The Biggest Movie & TV News Stories Of 2018 - Page 2 of 4

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Jennifer Salke takes over Amazon Studios
Another company affected by the #MeToo movement was Amazon Studios, who saw topper Roy Price resign after allegations of sexual harassment in October 2017. The studios did not rush to replace him conducting a diligent search for a replacement. In February, Amazon announced NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke would replace Price. Salke oversaw “This Is Us” and the “Chicago” franchises at NBC and previously guided shows such as “Glee” and “Modern Family” while at 20th Century Fox television. That’s not the sort of prestige fare that both the film and TV tracks at Amazon have, mostly, focused on. And there was fear on the film side that Salke would take the Bob Berney, Ted Hope and Jason Ropell led division in another direction. There were rumors swirling during Sundance and Cannes that the team was in trouble and by July, Ropell had departed, but Berney and Hope have not. The film division had a rough fall, but Salke made sure they supported all their tougher films (“Suspiria,” “Beautiful Boy”) more than some other major studios would. And they have waged a very strong campaign for “Cold War” which they hope could upset rival Netflix for Oscar’s Foreign Language Film statue (Amazon Studios already has a win in this category for “The Salesman” in 2017). Salke might rock the film side down the road, but, for now, it’s the status quo. On the television side, Salke was already handed a golden child in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” which has been both a critical and streaming hit for them. She’s also developing a new “Lord of the Rings” series (which may or may not involve Peter Jackson) and has new offerings from “Westworld” creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy in the wings. Where Salke really plans on taking Prime Video and Amazon Studios, however, will come to light this upcoming year.

Roseanne is fired from “Roseanne”
The return of “Roseanne” to ABC initially made a lot of people happy and a lot of people just as angry. When the first of nine episodes of the late-’80s and early-’90s classic returned on March 27, it delivered 18 million viewers, a number unheard of in 2018 for original narrative content (let alone a sitcom). The ratings eventually settled down to a consistent 10 million or so an episode, but in this era of lower ratings and fractured viewership, it was pure gold for ABC and Disney. Unfortunately, the writing staff’s attempts to include its star’s now conservative views in the Trump era didn’t go over well with everyone. Still, the show was given a season two renewal, and a writer’s room was set. And then Barr tweeted. And it was clearly a racist tweet. That was just about enough for ABC who despite Barr insisting she had been “good” and avoided politics, canceled the show. By the summer, ABC found a solution to bring the cast and crew back without Barr in the fold by killing her character off in “The Conners.” That iteration of the show was still financially successful, but to say a bad taste was left in the mouth’s of everyone involved is an understatement.

Rumors fly Apple is buying A24…months later “partnership” announced
Blame the agencies? The genesis of so many industry rumors, word leaked in March that Apple was looking to acquire the stylish and Oscar-winning indie distributor A24. How true that report may be remains to be seen. Apple is already producing its own content and has major episodic content on the books for 2019. What it does not have is its own film original division which would have made an A24 acquisition a smart move. Instead, eight months later the two companies announced a partnership where A24 will produce films for the service. Granted, a partnership often takes quite a while to get worked out, but in the tech world, they also can end up being the starting point for an acquisition. Stay tuned.

Facebook Watch launches shows with Elizabeth Olsen and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and no one seemingly pays attention
Netflix, Amazon Studios, and Hulu didn’t just have competition from Apple, but social media giant Facebook as well. The company’s Facebook Watch earned a lot of media buzz with the viewership from some of its reality docu programs such as “Ball in the Family,” but it launched two drama series with little fanfare. “Sorry for Your Loss” with Elizabeth Olsen debuted on Sept. 18 with Facebook noting that 75 million people watched at least a minute of it and average viewer watched 20 min in a renewal announcement in Dec. That being said, the follows for the show are a somewhat paltry 146,000 considering the “viewership.” In November, Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones starred in Facebook’s “Queen America,” and while that series already has 230,000 followers, it’s barely caused a blip in the media. One key difference between Facebook Watch and its competitors is the lack of traditional advertising to promote the show. 2019 may make or break the efforts of a social network that, frankly, has a number of more pressing issues to deal with.

Bravo snags rights to Project Runway bringing it back “home”
When The Weinstein Company was sold a number of unique assets were put up for sale. One of them was the ownership of the still popular reality competition design series “Project Runway.” In something of a surprise, Bravo snagged the rights to the program that ran on its network from 2004-2008. For the sixth season, the show jumped to Lifetime where it ran for 11 years and created spin-off such as “Project Runway Junior” and “Project Runway All Stars.” Bravo touted the return of the Emmy-nominated series as coming “home,” but when you aired for 2/3rd of your life somewhere else is that really “home?” Not to mainstays Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, who decided to jump to an unnamed fashion competition series on Prime Video instead (another Jennifer Salke win).

Romantic Comedies find new life on Netflix
Before “Crazy Rich Asians” became a summer sensation the romantic comedy was already breathing new life. Genres come and go, however, and after years of disinterest, this one found a pulse on, of all places, Netflix. Some of the streaming services biggest hits (at least according to social media and independent tracking services) this past year have been romcoms. From the critically acclaimed “Set it Up” to “To All the Boys I Loved Before” (which just got a sequel) to “Ibiza,” the service served a niche that viewers had a hard time finding in theaters. However, “niche” may not be the appropriate term to use, as the studio claims that 80 million viewers watched one of their summer rom-coms.

MoviePass becomes a s**tshow
The service which offered multiple movie tickets for a discounted monthly price had been around since 2011, but after being acquired by analytics firm Helios and Matheson in 2017, it lowered its monthly rate to $9.95 a month. This allowed users to see as many movies as they wanted at a price lower than just one movie ticket in most cities. The idea was to grow the user base and sell that demographic info (something users would agree to up front) to advertisers. Consumers jumped at the opportunity, and by June the company announced they had 3 million subscribers, an increase of 2.6 million from September. Unfortunately, MoviePass’ business model couldn’t handle the financial drain of so many members and so little interest in their demographic info (data studios have received from more reliable sources for decades). They reportedly lost $40 million in May and had to borrow money to keep running after what they told customers were service interruptions. The summer saw the company’s offerings change every few weeks. There were now films that were blacked out (often the most popular), and users went from having unlimited ticket options to just three free tickets a month and then up to six. The constant change in company policies saw the service lose over a million users by the end of September.  MoviePass is still around, but the current management has tarnished the brand so much it’s hard to see it lasting much longer.