YouTube ad revenue grew 9% in the third quarter to hit $11.2 billion, but parent Alphabet‘s stock dropped after overall financials undershot Wall Street expectations. - Deadline
Simon Stephenson claims that, for The Holdovers — which received five Oscar nominations in 2024, with a win for supporting actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph — director Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson stole plot points, characters and structure from Stephenson’s screenplay Frisco, which he had shopped to Payne in 2013 and 2019. - The Hollywood Reporter
Addison Duffy, an agent at United Talent Agency who helped negotiate the “Understudy” contract, said that short stories are a form “that almost every single agent in our group is selling in a big way.” Their bite-size format appeals to busy studio executives facing mountains of scripts. - The New York Times
“Since 2020, the (Science of Scare Project) has evaluated horror movies’ physiological effects on viewers by monitoring their heart rate and heart rate variability … as they watch a curated selection of English-language horror films considered among the most frightening.” And the winner is … ? - HuffPost
After less than two weeks in theaters, it’s already one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time and, as it expanded into thousands of domestic theaters in its second weekend, came second only to a major studio comic-book movie. - Slate
Errol Morris directed some commercials for Theranos back when it was flying high, and he has two hours of unedited Q&A footage of Holmes from that period which he thinks would make a good before-and-after comparison with You Can See Everything. (He also has two very entertaining anecdotes about unmade commercials.) - Variety
“Increasingly, tensions have flared between the L.A.-based executives dedicated to movies and TV shows and its engineers and technologists in Silicon Valley. Internal disputes have erupted over how best to expand the business and promote content on the platform to boost audience engagement." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. - The Guardian
Patricia Highsmith's "politics are horrendous. She is homophobic despite being gay, antisemitic, anti-everything. Yet she is one of the most psychologically astute writers of the 20th century, particularly brilliant at allowing us into the dark parts of the human psyche.” - The New York Times
"The main problem with 2020s Netflix: It gets eyeballs watching far more than it gets tongues wagging. If a Super Bowl-size event takes place and nobody talks about it, does it even matter?" - Fast Company
Poehler, and Hugh Laurie, star in a fictional show about realistic archaeologists. "Getting the objects right was important for the production because an appreciation of artifacts is central to archaeology." - The New York Times
"'It’s like the opposite of Hearts of Darkness,' Sofia said. 'In a way it’s sort of a nice counterpoint because that movie’s so macho and masculine and this is so feminine.' And it’s also true to what really happened." - Seattle Times (AP)
