Media

“When an Amazon Prime Video user buys content on the platform, what they’re really paying for is a limited license for ‘on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time’ and they’re warned of that in the company’s terms of use. That’s the company’s argument for why a lawsuit over hypothetical future deletions of content should be dismissed.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“Over the past five months, major film and television studios have signaled renewed efforts to depict people of color thoughtfully and authentically. It isn’t really possible to verify the sincerity of these efforts, but the changing role of dialect coaches — and how they’re allowed to work — may offer a way to judge their success.” A reporter talks with three dialect coaches, one Black and two Latina, about the new demand for their work. – The New York Times

In public, Spotify is staying quiet about an appearance by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones yesterday on its flagship podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, despite banning Jones’ own podcast last year. But in an internal email sent from a top executive, the company is defending the booking. – Buzzfeed News

“After being perceived as the red-hot center of Millennial-based media culture for the past decade or so, Vice’s place is harder to pinpoint now. Some of it is still edgy and provocative. But increasingly the impact of its work feels more like the proverbial trees falling in the forest. … Top executives at Vice tell you the present is pretty damn fabulous, while the best is yet to come. Former employees — or at least those willing to speak out despite confidentiality provisions in their contracts — say Vice is an unmitigated disaster.” – Air Mail

“As part of an expansive, multiyear deal with Apple, the Emmy-drenched former writer, producer and host of The Daily Show is set to front an all-new current affairs series for the streaming service. The show, which will run for multiple seasons, puts Stewart back in the anchor’s chair as he explores a host of topics at the center of both the national conversation and his own advocacy work.” – The Hollywood Reporter

B.C. has 61 entertainment projects in production this month, according to Creative B.C., which markets the province to Hollywood. That compares with around 40 projects that were shooting in B.C. just before the novel coronavirus pandemic. – The Hollywood Reporter

“The youth-oriented social media platform is rife with videos showing ostensibly heterosexual young men spooning in cuddle-puddle formation, cruising each other on the street while walking with their girlfriends, sharing a bed, going in for a kiss, admiring each other’s chiseled physiques and engaging in countless other homoerotic situations served up for humor and, ultimately, views.” And the vast majority of the fans are female. – The New York Times

NIna Wolarsky, who was VP of original series – drama, is out. “The Wolarsky news comes just a week after president of originals Jane Wiseman was shown the door. The ongoing senior management exodus from Netflix also includes Channing Dungey, to whom Wolarsky previously reported. Dungey stepped down from her vice president of original content role to succeed Peter Roth as chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group.” – Variety

After producing everything from The Talented Mr. Ripley to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Lydia Pilcher started looking for a project of her own. “Being on the inside of the industry as a producer and really being able to see all aspects of how decisions get made — Who decides what stories get told? How did the directors get chosen? — it made me understand that there was something being missed on the Hollywood end. It’s not just that the stories were being shut out. A lot of money was being left on the table.” – Variety

The series comes so close. And yet. “Perhaps, in more deft hands, this storyline could be a transgressive investigation of the ways in which women, and particularly mothers, are forced to carry terrible burdens, as well as, perhaps, provocative commentary on femme identity, queerness, and found family.” – BuzzFeed

Well, probably not, says an expert. “Becker found that audiences tended to react to those situations along party lines: If they already believed what they were being told, they were likely to find the comedy credible. If they don’t hold the same beliefs, the opposite effect can be seen.” – CBC

“There has been a lot of progress for women and people of colour in front of the camera,” Darnell Hunt, dean of the school’s social sciences division and the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there has not been the same level of progress behind the camera.“ – Toronto Star (AP)

Within a couple years of starting his newsletter, this random guy was able to quit his day job and become, for lack of a better word, a full-time expert, his pod-related opinions and observations quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His newsletter Hot Pod now has between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers (a combination of paid and free) and earns six figures, he says — a substantial figure for what amounts to a trade journal written almost like a personal zine, mixing the latest pod news with commentary and asides. – Medium

How so? Like New Coke, it was “product not enough real people wanted, a solution to a problem that didn’t really exist,” writes Josef Adalian. “There is an audience for bite-size entertainment with production values closer to Netflix than what you’ll find on social media, but I’m not so sure there’s a market for it.” – Vulture

Moving picture clips by Georges Méliès and Alice Guy-Blaché from the 1890s, long thought lost, were discovered over the last decade in the form of flipbooks, originally produced for people who couldn’t get to or afford tickets for a picture show. Now researchers have gathered some of those books and restored their images to film. – The Guardian

Less than two weeks before our quadrennial democratic experiment in terror, division, heartbreak and the art of the possible, our home screens are sending wildly mixed messages about democracy in action — how it was, how it is, how it should be and how we might save America from itself. – Chicago Tribune

Katzenberg: “There was no question that keeping us going was not going to have a different outcome, it was just going to spend a whole lot more money without any value to show for it.” Whitman: “Most entrepreneurs just keep on going [until] they literally run out of money and we just didn’t think that was the right thing to do.” – Deadline

“Quibi, the mobile-first streaming service to specialize in original shows with short five to 10-minute-long episodes, is shutting down its business operations and selling its assets little more than 6 months after launching. … It was an abrupt ending for a company founded by big names in entertainment and business worlds and seemed poised, at one point, to reinvent the streaming TV game.” – NPR

ABC has been the main home of Great Pumpkin and all the major Peanuts specials for the past 20 years, having snatched them away from their original home on CBS in 2000. But Great Pumpkin is not currently on ABC’s advance programming specials through early November, and while a network rep indicated that could change, it would be odd for ABC not to schedule the specials by now, unless there were contractual issues. – New York Magazine

“All theme parks — which includes Disneyland in Anaheim and Universal Studios Hollywood — may resume operations in Tier 4, Yellow, which is much further down the road. At that point, the guest limit is 25% across the board and indoor dining establishments can only operate at 25% capacity. The announcement drew a swift, negative reaction from executives at Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, Legoland and others.” – Deadline

“The movie, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, based on a smash-hit Japanese comic book, … outperformed all expectations, more than doubling the country’s record for the largest opening weekend, with over 3.4 million people shelling out nearly $44 million on tickets. In what may be a first for Japan, the movie had the biggest opening in the world last weekend — more than all other countries combined — despite having debuted only domestically.” – The New York Times

Amongst its portfolio of businesses, Disney+ is the only clear winner, with the service gaining over 60.5 million members in just ten months since launch. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, crushed Disney’s cruise, theme park, cable TV, live sports, cinema and retail businesses, resulting in losses over US$4.7 billion in the financial quarter ended June 27. – The Conversation

SAG-AFTRA, which has long claimed jurisdiction over the taping of live shows, offered Equity a limited waiver during the pandemic, but Equity rejected it, accusing SAG-AFTRA of “looking to use a pandemic to claim jurisdiction in Equity workplaces now and into the future in a way they haven’t had before,” and disrupting the relationship between employers and actors “that has existed for years, if not decades.” – Deadline

Mary Anning risked her life in fossil hunts, never gaining the recognition nor certainly the rewards that rich men in Britain won. She “was three things you didn’t want to be in 19th-century Britain – she was female, working class and poor.” – BBC

The standoff about packaging has lasted 18 months, and the writers’ union wants it to end. The negotiating committee wrote, “CAA and WME enter these negotiations more deeply conflicted than any of the other agencies. … But that does not give them the right to come out on the other side of this process still conflicted.” – Los Angeles Times

Director François Ozon: “I believe in cinemas. If you look at French attendance figures, they’re 50% down from last year but that’s because there are no American films – whereas French films are maybe only 20% down. There’s a lot going on in French cinema at the moment – a lot of variety, a lot of debate, commercial films, auteur films, some very strong personalities, it’s pretty healthy. And there are a lot of film shoots happening in France right now – everyone’s making the most of it, in case there’s another lockdown.” – The Observer (UK)

With Netflix and Disney controlling so much content, and with both companies now indifferent to movie theatres, things are looking grim. “What if the pandemic, rather than representing a temporary disruption in audience habits and industry revenues, turns out to be an extinction-level event for moviegoing?” – The New York Times