The C.E.O. of Liberty Media, owner of F1, is extracting more than $700 million over five years from Apple for U.S. broadcast rights to a racing league that was generating less than 1.5 million viewers per event on the much more accessible ESPN (which was paying only about $90 million a year). This is the kind of spending everyone wants to see from Apple.

Runner-up: Timothée Chalamet, whose Marty Supreme press tour has already given us dudes with orange ping-pong ball heads parading through Times Square, and now a “White Boy of the Year” honor from an awards show started by NBA star Anthony Edwards. Two more months of this.

Now a few little notebook-dump items…

“There’s almost no limit to what you can get people to do if you let them think it’s their idea.”
—Jim Downey, the legendary SNL writer, reflecting on how he helped castmembers be funnier (and also kinda talking about everything in Hollywood ever).

13.2 percent
Year-over-year decrease in on-location production in Los Angeles from July to September. [FilmLA]

92 percent
Second-week drop in album sales for Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, thanks to the lack of stunt versions that helped generate a record 4 million sales in the debut frame. [Billboard]

10 percent and 8 percent
Cancellation rate for Hulu and Disney+, respectively, in September, when Jimmy Kimmel was yanked off the air. That’s double their rates for the prior two months. [BBC] 

97 percent
Share of Apple TV subscribers who watched Emmy winner The Studio in April and were still subscribed by the end of May, compared to the 90 percent benchmark for all Apple TV subs. [Antenna]

$3,000
New hourly rate for Quinn Emanuel litigator Alex Spiro, thanks to his headline-grabbing representation of Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk. [Reuters]

Now here’s Kim on the latest in executive politics…

When Comcast announced in September that Mike Cavanagh was being promoted from president to co-C.E.O.—the first person in the company’s history who wasn’t a member of the Roberts family to hold even part of that title—it appeared that the succession question had been managed early and elegantly. No one expects C.E.O. Brian Roberts, who is only 66, to hang it up anytime soon, but the leadership dramas at Disney and Paramount have starkly illuminated that orderly planning is never a bad idea.

But Cavanagh’s ascension has highlighted a confusing situation one level below him on the org chart. NBCUniversal hasn’t had a C.E.O. since Jeff Shell exited in 2023, and Cavanagh took on his duties in what then seemed to be a temporary fix, even as he maintained his role as Comcast president. In announcing Cavanagh’s recent promotion, however, Comcast did not address whether NBCU would now get its own C.E.O. A company spokesman told me flatly that “there is no plan to name a C.E.O. of NBCU,” which leaves many questions about the leadership and vision for the company’s expansive media business.

A couple months after Cavanagh stepped in for Shell, he undertook a reorganization that cut his direct NBCU reports from roughly a dozen to four. Now, after his elevation to co-C.E.O. of Comcast, and various reorganizations and reshufflings, he has six direct NBCU reports. Those include C.O.O. Adam Miller, theme parks chief Mark Woodbury, news head Cesar Conde, and general counsel Kimberley Harris. And then there are the two executives most closely watched for signs of rivalry: Entertainment & Studios chairman Donna Langley and Matt Strauss, chairman of the NBCUniversal Media Group.

Just a year ago, both Strauss and Langley received promotions. Strauss took on the title and broad portfolio of business duties that had belonged to Mark Lazarus, who’s now set to become C.E.O. of the spinoff cable networks company, Versant, in 2026. That puts Strauss atop NBC Sports and the business side of Peacock, the company’s U.S.-only streaming service, as well as ad sales, distribution, research, and affiliate relations. In the meantime, Langley—that’s Dame Donna Langley, thanks to the late Queen Elizabeth—added programming and marketing across Peacock, Bravo, and NBC to her remit overseeing the film and TV studios.

Since she ascended from running the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group in 2023, Langley has not named a studio chief. Given her continually expanding duties, however, there has been plenty of speculation about whether she will finally have to appoint someone. The two likeliest internal candidates are Peter Cramer, president of Universal Pictures, and C.M.O. Michael Moses. But according to a source with knowledge, there also are no plans to name a new head of the film studio.

Langley is the undisputed queen of Hollywood, combining a strong track record at the box office and excellent talent relations (just ask Chris Nolan) with the guts to take bold swings. Strauss is an unknown in Hollywood, but he has spent 20 years at Philadelphia-based Comcast and, according to one NBCU source, “walks on water” as far as Roberts and other top Comcast execs are concerned. In terms of the Philadelphia clique, another source told me, Strauss’s Y chromosome is an advantage. “Those guys all golf together,” this person said. “It’s a boys’ club.”

Strauss and Langley are holding joint meetings, creating at least the appearance that they are playing nicely together. Insiders say that wasn’t so much the case when Lazarus was still at NBCU. As my colleague Matt reported last year, Langley and Lazarus had their separate fiefdoms, yet he maintained oversight of Bravo, and they shared Peacock. Frances Berwick, the chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment overseeing content for NBC and the company’s cable channels, was often required to secure two greenlights.

Sources said there was friction between Lazarus and Langley, who also has not liked seeing her resources diverted, mostly from the television programming budget, as Comcast has invested more heavily in live sports such as pro basketball and baseball. (The company’s new $2.45 billion-a-year deal with the NBA kicks off this week.) “She was upset and Brian Roberts said, ‘We’re going to play like a team. This is his turn, you’ll get your turn,’” a former NBCU exec told me. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be unreasonable if Langley were chafing a little. During the 2023 writers and actors strikes, she was on the studios’ key negotiating committee with Bob Iger, Ted Sarandos, and David Zaslav—the only member of that gang without a C.E.O. title.

As one NBCU veteran told me, “Everyone at Comcast knows Brian favors Philly guys. He loves Donna, too, but she’s a Hollywood creative who isn’t as experienced with the multidivision P&Ls. While perhaps true, I’ve said forever that MBA/finance guys are not the best C.E.O.s of entertainment companies. The job is to put asses in seats—parks, movies, TV. Donna does that now; Matt doesn’t.” The consensus in Hollywood is that it would be madness to risk losing Langley to a competitor should she feel she was being eclipsed or should her patience wear thin. The paradox is that while she would be a very hot commodity on the executive market, at the moment there doesn’t appear to be an abundance of opportunity at her level.

So that’s one puzzle for Roberts to manage, but he faces much bigger issues beyond the pecking order of his top executives. Comcast’s share price is down 20 percent this year and 27 percent since last October. And with the relentless pressure to get bigger, Roberts may be doomed to watch from the sidelines as the seemingly unstoppable Ellisons go after Warners. Comcast and Roberts have drawn Trump’s ire, and F.C.C. chairman Brendan Carr has said the agency is investigating the company’s D.E.I. practices.

One longtime NBCU executive expressed disdain for David Ellison’s efforts to court Trump, telling me, “It’s so calculated— the lowest of the low—that you would bend the knee, and do whatever you have to do to get your deal. I don’t think Brian will do that. He has too much integrity.” (Yes, just days earlier, NBC News had dumped teams dedicated to covering issues affecting Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ groups.) The net result, this executive said, is that Comcast can’t expect the feds to bless any deal the company might want to make: “For now, we’re on ice.” Which might mean that anyone angling for a top position may wind up presiding over a diminished empire.

And now over to the P.R. person I call the Spin Doctor, for our once-a-month look at what’s up in entertainment publicity…

It took Bryan Cranston, a national hero, to get OpenAI to commit to increased guardrails around Sora 2 deepfake generation. [CNBC]

Jay Penske is trying to sell favorable coverage in Variety to right-wing trolls like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. [Status]

More: This isn’t a Penske screw-up, it’s the model, of course. The whole reason he teamed with Todd Boehly to steal—sorry, purchase—the Golden Globes out from under the H.F.P.A. was to control not just awards campaigns in his publications but the rules for the awards themselves. Hence this year’s “best podcast” nonsense, the scandal over charging for dinners with Globes voters, the various international-event cash grabs. All of it smells horrible. But now that we know Variety coverage is available for podcasters to purchase, we can monitor if and when such coverage appears—and which Variety journalists participate in the grift.

Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh are the latest to get jerked around by Disney on a Star Wars film project. [AP]

Interesting: CAA retained Washington lobbying shop Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to advocate on A.I. and other issues. [Politico]

You won’t believe this, but the recently bankrupted NeueHouse private club was not run very professionally. [L.A. Times]

You really won’t believe this, but Pete Davidson and Colin Jost weren’t the best owners of a Staten Island Ferry. [N.Y. Times]

Scott Mendelson’s ‘Tron: Ares’ autopsy and my reporting on the Netflix/AMC talks sparked smart comments. A couple examples…

“It seems like we are avoiding saying what the actual problem is with these franchise reboots no one asked for... it’s almost always old white men in their late 50s and 60s making those decisions (i.e., [Disney’s] Sean Bailey and Alan Bergman in the Tron case). Every franchise reboot Scott mentioned that flopped is male-skewing. Coincidence? I think not. Meanwhile, Disney put Tangled on pause when it could have already been in production, and has continued to kick the can with things like Princess Diaries 3, Hercules, and Princess and the Frog, all of which are arguably much more valuable I.P. than Tron... Make that make sense.” —An executive

“Netflix Theater Pricing: Movie gets released in theaters, show your Netflix account and get the ticket for whatever price the theater would have grossed on their cut [of revenue]. Netflix forgoes their cut, showing their customers they prioritize their relationship, while bringing in theatrical-focused talent. For theaters, they get additional inventory and their same gross. Beggars can’t be choosers: Give an aggressive window. Customers get the flexibility of options at a good price. Other studios might balk, but it’s not like they are going to pull their fully priced movies. They can be given the same offer for some of their cheaper movies. It changes the paradigm of theaters, flooding them with inventory while also having event-sized movies. It’s a risky experiment but why not give it a try?” —A professor

Kim is back with a newsy excerpt from a recent interview…

Back in April 2022, Searchlight pulled the plug on Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut, Being Mortal, after a female crewmember filed a complaint about Bill Murray’s on-set conduct. Murray later told the Times that he had straddled and kissed the much younger woman on the mouth while both were wearing masks because he thought it was funny, and Puck’s Eriq Gardner reported she received a $100,000 settlement, but the movie has remained unfinished. I recently had Ansari on KCRW’s The Business for his new movie, Good Fortune (listen here), and he opened up for the first time about the heartbreak of Murray’s behavior having killed Being Mortal.

Three weeks into shooting, the complaint was filed.

They called me and said, “Hey, we’re shutting down for a day to deal with this whole thing.” I said, “Okay’. And then they said, ‘We're shutting down a second day to deal with this whole thing.’ ‘Okay?’ And then, ‘We're shutting down for a third day…’

Is there any hope of reviving the film?

I feel like I owe it to [Being Mortal author] Atul [Gawande]. The only thing that's gonna be tough is de-aging Seth [Rogen], because he looks a lot younger. I think The Studio aged him a bit.

I’ve been on a set with Bill Murray. He was a nightmare.

He is a handful and there’s nothing I could say beyond that. And there’s a certain zone of being a handful that is not cool, and I’m not saying that it is cool. I wish it could have been resolved in a way where everyone felt good and we could continue forward. But it’s not what happened.

Would you take it to another studio?

There have been some calls made, and I don't want to jinx anything that’s happening, but it’s just a tricky thing to get everybody back together. But I have this little rental space that has all the old props. Just in case, I still got it. The day when I’m like, I guess I’ve got to throw this stuff out… I don’t think that’ll ever happen.

Have a great week,
Matt

Maya Tribbitt contributed research for today’s issue.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or condolences for the person who had to tell Julia Roberts her new movie opened to $1.7 million? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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