The Business

It’s a mid-May mega banter! NBC bounces the 2022 Golden Globes, Disney subscriber numbers disappoint, the stars of “A Quiet Place 2” make some noise over the movie’s theatrical run, and Ellen DeGeneres calls it quits. Kim Masters tackles it all with banter buddy Matt Belloni and Buzzfeed reporter Krystie Lee Yandoli, who broke the story on Degeneres’ alleged toxic workplace.

Producer Scott Rudin’s bullying has been an open secret in Hollywood for decades, and now it’s going public.  Former Scott Rudin staffers Evan Davis, Max Hoffman and Eileen Klomhaus remember being yelled at, belittled, and gaslighted. And they call out the stars who have been silent.

When the pandemic hit London, director Simon Godwin's National Theatre production of “Romeo & Juliet” shut down before it could open. So Godwin shot the play as a movie — never mind that he had never picked up a camera and couldn’t film outside the theater. Even without a trip to fair Verona, Godwin shot his movie, starring Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley, in a mere 17 days. 

Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win Best Director and Best Picture, but the 2021 Oscars will be remembered for the awkward, COVID-era ceremony and blunt ending. Producers expected Chadwick Boseman to win Best Actor, but instead the Oscar went to Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in Wales. 

After filmmaker Raoul Peck made his award-winning James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” he had a lot of suitors in Hollywood. But it was HBO that didn’t blink when Peck explained what he wanted to do next: a project about colonization, extermination and genocide. That evolved into "Exterminate All the Brutes," a four-part series that zigzags through 700 years of colonial history.

Four days into shooting his tragic-comic film, “Another Round,” Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s 19-year-old daughter — who was supposed to appear in the movie — was killed by a reckless driver. His screenwriter temporarily took over, but Vinterberg soon came back to the project. He says making the movie kept him from insanity. “Another Round” is Oscar-nominated for Best International Film, and Vinterberg is up for Best Director. 

Awards columnist Scott Feinberg explains why this is such a strange year for the Oscars, and how the event’s producers are attempting to keep the glitz and glamour for this year’s ceremony. The Business also replays a conversation with directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht about their now Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp.”

Documentarian Cullen Hoback maxed out his credit cards in his quest to unmask the person behind the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory. He talks about spending three years circling the globe on a shoestring budget and meeting people who dwell in some of the darkest corners of the internet, all in an attempt to pinpoint the identity of Q.

With the world starting to open up after a year-long pandemic shutdown, six workers in Hollywood share how they made it through, and explain how the entertainment industry may have changed for good.

Ted Sarandos is the co-CEO and chief content officer of the streaming giant that has everyone else playing catch-up. Sarandos says he sees Netflix as the outsider in Hollywood, but the streamer just landed 35 Oscar nominations. He shares the results of a recent Netflix diversity study and talks about streaming wars, the future of theaters, talent relations, viewership data, and more.