Will we continue to see the hot performance of the summer box office as we ease into the fall period? With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice bringing us another $100M+ opening weekend to celebrate and some hot titles (think Transformers One and Speak No Evil) still to come, we may see a September as peppy as the summer that preceded it. Entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake, takes a closer look at the September box office spread.

Brandon Blake

Better Than 2023?

While the summer 2024 box office performance infused theatrical releases with the vigor that was missing from the start of the year, there’s one thing it didn’t manage to do — beat 2023. While we did see a significant reduction in the box office lag between 2024 and 2023, coming in at just 10% behind the same period last year instead of the once-dire 22% drops we saw predicted at the start of summer, more limited pipelines and some surprising underperformers have still left us in a benchmark deficit of sorts.

If all goes well (a big if in the turbulent box office), we should look at a September that reverses this trend. It’s perfectly possible we could see a $200M increase on last September’s takings.

Four Months to Go Big

If the theatrical box office is to move forward into true recovery territory, the last few months of the year will need to do some heavy lifting to catch up. It should be possible with several popular IPs ahead, free of the formulaic presentation that has turned away theatrical audiences. However, we’ve already seen how fickle these “guaranteed” successes can really be.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice has already delivered a strong kick-off, topping $100M on its release weekend. If Transformers One manages the same, and it is well-positioned as an animated film, then we may make it. With a few more intriguing releases and strong summer holdovers, this could be the month the domestic box office has been waiting for.

It’s been an excellent 11-week run for the $100M+ box office, but we didn’t quite manage a 12th week in a row. However, coming in just short at $92M, with some solid hold-overs and new debuts, there’s still a lot of promise in the 2024 box office. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney Los Angeles, Brandon Blake, shares the news from this weekend.

Brandon Blake

Deadpool and Wolverine, Back Again

This was a weekend where the holdovers took the credit. Despite 3 new wide releases, they only managed to secure $19M, roughly a fifth of the weekend’s overall gross. Of these, the top performer was Blink Twice, but it still managed only an underwhelming $7.3M. However, it should do well as it evolves into Amazon’s streaming arm.

Deadpool and Wolverine continues to hold strong, with only a 39% drop and $18.3M added to its running total of $577M domestically. This makes it the best-performing Marvel title since Avengers: Endgame. Current projections see it closing around the $625M mark, possibly as high as $640M. This should see it take the No. 2 title for the summer both domestically and globally, behind the little-animation-that-could, Inside Out 2.

Alien a Box Office Let Down Domestically

While Alien: Romulus has had a robust international run, it continues to lag domestically, bringing in only a further $16.2M for a domestic total of $72M. Despite this, that strong overseas performance has left it at the $153M mark, which should at least push it into profitability.

Notably, the summer’s big “sleeper” hit, It Ends with Us, also managed a creditable $12M, a 50% drop for its third weekend in release. This puts it at the $121M mark domestically, with a similar international performance. Not bad for a film with a $25M budget that was expected to have limited appeal. Sony continues its strong run with The Forge, which has surpassed its $5M budget to pull in $6.6M despite a limited release.

What does this mean for the 2024 box office overall? With some strong potential for post-summer releases and a notably low box office decline of only 14%, we may yet reach the $8B needed to call this year a success.

California’s film industry dominance is significantly challenged as its global competitors ramp up tax incentives. In 2023, New York disbursed $124 million in tax credits to Paramount Global alone for projects that invested $425 million in the state. Meanwhile, California saw only $71 million in spending from Paramount, down from $295 million in 2020. This is a trend we are seeing repeat in many areas. Brandon Blake, our industry insider entertainment attorney Los Angeles from Blake & Wang P.A., takes a closer look.

Brandon Blake

LA No Longer the Location Destination of Choice

Los Angeles’ US film and TV employment share dropped from 35% to 27% between 2022 and 2023. The city experienced a sluggish return to filming post-strikes, with TV production trailing its five-year average by 32%. Tax incentives are primarily driving this shift. California offers only a 20% base credit with a $330 million cap, lower than many of its rising competitors.

Georgia, offering 20% plus a 10% uplift, saw $2.6 billion in film spending in 2024. The UK has become a prime destination for big-budget films, offering incentives on above-the-line costs, which California doesn’t. Nor is the competition local only. As more and more international destinations seek to compete on the global filming stage, we’re seeing more and better tax incentives arise overseas.

An International Stage

Canada and Australia are attracting a lot of post-production work with generous VFX incentives. In fact, the UK recently increased its VFX credit to stay competitive. Studios are also influencing interesting location-shooting policies, with Warner Bros. promising $500 million annually to Nevada if it increases its tax incentive cap.

Reality TV production in LA plummeted 57% in Q2 2024 as other regions like Illinois expanded their incentives to include unscripted formats. Asian countries like Japan and Thailand are also entering the incentive race in a big way.

Despite these challenges, California remains a significant production hub. However, as the global competition for Hollywood dollars intensifies, the power of a well-placed tax incentive is reshaping the landscape of film and TV production worldwide. Healthy competition will benefit everyone, but it may be time for California to rethink its own tax credit program a little if it wants to retain its title as the go-to Hollywood location destination of choice.

2024 may have gotten off to a slow start, but it’s building for a strong finish. With several remarkable performances and Deadpool and Wolverine boosting itself over the $1B line all in one weekend, it’s another one to celebrate. Brandon Blake, our entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., brings the good news to us.

Brandon Blake

A $1B Milestone Passed

To no one’s surprise, Deadpool & Wolverine has well over $1B in the bag across its global release and still has plenty of room to go. Some more positive pundits suggest we may see a $1.5B performance from the film before it leaves the theatrical circuit.

It Ends With Us Fights Back

There was also more fun at the weekend box office with a celebrity couple match-up. With Ryan Reynolds dominating the charts as Deadpool, Blake Lively managed to unseat them in several early-week showings, to propel It Ends With Us, Sony’s latest release, to an utterly unexpected $80M global opening. Note that it was predicted to make about $20M-$30M! It has yet to release to all markets, including several key performers like France, Germany, Korea, Japan, and China, too. Word of mouth should build it up to new heights, too. It’s currently occupying the No. 2 spot in most markets and even took No. 1 in 12. Kudos to Sony for a very well-timed release!

We see some great returns from pictures like Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4. While not quite reaching the massive heights of Inside Out 2, it has delivered a strong and reliable performance and is currently sitting at a global cume of over $800M. Talking about strong legs, Inside Out 2 continues to deliver, bringing in another $14.5M domestically in its 9th weekend.

Overall, it’s been the sort of box office weekend we want to see more of. With a stronger slate and more releases due in the second half of the year, let’s hope to see it, too.

While Wall Street pundits and investors no longer consider subscription growth as the primary metric of interest for evaluating streaming services, it’s still an important factor. Warner Bros Discovery has not had the easiest year, especially on the stock market, and its lagging streaming growth despite the splashy appeal of its flagship Max service has been part of the issue. However, they’ve finally reached an important milestone in this matter, and Brandon Blake, our entertainment attorney in Los Angeles from Blake & Wang P.A., is here to report on it.

Brandon Blake

Crossing a Major Benchmark

Across their three primary platforms, Max, HBO, and Discovery+, Warner Bros Discovery can now lay claim to 103M subscribers. This covers another 3.6M subs onboarded in their latest financial quarter.

However, that was about the only good news from their latest earnings, and even then, the streaming segment of the company still lost money. However, it was a small loss, reaching just over, ironically, $100M in Q2. However, the company as a whole posted a massive $10B loss in the same quarter, primarily driven by asset revaluation, including the rather shocking valuation that the WBD TV networks were worth 9B less than anticipated.

Some Pleasant Surprises

While the box office bomb that was Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was a Q2 flop for WBD, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire provided a pleasant buffer, and the upcoming releases of Joker: Folie à Deux and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice should do well for it in the second half of the year, too. Luckily for WBD, it had the first episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2, the strong performance of Hacks Season 3, and the Dune: Part Two streaming release to buoy them.

WBD is also looking to launch a sports-focused streaming service, Venu, in the near future. Could this be the impetus the struggling company needs to turn its fortunes around? It’s certainly a good start.

In their first debt offering since they regained their investment-grade status last year, Netflix is in the market for a $1.8B cash injection. Earmarked for “general corporate purposes” in the sec filing, this is doubtless intended to aid with its upcoming ambitious content expansion plans for the next few years. Our Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, has all the details.

Brandon Blake

Debt and Expansion

The hoped-for cash injection will also be used to pay down Netflix’s existing debt. Netflix’s first debt offering since 2020, coming after Moody’s and S&P Global upgraded them to investment-grade status last year and further elevated them to near-blue chip status in 2024, is a notable one. It will kick off with $1B at 4.9%, coming due in 2034, and a further $800M offered at 5.4%, coming due in 2054.

Positioning the Streamer for the Coming Streaming Wars

Netflix currently owes about $14B in debt, making it less levered than most traditional media companies. With a stable outlook and significant content investment, especially in the growing live sports streaming arena, Netflix is still expected to generate double-digit revenue growth over the next 24 months.  This growth will primarily stem from an expanding subscriber base and improved monetization strategies, including Netflix’s recent price increases and advertising revenue.

This debt offering underscores Netflix’s strong financial position compared with the major streamers who have yet to hit full profitability. It seems they are hungry to capitalize on these growth opportunities as the streaming landscape becomes ever more competitive, and many investors expect to see significant consolidation going forward. 

As the company continues to evolve, industry observers will no doubt be keen to see how this financial flexibility translates into content and technological innovations, and if Netflix can keep its coveted No. 1 streamer title in a world where platforms like Disney+ are fast catching up.

When the news broke that the iconic Sundance Film Festival could be looking for a new home, much interest was ignited across the entertainment landscape in the US. Now, we know who the 6 finalists in the race to host this star of the film festival calendar will be. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., shares the details with us. 

Brandon Blake

6 Finalists, 1 Prize

Firstly, the good news for Utah. The festival’s current home, Salt Lake City and Park City, remain in the running to host the festival. Boulder, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Santa Fe, and Louisville are also contenders. Whichever city emerges victorious will host the festival from 2027, with its 2025 and 2026 editions still set to take place in Park City.

It’s a surprisingly dispersed list, with a couple of entrants (notable Louisville and Cincinnati) who were not even considered initially by industry experts. The dual inclusion of Salt Lake City, Utah’s capital, alongside its current Park City home, suggests that the festival may want to expand its footprint over two locations within the state. 

A Surprisingly Short “Short List” 

The festival’s formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process kicked off in May, closing in late June. Of the 15 cities that made the grade, these 6 shortlisted “finalists” will now host the Sundance board members and other key stakeholders as on-the-ground discovery and talks surrounding the festival take place. The final decision is expected either late this year or early next.

It’s speculated that these cities’ strong ties to local art communities has been the real drawcard. While only Atlanta and Santa Fe are specifically known for their film communities, all have a strong presence in the arts. While Park City still has a foot in the race, the concerns about how expensive the locale has become in recent years will hamper it among strong competition. For now, we can only wait and see who emerges as a frontrunner after the selection committee’s visits. 

Streaming giant Netflix has significantly increased its lead on its streaming rivals yet again. This time, to the tune of 8M new subscribers in Q2 of 2024. It seems its position as streaming’s most dominant platform is assured, at least for the near future. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news with us.

Brandon Blake

Increased Competitive Lead

Netflix has had an excellent run of late, managing to reverse its 2022 and 2023 woes significantly for one of the best turnarounds we’ve seen in recent years. The company currently has 277M active subscribers globally. This latest report will be one of the last we receive on direct subscriber numbers, with the company having recently announced it will not make these numbers (and the associated average revenue per user figures) public from Q1 in 2025.

The company also reported significant improvements in revenue ($9.56B in Q2) and operating income ($2.6B). Despite beating Wall Street predictions, however, its share price took a knock, based mainly on fears around slower growth in the future.

Looking Ahead for Netflix

Netflix predicts 14% revenue growth for the next quarter, although paid net additions will be lower than the same quarter last year, which benefited significantly from their paid sharing crackdown. They are also on the verge of launching a new subscriber website overhaul, which they claim will be the biggest update in the last 10 years. It will also bring some mobile-only features to their wider platforms. Netflix is currently targeting improving its share of TV time to help grow its goals.

Interestingly, Netflix also seems determined to resist the bundling trend we’ve seen work well for other streaming platforms. At least with other streaming platforms, though it remains open to deals with less direct competitors, such as mobile and Pay TV operators.

It seems like everyone wants their share of the location-shooting magic. Just last week,  the German government announced plans to introduce a new tax incentive program in its 2025 budget, hoping to make Germany a more attractive destination for international film and high-end series productions. In line with recent moves from the Australian government, they will offer a rebate of up to 30% on local production costs, funded collaboratively by the federal government and German states. Brandon Blake, our entertainment attorney Los Angeles from Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news.

Brandon Blake

A Hoped-For Incentive

German studios and industry groups have been pushing for this change for a while, seeing it as key to remaining competitive in the global entertainment market. After all, their close neighbors, like Spain and parts of Eastern Europe, have already been luring international productions to their shores with generous incentives. Ironically, even some key German productions, like the recent remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, chose to film outside the country due to this lack of local incentives.

The Details of the Incentive

The proposed tax rebate plan is expected to launch in early 2025. It still needs the necessary approvals from the German cabinet, parliament, and state governments. The criteria, entry thresholds, and eligible costs will be refined in the coming weeks, so we have little detail on those for now.

Berlin, alongside Munich, Hamburg, and the picturesque Bavarian Alps, were once popular filming destinations, buoyed by well-developed infrastructure, skilled film crews, and favorable exchange rates. However, it has lost prominence recently as neighboring European countries offered more generous financial incentives. Germany is hoping that this will be a key step in regaining a competitive edge in the local film arena. It will be interesting to see if it can regain that prominence in the wake of these new tax credit reforms.

The location filming landscape has slowly become more competitive over the last few years. With more and more domestic and international locations courting Hollywood dollars through lucrative incentive schemes and tax credits, producers are somewhat spoiled for choice. Now, there’s another key player to know— Australia. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, heads down under for this exciting new development.

Brandon Blake

Buoyed by Success

2024 releases Anyone but You and The Fall Guy were both shot in Australia. With the news that they will now practically double the location tax credit on offer (16.5% to 30%), more will be coming, too. Australia’s federal government has already passed this new legislation into law as of this week.

The location offset applies, of course, to local Aussie movies and other foreign fare as well. However, the production budget must top $13.3M for a film production to qualify, or $1M per hour for series-style content. This will position the country as a compelling alternative for Hollywood budgets and blockbusters alike. 

Boosting Local Business

This newly announced incentive is bound to power up Australia’s domestic work pipeline for screen workers and local businesses in a big way, as well as encourage international investment. After all, it’s hard to argue with a 30% tax incentive at the best of times. As more and more Hollywood content heads offshore for production, this should better position Australia as a competitive destination in the wider Asia-Pacific area. It will also favorably position it against top international production hubs such as Canada, the UK, and even domestic US locations.

With Australia already able to claim a role in bringing Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Thor: Love and Thunder, and, fittingly, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to life, it seems Hollywood would be a real drongo if it ignores this exciting new development.