“A game of ‘international chess’ is how Maxime Cottray describes the current state of the global production business. ‘Right now, everyone’s moving their pieces around the board, trying to find a place to shoot — Australia, Iceland, wherever,’ says Cottray, a production executive with genre film specialists XYZ Films. ‘And you have to be ready, if COVID strikes, to be able to move fast to find somewhere else.'” – The Hollywood Reporter
Category: media
A Netflix For The Performing Arts?
“Doing digital isn’t a quick-fix Band-Aid for anyone,” says Kathleya Afanador, Marquee’s co-founder and head of content. “It’s a fundamental layer of their overall business that needs to be prioritized.” – Washington Post
Appeals Court Revives Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘The Shape of Water’
“The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals … says that additional evidence, including expert testimony, is needed to weigh similarities between the Academy Award-winning film and a play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Zindel.” – The Hollywood Reporter
BBC Pledges To Spend £100m To Increase Diversity In Front Of And Behind The Camera
“The U.K. public broadcaster is also putting into place a mandatory 20-percent diverse-talent target for all new commissions as it plans ‘bold steps that will help make the BBC an instrument of real change.'” – The Hollywood Reporter
Movie Theatres Struggle To Make Audiences Feel Safe
“You don’t want to make all the health stuff too obvious. Because if it feels like they’re checking in for a flight, they aren’t going to come. But you have to let them know somehow. So it’s really hard.” – Washington Post
The Business Of Virtual Cannes
Cannes is online, and so are movie sales, in two digital marketplaces. “Both digital markets were initially conceived as being mainly initiatives to reconnect industry players. Three months later, many companies have decided as push comes to shove to launch at least some of their bigger projects now rather than wait for the fall.” – Variety
Podcasts Are The New Frontier For Tales Of Superheroes
Is Spotify the new Disney? While film production is paused or barely resumed, the music subscription service has made a deal to be the new home of audio tales of DC superheroes. Perhaps this hearkens back to the radio days of superhero origins, but it’s also about Spotify’s desire “to be less reliant on record labels.” – BBC
Thousands Of UK Creatives Call For Action Against ‘Systemic Racism’ In British TV And Movies
The open letter says, in part, “A direct line can be drawn from the stories and voices that are silenced and ignored, to the discrimination and biases that are pervasive in the entertainment industry and larger society. This moment in history presents an opportunity for you to be a positive partner for change.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Kristin Scott Thomas Says That These Days, She’s Longing For Massive Film Productions
Working on a socially distant set hasn’t made her exactly content. “How are you going to get hair and makeup done when you can’t get near each other?” – The Observer (UK)
How Spike Lee Movies Saved At Least One Life
No matter what a mother says, Spike Lee’s movies might just have more impact. “As I watched the police take the life from Radio Raheem, everything my mother had been trying to tell me was suddenly crystallized. For me, Do the Right Thing took the police from an intellectual threat to an existential one. The police, I realized, could kill me … and no one would say a word.” – The New York Times