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‘Halloween Ends’ Opening To $43M, Diluted By Peacock Day & Date – Deadline

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SATURDAY AM: There’s about $10M missing from the current theatrical marketplace this weekend.

Projections for Universal/Blumhouse/Miramax/Trancas’ Halloween Ends were expected to come in around $55M and now it’s looking like $43.4M. Clearly tracking didn’t account for the theatrical-day-and-date factor. Yes, it’s still a profitable gross against the film’s $30M production cost, and Uni’s theatrical distribution in its date execution and the studio’s marketing aren’t to blame here. Those departments didn’t do anything wrong. Also don’t point a finger at Paramount’s third awesome weekend for Smile (-35% with $12M; chances are genre fans are seeing both movies). I don’t even think Halloween Ends‘ C+ Cinemascore is a reason here (the lowest grade in the recent franchise subset trilogy from David Gordon Green).

However, as one razor sharp studio executive points out “It’s hard to underestimate the day-and-date factor”. Clearly, despite the fact that Peacock, on which Halloween Ends is also available, is in 15M paid subscriber homes (a low number next to the competition).

Riddle me this, Jeff Shell: So you take a branded film, deflate its optics by making it day-and-date with a headlined lower box office number in exchange for financials, streaming viewership and subscriber numbers which can’t be immediately publicly disclosed? Or will be disclosed weeks from now? Or will never? Or will be leaked to the Wall Street Journal (remember Trolls World Tour near $100M puffy number according to sources)? And this is done at a time when the theatrical part of the business is starving and lacking product, and when Wall Street is falling out of love with streaming? It doesn’t matter that Halloween Ends is going to gross more than Barbarian or Don’t Worry Darling. Of course it will, it’s a franchise movie, duh. The point is money is being left on the table. A reminder that the equity players in Halloween Ends are Blumhouse, Trancas and Miramax, who were bought out whole for this experiment, and Uni is only getting a global distribution fee.

Essentially, if you think about it, by not going completely theatrical, there’s about $5M which isn’t going back to Universal this weekend in pure film rental (roughly 50% of the pic’s missing $10M). Possibly more will be lost as day-and-date movies have a big drop (Halloween Kills plummeted 71% in weekend 2 and that was on Peacock, too). Halloween Kills in regards to its $49.4M opening generated under a 2x leg-out factor with $92M. Whatever NBCUni makes in Peacock subscription fees is theirs to keep, not share with exhibition. Right now there’s a deal going on where you can get Peacock for $19.99 a year. So is NBCUni banking on more than 250,000 subscribers signing up? Will those subscribers stay? Whose your demo by having Halloween Ends go day and date? Older people? Because the 18-34 bunch drove most of Halloween Ends business at 65%. The conventional wisdom is that streaming subscribers who sign up off movies don’t stick; they stick around for the series. Halloween Ends is 2 1/2 stars on PostTrak, 64%. If business slows tonight due to word of mouth, it will also be impacted at the same time on the OTT service. Not exactly a win-win.

How do you celebrate Halloween Ends as a win? Certainly not in viewership. First of all, the 30-day viewership on Halloween Kills was 2.8M in terrestrial Smart TV homes per Samba TV, and that’s not a lot next to the 4.1M who watched Matt Reeves’ Batman in the first seven days when it hit HBO Max after its 45-day theatrical run. When it comes to frosh streamers right now, it’s not about viewership, it’s about subscribers. Even if 10M people watched Halloween Ends on Peacock this weekend, how much of that was fueled by piracy and copied passwords? A hard analysis of money gained versus money lost needs to be made clear here. What’s the worth in diluting a brand to prop a struggling streaming service?

Perhaps, Peacock, you just need to go build your own House of Dragon.

WarnerMedia wisely learned from the wrongs of practicing the upside-down economics of day-and-date, and NBCUni, I don’t know why you haven’t learned that yet. Streamers are on the precipice of embracing a theatrical window, for crying out loud with Netflix and its Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story experiment. As outgoing NATO President and CEO John Fithian declared at CinemaCon, “Simultaneous release is dead as a serious business model, and piracy is what killed it.”

NBCUniversal, get with the times.

*****

Other diagnostics on Halloween Ends: the third Green directed pic in the series has now matched its predecessor, Halloween Kills, in regards to its Rotten Tomatoes critical score at 39%. Audiences aren’t that far from disagreeing with reviewers at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. Big diversity turnout here at 33% Caucasian, 37% Latino and Hispanic, 19% Black, and 4% Asian and 7% Other. The movie exceeded in the South, South Central and Midwest with the top gross coming out of the Cinemark Tinseltown El Paso. Premium Large Format screen drove a third of ticket sales so far.

TILL, Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley, UAR

On the limited side of the box office, United Artists Releasing’s Till grossed $96K yesterday at 16 theaters in five markets for what looks to be a $229K first weekend or $14,3K theater average. Solid numbers I hear from the Chinonye Chukwu directed drama’s play in NYC, LA, Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta with a great turnout at AMC Phipps Plaza in Atlanta.

Focus Features’ expansion of Tar from four to 36 theaters in 13 markets saw $110K on Friday for a what is turning out to be a $360k second weekend or $10K a theater. Good numbers, I hear in NYC, LA, San Francisco, Toronto and Chicago.

Total ticket sales are at an estimated $82.3M, which is off 24% from the same weekend a year ago which grossed $108.9M. There were more big films in theaters back then, i.e. No Time to Die and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

1.) Halloween Ends (Uni) 3,901 theaters, Fri $20.2M, 3-day $43.4M/Wk 1

2.) Smile (Par) 3,612 theaters (-47), Fri $3.73M (-31%), $12M (-35%), 3-day $70.7M/Wk 3

3.) Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (Sony) 4,350 theaters, Fri $2M (-43%), 3-day $7.25M (-36%)/Total: $22.6M/Wk 2

4.) The Woman King (Sony) 2,565 (-777) theaters Fri $1.35M (-26%), 3-day $3.765M (-27%)/Total $59.8M/Wk 5

5.) Amsterdam (Dis) 3,005 theaters, Fri $888K (-66%),, 3-day $2.9M (-54%)/Total: $12M/Wk 2

6.) Don’t Worry Darling (NL/WB), 2,734 (-590) theaters, Fri $740K (-35%), 3-day $2.3M (-34%)/Total $42.5M/ Wk 4

7.) Barbarian (20th/Dis) 1,805 theaters (-355), Fri $406K (-35%) 3-day $1.3M (-39%)/Total $38.9M/Wk 6

8.) Bros (Uni) 2,201 theaters (-1,155), Fri $290K (-57%) 3-day $900K (-58%)/Total $10.8M/ Wk 3

9.) Terrifier 2 (Iconic) 700 theaters (-186), Fri $250K (-2%), 3-day $803K (even), Total $2.2M/Wk 2
Talk about a window working for a low-budget horror film — this Iconic Releasing title from filmmaker Damien Leone is holding firm in sync with its $805K opening weekend.

10.) Top Gun Maverick (Par) 902 (-225) theaters, Fri $200K (-11%), 3-day $680K (-16%), Total: $715.8M/Wk 21

FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: As of this minute, Halloween Ends isn’t looking as super as the forecasts had predicted — meaning in the $50M range. Still, at a $43M opening, it’s not shabby for a film that cost $30M. Remember, it is a threequel. Universal can brag that it’s the sixth year in a row (8th time) that the studio has had a No. 1 opening with a horror movie after 2017’s Get Out, 2018’s Halloween, 2019’s Us, 2020’s Freaky, 2021’s Candyman and Halloween Kills and this year’s Nope and Halloween Ends.

Today, including last night’s $5.4M previews, looks to be $20M at 3,901 theaters, just 12% under Halloween Kills’ first day. Maybe there will be a West Coast or late night bump, but that’s what the numbers are looking like as of now against historical comps of Halloween and Halloween Kills. The last Michael Myers movie posted a 24% Friday/previews-to-Saturday decline.

RelishMix on social media saw nothing but blue skies for Halloween Ends, saying that chatter spins positive about the film’s title, Halloween Ends, as they assume it’s a teaser for the future of the franchise, noting that “Michael Myers can never die because of his immortality.”

As well, the trick or treat iconography of the brand since Halloween first dropped 44 years ago when Curtis was a teenager is resonating. Super fans are also calling-out the film’s creator John Carpenter who composed this sequel.

Total social media reach is 146.5M across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter which is lower than the 2018 title which was near 193M, and about the same for Halloween Kills at 147M. Curtis and Kyle Richards lead among the cast with social media outreach at 7.8M and 6.3M.

Curtis confirmed in writing on Jimmy Kimmel that Halloween Ends is her last Halloween film…

Paramount’s ‘Smile’

Paramount Pictures

Maybe Paramount’s Smile is stealing some of the business: The third weekend of the Parker Finn horror movie is only expected to ease 37% for $11.75M and a running total of $70.5M. Friday is $3.6M, -32%, at 3,612 theaters.

The second weekend of Sony’s Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is in third place with a $1.9M Friday, -48% and 3-day of $7M at 4,350 theaters, -47%, and ten day of $22.4M.

Fourth is TriStar’s The Woman King at 2,565 theaters and a 5th Friday of $933K, -29%, $3.5M weekend, -32% for a running total of $56.6M.

Fifth place is New Regency/20th Century Studios/Disney’s Amsterdam at 3,005 for a $900K Friday, -66% and second weekend of $2.9M, -55% and ten-day of $11.9M.

FRIDAY AM UPDATE: Universal’s release of Blumhouse, Miramax and Trancas’ Halloween Ends saw a Thursday night of $5.4M from 3,200 theaters with showtimes beginning at 5 p.m. That figure is +11% from last year’s Halloween Kills‘ previews, which were $4.85M.

RELATED: ‘Halloween Ends’ Review: Jamie Lee Curtis Promises This Is It For Her And Michael Myers – Really??

The third Halloween movie from David Gordon Green in a subset trilogy within the franchise is set to make around $55M this weekend at 3,901 theaters. Halloween Ends cost $30M before P&A. The pic wasn’t exclusive to theaters for one night before also hitting streaming service Peacock on the paid subscriber tier; it became available at 8 pm ET, Deadline has just learned. Again, it’s not that Universal doesn’t have any faith in theatrical, Peacock at 15M paid subscribers and needs more. Similar to Halloween Kills, which Uni also pulled this theatrical day-and-date on, the studio has bought out the creative players’ backends, making them whole as though the movie was a tentpole hit given the pivot to Peacock.

Green’s first Halloween movie back in 2018, which brought back an older and wiser Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is the best-grossing of the trio with $7.7M in Thursday night previews, a $33M opening Friday and $76.2M first weekend, which was exclusively theatrical. That movie also was the fourth-best opening for the month of October and, more amazingly, electrified what was typically a dead zone for films in the latter part of the month.

Last year, Uni went theatrical day-and-date on Halloween Kills out of caution for moviegoers during the pandemic, and also to spike Peacock subs. The pic posted the best opening for a horror film during the pandemic and the second best for a day-and-date title (after Black Widow‘s $80M) with $49.4M after a $4.85M Thursday previews, which repped 21% of the pic’s $22.8M first Friday.

Critics largely liked Green’s 2018 Halloween at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, with audiences giving it a B+. However, film reviewers have turned their backs on the sequels, giving Halloweens Kills and Halloween Ends respective 39% and 47% Rotten grades. Auds gave Halloween Kills a B- CinemaScore (average grades for a genre movie are between a B and a C+).

Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till and Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till Mobley in ‘Till.’

Lynsey Weatherspoon/Orion Pictures

Opening limited this weekend is United Artists Releasing/Eon’s Chinonye Chukwu-directed drama Till at 16 locations in five markets. The movie about Emmett Till’s mother, who vows to expose the racism behind his 1955 lynching, stands at 100% off 43 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes in the wake of its New York Film Festival world premiere. Till will expand to additional markets and theaters in coming weeks.

‘Till’ NYFF Review: Chinonye Chukwu Handles The Emmett Till Story With Care

Among those films in regular release, Paramount’s horror pic Smile grossed an estimated $1.5M yesterday, -8% from Wednesday at 3,659 putting its two-week running total at $58.6M after a $26.4M second week. The movie is expected to ease 55% in its third go-round.

Sony’s family animated/live-action title Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile ends its first week with $15.4M at 4,350 theaters. Thursday was an estimated $700K, +16% from Wednesday.

New Regency/20th Century Studios/Disney’s David O. Russell period comedy, Amsterdam, which is set to lose as much as $100M, ended its first week with $9M at 3,005 theaters. Thursday was around $440K, -15% from Wednesday.

RELATED: Peter Bart: An Autopsy Of DOA ‘Amsterdam’ Reveals Worries For Other Grownup Fall Releases

Booked at 3,342 theaters, TriStar’s The Woman King ends its fourth week with $7.2M, for a running total of $56M after a $420K Thursday, +10% from Wednesday at 3,342.

New Line’s Don’t Worry Darling saw a third week of $5.2M at 3,324, a $40.2M running total after a $365K Thursday, -2% from Wednesday.



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Vermont: DNA leads to arrest in 1980s Peacock murders

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CNN
 — 

A single drop of blood has led to the arrest of a suspect in the unsolved 1989 murders of Catherine and George Peacock in Danby, Vermont, police say.

George, 76, and Catherine, 73, were killed in their residence in September 1989, according to the Vermont State Police website. The couple had been stabbed to death and there was no sign of forced entry.

Police announced in a news release on Thursday that they had finally arrested a suspect in the case after decades of investigation involving detectives and cold-case specialists. The suspect, Michael Anthony Louise, 79, was arrested at his home in Syracuse, New York, on two counts of second-degree murder and is being jailed in New York pending extradition to Vermont.

CNN was unable to determine if Louise has an attorney.

Louise was married to one of the Peacocks’ daughters at the time of the murders, according to the news release. He was identified as a suspect just two weeks after his in-laws were killed – but investigators were unable to establish a “conclusive link” to the murders, say police.

But in May 2020, DNA testing confirmed that a drop of blood found inside Louise’s car belonged to George Peacock. The blood had been previously tested but the results were inconclusive, according to the release. Advances in forensic technology over the past decades allowed investigators to match the blood to George, police said.

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Entertainment

‘Community’ Movie Is Finally Happening, at Peacock

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Pop, pop the champagne: Maybe it’s not the darkest timeline after all, as “six seasons and a movie” is finally becoming reality. Peacock has ordered a movie based on the Dan Harmon comedy “,” bringing back original stars Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong to check in on what the gang from Greendale has been up to since the show ended in 2015.

Without sharing specifics, Peacock and Sony Pictures TV, which jointly announced the greenlight on Friday, described the negotiations for Peacock to secure the movie as “heavily competitive.” As part of the deal, Peacock has also acquired non-exclusive rights to the full six-season “Community” library, which can also be found on Netflix and Hulu.

“Community” creator Harmon is behind the movie as executive producer and writer, along with Andrew Guest. McHale also serves as EP, as do Russ Krasnoff and Gary Foster. Sony Pictures TV and Universal Studio Group’s Universal Television shingle are the studios on the show. (“Community” ran on NBC for five of the show’s six seasons, and Universal TV served as one of the show’s production companies, with studio lead Sony .)

“‘Six seasons and a movie’ started out as a cheeky line from ‘Community’s early seasons and quickly ignited a passionate fan movement for this iconic, hilarious and cool (cool, cool) NBC comedy,” said Susan Rovner, chairman, entertainment content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re incredibly grateful that 15 years later, we are able to deliver fans this promised movie and can’t wait to get to work with Dan Harmon, Andrew Guest, Joel McHale, Sony and our partners at UTV to continue this epic comedy for Peacock audiences.” 

Further details — including a director and an estimated premiere date — have not yet been shared. Also unanswered is whether other key “Community” cast members, including Yvette Nicole Brown and Donald Glover, might still make an appearance — or at least a cameo. (It’s probably safe to say Chevy Chase, who had a falling out with the show and whose character eventually died, won’t be back.)

“Community” experienced quite a roller coaster ride during its original 2009-2015 run. The show launched in fall 2009 on NBC, where it seemed to perpetually live on the bubble. Pitched as a comedy about strangers who bond in a community-college study group, the show soon became an experiment in deconstructing the sitcom form, earning critical acclaim and a loyal fan base for its meta jokes, takes on TV tropes and its unique characters.

Washed-up lawyer Jeff Winger (as played by McHale), was the defacto leader of the group, along with Abed Nadir (Pudi), Britta Perry (Jacobs), Annie Edison (Brie), Shirley Bennett (Brown), Troy Barnes (Glover), Pierce Hawthorne (Chase), plus teacher-turned-student Ben Chang (Jeong) and Greendale Dean Craig Pelton (Rash). Other actors who played substantial roles on the show include John Oliver, Jonathan Banks, Paget Brewster and Keith David.

After Season 3, NBC and Sony, worried that “Community” hadn’t drawn enough of a mainstream audience, fired Harmon and brought in new executive producers. But after Season 4 (dubbed the “gas leak season”) alienated fans, Harmon — thanks to heavy lobbying by McHale and the rest of the cast – was reinstated.

Still, after years of dancing around cancellation, NBC finally pulled the plug on “Community” at the end of its fifth season. But that wasn’t the end of the line. Sony pitched a Season 6 to its then-sister ad-supported streamer Crackle, as well as Hulu, which held the show’s streaming rights. But none of those outlets could make it work financially. Then came Yahoo! Screen, which pledged 13 episodes at the show’s previous $2 million an episode price tag.

It was good for “Community” — but not so much for Yahoo!, which realized its investment far exceeded any revenue coming out of the show. By the end of Season 6 (and after a total of 110 episodes), “Community” had wrapped for good — as had Yahoo! Screen.

But that deal ultimately made the first half of the show’s tongue-in-cheek “six seasons and a movie” prophecy come true. That line was first uttered by Abed (Pudi) in the Season 2 episode “Paradigms of Human Memory.” 

“‘Community’ was light years ahead of its time when it premiered on NBC in 2009 and we are thrilled to once again visit the brilliant minds of Dan Harmon, Andrew Guest and this impeccable cast,” said Jason Clodfelter, co-president, Sony Pictures Television Studios . “We are grateful to Peacock, our partners at UTV and to all the zealous fans who have cherished this iconic show.”

Added Universal TV president Erin Underhill: “This franchise is the very definition of community. We’re excited to bring the band back together and continue the journey of these beloved characters.” 

“Community” won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding individual achievement in animation during its run and also spawned a tremendous fan base that even includes its own unofficial fan-led convention. Of course, since the show ended its run, “Community” cast members have all moved on to other critically acclaimed projects.

Talk of a movie has swirled for years — since even before “Community” wrapped. In 2014, before the show’s sixth season even aired on Yahoo! Screen, then-Sony Pictures Television programming president Zack Van Amburg said that a ‘Community’ movie, perhaps directed by either Justin Lin or Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (all of whom helmed episodes of the series) was likely. “I personally have had those conversations,” he said at the time.

In 2020, the cast (with everyone, including Glover, except for Chase) gathered for a table read and Q&A to support Frontline Foods and José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, tip-toed around the movie question, but hinted they were all game if a script were written. (Even Glover made it seem like he’d be up for it.)

“When I watch the episodes now, I have these waves come over me of like, first of all, my writers were amazing and probably didn’t get rewarded for it as much as maybe I thought the job was,” Harmon said at the time. “But second… the whole cast is just like a machine on a basketball court that automatically slam dunks everything that you put onto the court.  We’ve all had enough success individually that we all know it doesn’t get any better.”

But speculation about the movie actually happening remained just that — speculation. Until last month. That’s when Harmon told Newsweek that there was an outline for the film. “There is an outline for it,” Harmon told Newsweek. “There’s a product put together and pitched out in the world. I guess that’s how real it is.”

Harmon was hesitant to continue riling fans up, though, adding: “That’s probably enough that’ll make people mad when [there’s nothing] a year from now. It still doesn’t mean there’s going to be a movie tomorrow. It means there is definitely going to be one.”

And now it’s official, Human Beings.



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Entertainment

‘Queer As Folk’ Canceled By Peacock After One Season – Deadline

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The Queer As Folk reboot will be short-lived. Peacock has opted not to pick up a second season of the series created by Russell T. Davies and Stephen Dunn.

A reimagining of the British series created by Davies, the new iteration, which premiered June 9, explores the lives of a diverse group of friends in New Orleans whose lives are transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy.

The series starred Devin Way, Fin Argus, Jesse James Keitel, CG, Johnny Sibilly, and Ryan O’Connell. The show featured a host of guest stars including Kim Cattrall, Juliette Lewis, Ed Begley Jr., and Nyle DiMarco.

Dunn shared the “disappointing news” of Queer as Folk‘s cancellation on Instagram Friday night.

“It’s a rare gift in these times, and in this country, to be able to make a show as fearless and unapologetic as Queer As Folk. This experience changed our lives forever and we’re so grateful to have found this incredible new family,” he wrote next to a photo of the cast. “We know how much it’s meant to the fans and while we’re heartbroken we won’t get to make more episodes, we wanna thank everyone for watching and falling in love with Brodie, Mingus, Ruthie, Noah, Shar, Julian, Daddius, Bussey, Marvin, Judy and Brenda. We’re so grateful for the chance to honor our community and are so proud of this show.”

Lee Eisenberg, Emily Brecht, original British series creator Davies, Nicola Shindler, served as executive producers, as well as Louise Pedersen on behalf of All3 Media International, which distributes the format and the original British series produced by Red Productions for Channel 4. Creator, writer, and executive producer Stephen Dunn directed the pilot and other episodes, while Jaclyn Moore acted as writer and executive producer. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is named producer on the show.

This is the second remake by an American outlet of the original British series. An U.S. adaptation ran on Showtime from 2000-2005. The current iteration was originally in development at Bravo before moving to corporate sibling Peacock and getting a series order.

 



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Sports

Overreaction Monday: Rich Eisen on Deshaun Watson, Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Rams, & Tyreek – The Rich Eisen Show

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  1. Overreaction Monday: Rich Eisen on Deshaun Watson, Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Rams, & Tyreek The Rich Eisen Show
  2. How NFL’s treatment of owners could impact Deshaun Watson’s future | Pro Football Talk | NBC Sports NBC Sports
  3. MMQB’s Albert Breer: Ravens Want a Lamar Jackson Extension Before Training Camp | Rich Eisen Show The Rich Eisen Show
  4. PFT OT: Deshaun Watson latest; Snyder not testifying (FULL EPISODE) | Pro Football Talk | NBC Sports NBC Sports
  5. The MMQB’s Albert Breer Talks Lamar, Mayfield, Watson & more with Rich Eisen | Full Interview The Rich Eisen Show
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Entertainment

In Bid to Boost Peacock, Universal Sending 3 Movies Straight to Streaming

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“What you’ll see with these films is that they are broadly appealing, but also track towards that young, diverse audience that represents the streaming audience of today, the generation of consumers who are choosing streaming as their primary source of entertainment,” Ms. Campbell said in an interview.

Despite lagging behind some of its streaming competitors, Peacock has experienced success this year. February was a high point, when viewers could see the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, the simultaneous release of the Jennifer Lopez-starring film “Marry Me” in theaters and on the service, and the debut of “Bel-Air,” a dramatic reimagining of the 1990s hit television series “The Prince of Bel-Air” that starred Will Smith. (Season two is in development.)

“Retention on our service after airing all of this special content in such a concentrated period of time was well above our expectation,” Brian Roberts, the chief executive of Comcast, said in an earnings call last week. “We have seen a 25 percent increase in hours of engagement year-over-year.”

When the pandemic upended the theater business, Universal Pictures experimented with a variety of distribution methods for its movies. There was the purely theatrical like “Fast 9: The Fast Saga,” which earned $173 million when it was released last summer when coronavirus cases were lower. And there was “Sing 2,” which earned over $160 million domestically after being released in December, before going to premium video-on-demand just 17 days after its debut in theaters. The company has also experimented with simultaneous release, debuting “Halloween Kills” and the sequel to “Boss Baby” in theaters and on Peacock during the height of the pandemic. The company will do so again in two weeks with the remake of the Stephen King horror film “Firestarter.”

“There’s no one size fits all,” Ms. Langley said. “It really is about looking at the individual movies on the one hand and then also at our growth engine Peacock, and doing what’s best in any given moment, depending on what’s going on in the marketplace. I’m hopeful that this stabilizes over time as the theatrical landscape stabilizes. But until then, we do have this optionality.”

Like every other studio executive, Ms. Langley is involved in the complicated calculus of determining what movies fit where in a world where the theatrical box office is down 45 percent from what it was in 2019. It is “a box office that is in decline,” Ms. Langley said, with theatergoing expected to still be down at least 15 percent from its prepandemic level in 2023.

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Entertainment

NBCUniversal Cuts Programming Flow To Hulu, Re-Routing ‘Saturday Night Live’ And Other Shows To Peacock – Deadline

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NBCUniversal has ended its content deal with Hulu, re-routing Saturday Night Live and a number of other marquee titles to its own streaming service, Peacock.

The shift, which is set to take effect in September, is not a surprise and comes after weeks of speculation. While it was not formally announced, it was confirmed to Deadline by multiple people familiar with the decision.

NBCU was an original partner in Hulu when it launched in 2007 but current parent Comcast is unwinding its relationship to the service, which is now operated by its majority owner, Disney. Comcast retains a financial stake in Hulu through 2024, with a buyout not an easy maneuver to pull off given the rapid appreciation of streaming overall. Wall Streeters have speculated that the parties could negotiate an early exit, but the incentive is much more Disney’s given that the value of Hulu should continue to appreciate.

Starting this fall, shows including SNL, The Voice and American Auto will not be available to stream on Hulu the day after they air. The full roster of programming shifting to Peacock has not yet been finalized, given that it is a complex web of next-day broadcast rights, cable and studio titles, movies and library fare.

The move comes amid ever-heightening stakes in streaming. Peacock, which launched in mid-2020, has drawn 16 million premium subscribers thus far from both stand-alone customers and those who have it bundled in with their pay-TV or broadband packages. Overall monthly active use is at 24.5 million accounts, which is ahead of initial projections. Executives said on the company’s most recent earnings call that they intend to boost spending and make bolder moves in order to take advantage of recent subscriber momentum. The initial focus of Peacock when it launched was on its free, ad-supported tier, in part because a number of premium offerings, from the Olympics to Premier League soccer to scripted originals were waylaid by Covid.

Hulu had 45.3 million subscribers at the start of January, Disney said in its most recent quarterly financial report.

Reps from Comcast, NBCU, Hulu and Disney did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment.



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Sports

NBC’s Winter Olympics ratings hit record low

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Norwegian Olympian Daniel Andre Tande
Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images

The 2022 Winter Olympics are occurring at the moment—which you might need reminding of, given the ratings numbers NBC is apparently pulling for the event. Bloomberg reports tonight that the 2022 Games in Beijing are currently set to have the worst TV viewership in Olympics history, currently operating at roughly half of what the 2018 games in PyeongChang, South Korea four years ago.

To be fair to NBC, it clearly knew things weren’t going to be great this year going into the Games; the network, which paid $7.75 billion back in 2014 to secure broadcast rights to the Games through 2032, had already issued notices to advertisers before the Games even started to expect a lower-than-average return on investment for whatever big sacks of money they’d spent on ads. (Among other things, NBC skipped out on offering its usual expensive guarantees of certain viewership levels to major advertisers.)

There have been a few major factors that people are using to explain the dip. For one, there’s the whole political and diplomatic angle, with the United States declining to send official representatives to China for the Games, citing human rights abuses including the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people living within its borders. On a more prosaic level, the time zone difference between the States and China means NBC has to pick between airing events in the middle of the night, or holding them back until primetime (as results propagate wildly online). That’s all compounded by the pandemic of it all; last year’s make-up Summer Games in Japan also plummeted in viewership, marking record lows.

A few caveats here, though. For one, “low ratings” doesn’t mean NBC didn’t kick seven kinds of hell out of every other offering in primetime this past week; fewer people might be watching them, but these are still the Olympics we’re talking about. And Bloomberg quotes NBCUniversal’s president of advertising as saying that, despite the loss of regular ratings, the company expects to make back plenty of its ad revenue by streaming the Games through Peacock and other platforms. Which might be the way forward, anyway: An emphasis on streaming gets around the time zone issue neatly, and also lines up with the ways a lot of people would rather experience the Games in the first place.

For now, the 2022 Games are set to cruise toward a record low; we’ll have to wait until 2024, in Paris, to see if this is a more permanent shift.

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Entertainment

‘Bel-Air’ review: ‘The Fresh Prince’ goes down a dark path in a Peacock drama that’s better than it has any right to be

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Inspired by a 2019 fan-made trailer that went viral (and whose creator, Morgan Cooper, is a director, producer and co-writer here), the series could easily have become a classic case of taking a three-minute gag too far. Yet the creative team under showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson blows up the opening credits of the original sitcom — which explained how the character came to live with his wealthy relatives — in a very clever way.

Will Smith (Jabari Banks) has a bright future, with a looming basketball scholarship that will take him out of Philadelphia and put him on a path to bigger and better things. But an encounter with a gang member goes wrong, and his hubris leads him to try settling matters on the playground, a plan that backfires in a dangerous manner.

Understandably concerned, Will’s mom (April Parker Jones) ships him off to Los Angeles and relatives he barely knows, as evidenced by his stunned expression when he first catches sight of their gated mansion. “You did not tell me that your family was White,” the driver (Jordan L. Jones) says.

Still, fitting in isn’t sitcom-easy in this telling, with Will’s arrival provoking jealousy from his cousin Carlton (Olly Sholotan), who’s hiding his own secret, and tensions involving his Aunt Vivian (Cassandra Freeman) and Uncle Philip (Adrian Holmes) — the latter in the midst of a race to become District Attorney, but facing questions about street cred due to his zip code.

As constructed, there’s a strain of “Gossip Girl” running through “Bel-Air’s” DNA, given the power dynamics at the posh private school the kids attend. The show also explores racial politics, with Will responding angrily when one of Carlton’s White friends sings provocative rap lyrics, an objection that Carlton dismisses.

Already the recipient of a two-season order, no one can accuse the new series of moving too slowly; rather, the writers race through soap-opera-ish plot developments in the first three episodes, provoking skepticism about whether the producers have frontloaded the action a little too much.

That, too, underscores the difference between “The Fresh Prince” — introduced on a broadcast network more than 30 years ago, and celebrated in a 2020 reunion special — and “Bel-Air,” situated on a streaming service where the game is to burn brightly and garner attention.

Promoting the show during the Super Bowl might not be the ideal juxtaposition for a dark drama, but in terms of percentages, if the series can hook a tiny fraction of those viewers the bet will pay off for Peacock.

While it’s possible to second-guess that strategy, in terms of delivering a show improbably worthy of such pricey TV real estate, “Bel-Air” has held up its end of the bargain.

“Bel-Air” premieres Feb. 13 on Peacock.

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Sports

‘What’s More Likely?’ – Rich Eisen Breaks Down NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend | The Rich Eisen Show – The Rich Eisen Show

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  1. ‘What’s More Likely?’ – Rich Eisen Breaks Down NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend | The Rich Eisen Show The Rich Eisen Show
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