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.
Dick Wolf After all nine of his procedural series were renewed for ’23-’24, the Law & Order and Chicago creator inks a two-year overall deal extension with Universal TV through 2027. Rupert Murdoch & Lachlan Murdoch A judge signals that he’d allow voting firm Dominion to call the Fox Corp. moguls to testify in a trial over the Fox News election fraud lawsuit. Shawn Ryan The showrunner’s Netflix spy thriller The Night Agent has cracked the all-time top 10 of the streamer’s in-house chart for English-language series. Moshe “Mooky” Greidinger Regal owner Cineworld, led by the CEO, said April 11 that it plans to emerge from Chapter 11 by midyear — whether it does so without selling off any assets is another question. Showbiz Stocks $38.38 (+1.2%) COMCAST (CMCSA) Comcast-owned…
Ashlyn Ni Fhearghail, an Irish transplant living in the Middle East, was standing on the convention floor at London’s Star Wars Celebration, dressed like one of her favorite characters, Rey, when she heard the news. In another part of the ExCeL center, Lucasfilm had just revealed that it was finally moving forward on new Star Wars movies and that one of them was going to center on Rey, the character made famous by Daisy Ridley in Disney’s sequel trilogy. To Ni Fhearghail, who had been comparing costume notes with another fan dressed as Rey, it was a sign. “We’re excited to see more movies with her and more movies in general,” she said. To mangle a Star Wars analogy, these are the fans Lucasfilm is looking for, at least as…
The April box office is in full bloom thanks to the astounding performance of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which served up the biggest global opening of all time for an animated film, with $375.6 million over the long Easter holiday. Its massive five-day domestic opening of $204.6 million included $146.4 million for the three-day weekend. And Amazon kicked off a new era for streamers in giving Ben Affleck’s adult-skewing drama Air a proper theatrical release in thousands of theaters instead of sending it straight to Amazon Prime Video. Three years after COVID-19 first destabilized the theatrical sector, a breadth and depth of product is returning to the marquee, providing a glimmer of hope for fretful Hollywood studios and exhibitors. Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and DC’s Shazam! Fury…
In the early days of streaming, Netflix seemed to exemplify the Silicon Valley credo: “Move fast and break things.” Now, it seems, lawmakers have had enough of all the disruption. Around the world, governments are rushing to try to impose new rules and new taxes on digital players. For the streamers, dealing with slowing subscriber growth and rising production costs, these regulators could become a headache. In Canada, Bill C-11 will compel foreign streamers and social media platforms to subsidize and promote local Canadian content. The CRTC, Canada’s TV and telecom watchdog, is set to begin a new round of hearings and lobbying to determine how deep non-national streamers will need to dip into their pockets to support local film, TV and music content production. The process is tricky, especially…
Samsung and LG are among a number of tech companies that are quietly making a new push to Hollywood on the potential of LED display tech to replace theater projection systems that have been used since the birth of cinema. It would be a radical change. A projection system, true to its name, projects images onto the big screen. An LED wall is akin to a sophisticated, massive TV screen, and its use would render the projection booth a thing of the past. At this early stage, major U.S. theater chains are not using the tech. The companies are hesitant to share many details on their plans — Samsung’s Onyx LED displays for cinema are installed in roughly 100 cinema auditoriums worldwide, including at The Culver Theater in Culver City…
UFC president Dana White celebrated the landmark $21 billion deal to merge his mixed martial arts promotion with the WWE by sitting ringside (Octagonside?) with a trio of WWE Hall of Famers at UFC 287, which was held at the Kaseya Center in Miami on April 8. White was the center of attention, thanks in no small part to who was sitting with him: On one side, former President Donald Trump, now facing criminal charges in New York. On the other, the boxer Mike Tyson, no stranger to legal troubles of his own, and the controversial musician Kid Rock. In a corporate world where caution can be king, the UFC, which is owned by Endeavor, throws it to the wind. In combat sports, controversy is good TV (the polarizing podcaster…
