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Andrea Nelson Meigs Joins UTA as Partner - Hollywood Reporter

Posted: 19 Oct 2020 03:30 PM PDT

Nelson Meigs' clients have included Beyonce, Nathalie Emmanuel and Ellen Burstyn.

Andrea Nelson Meigs is joining UTA as a partner after the talent and lit agent left ICM Partners.

Nelson Meigs has been at ICM for fourteen years, having joined the company from CAA. Nelson Meigs's client list has included Beyonce, Oscar winner Mathew A. Cherry, Solange Knowles, Nathalie Emmanuel and Ellen Burstyn. It is currently unclear which is Nelson Meigs' clients will be joining her at UTA.

"Andrea is known for her keen eye for developing and amplifying extraordinary voices," said agency co-president David Kramer. "In addition to her outstanding work on behalf of today's most respected artists, she is a true leader who has made lasting contributions to the industry at large. We know that she will bring a vital perspective to the agency, and we are thrilled to welcome her to UTA."

Nelson Meigs added, "We are seeing that diverse creative voices are being elevated like never before and are demanding diverse representation. UTA has heard the call and is making major efforts to address these long-overdue needs. I am proud to join the leadership as a Partner at a company that is entrepreneurial, client-focused and values innovative opportunities."

Nelson Meigs, a member of the Academy who worked in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office prior to her Hollywood carrer, serves on the board of directors for Women in Film, and assist with organizations that include sits Time's Up, the American Black Film Festival and Black Filmmakers Foundation, among others.

Disney’s Streaming Reorganization Cheers Investors but Confuses Insiders - Variety

Posted: 13 Oct 2020 12:00 AM PDT

The Walt Disney Company's Monday announcement that it was undertaking a major reorganization of its film and television teams with a goal of bolstering its streaming services was a hit with investors.  Shares of the entertainment giant rose on the news that the company would refocus its operations to produce movies and shows and decide at a later date if they would debut on the big screen, cable or streaming arms Hulu and Disney Plus.

If Disney was hoping that the news would focus Wall Street's attention on growth in streaming rather than the considerable distress facing its theme parks, the plan worked like a charm. Instead of dwelling on the fact that COVID-19 has depressed attendance at the parks it has been able to open in Asia, Europe and Florida, and left other venues such as Disneyland shuttered indefinitely, the narrative heading into Disney's next earnings call is all about how they've doubled down on efforts to dominate the world of streaming.

"They want to be seen as the Netflix challenger," said Hal Vogel, a veteran media analyst. "This signals how strongly they're invested in taking Netflix on."

Disney shares gained 3.2% to $128.96 in trading Tuesday on the heels of the reorganization. The stock is down about 13% for the year to date, a better performance than most of its media competitors but far off its 52-week high of $153.41. Clearly, investors bought the pitch and the stock responded accordingly.

But internally, employees across the board were left puzzled by both the timing and contents of the announcement. Various power hubs were announced with great fanfare, but it wasn't immediately clear if the likes of Alan Horn and Alan Bergman, who rule over the company's film effort; TV chief Peter Rice, who was named chairman of general entertainment content; and sports chief James Pitaro, chairman of ESPN and Sports Content, were being promoted or just playing similar roles with a slightly greater mandate to think more in terms of what's binge-worthy.

The day's unarguable star was Kareem Daniel, who was named head of the newly minted media and entertainment distribution group, a catch-all division tasked with monetizing all content. Daniel's promotion fills some of the void left by Kevin Mayer's exit in May as chairman of Disney's Direct to Consumer and International division. Daniel's distribution group, including Rebecca Campbell, who directly oversees Disney streaming services as well as international operations, will have a big role in determining the strategy and content spending priorities for Disney's DTC expansion.

Daniel previously served as president of consumer products, games and publishing. The promotion raises his profile considerably. Daniel will report to Chapek, as will Horn and Bergman, Rice and Pitaro.

"This is weird," one top film executive said simply, puzzled by the news.

With the emphasis on streaming and refocusing the company's orientation on content creation, many in the industry were surprised at the lack of mention of prominent creative executives in the reorganization, notably Dana Walden, chair of Disney Television Studios and ABC Entertainment, and FX Networks boss John Landgraf.

The reorganization reaffirms the structure that calls for Marvel's Kevin Feige and Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy to oversee feature-length and film-related TV series content produced through Horn and Bergman's unit for Disney Plus. Some have wondered whether Disney Plus would eventually centralize programming and production operations under a single leader. In addition to Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar, Walden's Disney Television Studios and National Geographic produces content for Disney Plus. Walden also oversees original content for Disney's Hulu.

Also absent from the reorg news was Ricky Strauss, who had served as the president of content and marketing for Disney Plus since 2018.  A well-liked figure among veteran Disney executives, Strauss was not named as a player in either Horn and Bergman's studios group nor in Rice's general entertainment team. Variety learned that, subsequently, Strauss has been named head of curation for Hulu and Disney Plus.

In addition to the missing names, numerous people Variety spoke with wondered aloud when 77-year-old Horn intends to retire. He continues his long reign with yet another new title — Chairman, Studios Content — one he shares with Bergman.

Disney's effort to reorganize its film and TV units around its streaming activity is another indication of how quickly the coronavirus is accelerating Hollywood's shift from supplying movie theaters and cable boxes to ambitious direct-to-consumer ventures. Disney Plus has been an early success story as old Hollywood tries to shift its business mindset. WarnerMedia and Comcast have undertaken similar efforts to reorganize executive teams and reallocate resources around streaming ventures that promise future growth at a time when traditional sources of profits are under extreme pressure.

These corporations don't have much of a choice. Many people are scared to go back to theaters when the coronavirus is raging, and with cinemas in places like New York City staying closed, Disney has been pushing one major movie after another into 2021 and beyond with hopes that a vaccine will then be widely available. Clearly, box office isn't going to be the profit driver it once was.

At the same time, a prolonged recession or even a depression could pressure consumers to find ways to economize. In tough times, cutting the cable cord could become very appealing, potentially endangering the advertising revenue and retransmission fees that Disney has historically pocketed from ESPN, Disney Channel, and the like.

The one consistent bright spot in all this uncertainty has been Disney Plus, which has continued to attract customers and captured the zeitgeist with the release of last summer's "Hamilton" and Beyonce's "Black is King."

"If you look at it from 30,000 feet, this wasn't the tail wagging the dog, this is the revenue source that was wagging the dog," said Peter Newman, head of the MBA/MFA program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts "Just as Disney's stock went up, AMC said they're going to run out of cash and Regal shut down. The system has been so broken and is so in need of a reconfiguration."

Given the fractured nature of the theatrical distribution landscape and the wasteland that is the live events business, an industry that has yielded Disney untold riches through everything from cruises to Broadway shows, it's a very convenient time for the company to emphasize its streaming efforts. The announcement is an indication that for the foreseeable future, Disney would very much like the investment community to treat its financial results like it does those of Netflix — focusing more on its subscriber growth, and less on pesky rubrics like profit margins and revenues by which media conglomerates have traditionally been graded.  It's that kind of business that's allowed Netflix's market capitalization of $244 billion to dwarf that of Disney's at $233 billion despite the fact that Disney controls the likes of Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm.

"The Street loves subscription business models and recurring revenue models ," says Peter Csathy, chairman of CREATV Media. "Locking consumers into some kind of monthly payment plan is the holy grail for investors."

In the short run, the announcement is a boon to Dan Loeb. Using his roughly $1 billion stake in Disney, the Third Point hedge fund manager is pushing the company to forgo a dividend and pour the money it would have paid investors into developing more streaming programming. In an interview with Variety, Loeb said he'd like upcoming Disney movies like "Black Widow" to bypass theaters for Disney Plus. He argues that more money can be yielded by adding and retaining subscribers, who will in turn pay monthly fees, than through a one-time ticket sale.

"I don't think they appreciate the tiger they have by the tail, which is to say the value they can drive by moving into a subscription model, which has been adopted by everyone from Microsoft to Amazon," Loeb told Variety last week. "It's so value accretive."

Loeb seemed enthused by the moves, telling CNBC that he is "pleased to see that Disney is focused on the same opportunity that makes us such enthusiastic shareholders: investing heavily in the DTC business, positioning Disney to thrive in the next era of entertainment."

Of course, some of the moves that Loeb and others are advocating could hurt in the short term, depriving the company of hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales, as well as untold revenues from rentals, licensing, and other ancillary businesses. But COVID-19 is enabling Disney to justify taking these types of risks.

"As far as a theatrical release being shifted to streaming — these are very tough decisions," said Jason Squire, a professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts and editor of "The Movie Business Book." "They involve sacrificing grosses. But the reality is there are no domestic grosses during coronavirus."

Rebecca Rubin and Cynthia Littleton contributed to this report.

12 Things That Made Quarantine Better - Rotten Tomatoes

Posted: 22 Oct 2020 09:58 AM PDT

What a year 2020 has been! After the severity of the COVID-19 coronavirus became evident, countries around the world effectively went into lockdown — some more strictly than others — and most of us quickly had to adjust to the so-called "new normal." As we sat at home, trying to self-soothe by any means available, a handful of heroes — and in some cases, anti-heroes — emerged, helping us to take our minds off of things, bringing us some much-needed positive vibes, and giving us a taste of the entertainment we were asked to live without. Of course, we aren't out of the woods just yet, but after more than half a year spent under stay-at-home orders, here are the 12 (online) conversation-starters, powerful performances, and iconic pop culture moments that ruled Quarantine.


Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness SEASON All EPISODE - PHOTO CREDIT NETFLIX PICTURED Joe Exotic

(Photo by Netflix)

If there was any doubt that the idea of "water cooler conversation" would still exist in an era of widespread lockdowns, Tiger King removed it almost immediately. Premiering on Netflix on March 20, just as swaths of the U.S. received stay-at-home orders, the docuseries about a larger-than-life animal caretaker and his personal holy war against an industry competitor became the first must-see binge of the quarantine. At the center of it all was Joe Exotic, the proprietor of the G.W. Zoo in Oklahoma, and Carole Baskin, the CEO of Florida's Big Cat Rescue and a self-purported animal rights activist who took issue with Exotic's business practices. But as with any compelling real-life story, Tiger King was full of unbelievable twists and turns, ranging from Exotic's bizarre love life to his run for President of the United States and not one but two murder conspiracies. While much of the country struggled to adapt to "the new normal," Tiger King helped take our minds off the crisis with a bit of deliciously scandalous entertainment.


John Krasinski hosting Some Good News

(Photo by Some Good News)

Just as the severity of the pandemic began to dawn on everyone and stay-at-home orders were being issued everywhere, a likable actor-director used his considerable influence to spread some positive vibes. On March 29, when most people were just beginning to settle into their quarantine routines, The Office and Jack Ryan star John Krasinski surprised everyone with the first installment of a newscast/talk show he decided to call Some Good News on YouTube. Running for just eight episodes, SGN featured Krasinski sharing the most uplifting, inspirational, feelgood stories from around the world, talking to celebrities, and usually doing something a little special for lucky fans. This included a Zoom reunion of the Hamilton cast, a virtual prom with performances from Billie Eilish, the Jonas brothers, and Chance the Rapper, and a high school graduation celebration with keynote speakers like Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Jon Stewart. Now, Krasinski did catch some flak for eventually selling the show to CBS, but it took a lot of work to put the show on, and it's understandable that he would want to go back to making kickass movies and TV shows. In the meantime, the eight episodes of SGN that we did get helped us all to remember how much good is still in the world, even if everything is a little off balance right now, and for that much-needed dose of optimism, we salute Mr. Krasinski.


Eugene Levy, Dan Levy, Annie Murphy, and Catherine O'Hara

(Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

For a long time, Schitt's Creek was that underground comedy you recommended to everyone as "the best show ever" if you were a fan. Most of the time, the people you recommended it to would come back to you and say, "It totally is!" The series, originally broadcast on Canada's CBC and the cable channel Pop TV, gained even more exposure when its first three seasons were made available to stream on Netflix, and by the time it began airing its sixth and final season earlier this year, it was a bona fide cult sensation. As it happened, the show's series finale premiered smack dab in the middle of quarantine, on April 7, and despite its fervent fanbase, it seemed destined to go down as one of the all-time underappreciated sitcoms. Then came the Emmys in September. As if to say, "Yes, Schitt's Creek fans, you were always right!," the series made history by sweeping all seven of the comedy categories, including the four for acting — Lead Actor for Eugene Levy, Lead Actress for Catherine O'Hara, Supporting Actor for Dan Levy, and Supporting Actress for Annie Murphy. If you've never watched the show, all six seasons are now on Netflix, so get cracking. You've probably got the time.


Michael Jordan in The Last Dance

(Photo by ©ESPN/Netflix)

One of the things many of us missed the most, at least in the early days of the lockdown, was live sports. After all of the major leagues shut down operations, folks even resorted to watching reruns of old broadcasts or, after the country had cleared some hurdles, baseball in Japan. In the midst of all this, ESPN saw an opportunity to give fans an addictive dose of sports nostalgia in the form of The Last Dance, an extensive look at the career of Michael Jordan and specifically the 1997-1998 season of the NBA's Chicago Bulls, which would go on to win their second "three-peat" of championships in eight years. Originally planned for release in June, the 10-part docuseries was fast-tracked to premiere almost two months earlier on April 19, and it became an instant hit, thanks to its compelling narrative, never-before-seen footage, and surprisingly candid new interviews with Jordan himself. It brought millions of fans — and meme-makers — together in a shared piece of sports history and gave us a bit of real-life drama and pulse-pounding action to look forward to every week.


Jonathan Majors in Lovecraft Country

(Photo by HBO)

Jonathan Majors' breakout role came in 2019's indie darling The Last Black Man in San Francisco, a small, powerful drama that went criminally underseen. Luckily for Majors, he had a few more things on his docket that were set to premiere this year — he just didn't know at the time that they would be released in the middle of a pandemic. The first was Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, a harrowing adventure-drama in which Majors played the pivotal role of David, the son of Delroy Lindo's central character Paul. Majors held his own against Lindo and a cast of heavyweights that included Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock Jr., and the film remains high on the list of Oscar hopefuls. Then, in August, the highly anticipated HBO series Lovecraft Country premiered, placing Majors at the center of an inventive horror series with a sociopolitical edge — or is it the other way around — and earning the up-and-coming actor all kinds of praise from critics. To top off the summer, he also landed himself a gig in the MCU, signing on to play the villain in the next Ant-Man and the Wasp movie.


Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning hip-hop musical about the life of one of America's founding fathers has been the must-see Broadway hit for several years now, and scoring a ticket to the show has become something of a status marker. Even if you lived in New York or one of the cities on its tour schedule, there was only a slim chance you'd be able to see the show, either because tickets were scarce or because they were maddeningly expensive. Then Disney decided to share the magic of Hamilton with the world, planning a theatrical release of a filmed version of the musical in 2021. Of course, the pandemic changed all of that, and much to the joy of everyone confined to their sofas, Disney chose to move the release up more than a year and plop Hamilton directly on Disney+ for no extra charge. Finally, those of us who had only heard our more fortunate friends gloat about seeing the production were able to watch Hamilton for ourselves and see if it lived up to the hype. Disney+ saw a massive increase in downloads the weekend it was released, and fans of live theater got a little taste of it at home — a win-win all around.


Beyonce in Black Is King

(Photo by Disney+)

Look, Beyoncé is Beyoncé, and it's virtually guaranteed that anything she does is going to be interesting, to say the least. Of course, it helps when the thing she does happens to be incredible, and that's exactly what she gave us in Black Is King. Like 2016's LemonadeBlack Is King is a musical film, a series of stunning visuals and choreography set to the music of an accompanying album — in this case, the album was The Lion King: The Gift, a compilation featuring several artists produced and curated by Beyoncé as a companion to the Disney film. Critics and audiences alike swooned over Black Is King, struck by the imagery and the music, and dubbed it yet another masterpiece from Queen Bey. Not only did she provide a big-budget surrogate concert experience for fans to enjoy in their living rooms, she also managed to convey a vivid message of Black empowerment during a time when the world needed it the most.


Zendaya

Euphoria Season 1, episode 4 (debut 7/7/19): Zendaya. photo: Courtesy of HBO

(Photo by HBO)

Quarantine provided the perfect time for people to catch up on shows they had heard about from their friends, or had been putting off watching until they "had more time," and with the Fall TV season fast approaching, one of those shows was HBO's Euphoria. The series stars Zendaya as a high school student who struggles with mental illness and drug addiction, and it earned both glowing reviews from critics and widespread audience approval. Zendaya wasn't kicking back during lockdown: In June, she actually shot a film – in compliance with strict COVID-19 safety protocols – for two weeks, written and directed by Euphoria creator Sam Levison and co-starring John David Washington. Malcom & Marie was the first post-pandemic film to complete production and by all accounts it's very good. (At least, good enough to Netflix to fork out $30 million for it.) Then, in September, during a unique presentation of this year's Emmy awards, Zendaya made history when she became the youngest person ever to win the Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series, proving that she's versatile enough to deliver powerful performances in stark dramas and have fun in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


Drive-In Theaters

Drive-in theater showing The New Mutants

(Photo by Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Put your hand up if you went to the drive-in theater for the first time in, like, forever this year? You weren't alone. From mid-March, America's 305 drive-in theaters saw business tick up in some cases by 90-plus percent as movie lovers sought out big screen thrills while socially distancing in the safety of their cars. The drive-in became such a 2020 phenom that pop-up drive-ins began to emerge, many in stadiums and carparks; several distributors held ritzy movie premieres in drive-ins, too, including for Antebellum. While the '50s faves mainly played golden oldies, some new flicks benefited from their newfound popularity, in particular indie horror breakouts like Relic and The Wretched, which topped the box office a record five weeks in a row off the back of drive-in buzz, a record it shares with Black Panther and Titanic.


Sitcom and Movie Reunions

Cast and Crew of Community

(Photo by Community YouTube)

If you never heard of Zoom before, say, March of this year, you definitely heard the remote meeting software mentioned everywhere once the stay-at-home orders were in place. And while most of us have our share of embarrassing Zoom stories to share, one of the great things we got out of it was a surge of interest in cast reunions for some of our most beloved movies and TV shows. There were literally dozens of them, whether they came in the form of Josh Gad hosting chats with the casts of Back to the FutureGhostbusters, and The Lord of the Rings or Instagram meet-ups between the casts of Scandal and Twin Peaks or full-on table reads by the stars of Scott Pilgrim vs. The WorldOrphan Black, and Community. Some shows, like NBC's 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, even brought their casts back to film brand new quarantine-themed episodes. With so much of Hollywood production stalled at the moment, a lot of entertainment has focused on the hits of the past, and we got to bathe in a whole lot of nostalgia.


Streaming Services

Seth Rogen in An American Pickle

(Photo by HBO Max)

This one is admittedly pretty obvious, but as most of us were stuck at home, we spent a lot more time watching TV than we normally would, and yes, that allowed us to catch up on some of the stuff we'd been putting off watching. Lucky for us, though, all of the existing streaming services and a couple of new ones did their damnedest to keep us entertained with lots of new content. HBO Max officially launched in May, offering a giant library of content from the premium cable network and its parent studio, Warner Bros., plus new titles like the Seth Rogen film An American Pickle, the Ridley Scott sci-fi series Raised By Wolves, and the true-crime docuseries I'll Be Gone in the Dark. Hulu gave us new series like Solar Opposites and High Fidelity, as well as the Certified Fresh, quarantine-appropriate comedy Palm Springs. Disney+ sent Onward to streaming early and took a chance on making Mulan a premium VOD purchase, but it also gave us Beyonce's Black Is King and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. Then, of course, there's streaming giant Netflix, which basically piled on series after series, from guilty-pleasure reality shows (Tiger KingLove Is BlindSelling SunsetEmily In Paris) to high-concept fantasy shows (CursedWarrior Nun, the second season of The Umbrella Academy). And this doesn't even include all the stuff we got from Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, and Peacock, among others. Suffice it to say, if you were bored with TV these past six months, you just weren't looking very hard for the good stuff.


Host

(Photo by AMC Networks)

While we're spreading the love around the various streamers, we did want to give a shoutout to one in particular which seemed to really come into its own over the year: the horror- and genre-focused Shudder, which is owned by AMC Networks. Launched in 2015, the service has been rolling out a steady supply of Shudder Originals for years, but delivered some of its best and scariest yet during the pandemic, which was good news for horror fans who'd been through their Netflix/Hulu/Prime/Max supplies and were looking for new places to get their fill of guts and ghouls. This year, Shudder gave us Mexican socio-political thriller La Llorona, indigenous-focused zombie flick Blood Quantum, creepy anthology The Mortuary Collection, and Host, shot during the pandemic and focusing on a group of friends holding a seance over Zoom. The latter is the best-reviewed horror movie of 2020. The service also began expanding its library, where you'll find the likes of the original Halloween, Re-Animator, and The Changeling, and entered the southern hemisphere, launching in Australia and New Zealand in August.


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2020 Holiday TV Content We Are Way Too Excited For - E! NEWS

Posted: 23 Oct 2020 05:48 PM PDT

The holidays are almost here!

Sure, we haven't even hit Halloween yet, but in 2020, time means nothing. It's the holidays when we say it's the holidays, and we say it's the holidays! Hallmark and Lifetime both agreed that today specifically (Friday, Oct. 23) is the official start of the holidays, since they both chose this day to launch their annual holiday movie slates. With as much as we've all been through this year, we deserve this. 

We deserve obvious romances where there's zero doubt that the main two characters are going to fall in love. We deserve music and cheer and baked goods and people turning out to be related to Santa. We need it. We crave it. We're ready for it. 

While there's hardly a holiday movie or special or series we're not interested in watching this year, we've rounded up a list of the ones that jingle our bells the most as we hurtle towards the end of the year. 

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