, SBJ reported that Diamond Sports Group may file for bankruptcy as early as mid-March.
That decision has importance to 14 MLB teams, including the Texas Rangers. Diamond Sports Group owns and operates the 21 Bally’s Sports regional networks nationwide.

Bally’s Sports Southwest, formerly Fox Sports Southwest, owns the local broadcast rights to the Texas Rangers, the Dallas Mavericks and the Dallas Stars.

After Diamond Sports Group skipped the interest payment, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred assured baseball fans that if Diamond Sports Group falls into bankruptcy that games for those teams affected will be broadcast.

Manfred said MLB is working on a contingency plan if Diamond Sports Group falls into bankruptcy and it impacts the company’s ability to broadcast games.

If Diamond Sports Group moves into bankruptcy it would be an attempt to restructure mounting debt as a result of cord-cutters and rights fee issues. If it went into bankruptcy, DSG would not necessarily have to make its revenue-sharing payments to teams based on broadcast contracts. The group is expected to pay out $2 billion in rights fees this year.

The Rangers are set to receive $100 million for 2023 in quarterly payments starting next month. If DSG is unable to make rights fee payments, it could impact how the Rangers are able to pay player salaries.

 

[wabbott]

https://deadline.com/2023/02/box-of...s-revolution-ant-man-and-the-wasp-1235269877/

‘Quantumania’ Still Worst Drop For MCU Title, ‘Cocaine Bear’ Real High With $23M & ‘Jesus Revolution’ Raising $15M+ – Sunday Box Office
By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
February 26, 2023 7:41am PST

SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU after Saturday PM update: What did this weekend prove at the box office?

It’s not just about tentpoles.

The overall champs of the weekend were lower-budgeted releases with Universal’s Cocaine Bear trampling its teen projections with $23.09M and Lionsgate’s Jesus Revolution turning water into cash with $15.5M after being initially forecasted in the $6M-$7M range.

However, both movies had something that propelled audiences: They had sticky titles. It doesn’t get much better than Cocaine Bear and Jesus in your movie titles when it comes to creating want-to-see marketing.

Los Angeles despite being drenched and snowed upon didn’t falter when it came to Cocaine Bear, the market +7.6% from its 52-week norm.

Not all animals-maul-people movies outside of sharks and King Kong open to great heights, read Paramount’s alligator movie Crawl ($12M) and Uni’s Idris Elba lion movie Beast ($11.5M). However, Cocaine Bear was different. She wasn’t all horror, or serious, but had campy comedy. Audiences noticed that promptly in the trailer and saw that it was a movie they could have fun with for an hour and 35 minutes. The pic also pawed another $5.3M abroad in 50 markets for a global start of $28.4M. While AMC, Regal and Cinemark naturally led all circuits, Alamo Drafthouse was 100% over its 52-week norm with the title, leaning into it with their fanboy demos.

Said Universal Domestic Distribution chief Jim, “This is a tremendous debut for Cocaine Bear, an outrageous comedy so well crafted by director Elizabeth Banks. Audiences across North America were eager to see this original, hysterical film that continues what is shaping up to be a very good year at the domestic box office.”

Other top markets for Cocaine Bear included NYC, Chicago (+10% over 52 week norm), Dallas, San Francisco, DC, Philly, Atlanta, Boston (+10% over 52 week norm) and Phoenix. Detroit overperformed with Cocaine Bear by 25%. Northeast and West coast were the overindexing regions.

Jesus Revolution is a faith-based win for the Lionsgate as it looks to have a better 2023 stateside than it did in 2022. It’s director Jon Erwin’s (who directed here) fourth A+ CinemaScore of his career after American Underdog, I Can Only Imagine, and Woodlawn. Lionsgate built word of mouth through several word of mouth church and university screenings as well as an outreach to contemporary Christian musicians. Am hearing the movie was screened over 150x.

Tracking only saw this movie at the single digits? How did they miss this? The theory is that tracking only polled those people who had been to theaters in recent movies. That said, it’s been a while since the faith-based crowd has had a wide release like this; it’s mostly been short-run Fathom Events. Not just that, but the pic’s soundtrack is a huge magnet here as well for its followers and Kelsey Grammer’s starpower didn’t hurt. Huge amount of walk-up business here with Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak showing 74% of those seeing the movie either bought their ticket the day of or the day before. Lionsgate is already hearing from exhibition about repeat business over the weekend. And the definite recommend here on PostTrak is — well, miraculous at 90%. You never see that on any movie, including MCU and Star Wars titles. The pic was 97% positive on PostTrak. Females over 25 led (54%), men over 25 (37%), females under 25 (6%) and guys under 25 at 3%. Can we get an Amen?

Disney/Marvel’s official numbers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania still show the worst drop for an MCU title at -69.6% with $32.2M after an estimated $14.6M Saturday, +76%, for a running total of $167.2M in first place.

How will Marvel post-mortem this? Aren’t they already “plus-ing” with every movie they make?

One insider close to the film isn’t worried, telling us, “Marvel takes something away from movie including Black Panther, including Avengers. I can say we’re incredibly proud of the film, Jonathan Majors does a fantastic job as Kang. It’s the movie we wanted to make. Box office is what it is, but it’s not going to stop people from going back to the theaters.”

Overall weekend looks to be around $91.6M for all movies, +47% from a year ago, but off 29% from the same frame in 2019 when Uni’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World led with $55M and the second weekend of Alita: Battle Angel did $12.3M.

1.) Ant-man and the Wasp Quantumania (Dis) 4,345 theaters, Fri $8.3M (-82%) Sat $14.6M Sun $9.3M 3-day $32.2M (-70%), Total $167.3M/Wk 2
2.) Cocaine Bear (Uni) 3,534 theaters, Fri $8.65M, Sat $8.8M Sun $5.5M 3-day $23.09M/Wk 1
3.) Jesus Revolution (LG) 2,475 theaters, Fri $6.95M (includes $3.3M previews) Sat $4.7M Sun $3.8M 3-day $15.5M/Wk 1
4.) Avatar: The Way of Water (Dis) 2,495 theaters (-180), Fri $1.1M (-19%) Sat $2.3M Sun $1.3M 3-day $4.7M (-28%)Total $665.3M /Wk 11
5.) Puss in Boots: Last Wish (Uni) 2,840 theaters (-172), Fri $900K (-26%) Sat $1.95M Sun $1.27M 3-day $4.1M (-23%), Total $173.4M/Wk 10
6.) Magic Mike’s Last Dance (WB) 2,918 (-116) theaters,Fri $905K (-46%) Sat $1.23M Sun $865K 3-day $3M (-45%) total $23.2M/Wk 3
7.) Knock at the Cabin (Uni) 2,115 (-486) theaters, Fri $520K (-49%) Sat $870K Sun $480K 3-day $1.87M (-53%) Total $33.9M /Wk 4
8.) 80 for Brady (Par) 2,397 (-722) theaters, Fri $480K (-52%) Sat $820K Sun $530K 3-day $1.83M (-51%)/Total $36.4M/Wk 4
9.) Missing (Sony) 1,006 (-510) theaters, Fri $263K Sat $485K Sun $262K 3 day $1M (-41%) Total $31.4M/Wk 6
10.) A Man Called Otto (Sony) 1,118 (-607) theaters, Fri $217K Sat $391K Sun $242K 3-day $850K (-47%) Total $62.2M/Wk 9

 

[clarker99]

Disney/Marvel’s official numbers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania still show the worst drop for an MCU title at -69.6% with $32.2M after an estimated $14.6M Saturday, +76%, for a running total of $167.2M in first place.

That is a pretty stunning drop off.

Dr. Strange 2 has the shortest post opening weekend legs in the MCU @ 2.19. If Ant-Man 3 tracks at the same rate then they are just over $230m domestically. Which for Ant-Man is not bad.

Sidenote:I just want to note that for my family of 4 to go to the cinema cost $100 last weekend (tix, popcorn/pop). You wait 60 days and you can sit on your couch and stream for a fraction of the price and I can pause when someone goes to the washroom. This isnt a revelation but still had a bit of sticker shock.

 

[Jrb1979]

That is a pretty stunning drop off.

Dr. Strange 2 has the shortest post opening weekend legs in the MCU @ 2.19. If Ant-Man 3 tracks at the same rate then they are just over $230m domestically. Which for Ant-Man is not bad.

Sidenote:I just want to note that for my family of 4 to go to the cinema cost $100 last weekend (tix, popcorn/pop). You wait 60 days and you can sit on your couch and stream for a fraction of the price and I can pause when someone goes to the washroom. This isnt a revelation but still had a bit of sticker shock.

What's crazy is that they makie it available on D+ so quick. The other one is the cost to go see it at a theatre. Maybe I'm lucky but at Costco they sell movie passes and it's $30 for 2 tickets, 2 pops naf 2 popcorn. I'm surprised that it's not available in the US.

 

[DeeBee3]

Wondering what today's news re: DeSantis signing the bill will do to stock, if anything.

 

[wabbott]

Wondering what today's news re: DeSantis signing the bill will do to stock, if anything.

I suspect that's been priced into the stock for a while.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DIS?p=DIS
100.82+0.52 (+0.52%)
As of 12:55PM EST. Market open.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.ft.com/content/dc1d8af7...traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev

Sports valuation bubble: pending US bankruptcy is warning to moguls
Diamond Sports’s problems come as trophy franchises go up for sale around the world
2/27/23

Disney’s $71bn acquisition of a trove of 21st Century Fox media assets in 2019 remains controversial. However, Disney’s Bob Iger, as a part of the transaction, made one undeniably wise choice. Fox was also seeking to unload more than 20 regional sports networks that broadcast baseball and basketball games in local markets.

RSNs were a lucrative concept that Rupert Murdoch had helped pioneer. Disney decided to pass on the RSNs. They were ultimately acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which was best known as an operator of local television affiliates scattered across the US.

Sinclair went on to put the RSN’s into a separate vehicle which it named Diamond Sports. The entity was thought to be so foolproof that its $10.6bn purchase of the Fox assets was funded with just $1.4bn of common equity. But in sports there are upsets.

The pandemic first halted games and then accelerated cord-cutting. Cable and satellite businesses that were shedding subscribers could no longer justify paying sky-high rights fees to franchises and leagues.

Diamond recently announced that it is preparing a potential bankruptcy filing to deal with $8bn of debt. Sports properties seemed to be the last remaining content category to defy price gravity. But even Disney’s ESPN is now struggling with high costs and flagging revenue. Its once dominant “linear networks” division just reported a 16 per cent quarterly drop in operating profits. Perhaps streaming platforms — within traditional media companies or challengers — will simply take over the job of bidding up sports TV rights.

But the plateauing subscriber growth of Netflix and others shows that their own economics are not that great. The pending Diamond Sports bankruptcy comes as trophy sports franchises go up for sale around the world. These include Manchester United and the Washington Commanders.

Diamond is demonstrating there is an upper bound on prices fans will pay to watch games on video. Would-be team owners should take note.