Showbiz Sandbox 532: Hollywood Jumps On The Email Newsletter Bandwagon
March 9, 2021
Email newsletters are the new black. Much like podcasts, every mainstream media outlet seems to be launching one. Ryan Faughnder, an entertainment business reporter with the Los Angeles Times, joins us to discuss the launch of The Wide Shot. Each week Faughnder takes an in-depth dive into a major Hollywood news story along with highlights of other key industry updates.
Meanwhile, there was more good news for “Nomadland” when the Critics Choice Awards were handed out, though the film hit a snag regarding its release in China. The Grammy Awards are next week and Michael Giltz tells us about his own favorite 2020 albums.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including this year’s Producers Guild Award nominees, why the Dr. Seuss estate is pulling some of the author’s early books and how SoundCloud plans to change payments going to artists.
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Showbiz Sandbox 529: Hollywood Grapples With Cancel Culture
February 16, 2021
Whether it’s sexual misconduct, misogynistic behavior or social media missteps, the careers of numerous entertainment industry figures have recently been upended after allegations of their moral misbehavior surfaced. The repercussions are impacting every part of the industry, from the upper echelons of the French film industry to the rose ceremony on “The Bachelor.” Agencies, studios and record companies are now left to decide whether to jettison stars that have become tainted.
Meanwhile, one year after China closed movie theaters to contend with a growing coronavirus epidemic, the country is showing the world how to revive the cinema business. Apparently all it takes is a few blockbusters to get audiences back into the very theaters many had predicted would never reopen.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including how the cast of the “Umbrella Academy” got a raise, Disney continues to add subscribers to its streaming service and why Dave Chapelle’s old show is back on Netflix.
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Showbiz Sandbox 517: Movie Theaters Brace For A Dark Winter
November 10, 2020
With a second wave of COVID sweeping through Europe, cinemas in England, France and Germany have begun to shut down. Can movie theaters in North America and elsewhere soon follow their lead as infection rates rise? Even if cinemas remain open, they won’t have many new movies to show with studios moving major releases into next year.
As major cinema chains around the world report cratering third-quarter revenue they have begun to accept they may have to play titles with shorter release windows, at least until the pandemic is over. This has led to the National Association of Theatre Owners saying that if Congress doesn’t pass a relief bill soon, some 70% of cinemas in North America will declare bankruptcy or go out of business entirely.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Jay-Z is looking to get high on his own supply, Johnny Depp gets dumped from “Fantastic Beasts” and Netflix goes linear (at least in France).
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Showbiz Sandbox 459: Jay-Z Gets Played By The NFL
August 19, 2019
In a win-win for the American football and artist Jay-Z (or a lose-lose depending on your point of view), the National Football League is working with one of its biggest critics. Jay-Z has historically been very supportive of the NFL players who have used their visibility to bring attention to issues like police brutality. He also made clear that he wouldn’t perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Now he’s signed a deal with the NFL to consult on the Halftime Show, NFL music in general and assist with other efforts to make the NFL and its entertainment more inclusive.
Many wondered why Jay-Z would enter into such an agreement when it seemed he had so much to lose and little to gain, especially when it appears as if the NFL is co-opting him. Perhaps the rumors that the rap and entertainment mogul wishes to to buy a significant stake in an NFL team are actually true.
Meanwhile in China, streaming giants such as Netflix, YouTube and eventually Disney+ were granted permission to launch their platforms in the country. That is so long as these companies play by some strict government rules. But what exactly that means, both in regards to mandated propaganda content and censorship remains to be seen.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including CBS and Viacom get remarried, why Hong Kong protesters want to boycott the live action adaptation of “Mulan” and sales at bookstores decline this year.
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Showbiz Sandbox 407: Beyoncé Delivers A Higher Education To Coachella
April 17, 2018
Though Beyoncé was unable to headline Coachella last year due to being pregnant with twins, she more than made up for it this year with a performance that music critics are rightly hailing as the best live music event in decades. In a two hour set that included more than 100 performers from dancers to musicians, even a full marching band, Beyoncé put on a spectacular show that managed to be technically brilliant as well as socially relevant to the times. We were there and provide first hand reporting from this year’s Coachella.
Another festival making news is Cannes, which announced the films in this year’s competition, leaving out many of the event’s favorite auteurs. The festival also parted ways with Netflix, not inviting films produced by the streaming giant since they won’t be released in movie theaters.
Speaking of Netflix, a shareholder has sued the company for what they allege to a scheme which assured senior management and board members performance bonuses. The complaint accuses Netflix of using the performance bonuses to avoid paying taxes, rather than for any actual performance gains.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including the kurfuffle over Apu, an Indian character on “The Simpsons,” Kendrick Lamar wins a Pulitzer Prize for his latest album and Fleetwood Mac parts ways with its longstanding guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.
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Showbiz Sandbox 397: Thompson On The 2018 Oscar Nominations and Sundance Film Festival
January 29, 2018
Some of the biggest annual headline generators in the entertainment industry all happened to occur during the same week this year; the Grammy Awards were handed out, the Oscar Nominations were announced and the Sundance Film Festival came to a close. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor at large, helps us break down the Oscar nominations while also telling us about the titles from Sundance that we can look forward to seeing in the year ahead.
As for the Grammy Awards, though hip-hop albums by Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z were heavily favored to win top prizes, it was Bruno Mars who took home the nights biggest honors, including Album of the Year. And though the telecast of the ceremony was filled with performances by the biggest names in music, viewership plummeted to an all-time low.
Meanwhile, the movie ticket subscription service MoviePass caused a stir in Hollywood last week, though not necessarily in a good way. The company removed ten high-profile AMC theaters from its service claiming they were tired of being ignored by the cinema chain. But could the real reason be that MoviePass was simply losing too much money at those locations?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why Neil Diamond and Elton John will stop touring, celebrities get caught out paying for social media followers and the story behind an open source, anonymous list of salaries for television writers and producers.
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Showbiz Sandbox 391: For Your Consideration – Grammy Marketing Campaigns
December 4, 2017
Hip-hop artists lead the nominees for this year’s Grammy Awards with Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar the front runners for Album Of The Year. Steve Knopper, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and author of several books about the music industry, joins us to explain how musicians have taken a lesson from Hollywood and begun mounting marketing campaigns to snag music’s highest honor.
Accolades for the year’s best movies have also begun to be doled out with critics groups announcing their picks. “Call Me By Your Name,” “The Florida Project,” and “Lady Bird” seem to be the big favorites as we head into awards season.
Meanwhile, allegations of sexual misconduct continue to pile up against entertainment and media personalities. Just when we thought it couldn’t get much worse, “Today” anchor Matt Lauer was fired by NBC News over sexual harassment and famed Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine was suspended over accusations of sexual abuse.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Stephen Colbert continues to win the late night wars, director Bryan Singer disappears from the set of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and why Disney is suing Redbox.
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Showbiz Sandbox 374: Streaming Services Rack Up 2017 Emmy Nominations
July 18, 2017
When this year’s primetime Emmy nominees were announced HBO still lead the way with 111 nominations, including 22 for “Westworld”, but streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon are quickly gaining ground with their own popular shows. Even Hulu managed to push their way into the Emmys for the first time with 13 nominations for “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
The only thing that remained the same about the Emmys from previous years is that some shows were nominated that shouldn’t have been, while others weren’t nominated but should have been. Don’t get us started on the TV episode that was somehow nominated for Outstanding Television Movie.
One series that wasn’t nominated for an Emmy was “Hawaii Five-O”, the hit CBS show which had two of its main actors depart after a contract dispute that became a flashpoint over the salaries and casting of minority talent.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why a major Chinese entertainment company is taking a hit on the stock market after criticism from government officials, Tyler Perry signs a producing deal with Viacom and Quincy Jones sues the Michael Jackson estate over royalty payments.
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Showbiz Sandbox 327: The Academy’s Class of 2016 Gets A Lot More Diverse
July 5, 2016
The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences invited a record number of filmmakers, craftsman and executives to join its ranks in 2016, including a record number of women, people of color and international artists. While this helps make its membership more diverse, the Academy itself points out, this amounts to a drop in the bucket.
Meanwhile, the Jay-Z digital music service is generating some of its own headlines, literally. Word leaked out, probably from within the company itself, that the streaming music service was in talks to be acquired by Apple. Even though people are consuming more media than ever, the streaming music business may not be a quick route to profitability.
The Chinese box office, on the other hand, has been growing at an astronomical pace over the past few years; 50% last in 2015 alone. However, those gains might be slowing down, as the growth rate has dropped to 20% so far. Maybe the prediction that China would become the biggest movie market in the world by 2017 were premature.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including a lawsuit over special effects technology which is causing problems for ongoing productions, a host of “Top Gear” crashes and burns, though not literally, and longtime newscaster Nancy Grace will depart CNN.
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Showbiz Sandbox 303: Film Critics Disagree On The Best Movies of 2015
December 7, 2015
The National Board Of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics have all weighed in on the best movies and performances of 2015. We said it was a wide-open awards race and perhaps for the first time in history, none of them agree. On anything.
On the other hand, the Grammy Award nominations seem to have come to a consensus with just about everyone agreeing Kendrick Lamar released one of the best albums of the year. We’ll fill you in on some of the other musicians who racked up Grammy nominations this year.
During Inside Baseball we once again turn to the world of television where new studies are reporting that ad sales are edging downward as advertisers begin to increase their campaign spends on digital media outlets.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Adele’s latest release became the only album to ever sell more than one million copies during two different weeks, Jerry Seinfeld agrees to a long term residency at New York’s Beacon Theatre and Morrissey wins a dubious award for his first novel.
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