Who else? The ABC host’s backlash-inducing benching and ultimate reinstatement will end up strengthening his brand… and the episode finally drew a line that media companies either won’t, or feel they can’t, cross when it comes to Trump. (More on the Kimmel situation below…)

Runner-up: Adam Aron, the AMC Theatres C.E.O. and my longtime friend, who scored another Taylor Swift deal to distribute The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. It will play October 3-5 and has already sold between 1 million and 2 million tickets in the U.S., per a source familiar.

A little more: AMC is actually getting a better deal on Showgirl than it did for the Eras Tour concert film. If you remember, that 2023 arrangement gave 43 percent of the gross to the theaters that showed the film, while 57 percent was shared by Swift and AMC as the distributor—with the vast majority staying with Swift. Meaning Taylor pocketed about half of the $260 million that film grossed in theaters.

This time, Aron first got a call about a month ago from Andrea Swift, Taylor’s mom, and talks proceeded from there. In a deal that Adam negotiated personally with the Swifts, only 52 percent will go to Swift and AMC as distributor, and 48 percent to the theaters. (AMC is again hiring Variance to sub-distribute the film to other U.S. chains.) So the theaters will get a bigger cut, but expectations are naturally lower for this one, which is basically 90 minutes of videos for songs that fans don’t know yet. It’s also priced at $12 rather than the $20—sorry, $19.89—that Swift charged last time. AMC has only two weeks to market the event, rather than the two months last time.

So it makes sense that early tracking for the weekend is between $30 million and $45 million (NRG has it at $35 million)—less than half of the $93 million that The Eras Tour grossed in its first weekend. And no, there will be no Showgirl popcorn buckets or other merch for sale. An idea to bundle the album with tickets was scrapped because those sales wouldn’t count for the Billboard charts, which are very important to the Swift narrative. Instead, fans are being encouraged to leave the local theater and head to Target to purchase a physical copy of the album. Shh, it’ll also be on Spotify and Apple Music for no additional charge. (AMC declined to comment.)

Second runner-up: The Directors Guild of America. Normally, the winner of a union election might win the week. But when the union itself convinces Chris Nolan, arguably the most popular and powerful filmmaker alive, to care enough to run for DGA president, it’s the union—not the elected leader—who’s the big winner.

Third runner-up: JD Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, the BoulderLight producers, who leveraged recent projects Barbarian, Weapons, Companion, and Friendship into a big deal to leave Warner Bros. and start a mini-label at Paramount.

A little more: A knowledgeable source pegs this deal at $20 million over four years, which includes a development fund, plus additional money for small acquisitions, if desired. Lots of chatter around town over this situation, partially because Lifshitz and Margules are young producers (early 30s), and also because they were abruptly kicked off the Warners lot at end-of-day on Friday, more than three months before their current deal ends. (As observant Jews, they needed to get home by sundown, and a moving van didn’t make it in time, forcing them to abandon some of their stuff on the lot.) They clearly touched a live wire amid Paramount’s growing interest in acquiring the WB studio’s parent company.

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In meetings and emails, Warners’ film co-head Mike De Luca was particularly annoyed about the duo leaving, especially since Lifshitz cited “uncertainty” at the studio as one reason and didn’t give De Luca a chance to counter Paramount’s offer. Warners gave the producers the runaround when they sought an early renewal, which left them open to talk to David Ellison and his studio chiefs, who are intent on raiding rivals for talent. (It filmmakers Andy and Barbara Muschietti left Warners to launch a horror label at Skydance last year.) And, as I reported earlier this year, BoulderLight was disappointed when Warners cut the marketing budget for Companion, which then underperformed despite strong reviews.

Warners sources countered that the BoulderLight guys handled the situation poorly, noting that the guys had a disagreement with writer-director Zach Cregger on Weapons, were not as involved in that film, and are not expected to be involved creatively on the planned prequel. They also were asked to not be on the set of Anna Kendrick’s Woman of the Hour, which they also produced. There are other similar stories.

Whatever. I think what’s really going on here is everyone at Warners—and, to a certain extent, Paramount too—is hyper-nervous about what’s gonna happen if the Ellisons get a second studio, and that’s trickling down to even the producer deals. It’s tough out there.

“Where has all the leadership gone?”
—Michael Eisner, the former Disney C.E.O., criticizing his successor Bob Iger and the handling of the Kimmel “intimidation” by the F.C.C., in a post on Twitter/X. It was reminiscent of the way that Iger weighed in on the “Don’t Say Gay” controversy just as his successor, Bob Chapek, was grappling with how to handle a political hot potato.

Now here’s Kim on the extraordinary industry politics of the Kimmel resolution…

I thought it was fake. Having covered Disney for many years, and having written a book focused on its former chairman and C.E.O. Michael Eisner, I would never have imagined that, at age 83 and about 20 years to the day since he exited the Magic Kingdom, he would bestir himself to post a tweet smiting his successor, Bob Iger, during the most epic shitstorm of Iger’s second tenure. And it seems Eisner’s missive may have landed with the current Disney leader, contributing to today’s resolution of the nearly weeklong Jimmy Kimmel standoff.

Eisner’s Friday tweet, asking “Where has all the leadership gone?” and citing the benching of ABC’s late-night host as “yet another example of out-of-control intimidation” by the Trump administration, was his first on that hellsite since he posted a photo of his English soccer club in April 2024. In contrast to the way Iger treated his ill-fated successor, Bob Chapek, Eisner hasn’t been caught whispering criticism of Iger in the years since he left Disney. Also in contrast to Iger, Eisner was not known for taking public positions on contentious issues of the day, though he was a regular donor to Democratic candidates. “I can’t think of a time when he weighed in on something that was political with a capital P,” Dan Wolf, who was vice president of corporate communications at Disney from 1989 to 2005, told me today.

Certainly, Iger has had much more to contend with as politics have grown more toxic, and he has sometimes responded publicly. In 2017, he spoke out against Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, and then withdrew from the president’s business advisory council when the administration pulled out of the Paris climate accords. And memorably, while supposedly retired, Iger tweeted opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, knowing that he was laying the groundwork for Chapek to impale himself on the issue. Now he has gone from facing recrimination for paying $16 million to settle Trump’s weak ABC News lawsuit to being lashed on a global stage for the Kimmel disaster. (Eisner declined to elaborate on his decision to speak out, telling me he had promised himself that he wouldn’t engage with the press.)

Two sources who have worked closely with Eisner said they believe he would have made a quick decision to threaten Sinclair and Nexstar, the two station groups that pledged to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! over the host’s edgy comment about the “MAGA gang’s” response to the Charlie Kirk assassination, with hellfire if they persisted in refusing to carry the show. “Michael doesn’t give a fuck what anybody else thinks if he thinks he’s doing the right thing,” a former Disney insider told me. (“And sometimes it would bite him in the ass,” he added.) One longtime Eisner associate said he had the certitude of having been born rich, which Iger was not.

Several longtime Disney observers agree that Iger, whose skin is known to be thin, must have found the global criticism crushing—from HBO’s John Oliver, who addressed Iger directly on his Sunday show (“History is going to remember the cowards who definitely knew better but still let things happen”), to investor/podcaster Scott Galloway (“Iger is going to go down as Neville Chamberlain in a cashmere sweater but without the dignity”), to 400 celebrities, including frequent Disney collaborators Lin-Manuel Miranda and Pedro Pascal, who signed an ACLU-circulated letter of protest. (Iger is a big Churchill fan, so that Chamberlain line had to sting.) Remember, Iger once toyed with running for president (with encouragement from Jeffrey Katzenberg!) and decided not to in part because of the public scrutiny that would come with a campaign.

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Watch the anticipated final episode of FX's Alien: Earth on Hulu and FX this Tuesday, September 23 at 8PM.

But of all the backlash this past week, perhaps the Eisner drive-by stung the most. An old Disney hand told me that Iger “loathes Eisner, who tortured and humiliated him in the C.E.O. succession process,” but that doesn’t mean Iger can just shake it off when Eisner calls him out. Eisner was a dominant figure associated with the resuscitation of Disney, which had been adrift before Eisner and his team took over in 1984. Eventually, Eisner’s star faded, but he still has stature, I would guess particularly since Iger had to operate in his shadow for so long.

As it turned out, what Iger might have thought was in the shareholders’ interest wasn’t, as the Kimmel affair turned into a brand-damaging inferno. And then there’s the question of Iger’s personal stature in Hollywood and beyond. He and his wife, Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, were set to host a fundraiser at their home for women in media, and the host committee was considering pulling out. As the criticism snowballed, talks with Kimmel over the weekend worked toward a resolution that will allow the host to say his piece on tomorrow’s show while hopefully helping bring the station groups back. (Sinclair said today it will preempt the show but remains in talks with Disney; neither Nexstar nor F.C.C. chair Brendan Carr has commented.) This fight isn’t over, but Iger can now try to resume regular Hollywood activities, both personally and professionally, and show his face at Toscana with the hope that the community will accept how difficult Trump has made his job.

In my chats with industry veterans over the weekend, all acknowledged that the 74-year-old Disney C.E.O. was in a very tough spot, but their sympathy was limited. Said a veteran producer: “It takes big balls to stand up to any of this shit, but it’s hard to understand why, rich as he is, Bob can’t have big balls. If he can’t stand up, who can?”

$245,000
What LimeWire (yes, LimeWire) paid to acquire the Fyre Festival brand. [WSJ]

About 100
Anniversary and rerelease screenings that will have shown in the U.S. by the end of 2025, compared to about 60 in 2019. [Comscore/LAT]

56 Percent
Portion of Americans who consider Jimmy Fallon trustworthy, the highest among late night hosts, according to a poll by Morning Consult. Jon Stewart and Greg Gutfeld trail with 54 percent and 53 percent, respectively. [THR]

About 10 Percent
Estimated number of Broadway musicals that are profitable, around half of the historical average. [NYT]

No, it’s probably not a coincidence that Google announced it has paid $100 billion to creators and media companies over the past four years during the same week it made an A.I. video generator available to everyone on the platform. [WSJ]

LA’s Magic Castle faces a crucial vote on its future as the creepiest Hollywood mansion not owned by Bryan Singer. [LA Times]

Note to major showrunners: David E. Kelley is using his clout to keep his productions in L.A. [LA Times]

A fun list of up-and-coming comics. [Vulture]

The Rock’s hilariously obvious awards-season image repositioning continues with the requisite Times feature revealing previously undiscussed personal trauma (complete with stark photos) and more complaints about doing 20 years of paycheck blockbusters yet feeling “unseen, unknown, constrained” to the point where he asked himself, “Am I actually doing what I want? Or am I just doing what the people around me want?” Five months of this, folks. [NY Times]

Dems Sherry Lansing and Casey Wasserman are joining Harry Sloan and Lionsgate’s Michael Burns in co-hosting a “bipartisan” fundraiser for… Republican Sen. Susan Collins. [NY Times]

Justin Bieber is making more than $10 million to co-headline the sold-out Coachella and start paying back the much, much greater sum that he owes AEG for that canceled tour. [Rolling Stone]

Harry Styles, for some reason, ran a marathon under the hilarious fake name “Sted Sarandos.” And no, he is not especially close friends with the real Ted Sarandos. [The Athletic]

Tom Cruise won a breakdancing competition at David Ellison’s wedding. [Bloomberg]

Who do we think the 30-year-old talent agent is who contributed this week’s “Sex Diary” column for The Cut about her fling with an “ethically nonmonogamous man”? [The Cut]

Bob Iger and Dana Walden’s handling of the Kimmel debacle sparked a ton of messages this week. Some highlights…

“On some level, Jimmy Kimmel’s act wasn’t working. While Fox News stays consistent in their gross dialogue, they do get people to vote. And they won. Jimmy & Co. just keep wailing on Trump. It’s not working. No one is changing a vote. No one is watching. And he was warned not to cross a line. Canceling Roseanne when she was the number one show was a big deal. Deplatforming Trump when he had 100 million followers was a big deal. These [late-night] shows are dying. And on some level, I think they might be dying because you alienate half the audience from the jump.” —An agent

“Hollywood is using its A technique: social media posts, petitions, threats to boycott. Um, it’s all bullshit. If someone wants to prove to me they care, lose a paycheck. Same as the WGA strikes. Same as the agency action. All talk.” —The same agent

“Matt, with all respect, how can you lay the slightest bit of blame at Jimmy’s feet? Because he should be afraid of the possibility that it could upset someone? He said nothing that warrants this reaction; the content is irrelevant. Hold the line, defend free speech, and call out government overreach.” —A marketing executive

“It won’t happen, but I’d love to see the Sinclair and Nexstar execs’ faces when Iger suggests that the cost of their principled stand against airing Kimmel is… the NFL.” —A writer-producer

“While it’s unprecedented that this abuse of power is focused on political critics, the F.C.C. has a history of targeting based on ‘decency’ standards. Even threatening the removal of licenses during the Bush Jr. years when Howard Stern became a target. Which ultimately forced him to Sirius, which opened the door for podcasts, which is ultimately where Kimmel might land to escape the corporate overlords. What will be interesting 20 years from now are the long-term ripple effects across the media ecosystem based on this current round of extreme targeting.” —A professor

“Wouldn’t the ideal solve for this Kimmel thing be for ABC to put Jimmy back on and book Erika Kirk as his guest?” —An executive

Kim Masters asks why the CAA mogul insists on sabotaging one of the industry’s biggest fundraisers…

The annual Evening Before party, the night before the Emmys, raises millions for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which plays a critical role in helping industry people in need. And this year’s edition last Saturday was a well-attended affair: Nominees like Jason Segel, Adam Scott, and Uzo Aduba were there, lots of producers and executives, and even J.Lo. I couldn’t help but compare that to what had been the other big, starry event for the MPTF: The Night Before, ahead of the Oscars. For years it was very A-list, with stars showing up to have their pictures taken with big-money donors.

But for the past couple of years, CAA’s Bryan Lourd has hosted a competing party, which has diminished the star power of the Night Before benefit and has not been helpful to the MPTF’s mission. “Bryan’s party, as well as the Chanel dinner, make fundraising for the Night Before and talent participation in the event more of a challenge—and it’s already a challenge with fewer studios, agency consolidation, lower film-production volume in L.A., and the overall condition of the industry,” MPTF president and C.E.O. Bob Beitcher told me. Lourd has been very successful and become very rich in Hollywood, but many have not, and they need the services offered by the fund. I wondered why Lourd would host a competing party, and whether he planned to do it again in March. The answer from him: No comment.

Have a great week,
Matt

Maya Tribbitt contributed research for today’s issue.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a Kimmel take better than this Dutch late night show? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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