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Good afternoon, Max Goldbart here penning the newsletter on the day of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. Read on to digest happenings in the world of media and entertainment. And sign up here.
Olympic Torch Burns Bright
On your marks, get set…: We’re nearly there. Tonight, a dazzling Olympics opening ceremony featuring dozens of boats along the Seine will take place in the French capital, and yes, Celine Dion will perform, as will Lady Gaga. Trouble in paradise however, as Insider goes to press the French rail network has been paralyzed by arson attacks, with a whopping 800,000 people expected to be impacted. Almost immediately after the end of the last games, which were delayed to 2021 due to Covid-19, the International Olympic Committee set the wheels in motion for Paris 2024, and the next three weeks will see some of the globe’s ultimate superstars compete in France, paired with one of the biggest broadcasting and media operations you could witness. And there’s been plenty for us Deadliners to get our teeth into this week as the worlds of sport, media and TV collide at a rate of knots. Mel has been on the ground and sent this dispatch Monday from an eerily quiet Paris. She wrote that France’s traditional summer exodus felt “more pronounced” than ever this year, with the inhabitants of Paris’ well-heeled central neighborhoods heading for the hills. With things still very much up in the air given the travel chaos, check out our guide on what to expect from tonight’s ceremony over here.
Major hurdles: During the past couple of weeks, murmurings have reached myself and Jesse over concern for ratings and broadcast revenues this time around. A report from Ampere Analysis found that sponsorship revenue has rocketed at ten times the rate of media rights revenue since the last Games, and this report dropped at a perfect time to worm its way into our deep dive spotlighting how networks, agents and content makers are supercharging the biggest show on TV for a new generation. For the traditional guys, we found that these Olympics are at something of a crossroads, with mutterings around a perceived lack of appeal to those ever elusive younger viewers in what as we all know is a hotly saturated market. The jury remains out on the success of Peacock’s move into sports streaming when it comes to the games in the States, while, in Europe, the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) deal with the IOC, which has effectively seen the U.S. giant sub-license the coverage to local broadcasters over the past decade, is about to end. WBD Sports boss Andrew Georgiou made the case for the U.S. major providing “equally good, if not better” value with its coverage during a press briefing yesterday. Meanwhile, agents have stepped in in a big way, and we chatted with some of those most involved in getting their clients’ names out there. “In certain instances, an athlete’s success in a single Olympics can lead to opportunities that span their entire careers,” said Mark Ervin, Partner and Olympic Sports Group Head at WME.
Eyes on the prize: The aforementioned crossroads also extends to the competing Olympians. When we asked our interviewees for their Olympic breakouts, they suggested that careers could be carved in stone for some younger, lesser known athletes, with the world crying out for a new Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson. Jesse put together this handy ones-to-watch gallery, which included the likes of boxer Cindy Ngamba, local swimmer Leon Marchand and probably the most well-known modern athlete, Noah Lyles. Well worth a browse. In a month’s time, some of these guys could be on their way to mega-stardom. There is of course some established talent. Basketball fans will be keeping a keen eye on flagbearer LeBron James and Stephen Curry for team USA, while top gymnast Simone Biles is still a huge draw — a Netflix doc on the superstar dropped just a week ago. All our Olympics coverage can be found here. Keep checking back over on deadline.com.
One Step Closer To Venice
Few surprises: There hasn’t been much chatter or brooding anticipation about the Venice lineup this year. Such has been the festival’s power over the last decade, it’s widely assumed the year’s buzziest awards titles will head to the Lido. And when Alberto Barbera stepped on stage Tuesday morning to announce his 2024 titles, there were few surprises. In competition, Todd Phillips returns with his Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga-starrer Joker: Folie à Deux. Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore lead Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, his English-language debut The Room Next Door. Venice regular Luca Guadagnino is also back with Queer, led by Daniel Craig. Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín continues his string of Venice biopic premieres with Maria, about the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, as played by Angelina Jolie. Away from the competition, there are new works from Takeshi Kitano (Broken Rage), Harmony Korine (Baby Invasion) and Claude Lelouch (Finalement). The highest profile pic on that list is Jon Watts’ Wolfs from Apple, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Elsewhere, a quartet of exciting out-of-competition series are also set to screen, including Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller Disclaimer from Apple TV+, starring Cate Blanchett, and Joe Wright’s Mussolini show M: Son of the Century. There was, however, one significant omission: Netflix. The streamer has had a sizeable presence at the festival in recent years. Its Lido absence confirms the general chatter across the industry that 2024 might mark the company’s first lackluster film offering for some years. The streamer will be back, though. Its stable of auteurs (Baumbach, Del Toro, Fincher) are cooking away on new projects. This year, Venice will open with Tim Burton’s out-of-competition Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Isabelle Huppert is heading the competition jury. The event runs from Aug 28–Sept 7.
Troule At The Beeb
‘Strictly’ scandal: The BBC has been working around the clock to get itself ship shape for the Olympics, but plenty else has emerged at the UK’s oldest broadcaster this week, including a less-than-rosy set of financials and the continuous throbbing drumbeat of the Strictly Come Dancing scandal. Headlines in the BBC’s meaty annual report, which as per was sent to journalists 90 minutes before bosses took questions on all and sundry (well, mainly Strictly), included yet another bruising round of layoffs, a projected near-doubling of its deficit to £500M ($646M) and a worrying decline in people paying for the license fee. Rival ITV’s far-rosier results unveiled yesterday will have provided little comfort. BBC Chief Operating Officer Leigh Tavaziva put some of the woes down to the “significant funding impact” of the previous government’s decision to increase the license fee by a lower-than-inflationary rise, and, fortunately, the noises from the new Labour government have been more positive. Director General Tim Davie could not escape the Strictly scandal around the dance professionals’ treatment of their celebrity partners and he used the press briefing to formally apologize to those effected, adding “with the benefit of hindsight we should have done more.” In what felt a slightly odd turn of phrase, he said this year’s contestants are “itching to get going” when the new season commences as planned in September. But the press are just as itchy to keep reporting the story and noises reached fever pitch Thursday when Amanda Abbington, whose complaint against ex-dancer Giovanni Pernice is currently being investigated, took part in a bombshell interview with Channel 4 News’ Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who was a Strictly contestant the same year she appeared on the show. Jake’s write up of their chat is here, and his deep dive into the “dark heart” of one of the BBC’s most successful shows of all time can be found here.
Commercially sensitive: Back to the results and it was also a tough day for the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Studios, which has been under pressure of late to generate more cash to negate declining license fee income. With the future of the Doctor Who deal with Disney appearing to hang in the balance, the commercial arm’s revenue dipped below £2B ($2.6B) from last year’s soaring high, while EBITDA tumbled by 20% to £202M. BBC Studios was keen to get on the front foot, setting the results against a “backdrop of very challenging operating conditions, with softness in the commissioning and advertising sales market,” but the Tom Fussell-led unit will be desperate to reverse the declines this time next year. One man who could help here is Zai Bennett, the new head of BBC Studios Productions. Long rumored to be a frontrunner for one of the biggest jobs in British telly, the soon-to-be-former Sky content boss will take the reins of a behemoth that makes the likes of Planet Earth, Dragons’ Den, EastEnders and, yes that name one more time, Strictly. He will have his work cut out but is a highly respected and affable figure who has worked at just about every major broadcaster. Also key to a potential turnaround will be the performance of BritBox International, BBC Studios’ best-of-British streamer that grew its subs base by 25% last year in what was a difficult 12 months for its larger rivals. I sat down with its new prez, Robert Schildhouse, for his first interview since being promoted when BBC Studios bought the streamer outright.
Amazons’s Landmark Studio Deal
Bray-ve New World: Huge news Monday with the announcement that Amazon would be buying its first UK studio, Bray, where Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is filmed. Financials were not disclosed but this one would have cost a bob or two, and a first Amazon production, Citadel, will relocate there soon. By our reckoning, Bray is only the second UK site to be owned by a U.S. major, following Warner Bros. Discovery’s acquisition of Leavesden back in 2010. Amazon also leases a site at Shepperton alongside Netflix and the move to buy Bray represents a major vote of confidence in one of the globe’s biggest filming hubs. Notably, the news comes six months after Amazon used a written submission to a parliamentary committee to warn the British government not to take for granted the country’s status as a production hub that can rival Hollywood. The streaming giant had said that U.S. studios could shift shoots at “short notice” were the UK to become a less competitive location over the coming years. Amazon clearly feels its warning has been heeded.
Mental Health Crisis
Read the series: Our U.S. team have been spotlighting Hollywood’s mental health crisis this week, an emergency that can at times feel as if it is spiralling out of control. A mean combination of the strikes, slowdown in work and the long, daily grind makes the film and TV industries ripe for mental health and wellbeing issues. Luckily, the industry is far more at ease speaking about these issues today than it has been in the past, as evidenced by our guest columns from General Hospital’s Tabyana Ali and former Disney TV exec Dawn Solér. “It started out with the small things at first, but got progressively worse and eventually resulted in racially charged and life-threatening comments that were incredibly hurtful and damaging,” writes Tabyana in a moving piece breaking her silence about online trolls and their impact. Elsewhere, Matt Grobar chatted to four on-set therapists offering advice amid industry contraction, Lynette Rice investigated how job losses are impacting industry execs and Katie Campione put together this handy list of support resources. Check back on deadline.com in about an hour or so for a feature from myself and Jake concerning mental health this side of the pond. It asks how wellbeing provision has changed in the wake of major awakenings such as the tragic death of John Balson, the Strictly scandal and the allegations against Russell Brand.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: Dune star Rebecca Ferguson has joined Cillian Murphy in Netflix’s Peaky Blinders movie.
🌶️ Also hot: Guillermo Calderón is aboard to script the miracle true story from last year of four children, including a baby, who survived a plane crash and 40 days in the Amazon Rainforest
🌶️ Some more heat: Iron Man writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are penning a film adaptation of Graphic India’s Shadow Tiger.
🪓 Breaking Baz: Our man chatted to The Sandman’s Barry Sloane and Abbott Elementary’s Sheryl Lee Ralph.
🏕️ Festival latest: SXSW London revealed its first edition dates and some hires — big year to come for new London fest’s in 2025.
🚪 Exiting: HYBE‘s Park Ji-won, who resigned as CEO at the BTS label in Korea.
🍿 Box office: Deadpool & Wolverine is set to tear into the global BO this weekend, per Anthony and Nancy’s scoop.
👀 First look: Between Sony Pictures Television and Spain’s Espotlight.
🖋️ Agencies: Casarotto Ramsay MD Anna Higgs and YMU literary boss Amanda Harris are both departing.
🎥 Trailer: For Terror Tuesday: Extreme, Netflix’s Thai horror anthology.
Zac Ntim contributed to this week’s International Insider
