“This second Night Manager season arrives at a moment when spy dramas have moved on, and in a grubbier, more down-to-earth direction than the one the first season ushered in.” - Slate
That is to say, climate change makes fools of us all, including reality TV shows: "Filming for Love Island: All Stars has been postponed after the villa was evacuated due to wildfires." - BBC
“Chloé Zhao recovered from looking shellshocked to quote Paul Mescal, saying that making Hamnet made him realize that being an artist is about being vulnerable and being seen for who we are, not who we ought to be, and giving ourselves fully to the world.” - The New York Times
Netflix’s adaptation of Emily Henry’s The People We Meet on Vacation has some issues. “This diminishment of each element almost entirely nukes the book’s grounded sense of Poppy’s motivations behind her noncommittal approach to life. And that’s, like, her whole thing! That’s not a conflict, but the conflict!” Oops. - Slate
“Everything we now know as ‘Hollywood,’ ... the global ‘dream machine’ with all its enduring art, complicated mythology and current anxieties, began under a cedar-shingled roof where DeMille set up in a tiny corner office and actors changed costumes in horse stalls.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
For one thing, “Warner Bros. will swear there was absolutely no calculation involved in running One Battle After Another as a Comedy at the Globes. If so, the field just happened to shake out awfully nice for the presumed Oscar front-runner.” - Vulture
With Congress’s defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its subsequent dissolution this week, WABE in Atlanta and jazz station WCLK-FM have seen the loss of about 13% of their budgets, while Georgia Public Broadcasting has now lost 11%. - Inside Radio
And this project — Jafar Panahi’s Cannes-winning It Was Just an Accident — was extra-sensitive, since it’s about torture victims hunting down a man they think was their interrogator. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
"We are deeply concerned that this acquisition of Warner Bros. by Netflix will have a direct and irreversible negative impact on movie theaters around the world,” Cinema United, the largest trade organization representing exhibitors, said. - The Hollywood Reporter
Effectively, in only three years, the Warner Bros. Discovery merger has validated nearly all the concerns that critics of “market first” policymaking have warned about for years. Once it had a dominant market share, the company started providing less and charging more. - The Conversation
Universal Music India, a division of Universal Music Group, will acquire a 30% equity interest in the Mumbai-based movie studio. In the deal, announced Monday, the companies will work together on forthcoming films, series, music and emerging formats. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
Since Congress defunded public TV and radio months ago, an estimated $100 million has been raised from foundations and, notably, from record numbers of listeners angry about the cuts — so-called “rage giving.” That leaves only $435 million to go to replace the funding promised to stations just last year. - Inside Radio
“Warner Bros. Discovery’s leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Skydance-owned Paramount’s overtures — and urged shareholders just weeks ago to support selling its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has made efforts to sweeten its $77.9 billion hostile bid for the entire company.” - TechCrunch
“While NPR may be staring down a tough couple of years ahead, I think public radio is better positioned in the long run than most American news organizations right now.” - Substack
