Hollywood Breakdown

Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' opens this weekend and the industry will be watching closely to see how it does. It's one of the few studio movies of the summer that's a standalone, adult, dramatic film that's not part of some larger franchise. It'll also be something of a test: does Leonardo DiCaprio's star power still have pull at the box office?

The Emmy nominations were announced this week, and while HBO epic ‘Game of Thrones’ broke the record for total nominations in a single season at 32, the news was also an affirmation of the wealth of quality tv out there right now.

WarnerMedia’s new streaming service HBO Max will pull “Friends” from Netflix when it launches in 2020.

Netflix doesn't reveal ratings, but did say the series 'On My Block' was it's "most-binged" of 2018. Now, the four stars of that show are working to renegotiate their contracts for season 3. They'd like to be paid on par with the stars of another YA Netflix series, '13 Reasons Why.' 

The movie 'Late Night' written by and starring Mindy Kaling was the talk of Sundance, but its buzz at the box office has been significantly more muted. And it's not the only one--several comedies--one after another have tanked at the box office this spring and summer. Is streaming to blame?

The first round of Emmy voting began earlier this week, and we're starting to get the lay of the land. 'Game of Thrones' may well dominate the awards space in the drama category, despite less than stellar reviews for the final season. And this year, one of the most competitive categories, Best Limited Series, is a format that was on life support just a few years ago. 

Georgia has become Hollywood East in recent years, thanks to the hefty tax breaks they offer productions. But more and more big studios say they'll have to reconsider working in the state if the "heartbeat bill" becomes law. 

The massive media company Endeavor, whose holdings include the talent agency WME, announced it is going public, and looking to raise around $500 million in its IPO. The filing comes in the middle of the continuing battle between writers and talent agencies. 

While ratings for broadcast television continue to plummet, the annual ritual known as the upfronts soldiers on in New York. And despite the streaming takeover, the broadcast networks still do several billion dollars worth of business selling slots to advertisers. Old school broadcast TV remains one of the few safe places advertisers can reach millions of people. 

A recent episode of 'The Good Fight,' the spinoff of 'The Good Wife' which runs on the streaming service CBS All Access, featured a short musical, animated interlude about China. Or that was what the show's creators hoped to air, anyway. What ran instead was a placard that said "CBS has censored this content."