The Ankler Hot Seat: Recent Episodes
Richard Rushfield
A weekly roundtable that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook. Coming to you every Friday.
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No man is an island, and neither is any Hollywood crisis. Disney’s impasse with cable TV provider Charter over rights to its channels, including ESPN, comes at the same time as a grueling impasse in strike negotiations, and Sean McNulty and Elaine Low discuss why each standoff has something to do with the other. “These entertainment conglomerates are really starting to feel some hurt,” says Low, who dives into why a once unthinkable Jan. 2024 strike resolution is looking likelier by the day, and what a dark last three months of the year will mean for production. Also: Richard Rushfield checks in from TIFF to report back on festival highlights, including Sylvester Stallone’s art show and his first Hooters experience.
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After making bold summer box office predictions at Memorial Day, Sean McNulty, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield return to talk about the titles that took in $4 billion stateside, and crown one winning workhorse studio with the highest return on summer movie investments.
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Labor contagion keeps spreading as union actions across the country catch fire. That's no coincidence, says labor journalist and Work Won’t Love You Back author Sarah Jaffe, who joins Elaine Low to discuss what disparate industries, from teaching to health care to Hollywood, have in common, but also what’s unique to creative people in entertainment and the arts.
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Former hotshot TV writer Patty Lin, who quit Hollywood in 2009 when industry toxicity overwhelmed her, discusses her dishy new memoir, 'End Credits'.
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Before the strike, actress Addie Weyrich had an FX pilot. Today, she is waiting tables.
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After months of silence, studio heads seem newly committed to reaching an agreement with the WGA.
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FTC Chair Lina Khan on the agency’s views on the various crises roiling entertainment.
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Dickinson creator Alena Smith joins to discuss the destructive effects of streaming and the corporatization of entertainment.
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Three earnings calls on the same day reveal how entertainment companies are no longer playing the same game.
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The WGA accuses the studios of being in a ‘mutual suicide pact.’
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As Week 1 of the actors strike draws to a close, an interview with SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland on Wall Street’s impact on the impasse, the stickiest issues on the table and more.
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Entertainment Strategy Guy joins to discuss perhaps the most existential of issues at the heart of the current SAG-studio impasse: profit sharing.
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For the first time in over 60 years, Hollywood is in the throes of a double strike.
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As streamers remove series and unions fight over residuals, agreeing on metrics is near impossible.
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Who had the worst week in Hollywood? Was it Bob Iger, whose Disney headaches keep mounting? Or The Flash hype man David Zaslav, who watched his superhero film sputter just days before Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese scolded him? Hard to say, yet both CEOs face the same conundrum: “It starts with stopping the bleeding, to the best they can,” says Richard Rushfield, who joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty. Also: how Taylor Sheridan became writers’ public enemy this week (9:47); Ryan Murphy’s decision to boomerang back to Disney (14:28); and why, with one week left in contract talks, it’s impossible to predict SAG’s next move (3:18).
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The most-watched entertainment company in the world, Disney lately is roiled by major exec changes, an animation eclipse from other studios, layoffs and a CEO racing to both name a successor and right the ship at the same time. CNBC media reporter Alex Sherman joins Sean McNulty and Elaine Low to talk the perfect storm facing the company with less than 18 months left in Iger’s second term. Also: the PGA-LIV anti-trust problem (2:27), latest on the strike, and what’s next on the Sun Valley agenda (43:52).
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Turning Tiffany into Walmart: that’s how Ari Emanuel recently described Bryan Lourd’s stewardship of CAA, putting some harsh, eyebrow-raising words behind the heated rivalry between the Endeavor and CAA chiefs. Peter Kiefer joins Sean McNulty, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield to discuss his juicy profile of the war between the two agenting titans (25:20)— and why it explains Hollywood’s dilemmas of the moment. “We’re in the era of Ari and Bryan… and they really don’t like each other very much,” says Kiefer. Also: the PGA’s questionable decision to merge with the Saudi-backed LIV (5:40), how Jeff Zuckeroutplayed (former) CNN chief Chris Licht (7:59), and the state of the writers strike amid the DGA’s tentative deal and SAG’s negotiations (45:30).
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In-between thewriters and studio/streaming chiefs are Hollywood’s day-to-day working executives, who find themselves in a rare slowdown — and assorted existential crises.
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The box office drought is over. But there are only so many slots for winners.
For a transcript, click here.
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What the death of cable TV has to do with the writers strike.
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How writers have leveraged themes around the gig economy, CEO pay and suspicions about Silicon Valley to their benefit.
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With an impasse over everything from quotas to AI, the first week of the strike has revealed an entirely different playing field than the one from 2007-2008. Richard Rushfield and Elaine Low join Sean McNulty to talk what they’ve seen on the pickets, the particular ire at Netflix, the AI arguments, and the tenuous, shifting solidarity from the other guilds. And, the how and when this possibly ends. Also: David Zaslav’s optimistic earnings call and its impact on the strike (1:37), and the upcoming DGA negotiations (23:25).
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In a special Strikegeist episode, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield join Sean McNulty to report back what they are seeing and hearing (and the who’s who) at the picket lines across town. “Upbeat but not combative,” says Rushfield, who took in the scene outside Paramount. Also: why a short-term resolution doesn’t seem likely (10:36); takeaways from Elaine’s interview with WGA lead negotiator Ellen Stutzman (11:24); awkwardness surrounding FYC events (22:18); and why AI has more than just writers worried (13:21).
For by-the-minute coverage of the WGA strike, please subscribe to our free Strikegeist newsletter. And if you enjoy this podcast, please clickhere to subscribe.
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If the theme of last year’s CinemaCon was “movies are back,” then this year’s is “movies are really back.” Richard Rushfield and Elaine Low join Sean McNulty to report what they saw during their three dizzying days at the Vegas pep rally, including the rise of R-rated comedies (again!) and the coming onslaught of summer movies. “We’re about to go from drought into the most crazy train wreck of blockbusters,” says Rushfield. Also: the unanswered questions as the WGA hurtles towards strike (21:39); what to read into the Disney layoffs (1:00), and Comcast’s new hierarchy with the sudden departure of Jeff Shell (32:08).
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As Hollywood braces for a writers strike, one genre of television will remain unscathed: unscripted. But reality has its own pitfalls: recently Netflix juggernaut Love is Blind whiffed in its attempt to livestream its reunion episode. Today, Sean McNulty, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield are joined by Insider’s Katie Warren, whose recent piece exposed horrifying work conditions on the show for contestants — a reminder of how inexpensive costs and inexperience make unscripted so budget-friendly to make. Also on tap: how the DGA is entangled in WGA negotiations (1:22), the migration of entertainment execs to the gaming world, as reported by Low (25:22), and what to expect at CinemaCon next week (38:21).
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Sean McNulty and Elaine Low analyze what the co-CEOs said (and didn’t) in its Q1 earnings report about the strike, subscribers, the ad tier and passwords.
For a full transcript, click here.
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For the first time in 13 years, the iconic HBO moniker will not headline a platform as HBO Max becomes Max. Was the brand that snobby?
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Elaine Low and Sean McNulty discuss the implications of HBO Max's rebrand.
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Entertainment was once dominated by brash young executives (Barry Diller, Sherry Lansing, Dawn Steel and Robert Evans all ascended in their thirties). Now? Nearly every top job in town belongs to someone with decades (and decades) of experience. “When there’s a storm, you turn to the steady captain who’s been at the helm before,” says Peter Kiefer, whose piece about Hollywood’s Grey Ceiling — frustrating to those waiting their turns at top — got the town talking (15:11). Also: Endeavor’s potential for middle America domination with its WWE-UFC merger (5:48), confusion around Amazon’s streaming strategy (11:04), and the surprising lack of kids movies in theaters (39:18).
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Hollywood’s tectonic plates are continuing their steady shift, this time with Netflix’s decision to part ways with longtime film execs Lisa Nishimura and Ian Bricke. The move raises the broader question of what other senior-level anklings are coming, an issue Elaine Low hit on in her reporting on Hollywood’s new workplace culture: “It's making people question, ‘what am I doing with my career?’” (32:25) Also: Martini Shot host and OG WGA member Rob Long explains why he flip-flopped and now supports the Guild’s demands (1:08); how a strike could affect release strategies and content creation pipelines (17:54), Richard Rushfield’s apocalyptic vision of the streamers’ strike game plan (34:47); and why the team is split on an analyst’s new recommendation that Apple should buy Disney (43:57).
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This is last in a series of conversations from NXStream Global, the March 8 summit from Advertising Week and The Ankler at UTA. The first three were with Tony Vinciquerra, Jeremy Zimmer and Rich Paul.
When Tom Ryan launched free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service Pluto TV in 2013, he defied the widely held belief that the future lay in on-demand, ad-free paid subscription services such as Netflix. Then, in 2019, he sold Pluto TV to Viacom for $340 million, becoming part of Paramount Global. “We've got the broadest possible content offering, and the broadest possible business model,” says Ryan. In conversation with Sean McNulty, Ryan, now president and CEO of Paramount Streaming, discusses the combination of Paramount’s assets with Pluto’s, now in 35 markets (8:54), the critical importance of “best of breed” partnerships around the globe for growth (16:57), and how Paramount+ added 10 million subscribers in Q4 — more than any other streamer (19:35).
For a full transcript of the conversation, click here.
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With a strike looming, will Apple, Amazon and Netflix decide to make real concessions.
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Amid a looming writers strike, cutbacks across the board, price increases and layoffs, Hollywood is at an inflection point, both in terms of how Wall Street sees it and how Hollywood sees itself. New Ankler reporter Elaine Low joins Richard Rushfield and Sean McNulty to dissect the existential crisis around town, as people wonder, what does it even mean to work here anymore? “This year you're really gonna have both creatives and studio execs taking a good hard look at themselves,” says Low. (5:52 The trio also discuss what the average entertainment consumer wants and expects (22:50), whether Apple and Amazon will quit streaming if their core businesses fail to drive independent revenue (30:25), and the soon-to-begin WGA strike negotiations (45:10).
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Sports agent Rich Paul shares his strategy for keeping clients like LeBron James and Jalen Hurts in the money.
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Bruce Vilanch spent 14 of his 24 years on the Academy Awards as the show’s head writer (2000-2014), collaborating with hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, David Letterman and Steve Martin. Today, he breaks down why this year’s Oscars worked — from the use of live TV producers, to heartfelt speeches, to Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes.
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With the entertainment business in chaos, and a potential WGA strike looming, UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer comes out swinging in support of better economics for writers, and delivers sometimes scathing opinions about the unprofitable state of streaming, the great un-ordering of series, and stardom (including Leonardo Di Caprio's advice to Timotheé Chalamet).
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As the one-year anniversary of the Great Netflix Correction approaches, the town’s streaming future sure looks a lot more uncertain. In the same week Bob Iger’s remarks rattled (5:32), industry leaders Jeremy Zimmer, UTA CEO, and Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerramade pointed remarks about the un-sustainability of the current streaming economy at the NXStream Global Summit. Also: Jenna Ortega’s oof comments (0:52), and Richard’s prediction that the Banshees of Inisherin is an Oscars Best Picture dark horse (31:05).
The Ankler is releasing a series of recorded conversations from the stage at NXStream Global. First up: Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO’s Vinciquerra; Zimmer’s full conversation will be coming soon.
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Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra talks to Janice Min about The Woman King’s Oscars snub; PlayStation and The Last of Us; the decision to work with Will Smith again, and Spider-Man and Kevin Feige.
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For decades, the prevailing narrative around Gone With the Wind has been that it romanticized slavery and the antebellum south. But, as David Vincent Kimel learned when he discovered one of the film's few remaining shooting scripts, it almost did the exact opposite. The Yale grad student joins the podcast to talk about his groundbreaking story, which exposes the film's warring screenwriters and deleted scenes depicting the horrors of slavery (23:48). “It really is shocking how gritty and uncompromising that early material was,” he says. Also: Richard Rushfield's dire takeaways from talking with 20+ writers against the backdrop of a looming WGA strike (13:18), and the NBA agent joining our IRL Oscar week streaming summit (0:43).
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Today, Richard Rushfield dives deeper into his high school classmates growing up in L.A. (names include Matthew Greenfield, Jay Sures, Brett Morgen, Jason Blumenthal, Maya Rudolph and Jack Black),part of the many revelations from his profile in the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair. Get ready to learn what car Sures drove, who carpooled with his sister, and which of the names above was his prom date (albeit group date). Also: the forces driving a near inevitable writers strike (19:02), how to interpret David Zaslav’s earnings call (10:11), and more on our IRL Oscar week streaming summit (39:04).
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“It’s a terrible place to make creative decisions when fear seeps into the process,”Peter Kiefer tells our hosts, as he explains what he learned from interviews with a dozen of the town’s senior executives (13:39). Some culprits? Underwater stock options, a top-down obsession with optics, the ruthless demands of Wall Street and private equity, and a relentless mining of old IP. Oh yeah, and the constant threat of layoffs. Also: our IRL Oscar week streaming summit (1:00), the new nepo-ex atop AMC Networks (4:13), Don Lemon’s bad behavior (11:06), and Richard Rushfield’s advice (34:43) for Jenna Ortega and all stars.
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Few technological disruptors to the entertainment industry have appeared quite as fast, or as existentially forebodingly, as artificial intelligence. After ChatGPT, DALL-E and other new AI technologies became publicly available in recent months, Cornell Law professor James Grimmelmannsays, “I could feel the ground shifting.”Today, he walks our hosts through samples of AI music, script-writing and visual effects, and the ways in which the industry may be forced to evolve. “I don’t think Hollywood should be afraid. But every person should be thinking how every creative job… is going to look different as a result of this.” Also on tap: what’s coming under Bob Iger’s second shot at Disney.
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In what Mark Zuckerberg has deemed the “year of efficiency” — corporate-speak for layoffs and cost-cutting — economic pressures are being felt across Hollywood, from writers to producers to below-the-line workers and, of course, actors. Joining today, seasoned actress Rebecca Metz (Better Things, Shameless) reveals how unique circumstances for performers (shorter seasons, exclusivity windows, the disappearance of residuals) have taken a toll, even for those on hit series. As actors, making less now, leave L.A. (“I have a lot of friends who have left town”), Metz puts forth a straightforward career goal for the streaming era: to “like my life while being able to support myself.”
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It's certainly not the soap opera that went down at Disney, but Netflix’s new succession plan might turn out to be just as earth-shaking. Prior to the streamer’s Q4 earnings call, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings announced Greg Peters, current COO and CPO, as his replacement. Insider’s Elaine Low joinshosts Sean McNulty and Janice Min to discuss her reporting on the little-known Peters, breaking down who he is (physics and astrophysics major at Yale, foodie), how he complements co-CEO Ted Sarandos (Peters isunaffected by Hollywood glamour), and what it portends for the world’s biggest streamer.
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Host Sean McNulty sits with Josh Greenstein, president of Sony’s Motion Picture Group, to break down the studio’s latest theatrical success, Tom Hanks’ A Man Called Otto (a $15 million opening weekend). The two dig into Greenstein’s out-of-the-box marketing campaigns that reached Otto’s broad demographic — from AARP screenings, to an advent calendar, to Hanks’ TikTok debut. Greenstein also talks the studio’s new deal with Legendary, the upcoming Spider-man movie and CEO Tom Rothman’s strategy for making movies. Says Greenstein, “We’re really trying to bring all audiences into the tent.”
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This week, the Disney soap opera took even more twists with a board shake-up and vocal misgivings from today’s Hollywood bogeyman: the activist investor. Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield unpack the welts from Nelson Peltz (which include a finger wag for the $71 billion purchase of Fox), and why Disney attracts so much drama. Also: Richard shares his view from the inside of the Golden Globes, its predictable ratings collapse, and what it augers for awards season. Lastly, with Richard jetting off to the Sundance Film Festival, the team talks about the indie sector’s theatrical wing all but in collapse, and what might come out of the confab. (Note, click here for a special invitation to an Ankler event for readers and listeners in Park City.)
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Host Sean McNulty wanted to start the New Year with stories of success in a new Ankler podcast series, Why it Worked. First up: horror’s top hitmakers, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Atomic Monster’s James Wan, the powerhouses behind low-budget smash M3GAN. The two talk the viral TikTok dance trend, what made the movie and campaign work, how they look at tracking (or don’t), and why the studios and streamers struggle to produce their own low-budget, high-margin hits. Will there be a M3GAN sequel? The duo answer, as well as questions around how they work together, the status of their merger, and future plans. As Blum puts it: “Thank God this one part of the business is still working!”
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When Buffalo Bill Daram Hamlin awoke in the hospital following his dramatic medical crisis during Monday Night Football, his first words in the hospital were “Did we win?” On today’s pod, Sean McNulty, Richard Rushfield and Janice Min, joined by The Bulwark’s Sonny Bunch, contrast the NFL’s high-stakes dramas to the deterioration of the public’s interest in Hollywood’s own competitions: awards shows (of the top 100 most-watched TV broadcasts in 2022, 82 were NFL games; the Oscars were 77th on the list). With the Golden Globes just days away (and likely programmed on Tuesday to no go opposite football), the four discuss the void of anticipation, who and what is owning the public mindshare right now if not for movies and TV, Avatar: The Way of the Water, and if the audience should feel optimistic about movies in this year ahead.
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In the final pod of the year, The Ankler looks back on Hollywood’s tumultuous 12 months and what lies ahead in 2023. Hosts Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield are joined by Jason Hirschhorn, CEO of digital content and curation company REDEF, for a probing discussion around the state of Hollywood and the Streaming Wars. Hirschhorn discusses hard choices facing media giants as they pivot from customer acquisition to retention, and what the implications are for programming (12:42). The trio also talks which companies are best positioned for next year (28:36), the changes ads bring (15:25) and whether anyone will ever be able to unravel the apps and services jungle that viewers must navigate to watch shows (32:42). Topping it off: their picks for best of 2022 (60:55).
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Is anything more dramatic than the DC Universe (16:19)? With a history that includes off-screen ups and downs around Henry Cavill, Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, Christopher Nolan, Ben Affleck and Amber Heard, “it’s like a soap opera in its 11th season,” says Richard Rushfield, who joins hosts Sean McNulty and Tatiana Siegel. The group unpacks the controversial decisions from new chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery’s adjacent HBO Max library purge (23:52). Also: Ankler contributor Nicole LaPortediscusses her buzzy grim story about the new hustle life for Hollywood writers, and if Bob Iger was the hidden hand behind Disney movies suddenly landing China releases (37:41).
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In recent years, Hollywood embraced the “authorship” principle — the belief that writers and filmmakers best share the “lived experience” of their subjects to be authentic. As relayed by Peter Kiefer, the Ankler contributor whose bombshell Elisabeth Finch interview has rocked the town, the producers of medical soap opera Grey’s Anatomy, Shondaland, wholly embraced this belief system. Kiefer explains to hosts Sean McNulty, Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel not only how he ended up with Finch’s confessions, but how the current climate may have aided and abetted her staggering series of lies. In five hours of taped interviews, Finch confesses: “It was absolutely dead wrong to do that… Culturally it became cooler if [the pitch] was based on something in reality.” Even if the reality was fiction.
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Three months into the job as AMC Networks, CEO Christina Spade was shown the door — a shorter tenure than even ousted Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s (26:42). “Not even a word from her. It was literally an announcement in a SEC filing,” notes host Sean McNulty. “Then, the next day they announced 20 percent of the staff is being let go.” This comes on the heels of a week of stunning reorgs at CNN, Paramount and Amazon. McNulty, joined by Richard Rushfield, Tatiana Siegeland Ankler contributor Nicole LaPorte also discussed the increasingly bleak outlook for producers (14:59) and the curious case of the Emancipation red carpet where no reporter dared breathe a word of The Slap (2:59).
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Watching the fiasco consuming Twitter, Hollywood might think it’s above the madness. But the mood of workers in entertainment feels more like the spiraling social media platform than anyone wants to believe. Amazon is laying off 10,000 people, Roku is cutting 200, John Malone said streaming economics have lead to “blood running down the gutters” and Vice Media seeks to cut 15 percent of its budget — which won’t come from “saving paper clips,” says Janice Min, joined by host Sean McNulty. Also: the role of tech-driven economics on Hollywood chaos (10:28), Twitter’s Elon Musk-fueled descent (13:46), the future of crypto stories in film and TV (23:41), and Marvel’s snowballing franchise fatigue (37:30).
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Working in entertainment, Rob Long has become superstitious. Whenever Rob does something humdrum like walking the dog and his agent calls, it’s always bad news. A call on a great trip? Well, maybe it’s a series pick-up! “We're always looking for signs and signals about where exactly we are on the great big greasy power ladder,” he says. And nowhere is your place in the world more on display than at the gates of a studio. If you’re denied entry and the gate arm stays down, you’re not just locked out of the lot — you’re also locked out of the business.
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Jennifer Aniston declared the movie star dead. Now hosts Sean McNulty, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel, joined by Rob Long, offer their condolences as Hollywood scatters the ashes of its once-mighty creation (21:02), destroyed by self-inflicted wounds (and names of those who still endure). The group also talks agents and managers (7:32), and how streaming makes them — for better or worse — more valuable. “Streamers are so besieged with 2,000 shows in production that they demand any project [have] everybody attached,” says Rushfield. “They need a whole package ready to go.” Also: Early returns on The Ankler’s ruthless Agents, Managers and Attorneys poll (3:38) and schadenfreude over Silicon Valley’s woes (49:30): Says Long, “I am celebrating the humbling of our overlords.”
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This week, Rob finds similarities between an audience and the voting public. Both will disappoint or lift you up on occasion, but what they should never do is surprise you, because that means you haven’t been listening. The solution: Turn to the crew, often the best and most accurate focus group a TV writer/producer can get. “‘Is the crew laughing?’ is one of the questions writers ask all the time on a comedy shoot,” says Rob, because they’re not paid enough to pretend to enjoy something when they’re not. On that note, Rob also offers up some free advice to anyone running a media business: follow the Olive Garden strategy, where, upon a takeover, every executive was forced to work in a restaurant for a day.
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Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Roku, Lionsgate. Third-quarter earnings reports are all variations on a theme: things are bad. Layoffs are hitting every corner, and streaming “clearly [is] not making money yet and will not for another two years if it even gets to that point for some of these companies,” says host Sean McNulty (30:31), joined by Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel, as the team lays out likely scenarios coming (including the “twin apocalypse” of a recession and a writers guild strike). Ankler contributor Peter Kiefer also joins to dissect Tuesday’s election, including a town divided over Rick Caruso v. Karen Bass for mayor and a wild Los Angeles County supervisor race rife with antisemitism allegations (5:10). Also on tap: Jeff Zucker’s $1 billion comeback (32:36).
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When Rob’s credit card was declined this week, he hopped on the phone with card security, and then — thanks to the sober reality check — decided he didn’t really need to buy that expensive toy. And thus, the benefit of “a service that interrupts you while you're in the process of buying something expensive and unnecessary.” On a set, that’s known as the line producer. And today, Rob pays tribute to one of the best, Steve Grossman, a 35-year industry veteran (Newhart, Hope & Gloria, George and Leo, Love & Money, Lateline) who was the secret weapon for sitcom success — and to whom the industry recently bid farewell.
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Recession. Ad declines. Subscriber plateaus. The tides continue to shift since the Great Streaming Bubble’s implosion of 2022. In the wake of a pessimistic Q3 earnings season, hosts Sean McNulty, Janice Min and Richard Rushfield are joined by CNBC media reporter Alex Sherman to break down the town’s latest thoughts around David Zaslav (1:35); if Comcast should give up on Peacock (16:30); why Apple didn’t discuss Apple TV+ on its earnings call (spoiler: there was likely no good news, 14:59); and if it make sense for Microsoft to acquire Netflix (16:30). Lastly, Sherman hits on Wall Street’s confusion around it all: “Wall Street doesn’t love mixed messages.”
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On call sheets, child actors have a pumpkin icon next to their names, notifying everyone on set about their inviolate shorter workdays, lest the kid turns into, well, a pumpkin. Rob Long reflects on the significance of that symbol — especially when the time comes to part ways with Hollywood. Even if you’re calling a temporary wrap on your on career, there’s a power and shrewdness to putting a putting a pumpkin next to your own name before someone else does it. Says Rob, “It's the smart and healthy thing to do.” Which means you — and he — probably will never do it.
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Netflix has released more than 45 films(!) so far in 2022, the majority of which are neither loved by critics nor audience, according to Rotten Tomatoes (and as analyzed film-by-film by host Sean McNulty). Not a single one of the other streamers and studios has reached the same average level of disapproval (for the record, everyone else combined have released a total of 86 films in the same time frame). McNulty, Janice Minand Richard Rushfield discuss the quantity vs. quality debate, and if it matters for Netflix, whose Q3 earnings showed subscriber growth. The trio discuss the opposite strategy in play by David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery (see: WBD: What’s the Plan column) and why (try to contain your excitement!) not all debt is created equal.
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At one point or another, everyonein Hollywood will get fired, or will fire someone else. It’s as inevitable as getting unhelpful notes from an executive, or another Avengerssequel. After reading the news of the latest layoffs around town, Rob offers advice on how to deal with this part of the business, as well as how to handle the equally inevitable fallout: the creation of enemies. Sure, there are always people who you are never going to want to work with again, but there are actual enemies — people who you exchange words with — and secret enemies, the most troublesome kind of all.
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Netflix took a victory lap on Tuesday with its Q3 earnings report that revealed — surprise! —the company beat its revenue forecast (or, as host Sean McNulty likes to say, Netflix underpromised and overdelivered). In a special episode recorded at Advertising Week in New York, McNulty, Janice Minand Richard Rushfield break down the ad tier (9:00); the streamer’s 2.4 million subscriber growth stagnating in the U.S., but exploding in Asia (1:09); the company’s not-so-subtle roasting of its money-losing competition (5:35); the comeback of Ryan Murphy with Dahmer(6:52) and its dunk on House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power; the streamer’s theatrical plans for Glass Onion (12:26), and Netflix’s commitment to gaming but not sports (21:57).
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Host Rob Long today explains why attracting an audience to a movie or TV show works the same way those dating apps work in attracting people to one another. But without the swiping. And why writers must always serve the dessert first in their scripts, no matter how “important” the message is. Because audiences want the candy, not the homework. So please, don’t bury the fun.
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Today’s podcast is the final installment of our “What the World Watches” audio series recorded at Singapore’s APOS conference, for paid subscribers only. You can listen to earlier conversations with Formula 1’s Director of Media Rights and Content Creation Ian Holmes here, Warner Bros. Discovery International President Gerhard Zeiler here, and Media Partners Asia co-founder Vivek Couto here.
As the streaming industry continues on its quest for global manifest destiny, India, with its population of 1.4 billion people, remains arguably the biggest untapped market, with some estimating that the next 100 million customers will come from the country. Sameer Nair, CEO of production company Applause Entertainment, has had his finger on the pulse of the market since the 1990s, adapting U.S. content as well as producing originals for major regional players including Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Zee, and Netflix. At the APOS conference in Singapore, The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty sits down with Mumbai-based Nair to discuss the recent introduction of “premium TV” to the region and the hand Netflix has had in developing it (1:58), the economics of producing content in a country with a low ARPU (10:24), and the role U.S. crime procedurals play in growing the market (12:43).
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With a potential WGA strike on the horizon, can the chasm between studios and angry writers be bridged? Hosts Sean McNulty, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel are joined by Martini Shot host (and WGA member) Rob Long to unpack the impending doom. “The Writers Guild continually strikes for a time machine and to go back and change the way [deals] were written,” notes Long. “‘If only I could go back and’ as we always say, kill Hitler.” The foursome also talk Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s questionable victory lap (38:55), David O. Russell’s very odd on-set antics (31:43); and Netflix’s never-say-never theatrical release of Glass Onion (5:27)
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Today’s podcast is the third of four in our “What the World Watches” audio series recorded at Singapore’s APOS conference, for paid subscribers only. You can listen to earlier conversations with Formula 1’s Director of Media Rights and Content Creation Ian Holmes here, and Warner Bros. Discovery International President Gerhard Zeiler here.
Amazon Prime leads in Japan; Netflix in South Korea; Disney+ in India. Nowhere is the growth opportunity (some might say only opportunity) for American streamers as significant as it is in Asia. But it’s not as simple as ordering up more Squid Game. Consigliere to many an entertainment C-suite exec, Vivek Couto, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Media Partners Asia, recently hosted regional players including Amazon’s VP, Prime Video International Kelly Day, Netflix’s Vice President, Content APAC (ex-India) Minyoung Kim and Uday Shankar, investor with James Murdoch in Viacom18, at the APOS conference in Singapore. From there, he joined hosts Janice Min and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty to discuss what will determine who wins (and how) the most important front of the streaming wars.
Among the topics:
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The immense scale of opportunity vs. the U.S. and Europe (9:22)
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Current misassumptions about the quantity of local content necessary to win (multiple mentions)
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Who has first-mover advantage where
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Regional players — and potential acquisition targets for American players (multiple mentions)
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Sports rights as loss leaders in the region — including cricket (33:14)
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The region’s wide disparity in ARPU (average revenue per user) (10:58)
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Potential for imminent streaming consolidation in the Asian market (43:43)
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How Warner Bros. has “one of the best libraries to monetize in…the world” (17:57)
A transcript of the conversation is available here.
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Today Rob Long tells the story of a friend on a flight about to make an emergency landing. The worst wasn’t the pilot’s announcement that they were in trouble; it was the flight attendant’s attempt to get everyone to chant, hands clapping, “We’re going to be okay!” As anyone in the industry long enough knows, such happy self-talk usually indicates something that is exactly the opposite — particularly in this era of Entertainment 2022. Enter the ninth planet.
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Today’s edition is the second of four in our “What the World Watches” audio series from Singapore’s APOS conference for paid subscribers only.Our regular format resumes later this week.
In May, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav referred to his company as “the largest international business” in media. In charge of that broad operation is Gerhard Zeiler, Warner Bros. Discovery International President (he also held that role at the former WarnerMedia). The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty sat down with Zeiler in Singapore at the recent APOS conference. Among the highlights:
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A reassertion of the company’s fervent belief in the exclusive theatrical window (01:36)
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What’s going on inside the company (with nods to colleagues JB Perrette, Casey Bloys, Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy)
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How the combined HBO Max-Discovery streamer will roll out (07:14)
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The future of CNN around the globe (16:58)
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WBD’s international sports plays (11:51)
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The plan for international ad tiers and additional geographic expansion (19:32)
A transcript of this conversation is available to paid subscribers.
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In lieu of our regular weekly podcast, today’s edition is the first of four in our “What the World Watches” audio series from Singapore’s APOS conference. Our regular format resumes next week.
In five years, Formula 1 has evolved from a rich man’s pastime to one of the world’s fastest growing sports, thanks in large to Ian Holmes. F1’s Director of Media Rights and Content Creation, Holmes struck deals with ESPN (27:44), and Netflix, whose F1 docu-series, Drive to Survive, is renewed for a fifth and sixth season (16:10). In Singapore ahead of F1’s flashy Grand Prix, Holmes tells hosts Janice Minand Sean McNulty about what changed at F1 when Liberty Media took ownership (11:48), F1’s new deal with China Telecom (13:26), how Drive to Survive — Holmes is an EP — happened, and why gentleman have yet to start their engines on the Brad Pitt-Joseph Kosinski Apple TV+ F1 film nicknamed “Top Gun on Four Wheels” (30:56): “We’re working hard on an agreement.”
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“Everyone in the entertainment business works hard. Except agents, obviously.” So says Rob this week, as he describes the differences between writing and directing, with a few nods to actors (and their overacting): Being a writer teaches you how to be alone. But being a director teaches you how to be with people. So maybe, actually, being a director is the harder job? Also, what’s the best way for an actor to play a drunk person? We won’t spoil it here, but it hinges on on not being yourself.
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Viewership for Hollywood awards shows is plummeting. Hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and Sean McNulty survey the rocky terrain that’s led to the Golden Globes’s shaky one-year NBC deal (far less than its once-$60 million a year license fee), and prompted the Academy’s new Hail Mary efforts to remake the Oscars (and red carpet) for ABC. “There’s no way now they’re getting $100 million a year [today],” McNulty says. In a season where Avatar 2, Steven Spielberg, Top Gun: Maverick and Elvisare in the mix, the shows are throwing everything against the wall to remain culturally relevant — with streamers likely their next home. The team also unpacks Amazon’s Thursday Night Football numbers(9:41), Apple Music’s Super Bowl steal (6:30), and Spielberg’s Toronto audience award with The Fabelmans (42:25).
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Today, Rob Long presents the idea that anyone who puts on a little play, bangs on an instrument or talks into a microphone for money can say they’re in entertainment. But a true show business professional — hello, Harry Styles! — is hard to find these days, because the kind of people drawn to the industry are often much like baby actors — moody, mercurial, hard to reason with, yet also adorable. So when a fussy infant is faced with the prospect of being replaced by a cutting-edge robot on set, as witnessed by Rob, can they step up to the challenge?
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Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield, Tatiana Siegel and Sean McNulty take stock of a new phenomenon on the festival circuit fest: the ever-shrinking and choreographed press conference (20:34). High-profile press conferences — from Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical The Fabelmans to Harry Styles’ period gay drama The Policeman — featured questions vetted in advance (likely a result of Venice’s Don’t Worry Darling debacle), with Styles answering just one question at the My Policeman post-premiere Q&A. “It’s an erosion of the ability to report at a festival,” says Siegel. Also on tap, the hosts tackle the arrival of Thursday Night Football on Amazon (6:19), woeful Emmys ratings (3:52) as well as Bob Chapek and Brian Roberts’ “public negotiation” over Hulu (28:41).
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Today, Rob Long dives into some of the unspoken commandments that everyone working in entertainment ought to know and live by, from savvy advice when it comes to pitching (“never go first”) to why writers should never solicit feedback from execs who pass on their projects (“explanations are meaningless”). Also do your agent and manager secretly hate each other?
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Oof — well, that’s an Emmys down. Today, hosts Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield dissect the Emmys, and what it says about the streaming giants who stage their annual showdown over bragging rights with increasingly little meaning to the larger audience. Who comes out of this show stronger Diminished? And would all the streamers just be better off ignoring the Emmys altogether? The hosts also throw around some wild ideas on how to fix this awards show and others, and what lies before us on the next road to Oscar.
(Curious minds can click here to watch the Love Boat 1983 ABC Fall Preview Special referenced in the episode.)
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On day two of the Toronto International Film Festival, one big crowd pleaser emerged from the pack. The world premiere of the Billy Eichner historic gay rom-com Bros was greeted by rapturous applause and enthusiastic reviews. On the scene at TIFF, hosts Tatiana Siegel and Richard Rushfield spoke with Nick Stoller, the director of Bros, whose previous films include Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors and The Muppets. Stoller gets candid about the experience of his first major festival premiere, the challenged state of comedy amid studio pullbacks and what he thinks of so-called “cancel culture”.
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What does America reallywant to watch? In recent years, Hollywood has become obsessed with prestige content — the kind, as host Richard Rushfield puts it, that entertainment executives can talk about green-lighting to impress people at dinner parties. Richard, Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel, and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty break down surprising stats that reveal how and why Hollywood became out of touch with so much potential audience (the subject of Entertainment Strategy Guy’s “The American Viewer” series), a topic with new urgency as streaming growth in the U.S. plateaus (28:19). Also, Richard and Tatiana check in from the Toronto International Film Festival (05:26), the hosts discuss the MIA marketing heads of streaming (13:04), and Sean lays out the details of Cineworld’s unsurprising bankruptcy filing (23:36).
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This week, Rob Long recalls a childhood memory of a large, unidentifiable spinning machine with blades that took two people to operate — lest one lose a hand — which serves as good metaphor for working together in show business. And as long as that machine is doing its job, don’t try to tinker with it; just ask the people behind New Coke, who discovered — too late — that soda drinkers didn’t want something new. On the other hand, don’t be the CW, making shows for teens when the average age of your audience is… 58. Network programmers, this one’s for you!
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Remember the ’90s and early aughts? It was supermodels, mighty malls and the rise of the billionaire class. Host Tatiana Siegel takes listeners back there with guests Matt Tyrnauer and Jenny Ewig, executive producers behind Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons (now Hulu Originals’ most-watched documentary in history). The three-parter explores one of the era’s most influential men, Les Wexner, founder of the lingerie brand and retail empire that also included Abercrombie & Fitch and The Limited. Once hailed by Wall Street as the “Merlin of the Mall,” Wexner also had a decades-long friendship and $400 million financial entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein. Says Tyrnauer, the series’ director and also the documentarian behind Where’s My Roy Cohn? and Studio 54: “It’s the only project I’ve ever done where I actually have many, many more questions than when I started.”
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For the price of just a few coffee runs, you can access the entire Peacock catalogue – Sunday Night Football, Love Island, and all – for a full calendar year right now. That deep-cut offer ($20 for 12 months) might signal red flags unique to the no-growth Comcast streamer, but drastic lever-pulling is engulfing the entire streaming marketplace (16:20) — from price slashing (Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount+/Showtime bundling) to ad tiers (Netflix and Disney+). Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield, and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty also talk House of the Dragon vs. Rings of Power (10:24), the return of monoculture (41:15), and the decline of marketing-sculpted movie stars (44:34). Plus: Richard struggles when quizzed about Netflix’s top 10 movie openings weekends from Summer 2022 (47:05).
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Rob looks back at the “olden times”, when just a handful of broadcast networks with mediocre — and somewhat problematic — shows like Webster dominated the airwaves. Their main goals weren’t about attracting viewers as much as not driving them away to competitors. But in today’s streaming landscape, viewers aren’t drifting through a primetime lineup, or mindlessly channel surfing. And just like Rob, seduced by local clothes while on vacation in faraway places, both streamers and broadcast businesses need to remember who they are — lest they end up coming back dressed in a sarong and wooden slippers, looking ridiculous.
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Rarely does an entertainment CEO become a trending topic on Twitter, but that’s exactly where Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav found himself this week as heat increases over his company’s layoffs, DEI handling, the removal of library content including hundreds of Sesame Street episodes from HBO Max, and those so-called ‘funeral screenings.’ Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield, and The Wakeup’s Sean McNultyhone in on what’s happening behind closed doors and why as mounting debt puts increasing pressure on the company. Also on today’s episode, the trio play producer Dan Lin’s prophetic remarks aboutDC (11:44), and run down Entertainment Strategy Guy’s fantasy M&A picks (23:40) for an embattled industry.
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Writers get lots of advice during the development of a script, usually in a backhanded way with all sorts of qualifiers: agents like to give notes (typically on the prospects of a script in the marketplace) starting with phrases like “Hey, I’m not a writer!” or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body!” But if there’s one thing more awkward than receiving negative feedback on your work, it’s overhearing someone else getting those notes in a public space — a skill Rob has dubbed ‘yoga eavesdropping’. At the end of the day, sometimes the best thing one can do is provide no advice at all.
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The town may finally be acknowledging the undeniable pressures unique to this industry. This week, Jonah Hill, Tom Holland and Ezra Miller all said they are modifying their behavior to protect their mental health. Hill is stepping away from promoting his movies and making public appearances due to panic attacks; Holland announced he has abandoned social media to help stay emotionally balanced; and Ezra Miller is seeking treatment for a complex mental health issue. Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield, Tatiana Siegel and Sean McNulty survey Hollywood’s littered emotional landscape and how an industry whose very businesses are in current disarray adds another layer of stress onto its inhabitants. Separately, the hosts dive into new headlines ranging from Netflix’s Scott Stuber interviewing at Amazon, and Brian Stelter’s firing from CNN.
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Most people will do almost anything to avoid being embarrassed, why is why, as Rob Long explains, embarrassment is the key to making something truly funny. But there’s a difference between personal mortification — “someone saw my nudes on my phone” — and professional humiliation — “I did a stupid thing in a meeting.” The latter can be used effectively as a way to build morale on a writing staff, or it can be deployed more nefariously to cause someone to leave the business entirely. Also, Rob cautions his listeners against committing the most ignominious act of self-humiliation: complimenting a show not on the network you are working with. Oops.
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There’s nothing more stressful or exhilarating than the high-wire act of live television. The Ankler Hot Seat podcast host Tatiana Siegelwelcomes one of the best in the genre: Hamish Hamilton, director of the upcoming 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 12. Londoner Hamilton has helmed some of the most memorable moments of live TV including this year’s Super Bowl halftime extravaganza, Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s VMA win, and the London Olympics Opening Ceremony when Queen Elizabeth jumped out of a helicopter (yes, she rehearsed that move 5-6 times!). Hamilton also previews his live Beauty and the Beast with H.E.R., coming up on ABC. An Emmy nominee himself this year (for the 2022 Super Bowl), he also weighs in on two live shows he didn’t direct: the Oscar slap flap and the 2004’s Nipplegate at the Super Bowl. “You want people to be talking about your show,” says Hamilton. “On another hand, you want everybody who hits that stage, for it to be a safe place.”
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Following Disney’s Q2 earnings call, many headlines declared the company’s victory over Netflix as Disney+ subscribers reached 221 million — squeaking ahead of Netflix (at 220.67 million). But in this episode, The Wakeup’s Sean McNultytells Janice Minand Richard Rushfieldthat, in this case, the numbers don’t reveal the whole story (think India, domestic stagnation and revenue per subscriber). The trio also discuss the town’s curious changing narrative around Disney chief Bob Chapek, the company's declared break-even point for streaming, and the date the company has circled in its calendar to stop losing money on streaming. All this, plus other juicy tidbits (for those who love data and analysis, that is).
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In the second of our two-part series with Los Angeles mayoral candidates with Peter Kiefer, today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast features billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, currently in a run-off with U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (her interview is here). With Angelenos heading to the polls on Nov. 8, Peter Kiefer asks Caruso to explain how he plans to close the gap with Congresswoman Bass, who won 43.1 percent compared to his 36 percent in the June primary; if deep blue L.A. is ready for a centrist (21:56); what a Caruso administration can do to help the entertainment industry (10:57); his thoughts on Gavin Newsom (16:14); and where he really stands on Roe v. Wade (19:11)? (“Being a Catholic…has been weaponized against me.”) As for the blight of homeless encampments? He says he can get affordable housing built, and make it more attractive for “small, medium and large businesses” to be in L.A., using the example of Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters (14:41): “I've talked to the executives in there, coming to work carrying human waste on their shoes because there's so much human waste on the sidewalk, because we've allowed people to live in the most inhumane situation. It's incredible what all of our elected officials have allowed to happen…in front of one of the great companies of Hollywood.” And plenty more. Click here to read the full transcript.
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Rob Long opines on audience research, bad time slots and rules for what not to say in front of executives as a writer — which somehow leads to the curious case of Batgirl,a movie that apparently will never be seen by anyone outside of Warners Bros. For Rob, there’s no rule for that one: “What I do know is I don’t know because you never know.”
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As his new film Easter Sunday, starring Jo Koy, hits theaters, tentpole producer Dan Lin chats with hosts Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel about his legendary career, coming projects and current passion: Rideback Rise, a non-profit to increase Hollywood inclusion by “taking diverse talent [and] making content for the masses” that is currently fundraising as DEI initiatives fall to Hollywood’s new slash-and-burn culture (23:48). During the wide-ranging conversation, Lin also discusses his start at Warner Bros., a wild tale about Jeff Robinov’s pivotal impact on his career (38:14), how he laid his career on the line for The Departed (43:05), mentor Alan Horn joining Warner Bros. again (36:32), and, in an alternate universe, that he wishes he ran DC (46:51). Also, how a chance sushi restaurant encounter and Steven Spielberg helped Easter Sunday become the quickest start-to-completion for a film he’s ever had (16:03). Plus: Richard Donner’s dying wish for Lethal Weapon 5, Mel Gibson and its future (44:52) that he intends to fulfill.
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On this episode, hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty take quick measure of entertainment’s giants after another day of wild Q2 earnings calls all about streaming that included Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Lionsgate. Some quantified(ish) what success looks like down the road; others stayed vague. WBD CEO David Zaslav said that HBO Max and Discovery+, which boast a total of 92 million combined subscribers worldwide, will break even as a united service when it adds another 40 million, likely in 2024 or 2025, as $3 billion in “efficiencies” (ouch), start to unroll. Paramount CEO Bob Bakish called their losses “a growth phase” (a $445 million loss last quarter against revenues of $672 million). All begged the hard question: when does streaming investment actually begin to pay off?
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Related links:
Top Producer Sees Ruthless Future for Hollywood DEI
What?! Netflix Just Lost its Biggest TV Show in America
Will Peacock Exist in a Year?
Which Streamer Has the Most Bombs in 2022?
Who Killed the Marvel Juggernaut?
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In this week’s episode, Rob Long encourages his fellow scribes to be observant: pay attention to what’s going on in the world around you. Because there might be a hit TV show or a movie playing out right in front of your nose. The hard part, according to Rob, is trying to figure out if your new idea is “weird good” or “weird bad”? And just like flying on a tiny propellor plane, the trick is to take a deep breath and just get on board — and don’t think too hard about going down in flames. Because unlike in aviation, it’s pretty likely you will.
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This week, Kevin Smith was invited to join The Ankler Hot Seat podcast to talk Comic-Con, where he teased his upcoming Clerks III. Instead, in a detour that only briefly returns to the topic, he delves into the amazing origin story of his marriage to Jennifer Schwalbach (it involves Chris Rock and an awkward encounter with Harvey Weinstein), how he had been asked to defend Matt Damon and Ben Affleck around Good Will Hunting, and what happened when “the real Harley Quinn” met Margot Robbie. For hosts Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel, Smith’s story was far more entertaining than anything out of Hall H last week. Tune in for more. Explicit content warning: This episode includes profanity and may not be suitable for children.
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Who Killed the Marvel Juggernaut
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As recession fears mount, Comcast becomes the latest to deliver a bleak earnings picture, with its streaming service Peacock stuck firm on 13 million subscribers, despite spending over $2 billion a year on content.
Hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and Sean McNulty discuss what that might mean for its future and what to expect next on the earnings front (Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Lionsgate will report their results in the coming days, and the New York Times and BuzzFeed are on deck amid the ever-shrinking digital ad spend).
Also on today’s episode, Netflix gives a limp green light to more of The Gray Man, and lands the opening movies for the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. But are those slots cursed?
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Peacock Adds No New Subscribers or Free Users in Q2
Which Streamer Has the Most Bombs in 2022
Netflix Saved by ‘Stranger Things’
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This week, Rob Long has a confession to make: he likesagents—they’re “the friendly bacteria in the lower intestine of the dirty business we call entertainment,” he says. In defense of this controversial point of view (well, for a writer, anyway), Rob offers a cautionary tale about a past-his-prime agent who, along with his assistant, saves the career of a struggling writer with a spec sale of an old script. In the process, he reinvigorates his own career and gets the assistant promoted to agent, too. All’s well that ends well, right? But that’s not the end of the story.
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Earnings season is underway, and everyone should be taking notice of Snapchat’s dismal performance (and Twitter’s that followed). The tech company’s stock took a 27 percent nosedive immediately after reporting shocking ad sales declines. That portends a bleak near future for every ad-dependent entity — including Netflix and the streaming services increasingly pivoting to advertising to save the day. Is the chill temporary or is a new ice age afoot? Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty break it down. Also: Yellowstone is TV’s biggest hit, but Hollywood isn't rushing to replicate its success. And TCA scraps its in-person event and goes virtual. Is it really about Covid — or just a convenient excuse?
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The Netflix Q2 2022 subscriber numbers are in! And… huh. No splat. What does the lack of a collapse — but not exactly successful April through June quarter — indicate about the state of the streaming business at the midway mark of 2022?Hosts Janice Min and Richard Rushfield are joined by Ankler contributor Sean McNulty, writer of the daily morning newsletter The Wakeup to dive into the numbers beneath the headlines, including increasing clouds on the U.S. horizon, what the picture looks like in Q3, and what to expect from the rest of the streaming service subscriber reports to come in the weeks ahead.
Subscribe to The Ankler, and you also get The Wakeupincluded in your subscription each weekday morning among the collection of newsletters bringing you behind the doors of the Hollywood and media business.
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast brings a special guest: six-term congresswoman and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Karen Bass. Mail-in ballots following the June 7 California primary have pushed Bass past her main rival — real estate billionaire Rick Caruso — with 43.1 percent of the vote compared to Caruso’s 36 percent. With a runoff underway, Peter Kiefer spoke with Bass about how allegiances in a local race have drawn uncharacteristically large attention from entertainment’s A-list to C-suites. What would a Bass win mean for Hollywood? (She notes that “Sony, Fox, Amazon, Apple — they are all in my congressional district”). As for Caruso’s support from pockets of the industry? “I know he is close friends with Ted (Sarandos). And I think he went to college with Bryan (Lourd). I don’t know what his relationship is with Snoop,” she says, laughing. As for purported beef with Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom’s lack of endorsement, and that Scientology speech she gave (“I would never go back again”)? We get into all of that and more. For a full transcript of today’s conversation, click here.
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It's easy to give script notes to a writer when he's wearing a T-shirt and dresses like a kid at summer camp. It's harder to tell a guy dressed like a hedge-fund shark that the dialogue needs to be 'quirkier'. Which is one of the reasons why Dick Wolf wears a suit. What you're wearing — or driving, or strapping on your wrist — matters, of course, in the room. In the entertainment business, we try to dress casually and comfortably. Big mistake. There's nothing casual or comfortable about show business.
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The Emmy noms are in. After months of posturing, positioning and the biggest glut of prestige entertainment the world has ever seen, the votes have been tallied and the final sprint towards the big night is off and running. Besides the usual snubs and surprises, this year’s crop was a barometer on the state of the streaming wars and television in general. To sift through the results, host Richard Rushfield is joined by L.A. Times Pulitzer Prize winner and longtime TV critic Mary McNamara, television writer and Martini Shothost Rob Long, and Sean McNulty, author of The Wakeup. On the roundtable today: which mogul had the worst day? Why is Yellowstone the odd bison out? And lastly, our panelists name their picks for what will win and what should win.
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An Argentine writer named Jorge Luis Borges once declared that there are only four stories that are told and re-told. Or maybe there are seven — it depends who you ask. Regardless, Rob Long explains in this week’s episode why writers would be better off ignoring those rules. And why everyone else should ignore people who insist that the summer is over on July 5th.
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast dissects this week’s move by the Disney board to extend CEO Bob Chapek’s contract for three more years. Hosts Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel are joined by Ankler contributing editor Peter Kiefer to discuss why the Twitter mob — hailing from both the right and the left of the political divide — tried (and failed) to topple the P.R.-challenged chief from his top perch. The trio also breaks down Disney employees’ internal anger over the company’s exclusion of Planned Parenthood from its corporate matching gift program (which supports many pro-life crisis pregnancy centers). And it’s time to celebrate (or rue) the 15-year anniversary of the iPhone, whereby Hollywood’s collective attention span has become so short it can no longer follow an Adam Sandler movie plotline.
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Technology has enabled us to have meetings from any where at any time. This week, Rob Long gives a discourse on how to conduct a notes call from locations that can be classified as exotic, prosaic and, shall we say, aromatic. But he also points out why the business functioned better when everyone wasn’t so connected and available 24/7.
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast tackles this weekend’s big studio opening, the oft-challenged biopic Elvis. Hosts Tatiana Siegel and Richard Rushfield are joined by The Wakeup writer Sean McNulty to discuss the $85 million Warner Bros. film that endured a lengthy production shutdown back in March 2020 when Tom Hanks became the first celebrity to land in the hospital with Covid. Add to that an untested star in Austin Butler, a 2-hour-and-40-minute runtime and a jam-packed marketplace with such options as holdovers Top Gun, Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear, as well as new horror entry The Black Phone.
But McNulty notes that the biggest problem is “Does anybody care about Elvis?” He adds: “I'm in my mid-40s and I have a mild curiosity about him. I didn't grow up on his music. So does anybody born after 1980 really care about Elvis, or really care to find out if they don't know [his music]?”
Siegel, who was on the ground for the Cannes Film Festival in May, says that Warners also didn’t capitalize on the built-in buzz of premiering at the festival because — unlike Top Gun — Elvis bowed so late in the festival that most attendees were gone by that point. Additionally, Presley songs have not remained part of the popular music canon in the way Elton John and Queen had before the releases of biopics Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Rushfield also highlights that older Middle America — the most natural demo for Elvis — might be put off by director Baz Luhrmann’s take on the King. “The Baz Luhrmann treatment has him skewed in a way that's emphasizing Elvis as this sort of transgressive figure in a way that's definitely not making a pitch towards Elvis' natural fan base,” Rushfield says. “The great advantage of this film is that all the people that you might blame for it are gone. There's nobody at Warner Bros. taking the fall for this movie.”
If preview tallies for Elvis are any indication, $3.5 million doesn’t bode well for the film. (The low-budget Black Phone did $3 million in fewer theaters.)
The trio also broke down why Lightyear stumbled and what it means for beleaguered CEO Bob Chapek as well as more Netflix layoffs (and more schadenfreude).
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In Hollywood, even the most prosaic activities often involve a complex dance of priorities, rank and egos. This week, Rob Long explains the complex politics and power moves behind setting a meeting time that works for everyone’s schedule. Yet that exercise pales in comparison to figuring out who is in what position on which project, which often requires an advanced degree in calculus to understand. But according to Rob, it’s also why you can get by just as well with a good grasp of the concept of dithering.
Check out today’s The Wakeup, our new morning news roundup. And we invite you to become a paid subscriber and never miss another podcast or story.
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Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel are joined by new Ankler contributor Sean McNulty of The Wakeup newsletter to discuss the first likely recession of the streaming era, which, if it were to happen, would further roil companies already getting pounded by Wall Street and, in the case of Netflix, subscriber losses.
McNulty references the last recession following the 2008-2009 collapse of the financial markets. It was pre-streaming and HBO was the dominant premium player at the time. “HBO really never saw a big hit in [previous] recessions… but that was in the ecosystem of cable TV, where it was a lot harder to cancel your HBO,” says McNulty, a former executive at HBO and Charter. “Now, you can literally cancel at the click of a button on your [remote]. I think we haven't seen too much [subscription decline] yet. But I think by end of by Q3… this will be very interesting.”
Marketing cuts appear already to be underway as the streamers tighten their belts. “You're not gonna cut back necessarily on production, but you cut back on marketing and advertising… [they] take the first hit, which is where Warner Bros. Discovery already has positioned its ax,” adds McNulty. “And layoffs are sweeping the industry.” Additionally, an across-the-board pullback in advertising is expected as well right as streaming services pivot to advertising to goose revenue.
Siegel also discusses the role of inflation in the new subscription economy: “Everyone right now is terrified of the economic outlook, because no matter how wealthy somebody is in the industry, even if they're at the highest echelon of the industry, they are seeing that a pint of strawberries is $19. And you have to wonder how long will people be able to have four different streaming subscriptions under those kind of economic [conditions].”
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In the entertainment business, pitch meetings are an essential part of the process of selling ideas — and getting jobs. A good pitch meeting is like a spell being cast on everyone in the room, explains host Rob Long. As a public service, Rob gives his expert guide to pitch meeting success, starting with what beverage one should order (it matters!) and ending with the post-pitch conversation in the car. And whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of sharing your material with a fellow writer, or the dreaded pitch face may ensue.
Don’t forget to check out today’s The Wakeup, our new morning news roundup. And we invite you to become a paid subscriber and never miss another podcast or story.
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast takes you to ground zero in Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s shocking ouster of a top lieutenant, Peter Rice. Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel are joined by Ankler contributing editor Peter Kiefer to discuss the fallout and what it means for Chapek, who once again finds himself stepping into a PR minefield. Rushfield brings the juice, talking about the ‘gang fight’ within Disney and how Dana Walden’s contract renegotiation underway may have played a part in the timing. However, “the town is outraged at the treatment of Peter Rice after 30 years of service to the Disney-Fox companies, that he’s told to hit the bricks after a seven-minute conversation, where he is told that after 30 years, he’s not a ‘cultural fit,’” he says. “There’s no door prize that he gets with this.” Siegel notes that the Rice case breaks with Hollywood’s soft-landing tradition for other top executives like Warner Bros.’ Toby Emmerich, who was allowed a dignified exit with a production deal. In other topics: Kiefer joins to discuss a new lawsuit rocking L.A.’s elite school community over a “woke” curriculum accused of discriminating against Jews; the team talks Johnny Depp and his post-defamation suit victory lap (he’s got 12.1 million TikTok followers after his first two days on the platform); and finally, they applaud the effective and emotional plea for stricter gun laws in Mr. McConaughey Goes to Washington.
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In this week’s episode, Rob Long tackles the idea that entertainment is a risky business that takes a lot of intuition and nerve. Things are going to fail, and sometimes, weird long shots do pay off. But that doesn’t stop networks from using methods to try to predict what shows will and won’t be hits. Rob reminds all network executives that they are in the business of taking chances, and reveals the clever way studios mitigate risk by using a highly technical financial instrument: OPM — a.k.a., other people’s money. Okay, it’s not very technical and it’s not really an instrument either, but it does mitigate their risk.
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On today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast, hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and Richard Rushfield welcome Charles Rivkin, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, the film industry’s historic trade group whose members include Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, Sony, and now Netflix.
Rivkin came to this post through a storied career that led him through the Jim Henson company — whose sale to Disney he engineered in 1988 — to becoming President Obama’s ambassador to France and an assistant secretary of state before taking the reins of the MPA in 2018.
On today’s podcast, the group talks about the many topics shaking the studios right now, and how his “eight years in diplomacy” helped Rivkin work for the larger good among fierce competitors on issues ranging from the windowing future to the path ahead for Netflix (“these guys are incredibly smart. They're gonna figure out a way to win.”)
Also on the docket in the wide-ranging conversation:
Improving the theatrical experience in the face of decaying theaters.
What the MPA is doing to crack down on piracy, leading raids and police actions around the globes.
The moral complications of trying to do business with China.
Guns onscreen and the film industry’s responsibilities.
And much more.
After that conversation, Richard and Tatiana talk through the very busy news week for Hollywood, in particular what happens to both stars after the stunning Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial verdict, and the meaning of the big shake-up atop Warner Bros. studio.
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In this week’s episode, host Rob Long begins with the story of a just-fired executive forced to drive all over town to apologize for his bad behavior while he was in the seat — and thus offers up a parable on power in the entertainment industry, and the links between screamers, show consulting, Stanford, seniority, status and ultimately, Stalin’s chair. After posing the question of whether you are Team Psychopath or Team Fawn, our host then ends on an executive offsite where a Big Bad Boss reveals maybe too much.
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Where has Richard Lovett gone? It’s the billion-dollar question posed by Richard Rushfield earlier this week about CAA’s once-fiery president, and also part of a broader discussion about entertainment leadership on today’s Ankler Hot Seat, hosted by Rushfield and Janice Min, and joined by Ankler contributing editors Nicole La Porte and Peter Kiefer. From his stale (but starry) talent list to his noted absence during client Will Smith’s Oscars meltdown, the disappearing Lovett has the town wondering what has happened, says Rushfield. Meanwhile, newcomer Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney media and entertainment distribution, and subject of a recent profile by LaPorte, has people talking for other reasons: he represents the streaming age’s sharp-elbowed MBA-ing of entertainment (Stanford, Goldman Sachs), and as CEO Bob Chapek’s top Disney+ decision maker, has found himself at odds with creative senior leaders. Is there something to be said for putting bean-counters in charge? (David Zaslav, for one, wins rare praise from our own ESG). Heck, even Los Angeles itself is facing a similar question, Kiefer outlines, as the entertainment industry picks between a traditionalist (Karen Bass) and a billionaire businessman (Rick Caruso) in the final laps of the mayoral race.
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Some writers consider network notes the bane of their existence. Others carefully parse them like a detective at a crime scene for subtle clues that may (or may not) signal whether their script will move towards production. But what if your script receives the unusual but occasional “we have no notes” response? Well, that’s the dream, right? Host Rob Long explains why it may indeed mean you have turned in the perfect draft that answers all of the network’s questions and fears, and your pilot is now on the fast track to the Production Promised Land. Or it may mean something more ominous…
(Return next week for…humiliation at the executive offsite retreat.)
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New on The Ankler
Great reads:
Legendary and Warner Bros. are Temporarily Uncoupled
Getting Fired the Hollywood Way: A writer on jobs suddenly in peril.
ESG on Formula 1 ratings (hint: it’s more than Netflix driving them).
Nicole LaPorte on Disney’s Mysterious Kareem Daniel.
Cannes: Gown Today, Gone Tomorrow: Why red carpets aren’t turning green.
Great listens:
Hollywood’s Cryptocalypse! New York Times writer Tiffany Hsu drops by to talk about the Hollywood stars who shamelessly shilled for crypto before it crashed.
New on The Optionist
This week, Crypto Crash, World's Best Athlete + 5 Picks
Last week, The Original ‘It' Girl’, Texas Mob D.A. + 6 Picks
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast welcomes guest Tiffany Hsu, a New York Times reporter who covers media for the business desk, focusing on advertising and marketing. On today’s episode, Hsu joins hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and Ankler contributing editor Peter Kiefer to discuss her story about a slew of A-list stars from Matt Damon to Reese Witherspoon to LeBron James who were hyping crypto and now have gone very very silent. In the weeks since crypto has taken a nosedive and laypeople have lost their life savings, Hsu began reaching out to all those influential celebrities who appeared in Super Bowl commercials and took to social media to hawk the risky investment to see if they had any regrets.
Hsu was met with a lot of squirmy publicists or deafening silence. Crickets.
“I either got no response or I got responses that were along the lines of, ‘Oh, sorry, my client's busy and can't talk about this.’ Or I would get a response like, ‘Oh, my client was just in it to make a commercial. My client isn't an expert in this field.”
She breaks down why celebrities posing as investment gurus created a dangerous paradigm.
“If you're someone sitting at home and you've seen Matt Damon's movies, you're like, ‘Oh my God, it's Jason Bourne! Like this guy is so cool,’” Hsu says. “Ergo, if he's cool, then everything he does must be cool. So if he's, if he's doing the crypto thing, crypto must also be cool. So there's this fallacy that happens with all celebrity marketing, but really, especially with crypto marketing, where people think celebrities have a lot of money, they must know what to do with that money. So if they're giving me financial advice, it must be good financial advice.”
Kiefer, who also recently tackled the adjacent subject of NFTs and the race to remake Hollywood, noted that on some of the crypto Reddit chat boards he has perused in the wake of the crash, “there was all sorts of sort of people threatening to commit suicide or harm themselves.”
There are real people out there hurting, indeed.
Meanwhile, Siegel, who joined the podcast from Cannes, discusses the definitely-not-cheap happenings at the Top Gun: Maverick premiere (think fighter jets whizzing over the Mediterranean to welcome Tom Cruise) as well as the latest video appearance from embattled Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky at an A-list event. “We will win this war,” he told the cinephile crowd.
She also reveals why Zelensky didn’t give those fighting words at the Oscars, as had been rumored to happen. Siegel learned that Zelensky wanted to appear, but the Academy nixed the idea. “They said, no. They wanted to remain apolitical,” Siegel notes.
Listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app, and remember to subscribe to The Ankler.
New on The Ankler.
Great reads:
ESG takes a hard look at what’s driving Formula 1 ratings (hint: it’s more than just a Netflix series).
Nicole LaPorte on Disney’s Mysterious Kareem Daniel.
Richard Rushfield’s ‘What If’ moments that could have changed the trajectory of entertainment.
The Transom breaks news of a very Ari wedding.
Great listens:
Martini Shot - ‘You’re Fired, No, Wait’: host Rob Long on the perils of showrunning.
The Moviegoers Never Coming Back: Audience expert Kevin Goetz on summer blockbuster season.
Brand New on The Optionist
This week, Crypto Crash, World's Best Athlete + 5 Picks
Last week, The Original ‘It' Girl’, Texas Mob D.A. + 6 Picks
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As the entertainment business slowly becomes more and more like television in all its forms (movies on streaming, limited series on streaming, “event series” on streaming, etc.) and everyone begins to realize that the television business depends on the management skills and personal discipline of…oh my god…writers, some showrunners are finding themselves replaced at alarming rates. Rob — who has run a few shows in his time — has some words of encouragement and yes, advice for those people who find themselves in precarious employment situations. And in the process, talks himself out of a job. Oops.
The Ankler is a cult-favorite newsletter for entertainment insiders. We invite you to receive all the same podcasts and stories as our paid subscribers.
New on The Ankler.
Great reads:
Richard Rushfield contemplates the ‘What If’ moments that could have changed the trajectory of entertainment.
The Transom breaks news of a very Ari wedding, J.J. Abrams’ star-studded fundraiser and more Hollywood happenings.
Worst-Case Scenario: Amazon: Entertainment Strategy Guy’s latest.
Fashion’s Very Senior Momentgoes far beyond TikTok's Coastal Grandmother.
Great listens:
The Moviegoers Never Coming Back: Audience expert Kevin Goetz on summer blockbuster season.
In last week’s episode of Martini Shot: The perils of perfectionism, whether coffee-stained pants or poor quarterly earnings.
Subscribe to The Optionist
This week, The Original ‘It' Girl’, Texas Mob D.A. + 6 Picks
Last week, A Disco Queen, a TikTok Cult + 5 Other Picks
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast welcomes guest Kevin Goetz, a man who has been at the center of Hollywood’s so-called “movie research industry” for more than three decades via his firm, Screen Engine/ASI. On today’s episode, Goetz, who is also the author of the bestseller Audience-Ology: How Moviegoers Shape the Movies We Love (Simon & Schuster), joins hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel as cautious optimism reigns over this summer’s coming blockbuster season. Goetz discusses a looming theatrical reckoning as the most rabid moviegoing demographic is replaced by an apathetic new generation.
“Let me give you the sobering truth of what's happening with Gen Zs and millennials,” he says.
“Ten years ago, 2 to 11-year-olds saw 4.1 movies [per year in theaters]. Now they're seeing about three movies, and our prediction in 10 years is 2.2 movies.”
“12 to 17-year-olds 10 years ago saw 7.9 movies. Now: 5.1. In 10 years, 3.3.”
“18 to 24-year-olds were at 8.4 movies. Now: 5.1. In 10 years, 3.3.”
And so on…
“So [with] the declines of Z and millennials… as the older folks die off, sorry to say, every 10 years, you're going to see a decline in moviegoing,” he says, while adding the slightly bright note that the populations of the younger audiences are far larger than they used to be, which make up for some of the change in habit.
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. Goetz notes that studios will succeed if they can better curate their theatrical offerings and push the less-necessary fare to streaming services, like Sony has done during the pandemic. He also gave high marks to Netflix for being “the first to recognize and listen to the consumer” and making decisions based on that input. Adds Goetz. “My whole career has been [about being] the advocate of the moviegoer, the TV viewer, the entertainment consumer. And I have to say that, [Hollywood has often] avoided them. Many people have avoided them too long at their own peril.”
Goetz predicts that by Labor Day, Disney and Universal will be most pleased with their summer slates, and several films will help erase the two-year Covid nightmare, namely Tom Cruise’s Tom Gun: Maverick, Chris Pratt’s Jurassic World Dominion and the Marvel tentpoles Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder.
And despite Warner Bros. and Disney’s much-maligned stab at day-and-date releases during the pandemic, Goetz says the strategy is likely here to stay.
“I don't think we've done enough in the space to rule it dead,” he says. “I think that what you're going to see is custom patterns now. Every movie will be not from a cookie-cutter mold but will have its own criteria. So, some movies will stay in the theaters for 31 days. Some will stay in for 10 days. Some will stay in for two months. Because that's the reality of what has to happen.”
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NFTs and the Race to Save Hollywood: Is Bored Apes the new Disney?! Insiders and the exiled (Roy Price, Ryan Kavanaugh!) on an industry's FOMO catching fire, even as crypto crashes and burns.
Richard Rushfield sizes up the cast in the newest season of Survivor: Hollywood Streamers.
Transom: J.J. Abrams news, and Mel Brooks’ casts Jesus, Abe Lincoln and an all-star cast for Hulu.
Great listen:
Rob Long’s Martini Shot: The perils of perfectionism, whether coffee-stained pants or poor quarterly earnings.
Subscribe to The Optionist
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The Martini Shot podcast is now part of The Ankler podcasts. Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.
In this week’s episode of Martini Shot, host Rob Long mulls over the idea that, in Hollywood, everyone is an artist and is very used to doing things the way they do it. Which makes the unexpected sometimes impossible to comprehend when it happens (and it does). And as artists, they often feel entitled to a certain amount of eccentricity and perfectionism, including, but not limited to, having their cake and eating it, too (metaphorically speaking). Cue the Cake Guy…
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New on The Ankler
Great reads:
Richard Rushfield sizes up the cast in the newest season of Survivor: Hollywood Streamers.
Transom: J.J. Abrams news, and Mel Brooks’ casts Jesus, Abe Lincoln and an all-star cast for Hulu.
Entertainment Strategy Guy explains why Hulu has a not-so-funny problem with comedy.
Great listens:
Pod: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s “mutual destruction” on The Ankler Hot Seat, with guest Howard Bragman.
Pod: In the debut episode of Martini Shot, Rob Longdives into how to handle the awful people around you in Hollywood.
Subscribe to The Optionist
This week, A Disco Queen, a TikTok Cult + 5 Other Picks
Last week, Heidi Fleiss, the Lindbergh Baby + 7 More Ready for the Screen
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast welcomes back guest Howard Bragman, a crisis publicist and contributor to GMA who has handled the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Brett Ratner. On today’s episode, Bragman joins hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel to discuss the looming tension Hollywood is facing over the likely dismantling of Roe v. Wade and the prospect of abortion being made illegal, or rights being drastically diminished in almost half of the country’s states. In the days since a Supreme Court draft opinion leaked revealing a likely Roe rollback, everyone from Mark Ruffalo to Cher to Phoebe Bridgers has voiced their disgust. But in an age where Disney just went through the ringer over first inaction, then action, over Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill, resulting in the swift exit of their top comms exec, a sense of fear among executives about how to approach this new political minefield is looming. Will the opprobrium of a town’s talent, producers and executives amount to anything?
Even though production and business is vast throughout entertainment in states likely to roll back rights — Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Arizona and more — Bragman predicts that the industry will likely stay quiet rather than boycott. “Hollywood has done a lot of saber-rattling in these states about gay rights issues and abortion issues and women's issues. Hollywood has done a lot of threatening, but very little action, to be honest. There's been very little actual punishment,” he notes. “So the question becomes: What happens when it's thrown back to the states and virtually half the states or half the population in the country decides that they don't want abortion… in all these states where they have huge investments and the people are gonna say, ‘Screw you. We voted. And it's our choice.’ And I think the studios are gonna be forced to acquiesce to the power of the voters in those states.”
The veteran Hollywood PR fixer also weighs in on the best advice he would give corporate clients on how to address the hot-button issue with staff, many of whom might be vocal and protest inaction by their C-suite. “I would empower them. I would have as much engagement with the women's groups, the LGBTQ groups as possible. Let 'em know what's going on,” he says. “Let 'em know the challenges you have as a corporation, let 'em know the responsibility you have that's financial, but also to your employees. And let 'em know the balancing act you have because I think there's a lot of wisdom in those groups, and there may be ways they can work together and come up with new ideas and new ways that can help both [employee and corporation], frankly.”
Still, it’s a difficult needle to thread. After all, even California isn’t united. While the state is majority pro-choice, the state’s populace has become increasingly in favor of greater abortion restrictions, according to a recent survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California. The study found that 52% of Latinos would like to see greater restrictions, for example. And Bragman foresees deeper divisions on the topic, which will make Hollywood’s push for transgender bathroom rights in North Carolina and the Don’t Say Gay brouhaha in Florida seem like “quaint times compared to the devastation that's coming down the road.”
And if the abortion issue wasn’t polarizing enough, the hosts also discuss the latest on the scorched-earth defamation trial that pits Johnny Depp against ex-wife Amber Heard. The testimony has been explosive (his and hers physical abuse allegations as well as the actress publicly accusing her ex of sexual assault for the first time). But will either party emerge from the slugfest with their careers intact? Notes Bragman, who calls their fight “mutual destruction”, “Somebody's gonna figure out a way to be in the Johnny Depp business. And as f** up as it sounds, I've seen so many times where crises like this will help a person like this.”
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Great reads:
Entertainment Strategy Guy explains why Hulu has a not-so-funny problem with comedy.
The Dumpster Fire of the Vanities: The Met Gala was mere metaphor for all out-of-touch entertainment/media.
A Star is Born heads to Broadway and Jurassic to China. Plus much more in this week’s issue of The Transom.
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Pod: The Case for Broadcast TV. Long joined The Ankler Hot Seat to discuss Hollywood’s struggle to find the right business model.
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This week, Heidi Fleiss, the Lindbergh Baby + 7 More Ready for the Screen
Last week, Korean Cannbials, Lady Assassins + 6 More Great Tales
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The Martini Shot podcast is now part of The Ankler podcasts. Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.
When you’re filming a movie or a television show, when it’s the last shot of the day, the First Assistant Director will call out, This is the Martini Shot!
Meaning: after this shot is done, we’re calling it a day. After this shot, you get your martini.
Since 2004, veteran TV scribe Rob Long has been recording short commentaries on the foibles and fortunes of working in Hollywood on his Martini Shot podcast. For a decade and a half, the segments aired on KCRW and today we’re delighted to have Martini Shot join The Ankler family and bring it to our subscribers.
In this first Ankler installment, Rob explains why managing “the talent” — a term applicable to anyone in senior studio management, show-running, agencies or production — sometimes calls for techniques that are more commonly associated with calming infants. Or 19th century schizophrenics. Rob also reveals the strategy to winning any exchange involving talent, notes, deals, or even controversies that play out in the media. He guarantees it. Are you listening, Mr. Chapek? Anddon’t miss his example of Netflix vs. Apple, which somehow managed to miss subscriber targets and bury “disappointing” viewership for season 2 of The Morning Show…and then went on to win the Oscar for CODA.
More about Rob: he’s been a television writer and producer for a long time. Longer, frankly, than anyone could have predicted. He’s a co-founder of the conversation and podcast network, Ricochet, a regular contributor to Commentary magazine and the Washington Examiner, and a contributing editor at National Review.
Early career milestones include being writer and co-executive producer of television comedy Cheers, and you can hear him discuss that experience in The Case For Broadcast TV in last week’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast.
Later career milestones include “a string of canceled television shows,” two books, a weekly commentary on public radio, a column for the English-language Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, The National and occasional writing for Time and (what was then) Newsweek.
His first book, Conversations with My Agent, chronicled his early career in television. It was published in the U.K. by Faber & Faber, in the U.S. by Dutton, and in France by Actes Sud. His second book, Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke, was published in November 2005 by Bloomsbury.
Rob’s Martini Shot will be back every Wednesday. Listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app, and remember to subscribe to The Ankler.
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New on The Ankler
Great reads:
The Dumpster Fire of the Vanities: The Met Gala was mere metaphor for all out-of-touch entertainment/media.
A Star is Born heads to Broadway and Jurassic to China. Plus much more in this week’s issue of The Transom.
Nasty, Brutish, Short: The End of a Disney PR Man’s Tenure
The Entertainment Strategy Guy weighs Amazon’s Judge Judy bet and the verdict is in.
CinemaCon: Disney, Uni and the Tale of Two Slates, Rothman’s Revenge andWarners’ slate.
Great listen:
Pod: The Case for Broadcast TV. Rob Long joined The Ankler Hot Seat last week to discuss Hollywood’s struggle to find the right business model.
Subscribe to The Optionist
This week, Heidi Fleiss, the Lindbergh Baby + 7 More Ready for the Screen
Last week, Korean Cannbials, Lady Assassins + 6 More Great Tales
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Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.
Exciting news today at The Ankler: TV writer Rob Long of the Martini Shot podcast, a staple of NPR for decades, is bringing his show under The Ankler umbrella, with new episodes posting every Wednesday on The Ankler feed.
To those who don’t know, the “martini shot” is what the last shot of the day on a production is traditionally called (before one, ostensibly, goes off to have a martini). To kick off the Martini Shot podcast’s new home, Long joins host Richard Rushfield today to discuss — what else? — the state of the industry as streaming assumptions are being upended and old-fashioned linear TV is getting a second look as an industry suddenly searches for answers (and profits).
Long was a longtime writer on Cheers, the hit NBC series that ran for 275 episodes from 1982-1993. Its story is one of legend. The show’s premiere rated 74th out of 77 shows and the series was almost canceled. But by the end, its season finale became the most watched single episode of TV during the 1990s, with 93 million people tuning in (40 percent of the population then). It also created a huge downstream market for its library through syndication (all 11 seasons now stream on Peacock). It also earned 28 Emmys and 117 nominations. Regularly, the series would get between 20-30 million viewers.
But that was then, and this is now. In this episode, Long talks about the fates and fortunes of today’s TV writers and the business overall as streaming’s great hopes have taken a beating.
Some highlights:
The Economics of Old TV
“The theory was that when a show went into syndication, the first run shows would take a hit. Like, ‘why would you watch this thing first run? The audience would be confused.’…and here's one of the first shows that proved that [was] actually not the case, that the reruns were a promotion for the new [shows]. When I was when I moved to L.A. to go to film school, Cheers was on 11:00 or 11:30, I think, on Channel 5 and every night. And it was huge for them. And then, of course, on Thursdays at 9:00 on broadcast and it started taking off….people, if they like a place and they like the characters…they want to watch old ones and they want to watch new ones.”
“The TV business back then…was complicated, but the complications allowed lots of places for people to make pots of money that didn't steal from the pots of money that you were making (somewhere else). So the network essentially rented the show from the studio and sold time, and the studio did not participate in that time. And the network had this golden property that they could then pillage, sell time on. They could also promote the 10:00 show and the 11:00 news on their own. It operated stations, which was a incredibly important thing. And Johnny Carson and Jay Leno could say, ‘Hey, stay tuned for 11:30 tonight after Cheers. We're going to blah, blah, blah.’ The network made money, the studio made money because the studio produced the show at a huge deficit, because the rent on the show was less than the production cost. But now it owned this giant library that it could sell to.”
“So when Ted Danson, the star of Cheers says, ‘I don't know if I want to do it anymore’, they say, ‘well, how about if we make you the highest paid actor in television?’ And he was, ‘okay, I'll do it for two more years.’ That's a gigantic hit and it was the cheapest thing they could do. Like, why not give him all the money in the world? Because it wasn't all the money in the world. There were plenty of ways of other people to make a dime on it. And now it's just different.”
The Streaming Sputter
“I think what happened is that it's a world now that is efficient. And we and we have to recalibrate the meaning of that word. Uber is incredibly efficient. DoorDash? Fantastically efficient. We're talking on a podcast. That's incredibly efficient. But efficient isn't always good…in the sense of show business. The inefficiencies of show business are the places where you get to make mistakes and try things and fail and you get to put all of your eggs in one basket….those inefficiencies have been slowly wrung out of the system. We're going to have to go back to [that].”
“There are still only 24 hours in the day, so you still only have a certain amount of time to be available to the addressable market for these streaming services. So what they're discovering is it doesn't matter whether the show is good or bad. You've got to sleep. And the second thing is promotion. Like, how do I know it's there?…There's no way to discover what's on other services the way you could flip through the dial. When I watched TV back in the day when I had DirectTV, I would just come home and flop on the sofa and drink beer and like I could spend an hour just flipping around…there should be an appetite from the services and the studios to create those big, broadly appealing shows…if you don't have a big hits, everything's expensive, which is what Netflix is discovering.”
Broadcast’s Revenge?
“Until very, very recently, I think until within the past 12 months, the top shows on Netflix were reruns of broadcast television. Netflix was built on Office reruns. So just like some things change, some things don't. What doesn't change, really, is that if you put something funny on, people will watch….and that's why I think we're going to be all surprised in the next 12 months at who owns valuable properties and who doesn't. And I think the valuable properties will be [from] the sad old dusty broadcast networks that everybody kind of like rolls their eyes at.”
“In the history of show business, or at least this kind of entertainment, no one has ever made money selling just content. Theater owners sell Milk Duds and Diet Coke for $4. Broadcast networks sell ad time. Studios deficit and sell reruns. I mean, everyone's got another line. Amazon sells toothpaste. Apple sells new versions of power cords, right? [But] Netflix only sells you content.”
What New TV Deals Will Look Like
“Well, I mean, [businesses will want] people who seem to have a magic touch. There's going to be a period of that which is what happens now. The Shonda Rhimes people that seem to have some kind of magic touch and managerial stuff, because these are hard shows, they're hard to manage and like and TV is insanely inefficient. The person who runs a TV show…they give that job to a writer, which is crazy! Like, why would you do that?”
“It all comes down to promotion. What's going to get a person to tune in to watch this show. And that's going to be a famous person…you can't bet on really anything else. I mean, you can hope that it's word of mouth or all these other things that you can't quantify. You can hedge the risk of the project by saying, well, we got Kevin Hart. People love Kevin Hart. That is the way you hedge. So I think that the TV deals are going to be more about face…you don't encounter media anymore just physically. You have to choose it, which is insane to me. And why I think the sort of old broadcast style will come back is because you have to decide what you're going to watch…and there's so much that when I watch a show, I have to Google where to find it. Which is nuts.”
Schadenfreude
“I was in a place listening to two dudes talk about a movie that had a bad opening. And one of them talking about the movie’s director said, ‘Man, hate to be that dude.’ Like, really? You'd hate to be the director of a film that was released? He was currently making my turkey wrap at the time. Really? You'd hate to give up your job making a turkey wrap At the beginning of my career, I just signed with an agent. I told my friend, ‘I just got an agent today.’ And his response was, ‘I got to get moving.’ Not like, ‘congratulations’. That's a thing we do in Hollywood…it’s like the pie is getting smaller, not bigger.”
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New on The Ankler
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Florida and the Plagues of Bob II: Can an entertainment goliath survive the culture wars? Disney’s embattled CEO is finding out.
Netflix: The Reckoning. Has the bottom fallen out on the leader of the Streaming War? Analysis from Richard Rushfield.
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Last week, Korean Cannbials, Lady Assassins + 6 More Great Tales
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Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.
Today's Hot Seat Podcast is hosted by Richard Rushfield and features special guest, media investor and analyst extraordinaire Rich Greenfield, Partner and TMT Analyst at LightShed Partners and LightShed Ventures.
Greenfield has long been one of Netflix's most ardent enthusiasts in the investment community, but in a wide-ranging conversation on the state of the media world, post-Netflix earnings, he’s changed his tune.
Says Greenfield, “If you think about the sort of rocky road, Netflix was at an all-time high in October or November, and it reminds me of the Ferris Bueller quote — things move fast. You really have got to pay attention because this industry is moving at pretty crazy speed right now.
“That's what's so scary. The reality is we coined the term #goodluckbundle cause we saw what was happening to linear television before others. The question now is everyone looked at Netflix, everyone looked at Disney and the success they had and said, ‘Oh my God, this actually isn't as hard as it looks! Wall Street will reward us! We're gonna build this massive streaming juggernaut. We can be like Netflix too!’ So everyone's all in on streaming and now you just go, holy crap, that valuation is no longer gonna be possible. Wall Street's not gonna reward us. Our legacy TV business and movie business is actually falling apart faster than we thought, because we've shifted so much content to streaming and change consumer behavior. So you can't go back to the old business. The new business is not economically as compelling as you thought it was. What do we do? Do we just keep plowing into streaming?"
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And in a reversal unthinkable just weeks ago, Greenfield sees the company — now at a bargain market cap of $100 billion — as a possible takeover target for Apple or Amazon, companies he also believes will increase their production spend to capitalize on where Netflix may cut.
"If Apple wants to step in, buy it or Disney wants to step in and buy it, I think there are certainly crazier things that have happened and maybe that's the opportunity, right? While I don't think they're looking to be sold and I don't think that's the plan, obviously, I can't imagine everyone is not thinking about if you want to have a 220 million global subscriber business with a growing library with incredible tech talent, there's a way to get it. So again, another reason why people don't just abandon Netflix as a stock is that it's actually gotten to a size where it actually becomes an interesting chess piece."
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Greenfield also predicts a possible role for Jason Kilar, the streaming age's golden boy, who recently was exited out of WarnerMedia and launched HBO Max.
"I was just sort of thinking out loud of like, if you were, if you were gonna build an advertising-supported streaming business, who would you call? If you got one call for help, who do you call right now? Why don't you pick up the phone and call Jason Kilar who has an entire team, that's done advertising on streaming, not once but twice. And his entire team is right now sitting on the side.”
Still, he scornful of Netflix's new ad push. “It really is surprising that the right answer for Netflix is to cave on their religion of advertising or being anti-advertising. And I think that of everything that happens this week, the one that is by far the scariest, is that they're now coming to the conclusion that advertising might be the only answer.”
He continues, “When you think about Netflix and you can go through, you know, hundreds of episodes of content…how many seasons of Grey's Anatomy are there? You know, you can binge through the first three seasons of Stranger Things and you get lost. Without an ad break and the content just auto-plays, you totally get lost.”
“As soon as you start putting ad breaks in — and remember, none of the Netflix originals were made [even thinking] about with ad breaks…I don't know if you've watched Hulu with advertising lately. The experience is literally horrible. And so what happens when you see the same ad? You start to go, Oh my God! This is so painful. You start to get mad, maybe you leave the room, maybe you pick up a phone call. All it does is hurt engagement.”
Greenfield also points to the central problem Netflix faces — making more strategic and effective choices with programming that keep the audiences more deeply engaged.
“For a company that's spending $17 billion on content, the consumer zeitgeist content doesn't seem like there's been enough of it. Sure, Squid Game was amazing, probably the biggest TV show in the world of all time. They had some movies that have been good. Sure. Adam's Project. But things that have really captured the zeitgeist of the nation or of the world, I don't think there's been enough for the amount they're spending...I don't think the Netflix content over the last 12 months has been good enough. And I think that's the problem.”
A further concern Greenfield raises: recruiting and retention problems.
“I think the real pressure is it hurts morale. When you have a stock that is substantially down, where options are underwater, that's where you start to have morale issues and the risk of losing executives. You know, Netflix was a place everyone wanted to come. Who didn't want to come to Netflix over the last 10 years? It was the hot place to go. And they were basically taking talent left and right. So if your stock's not performing, and that's a large part of your compensation, that's obviously a major issue from a hiring and retention standpoint."
Elsewhere in the Streaming Wars, Greenfield sees a world similarly in turmoil, with tough decisions coming. Warner Discovery's shocking move this week to pull the plug on CNN + just three weeks after launch is a harbinger of things to come.
"I think it's a little unfair because remember David (Zaslav) is coming in as the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, and he has cost-cutting targets he has to achieve, that he's given to Wall Street. There is no way CNN+ was in that plan. (It was just] oh my God, this is a bleeding ulcer. Let's just take it out as fast as we humanly can because we have a plan and we need to stick to it for Wall Street."
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Listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app, and remember to subscribe to The Ankler.
If you aren’t already a paying subscriber, we welcome you to join our community of entertainment insiders.
New on The Ankler
Great reads:
The Entertainment Strategy Guy examines Reed and Ted’s scary road post-earnings.
Florida and the Plagues of Bob II: Can an entertainment goliath survive the culture wars? Disney’s embattled CEO is finding out.
Netflix: The Reckoning. Has the bottom fallen out on the leader of the Streaming War? Analysis from Richard Rushfield.
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The Glossy looks at Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Fashion's "Morals Clause" Pause.
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Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.
Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast is hosted by Tatiana Siegel and welcomes guest Dawn Chmielewski,a Los Angeles-based entertainment business correspondent for Reuters and co-author of Binge Times: Inside Hollywood’s Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix.
Chmielewski, who co-wrote the book with Deadline’s Dade Hayes, answers Hollywood’s most pressing question du jour: Can Netflix, the industry’s original disruptor, be disrupted? Where is streaming’s growth now that it’s sputtering domestically? And who is doing it right?
“We have some early and promising prospects,” Chmielewski tells The Ankler Hot Seat podcast. “The Walt Disney Company has been the most successful of the new entrants here. It decided back in 2019 that it would throw all of its resources behind this successful launch of the Disney+ streaming service. And as you recall, in its first year, it grew well beyond even the company's own forecasts.”
Chmielewski points out two new battlefronts in the streaming wars: India and local content.
“India is a huge populous market, where [Netflix is], by the way, not the leading streaming service. They have intense competition with Disney, which acquired Fox and along with it, its Hotstar, which has sports [and] is incredibly appealing in that market,” she says. “Netflix is actually playing catch-up but investing in a lot of local-language content.”
The bigger challenge for Netflix and others is finding a way to offer a streaming product that is competitive with cable TV, which costs $3 a month in India.
While a new gold rush is afoot in India, China, by contrast, appears to be a dead-end for streamers, particularly Netflix.
“[Netflix] certainly [has] made it clear that they're not attempting to enter China, which is a billion-person-plus hole in their potential market,” she explains. “[But] opportunity exists outside the U.S. And there are some advantages to companies like Netflix going into Korea and developing a series like Squid Game that not only helps it acquire subscribers throughout Asia, but it has been a global phenomenon. And there's the benefit of leaving the U.S. to do production in a place where the production costs are lower. So there is…reaching new audiences with stories that resonate, but also creating novel content that will travel the world. Netflix has clearly laid out the template, and all the other streamers are quickly following.”
Disney, for one, announced that it had appointed a new executive to oversee the development of local content. "That's a big departure for Disney, which, for generations has been exporting its animation [and] live action to the world [and] now it's going to begin to pursue local stories.”
Has all the competition for streaming growth come at a cost? Just one example is Disney’s alienation of CAA, even if for a brief period.
“Having Bryan Lourd, one of the most powerful agents in town, criticizing arguably the most powerful studio in Hollywood was a move we've never seen play out [before],” she adds. “Lourd defended Scarlett Johansson by saying that Disney's strategy to try to grow its subscription service had come at the expense of her paycheck. And the fact that Disney clapped back at her for being insensitive to the pandemic, it was an unprecedented series of events. And I think it furthered the narrative about [Disney CEO] Bob Chapek not being as deft with talent and talent relations as his predecessor, Bob Iger. So I would argue that that was that was a damaging episode…Bob Chapek is still learning on the job.”
Also, the Los Angeles Times alum breaks down the $43 billion mashup of WarnerMedia into Discovery, which closed last week, and how it marks the dawn of a streaming era. Warner Bros. Discovery is now one of the largest pure media companies in the world and a worthy rival of Netflix and Disney+. As a result, the wild spending days may be behind Netflix (think, sob, barebones Oscar parties). She notes of the streaming giant’s reliance on Wall Street approval, “These are consequences of those promises to the street.”
Binge Times hits bookstores tomorrow, April 19.
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For subscribers: read the full transcript here.
Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast is hosted by Tatiana Siegel and welcomes guest Abigail Disney, Fork Films CEO, philanthropist, granddaughter of Roy O. Disney and grandniece of Walt Disney. The woman who is perhaps the single biggest thorn in the side of Disney’s two Bobs – former CEO Bob Iger and current CEO Bob Chapek – has been at it again, eviscerating the mega-conglomerate and its “botched” response to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Disney, who recently wrote an op-ed on the subject for The Washington Post, weighs in on why she won’t sit by idly on the sidelines. “The bear needed poking,” she tells The Ankler Hot Seat. “[Chapek’s] response was so flatfooted and ill-considered. The first round of response was, ‘Oops. Well, we're neutral anyway. So don't yell at us.’” First of all, you're not neutral if you're giving money to those particular politicians. I know about their records. Nobody who gives them money should be surprised at all by their stance on this issue. There is no neutral. The right-wing in the case of transgender and LGBTQ people have been coming for their very existence for a long time now.”
She says Disney’s leadership that well pre-dates Chapek often backs right-wing politicians in its shameless pursuit of profits. “Politicians in general have always benefited by the largesse of Disney in California and Florida and federally as well. But they lean Republican in who they support because Republicans, generally speaking, and politicians on the right are more supportive of what is generally called a pro-business agenda, which means lower taxes, less regulation and more autonomy for companies,” the heiress says. “So, I don't think Disney was necessarily thinking about [Florida State Sen. Dennis Baxley’s] record when they gave him money. They were thinking about his record on business.”
Disney also talked about the mindset behind directing the Sundance documentary The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, about “America’s dysfunctional and unequal economy” focusing on her family’s story as a prism to view systemic problems. The project began in 2018, and it rankled corporate brass. (“I had a film crew with me when I went to testify [before Congress]. I know there was a Disney lobbyist there trying to prevent me from testifying,” she recalls.
She recounts how she reached out to then-CEO Iger about her concerns about the company’s drift towards inequity only to have her emails go unreturned. “It started before I started the film when I wrote a long email to him about my concerns. And of course, my concerns are not the concerns of a person who went to business school. But I think that's partly why they need to be heard. Right? His response to me was really actually dismissive and tiny bit insulting. I wrote him a second time and then I just never heard from him again.”
Finally, in this podcast she challenges Disney to put a rank-and-file worker on the board to represent employee interests. “I don't know why boards are always filled with managers when the lion’s share of workers are [low-level] workers. Their interests should be represented at the board level.” Instead, the company’s top tier, particularly Iger, accumulated fabulous wealth on the backs of those workers (Iger and Chapek’s comp packages were reported at $45.9 million and $32 million respectively in 2021). “Bob Iger never took a risk in his life,” she notes. “He took risks by purchasing other companies, but was he ever in danger of losing his house. Never. So to get rewarded that way [and] having never taken that kind of risk, it feels wrong.”
Representatives for the Disney Corporation did not respond to requests for comment.
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Q&A: Cons are In, Bleak is Out: With projects all over town, Truly Adventurous is changing the journalism x Hollywood playbook
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast is hosted by Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel, and welcomes guest Peter Kafka, senior correspondent at Recode.
Kafka, who conducted one of the final interviews with outgoing WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, weighs in on what to expect as the new Warner Bros. Discovery regime takes shape (and also speculates as to why Kilar has done so much press around his departure): “[Zaslav] has promised to cut $3 billion out of the budget somehow. So everyone who complained about the last three years of cuts under AT&T and Kilar should be ready for more, and I think they know that’s coming,” says Kafka, host of the podcast Recode Media.
“He has not been forthright about what he intends to do with programming. You know, if you ask him how are you going to compete with Netflix spending $20 billion, he’ll say, ‘We’re already spending that,’” adds Kafka. “But that’s not a real number because that includes what he’s spending on his linear programming.”
The veteran chronicler of the high-stakes worlds of media and technology also explains that the vest-wearing mogul has “played it fairly close to the vest up until now,” but now that the deal is closed and Zaslav can explain his plans, Hollywood is hanging with bated breath. “But we don't know [what Zaslav plans to do] is the short answer.”
Rushfield juxtaposed the legacy culture of Warner Bros. past and the frugal unscripted-driven Discovery and how the two may mesh (or not): “Private jets for all, unlimited expense accounts, everybody gets six assistants” versus the “company largely populated by [low-cost] reality.”
As for what went wrong with AT&T ownership of WarnerMedia, Kafka shares an interesting theory. “There is an anecdote that James Andrew Miller has reported [and] I've heard as well about an AT&T executive being surprised to learn that all of HBO or TNT…that their content didn't come from Warner Bros. (but is instead bought from outside suppliers). And they had to learn that once they bought the company. And that person I've heard that's John Stankey. Again, anyone who listens to this podcast understands that it's really mind-boggling to think that the people being paid tens of millions of dollars to spend $110 billion on this stuff didn't really understand at all what they were getting into.”
In other subjects, the hosts discuss looming headaches for Warner Bros. via its profitable but scandal-plagued DC universe. Siegel has been covering the fallout following a series of troubling incidents involving The Flash star Ezra Miller. Also on the docket: ESG appraises Shonda Rhimes vs. Ryan Murphy and their respective nine-figure deals at Netflix and declares a winner. (Hint: If you watch Bridgerton, you probably know the answer.)
Please just us next week for more episodes of Ankler Hot Seat, and remember to follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And please remember to subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com.
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Pod: Bruce Willis and ‘Years of Concern’: One of the reporters of the LAT’s recent article on Bruce Willis’s struggles with aphasia talks about the actor’s troubling path.
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Q&A: Cons are In, Bleak is Out: With projects all over town, Truly Adventurous is changing the journalism x Hollywood playbook
This week’s picks: A Jan. 6 Family Tragedy + 7 More Finds
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast is hosted by Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel, and welcomes guest Meg James, a Los Angeles Times reporter. James co-wrote an explosive and heartbreaking story – Bruce Willis' aphasia was suspected by coworkers for years – with colleague Amy Kaufman about how Willis’ cognitive function became problematic and noticeable on movie sets over the last 3.5 years, during which time he made a staggering 22 films.
James discusses how the actor, worked for only two days on each movie yet made a staggering $2 million on each. However, he carried on this pace while requiring an earpiece for his lines, and was part of a frightening incident involving a gun and a blank.
“It just was chilling to hear that there were episodes that with less experienced and less professional people could have really been problematic and potentially dangerous,” says James. “There was a film that was shot two years ago in Cincinnati called Hard Kill. And Bruce was this father figure. And there was a reality television star, Lala Kent, who was cast as his daughter. And she told us in an on-the-record interview that…he had a line that he was supposed to deliver. And when he delivered the line, she was supposed to duck and then he would fire the gun. But his coordination didn't come off right and he didn't deliver the line. Instead, he fired the weapon.” James said the very same mistake happened on the subsequent take.
The veteran Hollywood chronicler also explained the conversations inside the Los Angeles Times about tackling the difficult subject of an actor’s health and how the story came together.
In other subjects, the hosts discuss new details about Slapgate:
Rushfield reports that audience members were openly booing Will Smith during his acceptance speech, but that it wasn’t audible during the broadcast. He asks, “Did the Academy sweeten the soundtrack to drown it out?”
Paging Zapruder: the hosts discuss the missing seven seconds of footage that would show what happened when the cameras were on Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith; Siegel discusses the footage taken by an audience member showing Pinkett Smith’s reaction from behind.
Rushfield criticizes Vanity Fair, where he had previously served as a contributing editor, for warmly hosting Will Smith at its Oscar afterparty: “You can sort of explain the Academy panic at the moment. They weren't prepared for this. Vanity Fair had [more than] two hours before he got there and they knew he was coming…so there was no last-minute panic there. They had all the time to think this through and they said, ‘Wouldn't that be great if all the eyes are on Will Smith? Wouldn't that be great if he came and danced at our party?'“
Rushfield refers to internet chatter that the strange on-screen banner coming on-screen during Smith’s acceptance speech was to block a Serena Williams’ wardrobe malfunction.
And finally, the podcast wraps with a discussion of the curious $108 million options bet on Activision stock made by Barry Diller and David Geffen that has now spawned an investigation by the Justice Department and SEC looking into the possibility of insider trading.
Please just us next week for more episodes of Ankler Hot Seat, and remember to follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast welcomes guest Howard Bragman, a crisis publicist who has handled the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Brett Ratner, joining hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel. On today’s episode, Bragman discusses Slapgate and the absurdity of Smith’s rush to the stage.
“One of the great skill sets of being a star in Hollywood is having a thick skin. And $20 million a movie should buy you a lot of armor to have a very thick skin,” said Bragman.
The veteran publicist also weighed in on why Rock’s joke should have been addressed by Jada Pinkett Smith, the intended target and not her husband. “Jada has her own talk show,” Bragman continued. “She's a very powerful, intelligent, respected woman. Couldn't she have stood up for herself or given him the finger, something? She gave him a bit of a sneer. Could she have not given him the finger and made her point.”
The hosts also discuss what the victory of Apple TV+’s CODA over Power of the Dog and Don’t Look Up (with Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) says about stardom in Hollywood today.
“Last night also seemed like the death of the movie star,” said Min. “You had Netflix pay…for Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence for Don't Look Up and Power of the Dog certainly had like a top flight cast with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Jane Campion as the director. And here comes this cast with CODA…not what people equate with A-list Hollywood, right?” Siegel concurred: “Last night seemed to be the death of the movie star, the movie business and maybe comedy as we know it in the future.”
Siegel also discussed the Twitter threads speculating about Will Smith and Scientology, citing a thread about “a Scientology course that involves slapping physically humiliating fellow Scientologists in a group setting as a means of exerting superiority.”
Speaking of which, Bragman was asked if The Slap is Smith’s career equivalent of Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping, a moment that will define a career before and after. Said Bragman: “It kind of is. But Tom got his st back together because Tom got his st back together. We'll see where it will takes this. Now, this could be a wake up call.”
The hosts also tackle the controversy around Jay-Z’s Oscar afterparty, held at Los Angeles’s iconic Chateau Marmont, which carried on as planned despite guests having to cross a picket line of aggrieved former employees, some who say they were subjected to sexual harassment, including from owner Andre Balazs (which he has denied) and racial discrimination.
Kurt Pedersen, who is co-president of the Chateau Marmont union, joined the Hot Seat to give his take from the picket line: “There was a lot of embarrassment,” Pedersen said of the celebrities who crossed the line including Kim Kardashian, Zoe Kravitz, Jon Hamm and best supporting actor winner Troy Kotsur. “First we should applaud those who didn't go. I mean, most of the folks who received Oscars were not at that party last night.”
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Today’s Ankler Hot Seat podcast welcomes guest co-host Sonny Bunch, culture editor of The Bulwark and Washington Post contributing columnist, joining Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel. On today’s episode, Bunch discusses his latest for The Washington Post, “The Oscars are niche entertainment now. Just let Netflix stream them” and the dismal awareness numbers for some of the Best Picture nominated films. The show also tackles China’s decision to not broadcast the Oscars for a second-straight year and why, the puzzle of who is invited to be a presenter on the show, and predictions for Best Picture.
The hosts also tackle the controversy around Jay-Z’s Oscar afterparty, scheduled to be held at Los Angeles’s iconic Chateau Marmont, a hotel whose controversies have drawn a boycott supported by Issa Rae, Jane Fonda, Spike Lee, Amanda Seyfried, David Diggs and Alfonso Cuarón. The Chateau has faced damning accusations in the last few years, ever since they fired nearly their entire staff at the onset of the pandemic without benefits. Female employees have said they were subjected to sexual harassment, including from owner Andre Balazs (which he has denied); darker-skinned employees have said they were subjected to racist remarks and passed over for promotions, with The Hollywood Reporter reporting that the Chateau’s managing director, Amanda Grandinetti, referred to one staff member as a “blackie”, and told another to respond to her with “Yessa, massa.” April Blackwell, a Black Chateau worker, said Grandinetti fired her after she complained about a pattern of racist abuse from guests. She is one of two Black employees currently suing the Chateau. The boycott is also supported by the Writer’s Guild of America, and a picket line is expected on Sunday night.
Keisha Banks, a former Chateau events server, tells The Ankler: “We constantly see Black elites putting their fame and money before their fans. By now, Jay-Z and Beyonce must be aware that Chateau's workers have spoken out about being mistreated. They should be leveraging and moving their dollars elsewhere in solidarity with the people they claim to support and who are calling out for justice. At this point, the news on Chateau is out there, some celebs are willfully choosing to ignore it. The working class is sick of seeing the rich virtue signal.” Chateau Marmont workers and Black clergy leaders are set to hold a press conference and delegation outside ROC Nation in an attempt to make their voices heard and deliver a complaint alleging impending violations of a recently enacted state law protecting workers’ jobs.
Ed note: After this podcast was taped, a press release was sent out announcing that 22-year veteran employee Walter Almendarez, who was laid off by Chateau Marmont in March 2020, would present legal complaints today to the California Labor Commissioner, alleging that both the Chateau Marmont and Jay-Z’s entertainment company ROC Nation are in violation of SB-93, the state return-to-work law, by failing to rehire him and his coworkers in general and specifically for Jay-Z’s party. The complaint alleges that the entities failed to offer guest relations, valet, security, and other work to Almendarez and his colleagues, as last year’s state law requires. Of the 50 workers with the longest tenures at Chateau Marmont prior to the layoffs, approximately 46 were Latinx.
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New on The Ankler:
The Oscars "Minefield" About to Happen: A Conversation with Bruce Vilanch. The legendary, long-time Oscar head writer of the stops by our podcast to share his memories and thoughts about what lies ahead.
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Bruce Vilanch is a legendary Emmy-winning comedy writer, songwriter and actor in Hollywood. He was also a writer for 24 years on the Academy Awards broadcast, spending 14 of those years (2000-2014) as the show’s head writer. Vilanch collaborated with hosts including Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Steve Martin and, of course, James Franco and Anne Hathaway. In this episode of the Ankler Hot Seat podcast, a special bonus edition for Oscar week, Vilanch, who will be watching the Oscars with friends in New York City, joins hosts Janice Min and Richard Rushfield and reveals some of the secrets behind past broadcasts and his thoughts on the challenges of this year’s 94th Academy Awards.
Some highlights:
On the overall vibe this year: “The basic landscape is a minefield…comedy generally is where you come out and you don't know who you're going to piss off with anything that you say…the second nervousness will be about proving to the membership, the Academy proving to the membership that this idea (of removing eight below the line awards from the broadcast) works.”
On what went wrong last year: “It had no famous people in the first half-hour. They had Regina King, who came on and immediately went political. So right away people began tuning out because their worst fear had been realized. It was a bunch of political Hollywood types telling you things you know. Her first joke was a BLM joke, and that was it. In the first half-hour, they have, I think, Laura Dern and maybe one other famous person, rather than opening with one of the supporting actor categories, which is what we've always done, because it puts a personality on camera…Soderbergh's idea was to have Aaron Sorkin talk about what it was like to sell popcorn in the theater in Evanston, Illinois. No one gives a s**t about I mean, this is a rookie mistake.”
On making Putin jokes: “A lot of people are dead. So I don't know that you can really joke about Putin. I mean, there might be some oblique jokes.”
On COVID jokes: “There’s a tension in the air because of all these super-spreader events…like BAFTA…I wrote the PGA Award show, and we started out with Ciarán Haines, Jamie Dornan and Kenneth Branagh and the kid and everybody wound up sick. Jamie Dornan ended up doing the presentation.”
On the disastrous James Franco-Anne Hathaway year: “Franco was kind of off the wall and he was out of his comfort zone. He was scared. He didn't trust the writers. He asked Judd Apatow to come in and do it, and Judd sent four of his young intern writers and the week before the show, everything was tossed out because nothing was very good….we assumed that two songs from Burlesque would be nominated and that Cher would do one song and Christina Aguilera would do the other. But and as a result, Franco really wanted to do Cher. He does a Cher impression, and he just wanted to get into the whole Cher drag and do it. But then they weren't nominated, the songs were not performed, but he was caught up in the idea of drag. So we finally had him come out as Marilyn Monroe after what was one of the biggest laughs of that particular show.”
The “dirty secret” of why the show is so long: “The dirty little secret is [ABC] doesn't really mind that because it gives them more commercial time to sell. And that's where the money is. And by the way, that's where the licensing fee goes up for the Academy. So the Academy doesn't really mind that the show is as long as it is this year. [But] because of last year they were read a riot act about it's got to come in short, and also I think because they were getting some sponsor…pushback.”
Being Oscar producer: “You cannot win.”
On “woke: culture: “The latest wrinkle is the woke madness…they're so crazed and they're eating their own, you know, they're just eating their young and nuts. It's just nuts.”
Why no one wants to host the Oscars: “If you’re big enough to be considered to host, you don’t need it”
Ratings prediction: “I mean, it certainly will be the the second-lowest broadcast ever.”
Related: Jay-Z’s Oscar Afterparty Debacle
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New on The Ankler:
In this week’s Transom: the first look at Avatar 2 gets a date with Marvel; COVID stalks the awards circuit.
Executives on the red carpet! 15 photos of Hollywood on the town.
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The story that’s got the whole town talking! Read our exclusive scoop on Elisabeth Finch,the Grey’s Anatomy writers’ room and an investigation. Then listen to the new Hot Seat podcast as writer Peter Keifer reveals the details on how he broke the story shaking Shondaland and what happens next.
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We just wrapped Anxiety Week! Check out an unemployed TV writer sharing her Hollywood Unemployment Agony, and ESG’s hard look at The Content Bubble’s Sum of All Fears, and why“It Feels Like the Last Days of Rome” from new contributing editor Nicole LaPorte.
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The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer broke the remarkably strange storythat has Hollywood buzzing about Elisabeth Finch. The star Grey’s Anatomy writer, following accusations she may have made up parts of her extraordinary medical history, is currently on administrative leave and the subject of a current investigation by Disney. On this episode of Ankler Hot Seat, Kiefer joins hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel to reveal how and when he first heard whispers about something gone awry in the Grey’s Anatomy writers room, and then how he tracked down the details of a story no one wanted to talk about. As part of his reporting, he had a phone conversation with Finch’s wife (they are in the process of divorcing) and called Finch herself. Kiefer confirmed that questions around the veracity of at least parts of Finch’s life story, one that includes cataclysmic medical traumas — and detailed in personal essays in Elle, the Shondaland website, and multiple times in The Hollywood Reporter — were raised to Disney and Shondaland through Finch’s wife. Later, our hosts discuss why Bob Chapek seems to bear the brunt of “Don't Say Gay” controversy when no other leader does, the coming cultural storm about to hit with Georgia’s own bill, what on-air talent Chris Cuomo names in his $125 million lawsuit, and if there is a path to redemption for Jussie Smollet. Please join us every Friday for another episode of Ankler Hot Seat.
New on The Ankler:
ESG on Netflix’s Drip Drip Decline.
Richard Rushfield asks the 14 Big Questions for Now.
We just wrapped Anxiety Week! Check out an unemployed TV writer sharing her Hollywood Unemployment Agony, and ESG’s hard look at The Content Bubble’s Sum of All Fears.
Then go deeper. For an understanding of why so many of us feel this way, start with The Pit in Your Stomach is Real, and continue on to “It Feels Like the Last Days of Rome” from new contributing editor Nicole LaPorte.
On the departure of Netflix’s flamboyant marketing chief, Bozoma Saint John, and her clap back.
The Glossy is up! Men, ditch your jackets for the shacket! And Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee has a surprising new player in his corner.
If you’re not already a subscriber, we invite you to join our audience of the most influential and powerful members of the entertainment community.
On The Optionist:
It’s March Madness in the IP world! This week: hot properties about basketball.
Q&A: What A.I. Tells Us About Debut Authors
The new recommendations are up! What just fell out of option and is ready again? How about this story about a family cruise gone awry.
Subscribe during the free beta period here (it’s almost over!).
WE NOW HAVE GROUP SUBSCRIPTIONS! Please email Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com for more information,
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Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind at The Ankler.
The Ankler is an independent voice covering Hollywood. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Follow us at Apple Podcasts if you like what you are hearing. And please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more interviews and stories like these.
This episode of the Hot Seat dives into The Ankler’s Anxiety Week. What is eating this business? As the Streaming Wars rage, money is flowing like never before, but a sense of unease among its workers has been the subject of several of our stories that clearly are touching a nerve. Hosts Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel touch on why (Janice Min sat this one out), but also:
• Disney and the fallout over Florida. Bob II has gotten himself in another fine mess over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. We look at what drove him into such hot water, how Disney gets out of it, and wonder why no one else is getting the same scrutiny. (NOTE: This episode was recorded before Bob Chapek’s Friday apology for his earlier stand on the issue.)
• The Batman takes the box office. Another Batman scored another hit last weekend for Warners, showing another sign of life in the theatrical business. But with many caveats? Is it all going to be just like it was before?
• The return of Scott Rudin. A year after being sidelined for decades of fabulously awful conduct Tatiana exposed, the combative producer is inching his way back into the mainstream with a new project.
• The Oscars are coming! The field is wide open. At least five films have a plausible shot at the prize. Who will win? We give our picks. And will anyone be watching?
All that and more on this week's Hot Seat!
If you are already a subscriber, thank you. If not, come aboard today and join the community of some of the most powerful insiders in entertainment.
Also on The Ankler:
It’s Anxiety Week! An unemployed TV writer shares her years of agony. Slouching Towards Pavilions.
The Entertainment Strategy Guy takes a hard look at the numbers behind our collective feeling of instability and stares straight into The Content Bubble’s Sum of All Fears.
Then go deeper into our exclusive Anxiety Week coverage. For an understanding of why so many of us feel this way, start with The Pit in Your Stomach is Real, and continue on to “It Feels Like the Last Days of Rome” from new contributing editor Nicole LaPorte.
On the departure of Netflix’s flamboyant marketing chief, Bozoma Saint John, and her clap back.
CAMERA ROLL IS UP! Great photos of who was where this week in Hollywood.
Check out our new awards season pop-up, The Glossy. It’s Vincent Boucher’s take in the ramp-up to the Oscars on the nexus of fashion and entertainment, who’s making money now and how, and the most inventive costume work in film and TV.
Zelensky Memo Reveals 'Your Business Smells Russian' Campaign: Sean Penn's co-director/producer shares the leader's call to action, revealed on The Ankler Hot Seat podcast.
On The Optionist:
Q&A: What A.I. Tells Us About Debut Authors
A highly curated list of 10 current and backlist books, new journalism, and podcasts ready for option. This week: divorcees, a detective and Ukrainian ghosts.
Subscribe during the free beta period here (it’s almost over!).
The Ankler’s Got People Talking!
WE NOW HAVE GROUP SUBSCRIPTIONS! Please email Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com for more information,
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING on The Ankler, The Ankler Hot Seat, or The Optionist, please contact Kymber as well.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind at The Ankler.
The Ankler is an independent voice covering Hollywood. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers.
And if you’ve been passed along this issue, please join us! And find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
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Though the world’s eyes are on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, few have spent time with the charismatic leader in recent weeks. Among the exceptions: Sean Penn and co-director/producer Aaron Kaufman, who were on the ground in Kyiv when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The pair had been filming a documentary for Vice centered on the comedian-voice actor-turned-politician. In the early days of the war, Zelensky shared with Kaufman one of Zelensky’s plans for resisting the Russian onslaught, which Kaufman then passed on to Ankler Editor at Large and Ankler Hot Seat podcast host Tatiana Siegel in the hopes it would be shared. The campaign, conceived by Zelensky and his leadership, is called “Your Business Smells Russian” and its objective is to limit the activities of international businesses in Russia and thus financially choke and pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
On the podcast, Siegel talks about her text exchanges last week with Kaufman, who told her that “Zelensky was hoping to get [a series of talking points] out to the world.”
Here’s the memo Kaufman says Zelensky asked him to share. Kaufman delivered the memo through a series of texts:
The “Your Business Smells Russian” campaign
Insight: At a time when states are banding together and making significant efforts to create sanctions for Putin's Russia, most Western companies continue to do business in Russia, following business as usual policies. They continue to bring in significant revenues to the budget, perform an important public function of "universal approval" in society, while declaring the importance of values for modern life.
There is a policy of double standards, instead of support by actions, they close activities in Ukraine, (Coca Cola, Uber, McDonalds) motivated by military actions, they close in Ukraine, but not in Russia.
Task:
1) To show that this policy, just business, does not work in the modern business, in which values should be above all.
2) To show global consumers that money earned in Russia is “bloody and toxic money”.
Objective:
To limit the activities of businesses in Russia, the outflow of finance/capital.
Campaign:
Your Business Smells Russian
Actions:
1) Use well-known celebrities (e.g. Richard Branson) who could denounce double standards. Generate a large number (assault) of inquiries to companies in different countries about the ethics of doing business in Russia;
2) Consumer reactions/boycotts to goods/services in their countries.
3) Requesting ethic[al behavior] through national company forums.
Examples of the depth of the problem:
McDo - made $2.5 billion in Ru(ssia) last year;
Coke - made $2.6 billion in profits for the quarter
While it is unclear if Hollywood power brokers also received the memo, it appears that they got the message. A number of studios announced that they are “pausing” films scheduled for release in Russia including The Batman, Lost City and the Michael Bay action pic Ambulance. Similarly, Netflix put the kibosh on four series scheduled to shoot in Russia.
“We're not talking China numbers, but you can have sizable box office performances in Russia,” Siegel noted during the podcast. “For example, Joker made $37.2 million in Russia, and something like The Batman, which has been paused, would likely be comparable.”
In this episode, Siegel talks with co-hosts Janice Min and Richard Rushfield about Hollywood’s big reaction to the ongoing crisis and contrasts that with its continued silence on Russia’s ally, China, in addition to other entertainment headlines of the day.
Thanks for reading and listening. The Ankler is subscriber-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, we invite you to join our community.
Also on The Ankler:
On the departure of Netflix’s flamboyant marketing chief, Bozoma Saint John, what it says about Netflix and Hollywood today.
Entertainment Strategy Guy explains the MGM/Amazon/FTC death spiral and what it all means for the rest of entertainment.
Richard Rushfield’s annual State of Showbiz address.
CAMERA ROLL: 20 pictures of who’s where in Hollywood this week.
The fight is on for the role of the decade. The Transom has the details on the battle to play Madonna in the Material Girl’s self-directed biopic.
Adult animation was supposed to be the streamers’ secret weapon during the pandemic. But things didn’t go quite as planned. Entertainment Strategy Guy breaks down the bitter numbers.
On The Optionist:
Q&A: What A.I. Tells Us About Debut Authors
A highly curated list of current and backlist books, new journalism, and podcasts ready for option. This week: a real-life biopic about the greatest Wall Street manipulator, a time travel murder mystery, A Civil Action-esque courtroom drama, a fun romcom podcast, and a superhero adventure on the backlist that, incredibly, has not been spoken for yet.
Subscribe during the free beta period here.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Follow us at Apple Podcasts if you like what you are hearing. And please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more interviews and stories like these.
Back in the mid-’90s, Maria Farmer was a promising artist with a tiny New York City apartment who had just been commissioned to create two large installations for director James L. Brooks’ film As Good as It Gets. Enter Jeffrey Epstein, a well-connected patron of the arts whom she met at a gallery showing of her work, and a friend to Hollywood figures such as Mike Ovitz, Ron Burkle, Chris Tucker and Alec Baldwin. He offered her space to create the works as an artist-in-residence at the Ohio property of Victoria’s Secret billionaire Les Wexner. What followed was a now-familiar story of sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein and his literal partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell. Those stories were at the heart of Netflix’s Filthy Rich, and also are in an upcoming HBO project from Adam McKay.
The now-deceased Epstein went on to become a prolific predator of underage girls, with help from Maxwell, who was found guilty in December on five out of six sex trafficking-related charges and is facing up to 65 years in prison. But his predation could have been stopped by a 2003 Vanity Fair story about the late financier. In fact, Farmer and her sister Annie, another Epstein victim, gave their on-the-record accounts to Vanity Fair writer Vicky Ward one year earlier. But their stories never made it to print, prompting The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner to take a closer look at the circumstances surrounding the omission and who exactly was culpable (hint: Ward comes off looking even worse than former editor in chief Graydon Carter). After that publication, Ward hit back with a pair of rebuttals (What the New Yorker Got Wrong and The Last Word on the New Yorker and Isaac Chotiner). For Farmer, who was undergoing cancer treatment and didn’t participate in the New Yorker story aside from a statement (she has lymphoma and brain cancer), Chotiner got it right. “Vicky Ward was, I think, a very dangerous quote journalist because she promised our safety. And then she goes and has a drinks with the people who are the perps and befriends them,” she says of Ward, who would later describe Maxwell as “passionate” and capable of “vulnerability” in another Vanity Fair story from 2011 (both stories no longer exist on the magazine’s website). Says Farmer: “She's culpable for the rapes of so many women, in my opinion, because of her not reporting what she had been told and instead befriending the perps and hanging out with them and going to bars and writing about it." Indeed, even as recently as 2016, Epstein was making the rounds at the 2016 premiere of Warner Bros.’ Batman vs. Superman, prompting Ankler Hot Seat co-host Tatiana Siegel to ask a Warner Brothers executive that night “why a level three registered sex offender was invited.”
When asked for comment, Ward tells Siegel today, “I did do my very best to protect them, and it kills me that I failed in 2003. That is why in 2015, I did tell the story (in The Daily Beast), with their permission and support, and also wrote what had happened at Vanity Fair.”
To date, Ward has profited off her relationship to the Epstein-Maxwell stories through an Audible podcast, Chasing Ghislaine, and a Discovery+ docuseries of the same name. Farmer calls those who have profited off the stories of Epstein’s victims “presstitutes.”
In addition to the Ward controversy, Farmer also weighs in on Prince Andrew’s stunning settlement with a fellow Epstein accuser (also represented by David Boies), and the suicide hanging of Epstein accomplice Jean-Luc Brunel in a Paris jail. As for Maxwell’s planned appeal, Farmer says, “Ghislaine is shameless to put the survivors through more trauma. Of course, she does not care and is desperate at this stage.”
Farmer also voices her opposition to the HBO series in the works from Adam McKay based on the work of Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown’s book, Perversion of Justice (neither HBO nor McKay responded to requests for comment), as Brown is now being sued by two other Epstein victims for her portrayals of them. She also raises objection to Netflix’s Epstein documentary Filthy Rich because of Ward’s participation. (Netflix declined comment.)
The conversation is sobering, and reflects a rarely-discussed rift between survivors and the journalists who cash in with their #MeToo coverage.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Ready for some dish and fun? Producer Christine Peters is a legendary Hollywood figure, an almost Zelig-like personage who, at various times, ran Robert Evans’ production shingle at Paramount, was married to hairdresser-turned-studio chief Jon Peters, and was proposed to by Sumner Redstone. During that time, she had a ringside seat to some of the biggest business headlines in Hollywood history —from which she shares many of the backstories in this episode. The producer of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days also stunned Hollywood in 2018 when she revealed her own #MeToo encounter with Les Moonves to Ronan Farrow, a move that played a crucial part in the CBS chairman and CEO’s eventual ouster. She talks in this episode about how that decision to make her sexual assault public happened and why (hint: it involves Mia Farrow).
In this episode, Peters also discusses her upcoming memoir, her involvement in Web3, and what she thinks about the portrayal of ex-husband Peters, played by Bradley Cooper, in the Oscar-nominated Licorice Pizza. She also discusses one bombshell after another, including her dinner with Redstone and Jeffrey Epstein, how she helped put Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible back together after Redstone fired Cruise, and — ouch — her true feelings about Redstone’s daughter, Shari Redstone, chairwoman of Viacom. She is candid and dishy and unfiltered in her appraisal of the industry today.
Follow us at Apple Podcasts if you like what you are hearing. And please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more interviews and stories like these.
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WE NOW HAVE GROUP SUBSCRIPTIONS. Please email Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com for more information.
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The Ankler is an independent voice covering Hollywood. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers.
And if you’ve been passed along this issue, please join us! And find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
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Until recently, investigative reporter Lila Shapiro largely covered mysteries from the publishing world in her job at Vulture, writing stories, as she describes them, that “revolved around Twitter controversies that turned out to be more complicated than they initially seemed to be.” That sort of counter-narrative approach, in addition to her Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom, led Shapiro to take an interest in Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy and writer and director of two Avengers movies. In addition, in 2017, Whedon’s ex-wife had thrown a hand-grenade into Whedon’s pristine image: she wrote a scathing piece about his infidelities, and disingenuous feminism, during their marriage. When Whedon’s new show for HBO, The Nevers, was announced, Shapiro, in 2019, decided it was time for a profile. The problem was, Whedon’s team didn’t say yes, but didn’t exactly say no either. The dialogue would continue between the two parties for years, and Shapiro’s ask evolved along with Whedon’s travails. Eventually, the story would become more complex, as actors Ray Fisher, Charisma Carpenter, and others came forth publicly and on social media to speak about their negative experiences with Whedon. Continuing to report without his participation, Shapiro and the director thus began a long dance that ended in an interview that was at times, tense, emotional and confessional over two days in his Santa Monica, Calif. home.
If you are interested in advertising on The Ankler, The Ankler Hot Seat, or The Optionist, please contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com. If you are enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to The Ankler here at find out why the New York Times called us a “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to another episode of The Ankler Hot Seat, this one the last in a special series about the 2022 Sundance Film Festival hosted by Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel. Please follow us at Apple Podcasts and on Twitter.
Our guest today is a true behind-the-scenes superstar of Hollywood, Josh Braun of Submarine, a Los Angeles hybrid sales, production and distribution company run by Braun and his identical twin Dan. Submarine sold American Factory from the Obamas’ Higher Ground productions and Participant Media, a documentary that premiered at Sundance in 2019 (and went on to win the Best Documentary Oscar). He also brought Boys’ State to 2019 Sundance, where it became the highest-priced documentary sale in the festival’s history, bought by Apple for $12 million. That same year, he sold Billie Eilish’s documentary, also to Apple, for $26 million, a record for a music documentary.
Currently Braun is “at” virtual Sundance with the festival’s most buzzed-about title, Nothing Compares, a documentary about Sinead O’Connor, an elusive personality he says he had pursued for years. Since premiering on Jan. 21, the movie, directed by Kathryn Ferguson, has won rave reviews, and a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for its poignant and powerful storytelling about O’Connor, an artist Braun says delivered a protest message that many Americans now lean into, but at the time only earned her scorn, ridicule, and eventually exile. She spoke about “reproductive rights and gay rights, and the ability for a woman to choose and many other issues,” says Braun, “and was essentially raked over the coals and penalized. I think every position she took at that earlier point…she would now be hailed almost as a hero.” Braun also reveals in his interview how, while preparing for Sundance, he and the team behind Nothing Compares responded when they learned that O’Connor’s 17-year-old son had committed suicide. “If they wanted to be pulled, we would have pulled it,” he says on the podcast, “and we respected what those nearest and dearest to her believed was the right path.”
Also on the podcast, Braun discusses what it was like working with the Obamas, attending the screening of the surprise documentary about Alexi Navalny, the Putin opposition leader, and how it feels to help independent filmmakers who typically work on shoestring budgets to suddenly, many for the first time in their lives, make the kind of money they once could only dream of: “I have to say it is the greatest feeling.”
Also on The Ankler:
In Wall St. Just Handed Netflix a Golden Opportunity to Grow Up, Entertainment Strategy Guy discussing eight ways the streaming service can emerge from a disastrous week. A few weeks before the Netflix subscriber miss, ESG also delivered four charts predicting how Netflix’s woes were right around the corner in Streaming’s Winner-Take-All Theory Collapses. Because the news isn’t all-Netfix all the time, he also recently weighed in on The Worst Case Scenario for Disney, now facing some of the same downward pressures afflicting its rival.
However, Is Bob Chapek Secretly the One Hollywood’s Been Waiting For? Richard Rushfield looks at the mobs forming against Disney’s still-getting-comfortable kingpin and asks, what if we’re getting it all wrong? A look at the business under Chapek, the Iger ghost that haunts the company, and how the low key, non-nonsense boss might in fact be what Disney needs (if not what they want).
Ankler Hot Seat Podcast: Sundance Cinderella Stories and The Time Harvey Weinstein Joined the Women’s March
PLUS! A New Optionist Newsletter is Out!
Check out Andy Lewis’ The Optionist, a weekly newsletter about the best intellectual property with filmed rights available. Sign up here! The new issue contains new rights details about the suddenly buzzy world around Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis.
To advertise with The Ankler, please contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com.
We now offer group subscriptions! Please email info@anklermedia.com to sign-up.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind at The Ankler.
The Ankler is Hollywood’s favorite secret newsletter, an independent voice holding the industry’s feet to the fire. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers to keep publishing.
If you’ve been passed along this issue, take the hint and get on the train. Find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to another episode in The Ankler Hot Seat’s special Sundance series. Please follow us at Apple Podcasts and on Twitter.
This episode we revisit that moment in the early 00’s when Sundance lost its mind; when the glitz and luxury around it exploded out of the box and the festival became the most unlikely showplace for Hollywood excess, with independent filmmaking almost getting drowned out in the hoopla.
This is the episode Robert Redford doesn’t want you to hear, as we look back at the phenomenon that Sundance does not want to be known for, but, like it or not, for better or worse, is an important part of the festival’s history.
When Sundance became the world’s premiere launching pad for independent filmmaking, it drew in not just small-town dreamers with a story to tell, but major stars looking for more serious awards-bait acting opportunities. And where the stars go the hype machine will soon follow, in this case bringing with it the entire array of VIP lounges, swag suites and paparazzi stops that soon had Park City’s bucolic old-west themed Main Street looking like the Cahuenga Strip on a Friday night.
The contradiction between a festival acknowledging small intimate low budget film and the Hollywood hype machine was something the festival always tried to hold an uneasy line on, but at some point in the early aughts, the line collapsed and the swag, the reality stars, and the famous-for-being-famous poured in and seemed to bury everything.
Our panel today were all at Sundance during this time of excess and looks back on how it happened, what it was like, and where it went all went.
Joining Hot Seat hosts Richard Rushfield and Ankler Editor at Large Tatiana Siegel is special guest from New York Magazine, veteran Sundance reporter Chris Lee.
Also on The Ankler:
Is Bob Chapek Secretly the One Hollywood’s Been Waiting For? Richard looks at the mobs forming against Disney’s still-getting-comfortable kingpin and asks, what if we’re getting it all wrong? A look at the business under Chapek, the Iger ghost that haunts the company, and how the low key, non-nonsense boss might in fact be what Disney needs, if not what they want.
Ankler Hot Seat Podcast: Sundance Cinderella Stories and Remembering the Women’s March
A few weeks before the Netflix subscriber miss, and a precipitous stock tumble, our own Entertainment Strategy Guy delivered four charts illustrating how Netflix’s woes were right around the corner in Streaming’s Winner-Take-All Theory Collapses. More recently, ESG weighed in on The Worst Case Scenario for Disney, now facing many of the same downward pressures afflicting its rival. In his column, ESG predicts how the next decade for Disney (and possibly all the streamers) could look very very different from the 2010s.
Check out the debut of Andy Lewis’ The Optionist.
To advertise with The Ankler, please contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com.
We now offer group subscriptions! Please email info@anklermedia.com to sign-up.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind at The Ankler.
The Ankler is Hollywood’s favorite secret newsletter, an independent voice holding the industry’s feet to the fire. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers to keep publishing.
If you’ve been passed along this issue, take the hint and get on the train. Find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to our newest episode in the special Ankler Hot Seat series about the Sundance Film Festival past and present. In 2017, Ankler Hot Seat hosts Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel both attended the Sundance Film Festival, which, that year, took on a distinctly different mood. Newly-elected Donald Trump was inaugurated as president during the festival, and the mood was tense, as politics and women’s rights overshadowed the regular programming. During his campaign, Trump had derided accusers who had come forth with sexual assault claims, viciously attacked his rival Hillary Clinton, and insulted many prominent women including Rosie O’Donnell and Megan Kelly. One month before the election, Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tapes leaked out, and many women boiled over. At Sundance, Kristen Stewart, Anna Taylor-Joy, Charlize Theron and Chelsea Handler (plus John Legend and Nick Offerman) marched down Main Street in protest.
Harvey Weinstein also marched — or rather was driven down —to show his support on Main Street. His action was thick with irony. Later that year, Rose McGowan would reveal that he had raped her in a hot tub at the Sundance Film Festival years earlier, and with her voice, she joined a chorus of other accusers as a wall of silence broke around Weinstein, and the #MeToo movement was born. By May 2018, Weinstein had turned himself in to be arrested on charges of rape and sexual assault. Within months, not only would a series of prominent men in Hollywood and media be exposed for rape and sexual assault, but women — for the first time — saw something shift in the entertainment job market that actually began to resemble progress.
In this episode, Min and Siegel discuss the decades-long frustrations that led to the march, with Trump serving as a catalyst, why things actually began to change after that, and how the 2017 festival will go down as one of the major inflection points in the story of women in Hollywood.
Also on The Ankler:
Ankler Hot Seat Podcast: Sundance Cinderella Stories As a slew of independent filmmakers make headlines at the 2022 installment of the festival, directors Jesse Moss of Boys State and Liz W. Garcia of The Lifeguard revisit their dramatic backstories from that took them from unknown to acclaim in one stressed-out week.
A few weeks before the Netflix subscriber miss, and a precipitous stock tumble, our own Entertainment Strategy Guy delivered four charts illustrating how Netflix’s woes were right around the corner in Streaming’s Winner-Take-All Theory Collapses. More recently, ESG weighed in on The Worst Case Scenario for Disney, now facing many of the same downward pressures afflicting its rival. In his column, ESG predicts how the next decade for Disney (and possibly all the streamers) could look very very different from the 2010s.
Check out the debut of Andy Lewis’ The Optionist.
Yes, Woody Allen gets a film release in China, while no other American filmmakers seem to these days. In Hollywood’s China Grovel is Failing, writer Sonny Bunch dives into the absolute mess stemming from the studios’ decades of capitulation to the Chinese government.
If you are interested in advertising on The Ankler, please contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have the money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind here at The Ankler.
The Ankler is Hollywood’s favorite secret newsletter, an independent voice holding the industry’s feet to the fire. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers to keep publishing.
If you’ve been passed along this issue, take the hint and get on the train. Find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to The Ankler Hot Seat, a new podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook. It is a production of The Ankler, a subscription-only newsletter. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts (and rate us if you like what you are hearing), and on Twitter.
Before we get started with today’s episode…
We are proud to introduce you to The Optionist, a new Ankler newsletter out today about available intellectual property for the entertainment community, written by Andy Lewis. The Optionist aims to do some of your reading for you by highlighting the best material with rights still available from the worlds of book publishing, backlisted titles, journalism and podcasts (names of reps will be attached to each property when applicable). As anyone who works in this industry knows, the publishing-to-Hollywood superhighway has only expanded in the streaming age, yet the hours in the day have not. We hope this newsletter helps makes your work life just a little bit more productive through our legwork.
Try The Optionist in beta free for a limited time
Now, as for today’s episode 2 of our limited podcast series The Ankler Hot Seat: Sundance 2022, we look at a very special part of the Sundance experience. At the center of the entire circus are the stories of lone filmmakers inspired to defy the odds and make a film — generally outside any formal system, with a hodgepodge of support and financing held together with Band Aids and Scotch tape.
The filmmakers who actually end up accepted to the festival defy stratospheric odds, not only in getting their films made, yes, but then in their acceptance to the world’s premiere launching pad for independent film.
But once filmmakers get there, the road out of Sundance gets even narrower. Some land splashy deals, great riches and enormous futures. Others scratch their heads wondering — what exactly was that all about?
Today, we talk to two filmmakers about what the experience suddenly going from a quiet under-budgeted editing room to the bright lights at Sundance was like.
First up, host Richard Rushfield chats with Jesse Moss, whose documentaryBoys State debuted at Sundance in 2020, the last time the festival met in person. The film tells the story of a meeting of high school boys in Texas to form a representative government through an American Legion-sponsored program, and was wildly well-received upon its debut, ultimately selling to Apple and A24 for $12 million — one of the highest price-tags ever for a documentary feature.
For Moss however, the experience was a whirlwind of fear, joy, logistics and illness as he went into the Sundance barrel. There was even a bout of vomiting from anxiety.
We also chat with filmmaker Liz W. Garcia, who hit Sundance in 2013 with her late-coming of age drama, The Lifeguard which has gone on to become a cult favorite and touch stone for many women belatedly searching for their path.
Like Moss, Garcia found herself overwhelmed by the whirlwind of suddenly coming to Sundance and seeing the intimate drama she had carved with her bare hands premiere at the Eccles Theater, Sundance’s grandest venue.
Despite the thrill of the moment and the later glories to come, Garcia’s Sundance journey was made bittersweet by the chorus of all-male critics who didn’t connect with the female story, and pestered her with undermining and patronizing questions in their interviews throughout the week. For many female filmmakers, it will be a familiar story.
Join us for the next episode in our Sundance series, hosted by Janice Min and Tatiana Siegel, on Monday. Thanks for listening! And please subscribe to The Ankler if you like what you are hearing and reading.
Also on The Ankler this week:
Again check out the debut of Andy Lewis’ The Optionist, hot off the presses.
ESG weighs on The Worst Case Scenario for Disney, between streaming winds and China problems, a perfect storm of risk is brewing for the entertainment giant.
Ankler Hot Seat Podcast: What to Expect at Sundance The first episode in our Sundance podcast series in honor of Hollywood’s big festival discusses the big titles, Dakota Johnson, swag bags, and the pinnacle, er nadir, of the festival: the Pizza Hut VIP lounge.
Hollywood’s China Grovel is Failing Writer Sonny Bunch dives into the absolute mess stemming from the studios’ decades of capitulation to the Chinese government. The Chinese government was badly embarrassed following American outrage over the revelations that Disney’s live-action Mulan filmed on location in Xinjiang province — where as many as a million Muslim Uyghurs have been detained in concentration camps designed to destroy their ethnic identity. Disney has paid a price ever since. None of Disney’s new Marvel Cinematic Universe films received a theatrical release in China. Not Black Widow, not Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which used Chinese iconography and Chinese actors in the hopes of appealing to Chinese audiences and winning approval of Chinese officials, and not Eternals, which was directed by the best director-winning, China-born Chloe Zhao, who has her own baggage with Chinese audiences after old interviews resurfaced in which she said China was a “place where there are lies everywhere.”
Broadway’s Crisis: It’s ‘Las Vegas on the Hudson’ As Broadway suffers its lowest attendance in a decade, omicron wreaking havoc, and audiences rejecting one new production after another, longtime entertainment critic and journalist Frank Scheck writes about Broadway’s risk of becoming Vegas-on-the-Hudson, a place defined only by longstanding mega-hits: "If the producing doesn't get smarter, the gap between the blandly commercial and artistically pretentious flops will continue to widen."
If you are interested in advertising on The Ankler, please contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com.
Can’t afford The Ankler right now? If you’re an assistant, student, or getting your foot in the door of this industry, and want help navigating the craziness of this business but don’t have the money to spare right now, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com and we’ll work it out. No mogul or mogul-to-be left behind here at The Ankler.
The Ankler is Hollywood’s favorite secret newsletter, an independent voice holding the industry’s feet to the fire. If you’re a subscriber, feel free to share this edition with a friend but just a couple, please. The Ankler depends on its paid subscribers to keep publishing.
If you’ve been passed along this issue, take the hint and get on the train. Find out why the New York Times called us the “hit Hollywood newsletter.” Subscribe now!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to The Ankler Hot Seat, a new podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook. It is a production of The Ankler, a subscription-only newsletter. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts (and rate us if you like what you are hearing), and on Twitter.
Before we tell you about today’s episode…
We want to make sure you saw the news about The Optionist, a new Ankler newsletter about available intellectual property for the entertainment community that will debut Friday, January 21. Written by Andy Lewis, The Optionist aims to do some of your reading for you by highlighting the best material with rights still available from the worlds of book publishing, journalism and podcasts (names of reps will be attached to each property when applicable). As anyone who works in this industry knows, the publishing-to-Hollywood superhighway has only expanded in the streaming age, yet the hours in the day have not. We hope this newsletter helps makes your work life just a little bit more productive through our legwork.
For a limited time, you can sample The Optionist for free here.
Learn more about Andy’s background here.
Okay, back to the podcast at hand. Over this week and next, The Ankler Hot Seat team will deliver five podcasts in total about the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, the premiere festival for independent film for Hollywood that has become something so much more: a place for stars, brands and yes, still cinema, to convene. But this year, it’s not in person. Again.
This episode, the first in the series, kicks off the festival. Our hosts, Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel preview what is on hand now that the proceedings have gone from IRL in Park City, Utah, to virtual. The team discusses the Sundance titles that everyone is talking about, festival It Girl Dakota Johnson, the hunt for the mythical next Little Miss Sunshine, and the white hot Sinead O’Conner documentary from Josh Braun, the same agent who sold the Billie Eilish documentary for $26 million to Apple. Oh, and don’t miss the dissection of the swag — omg, the swag. Plus, our hosts pay homage to Sundance’s pinnacle, er, nadir atop Park City’s Main Street — the Pizza Hut VIP lounge. And lots more.
It is a lively discussion where you’ll almost feel the Park City snow on your face.
Please join us on Friday of this week for another Sundance podcast, and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of next week.
If you have thoughts about what is said on the pod, or a guest or topic suggestion, let us know at HotSeat@anklermedia.com.
Follow @TheAnkler @AnklerHotSeat and our hosts: @janicemin @anklerrushfield @tatianasiegel27.
If you’d like to sponsor The Ankler Hot Seat, contact Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com.
And subscribe now to The Ankler, and learn why The New York Times called us a “hit Hollywood newsletter.”
Also on The Ankler:
Hollywood’s China Grovel is Failing Writer Sonny Bunch dives into the absolute mess stemming from the studios’ decades of capitulation to the Chinese government. The Chinese government was badly embarrassed following American outrage over the revelations that Disney’s live-action Mulan filmed on location in Xinjiang province — where as many as a million Muslim Uyghurs have been detained in concentration camps designed to destroy their ethnic identity. Disney has paid a price ever since. None of Disney’s new Marvel Cinematic Universe films received a theatrical release in China. Not Black Widow, not Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which used Chinese iconography and Chinese actors in the hopes of appealing to Chinese audiences and winning approval of Chinese officials, and not Eternals, which was directed by the best director-winning, China-born Chloe Zhao, who has her own baggage with Chinese audiences after old interviews resurfaced in which she said China was a “place where there are lies everywhere.”
Broadway’s Crisis: It’s ‘Las Vegas on the Hudson’ As Broadway suffers its lowest attendance in a decade, omicron wreaking havoc, and audiences rejecting one new production after another, longtime entertainment critic and journalist Frank Scheck writes about Broadway’s risk of becoming Vegas-on-the-Hudson, a place defined only by longstanding mega-hits: "If the producing doesn't get smarter, the gap between the blandly commercial and artistically pretentious flops will continue to widen."
ESG Report: Uh-oh, Streaming Musicals Keep Bombing Netflix’s Tick, Tick...Boom! from Lin-Manuel Miranda was NOT another Hamilton — and the problems kept mounting from there for the category.
Richard Rushfield on Paramount's 'Yellowstone' debacle, pique Pixar under Bob II, and...a 100 percent unverified rumor too good not to share.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to The Ankler Hot Seat, our new podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook. It is a production of The Ankler, a subscription-only newsletter.
Everyone will have an opinion about the topics on today’s episode, as we dive into the most sensitive subjects currently raging in Hollywood — racial reckoning, “woke” culture, and #MeToo. We base today’s discussion on two news-making stories that reveal the death of consensus not just in politics, but also in this industry. You’ll also notice a theme in the discussions around redemption — is it possible for any one person or organization that has been disgraced?
First up, our special guest is writer Peter Kiefer, whose piece “Hollywood’s New Rules”, was in equal measures loved and hated as it made waves immediately upon its publication on Tuesday. Writing what many whisper, but few speak out loud, Peter reveals the private feelings of much of white Hollywood about so-called “woke” culture, their fear of misstepping or being “canceled”, and how things, as Hawk Koch, former president of the Academy told him, have “gone too far.” (Lots of voices in his piece would beg to differ).
Peter reveals the emails that a white male show-runner shared with him after he didn’t get certain jobs (possibly as convenient excuses):
“This one a dead end — they are going to limit search to women and bipoc candidates”
“Studio now telling us this job must go to a female / bipoc writer. Sorry — it sucks”
As the demographics of the country shift toward a non-white majority GenZ audience, recent cultural reckonings and a recognition of a century of exclusion for people of color in Hollywood have resulted in sweeping changes — critics would say regulation and interference — around representation. Diving into why what some of liberal (white) Hollywood says publicly differs from what some say privately, The Ankler Hot Seat asks the real question — has anything really changed at all?
Then after that:
Our hosts dive into the Golden Globes debacle, an epic, hilarious mess of an evening. After the Los Angeles Times expose, the publicist boycott, and botched attempts to shake it off, the Globes finally took the stage last weekend, to an audience of themselves. The proceedings were followed widely via a series of madcap Twitter announcements that somehow perfectly captured the zaniness that is the Globes’ calling card. We hash out what this night added up to, what did Hollywood lose in not having this show, and is there any path back?
The, we take up the fate of James Franco as he attempts to mount a comeback. Should he have been exiled? Was he even exiled? And what stands in the way of his return? There has yet to be a successful return from #MeToo jail; will this be the first? The reasons why he might not be accepted back are probably not quite what you think.
Finally, we have a quick recap of the Top 10 shows and movies on streaming.
What do you think about all this? Are the hiring doubts in Hollywood justified concerns, or sour grapes and entitlement? Should the Globes come back? Should James Franco? Tell us hear your thoughts in the comments…
Did you enjoy the podcast? Tell a friend or tell the world and pass it on!
And join us every Wednesday for new episodes.
If you have thoughts about what is said on the pod, or have a guest or topic suggestion, let us know at HotSeat@anklermedia.com
Music by Jordan Sommerlad On Spotify @jordansommerladmusic
Follow @TheAnkler and our hosts: @janicemin @anklerrushfield @tatianasiegel27
If you’d like to sponsor The Ankler Hot Seat, give a buzz to Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com
And subscribe now to The Ankler and get in on all the excitement.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
Welcome to The Ankler Hot Seat, our new podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook.
In today’s episode is special guest Michael Wolff, whose debut story for The Ankler about Random House and Norman Mailer caused a sensation. The best-selling author and columnist reveals how he first learned about Random House’s refusal to move forward on Mailer’s collection of essays set for 2023 from the author’s son, Michael Mailer, at a Christmas party, and also explains what it means now that the author’s book of political essays has moved to Skyhorse, a publishing imprint suddenly known for taking troubled and controversial authors in for rescue after the larger publishing houses “cancel” them, including Woody Allen.
Our hosts also discuss The Ankler 100, Omicron and awards season, what the rankings for most downloaded streaming apps in 2021 mean, predictions for 2022, and the surprise reappearance of Scott Rudin in awards campaign materials from Fox Searchlight as a contender for an Oscar.
Enjoy and join us every Wednesday for new episodes.
Music by Jordan Sommerlad On Spotify @jordansommerladmusic
Follow @TheAnkler and our hosts: @janicemin @anklerrushfield @tatianasiegel27
If you’d like to sponsor The Ankler Hot Seat, give a buzz to Kymber Allen at kymber@anklermedia.com
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe