FACEBOOK spends $10 Bil on Metaverse, $5 Bil on content safety
CHAPPELLE sets Nov US tour to screen docu / JO BROS set NETFLIX special / PEACOCK gets David E Kelley series
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY October 26, 2021.
Where going to DISNEYLAND for a day will now cost you $159 on the highest demand days. And $164 as of March. But good news - parking is also going up 25% to $25 a day. But I mean people just take the subway there anyway right?
ALSO: Chappelle says Film Festival invites for his documentary around the “Summer Camp” stand-up series he did in his Ohio hometown last Summer have been rescinded. So he’s going to screen the movie at 10 stand-up dates in November across the US starting on Monday in SF.
AND: He posted a clip from his latest standup gig in an IG video here, including a description of the “conditions” under which he’ll meet with members of the Transgender community to discuss things. Yeah this isn’t going away in October.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
HBOMAX sets Brendan Fraser as the “pyro-themed” villain “Firefly” in “Batgirl” movie
The guys who did “Bad Boys for Life” are directing, Leslie Grace (“In The Heights”) is “BatGirl”, expected in 2022 TBD. /Deadline
ALSO IN MOVIES
Steph Curry producing AMAZON Christmas movie “12 Days of Christmas”, directed by Charles Stone III (“Drumline”, “Uncle Drew”) from a script written by BROKEN LIZARD & SNL alums. Single guy wakes up to find a kid in his house, and another gets added each morning in the Christmas season. /THR
Zoe Lister Jones joins Zach Braff’s new movie at MGM, “A Good Person” starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. /Deadline
If you saw “Dune” and wanna geek out on how Hans Zimmer created the music and audio experience overall, the NY TIMES asked him.
📺 THE TV SET
JO BROS doing a “Jonas Family Roast” special for NETFLIX Thanksgiving week
The variety special will be hosted by Keenan Thompson, and feature folks like John Legend, Pete Davidson and Niall Horan. Drops on Tue Nov 23. /Variety
AMAZON’s free streaming service IMDBTV orders comedy from Shea Serrano & Mike Schur
Mike is of course a prolific comedy creator (“The Good Place”, “Rutherford Falls”), and Shea writes for THE RINGER and is a best selling author.
Called “Primo”, based on Shea’s upbringing in San Antonio as a teenager navigating collegiate aspirations and a home life with his single mom and 5 uncles. /THR
PEACOCK orders David E. Kelly police mystery
Called “The Missing”, based on a book. An NYPD detective questions his humanity when a routine investigation “turns upside down.”
David is writing and showrunning the 8 episode series order… somehow while also overseeing ”Big Sky” at ABC, “The Lincoln Lawyer” series at NETFLIX and the “Love and Death” limited series at HBOMAX. Kinda makes writing a daily newsletter a little less impressive doesn’t it.🤦♂️ /Variety
ALSO IN TV
APPLE TV+ adds Hank Azaria, Alison Pill to Billy Crudup comedy “Hello, Tomorrow!”. 10 episodes, set in a “retro-future world” where traveling salesmen sell lunar timeshares. /Deadline
British TV hit police drama “Happy Valley” moving from NETFLIX to AMC for its upcoming third and final season. Seasons 1 & 2 are now on AMC+.
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
#medianerd🤓 alert
After a blistering month of leaks showing severe content moderation shortfalls, FACEBOOK announces a $10 Billion investment in… the Metaverse
Zuck proves once again he’ll never be able to read a room, and apparently even sounded irritated on FB’s Earnings Call that his platform… which demonstrably led to the spread of QANON and the January 6th insurrection on the US Capitol, was being inaccurately portrayed in the media as putting profit before safety. Guessing he’s probably also upset he didn’t get to go into space this month.
He noted that FACEBOOK spends $5 Billion annually on content moderation, more than any other platform. With no hint of irony that his platform is at least 3X to 10X bigger than any other platform. That $5 Billion also represents just 16% of FB’s 2020 Profits alone. Bump that up to 2020 Revenue, and it’s just 6%.
SO: Zuck will be spending 2X more $$ on the Metaverse in 2022 than trying to fix his current Basicverse from serving up a cesspool of misinformation to many of its users.
AND: This Thursday FB Metaverse event should be pretty rich, figuratively and literally, even if only for the expected parent-company name change announcement. /Variety
FACEBOOK adds 22 Million Daily Users, 15 Million Monthly Users from July thru September
Granted… when your user bases are in the Billions, this isn’t much. But SNAP or TWITTER would kill for these numbers. User growth is mainly coming from Asia-Pacific countries at this point, and no INSTA numbers revealed at all… as per usual.
#DAUs (Daily Active Users) now at 1.93 Billion
US growth stagnant at 196 Million since the pandemic began 18 months ago
#MAU (Monthly Active Users) now at 2.91 Billion
US growth stagnant for 2021 so far, standing at about 260 Million. Or the equivalent of literally everyone 18+ years old.
Although no indication of about how many times a month those users visit the site.
For Comparison: TIKTOK has 1/3 of their MAU’s, SNAP & PINTEREST about 1/6th, TWITTER far less than 10%.
FACEBOOK made roughly $9 Billion in profit alone in the 3 month period.
Avg Revenue Per User #ARPU did take a small hit in most regions, but it’s still up massively in the US and EUROPE vs Fall 2020.
#FunFacts:
FB makes over $16.60 a month from each user in the US via advertising revenue. That’s more than any video streaming service (NETFLIX, HBOMAX, and HULU being the top 3 ARPU wise).
The US supplies about 45% of FB Revenue, but just 9% of their user base.
FB indicated revenue wouldn’t grow as fast as expected in Q4 due to APPLE iOS privacy changes… but that didn’t seem to bother Wall Street like it did with SNAP - FB stock was up slightly after hours last night as Q4 revenue will still be up anywhere from 12-21% vs 2020.
ALSO IN MEDIA
HBOMAX launches in the 4 Nordic countries & Spain, with a Lifetime Half-Off offer: if you sign up by Nov 30, you get 50% off for as long as you keep your subscription.
They apparently also did this for their big LATIN AMERICA launch in July. Great deal to juice subscriber counts… but not great for ARPU. HBOMAX is now avail in 46 countries.
CAMEO acquires a merch company called REPRESENT which… makes total sense. How has this taken so long to happen? #SmartMove /THR
🏦 STOCK NOTES:
REDBOX pops 34% on its first day (including after hours trading). So I guess Wall Street loves DVD’s - who knew? Or perhaps just REDDIT traders do #GameStonk.
PINTEREST drops almost 13%, after PAYPAL says Just Kidding on the whole $45 Billion deal thing. Apparently PAYPAL shareholders weren’t too keen on buying a platform whose US growth has seemingly peaked.
👩💻 NEW TO WATCH:
FOX - MLB WORLD SERIES begins at 8p : HOUSTON vs ATLANTA
TBS “The Last O.G.” - Season 4 premiere at 1030p
If you were sent this newsletter or… just kinda found it:
🎥 TRAILER HOUSE
HBOMAX “Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words” trailer. New comedy special that also chronicles her visit to her Dominican Republic roots. Premieres Thu Nov 4.
BET+ “Sacrifice” series trailer. Paula Patton as a powerful lawyer in entertainment business. Premieres Thu Nov 4
🎧 PLAYING ME OFF
LANA DEL REY released another album of her Speed Metal stylings on Friday called “Blue Banisters” if inclined. Here’s the link on SPOTIFY.
If you need new tunes:
Email me anytime - just reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.
-Sean McNulty
@theseanmac on TWITTER
@TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM
or I’m also here on CLUBHOUSE