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On May 3, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed that its board of governors had voted to oust Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski from its membership ranks “in accordance with the organization’s Standards of Conduct.” But the timing of the expulsions — seven days after Cosby was found guilty by a Pennsylvania jury of sexual assault and 41 years after Polanski pled guilty to sex with a 13-yearold girl in 1977 — has confused many Academy members who’ve been privately whispering about what comes next. If such expulsions for past behavior become the new normal, these members ask, would they become a regular event? Will the Academy get more attention for the members it expels than those it invites to join? And if so, how many more…
↑ Business Spotify Effect More music giants are plotting IPOs. p. 14 Games Leveling Up A hit league aims to bring players to (huge) arenas. p. 16 Kim Yutani The Sundance veteran scores the festival’s director of programming job, making her one of the most important gatekeepers in the independent film world. Evan Spiegel The Snap CEO’s messaging app misses revenue and growth expectations as the company swaps out its current CFO with Amazon finance veteran Tim Stone. Donald Glover The Atlanta auteur’s SNL host gig spikes ratings as his alter ego Childish Gambino’s incendiary new video “This Is America” racks up 37 million YouTube views in 72 hours. Next: Solo in theaters May 25. Eric Schneiderman The New York attorney general, a #MeToo advocate and foe of The Weinstein…
Is now the time for the next wave of music IPOs? Spotify’s April 3 debut on the market may have whetted the appetite of investors for music company stocks in a sector that mostly features privately held firms or businesses hidden inside bigger conglomerates, like Sony or Apple. China’s largest music streamer, Tencent Music, which is majority-owned by Chinese social media giant Tencent and has a 7.5 percent stake in Spotify (which in turn owns 9 percent of Tencent Music), is reportedly planning an IPO by the end of the year, targeting a U.S. stock exchange as its home and eyeing a valuation of $25 billion. The company has 700 million-plus monthly users, including an estimated 15 million paying subscribers. And French conglomerate Vivendi is exploring an IPO of Universal…
This summer, two teams will battle it out inside Barclays Center for their shot at a league title and a piece of a $1.4 million prize pool. It’s not the NBA or NHL taking over the 19,000-seat arena, home to the Brooklyn Nets and New York Islanders, but — for the first time — the year-old e-sports organization Overwatch League. After its inaugural season, with viewership topping 10 million in the opening week and averaging 408,000 viewers per minute during matches, the league is betting on a breakout moment when its finals take place July 27 to 28 at the New York venue, which has hosted the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and WWE’s SummerSlam. “Barclays Center is in the big event business, and we consider hosting…
What shape would ABC be in right now without Roseanne and American Idol? That’s a question the network probably won’t ask publicly at its May 15 upfront in New York — where the narrative is expected to focus on the pair of recently renewed revivals, one of them a juggernaut that’s only gradually lost steam and another that has managed to hover right around expectations. American Idol’s reception, to be sure, has not been a story of runaway success. The pricey show has delivered on its promised ratings to advertisers, averaging a 2.1 rating among the adults 18-to-49 demographic and lifting ABC’s long-suffering Sunday primetime block, but its numbers don’t make much of a case for judge Katy Perry’s $25 million salary. Roseanne has fared better at a much cheaper…
As #MeToo and Time’s Up nab headlines, a wave of films depicting married female characters unhappy with domestic roles are arriving in theaters. Within a four-week span, audiences are getting Disobedience (April 27), starring Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz in an extramarital affair; Tully (May 4), with Charlize Theron as a mom at her wits’ end; The Escape (May 11), featuring Gemma Arterton as a mother fleeing her husband; and On Chesil Beach (May 18), with Saoirse Ronan’s character pursuing an annulment. “Distributors and financiers see that there’s a rapt audience out there,” says On Chesil Beach producer Elizabeth Karlsen, who also is bringing Keira Knightley’s Colette — about the French novelist whose husband took credit for her work — to theaters Sept. 21. For Disobedience producer Frida Torresblanco, this…
