HWD Daily
The Problem with Hollywood's Hottest Stock
Netflix surges, Jeffrey Katzenberg returns, Comic-Con gets chugging.
By Rebecca Keegan
To the 5 freeway! The Amtrak station! The private jet fueling up at Van Nuys Airport! It's Wednesday, and Hollywood is embarking on its annual southward pilgrimage to that temple of promotion, Comic-Con.
Hello from Los Angeles, where we're side-eyeing Netflix's stock price, keeping up with Jeffrey Katzenberg, and anticipating the aromatic top notes of Hall H.
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MORE SHOWS? MORE SHOES!
I've decided to employ the Netflix rationale when considering the purchase of new shoes. "In some senses, the negative free cash flow will be an indicator of enormous success," Netflix C.E.O. Reed Hastings said during the streaming company's quarterly earnings call this week. Wall Street agreed with Hastings's pro-debt strategy, sending Netflix's stock to a record $183.60 a share Tuesday, even as the company's spending soars. Hey, we're spending a lot of money, but we've got more shoes, er, I mean shows! And those shows earned 91 Emmy nominations this year, and 104 million subscribers! It all sounds great, but at this price, Wall Street is valuing Netflix at $790 per subscriber, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told The Hollywood Reporter's Paul Bond, when the company really earns less than $120 per subscriber. "Look at it as if Netflix were a household," Pachter said. "They're living a $6,500 a month lifestyle but only making $6,000 a month."
KEEPING UP WITH THE KATZENBERG
It's been a year since Jeffrey Katzenberg sold DreamWorks Animation to Comcast for $3.8 billion and went off to focus on his mystery holding company, WndrCo. In the new Variety cover by Andrew Wallenstein, Katzenberg reveals just what that company intends to do: finance short-form video series with high-production values, as much as $125,000 per minute. Creators would retain the rights to their intellectual property and producers would earn fees comparable to what they make in traditional TV. Katzenberg is tentatively titling the idea "New TV," and looking for a distribution partner with $2 billion to invest. In case there are any skeptics in the room, the Variety story quotes several fancy Katzenberg character witnesses, including Bob Iger, Les Moonves, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Peter Rice, and features a cover image of a many-armed Katzenberg clutching a bunch of cell phones in a kind of mogul-as-Hindu-deity-aesthetic. Hey, if I hadn't just spent my $2 billion on shoes, I'd be game . . .
By David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images.
ALL ABOARD: COMIC-CON
I wrote in my gratitude journal this morning how thankful I am that I'm not on the sweaty Amtrak train to San Diego. Bless the intrepid folks who are attending Comic-Con, which kicks off its preview night tonight with sneak-peek screenings from Warner Bros. Television, including the pilot of Deception, video excerpts from the new Superman spin-off series Krypton and Black Lightning, and a one-hour episode of Teen Titans Go! As we await the dispatches from Hall H, the L.A. Times's Jen Yamato has a wholly enjoyable ode to that geek cathedral, which she calls the "most important room in Hollywood." Her lead on the "aromatic top notes of hot dogs and cooling nachos . . . the distinct bouquet of 6,500 amped-up human bodies" is almost enough to make me miss the joint. Almost.
BBC BETTER HAVE MY MONEY
VF.com's Yohana Desta e-mails:
Here's one way to deal with the wage gap in a sector of the entertainment industry: have the government force a network to reveal the salaries of all its top TV stars. That's what's happening to the BBC, which revealed exactly how much its biggest names made during the 2016-17 financial year on Wednesday. This might come as a shock to you, but . . . there was a pretty stark wage gap between male and female talent. Stewart Clarke at Variety breaks down the numbers, noting that the top earner was host Chris Evans, whose salary was in the £2.2 million to £2.24 million range. That was miles ahead of the top-earning woman, Strictly Come Dancing presenter Claudia Winkleman, whose salary was in the £450K to £499K range. This remained the same in other categories. For example, the highest earner in the sports category was Gary Lineker, who landed in the £1.75 million range; the top female earner was Sue Barker, who landed in the £300K range. The list was largely confined to hosts and presenters, as shows with independent producers (like Sherlock) were not included. Still, it's a small but potent representation of how the wage gap operates in the industry, a keen reminder that women are often paid far less than their male colleagues—a fact that becomes even more distressing for women of color, who make even less than their white female counterparts.
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
VF.com's Laura Bradley e-mails:
Trouble's been brewing in Muppet world, and with each passing day, it seems things only get uglier. Steve Whitmire, who has given life to Kermit the Frog for 27 years since creator Jim Henson died in 1990, was recently replaced by Matt Vogel, and it seems the actor and Muppets Studios have differing accounts of how things went down. According to Whitmire, he was dismissed without warning due to two complaints: disagreements about the character, and a past union dispute. According to the studio, the actor had repeatedly behaved unprofessionally, and had been given warnings. Now, Jim Henson's children Cheryl and Brian Henson are speaking up. Cheryl calls Whitmire's account "ridiculously self-serving," adding that Whitmire had played the character as "a bitter, angry, depressed victim." Brian corroborated the studio's statement, saying that some of Whitmire's past exchanges had been "appalling" and adding that Kermit's character had "flattened out over time and has become too square and not as vital as it should have been."
WOOKIEE HERE!
Ron Howard is really good at this social media thing! Howard, who took over the Han Solo movie when Lucasfilm fired Phil Lord and Chris Miller last month, shared a revealing set image on his Twitter feed Monday, showing a young Chewbacca watching a two-Wookiee scene on the monitor. On Tuesday, via his Instagram account, Howard gave Star Wars fans their first peek at Donald Glover as young Lando Calrissian. Unlike the usual glossy, first-look studio handouts, these images feel insidery and cool, right down to Howard silhouetted against the monitor in his trademark ball cap (a Lucasfilm cap, lest there be any confusion that filmmaker and studio are on the same page this time).
That's the news for this sunny Wednesday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and discarded Comic-Con cosplay ideas to rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.
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