A Hollywood Knife Fight, Oscars Controversies, and the G.O.P.'s New Joe Rogan Fantasy
Happy Friday, and welcome back to The Daily Courant, distilling all the newest and most noteworthy journalism being produced across Puck.
Today, we lead off with Matt Belloni's mesmerizing insider account of Village Roadshow’s profit dispute with WarnerMedia and the explosive lawsuit that has everyone in Hollywood wondering about the size of their next paycheck.
Plus, below the fold: Tina Nguyen talks to Republican operatives about how they hope to use Spotify's Joe Rogan controversy to their electoral benefit—whether Rogan wants to be a “cancel culture” icon or not. And don't miss the latest episode of The Powers That Be, our popular weekly podcast, featuring Peter Hamby, Dylan Byers, Julia Ioffe, and, of course, Matt Belloni with your post-Oscars nomination fix.
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The suit represents more than just the implosion of a 25-year financial partnership. It could also dramatically reconfigure the relationship between studios and their partners in the streaming age. When a particularly explosive lawsuit is filed, entertainment attorneys love to forward it around to friends and colleagues to discuss. Back in my own lawyering days, I remember the chatter when Metallica dropped a bomb on Napster, and when producer Bob Yari sued for a credit on the Oscar winner Crash. So many Hollywood disputes are hashed out confidentially that when a big one hits the public docket, everyone wants to see what creative punches were thrown and how they might land. It’s litigation as a spectator sport; the nerdiest possible version of sitting ringside at a UFC fight.
That’s happening this week over a blockbuster Monday filing against Warner Bros., which you don’t need to forward to me since I’ve now received it many, many times. That’s because the suit represents the dramatic implosion of a 25-year financial partnership between Village Roadshow—the production company that is backed by the private equity firm Vine Alternative Investments—and Warners, a legacy studio that has funded 91 movies (everything from The Matrix to Joker) with about $4.5 billion of Village Roadshow’s money. And it’s also because the dispute centers on Warners’ recent trashing of its traditional business practices to serve its HBO Max streaming service, and how that paradigm shift impacts powerful partners like Village Roadshow.
In some ways, this lawsuit might be considered the culmination of AT&T’s brief, but impactful (many say disastrous) ownership of WarnerMedia. Like the chaos-inducing firing of Jeff Zucker at CNN in New York, the public airing of Village Roadshow’s grievances seems like a West Coast kiss-off to AT&T, just weeks before C.E.O. John Stankey hands off the company to Discovery. You’re welcome, David Zaslav...
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FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 
Peter Hamby, Matt Belloni, Julia Ioffe, and Dylan Byers discuss Hollywood gossip, Big Tech controversies, Russia, and more. THE POWERS THAT BE 
The Republican Party would love to talk more about Joe Rogan, and less about January 6. If only Donald Trump would let them. TINA NGUYEN 
With Republicans expected to retake the House in November, could Pelosi’s congressional seat become a family dynasty? THEODORE SCHLEIFER 
Media and business gossips are already speculating about Jeff Zucker’s next move. His tenure atop NBCU may provide some clues. WILLIAM D. COHAN 
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