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.
David Zaslav The Discovery chief sees quarterly revenue rise 21 percent year-over-year to $3.06 billion while its streaming services, including Discovery+, hit 18 million subs. DaBaby Lollapalooza and Governors Ball fests drop the rapper after he made homophobic remarks, which he has since described as “hurtful and triggering” in an apology. Lucian Grainge Universal Music Group, led by its CEO, sees revenue rise 17.3 percent for the first six months of the year to $4.52 billion compared with the same period in 2020. J. Allen Brack A discrimination/harassment lawsuit filed by California’s Fair Employment agency against Activision Blizzard spurs a staffer walkout and the Blizzard chief’s resignation. Showbiz Stocks $28.19 (+0.2%) AT&T (T) As the telecom completed its spinoff of DirecTV, investors are rewarding the company with a higher share…
Let’s set aside for a moment the question of whether Scarlett Johansson has a legal leg to stand on in her fight with Disney over her compensation for Black Widow. Let’s even say she doesn’t, and that she is — as Disney has publicly contended — greedy and indifferent to the horrors of the pandemic. It doesn’t matter. Because even if all that were true, industry insiders agree, attacking Johansson so personally was a pretty spectacular unforced error. And many observers are laying that at the feet of CEO Bob Chapek (with an assist from reflexively vindictive top communications officer Zenia Mucha and with approval from the lawyers). The person who isn’t getting the blame? Outgoing chairman Bob Iger. “Somebody’s playing it like an amateur,” says one former Disney executive.…
The results of a late July poll on movie-going confidence levels were alarming. The National Research Group survey, closely watched by studios, showed that the overall comfort level had tumbled from a pandemic-era high of 81 percent to 72 percent in the span of just three weeks amid the delta variant. Moms appeared to be the most concerned about taking a trip to the multiplex, with their comfort index tumbling from 75 percent to 59 percent. Behind the scenes, Paramount wasted no time in responding to the mom factor. On July 30, the studio pulled family film Clifford the Big Red Dog from its planned Sept. 13 release in theaters following a gala premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The move sparked speculation as to whether other event films planned…
Big Tech is driving an advertising resurgence as the country emerges from a tumultuous pandemic year that saw companies hit the brakes on their usual marketing blitzes. For the second quarter of 2021, Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter and Snap smashed Wall Street expectations and delivered record-breaking revenue largely driven by advertising. Even big players like Apple and Spotify, which previously have not focused much attention on ads, found the revenue growth “impossible to ignore,” as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek described it during the music streamer’s quarterly earnings call July 28. “Admittedly, this is an area where I previously didn’t spend much time,” Ek said, noting that ads used to account for less than 10 percent of Spotify’s total revenue. “It’s now safe to say it’s becoming a second big revenue driver…
The Writers Guild of America East triggered a surge of intra-union activism in Hollywood in June 2020 when it called for the major labor federation AFL-CIO to disassociate from a police union in its ranks. The effort was one tangible way, these workers felt at the time, that they could choose to fight for racial justice within the entertainment industry. Not long after, amid protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, rank-and-file members of SAG-AFTRA and IATSE attempted to follow suit, starting petitions and organizing meetings with the goal of disaffiliating the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) from the federation. Organized workers also formed the IATSE Members for Racial Justice group and SEIU Drop the Cops, which aims to persuade the union that represents some Disneyland workers to…
It’s hard to pinpoint the scariest part about writing WandaVision. There was the fact that I had never run a room before, or even been staffed on a TV show. There was the tonal high-wire act of the premise itself: a superhero sitcom that is also a meditation on grief. There was the pressure of creating one of the first original TV shows for Marvel Studios and the soon-to-be-launched Disney+ platform. And perhaps the most daunting element of all: My kids were ages 2 and 4 at the time I was hired. I had no idea how I was going to do this job. But there was no way I was turning it down. Every showrunner I discreetly approached for a cheat sheet told me to run it how I…
