The Succession alum’s limited series All Her Fault gives Peacock a rare scripted hit, with 2 billion minutes viewed in the U.S. last week, per Luminate, nearly triple the second place Death by Lightning on Netflix.

Runner-up: David Zaslav, who managed to get his contract altered again to ensure his stock options vest even in the event of an unorthodox purchase of the company.

A little more on this…

There’s so much anxiety over the sale of Warner Bros. and the painful contraction coming to Hollywood… but I’m sure we’re all mostly stressing over whether David Zaslav will get paid. Thankfully, the Warner Discovery C.E.O. found time to take care of that issue last week, amending his enormous compensation package to ensure he’s duly rewarded for additional dispositions of the Warner and Discovery assets that he smashed together to leverage the 100-year legacy of the former and prolong for a few years the collapse of the latter.

Curiously, the changes now reward Zaz for executing a transaction via a “reverse spinoff,” the exact type of structure that Comcast is reportedly considering for its planned bid for the Studios and Streaming side of Warner Discovery. To that end, rumors and accusations of who will or won’t (and should or shouldn’t) bid on Warners have been flying ahead of Thursday’s initial deadline to submit offers. Comcast is planning to pursue Studios and Streaming, but… With whose money?, the whisperers ask. After I reported on C.E.O. Brian Roberts’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, some are speculating that the partner will be the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, or another deep-pocketed backer from the Middle East. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is coming to D.C. on Wednesday for his first quasi-state dinner since the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Might the guest list include Roberts, or Paramount’s Larry and/or David Ellison? Oracle has tons of business in the kingdom.

Netflix also is expected to bid, which drew a harshly worded letter from Republican congressman Darrell Issa to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and regulators. Then today, G.O.P. Senator Roger Marshall sent his own letter mirroring Issa’s. They ask why the dominant streamer should be allowed to ingest HBO Max, and argue the merger would “diminish incentives to produce new content and major theatrical releases—evidenced by Netflix’s own statements dismissing movie theatres as ‘outdated’—which could undermine opportunities for the full range of industry professionals both in front of and behind the camera.”

Netflix is disputing some of the facts in the Issa letter. And, of course, by focusing on one company and not the antitrust problems of, say, Paramount owning two of the five remaining legacy studios, the Republicans may just be parroting the Ellison talking points and pushing Trump’s plan to deliver Warner Bros. to the president’s buddy Larry and his “great” son, David. There are no heroes here.

Meanwhile, back on the Warners lot, Ellison and the Paramount crew made their so-called “reverse management presentation” to the Zaslav team today. That’s where suitors explain their vision for the company, why they want to buy it, and how their plans are better than others. Remember, Zaslav & Co. presented their wares to Ellison last week. It all sounds so pleasant until you remember Zaslav is doing everything he can to prevent Ellison from taking over. But even if both Netflix and Comcast join the auction party this week, Paramount is still the only known suitor willing to take the whole of Warner Discovery, not just the good parts. (As a result of our recent acquisition of Air Mail, Zaslav has become a de minimis investor in Puck.)

“The only dress-code rule was no frontal nudity.”
—Tom Freston, the former Viacom C.E.O. and new author, talking to the Journal about the early days of MTV.

Runner-up: Also Freston, for this gem about a meeting with Viacom owner Sumner Redstone: “He says, ‘I’d like to go to Bangkok, just Bangkok.’ I told him we didn’t do any business in Thailand, but he insisted on going. We got to Bangkok and he said, ‘I’d like to go to some sex clubs.’ I said, ‘Oh, my. OK.’ Sumner had this gleam in his eye, and he wanted to see some sex.”

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

We keep talking about the war for attention, but we’ve been getting it wrong.

McKinsey’s latest research, based on 7,000 consumers worldwide, shows we often confuse “attention” with “consumption.” Real attention is measurable, valuable, and drives a third of media monetization. This new lens reveals what’s been missing: we misclassify “super users,” overlook key segments, and undervalue media that can drive outsized levels of audience focus and intent.

The winners already know — it’s quality of attention, not quantity, that matters to consumers, brands, and the media companies that connect them. 

Are you fighting the right battles in the war for attention? 

Now a little news…

$4.3 million
Disney’s loss for each day of the 15-day carriage standoff with YouTube TV, according to a Morgan Stanley estimate that took viewership declines into account. [New York Times]

73 percent
Share of guests on the top 100 podcasts of 2024 that were men. [NPR]

2 million
Feet of film used by Chris Nolan to capture The Odyssey over its 91-day shoot. [Empire]

0
Mentions of “diversity” or “D.E.I.” in Disney’s annual report, the first total omission since 2019. I wonder what changed… [Business Insider]

Now here’s Scott Mendelson on the latest attempt at movie stardom…

Plenty of people would love for Glen Powell to become a movie star—most of all, I’m sure, Glen Powell. But this weekend’s $16.5 million North American box office cume for The Running Man isn’t going to get him there. One star vehicle whiff doesn’t kill a career, of course, but studios should know by now that casting a handsome, charming actor as an action figure in a big-budget, recycled I.P.-for-I.P.’s sake fantasy or action spectacle doesn’t get you to Tom Cruise. Luckily for Powell, he’s smartly spent the past few years cashing studio paychecks on perceived, theoretical star power.

Handsome guys anointed as the next big thing seemingly get endless chances in Hollywood—Channing Tatum had plenty of opportunities between Step Up in 2006 and The Vow in 2012. But you may recall that many of the stars of yesteryear (Kevin Costner, Julia Roberts, Antonio Banderas, Will Smith, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, etcetera) made their marks as romantic leads—even in big action-adventures like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Independence Day—rather than action heroes.

Powell was trying to do just that with Anyone But You and Hit Man, but Hollywood sometimes gets other ideas about the ingredients that go into making a movie star, and it does tangible harm to the whole notion of movie stardom. Tatum has explicitly fought through this very issue—audiences like him as a lover (Magic Mike) more than a fighter (White House Down). Pop quiz: Which movie turned Tom Cruise into a movie star? A) Risky Business or B) Legend? Which films made Patrick Swayze a generational icon? A) Dirty Dancing and Ghost or B) Road House and Next of Kin? You get the idea. Let’s hope Powell can continue down the Swayze/Tatum path.

More broadly speaking, making The Running Man is another example of mistaking a singular success—specifically, an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie from 38 years ago—for viable and transcendent I.P. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the Powell–Sydney Sweeney rom-com Anyone But You from 2023 will out-earn Sweeney’s 2024 Spider-Man spinoff Madame Web and The Running Man. Regardless of which Running Man movie you prefer, Powell’s version of Ben Richards cannot help but be compared to Schwarzenegger’s in the original, which grossed $38 million on a $28 million budget in 1987.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

We keep talking about the war for attention, but we’ve been getting it wrong.

McKinsey’s latest research, based on 7,000 consumers worldwide, shows we often confuse “attention” with “consumption.” Real attention is measurable, valuable, and drives a third of media monetization. This new lens reveals what’s been missing: we misclassify “super users,” overlook key segments, and undervalue media that can drive outsized levels of audience focus and intent.

The winners already know — it’s quality of attention, not quantity, that matters to consumers, brands, and the media companies that connect them. 

Are you fighting the right battles in the war for attention? 

This is the continuation of a trend, of course. Colin Farrell’s Total Recall remake was doomed. As was Joel Kinnaman’s Robocop. And Chris Hemsworth’s Red Dawn. And even when the elements do align, Chris Pine is still at a disadvantage by virtue of being the audience’s second- or third-favorite Captain Kirk or fourth-favorite Jack Ryan. And just because audiences were thrilled by Inception did not mean they craved a Total Recall redo, nor were audiences binging Squid Game clamoring for another adaptation of The Running Man. Hollywood needs to stop being shocked when Charlie Hunnam as King Arthur or Taron Egerton as Robin Hood doesn’t successfully kick off a franchise.

Powell is a relatively compelling onscreen presence who has paid his dues going back to Spy Kids 3-D. But since 2016, a film like The Running Man has been an anomaly in both its intent and its plot featuring a rageful antihero fighting the power in a dystopian hellscape. It should stay that way. Powell deserves credit for turning down Jurassic World: Rebirth, but the hunky science nerd part played by Jonathan Bailey would ironically have been an ideal have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too bit of brand management. Speaking of which, Bailey is about to score a megahit this weekend in Universal’s Wicked: For Good opposite Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

Meanwhile, movies made by, for, and starring women continue to help prop up the box office. Paramount’s romance Regretting You—adapted from a Colleen Hoover novel, like last year’s It Ends With Us—is on course to top $50 million domestically, possibly beating The Running Man. If it can hold on to screens until December, it could eclipse $100 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. The Lindsay Lohan summer release Freakier Friday has grossed $153 million worldwide, making it the top-earning straight-up live-action comedy (not an animated film, comic book flick, or however you classify Barbie or Free Guy) in nearly a decade. Last weekend, the box office was led by Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, partially thanks to a 54-46 female-male domestic split.

As we start to tumble into the holiday movie season, Wicked: For Good will be followed by Zootopia 2, Avatar: Fire and Ash (you don’t get past $2.2 billion twice with just dudes), the Sweeney–Amanda Seyfried thriller The Housemaid, and the Timothée Chalamet–led Marty Supreme. In the New Year, we’ll have Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights; the Maggie Gyllenhaal–directed The Bride, starring Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster and Jessie Buckley as his beloved; and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, whose key added-value element is Brie Larson voicing fan-favorite Rosalina.

Barring unexpectedly strong legs or a sharper-than-hoped post-debut downturn, The Running Man looks to end its theatrical race with around $140 million worldwide for Paramount on a $110 million budget. Powell shouldn’t be sent to the salt mines just yet. A little more than a year ago, the Powell-led (along with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos), violence-lite, real-world-set Twisters earned $268 million domestically (if only $105 million overseas). The star system is not what it used to be, as general moviegoers have spent the past decade prioritizing franchises, existing theatrical properties, and marquee characters over actors and high concepts. But that doesn’t mean all I.P. is good I.P., or even better than an original film or a new-to-you adaptation. As for Powell’s ascendancy, there’s no shortage of data points in the offing, with John Patton Ford’s Huntington arriving from A24 and the J.J. Abrams–directed and W.B.-distributed Ghostwriter both in postproduction.

John Ourand argues that YouTube TV likely won the carriage standoff with Disney. [Puck]

Sign of the times: J.J. Abrams offloaded that killer Santa Monica headquarters of Bad Robot for $31 million. [Real Deal]

Pinkfong, owner of every parent’s nemesis “Baby Shark,” went public in South Korea and demand was 600 times the number of shares being sold. [Bloomberg]

The Saudis’ dream of a culture hub called Neom may not be working out. [Financial Times]

Tina Brown has entered Barry Diller territory, where the Times can just call her anytime for an incendiary interview. [New York Times]

Producer Jamie Patricof filed a dining report from the Baby2Baby gala, his Super Bowl of food. (Congrats to Kelly Patricof and Norah Weinstein on raising another $18.5 million.) [Jamie’s List, Vogue]

Last week’s note on the failure of recent press tours by Sydney Sweeney, Dwayne Johnson, and now Glen Powell, drew a smart take from a former executive…

“I completely agree that ‘a star alone can’t sell something whose very DNA rejects it,’ but I also think there’s a bit more to the story. In an era where top creators, who are successfully converting viewers into paying customers, are in constant communication with their audiences, I just don’t see how Hollywood thinks a reclusive actor or actress, who suddenly becomes active after years of little to no fan interaction, will mobilize their shrinking fanbase.

For example, the general population hasn’t really heard from Jennifer Lawrence since she was promoting No Hard Feelings two years ago, which is normal for Hollywood but an eternity in the online landscape. She relinquished her “ownership” over her audience, … so why would she have the power to convince those (likely more casual) fans to open their wallets to see a film they don’t care about?

Now, those fans who loved J.Law can spend their time listening to personalities who are just as relatable/authentic but also more active and visible, such as Alex Cooper and Alix Earle. Each time they open IG or TikTok, those creators have another parasocial update waiting for them. Plus, those creators are pushing their audiences toward products and experiences that are clearly aligned with the personality they showcase in their videos. A funny Jennifer Lawrence press tour maybe isn’t the best way to sell a dour, arthouse Lynne Ramsay film.

The traditional film-driven press tour is increasingly less effective because it feels disjointed from how people are experiencing their favorite personalities online. A fun Hot Ones video is an enjoyable dopamine hit, but pales in comparison to the time and commitment other creators (and very active traditional celebs) are putting in to consistently engage and mobilize their audiences. Ultimately, actors/actresses are being outworked by creators, and although the two may not have been competing 10 years ago, the actors/actresses are paying the price now.” —A former industry executive

Have a great week,
Matt

Maya Tribbitt contributed research for today’s issue.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or an unhinged pitch for Sony’s Labubu movie? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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