Showbiz Sandbox 457: The Biggest Touring Musical Acts Are Older Than Ever Before
July 29, 2019
Take a quick look at the top earning worldwide concert tours and you might be surprised to discover that half of the top ten acts are over 50-years-old. Heck, the number one tour of the year thus far is Elton John and he’s over 70. In fact, thanks to acts like Fleetwood Mac and Bob Seger, the average age of the top ten global touring acts has surpassed 50 for the first time anyone can remember.
Inversely, the age of the top ten recording artists of the year is getting younger, dropping below 30-years-old. This is due in large part to artists such as Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Travis Scott and Khalid who are all under 30 and in the case of Billie Eilish, under 20. We try to understand the age disparity between today’s biggest recording artists and those making their money on the road.
Meanwhile, in China, the burgeoning movie business has fallen on hard times. This is especially true in the cinema industry, where theater owners are contending with a drop in audiences flocking to the glut of new multiplexes that have opened in recent years. At the same time rents for theater locations have skyrocketed and the government imposed quota of foreign releases means many exhibitors are running out of content to show.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the latest on the dispute between the Writers Guild and talent agencies, the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals announce their lineups and how Metallica got caught scalping their own concert tickets.
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Showbiz Sandbox 424: Talking Telluride, Toronto and Emmys with Indiewire’s Anne Thompson
September 18, 2018
Every September the annual awards season begins to take shape at three major film festivals; Venice, Telluride and Toronto. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor at large, was at the latter two and she joins us to explain how this year’s Oscars race looks like it will be filled with a bounty of great movies, including one from director Alfonso Cuaron, which is looking for a way to overcome the stigma of being released by Netflix.
Speaking of awards, the timing works out to have Thompson also give us her thoughts on the recent Emmy Awards, honoring the best and brightest prime time television series from the past year.
Meanwhile, the European Union passed reforms to copyright law that have proven to be contentious given that it could mean big changes for tech platforms such as Google, Youtube and others. Content owners, on the other hand, are delighted with the outcome.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Time magazine gets another new owner, Spotify allows users to download more music and Paul McCartney enjoys his first #1 debut for his latest album.
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Showbiz Sandbox 352: 2017 Academy Award Nominations Launch #OscarsSoDiverse Trend
January 24, 2017
When the 2017 Oscar nominations were announced this week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences managed to avoid a third straight year of controversy over all-white acting nominees. Among this year’s honorees are six African American actors, setting a record for the most in a single year. Hopefully this is a sign more racially diverse films are being produced.
What the Academy did manage to overlook however, were films with huge audiences. Despite nominating nine films for Best Picture Oscars, not a single one has surpassed the $100 million mark (yet).
Meanwhile, in over in the music business, album sales have never mattered less. These days it’s all about music publishing, which can be a true goldmine. Just ask Paul McCartney who is suing Sony/ATV to regain the publishing rights to the Beatles catalogue.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including Jerry Seinfeld’s new Netflix deal, the death of 3D television and NBC renews one of its biggest hits for two more seasons.
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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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Showbiz Sandbox 154: Understanding Comic-Con’s Tribe Mentality
July 17, 2012
Last weekend self-professed geeks made their annual pilgrimage to San Diego for Comic-Con. There’s no better person to speak with about the world’s largest pop-culture convention than Los Angeles Times writer Geoff Boucher. His Hero Complex blog has become a must-read for those attending “the Con” and he fills us in on all the big news coming out of this year’s show.
Boucher also had a professional and somewhat personal relationship with producer Richard Zanuck who unexpectedly passed away last week at the age of 77. The executive behind such films as “The Sound of Music” and the producer of movies like “Driving Miss Daisy”, Boucher provides a unique perspective on what Zanuck was really like.
Meanwhile in the world of television, the war over carriage fees has heated up once again. This time Viacom has pulled its 26 networks from DirecTV and AMC has yanked its programming from Dish.
We also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Bruce Springsteen’s curfew, the exodus of judges from “American Idol” and why you should see the “The Dark Knight Rises” in Imax.
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Showbiz Sandbox 107: The Pros And Cons Of Cloud Music Services
June 13, 2011
After months of rumors and speculation Apple finally announced their cloud music service last week. Aptly named iCloud, the new service joins similar offerings from both Amazon and Google. Though each of the services has their benefits, no two are exactly alike. Amazon and Google stream music over the Internet and require you to upload your entire music library. Apple doesn’t do any of those things. We dissect the pros and cons of all three services and wonder why anyone really needs them in the first place.
Something else that’s probably not needed is a sequel to “Tron: Legacy” but thanks to a television series spinoff of last year’s sci-fi blockbuster, we’ll probably get one. And it will probably be in 3D like its predecessor even though Dreamworks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg is heartbroken over the decline of the format.
The Tony Awards were handed out on Sunday and as we predicted, “The Book Of Mormon” walked off with the most trophies, including Best Musical. But what is a Tony really worth to a Broadway show’s bottom line? We’ll try and find out.
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Showbiz Sandbox 77: It’s Official – Hollywood To Make Nothing But Sequels
November 1, 2010
With the seventh installment of the Saw franchise and Paranormal Activity 2 topping this week’s box office, it’s not hard to see why Hollywood studios have been greenlighting sequels and prequels. They range from high profile titles such as “The Hobbit” and “Avatar”, to questionable projects such as “Top Gun 2”. Don’t even get us started on the prequel to Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas”.
If big budget Hollywood movies aren’t your thing, you could always stay home and watch television, provided the broadcast networks don’t get into a carriage dispute with your cable provider and black out their signal. Fox did just that to Cablevision subscribers recently and we’ll explain why. Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien prepares for his new late night talk show with a Rolling Stone interview.
During Big Deal or Big Whoop we provide analysis of the week’s top entertainment headlines, including Charlie Sheen’s latest trouble, a new hit for AMC and a film based on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. Our Inside Baseball discussion focuses on why consumers prefer to rent digital movies rather than purchase them.
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