How Universal Doubled Down on Big Movies and Came Out on Top

Hollywood executives are much more accustomed to pointing a spotlight rather than occupying one. There are exceptions like CinemaCon, the annual gathering of global movie theater owners in Las Vegas. It’s here that the studio chiefs hope to dazzle exhibitors with upcoming film slates, celebrity cameos and exciting new footage. All this to say: “We promise to put butts in your seats, and buckets of popcorn in their laps.”

Last month at the convention, it was nearly the end of the Universal Pictures presentation and Donna Langley – chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and the newly minted chief content officer of NBCUniversal Studio Group – had yet to step on stage.

Her team showed off glimpses of the sexy, action-packed tornado sequel “Twisters,” the Gen Z-leaning creepfest “Nosferatu” from Robert Eggers and an extended sequence from the latest installment of Illumination’s “Despicable Me” series. But where was Langley, the woman whose status has risen astronomically since her promotion (on top of a 2022 appointment to dame of the British empire, and inclusion on Time’s 100 Most Influential People list)? Waiting in the wings to show off her studio’s biggest bet for 2024, the first part of a two-film adaptation of the smash stage musical “Wicked.”

Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos and Glen Powell, above, star in high-octane “Twisters,” directed by Lee Isaac Chung.

“We believe our best year should always be in front of us, and our best projects always in the pipeline,” Langley told the audience when she emerged in a pale-green power suit that looked straight off an Emerald City runway. “It is what we’ve built at this studio, and what this studio is built to keep doing for years to come.”

The dame did not speak falsely. The “portfolio strategy” that Universal Pictures has been quietly constructing over the past decade has carried the company through a wildly unpredictable recent past – relaunching tentpole movie production amid global quarantine during the pandemic, luring skeptical audiences back to theaters, surviving a treacherous M&A landscape in media and keeping the trains running on time during the painful Hollywood labor strikes of 2023. One or more of these issues have hampered the other big Hollywood studios – including Disney, Sony and Paramount, ultimately affecting release volume and market share – in a way that hasn’t quite affected Universal.

Its strategy is this: make movies of all budget ranges for all audiences, invest wisely and swiftly, nurture the creative talent and sell the hell out of them.

Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4,” the latest in Illumination’s blockbuster franchise.

“When you have a lot of different shapes and sizes of films, you can react in the right way without too much disruption,” says Universal Pictures chief marketing officer Michael Moses. “Call it good planning, call it good luck, or a little bit of both. But I think we not only survived this period, but we thrived.”

Thanks to that ability, to be nimble without sacrificing quality, Variety will honor Universal Pictures with the International Achievement in Film award, and will recognize the studio at an event during this month’s Cannes Film Festival.

The Universal portfolio includes lifeblood franchises like the “Fast and Furious” and “Jurassic World” blockbusters, global must-sees that gross billions at the box office. Exclusive distribution deals with content engines like family-content producers Illumination (who made last year’s raging hit “Super Mario Bros.”) and DreamWorks Animation (“Kung Fu Panda 4”), along with genre shop Blumhouse Prods. (“Five Nights at Freddy’s”) keep the pipeline pumping. Prestige subsidiary labels like Focus Features and Working Title prop up the arthouse box office and keep Universal in the annual awards conversation.

The studio also has more exclusive and first-look arrangements with filmmakers than any current competitor in the business – names like Jordan Peele, Amy Pascal, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) and LeBron James all have bungalows on the lot. And lest we forget, the studio nabbed this year’s best picture Oscar and grossed almost $1 billion worldwide for Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” unheard of numbers for a historical drama made for adults.

“Oppenheimer” not only grossed an unprecendented amount globally, but also won seven Oscars, including best picture.

“We believe that our competitive advantage now is our willingness to lean into things that no one else will. We are able to say that we offer the best opportunity for creatives,” says NBCUniversal chairman of business affairs and operations Jimmy Horowitz, who brokers all of the company’s talent deals. “We maintain that by pressing on while everyone else questions if this is the right strategy. Because of our stable ownership [in Comcast] and their willingness to invest, we can block out the noise.”

Horowitz specifically pointed to “Cocaine Bear,” the 2023 gonzo thriller from Elizabeth Banks that defied expectations, grossing close to $100 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. “Who else but us can make that movie?” he says.

Distribution in movie theaters and beyond is also key to Universal in unlocking earnings power and gaining the confidence to make bold choices, especially at a time when Disney’s Marvel and Lucasfilm have returned to the drawing board after a string of creative misfires.

“We’re very fortunate to have this diverse slate of properties. We have the best marketing group in the industry and a really strong distribution organization across not only theatrical but home entertainment and television,” says Peter Levinsohn, global chairman of distribution. “All of this contributes to a valuable ecosystem that enables us to take creative risks.”

Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, who heads distribution for Universal Pictures Intl., points to several recent wins that also show cause for optimism about the fate of moviegoing.

“Auteur films are important for the international marketplace. We’ve had great success with films such as ‘Tar,’ ‘The Holdovers’ and ‘Asteroid City.’ In the last couple of years, we’ve seen the resurgence of upmarket audiences in a space that has struggled before. Movies like Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’ have brought back older audiences, another group that has been more reluctant to return to cinemas,” she says.

Kwan Vandenberg, whose team includes Julien Noble, president, international marketing at UPI, and Niels Swinkels, UPI exec VP and managing director, says she’s seeing “a similar dynamic around the world that we are domestically, in that audiences are looking for something that surprises them.”

To that point, and seeing opportunity, Universal Pictures Intl. picked up “C è ancora domani” (“There’s Still Tomorrow”) an Italian language hit directed by Paola Cortellesi, for France. It was UPI’s ninth most successful international release of 2023 and grossed more than $39.6 million internationally.

If the enthusiastic response from the CinemaCon crowd was any indication, the surprises will keep coming. “Despicable Me 4” will likely blow the roof off cineplexes this July. Shirtless Glen Powell and airborne cows could pack them in for “Twisters.” A new “Jurassic” installment should come together for production in a few months, and already has a summer 2025 release date. But “Wicked” seems the biggest bet for Universal this year. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will roll out the musical this Thanksgiving.

Not unlike the wizard, Langley will be standing behind the curtain hoping that the Broadway phenomenon translates to box office and awards gold. She seems to know which levers to pull to make it fly.

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