Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Last year, the big question after Covid-19 shuttered theaters, stopped productions and generally upended the movie industry was, “What comes next?” Specifically, how long would the around-90-days-of-theatrical exclusivity last? With some recent news stories, I think we have an answer. (Sign up for my newsletter to get all my columns,
Two and a half months back, I made a bold call. Looking at the pace of vaccinations, the growth of that growth and the incredible effectiveness of vaccines, I said, “By May, theaters will be back!” Since the only thing more valuable than making predictions is checking to see if
As the self-appointed judge of what is “most important” in entertainment each week, I often remind myself that “story” doesn’t mean “event”. That’s why I’m so excited about this week’s story. If a trend is happening slowly, sometimes it flies under the radar, and we miss it entirely, which doesn’t
The big story of last week is fairly obvious: Disney moved Black Widow to July, along with changing the distribution strategies for Luca (now straight-to-streaming) and Black Widow (now going to theaters and premium VOD). (Sign up for my newsletter to get my column and streaming ratings report delivered to
When the biggest story of the week is essentially the same story as the previous week–Paramount+ launched to customers this week after they announced specifics at the previous week’s investor’s day–then you know it is a quiet week for news. Despite this, dare I say this week had some stories
Week to week, other stories may be the “most important”, but that doesn’t mean that Covid-19 isn’t still the biggest story. As I wrote in a very long article on February 19th, we’re moving away from “lockdowns” as the story to “the reopening of society”. However, that article was limited
A character in The Sun Also Rises described going into bankruptcy as happening “gradually and then all at once.” This apt description has been applied to everything from debt insolvency to failed democracies. The U.S. recovery from Covid-19 will likely feel the same way. Right now, most of the coverage
Well, living through the last two weeks of news has shown that the pace of news in 2021 isn’t slowing down. The most notable story for entertainment—though it was pushed off the front page within 24 hours—has to be the Democratic Senate wins in Georgia last Tuesday. This week, we’re
For the second week in a row, we all knew the most important story of the week by Tuesday. And even more than the election, the news of a potentially very effective Covid-19 vaccine has direct benefits to the entertainment industry. (Sign up for my newsletter to get all my
Seeing this Sonny Bunch tweet over last weekend was probably the most disappointing news I’ve seen in a while: Is this the final nail in the theatrical coffin for 2020? Probably. So let’s once again check in with theaters. (As always, if you want the Entertainment Strategy Guy in your