Showbiz Sandbox 386: Keeping Up With Hollywood Sex Scandals Becomes A Full Time Job
October 30, 2017
October has been a particularly horrific month for Hollywood this year, and not just because of the run up to Halloween. After a record setting September, North American box office dropped to a ten year low in October as major releases failed to attract audiences. Then there was the flood of industry-wide sexual harassment claims, an ongoing story with no end in sight.
What started with egregious allegations against indie-mogul Harvey Weinstein has led to actors and actresses coming forward with more stories of harassment, including one against two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, who has been accused of making sexual overtures to a 14-year-old boy over 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, the publishing industry has some good news about book sales and we’ll explain why lists announcing the best books of 2017 have already been compiled by trade publications, two months before the year is over.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how the Disney Channel is introducing a gay storyline, a virtual reality project wins a special Oscar and the latest Star Trek series will get a second season.
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Showbiz Sandbox 385: Hollywood Finally Addresses Concerns Over Sexual Harassment
October 23, 2017
The recent and voluminous sexual harassment claims against mega-producer Harvey Weinstein have ignited a firestorm of similar allegations by women against numerous professionals throughout the industry. It has grown into a day of reckoning that is reaching directors, agents and executives in Hollywood, to encompass the music, publishing and video game industries too.
Last week it was revealed that filmmaker James Toback sexually harassed upwards of 38 women over a course of decades. At the same time Nickelodeon fired Chris Savino, the creator behind one of its most popular series, over harassment claims and the head of amazon Studios stepped down under a cloud of similar accusations.
Meanwhile, Ticketmaster may have finally found a way to squelch scalpers from buying up all the best seats at live events. Its Verified Fan program is getting great, albeit expensive, tickets into the hands of actual fans. Now all they have to do is work on the technology to make it work more effectively.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including Netflix continues to expand its subscriber base, Justin Timberlake will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show and HBO will bring its international productions to the United States.
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Showbiz Sandbox 384: NBC Has A Big Megyn Kelly Problem
October 16, 2017
NBC forked over millions of dollars to steal Megyn Kelly away from Fox News and then realized they had nowhere to put her. First the network gave Kelly a primetime news show opposite the ratings powerhouse 60 Minutes. When that move prove disastrous NBC shoehorned Kelly into the third hour of their hit morning program, “Today,” only to see the shows ratings plummet.
Marc Berman, the editor-in-chief of Programming Insider, joins us to analyze what went wrong with bringing Kelly to NBC, why putting a former political news anchor into a morning show was a bad fit, and what the network can do to save the “Today” show before Kelly brings down ratings any further. Berman believes if NBC doesn’t act soon, they could get lapped by the likes of CBS.
Speaking of public implosion swof media fixtures, the Harvey Weinstein scandal has moved beyond the movie mogul himself to encompass a culture of sexual harassment that pervades Hollywood. We’ll discuss a plausible idea that Hollywood could take toward ending such behavior.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Spanish language network Telemundo is gaining ground on its rival Univision, why the ratings of a CW show were significantly boosted by binge viewing on Netflix and YouTube views may soon be included in determining Billboard’s weekly music charts.
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Showbiz Sandbox 383: The Fall of Harvey Weinstein
October 9, 2017
When The New York Times reported that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been paying off women accusing him of sexual harassment for decades, it didn’t come as much of a surprise to many in Hollywood. Many of those that worked in and around the legendary indie movie producer, including a number of movie stars, were victims of Weinstein’s behavior, had direct knowledge of it, or had been warned about his reputation.
Reporters spent years trying to uncover the story, but only recently was enough evidenced gathered to conclusively document the repeated harassment. Within days of the story being published, and with more actresses leveling accusations, Weinstein was fired from his position as head of The Weinstein Company. Whether Weinstein could ever work in Hollywood again is difficult to fathom and the future of his former company is tenuous at best.
Meanwhile, the much anticipated sequel to the classic sci-fi movie “Blade Runner” was finally released to disappointing box office returns. Was it the 35-year wait between movies, the nearly three hour running time or simply a confusing marketing campaign that kept audiences away?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including who won the Nobel Prize for literature, Netflix raises its prices and the this year’s nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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Showbiz Sandbox 382: Safety On Hollywood Sets Thrust Into Spotlight
October 3, 2017
When the star of a popular television series was involved in a car accident after a 14-hour day of production it prompted an investigation into the safety of the show’s performers. It also called attention to the simmering issue in Hollywood over on-set safety, which in recent weeks has included the death of a stunt person arguably not trained for the stunt they tackled and the possible murder of a location scout.
In the United States last summer’s box office might have been down, but popcorn sales are up. That’s not enough to keep independent movie theater owners happy. They’re suing the chain Landmark on antitrust grounds. Coincidentally, Landmark sued Regal over the very same issue a few years ago.
Meanwhile, an audit conducted by the MPAA of Chinese revealed that movie theater operators in the country are consistently underreporting ticket sales costing the studios millions of dollars in grosses. Fixing the problem can be a long political process.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news how Hulu is outbidding Netflix on library content, the reboot of “American Idol” rounds out its judges panel and the big lawsuit between two TV ratings aggregators.
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Showbiz Sandbox 380: Hollywood Gets Pummeled by Rotten Tomatoes
September 12, 2017
With North American box office declining 15 percent over last year, Hollywood suffered its worst summer box office in 20 years. One main reason, studios believe, is the popularity of the movie review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which brands titles as either “fresh” or “rotten”. The site has become so influential studios now try and game the system by handpicking critics for certain releases.
Disney, on the other hand, isn’t waiting for reviews to be in on its latest Star Wars movies before tweaking them. “Episode IX” is just the latest to lose its director over creative differences with Lucasfilm, which is quickly gaining the reputation as a tough place to be a filmmaker.
Meanwhile, one of North America’s largest brick-and-mortar book retailers reports that sales are off 6% in the latest quarter as consumers shift to buying online. Don’t worry however, the company has a great plan for fixing their sales problem; open more stores.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Amazon wants to produce a hit television show, the end of an era at Vanity Fair magazine and the mystery behind who will distribute the next James Bond movie.
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Showbiz Sandbox 379: Springsteen and Swift Beat Scalpers and Fans Pay The Price
September 4, 2017
New technology from Ticketmaster is allowing the likes of Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen to combat scalpers and sell tickets to legitimate fans. But at what cost? Swift is asking concert-goers to pay $63 for a physical copy of her latest album to get better seats and the ticket prices for Springsteen’s Broadway residency top out at $850.
Maybe these prices are simply musicians trying to make up for the earnings they’ve lost in record sales over the past 15 years. According to a new report from Goldmany Sachs though, the music industry is poised for explosive, make that historic; no, make that unbelievable growth. And we don’t believe it.
Meanwhile, as the summer moviegoing season in North America end in a thud with box office plummeting to record lows, bring the shares of major movie theater chains down with them. But are ticket sales the real reason behind the stock sell off.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Facebook is taking on YouTube with video content, “The Simpsons” lay off their beloved composer after nearly 30 years and a study says millennials are fleeing terrestrial radio.
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Showbiz Sandbox 378: ESPN Goes Looking For Some Fights
August 28, 2017
In the midst of a blockbuster boxing match viewed around the world between welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and MMA champion Conor McGregor, ESPN announces they spent a small fortune to secure the worldwide rights to future bouts. The network plans on providing access to the fights on their recently announced streaming service, with ESPN even getting a potential piece of any fights that go the pay-per-view route.
The Mayweather vs. McGregor match was faulted for causing the North American box office to dip to it’s lowest level in 16 years this past weekend. In fact, box office receipts which will not surpass $4 billion for the first time since 2006 thanks to an attendance decrease of 25%. Maybe MoviePass, a subscription moviegoing service, will help fill cinemas now that they’ve lowered their price to $10 per month.
Meanwhile “Handbook for Mortals” took the young adult book genre by storm over the last week, and not in a good way. The debut novel topped the New York Times bestseller list for that genre its first week out without anyone ever having heard of the book or its unknown author. Controversy ensued.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why the issue of on-set safety has gotten a lot of attention after Tom Cruise got injured making the next Mission: Impossible movie, the big editorial changes at the Los Angeles Times and how “The Walking Dead” has inspired another lawsuit.
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Showbiz Sandbox 377: Disney Breaks Up With Netflix To Launch Solo Streaming Service
August 14, 2017
After years of licensing their movies to Netflix, Disney announced last week that it will be launching their own streaming service when their current deal expires. Then in a true reordering of the media landscape, Disney also revealed it will be creating a standalone subscription streaming service for ESPN. Realistically though Disney might be one of the few entertainment companies that could successfully pull off direct-to-consumer strategy on such a grand scale.
Perhaps Disney felt threatened by content distributors like Netflix and felt compelled to make a move. After all, just days after making their announcement Netflix said it had lured producer Shonda Rhimes away from Disney’s ABC Studios to make original programming for its own service. Netflix also stole hitmaker Chuck Lorre away from CBS and cut a deal with the Coen Brothers to make one of their next projects.
Meanwhile, there’s lots of drama on Broadway, literally and figuratively. Everyone is talking about the collapse of the musical “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,” which has charges of racism, unprofessionalism and bad management swirling around it. Now the show is closing long before its $12 million budget was recouped.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Warner Music Group posted big revenue gains thanks to streaming, Bruce Springsteen heads to Broadway and the emergence of a new Chinese media magnate.
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Showbiz Sandbox 376: Cord Cutters Are Using An Old Hack To Watch Television – It’s Called An Antenna
August 7, 2017
As the Federal Communications Commission seeks to further deregulate cable television companies and do away with net neutrality, consolidation within the industry has caused rates to increase dramatically. We’ll explain how more and more people are growing fed up with high cable bills and what they’re doing about it. Some millennials have even discovered an amazing hack to get the broadcast networks for free! And it’s totally legal!
We’ll also tell you about how some big name players are getting fed up with Hollywood’s opaque accounting system. Sylvester Stallone is suing Warner Bros. over profit participation for his 1990s hit movie Demolition Man while filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is taking the distribution of his latest movie into his own hands.
In China, “Wolf Warrior 2” has earned nearly half a billion dollars at the global box office and looks set to become the country’s highest grossing movie ever. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is still playing strong in theatres around the world and may surpass “Spider-Man” to claim the crown as the biggest comic book movie debut in history.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why legendary TV producer Norman Lear is boycotting the Kennedy Center Honors reception, when Bette Midler is leaving “Hello Dolly” and why Netflix acquired a comic book company.
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