Paramount Warner Deal & Comcast: International Insider

Good afternoon Insiders, welcome back to your weekly round-up spotlighting the biggest news in the industry. Max Goldbart here. Sign up if you haven’t already.

Paramount-Warner‘s Winding Path

M&A jigsaw shifts again: Big moves in the American M&A-sphere this week, guided by some regulatory heave-ho in Europe that all broke within 24 hours. On Tuesday, UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she is “minded to intervene” in Paramount‘s $110B takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). A day later, Paramount offered concessions in a bid to smooth over European Commission concerns. This deal of such enormous proportions has already been given the greenlight by the U.S. justice department, but Paramount CEO David Ellison, who earlier this year went on a European charm offensive, was always concerned about the other side of the pond and the UK could now prove the biggest spanner in the works. Jake’s analysis found that the UK’s intervention may run all summer, with media plurality issues around news plus kids’ channels portfolios in the spotlight. Sources expect these hurdles to be cleared but the hold-up could be a problem for Ellison’s September deadline. Reminder: For every quarter the takeover does not finalize beyond Q3, Paramount pays a ‘ticking fee’ to WBD shareholders of 25 cents a ​share — roughly $650M. That could be one costly intervention from Nandy. As European regulators were causing Ellison a headache, Paramount rival Comcast delivered a seismic announcement as the company split its NBCUniversal and Sky media business from its broadband, cable and wireless biz, a move that shows bigger is maybe no longer seen as better, per business guru Dade’s analysis. That decision has the European industry wondering what’s going to happen to Sky, which per last week’s newsletter is on the verge of snapping up UK commercial net ITV for £1.6B ($2.1B) – nearly a decade on from its £30B sale to Comcast. The M&A jigsaw is rapidly shifting.

Korean cinema collapse

‘Hope’ fading away: We have written plenty about box office recovery this year, dedicating many column inches to the likes of Backrooms and Obsession. However, things aren’t smooth sailing in Korea, where Liz reported on South Korea’s second and third largest cinema chains calling off their proposed merger amid a local market facing headwinds. Having extended their agreement three times, Lotte Shopping and Megabox finally let their memorandum of understanding run down on June 30, corporate filings show. These papers reveal financial strife was partly to blame. The merger of the two giants who sit behind only CJ CGV as top Korean cinema chains was expected to reshape a market that has been slowly recovering – but only slowly – since box office revenues collapsed during the pandemic. Last year, Korea’s box office in fact decreased by 12.4% to KRW1.047 trillion ($673M at today’s exchange rate), while admissions were down nearly 14%. The local industry has seen some relief this year with hits including The King’s Warden and Colony, along with Plus M’s upcoming release of Na Hong-jin’s Cannes competition title Hope, but recovery may have come too late for some of the nation’s struggling cinemas. The news came a day before Liz reported on Hong Kong’s beleaguered cinema market finally having an upturn, with overall box office revenues increasing by 25% thanks to a strong line-up of local and Hollywood releases.

The Insider Interview: Pierre Coffin & Chris Meledandri

Minions & Monsters opened in North America earlier this week to a promising start for a franchise that has grossed more than $5.6B, yet director Pierre Coffin and Illumination founder Christopher Meledandri question the focus on box office as a sign of a film’s success.

“My main goal is not like I want to this movie to make two billion, it’s not my motivation,” Coffin told Melanie at last week’s Annecy animation fest. Meledandri went further, calling the famous $5.6B figure “somewhat of a false premise.” Intrigued? >>> Read the Interview

The Essentials

🌶️ Hot One: Twiggy, the sophomore directorial outing of Brit actress Sadie Frost’s sophomore directorial outing about the epoymous 1960s’ supermodel, has landed North American distribution.

🌶️ Another Hot One: Prime Video Nordics is adapting Ulf Kvensler’s debut novel into four-part psychological thriller miniseries Sarek.

📖 Investigation: The BBC has been investigating a handful of employees over sexual harassment allegations, per Jake.

🏕️ Fest latest: David Chase, showrunner of HBO’s The Sopranos, will keynote Karlovy Vary’s Industry Days program alongside Sharon Horgan and Succession‘s Andrij Parekh.

🏕️ More fests: Stewart was at the Munich International Film Festival, where he sat down with Ira Sachs.

🏆 Awards latest: Natasha Lyonne will receive the Maximo Excellence Award at the Italian Global Series event in Rimini.

🖊️ Agencies: YMU signed Emma Hayes, the influential women’s football manager and sports broadcaster who has been reporting from the World Cup.

👅 Spat: Canal+ has pulled French rival TF1’s channel suite from its services amid a good old fashioned TV carriage row.

🍿 Box office: Minions & Monsters is set to conquer the world with a $170M global weekend.