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The movie business is breathing a provisional sigh of relief today after weekend box office numbers show "Godzilla vs. Kong" broke several pandemic-era records. But Hollywood still has reason to worry.
In its debut domestic weekend, the Warner Bros. film played on over 3,000 screens and raked in $32.2 million, both highs since lockdowns began. None of these figures would represent big wins in normal times, though this is hardly normal.
<p>Pre-pandemic average opening weekend of 2019's top four box-office hits was about $200 million. And for the first time, Warner Bros., Disney and other studios have simultaneously released what would normally be theatrical tentpoles on their streaming services. </p><p>"It's clear that wherever audiences are ready to safely return to the theater, they have, and we're thrilled with the results," Jeff Goldstein, who heads domestic distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures, said in a release announcing the numbers.</p><p>The new data suggest Hollywood, which had an abysmal box-office year with theaters across the country shuttered, is headed in the right direction – even if the cinema business is in decline. And with only 55% of theaters operating in North America according to Comscore, and most of them at limited capacity, there is still plenty of room for recovery. </p><p>The box office figures represent about a 50% increase in screen count and 278% jump in revenue from Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon," the most recent big-name film to debut in the U.S., in early March.<br/></p><p>The film also set pandemic-era records for largest opening day since lockdowns began ($9.6 million, on Wednesday last week) and largest single day ($12.5 million, on Saturday). Overall, it has earned $48.5 million since its mid-week release. Including international, where it has been showing for about two weeks, it's brought in over $285 million. </p><p>For further comparison to the film's $32.2 million weekend, the pandemic-era debut of "Wonder Woman 1984" took in about $16.7 million domestically over Christmas weekend, while "Tenet" earned $20.2 million over its opening weekend in September. </p><p>Like "Wonder Woman" and "Raya," "Godzilla vs. Kong" viewers had the option to watch the new film on a streaming platform. "Raya" was sold for $30 on Disney Plus, while the other two were available on HBO Max for no extra fee. The extent to which this impacted their box office performance is unclear.</p><p>Given the relative success of "Godzilla vs. Kong," though, there may be some cause for optimism that the magic of the silver screen still has its charms–perhaps especially so for spectacles like superheroes, explosions and nuclear lizards fighting giant monkeys. </p>
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Endeavor, the entertainment conglomerate helmed by Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel, filed again to go public on Wednesday.
The move is a reprise of the company's plan to IPO in 2019, which it abandoned at the last minute, citing poor performance of other recently-IPO'd firms like Uber, Lyft and Peloton.
<p>This time, the company is entering a market that has reached record highs and seen a flurry of new members to the ranks of public ownership. </p><p>Also different this time around is one of the company's managers: Elon Musk, who is listed on the filing as a "Director Nominee." </p><p>Endeavor owns just over half of UFC, but it's putting together a $1.8 billion package of private equity funding to purchase the remainder, according to its filing, which is conditional on the IPO coming to fruition. </p><p>The company's vast portfolio also includes the talent agency William Morris Endeavor and IMG, which produces and manages sports and live events around the globe.</p><p>According to the filing, Endeavor made $3.5 billion in 2020, resulting in a net loss of $625.3 million. That followed a better pre-pandemic 2019, which brought in $4.6 billion in revenue and a net loss of $530.7 million. Twenty percent of Endeavor's 2019 revenue came from its sports holdings (UFC, Professional Bull Riding and Euroleague Basketball); 43% from its events business and 36% from its talent agency. </p><p>Endeavor was founded in 1995 exclusively as a talent agency, and then merged with William Morris Agency in 2009. The company acquired IMG in 2014 and its UFC stake in 2016. </p><p>The 2019 offering was slated to issue 15 million shares at $27 each for an initial take of about $400 million. For this offering, which is expected to occur later this year, Endeavor still has not priced the IPO. </p>
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Streaming is sidelining TV pilots. That's one of the findings in a pair of new reports released Wednesday by the nonprofit that manages most of L.A. County's film-permitting process.
The reports document the pandemic and how the rise in streaming services is changing the film-production world and challenging California's place in it.
<p>The percentage of scripted TV projects that have foregone a traditional pilot episode and instead gone "straight-to-series" (STS) has skyrocketed, from 6% in 2012 to 66% in 2020. That's a trend largely driven by streamers, who distributed nearly 90% of their 2020 projects using that model, compared to 76.3% for cable and 15.3% for broadcast. </p><p>"We've been told (streamers' projects) get vetted a lot more heavily upfront," said the nonprofit FilmLA's president, Paul Audley. That, alongside streaming's rise, has ushered in the shift away from shooting a pilot and then shopping it to buyers.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
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<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Data and graphic from FilmLA</small></p><p>And for the second straight year, streaming made up the largest portion of scripted-TV projects. Of the 215 total such projects in FilmLA's 2020 cycle, streaming led the way with 97 projects, up 27.6% from 2019. Scripted cable projects rose 11.3% to 59, while broadcast fell 11.9% from 67 to 59. 2019 was the first year streaming projects eclipsed broadcast, and that margin has now widened.</p><p>California retains its spot as the top location for new scripted-TV projects. But there is increasing competition from other suitors trying to lure Hollywood productions. In 2018, the Golden State hosted 52.4% of scripted-TV projects. That fell to 43.1% in 2019 and further to 41.1% in 2020.<br/></p><p>The state is still king when it comes to streaming, but its overall share is steadily falling. California hosted 29 new scripted projects last year, compared to Canada's 24 and New York's 17. Georgia, which has made a play for Hollywood's films, only hosted six scripted productions. </p><p>Last year was the bleakest year on record for production in the nonprofit FilmLA's 25-year history. After a nearly three-month pandemic-induced shutdown, film and TV production in L.A. returned slowly in 2020 under new restrictions. Those rules extended shooting timelines but limited what could be produced, cutting on-location shooting days in L.A. County 48% year-over-year, according to a new year-in-review report from the nonprofit.</p><p>Still, there were some bright spots, including the re-emergence of reality television. In the last quarter of 2020, overall television production days rose 6% year-over-year, with reality TV leading the way with a 93% increase from 2019. That's a reflection of reality's simpler production requirements compared to scripted shows, which make it easier to adhere to public health and industry guidelines.</p><p>Scripted television, on the other hand, plummeted. Drama shoot-days in 2020 fell 45.8% year-over-year, and comedy dropped 75.9%. Those figures likely underestimate the damage, because of FilmLA's methodology. The organization measures production volume by shoot-days; but due to the new health and safety protocols, Audley said productions are now requiring more time, meaning it takes more shoot-days to create the same amount of output. </p><p>"It's a double-edged sword," Audley said. "One edge is real gratitude that the industry and public health have found a way for the film industry to work at least at some level, because there are thousands of small businesses dependent on this industry and whatever work we can get out is really helpful. The other side is this pandemic has really decimated this industry that has a huge impact on Los Angeles." </p>
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