Raphael Stevens

More than a dozen countries will not releases Disney’s “Lightyear” in theaters over an animated same-sex kiss, but the ban won’t have a major impact on the film’s global box office.
In the film, Buzz’s close friend is a female space ranger who marries a woman. During a montage of milestones in the couple’s life there is a brief kiss between the two.
China represented only 3% of total ticket sales for 2019’s “Toy Story 4,” while the combination of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates accounted for less than 2%.

Buzz Lightyear and his robot companion Sox embark on an intergalactic adventure in Pixar’s “Lightyear.”

More than a dozen Asian and Middle Eastern countries will not releases Disney’s “Lightyear” in movie theaters over an animated same-sex kiss, but the ban likely won’t have a major impact on the film’s global box office.
“Lightyear” is the fifth film in Pixar’s Toy Story franchise and tells the story of the movie that inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy line. Chris Evans (Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) voices the lead character, legendary space ranger Buzz Lightyear.

In the film, Buzz’s close friend is a female space ranger who marries a woman. During a montage of milestones in the couple’s life there is a brief kiss between the two.
Countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates have decided not to release the film. It is also expected that China will not make the film available.
However, these markets are not make-or-break for the global box office haul of “Lightyear,” if Pixar movies’ past performance is any indication.
“Toy Story 4,” released in 2019, generated more than $1 billion globally. The United States and Canada represented the largest portion of ticket sales, generating 40% of the film’s total box office, or around $434 million, according to data from Comscore. China represented only 3%, around $32.5 million, while the combination of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates accounted for less than 2%, or less than $20 million.
“Though every dollar counts toward offsetting production, marketing and distribution costs, the impact of the non-playability of a Pixar film like ‘Lightyear’ in certain countries will, as the data shows us, not likely have a profound effect on the bottom line,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

Dergarabedian noted that Pixar films are among the most consistent performers at the box office and have been part of the “fabric of American cinematic culture” for decades.
“With the exception of ‘Coco,’ Pixar’s films have recently earned somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of their global earnings from North America alone,” added Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “For a variety of reasons, the cultural translation of those films has remained domestic-driven, whereas other Hollywood blockbusters often see close to two-thirds or more their worldwide box office generated from international markets.”
“Toy Story 3,” which was released in 2010, was not released in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates or China, and still generated more than $1 billion in global ticket sales. The domestic box office accounted for 41% of those sales, or around $415 million.
The animated feature is expected to haul in between $70 million and $85 million during its domestic debut this weekend.
“Pixar has a history of over-performing expectations, and we’ve seen a clear demand from adults, many of whom are parents, to return to cinemas over the past couple of months,” said Robbins. “With Father’s Day in play and a shortage of high-profile, animated films over the past two years, ‘Lightyear’ could be poised to surpass expectations just as easily as it might otherwise prove to start more modestly than some of Pixar’s biggest hits.”

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A coalition of environmental groups this week sued the Biden administration in an effort to stop more than 3,500 permit applications from energy companies to drill for oil and gas on federal lands.
The groups argued the administration hasn’t considered the damage that climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions from drilling does to endangered species, and that permit approvals in Wyoming and New Mexico violated several federal laws.
The groups said the burning of fossil fuels from drilling is heating the planet and damaging imperiled species like Hawaiian songbirds, desert fish, ice seals and polar bears.

A polar bear sow and two cubs are seen on the Beaufort Sea coast within the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | Reuters

A coalition of environmental groups this week sued the Biden administration in an effort to stop more than 3,500 permit applications from energy companies to drill for oil and gas on federal lands.
The groups argued the administration hasn’t considered the damage that climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions from drilling does to endangered species, and that permit approvals in Wyoming and New Mexico violated federal laws including the Endangered Species Act.

The groups said burning fossil fuels from drilling is heating the planet and damaging imperiled species like Hawaiian songbirds, desert fish, ice seals and polar bears. The administration’s approved permits, they said, will release up to 600 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawsuit is the latest attempt by environmentalists to pressure the administration to halt new drilling permits. Earlier in his term, Biden sought to commit to his campaign promise to suspend new drilling on federal lands, but was thwarted after legal challenges from GOP-led states and the oil industry.  
“Fossil fuels are driving the extinction crisis, and the Bureau of Land Management is making things worse by failing to protect these imperiled species,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.
The Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and the Western Environmental Law Center filed the lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management in the District Court of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
An Interior Department spokesman declined to comment on the litigation.

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As U.S. energy prices soar, the Biden administration has encouraged companies to increase drilling, arguing they can produce more by using some of the 9,000 unused and available permits. This month, the administration is set auction off drilling leases in states including Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Oil and gas industry representatives said that multiple rounds of environmental analysis are conducted before an oil and gas permit on public land is issued, and that environmental groups have several opportunities to file suit during various stages of planning.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade group that represents the oil and gas industry, said the climate groups “will not be satisfied until federal oil and natural gas is shut down completely, yet that option is not supported by law.”
“They’re trying to use the courts to deny Americans energy and drive up prices because they can’t convince Congress to change the law,” Sgamma said in a statement. “Shutting down federal oil and natural gas does nothing to address climate change, but merely shifts the production to private lands or overseas.” 
The groups argued that the Bureau of Land Management violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider how approving the permits would impact the environment. They also said officials failed to stop “unnecessary and undue” damage to federal lands as required by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
“The Bureau of Land Management has admitted that continued oil and gas exploitation is a significant cause of the climate crisis, yet the agency continues to recklessly issue thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits,” said Kyle Tisdel, climate and energy program director with the Western Environmental Law Center.

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The new item will only be available for a limited time across 60 restaurants in Arizona, Southern California and Wisconsin.
The latest menu option is keto, vegan, vegetarian and paleo.

Employees prepare orders for customers at a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Hollywood, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chipotle is giving cauliflower rice another try after the item helped bring in new customers when it was offered for a limited time last year.
The Newport Beach, California-based chain said Thursday it will test a Mexican cauliflower rice at 60 locations in Arizona, Southern California and Wisconsin. The company said the item is seasoned with spices including garlic, cumin and paprika and suitable for people following keto, vegan, vegetarian and paleo diets. It can be added to any menu item for an additional cost, Chipotle said.

The test comes after the chain offered a cilantro-lime cauliflower rice at all its U.S. and Canadian restaurants early last year. Chipotle said that item attracted new customers and that one in five cilantro-lime cauliflower rice orders in January 2021 were from people trying Chipotle for the first time.
“After the success of our Cilantro-Lime Cauliflower Rice last year, we are eager to test a second plant-powered start for any go to order,” said Nevielle Panthaky, Chipotle’s vice president of culinary in the press release.
In its most recent quarterly results released in April, Chipotle said sales at established locations rose 9% in the three months ending March 31. The company is scheduled to report its second quarter results on July 26.

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Millennial millionaires are temporarily shelving major purchases as interest rates and inflation rise, according to CNBC’s Millionaire Survey.
Nearly half of millennial millionaires say higher borrowing costs are causing them to delay buying a car, and 44% say higher interest rates have caused them to delay purchasing a home.
Millennials are three times more likely to be cutting back on big purchases compared with their baby boomer counterparts.

A waterfront mansion on Star Island, Florida.
Jeff Greenberg | UIG | Getty Images

Millennial millionaires are temporarily shelving major purchases as interest rates and inflation rise, according to CNBC’s Millionaire Survey.
Nearly half of millennial millionaires say higher borrowing costs are causing them to delay buying a car, and 44% say higher interest rates have caused them to delay purchasing a home, according to the survey. More than a third said inflation has caused them to delay a trip or vacation.

The CNBC Millionaire Survey, which surveys those with investible assets of $1 million or more, suggests that inflation and rising borrowing costs are working their way up the wealth ladder. While inflation hits the middle-class and lower-income groups hardest, rising interest rates are starting to squeeze more affluent, younger consumers, especially for big-ticket items.
Millennials are three times more likely to be cutting back on big purchases compared with their baby boomer counterparts, according to the survey.
“The millennial millionaires are clearly dealing with something they’ve never experienced,” said George Walper, president of Spectrem Group, which conducts the survey with CNBC. “As a result, they are changing their behaviors and spending plans.”
Spectrem Group and the survey consider respondents born in 1982 or later, those currently aged 40 and younger, to be millennials. Respondents born between 1948 and 1965, aged 57 to 75, were considered baby boomers.
Inflation and rising rates have created two separate but related spending constraints for affluent consumers.

Inflation has driven up the prices of luxuries such as dining out, plane tickets, hotels and even certain monthly subscriptions. According to the survey, 39% of millennial millionaires have cut back on dining out because of higher inflation. Thirty-six percent have cut back on vacations, and 22% have cut down on driving.
At the same time, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes have jacked up the cost to borrowing, especially for homes and cars. The central bank on Wednesday raised its benchmark rate to a range of 1.5%-1.75% and said another hike could come in July.
Two-thirds of millennial millionaires surveyed said they are “less likely than a year ago to borrow money” due to higher interest rates. That compares with only 40% for baby boomers.
Forty-four percent of millennial respondents said higher rates have caused them to delay purchasing a new home, compared with only 6% of baby boomers. Nearly half of millennial millionaires said they are delaying purchase of a car because of higher rates — more than double the rate of baby boomers.
Millennials are typically key drivers of sales growth for both homes and cars.
“Millennials, like everyone else, are seeing that the mortgages they were looking at in January are now more than twice as much,” Walper said.
CNBC’s Millionaire Survey was conducted in May, before the Fed’s latest rate hike. It surveyed approximately 750 respondents who reported that they are the financial decision-makers or share jointly in financial decision-making within their households.
Millennials appear more optimistic with their investments than older millionaires, however: 55% of millennial millionaires said inflation will last less than a year, compared with nearly two-thirds of baby boomers who said it will last at least a year or two. Forty percent of millennials surveyed plan to buy more stocks as inflation accelerates, compared with just 11% of boomers.
Millennials are also more sanguine about inflation’s impact on their stock returns: Nearly 90% of millennial respondents are “confident” or “somewhat confident” in the Fed’s ability to manage inflation — a stark contrast to the 38% of baby boomers who are “not at all confident.”
More than 70% of millennial millionaires believe the economy will be stronger or even “much stronger” at the end of 2022, compared with two-thirds of boomers who said it will be weaker or “much weaker.” Millennials also said asset markets will end the year higher than 2021 levels — a bullish show of confidence with the S&P 500 down 20% for the year so far.
Fifty-eight percent of millennial millionaires said asset markets will end the year up at least 5%, with 39% expecting double-digit gains. By contrast, 44% of millionaire boomers expect the market to decline double digits.

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Norway’s Equinor says new agreement will add roughly 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year to an existing bilateral contract with the U.K.’s Centrica.
“This new gas supply agreement will see Equinor deliver to Centrica sufficient gas over the coming three winters to heat an additional 4.5 million homes,” Centrica says.
“It’s vitally important to get imports from allied countries such as Norway,” Kwasi Kwarteng, the U.K.’s business and energy secretary, says.

Russia is a significant supplier of oil and gas. A number of major economies have formulated plans to reduce their reliance on Russian hydrocarbons following its invasion of Ukraine.
Sean Gladwell | Moment | Getty Images

Norwegian energy firm Equinor said Thursday it would deliver extra gas to the U.K.’s Centrica over the next three winters, as countries in Europe look to shore up their supplies amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Equinor, which the Norwegian state has a 67% stake in, said the new agreement would add roughly 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year to an existing bilateral contract with Centrica, the U.K.’s biggest supplier of gas and electricity to consumers via British Gas.

In its own statement, Centrica said it would now buy 10 bcm of gas a year from Equinor. “Against a difficult geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, this supply deal will provide further energy security for the UK,” it said.
“This new gas supply agreement will see Equinor deliver to Centrica sufficient gas over the coming three winters to heat an additional 4.5 million homes,” the company added.

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Concerns related to both the energy transition and energy security have been thrown into sharp relief by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the price of both oil and gas continuing to surge in recent months.
On Thursday, Dutch TTF Gas Futures for July 2022 were trading at around 145 euros per megawatt hour, compared to 71.66 euros at the start of the year. 
Russia is a significant supplier of both oil and gas, and a number of major economies have formulated plans to reduce their reliance on its hydrocarbons in recent months.

The U.K. has previously said Russian imports represented less than 4% of its total gas supply in 2021, but the agreement between Equinor and Centrica highlights the importance of securing deals amid an environment of continued uncertainty and volatility.
In a video message tweeted out on Thursday morning, Kwasi Kwarteng, the U.K.’s business and energy secretary, addressed the new reality many countries were facing following the conflict in Ukraine.
“When we look at Russia, we look at Ukraine, we look at gas demand, it’s vitally important to get imports from allied countries such as Norway.”

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The deal, Kwarteng argued, did not mean “we’re turning our back on renewables, on exciting new technologies such as hydrogen. But it does mean that we will get security of supply in a world where we will rely on gas for many years to come.”
Kwarteng’s statement about being reliant on gas for the foreseeable future points to the huge task major economies face when attempting to move away from an energy mix dominated by fossil fuels to one where renewables are in the majority.  
In May, the European Commission — the EU’s executive branch — fleshed out details of a plan to ramp up the EU’s renewable energy capacity and reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels.
It simultaneously acknowledged that existing coal facilities may have to be used for “longer than initially expected.”
The situation is a challenging one. Russia was the biggest supplier of both petroleum oils and natural gas to the EU last year, according to Eurostat.
And when it comes to finding common ground between the EU’s 27 members — the U.K. left the EU in 2020 — on what to do about Russian gas, there appear to be no simple solutions.
Just last week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto ruled out the prospect of a Russian gas ban in the European Union’s next package of sanctions, saying it would be “impossible.” More

Revlon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday evening as it grappled with a cumbersome debt load and a snarled supply chain.
The company said it expects to receive $575 million in debtor-in-possession financing from its existing lender base, which will help to support its day-to-day operations.
Revlon is the first major consumer-facing business to file for bankruptcy protection in what has been a yearslong pause of distress in the retail sector.

Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cosmetics giant Revlon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday evening as it grappled with a cumbersome debt load and a snarled supply chain.
The company said it expects to receive $575 million in debtor-in-possession financing from its existing lender base, which will help to support its day-to-day operations.

The filing “will allow Revlon to offer our consumers the iconic products we have delivered for decades, while providing a clearer path for our future growth,” Revlon President and Chief Executive Officer Debra Perelman said in a press release issued Thursday morning.
“Our challenging capital structure has limited our ability to navigate macro-economic issues in order to meet this demand,” Perelman added.
Revlon’s bankruptcy filing said the company is currently unable to timely fill almost one-third of customer demand for its products, due to an inability to source a “sufficient and regular supply of raw materials.” Shipping components from China to the United States takes Revlon eight to 12 weeks and costs four times 2019 prices, it said.
Revlon is the first major consumer-facing business to file for bankruptcy protection in what has been a yearslong pause of distress in the retail sector. More than three dozen retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2020, marking an 11-year high, which experts say was an extensive and Covid pandemic-driven pull-forward of restructuring activity.
Through May 31, S&P Global Market Intelligence tracked 143 bankruptcies, across all industries, so far this year, which is the slowest pace since at least 2010. S&P only tracked three retail bankruptcy filings over the same period, the lowest count in at least 12 years, it said.

Now, however, as inflation rages, interest rates rise and consumers begin to pull back spending on discretionary items, experts predict more retail companies will be pressured to restructure. Particularly as many of these businesses grapple with ongoing supply chain challenges that have left them with the wrong inventories.
The nail polish and lipstick maker, which is controlled by billionaire Ron Perelman’s MacAndrews & Forbes, listed assets and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Revlon had long-term debt of $3.31 billion as of March 31, a securities filing shows. The company’s market cap was nearly $123 million as of the close of trading Wednesday. Trading of Revlon shares was halted in Thursday’s premarket session.
In late 2020, as stuck-at-home consumers dramatically curtailed their spending on beauty items, Revlon narrowly avoided bankruptcy when enough bondholders took part in its debt restructuring program. The company had warned in early November of that year that it may be forced to file for Chapter 11 protection.
Its sales of about $1.9 billion in 2020 were down 21% from 2019 levels. Though the business rebounded in 2021, Revlon’s revenue is still below pre-pandemic levels.
Start-ups including Glossier, Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty have also challenged Revlon as it vies for younger consumers’ dollars.
Perelman’s MacAndrews & Forbes acquired Revlon in a hostile takeover for about $1.8 billion in 1985. It went public 11 years later.
The business grew over the years through acquisitions, including of Coty’s Cutex business and Elizabeth Arden. In addition to its namesake makeup banner, its portfolio also includes Almay, American Crew and Britney Spears Fragrances.
PJT Partners is acting as financial advisor to Revlon, and Alvarez & Marsal is acting as restructuring advisor.

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