Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY September 28, 2021.

Where SNL is adding 3 featured performers this year, and saying goodbye to Beck Bennett after 8 years, and featured player Lauren Holt.

ALSO: R. Kelly is now facing life in prison. Although he won’t be sentenced for another 7 months til May 4. He’s also still facing charges in 3 other states. 👩‍⚖️

AND: Dave Letterman decided to crash Kevin Durant’s press conference yesterday for… some reason 🤷‍♂️ . KD… not too enthused, but Dave got a smile before departing.

OF NOTE: NETS star Kyrie Irving had to attend that press day virtually because he refuses to reveal his vaxx status. In other news: Kyrie Irving is not vaccinated. If his “I’m not telling” stance continues, he won’t be allowed to play in any BROOKLYN home games, or WARRIORS, LAKERS or CLIPPERS games in CA.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

JUST TWO BRIEF NOTES

📺 THE TV SET

AMAZON orders “The Boys” spinoff series

Set at a “college for supes”/young superheroes - essentially pitched as “The Boys” meets “The Hunger Games”.

However the original showrunner Craig Rosenberg has left the project over creative differences. Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters (ABC/MARVEL’s “Agent Carter”) taking over. No word on a timeline. /THR

TONY AWARDS get 2.6 Million viewers on CBS, half of 2019 audience

That’s for CBS’s “Broadway’s Back!” show - PAR+ not revealing any data for the streaming of the 7-9p awards show. This is over a 50% drop from the 5.4 Million viewers back for 2019’s show.

Although it usually airs in June of course with less competition - granted I don’t know that NBC’s SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL diverted a lot of audience here… The show also didn’t have the benefit of a direct NFL lead-in like THE EMMYS. /THR

Other SUNDAY NIGHT early NIELSEN numbers:
- NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL: 13.6 Million
- FOX “The Simpsons” Season 33 premeire: 3.3 Million
- ABC “Celeb Wheel of Fortune” : 3.8 Million

ALSO IN TV

NETFLIX renews “Sex/Life” for a Season 2. 67 Million NETFLIX accounts watched at least 2 minutes of Season 1. And… you can just make your own comment on that sentence. 🤐 /Variety
FOX adds Eva Amurri to their Country Music dynasty show “Monarch” - she’ll play the younger version of the family matriarch character played by her mom Susan Sarandon. It’s Eva’s first acting role in over 5 years since leaving acting to focus on her lifestyle brand. /Variety
NETFLIX orders “On My Block” spinoff called “Freeridge”. Will be set in the same area of LA featured in “Block”, but with a new cast. “On My Block” wraps up its run on Oct 4 with its 4th Season. /THR
“Real Housewifes of Atlanta” personality Cynthia Bailey leaves the show after 11 seasons. /Deadline

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

CAA buys ICM talent agency

THE BASICS: A rumored price of about $550 Million. ICM had about $200 Million in annual client revenue/billings, based heavily in the TV & Book biz, and below-the-line talent.

Then add on 💰💰 from their recent acquisition of UK-based STELLAR GROUP which represents a lot of top Soccer talent in Europe.

CAA - over 2000 employees globally; ICM - about 400 in LA, NY and London.

Eventual plan is to put all employees under one roof… but no real rush there. Deal still has to go through Anti-trust and Hollywood guilds scrutiny.

ICM head Chris Silberman will join the board of CAA’s majority investor, private equity firm TPG.

THE HOT TAKES: Much like being a smaller movie studio (MGM, FOX, etc) in an increasing arms-race streaming world, ICM is also kinda caught at that powerful but relatively mid-level range in the talent agency representation business compared with the big 3 of WME, CAA and UTA.

With UTA’s huge TV business, and WME parent-company ENDEAVOR more occupied with growing its business side (see below), CAA certainly makes the most natural home/combination.

Layoffs and Agent departures/moves to other agencies or management firms now pending.

ALSO: WME is launching, or I guess re-launching the WME INDEPENDENT division to broker Independent Film sales deals between producers & studios/distributors.
Essentially ENDEAVOR is bringing the sales arm from its ENDEAVOR CONTENT division into WME, before it sells off the 80% of the ENDEAVOR CONTENT production business to a still TBD buyer in order to satisfy its deal with the talent guilds. /Deadline
- WME INDEPENDENT will be led by former ENDEAVOR CONTENT execs Deborah McIntosh & Alex Walton.

ENDEAVOR pays $1.2 Billion for Online Gambling tech business OPEN BET

$1 Billion in cash, $200 Mil in ENDEAVOR stock going to current owner SCIENTIFIC GAMES CORPORATION (🤷‍♂️).

OPEN BET’s tech processes bets for several of the biggest Gambling Apps incl DRAFT KINGS and FAN DUEL. So essentially - they’re the guy behind the guy, and processed over 3 billion bets for said clients in 2020.

ENDEAVOR’s IMG ARENA division already offers live streaming video & data feeds for sports like the PGA & USTA, MLS and UFC to over 470 sportsbooks, so the 2 divisions will work in tandem to be a new division within ENDEAVOR with $340 Million in annual revenue. /Deadline

ENDEAVOR stock up 10% in after-hours trading on the news. Wall Street… gambling news enthusaism… yeah that tracks.

TIK TOK hits 1 Billion Monthly-Active-Users (MAUs) globally

That’s up about 50% from last Summer. This despite being banned in the world’s 2nd most populuated country INDIA.

Also does not include CHINA usage of course (different brand there - DOUYIN), although no US Social Media operates there either. /Deadline

COMPS:

FB: 2.85 Billion MAU
IG hit the 1 Billion MAU mark in 2018…. but hasn’t released much if any data in recent years.
SNAP: 500 Million MAU
PINTEREST: 454 Million MAU

ALSO IN MEDIA

APPLE TV+ claims to have less than 20 Million US subscribers in their negotiations with Hollywood Unions about pay rates (this would qualify it to pay a lower rate to crew members. Because ya know, APPLE is always low on cash #$200BillionCashOnHand)
- This 20 Million US subscriber number likely only refers to paying subscribers, and does not include all the people who get it for free due to buying new APPLE products and other promo deals. /NextTV

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

CINEWORLD Movie Theaters +10%… given their presence in the UK, gotta think that’s impending Bond optimism?

Otherwise pretty quiet.

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

NETFLIX “Britney Vs Spears” docu. Click Here to Watch or Add to your List

NBC “La Brea” premieres at 9p

DISNEY+ “Free Guy” hits $20 PVOD rental today (iTunes, VOD etc). Even though it’s still in the Top 5 in movie theaters… it’s 45-day exclusive window is now over. Will hit HBOMAX in its streaming window at some point per the FOX-HBO output deal.

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🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

MGM “Licorice Pizza” trailer. Paul Thomas Anderson’s look at a…. different side of life in the Valley in the 1970’s. Starring Alana Haim from HAIM and Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman. Although from the looks of… whatever Bradley Cooper is doing here - I’m buying stock now. In select theaters Fri Nov 26

DISNEY+ “Welcome to Earth” trailer. Will Smith explores the wonders of Earth over 6 episodes. Somehow none feature New Jersey. Premieres in Dec TBD.

D’OH

Admittedly not a great start of the week for me… re: the Clooney/Pitt movie yesterday - for the record, it should have said Clooney’s fixer character is NOT “Michael Clayton” - I think that was just wishful thinking in my head that made me skip over the NOT when writing Sunday night. My sincerest apologies for giving any hope to fellow diehard fans of that movie.

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

COLDPLAY X BTS “My Universe” - A collab that… kinda makes sense when you think about COLPLAY’s more recent music.

Listen to the song here on SPOTIFY

If you need new tunes:

THE WAKEUP Spotify playlist

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-Sean McNulty

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The Wakeup

THE BOYS gets spinoff series at AMAZON