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.
Let’s not sugarcoat it — 2023 was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for Hollywood. For starters, obviously, there were the strikes, which for nearly five months turned backlots into ghost towns, costing the industry an estimated $6 billion in lost wages and other collateral economic damage. Then there were the layoffs, beginning at Disney and spreading like an apocalyptic virus to Paramount, Amazon, NBCUniversal, Lionsgate and beyond. Box office, although up a tick from 2022, still lagged far behind pre-pandemic grosses, with even superhero movies like The Marvels tanking. Streamers began pulling back on original content, the incredible shrinking broadcast TV audience continued to miniaturize itself, and there were new fears over the rise of the machines (you know, AI and whether it’ll soon replace your job)…
In Netflix’s global smash hit Squid Game, the penultimate challenge sees the last few surviving competitors make their way across a glass bridge. One wrong move, and the player falls to their demise. But as the players progressed, they hit upon a revelation: Yes, there will only be one winner of the final game, but if they work together, they can cross the chasm and survive for one more day. Netflix, led by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, has won the streaming wars (Morgan Stanley proclaimed it “The Undisputed” in a Jan. 23 research note, and the next day Bernstein declared the company “clearly the winner in streaming”), and Netflix and Wall Street see plenty more room to grow. But even as Netflix appears poised to reign as the…
↑ TV The Prodigal Host How The Daily Show got Jon Stewart back p. 14 Film Stuber Signs Off Behind the exit of Netflix’s movie chief p. 13 Brian Roberts Yes, Peacock lost $825 million in its latest quarter, but the Comcast CEO beat Street estimates for overall revenue and profit — with its parks business a bright spot. Shari Redstone As chatter heats up about a Paramount sale, the mogul’s call to remerge Viacom and CBS in 2019 will be second-guessed: Were the assets worth more separately? Tessa Thompson The Creed franchise star inks a first-look film deal with Amazon MGM Studios for her banner Viva Maude to develop new projects. Patrick Soon-Shiong While cutting 115 staffers, the Los Angeles Times owner also loses multiple masthead editors as the…
The end of Scott Stuber’s seven-year tenure as head of film at Netflix did not come as a shock. But it had seemed to be coming for so long that one producer who’s done business with the streamer says when he heard that it had finally happened, he didn’t know whether to believe it. “I sort of tuned out when anyone said Scott was out,” he says, “because I had been hearing that for over two years.” When the time finally came, the most remarkable thing about Stuber’s exit was how it differed from the usual abrupt Netflix defenestration: This time, there was a laudatory press release, Stuber’s company email account still works, and he is supposed to stick around until March. Despite the lack of drama and despite co-CEO…
Shortly after Trevor Noah abruptly announced he’d be leaving The Daily Show in late 2022, Paramount’s Chris McCarthy knew he needed allies. There was “a lot of pressure to just choose someone,” he told THR early last year, though he resisted naming an immediate replacement. Instead, his team, led by longtime showrunner Jen Flanz, lined up a stable of guest hosts, a mix of boldfaced names like Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler as well as correspondents from the show. McCarthy also sought the counsel of James “Babydoll” Dixon, manager of late night hosts Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and a previous Daily Show producer himself. In fact, early in the transition, McCarthy “spent a lot of time with Babydoll,” he said, “and we called Jon a couple times,…
Wrestling drama The Iron Claw has quietly grossed $31.5 million domestically at the box office since its Christmas launch, a veritable fortune for an independent film in the post-pandemic age and one of the best showings ever for distributor A24. And it isn’t the only specialty movie doing impressive business these days thanks to a powerful new ally: younger adults. For years, art house movies relied on the “elderverse,” as one indie executive puts it — i.e., moviegoers over age 35 or 40. But that relationship collapsed during the COVID-19 crisis and has yet to be fully restored. At the same time, the 18-to-34 crowd started snubbing once surefire genres like superhero fare. “This is the strongest I can remember seeing this kind of turnout since the early 2000s,” says…
