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HOLLYWOOD

Neal Mohan, the C.E.O. of YouTube.

The Apple-Amazon-Google Streaming O.S. Mega War

The streaming conversation is consumed with a juxtaposition of Max, D+, Par+, Peacock, and Netflix. But the tech companies are playing Vulcan chess with higher stakes.
Julia Alexander • November 14, 2023
Matthew Belloni • November 13, 2023
Marvel Enters Its Age of Reduced Expectations
The Brie Larson-led ‘The Marvels’ vastly underperformed Disney’s hopes at the box office.
When did Marvel lose its automatic connection with casual movie fans, and what can Disney do to get audiences excited again about superhero films?
Matthew Belloni • November 13, 2023
Warners Reverses Course in ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Fight
Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy
In a surprising about-face, Warner Bros. executives will allow the filmmakers of Coyote vs. Acme, a $70 million live action/CGI hybrid Looney Tunes film, to shop the movie to other potential distributors.
The 16 pages of contract language surrounding A.I. are by far the most intricate provisions in the new agreement.
Jonathan Handel • November 13, 2023
What the Actors Really Won on A.I.
A detailed look at the tentative SAG-AFTRA deal, from streaming residuals to health benefits to the extraordinary restrictions on the use of A.I.
SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland (C) raises his fist while speaking at the conclusion of picketing outside Paramount Studios on day 113 of their strike against the Hollywood studios on November 3, 2023, in Los Angeles, California.
Matthew Belloni & Jonathan Handel • November 10, 2023
Are There Still More Strikes Ahead?
Hollywood is rejoicing after an awful six months, but as 2024 negotiations loom, will C.E.O.s take the high road?
What will Bob Iger pay Comcast for the remaining one-third of Hulu that Disney doesn’t already own?
Julia Alexander • November 8, 2023
Iger’s Real Hulu Price Tag
Now that Disney is finally acquiring the final third of Hulu from Comcast, the overall valuation of the asset—and what Bob Iger ends up paying for it—may be less material than the investment required to maintain it.
Alvin Bragg’s efforts have resulted in several museums parting with their Schieles.
Eriq Gardner • November 6, 2023
The Art World’s Russian Prisoner Dilemma
A fight over a century-old portrait, which ended up in Chicago after being uprooted by the Nazis, has the potential to reshape the landscape of art ownership disputes and even draw in the Biden administration.
The question for David Zaslav: Is anything off limits?
Matthew Belloni • November 6, 2023
Maybe Don’t Sell Everything to Netflix
Is David Zaslav making a mistake by licensing so much top-shelf content to the industry’s 800 pound gorilla? Or has Netflix simply already won the streaming wars, and everyone else must simply attempt to ensure their own debt-servicing survival?
SAG-AFTRA is expected to respond or counter the offer as early as Monday.
Jonathan Handel • November 6, 2023
What’s Holding Up an Actors’ Strike Deal
An inside look at the negotiations surrounding the A.I. issue and others that are preventing the SAG-AFTRA strike from (finally) coming to an end.
Matthew Belloni • November 3, 2023
Hollywood’s Post-Strike Hellscape
What should be a time of relief and celebration as the SAG-AFTRA negotiations near their end is more akin to what soldiers experience in countless war movies—the horrors of battle are giving way to the equally grim reality of the new world for which they fought.
Despite its fortress balance sheet, isn’t idly investing in film and TV because Tim Cook likes attending the Oscars or Emmys.
Julia Alexander • November 1, 2023
Apple’s Price Hike Economics
Industry people like to say that Prime Video’s business model is about making movies to get people to buy more toilet paper. But what if the Apple TV+ model is, in part, about getting everyone to sign up for Apple One?
Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel and CAA’s Bryan Lourd.
Matthew Belloni • October 27, 2023
The Best-Laid Plans of Ari and Bryan
Amid the labor strikes and diminishing Hollywood economics, Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor may go private and Bryan Lourd’s CAA is dealing with twin scandals—a series of events that have forced the super-agent arch-rivals to press pause on their coronations.
The biggest hurdle to a televised Trump trial is the history of the judiciary, itself.
Eriq Gardner • October 23, 2023
Will the Trump Trials Be Televised?
NBC and other media companies are petitioning the court to allow cameras inside the courtroom, a move that could turn Trump’s criminal trial in D.C. into the O.J. Simpson circus on steroids.
One unreported aspect of Spears’s memoir centers on Lou Taylor, the business manager whose cozy relationship with Britney’s dad came under the microscope during the whole conservatorship fight.
Matthew Belloni • October 23, 2023
Hollywood’s Israel War & A Britney Villain
News and notes from Hollywood: CAA’s Maha Dakhil drama, Britney Spears’ memoir, and Netflix’s subscriber boom.
The SAG-AFTRA proposal that president Fran Drescher says she won’t back down from is also flawed.
Jonathan Handel • October 23, 2023
A 10-Point Plan to Finally Resolve the Actors Strike
With SAG-AFTRA and studios set to restart negotiations, it's time to get real: the union should drop its insistence on a per-subscriber payment and instead propose a supercharged version of the “success” bonus that the Writers Guild achieved.
Alas, the Clooney plan will not end this strike.
Matthew Belloni • October 20, 2023
Clooney Can’t Solve the Actor Strike
A celebrity-led proposal to redistribute income could have generated $150 million over three years—nice, of course, but it’s ultimately a symbolic gesture, and entirely irrelevant to the issues in this negotiation.
At a conference on Tuesday, Netflix’s V.P. of global ad sales, Peter Naylor, said the company is still setting its advertising strategy.
Julia Alexander • October 17, 2023
Netflix’s Advertising Reality Check
Yes, it’s been a rocky start for the streamer’s ad-supported tier, but with a young audience and permission to charge high CPMs (at least for now), the biggest key to overall success may be pursuing an “opt-in” strategy while others look at an “opt-out.”
Kevin Spacey’s time at The Meadows is now a key detail in a legal dispute that, until now, has been unfolding in virtual obscurity.
Eriq Gardner • October 16, 2023
A $50 Million Twist in the Kevin Spacey Scandal
The production company behind Netflix’s “House of Cards” is claiming that Spacey’s alleged sex addiction should have triggered its insurance policy. But Lloyd’s of London suggests the studio knew all about his “condition”—and lied about it from the start.