| | | | | | What's news: It's magazine day! This week's cover feature is on the coming fight between Hollywood and the tech bros over the 2024 election. Charles Barkley won’t be retiring after all. Disney+ is set to raise its prices again. Liza Minnelli has closed a deal to write a memoir. Mitch Hedberg is set to be the focus of a feature doc. — Abid Rahman
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"F*** These Trump-Loving Techies": Hollywood Takes On Silicon Valley In Epic Election Brawl ►On the cover. The slew of Northern California robber barons who’ve recently announced their support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, includes the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Antonio Gracias, Ben Horowitz and Douglas Leone. THR's Benjamin Svetkey writes that L.A.'s liberal moguls, energized by the ascendance of Kamala Harris, are back in the fight against the Silicon Valley billionaire boys club in a political clash of the titans: "People are putting up a lot of dough just to teach these dudes they can’t buy an election." The cover story. |
Disney Turns a Profit in Streaming ►Hot dog! Disney turned a profit in its streaming business a quarter earlier than anticipated, and beat Wall Street expectations as its entertainment business soared in its fiscal Q3. The company reported revenue of $23.2b and income of $3.1b. The entertainment division saw its profits climb thanks to improvements in DTC and the success of Inside Out 2. Entertainment revenues were $10.6b, up 4 percent from last year, but income was $1.2b, up more than 100 percent from a year ago. The results.
—The push towards the bundle. Big changes are coming to Disney+ later this year, with the company planning price hikes and the addition of what it is calling “continuous playlists” and live news to the platform. On the pricing front, Disney+ will see the monthly cost of its ad-supported tier rise by $2 to $9.99, while its ad-free tier will rise by $2 to $15.99. Hulu's ad tier will also rise by $2 to $9.99 per month, with its ad-free plan rising by $1 to $18.99 per month. The story.
—Good luck with that, lads. Escalating hostility with major advertisers, X has sued a coalition representing big-money brands for allegedly coordinating a boycott of the platform in violation of antitrust laws. The proposed class action, filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday, accuses the World Federation of Advertisers of conspiring with companies to withhold advertising on X due to relaxed safety standards since Elon Musk assumed control of platform in 2022. The story.
—Media meltdown. Tuesday saw a series of big media stories break that suggested the industry was in trouble. Ziff Davis cut a deal to acquire CNet from Red Ventures for about $100m, a price down from the $500m Red Ventures paid for the tech site four years ago. Meanwhile, TV trade publications Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News will shut down, according to their owner Future Plc. Also, Axios laid off 50 people. The story. |
A Mattel TV Adaptation Trial Could Be an Industry Case Study ►When is it idea theft? Mattel didn’t steal the idea for reality competition show The Toy Box from a producer, who accused the company of ripping off his concept for an identical series that he pitched, a jury has found. The decision comes after a 10-week trial in Santa Monica that touched on standards for protectable ideas and when a company can be on the hook for moving forward with a concept independently pitched by multiple producers. In a verdict that could discourage other creators from suing over idea theft, a 12-person jury on Thursday rejected Norton Herrick’s bid for more than $46m in lost profits he sought to claw back from Mattel. The story.
—"At a fundamental level, AI cannot create." The divide over AI use in Hollywood is growing ever wider. While entertainment industry unions aim to establish guardrails and artists are going to court, THR's Winston Cho writes that studios are looking to use AI tools more often in production. The analysis.
—✊ Unanimous vote ✊ IATSE appears to have succeeded in unionizing another group of visual effects workers. Twelve workers on several Apple Studios shows voted unanimously to join the union in a National Labor Relations Board ballot count that took place on Tuesday afternoon. IATSE and Apple now have five business days to raise any objections before the election results are certified, but the employer is required to begin negotiating with the union. The story.
—Going live. Wondery, the premium podcast studio from Amazon, has partnered with live events producer and promoter Mills Entertainment for a “multi-year strategic relationship” that will see the companies come together to mount live tours based on various genres across the Wondery universe. The first live offering to roll out from the collaboration will take place this fall with Wondery’s true crime collection Exhibit C and popular podcast Dr. Death, the Laura Beil-hosted series now in its fourth season. The story. |
Hollywood Is Hyped for "Joyous" Tim Walz Pick ►"He's not weird!" Hollywood is thrilled over Kamala Harris picking Tim Walz as her running mate. The likes of Mark Hamill, Yvette Nicole Brown, Mark Cuban, Alyssa Milano, Paul Feig, Rob Reiner, Patton Oswalt, Ken Burns, Cynthia Nixon, Al Franken and more took to social media on Tuesday to praise Walz. The reaction.
—"This makes me very sad." Amid the euphoria of the Walz pick, THR's Steven Zeitchik reports that some liberal Jews are feeling worried about Harris bypassing Josh Shapiro. Steven writes that among some Jewish-American producers, agents and executives there's a sense that — even if the VP pick was the result of electoral calculations — those calculations come with baked-in antisemitic assumptions about the electorate. The story.
—The plot thickens. Fans of Taylor Swift are speculating whether the singer has endorsed Harris in a recent Instagram post. Swift, who is currently on the European leg of her Eras Tour, posted a collection of photos honoring her shows in Warsaw, Poland, late Tuesday night. On the seventh slide, a silhouette of what looks like Harris is waving behind Swift on stage. The story. |
Olympics Photographers on What It Takes to Shoot the Games ►"High profile, high pressure." THR's Zoe G. Phillips spoke to Maddie Meyer and Arturo Holmes, two Getty Images sports photographers, about their assignments in Paris and how it feels to snap the photos seen around the world, as well as that iconic Snoop photo. The interview.
—"I’m just asking for it to stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough." MyKayla Skinner is pleading for Simon Biles to “put a stop” to the cyberbullying she’s faced following controversial remarks she made about the current U.S. women’s gymnastics team. The former Olympic gymnast took to her Instagram on Tuesday, calling for Biles to ask her supposed followers on social media to stop harassing her amid their alleged feud. Skinner has faced backlash for saying, "Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be." The story.
—"I was like, ‘Oh, I just thought I was annoyed at the world,’ but turns out everything is functioning so quickly, you can’t chill out." Daisy Ridley has revealed she has been diagnosed with Graves’ disease. In a cover story for Women’s Heath, the Star Wars actress shared she was told she has the autoimmune disorder last September. Ridley realized there was something wrong with her health while filming the thriller Magpie, about a woman losing control as her relationship with her husband crumbles. The story.
—"I will never go back to Appleton, Wisconsin." Comedian Nicole Byer recalled a “scary” incident with a racist hecklers at a past show in Wisconsin. In an appearance on the Dinner’s on Me podcast, the Nailed It! host recounted the incident, adding that the worst part of the experience was that there were "no repercussions." The story. |
Swift Leads MTV VMAs Noms ►🏆 "Fortnight" FTW 🏆 Taylor Swift and Post Malone are the leading nominees at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, with both artists riding high off the massive success of their collaboration on the song “Fortnight.” Swift scored 10 noms, and Postie 9. Elsewhere, Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter and Eminem received six nominations. The nominations.
—📅 Shifting 📅 The American Music Awards will move to 2025, with host network CBS planning to run an AMA 50th anniversary special in October in the time period where the awards show was originally supposed to run. CBS and AMA producer Dick Clark Productions says that it will run the 50th anniversary special on Oct. 6, which will “feature themed highlights from AMAs’ expansive show archives, each culminating with an original performance or artist interview. The story. |
'Stranger Things' to Open on Broadway in Spring 2025 ►📅 Mark it down 📅 Stranger Things: The First Shadow is coming to Broadway in the spring. The play, which is set up as a prequel to the events of the Netflix series, will start previews at the Marquis Theatre on March 28, 2025, with an opening night on April 2025. Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions are producing. The show premiered in London’s West End in December 2023, where it is still running. Written by Kate Trefry, the play includes younger versions of the characters from the television series, including Winona Ryder’s Joyce, Sean Astin’s Bob Newby and David Harbour’s Hopper. The story.
—Streak continues. The Outsiders musical continued its post-Tony run, breaking the box office record at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre for the seventh week in a row. The show, which won the Tony Award for best musical, grossed $1.49m last week. That’s about $27,000 more than prior week, even though only one more person attended. The average ticket price rose to $177 from $174. The show was one of the few to earn more money at the box office compared to the prior week. The story.
—Finally! Iconic entertainer Liza Minnelli has signed a deal to write a memoir with longtime friend and collaborator Michael Feinstein. Grand Central Publishing unveiled the book deal with Minnelli and announced hardcover print, e-book and audio editions would be published in spring 2026. The showbiz survivor, who was the daughter of Judy Garland and An American in Paris director Vincent Minnelli went on to earn Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards and has apparently decided at long last to tell her own story by putting pen to paper. The story. |
'RHONJ' Finale Was "Like a Death" ►Where do they go now? THR's Jackie Strause writes that season 14 of Bravo's Real Housewives of New Jersey ended with a "Last Supper" where glass was thrown, a bombshell was dropped and deep-seated cast feuds were left unresolved. The finale raised real questions as to whether the reality show was headed for a reboot or a cast shake-up. The story.
—All is well again. Charles Barkley won’t be retiring after all. The TNT Sports personality and Inside the NBA co-host will be staying with Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT Sports even after the next NBA season. TNT Sports said Tuesday that Barkley has "reaffirmed his commitment" to the company, which will see him "exclusively contribute to TNT Sports for many years to come." The next season of Inside the NBA could be the last, with TNT Sports set to lose rights after the next season to Amazon. WBD has sued the league to try and stop that from happening. The story.
—Pilot order. CBS is ramping up its development, handing out its first drama pilot order of the current cycle. It’s for a procedural called Einstein, which centers on the (fictional) great-grandson of Albert Einstein and is based on a German series of the same name. Monk creator Andy Breckman wrote the script and will serve as showrunner. On Monday, the network placed a pilot order for a single-camera comedy called DMV from creator Dana Klein and opened a development room for a vampire comedy titled Eternally Yours from Ghosts showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman. The story. |
NY Film Fest Main Slate Includes Cannes Winners ►Bienvenue! The 2024 New York Film Festival has revealed its main slate lineup on Tuesday, and it includes the U.S. premieres of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds. The NYFF main slate features a number of Cannes prize winners in addition to Sean Baker’s Anora, which won Cannes’ Palme d’Or; exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s Seed of the Sacred Fig, which was awarded a special prize; and Roberto Minervini’s The Damned, which won best director in the Un Certain Regard section, shared with Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, which will also screen at NYFF. The story.
—"I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. It’s like, 'Dude, you have to wait.'" Comedian Mitch Hedberg is set to be the focus of a feature documentary, nearly two decades after his death. Emmy-nominated filmmaker Jeff Siegel is helming the feature that has wrapped principal photography after a filming process that began five years ago. The project, which is currently untitled and does not yet have a planned release date, is set to include archival footage, home movies and interviews with loved ones, childhood friends and fellow comics. The story.
—📅 Dated 📅 Searchlight Pictures has set a Christmas Day release for Timothée Chalamet playing iconic singer Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s biopic A Complete Unknown. The film will hit theaters on Dec. 25 and also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, P.J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Norbert Leo Butz as Alan Lomax, Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth and Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie. The story.
—Snapped up. Heather Graham's Chosen Family, has been acquired by Brainstorm Media for North America with a theatrical release set for Oct. 11. Written, directed by and starring Graham, the Verdi Prods. film also stars John Brotherton, Andrea Savage, Michael Gross, Julie Halston, Thomas Lennon and Julia Stiles. Chosen Family follows a yoga teacher named Ann (Graham) who is on a path to find inner peace amidst the chaos of her manic family and miserable dating life. The story. |
Jay Kanter 1926 - 2024 ►Tinseltown legend. Jay Kanter, the high-powered Hollywood agent who represented Marlon Brando, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe and served as the inspiration for Jack Lemmon’s character in the classic Billy Wilder film The Apartment, has died. He was 97. A favorite of mighty Music Corporation of America mogul Lew Wasserman, Kanter also spent seven years in the U.K. in the 1960s greenlighting European movies for Universal, produced films including the Elizabeth Taylor-starring X, Y and Zee (1972) and had a long business relationship with Alan Ladd Jr. at Fox and MGM. The obituary.
—Trailblazer. Patti Yasutake, who portrayed Nurse Alyssa Ogawa on Star Trek Generations and a pair of franchise movies and Fumi Nakai, the widowed mother of Joseph Lee’s sculptor, on Beef, has died. She was 70. Yasutake died Monday at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center after a long battle with a rare form of T-cell lymphoma. A veteran of the East West Players theater company, she also starred in the film and TV versions of Gung Ho. The obituary.
—African icon. Connie Chiume, a South African actress who appeared in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, has died. She was 72. Chiume also portrayed Simba’s mother Sarabi in Beyoncé’s Black Is King, a musical film interpreting the global icon’s soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift. The obituary. |
'WWDITS' Star Matt Berry on Delivering Unfamiliar American Cultural References ►"I haven’t got a clue!" For THR, Tyler Coates spoke Matt "Baaaatttt!!!!" Berry about his Emmy-nominated turn as Laszlo Cravensworth in FX’s mockumentary series What We Do in the Shadows. Berry, arguably the greatest line delieverer to ever work in television, discusses the joys of improvising on set and how he tackles all those Americanisms. The interview.
—"I wasn't sure if I'd ever make another movie." THR's Lily Ford spoke to legendary British actress Hayley Mills about her welcome role in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap. Mills explained her long absence from the screen, what it was like to return to feature work and working with a master of suspense like Shyamalan. The interview.
—"We wanted to find a fun, clever way to externalize therapy." For THR, Brande Victorian spoke to showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser about the latest episode of the Hulu series UnPrisoned. Bowser discusses why the family led by Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo will never be the same and why TV "could use a lot more humor." The interview. |
Film Review: 'It Ends With Us' ►"A wispy adaptation that should dig deeper." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews Justin Baldoni's It Ends With Us. A young flower shop owner navigates a new romance and her traumatic past in a high emotional stakes drama starring Blake Lively and directed by and also starring Baldoni. The review.
In other news...
—Apple releases first look at Alfonso Cuarón’s limited series Disclaimer
—Zurich Film Festival to honor Kate Winslet
—Lucy Hale set to receive humanitarian award at Friendly House luncheon
—Steven Soderbergh's Presence gets premiere at Toronto
—Paramount+, Showtime CMO Michael Engleman departing
—Jordan Kahn's Vespertine earns back 2 Michelin stars as restaurant is hailed as "singular operation"
—How to watch weightlifting at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
What else we're reading...
—Ryan Faughnder looks at how Showtime used Netflix to build the hype for its ever expanding Dexter universe [LAT]
—Despite the landmark antitrust ruling, Ian Bogost thinks that Google's search supremacy is locked in it, and it's unlikely to change how people use the internet [Atlantic]
—Karen Tumulty writes that Tim Walz made "weird" happen, but he offers the Harris ticket so much more [WaPo]
—Ten years after The Leftovers debuted on HBO, Saul Austerlitz talks to creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta about the post-pandemic significance of the drama [NYT]
—Anat Peled, Fatima AbdulKarim and Omar Abdel-Baqui report on the sexual-abuse case rocking Israel’s military [WSJ]
Today...
...in 2005, Showtime unveiled Jenji Kohan’s Weeds, starring Mary-Louise Parker. The dramedy went on to run for eight seasons on the premium cabler. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Charlize Theron (49), Abbie Cornish (42), David Duchovny (64), Brit Marling (42), Wayne Knight (69), Michael Shannon (50), Harold Perrineau (61), Sasha Calle (29), Francesca Eastwood (31), Sydney Penny (53), Tobin Bell (82), Liam James (28), John Glover (80), Maggie Wheeler (63), David Rasche (80), Charlotte Lewis (57), Caroline Aaron (72), Kim Ro-Woon (28), Megan Gale (49), Derya Pinar Ak (21), David Caves (45), Nicole Tubiola (45), Anjanette Comer (85), Alexandre Aja (46), Tessa Allen (28), Simon Kassianides (45), Hans Matheson (49), Randy Wayne (43), Doon Mackichan (62), Lesley Nicol (71), Luca Calvani (50), Greg Serano (52), Jang Ki-yong (32), Brett Gray (28), Julian Wadham (66), DeLane Matthews (63), Paula Echevarría (47), Jon Jon Briones (59), Cirroc Lofton (46) |
| Charles Cyphers, who played Sheriff Leigh Brackett opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in three Halloween movies, performances that spanned a remarkable 43 years, has died. He was 85. The obituary. |
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