The streaming company added 5.9 million new paid subscribers during the second quarter of 2023, the first period after instituting what it calls its "paid sharing" strategy. - The Hollywood Reporter
Writer and actor strikes in the US show that selling out is not just a question of personal ethics, but an industry-wide concern. A director’s decision to align themselves with Goliaths of entertainment has consequences; money for the big guy in opposition to an industry where smaller films and creators have more opportunities. - The Guardian
"The idea and technology of a situation deepfake are the same as any other deepfake, but with a bolder ambition: to manipulate a real event or invent one from thin air. Examples include depictions of Donald Trump's perp walk and Trump hugging Anthony Fauci, neither of which happened." - The Conversation
Moody’s debt analyst Neil Begley wrote in a July 17 report, “we believe this standstill could be a relatively long strike, with the stakes being larger than they have been in many years” and estimated the potential cost of the new contracts. - The Hollywood Reporter
"SAG-AFTRA has granted approval to 39 independent productions to shoot during the strike, after confirming that they are not tied to AMPTP companies. The list includes two projects from A24, the independent production company." - Variety
Under pressure to deliver to Wall Street, too many CEOs have lost the plot of their own movie. They are not running companies to profitably deliver a good product, such as a book or a cup of coffee or, in this case, a movie or TV show. They are running companies to deliver good profit. The quality of their...
After the sudden exits of top diversity and inclusion executives at Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Netflix and the Motion Picture Academy in the past month — all of them Black women — alarm bells have been raised for many who care about Hollywood’s commitment to gender and racial equity. - The Wrap
Director Aril Folman's 2013 film The Congress, starring Robin Wright, "foresaw problems including actors' loss of control over their images, the specific difficulties of contract negotiations over AI use, and the ripple effect of AI duplicating real people, … with astonishing clarity and detail." - BBC
By design, TikTok encourages different behaviors from those prompted by other social networks. “They say they check Facebook, and they check Instagram and they check Twitter. But they don’t check TikTok. They tell us they watch TikTok.” Like television, TikTok is something you watch. Its primary purpose is entertainment. - Hedgehog Review
“They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. - The Verge
As Bob Iger seems to blame Disney+ for blockbusters' lack of, uh, busting in recent months, "Who knew that convincing audiences they no longer need to go to the cinema would torpedo a blockbuster movie model that’s been in place since the mid-1970s?" - The Guardian (UK)
Why, and why now? After all, "no figure in history has been portrayed so often in movies. ... Every generation gets a Napoleon. Every generation several Napoleons. We may occasionally get the Napoleon we deserve." - Irish Times
Kapur thinks that series like Bridgerton have casts possibly more diverse than historical record because there's guilt over actors not getting work. Instead, he says, Hollywood needs to tell different, new, diverse stories. - BBC
For the producers, "There isn’t a leader or leaders who have volunteered to handle this and to be the focal point of the discussion. ... That’s partially because they’re all new to it, and also because ... the technology has essentially changed business plans." - Los Angeles Times
