Lights, camera, action
Paramount's plot twist
Good morning, cinematic connoisseurs. This is your Stock Market Rundown for December 19th, 2023. Thank you, as always, for reading. Let’s get into it:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: SHOWTIME FOR SHARI REDSTONE
She’s one of the most powerful women in entertainment. But she’s not a household name like Jennifer Lawrence or Margot Robbie. She just happens to control one of the top movie studios in Hollywood.
Shari Redstone is the daughter of Sumner Redstone, the magnate who built media conglomerate National Amusements. Armed with a Harvard law degree, he did daring deals to forge a media empire that today owns 1,500 movie theaters, as well as control of primo assets like Paramount Pictures, CBS, and a passel of local TV stations and cable networks.
Over the years, Shari and Sumner sometimes feuded over corporate governance and succession. When Sumner went to the big soundstage in the sky in 2020, Shari seized the reins of the family’s media empire.
It’s been tough times in Tinseltown lately, with the industry buffeted by strikes, a downturn in TV advertising, and streaming businesses that are still money-losers for the studios. Fixing Hollywood’s finances might require more dramatic stunts than Tom Cruise scaling the Burj Khalifa.
Now, Shari Redstone is in talks to sell a controlling interest in Paramount, which could kick off a wave of Hollywood consolidation. The likely buyer is independent studio Skydance, which produced blockbusters like Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning and Top Gun: Maverick.
Funnily enough, Skydance is led by yet another Hollywood nepo baby: David Ellison, son of software billionaire Larry Ellison. Seems like having a billionaire daddy helps a lot when it comes to clawing your way onto the list of Hollywood’s Most Powerful People.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Jet travel used to be a luxury experience, but these days airline passengers get treated like banged-up luggage. Consumer complaints about airlines spiked in the first half of 2023. Top complaints included jammed-full overhead space, busted in-flight WiFi, and those tiny bottles of vodka from the drink cart being tricky to get open.
Mr. Potato Head, you’re fired. Hasbro is laying off hundreds of employees due to “market headwinds” in toyland. Parents just aren’t buying as many Transformers and My Little Ponies as they used to, probably because their ten-year-olds are addicted to TikTok.
Confectioners like Nestle report booming sales of boxed chocolates as consumers seek cost-effective holiday gifts. Everybody appreciates a box of chocolates, other than people on all-meat diets. (Just get them a salami.)
The turbonerds at the World Health Organization want to tax alcohol and soda so we consume less. Tell you what, bureaucrats: if I didn’t vote for you, you don’t have standing to jack up the price of my rum and Coke. Drink free or die.
That’s it for today, compadres; I’ll catch you back here bright and early tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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