Welcome back to What I’m Hearing, working like a sucker during Thanksgiving week. A short issue tonight, then Eriq Gardner will be here tomorrow with all the legal drama in WIH+, then I’m off Thursday for the holiday and back next Monday.

Before we start, no, I did not get Bonnie Hammer fired. Some readers asked whether my Thursday reference to Hammer remaining employed as a top NBCUniversal executive despite few discernible job duties led to the next day’s announcement that she was leaving. No. Bonnie was planning to retire on December 31, the end of her two-year deal. My mention simply caused media outlets to call NBCU and ask about her status.

Programming note: This week on The Town, Lucas Shaw and I drafted young movie stars, Bill Simmons dissected Warner Discovery’s NBA divorce settlement, and Anora star Mikey Madison shared the advice she got from Quentin Tarantino. Subscribe here and here.

Also, we posted the video from Lauren Sherman’s great “Slaying the Screen” costume designers panel from our Stories of the Season event, presented by Polestar. It’s well worth watching here.

Got a news tip or an idea for me? Just reply to this email or message me anonymously on Signal at 310-804-3198.

Discussed in this issue: Brian Roberts, Paul Mescal, Bob Iger, Jon Watts, Donna Langley, Mark Lazarus, Jon M. Chu, Tom Freston, Matt Dentler, Meryl Streep, Doug Liman, George Clooney, Rian Johnson, and… the Drake legal beef.

But first…

Runner-up: “We were selective with who we pursued.”
—Michael Moses, Universal’s C.M.O., discussing the more than… [checks notes]… 400 brand partners on Wicked

Second runner-up: “I’m Irish, so it’s not on the list of priorities.”
—Paul Mescal, when asked by Variety how “wild” it felt meeting King Charles at the Gladiator II premiere

Watts is entitled to vent. What Apple did to Wolfs was pretty shitty, and he was engaged to write a sequel. But let’s be honest: Apple was never actually making a Wolfs follow-up after its strategy shifted and the first movie was deemed unreleasable in theaters. At least not under the economics that CAA extracted, where the two stars and Watts collectively were paid around $85 million before a frame of film was shot.

Watts is welcome to jump on the streaming service struggle bus alongside Doug Liman (Amazon’s Road House) and Rian Johnson (Netflix’s Knives Out 3), but at this point, filmmakers are naïve to believe that tech companies are in the moviemaking game for any reason other than to accrue subscribers and engagement on their own platforms. They pay lip service to theaters, or use them to lure talent. But when faced with bad economics and worse press, Apple was more than willing to torch its relationship with a hot filmmaker and two major stars. (Watts also claims he was blindsided by the announcement of the supposed sequel, but if you think Apple did a press release with a quote from its film head Matt Dentler without getting approval from Watts’ team, you don’t know how film publicity works.)

Regardless, Wolfs did well for Apple TV+, but even its boast—“biggest movie of all time on the service”—comes with caveats: That’s according to Apple’s own global metric from the film’s first week, not any independent, verified source of ratings data. Indeed, Wolfs only made it to No. 4 on Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 streaming film list in the U.S. And even when compared to other Apple Original Films in their first six weeks of release, Wolfs was the third-most viewed all time, not first-most, per a source familiar with Nielsen data shared with clients. Spirited, the holiday movie with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, both doubled Wolfs in their first six weeks.

Speaking of Apple TV+...: It’s been more than six months and Ricky Strauss, the former head of marketing, still hasn’t been replaced. Bruce Richmond, its head of production, left in July and also hasn’t been replaced.

Box office over/under (early holiday edition): I took two tough L’s with the overs on Wicked and Gladiator II, but I’m gonna double-down on Moana 2 anyway and take the over on $130 million for the five-day weekend, even though the record for Thanksgiving is $125 million, set by Frozen II in 2019.

Speaking of Glicked and wishful thinking…

But that’s not to say either opening qualifies as a disappointment. Jon M. Chu’s $145 million fantasy starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo debuted to $112.5 million in North America, one of the biggest openings ever for a nonsequel that’s also not a remake (like The Lion King), a reboot (The Batman), or part of an ongoing cinematic universe (Black Panther). It blew past the previous record holder for a musical adaptation, the Meryl Streep-starring Into the Woods, which opened to $46 million over the Thursday-Sunday Christmas weekend in 2014. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, powered by Denzel, opened with $55 million, slightly below the $60 million–$65 million prerelease tracking. But that’s still relatively high for an R-rated action movie and just below the $56 million and $74 million debuts for the most recent Bad Boys and John Wick films, respectively.

In fact, to the extent that each film cannibalized the other—Wicked: Part One played 72 percent female while Gladiator II skewed 61 percent male—both pictures will likely overcome their openings and keep earning well into the holiday season. Even if Moana 2 soars within the same end-of-year frame, history suggests there’s room enough for them all. Moviegoers who chose one biggie over the other will eventually catch up.

As such, there are plenty of useful comps. In 2013, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened with $158 million the week before the holiday, only to earn another $100 million over the following Wednesday-Sunday Thanksgiving frame, even as Frozen expanded into wide release over the holiday, netting $93 million. Both ended up topping $400 million in North America.

With strong reviews, encouraging buzz, and possible Oscar season attention, there’s little reason to expect Wicked: Part One will play any worse than a Hunger Games sequel. Past-tense math related to the seasonal Katniss Everdeen, Harry Potter, and Bella Swan adventures suggests a weekend-to-final multiple between 2.7x (the various Hunger Games sequels) and 3.6x (on par with Frozen II and the first Harry Potter film), which would net between $300 million and $400 million domestically. Could it leg out like Barbie and pass $450 million? Sure, especially if the core fans see it multiple times. But even the best multiplier for one of these releases, 3.7x for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (from a $45 million debut last year), would give Wicked: Part One just $415 million.

Meanwhile, to paraphrase an old S.A.T. analogy, Wicked is to Harry Potter as Gladiator II is to the past several 007 movies. From GoldenEye in 1995 to Spectre in 2015, the James Bond films usually opened a week or two before Thanksgiving. Tomorrow Never Dies debuted just before Christmas in 1997, but whether opening near Thanksgiving or Christmas, Bond’s globetrotting adventures were the de facto holiday season event movie for older, less fantasy-inclined moviegoers.

Spectre ultimately earned nearly three times its $70 million debut, bringing in just over $200 million in 2015. That multiple would translate to around $160 million for Gladiator II. However, Skyfall rode sky-high buzz and earned 3.45x its $88 million debut in 2012 for a $304 million domestic finish—albeit partially because it was a general audience tentpole positioned against fan-skewing fantasy blockbusters The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part II and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sequel to his blockbuster best picture winner boasts solid reviews, plenty of red lion meat for Gladiator die-hards, plus Denzel, who is stalking that third Oscar. In terms of competition, Paramount’s pricey ($250 million, with a co-financer) sword-and-sandals flick is also the only big action movie—all due respect to Sony’s Kraven: The Hunter—until February, when Captain America: Brave New World hits over Presidents’ Day weekend. In other words, the coast is clear. A strong second weekend and holiday corridor seems to be there for the taking.

This pattern applies to films both big (Twisters earning $268 million from an $81 million debut) and small (Longlegs, with $74 million from a $22 million launch). Sometimes, audiences are checking out Deadpool & Wolverine (which had a better weekend-to-final gross multiple than Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan) in the second week, or sampling The Fall Guy (which earned $93 million from that underwhelming $28 million debut) in theaters long after it debuted on P.V.O.D. The return of the long tail is among the past year’s most promising theatrical trends.

That phenomenon, after all, wasn’t just the result of memes, media coverage, and the lightning-in-a-bottle circumstance of moviegoers rooting for both Barbie and Oppenheimer. Instead, the yin-and-yang success showed that two huge films could debut concurrently and earn best-case-scenario box office. This wasn’t all that new: Two tentpoles opening concurrently while each posting top-tier numbers was almost normal in the 2000s and 2010s.

Monsters University, for example, opened with $82 million in June 2013 alongside World War Z’s $66 million debut. Wall-E opened with $63 million in June 2008 alongside Wanted’s $50 million domestic launch. If the box office is to return to any approximation of a pre-Covid status quo, these sorts of outcomes will need to become commonplace again.

There must be enough audience to sustain more than one tentpole at a given moment, especially since moviegoers tend to show up primarily for films deemed theatrical events. For example, there must be room for both Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning and Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch to thrive next Memorial Day weekend. The pre-Thanksgiving showdown between Wicked: Part One and Gladiator II offered up two very different but equally essential tentpoles that opened about as well as hoped. Perhaps it’s a good sign, at least for exhibitors and distributors, that they did it without becoming a mashed-up pop culture moment.

More: Here’s Drake’s actual argument: “Streaming and licensing is a zero-sum game. Every time a song ‘breaks through,’ it means another artist does not. UMG’s choice to saturate the music market with ‘Not Like Us’ comes at the expense of its other artists, like Drake.” Uh, really? That’s not how music consumption works. Also, I’d be shocked if UMG’s deals with its artists prevented the promotion of songs by other artists. And Spotify’s fiduciary relationship is with UMG, not its individual acts.

The Great Consolidation Era isn’t off to a bangin’ start: The DirecTV-Dish merger collapsed amid a bondholder standoff. [Bloomberg]

After legal fees, Disney’s $43.25 million settlement of the pay-disparity class action translates to less than $3,000 for each of the 14,000 women at the company since 2015, Eriq Gardner emails. That’s almost enough for a few days at Disney World.

In true Warner Discovery fashion, Max is rolling out in Asia without all that expensive-to-produce local content. [Bloomberg]

I haven’t read the new Johnny Carson biography that Bill Zehme was working on when he died, but it sounds like quite a ride. [NY Times]

Amy Nicholson dutifully explores the “MILF Movie” phenomenon. [WaPo]

Congrats to the publicists who just discovered that nontraditional media outlets and “newsfluencers” can be beneficial for their clients. [Semafor]

I think we’re good with the celebrity look-alike contests, though kudos to Glen Powell’s mom for serving as a judge. [Atlantic]

“You wrote, ‘If Warner Bros. Discovery or Paramount Global made a similar move, their share price would probably crash.’ I think it’s quite the opposite, regarding WBD at least. Yes, the vast revenue-generating portion would be spun off, but WBD would transfer their massive debt load onto that spinoff, freeing up the future—streaming—for investment. This would have a more substantial positive effect on the stock price versus Comcast. Just the rumor of WBD doing so in mid-July caused the stock to rally 20 percent in one week.” —An executive

[Ed. note: My hypothetical didn’t include the debt.]

“Is it crazy to think Donna is a dark horse for Disney C.E.O.? Thinking about this promotion and your note a few weeks ago about her getting lunch with Iger at Toscana.” —Another executive

“Eek. I can’t imagine a worse company [than Alden Global Capital] to emulate. From the get-go, Alden made it clear that when it started to buy newspapers, it really had no interest in being in the news business. It hollowed out newsrooms, sold off buildings so it could make money off real estate instead of newsgathering, and rendered the products they put out all but irrelevant. So, the spiral inevitably continues.

The fact pattern for NBCU is different. Yes, many are declining assets, but they still have considerable value, as you write. And with acquisitions, streaming niches, and a runway for potential mergers, Brian Roberts & Co. may be setting up SpinCo to be a real locomotive for growth rather than the Little Engine That Couldn’t—especially with someone of Mark Lazarus’s caliber at the helm. On the surface, he may have one of the more unenviable jobs in the industry, but given the set of low expectations that comes with it, he has the chance to pull off a few surprises. Alden is willingly digging in a graveyard of their making, but the creation of SpinCo is at least a chance for Comcast to tell the Grim Reaper to look elsewhere.” —A publicist and former journalist

“Back when Viacom split, in 2006, Tom Freston was getting the crown jewels in the form of all those hot cable nets, and Les [Moonves] was getting the junk with CBS and the ancillary businesses. Obviously, we saw how that played out (Freston fired, CBS bloomed). And now, nearly 20 years later, Comcast is ditching the cable nets and keeping the broadcast net and Bravo. There’s something about the reverse symmetry of that and the gold/junk assessment that seems interesting.” —Another executive

Got a question, comment, complaint, or song lyrics for which you’d like to hold space? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.