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.
Timothée Chalamet The Wonka star cements his A-list bankability, ringing in holiday cheer as the Warner Bros. film tallies $384 million since its Dec. 15 bow. Sam Altman The OpenAI CEO survived an ouster by his own board. Now he’s got The New York Times copyright suit to deal with, a battle that will shape how the media reckons with AI. Jason Blum/James Wan Whether out of convenience or necessity, the moguls’ sealed deal to merge the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster labels creates a horror movie powerhouse. Athan Stephanopoulos CNN’s chief digital officer is the latest out the door as new CEO Mark Thompson attempts to remake its online business, starting with a new org chart. Showbiz Stocks $38.75 (+5.6%) TENCENT (TCEHY) Reports that China ousted a gaming regulator sent…
The most consequential entertainment business story of 2024 was kick-started by two pro operators having a pre-Christmas meal. The Dec. 19 lunch between Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, held at Paramount’s New York office, instantly ignited a firestorm of “what ifs,” as the future of the storied studio was suddenly in question. Is Paramount for sale? Or is controlling shareholder National Amusements? Or both? But the future of Paramount — and, for that matter, WBD — may be defined by a lineup of characters straight out of central casting: a trio of scions forging their own path in the footsteps of their mogul fathers (Shari Redstone, David Ellison, Brian Roberts); a pair of self-made billionaire investors who find their fortunes tied up in the…
One out of every five moviegoers has vanished since the pandemic, according to research compiled by one Hollywood studio. Whether they’ll ever return to see a film on the big screen is anyone’s guess — and, if they do, when. It’s an alarming stat that offers some explanation as to why the box office turned on its head in 2023, leaving the film industry bewildered. Superhero fare — the genre that helped prop up the business for well over a decade — no longer got a free pass as megabudget pics bombed, including The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, both from DC, and Marvel Studios’ The Marvels. “Audiences’ tastes are changing, and it feels like they want more challenging fare,” says chief Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.…
In the heyday of the indie film boom, a platform release could allow a film to grow its footprint in cinemas over the course of many months without having to spend a fortune on advertising. Such a run usually begins in New York and Los Angeles; if a film is lucky, it will end up playing nationwide. But the traditional platform release was decimated by the pandemic — nor did streaming help. And yet the tactic is back, with a twist. After sending Wes Anderson’s new movie to the Cannes Film Festival in May, Focus chose to release Asteroid City in six theaters in mid-June. The film scored an opening weekend average of $132,111 — the best showing since La La Land seven years earlier (this factoid made for many…
Source: Studios, THR research, Comscore; totals may not add up due to rounding. In some instances, the number of titles is domestic only. Universal’s film empire is taking a bow after placing No. 1 in market share at the 2023 global box office, a feat no studio has been able to pull off since Disney rose to dominance in 2016. The 24 movies released by Universal generated an estimated $4.91 billion in worldwide ticket sales, compared to an estimated $4.83 billion from the 17 titles released by Disney in what made for a relatively close race both in North America and at the foreign box office. Warner Bros. — home of Barbie, the year’s top earner with $1.44 billion in worldwide ticket sales — was No. 3 in global market…
You broke my heart.” That’s what former Marvel Entertainment chairman and CEO Ike Perlmutter said to Bob Iger, according to The Wall Street Journal, when Iger made it clear in 2015 that he was not going to name veteran Disney executive and Perlmutter favorite Jay Rasulo his eventual successor. (He anointed Tom Staggs instead, and Staggs was out the following year.) Iger’s relationship with Perlmutter went sharply downhill from there, and in March, after incrementally stripping Perlmutter of his duties at Marvel, Iger ejected the contentious billionaire from the company altogether. Even before that happened, Perlmutter had backed his friend and Palm Beach neighbor, Nelson Peltz, in his quest for a seat on Disney’s board, which Peltz and Perlmutter argue is too cozy with Iger to be effective. Peltz dropped…
