Variety’s Rebecca Rubin breaks down a muted July 4th holiday weekend at the box office with a tepid U.S. opening for Universal and Illumination’s “Minions and Monsters” but a solid turnout for indie Angel Studios’ “Young Washington.” And Variety‘s K.J. Yossman explains why Comcast’s Sky has struck a deal to buy U.K. broadcaster ITV for $2.1 billion.
For “Minions and Monsters,” the good news is that the film is already performing well in several overseas territories. Domestically, however, it registered the lowest opening weekend of the “Despicable Me” franchise to date with $36 million.
“It might be a little bit of a case of franchise fatigue,” Rubin says. “This is a franchise that tends to be pretty popular overseas. It opened last weekend in a few territories, and so the movie has made around $160 million globally so far. And so it’s hard to knock that kind of business, because [‘Minions’] doesn’t have the biggest production budget compared to some other animated properties like the ‘Toy Story’ movies are much more expensive. This one cost $85 million. So it’s definitely a disappointing start, especially at the domestic box office. But it’s not necessarily a big financial wipeout.”
“Young Washington” is an independently produced biopic of George Washington that was a hit with the heartland and values-driven audiences that Angel Studios courts with its movie and TV productions. The modestly budgeted film grabbed $20 million in its opening salvo.
Angel Studios “have a niche that they have found with this demographic. They definitely know their core audience,” Rubin says. “And the moviegoers who tend to see these films often give them very good audience scores. This one had an A grade, and that usually bodes well for how it’s going to do over its run. It’s another win for Angel Studios.”
Yossman, a London-based reporter for Variety, breaks down the $2.1 billion transaction unveiled today between Comcast’s Sky and ITV. Comcast will acquire the linear broadcast network and the ITVX streaming platform while the ITV Studios arm will remain a standalone publicly traded company owned by ITV shareholders. It’s a huge shakeup and a sign of the times for the U.K. TV sector, where local players are finding it increasingly difficult to go it alone without broader media partnerships.
“What I’m hearing from everybody is the landscape has completely changed. The threat now is from these American giants, the social media giants whether it’s or Meta or Google, YouTube, Netflix, and that it is a completely different landscape,” Yossman says. “The signs are that the government, in its current form, will be quite supportive of these kinds of mergers and acquisitions, because the main goal is obviously to keep at least the [public service broadcasters] as a going concern. And if it has to be sold to an American studio to do that, it’s still better than the alternative, which is for it to go bust.”
Comcast last week unveiled a plan to separate the core Comcast cable and technology assets from NBCUniversal and Sky. The ITV acquisition feels like the second half of that deal, as Yossman notes.
“Our sense is that is really where the value for them is for the streaming platform, ITVX,” she says.
(Pictured: “Young Washington”)
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