Everyone is feeling like the entertainment industry has been stalling out as the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers attempt to hammer out a new film and TV contract before May 1, when the current one expires.
With widespread belief that a strike is all but certain, any new business is being tabled until the networks and streamers have a better idea of what is going to happen in the coming weeks. That has meant far fewer pitches, since the chance of a sale is slim. They “are not taking any risks and are feeling paralyzed,” is how one seller described the mood in town.
“No one is buying. This is the worst marketplace that I have ever experienced,” a veteran studio executive lamented. >>>Streamers Pivoting After Profligate Period |
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“Bond vs. Bourne” - That's how the new film starring Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie is being described. Titled Maude v Maude the global action thriller was the subject of an intense multi-studio bidding war that went into the weekend. >>>Berry & Jolie Producing Together
No Mea Culpa - Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems does not require that the network do an on-air retraction or apology, sources confirmed to Deadline. Fox did issue a statement shortly after the settlement was announced, but it did not include an apology or directly retract what was said on its airwaves. >>>"I Think We Hit A Home Run"
206 Minutes Long - Martin Scorsese has locked his cut of Killers of the Flower Moon, and Deadline can reveal that the final run time will be 3 hours, 26 minutes. There has been much guessing about the film’s length, with wild guesses speculating it could be four hours. >>>Epic Story
More Majors Fallout - Facing domestic violence charges, Jonathan Majors has been dropped from a slew of projects, including, we hear, Protagonist Pictures’ feature adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel, The Man in My Basement; an ad campaign for the Texas Rangers; and an unannounced Otis Redding biopic which the Emmy-nominated actor was circling. >>>Still Part Of MCU
2023 Contenders Television - Deadline's streaming site features interviews with the prime movers behind 40 scripted series. The event took place in front of awards voters at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles last weekend. >>>Watch
In Brief - The Lamar Giles YA novel The Getaway is being developed for TV by Sony Pictures Television and Don Cheadle’s production banner The Radicle Act… Tarantino Live: Fox Force Five & the Tyranny of Evil Men is hading to London in June… Working Title has won a spirited auction for People Hacker, by former burglar, con artist and expert in deception and physical infiltration Jenny Radcliffe. |
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With Rap Sh!t, EP Issa Rae said she wanted to pull back the curtain on how friendship, music and gender function in a digitally dominated era. “When I think about music now and the way we consume everything, that discovery happens through social media,” she told fans gathered for a FYC screening at the London West Hollywood. “There’s not the radio moment you get anymore. There’s not even word of mouth, there’s too much out there. But you find and discover so much music via social media, and sometimes you discover music through these antics,” Rae noted. “Even thinking about how so many female rappers are successful, so many women rappers are successful, because of taking charge themselves, and marketing themselves, and putting their own narrative out there for people to identify with – and so, that to me made the ingredients of the show." >>> Watch The Interview |
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Exclusive
Twelve years after Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre’s dramatic falling out on Two and a Half Men, the pair is back in business together, reuniting on Lorre’s Max comedy series How To Be a Bookie. Sheen is set for a recurring role in the single-camera comedy headlined by Sebastian Maniscalco. The casting news instantly turns Bookie into one of the most anticipated new series of the year.
Exclusive
Legendary has set an all-star cast for its forthcoming film Animal Friends, combining live-action and animated characters from writing duo Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, with Ryan Reynolds, Jason Momoa, Vince Vaughn and Aubrey Plaza coming aboard for roles. The project is described as an R-rated road trip adventure.
Exclusive
Jessica Biel is set to star opposite Xochitl Gomez in Ursa Major, a sci-fi thriller from twin brother directors Jonathan and Josh Baker (Kin), which will head into production this fall. Pic is set on an Earth-like planet, where a mother (Biel) and daughter (Gomez) fight for survival while hiding from a group of relentless hunters.
Exclusive
Anna Camp has joined the cast of Peacock’s coming-of-age thriller Hysteria! as a series regular. The series will also feature Julie Bowen, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezii Curtis and Nikki Hahn. Hysteria! explores the dark history of the teenage "Satanic Panic." It follows a group of 1980s high school misfits as they exploit the growing hysteria around teen occult activity.
In Brief - Candace Cameron Bure has booked her next holiday movie for Great American Family as an Army reservist and orthopedic physician in My Christmas Hero… Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay, Anna Calder-Marshall and Florence Hunt are filming Lance Hammer’s under-the-radar feature drama Queen At Sea in the UK… Michael Urie, Laura Benanti and Danny Deferrari will round out the cast of Goodrich toplined by Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis. |
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Renewals, Pickups & Cancelations |
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BY THE NUMBERS
$17 billion - The amount Netflix will spend on content in 2024, according to co-CEO Ted Sarandos |
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More News
🔥 Pixar's Elemental will close next month's Cannes Film Festival. The world premiere marks a significant return to the Croisette for the Disney animation outfit, which was supposed to have a similar bow in 2020 for Soul, only to have Covid throw a multi-year wrench in its theatrical plans.
🌴 As MipTV 2023 winds down, major takeaways from the confab include the scripted slowdown ahead of a potential writers strike, the rise of FAST channels and the spread of Traitors format copycats.
🎈 “It feels like the TV bubble has burst,” Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh said during a MipTV keynote, indicating things are slowing down, following a boom period. “We were experiencing greenlights after very short development periods beforehand but now it feels like these decisions are stretching out... It’s not as easy as in the past to get a second or third season."
💼 Fremantle UK has named departing Thames boss Amelia Brown as its new CEO. Brown will oversee labels Thames, Talkback and Naked, which make the likes of Got Talent, Too Hot to Handle and The Apprentice. Majority investment indie Label1 will also report to Brown.
🐦 ✈️ DC co-Boss James Gunn announced on Twitter yesterday that his Superman: Legacy, which he’s writing and directing, is going into pre-production. Separately, per sources, Deadline hears that physical production will start at the top of 2024.
🎥 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight has announced the selection for its 55th edition, running May 17 to 26. It will present 20 features and 10 shorts this year. French actor and director Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case opens the section. Korean director Hong Sangsoo will close it with In Our Day.
📣 Aziz Ansari is making his feature directorial debut with Good Fortune at Lionsgate, a movie he’ll also write and star in alongside Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen. Lionsgate will launch sales for the pic at Cannes next month, which is also when cameras roll in LA. The storyline is under wraps.
💰 Legendary Entertainment secured an $800 million, 5-year credit facility led by J.P. Morgan, replacing an existing agreement with “improved and market-leading terms.” Deadline reported Monday that Legendary is one of four suitors circling eOne as Hasbro prepares to sell a majority stake in the indie film and TV studio. Legendary separately closed a $760 million equity investment from Apollo Private Equity Funds in early 2022, putting M&A opportunities like eOne on the table.
🤝 Harry Gamsu is heading back to Warner Bros. Discovery. Gamsu, who was most recently VP, Formats Acquisitions at Fremantle, has joined the studio’s international formats team as VP, Creative, Format, Development and Sales. It is a return to Warner Bros. for LA-based Gamsu, who previously started his career at the company in London.
🛸 Paramount Television Studios is taking a new stab at a Galaxy Quest TV series based on DreamWorks’ cult 1999 sci-fi comedy movie. The project, which is in early stages of development, is set up at Paramount+. It is executive produced by the film’s producer Mark Johnson via his Gran Via Productions. There is no concept or writer yet.
In Brief - Amazon Freevee’s Judge Judy Sheindlin-created Tribunal Justice is set to premiere with three episodes on June 9 in the U.S., UK, Germany and Austria… The Writers Guild of Great Britain has once again thrown its weight behind the WGA, with its chair saying it will “stand shoulder to shoulder with our sister union”… The Phantom of the Opera, which closed its Broadway run on Sunday after 35 years, went out on a very high note with its best-ever weekly box office. |
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Trending  Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the voting machine company over false claims made by Fox News personalities about its software and the 2020 election.
🔻 Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims made by Fox News personalities about the voting machine company's software and the 2020 election. |
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Obituaries 🕯 Lary Simpson, who launched a career in entertainment law at Tri-Star Pictures before leaving to join older brother Don Simpson in motion picture production, died Jan. 25 of cancer at his home in Noank, CT. He was 77. Simpson was an executive producer on Bad Company in 2002 and later created, funded and directed the Telluride Screenwriters’ Conference. He also provided financial support for and served as a member of the Board of the La Jolla Playhouse. 🕯 Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries |
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On the Radar
Wed - Abbott Elementary S2 finale
Thu - Star Trek: Picard show finale
Fri - Dead Ringers premieres
Sat - Earth Day
Mon - CinemaCon starts
Tue - Spotify and Alphabet earnings; The Flash screens at CinemaCon |
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"That's A Lotta Dough-minion" - Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and the rest of TV’s late-night comedy crowd reveled in the monologue material that dropped in their collective lap on Tuesday after Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over the cable net’s false election-rigging claims. “It’s gonna take a lot of reverse-mortgage ads to pay that one off,” zinged Kimmel. |
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