Universal Music Group enters deal with AI music company Endel

Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the talks.The goal is to reach a deal by the end of the year, the report said, noting the exact details are not yet worked out.While music sales have risen in recent years, artists and record labels say they are not getting paid enough. And now that music industry growth is slowing, even as fraud and piracy continue to siphon revenue from everyone in the business, the issue is even more complicated.Streaming giant Spotify, for instance, said earlier this year that it has paid out nearly $40 billion to music rights holders since its launch in 2006.

Rebel Wilson is stepping into the music industry.

Warning: This story contains spoilers about the plot of Based on a True Story season 1.

A dad with a '15-year' weed habit - who claims he smokes it to deal with a 'debilitating' back injury - could 'rely on state benefits', but choses to work six days a week, his lawyer said as he appeared in court for drug driving.

EXCLUSIVE: Rebel Wilson has signed with Warner Music and will have her own highly personalized label: Rebellionaire. “Take the ‘b’ out of billionaire and replace it with an ‘r’ for Rebel,” she quipped.

EXCLUSIVE: Former NFL player Andrew Hawkins and his Parks Tower Studios banner have entered into a co-production agreement with RTG Features, the sister studio to basketball-focused media company Slam, to develop and produce a slate of cross-platform scripted and unscripted projects that spotlight sports and culture. 

EXCLUSIVE: Arthouse distro Circle Collective has acquired worldwide rights to Luca Balser’s (Uncut Gems) NYC anthology film What Doesn’t Float, starring and produced by Pauline Chalamet (Sex Lives of College Girls), and shot by DPs Sean Price Williams (Good Time) and Hunter Zimny (Good Time).

The Directors Guild of America has voted on a tentative deal that would avoid taking strike action.

Jon Burlingame “Star Trek” fans are still buzzing about the music of the final season of “Picard.” That’s because the lavish symphonic score by Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann references multiple themes from throughout the 57-year history of “Trek” movies and TV shows. Barton, who scored seven of the 10 episodes and collaborated with Wiedmann on the finale, says that the idea belonged to showrunner Terry Matalas. “From the very beginning, we chatted a lot about the ‘Star Trek’ we grew up with. This was a moment in the franchise to take a step back, look at the whole picture, and say, how can we honor this?” Matalas has “an amazing, vast knowledge” of “Trek” music, Wiedmann says. “He’s as enthusiastic about film scores as we are – which, in the end, was extremely helpful for us because Terry had such a clear idea on where to go with the music.”

A version of this story about “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” first appeared in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.The latest installment in the HBO Max Music Box series created by Bill Simmons, “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” finds director Sam Jones (“Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off,” “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco”) following the writing and recording of singer Jason Isbell’s 2020 album “Reunions.” But the film is about far more than one of the gifted musician and writer’s best albums, delving into his self-destructive days with drugs and alcohol and his marriage to fellow singer Amanda Shires, a charged creative and personal partnership that nearly fell apart while Jones’ cameras were rolling.Sam, why a film about Jason Isbell?Sam Jones: He was on my interview show (“Off Camera With Sam Jones”), and once I chatted with him, I felt like not only did he have an interesting story, but he was good at telling it. So I flew to Nashville and I asked him a couple hours before he went on stage at the Ryman.

Nearly a year after his Disney ouster, Peter Rice has reemerged.

SECRET NUMBER is taking over!

signed a contract with Netflix to produce projects and now his brother, 40, has his own transaction in the works. The Prince of Wales’ environmental charity, the Earthshot Prize, has partnered with YouTube for campaigns, events and creator collabs that will bring more awareness to the global climate crisis.The two-year partnership will unite the Earthshot Prize and the video platform to create content to inspire users to take action against climate change.The alliance will also help grow the Earthshot Prize YouTube channel.Types of content that will be featured on the website include mini-documentaries, Q&As and YouTube Shorts, as well as collaborations with influencers.“At the Earthshot Prize we want to incentivize innovation and change to help repair our planet and partnering with YouTube, one of the world’s biggest platforms, allows us to do that on a truly global scale,” the organization’s CEO Hannah Jones said in a statement.

Gal Gadot is a huge star, but revealed she deals with impostor syndrome as her career continues to grow. Gadot, 38, opened up about her insecurities in the Hollywood industry and the surprising person who helped her better understand them, in an interview with L'Officiel magazine.  "It’s funny, I always feel like I have this impostor syndrome, because I feel so lucky and I’m so happy that I get to do what I really, really, really love," Gadot explained. "I always feel like, ‘I hope they’re gonna like it.’ There’s never a moment when I’m like, ‘They’re gonna love this.'"  Impostor syndrome refers to someone who believes they are undeserving of their high achievements, according to Psychology Today.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Kore-eda Hirokazu’s film “Monster” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and and won best screenplay (for Yuji Sakamoto). A critically acclaimed Japanese master, Kore-eda previously won Cannes’ Palme d’Or with “Shoplifters” in 2018 and returned to the competition last year with “Broker” which won best actor for Song Kang-ho. Well Go USA Entertainment plans to release “Monster” in North American theaters in late 2023 or early 2024. Scored by late Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (“The Last Emperor”) and lensed by Ryoto Kondo (“Shoplifters”), “Monster” tells the story of a widowed mother (Ando Sakura, “Shoplifters) who notices that her young son (Kurokawa Soya) has begun exhibiting strange behaviors. When she brings her concerns to the staff at his school, she discovers that a teacher (Nagayama Eita, “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”) is responsible and demands an explanation. Told through the multilayered perspectives of mother, teacher and child, the film gradually unveils the truth which proves much more complex than anyone expects.

Paul Getto is moving from the film world to the TV business.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Aniplex, a Sony business unit best known as a major producer and distributor of anime films and series including the hit “Demon Slayer,” is to acquire Japanese IP development and talent management firm Origamix Partners. The firm will be expanded into live-action production. The deal was announced Wednesday and will become effective from June 1. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed other than Aniplex obtaining “a full share” of the company. Sony said that Origamix, which has previously been behind the “Kingdom” film franchise and the “Alice in Borderland” series, now in its second season at Netflix,” will be renamed Myragion Studio.

CNN reported, with Universal Music Group likely to snatch up anthems like “We Are the Champions,” “We Will Rock You” and “Another One Bites the Dust” from Disney Music Group in a deal that “could surpass $1 billion.”A spokesperson for the Disney Music Group told CNN the company has no plans to sell the catalog. Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.Disney reportedly paid $10 million for the distribution rights to the band’s catalog in 1991.Should “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” and the rest of the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame band’s songs pull in the reported $1 billion, it would be the largest sale of a music catalog so far, knocking Bruce Springsteen from the top of the heap.

Callum McLennan Top Argentina’s free-to-air channel Pakapaka has inked a deal with Paris-based animation house Dandelooo on award-winning series “Jasmine & Jambo,” to be broadcast on the Argentine government funded channel dedicated to children’s content.  Melissa Vega, international sales manager at Dandelooo told Variety, “Jasmine and Jambo is an amazing series that is doing great internationally. Pakapaka is the perfect home for the series.” “Jasmine & Jambo,” a 26-part series spangled with humour and musical notes, is designed to engage both upper preschoolers and their parents. It is the brainchild of Barcelona-based company Teidees and Catalan broadcaster Televisió de Catalunya. At the helm of the show is Silvia Cortés, co-founder of Teidees. “Jasmine & Jambo” bagged the best international series at the Festival Ecran Jeunesse and secured a nomination for the Quality in Children’s TV Worldwide award at the prestigious Prix Jeunesse International. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief NBCUniversal (NBCU) and JioCinema, Viacom18’s streaming service, have entered into a multi-year partnership bringing thousands of hours of NBCU films and TV series to India. Content is sourced from the Universal Television, UCP, Universal International Studios, Universal Television Alternative Studio, Sky Studios, DreamWorks Animation, Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Bravo brands. NBCU’s programming will live in a Peacock branded hub starting next month on JioCinema’s newly announced “JioCinema Premium” SVOD tier. While JioCinema has been making an audience impact with free-of-charge screenings of the ongoing IPL cricket tournament, the first content announced on the subscription tier hailed from another recent deal with Warner Bros Discovery.