The all-new Hollywood Reporter offers unprecedented access to the people, studios, networks and agencies that create the magic in Hollywood. Published weekly, the oversized format includes exceptional photography and rich features.
Is Shari Redstone the protagonist in a drama that could be titled “Daddy Dearest,” in which her domineering father years ago quietly devised a method to block her from eventually taking control of his media empire? Or is CBS Corp., which stunned Redstone by suing May 14 to prevent her from forcing a merger with Viacom, just playing the long odds with an audacious legal argument? Has CBS chairman Leslie Moonves calculated that even if his side loses, he’ll be paid handsomely to leave while sparing himself a possibly futile struggle to make a success of the combined companies? Those are among the looming questions now that Moonves, 68, has launched open and potentially very personal warfare with Redstone, 64. CBS is arguing that a largely unknown (until now) provision…
Sports UFC Deal Why Ari Emanuel hasn’t found linear TV takers. p. 8 ↑ Television Upfronts Spin Five narratives the networks are selling now. p. 10 Tim Cook The Apple CEO reveals Apple Music has hit 50 million users, still behind Spotify’s 75 million but up 10 million in 2018: “We are very interested in the content business.” Randall Stephenson The AT&T CEO admits a “serious misjudgment” when the company paid $600,000 to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, whose office was raided by the FBI. John Skipper Six months after leaving ESPN amid a cocaine extortion plot, the former president lands a job overseeing a Len Blavatnik-owned sports streaming service and the Sporting News website. Veronika Kwan Vandenberg The longtime Warner Bros. distribution exec is leaving as the studio…
When UFC and Disney revealed on May 8 that they had reached a five-year, $750 million deal to make the ESPN+ platform the mixed martial arts league’s digital rights holder, many industry watchers called it a win-win. UFC — and its parent Endeavor, run by Ari Emanuel, which also includes WME-IMG — scored a rich rights agreement. And ESPN+ got a needed stream of content for its $5-a-month OTT offering. At a May 15 upfronts presentation, ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro stated his aim for ESPN+ “to be the destination for combat sports.” The deal is notable, say industry insiders, given that UFC has been on the market for several months. Fox Sports, which is nearing the end of its $115 million annual deal to carry UFC (the top bouts still…
With as much as $9 billion in advertising revenue on the line, the broadcast networks trotted out their new series, their biggest stars and a whole lot of spin during the annual dog and pony show known as the broadcast upfronts. Five key narratives dominated conversations as Hollywood began crisscrossing Manhattan the week of May 13. 1. THE ROSEANNE EFFECT As one studio chief says, “We can’t try to be cable anymore.” Indeed, in a 500-show universe, audiences have too many other places to find edgier, serialized fare. It’s among the reasons the broadcast networks have returned to ultradigestible, economical multicamera comedies (Fox ordered three) and closed-ended dramas. Another reason: the breakout success of ABC’s Roseanne, which with 21 million-plus weekly viewers even has ABC’s rivals doling out praise. 2.…
On March 28, after Laura Ingraham tweeted mockingly that David Hogg, an 18-year-old survivor of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, had been rejected by colleges, dozens of corporate advertisers — including Hulu, Honda and Expedia — abandoned her Fox News show, which airs nightly at 7 p.m. PT. Despite Ingraham’s March 29 tweeted apology to Hogg, which he spurned, many advertisers have not yet come back to the program. During the first week of May, The Ingraham Angle averaged 12 ads per night, down from the 35 aired in the three days preceding the boycott, according to data provided by Kantar Media to THR. And the show averaged just more than seven minutes of nightly advertising for the same week, down about 50 percent, the analytics firm found. (A…
FILM Meryl Streep (CAA, Gendler & Kelly), Gary Oldman (APA, Douglas, Loeb & Loeb) and Antonio Banderas (Paradigm, Hirsch Wallerstein) will star in Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers drama The Laundromat. Winston Duke (Abrams Artists, Management 360, Hansen Jacobson), Lupita Nyong’o (CAA, Del Shaw) and Elisabeth Moss (WME, the U.K.’s Independent, Ribisi) are in talks to star in Jordan Peele’s Us for Universal. Dan Stevens (WME, the U.K.’s Julian Belfrage, Peikoff Mahan) will join Natalie Portman in the drama Pale Blue Dot. Timothy Olyphant (UTA, Brillstein) is in talks to star opposite Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Annette Bening (CAA, Gochman) has joined Marvel’s Captain Marvel. Bradley Cooper (CAA) will star in, co-write and direct a Leonard Bernstein biopic for Amblin and Paramount. Beauty and…
