Showbiz Sandbox 440: Why The Writers Guild Battle With Agents Needs A Rewrite!
March 11, 2019
The showdown between the Writers Guild of America and talent agents is growing ever more heated. The WGA wants to upend the way business has been done in Hollywood for decades while agents continue to increase their conflicts of interest through lucrative television packaging fees. Thankfully we have Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney and a contributing editor at the Hollywood Reporter, to help figure out what all the bickering is about.
Actually, the WGA has been quite busy lately, making headlines after filing an arbitration claim against Netflix over how the streamer calculates (or more specifically, doesn’t calculate) residuals on residuals. Apparently Netflix has a conflict of interest too.
Meanwhile, the MoviePass rival Sinemia has jettisoned it’s one-movie-per-day subscription plan and replaced it with a buffet of options that are harder to explain but perhaps easier on the bottom line.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why the creators of the hit 1970s TV show “Columbo” are taking Universal Studios to court, Amazon Prime gets serious about India and the nominees for this year’s Olivier Awards.
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Showbiz Sandbox 439: Fox Suffers “Bones” Shaking Legal Defeat
March 4, 2019
Fox lost a blockbuster lawsuit to the stars and creative talent behind their smash television series “Bones.” An independent arbitrator used scathing language to describe 21st Century Fox executives, calling them out for lying, cheating and “reprehensible” studio fraud.
Though Fox says the will appeal the ruling, it could have a big impact on sweetheart deals between studios, their own networks, their own cable channels and their own streamers. There’s no bones about it.
Meanwhile book publishers and the National Writers Union, along with many others, are decrying the practice of Controlled Digital Lending, or CDL. As publishers restrict e-book access and raise their prices, libraries that own a physical copy of a book are making a digital PDF available for loans to patrons. When a digital PDF is borrowed, the physical copy is removed from circulation until the digital copy is returned. So what’s the problem?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why a hologram of Amy Winehouse will not be going on tour, why the movie theater chain Cineworld dumped BAFTA and box office in China is down 5% this year despite rosier forecasts.
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Showbiz Sandbox 436: A Wealth in Diversity at Sundance
February 5, 2019
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was more diverse than it usually is in every way one might imagine. Sure, there were the usual crop of independent films and documentaries, but the predominance of women and people of color and queer voices was more notable than ever. In fact, female filmmakers took home most of the festival’s top prizes.
Sundance also proved to be a feeding frenzy for independent distributors with Amazon swooping in to spend more money than any other studio has ever spent during a single year at the festival. Usually, if one selection sells for over $10 million it makes headlines. This year there were at least three films that fell into that category.
Meanwhile the Super Bowl weekend proved to be a bust both at the box office, which was reached a 20-year-low, as well as on television, where the broadcast of the big game fell to a 10-year-low.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary, Hulu raises its prices and Spotify turns on a feature that allows users to turn off artists.
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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 433: 2018 Was A Blockbuster Year at the Box Office
December 31, 2018
A string of big movie releases during the holidays helped the North American box office set a record in 2018, ending the year at $11.9 billion. Ticket sales also set a record in China where roughly $8.7 billion was earned. These two territories combined accounted for 48% of the $41.7 billion global box office.
However, growth in the second largest movie market in the world slowed to 9%, down from nearly 14% the year before. That’s why China ignored it’s quota on imported films at the end of 2018, allowing several Hollywood titles to be released. We’ll see if that trend continues into the new year.
In somewhat related news, a survey commissioned by the National Association of Theatre Owners showed that streaming services like Netflix do not adversely affect the frequency of moviegoing. Apparently people who watch a lot of movies at home, also like to watch movies in theaters. Go figure.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the Aretha Franklin’s back taxes, Ed Sheeran’s blockbuster tour and why CBS wants to dump Nielsen.
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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 430 – Taylor Swift Helps Fellow Artists With Her New Record Deal
November 26, 2018
When her current recording contract expired at Big Machine, Taylor Swift went looking for a new label. After a heated bidding war, Swift wound up at Universal Music landing a deal that allows her to retain control of her masters. Swift also demanded that if the label ever sold its share in Spotify that she get a cut. More importantly, she insisted on this for every single act in Universal’s roster.
This is especially notable because Swift is not a big player in music streaming, because she holds back her albums with a window to urge fans to purchase them instead. Unfortunately, the sales of physical albums, like vinyl LPs and CDs, is collapsing, causing many artists to get out of the habit of actually creating them. Instead, some big acts release a constant stream of singles, videos and live cuts since that’s how their fans listen to music these days.
Meanwhile the North American box office continues to chug along at 10% over last year’s tally, with a record breaking $12 billion in sight. That growth rate is keeping pace with the Chinese box office, which is up 11% this year, earning $8.1 billion thus far. Maybe the date for when China’s theatrical box office will surpass that of North America’s needs to be pushed back a year or two.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why pop stars may be headed to Broadway, how YouTube has begun showing blockbuster movies (with ads) and the winners of this year’s International Emmy Awards.
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Showbiz Sandbox 429: Remembering the Genius of Stan Lee
November 13, 2018
In a career that spanned over six decades, Stan Lee became one of the most influential creators and publishers of comics that ever worked in the medium. He helped build Marvel Comics by creating dozens of superheroes including most notably Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and X-Men. Geoff Boucher, the new genre editor at Deadline Hollywood, joins us to discuss how Lee’s enduring work has heavily influenced the modern pop culture landscape.
Boucher also tells us how he got the exclusive story on Fox’s plans to release a PG-13 version of “Deadpool 2” in the midst of the holiday season. You might be interested to hear how this led to the kidnapping of actor Fred Savage, best known for his role in “The Wonder Years”.
Meanwhile a team from China just won the 2018 “League of Legends” World Championship. Though 110 million people in China play the game, it’s the first time the country has ever captured one of the most prestigious prizes in e-sports.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how we’re headed toward a record year at the North American box office, why Fox News is chastising some of its hosts and pay TV loses over one million subscribers in the third quarter.
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Showbiz Sandbox 428: Why Everyone Is Raving About “Red Dead Redemption 2”
November 5, 2018
While there may still be some debate over whether video games are works of art, there is no doubting their earning potential. This was proven yet again when the game “Red Dead Redemption 2” earned a whopping $725 million in global retail sales after its first three days. And with glowing reviews haling it as a new gold standard for video games, and online components yet to be released, it’s poised to rake in much more.
Meanwhile, theatrical box office in North America is also looking profitable. In fact, 2018 may end with record setting grosses (if not attendance), and it’s all due to Hollywood releasing blockbuster movies outside the usual summer and holiday season.
In China, movie stars continue to fess up to how much money they have avoided paying taxes on. The latest is Chow Yun Fat who took his cue from the government and decided now was a good time to announce he’d be giving away his fortune, estimated at more than $700 million.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Rihanna turned down the Super Bowl halftime show, Drake topples another Billboard chart record and why Broadway is skewing a little younger.
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Showbiz Sandbox 427: Debating This Year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees
October 15, 2018
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio announced next year’s nominees for induction into it’s prestigious institution, setting off the annual bickering over who should or shouldn’t get in. Is the British heavy metal band Def Leppard more deserving than the gothic rock darlings The Cure? Bands such as Roxy Music and Radiohead with their lengthy history seem like no-brainers, but what about popular acts like Rage Against the Machine who only ever released four albums? We take an educated and opinionated guess on which nominees we think should make the cut.
In China, box office began to slow down considerably in August for the same reason grosses decline in other parts of the world; a lack of hit movies. It doesn’t help that subsidies from online ticketing platforms are now being blocked by the government, as is the practice of distributors buying bulk tickets to their own films to boost box office.
Meanwhile, the rush by every media company on the planet to launch their own streaming platform has created an environment where consumers might begin to push back against having to pay for so many subscription services. WarnerMedia is the latest to announce plans for a streaming play.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the nominees for the National Book Award, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham sues Fleetwood Mac and a new television series will depict the formation hip hop legends Wu Tang Clan.
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