On today’s episode, in our Box Office segment, Variety’s Rebecca Rubin explains why “Black Phone 2” made a connection with moviegoers, and she dissects the record tally for the horror genre at the box office this year. And business editor Todd Spangler offers a Q3 earnings preview on what to expect for Netflix, Comcast, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Tuesday, October twenty first,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA. He's in New York, and Righty has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:33):
in our box Office segment, we'll speak with Rebecca Rubin
about the weekend at the Turnstiles and why this has
been such a big year for horror. And we'll get
ready for third quarter earning season with Business editor Todd
Spangler running through some of the news that we can
expect from Hollywood's biggest players, starting with Netflix's report coming
later today. But before we get to that, here are
(00:55):
a few headlines just in this morning that you need
to know. It's on. Warner Brothers Discovery has officially confirmed
that it has received multiple offers to buy all or
part of the company. There's been enough activity that w
b D was forced to acknowledge it all in an
SEC filing. The company said that for now it will
proceed with the planned split of its cable networks from
(01:19):
HBO and Warner Brothers Studios, but at this point who
knows what will happen. The only certainty is that Variety
will cover it all in real time on Variety dot Com.
The annual New York Game Awards will expand to a
two day event for the first time next year. They'll
be held at the SVA Theater on January seventeenth and eighteenth,
and all proceeds benefit the industry nonprofit Playing With Purpose.
(01:43):
My colleague Jennifer mos has the scoop. Disney has unveiled
an expansive plan to celebrate the nation's two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. The Disney Celebrates America effort begins on Veterans
Day next month and will extend through July fourth weekend
in Uoing a twenty four hour multi platform broadcast anchored
(02:03):
by David Muir, It will air across Disney Plus, Hulu, ABC, ESPN, Freeform, FX,
and National Geographic. Netflix is turning the board game Catan
into a TV show, It's Really Fun to Play With
the group. Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment is shepherding the
project along with creatives at the Board Games publisher. All
(02:24):
of these stories and so much more can be found
on Variety dot com Right now, now we turn to
conversations with Variety journalists about news and trends in show business.
The production of Daily Variety was derailed Monday morning by
the massive outage at Amazon Web Services, so full disclosure,
(02:47):
both of today's segments were intended to run on Monday.
By the time our podcast publishing platform was back up
and running mid afternoon, LA time, it just seemed like
a better idea to start fresh today on Tuesday. The
insights and analysis offered up by Rebecca and Todd are
worth the weight. So now it's time to talk box
office with Rebecca Rubin, our senior film and media reporter.
(03:13):
This weekend, moviegoers answered the call of Black Phone two
from the prolific Blumhouse genre label and Universal.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Rebecca Rubin, thanks for joining me, Thanks for having me
so here we are in late October, and no surprise
that a horror film is topping the box office. Rebecca,
were you surprised by the performance of Black Phone two?
I wouldn't say I was surprised. The opening was fairly
in line with industry expectations. It ended up opening to
twenty six point five million, and that was just ahead
(03:50):
of the original Black Phone, which launched with about twenty
three million dollars in twenty twenty two. And what's interesting
to me there is the these films opened in very
different box office landscapes. Because the original film opened as
theaters were still recovering from COVID. I wouldn't say a
(04:10):
movie going was at full strength with that twenty three
million dollars start. It opened in summer, and it came
in fourth place behind Elvis, Top Gun, Maverick, and Jurassic
World Dominion, so just after you the competition at that time.
This film, in contrast, were in October, the height of
spooky season, when you'd expect the scary movie to come out,
(04:33):
and twenty six point five million, just a few million
more was enough to land in first place. So this
movie didn't have a lot of competition. It's been a.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Pretty slow October. And so while I think that any
sequel that improves upon the last is usually counted as
a win, it didn't have as much competition as the
first film, and so I think it's it's a modest hit.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In terms of the Blumhouse of it all. This is
a happy result after a couple of underperformers at the
box office for this label that has had a strong
streak for many years.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Blumhouse is best known for making these massive horror franchises
at pretty low budgets, and so they ended up being
hugely profitable. They're behind Paranormal Activity, the Purge, the Halloween remakes,
and they've been known as pretty consistent hit makers. This
year though, they've struggled a bit and they've had a
(05:31):
lot of movies come out. One was Wolfman that came
out in January. Megan two point zero, which was a
sequel to the breakout hit Megan, came out in June,
and both of those films and a few others were
pretty rejected by moviegoers.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, nobody bats a thousand. Their prolificness is definitely part
of their brand. And of course, Jason Blum was just
honored last week. He was so gracious and he was
our first ever Master of Horror Award winner. We had
a good time celebrating the world of horror, and so
this is a good timing for him. But let me
ask you about horror in general. I mean, twenty twenty
(06:08):
five has been a big box office year for horror.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Jason Blum was recently on the cover of Variety, and
to his credit, he will own a miss. He is
not want to shy away from admitting that a movie
didn't do well, and he'll dissect why it might not
have connected with audiences. And he noted that actually Blumhouse
aside has been a really strong year for horror, a
lot of original horror, and Warner Brothers has been responsible
(06:36):
for movies like Weapons and Sinners that have just become
breakout hits. And com Score reported this morning that horror
films at this point in twenty twenty five had generated
one point two billion dollars and that is a record
for the genre. It broke a record that was set
back in twenty seventeen with one point one six billion dollars.
(06:59):
And so so it's really showing what strength this genre
has theatrically and why people really when they are choosing
to go to theaters, they like to be in a
communal setting to watch this kind of film.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
If something about getting scared together, Rebecca, what proportion does
horror account for in the overall year to date box office? Tallly?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So, right now, the year to date box office taally
is about six point eight billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
It does horror do well on the premium format screens
that we've been talking about so much this year.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It depends on the film. The movies that really do
well in the premium large formats are the action epics,
big visual spectacles, and so a movie like tron Ares
that Disney released last weekend had a big number of
the premium large formats. Even so, the movie did have
a pretty significant sixty six percent decline. It made about
(07:56):
eleven million dollars in its second weekend, and so it's
struggling a bit against it's one hundred and eighty million
dollar budget, but it is over indexing on those premium formats.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like you mentioned, what else rounded out the top five
or so the box office.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It's been a pretty weak October at the box office
right now. The month is down eleven percent from the
same point in twenty twenty four. So not the strongest weekend,
not the strongest month. But the other significant new release
was Good Fortune, and that is a comedy that was
directed by A. Z's and Sorry, in which he also
stars alongside Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogan. Lionsgate released the
(08:35):
movie It's a comedy, and it opened to six point
two million dollars. It's in line with expectations. It's not
a great result for a movie that costs thirty million dollars.
But at the same time, comedy is just a genre
that really has struggled theatrically against the rise of streaming.
And it's not even that this movie was poorly received.
(08:57):
It actually has pretty good reviews in audio and scores.
It's just that not enough people were incentivized to buy
a ticket, and so speaks to the struggles right now
that comedy is facing more than it is the quality of.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The film anything else about the box office, So the
performance of any films that stands out to you, Rebecca,
this weekend, After The Hunt, which is the film by
Luca Guadaninho stars Julia Roberts, Iowa Debris and Andrew Garfield,
expanded from limited release to nationwide theaters. It didn't really
sustain a lot.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Of traction while doing that. It opened in seventh place
and it earned about one point five million dollars from
a little over one thousand theaters. And so it's not
a great result given the cast of this movie, the
pedigree of a director like Luca Guadaninho. I think Amazon MGM,
which is releasing the film, had a lot of expectations
(09:53):
for this being an Awards play. It's just not really
getting the traction among moviegoers.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's a surprise for Julia Roberts picture, especially one that's
been talked about. And of course, as we slide into
award season, a lot of FYC hopes writing on a
lot of these fall releases. Rebecca, as ever, thank you
for talking us through.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
This all, Thanks for having me, and now we'll get.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The lowdown from Variety Business editor Todd Spangler on Q
three earnings season, which kicks off today with Netflix. It'll
surely be a newsy cycle as there is so much
activity in the air from Disney's succession plans to David
Ellison's first conference call outing with Wall Street as the
CEO of Paramount's guidance Comcast will no doubt talk about
(10:39):
the NBA and the Versant spinoff. Then there's the swirl
around Paramount and Warner Brothers, Discovery and potentially more consolidation.
You need a scorecard to follow it all, and we
can help with that. Go to Variety dot com and
sign up for our free weekly strictly business newsletter that
always has a calendar of every earnings call and aggregates
(10:59):
all of our earning coverage in one handy place and
it comes out on Friday. Check it out. Now, here's
Todd Dodd Spangler. Thanks for joining me. Hello, Well, here
we are Todd on the cusp of another earning season.
What to expect from Netflix this time around? What do
you think they'll be talking about?
Speaker 4 (11:18):
So they no longer disclose subscriber numbers, which had really
been the number that people focused on is as a
general indicator of their help, their growth, their trajectory over time.
So now it's really about the revenue metrics and what
people are going to be looking at is engagement. Executives
(11:40):
can really provide some color about how engagement is doing
for Netflix because you can look at it and say, Okay, well,
they're stopping reporting the subscriber numbers because they're starting to
plateau on that, and so they want people to focus
on other things, other levers that are growing. You know,
the top line bottom line for forecasting seventeen percent growth
(12:03):
on the top line and an operating margin of thirty
one percent.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Pretty damn enviable, but the.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Things that people are going to be looking for are
how is the ad business taking off for them? It's
kind of been a slow burn for They've not really
talked a whole lot about how much of a difference
it's making. So we'll be looking for signs about advertising
for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I will confess that I really thought Netflix was going
to make the biggest swing for UFC to make it
that natural companion with the WWE. So up next on
October thirtieth is Comcast. Comcast right now is presumably in
the final innings of the Versant spinoff of all the
cable networks not named Bravo in the group, and I'm
(12:50):
sure that's going to be some discussion, But what else
do you think will be in the mix for Comcasts.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I think they're going to be happily talking about the
progress that they've made with Peacock. I think they feel
that they finally hit critical mass where Peacock can really
hold its own against HBO Max and the Disney plus
Hulu bundle. I'm not totally sure that that's true, but
(13:16):
you know, they felt that they were in a strong
position that they went to Apple and did a bundle deal,
which is unusual.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Also, I'm guessing there will be a lot of questions
about the NBA economics. They also have a lot of
billions tied up in that for NBC and for Peacock. Okay, Todd.
Let's move on to Paramount, which is on November tenth,
and we talked about, of course, David Ellison I think
is going to be pressed on his UFC economics. It's
so new. The company has still just come together in August.
(13:45):
As we covered in depth, what do you think the
initial focus of the analyst community is going to be
for Ellison and Company when they host their first call
as the owners of the publicly traded Paramount's guidance.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I think they're going to look for a baseline from
which to measure the company's progress going forward, what the
company's constructure looks like. Now the Paramount is getting ready
to lay off. We understand about two thousand people domestically.
This is the company and the leadership trying to show
that they can do more with less and really make
(14:21):
this machine a more efficient operation. So they're going to
explain what they've done and what they plan to do next.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Let's go to Disney. There is a lot going on
at the mousehouse in this quarter and next what are
you most interested to hear?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
So again we're talking about how Netflix is no longer
reporting subscriber numbers. This will be the last time they
talk about numbers for Disney Plus and Hulus, so we're
going to have to focus on something else to figure
out how well they did during the quarter. Also, Disney
this quarter introduced the standalone ESPN products, so expect to
(14:59):
hear them talk more about that, and it's going to
be early days of first to be able for them
to talk about in detail, but they're gonna they have
a big picture here for the company. They've already talked
about how they're essentially gonna fold Hulu into Disney Plus.
They're still going to sell them as separate products or
(15:19):
they'll be available that way. Some people might look at
it and say it's the reinstantiation of cable GV bundle
on the streaming side of it, but the proof is
in the numbers that they do get better results when
they bundle these things together.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
As you put it out, the significance of the Peacock
Apple TV deal is there does seem to be a
coalescing understanding that bundled is in many cases better all right, Todd.
The last of the biggies is Warner Brothers Discovery and
once again no shortage of swirl going on around them.
(15:55):
What are you most interested to hear from David Zasloald
and Co.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
It's going to be stuff he's not going to talk about,
which is are they really going to move to seriously
negotiate with Paramount and paramount financial partners or are they
going to buy their time here, go forward with a
plan split and extract.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
More value that way.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So we'll see where the sign hoome's lining up right now.
And David Zamsel, of course has been one of the
biggest proponents of industry consolidation.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
There's no shortage of activity and interesting things to watch
for in these big companies that we cover. I think
it will be telling to hear kind of the general
macro commentary about the economy, the impact of tariffs, the
impact of the big AI boom that we're hearing more about.
But we're also seeing some real strong currents of skepticism
(16:51):
about it all. Certainly we will learn some stuff, probably
not everything we want to know, but some stuff. Todd,
Thank you as ever.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. I cannot wait to watch the documentary
Stiller and Mira Nothing Is Lost, which bows October twenty
fourth on Apple TV. It's the story of influential comedy
duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Mira, as told by their
son Ben Stiller. Alan Cumming is set to host the
(17:25):
AARP's Movies for Grown Up Awards in Beverly Hills on
January tenth. That should be so fun. Also, don't miss
my colleague Jazz Tonkey's great story on the making of
the new animated short Versa by longtime Disney animator malcn Pierce.
It's very touching and a reminder that art can help
(17:46):
us heal before we go. Congrats to Christina Wiltshire. She's
been promoted to VP of A and R for Warner
Chapel Music Nashville. She's been with the music publishing giant
since twenty nineteen. Thanks for listening. This episode was written
and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Rebecca
Rubin and Todd Spangler. Stick Snicks hick Picks. Please leave
(18:10):
us a review at the podcast platform of your choice,
and please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety.
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Tuesday, October twenty first,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA. He's in New York, and Righty has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:33):
in our box Office segment, we'll speak with Rebecca Rubin
about the weekend at the Turnstiles and why this has
been such a big year for horror. And we'll get
ready for third quarter earning season with Business editor Todd
Spangler running through some of the news that we can
expect from Hollywood's biggest players, starting with Netflix's report coming
later today. But before we get to that, here are
(00:55):
a few headlines just in this morning that you need
to know. It's on. Warner Brothers Discovery has officially confirmed
that it has received multiple offers to buy all or
part of the company. There's been enough activity that w
b D was forced to acknowledge it all in an
SEC filing. The company said that for now it will
proceed with the planned split of its cable networks from
(01:19):
HBO and Warner Brothers Studios, but at this point who
knows what will happen. The only certainty is that Variety
will cover it all in real time on Variety dot Com.
The annual New York Game Awards will expand to a
two day event for the first time next year. They'll
be held at the SVA Theater on January seventeenth and eighteenth,
and all proceeds benefit the industry nonprofit Playing With Purpose.
(01:43):
My colleague Jennifer mos has the scoop. Disney has unveiled
an expansive plan to celebrate the nation's two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. The Disney Celebrates America effort begins on Veterans
Day next month and will extend through July fourth weekend
in Uoing a twenty four hour multi platform broadcast anchored
(02:03):
by David Muir, It will air across Disney Plus, Hulu, ABC, ESPN, Freeform, FX,
and National Geographic. Netflix is turning the board game Catan
into a TV show, It's Really Fun to Play With
the group. Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment is shepherding the
project along with creatives at the Board Games publisher. All
(02:24):
of these stories and so much more can be found
on Variety dot com Right now, now we turn to
conversations with Variety journalists about news and trends in show business.
The production of Daily Variety was derailed Monday morning by
the massive outage at Amazon Web Services, so full disclosure,
(02:47):
both of today's segments were intended to run on Monday.
By the time our podcast publishing platform was back up
and running mid afternoon, LA time, it just seemed like
a better idea to start fresh today on Tuesday. The
insights and analysis offered up by Rebecca and Todd are
worth the weight. So now it's time to talk box
office with Rebecca Rubin, our senior film and media reporter.
(03:13):
This weekend, moviegoers answered the call of Black Phone two
from the prolific Blumhouse genre label and Universal.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Rebecca Rubin, thanks for joining me, Thanks for having me
so here we are in late October, and no surprise
that a horror film is topping the box office. Rebecca,
were you surprised by the performance of Black Phone two?
I wouldn't say I was surprised. The opening was fairly
in line with industry expectations. It ended up opening to
twenty six point five million, and that was just ahead
(03:50):
of the original Black Phone, which launched with about twenty
three million dollars in twenty twenty two. And what's interesting
to me there is the these films opened in very
different box office landscapes. Because the original film opened as
theaters were still recovering from COVID. I wouldn't say a
(04:10):
movie going was at full strength with that twenty three
million dollars start. It opened in summer, and it came
in fourth place behind Elvis, Top Gun, Maverick, and Jurassic
World Dominion, so just after you the competition at that time.
This film, in contrast, were in October, the height of
spooky season, when you'd expect the scary movie to come out,
(04:33):
and twenty six point five million, just a few million
more was enough to land in first place. So this
movie didn't have a lot of competition. It's been a.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Pretty slow October. And so while I think that any
sequel that improves upon the last is usually counted as
a win, it didn't have as much competition as the
first film, and so I think it's it's a modest hit.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In terms of the Blumhouse of it all. This is
a happy result after a couple of underperformers at the
box office for this label that has had a strong
streak for many years.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Blumhouse is best known for making these massive horror franchises
at pretty low budgets, and so they ended up being
hugely profitable. They're behind Paranormal Activity, the Purge, the Halloween remakes,
and they've been known as pretty consistent hit makers. This
year though, they've struggled a bit and they've had a
(05:31):
lot of movies come out. One was Wolfman that came
out in January. Megan two point zero, which was a
sequel to the breakout hit Megan, came out in June,
and both of those films and a few others were
pretty rejected by moviegoers.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, nobody bats a thousand. Their prolificness is definitely part
of their brand. And of course, Jason Blum was just
honored last week. He was so gracious and he was
our first ever Master of Horror Award winner. We had
a good time celebrating the world of horror, and so
this is a good timing for him. But let me
ask you about horror in general. I mean, twenty twenty
(06:08):
five has been a big box office year for horror.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Jason Blum was recently on the cover of Variety, and
to his credit, he will own a miss. He is
not want to shy away from admitting that a movie
didn't do well, and he'll dissect why it might not
have connected with audiences. And he noted that actually Blumhouse
aside has been a really strong year for horror, a
lot of original horror, and Warner Brothers has been responsible
(06:36):
for movies like Weapons and Sinners that have just become
breakout hits. And com Score reported this morning that horror
films at this point in twenty twenty five had generated
one point two billion dollars and that is a record
for the genre. It broke a record that was set
back in twenty seventeen with one point one six billion dollars.
(06:59):
And so so it's really showing what strength this genre
has theatrically and why people really when they are choosing
to go to theaters, they like to be in a
communal setting to watch this kind of film.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
If something about getting scared together, Rebecca, what proportion does
horror account for in the overall year to date box office? Tallly?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So, right now, the year to date box office taally
is about six point eight billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
It does horror do well on the premium format screens
that we've been talking about so much this year.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It depends on the film. The movies that really do
well in the premium large formats are the action epics,
big visual spectacles, and so a movie like tron Ares
that Disney released last weekend had a big number of
the premium large formats. Even so, the movie did have
a pretty significant sixty six percent decline. It made about
(07:56):
eleven million dollars in its second weekend, and so it's
struggling a bit against it's one hundred and eighty million
dollar budget, but it is over indexing on those premium formats.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like you mentioned, what else rounded out the top five
or so the box office.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It's been a pretty weak October at the box office
right now. The month is down eleven percent from the
same point in twenty twenty four. So not the strongest weekend,
not the strongest month. But the other significant new release
was Good Fortune, and that is a comedy that was
directed by A. Z's and Sorry, in which he also
stars alongside Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogan. Lionsgate released the
(08:35):
movie It's a comedy, and it opened to six point
two million dollars. It's in line with expectations. It's not
a great result for a movie that costs thirty million dollars.
But at the same time, comedy is just a genre
that really has struggled theatrically against the rise of streaming.
And it's not even that this movie was poorly received.
(08:57):
It actually has pretty good reviews in audio and scores.
It's just that not enough people were incentivized to buy
a ticket, and so speaks to the struggles right now
that comedy is facing more than it is the quality of.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The film anything else about the box office, So the
performance of any films that stands out to you, Rebecca,
this weekend, After The Hunt, which is the film by
Luca Guadaninho stars Julia Roberts, Iowa Debris and Andrew Garfield,
expanded from limited release to nationwide theaters. It didn't really
sustain a lot.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Of traction while doing that. It opened in seventh place
and it earned about one point five million dollars from
a little over one thousand theaters. And so it's not
a great result given the cast of this movie, the
pedigree of a director like Luca Guadaninho. I think Amazon MGM,
which is releasing the film, had a lot of expectations
(09:53):
for this being an Awards play. It's just not really
getting the traction among moviegoers.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's a surprise for Julia Roberts picture, especially one that's
been talked about. And of course, as we slide into
award season, a lot of FYC hopes writing on a
lot of these fall releases. Rebecca, as ever, thank you
for talking us through.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
This all, Thanks for having me, and now we'll get.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The lowdown from Variety Business editor Todd Spangler on Q
three earnings season, which kicks off today with Netflix. It'll
surely be a newsy cycle as there is so much
activity in the air from Disney's succession plans to David
Ellison's first conference call outing with Wall Street as the
CEO of Paramount's guidance Comcast will no doubt talk about
(10:39):
the NBA and the Versant spinoff. Then there's the swirl
around Paramount and Warner Brothers, Discovery and potentially more consolidation.
You need a scorecard to follow it all, and we
can help with that. Go to Variety dot com and
sign up for our free weekly strictly business newsletter that
always has a calendar of every earnings call and aggregates
(10:59):
all of our earning coverage in one handy place and
it comes out on Friday. Check it out. Now, here's
Todd Dodd Spangler. Thanks for joining me. Hello, Well, here
we are Todd on the cusp of another earning season.
What to expect from Netflix this time around? What do
you think they'll be talking about?
Speaker 4 (11:18):
So they no longer disclose subscriber numbers, which had really
been the number that people focused on is as a
general indicator of their help, their growth, their trajectory over time.
So now it's really about the revenue metrics and what
people are going to be looking at is engagement. Executives
(11:40):
can really provide some color about how engagement is doing
for Netflix because you can look at it and say, Okay, well,
they're stopping reporting the subscriber numbers because they're starting to
plateau on that, and so they want people to focus
on other things, other levers that are growing. You know,
the top line bottom line for forecasting seventeen percent growth
(12:03):
on the top line and an operating margin of thirty
one percent.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Pretty damn enviable, but the.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Things that people are going to be looking for are
how is the ad business taking off for them? It's
kind of been a slow burn for They've not really
talked a whole lot about how much of a difference
it's making. So we'll be looking for signs about advertising
for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I will confess that I really thought Netflix was going
to make the biggest swing for UFC to make it
that natural companion with the WWE. So up next on
October thirtieth is Comcast. Comcast right now is presumably in
the final innings of the Versant spinoff of all the
cable networks not named Bravo in the group, and I'm
(12:50):
sure that's going to be some discussion, But what else
do you think will be in the mix for Comcasts.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I think they're going to be happily talking about the
progress that they've made with Peacock. I think they feel
that they finally hit critical mass where Peacock can really
hold its own against HBO Max and the Disney plus
Hulu bundle. I'm not totally sure that that's true, but
(13:16):
you know, they felt that they were in a strong
position that they went to Apple and did a bundle deal,
which is unusual.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Also, I'm guessing there will be a lot of questions
about the NBA economics. They also have a lot of
billions tied up in that for NBC and for Peacock. Okay, Todd.
Let's move on to Paramount, which is on November tenth,
and we talked about, of course, David Ellison I think
is going to be pressed on his UFC economics. It's
so new. The company has still just come together in August.
(13:45):
As we covered in depth, what do you think the
initial focus of the analyst community is going to be
for Ellison and Company when they host their first call
as the owners of the publicly traded Paramount's guidance.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I think they're going to look for a baseline from
which to measure the company's progress going forward, what the
company's constructure looks like. Now the Paramount is getting ready
to lay off. We understand about two thousand people domestically.
This is the company and the leadership trying to show
that they can do more with less and really make
(14:21):
this machine a more efficient operation. So they're going to
explain what they've done and what they plan to do next.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Let's go to Disney. There is a lot going on
at the mousehouse in this quarter and next what are
you most interested to hear?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
So again we're talking about how Netflix is no longer
reporting subscriber numbers. This will be the last time they
talk about numbers for Disney Plus and Hulus, so we're
going to have to focus on something else to figure
out how well they did during the quarter. Also, Disney
this quarter introduced the standalone ESPN products, so expect to
(14:59):
hear them talk more about that, and it's going to
be early days of first to be able for them
to talk about in detail, but they're gonna they have
a big picture here for the company. They've already talked
about how they're essentially gonna fold Hulu into Disney Plus.
They're still going to sell them as separate products or
(15:19):
they'll be available that way. Some people might look at
it and say it's the reinstantiation of cable GV bundle
on the streaming side of it, but the proof is
in the numbers that they do get better results when
they bundle these things together.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
As you put it out, the significance of the Peacock
Apple TV deal is there does seem to be a
coalescing understanding that bundled is in many cases better all right, Todd.
The last of the biggies is Warner Brothers Discovery and
once again no shortage of swirl going on around them.
(15:55):
What are you most interested to hear from David Zasloald
and Co.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
It's going to be stuff he's not going to talk about,
which is are they really going to move to seriously
negotiate with Paramount and paramount financial partners or are they
going to buy their time here, go forward with a
plan split and extract.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
More value that way.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So we'll see where the sign hoome's lining up right now.
And David Zamsel, of course has been one of the
biggest proponents of industry consolidation.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
There's no shortage of activity and interesting things to watch
for in these big companies that we cover. I think
it will be telling to hear kind of the general
macro commentary about the economy, the impact of tariffs, the
impact of the big AI boom that we're hearing more about.
But we're also seeing some real strong currents of skepticism
(16:51):
about it all. Certainly we will learn some stuff, probably
not everything we want to know, but some stuff. Todd,
Thank you as ever.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. I cannot wait to watch the documentary
Stiller and Mira Nothing Is Lost, which bows October twenty
fourth on Apple TV. It's the story of influential comedy
duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Mira, as told by their
son Ben Stiller. Alan Cumming is set to host the
(17:25):
AARP's Movies for Grown Up Awards in Beverly Hills on
January tenth. That should be so fun. Also, don't miss
my colleague Jazz Tonkey's great story on the making of
the new animated short Versa by longtime Disney animator malcn Pierce.
It's very touching and a reminder that art can help
(17:46):
us heal before we go. Congrats to Christina Wiltshire. She's
been promoted to VP of A and R for Warner
Chapel Music Nashville. She's been with the music publishing giant
since twenty nineteen. Thanks for listening. This episode was written
and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Rebecca
Rubin and Todd Spangler. Stick Snicks hick Picks. Please leave
(18:10):
us a review at the podcast platform of your choice,
and please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety.
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