The Entertainment Strategy Guide to 7 February 2020
Star Wars Economics, NuFox, Locke & Key and VCs as TV Execs
Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy Newsletter! My favorite reads, listens, socials and more to keep you informed on the business of entertainment, with the links to my recent writing on my website and elsewhere.
My goal is to send these out weekly, but last week’s didn’t go out until Friday so I apologize for the multiple quick emails. Now that I’m back on track, expect these most Mondays going forward.
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The Best of the Entertainment Strategy Guy
“The 2019 Star Wars Business Report - Part I: The Economics of Star Wars Films” at my website.
As a huge Star Wars fan, after Rise of the Skywalker came out I was internally debating whether or not Star Wars had a good 2019 from a business perspective. While the film grossed a billion dollars, the theme parks had a mixed year. Then, Baby Yoda. Given that I wrote this huge series on the Disney-Lucasfilm acquisition, I had all the tools to answer this question.
So check out this mammoth article to learn how I calculate film financials, use scenario planning for films slates, the blockbusters perform financially and more. With loads of charts and tables, like this one of blockbuster franchises by box office:
“Most Important Story of the Week: NuFox’s Live TV Strategy” at my website.
In honor of the Super Bowl, I peaked in at NuFox (my name for the Fox assets Disney didn’t buy) and their all in strategy on Live TV. In a day and age where most companies lack focus, Fox knows who they are. That plus trouble for telecomm earnings reports, a Netflix marketing shift, lack of data from streamers and more.
Twitter Threads
Disney Q1 earnings had the two biggest threads of the week for me. Starting here…
And continuing here…
My best single Tweet was this jibe at Jeff Bezos.
My other favorite thread was trying to triangulate how many folks watch Prime Video.
The Best of The Rest
(These are the best reads, listens, newsletters, or social conversations I came across last week.)
Long Read of the Week - “'Locke & Key': Inside the Beloved Comic's Decade-Long Path to Netflix” by Lesley Goldberg at THR
This is a long timeline of how the recently released, IDW comic-based TV series Locke & Key got made. It is one of the best looks at how a project can live in development hell across multiple studios and producers. It also tells essentially a mini-history of how the streaming age has changed the TV landscape, that pairs well with last week’s recommended article on Mr. Robot. If I can give anyone credit, I’d applaud IDW for insisting on smart deal terms. They never let any one studio get to keep the project if it wasn’t actively moving forwad, which kept it from getting stuck in development hell.
Other Long Read - “The Platform Exceptionalism of YouTube” by Cal Newport
I ride and die for Newport’s “Deep Work” theory, but in this latest post he touches on my field, entertainment. He describes Youtube as a social platform, which I agree with, but also how it can enable new creation in a way other social platforms don’t. He also has an insight into production—it’s getting cheaper, dramatically—that most of Hollywood has ignored while emphasizing streaming. And he throws in a few cautions about the dangers of Youtube’s algorithm.
Other Long Read - “How Working in Venture Capital is just like Working in TV” by Mike Raab at OneZero
This article is far from current—it’s from 2018—but during a recent meeting with the author, I had mentioned the similarities between VC and entertainment, and Raab mentioned he’d written this good read. The only part I’d add is that Hollywood probably has more to learn from the venture community than vice versa. Specifically, being ruthless in evaluating talent.
Listen of the Week - “The Gates” on KCRW by Rob Long
Rob Long can illustrate how little pieces of Hollywood symbolize larger issues in a way that sometimes leave me shaking my head in “man I wish I’d thought of that” appreciation. In this episode, he uses the Hollywood gates as a metaphor for barriers to entry and ties it to streaming and recent mergers. There is also an anecdote about Universal’s lot I can personally back up.
Newsletter of the Week - “Buffering” by Josef Adalian
What’s more fierce than the streaming wars? The streaming newsletter wars. Josef Adalian is the latest entrant and given his long tenure writing about TV and then streaming, he’ll provide some welcome insights. The first letter I read explained the symbiosis between Netflix and NBC, which is worth a read.
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(If this email was forwarded to you, and you’re wondering who I am, The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes under this pseudonym at his eponymous website. A former exec at a streaming company, he prefers writing to sending emails/attending meetings, so he launched his own website. You can follow him on Twitter or Linked-In for regular thoughts and analysis on the business, strategy and economics of the media and entertainment industry.)