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.
Despite more delays, don’t expect Hollywood studios to abandon ship and offload their most precious cargo — event tentpoles. They’re still willing to wait for a proper theatrical run, and are hopeful that COVID-19 vaccines may calm the waters and allow moviegoing to resume in earnest by fall, if not late summer. Throughout the pandemic, the vast majority of big-budget event pics have seen their releases repeatedly pushed back amid ongoing theater closures in major markets and other locales, versus being sold off to a streamer or sent to an in-house streaming service. That’s because a $200 million movie capable of earning $1 billion at the global box office cannot achieve its full financial potential without a robust theatrical release, which triggers lucrative ancillary streams, merchandising and sequels. Smaller franchises,…
Guru Gowrappan Despite taking a $119 million hit related to the sale of HuffPost to BuzzFeed, the Verizon Media Group CEO led his division to an 11 percent uptick in quarterly revenue from the year-ago period. Randall Stephenson In a long-planned move, the former AT&T CEO retires but also inks a one-year consultancy deal with the telco as he leaves the boardroom. Jared Padalecki The CW actor’s Walker reboot drew the network’s biggest same-day audience in nearly three years with 2.44 million viewers in its Jan. 21 premiere. John Matze A federal judge refuses the Parler CEO’s attempt to make Amazon restore hosting services for the app, which was taken down after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Showbiz Stocks $57.46 (+9.7%) WWE (WWE) The WWE’s $1 billion-plus deal to move…
With COVID-19 crushing box office revenue in the United States, studios have made drastic moves to get their product in front of audiences. What hasn’t followed is any real sense of how those films, whether released to streaming services or to on-demand portals, are performing among homebound viewers. That may be changing as big players in the audience measurement business follow consumers to their couches. What’s unclear, however, is when — or even if — any of that data will make it out of executive suites. Unlike box office tallies, which are available to the public every week, numbers for movies on streaming platforms and for rental or purchase on demand remain largely hidden from view. But third-party analytics firms are increasingly looking to track the space. Nielsen has begun…
When Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted regional stay-at-home orders across California on Jan. 25, one sector that didn’t see much impact was the entertainment industry, which has been allowed to keep working under its essential status. In fact, the major studios moved forward with resuming production in Los Angeles after extending their holiday hiatuses to mid-January. They did this at the request of the L.A. County Department of Public Health and leading unions, including SAG-AFTRA and the Producers Guild, which recommended filming be paused until the city’s COVID-19 surge eased. On Jan. 11, department director Barbara Ferrer wrote a letter addressed to her “music, TV and film production colleagues,” thanking them for taking a longer hiatus. “I wanted to offer my sincere thanks to so many of you who have done…
The Tokyo Olympics, set to begin July 23, are six months away. But with COVID-19 cases surging in Japan and around the world and vaccine supplies falling short, the Olympic torch is in danger of going unlit. While the Games have not been canceled, reports suggest the Japanese government and public are uncomfortable with where things stand. The torch relay is slated to start in northern Japan on March 25, and a decision should come before that date. That uncertainty gives heartburn to media executives who had banked on the Games — which have already been delayed a year — marking a return to normal for the sports TV business. Cancellation would mean billions of dollars flushed away, as the spend from Tokyo organizers, Olympic committees and TV and media…
Two years after Spotify CEO Daniel Ek unveiled his plan to turn the music streaming giant into “the world’s No. 1 audio platform,” the company has set its sights on a new medium that could help it reach that goal. On Jan. 25, Spotify released a collection of nine classic audiobooks, including Cynthia Erivo’s reading of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, YouTuber David Dobrik’s narration of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Forest Whitaker’s recitation of the Frederick Douglass memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Though the company is characterizing the releases, which are exclusive to its platform, as a programming test to see how its 320 million users respond, the move signals that its audio ambitions extend beyond podcasts. Audiobooks present a sizable opportunity for Spotify. Though there are…
