Raphael Stevens

Marvel star Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company have settled the breach of contract lawsuit the “Black Widow” actor brought against the studio in July.
The explosive suit claimed that Disney had breached Johansson’s contract when it released “Black Widow” on its streaming service Disney+ at the same time it debuted in theaters.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Scarlett Johansson stars as Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, in Marvel’s “Black Widow.”
Disney | Marvel

Marvel star Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company have settled the breach of contract lawsuit the “Black Widow” actor brought against the studio in July.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I’m very pleased that we have been able to come to a mutual agreement with Scarlett Johansson regarding ‘Black Widow,” said Disney Studios chairman Alan Bergman in a statement. “We appreciate her contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and look forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects, including Disney’s ‘Tower of Terror.'”
The explosive suit claimed that Disney had breached Johansson’s contract it released “Black Widow” on its streaming service Disney+ at the same time it debuted in theaters. Johansson argued that the company had guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release for her solo film, and her salary was based, in large part, on the box office performance.
“I am happy to have resolved our differences with Disney,” Johansson said in a statement. “I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team. I look forward to continuing our collaboration in years to come.”
Lawyers for Johansson and Disney spent months slinging barbs at each other. Disney accused the actor of “callous disregard” for the dangers of Covid-19 to the moviegoing public and publicly revealed she had bee paid $20 million for the film already.
Johansson’s lawyers said Disney’s comments were “an attempt to make her appear to be someone they and I know she isn’t.”

The back-and-forth led Jamie Lee Curtis, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Marvel’s own “WandaVision” star Elizabeth Olsen to come to Johansson’s defense. Even the president of the Screen Actor’s Guild on Friday slammed Disney for “bullying” Johansson in a public statement.
While it’s unclear what Johansson was paid in the settlement, the star seems to be willing to put the lawsuit behind her. Johansson is expected to work with Disney on the upcoming “Tower of Terror” reboot based on one of Disney’s most popular attractions.

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Experts are saying that Warby Parker’s stock is overvalued, at a more than $6 billion market cap, and investors should proceed cautiously.
A number of online-first retailers, including Allbirds, Fabletics and Rent the Runway, are preparing to go public.
How shares trade in the coming weeks will likely be far more telling of Wall Street’s longer-term acceptance of Warby’s direct-to-consumer business model.

Co-CEOs, Neil Blumenthal & Dave Gilboa of Warby Parker at the NYSE, September 29, 2021.
Source: NYSE

Warby Parker’s debut Wednesday set a good precedent for a number of online-first retailers preparing to go public.
Warby shares skyrocketed 36% on Wednesday. Founded in 2010, the company started hawking its eyewear online and has avoided using wholesale partners to make a sale. Its direct listing on the NYSE has put a spotlight on a class of direct-to-consumer brands that could be the next to head to Wall Street.

Allbirds, Fabletics and Rent the Runway are among those who quickly come to mind. Other peers — including the makeup brand Glossier, luggage start-up Away, athletic apparel brand Nobull and the sustainable shoemaker Rothy’s — might not yet be eyeing the public markets, but they’ve long followed Warby’s so-called direct-to-consumer playbook.
Even with the strong performance, some experts say Warby’s stock is overvalued, at a more than $6 billion market cap, and investors should proceed cautiously. While Warby has a growth story to sell, it remains unprofitable and still has a lot to prove to live up to its current valuation, according to analysts. How shares trade in the coming weeks will likely be far more telling of Wall Street’s longer-term acceptance of Warby’s direct-to-consumer business model.
“The market’s perception of Warby is very, very generous,” said Dan McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University, who follows brands such as Peloton, Revolve and Casper that began by selling products online directly to consumers. “People are willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt.”
“The fact that they get so much value from customers so far into the future can at least allow them to plausibly talk about scenarios where — a long time in the future — they will be significantly more profitable than today,” he said.
McCarthy said a fair valuation for Warby would be closer to $2.5 billion. That’s well below where shares were changing hands Thursday, at about $53 apiece. It’s even lower than the reference price of $40 Warby received the night before its direct listing, which equates to a $4.5 billion valuation.

“This is a very strong signal that companies looking to go public have a receptive market to sell into, if they were to,” McCarthy said.

Volatility ahead

However, companies such as Warby have shown mixed performance this year. According to investment bank Renaissance Capital, 12 internet retailers including Warby have gone public so far this year, compared with nine in 2020. Shares of the scrubs-maker Figs, for example, are up about 31% since listing. But Jessica Alba’s Honest Company has seen its stock drop more than 43%.
Warby shares pulled back a bit on Thursday, closing down about 2.6%.
Most direct listings will see the company’s stock fall below the initial listing price within the first 90 days of trading, according to Kathleen Smith, a co-founding principal at Renaissance Capital.
“They certainly deserve the attention of investors,” she said in an interview on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” “It’s a strong brand. They’re a leader in direct-to-consumer. They’ve done a great job.”
However, she cautioned, because of the terms of the direct listing, roughly 80% of Warby’s shares outstanding are able to be sold. There’s no traditional lockup period for shareholders, as there is with a traditional IPO. That could make for rocky trading volatility in the coming weeks.

Premium valuation

“Maybe Warby has done a good job of selling today’s investors through rose-colored glasses, because this is a company that is going to have a lot of overhang,” Smith said. “It’s also being priced at a tremendous premium to anybody else in its peer group.”
With its more than $6 billion valuation, Warby is trading at a multiple of roughly 13 times trailing revenue, while, Smith said, some of the company’s peers trade closer to three to four times sales. Meantime, retailers such as Yeti and Canada Goose — which also began with a direct-to-consumer approach — trade at a multiple of six times revenue.
“There’s a big gap between what’s happening with the trading here with Warby and what the reality is and the rest of the market,” Smith said. “Warby is going to have to do a lot to prove this premium valuation.”
Some believe, however, that Warby’s sky-high valuation might be merited. The company says it has only about 1% of the total eyewear market, with bigger competitors including Vision Source and Luxottica.
“There is huge growth potential for a business like this,” said Reena Aggarwal, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert in public listings. “And another positive side to this story is they do have this ‘do good’ philosophy.”
Warby is classified as a public benefit corporation, meaning it has a legal requirement to balance the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders. The company also has a “buy one, give one” program, where for each pair of glasses purchased, it donates a pair to those in need.
“This company is getting a huge valuation based on the market price, and as long as it doesn’t somehow crash in the next few days, that sets the relative valuation,” Aggarwal said.
Over time, the public will now be watching with a close eye how Warby manages its business and chooses to spend its capital.
One analyst already isn’t sold on the company’s plans to open dozens more retail stores, viewing this as a capital-intensive endeavor that could come back to haunt Warby. Today, the company has about 145 locations. It has said it plans to open 30 to 35 shops this year and aims to expand at that pace annually.
“I honestly doubt they will ever achieve any meaningful profitability,” said David Trainer, founder and CEO of the investment research firm New Constructs. “If you scale up and don’t make money, you’re bankrupting real fast.”

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Critical Role’s third Dungeons & Dragons campaign will launch Oct. 21 and its premiere episode will be simulcast in select Cinemark theaters.
Movie theater chains have been looking for fresh opportunities to bring folks back to cinemas after the Covid pandemic shuttered locations in early 2020 and has kept many audience members away since.
Tickets for Critical Role’s third campaign largely sold out within an hour of Thursday’s announcement.

The cast of “Critical Role.”
Critical Role

Dungeons & Dragons is coming to cinemas.
On Thursday, the team behind Critical Role, a popular roleplay gaming group turned media company, announced its third D&D campaign would launch Oct. 21, and its premiere episode will be simulcast in select Cinemark theaters in 20 cities.

Tickets for Critical Role’s third campaign, which cost $25 in the Los Angeles area, largely sold out within an hour of Thursday’s announcement. Additional screens have been added on Cinemark’s website to accommodate the interest.
Movie theater chains have been looking for fresh opportunities to bring folks back to cinemas after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered locations in early 2020 and has kept many audience members away since. While ticket sales have improved in recent months thanks to theatrical-only releases like Disney’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” moviegoers have yet to return at the same pace seen in 2019.
Movie theaters have previously showcased some simulcasts of plays and concerts on the big screen, but in the wake of the pandemic, these offerings have increased. In recent weeks, AMC, the world’s largest cinema chain, began showing National Football League games in select locations.
“It’s another outside-the-box content approach for theater chains looking to embrace unique events,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice.com. “It’s a great way to expand their customer base, and to perhaps enhance its existing audience.”
“I’d expect to see more and more alt content experiments such as this by exhibitors going forward as the industry adapts and evolves in a world where movie theaters can serve multiple communal functions,” he said.

Critical Role’s programming has been building a loyal following since it launched in 2015. In six years, it has transformed from a single show under the Geek & Sundry banner to its own media company, with its own slate of content.
The company is most well known for its long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, which span hundreds of episodes. The group’s third campaign will feature Matthew Mercer as the dungeon master and voice actors Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey and Liam O’Brien as the main cast.
“We are excited to partner with Critical Role to make opening night a memorable experience for fans celebrating the start of a new campaign together as Cinemark continues to expand its offerings for all aspects of the gaming community,” said Justin McDaniel, Cinemark senior vice president of global content strategy.
Each cast member creates their own character for the campaign and works in tandem to vanquish enemies, solve puzzles and complete each task set by the dungeon master. Their weekly games, which are all part of the same long-form campaign, often take between three and five hours.
The first campaign lasted 115 episodes and the second campaign, which launched in 2018, concluded in June after 141 episodes.
The third campaign will take place in Marquet, a continent in Exandria, a world of Mercer’s own making. The story will take place chronologically after the events of Critical Role’s “Exandria Unlimited” series and after the group’s second campaign.

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United Airlines told its 67,000 U.S. employees in August that they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 by this fall.
More than 96% complied with the mandate, and 2,000 sought exemptions.
The number of employees facing termination dropped from 593 to 320 after the deadline passed.

A United Airlines airplane takes off at San Francisco International Airport.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

United Airlines said Thursday that more employees have uploaded proof of a Covid-19 vaccination, driving down the number of staff facing termination for not complying with the company’s inoculation mandate by almost half.
The Chicago-based airline started the process of firing 593 workers as of Tuesday, though final separation takes weeks. More employees this week uploaded their cards, and by Thursday, just 320 employees hadn’t done so.

United has the strictest vaccine mandate policy of any U.S. airline. In August, the company told its 67,000 U.S. employees that they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 this fall to continue working there. Some 2,000 United employees have sought exemptions for medical or religious reasons.
“Our vaccine policy continues to prove requirements work — in less than 48 hours, the number of unvaccinated employees who began the process of being separated from the company has been cut almost in half, dropping from 593 to 320,” United said in a statement.
Earlier Thursday, Tyson Foods, which also mandates vaccines, said more than 90% of its 120,000-person workforce has been vaccinated against Covid.
Increasingly, large U.S. companies are implementing Covid vaccine mandates for at least some workers.
Most airlines have opted to encourage, but not require, staff be vaccinated but have told staff that the Biden administration’s plan to mandate vaccines for large companies could change that.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly has said he does not believe the company should mandate vaccines but warned employees this week that federal mandates could require staff to be vaccinated.
“So we at Southwest Airlines may be compelled by federal law to require Employees to be vaccinated, and we will be prepared for that,” Kelly told staff on Wednesday.
Kelly, however, said vaccines could end the pandemic. The airline earlier this month joined other carriers in offering extra pay for staff who get vaccinated and share their status with the company.
“This pandemic has to be defeated or we will never get back to normal and achieve prosperity,” he said. “We are still losing money. We risk job security. We risk pay raises.”
Frontier Airlines’ CEO Barry Biffle told employees this week that the carrier will postpone its plan to require that unvaccinated employees regularly test for Covid-19 starting next month. Instead, the Denver-based airline will wait for federal guidelines on vaccination and testing requirements for large companies.
“Once it has been issued, we will assess whether any adjustments need to be made to our plan,” he said in a staff note.
Biffle said the “majority” of Frontier’s 5,400 employees are vaccinated but the company didn’t immediately provide a percentage.
— CNBC’s Amelia Lucas contributed to this article.

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Industry forecasters predict vehicle sales from July through September were less than 3.4 million, down between 13% and 14% from a year earlier.
The severe decline, including a massive fall in September, is due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips for new vehicles.
Edmunds expects General Motors and Ford to have the largest third-quarter sales declines of 31.5% and 29.3%, respectively.

Honda Motor Co. vehicles at an AutoNation car dealership in Fremont, California, U.S., on Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. AutoNation Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on February 16.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

DETROIT – U.S. auto sales are expected to nose-dive in September, driving purchases of new vehicles down in the third quarter by at least 13% as the chip shortage continues to disrupt production, new industry estimates show.
Forecasts from Cox Automotive, Edmunds and J.D. Power/LMC Automotive predict vehicle sales from July through September were less than 3.4 million, down between 13% and 14% from the same time last year when volumes were depressed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The severe decline, including an expected 24% to 26% fall in September, is due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips for new vehicles.
The parts shortage has caused automakers to sporadically shutter plants for weeks, if not months. The lack of production combined with strong consumer demand has caused vehicle inventories to plummet to record lows.

“The entire U.S. auto industry — including the Asian manufacturers, which were doing a bit better than their domestic counterparts until recently — is in an incredibly volatile position right now and we are seeing inflated retail prices across the board,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds.
The inventory shortages have worsened throughout the year. Forecasters expects only 1 million vehicles to be sold in September, which Cox Automotive reports would be among the lowest volume in the past decade.
The sales pace in the U.S. market has fallen every month since reaching a peak of 18.3 million in April. It’s expected to be 12.1 million to 12.2 million in September.

Cox analysts predict vehicle supply will improve mildly in the fourth quarter, and continue to improve throughout 2022, but won’t return to “normal” until 2023 – if ever. Automakers have promised to keep leaner inventories in the future to boost vehicle profits and prices, which have been at record levels.
J.D. Power expects average transaction prices will reach a record of $42,802 in September, marking a fourth consecutive month over $40,000.

“The mismatch between strong consumer demand and constrained inventory is leading to higher vehicle prices,” said Thomas King, president of the data and analytics division at J.D. Power.
The majority of automakers who sell vehicles in the U.S. are scheduled to report third-quarter sales on Friday. Ford Motor is expected to report sales on Monday.
Edmunds expects General Motors and Ford to have the largest third-quarter sales declines of 31.5% and 29.3%, respectively. An outlier for the quarter is anticipated to be Hyundai/Kia, which Edmunds forecasts will be up by 10.1%. Cox Automotive also expects Tesla’s third-quarter sales to have risen by about 26%.

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Lordstown stock was up Thursday by as much as 21% following reports the company is “near an agreement” to sell its large Ohio factory to iPhone maker Foxconn.
The companies are set to announce the deal as soon as Thursday, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the talks.
Lordstown has been strapped for cash as it attempts to begin production of its first vehicle, an all-electric pickup truck called the Endurance.

The Lordstown Motors factory is where GM once operated, in Lordstown, Ohio, on October 16, 2020.
Megan Jelinger | AFP | Getty Images

Shares of Lordstown Motors surged by as much as 21% on Thursday following reports the embattled electric vehicle start-up is “near an agreement” to sell its large Ohio factory to iPhone maker Foxconn.
The companies are set to announce the deal as soon as later Thursday, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the talks.

Lordstown, which went public in October through a SPAC deal, saw its stock rise as high as $8.93 a share Thursday before retreating to close at $7.98, up 8.4%. The company is valued at $1.4 billion.
Lordstown has been strapped for cash as it attempts to begin production of its first vehicle, an all-electric pickup truck called the Endurance. The company in June said there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern in the next year because of problems funding the production of the Endurance.

While Taiwan-based electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn is best known for iPhone production, it’s attempting to broaden its manufacturing to electric vehicles. Most notably, the company earlier this year finalized a deal with Fisker, another EV start-up that went public through a SPAC, for electric vehicle production.
The value of the reported deal between Lordstown and Foxconn is unknown at this time, according to Bloomberg. Spokespeople with Lordstown Motors and Foxconn did not immediately respond for comment or declined to comment.
The EV start-up purchased the massive facility in Lordstown, Ohio, in 2019 from General Motors, which ceased operations at the plant as part of a restructuring plan. The start-up reportedly bought the facility for $20 million, a fraction of its overall value, and GM has assisted the company both financially and operationally with suppliers.

GM owns 7.5 million shares of Lordstown Class A common stock. It received the shares in exchange for equity value of $75 million in the EV company, most of which were in-kind services and linked to the sale of the property.

Workers install door hinges to the body shell of a prototype Endurance electric pickup truck on June 21, 2021 at Lordstown Motors’ assembly plant in Ohio.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Aside from its financial troubles, Lordstown is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice regarding its deal to go public as well as potentially false or misleading statements from former management, including company founder and ex-CEO Steve Burns.
Burns and his CFO left the SPAC-backed company in June after an internal investigation found “issues regarding the accuracy of certain statements” around Lordstown’s preorders, specifically the seriousness of the orders and who was making them.
In May, short seller Hindenburg Research said the company misled investors, including using “fake” orders to raise capital for its Endurance electric pickup. The short seller also said the pickup was years away from production. Lordstown has maintained it’s on track to start making the vehicle in September.
Lordstown previously said the internal investigation found Hindenburg’s report “is, in significant respects, false and misleading.”

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