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Matthew Belloni

The former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and an entertainment lawyer, Matthew is the author of Puck’s flagship What I’m Hearing, and the host of The Town, covering the real inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood.

THE LATEST ARTICLES
NEWSLETTERS
Sajak, alarmed by the Jeopardy! circus, has made it clear to Sony execs that he wants a clean transition.
HOLLYWOOD • June 18, 2023
The Sajak Succession Sweepstakes
The ‘Wheel of Fortune’ host is stepping down at a crucial moment for arguably Sony Television’s most important show. Insiders wonder: Can Sony avoid a ‘Jeopardy’-style circus over his replacement?
HOLLYWOOD • June 15, 2023
The Troubling Pixar Paradox
Recent misses and low expectations for ‘Elemental’ beg the question: Has Pixar lost its magic touch? Perhaps the answer is that original animation is now a smaller business—one that can’t necessarily support the unique culture and $200 million budgets that made Pixar great in the first place.
HOLLYWOOD • June 9, 2023
Zaz, Licht & The Media Hot Seat
David Zaslav and Warner Discovery have bigger problems than CNN, namely the worsening decline of the linear TV ecosystem. But Chris Licht’s trainwreck demise suggests that Zaz is still learning on the job, too.
Mission 7, Tom Cruise’s nearly $300 million-budgeted baby, is getting bumped from IMAX screens.
HOLLYWOOD • June 1, 2023
The Tom Cruise vs ‘Oppenheimer’ Movie Theater Smackdown
Cruise has been forcefully pushing exhibitors to put ‘Mission: Impossible’ ahead of Chris Nolan’s film on large-format screens after he lost three weeks of IMAX exclusivity in the first truly competitive summer for blockbusters since Covid.
WGA negotiating committee co-chair David Goodman.
HOLLYWOOD • May 29, 2023
Must the Writers Strike Last Six Months? 
No, says negotiating committee co-chair David Goodman, who offers a path to resolution, responds to the Max credit debacle, and defends the guild’s hardliner tactics: “These companies are hurting.”
Billionaire investor Ron Burkle.
HOLLYWOOD • May 29, 2023
How Much Is Yellowstone Worth?
An $80 million lawsuit brought by Ron Burkle against a Texas buyout shop has led to a counterattack, and questions around how Burkle got a piece of TV's biggest show.
Chris Keyser, co-chair of the WGA’s negotiating committee.
HOLLYWOOD • May 26, 2023
Hollywood’s Writers-Strike Force Majeure Fantasy
The longer the work stoppage goes on, the more fears spread about studios cutting unproductive writer-producer deals, wiping the fiscal slate clean, and ushering in a new era of austerity. But how much of that will actually happen?
Disney C.F.O. Christine McCarthy and C.E.O. Bob Iger and have told everyone for months that the content purge was coming, part of their increasingly frantic effort to erase $3 billion from the bottom line this year.
HOLLYWOOD • May 21, 2023
Disney and the Great Streaming Purge
What’s going on at Disney is kind of nuts. If you told me that each of the Seven Dwarfs holding up the executive building in Burbank were being auctioned off to increase free cash flow, I’d probably believe it. Nearly every division has been asked to spend less, some way less. And titles are disappearing from Disney+ and Hulu as an entire industry retrenches.
2015 Ted Sarandos would have cringed at the sight of 2023 Sarandos suggesting from the stage that Netflix host “a 30 minute commercial” that “plays out over several days.”
HOLLYWOOD • May 19, 2023
The TV Upfronts B.S. Barometer
An honest assessment of the P.R. spin, wishful thinking and outright obfuscation in a slimmed-down, mostly star-free ad pitch week.
The issues at the heart of this seemingly long-term labor fight will only get more pronounced as it drags on.
HOLLYWOOD • May 11, 2023
Can the Striking Writers Avoid Class Warfare? 
The class divide between the haves and have-nots of Hollywood writers has not yet been an issue in this labor stand-off. But, if history—and past comments by Todd Phillips and Aaron Sorkin—is a guide, it likely will soon enough.
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