Showbiz Sandbox 600: The Return of Bob Iger at Disney
November 29, 2022
We were just as surprised as everyone else to hear that The Walt Disney Company was firing their CEO Bob Chapek and replacing him with their longtime former head, Bob Iger. Iger is returning to a markedly different media company than the one he left less than a year ago and his second stint as CEO will be measured by how he sets up Disney to survive into the future. Finding the right successor will be one of his top priorities.
Meanwhile, we try to unravel how Ticketmaster fumbled the sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming concert tour. The company is claiming verified fans were unable to get tickets due to unprecedented demand and automated ticket-buying bots. The incident caused such a stir it even attracted the attention of politicians eager to hold hearings about it.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why a big book publishing merger is called off, Amazon gets serious about film distribution and Agatha Christie’s “Mousetrap” heads to Broadway.
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Showbiz Sandbox 505: The Marvel and Mao Effect: A Hollywood Exec Heads to China, Hijinks Ensue
August 11, 2020
In his 17 years as the President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group, Chris Fenton helped bring 20 Hollywood movies to China, facilitating co-productions, financing and distribution on blockbusters such as “Iron Man 3” and “Looper.” In his new book, “Feeding the Dragon,” the former William Morris agent details his time working in the entertainment industry and China. Fenton helps us read the tea leaves about the future for the relationship between the major studios and China.
Meanwhile, the entertainment industry is undergoing some seismic shifts. In a single week the Paramount Consent Decree was killed for good, television packaging is heading into the sunset and theatrical release windows for studio films just collapsed.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including an executive shakeup at NBC, Taylor Swift sets a new chart topping record with her new album and the Eurovision song contest is coming to the United States.
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Showbiz Sandbox 22: The Trouble With Indie Films, Roman Polanski and Hollywood Guilds
September 28, 2009
When the Toronto Film Festival concluded last week only one of its official selections had been picked up for distribution. This touched off a string of articles and blog posts from the likes of Anne Thompson and Roger Ebert on the state of the independent film industry. One of the more interesting blog posts came from indie producer Ted Hope who has produced over 60 films in a career which spans three decades. He joins us on this week’s episode with independent film producer Christine Vachon.
Hope has worked with such filmmaker as Ang Lee, Michel Gondry, Hal Hartly, Todd Solondz, Ed Burns, Todd Field and Tamara Jenkins while producing films like “In The Bedroom”, “The Ice Storm”, “Eat Drink Man Woman”, “The Brother’s McMullen”, “American Splendor”, “21 Grams”, “Happiness” and “The Savages”. His production company This Is That has produced more than 17 films since it was founded in 2002.
Vachon has also produced an astounding number of indie films, including Todd Haynes’ “Poison” and “Far From Heaven”, Larry Clark’s “Kids”, John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, Todd Solondz’s “Storytelling” and Kimberly Pierce’s “Boys Don’t Cry”. Along with Pamela Koffler, Vachon has been running the production company Killer Films for the 14 years. Read more
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