Tired of sequels and franchises? NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke isn’t.
At the 2016 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Wednesday, Burke was full of praise for Universal’s film studio and theme parks, the $250 million in profit from NBC’s Rio Olympics coverage and Spanish-language Telemundo.
He also made it crystal clear what he thinks the staples of a film studio should be — underlining the logic behind NBCUniversal parent Comcast Corp.’s recent acquisition of DreamWorks Animation.
“When you look at the film business, you want to be in core franchises, sequels and animation,” Burke said. “Animation being the best of the best.”
He added that DreamWorks Animation, which has a consumer-products business roughly the same size as Universal’s, will help Universal expand its sale of merchandise. DWA characters will also pop up at Universal’s theme parks.
“We think it’s a perfect deal for us,” Burke said. “We paid a premium, but there are tremendous synergies.”
Burke said Universal has tripled its theme park revenue since he took over. He also said the plan remains for Universal Studios Beijing to open in 2020 — Universal will own a minority stake, and its Chinese partners will own the rest — which he expects to be “the park” in China’s capital city.
“Theme parks — which was a part of the company we didn’t think about too much when we bought it — is one of our favorite parts of Universal,” he said.
Burke’s presentation wasn’t all highlights — he acknowledged that NBC’s Olympics ratings fell short of four years ago — but attributed much of the discrepancy to NBC airing different events simultaneously on its cable channels, and the fact that London was, in his words, a “high-water point.” Despite low ratings necessitating make-goods to advertisers, he said the sheer volume of televised events across NBC’s networks allowed the company to come out of the games with fewer make-goods than it entered with.
“You really have to look at total audience delivery, and by that metric we were down single-digits versus a very successful Olympics,” Burke said.
Burke also spoke about opportunities with Telemundo, the Spanish-language broadcast network NBCUniversal owns. “If you look at cash flow over debt service, Univision is at $1 billion,” he said. “Telemundo was making almost no money when we acquired it.”
But Burke predicted that as Telemundo — which has Spanish-language World Cup rights — moves toward ratings parity with Univision, that monetization will come.
Burke also weighed in on over-the-top streaming services, such as Dish’s Sling TV, which compete with Comcast’s cable offerings.
“OTT sounds like a better business than in reality it is,” Burke said. “If you want a decent size bouquet of cable channels, your programming is going to cost 40, 50, 60 dollars. If you have a cable package with 200 channels, you’re not going to pay $45 for 25 channels.”
Burke said despite that, NBC is interested in maximizing the value of its channels, so it will continue to pursue deals with streaming providers — but only if they’re sufficiently lucrative.
“We want to make sure we make as much or more selling to an OTT provider as we do to a [multichannel video programming distributor, like a cable company],” Burke said.
15 Surprises About the Original 'The Fast and the Furious,' From Cast Crushes to Missing Driver's Licenses (Photos)
When "The Fast and the Furious" came out in 2001, it was meant to be a high-octane summer popcorn flick. To the surprise of almost everyone, the Universal movie went on be a huge hit, eventually exploding into the multibillion-dollar franchise it is today. The original action film, starring the late Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster, has spawned multiple sequels and at least one spinoff.
Universal
1. Paul Walker had a crush on Jordana Brewster While it's not known to what extent the young cast members were hooking up behind the scenes, director Rob Cohen confirmed all of the lead players were romantically involved -- in real life -- with their respective onscreen love interests. "Vin started to get the hots for Michelle ... or vice versa," he said in a 2015 interview. "Paul was definitely into Jordana."
Universal
2. Second love story devised on the fly The Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) character wasn't written as a leading role, but once Rodriguez joined the cast to play her, Cohen carved out more screen time for the breakout actress. He did this by developing a love story between Letty and Dom (Diesel).
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3. Two leads weren't even licensed to drive Both Brewster and Rodriguez didn't have their driver's licenses before making the film.
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4. The actors went to racing school in Las Vegas Walker, Rodriguez, Diesel and Brewster all drove Formula One cars in preparation for their street racing scenes. "We could see right away Paul was going to be an ace driver," Cohen said. "It was clear he had a natural talent. He had no fear. You could see he was falling in love with the whole car business."
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5. Vin Diesel broke a stuntman's nose A fistfight portrayed during the "Race Wars" scene got a little too real when Vin accidentally broke the nose of the stuntman playing a security guard with a backwards elbow blow.
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6. The real location of Toretto's house is ... Dominic Toretto's (Diesel) Southern California home is the epicenter of the film's romance, partying and group bonding. In the movie, the address "1327" appears, but the house is really located at 724 East Kensington Road in Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood -- blocks away from Dodger Stadium. "Fast and Furious" superfans regularly take pilgrimages to the home, which remains intact. The house has also been featured in subsequent "Fast" films.
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7. The house is white for a reason Cohen had the owners paint the house white to show off the vibrant colors of the movie's customized cars.
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8. The movie came very close to an R rating Imagine how much less the original "Fast" would have made at the box office if it missed landing its inclusive PG-13 rating? Cohen was (rightly) nervous it would get an R rating because there was violence, illegal car activity and two girls kissing in one of the film's party scenes. "I later I found out the MPAA thought it was one girl and one boy with long hair," the director said in a past interview.
Universal
9. Cuts were also made in order to get the coveted PG-13 rating Matt Schulze, who played Vince (part of Dom's crew in the original), appeared so bloodied in one scene, Cohen had to cut the graphic parts to appease the MPAA. He also pared down a sequence that involved Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) pouring oil into a mechanic's mouth.
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10. The film was inspired by an article The movie was fashioned after a 1998 article by Kenneth Li published in Vibe magazine about New York City street racers.
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11. There was another film called "The Fast and the Furious" The 1955 film of the same name starring John Ireland Dorothy Malone was a B-movie crime drama about a wrongfully imprisoned man who breaks out of jail. Universal had to make a deal with Roger Corman -- who owned the rights to the name -- to get the title.
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12. A Ja Rule groupie made it in According to DVD extras, a groupie "who was in Ja's trailer," makes a brief appearance in the film as a woman his character, Edwin, fondled ahead of a drag race.
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13. The film steals from classics "Stagecoach," "Donnie Brasco," "West Side Story" and "Point Break" all inspired various parts of the film.
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14. The train wasn't even close Remember the scene when Dominic and Brian O'Connor (Walker) barely avoid hitting a moving train as they race? Well, the actors were never in any real danger as the cars were filmed separately from the oncoming locomotive. The two pieces of separate footage were combined during postproduction.
Universal
15. A whole lot of cars were used The "Race Wars" sequence alone made use of 1,500 cars and 1,000 extras.
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And as one stuntman can tell you, Vin Diesel really can pack a punch
When "The Fast and the Furious" came out in 2001, it was meant to be a high-octane summer popcorn flick. To the surprise of almost everyone, the Universal movie went on be a huge hit, eventually exploding into the multibillion-dollar franchise it is today. The original action film, starring the late Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster, has spawned multiple sequels and at least one spinoff.