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Even as thousands of writers part ways with their agents amid an escalating legal battle over packaging fees, Cynthia Adarkwa is having the most successful staffing season of her career. After serving as writers’ assistant on MTV’s now-defunct Sweet and Vicious three seasons ago, she landed her first writing job with In the Vault, a show on Verizon’s now-shuttered go90 streaming service. Now Adarkwa is joining her first broadcast series, The CW’s vampire drama Legacies, thanks to a new grassroots movement that is helping writers find work since many of them went agentless. “How did we find her, you ask? My office scoured the staffing grid,” tweeted Legacies showrunner Julie Plec in revealing Adarkwa’s hire May 2, referring to a widely shared Google Sheet of writers whose samples have been…
Film Furious Fight Universal feuds with producer Neal Moritz p. 20 ↑ TV CBS Shake-Up News president swaps out star anchors p. 22 Anais Mitchell The singer-songwriter’s retelling of the Orpheus myth, Hadestown, tops the Tony nominations with a total of 14, including best musical. Busy Philipps E! cancels the actress’ late night show, Busy Tonight, after just seven months as the series managed to reach only the low six figures in total viewers. Sheila Nevins A year after wrapping a four-decade run at HBO, the executive joins Viacom to launch MTV Documentary Films and develop a new slate of programming for the company and third-party outlets. Peter Golden CBS boots its longtime casting chief after his name surfaces in connection with controversies about the network’s culture under ousted CEO…
1.5M Twitter impressions of LaToya Morgan’s #WGAStaffingBoost hashtag in its first six days after launching April 10 350+ Profiles on researcher Joel Silberman’s StaffMe.TV site for assistants looking to be staffed 249 Writers recommended by upper-level scribes on Liz Alper’s #WGASolidarityChallenge grid as of May 6 11 Known Google Sheets grids for writers of different stripes, including Native Writers (Native American writers), Bodies of Work (writers with disabilities) and The Rainbow Pages (LGBTQ+ writers)…
Despite Fox’s expressed hope that the Bones legal dispute will draw to its conclusion, don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Not when there’s $128 million at stake on a single question with a yes-or-no answer. And not when what’s been happening is unprecedented in the annals of the entertainment industry. In February, JAMS arbitrator Peter Lichtman leveled a head-turning $179 million punishment against Fox (led by lawyer Daniel Petrocelli) for what he called cheating, lying and “reprehensible” fraud toward the stars and executive producers of Bones. Lichtman concluded that Fox’s studio division had made sweetheart licensing deals with Hulu (which was part-owned by Fox at the time) and broadcast affiliates to the detriment of profit participants Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Barry Josephson and Kathy Reichs. He awarded $51…
Producer Neal Moritz is known for his contentious negotiation style, but for about 20 years, Universal has managed to tolerate him on the Fast and the Furious franchise. And it has been mutually beneficial in the extreme, with eight films having grossed more than $5.1 billion worldwide. But, in the wake of a bitter legal dispute over the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff set for an Aug. 1 release, the studio not only has dropped Moritz from that film but also banished him from any role in future Fast movies starting with No. 9, which begins shooting in late May. Moritz, 59, is pay-or-play, meaning Universal has to compensate him on the Fast movies even if execs don’t want him involved, so booting him is a costly proposition. The parties still…
On May 6, it was standing room only at CBS News for the division’s 9:30 a.m. meeting as new president Susan Zirinsky remarked about the “worstkept secret” in TV news. Norah O’Donnell was named the new anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News, displacing Jeff Glor, and the 57-year-old broadcast would be moving to Washington, D.C., in the fall. Meanwhile, Gayle King — who recently finalized a contract extension worth close to $11 million — will be joined at CBS This Morning by Anthony Mason, a 30-year CBS News veteran, and Tony Dokoupil, a rising star at the network who came from MSNBC. That Zirinsky pulled off sweeping changes before her own self-imposed deadline of May 15, when CBS executives address media buyers in New York during their annual…
