Hey Snackers, With the spotlight on the Oscars this Sunday, we rolled out the red carpet for a Snacks special edition on the business of entertainment. A lot's changing in Hollywood — including Nicole Kidman's iconic AMC ad. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq reached new record highs yesterday after J. Powell said the Fed isn't far from cutting rates. Today, investors have eyes on the February jobs report. 🍿 There's no popcorn included in this special Snacks, but there is a pop quiz: our weekly Snacks Seven Quiz. Here's the first Q: |
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Setting the stage… Just when the box office was starting to bounce back from the pandemic, last year's Hollywood strikes put production on pause for six months. The next "Mission: Impossible" and "Spider Verse" movies got delayed, adding to what analysts expect will be a slow year. Notable exception: "Dune: Part Two," which had 2024's biggest opening weekend so far, with nearly a quarter of its US sales coming from pricey Imax tickets. The industry's also reckoning with changing tastes: last year was the first time in over two decades that the top three highest-grossing films did not include a sequel or remake, as blockbuster franchises like Marvel and "Indiana Jones" flopped at theaters. Roll credits… Studios and theaters typically split the ticket sales ~60/40, and both are getting creative to pad against lingering box-office woes. AMC, the largest movie-theater chain, rolled out its already profitable Stubs subscription in 2018, letting movie lovers see three flicks a week for $20/month. Concert movies (shoutout: T. Swift, Beyoncé) boosted AMC's Q4 sales growth. Meanwhile, OG studios including Paramount and Disney have put a plus on their names to enter the streaming world. One studio to watch: A24, which is using Wall Street funding (that values it at $2.5B) to churn out indie hits like "Everything Everywhere All at Once." Close-up shot: February was the US box office's lowest-grossing month since September 1997, excluding the pandemic years of 2020-22 and not adjusting for inflation. |
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Spend. Earn. Grow. Repeat. |
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Spend. Earn. Grow. Repeat. |
Earn Daily Cash. Apple Card gives you up to 3% unlimited Daily Cash back on every purchase you make. It's real cash to spend or grow automatically at 4.50% APY when you open a high-yield Savings account through Apple Card. It all adds up: Earn interest on your Daily Cash with Savings. Simply choose to send your Daily Cash to Savings, then watch it grow at 4.50% APY. Apple Card has a cash back rewards program unlike others — great for the spenders, and great for the savers. Apply for Apple Card now. Disclosure: Terms apply. Savings provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA. Member FDIC. |
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Setting the stage… The entertainment industry's moving full steam ahead. Streaming's becoming more like cable with higher prices, more ads, and live sports broadcasts. Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu have all jacked up prices, with several streamers (hello, Netflix and Amazon Prime) working to squeeze ads into cheaper subscription tiers. And password-sharing crackdowns spearheaded by Netflix are becoming more common with ESPN+, Hulu, and Max suggesting they'll follow suit. Meantime, streamers are chasing the same live-entertainment ball, with the likes of Amazon, Netflix, and Apple spending billions on live-sports deals. Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros. recently teamed up on a live-sports streaming bundle. Roll credits… The battle for streaming supremacy is ongoing, but one streamer's fought its way to the top: Netflix's 260M paying subscribers make it far and away the most successful of the bunch, despite billions in spending from rivals including Disney and Warner Bros. Netflix is also the only major US streamer that's profitable. Disney+ and Hulu lost subscribers in the last three months of last year. Close-up shot: Streamers pulled in 164M+ subs last year, but racked up 140M cancellations as subscription fatigue set in. |
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- Netflix: 18 nominations including best picture for Bradley Cooper's "Maestro"
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- Universal: 13 nominations, all for "Oppenheimer" (just one nod short of the most ever noms for a film)
- Apple: 13 nominations fueled by "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Napoleon"
- Disney's Searchlight: 13 nominations including 11 for "Poor Things"
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- Warner Bros: 9 nominations, 8 of which are for "Barbie"
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🎬 Fast take: As old-school studios like Warner and Paramount lean into streaming, streamers are becoming more like studios with awards prestige. Netflix has been the most Oscar-nominated studio for four of the past five years. |
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Setting the stage… Hollywood's strikes scored better pay and protections for actors and writers, but entertainment workers aren't done negotiating with studios. Union crewmembers (think: costume designers, drivers, animal trainers) were particularly harmed by the work stoppage and entered bargaining this week for deals set to expire in July. Like actors and writers, behind-the-scenes workers want higher pay and AI protections. If a contract can't be worked out, Tinseltown could be in for a third major strike. For talent, wages are up, yet jobs are scarce: 2013's pilot season saw networks order 98 scripted TV comedies and dramas, but last season's total was just 6. This season Paramount's CBS isn't ordering any. Roll credits… With SAG's new contract, weekly minimum rates for regular actors will rise 15% to $4.3K by 2025, but it pays (more) to be famous: Adam Sandler took home last year's highest-earner title with $73M from Netflix films like "Leo" and "Murder Mystery 2." Still, the best job in Hollywood is boss. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav raked in nearly a half billion dollars between 2018 and 2022 — 384x the average pay of a Hollywood writer. Close-up shot: Despite hard-won protections, AI updates are expected to hurt 204K entertainment jobs over the next three years. |
Setting the stage… A decade after the Ellen selfie, awards shows are back in focus. Last month the Grammys scored 16.9M viewers — the most since 2020. The Golden Globes saw a 50% jump from 2023. Last year's Oscars ceremony hit a three-year high of 19M viewers (still dramatically down from 40M viewers a decade ago). The rise of cord-cutting and a lack of interest from the social-media generation has some show organizers turning to streaming. This year's SAG Awards moved to Netflix after 25 years on cable. In 2021, the Country Music Awards ditched CBS for Amazon Prime. ABC's long-time Oscars broadcasting contract runs out in 2028. Roll credits… Oscar votes are kinda like peer reviews. Over 10K industry professionals are members in the Academy, with each allowed to vote for nominees in their respective categories (think: best director, best actor). But after nomination controversies (remember: #OscarsSoWhite) the Academy has been inviting hundreds of new members each year, hoping to boost representation. Close-up shot: 88% of best-picture nominees' box-office revenue came from "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer. |
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Nearly a third of this year's Oscar nominees are women, which ties the 2021 record |
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Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Amazon, Apple, Comcast, and Disney |
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