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A funny thing happened in the first half of 2021: The insatiable appetite of consumers for streaming video content began to slow down. “We had those 10 years where we were growing smooth as silk, and then it just got a little wobbly,” said Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings in an April 20 video for the company’s first-quarter earnings after the company missed its own modest subscriber estimates. And it wasn’t just Netflix. Disney+ also missed Wall Street expectations, delivering 103.6 million subscribers at the end of the last quarter, well below the 110 million that had been anticipated. Given the explosive growth of Disney+, and the reliable, steady growth of Netflix, the misses drew consternation from analysts and executives, who posited three pandemic-driven theories for the slowdown: the subscriber pull-forward,…
Briana Middleton As Disney+’s Beauty and the Beast limited series (the prequel to the 2017 film) gets a green light, the actress has been cast to star alongside Josh Gad and Luke Evans. Jeff Rake After a steep ratings dive for season three, NBC cancels the showrunner’s missingplane mystery thriller Manifest as producers look to shop the series. Lil Baby/Lil Durk The artists’ collaboration Voice of the Heroes hits No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 197 million-plus on-demand streams of the album’s 18 tracks, per MRC Data. Andrew Niccol After backlash, the writerdirector’s drama on the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings loses its lead producer, who says events are “too raw for film at this time.” Showbiz Stocks $57.34 (+1.7%) COMCAST (CMCSA) With the Tokyo Olympics appearing to be a go,…
On March 4, nearly a month after taking an unplanned hiatus from The Bachelor, Chris Harrison returned to TV to say that he wasn’t going anywhere. “I plan to be back and I want to be back,” the host of 19 years told Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan. He said he had been seeking counsel from the community he hurt after an interview in which he excused racially offensive behavior from contestant Rachael Kirkconnell on the then-airing historic season of The Bachelor, centered on the franchise’s first Black male lead, Matt James. Given that Kirkconnell was a frontrunner, Harrison seemingly was sent out by the network to do damage control over the contestant’s attending of a 2018 racist sorority party, but it backfired — as did his redemption effort.…
In the summer of 2016, Gunnar Wiedenfels first met his future employer, Discovery CEO David Zaslav, at the restaurant of the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South in Manhattan. After seven-plus years at German TV giant ProSiebenSat.1 — where he ended up leading the finance division — he landed the CFO role at Discovery, moving from Munich to New York to start his new job in April 2017. (Last fall, Discovery extended Wiedenfels’ contract through at least April 1, 2024.) Within months, the new finance chief proved his dealmaking mettle, working with Zaslav and other Discovery execs to seal the $14.6 billion acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive. After that sale closed in 2018, Wiedenfels’ team ended up reaching what the company says were more than $1 billion in cost synergies —…
It’s been called the Jeanaissance. It’s also been called the Smartaissance. Whatever you call it, the term has taken hold. When I first heard it, I wasn’t sure how to feel. Does “Smartaissance’’ suggest a rebirth of Jean Smart’s career? Because that seems insane. Jean has been working consistently for 35 years! Or is it, as in the revived interest in classical antiquity of the Renaissance, a revived interest in Jean Smart? See that, too, feels hard to believe. Especially since, for me, Jean Smart has always been the highlight of whatever she’s in. From Frasier to Fargo, I always want more Jean Smart. (I mean, The Brady Bunch Movie, anyone?!). But speaking of the Renaissance, the artists that personify the period — Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, et cetera…
FILM Natalie Portman (CAA, France’s Agence Adequat) and Julianne Moore (WME, Management 360) will star in Todd Haynes’ family drama May December. Jack Black (WME, Sloane Offer) and Ice Cube (WME, Prospect Park, Ziffren Brittenham) will star in Sony’s Oh Hell No from Bad Trip’s Kitao Sakurai. Kevin Bacon (MGMT, Gaines Solomon) will take on a villain role in Legendary’s Toxic Avenger, joining Peter Dinklage and Taylour Paige. John Legend (WME, Friends at Work, Del Shaw) will produce a feature film biopic on late comedian Bernie Mac. Kenji Kamiyama will direct Lord of the Rings anime feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim for New Line and Warner Bros. Animation. Gerard Butler (CAA, Alan Siegel) and Morena Baccarin (UTA, Seven Summits) will return for a sequel to…
