The expectation for the Emmys this year is that 'Game of Thrones' will dominate--so much so that other series like 'Handmaid's Tale' and 'Stranger Things'--held back their season premiere dates until after the eligibility window had closed for the year, possibly so they wouldn't have to compete with Jon Snow and his cohorts. The limited series ...…

At first it was just a couple of producers--David Simon, Nina Jacobson, Mark Duplass--who said they'd no longer work in Georgia because of the most recent bill that bans abortion after six weeks. Now, some much bigger names have gotten on board: Netflix, Disney, Warner Media and Comcast say they too would be reluctant to do business in Georgia ...…

In addition to WME, Endeavor also owns UFC, represents 60% of music festival headliners and seven of the wold's 10 highest-paid models. Its decision to go public could potentially upend the way the talent representation works in Hollywood. Endeavor has valued itself at $6 billion, and while a lot of agents will be made really rich, for the firs ...…

While the upfront presentations were held in many of the same familiar places across New York City with the networks trotting out their latest offerings, there were some marked difference from previous years. For one, it's the first upfronts following Disney's acquisition of most of Fox, which means the Disney presentation went on for hours, on ...…

CBS cited fear for its executives on the ground in China as the reason behind censoring part of a recent episode of 'The Good Fight,' but there are business considerations as well. China is a massive market, and one CBS does not want to risk losing. 'The Good Fight' often features short, animated interludes that relate to the topic of the episo ...…

Robert Downey Jr.'s decision to play Iron Man in 2008 will likely go down as one of the most lucrative deals in Hollywood history because he gets backend from the 'Avengers' movies. The Hollywood Reporter reported that even in movies where Iron Man plays a smaller role, Downey still walks away wealthy--in 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' in 2017, he go ...…

Disney CEO Robert Iger took home more than $65 million last year--that's 1,424 times more than the median pay of a Disney worker. Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Walt Disney's brother, called Iger out on Twitter and in a recent editorial. While media CEO pay tends to be higher than other industries, there is good reason to ask: how is such ...…

An already intense conflict has moved into outright war as the WGA takes the four major talent agencies--WME, CAA, UTA and ICM--to court over packaging fees. The suit comes after thousands of WGA members fired their agents after the agencies refused to comply with a new WGA code of conduct that gets rid of packaging fees, which have been a wind ...…

Netflix is in talks to buy the famous Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood from America Cinematheque. We also learned this week that Netflix is going to publish its own awards magazine. Both of these seemingly old school moves speak to a desire to please talent and people in the creative community who may feel jilted when their project simply gets dro ...…

HBO was very patient with the very expensive series 'Game of Thrones.' And it paid off--the series is TV's biggest hit. But now that the series begins its final season and HBO now belongs to AT&T, will its corporate owners be as generous towards new series? There are four successor series to 'Game of Thrones' in development, but those are still ...…

Oprah was there. So were Steven Spielberg and Reese Witherspoon. The stars showed up in force at Monday's presentation of Apple TV+ in Cupertino, but what did consumers learn about the nuts and bolts of Apple's new TV service? Not a lot, other than the name, and that it launches this fall. With no sizzle reel, we don't know about content, other ...…

Mickey Mouse, Bart Simpson and Deadpool are now officially all a part of the same corporate family. As the town goes from six studios to five, it will make it even more difficult for anyone to compete with Disney. Looking ahead at the box office, Disney is now even more of a Death Star--there are major releases basically every month for the res ...…

Bill McGlashan has also stepped down from STX Entertainment, the production company he co-founded. He was very involved in several nonprofit funds and causes specifically related to lifting up underprivileged youth, but in his private life, he was clearly playing by a different set of rules. And speaking of breaking all the rules, it's now been ...…

A new story in The Hollywood Reporter shows that in some corners of the industry, the casting couch is still a thing. According to hundreds of leaked text messages, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara pushed for Charlotte Kirk, a young actress he was having a sexual relationship with, to get auditions for Warner Bros. movies. Producer ...…

The arbitrator pulled no punches in issuing his ruling. He said top Fox execs Peter Rice, Dana Walden and Gary Newman perjured themeselves in regards to 'Bones' and that Fox overall has a “cavalier attitude toward its wrongdoing." We've seen this kinds of self-dealing issues with Fox before. Steven Bochco won a major settlement when Fox sold re ...…

Emma Thompson pulled out of working on a Skydance Animation movie called 'Luck.' Sources say she left because of the company's decision to hire John Lasseter. Last week, Holly Edwards was promoted to president in at attempt to quell concerns raised by female animators, but for some people--including Thompson, that move clearly wasn't enough. No ...…

In a high profile example of MeToo impacting dealmaking, Amazon is trying to terminate a rich deal with filmmaker Woody Allen, made by former head of Amazon Studios Roy Price. Price has since left Amazon following his own MeToo allegations against him, and Amazon would like to distance itself from Allen. But Allen claims Amazon knew about the " ...…

The 4% refers to the number of women who have directed top-grossing films in recent years. Times Up is trying to boost that percentage an calling on studios and production companies to commit to hiring a woman to direct a feature within the next 18 months. And in another developing story, pressure to incorporate inclusion riders is coming from ...…

There have been rumors about Bryan Singer floating around Hollywood for almost as long as there were rumors about Harvey Weinstein. More than a year into #MeToo, reporters finally published a much-awaited piece on Singer that has multiple victims both on and off the record. This comes the same week as 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is officially an Oscar ...…

And they're not the only ones. This week the casting of Maria was met with mixed reactions--happiness that she's Colombian-American, but then again, she's not Puerto Rican. It's tough to remake a musical from the 1950's in modern times, while still keeping it set in an earlier age. Will the famous director and screenwriter be able to pull it of ...…

Lasseter is the most high-profile person to step down due to MeToo-related allegations, and then get hired back by another company. Skydance, owned by David Ellison, is a private company, but they do have a deal with Paramount, a much larger, public company. People on the Paramount lot are reportedly not happy about the news of Lasseter's hirin ...…

Netflix is getting a crash course in the world of global streaming. The company claims it's just following the law in Saudi Arabia by pulling an episode critical of the country's crown prince. But in doing so they've also kowtowed to a repressive regime. The episode had been up since last fall, and as Minhaj pointed out in a tweet, this move br ...…

In Moonves' contract it says he can use CBS' money for his legal fees, so he's got nothing to lose by taking the battle to court, except maybe his dignity. And he suggested in an interview that he's ready and willing to fight. Moonves has million and millions of dollars, so he'll be fine regardless, but people in Hollywood are wondering what he ...…

What's really revealing is how the numbers are broken up. For the first time ever, the number of originals on streaming services has overtaken those on more traditional broadcasts. Streaming series went from 117 to 160 while basic cable's numbers dropped from 175 to 144. And next year, Apple and Disney streaming services will be in the mix as w ...…

It used to be that the Golden Globes were just a fun party, but they're now a huge to-do, with more money involved. So while their nominations should be taken with a grain of salt--they're made by a group of a couple dozen foreign journalists--they do have influence in the awards season because they come out right before the big holiday viewing ...…

The investigation lays out how in the months and weeks before Ronan Farrow's story on Moonves first broke, the one-time Hollywood mogul was man desperate to keep his job and engaged in a coverup, all the while waging corporate war with Viacom's Shari Redstone. It's now possible that the CBS board could fire Moonves for cause, which means he wou ...…

The judge in the case was expected to issue his ruling this afternoon, but his announcement has been pushed to Friday morning. Many people see this as an open and shut First Amendment violation by the White House, but the judge has expressed some skepticism in the case. The lawyer representing the White House argued that legally, the president ...…

Dish Network has been involved in carriage fee disputes before, but this one is notable because it comes just months after Time Warner, which includes HBO, was acquired by AT&T--a mega-merger the Justice Department tried to stop. The reason for the lawsuit in the first place was the U.S. government alleging that such a merger would hurt competi ...…

Alfonso Cuarón's 'Roma' will have play exclusively in a few number of movie theaters for three weeks before it drops on Netflix. While that's not a huge theatrical window, it's a first for Netflix, who had previously insisted on having day and date theatrical and streaming releases. Cuarón himself has said his film is best viewed on a big scree ...…

This is not the first time Megyn Kelly has landed in hot water over race-related issues. When she worked for Fox, she once insisted that Santa Claus is white. But now she's NBC's problem, and and a very expensive one at that. Her ratings are lagging and many feel she was miscast as a morning show host. She signed a 3-year, $69 million contract ...…

Hollywood has a long history of taking money from dubious sources and not asking too many questions, but the murder of Khashoggi may well prove a tipping point. Lots of media companies have pulled out of the upcoming "Davos in the desert" conference in Saudi Arabia, but Endeavor is the first to say they'll actually give back money--and a lot of ...…

Netflix has been bulking up its original content, but some of its most-watched shows are still older library content like 'Friends' and 'The West Wing.' At some point, the companies that own those shows will pull them from Netflix and put them on their own streaming services, whether that be Disney or Warner Brothers or services still yet to be ...…

The floodgates opened, and several people who committed alleged sexual misconduct have been purged from the industry. For some of them, it's taken a long time--like the 'NCIS: New Orleans' showrunner Brad Kern, who was finally fired from CBS after years of reported incidents. On the other hand, there remain people like a director of photography ...…

Numbers are down for fall TV, though broadcast television still remains the best way for advertisers to reach the masses. The new TV season kicks off just as there's leadership change at all four broadcast networks. Les Moonves is out at CBS following allegations of sexual assault. At NBC, Bob Greenblatt decided it was time to go, leaving while ...…

Some analysts have predicted Disney will be out billions of dollars as they pull their content from other streaming and syndication services. Of course the company is hoping that will pay off in a big way once they're able to put it all on their own streaming service, which will include new Marvel series like Loki and Scarlett Witch, starring t ...…

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Matthew Belloni, Michael Schneider).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).

By webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW, Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni).