Category: media

“Nair’s insistence on casting Indian actors in lead roles was a deal-breaker for many Hollywood studios. Only when rising star Denzel Washington was cast in the role of Demetrius did the film get studio backing in the U.S.”

“The invasion of British and Irish leading men in Hollywood has now gone beyond a joke for many in the American entertainment industry. First noticed some time in 2011, the trend was initially dismissed as a novelty: an interesting phase that would pass, rather than as a threat. But this summer actors and directors are calling for action to mobilise American drama teachers and schools to counter it.”

The executive producer of Masterpiece: “This is a huge generalization, but [American novels] have tended not to have all the elements that make it good for television, whether it’s too interior or there’s not enough action.”

“New mid-year figures suggest that not only do movies with women in lead roles sell well, but there might even be a link between female leads and overall attendance boosts.”

“Some Britons have discarded their televisions — the main source of home viewing for half a century — in favour of tablets which many younger people use to watch programmes over a wireless Internet connection. The BBC’s Head of News, James Harding, last month predicted that by 2025, most people in the United Kingdom would probably get their television programmes over the Internet.”

“Let’s talk about this supposed crisis of overchoice in the film business. In the past couple of years, there have been a lot more movies released. Depending on where you live, there may be twice as many movies being released in theatres each week as there were in 2000.”

“Some inside the public-radio walls are speculating that the reason for the siren has to do with the struggle to get institutional funding, a fairly common problem these days. An APM spokesperson denies that is the case. In fact, this person says, APM is growing and is working under a balanced budget.”

“That all-at-once drop of House of Cards, for example, illustrates part of what Netflix has that television doesn’t. “It was not meant to be the template” for how Netflix would release shows, Sarandos said. “It was just, Let’s see how people watch it.” They had the flexibility to try something that would never work on TV, and the data to see immediately how users responded.”

“Today, the network is larger, there are more platforms, and the path to success can get awfully messy, but the basic strategy is the same. Instead of following the model of other studios—releasing many films and hoping for a blockbuster—Disney is select. It releases about 10 films annually and builds out the franchising and revenue-generating opportunities that come with the territory.”

“About $3.3 billion in tickets were sold in the first six months of the year, according to figures from film industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway. That’s a leap of 48.9% over the first half of 2014. Imported films accounted for 52.5% of ticket sales.”