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.
Maggie Friedman The showrunner’s Netflix drama Firefly Lane repeats as the No. 1 show on Nielsen’s latest weekly streaming chart, with 1.288 billion minutes of viewing time. Harvey Mason Jr. The interim Recording Academy president couldn’t stop the CBS telecast of the Grammys from falling 51 percent to an all-time low of 9.23 million viewers. Robert Thomson After making a deal with Google, the News Corp chief inks a multiyear agreement with Facebook for the social giant to pay the media firm for access to content in Australia. Jack Ma The Alibaba Group mogul takes a further hit as China’s regulators ask the firm to sell off its influential media assets, per a March 16 report in The Wall Street Journal. Showbiz Stocks $57.50 (+1.5%) COMCAST (CMCSA) A Wells Fargo…
Was the 78th Golden Globe Awards on Feb. 28 the last one that will feature the participation of top Hollywood talent? That’s the question industry insiders are pondering as the organization that puts on the annual kudosfest, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, faces growing criticism and calls for boycotts of future events if it doesn’t address significant concerns about the diversity of its membership. Now, THR has learned, famed “fixer” and crisis management expert Judy Smith, who inspired the character of Olivia Pope on Scandal, has been consulted by the HFPA amid the firestorm. The fallout initially stemmed from a Feb. 21 Los Angeles Times article that identified questionable ethical and financial behavior by members — of the sort that twice previously resulted in the Globes being kicked off the…
Shuttered cinemas, closed theme parks, lower advertising spending — one year ago, the realization sank in across Hollywood that the pandemic would cause a hit to earnings and cash flow for an unknown duration. At the time, entertainment giants pivoted to raise capital and started preserving cash by freezing stock buybacks or dividends, and drawing up plans for cost cuts and layoffs. As ratings agencies handed out downgrades, debt burdens and cash war chests moved into Wall Street’s focus. Now, in the wake of those decisions, the industry’s balance sheets are showing higher debt-to-earnings ratios. But that may not be worrying executives. Wall Street observers say most entertainment giants are in solid financial positions, despite higher debt, and express hope that the worst pain of the pandemic is in the…
James Cameron only found out a few days beforehand that Avatar would be rereleased March 12 in China in a move that pushed his 2009 science fiction epic back into the highest-grossing film of all time slot, not adjusted for inflation. The China Film Board first reached out to Cameron and Disney in March 2020 about the possibility of rereleasing some older films as a way of encouraging theatergoing in a period when new product from both Hollywood and Chinese studios has been scant. Cameron offered Avatar and Titanic, both of which had been produced by Fox and now owned by Disney. “We got on board quickly,” says Avatar and Titanic producer Jon Landau. “We’ve been very vocal in voicing our opinion that we have to support brick-and-mortar theaters during…
When Chloé Zhao won the best director award at the Golden Globes on Feb. 28 — a first for a Chinese woman — the moment was as widely celebrated in China as it was in the U.S. Within a day, however, the mood darkened. Internet sleuths unearthed interviews in which Zhao appeared critical of her country, and before long, debate over her “attitude toward China” was spreading. Beijing’s internet censors were next to enter the fray, blocking most publicity for Nomadland on social media and deleting many references to the film’s April 23 China release date. Chinese industry insiders tell THR that regulators seem to be waiting before making a final judgment on the fate of Zhao’s movie in China. “It will depend on how she and her allies manage…
On March 3, Ben Mauro, a concept artist who worked on the Hobbit films, Man of Steel and the upcoming Halo Infinite video game, made more money in seven minutes than he has in 12 years of entertainment work. That’s when he sold a dozen pieces of his digital art for $2 million, each authenticated with unique codes called NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Eight days later, the NFT phenomenon exploded when an artist known as Beeple sold a montage of his digital files for $69 million at auction at Christie’s. Now, many who make their living in Hollywood are seeking to capitalize on an innovation some consider as significant for visual media as the founding of Napster was for digital music. “This is a revolutionary moment,” says Mauro. “It’s what…
