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.
Mark Lazarus After the ouster of Jeff Shell and exit of Linda Yaccarino, the NBCUniversal TV and streaming chief expands his influence and oversight duties. Hilary Swank & Milo Ventimiglia The Alaska Daily and The Company You Keep leads couldn’t parlay their star power into viewers, as ABC axes the first-season shows amid meager ratings. Shonda Rhimes The megaproducer’s Queen Charlotte was a runaway No. 1 among all titles on Netflix in its debut week and has a chance to break into the service’s all-time top 10. Robert Rodriguez & Ben Affleck It’s not the director and star’s fault Solstice Studios went under before Hypnotic bowed. But a career-worst debut of $2.4 million isn’t a great look. Showbiz Stocks $39.74 (-0.45%) COMCAST (CMCSA) The conglomerate mostly held steady amid word…
On May 10, the Directors Guild of America sent a message to members that exemplified the muddled situation in which writer-directors find themselves amid the ongoing writers strike. In the communication, the DGA advised its members that minor script changes — like cutting for time and making small edits to dialogue during production — may be required of writer-directors during the strike if they are working on a project they wrote only in their capacity as a director. The DGA considers small script changes to typically be part of a director’s workload, and the union’s “no-strike” clause requires it to put a good-faith effort toward requiring members to continue directing during the strike. But the “strike rules” governing what members of the Writers Guild of America can do during its…
When it comes to work stoppages in Hollywood, what exactly is an act of God? It’s a question that sent studios scrambling amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but even now there’s not much clarity around so-called force majeure events. Shortly after the WGA strike went into effect, writers’ reps began receiving calls and emails notifying them of deals being suspended. The vast majority of them don’t reference force majeure — and, according to attorneys with whom THR spoke on background, there’s a clear reason: The WGA’s collective bargaining agreement says a strike itself is justification. Under Article 7 of the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement, the writers’ employment agreements at struck companies “shall be deemed automatically suspended, both as to service and compensation, while such strike is in effect.” Hollywood’s top attorneys…
Pete Davidson was set to host Saturday Night Live for the first time on May 6, but the gig was scrubbed when the long-running NBC sketch-comedy show decided to air reruns for the time being because of the writers strike. Had Davidson gone ahead and hosted, he no doubt would have mentioned his upcoming summer tentpole, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (the comedian and SNL alum voices Mirage, an Autobot spy who transforms into a sleek, silver-blue Porsche), and maybe his cameo in Fast X. Moreover, Paramount surely would have taken out an accompanying advertisement for Rise of the Beasts, which opens June 9 in U.S. theaters. Instead, Davidson handed out pizza from L&B Spumoni Gardens to striking writers at a Brooklyn picketing line May 5, several days after the…
THE DISILLUSIONED EP Monday night, May 1, I attended a party with my colleagues, awaiting the news of the strike. Everyone mixed and drank and wondered. When the news broke, something interesting happened. The Old Money and the No Money — two factions who definitely sat at different tables during the dinner portion of the night — were suddenly bonded by their mutual disappointment. They hoped “it wouldn’t go on too long,” which makes sense. The NMs need to keep working, need that money coming in. And the OMs have deals that need to close and productions they are in charge of: “Can we give notes?” “Can we meet and just ‘talk’ but not ‘write’?” I’m one of those people in between the OMs and NMs. And I was relieved…
Five years ago, just days before she led NBCUniversal’s upfront pitch on the stage of Radio City Music Hall, Linda Yaccarino addressed the crowd at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Video Symposium in New York City. In a critical address, she took aim squarely at the big social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube over data breaches and brand safety concerns. “We are feeling really great about where NBCU is. We feel confident talking about where we are because there are a lot of companies feeling a lot worse,” Yaccarino, then NBCU’s top advertising and partnerships executive, told the crowd at Convene in midtown Manhattan. “It is no secret that a lot of our social media friends are under quite a microscope — some of us would say, under fire.…
