End of Week Production Notes

Happy October and Happy IATSE Strike Authorization Vote Day! It’s a new month with some new news, although most of us will have to wait until Monday to learn the results for the above vote, which is likely to have results by Monday, or at least that’s the plan. IATSE enters its last round of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) after the vote, which could lead to […]

As much of this week has been all about the negotiations between IATSE and AMPTP breaking down and the call for a strike authorization that will happen next week, the sad news came in over the week about two deaths from the world of film: an absolute cinematic icon and legend in Mr. Melvin Van Peebles, who died at the age of 89 on Tuesday, and also, the death at 65 of greatly-respected […]

A (thankfully) quieter last couple days leads us into another weekend, the actual last weekend of summer since the fall starts next week. On top of that, the 72nd annual Emmys are coming up this Sunday, following the Creative Arts Emmys over three ceremonies last weekend, but in advance, the Television Critics Association handed out its annual TCA Awards, which were non-gender specific, but also were heavily weighed towards streamers HBO Max, Apple […]

It’s Friday again, and here’s some of the news that’s been circulating through the industry over the past couple days. We’re just going to wade into the massive amount of news with some GOOD news, because there’s been so much bad news over the past few weeks. Earlier this week, actor Bob Odenkirk returned to work on Better Call Saul after suffering heart attack on set roughly two months ago. The 58-year-old Emmy winner tweeted […]

It’s the end of another week and with Labor Day on Monday, it’s the ersatz end of summer, at least for the movie season, as Marvel Studios‘ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hopes to give the box office a much-needed boost. (It made $8.8 million in Thursday previews and is looking likely to make $60 million plus over the four-day weekend.) Meanwhile, the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals are already underway as […]

We’re coming up on another weekend, and it’s a weekend with only one new wide theatrical release in Nia DaCosta‘s horror sequel, Candyman, for Universal Pictures — you can read my review of that here. Over the past couple days, there hasn’t been a ton of news and nothing particularly ground-breaking other than a report that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Letitia Wright, who plays T’Challa’s sister Shuri, retained minor injuries in a stunt rig “incident.” The […]

Looks like we’re going to be starting out today’s End of Week Production Notes with some late-breaking news as Jeopardy! Exec. Producer and recently-named new host for the game show, Mike Richards, is stepping down after a full week of disturbing revelations about offensive comments Richards made on his appropriately-named podcast, The Randumb Show, in 2013 and 2014. This is the letter he sent to his team: Dear Team, It pains me that […]

It’s Friday the 13th, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that today’s column filled with all bad news… at least, let’s hope not. Hopefully, you’ve read Neil Turitz‘s “The Accidental Turitz” column with his thoughts on the search for a new host for Jeopardy! after the tragic death last year of Alex Trebek. Little did we know when we posted the column, that we would get word of a new host (or rather hosts) […]

Thanks God It’s Friday! This week has seemed longer than usual, but since there’s been so much bad news over the past few weeks, we wanted to start today’s news wrap-up with something more joyous, at least for fans of the recently-canceled NBC musical series Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. It was canceled just a few weeks after its Season 2 finale, while releasing the cast from their contracts in order to allow the show to possibly find a […]

The biggest news that’s been shaking up the industry over the past 24 hours is that Scarlett Johansson is suing Walt Disney Studios over its decision to release Black Widow concurrently on Disney+ with Premier Access (for $29.99) on the same day as its theatrical release, back on July 9.  This decision was announced months prior, but Disney decided to double down by announcing that the movie pulled in $60 million through the Disney+ initiative on […]