More from Kim Masters
How Francis Ford Coppola’s Embattled ‘Megalopolis’ Finally Landed a Distributor
When Lionsgate revealed June 17 it would bring Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million passion project Megalopolis to U.S. theaters, plenty of questions swirled — and not just about whether an actor playing a reporter would show up at screenings to ask questions of Adam Driver’s onscreen character midway through the movie, as happened at Cannes. (The answer to […]
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David Zaslav Hires Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as Warner Bros. Discovery Comms Chief (Exclusive)
David Zaslav has found his new communications chief. The Warner Bros. Discovery CEO has tapped former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs as the new top executive to lead his comms division after the exit of Nathaniel Brown at the beginning of this year, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. His start date is August 5. […]
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Why Is Shari Redstone so Upset?
By the time you read to the end of this sentence, Shari Redstone may have made a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance. Or not. Days after reports that Skydance had finally come to an agreement with Paramount’s special committee, there has been a pregnant pause as Redstone considered whether to pull the trigger on a complicated […]
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As Paramount Steers Into Unknown, David Ellison Woos A-Listers to Boost Flagging Bid
Whatever fate befalls Paramount Global after the smoke clears, one of the Hollywood Trivial Pursuit questions someday will be which heavy hitters have issued statements of support for Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Paramount’s holding company, National Amusements Inc. — and which didn’t. Even as the Paramount special committee passed on the offer from David Ellison’s […]
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If Shari Redstone Goes It Alone With Paramount, a Streaming Deal With Peacock Could Be Next
What now? The Skydance Media deal for National Amusements appears to be dead, with the company declining to extend its exclusive negotiating window, and sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is cool on the $26 billion offer from Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management — a deal that would lead to the breakup […]
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Paramount Appears Set to Back Away From Skydance Deal, Leaving Uncertain Path Forward
After weeks of negotiations, Skydance’s proposed merger with Paramount Global appears to be on the ropes. Paramount’s special board committee appears to have cooled on the offer, which would have seen the David Ellison-led studio, joined by financial partners RedBird Capital and KKR, acquire controlling shareholder Shari Redstone’s stake in the company and then merge […]
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Is There Still Hope for #MeToo Justice?
We all know he’s guilty — even the New York appeals court majority that ordered a new trial for Harvey Weinstein knows it. That makes the narrow, 4-3 reversal of Weinstein’s conviction all the more enraging. Anyone who has ever watched a cop show knows how difficult it is to get a conviction in a […]
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Bob Iger Bruised, But Not Broken, After Disney Fight
The moment that it started to seem possible that Bob Iger could lose the battle to keep dissident shareholder Nelson Peltz off the Disney board was on March 21, when leading proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services announced its support for the activist investor. Days later, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) took it a step […]
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Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Faces Uphill Battle for Mega Deal: “Just No Way to Position This Movie”
NBCUniversal chief content officer Donna Langley was there. So was Sony head Tom Rothman. Bob Iger was one of the few Hollywood heavyweights who couldn’t make it, but at least he had a good excuse, still in the midst of a vicious proxy battle with investor Nelson Peltz. The event: The grand unveiling of Megalopolis, the […]
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The Leadership Vacuum That Led to the Ronna McDaniel Fail at NBC
Tuesday was not a good day for Ronna McDaniel — or, is it Ronna Romney McDaniel again, as she now admits the 2020 election was not stolen? She went from a high-profile gig on NBC to no gig and no agent, as CAA also dropped her. It was also a bad day for NBC News […]
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NBC News Ousts Ronna McDaniel After Staff Uproar, CAA Drops Ex-RNC Chair
NBC News has officially decided to part ways with its newest on-air contributor, Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair, just days after she was hired. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” NBC News Group chairman Cesar […]
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Who is the ‘SEAL Team’ Staffer at the Center of Stephen Miller’s War on Hollywood Diversity?
Aspiring television writer Brian Beneker, whose credits as a script coordinator go back more than 20 years, isn’t the only straight white male to feel that he was being shut out of a writing job because of diversity initiatives. But so far he appears to be the only one willing to seek out Stephen Miller’s […]
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