When the show premiered, it wasn't the beloved Big Bird and Elmo experience that people think of today. "In 1969, Sesame Street unveils and there is a African American couple who live in the same neighborhood with their white neighbors — yes, with Big Bird and several other Muppets — but it's a very integrated cast. The first time this ...
Yes, it's a bit early to start placing bets, but still: "There are many nervous insiders hoping the post-pandemic pendulum will swing back toward those big mainstream movies. So here’s an early look at the presumptive awards field, starting with the very movies the Academy is surely hoping will save the Oscars." - Vulture
Art house films in particular bear the marks of their specific directors and writers - and that often doesn't translate (sorry, Another Round and Leo DeCaprio). "This may explain why so many international films optioned for remakes never get made. Paramount’s version of German Oscar nominee Toni Erdmann (2016), DreamWorks’ planned adaptation of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son (2013), or Tom Hanks’...
No matter what you've got in your house, there's nothing like watching a movie in the theatre with scores of other people. Then there are the prices: "The fact that I know I’m being ripped off is, somehow, part of the charm. Have you got a statistic about the ludicrous mark-up on popcorn for me? Have you got a...
Revenues at the world’s largest exhibition chain topped out at $148.3 million, down 84.2 percent from the year-ago period, while the company logged a loss of $1.42 per share, an improvement on the loss of $20.88 per share that it reported in the year-ago period. - Variety
"There was only one time when he seriously thought about quitting. The project … had just been announced, in the fall of 2016. Within hours of the news — BARRY JENKINS TO ADAPT HOT NOVEL 'UNDERGROUND RAILROAD' — the tweets had arrived. "THIS is what he's doing after 'Moonlight'? I HATE slave movies. Do we really need more images...
Over the past months we've gotten "a range of short films that showcase top talents in American opera, highlight contemporary composers and recruit other artists (including costume designers and cinematographers) as well as tens of thousands of new viewers … overdue embrace of the dormant chemistry between cinema and opera, so rarely consummated." - The Washington Post
"How to be a better boss is a question that has come under new scrutiny in Hollywood thanks to some high-profile examples of spectacularly bad ones. … In the trickiest coaching situations, a studio or agency's human resources department hires a coach to work with a reluctant leader. … For those inclined to roll their eyes at the prospect,...
"It's easy to forget now, given the show's 52-year ubiquity, that the original program was a shot in the dark – the first show aimed explicitly at childhood education, a combustible attempt to meld learning fundamentals with jingly bits and skits kids enjoyed to watch. … became the longest-running, and arguably most recognizable children's program in the country,...
Rachel Moore: "Performing arts organizations experienced a steep learning curve that dictated a digital competency most probably never aspired to. Whether this new learning is the catalyst for widespread embrace of a technological revolution remains unclear: Was digital production simply a bridge to mitigate a difficult year? Anchoring the digital strategy of many organizations lies an unexamined assumption that...
"The process begins with recording an actor speaking the dialog in the required language, as one would in a dubbing process, explains co-founder and filmmaker Scott Mann. The new audio and picture would then be delivered to Flawless, which would effectively use its AI-driven system to create a lip-synced picture." - The Hollywood Reporter
"The UK's biggest cinema chain, which is sweetening its £9.99 monthly all-you-watch subscription scheme to get punters back indoors as summer nears, will welcome back film fans to most of the 112 sites it operates across the UK . … Cineworld and Vue, the second and third biggest UK operators, are also set to reopen their cinemas, as...
The telecom giant is selling Yahoo, AOL and the remainder of its Verizon Media brands to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal announced Monday. - The Hollywood Reporter
Execs at Nexstar, the country's largest owner of local TV stations, had research saying that consumers wanted a source of nonpartisan news. So the corporation turned its cable outlet, WGN America, into NewsNation, offering five hours of news programming every evening to 75 million homes. Nielsen says NewsNation averages 27,000 prime-time viewers a night. (That's nationwide.) Several top editorial...
New York Public Radio, which includes news-talk outlets WNYC AM and FM and classical station WQXR as well as a podcast production unit and the local news website Gothamist, had been running a deficit even before the pandemic, which resulted in a decline of 27% in sponsorship revenue. Fourteen jobs, about 4% of the total, are being eliminated, including...
