PRO Tip Sheet: 5 Insights From This Week

Plus: An Exclusive Offer for Our Most Dedicated Readers 5 Insights From WrapPRO This week on WrapPRO, we dug into the troubles at Pixar, marveled at Threads' growing threat to Twitter and ran the numbers showing why CNN is a hard sell for David Zaslav. [Read More on WrapPRO]( 1. [Inside Pixar’s Existential Crisis and How It Can Bounce Back After Disney+ Stole Its Mojo]( By Drew Taylor | Source: [WrapPRO]( - Despite positive critical reception, Pixar's "Elemental" marked the studio's worst three-day opening, earning only $29.6 million, indicating changing audience behavior likely influenced by streaming habits developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. - The increased demand for content on Disney+ has strained Pixar's resources, with an unprecedented workload of producing at least one movie a year along with supplemental Disney+ content. - The management approach of Pixar’s chief creative officer, Pete Docter, emphasizes personal storytelling, potentially leading to films that may be less commercially appealing due to their introspective and complex narratives. - Institutional knowledge at Pixar has been eroding over time, insiders said, with key figures from the studio's foundational era leaving or being laid off, potentially weakening the company's ability to deliver to its historic standards. [Keep Reading]( 2. [Why Selling CNN Won’t Be Easy for Warner Bros. Discovery | Analysis]( By Lucas Manfredi | Source: [WrapPRO]( - Despite CEO David Zaslav's insistence that CNN is not for sale, analysts speculate that due to Warner Bros. Discovery's substantial debt of $49.5 billion, selling the network could be necessary. - The problem: CNN is currently valued at around $5 billion, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of approximately $750 million and $1.75 billion in revenue. Zaslav is believed to be seeking a figure around $10 billion in a potential sale. At the lower value, a deal might not make sense. - Some analysts believe Warner Bros. Discovery's strategy should be to integrate live CNN programming into Max, the company's streaming service, to bolster its digital presence. [Keep Reading]( [Save 33% on an annual subscription](and join the ranks of high-powered industry leaders who read WrapPRO every day. Want unlimited access to in-depth reporting, analysis, and industry data?[Use promo code Wrap33](and upgrade to a subscription today. 3. [Summer Box Office Has Been Much Better for Theaters Than for Studios]( By Jeremy Fuster | Source: [WrapPRO]( - The 2023 summer box office has seen a 15% improvement over last year's earnings, largely thanks to a few hit films like Disney/Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and Sony Animation’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” offsetting several big-budget flops. - The success of movie theaters and studios is measured differently; theaters focus on filling seats and selling concessions, while studios look for a return on investment, especially on high-budget blockbusters. - Big-budget flops like "Fast X," "The Flash," and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" highlight the growing divide between the success of a film for theaters, who don't have to worry about production and marketing costs, versus studios. - The upcoming slate includes potential hits like Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning,” Warner Bros.’ “Barbie,” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer," which, along with other titles, are expected to provide a higher box office performance floor than last year, showing continued progress in the post-COVID era. [Keep Reading]( 4. [Threads Poses a Real Threat to Twitter – if Meta Plays Its Cards Right]( By Robert Carnevale | Source: [WrapPRO]( - Meta's Threads, a text-based social network based off of Instagram, already has tens of millions of users after launching Wednesday, making it a viable threat to Twitter. - Twitter has suffered big declines in ad revenue, and Meta's more sophisticated ad technology and relationships with advertisers position it to take advantage of Twitter's weakness. - Meta still has a lot of work to do, including building out analytics and other tools marketers need. Without those, Threads is less of a threat. [Keep Reading]( 5. [Hey Netflix, What the Heck Happened to Your Blurbs? | Commentary]( By Benjamin Svetkey | Source: [WrapPRO]( - Over the past year, Netflix's content descriptions have significantly diminished in detail and quality, often omitting key information about the plot, suggesting a possible layoff of the team responsible for writing these summaries. - The absence of detailed plot information in Netflix's descriptions has frustrated users, potentially causing them to skip titles they might otherwise have watched with more informative summaries. - Despite Netflix's denial of any major changes to its strategy, the decrease in summary quality suggests a shift towards encouraging serendipitous content discovery, much like flipping through TV channels. [Keep Reading]( With a focus on delivering actionable intelligence, the PRO Tip Sheet empowers readers to stay ahead of the game in the industry. Want to go deeper? [Subscribe to WrapPRO today](. 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