Showbiz Sandbox 481: Catty Jokes At Oscars Spur Backlash
February 17, 2020
When James Corden and Rebel Wilson strutted onto the Oscar stage dressed as characters from the film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Cats” it garnered sincere laughter from the audience. However, the duo went on to mock the visual effects of the film which they happened to star in, generating a bit of fallout. Turns out there’s a real life sad ending to the story.
Fresh off it’s Oscar win for Best Picture, “Parasite” soared at the box office. Does the film’s success, not to mention the explosive popularity of international TV shows on Netflix, mean audiences in the United States will finally catch up with the rest of the world and embrace subtitles?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the controversy over this year’s Cesar Awards in France, the streaming company Roku continues to grow and satellite radio giant Sirius XM invests in SoundCloud.
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Showbiz Sandbox 478: Setting Records at Sundance and the Grammys
January 27, 2020
With the Winter Olympics causing an abbreviated and frantic awards season, the film took a brief respite from Oscar-talk to head to Park City, Utah for this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We give you an update on all the hot titles and buzz being generated at this year’s festival, including a record breaking price for a Sundance film.
Meanwhile, the Grammys were held under a scandalous cloud due to the fallout from the Recording Academy dismissing its top exec, Deborah Dugan. The evening belonged to 18-year-old Billie Eilish who became the youngest person to win four of the top awards at the event including Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year.
In China, the Chinese New Year usually marks the highest grossing week on the calendar, however not this year. A highly contagious virus caused the government to quarantine large cities and the country’s cinema chains shuttered out of precaution leading to a loss of hundreds of millions yuan.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why country radio stations won’t play female artists, more talent agencies sign on to the Writers Guild code of conduct, and Netflix continues to gain subscribers.
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Showbiz Sandbox 476: Four Movies Top This Years Oscar Nominations
January 14, 2020
When the nominations for the 92nd Annual Academy Awards were announced on Monday morning, for the first time in history four films wound up earning ten or more nods; “1917,” “The Irishman,” “Joker,” and “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” While the media will focus on who was snubbed or the lack of diversity among nominees, the real story is just how wide open this year’s highly competitive Oscar race truly is.
Will this be the year that Netflix wins a Best Picture trophy? They wound up earning more total nominations than any other studio (or streamer). As well, a record 62 women received nominations, though filmmaker Greta Gerwig was overlooked as a director for “Little Women”.
Meanwhile, as CES wrapped up in Las Vegas last week a new standard could make televisions a lot friendlier when it comes to showing movies. And Jeffrey Katzenberg showed up to tout his new short-form video streaming service.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including “Hamilton” closes in Chicago after earning $400 million, some drama in the romance literary world and streaming music hits an all time high.
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Showbiz Sandbox 438: The Oscars Play It By The Book
February 26, 2019
In a year when diversity took center stage at the Oscars, with people of color and women taking home some of the major prizes, the Academy awarded Best Picture to “Green Book,” a film partially about race relations that has been faulted by some as being whitewashed. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large, attended the Oscar ceremony and joins us to discuss all the winners, including how “Green Book” managed to overcome a number of obstacles to walk off with the top award.
Though “Roma” was a frontrunner throughout the Oscar race, and wound up winning three awards including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron, it didn’t win Best Picture to the relief of some in the industry who did not want to reward a film which shunned a traditional theatrical release. The film caused quite a stir when it took home the top BAFTA award earlier in the month.
Meanwhile, in China, the Lunar New Year box office was extraordinary but it came at a price: record grosses and record ticket prices were matched with record piracy.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the layoffs at Activision Blizzard, why Celine Dion parted ways with her long-time agent and millions attend a virtual concert on the video game Fortnite.
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Showbiz Sandbox 434: The Golden Globes Are Full of Surprises
January 7, 2019
As the 2019 award season continues its steady pace toward the Oscars, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association kicked the year off by confounding pundits when they gave Golden Globes to a few underdogs. While many thought “A Star Is Born” or “Roma” would run the table at this year’s ceremonies, it was “Green Book” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” that took the night’s top prizes.
Though the Golden Globes may be a swanky affair and an honor to receive, the nominations that are more telling of who might walk off with an Oscar are those from the craft guilds. This week the unions representing Art Directors, Cinematographers, Editors, Producers and Writers all announced their 2019 nominees. We’ll tell you what their selections mean for the Academy Awards.
We also revisit the Great White Way, where we take a look back at some of the predictions we made about the fall Broadway season. Most of the productions we thought might not fare so well are, indeed, underperforming, or in some cases, have closed already.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the continuing kerfuffle over whether Kevin Hart should host the Oscars, Apple buys an indie record label and why dozens of works will enter the public domain this year as their copyrights expire.
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Showbiz Sandbox 432: Peak TV Just Got Peakier
December 17, 2018
When John Landgraf, head of the FX network, proclaimed we had reached a state of “peak TV” back in 2015, he predicted the 422 television shows being produced at the time would inevitably decline since there was no way for audiences to keep up. Last year however, that number rose to 495 series being produced. To put this increase in perspective, there were 182 shows on the air in 2002.
It’s safe to assume these numbers are bound to rise with new entrants into the video streaming market launching in 2019 including Disney and WarnerMedia. What’s more, the annual amount of money being spent on all this content is astonishing with the likes of Netflix and Amazon each spending $8 billion and $5 billion respectively. And that’s nothing compared to the $22 billion Disney is shelling out.
Meanwhile, the awards season is underway with all sorts of groups weighing in on their favourites, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes and the first awards that matter: the Screen Actors Guild. Spoiler alert: “Roma” just hit a roadblock.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the Grammy nominations, new entrants to the National Film Registry and Mariah Carey’s latest chart-topping hit is a quarter century-old Christmas song.
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Showbiz Sandbox 423: After New Allegations Time Was Up For Les Moonves at CBS
September 10, 2018
When CBS head Les Moonves was accused of sexual misconduct this past summer his firing seemed inevitable. Instead he over the weekend after six additional women came forward with allegations dating back decades. Now the question is not how much severance Moonves will get but how much money can CBS pay him to go away and avoid a drawn-out lawsuit without angering activists .
Ultimately Moonves may have lost the battle but won the war. His stepping aside allowed for the settlement of an ownership lawsuit which prevents National Amusements, the network’s parent company, from trying to merge CBS and Viacom for at least two years.
Meanwhile Netflix scored big at the Venice Film Festival when their movie “Roma” picked up the Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize. Director Alfonso Cuarón’s film seems like just the type the Academy might fall for come Oscar time, but first it has to find a movie theater willing to show it.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why there won’t be a Best Popular Film category at next year’s Oscars, a new “Law & Order” series and all the history made at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
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Showbiz Sandbox 403: Justice Department Makes Its Case Against AT&T-Time Warner Merger
March 12, 2018
As the Department of Justice prepares for its antitrust trial to prevent the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, they are submitted a brief to the court claiming the outcome of the case shape how video-content is delivered in the United States for years to come. They believe the merger will stifle competition, prevent competitors from entering the market and ultimately disadvantage consumers. If the government succeeds in court, could they go after Comcast NBCUniversal next?
Meanwhile, even though the Academy Awards were last week, Academy Award preferential balloting, there is still some debate over the preferential balloting system used to select Best Picture. Does the method lead to a consensus choice rather than the film most people voted for in the first place? Certainly, complaints about Best Picture winners are not new, nor is preferential balloting, which was first used at the Oscars n 1934.
The Fox television network plans on cutting advertising on its primetime lineup down to two minutes per hour by 2020. This comes as NBC and CBS recently announced similar ad-limiting initiatives. Why are TV networks suddenly so keen to dump their lucrative advertising and how will they make up that lost revenue?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how “Hamilton” has conquered the West End in London, e-sports turns into a billion dollar business and Facebook will broadcast Major League Baseball games this season.
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Showbiz Sandbox 402: How the 90th Annual Oscars Took Shape
March 5, 2018
The 90th Academy Awards went down pretty much as everyone expected it would. After a lengthy awards season there were few surprises over who would go home with Oscars. There were no upsets (or mistakes) when it came time to announce Best Picture, as Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” won the honor.
During a year which saw the rise of the #MeeToo movement, the vociferous calls from the Oscar stage for gender inclusion and racial diversity within the motion picture industry were also highly anticipated. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor-at-large, was backstage during the ceremony and she joins us to share her insights about.
Meanwhile, though Comcast may have been turned down by 20th Century Fox, the cable giant hasn’t given up on growing its conglomerate through acquisitions. Last week they made a $31 billion offer to buy Europe’s Sky Broadcasting, something Fox has been struggling to do for some time now.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Spotify is finally going public, the Swiss back public broadcasting and why YouTube is punishing a prominent conservative conspiracy theorist.
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Showbiz Sandbox 393: Disney Acquisition of Fox Underscores Hollywood’s Digital Transition
December 18, 2017
In one of the largest deals Hollywood has ever seen, the Walt Disney Company announced it had agreed to buy most of 21st Century Fox in a transaction valued at $66.1 billion. Disney will scoop up Fox assets that include 20th Century Fox film and TV studios, 300 cable channels, 22 regional sports networks, control over the Hulu streaming service and a stake in Sky. Fox will keep its news, sports and broadcast networks, as well as its publishing empire.
The move underscores how movie studios have become an intellectual property business where scale matters. Rupert Murdoch feared Fox never scaled properly to compete in the age of digital on-demand consumption of content and that his company was at the peak of its value. Selling a portion of his empire also avoids a family power struggle over who would take control of the company once he steps down.
Meanwhile, the first award nominations from a guild have arrived courtesy of the Screen Actors Guild. And the Library of Congress added 25 new works to the National Film Registry, including fiction and documentaries, features and shorts. We’ll discuss what significant works they’ve enshrined.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including the FCC officially ditches net neutrality regulation, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announces this year’s entries and why Norway is switching off FM radio.
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