The movie has been in development since 2008. "The project stalled for many years between different directors and studios, because executives wanted more well-known Latino actors to star, such as Shakira or Jennifer Lopez. They also wanted more stereotypical storylines for the characters, such as pregnancies and gang violence." But Hamilton changed all that. - NBC
The newspaper crisis - and be assured, for small, local places, it is a crisis - means that areas where people need the most are getting covered the least. - LitHub
The government review of the planned Discovery-Warner Bros merger could take more than a year, and subscribers are abandoning Discovery's cable channels (and cable in general) in droves. Then there's the huge debt - and the companies' culture clashes. - Los Angeles Times
You don't have to wait for news reports; just watch livestreams from protests, lectures, concerts, and more. "With endless images and videos at our constant disposal, people are entirely able to form their own understanding of events—and of the narrative choices involved in crafting newspaper articles and cable network broadcasts." This is great, and terrible, for journalism and the...
"After furloughing around 80 percent of the chain's workers at once, and having survived the financial crucible of bankruptcy by selling itself to deep-pocketed backers, the company is poised to make good on its grandest ambitions to date. Such expansion, though, comes with a subtle but undeniable shift in corporate culture." - Vulture
"'We were informed that no political story is allowed,' says Emily*, an RTHK employee who, along with others interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to speak freely. 'We think it's kind of funny because what isn't a political story now?'" - The Guardian
Billions of dollars are on the table for an industry that has historically been not just hostile but actively damaging to girls and women who wanted to game. Before this, "Girls couldn’t earnestly be gamers, goons maintained. Worse still, their twisted logic went, fake-gamer egirls were stealing views from real-gamer gamer boys." Now, thanks to TikTok and real-world changes,...
Constructing sets has become wildly more expensive: "A sheet of plywood was $20 or $30 in recent years but is now roughly three times as much. And it’s not just lumber: Everything from steel to glass to paint has jumped in price in the past few months." Of course, studios are now looking for other places to save. -...
Up through Disney's previous animated feature, Sleeping Beauty, each cell in a film had to be traced and copied by hand, often more than once, then inked and painted — and each movie used hundreds of thousands of cells. That got expensive: Sleeping Beauty cost $1 million more than it earned in its first release (and in 1959 that...
" has been approaching senior game industry executives about joining it to lead the creation of a subscription games service, according to reports. … One key decision that has not yet been finalised is whether a game subscription service would also require Netflix to develop games itself." - The Guardian
It seems good at first, right? Adding dimension to villains! "In theory, this is a positive shift, Disney’s attempt to offer its young audience lessons that aren’t so dependent on innate goodness, or telegraphing that goodness with physical attributes. But as this novelty has jelled into a house style, the unofficial ban on old-fashioned evil starts to feel a...
And those 17 movies — which include no less than Mystic River (with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins), Million Dollar Baby (Hilary Swank), and American Sniper (Bradley Cooper) — have earned a billion dollars or so all together, not to mention a few Oscars and plenty more nominations. Maybe not every one of the 39 films he's made over...
Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose Hamilton, filmed, made Disney+ a lot of money last year (and ensured musical theatre fans had something to watch over and over and over again while actual theatres were shuttered), says that he really wanted In the Heights to come out as scheduled. "I felt like I was back in my 20s — ‘No, please, let’s...
