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Will Smith The star strikes while the iron is hot after his Bad Boys sequel reignites the box office, booking another Sony star vehicle, Resistor, based on the novel Influx. Will Lewis In a sign of discontent within The Washington Post over its incoming publisher’s strategy, owner Jeff Bezos sends a note to staff to shore up support for the beleaguered newsman. Robert Gibbs David Zaslav has found his new comms chief after the exit of Nathaniel Brown. The former Obama administration official will start at Warner Bros. Discovery on Aug. 5. Bill Rouhana The CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and owner of the Redbox kiosk, clears out his entire board of directors, another turbulent moment for the embattled company. Showbiz Stocks $8.35 (+5.7%) LIONSGATE (LGF.A) Steve Mnuchin…
Six months ago, a deal to sell Paramount Global (or at least control of the company via Shari Redstone’s National Amusements) seemed all but certain. Deep conversations were happening with a consortium led by David Ellison’s Skydance and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird; a partnership between Sony Pictures and Apollo emerged as a possible spoiler; even Warner Bros. Discovery kicked the tires over a holiday meal between CEOs David Zaslav and Bob Bakish. According to a source familiar with the talks, Redstone’s request for a “majority of the minority” vote, in which other Class A shareholders could vote to approve or nix the deal, was a nonstarter for Skydance, and the studio was anticipating a regulatory review of more than a year, which gave Redstone pause. Skydance had secured approval from Paramount’s…
Embarrassed? Hardly. Sad and fearful? No way. Joyous? Absolutely. That was the vibe on the morning of June 17 when Disney Entertainment co-chairman Alan Bergman cracked open the champagne to toast those who had worked on the making and marketing of Inside Out 2, which is the year’s first box office blockbuster. “It’s been a while since we did this,” says one person attending the celebration on Disney’s Burbank lot, in reference to rough times for the once-invincible Pixar, where Pete Docter also arranged a toast. For its part, Pixar delivered a film that has won over both critics and audiences in continuing the story of Riley, who is now 13 and must contend with a new crew of emotions invading her head in addition to the old standbys, led…
On the face of it, the June 12 reveal that Sony was buying Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas seemed like a significant step toward Hollywood studios once again owning movie theaters. After all, the rise of Tinseltown was possible only because most of the major studios owned the cinemas as well, allowing them more favorable terms with distribution. But that came to an end in 1948 when the U.S. Department of Justice issued the Paramount Decrees, which forced studios to divest of theaters because of antitrust concerns. Game over, or at least mostly. (Over the years, some exemptions were granted.) In 2000, the Paramount Decrees were rescinded, but studios aren’t busting down the door trying to buy up movie chains. They don’t need to now; they can get all the screens they…
Marvel Studios keeps trying to unsheathe Blade, but the vampire thriller is stuck in its scabbard. The latest setback occurred in recent weeks when the feature lost director Yann Demange, the second helmer to exit the project. Some sources say both sides grew frustrated by Blade’s prolonged development process. Star Mahershala Ali is also said to be increasingly frustrated. Ali, who has been attached to the project since 2019, handpicked Demange after the project lost director Bassam Tariq in September 2022. At the time, Blade was in preproduction and about two months from principal photography, but Marvel came to believe that Tariq was not the best fit for the project, according to sources. Marvel then presented Ali with a list of directors for consideration, but Ali conducted his own search…
When Lionsgate revealed June 17 it would bring Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million passion project Megalopolis to U.S. theaters, plenty of questions swirled — and not just about whether an actor playing a reporter would show up at screenings to ask questions of Adam Driver’s onscreen character midway through the movie, as happened at Cannes. (The answer to that question, according to sources, is yes, when at all possible.) More pressingly, folks in Hollywood wondered if the deal called for Lionsgate to put its own skin in the game by paying for any of Megalopolis’ marketing. After all, other suitors balked at that prospect after a late March screening for studio heads. Lionsgate, it appears, will not be paying for marketing. Instead, Coppola is expected to provide the spend himself.…
