Max Credits SNAFU Could Take Weeks To Fix; Execs Didn’t Know About New “Creators” Label Until After Launch

This article contains major spoilers for the ‘Succession’ finale.Succession star Kieran Culkin says he disagrees with creator Jesse Armstrong’s interpretation of how Roman Roy feels at the show’s end.The lauded HBO show’s dramatic finale aired last month (May 28), with Culkin’s character Roman and his brother Kendall (Jeremy Strong) betrayed by sister Shiv (Sarah Snook), who backtracked on her pact with her brothers and cast the deciding vote to sell Waystar Royco to Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) GoJo company.After the finale, Armstrong shared his thoughts on the characters’ headspace after the events of the finale, saying: “In a reductive, brutal way, Roman ends up exactly where he started. He is that guy still. And he maybe easily could have been a playboy jerk with some slightly nasty instincts, and some quite funny jokes.“He could’ve stayed in a bar, being that guy.

would be Waystar Royco’s new CEO in the wake of the death of Logan Roy (Brian Cox). But the highly acclaimed series almost continued.In a new interview in Variety, “Succession” star Kieran Culkin tells fellow actor and longtime friend Claire Danes that the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, considered doing additional seasons. He “pitched an amazing fifth season and then another and another,” seemingly off the top of his head, Culkin said of Armstrong.

Kieran Culkin and Claire Danes worked together on Burr Steers’ 2002 indie “Igby Goes Down,” in which Culkin played the angst-ridden 17-year-old title character to Danes’ slightly older Manhattan socialite Sookie Sapperstein. All these years later, Danes is visibly pregnant, and they chat like old pals about the difficulty of naming her third child with Hugh Dancy. “‘Cyrus,’ we came to pretty readily. ‘Rowan,’ we had to fight harder for. This one is impossible,” she says. “I realized the movie you and I did together is over half of our lives ago,” Culkin says.

Voting is now underway for the ratification of the new DGA film and TV contract. Members were sent ballots tonight along with the memorandum of agreement, as well as an executive summary of the new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The tentative agreement was approved last night by the DGA national board, which unanimously recommended that members ratify it.  Voting must be completed by June 23.

The Directors Guild’s national board voted unanimously tonight to approve a tentative agreement for a new film and TV contract. The deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which was reached late Saturday night, goes this week to the guild’s membership for ratification with the board’s recommendation to vote “yes.”

Note: The following contains spoilers for the “Succession” series finale.Of the many moments in the “Succession” series finale that have sparked conversation and debate ever since it aired, perhaps the most charged might be the final scene between Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) – and creator Jesse Armstrong is now offering up his interpretation of that dead-fish handhold.Tom has been named CEO of Waystar Royco, now owned by Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgard) Gojo, thanks to Shiv’s last-minute decision to change her vote at the board meeting and deny Kendall (Jeremy Strong) the chance to be CEO. In the moments following the vote, we see Tom ask Shiv to meet him in a car waiting downstairs and she hurridly declines, yet later on we see her join him in the vehicle, the new King and Queen side by side. Tom coldly offers up his hand and Shiv puts hers on top of his, not as a show of affection but of… resignation? Acquiescence? Deference?What precisely is going on there has been a matter of debate among fans, but Armstrong told NPR’s Fresh Air that he sees it as “terrifying equality.”“Everyone has their own view, and I can tell you mine, which is that for me it was a moment of equality,” the creator and showrunner said.

Editor’s note: These interview was done outside of the FYC event as there was no cast or creatives panel as a part of the event.

Shiv Roy may have looked defeated in those final moments of Succession but she actually achieved “terrifying equality” and “remains in play” for the future, the creator said in a new interview.

1.5% of companies who asked shareholders to weigh in on executive compensation packages having rejected the pay proposals this year. The rejection comes just days after WGA West President Meredith Stiehm sent an open letter to Netflix and Comcast shareholders calling on them to reject the pay packages in the impending vote.“Netflix’s content pipeline has been blocked, with dozens of projects that were in development or ordered to series as of May 1st unable to move forward until WGA negotiations conclude,” Stiehm wrote in the letter to Netflix shareholders.

Max is touting strong viewership for its true-crime limited drama series Love & Death.

The leaders of the Writers Guild, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and the Teamsters have issued a “joint statement of solidarity” with the Directors Guild in its final scheduled week of contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, saying that they “stand alongside our sisters, brothers, and kin in the DGA in their pursuit of a fair contract.” Their statement comes on the 30th day of the ongoing WGA strike and 21 days after the DGA began its contract talks with the AMPTP.

WGAE Career Longevity Salon, a group of writers over the age of 50 within the WGAE have shown a presence as well, especially through co-leader Courtney Simon, who spoke on camera in a video posted to Twitter.“We’re here today picketing ‘The View,’ an ABC show that is still continuing to be written even though we are on strike,” Simon said in video you can watch below. “We are gonna make noise along with everyone else.

Succession went out at the top of its game.

This article contains major spoilers for the ‘Succession’ finale.Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has shared his thoughts on the outcome of the lauded HBO show’s dramatic finale, which aired last night (May 28).After a power struggle between the Roy siblings after the death of their father Logan, the finale ended with Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) backtracking on her pact with brothers Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to betray them and cast the deciding vote to sell Waystar Royco to Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) GoJo company.This meant that Shiv’s husband and ATN boss Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) became boss of the company in a major twist after Matsson betrayed Shiv, who was initially in line for the CEO job.Speaking as part of a ‘Controlling The Narrative’ featurette on streaming service Max, Armstrong said he knew what he wanted the outcome of the finale to be for a good while.“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something that I thought was the right ending for quite a while now,” Armstrong said.“Even though he’s not exactly the most powerful monarch you’ll ever meet — his power comes from Matsson. Those figures that drift upwards and make themselves amenable to powerful people are around.”Of the future of the Roy siblings, Armstrong added: “I thought about all their stories.

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains spoilers for the series finale of HBO’s Succession.

Note: This article contains spoilers for series finale of “Succession.”Can’t believe “Succession” is over? Neither can the HBO hit’s creator Jesse Armstrong, who said it “feels very perverse” to end the Emmy-winning series, but that he “didn’t really have any doubts” about ending it now.After the stunning final episode, which found Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) failing to prevent the sale of Waystar Royco to GoJo, Armstrong said in the “Inside the Episode” segment, “This will never stop being the central event of [Kendall]’s life. This will mark his whole life.”“It feels very perverse to end it because it’s been incredibly meaningful,” Armstrong added.

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “With Open Eyes,” the series finale of HBO’s “Succession,” now streaming on Max. After four riveting, profane seasons and two best drama Emmys (so far!), “Succession” — the story of the Roy dynasty — came to an end on Sunday night. Creator Jesse Armstrong, who conceived the story of the Roys loosely around the mythology of the Murdochs, announced in February that Season 4 would be its last.  The death of patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) in Episode 3 provided the engine for the rest of the season, and once again divided the adult Roy siblings — Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) — who have an interest in running Waystar Royco, the family’s mega-corporation that was about to be sold to tech giant GoJo. As the three of them fell back into their old feuds and reopened childhood wounds, the deal solidified and dissipated as the season went on. Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), Shiv’s on-and-off husband; his sidekick Greg (Nicholas Braun); GoJo founder Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), and a trifecta of Waystar executives, Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), Karl (David Rasche) and Frank (Peter Friedman) were also players in the high-stakes, often confused chess game among the siblings. Only Logan’s hapless oldest son Connor (Alan Ruck) remained on the sidelines of the family back-stabbings, and well… front-stabbings.

William Earl SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “With Open Eyes,” the series finale of HBO’s “Succession,” now streaming on Max. “Succession” has ended, and the finale answered the central question of the show: Who will take over Waystar Royco? Thanks to a last-minute change of heart from Shiv (Sarah Snook) during the tense boardroom vote, GoJo now owns the media company, and GoJo CEO Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) has anointed Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) as its American CEO. While in practice the deal will likely involve, by Matsson’s own admissions, a lot of dirty work with very little input, Tom is thrilled to take the crown. According to series creator Jesse Armstrong, it was a natural choice.

Amid the HBO Max rebrand, Succession is ending after four seasons on the premium cable network. The Roy family is at odds with each other and the drama is set to start at 9 p.m. ET and 6 p.m. PT on HBO.

Succession showrunner Jesse Armstrong has created some of the most despicable characters known to modern TV but he claimed this afternoon he “doesn’t enjoy seeing them suffer.”