Showbiz Sandbox 522: Relief In Sight for Stages and Screens
December 22, 2020
Just in time for the holidays, the United States Congress finally passed a COVID relief bill which will help independent concert halls, live theatres and movie theaters with some $15 billion in grants and loans. Shuttered since the beginning of the pandemic, many of these venues would probably close for good without financial assistance.
Meanwhile, Creative Artists Agency and the Writers Guild have now officially buried the hatchet, reaching a deal on a new franchise agreement. William Morris Endeavor is now the only talent agency that hasn’t agreed to the WGA’s terms.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why the video game Cyberpunk 2077 has been trying to work the bugs out with its release, Mariah Carey returns to the top of the music charts with her Christmas hit and film critics associations from New York to Los Angeles name the years best movies.
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Showbiz Sandbox 516: What Went Wrong With Quibi
October 27, 2020
Quibi, the bite-sized content platform founded by media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and business leader Meg Whitman, has been mocked since it was first announced. Now after six months and $2 billion, Quibi is kaput. Unable to find an audience, and despite a fruitless attempt to find a buyer, Quibi is officially shutting down.
The company insists people were gunning for them from the start, but the simple truth is that Quibi always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. Besides, however good the content may have been, it was going to be very hard to convince people to plunk down $5 a month just to watch random videos while commuting.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including Netflix misses its third quarter subscriber goal, television ratings for live sports events plummets and box office continues to soar in China and Japan.
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Showbiz Sandbox 515: Disney Restructures Its Magical Kingdom
October 20, 2020
One week after the Walt Disney Company announced that it would be premiering its latest Pixar film on Disney+ rather than in movie theaters, the media giant says it will reorganize its corporate structure to focus the company’s content creation on streaming. Is this a hasty pivot, long in the works, or just making official the obvious? The move left many industry watchers a bit confused.
Meanwhile, movie theaters in most of New York state can reopen, except in New York City itself. Even so, studios still won’t be releasing a blockbuster soon enough to help struggling cinema operators like AMC, who claims they will run out of money before the end of the year.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Kevin Hart is taking over for Jerry Lewis on the muscular dystrophy telethon, K-Pop boy band BTS might be enlisting in the South Korean military (literally) and this year’s slimmed-down Tony nominations.
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Showbiz Sandbox 484: How the Coronavirus Is Roiling the Entertainment Industry
March 9, 2020
Like everyone around the globe, the entertainment industry has been consumed by the coronavirus. The ongoing health issue has pushed back the release date of the latest James Bond film, canceled the SXSW conference and is postponing music festivals. We cover more of the ripple effects of the pandemic including its effect on the worldwide box office.
Not all business has been halted in Hollywood however. The Directors Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP which represents producers and studios. This paves the way for the Writers Guild of America to step in and negotiate their own deal, provided they can ever settle with talent agencies.
Meanwhile, the music industry is finally making serious money again thanks to streaming. In fact, there’s a brand new streaming service in India. Music lovers in Japan though still prefer their compact discs.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Woody Allen lost the publisher of his memoir, the PGA gets a new television deal for all its golf tournaments and Led Zeppelin wins another copyright court case.
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Showbiz Sandbox 448: Georgia Is On Hollywood’s Mind
May 13, 2019
After the governor of Georgia signed a controversial and restrictive anti-abortion bill, many Hollywood productions are grappling over whether to boycott filming in the state. Heavyweights such as J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele whose HBO drama series begins production in Georgia next week say they are donating their proceeds to organizations fighting the new law. It has gotten to a point where actress Alyssa Milano is calling for women to hold a “sex strike.”
Meanwhile, for three weeks now “Avengers: Endgame” has dominated the worldwide box office in every country around the world. Well, every country except Japan where a new ‘Detective Conan’ movie has beat it out.
It’s also the time of year when television networks reveal which series are being canceled, renewed or picked up for next season. In an unusual move, NBC announced it would renew the hit show “This Is Us” for three more seasons, before the series comes to an end.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Rolling Stone magazine launches its own music charts to take on Billboard, Steve Harvey’s loses his talk show and even though it may not be up for Best Play at the Tony Awards, “To Kill A Mockingbird” has become the highest grossing American play in history.
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Showbiz Sandbox 436: A Wealth in Diversity at Sundance
February 5, 2019
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was more diverse than it usually is in every way one might imagine. Sure, there were the usual crop of independent films and documentaries, but the predominance of women and people of color and queer voices was more notable than ever. In fact, female filmmakers took home most of the festival’s top prizes.
Sundance also proved to be a feeding frenzy for independent distributors with Amazon swooping in to spend more money than any other studio has ever spent during a single year at the festival. Usually, if one selection sells for over $10 million it makes headlines. This year there were at least three films that fell into that category.
Meanwhile the Super Bowl weekend proved to be a bust both at the box office, which was reached a 20-year-low, as well as on television, where the broadcast of the big game fell to a 10-year-low.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary, Hulu raises its prices and Spotify turns on a feature that allows users to turn off artists.
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Showbiz Sandbox 413: Let the Media Merger Mania Commence
June 18, 2018
In one of the most significant antitrust cases in decades, last week a federal judge cleared the way for AT&T to complete its acquisition of Time Warner, ruling that the Department of Justice failed to make a convincing argument the deal would be bad for consumers. The decision opens the door for what many believe will be a wave of corporate mergers as existing media outfits look to thwart off threats from tech giants entering the space such as Amazon, Apple and Netflix.
Evidence of this was apparent within days as Comcast made an official all-cash offer to acquire a majority of Twentieth Century Fox’s assets. The Fox board will meet this week to decide who will wind up acquiring them; Disney or Comcast.
We follow up the Tony Awards to applaud its big winner “The Band’s Visit,” celebrating the success of indie producers on a Great White Way dominated more and more by corporations. We also shoot down the idea that winning the Tony for Best Musical isn’t a boost at the box office.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Bryan Singer will wind up with director’s credit on the Queen biopic from which he was fired, Oprah Winfrey signs a deal with Apple and why a tax scandal in China over a major star’s salary has the industry on edge.
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Showbiz Sandbox 346: Critics Are Mixed Up About This Year’s Best Movies
December 5, 2016
With 2016 coming to an end movie critics have begun announcing their picks for the year’s noteworthy releases. As in recent years, critics groups from New York to Los Angeles differ slightly on what the top movie should be. The New York critics group went with the musical “La La Land”, while The L.A. group chose the drama “Moonlight”. To really confuse things the National Board of Review selected “Manchester by the Sea”. What this breadth of selections means is there were plenty of great films to see this year.
Where you see these movies, on the other hand, continues to be a debate, at least for the heads of movie studios. Kevin Tsujihara, the head of Warner Bros., made it known his company would like to release films into the home market soon after their release in movie theaters. He says the studio is having “constructive conversations” with a few cinema operators to make this a reality, but what that really means is anybody’s guess.
There seems to be no confusion however over whether TV networks want to attend the winter press gathering of the Television Critics Association; they don’t. These annual events allow networks to promote new shows while giving journalists a chance to grill the creatives and executive behind them. It looks as if many networks are skipping out on this January’s press tour as the top executives from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC declining their invites.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including DirecTV’s plans to go over the top, Netflix allows users to download movies for offline viewing and the Bee Gees get a new record deal.
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Showbiz Sandbox 324: Can These 100 People Fix The Academy’s Diversity Problem?
June 6, 2016
After the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences failed to recognize the work of minority actors and filmmakers for the second year in a row, the organization promised to double the number of minorities within the next four years. The Los Angeles Times has taken matters into their own hands by suggesting 100 industry professionals that could make the Academy more diverse. Tre’vell Anderson, the staff writer who oversaw the project, joins us to explain how the list was compiled and what the response has been.
Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that Disney has scheduled four weeks of reshoots for the Star Wars spin-off “Rogue One”. There is some speculation that Disney felt the film was too dark, however it could just be the standard reshoots multi-million dollar blockbusters often go through.
Sony made some revisions of their own last week to their senior executive ranks. Specifically the heads of both the motion picture and television groups both announced their departure from the studios. What’s noteworthy about the news is that both had worked at the studio for 25 years.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including when the Broadway hit “Hamilton” might lose its leading man, Nintendo revamps Pokemon in China and Amazon expands its content offerings in Japan.
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Showbiz Sandbox 311: Oscar Season Remains Uncharacteristically Unpredictable
February 8, 2016
The movie awards season remains as confusing as ever, with the Directors Guild handing out its top honor to “The Revenant”. Will this have any impact on an Oscar race in which “The Big Short” and “Spotlight” also look like major contenders? No one knows but we’ll try and sort it out.
Meanwhile, it appears Time Warner wants to join Disney, Fox and NBCUniversal as an owner of the streaming service Hulu. There’s only one catch; they’d like Hulu to stop showing all episodes from the current season of a TV series. Maybe they want to buy it so they can shut it down.
Over at Viacom, Sumner Redstone stepped down last week after a court mandated the 92-year-old would submit to a medical exam to determine his competency. Bowing to reality, Redstone resigned from his position as chairman of CBS and Viacom. Leslie Moonves is officially taking over CBS, but after daughter Shari Redstone publicly announced it wasn’t a good idea for Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman to take over, he did just that.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Amazon plans to enter the retail space, ESPN plans to enter China and Matt LeBlanc is named as the new host of the popular automotive TV program, “Top Gear”.
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