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Matthew Belloni • November 22, 2024

Prima Donna

Donna Langley’s NBCUniversal anointment gives her full greenlight authority for movies, NBC, Bravo, and Peacock. It also ends a power struggle with fellow executive Mark Lazarus, now riding an ice floe of cable networks into uncertain seas.

Eriq Gardner • November 19, 2024

Netflix’s Paternity Test

Here’s an unscripted plot twist: Netflix has become a villain in its own documentary film, about a fertility specialist who secretly inseminated his patients, after disclosing the names of the doctor’s children without their consent. A lawsuit, now headed to a jury trial, raises the provocative question: Did they have a constitutional right to remain private?

Scott Mendelson • November 19, 2024

‘Red One’ & The New Arithmetic of Flops

The Rock’s kidnapped Santa caper sure looks like a $253 million Christmas catastrophe for Amazon MGM Studios. It also represents the peril of a certain kind of genre and a limit to its star’s bankability.

Matthew Belloni • November 14, 2024

Bob Iger’s Netflix Moment

Disney’s C.E.O. has come roaring back from billions lost on streaming to project major profits and 10 percent margins as the onetime “terrible” business shows signs of life for everyone. If only TV wasn’t losing money faster.

Eriq Gardner • November 12, 2024

The Reskinning of an ‘ER’ Reboot

Warner Bros. TV has fired back at Sherri Crichton’s lawsuit over Max’s new medical drama, ‘The Pitt,’ which she claims is little more than an ‘ER’ knockoff. Max claims that Sherri is trying to monopolize the medical genre. But it’s not that simple.

Scott Mendelson • November 12, 2024

Thanksgiving’s Refreshingly Old-School Box Office Battle

For the first time since ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ opened days before ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet,’ in 2018, this year’s mid-November box office slate will mimic the pattern from the prior two decades. Everyone should win.

Matthew Belloni • November 8, 2024

Why Hollywood Executives Are So Giddy About Trump 2.0

Unlike in Trump’s first term, when entertainment became ground zero for the #Resistance, it feels like the industry—at least the business side of it—is gonna try to make nice to avoid issues with M&A and regulation, which is both sad and a reality of doing business when the president has become so openly vindictive, transactional, and unchecked.

Matthew Belloni • November 5, 2024

Paramount’s Deal Dance, Costner’s Hubris & Clint’s Revenge

News and thoughts from my notebook on Bob Iger's campaign no-show, Amazon's post-election nail-biter, and initial takeaways from a key SEC filing in David Ellison's takeover of the Redstone empire.

Scott Mendelson • November 5, 2024

Rise of the Reasonably Priced, Moderately Successful Blockbuster

As it turns out, avoiding monstrous budgets and not always swinging for the fences can be a solid way to make money on a mid-sized global hit like ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ or ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’—with or without China’s occasionally significant (but far less reliable) returns.

Matthew Belloni • October 31, 2024

The Mail Room: ‘Nobody Wants This’ Drama, Venu Plans & Timothée’s Salarée

In which readers ask me about the showrunner chaos at ‘Nobody Wants This,’ when Netflix will start hosting presidential debates, how much Timothée Chalamet is getting paid for his Dylan biopic, why anyone should still care about Venu, and much more.

Eriq Gardner • October 29, 2024

A Menendez Hollywood Ending

Thanks to Ryan Murphy and a Netflix docuseries, everyone is reconsidering the fate of the infamous brothers—including L.A. District Attorney George Gascón, who is in danger of being deposed in next Tuesday’s election.

Matthew Belloni • October 29, 2024

Pearls of TV Wisdom from John Landgraf

The FX C.E.O. and reigning Emmys champ sounds off on Silicon Valley’s influence over Hollywood, the perils of the algorithm, and what would’ve happened if Disney hadn’t acquired his network: “It would be dead.”

Scott Mendelson • October 29, 2024

Chris Hemsworth’s Box Office Poison

Why is Disney considering the Thor actor for ‘Prince Charming’ despite prodigious evidence that he has failed to lure audiences to theaters outside of his Marvel movies?

Matthew Belloni • October 24, 2024

Pre-Election Vibe Check: Hollywood Edition

A pre-election check-in on the Hollywood donors and activists, from a studio chairman to an emerging screenwriter and a late-night TV host, who are simultaneously freaking out and (cautiously) optimistic about the final push for the Harris-Walz campaign.

Eriq Gardner • October 22, 2024

Ellison’s New CBS Headache & Venu’s Political War

Unexpected legal developments, each with a uniquely political twist, have emerged in David Ellison’s deal to take over CBS, as part of his $8.4 billion Paramount acquisition, and Fox, Disney, and WBD’s struggle to launch their sports streamer, Venu.