"CEO Mark Thompson outlined his digital vision in a lengthy memo to staff Wednesday morning, announcing plans to build a flurry of digital products. … Thompson did emphasize that rather than the text-based experience it currently leans on, CNN will focus more on video in digital going forward." - The Hollywood Reporter
“Covid, and industry issues that impacted Hollywood product flow, have ushered a period of growth for local and regional films, in some cases with record-breaking results." - The Guardian
As the conservative kingdom loosened up, Abdulaziz Almuzaini's show Masameer (often likened to South Park) got a fan base and he was feted as a star of Saudi Arabia's nascent entertainment industry. Yet he was convicted of promoting the very extremism that the series satirizes. - The New York Times
I think a lot of my aesthetics were shaped by the Broadway shows that my mom took us to in Baltimore. Those old-school shows like “Fiddler on the Roof,” which start off funny and then get more serious, and then, by the end, they’re tragedies about something big and sad. - The New Yorker
David Ellison of Skydance finally persuaded Shari Redstone “to let go of the entertainment company her family has controlled for nearly four decades. The sweetened deal also paid the Redstone family about $50 million more than what had been proposed in early June.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Sure, she won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, but don’t forget Point Break: "Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze are perfectly cast as the undercover FBI agent and surfing criminal whose throbbingly homoerotic relationship plays out amid crashing waves, tumbling freefalls and breathtaking chase sequences.” - The Guardian (UK)
Marketers are leaning in. Wicked and Gladiator II, both releasing November 22, don’t seem to have the same built-in opposition, but they do have the bare minimum: A musical adored by women and gay men, versus the Roman Empire. - San Francisco Chronicle
“This country has endured quite a bit of trauma in recent years, but we are not doing ourselves any favors by continually leaping from ‘problem’ to ‘end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it catastrophe’ about everything.” - Los Angeles Times
That’s right, physical media. DVD sales are down, true - but Blu-Ray sales are climbing, and after Paramount axed the entire Comedy Central website, people may be more interested in ever than owning their own movies and TV shows. - Slate
Kids’ movies, of course. Well … of course, except last year it was Barbie and (in deep, deep second place) Oppenheimer. And in years before the pandemic, superhero movies. Now? It’s Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4. - Vulture
The Malayalam-language film industry, based in the state of Kerala in India's far southwest, never went in for the mythological films or song-dance-melodrama extravaganzas on which Bollywood was built. It simply tells compelling stories about believable people. And it's now breaking out into the rest of India. - The Economist
Slovo Patsana: Krov na Asphalte (roughly, "The Boy's Word: Blood on the Asphalt") "is a warning about what happens when our ability for moral reasoning becomes so impoverished that the most straightforward response to any situation is to punch somebody in the face." - The New York Times Magazine
Media heavyweights are likely due to endure more pain as the year goes on. The political and regulatory environment for mergers and acquisitions is so volatile that there’s little hope of getting a horizontal combination in any form among Paramount, WBD or Comcast/NBCUniversal approved. - Variety
"In a holiday week shocker, Skydance Media and Shari Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. have quietly renewed acquisition talks and have reached a tentative agreement to acquire Paramount Global" — although the studio will reportedly have 45 days to look for a better deal. - Variety
If Zemeckis can achieve that effect in Here, how long can it be before such de-ageing is as common as using hair dye and make-up to knock a few years off an actor's apparent age? - BBC
