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Behind the Headlines It’s a race against time for Sony Pictures as it begins eight days of reshoots on Nov. 21 for its drama All the Money in the World, having taken the step of removing star Kevin Spacey amid sexual assault and harassment allegations, and replacing him with Christopher Plummer. Co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams will work through the Thanksgiving holiday on the Rome set to ensure the Ridley Scott-helmed film meets its Dec. 22 release date. The cost: $10 million, which will be incurred entirely by producers Imperative Entertainment. All the Money in the World is just one example of the economic reverberations being felt as claims of sexual misdeeds sweep through the industry. The collateral damage is impacting people who have little or nothing to do…
Jenji Kohan The Orange Is the New Black and GLOW creator inks a top-of-the-market overall deal with Netflix to produce new original series. Joss Whedon Warner Bros. brought the Avengers director in to salvage Justice League reshoots, but the DC Comics hero team-up underperforms amid poor reviews. Amy Powell The Paramount TV chief lures George Clooney back to television with a package for him to star in and direct a Catch-22 adaptation. David O’Connor The Madison Square Garden CEO is abruptly fired amid rumors that owner James Dolan was frustrated and wanted more direct oversight. Showbiz Stocks $17.55 (+2%) DISCOVERY COMM. (DISCA) The operator of Discovery Channel gets shareholder approval for its $14.6 billion acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, parent of HGTV and Travel Channel. $108.82 (-4%) ELECTRONIC ARTS (EA)…
Behind the Headlines Fox is exploring a sale of its studio, some cable networks and other assets for an estimated $20 billion to focus more narrowly on sports and news, a move that has many in Hollywood scratching their heads, given that Rupert Murdoch, who controls the entity with sons Lachlan and James, is known for his ability to grow businesses, not shrink them. But some on Wall Street see sense in the strategy. What would be the best landing place for 20th Century Fox and Fox Broadcast? The parent of NBCUniversal would need to win over regulators before it would be allowed to buy any of Fox’s assets. But the conglomerate wants instant expansion overseas, so it likely covets Fox’s 39 percent stake in Europe’s Sky satellite TV service,…
Behind the Headlines Does politics play on Broadway? Donald Trump is top of mind in New York theater circles, with a glut of new plays aiming to capture the political zeitgeist despite the possibility of modest returns. The latest entry is dark comedy The Parisian Woman (opening Nov. 30), written by House of Cards creator Beau Willimon and starring Uma Thurman. Despite repeated mentions of Trump team members Steve Bannon and John F. Kelly, producer Tom Viertel hopes for bipartisan appeal, noting that “a little positive catharsis goes a long way.” The season’s headline-making show, Michael Moore’s The Terms of My Surrender, wrapped its 12-week run Oct. 22 with a respectable gross of $4.2 million from fewer than 74,500 spectators. Though it did not recoup its costs on Broadway, Moore…
Mega-merger intrigue over AT&T’s $85.4 billion proposal for Time Warner is transfixing the media and political classes. But what’s been rarer the past few years are acquisitions of even medium-sized digital-media companies. “There hasn’t been one in a long time,” says Jon Steinberg, who served as president of BuzzFeed and was intimately involved with the Daily Mail’s purchase of Elite Daily, made in early 2015 for $40 million to $50 million. That doesn’t mean digitalmedia companies aren’t for sale. Mashable, Quartz and Mic have been floated recently as sale candidates. Ziff Davis, which bid for a distressed Gawker Media in summer 2016, has a $50 million deal in place to acquire Mashable, according to a Nov. 16 report in The Wall Street Journal. The company had been valued at $250 million…
Behind the Headlines Following a year of reshuffling its programming across its cable brands, Viacom’s scripted strategy is taking shape. With a focus on six core brands — Paramount Network (launching Jan. 18), BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. — niche networks CMT, VH1 and, to a lesser extent, TV Land are hitting pause on scripted. CMT announced Nov. 17 that Nashville would end with its sixth season in 2018. That takes the network, which saw president Brian Philips exit in June after a 16-year run, out of the pricey scripted originals business. “I wouldn’t rule out that there’s going to be some scripted in the future, but at this point, we will go back to what CMT was before Nashville: an unscripted network that did well,” says…
