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.
Keri Russell & Debora Cahn The Diplomat star and showrunner nab a season two renewal from Netflix for the drama following its bow as the most watched show on the service during its debut week. Kevin Costner & Chris McCarthy The Yellowstone star and Paramount TV chief’s standoff concludes with the hit series ending and a sequel unveiled. That may be a drag to both. Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman The composers’ adaptation Some Like It Hot tops the Tony Awards nominations with 13 nods, including best musical and score. Shane Smith The once high-flying Vice co-founder now sees his company nearing bankruptcy and a fire sale, per a Wall Street Journal report. So much for disrupting media. Showbiz Stocks $173.57 (+2.4%) APPLE (AAPL) The tech giant delivered a record…
A day after a strike was called May 1, following talks with studios led by WGA chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman breaking down, a dozen or so members of the Set Decorators Society of America gathered to share intel. Discussion of layoffs kicked off the Zoom meeting. PamElyea, owner of L.A.-based prop house History for Hire, said she had to fire her receptionist and drum technician in March in anticipation of a work stoppage. Others nodded, echoing sentiments that they could not keep all their staff in the face of what they expected to be a lengthy strike. “We’d been saving up, but every time we get something together, something happens,” Elyea says. When writers manned the picket lines 15 years ago, the fallout of the 100-day stoppage was around $2…
Could striking writers win the battle but lose the war? “The sorry news for writers is that, in declaring a strike, they may in fact be helping the streaming giants and their parent companies,” a team of SVB MoffettNathanson analysts argued in a May 3 report. The last time the sector saw production stoppages was when the pandemic hit stateside in March 2020, “the only year many of these services were able to grow free cash flow.” Free cash flow tells investors how much money a company has left after paying all of its financial obligations. If it is negative, firms must tap into cash reserves or debt. That COVID-19 halt had plenty of downsides (see: lack of product in theaters even now). But it allowed studios to rethink content…
Even before thousands of Hollywood writers went on strike May 2, their union sent out a lengthy list of prohibited activities during a work stoppage. Writing, pitching, revising, negotiating — all forbidden, according to the WGA. Taking meetings or responding to notes? Forget about it. And “For Your Consideration” or film festival promotion are no-gos. What can the WGA’s 11,500 or so film and TV writers actually do during the strike? The short answer: not much when it comes to writing for the screen. Notably, writers can still pen spec scripts, or a script that has not been commissioned, according to guild rules. Once it’s written, though, “neither you nor your reps can shop, option or sell the spec script.” Once the strike is over, writers with spec scripts on…
Show me the money,” Cuba Gooding Jr. famously tells Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Wall Street has been pressuring Hollywood to do the same, as investors push for streaming profits amid economic headwinds. Key parts of the solution for industry players, from Disney to Amazon Studios, have been cost cuts. But while entertainment companies have been showing the door to thousands of staffers, they have also shown their top executives the money — again. In a case of bad timing, disclosures of higher (or lower, but still very healthy) CEO compensation in regulatory filings in March and April have made for a sharp contrast with layoffs and the start of the writers strike. This executive pay reporting season didn’t repeat last year’s picture of several bosses joining the very exclusive…
For many in the media and entertainment industries, the past 12 months could be described as a year of every-thing everywhere all at once, a period of tumult and correction. And that’s before you factor in the writers strike. Last May, Jeff Shell and Bob Chapek bounced onto the stages of New York’s Radio City Music Hall and Pier 36, respectively, as CEOs of their respective kingdoms, NBCUniversal and Disney. Nearly a year later, both men are out of the job. In fact, most of the top executives who led last year’s upfronts for NBCUniversal, Disney, Paramount, Fox, YouTube, Warner Bros. Discovery and The CW will not be onstage this time around (YouTube and The CW have also replaced their CEOs since then, and Paramount is skipping the upfronts alto-gether).…
