New Projects Casting - Production Updates - Political Landscape - Q2 Earnings
By Abigail Hardin, August 02, 2022
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Happy August, UTD!
Annie and I had such a great time meeting so many talented and inquiring actors last week at our Cover Letters & Follow-Up workshop with Actors Connection.
We were planning on taking a hiatus for the rest of Summer, but the workshop was so successful and the feedback so strong that the kind folks at Actors Connection have asked us to put down the sun screen 👙😎 and come back in August. We're happy to oblique! We love nothing more than helping actors change their mindset to one of success and teach them how to take bold, informed, action. This next topic is always a popular one so make sure to register early!
- August 24, 2022 @ 3:00 PM EST — BOOKING FALL FILM/TV WORK with Actors Connection
Looking to get ahead of the game? Check out these recent blogs posts to help you prepare for a bust Fall season:
- Top Tips to Find Your Type as an Actor
- Can You Directly Reach Out to Film/TV Casting Directors?
- How to Reach Out to Theatre Casting Directors
Summer research, reading, and planning are a great and gentle way to be productive while also enjoying fun in the sun.
Keep it cool! 🏄🏻♀️
Award & Festival Season
Venice Kicks Off
As summer begins to wane, the festival circuit is slowly coming alive, ushering in a new season of accolades for dozens of film and TV projects. Venice Film Festival officially kicked off on Sunday, bringing with it the tip of the iceberg for this year's what-to-watch films. The event is playing host to a wide range of offerings from both traditional studios like Warner Bros Discovery, Universal, and Sony, while also welcoming top streaming contenders from Netflix and Amazon. Only time will tell who winds up on top in Venice!
Looking for a full breakdown of this year's award & festival season? Deadline has you covered 🏆
SXSW Name Change
Officials with SXSW have officially adopted a new name for the festival, in an effort to better encompass the breadth of the content being presented in Austin each year. The event will now go by SXSW Film & TV Festival, shying away from toting only its film offerings and making room for the episodics and keynote speakers welcomed throughout the nine-day stretch.
The 20th annual Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival will kick off this Friday and run through August 13th, and is now set to feature appearances from Tracee Ellis Ross, Regina Hall, and Yara Shahidi. The festival will debut a packed slate of programming, covering topics like gospel music, women in film, the culture and creativity surrounding Black hairstyling, and much more!
Awards Chatter
Have any plans this weekend? Deadline is premiering the latest round of its Contenders series with an all-day program focused on this year's hottest TV series, and it's a line-up you won't want to miss! Organizers will bring together actors and creatives from shows like TED LASSO, ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, SQUID GAME, and many more, to discuss their process, and how they're feeling being part of this year's award circuit nominee pool. Take a look at their line-up and see if one of your favorite shows is set to be featured 📃
Eagle-eyed awards season analysts may have noticed a slight change in this year's Emmy nominations: The TV Academy opted against breaking down the nomination pool by studio - a direct response, many felt, to the ongoing in-fighting between studios jockeying for position in naming themselves as linear, streaming, hybrid, or none of the above. The Academy provided a list of nominees that did break down categories by studios, but did not provide a firm tally of each group's nominees - seems like they had no desire to be a part of the drama this year 😳
HFPA Changing Direction
It's been a bit since we've last heard of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's attempts to do well on their promise of intense soul-searching and restructuring, and the organization is finally back in the spotlight, this time announcing that they will make the move to become a for-profit agency. Eldridge Industries, the newfound owner of the maligned HFPA, is set to spin off the Golden Globes into a separate private organization, while working on plans with board members of the HFPA to re-position as a for-profit group, with the hope of saving the collective from further economic turmoil.
Production Updates
Welsh Film Footprint Expanding
The UK will welcome its newest film and TV studio this October with the unveiling of a 20,000-square-foot production venue Aria Studios, supported by the Welsh government. The $2M project will join a host of already-prolific studios popping up throughout the UK over the last year, along with a major renovation of Pinewood Studios set to begin in the country as well. Considering Wales has been made famous for churning out season after season of DOCTOR WHO and HIS DARK MATERIALS, I'm very excited to see what may be in store for this latest facility
Studios Continue Battling Heat
Productions were still tasked with handling the oppressive heat across North America last week, with crews working on TNT's SNOWPIERCER were forced to shut down shooting after multiple cases of heat exhaustion among the cast and crew. SNOWPIERCER, after all, is set in a post-apocalyptic ice age, with much of the cast dressed in bulky winter gear.... 🥵 don't think I'm made out for that one!
Political Landscape
Female Writers Urge Abortion Support, HRC Pens Letter for Marriage Equality
The fallout from the overturning of Roe vs. Wade continues to reverberate around our industry, as a group of over 400 female showrunners and writers penned a letter to top studio execs for them to consider protections for workers in states with anti-abortion policies. Chiefly among the requests were travel subsidies for out-of-state travel, specific details of medical procedures covered under the companies' health care plans, and discontinuing monetary support for anti-abortion candidates and committees.
Evidence of studios' desire to listen to the public outcry over the state of abortion rights in the US is becoming more and more apparent. Disney recently changed course on their Hulu ad model after the #BoycottHulu movement on Twitter, deciding instead to mirror Disney's sister policies that allow for a broad range of advertisements on other networks after originally tamping down ads criticizing the GOP on anti-abortion and gun rights issues. "Hulu will now accept candidate and issue advertisements covering a wide spectrum of policy positions, but reserves the right to request edits or alternative creative, in alignment with industry standards," Disney wrote in a statement.
Another positive note came in the form of a letter from the Human Rights Campaign, calling on the Senate to codify marriage equality amid growing fears that the Supreme Court's decision on abortion may extend to other rights previously protected by the Court. Sony, NBCUniversal, and Disney all signed the letter, along with a group of over 170 entertainment and tech companies, urging senators to prioritize the legislation that has already passed the House 267-257 earlier in July.
Q2 Earnings
Amazon, Comcast, Roku All Post Losses, Warner Bros Discovery Set to Reveal Thursday
Studio execs have been revealing their Q2 earnings to shareholders and investors over the last week, hoping to keep spirits high and wallets open as the busy fall season begins to show signs of life - and competition continues to buzz at an all-time high.
Amazon reported a loss of $2 billion in the second quarter of 2022 but quickly pointed to growing numbers in ad sales and revenue, hoping to score big on its upcoming THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RING OF POWER series, as well as the debut of Thursday Night Football in September. "Despite continued inflationary pressures in fuel, energy, and transportation costs, we're making progress on the more controllable costs we referenced last quarter, particularly improving the productivity of our fulfillment network," CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Comcast, however - the parent company of NBCUniversal - enjoyed a strong Q2, beating analyst predictions and generating revenue of $30 billion over the period, with NBCU seeing a revenue spike of 19%. However, not all news was good news for the parent group, as streamer service Peacock seemed to stall out in the last three months, with only 27 million active accounts and 13 million paid subscribers. Comcast execs believe the streamer will continue to operate at a loss through the rest of 2022, though remain hopeful that other parts of the entertainment giant will continue to pull up the streamer until new live-event and content deals are solidified.
Roku joined the cohort of streamers with dips in Q2 numbers as well, losing 82 cents per share (in comparison to Wall Street's expected 62 cent loss), which execs believe is a symptom of a larger issue of plummeting TV ad spending and other global economic factors. A glimmer of hope came through the static of the company's sales call, as execs reported the group's first $1 billion upfront sales process this year, a welcome sign for investors hoping that there may still be encouraging streams of revenue on the horizon.
Warner Bros. Discovery, meanwhile, is set to post its Q2 earnings this Thursday, which many analysts are watching with bated breath as the newly formed merger has just surpassed the 100-day mark since joining forces several months prior. Questions are swirling as to the fate of the dueling streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+, and many are expecting a harsh round of layoffs sometime in the month of August. Will the honeymoon phase of one of Hollywood's biggest mergers officially come to an end this week? Stay tuned 🌄
Streaming Reigns Supreme
Netflix has reached an interesting impasse in the increasingly-complex world of movie premieres: the streaming giant acquired the rights to both of Rian Johnson's KNIVES OUT sequels, the first of which is set to debut in September. While movie theaters are without a doubt continuing to regain traction after a prolonged period of COVID closures, the data for a theatrical window release from one of the streamer's titles does not support a wide roll-out plan this fall (I enjoyed the first KNIVES OUT as much as the next person, but thinking back to Netflix' other big theatrical releases..... THE IRISHMAN? Hmm.) The details seem to still be few and far between, but the company's own numbers show that their original series significantly out-perform films on the platform, creating an interesting, if not slightly illogical, path to theatrical releases for any of the streamer's upcoming titles.
This year's upfronts proved to be the latest confirmation in a rapidly forming pattern for ad execs: Viewers are out on linear TV, in favor of streaming channels with little to no ad space. A new study from Amazon Ads and media-research hub Magna may shed some light on a path forward for execs however - 59% of those surveyed felt that brand-funded content was "entertaining to watch", pointing to a potential open door for ad creators looking to rejuvenate revenue from the shrinking traditional ad streams. "You can't think about it as a brand," Interpublic Group content exec Brendan Gaul said. "You just have to think about it as entertainment that happens to be financed by a brand."
Broadway at Home Launches
Theatre lovers - have I got the streaming channel for you! Broadway on Demand, an imprint of Broadway Licensing that also includes Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts, has partnered with Triple-B media to launch a new 24/7 streaming service dedicated to bringing theater to over 20 million homes for free 📺 Broadway at Home is now streaming on SelectTV, FreebieTV and DistroTV, showcasing productions like BANDSTAND, PUFFS and much more. Sign me up!
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Billy Porter recently sat down with IndieWire to discuss his latest project, ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE, following the story of a trans teenager falling in love for the first time. Porter is no stranger to developing queer stories onscreen, having recently wrapped his iconic work in FX's POSE, not to mention his work in KINKY BOOTS on Broadway. ANYTHING GOES is Porter's first turn in the director's chair, and he couldn't be more excited to see where the story takes him. "I love being able to be at the helm of telling the stories of the intersection of my communities. Stories that we don't get to hear very often. We don't get to see very often. I'm grateful to be able to be a leader in that now."
Film and TV officials in the UK are keeping a sharp eye on the BBC's Creative Diversity Commitment, a program first created at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020 that pledged $124 million over three years to developing onscreen and offscreen diverse talent, while doing the work to open doors for upward mobility for historically underrepresented communities. Thus far, 67 TV shows have been supported through the program, with roughly £44 million of the original £112 million having been utilized to expand the representation on these projects. "I'm delighted by the progress we've made in the first year which is an important milestone and provides a solid foundation for us to go even further to ensure the BBC truly reflects the public we serve," outgoing director of creative diversity June Sarpong said.
The New York Times released an incredibly well written article this week regarding the current state of representation onstage, initially using the lens of recent casting for Shakespeare's RICHARD III in several high-profile productions this year, and later expanding to broader conversations of what actors should be playing what roles in 2022 and beyond. Highly encourage everyone to take the time to read this thought-provoking piece!
The 2022 class of scholars from The Salon's South Asian Mentorship Program was announced last week, welcoming a new group of up-and-coming South Asian artists to the program's extensive network of studio exes and industry professionals. 10 mentees will work closely with creators representing projects like 13 REASONS WHY, AWKWAFINA IS NORA FROM QUEENS, THE NIGHT AGENT, and more on career development, community building, and future growth opportunities.
Quick Bites
Netflix has opted to pursue legal action against the creators of the BRIDGERTON musical, saying that what started as a friendly celebration of the show on social media has grown into a violation of the show's intellectual property. Musical creators Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear have gone on to win a Grammy and produce a staged concert at the Kennedy Center, which many feel pushed the content over the edge from harmless UGC to infringing on the show's creative and financial territory.
HBO Max has ended its ties with Latiné coming-of-age series GORDITA CHRONICLES after one season, saying it plans to move away from live-action kids and family programming for the time being. Sony has already announced that it will shop the series to other major studios, in the hopes of revitalizing the comedy for a second season and beyond 🤞
This year's Emmy nomination pool all but confirmed a growing trend that many in film and TV have been watching over the past decade or so: The desire for global content is here to stay. The success of shows like SQUID GAME, SUCCESSION, TED LASSO, and more, all of which were either led on- or off-screen by international creators, has solidified the desire for viewers around the globe to feast on content from around the globe. We're truly in a Golden Age of the Screen! 🌄
The Muny in St. Louis had to put its performances of LEGALLY BLONDE on hold last week, in the wake of the devastating flooding that swept through the midwest. The show received a make-up performance last evening, after show organizers surveyed the damage to the venue and made the necessary adjustment to reopen on July 27th. Our thoughts are with the families currently navigating the devastation throughout the affected area 🙏
MUSIC MAN star Hugh Jackman revealed that he has donated a portion of his show salary to individuals who would otherwise not be able to afford tickets to see the production - and spoke about recent conversations with fellow actors to create a "more relaxed, cheaper, everyone-getting-paid-the-same form of beautiful theater. Committed theater. Maybe using found space? Maybe no sets, no costumes really, and making it accessible to everyone." 👀