WED 1.27.21 : New HBO MAX's user #s analyzed / "Modern Family" coming to streaming / Lotta Movie news and more.
Mornin! It’s WEDNESDAY January 27th, 2021. Where apparently The (original) Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip closed for good on Friday after 22 years. Wait where’s Carrie Bradshaw gonna stay in LA now?
Email me at Wakeupodcast@gmail.com with any ideas to make this email work better for ya. OR… if you have tips on getting Olive Oil stains out of shirts. - Sean
MUSIC TO READ BY
THE OFFSPRING “I Choose” Apple Music / Spotify / YouTube
I heard this song for the 1st time in a long time this weekend, so thought I’d share. Ok wow… a “Sex & The City” reference and a Grunge-era music reference in the first 2 paragraphs. My GenY acquisition campaign is not going well.
THE SILVER SCREEN
± Basically…. just a lotta quick Movie things to know today:
Kevin Hart joins LIONSGATE’s “Borderlands” with Cate Blanchett. Eli Roth directing, Craig Mazin wrote script, based on popular video game.
WB moves “Godzilla vs. Kong” back 5 days to Wed March 30th. James Wan’s “Malignant” also now set for Sept 10th.
“Da 5 Bloods” wins Best Pic from NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW.
2021 INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARD Nominations list is out. I was not nominated. I mean, this is a newsletter. “Never Rarely…”, ““Minari”, “Ma Rainey”, “Nomadland'“ got the most. Awards are Thu April 22, event details TBD.
Luke Evans joins DISNEY’s “Pinocchio” with Tom Hanks, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
CAA has new head of MP Talent - Rachel Rusch promoted, will also still lead the Comedy department. She reps Trevor Noah, James Corden, Leslie Jones among many others.
ICM promotes 14 to Agent in LA & NY.
THE TV SET
± “Modern Family” coming to HULU and PEACOCK.
All 250 episodes drop next Wed Feb 3rd. Yes. I’ll remind you
Only the first 12 eps will be on PEACOCK Free, rest are on Premium. Total rights price “well into the $100 millions” 🤔🤷♂️ (Deadline)
ALSO IN TV:
NBC renews “The Blacklist” for Season 9. Show owned by NBCU and SONY TV. All episodes are on NETFLIX, not PEACOCK.
NETFLIX orders season 2 of “Too Hot to Handle”. The hit, “look but don’t touch” dating show will shoot in Turks & Caicos in season 2, no word on a production start date.
NFL Championship games up in ratings slightly from last year (5% & 2% each).
THE MEDIA BIZ
± HBOMAX account activations (aka subscribers) hit 17.2 million (Variety)
So, “Wonder Woman 84” + getting on Roku added about 4.6 million users in December.
Still, only about Half of people who have free HBOMAX access… have actually signed up for their account.
DIRECTV / U-VERSE / ATT TV NOW lost 670k TV subscribers from Oct to Dec, hopefully more of a breakdown on this tomorrow.
± TWITTER buys REVUE, a Dutch ‘create your own’ subscriber Newsletter service
They’ll take 5% of your revenue once you get over 50 subs. Similar to SUBSTACK… where this newsletter is hosted, who takes a 10% cut. Hmm…
REVUE will operate as an independent brand within TWITTER corp. (Axios)
± Marty Baron retiring as Editor at THE WASHINGTON POST
His character figured prominently in Oscar-winner SPOTLIGHT (Liev Schreiber played him), when he led THE BOSTON GLOBE.
He’s gonna take a break after 45 years in journalism, no next venture planned. Congrats Marty!
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TRAILER HOUSE:
DISNEY / DISNEY+ “Raya and the Last Dragon” in movie theaters and on DISNEY+ for $30 rental on March 5th.
NEW TO WATCH
“Freaks & Geeks” is now streaming for the first time with the original soundtrack songs - watch on HULU Here.
“Palm Springs” also now streaming on HULU with a commentary from Andy and Cristin, as well as the writer and director. Just go HERE and look in the ‘Extras’ tab.
Also FACEBOOK and APPLE report earnings after the 4p Wall Street bell today.
And the NFL is charging $100 to have your cardboard cutout in the Super Bowl stands. Seriously.
Have a great day ya’ll - Share the newsletter with your team! Or your friends. Or your friends on your team. So hard to draw boundaries….
See ya’s tomarrah!
-Sean McNulty
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