On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, in our Box Office segment, Variety’s Jack Dunn breaks down a rough weekend for “Supergirl” and a big frame for “Toy Story 5” and “Michael.” And Todd Spangler explains why Comcast is hauling out the corporate meat cleaver to separate NBCUniversal and Sky from the core Comcast cable and tech assets.
Variety reporter Jack Dunn says “Supergirl” simply didn’t resonate with enough younger fans in their social feeds to drive a big opening weekend. It’s part of the larger problem around superhero movies.
As a big consumer of movies, Dunn sees a certain sameness to the storytelling that has set it and needs a big shakeup. “Whoever has the gusto to make a superhero movie that feels different than the last 15 years of superhero movies. DC does have ‘Clayface’ coming out in October, that movie does seem like it is offering a new lens to the superhero genre, with body horror,” Dunn says. DC Studios chief James Gunn “comes from a horror background. I imagine he must be curating a cool vibe, a spooky vibe for October. I am really curious to see how they take a superhero story in that direction. You saw it with Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Batman’ [in 2022]. That definitely was more of a drama detective, almost procedural film. And everybody loved that. ‘Clayface’ will be the test of what DC has up their sleeve — they’re willing to experiment.”
Spangler, Variety‘s business editor, unpacks the news early Monday from Comcast that it plans to split up NBCUniversal and the European satcaster Sky into a standalone company that will be separate from the core Comcast cable, broadband and tech assets. Spangler explains it’s all about boosting Comcast’s stock price, which has been weighed down for years. Mike Cavanagh will serve as CEO of NBCUniversal and Sky, former Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis will be CEO of the slimmed down Comcast under chairman Brian Roberts.
The news announced before the market opened sent Comcast shares up as much as 9% in early trading but it settled down to a 4.5% gain at day’s end.
In outlining the rationale to Wall Street analysts in a conference call on Monday, “Cavanagh said we’ve simply changed our mind that the two businesses are better together,” Spangler explains. “They’ll be able to spread their wings if they’re on separate tracks now with different underlying financial underpinnings. So the next question is, well, are you guys doing this so that you can look at M&A? And Brian Roberts said absolutely not. This is not about separating what we built together. It’s about positioning these two exceptional businesses to move forward with greater focus, agility, the ability to fully capitalize on the opportunities ahead. Does that mean they’re looking at M&A? He said that’s not the point of this. But remember, they made a bid to combine Warner Bros. streaming and studios with parts of the Comcast portfolio. So, they were in the M&A market [last year] and now they’re not. One wonders how strongly Brian Roberts doth protests here.”
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