Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Roz Brewer explains her strategy for Walgreens, Brittney Griner will return to the WNBA, and five years in, Hello Sunshine is just getting started. Have a terrific Tuesday.
– One to watch. If you’ve flipped on Netflix or Prime Video over the past few months, you’ve likely seen a project by Hello Sunshine. The production company that started as an outlet for actor Reese Witherspoon’s voracious appetite as a reader—and as a strategic thinker about what was missing in Hollywood—has ramped up its production, putting out new projects that center women’s stories.
In December, the company debuted Something From Tiffany’s, a Prime Video holiday rom-com starring actor Zoey Deutsch. This month, Hello Sunshine aired a new Witherspoon project, the Netflix rom-com Your Place or Mine. And in March, the company will release what may be its most highly anticipated project yet: Daisy Jones and the Six, a Prime Video adaptation of the popular Taylor Jenkins Reid novel about a Fleetwood Mac-style ’70s band.
“We’ve been at this for five years, but you’re starting to see some of the work of the last few years come to market,” explains Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden. Harden launched Hello Sunshine with Witherspoon as a platform for stories that center around women’s experiences. She has guided the business as it expanded from its earliest offerings—often content starring Witherspoon, like The Morning Show on Apple TV+ and Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu—to projects featuring other actors, nonfiction programming, and commerce off the screen. (The latter includes a book club and Container Store products sold in partnership with the women behind the Home Edit franchise.)
Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine. Courtesy of Hello Sunshine Hello Sunshine has built a consumer-facing brand with “55 million social touch points,” rather than a more typical industry-facing production company, say Harden and president of film and television Lauren Neustadter. The approach has put Hello Sunshine content in front of an audience that extends far beyond streaming platforms and movie theaters. That brand awareness—not to mention book club picks that often end up on screen—has taught consumers what to expect from a Hello Sunshine project and made them more likely to tune in.
The company is now majority-owned by Blackstone’s Candle Media, which has helped it execute these strategies.
“We built Hello Sunshine in a blind spot. It was a blind spot based on conventional wisdom about what audiences would show up for,” Harden says. Harden and her team theorized that there was a market for women’s stories both at home and in the theater (the company’s first theatrical release was Where the Crawdads Sing in 2022).
The Hello Sunshine team argues that we’re just beginning to see the results of their strategy. As Harden says: “It’s really rolling now.”
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
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- Healthy business. Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer worked hard to persuade the company's board to support her vision to grow the business through primary health care rather than drugstores. The drugstore business "no longer works," Brewer says, and health care is the path forward. Wall Street Journal
- Cozy relationship. A lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase revealed further details about former Barclays chief Jes Staley's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. According to emails exchanged between the two men, Staley was aware of Epstein's sex trafficking while working as his private banker. A lawyer for Staley declined to comment; he has previously denied knowledge of Epstein's sex crimes. JPMorgan also declined to comment. Financial Times
- On the court. It's official: Brittney Griner will return to the WNBA. The star player, who was held in Russian detention for 10 months, signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Mercury. New York Times
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- Prime time. CNN host Don Lemon enraged women everywhere when he said that GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley was not "in her prime." Haley, 51, had called for "mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old." Lemon said in response that "a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s." He later apologized. Washington Post
- Equality victory. Spain has passed a bevy of laws shepherded by Equality Minister Irene Montero. The new legislation expands abortion and transgender rights for teens and makes Spain the first country in Europe to guarantee paid menstrual leave for workers. The legislative victory comes amid a backlash to another of Montero's efforts, Spain's "only yes means yes" consent law. NPR
- Thumbs down. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) sent a letter to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to demand answers about why "people of color, women, and other underrepresented inventors are granted significantly fewer patents than Big Tech." A figure at the center of their outreach is Katrina Parrott, who says she came up with the idea for skin tone-accurate emojis in 2013 but has repeatedly been denied a patent. BuzzFeed
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Tiger Woods apologized for handing his golf buddy a tampon as a joke BuzzFeed
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"It does remind you that so many people go through the same stuff. You’re never alone, whatever you’re going through."
—Cup of Jo blogger Joanna Goddard on announcing her divorce online
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