When it comes to Amazon Studios, it really is a tale of two cities. On the film side, things are pretty good, but with TV, Amazon has been trying like hell to establish itself and somehow seems to keep slipping.
Neil Turitz
There have been numerous scandals in Tinseltown that have damaged careers, but there’s a basic tenet as to why some are able to return to glory and others, like Harvey Weinstein, cannot.
For years, conversations surrounding the use of sexual assault and rape in film and television have been building. Will the recent events surrounding Harvey Weinstein and others finally force storytellers to make a change?
Netflix has over 100 million subscribers now and, in spite of the billions of dollars it brings in through subscriptions, it continues to borrow billions more to keep churning out that content. How long can the business model hold?
While Blade Runner 2049 won raves from critics, the film underperformed in its opening weekend. As studios are determined to stick with franchises, here are seven sequels that could succeed in continuing their original stories and wooing audiences.
Is planning so far in advance for franchise release dates ultimately hurting studio films? Neil Turitz takes a look at the tentpole movies from Universal, Marvel, and DC that are driving Hollywood’s future.
The CW has created a business model unlike any of the major networks with a combination of actioners from Greg Berlanti, genre YA series, and a few light-hearted dramas for its long-time viewers.
With the actor’s latest, American Made, disappointing at the box office, it might be signaling “the requiem for the Movie Star,” according to Neil Turitz, but he offers some hope on how Cruise can come out of this freefall.
Neil Turitz takes a moment to look on the bright side of a tough year to see what the industry got right.
Fox may be drawing younger demographics but the network is still struggling to find a new hit.
Hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a producer scorned clearly comes a close second.
Neil Turitz is glad Jamie Lee Curtis and Linda Hamilton have been cast in high-profile movies, but thinks it be far more interesting if they each fronted something new, something that could accentuate their respective strengths without necessarily revisiting frequently trod paths.
While ABC came in a close second to NBC last season in the prime demo rankings, without any sports programming to speak of, they also finished a distant third place in total viewers, with 6.2 million per show, losing nine percent of their audience from the year before.
Four pre-teen boys are haunted by strange dreams after eating a pumpkin pie… A pie they learn was made from a pumpkin that grew from the grave of a boy who was murdered at their age. As the boys realize their dreams are visions of the dead boy’s past, they’re sent down a path far scarier than anything in their nightmares.
“Getting older means you realize you can’t waste a minute. Harry Dean knew that since he was 13 years old, and he never wasted a single second,” said John Carroll Lynch.
Plenty of people are outside the prime demo of 18-49 and they not only watch a lot of television and see a lot of movies, they also spend a fair amount of money. But apparently, that money is of no interest to networks and advertisers.
The Peacock Network, which used to be known for its Must See TV Thursday night lineup of sitcoms, has mostly eschewed them of late to focus on hour long dramas, and found great success in the process. But can This is Us and the NFL keep the network on top?
There’s just no other way to describe what Byron Allen has been doing at the Toronto Film Festival over the past few days, so Neil Turitz takes a step back to look at what the variety show host-turned-titan of the industry has accomplished.
“Rather than going to these festivals and seeing the bright shining lights that emerge from them, we instead choose to focus on which of these movies premiering in front of an audience has any chance at all of scoring Oscar gold, as if that’s the only true measure of a movie’s worth,” writes Neil Turitz.
With Labor Day now in our rearview mirror and the new TV season about to knock on our door, it’s time once again to turn from the big screen to the small. Considering that CBS has won the crown for most viewers for nine straight seasons, and 14 of the last 15, it’s hard to imagine that it was ever a punchline, but it was. A big one.
Yes, you read that right! It’s time for Neil Turitz to look back over the first two-thirds of the year for the best and the worst of what the film world has had to offer with the First Second Annual Neily Awards.
It’s been a fun summer, taking a deep dive into each of the major studios, as well as the mid-majors and the biggest and more relevant indie distributors, but it’s probably fitting that we end with the company that is most certainly the biggest disrupter of them all: Amazon.
With the entertainment news cycle and box office taking their typical late summer slow down, Neil Turitz takes a look into his crystal ball to see what the big television topics will be in the coming months.
While in past boxing movies have received great critical acclaim and box office success, recent releases have shown a downturn in public interest. As MMA fights continue to gain appeal, should Hollywood stories turn their sights to a new sport?
How to judge a company that doesn’t actually put its films in theaters? Or doesn’t actually show what kind of revenues it has? The answer to these questions: you don’t judge them by the same criteria.
An Obi-Wan Kenobi standalone movie is officially in the works to which Neil Turitz asks: really? As Lucasfilm insists on limiting itself off to a very small number of characters for their standalone films, are they actually hurting the brand.
“While the scripted versions of the behind-the-scenes world of entertainment can be insightful, it now feels like these kinds of projects are everywhere, to the point where even those of us who enjoy this kind of self-examination are throwing up our hands and wondering if it has all become overkill,” writes Neil Turitz.
As we march inexorably toward both the end of the Studio Series, we come to one of the most interesting entries of the entire enterprise. Bleecker Street is a new and exciting operation in the indie world that has designs on much bigger and more impressive prey, and ultimately succeeding where Broad Green recently failed.
We live in troubled times. It’s on the news every day, we read about it, it keeps us up at night. Maybe it’s time to start thinking of survival plans, and who better to guide us than Hollywood?
In remembrance of country music legend Glen Campbell, Neil Turitz takes a look back at the documentary that depicted the star’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, bringing awareness to the disease and showing the power of filmmaking.
