Showbiz Sandbox J. Sperling Reich & Michael Giltz

CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema operators in Las Vegas, was filled with anxiety this year thanks to a lack of wide releases due to the recent labor strikes. However, most Hollywood studios showed up with a few movie stars to hawk an increasing number of big titles due later in the year and into 2025. As well, technology companies introduced some exciting new advances in projection and image quality. In all, the conference pointed toward better days ahead for movie theaters.

In even better news, it looks as if the many behind-the-scenes craft people who work on films and television shows may not go on strike like the writers and actors did last year. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) appears to be having very positive negotiations with Alliance of Motion Picture Television Producers on a new contract.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how Disney won its shareholder battle, the winners of this year’s Writers Guild Awards and CBS whips up a new streaming news service.





‘Godzilla X Kong’ Roars Past $436M WW; ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Tops $450M; Latest ‘Detective Conan’ Huge In Japan

https://deadline.com/2024/04/godzilla-x-kong-kung-fu-panda-4-detective-conan-china-japan-global-international-box-office-1235885714/

‘Civil War’: Red States and Blue States Set Aside Their Differences for Alex Garland’s Movie

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/civil-war-red-states-and-blue-states-1235875216/

IATSE Has “Cautious Optimism” About General Negotiations With Studios As Union Aims To Finalize Craft-Specific Issues This Week

https://deadline.com/2024/04/iatse-general-negotiations-cautious-optimism-studios-craft-specific-issues-done-1235886109/

American Federation of Musicians Ratifies New Deal With Studios

https://deadline.com/2024/04/american-federation-of-musicians-ratifies-deal-studios-1235873942/

CBS News Plans Streaming Overhaul With New ‘Whip-Around’ Program

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/cbs-news-streaming-overhaul-whip-around-1235965338/

Vince McMahon Sells $311 Million In Stock to TKO and Endeavor In Buyback

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2024-04-08/vince-mcmahon-sells-back-311-million-in-tko-stock-to-endeavor

Book Summaries and Other Knock Off Books Proliferate

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/07/we-may-lose-ability-to-think-critically-at-all-the-book-summary-apps-accused-of-damaging-authors-sales

‘We May Lose Ability to Think Critically at All’: The Book-Summary Apps Accused of Damaging Authors’ Sales

a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/07/we-may-lose-ability-to-think-critically-at-al...

The monstrous global box office opening of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” may have been a surprise to film critics or anyone paying attention to industry tracking in advance of its release, but it surely proves that if you put movies in movie theaters, audiences will show up. Especially if those theaters offer premium auditoriums like IMAX. Even “Oppenheimer” opened well in Japan over this past weekend, becoming filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s biggest debut.

Meanwhile, the Walt Disney Company and the State of Florida have made overtures toward settling their recent legal disputes. As we predicted, despite the battle in the court of public opinion, it will all come to nothing.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Paramount Global’s ongoing financial woes, the discovery of some new Marvin Gaye music and how vinyl records are outselling compact discs.





‘Godzilla X Kong’ Reigns With $194M Worldwide Bow; ‘Dune 2’ Rises To $626M & ‘Oppenheimer’ Opens In Japan

https://deadline.com/2024/03/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-china-global-international-box-office-1235871670/

‘Godzilla x Kong: New Empire’ Roars to Monstrous $80M Box Office Opening, $194M Globally

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/godzilla-x-kong-new-empire-huge-box-office-opening-1235863501/

BBC Doc Looks At J-Pop Scandal, Says Near 1000 Men Came Forward to Discuss Abuse

https://deadline.com/2024/03/johnny-kitagawa-johnny-and-associates-abuse-1235869618/

Paramount Debt Is Cut to Junk on Worsening Outlook for TV

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-27/paramount-debt-is-cut-to-junk-on-deteriorating-outlook-for-tv

Collection of Unreleased Marvin Gaye Songs Found in Belgium

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/31/collection-of-unreleased-marvin-gaye-songs-found-in-belgium

​​Vinyl Records Outsold CDs for the Second Year Running

https://www.popsci.com/technology/vinyl-sales-cds-2023/

Only 1 of the Top 20 Best-Selling Albums Globally Last Year Wasn’t by a K-Pop Act

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/seventeen-taylor-swift-top-20-best-selling-albums-globally-in-2023/

NBC News Ousts Ronna McDaniel After Staff Uproar, CAA Drops Ex-RNC Chair

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/nbc-news-ronna-mcdaniel-contributor-1235860170/

Disney Ends Its Fight With DeSantis Over Resort Development

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/disney-desantis-florida-lawsuit.html

The way audiences watch television has changed radically over the past ten years, bet it when, where or how. Nielsen, long the king of TV ratings, is facing competition from upstarts like Comscore. With viewership on mobile and over-the-top devices not always being measured, advertisers are beginning to include social media awareness into account when determining the success of their marketing campaigns.

Meanwhile filmmaker Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar acceptance speech for the movie “Zone of Interest,” in which he referenced the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Israel, has generated a lot of debate with nearly 1,000 industry professionals signing a petition denouncing his statements.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including this year’s IRA Awards, a controversial hire at NBC News and IMAX heads to the Paris Summer Olympics.





‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Nears $300M Global; ‘Dune 2’ Closing In On $600M; ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Traps $16M+ In Phase 1 Overseas Bow

https://deadline.com/2024/03/ghostbusters-frozen-empire-dune-part-two-kung-fu-panda-4-china-global-international-box-office-1235866885/

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Scares Up Okay $45M Box Office Opening After All

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ghostbusters-frozen-empire-box-office-opening-1235858952/

NBC Television Network’s Live Coverage of 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony to Make IMAX Debut

https://celluloidjunkie.com/wire/nbc-television-networks-live-coverage-of-2024-paris-olympics-opening-ceremony-to-make-imax-debut/

Jonathan Glazer Open Letter Gets More Than 500 Additional Signatures Overnight

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/jonathan-glazer-open-letter-oscars-speech-additional-signatures-1235855540/

The 49th Ira Film Awards: Only a “Monster” Would Ignore These Movies

http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-49th-ira-film-awards-only-monster.html

IRA’s List of the Top 100 Films Of The Silent Era

http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-iras-name-100-best-silent-films-of.html

‘The Elephant in the Room’: NBC’s McDaniel Hiring Sparks On-Air Criticism From One of Its Own

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/24/ronna-mcdaniel-roils-nbc-i-think-our-bosses-owe-you-an-apology-00148719

Ex-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel: Biden won 2020 Election ‘Fair and Square’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/25/republican-national-committee-chair-ronna-mcdaniel-biden-2020-election

NBC News Faces Growing Pressure as Its Journalists Rebel Against Ronna McDaniel

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In what Rolling Stone magazine has dubbed ChatGPT for music, a new service called Suno is trying to democratic music by using artificial intelligence to allow anyone to create a hit song. With no need to learn how to play an instrument or sing, the latest advances in generative AI are creating tunes with a few text prompts that are indistinguishable from those created by trained musicians.

The creators of Suno aren’t saying what content was used to train their AI. That is probably why the European Union is passing legislation to regulate the use of AI, requiring developers to provide a list of copyrighted material used to train their technology.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Neil Young’s music is back on Spotify, Iranian filmmaker Ashgar Farhadi wins his plagiarism case and Roman Polanski is headed back to court.





‘Dune: Part Two’ Nears $500M Global, Dusting 2021 Movie; ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Punches In At $177M As Rollout Expands

https://deadline.com/2024/03/dune-part-two-milestone-kung-fu-panda-china-global-international-box-office-1235860696

‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Dethrones ‘Dune 2,’ Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Arthur the King’ Lacks Bite

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-kung-fu-panda-4-dune-part-two-lead-weekend-1235854014/

A New Publisher Promises Authors ‘the Lion’s Share of the Profit’

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/books/publisher-authors-equity.html

Asghar Farhadi Fully Cleared of ‘A Hero’ Plagiarism Allegations by Iranian Court

https://variety.com/2024/film/global/asghar-farhadi-cleared-iranian-court-plagiarism-a-hero-1235940549/

Neil Young Says His Music Is Returning to Spotify

https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/neil-young-music-returning-spotify-1235631717/

A ChatGPT for Music Is Here. Inside Suno, the Startup Changing Everything

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/suno-ai-chatgpt-for-music-1234982307/

European Union Passes ‘World First’ AI Legislation That Would Safeguard Copyrighted Music

https://www.billboard.com/business/business-news/european-union-ai-legislation-laws-copyrighted-music-passes-1235631846/

Karaoke Inventor Shigeichi Negishi Dies at 100

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/15/1238840404/karaoke-inventor-shigeichi-negishi-dead

Byron Janis, One of the Great Pianists of the 20th Century, Dies at 95

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/byron-janis-dead-pianist-1235854358/

Dan Wakefield, Multifaceted Writer on a Spiritual Journey, Dies at 91

As expected, “Oppenheimer” dominated the 96th Academy Awards winning seven categories including Best Actor, Best Picture and, for Christopher Nolan, Best Director. “Barbie” only picked up a single trophy for Best Original Song. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large attended this year’s Oscar ceremony and joins us to describe what it was like to be in the room where it happened.

Meanwhile, a recent Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action based college admissions has led to a reverse discrimination lawsuit against CBS by a script coordinator of the show “SEAL Team.” The outcome could determine whether it becomes the first of many more such legal actions.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how the BBC is going all in on the streaming service BritBox, the launch of a new author driven publishing house and Kanye West’s latest album tops the charts despite not being on streaming services.





‘Rust’ Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rust-armorer-hannah-gutierrez-reed-guilty-manslaughter-rcna142136

‘Dune: Part Two’ Rises To $367.5M Global; ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Kicks Off With $80.5M WW As Early Overseas Play Begins

https://deadline.com/2024/03/dune-part-two-kung-fu-panda-4-china-global-international-box-office-1235852214/

‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Lands Victorious $58.3M U.S. Opening; ‘Dune 2’ Nears $370M Worldwide

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kung-fu-panda-4-box-office-near-record-opening-1235846564/

Oscars 2024: Final Predictions in 23 Categories

https://www.indiewire.com/awards/predictions/2024-final-oscar-predictions-anne-thompson-1234960948/

Who Came Out Ahead at the Oscars, from ‘Oppenheimer’ to Jimmy Kimmel and Ryan Gosling

https://www.indiewire.com/awards/industry/oscars-2024-who-came-out-ahead-oppenheimer-jimmy-kimmel-ryan-gosling-1234963438/

Electronic Arts Cancels Upcoming ‘Star Wars’ Game, Plans to Cut More Than 650 Jobs

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/video-game-giant-ea-layoffs-1235839026/

ITV Sells Stake in Britbox International to BBC Studios for £255M

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/01/itv-sells-stake-britbox-international-bbc-studios-itvx

Three Publishing Veterans Form a New House, Authors Equity

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/94507-three-publishing-veterans-form-a-new-house-authors-equity.

The superhero movie is facing its biggest enemy yet – audience indifference. “Madame Web” is just the latest superhero flick to open to poor reviews and/or bad box office. Entertainment journalist Geoff Boucher, who has covered the comic book world for over two decades and is a bigwig at ComicCon, discusses the declining popularity of superhero films and his belief that there are better times ahead for the genre.

Meanwhile, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are facing their own existential threats, especially when it comes to their declining ad revenue, soft earnings and overwhelming debt.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Beyoncé making history on the country music charts, revenues soar for concert promoter Live Nation thanks to some big tours and artificial intelligence upends the expansion of Tyler Perry’s studio.





‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Still On A High At $121M WW, ‘Anyone But You’ Romps To $200M Global & ’Poor Things’ Nears $100M; Korea’s ‘Exhuma’ Has Scary Good Opening

https://deadline.com/2024/02/bob-marley-one-love-anyone-but-you-poor-things-exhuma-global-international-box-office-1235837454/

Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ Jams Past $120M Globally, ‘Madame Web’ and ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ Spin Out

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/bob-marley-one-love-box-office-drive-away-dolls-madame-web-1235834503/

Atlantic Theater Workers Vote Overwhelmingly to Join IATSE

https://iatse.net/a-growing-movement-off-broadway-atlantic-theater-workers-vote-overwhelmingly-to-join-iatse/

Is Hollywood Sleepwalking Toward Strike Three?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hollywood-strikes-crew-people-better-deal-1235830684/

Hollywood Musicians Reach Tentative Deal With Major Studios in ‘Watershed Moment for Artists’

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2024-02-23/afm-amptp-deal-reached-hollywood-musicians

Sam Mendes, Sony & Apple Corps Set Four Beatles Theatrical Movies On Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison & Ringo Starr

https://deadline.com/2024/02/beatles-movies-sam-mendes-paul-mccartney-john-lennon-george-harrison-ringo-starr-1235831317/

Live Nation Had Another Record Year as Its Business Went Global & Fans Continued Flocking to Shows

https://www.billboard.com/business/touring/live-nation-earnings-record-revenue-artist-tours-fan-demand-high-1235612747/

Warner Bros. Discovery Shares Drop 10% as Company Misses Estimates, Warns of 2024 Cash Flow Headwinds

https://www.cnbc.