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.
Tyler Perry The prolific producer — whose most recent title was backed by Netflix — inks a four-film deal with Amazon to send his upcoming features to Prime Video. Christina Spade After less than three months as CEO of AMC Networks, the exec stepped down abruptly as the board says it’s “finalizing who it will name as a replacement.” Rian Johnson The helmer’s Glass Onion grossed $12M- to $13M-plus over five days, sources say, in just 700 theaters. Could he force Netflix to rethink its plan for the next Knives Out film? Rupert Murdoch The mogul’s exploration of a remerger between News Corp and Fox gets pushback from a major shareholder firm that doesn’t see much value in a deal. Showbiz Stocks $29.94 (+3.6%) FOX CORP. (FOX) The U.S. Men’s…
When Bob Iger returned to Disney’s Burbank lot on Nov. 28, clad in a bright white shirt and a blue cardigan, he sought to reassure anxious employees by quoting Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical. “There is no more status quo … But the sun comes up and the world still spins,” actor Daveed Diggs sang as Thomas Jefferson in the original production. “That’s how I feel here. The status quo is gone,” Iger told assembled Disney employees. “A lot has changed, but the sun is still shining, and our Disney world is still spinning.” Iger’s triumphant return to Disney after Bob Chapek’s ouster is complicated by a troubled macroeconomic environment, and the incoming CEO acknowledged that austerity would be in order at the company. And there’s also the matter of…
Disney Sells to Apple Why it makes sense Disney+ is growing fast, but that’s been costly. Apple offers a quick fix with troves of cash to fuel Disney’s streaming ambitions. In return, the tech giant would acquire Hollywood’s biggest brand. Plus, Iger has close ties to Apple. He sat on the company’s board from 2011 to 2019. Why it doesn’t Maybe it could. But despite DOJ saber-rattling, it’s up in the air whether a sale to Apple would violate antitrust law, as Apple TV+ accounts for a minor share of the streaming market. If there was interest in a deal, the two sides could choose to bide time until a possibly better regulatory environment arrives post-Biden. — WINSTON CHO Disney Sells Hulu to Comcast Why it makes sense Hulu would…
Disney knew it was in trouble before Strange World hit theaters. Tracking showed the movie, an original sci-fi adventure tale, opening to no more than $30 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday corridor, a miserable start. From there, things only got worse. Word-of-mouth was so bad that box office grosses dropped 12 percent from Friday to Saturday. The movie’s five-day opening came in at $18.9 million, meaning it could ultimately lose north of $100 million for the studio. Strange World’s abysmal start is another moment of reckoning for Disney’s animation empire, which has endured tough times of late. There’s no question the family marketplace is still rebounding from the pandemic as parents face inflation. The only studio animated tentpole to do impressive business was Universal and Illumination’s Minions: The Rise…
It’s holiday season at YouTube, and inside one of the many soundstages at the video platform’s Playa Vista campus, three YouTube creators have come together to promote beauty products on a set reminiscent of a cozy cabin in the woods. But unlike these YouTubers’ typical fare of edited beauty tutorials and lifestyle vlogs, this highly produced collaboration is being broadcast live for their thousands of fans. Branded as “From YouTube to You,” YouTube’s Nov. 16 holiday shopping extravaganza was a year-end culmination of the company’s expansion into live shopping, a format that has taken off in international markets like the Asia-Pacific region, where the ecommerce industry is expected to hit $3.5 trillion this year. YouTube brought out some of its biggest creators like MrBeast (110 million subs), Simply Nailogical (7.5…
Despite his outsize reputation as a prolific unscripted hitmaker — and the mythmaker who created Donald Trump’s image as a successful businessman — Mark Burnett’s departure as chairman of MGM’s Worldwide TV Group reads more like a footnote than a headline in a dramatic (and, so far, confusing to some in the creative community) ongoing executive shuffle in Amazon’s entertainment operations. Burnett is the latest top exec to leave MGM since Amazon acquired the studio for $8.5 billion in February. Motion picture group chairman Michael De Luca and motion picture group president Pam Abdy exited in April to run Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio. A search for a new film studio head has been underway for some time — hampered, some sources say, by internal wrangling over who would oversee…
