Welcome back to What I’m Hearing...

Happy Thursday, I’m pleased to report I have rejected Elon Musk’s lucrative offer to buy What I’m Hearing…

For real, I’m gonna do a mailbag issue on Easter Sunday and answer a few reader questions. If you’ve got something you want me to dig up or offer my thoughts on, email me at matt@puck.news.

Also, some Puck author news! Starting on Monday, our legal expert Eriq Gardner is launching The Rainmaker, a private email dedicated to the inside conversation in the entertainment and media law world. Sign up here (it’ll be free for a couple weeks, then limited to Puck members only.)

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Thursday Thoughts…

• Netflix insiders and analysts are bracing for its first quarter earnings reveal on Tuesday, and the thinking is that the numbers won’t be good. The Street is expecting 2.8 million new subscribers, which is already way less than last year’s Q1, and if the subs come in lower, the already-teetering stock could take a dive. Keep an eye on member losses in the U.S., thanks to the price hike, and remember, Netflix canceled about 1 million subs in Russia due to the Ukraine invasion.    
• I’m told Sony Pictures has closed a major new slate financing deal with Chip Seelig, the Goldman Sachs and TSG Entertainment alum whose latest fund will back the studio’s non-Spider-Man slate for the next few years. Sony chairman Tom Rothman’s pandemic strategy of releasing Marvel and I.P.-driven films in theaters and dumping everything else to streamers has worked, for the most part. But I do wonder whether the diminished worldwide box office projections will ultimately wipe out any profits to be expected by a slate investor like Seelig. (Sony declined to comment.) 
• Speaking of deal activity, I’m looking at the documentary space for some big acquisitions in the next couple months. It’s such a booming corner of the business, and well-made docs on sexy topics can be incredibly “efficient” on a streamer, meaning big viewership for relatively low cost. “Documentary companies are the new podcast companies,” one plugged-in dealmaker tells me.
• On the talent side, it’s nice to see Robert Pattinson take advantage of The Batman success by beefing up his Warner Bros.-based production company. Indie producers Marie-Louise Khondji and Brighton McCloskey just joined, I’m told, and several projects are in the works.  

Now on to a topic I’ve been thinking about for awhile….

The Studios' Next Ticking Time Bomb

In this era of skyrocketing I.P. value, a quirk of copyright law is suddenly a massive business, giving creatives (and their heirs) behind properties like Robocop a surprising weapon to take power back from studios.

If I’m Mike Hopkins, senior V.P. of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, and I’m starting to look under the hood at MGM, the studio for which I just spent $8.5 billion, I might be asking a few questions. Like what, exactly, has Mark Burnett, the much-hyped TV impresario, actually created while being paid millions of dollars? Oh, and if Licorice Pizza cost $40 million to make, and MGM then spent tens of millions on a platform release and an awards campaign, and it grossed just $32 million worldwide… why is it now being dubbed internally as a hit? And, one more: I bought this great film and TV library, but what rights, exactly, did I actually buy?

Hopkins knew that many of the top MGM titles are tied up for years in distribution deals. But he may not have known that several other movies are essentially ticking time bombs, thanks to a legal loophole that is suddenly a big deal to legacy film and TV studios. It’s called “termination rights,” a quirk of copyright law that allows certain creators to claw back their work, and if you’re a studio or music label lawyer, it’s a giant headache...

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