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HOLLYWOOD

The Directors Guild of America negotiating committee chair, Jon Avnet.

What a Directors Guild Deal Might Look Like

A crystal ball into the posturing, pressure points and players in a potential pact that could also set the table for a WGA deal—and maybe end the strike.
Jonathan Handel • May 15, 2023
Baratunde Thurston • May 15, 2023
Hollywood’s A.I. Art Heist Problem
Writer, show creator, and WGA Negotiating Committee member Adam Conover shared a summary of the union’s proposals regarding limits on how artificial intelligence could be used.
News and notes on an industry reckoning with a creative and technological revolution.
Matthew Belloni • May 12, 2023
Can the Striking Writers Avoid Class Warfare? 
The issues at the heart of this seemingly long-term labor fight will only get more pronounced as it drags on.
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.
V.P. of advertising marketing and partner solutions at Roku, Dan Robbins, who is at the center of two major issues facing the streaming industry.
Julia Alexander • May 9, 2023
Hollywood’s Coming “OS Wars”
The real battle for consumer attention isn’t between individual apps but rather the set-top device-makers that aggregate everything on your smart TV’s “home screen”—and that starts with Roku.
AMC’s wily C.E.O., Adam Aron.
Eriq Gardner • May 8, 2023
War for the Planet of the AMC Apes
Movie theater baron Adam Aron is struggling to settle litigation with AMC’s meme stock investor army after a dilutive $2 billion gambit caused his “apes” to go, well, apeshit.
Kevin Costner, busy shooting the sequel to his undated ‘Horizon’ film, hasn’t yet agreed to return for the final episodes of ‘Yellowstone.’
Matthew Belloni • May 8, 2023
Kevin Costner Won’t Give ‘Yellowstone’ an Answer
The franchise’s biggest, most difficult star is using his remaining leverage to shape how his character is put out to pasture.
There’s a lot of info and misinfo swirling around town one week into the strike.
Matthew Belloni & Jonathan Handel • May 8, 2023
Writers Strike Questions: The Netflix Precedent & The ‘Munich’ Strategy
Can showrunners be forced to work? What side are the trades really on? Will the DGA save the day? And other pressing concerns from the front lines of the writers’ strike.
Are studios, like those under David Zaslav’s WBD, at least somewhat incentivized to wait out the strike?
Matthew Belloni • May 5, 2023
Harsh Realities of the Writers Strike
The WGA is winning on social media, but the streamers have the upper hand, the studios are leaning on the Directors Guild, and it’s still too early for a Lourd or an Iger to intervene—meaning this situation will need to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Shows like Game of Thrones and Euphoria are inseparable from the HBO brand. But they’re also more than that.
Julia Alexander • May 2, 2023
Streamer Report Cards, Part III: The Heavyweights
An insider assessment of the shows and strategies that Netflix, Disney+, and the soon-to-be-renamed Max should be developing to cultivate new audiences and grow their footprint.
Eriq Gardner & Jonathan Handel • May 1, 2023
Force Majeure: Inside Hollywood’s Counterstrike Strategy
A candid conversation with labor expert Jonathan Handel about the most pressing issues on the table, from the mini-room contretemps to how streamers could leverage a prolonged strike to right-size their books.
Disney v. DeSantis has just been assigned to Judge Walker, who once called the Stop WOKE Act “positively dystopian.”
Eriq Gardner • May 1, 2023
Iger vs. DeSantis: The Next Steps
Disney has the upper hand, for now, but it’s rushing headfirst toward a 230-year-old legal obstacle that could force the company to try an even more extraordinary argument: DeSantis is stealing Disney World!
Jonathan Handel • May 1, 2023
Hollywood’s Writer Stand-off: It’s Not Just About Money
It’s also a battle over increased transparency, and the knowledge that future labor fights will be informed by the data that is currently hoarded by the studios and streamers.
Can Ben Stiller pull off a salvage job on “Severance” Season 2?
Matthew Belloni • April 28, 2023
A ‘Severance’ Salvage Job and Hollywood’s Executive Amnesia
Ben Stiller brings in a trusted hand to fix problems on his Apple TV+ Emmy winner, Sony’s Tom Rothman forgets in a speech to movie theater owners that he abandoned their business during the pandemic, and much more.
Hulu president Joe Earley.
Julia Alexander • April 25, 2023
Streamer Report Cards, Part II: The Incumbents
An analytical assessment of the shows that Paramount+, Peacock, and Hulu need to buy and sell—before they are bought and sold, themselves.
jeff shell
Matthew Belloni • April 24, 2023
Shrapnel from the Jeff Shell Bombshell
Inside the investigation, fallout, and succession drama at NBCU after yet another executive ouster.
Only one of the Top 20 actors named in the study is under 40.
Matthew Belloni • April 24, 2023
Only Old Movie Stars Matter to Moviegoers
A list of the Top 100 actors making the rounds among industry executives highlights a troubling reality for Hollywood: the supply of new movie stars is declining alongside the box office.
Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger.
Matthew Belloni • April 21, 2023
It May Be Time for Disney to Sue Florida
Iger, an ice-cold killer on his second C.E.O. tour, may need a nuclear option to fend off DeSantis. As the governor and his goons look for new ways to screw with Disney, why not drop the niceties and sue for retaliation?
In July 2020, Sean Penn’s charitable organization CORE turned Dodger Stadium into the largest testing site in the nation.
Eriq Gardner • April 18, 2023
Sean Penn Accuses Biden Labor Cops of “Abusive Conduct”
Penn, and his attorney, Mathew Rosengart, are going to war with the president’s labor board over an attempted crackdown on his charity.