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…
Category: Art
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…
The Oscars make inclusion a requirement for best picture consideration beginning in 2024
Five years after the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag triggered controversy, the group behind the awards has made inclusion a requirement to be considered to win them. In what represents the most direct link between the movie industry’s top prize and efforts to promote diversity and address systemic issues, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday…
Tenet, first Hollywood post-COVID-19 release in US, takes $20m
Warner Bros hopes Christopher Nolan thriller will lure people back to cinemas as the country marks Labor Day weekend. Tenet, the first major Hollywood release in six months since the coronavirus pandemic delayed shoots and closed cinemas, has grossed $20.2m in its opening five days in the United States. Such box office takings for an…
Trump, on huge White House stage, decrying Biden, radicals
Facing a moment fraught with national crises, President Donald Trump accepted his party’s renomination on a massive White House South Lawn stage Thursday night, breaking with tradition by using the executive mansion as a political backdrop and defying pandemic guidelines to address a tightly packed, largely maskless crowd. As troubles churned outside the gates, Trump…
REDSTONE DEAD AT 97…
He bested business rivals throughout his long career as he engineered deals for Viacom, Paramount and CBS and displayed an unwavering passion to win. Sumner Redstone, the hard-charging mogul who parlayed his father’s New England drive-in theater business into a media empire that now flows into virtually every avenue of entertainment, has died. He was…
Thomas Chatterton Williams on Race, Identity, and “Cancel Culture”
Thomas Chatterton Williams, one of the contributors to the Harper’s letter, discusses what the document aimed to accomplish and whether cancel culture has always existed.Source: Harper’s Magazine On July 7th, Harper’s Magazine published what it called “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” which quickly became part of the conversation around the subject of “cancel culture.” The letter, which…