After living through nearly two years of a pandemic that won’t end, Americans, as it turns out, were in desperate need of a laugh. That may explain why Paramount’s go-for-broke action comedy “Jackass Forever” triumphed at the domestic box office while Roland Emmerich’s disaster epic “Moonfall” turned into an epic disaster. “Jackass Forever,” the fourth…
Category: Art

ZUCKER OUT AT CNN RELATIONSHIP WITH COLLEAGUE ‘I WAS WRONG’
CNN President Jeff Zucker resigns over consensual relationship with key lieutenant CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, the influential news executive who reshaped the iconic network, announced Wednesday morning that he has resigned from his position effective immediately. Zucker’s stunning announcement came less than two months after he fired prime time anchor Chris Cuomo for improperly…

Bring a Trailer sold $829M in cars in 2021, walloping auction houses
A record-breaking $1.9 million Porsche sale isn’t the only big news from Bring a Trailer these days. In 2021 the online car auction site sold $828.7 million worth of cars, a 108% gain over the $398 million it sold in 2020 — and a full quarter-billion dollars ahead of its closest live-auction-house competitor. The news soundly beats the…

Virgil Abloh Dies of Cancer at 41
PARIS – Virgil Abloh, the founder of luxury streetwear brand Off-White and artistic director of men’s wear at Louis Vuitton, has died from cancer at the age of 41. One of the most influential designers of his generation, Abloh had been privately battling the disease for several years, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton said in a statement on Sunday. The designer died in…

Tom Ford: Cancel culture inhibits fashion
Tom Ford says cancel culture “inhibits design”. The 60-year-old fashion muse – behind the iconic eponymous label – says the fact “everything is now considered appropriation” is limiting fashion. Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, Ford said: “Cancel culture inhibits design because rather than feeling free, the tendency is to start locked into a set of…

Barry Diller Headed 2 Hollywood Studios. He Now Says The Movie Business Is Dead
Barry Diller made his name in the film industry as the chairman and CEO of two Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and what was then 20th Century Fox. Now, he is declaring the industry dead. “The movie business is over,” Diller said in an exclusive interview with NPR on the sidelines of the Allen & Company…

Cosby release infuriates survivors; lawyers hail win for Constitution
Reaction to Bill Cosby being freed from prison on Wednesday after Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned his sexual assault conviction ranged from outrage to cheers. Here are some of those voices: – “Today’s devastating decision to overturn the conviction of a man who caused so much harm, pain, and emotional trauma to so many women is…

OSCARS FALL BELOW 10 MILLION VIEWERS SHOWBIZ GOES BUST
To the surprise of exactly no one, this year’s Oscars telecast won zero awards for viewership. ABC’s presentation of the 93rd Academy Awards on Sunday night averaged 9.9 million total viewers and a 1.9 demo rating (per preliminary Nielsen numbers). That is, quite expectedly, down sharply — 58 and 64 percent — from last year’s numbers (23.6…

Woody Allen, Soon-Yi Blast HBO Docuseries as ‘Hatchet Job’…
Woody Allen Responds to HBO Documentary: The Farrows and their enablers…put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods” Here is Woody Allen and Soon Yi Previn’s official response to the HBO documentary, “Allen vs. Farrow”: “These documentarians had no interest in the truth. Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together…

Agencies, Studios Debate: When to Drop a Star Who Becomes Toxic?
As publicly reported Hollywood misconduct cases grow in frequency, there remains a lack of consistency with regard to how the industry responds. On Feb. 4, a group of WME staffers convened in a conference online to discuss the escalating Armie Hammer situation. For the past three years, the agency’s client advisory committee has been tasked with…