Showbiz Sandbox 650: “Oppenheimer” Gives Christopher Nolan His Oscar Moment

As expected, “Oppenheimer” dominated the 96th Academy Awards winning seven categories including Best Actor, Best Picture and, for Christopher Nolan, Best Director. “Barbie” only picked up a single trophy for Best Original Song. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large attended this year’s Oscar ceremony and joins us to describe what it was like to be in the room where it happened.

Meanwhile, a recent Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action based college admissions has led to a reverse discrimination lawsuit against CBS by a script coordinator of the show “SEAL Team.” The outcome could determine whether it becomes the first of many more such legal actions.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how the BBC is going all in on the streaming service BritBox, the launch of a new author driven publishing house and Kanye West’s latest album tops the charts despite not being on streaming services.

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Showbiz Sandbox 649: Hollywood’s Superhero Movie Problem

The superhero movie is facing its biggest enemy yet – audience indifference. “Madame Web” is just the latest superhero flick to open to poor reviews and/or bad box office. Entertainment journalist Geoff Boucher, who has covered the comic book world for over two decades and is a bigwig at ComicCon, discusses the declining popularity of superhero films and his belief that there are better times ahead for the genre.

Meanwhile, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are facing their own existential threats, especially when it comes to their declining ad revenue, soft earnings and overwhelming debt.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Beyoncé making history on the country music charts, revenues soar for concert promoter Live Nation thanks to some big tours and artificial intelligence upends the expansion of Tyler Perry’s studio.

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Showbiz Sandbox 646: A Slimmed Down Sundance Still Shines

This year’s Sundance Film Festival reflected the current state of the contracting industry itself, offering fewer films at fewer venues for fewer in-person attendees. Yet, as festivals like Sundance work toward rekindling post-pandemic financial support, this year’s official selections were just as noteworthy as those that have appeared throughout its 40 year history. We’ll give you a rundown of the titles too look out for over the next year and fill you in on all the Sundance winners.

Speaking of winners, this year’s Oscar nominations were announced and they included a few titles from last year’s Sundance and Cannes film festivals. The only thing missing for most were nominations for “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig and its star Margot Robbie.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show,” the influential music website Pitchfork suffers layoffs and Netflix continues dominate the streaming landscape with a stellar quarterly earnings report.

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Showbiz Sandbox 548: The Cannes Film Festival in the Age of COVID

After COVID canceled the festival in 2020, the Cannes Film Festival is going ahead this year, albeit two months later than usual. Still, it’s remarkable that organizers were able to pull off the world’s largest film festival amid these uncertain times. We’ll tell you about all the COVID protocols at this year’s festival, not to mention all the movies, filmmakers and celebrities that made their way to the French Riviera.

Meanwhile, Disney announced that its new film Black Widow made $60 million in its opening weekend… not at the box office, but rather in homes. Subscribers of Disney+ could pay $30 to watch Scarlett Johannson save the day, rather than head to the movie theater. Is this a win for Disney? A loss for cinema? Or is it too soon to draw any conclusions from these COVID crazy times?

Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including an increase in comic book sales, David Geffen helps the Yale drama school goes tuition free and Universal Pictures gives Peacock a boost.

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Showbiz Sandbox 361: Forget Release Windows, CinemaCon Proves the Screen is the Future

Cinema operators gathered in Las Vegas last week to attend the annual CinemaCon trade show where they were able to preview upcoming film releases and learn about some of the new technology on offer for their theatres. Naturally, box office was a big topic with global ticket sales (barely) hitting a record $38.6 billion. Even with a strong U.S. dollar, international box office still made up 71% of the total.

Another issue on everyone’s mind were theatrical release windows; studios want to introduce a premium video on demand offering that brings new releases to the home sooner, though exhibitors are understandably pushing back.

Meanwhile, there may be no movies to show in cinemas if screenwriters goes on strike. The Writers Guild of America has been meeting with producers and studios, however the sides are far apart in their negotiations and a strike is looking more likely.

Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news stories including Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Dolittle, why major advertisers are upset with YouTube and Adam Sandler reups with Netflix.

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Showbiz Sandbox 331: Apparently Warner Bros. Needs to Start Making Donuts

In a scathing open letter published last week, an alleged ex-Warner Bros. employee took the studio and its chairman Kevin Tsujihara to task for a number of recent missteps. The author mocks studio brass for doubling down on the talent delivering critical duds such as “Batman v Superman” and their inability to make a hit movie, despite somehow managing to keep their jobs.

Though the veracity of the letter is questionable, it caused ripples in Hollywood not because it revealed a trove of inside secrets, but more due to the fact that it publicly stated what so many have been whispering about Warner Bros. lately; a lack of leadership and a confused executive team have led to a year of mixed results.

Meanwhile, we’ve been watching the Rio Olympics, along with three or four billion viewers around the world. Despite audience figures that are down from the London games in numerous territories, the Summer Olympics is arguably still a ratings juggernaut hard to compete against, giving networks broadcasting the event a serious advantage.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how a Netflix documentary helped overturn a murder conviction, why Thomas Gibson got fired from “Criminal Minds” and Comedy Central cancels “The Nightly Show”.

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Showbiz Sandbox 196: Hollywood’s Frivolous Five Year Plan

Hollywood movie studios have a history of announcing the release date for big tentpole films a year or more in advance. The goal has always been to secure a prime weekend that will force the competition to stear clear. Lately however studios have taken to scheduling releases five years in advance. With some untitled projects yet to start production or even complete a script, it appears that release dates are more important than the movies themselves.

With longstanding geographic monopolies in-place cable companies rarely have to worry about competition, other than from satellite providers. That may be why Time Warner Cable is facing a class-action lawsuit which claims customers, especially non-sports fans, are being forced to pay for the company-owned sports channels to help offset the cost of expensive licensing deals.

Speaking of lawsuits, the government wrapped up its anti-trust case against Apple over the fixing of prices for e-books. While the Justice Department went into the trial looking like a winner, in the end Apple may have proved it was innocent of any illegal activity.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including Robert Downey Jr.’s deal to play Iron Man in the next two “Avengers” movies, Billboard disses Jay-Z and Warner Bros. shakes up its top executives.

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Showbiz Sandbox 190: How The Academy’s New Voting Rules Will Affect The Oscars?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it will now be allowing members to vote in all 24 Oscar categories, including Documentary Short Subject and Foreign Language Film. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor-at-large and host of the Oscar Talk podcast, believes the change is long overdue. She explains what the old voting rules were and how these new ones will affect the Oscars moving forward.

The Rolling Stones are also making changes, at least to the ticket prices for their current North American tour. With face-value prices upwards of $600 has the legendary UK band and its tour promoters misjudged fan’s appetites for paying top dollar for big acts? Based on the number of unsold tickets to the first few shows of the tour, the answer is yes.

Meanwhile on Broadway, the Tony Award nominations were announced last week. “Kinky Boots”, “Matilda” and “Lucky Guy” lead the pack with the most nominations. We try to make educated predictions, and blind guesses, as to who might walk home with a Tony in June.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including six billion hours of YouTube videos, trademarking superheroes and why studios don’t want to pay a tax on movie tickets in China.

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Showbiz Sandbox 51: Ridley Scott Believes 3D Is An “Alien” Concept

Hollywood just won’t stop talking about 3D movies, so unfortunately we can’t either. It’s hard to argue against 3D when films like “How To Train Your Dragon” keep coming in first at the box office, even after five weeks in theaters. With the announcement that “The Green Hornet” and “The Last Airbender” will be converted to 3D the debate has turned to whether it’s better to shoot natively in 3D, or add it in post-production.

Filmmaker Ridley Scott won’t have to find out when he makes not one, but two prequels to his blockbuster “Alien” since he’ll be shooting them in 3D. Disney’s head honcho, Rich Ross, also announced a couple of upcoming releases when he finally met the press last week. We’ll be getting a sequel to “Monsters, Inc.” and a “Winnie the Pooh” movie, along with a few other family friendly flicks.

If 3D films don’t excite you, then the upcoming television season may not either. We review a number of pilots that are in the works, most of which seem derivative. In fact, some of them, like “Rockford Files” and “Hawaii 5-0” are simply rehashes of previous hit shows.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 13: Hooliganism At Comic-Con (Or Lack Thereof)

We had a plethora of panelists this week, all of whom were in San Diego over the weekend to experience Comic-Con first hand. KPBS’ Cinema Junkie blogger Beth Accomando covered the event for National Public Radio, Todd Gilchrist was there for Cinematical, SciFi Wire‘s news editor Patrick Lee made the trip, as did Phillip Nakov from MovieSet.com and Harry Medved, who helped out with Fandango’s coverage of the event as their director of public relations.  Also joining in on this week’s fun is New York Daily News writer and Huffington Post blogger, Michael Giltz.

If you weren’t one of the 126,000 people attending Comic-Con, this episode will fill you in on what you missed.  There was whole day devoted to 3D movies, which apparently isn’t just a gimmick anymore.  The big hits of Comic-Con were “District 9”, “Avatar”, “Kick Ass” and “Iron Man 2” and the biggest miss was Roland Emerich’s next movie “2012” which is either so bad it’s good, or so bad it’s just plain bad.  Irrelevant whether it wowed people at the convention or not was “Twilight: New Moon”, because fans just wanted to see Robert Pattinson .  Hundreds of young girls, their moms and a bunch of sensitive men camped out overnight to get into a jam packed “Twilight” panel. The festival was “the redemption of “New Moon” director Chris Weitz, who was clearly adored by his cast. It was definitely the panel with the most security.

This year marked the first appearance by Tim Burton (as a presenter), Peter Jackson and Terry Gilliam. Johnny Depp stopped by to say two words (literally) in promotion of Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”  Read more

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