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https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/box-office-haunted-mansion-barbenheimer-1235679922/

Jul 26, 2023 12:18pm PT
Box Office: Disney’s ‘Haunted Mansion’ Eyes $30 Million Debut, ‘Barbenheimer’ to Remain on Top
by Rebecca Rubin

Disney’s remake of “Haunted Mansion” opens on Friday in theaters, where it’ll face an opponent that’s much scarier than the threatening ghosts that populate the world of the supernatural comedy.

That foe would be the collective force of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” which have spent the past week putting box office projections to shame. “Barbenheimer,” as the inextricably linked movies have been nicknamed, will loom large over North American charts as Disney’s new family film aims for third place.

“Haunted Mansion” is projected to gross $25 million to $30 million from 3,700 North American theaters over the weekend. That’s not a bad result for a kid-centric tentpole, especially in the wake of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — except for its pesky price tag. Disney spent $150 million to produce the film and tens of millions on promotional efforts, leaving “Haunted Mansion” with a high threshold to reach profitability.

Justin Simien directed “Haunted Mansion,” which stars LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish and Owen Wilson. It is not to be confused with the 2003 film “The Haunted Mansion,” which featured Eddie Murphy as well as an article in the title. As a not-so-exact point of reference, the original ” The Haunted Mansion” debuted in a vastly different theatrical landscape to $24 million, not adjusted for inflation. It was not exactly a critical darling but managed to gross $180 million on its $90 million budget.

The reboot, which also garnered mixed reviews, is inspired by the Walt Disney theme park ride. The story follows a single mother and her son, who move into a mansion, only to find out that it’s haunted. (Don’t say the title didn’t warn you!) To ward off the spirits, they hire an eclectic team of a former paranormal investigator, priest, psychic and professor. Dan Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto round out the cast.

Another spooky movie, A24’s violent thriller “Talk to Me,” should generate $4 million to $5 million when it opens in approximately 2,300 theaters across the U.S. It’s the feature film debut of Australian YouTube stars Danny and Michael Philippou. A24 nabbed the film at Sundance and then screened it at San Diego Comic-Con to generate hype ahead of opening weekend. The plot follows a friend group who discovers how to conjure spirits, which is all fun and games until one of them unleashes a horrifying supernatural force.

Reviews and word-of-mouth could help “Talk to Me” break out at the box office. The Washington Post positively reviewed the film, writing, “There’s nothing revolutionary about the premise of naive idiots attempting to get closer to death. But it’s the ingenious combination of horror and human connection that makes ‘Talk to Me,’ well, something to talk about.”

“Barbie” will claim the top spot again with anywhere from $65 million to $85 million (or more…possibly much more) in its second weekend of release. Meanwhile, “Oppenheimer” is looking to add $35 million to $45 million in its sophomore outing. What’s remarkable here is that those results would have been impressive to start, much less after a week in theaters. It’s a much-needed jolt for cinemas after disappointing turnouts for earlier summer tentpoles like “The Flash,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”

Already, “Barbie” has crossed $200 million in North America and “Oppenheimer” has surpassed $100 million. Keep the box office milestones coming.
 
https://www.cmcsa.com/financials/earnings

https://www.cmcsa.com/static-files/c1b43699-3333-4230-8577-8506fc236215
COMCAST REPORTS 2nd QUARTER 2023 RESULTS
PHILADELPHIA - July 27, 2023… Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) today reported results for
the quarter ended June 30, 2023.
“The consistent investments we've been making in our growth businesses continue to generate strong
results and position us extremely well both now and into the future. Second quarter operational and
financial performance was excellent and included a double-digit increase in Adjusted EPS and
significant free cash flow generation," said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Comcast Corporation. "This quarter contained a number of highlights and notable achievements. We not
only continued to deliver solid revenue growth in our connectivity businesses but also expanded our
Adjusted EBITDA margin at Connectivity & Platforms. We generated the best quarterly Adjusted EBITDA
ever at Theme Parks, had the second-highest grossing animated film of all time in worldwide box office
revenue with Super Mario Bros., and nearly doubled paid Peacock subscribers year-over-year. At the
same time, we returned a healthy amount of capital to shareholders and maintained an enviable balance
sheet. Our experienced and expert management team is executing at an exceptional level, and our
long-term-oriented growth strategy is clearly working.

https://www.cmcsa.com/static-files/fd7761fd-0741-4b51-9614-fadc12fb3eec

https://www.cmcsa.com/static-files/ba1c68a6-37a1-4ed2-8198-a4a7b22a03ea
 
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/comcast-beats-second-quarter-revenue-110608539.html

Comcast beats second quarter revenue on theme parks, studios performance
Helen Coster and Samrhitha A
Thu, July 27, 2023 at 6:06 a.m. CDT·2 min read
By Helen Coster and Samrhitha A

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp's quarterly revenue beat estimates on Thursday, helped by higher theme park attendance and the successful theatrical releases of “The Super Mario Bros Movie” and “Fast X.”
The company's total revenue rose 1.7% to $30.51 billion in the quarter, beating analysts' average estimate of $30.13 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

In its second set of results under a new reporting structure that includes NBCUniversal in the content and experiences segment, the company reported a 4% increase in revenue in the unit to $10.87 billion in the second quarter.
Ad revenue in content and experiences fell 4.9% from the same quarter a year prior, in a weak but stable advertising environment.

Revenue at the company’s Peacock streaming service rose 84.7% compared with a year earlier. Paid subscribers increased by two million in the second quarter, to 24 million, from the 22 million it reported in the previous quarter.
Adjusted losses from the platform widened to $651 million from $467 million a year ago as Comcast continues to invest heavily in content. The company has said that it expects Peacock losses to peak at around $3 billion in 2023, but expects it to steadily improve after that.

Theme parks revenue climbed 22.4%, thanks to demand for attractions such as “Super Nintendo World” in Hollywood and Osaka, Japan.

Comcast's total connectivity and platforms revenue, which includes the cable business and most of its Sky unit, reported a 0.1% gain in revenue.

Comcast lost 19,000 broadband customers in the quarter, while Factset had estimated a loss of 73,000 customers.

Competition from wireless carriers such as T-Mobile US Inc and Verizon Communications Inc has pressured Comcast's business, which has also been hurt by high market penetration and low moving rates.

Overall, net income attributable to Comcast rose 25.1% to $4.25 billion in the quarter.

Excluding items, the company earned $1.13 cents per share.
 
Some highlights from the Q2 Comcast Call:

"We continue to expect Peacock's EBITDA loss will be roughly $2.5 billion for the year. However, taking into consideration the timing of content launches, we expect losses to be higher in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter."

"We continued to see strong demand and EBITDA growth at our U.S. parks, where attendance and guest spending has been above 2019 levels with Orlando delivering its highest level of EBITDA for any quarter and Hollywood experiencing its best second quarter EBITDA on record."

"So obviously, the parks business historically has been subject to macro trends, and there's no reason to think that, that won't be the case in the future. When we look at our business, we're just not seeing it yet in our numbers and our performance. And if you kind of look at the -- we're putting up these numbers despite the fact that our international visitation domestically is about half of what it has historically been. So we expect that to increase over time back to where it should be." - This was in response to a question about the U.S being in a recession and if the second half or next year would have any issues.

"And we've seen domestic per cap speed just tremendous coming out of the pandemic. And we've seen no weakness in that coming out of the quarter into the next quarter."

Not really much on their streaming business as no analyst really seemed to care to ask any questions about those numbers as the cable and fiber numbers were more important for analysts. NBC did mention their upfront and stated "this year, we secured more than $7 billion in commitments, including $1 billion at Peacock, double what we did in the 2021/ 2022 season."

The only other thing mentioned about the parks was "NBCUniversal CapEx to be up around $1 billion year-over-year driven by the construction of Epic." No other mentions of how much CapEx into Epic universe just that there is an increase.
 

The company has said that it expects Peacock losses to peak at around $3 billion in 2023,
Apparently no one can build one of theses without losing $3-4B a year!! Yikes!!!

Comcast lost 19,000 broadband customers in the quarter, while Factset had estimated a loss of 73,000 customers.
I did not realize their broadband business was under assault too. Was there no mention of cable sub losses?
 
Apparently no one can build one of theses without losing $3-4B a year!! Yikes!!!


I did not realize their broadband business was under assault too. Was there no mention of cable sub losses?
Just heard they lost half a million cable subscribers, that bleed continues.
 
Apparently no one can build one of theses without losing $3-4B a year!! Yikes!!!


I did not realize their broadband business was under assault too. Was there no mention of cable sub losses?
No talk of selling any broadband or network assets bc they make $8b in operating income per quarter off them. lol
 
Comcast paying a nice 2.7% dividend. They are a massive company churning out almost 3x the Operating income vs Disney.

Comcast theme parks only make up like 8% of the companies profits.
 
https://frontofficesports.com/espn-not-expected-to-renew-bomani-jones-contract/

ESPN Not Expected to Renew Bomani Jones’ Contract
  • Jones, the longtime on-air ESPN personality and current podcast host, will see his contract expire on July 31.
  • “The economic fate of people in sports media is getting dicier and dicier by the day,” Jones told FOS.

By Andrew Cohen
July 26, 2023 | 01:16 pm

ESPN does not plan to renew the contract of journalist Bomani Jones, Front Office Sports has learned. His current contract with ESPN expires at the end of this month as the network separately laid off 20 on-air personalities amid broader cost-cutting moves from parent company Disney.

Last fall, Jones signed a contract extension with ESPN to host his three-times per week podcast, “The Right Time with Bomani Jones.” His show is the second-highest-rated podcast among ESPN’s 35+ shows, but the network has not shown interest in renewing his contract. Jones spoke to FOS in New York before he made a speech at the Writers Guild of America’s Sports Solidarity Day held on the picket line outside of the CBS Broadcast Center.

“The economic fate of people in sports media is getting dicier and dicier by the day,” Jones told FOS. “I think the ESPN layoffs were the beginning of it in a lot of ways. Seeing what happened [with] the New York Times shutting down their sports department and they moved those people to other desks, but at some point they’re probably going to deem those people to be surplus and they’re not going to be there anymore.”

Jones started writing for ESPN in 2004 and was notably a co-host for two ESPN TV shows, “Highly Questionable” with Dan Le Batard and “High Noon” with Pablo Torre. He’s also been a panelist on “Around the Horn” and appeared on shows such as “SportsCenter,” “First Take,” and “Outside the Lines.” His HBO late-night sports talk show “Game Theory with Bomani Jones” premiered in 2022 but was canceled after two seasons.

“Streaming can only to me become profitable if there are fewer players in the game, we just have so much stuff,” Jones said. “There is money being made on streaming, there just is a lot of money being spent on streaming that doesn’t necessarily generate the returns that one would expect.”

Notable on-air personalities let go last month by ESPN include Jeff Van Gundy, Jalen Rose, Max Kellerman, Suzie Kolber, Keyshawn Johnson, Todd McShay, and Gene Wojciechowski. FOS reported that ESPN also is not expected to renew the contract of NBA analyst Vince Carter. Disney is open to selling a stake in ESPN to a strategic partner, with the NFL, MLB, and NBA being discussed as potential suitors.

“The idea of selling stakes to the leagues, I don’t even understand it,” Jones said. “Logically I don’t. I don’t know why that’s a winner for the leagues, the leagues can’t be the only people who would be willing to buy such a stake. I don’t understand how that works.”

Among concerns for both the WGA and Jones is artificial intelligence’s impact on sports media.

“There’s a level of creativity that the computers are never going to be able to replace that will always necessitate people,” Jones said. “What AI can do is write a game story. There’s a lot of things in our world that AI can do that really can affect the employment prospects that a lot of us have in this game.”
 
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/comcast-espn-deal-disney-shoots-down-1235681335/

Jul 27, 2023 6:33am PT
Comcast President Shoots Down Possibility of ESPN Deal With Disney
by Todd Spangler

Comcast president Mike Cavanagh poured cold water on speculation that the media and cable conglomerate might ink a deal with Disney to take a piece of ESPN.

“I’ve been asked about and read some speculation that in some way we might be interested in swapping businesses [with Disney]… in the sports space,” he said on Comcast’s Q2 earnings call. “And I would just say that that’s very improbable,” given “tremendous issues” around taxes and minority shareholder deal structures. “So I would put aside the idea that there’s… anything inorganic, you know, that is likely to happen around ESPN in particular, which is what we’ve been asked about,” Cavanagh said.

Cavanagh’s comments come after Disney chief Bob Iger said in a July 13 interview with CNBC that the Mouse House was looking for a strategic partner for ESPN. Subsequently CNBC reported that Disney has had talks with the NFL, NBA and MLB about becoming minority investors in ESPN.

Bank of America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich had suggested that Comcast would be a likely partner for ESPN. Iger’s comments about seeking a strategic investment partner for ESPN “just screams one company — and that company is Comcast,” Reif Ehrlich said on the July 19 episode of “The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast.”

On the call, Cavanagh touted NBCUniversal’s own sports business and Peacock’s lineup of live sports. “I think we’ve got one of the best portfolios in sports,” he said, citing NFL Sunday Night Football, Big 10 football, NASCAR, WWE, Olympics and PGA rights. “So obviously, it makes us a really strong partner to leagues and around the world. We’re known for that,” the exec said.
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Meanwhile, Comcast and Disney are in the midst of haggling over the terms of Comcast’s expected sale of its Hulu stake to the Mouse House. The future of Hulu was not broached on the Comcast Q2 earnings call.

Comcast currently holds a 33% stake in Hulu, with Disney owning the remainder. Starting in January 2024, Disney can require Comcast to sell its stake in Hulu (and, conversely, Comcast can force the sale). Under the terms of the Disney-Comcast deal for Hulu, the “guaranteed floor value” of Hulu is $27.5 billion, meaning Comcast’s stake is worth a minimum of about $9.2 billion — but Comcast is angling to get a bigger check. “I think it’s more likely than not” that Comcast will end up selling full control of Hulu to Disney, Roberts said at an investor conference in May. “I’m pretty certain if and when we sell our Hulu stake, it will be for more than what we have in it.”

In the CNBC interview, Iger said he had determined the company is “better off having Hulu.” He had previously announced that Disney+ and Hulu content will be combined into a single app before the end of 2023 for subscribers of both streaming services. Iger, who renewed his contract to serve as Disney’s CEO through the end of 2026, also said in the CNBC interview that Disney’s linear TV assets including ABC and FX “may not be core” to its business, hinting the company may seek to sell or spin out the networks.
 
Comcast paying a nice 2.7% dividend. They are a massive company churning out almost 3x the Operating income vs Disney.

Comcast theme parks only make up like 8% of the companies profits.
They are truly more like a utility than a movie/network/park company. They just print the money with near monopoly power.
Kind of scary to see thier broadband declining though - that was supposed to keep things cranking while cable slowly goes to zero.
 
They are truly more like a utility than a movie/network/park company. They just print the money with near monopoly power.
Kind of scary to see thier broadband declining though - that was supposed to keep things cranking while cable slowly goes to zero.
This is a bit of a generalization but with unlimited data plans coming to wireless, less young people sign up for broadband when they move out on their own or whatever. They put all their money into their wireless phone vs. home entertainment. They don't own computers or TV's. It is interesting.
 
This is a bit of a generalization but with unlimited data plans coming to wireless, less young people sign up for broadband when they move out on their own or whatever. They put all their money into their wireless phone vs. home entertainment. They don't own computers or TV's. It is interesting.
I'm sure that's some of it but I would think there are plenty who need broadband if working from home for their company and even side gigs. Also wireless carriers new 5G home offerings are probably starting to take a bite from those homes that need broadband.

I wonder if TV sales have seen declines over the years? They are so darn cheap now, i would hope those phone only types are at least casting to a big screen. The last thing we need is movie makers starting to make films that look good enough on 5" screens.
 
This is a bit of a generalization but with unlimited data plans coming to wireless, less young people sign up for broadband when they move out on their own or whatever. They put all their money into their wireless phone vs. home entertainment. They don't own computers or TV's. It is interesting.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper. Imagine, if you will, 6G (one terabyte/sec) antennas on every power pole in a city or adjacent to highways. There will come a time when wifi will be ubiquitous, like air.
 
I'm sure that's some of it but I would think there are plenty who need broadband if working from home for their company and even side gigs. Also wireless carriers new 5G home offerings are probably starting to take a bite from those homes that need broadband.

I wonder if TV sales have seen declines over the years? They are so darn cheap now, i would hope those phone only types are at least casting to a big screen. The last thing we need is movie makers starting to make films that look good enough on 5" screens.
Again, a generalization, but Younger people don’t actually care all that much about movies or TV. They care about short form video platforms. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, Snap etc.
 
Bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper. Imagine, if you will, 6G (one terabyte/sec) antennas on every power pole in a city or adjacent to highways. There will come a time when wifi will be ubiquitous, like air.
Yeah, one day. 5G has generally been an over-hyped bust so far. The jump from 3G to LTE/4G was so big that the jump to 5G has mostly gone un-noticed tbh. The mm-Wave bandwidth which gives you the giga-byte download speeds just is not available in enough places.

5G's biggest advantage is the added capacity per tower.
 
Yeah, one day. 5G has generally been an over-hyped bust so far. The jump from 3G to LTE/4G was so big that the jump to 5G has mostly gone un-noticed tbh. The mm-Wave bandwidth which gives you the giga-byte download speeds just is not available in enough places.

5G's biggest advantage is the added capacity per tower.
A few months ago I upgraded to a 5G from a 4G phone. I can't tell that much difference in loading speeds. But this new phone (S23) sure does take dynamite pics.
 
A few months ago I upgraded to a 5G from a 4G phone. I can't tell that much difference in loading speeds. But this new phone (S23) sure does take dynamite pics.

Got it last winter. The zoom to.

20230218_161434.jpg20230218_161420.jpg20230603_212342.jpg
 
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