Just days into the work stoppage, major TV studios have started sending letters telling writers and producers their overall deals are suspended.   The writers' strike is starting to affect Hollywood productions. The Duffer Brothers, the duo behind Stranger Things (and showrunners of the Netflix hit), announced on Twitter that the show's fifth and final season's production would have to halt due to the strike. "Writing does not stop when filming begins. While we're excited to start production with our [...]

The Walt Disney Company’s live-action reimagining directed by Rob Marshall of the iconic and beloved animated musical classic The Little Mermaid (1989) will reach worldwide theaters on May 26th.   Most of the new live-action Little Mermaid was filmed in Sardinia, with production from May to September 2021, originally scheduled for 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic. Several places on the northern coast of Sardinia served as locations including Santa Teresa di Gallura, Golfo Aranci, and Castelsardo. “It was important to find a [...]

But it lost 511 million dollars and cut its dividends.   Growth in streaming subscribers does not mean a gain in terms of money. Paramount+ reached 60 million subscribers worldwide in the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 4.1 million from nearly 56 million as of the end of 2022. Paramount's advertising-supported streamer Pluto TV grew its monthly active users (MAUs) to 80 million as of March 31 from 78.5 million as of the end of the fourth quarter. [...]

The new product will let publishers sell ads alongside their posts and take home half the revenue.   An ad product for publishers will be available soon on TikTok. Revenues will be shared equally between the platform and the publishers. Pulse Premiere is an evolution of TikTok’s Pulse program that allows an elite group of creators to collect half the revenue from video ads published with their TikTok posts. The company said the new product would sell ads against all [...]

The dispute, which pits 11,500 television and screenwriters against the major studios, is the first in 15 years.   The Hollywood writers' strike is on. It has been since Tuesday, May 2nd, but how long will it last? Anousha Sakoui and Meg James with the Los Angeles Times are confident: it will last long: "There are no plans for talks to resume. Instead, positions are hardening as company executives begin working on contingency plans and writers march in picket lines [...]

Each of the projects will be from emerging international filmmakers.   Ten micro-budget feature-length genre films will result from a newly signed partnership between V Channels and Sandaled Kid Productions, writes Deadline in an exclusive article. V Channels is a network of YouTube movie channels, founded by Italian distributor/producer Niccolò Messina, that streams films in five languages. "I am very excited to partner with Sandaled Kid Productions on this slate of films," says Niccolò Messina, CEO of V Channels. "The [...]