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.
After the many months of courtship — the meals spent flirting with every agent who matters and every executive with even a vague hope of running some part of the Warner Bros. film studio — the rubber and the road are beginning to meet for boss of bosses David Zaslav. Relieved as everyone was to be rid of AT&T management, the assessing of the new regime’s choices has begun. Already there has been grumbling about CNN chief Chris Licht from insiders at the cable network, many of whom are still sitting shiva for the ousted Jeff Zucker. A June 5 story in The New York Times said that a month into Licht’s tenure, “some CNN journalists” are wondering whether “he can navigate a sprawling, unwieldy global news network past what…
Carol Burnett In joining Apple TV+’s comedy Mrs. American Pie, the legendary comedian returns to TV as a series regular for the first time in decades. Ridley Scott The Raised by Wolves exec producer, who directed episodes of the sci-fi series, wasn’t able to save the HBO Max show from cancellation after its second season. Deborah Chow The Obi-Wan Kenobi director guides the series to a milestone of 1 billion minutes viewed for its first two episodes — the best premiere to date for a Disney+ series, per Nielsen. Dave Clark Amazon’s CEO of consumer businesses departs the tech giant as it struggles with inflation and pandemic-spurred logistics and employment issues. Showbiz Stocks $23.23 (+2.6%) ENDEAVOR GROUP HOLDINGS (EDR) While inflation eats into retail business margins, live events like concerts,…
Now that Netflix has set its course to develop a cheaper, advertising-based tier to attract new (and retain price-sensitive existing) subscribers — TBD on the pricing or launch date specifics — the next question may be: How fast can that plan scale up? Wall Street has diverging views on that, but observers agree that the new offer should expand the market penetration of the company, which currently has 221.6 global subs. Wells Fargo’s Steven Cahall forecasts that if Netflix does launch its ad tier domestically in the first quarter of next year, that plan will hit 24 million subs in 2023, grow that base dramatically to 67 million in 2024 and again in 2025 to 101 million. Cahall estimates that offering the ad tier alongside ad-free subscriptions “will add $2.3…
As JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warns of an economic “hurricane” headed this way, most media and entertainment companies have yet to take cover. Dimon’s prediction, made during a June 1 analyst conference, comes as inflation remains high, the war in Ukraine pressures global commodities and the Federal Reserve appears poised to keep raising interest rates. While the U.S. added 390,000 jobs in May, according to the latest jobs report, that strength might further the Fed’s plans to hike rates in order to keep inflation under control and in doing so, maybe create a recession. Asked about the potential of a slowdown at recent analyst conferences, company executives have largely dismissed the impact, with movie theater chain Cinemark holding to the position of being in a recession-proof industry and executives…
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard spent the better part of their defamation trial slinging mud. And while Depp may have been handed a sweeping legal victory on June 1, that win can’t undo years of a deteriorating public image amid an acrimonious divorce from Heard. The question is whether the verdict wiped off enough dirt for any studio to roll the dice on casting him. After six weeks of trial testimony revealing salacious text messages and audio recordings of violent altercations, a Virginia jury sided with Depp on claims that he was defamed when Heard wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which she called herself a domestic abuse survivor. Although Heard won on one of her counterclaims concerning allegations — via Depp’s former attorney Adam Waldman — that…
I initially saw Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s documentary series The Staircase on the Sundance Channel in 2005. It was the first time I had viewed a long-form documentary structured episodically — each episode built over three acts with a cliffhanger compelling you to watch the next installment as soon as you could. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by the documentary, as it went on to become a defining work in the true-crime genre. And that could have been where the story ended. But many years later, the talented writerdirector Antonio Campos (an artist I already admired and a friend) approached me with a pilot he had written, inspired by the original French docuseries. It wasn’t an adaptation, but rather an opportunity to revisit the story in a…
