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On June 7, at roughly 9 a.m., the media parlor game shifted abruptly from how long CNN chief executive Chris Licht would remain in the job to who would replace him. Licht, whose turbulent tenure lasted just 13 months, had met his demise after a blistering 15,000-word profile appeared in The Atlantic. His boss, David Zaslav, who was described in the piece as the only person who could (and regularly would) interrupt Licht’s early morning workouts with 6:30 a.m. calls, has installed an interim executive leadership team: David Leavy, Virginia Moseley, Eric Sherling and internal frontrunner Amy Entelis. Multiple sources, inside Warner Bros. Discovery and out, say Zaslav will run a formal search, something he didn’t do when he hired Licht, because he can’t afford to make the same mistake…
Dana Walden The Disney entertainment co-chair reels in megaproducer Ryan Murphy from Netflix, albeit in a diminished market for star showrunners. Pete Docter Let the Pixar finger-pointing begin after Elemental bows to a record-worst $29.6 million for the studio. Now it’s on the chief creative officer to figure out a new game plan. Jodie Comer Prima Facie, the star’s one-woman Broadway show, recoups its $4.1 million capitalization costs in just 10 weeks — and broke a house box office record on the way. Sam Esmail The creator’s Apple TV+ series remake of Metropolis, budgeted at $188 million, was scrapped by producer UCP just ahead of its start date. Showbiz Stocks $434.70 (+1.1%) NETFLIX (NFLX) The streaming giant unveiled a wave of programming news at its fan event, suggesting the writers…
Amy Entelis CNN’s head of talent and content development would be a stabilizing force and a familiar leader for anchors and correspondents after the larger chaos of the AT&T and Discovery mergers. Entelis, who is one of the interim leaders for CNN since Chris Licht’s exit, also served as an interim leader after Jeff Zucker’s departure last year. David Leavy The longtime lieutenant and confidant of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is now CNN’s COO and brings an operational background to the interim team. A veteran of the Clinton White House (he was chief spokesperson for the National Security Council), Leavy is based out of D.C., a critical bureau for CNN as the 2024 election gets underway. Virginia Moseley The executive oversees CNN’s editorial departments, which include its wide-reaching…
The first trailer for Sony’s sex comedy No Hard Feelings, hitting theaters June 23, includes star Jennifer Lawrence consoling an ex by declaring she hasn’t forgotten him: “Last night, I thought, ‘I miss that fucker.’” Moviegoers might share similar nostalgia, recalling a not-long-ago era when studio offerings centering on ribald jokes would regularly play theatrically — before going missing. This summer suggests a possible changing of the tide. As audiences return to cinemas post-pandemic, studios appear to be using the next few months as a testing ground for the theatrical return of the R-rated comedy. No Hard Feelings, about an awkward teen whose parents hire Lawrence’s character to date him, will later have company from Lionsgate’s Joy Ride (July 7), Universal’s Strays (Aug. 18) and MGM’s Bottoms (Aug. 25). Such…
At Disney, the CFO job has long been intertwined with rumors of succession. More than a decade ago, Tom Staggs (now Candle Media CEO) had been CFO before moving to oversee the company’s parks business, and then to the COO position, where he was widely seen as a possible successor to Bob Iger. Jay Rasulo, who succeeded Staggs as CFO, stepped down from the role after Staggs’ promotion to COO in 2015, having lost the battle over who would become second-in-command to Iger. Not much has changed. Iger is still in charge in his second tour as CEO, and the CFO role is once again throwing a wrench in Disney’s succession drama. Christine McCarthy, who was named Disney’s CFO in 2015, after Rasulo’s resignation, said June 15 that she would…
In April, signs pointed to The Flash bowing to $100 million-plus domestically as Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav crowed at CinemaCon that the film was the best superhero pic he’s seen. Given star Ezra Miller’s well-documented scandals, the studio mogul could have easily distanced himself from the movie — especially since it was made by the previous regime, before Zaslav installed James Gunn and Peter Safran to guide DC’s future in film and TV and chart a course away from the Zack Snyder era kick-started by Man of Steel in 2013. Instead, expectations were raised, only to deflate when The Flash earned 66 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a B CinemaScore from moviegoers on its first weekend, making it the only DCEU pic to receive the mediocre…
