The Universal Thread | Dreamworks Animation seeing layoffs, set to outsource their work

[filmlover]

7 hours ago, YourMother said:

So sequels like Minions, JWD, and Puss in Boots 2 don’t count?

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Major tentpoles, such as “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru” and Christopher Nolan’s war epic “Oppenheimer,” are not expected to fall in the 45-day plan.

Universal Movies to Land on Peacock After 45 Days in Theaters - Variety

[Eric Atreides]

 

[filmlover]

Don't think we have an individual thread for Focus so thought it would be fitting here.

 

 

[Eric Atreides]

https://deadline.com/2022/08/universal-crosses-3-billion-global-box-office-2022-1235091837/

 

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EXCLUSIVE: With today’s business included, Universal Pictures is crossing the $3B mark at the global box office for 2022 so far, becoming the first studio to reach the milestone since 2019. The grosses broken out to date are $1.74B at the international box office and $1.281B domestically. This is the eighth time Uni has topped $3B worldwide.

 

[Eric Atreides]

 

OMG THE MINIONS ARE GOING TO SAY FUCK NOW 😱 😱 😱

[Eric Atreides]

 

[Potiki]

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Already considering cutting primetime programming in the 10 p.m. hour, NBCUniversal is now also mulling early retirement offers for veteran staffers age 57 and older. 

 

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that while no formal offers have gone out, the conglomerate is looking to save costs by offering buyout packages to select employees across the entire company who have been with the company for 10 or more years and who are age 57 and older. 

 

The voluntary early retirement offers are poised to be sent out to eligible employees next week and are considered another way to cut costs and potentially avoid or minimize additional layoffs at the company as linear ratings continue to slide and streamer Peacock has effectively been a nonstarter. Sources say 2 percent of the company’s 74,000 staffers across film, TV, theme parks and other divisions are being considered for such an offer.

According to a source, NBCU is offering a generous 12 to 18 months pay and, depending on if employees have restricted stock units, the company will vest.

 

NBCUniversal declined comment on the matter.

 

Peacock reported subscribers stalled during the second quarter, stalling at 13 million and flat with Q1. Jeff Shell, NBCUniversal CEO, told CNBC this week that subscribers to the streaming service have since grown to 15 million. That still pales in comparison to Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+ and other streamers including Netflix, Apple and Amazon.

 

As previously reported, NBCUniversal is already considering cutting an hour of primetime programming and has discussed turning the 10 p.m. slot back over to affiliates. The move would reduce NBC’s primetime programming by seven hours a week. Such a measure would help save millions in programming costs while also pleasing affiliates and getting The Tonight Show on the air a tad earlier. (For his part, former NBC entertainment president Bob Greenblatt said cutting the 10 p.m. hour of originals was a conversation that execs had “every 18 months” when he was running the network.)

 

In addition to weathering the financial impact of the pandemic with the closure of movie theaters and theme parks, NBCUniversal has already been through multiple rounds of layoffs over the past few years as it restructured its executive ranks to prioritize streamer Peacock. Other media companies have done the same in a measure that also comes with cost savings. In 2020, for example, NBCUniversal tapped company veteran Frances Berwick and Warner Bros. TV’s Susan Rovner to jointly oversee a content group that includes NBC, Peacock and a suite of cable networks including Bravo and USA Network. Layoffs followed across Berwick’s business division and Rovner’s entertainment portfolio as multiple divisions were merged across both. Warner Bros. Discovery is currently doing the same as it integrates the two companies following its merger.

 

It’s worth noting that Peacock, which launched during the pandemic alongside competitors like HBO Max and Apple TV+, continues to search for a big, broad hit that serves as its version of Ted Lasso or And Just Like That. The streamer’s big swings have included a dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which recently announced that it would be bringing in its fourth showrunner ahead of its second season.

source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/nbcuniversal-early-retirement-cost-cutting-move-1235245955/

[Eric Atreides]

https://deadline.com/2022/12/box-office-2022-marketshare-disney-universal-marvel-1235208981/

 

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UNIVERSAL

2022 domestic box office $1.64 billion, +130% from 2021 (22% marketshare): Without Focus Features’ $110.5M, it’s $1.52 billion. Fives films opened to No. 1 including Jurassic World: Dominion ($145M), Minions: Rise of Gru ($107M), Nope ($44.3M), The Bad Guys ($23.95M) and Halloween Ends ($40M). In total Universal had a collective seven weekends atop the domestic box office (that includes pics’ subsequent weekends).

 

What they did: They were the biggest supplier of product at 33 titles to exhibition. But not everything worked: Focus Features still awaits for upscale adults to come back as Downton Abbey: A New Era greatly underperformed ($43.8M). Adults opted to go to more fluffier fare like Universal’s Julia Roberts-George Clooney rom-com Ticket to Paradise ($68M). Jurassic World: Dominion‘s success was an easy full-court shot ($376M), and it can boast of having the highest-grossing animation title of the year of any major studio with Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru ($369.5M). Blumhouse horror reigned, with The Black Phone grossing nearly $90M. Uni is fearless to take big swings with filmmakers such as Jordan Peele and his Nope, but with big bets come big misses i.e. Ambulance, The 355, Bros, She Said, etc. 

 

What they need to do: NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell is one of the few entertainment conglom leaders who’s still betting on streaming while other studios see it as an ancillary market. Is that financially prudent? Others are scaling back on that distribution strategy. Uni continued to practice theatrical day-and-date despite rival studios abandoning it. Uni’s theatrical-Peacock pay-tier lineup included Jennifer Lopez’s Marry Me, along with Firestarter, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul and Halloween Ends. While the latter provided $64M to exhibitors, grosses clearly were crimped overall by the collapsing of windows. In all fairness, Uni made more money than Paramount at the box office with its theatrical day and date titles combined, not to mention exhibition also benefitted with $98.4M. This versus the Melrose lot’s limited releases of Paramount+ titles Confess, Fletch; On The Come Up, and Orphan: First Kill which only made $6.1M. Word is that Uni will continue day-and-date on smaller titles. Universal is greatly in need of brand IP as Fast and Furious and Jurassic World get older.

 

 

2023 outlook: Uni potentially could blast 2023 off with a nice Blumhouse hit in the AI doll title Megan, which has a shot at a $20M opening on January 6. There’s more genre on February 6 with M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin. Then there’s an old-school staple in Fast X on May 19 and Focus Features’ Wes Anderson title Asteroid City on June 16. Animation is big in the New Year with Super Mario Bros. eyed as a whole new Illumination franchise over Easter weekend, propped by a new Hollywood theme park as well as DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls 3 on November 17 and Illumination’s Migration on December 22. 

 

[Potiki]

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14. The studios will redefine the “hit” movie

 

The movie business desperately needs to shift the narrative, so I’m betting all kinds of middling movies are about to be anointed “hits.” Call it a side effect of the new normal, or part of Hollywood’s long history of moving the goalposts to declare victories. Universal is considering releasing PVOD revenue to counter the “flop” narrative on movies that perform well at home but not in theaters. And it’s already happening with theatrical wins like The Woman King. Sony copped to a $50 million production budget, and it grossed $92 million worldwide last summer. Certainly, that’s a decent result for the kind of mid-budget star vehicle that the studios aren’t really making, but with the help of the Sony P.R. team, the media gave this thing blockbuster status. Reality check: it’ll probably barely break even in theaters after P&A. In a “normal” theatrical ecosystem, it never would have garnered much attention.     

 

 

source: https://puck.news/23-semi-surefire-hollywood-predictions-predicaments-and-preoccupations-for-2023/

[kayumanggi]

 

[poweranimals]

What's the joke in the title about? I don't get it. 

[Potiki]

45 minutes ago, poweranimals said:

What's the joke in the title about? I don't get it. 

Firstly it isn’t really a joke.

 

Back early last year Disney came under heavy scrutiny originally (before changing course) for giving money to Florida Republicans who were trying to make life worse for LGBT people in the state without speaking up on the issue/stopping funding, Universal was doing the exact same thing but had very little pushback from LGBT groups and their allies. 

[Eric Atreides]

 

[kayumanggi]

 

[kayumanggi]

 

[kayumanggi]

 

[AJG]

Peacock UK (or Peacock International) is dead. All shows moving to Comcast's paid subscription services or sold to Netflix. Err... casualty of the steaming war I guess. 

[CJohn]

3 hours ago, AJG said:

Peacock UK (or Peacock International) is dead. All shows moving to Comcast's paid subscription services or sold to Netflix. Err... casualty of the steaming war I guess. 

Even SkyShowtime which is a Paramount/Universal combo that exists in most of Europe seems DOA.

[Eric Atreides]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/business/media/universal-premium-video-on-demand.html

 

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But the willingness by Universal to experiment — to challenge the “this is how we’ve always done it” thinking — seems to have paid off. Universal has generated more than $1 billion in premium V.O.D. revenue in less than three years, while showing little-to-no decrease in ticket sales. In some cases, box-office sales even increased when films became available in homes, which Universal has decided is a side effect of premium V.O.D. advertising and word of mouth.

 

Universal, for instance, made “Minions: The Rise of Gru” available for premium V.O.D. after 33 days in theaters in 2022. The movie stayed in theaters after that, selling more tickets than “Minions,” released in 2015, did after 33 days, according to data from Comscore, an analytics company. Data for Universal’s “Jurassic World” and “Fast and Furious” franchises show a similar effect.

 

An interesting wrinkle: Donna Langley, the chairwoman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, which includes Focus Features, said the company had seen only a small decrease in revenue from traditional V.O.D. That service lets viewers rent or purchase movies at a lower price after 90 days in theaters. She said the premium offering was “an additive, important new revenue source that didn’t exist three years ago.”

 

In other words, Universal thinks that, to some degree, it has found an entirely new customer.

 

“It has had a hugely positive impact on our business,” Ms. Langley said, adding that without it, Universal would have likely had to make fewer movies. Universal and Focus will release 26 movies in theaters this year, more than any other Hollywood studio.

 

Premium V.O.D. revenue is small compared with box-office sales. But it’s certainly not nothing.

 

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has generated more than $75 million in premium V.O.D. revenue since May 16, Universal said. “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “The Croods: A New Age” and “Sing 2” each collected more than $50 million. Universal said 14 films, including “News of the World,” a period drama starring Tom Hanks, and “M3gan,” each had more than $25 million.

 

Films from Focus, including “Belfast” and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” have generated roughly $5 million each. For some art films, a theatrical release has become valuable mostly as “a marketing tool” for premium V.O.D. rentals and purchases, according to Julia Alexander, the director of strategy at Parrot Analytics, a research firm.

 

[kayumanggi]