City Burbank Showbiz Latest News and Updates

US soap The Young And The Restless, where he played police detective Carl Williams. His close friend, photographer Mary Ann Halpin, confirmed the news this week ‘with a heavy heart. ’Taking to Facebook, she announced she had said ‘goodbye to my sweet friend Brett Hadley.

Sophia Scorziello editor Brett Hadley, soap actor who starred as Carl Williams for two decades on “The Young and the Restless,” has died. He was 92. Hadley died on Thursday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, according to his friend Darcy Lee. “We talked about movies and art.. and we laughed a lot! He even made me laugh on his death bed,” wrote Lee in a post. “He waited to pass tonight until my show was over and I walked out of the theatre. He took his last bow as I got into the car to come home. I will miss you terribly Brett Hadley – and thank you for being in my life.”

Big news in specialty this weekend as Asteroid City arrives in theaters with Wes Anderson and his army of fans behind it and a major marketing campaign by Focus Features. The director’s latest opens at six locations in New York and Los Angeles, where Focus has partnered with Landmark for the reopening of Sunset, the five-screen theater it took over from AMC early this year.

It’s safe to say that today’s picket line at Warner Bros in Burbank drew a little more attention than some other days. That’s because newly unionized strippers from North Hollywood turned out to support striking WGA writers — and they brought a pole along.

Melissa McCarthy, who played lovable chef Sookie St. James on all seven seasons, recently opened up about one big downside to filming the mother-daughter dramedy starring Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore and Alexis Bledel as her daughter, Rory Gilmore.Though the show takes place in the fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, it was actually filmed at the Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation has hired Shane Prigmore to serve as Senior Creative Advisor for the newly relaunched film unit under President Bill Damaschke. 

She doesn’t smell snow! Melissa McCarthy starred on Gilmore Girls for seven seasons — but filming the beloved show wasn’t always an easy feat.  

James Dolan’s Sphere Entertainment, which was spun off from MSG Entertainment in April, has opened Sphere Studios, a Burbank facility for producers of immersive projects.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Sphere in Las Vegas isn’t just a round vehicle for a series of fall U2 concerts — it’s also host to an immersive screen of mammoth proportions that will be its own attractions when there aren’t any world-class rock bands taking over the space. And even when they are, someone has still got to come up with the visual content that will be part-and-parcel with any live residency there. That’s where Sphere Studios will come in, a division of Sphere Entertainment Co. that was announced Monday as the provider for what will appear on the venue’s ultimate big screen in Vegas (and those like it that are planned for Spheres to be built in other cities). Also revealed Monday as part of the rollout for Sphere Studios was Big Sky, described as “an ultra-high resolution camera system” that is “the first of the Studios’ many groundbreaking immersive innovations.”

Jon Burlingame On the scoring stage at 20th Century-Fox studios in Burbank, composer Jongnic Bontemps is walking around in a “Transformers: The Movie” T-shirt – that’s the animated cartoon from 1986, not the $200-million summer blockbuster he’s just scored. “Violins, play a little softer,” he tells the musicians via intercom from the glass booth behind the stage. “It has to be emotional.” Later, after a rehearsal on a different cue, he tells the string players, “It needs to feel like a warm blanket.” Bontemps is making movie history. He has just spent two years writing the music for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh in the big-screen franchise, and he’s supervising the recording of the final pieces of the score with a 74-piece orchestra. The film opens Friday.

The day that SAG-AFTRA began its talks with Hollywood studios over its own film and TV contract with a strike authorization in hand, picketing Writers Guild members on Wednesday hit up Disney and Warner Bros in Burbank.

Jason Sudeikis holds on to his sign as he joins the WGA Strike in Los Angeles on Monday (June 5).

Entertainment Partners, the global payroll and production finance firm, is offering its entire lineup of Academy Training Courses free of charge during the Writers Guild strike, which is now entering its second month. The on-line courses, which normally range from $99-$199, cover a range of back-office production functions, from accounting and payroll to budgeting and scheduling.

It was Pride and Drag Queen picket day in Los Angeles, where around 300 people hit up Warner Bros. Discovery to highlight their issues as the strike marches into its second month.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor In its heyday, “ER” would keep about 75 background actors on hand per episode to be called up as needed to fill out scenes in hospital corridors and whatnot. On Tuesday, about 75 “ER” alumni filled the sidewalks outside the show’s old studio on Olive Avenue in Burbank. Writers, actors and crew members who worked on the beloved NBC drama series rallied behind the Writers Guild of America on Day 29 of the strike called against Hollywood’s major employers. Many of those who gathered for the “ER” reunion-themed picket on the day after the Memorial Day holiday weekend were emotional about what “ER” represented in their professional careers. It’s an apt symbol for the WGA strike because “ER” is the kind of long-running scripted series that television networks don’t seem to make anymore.

The writers strike has entered its fifth week and is about to enter its second month and shows no sign of abating.

Jay Leno has endured broken bones and a burned body within the last calendar year, but the funny man says only one medical misfortune can force him into retirement. The comedian, 73, said "unless I have a stroke," he's not closing shop. "Then you slow down," he admitted to Page Six.

Flavor Flav is showing his support for members of the Writers Guild of America!

Picketers gathered outside Warner Bros. in Burbank today found themselves buoyed by a unique presence: Flavor Flav. The hip-hop icon-turned-reality star showed up to cheers from the assembled WGA supporters.

It was a tale of two coasts today, as WGA picketers and their allies targeted Disney’s upfront presentation in New York and also the company’s Burbank lot in Los Angeles. And the two scenes were very different.

Pat McAfee, the sports broadcaster who regularly breaks news with his pal Aaron Rodgers, has signed a deal with ESPN.

Law enforcement to horn-blowing strike supporters: you may be breaking the law, man!

Ready to step into the world of Walt Disney Animation Studios like never before? Well, soon you’ll get your chance.Lighthouse Immersive Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios have announced that Los Angeles will be the next city to premiere Immersive Disney Animation on June 23. The Los Angeles version of Immersive Disney Animation will be housed in Lighthouse ArtSpace Los Angeles – the same venue that was home to the popular Original Immersive Van Gogh – in the iconic former Amoeba Music Building at 6400 Sunset Blvd.Immersive Disney Animation lets you live your favorite Disney animated movies in a new and unique way.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor A number of restaurants and bars have decided to show solidarity with striking members of the Writers Guild by offering discounts on menu items and drinks. Writers can’t live on donuts alone, even if they’re delivered by Jay Leno, nor will the generous offers of pizza sent to picket lines solely sustain the hundreds of sign-carrying scribes marching in front of studios across Los Angeles and New York. In Silver Lake, All Day Baby is offering discounted $8 daiquiris, and owner Lien Ta wrote on Instagram, “All Day Baby is so lucky to receive regular support from writers — we have both investors and guests who are a part of our special tapestry. For example, the writers’ room at ‘Shrinking’ even keeps score of how many days one of their writers goes with or without mentioning ADB! We’re disappointed that Hollywood isn’t matching value with worth for our industry’s writers; and in a way, the restaurant industry can relate to these writers: they are like the chefs/cooks of film + TV, writing integral and delicious recipes, and without their talent, there would be no product or project for millions to benefit.”

Bam Margera’s friends are concerned.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic U2 has announced the first dates this fall for a series of shows being billed as “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere” — just five nights in late September and early October, for now, although the possibility of more shows being added seems more like a probability. The ambition and logistical planning of creating a unique show for Sphere, the world’s most technologically advanced space for music, certainly ultimately augurs for a longer run, even if U2 has studiously been avoiding sticking around Vegas quite long enough to merit the avoided word “residency.” U2’s guitarist, the Edge, got on a Zoom with Variety last week to discuss the enormously ambitious run of shows, following a demonstration of the design and technology for Sphere that was held for a handful of media representatives at a scale model of the building in Burbank. Although the concerts will be themed around the 1991 “Achtung Baby” album (with the “UV” in the show’s title referring to the album track “Ultraviolet”), the Edge said that Sphere itself was the reason for conceiving the new show. “When we found out about what this venue was really offering us creatively, we kind of saw it as a throwdown … as a challenge,” he says.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer In a months-long goal to reach 7,000 job cuts total, Disney will begin its second round of layoffs of the year today. The notifications will be handed out to staff through Thursday, concluding with approximately 4,000 job eliminations completed overall by week’s end, according to company officials. While the Disney workforce will be reduced by thousands across divisions Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products (hourly frontline operations roles at Parks and Resorts will not be affected), and locations from Burbank to New York and Connecticut, there are still more layoffs to come. According to Disney, a third and final wave of cuts is expected to begin ahead of the summer, which will bring the Mouse House to its 7,000 layoffs target. (The figure represents 3.2% of Disney’s total headcount of about 220,000 worldwide as of Oct. 1, 2022.)

It was originally described as the “big one,” or even more pointedly, a straight-up “bloodbath.”

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Warner Bros. Discovery shares were down 6% at the close of trading Wednesday, on the heels of the company’s expansive presentation of its plans to overhaul the HBO Max streamer. WB Discovery shares have been battered over the past year as the company dealt with post-merger cost-cutting and management realignment. On Wednesday, the stock fell 5.8% to $14.05 on what was a down day overall for the market and a down day for most of WB Discovery’s media rivals, including Disney (down 2.5%), Paramount Global (3.3%) and Netflix (down 2%). The Dow Jones index fell a modest 38.2 points while the Nasdaq dropped 102 points, or 1%. The hourlong WB Discovery presentation was held during trading hours, at 10 a.m. PT on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. Wall Street’s verdict on WB Discovery’s plans is still not in, but the immediate reaction of investors indicates that the company still has a long road ahead in sorting out its profit centers in the age of streaming.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery finally revealed the plans (and confirmed the long-rumored name) for its new streaming service, Max, which will combine offerings from HBO Max and Discovery+ into one product, during a splashy press presentation on the Warner Bros. Studio lot Wednesday. The event kicked off at 10 a.m. at the iconic Burbank location, presided over by WBD CEO David Zaslav, president and CEO of global streaming and games JB Perrette, HBO and HBO Max CEO and chairman Casey Bloys (who now also has oversight of Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Network), and U.S. networks group chairman and chief content officer Kathleen Finch. Variety is on the scene, ready to fill you in on all the details about the new streamer, Warner Bros. Discovery’s direct-to-consumer strategy, the future of HBO and the standalone version of Discovery+.