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  • All Blogs/ Entertainment Industry Insights: Sep. 13 2022

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New Projects Casting - Emmy Awards - Production News - Streaming Wars

By Abigail Hardin, September 13, 2022

Eye593
Happy September, UTD!

We're back after our Labor Day hiatus! I hope you had a great long weekend! Between the Emmys last night, major shifts in the cinema landscape, and production updates, there is a lot to unpack. So we're going to jump right in!

Buckle up your seat belts, it's going to be a busy Fall! 🍁

Emmy Awards

Last night was the 74th annual Emmy Awards. The event was the first time in three years that the ceremony was at capacity. While the reviews are heralding the ceremony as a success, there were few to no surprises with main-stream, household names, taking the bulk of awards (SUCCESSION, TED LASSO, and THE WHITE LOTUS). Really, the only notable upset was that Lizzo's WATCH OUT FOR THE BIG GRRRLS dethroned RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE for best reality show.

The ceremony itself manages to not be political, with no acceptance speech's taking on current controversial topics. Most winners thanked the producers and staff, and championed believing in oneself - dreams really do come true. The most moving speech of the night had to be Sheryl Lee Ralph's acceptance for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy (ABBOT ELEMENTARY). Ralph stepped up to the stage in total shock, opened her mouth to speak and instead burst into full bodied song.

Here is a full list of winners from last night, and check out these articles for morein-depth takeaways and insight:

Fall Festivals
Venice, Telluride Create Early Buzz

It was a big two-week span for film across the globe - while we were enjoying our last looks at summer 2022, many in the international film community were taking dozens of premieres at Venice and Telluride, setting the industry abuzz with who may be eyeing eventual turns at the Oscars, SAG Awards and more. Heck, Sundance was already setting its live and virtual dates for 2023 - the industry is ready to be back!

"I think our future is with international cinema as much as with American cinema," Academy CEO Bill Kramer told Venice attendees last week, during what was, surprisingly, AMPAS' first official visit to the Festival. Kramer went on to speak to the strength of global filmmaking and the importance it has in showcasing stories that we may otherwise never get the chance to see, noting that the Academy is planning on "leaning into international cinema in a very big way" moving forward. Kramer also confirmed that Chris Rock would not be returning as host of the Oscars next year, saying that AMPAS is already working with producers to land a host, which they believe is a "very important" and "grounding" component to the show.

Both Venice and fellow festival giant Telluride played host to some of the most highly-anticipated films set for contention in this year's award season marathon of festivals and ceremonies. TÁR, Todd Fields' account of international classical music composer Lydia Tár starring Cate Blanchett, received heavy praise from audiences and critics at both Venice and Telluride, as well as Sarah Polley's WOMEN TALKING, which follows accounts of sexual assault from women in a secluded religious sect. These festivals are where we get our first real taste of the top film contenders for the busy fall and winter season - start keeping a tally of them now!

Cineworld Files for Bankruptcy
Future of Movie Theaters Remains Uncertain

Big news in the world of movie theaters last week as entertainment giant Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, hoping to emerge from the proceedings in the first part of 2023. The news came as little surprise to its subsidiaries, namely Regal Cinemas, who has been told to expect potential closures and lease updates in order to streamline the business and revive its financial positioning. While still under the Cineworld umbrella, IMAX believes its stakeholders will not be at risk to the degree that Regal owners are, as all IMAX theaters are covered under one comprehensive agreement worldwide, and are typically only situated in higher-grossing locations.

News of the bankruptcy trickled down through the industry, with Cineworld stakeholders slowly raising questions on whether or not their claims against the company's stock would be secured. A turn of luck hit the world's second-largest exhibitor last Friday when a U.S. Bankruptcy Court granted the company $785 million in financing to pay employees, suppliers, and other operational obligations. The move bumped stock prices up slightly to close out the week, but the road for Cineworld still remains rocky in the months ahead.

The move from Cineworld, while not unexpected, is certainly not good news for theaters as a whole. The roaring confidence of returning to movie houses this past spring has begun to wane in the eyes of investors, who still believe that audiences are interested in coming to the movies, but are looking for different ways to approach distributing them. While some studio heads believe that the boom in production throughout 2022 means that 2023 will assuredly be a banner year for theaters, it's anyone's guess how things may shake out in a world where new COVID variants seem to be announced at the same rate as new Netflix series 🤞

Production News
SAG-AFTRA: COVID-19 Protocols & New Netflix Contract

SAG-AFTRA officially adopted a new contract with Netflix, with just over 89% of members casting ballots in support of the agreement. Chiefly among the provisions is the beginning of the end for exclusivity deals - members may now work on any show they'd like within three months of a season wrapping. Freedom!

Union leaders have been debating the revision of the union's COVID-19 protocols. A three-hour board meeting yesterday ended without any definitive conclusion on the matter. With the current Return-to-Work agreement set to expire at the end of the month, there seems to be some disagreement on whether the union should continue or lift the restrictions - president Fran Drescher and epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch are seemingly moving forward with proposing to end the protocols, while other members of the union remain more hesitant to do so.

International Production Taking Off

Around the globe, production has been heating up at an exciting pace in the last few months. Checking in on a handful of hot spots:

Hollywood & Politics

Top studios are finally coming to the table after calls from hundreds of showrunners and writers to outline abortion protections for employees seemingly went unanswered. Representatives from Netflix, Amazon, NBCU, and more have since made contact with leaders of the movement, who noted that the studios are "engaging directly and individually with us to address the immediate need for safety, privacy and legal protections for their employees." Strength in numbers!

Streaming Wars
Disney+ Day Reveals New Content, Hints at Future Plans

Disney took us through all of their bells and whistles last week with their annual Disney+ Day last week, showcasing dozens of new and upcoming projects that viewers can expect over the next few years. For all the pomp and circumstance of the day, CEO Bob Chapek seemed to have some interesting comments for the industry at several other events throughout the week - he didn't pull any punches saying that the movie theater industry won't "ever return in terms of going to the level they were at pre-pandemic," noting that streamers will be the definitive way forward for both audiences and advertisers alike.

On another note, details on the future of ESPN and Hulu seemed to remain few and far between, though Chapek did note interest in buying out Comcast's stake in Hulu earlier than the currently contracted 2024 date. And then there is, of course, the question of merging the House of Mouse's variation platform under one cost - a provision Chapek refers to as a "hard bundle". "Right now if you want to go from Hulu to ESPN+ to Disney+, you have to go out of one app to another app. In the future, we may have less friction," he said with a grin. Interesting!

Netflix Workshopping Ad Tiers

Netflix, meanwhile, is hot on the trail of launching their ad-supporting services, reportedly bumping up their launch dates to November 1st to get ahead of similar moves by Disney - most notably their $7.99 ad-tier Disney+ Basic plan launching December 8th. While Hastings, Sarandos and Co are calling such moves "speculation", other reports from ad execs are claiming that recent meetings with Netflix reps have featured talks of one of the highest ad costs-per-viewer among all streamers, potentially stalling any ad-supported plans from launching before the terms are agreed to.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
HFPA Adds New Voters

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association continues to make strides in increasing its levels of diversity with the addition of 103 new voters this past week, doubling the depth of the ballot-casting pool in an effort to make good on its promise to increase representation among its ranks. While the new voters are not official members of the HFPA - a first in the group's history - they will still weigh in on all future Golden Globes ballots, boosting the diversity of the predominantly white voter base in years past. "The addition of new non-member voters drawn from international markets gives us the opportunity to more rapidly increase the number of voters while preserving our international identity and maintaining the commitment to bring in qualified and experienced entertainment journalists," HFPA president Helen Hoehne said in a statement.

Revisiting Gender Neutral Award Ceremonies

After the announcements that both the Spirit Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards would be eliminating the gendering of their awards categories moving forward, many in the industry are once again turning their attention to the larger ceremonies - the Oscars, Emmy's, Tony's, etc - as a growing call to follow suit and remove the Best Actor/Actress delineations from their shows as well. With the Grammys having already instituted the change years ago, and the majority of other categories already gender neutral, it seems high time to have some real conversations about the major award shows embracing this change for all acting categories as well.

Latinx, Disability Representation Gets Boost

Latinx representation in exec positions will be getting a boost with the help of a new coalition aimed at increasing representation for Latinx individuals in senior Hollywood leadership positions. Over 100 members of the Alliance of LatinX Executives will work with major studios on their recruitment and headhunting structures to diversify their streaming, network, and production roles to include more Latinx talent. "Our main goal from the onset was to ensure that senior level executive positions were populated with as many qualified Latinx executives as possible," former NBCU exec John Pollack said. "We firmly believe that authentic and sustained change must come from within the industry."

The CBS Performers with Disabilities Talent Initiative is taking aim at the severe lack of disabled creatives on television, with the goal of creating more written roles for performers with disabilities, as well as expanding casting opportunities for such individuals in roles that are not specifically noted as being characters with disabilities. "There are so many talented performers available who are often overlooked and are not being considered for roles, so our goal with this initiative is to help bridge that gap," CBS EVP of talent and casting Claudia Lyon said. Given that CBS became the first network to adopt the Ruderman Family Foundation's missive to increase opportunities for performers with disabilities, we're excited to see the continued initiative from the studio to make space for these creators in the years ahead!

Black Creatives Need Tools for Success, Muslim Representation Lacking, LOTR Cast Members Face Backlash

In promoting his newest film venture A JAZZMAN'S BLUES, industry heavyweight Tyler Perry spoke candidly about the importance of allowing time for training and development of Black film and TV execs, in order to ensure that they are receiving the tools that they need to succeed in the workplace. "What I don't want to have is black people in seats that we weren't ready for," Perry said of the importance of supplementing the push for diversity in leadership roles with necessary training and development programs. "It's my hope that in all of this change and this push for there to be more inclusion, we're also providing time and training to make sure we can do a great job"

An alarming new report from USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that Muslim characters represent only about 1% of characters across the top 200 TV shows in the US and beyond. What's more astonishing - of the 6,117 producers, writers, and directors surveyed in the report, only FIVE were Muslim, who had worked eight times on shows. FIVE! On the film side, only 12 individuals in the same fields surveyed from 1,500 top-grossing films between 2007-2021 were Muslim. Change needs to happen here, and it needs to happen now.

While many LORD OF THE RINGS lovers (myself included) were eager to get their eyes on the first few episodes of THE RINGS OF POWER earlier this month, news of the release became quickly tainted by dozens of hateful, racist, and xenophobic comments towards cast members of color, leading the cast as a whole to release a statement condemning the ridiculous behavior. "Tolkien created a world which, by definition, is multicultural. A world in which free peoples from, different races and cultures join together, in fellowship, to defeat the forces of evil. 'Rings of Power' reflects that. Our world has never been all white, fantasy has never been all white, Middle-earth is not all white." Cast members from the original LOTR series also posted photos in support of the series' members of color, with the tagline "You Are All Welcome Here".

Industry Intel

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last week, producers for THE CROWN suspended production on Friday out of respect for her passing, and will also pause shooting on the day of the monarch's funeral in the coming weeks. Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth 💜

The newest member of the Broadway theater family was unveiled yesterday with the renaming of the Cort Theatre to the James Earl Jones Theatre, which will be accompanied by a $47 million restoration project for the 110-year-old venue. Jones made his Broadway debut at the venue in 1958 for his role in SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO - though Jones said it would have been "inconceivable" to him at that time that his name would eventually grace the ranks of the Broadway stages in this way. "Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors," he said of the original announcement.

Just a little Actors on Acting tidbit this week - ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and RUSSIAN DOLL star Natasha Lyonne shared some lovely stories about her relationship with writer Nora Ephron, who was responsible for a host of popular movies like YOU'VE GOT MAIL, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, JULIE & JULIA. Lyonne shared that Ephron was "always looking out" for her, even operating as a stand-in therapist during her audition for Ephron's LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE (which Lyonne also booked). While we probably can't recommend asking production teams for dating advice while in the room, Lyonne's relationship with Ephron is a great example of how tight the bounds we form in this industry can be. Never take them for granted!

Longtime showrunner David E. Kelly shared his hopes for fellow scribes in the work they do while receiving the Creative Conscience Award at this year's Variety's Showrunners Dinner, noting that showrunners have a unique position and privilege to influence societal dialogue and must be mindful of it. "I would also remind you as showrunners, you have a platform that reaches millions of people. So be mindful of the opportunity you have," Kelly said. "Because not everybody gets that."

Quick Bites

Ever wanted an inside scoop on how some of Hollywood's greatest navigated the business? One intrepid Deadline writer tackled both the 741-page manifesto "Hollywood: An Oral History", as well as dozens of interviews with stars like Katherine Hepburn, George Lucas, and more, and pulled together some of the best finds from the last 100 years of Hollywood history. Definitely worth the read for a few good laughs, as well as some insight into the darker parts of the industry's past 📚

New Yorkers, rejoice! The Lincoln Center TKTS booth officially reopened on September 6th, after being closed for more than two years during the height of the pandemic. The station will offer up to 50% off same-day tickets to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Lincoln Center shows - back to the theater we go! 🎭

Has this ever happened to you - you're watching your favorite show, and can't take your eye off the clothes someone is wearing? I'm not afraid to admit I spent my fair share of time Googling where Chris Evans' sweater from KNIVES OUT could be bought 🤷‍♀️ The production company behind YELLOWSTONE is teaming up with Jill Martin to launch ShopTheScenes.com, enabling viewers to purchase certain looks from popular shows. Sign me up!

Two big lists from Variety dropped last week - the 2022 TV Producers Impact List, as well as their 10 Actors to Watch this year. Some familiar names can be found on both: Joseph Quinn from STRANGER THINGS, Amber Midthunder from PREY, and Kenya Barris, Courtney Lilly, Zakiyyah Alexander, and Julie Bean from BLACK-ISH/GROWN-ISH. Keep your eyes on all of them - maybe their next projects are looking for someone just like you 👀

What to Watch & Read