Sophia Loren is recovering after having a bad fall at her home in Switzerland.
05.09.2023 - 18:31 / deadline.com
In her first major hire since being named Chairman of NBCUniversal Studio Group and Chief Content Officer, Donna Langley has named Liz Jenkins as her Chief Business Officer. Langely has also formed a new studio leadership group and added Peter Levinsohn and Jimmy Horowitz to cabinet positions.
Jenkins joins the company from Reese Witherspoon’s multi-media company Hello Sunshine where she most recently served as Chief Operating Officer. Jenkins will directly report to Langley.
“Liz has established herself as an industry leader with a deep understanding of the complexities of our business and her unique perspective and varied experience fuel her drive for innovation,” said Langley. “She is a builder; whether it’s brands, individual projects, or culture. As the Studio Group continues to develop and adapt to the new industry climate, Liz will be an incredible partner to me and the broader NBCUniversal team.”
In her new role as Chief Business Officer, Jenkins will collaborate with Langley’s executive leadership team to develop and implement innovative strategies that capitalize on emerging opportunities and address challenges in the rapidly evolving media landscape. The role will function as the connective tissue across the Studio Group portfolio and sits at the intersection of strategy and business operations. Jenkins will drive long-range business planning to accompany the macro content strategy for the new Studio creative hub that will ultimately drive enterprise value through NBCUniversal platforms.
“The media space has never been more dynamic, disruptive and frankly, disrupted,” said Jenkins. “I’m looking forward to bringing my experience in the independent space to bear in the more interconnected, multi-platform
Sophia Loren is recovering after having a bad fall at her home in Switzerland.
according to Variety and other outlets. They called the new contract “exceptional” and said it would have “meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”“What we have won in this contract – most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd – is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days,” part of the email from the WGA Negotiating Committee states, Variety reported.“It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal.”The likely deal comes as both sides took part in intensive bargaining over the weekend.There were signs last week that the strike, which brought Hollywood to a halt for 146 days, appeared to be nearing the end when the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers issued a joint statement that they were back in talks.The Alliance represents studios, streaming services and producers in the negotiations.Union leaders met Wednesday with top studio bosses including Disney CEO Robert Iger, Warner Bros.
Billie Eilish and Peter Gabriel and a host of musicians have appeared in a new video by a new music coalition to tackle gun violence.Artist For Action To Prevent Gun Violence, which also features Sheryl Crow and Nile Rodgers, describes itself as a “non-political” organisation which asks Americans to volunteer and vote to eradicate gun violence in the country.
Negotiations between the WGA and studios CEOs on a deal to end the nearly five-month long writers’ strike look within sight.
WGA and Hollywood’s major studios are in the final phase of hammering out a three-year contract that will bring an end to one of the longest strikes in Hollywood history. Legal representatives for labor and management were said to be huddling on the fine print of language in complicated contract issues such as the use of generative artificial intelligence and groundbreaking elements for the WGA’s minimum basic agreement, such as a formula for a minimum staff guarantee for episodic TV and a “success-based” residual from subscription platforms that is designed to funnel more money into the WGA’s pension and health funds. The nitty gritty details of the terms around the AI proposal has been one of the final hurdles to overcome, multiple sources said.
The Writers Guild brass and studios CEOs were working tonight to close a deal to end the scribes’ strike , but it seems they aren’t quite there yet.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Hollywood studios continued into Friday night as questions swirled around town regarding whether a deal had been reached or if talks had once again broken down. There is no word yet on a potential deal, but insiders with knowledge of ongoings in the room say there is momentum on both sides to find a resolution that will end the 144-day writers strike. Friday’s talks are said to have begun at approximately 11 a.m.
The WGA is heading back to the bargaining table with the CEOs of Netflix, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros Discovery on Friday.
EXCLUSIVE: A second day of direct negotiations between the Writers Guild and studio CEOs has concluded this evening.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Four Hollywood CEOs returned to the bargaining table Thursday for a second day of talks with the Writers Guild of America, as the industry looked for signs of progress toward a deal that would end the 143-day strike. Sources said the studios made moves in multiple areas that they hoped would be enough to break the logjam. But it remained unclear if WGA leaders would see the AMPTP’s latest proposals and modifications as sufficient to meet writers’ demands.
EXCLUSIVE: The Writers Guild and studios and streamers are set to meet again tomorrow for further talks on a new contract for scribes.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America resumed bargaining with the major studios on Wednesday, as the 142-day writers strike closed in on a record duration. In a break from previous sessions, several top CEOs joined in the talks on Wednesday in Sherman Oaks. They were Bob Iger of Disney, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, Donna Langley of NBCUniversal and David Zaslav of Warner Bros.
Over 140 days into the WGA’s strike, the latest resumption of talks today between the scribes and studios and steamers are leaving nothing to chance.
Given Hollywood’s love of sequels, and that fact that “Mamma Mia!” and its followup, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”, raked in a combined $1 billion at the box office, why hasn’t Universal greenlit a third film?
Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried are open to starring in Mamma Mia 3 and they recently opened up about what it would take for the film to become a reality.
EXCLUSIVE: Fran Drescher is less concerned with meeting of several showrunners with WGA leadership this week and more concerned with studios and streamers getting back to the bargaining table to make a fair deal.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director A new oral history on “Mamma Mia!” from Vogue magazine ends with the cast and crew all in support of making a third installment in the Universal Pictures franchise, which kicked off in 2008 with a film adaptation of the musical and continued in 2018 with “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.” Combined, the two musical films grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. “Universal would love to make a third movie, and I’ll leave it at that,” Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley said point blank when the discussion turned to a potential “Mamma Mia 3.” Amanda Seyfried, who leads the franchise as Sophie, added, “I dare you to show me one person who doesn’t want a third Mamma Mia!” But she also cast a bit of a doubt on a third movie since, according to her, its existence would most likely depend on Universal paying the cast what they are worth, which is far more now than when the franchise started.
Amanda Seyfried is opening up about the status of Mamma Mia 3.
Carole Horst Oscar-winning doc makers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin chose an appropriate subject for this move into traditional narrative feature: Diana Nyad, the athlete who swam from Cuba to Florida in 2013 at the age of 64. The “Nyad” directing duo won an Oscar for rock climbing doc Free Solo in 2019, and earned much critical praise 2015’s “Mero” and 2021’s “The Rescue” (which, even though it’s not an extreme sports movie, does feature physical acts of courage and daring). Nyad burned with a passion to complete the swim, a feat that she had to abort four times before; her first time in her twenties. So at an age when most people are planning retirement, she planned a hundred-mile swim.
Fall Out Boy and Jimmy Eat World have announced plans for a joint US tour in 2024.The former shared a teaser video in which they contemplate who they should take with them on the second leg of their ‘So Much For (Tour) Dust’ tour before they eventually settle on Jimmy Eat World. You can watch the teaser below.The ‘So Much For (2our) Dust’ tour will kick off on February 28 in Portland, with further stops planned in Seattle, Austin, Orlando, Baltimore, New York, Nashville, Milwaukee, and more, before wrapping up on April 6 in Minneapolis.