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Welcome to the inaugural all-staff email. This is the first in a regular series of monthly emails to everyone at WBUK and comes off the back of the Employee Engagement discussions. You asked for more, regular communication and this is one initiative that, I hope, will go some way to answering that need.
The ambition here is simple. Chris, David, John and I want this and future emails to be as representative of the four business units as possible. The monthly email will aim to tell divisional stories; stories that many will be unaware of, or stories that simply deserve wider attention. In turn they will help paint the whole picture of this fantastic company.
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But we’re not going to stand still. We’re committed to ensuring the stories and the creative framework they sit in develop over time. That way we can be sure that all departments get their rightful moment in the spot-light, and we all share in the initiatives, creativity and milestones that define our lives at WBUK. There’s a call to action at the bottom of this mail.
Please do use it. We’d love to hear from you.
So what’s up first? Well, a spectacular night at the National Movie Awards feels like a good place to start. |
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WB donned its black-tie-best for the inaugural National Movie Awards at The Royal Festival Hall on Friday evening. And to the delight of those in the audience, we came away with three out of the seven awards, easily becoming the most successful studio on the night.
Presented by Alexander Armstrong, the awards are a new fixture in the British film calendar so expectation was rightly high. Stars attending the ITV1-screened event included the two Dames, Helen and Judi, as well as Jamie Foxx, Ioan Gruffudd and Sir Roger Moore. |
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We were well represented by a vast contingent from the Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix cast including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. This was a little fortuitous as the movie picked up three awards for Best Family Movie, Best Male Performance (Radcliffe) and Best Female Performance (Watson). Radcliffe and Watson did particularly well, beating off strong competition from Daniel Craig and Keira Knightley respectively.
What’s unique about the National Movie Awards is that they’re voted for by the viewing public – our greatest critics and supporters – so it’s especially satisfying to be recognised for our work in this way. As the sixth Potter goes into production this month, let’s hope for similar success next year. |
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If you were lucky enough to be in The Hub on Monday morning or watch ITV1’s Loose Women on Wednesday, you would have spotted a troop of muscle-bound Spartans preparing themselves for a jaunt around London’s major sites.
They formed an integral piece of a heavyweight marketing blitz that promoted the launch of 300 on DVD. And early indications show they did a brilliant job. On Monday alone, 300 sold a whopping 148,695 units, a +8% variance on what we’d originally forecasted.
But what’s even more pleasing was the take-up of high definition formats. Monday saw 6,564 high def 300 DVDs sold. Compare that to results of the best-selling high def title in the UK so far this year - Casino Royale - with its 3,492 launch day units sold, and the numbers really start to become compelling. Should this trend continue, we should be breaking the 400,000 barrier right about the time you read this article today - an absolutely fantastic result.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that high def has sold so well. Monday also saw our new ‘format-tastic’ UK website www.warnerbros-hidef.co.uk launch with 300 blazened across it.
This brand new tool stylishly shows off our ever-expanding HD range to both retailers and consumers alike. It also provides a clear overview of high definition, and offers a simple “how to” guide which cuts through any confusion surrounding the formats in a non-jargon like way. Unsurprisingly, it will be regularly re-skinned with forthcoming key releases so it’s well worth returning to see the latest version. |
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All eyes are on the US TV network autumn season where the success of our new shows there will most definitely have an impact on how they fare in the UK.
Early previews have gone down well with strong notices for the Anna Friel-supernatural drama, Pushing Daisies (“standing head and shoulders above this fall’s other seedlings” said Variety) and the geek comedy The Big Bang Theory which bowed to a respectable 9.6 million audience, 3.7 rating on its opening night on CBS. |
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Back on this side of the Pond, ITV1 has made an interesting move in promising to schedule Pushing Daisies in prime time early next year. This is significant - and great news for us - as the last time it had a US acquisition in prime was some nine years ago when it aired, coincidentally another of our shows, Veronica’s Closet.
Meanwhile, Virgin1 saw its much vaunted Freeview channel launch on Monday night. One of our big shows, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is due there in March after it launches mid-season in the US on Fox. Needless to say, we’ll keep you updated on its progress in the States, as indeed we will with all our other shows. |
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It was the Licensing Awards bash in mid-September and we walked away with a prized Licensing Award for our good work.
Set up to celebrate industry innovation, the Licensing Awards are a big deal. Organisers this year received over 4,000 entries for the 21 category event. What’s more, a thousand people turned up to see if they’d been lucky enough to win one of them.
Well, we picked up the snappily titled Best Licensed Children’s Apparel or Accessories Range award for our Scooby dress-up line, managed by licensee Rubies & Senior Category Manager for Toys, Nicole Burroughs. Congratulations to all involved. |
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Since the last Business Update sessions, the initiative has steamed ahead with gusto. The four teams, Communications, Connecting with the Product, Bringing Back the Buzz and Individual Needs & Ambitions have met, discussed and brainstormed ideas and we now have a rich set of initiatives that we can all benefit from in the coming months.
There’s too much to mention in this first email so we’re going to dedicate an entire newsletter in just a couple of weeks to Employee Engagement. We really believe in the process, are excited about the plans, and hope you will be too. |
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October kick starts Quarter Four with a diverse slate of new releases.
Theatrically, Nicole Kidman’s sci-fi action thriller, The Invasion, is heading our way on 12th October. Also starring Daniel Craig, the movie is a re-imagining of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers story-line.
A week later, the family adventure Nancy Drew takes a bow. Based on the characters created by Carolyn Keene, the film follows eponymous teen crime fighter, Nancy as she stumbles upon the mysterious death of a beautiful movie star. Emma Roberts and Tate Donovan headline. |
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In Home Video, we’ll be launching an eye-watering 28 different titles this month. These include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Drew Barrymore/Eric Bana poker-playing drama Lucky You and the recent SCI FI channel show, Stephen King’s Desperation. |
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Remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Well, the star of that 2002 sleeper hit, Nia Vardalos, will be headlining another comedy and we’ve picked up the UK distribution rights to it. Directed by Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality), My Life in Ruins stars Vardalos as a tour guide in Athens whose life takes a comedic turn while showing a group round the city’s ancient sites. Currently filming on location in Spain & Greece, this is the first time a studio has been granted permission to shoot at the fabled Acropolis. |
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Chris, David, John and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the first edition of Inside UK. As this regular cycle of monthly emails is ultimately all about you, we’d welcome your feedback. If you have any thoughts on the content of this edition or story suggestions for upcoming emails, then do please email us at Corporate.CommsEMEA@warnerbros.com. Until next month! |
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