HOLLYWOOD
Matthew Belloni
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January 31, 2025
Kabletown at a Krossroads
Comcast’s Brian Roberts has a decision to make with Peacock, a subscale, money-losing, U.S.-only streamer whose growth has been tied mostly to exclusive sports programming. As Netflix and the other global platforms pull away, new numbers add urgency to the push to merge or bundle.
Eriq Gardner
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January 29, 2025
The Life Cycle of a P.R. Disaster
A scandalous Hollywood breakup—no, not Baldonigate—is now slated for trial, as an heir to a Major League Baseball team battles a top movie producer and a crisis publicity firm wants its $1.5 million bill paid.
Scott Mendelson
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January 28, 2025
The Oscar Lift That Isn’t
Sure, Oscar nominations can give any individual movie a boost—see: last year’s ‘The Zone of Interest’—but unless a big mainstream hit is catching a lucrative second wind, they don’t mean as much as they did pre-streaming.
Matthew Belloni
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January 24, 2025
A Dark Secret Has Imperiled the New Michael Jackson Movie
The late pop star’s estate overlooked a key contract with a child accuser that has now rendered the already shot third act of the film unusable. With the clock ticking on a delayed October release date, producers are scrambling to rewrite, reshoot, and somehow salvage MJ’s big-budget musical biopic.
Eriq Gardner
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January 22, 2025
Baldoni, Drake & The Legal Revenge of Sensitive Men
News and notes on the most polarizing and perplexing entertainment and media lawsuits of the moment: Drake staring down his archrival’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, Justin Baldoni gearing up for a protracted fight, and CNN’s political settlement calculus.
Scott Mendelson
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January 21, 2025
Five Crucial Box Office Questions for ’25
With the strikes and Covid a distant (if bitter) memory, Hollywood is primed for a return to the old normal. Maybe? What will it take for this year to be The One?
Matthew Belloni
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January 17, 2025
Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ Release Plans Finally Revealed
Netflix has finally conceded to put the big-budget film on about 1,000 Imax screens over Thanksgiving as a streaming-theatrical hybrid—a major, precedent-setting deal months in the making.
Matthew Belloni, Peter Hamby & John Heilemann
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January 17, 2025
L.A., to Hell and Back
An intimate conversation on the political, media, financial, and Trumpian dimensions of the fire, and what it means for Hollywood, Bass, Newsom, Iger, and millions of Angelenos.
Matthew Belloni
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January 10, 2025
25 Surefire, 100 Percent Probable Hollywood Predictions for 2025 (Part 2)
An NBC shake-up, a merger of two streamers, Bieber goes back to work, and Joe Biden finds an agent: It’s the second half of a moderately speculative look at the year ahead in Hollywood.
Matthew Belloni
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January 9, 2025
Peacock’s Top Executive Is Out
Kelly Campbell, hired from Hulu in 2021, will step down as parent NBCUniversal reorganizes ahead of a spinoff of its cable networks.
Eriq Gardner
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January 8, 2025
Blake v. Baldoni, Round 2
New combatants have joined the escalating battle between the movie star and her director, who’s upping the ante with a somewhat dubious $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for journalistic malpractice.
Matthew Belloni
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January 7, 2025
25 Surefire, 100 Percent Probable Hollywood Predictions for 2025 (Part 1)
Rupert’s potential sale, a CAA verdict, an ‘Avatar 3’ projection, and other hypotheses for another wild year in the entertainment business.
Matthew Belloni
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January 7, 2025
Melania Trump Documentary Scores Massive Amazon Payday
The streamer is paying a whopping $40 million to license the Brett Ratner-directed Melania Trump documentary plus another, previously undisclosed project from the first lady.
Scott Mendelson
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January 3, 2025
2024’s Christmas Box Office Happy Ending
An array of disparate success stories—from period horror gambles and animated sequels to an inter-gen biopic—made up for a lackluster summer and illustrated a new post-pandemic, post-strike, post-#Barbenheimer paradigm in this strange new box office world.
Matthew Belloni
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December 31, 2024
Hollywood’s Hero of the Year… Is Bailing on Hollywood
In a year when thousands were fired or fled the ever-contracting entertainment business, Paramount owner Shari Redstone finally recognized she couldn’t compete and shrewdly sold the company to a Silicon Valley heir with the means to save the studio, not consolidate it out of existence.
William D. Cohan
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December 29, 2024
Hollywood’s “Everything Is on the Table” Year
As the new year approaches, a timely conversation with Kim Masters, the legendary entertainment journalist and Puck’s newest partner, on the issues bedeviling Hollywood: the fate of the spinco phenomenon, the future of David Ellison’s Paramount, the never-ending succession speculation at Disney, and much more.
Eriq Gardner
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December 27, 2024
Blake vs. Baldoni vs. Steph: The Next Steps
Lively may have fired the first shot in this Hollywood P.R. legal war, and Bryan Freedman has already threatened to sue Baldoni and Abel and Nathan's foes into oblivion. But an August 14 memo from Steph Jones to Wayfarer may help illustrate where this is headed.