movies
California AG Rob Bonta Open To Structural Remedies In Paramount-WBD Suit
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he’s open to structural remedies to resolve a lawsuit to block the Paramount-WBD merger but not to “behavioral” remedies that are hard to enforce, like David Ellison’s pledge the combined company will release 30 movies a year.
“There’s ways where the issue could be resolved with potentially structural remedies, he said during a Q&A at a Politico conference. “Paramount-Warner Brothers are going to have to make business decisions for themselves.”
Asked if there are settlement currently, he said, “I think they’re eager to enter those talks. And we are very happy with where we are. Literally, on in every development in this case, we have won and they have lost. … If they, in good faith and sincerely, want to talk about settlement with us, of course we will be open to any proposals.”
Bonta led a group of State Attorneys General in the antitrust suit that’s set to go to court in March. It alleges three areas where the $111 billion merger threatens competition – wide releases films, blockbuster films and cable programming. His appearance follows news that Ellison told his top executives that he is planning to start the process of moving Paramount out of California starting Oct. 1 if the AG refuses to start settlement talks.
Bonta defined structural remedies as “keeping certain corporate entities separate … in the markets that we have challenged in our complaint. That’s what we’re interested in. We’ve heard a lot about what we call behavioral remedies … A promise to behave in a certain way in the future. A promise to make a certain amount of movies, for example, in a given year. That’s a behavioral remedy. Those are typically not enforceable in the way that we like. Not particularly good at solving the problem.
The CEOs of the nation’s two largest theater chains are backing the merger and Ellison has pledged that the combined company will release 30 films a year.
“That is an old stale promise. I’ve heard about that before. It doesn’t really vibe, in my humble opinion, with what the market will dictate and what history has shown, the AG said.
Bonta also dismissed having Paramount-WBD divest CNN as a remedy, because “the lawsuit is not political.” The Ellison camp has indicated that that it believes the suit is, in fact, political and aimed at keeping CBS and CNN from combing together under the Ellisons.
“What Mr. Ellison has posited is false. Yesterday, false. Today, false. Tomorrow, false. All day, every day … That is not what this case is about.” He said the suit has “little, if any, mention of CNN.”
“Of course, I am a person who has chosen a life in public service. I am a proud participant in our American democracy. Of course, I care about the free press and independent press. I believe that we need truth seekers and truth tellers in the press. I believe the press should not be bullied by people in power. I believe that the press should be able to hold the powerful accountable, do investigative journalism, tell stories, and inform the American public so they can make decisions for themselves. That is a separate view that I have. That is not related to our bread and butter, meat and potatoes, black and white antitrust case.”
“This is an antitrust merger to do what antitrust law does, which is make sure that prices are fair, make sure that jobs are not cut, wages aren’t reduced, make sure that there’s choice, quality, competition.”
“If Paramount and Warner Brothers wants to propose a settlement that involves real, robust structural remedies that address the concerns in the markets that we’ve identified in our complaint, we will listen.”
Paramount’s chief legal officer Makan Delrahim will be speaking at the conference later this afternoon.
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movies
‘Mel Brooks’ Documentary Directors Judd Apatow & Michael Bonfiglio
For over 75 years, Mel Brooks has been making people laugh. Hard. He’s brought to the screen Mongo, Lili Von Shtüpp, the grandson of a certain mad scientist (aka Young Frankenstein), Frau Blücher (“A little Ovaltine, perhaps?), Louis XVI (“It’s good to be the king”), Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom, Barf, Dark Helmet, President Skroob, Yogurt, and so many others.
The comedy icon, who turned 100 years old on June 28, is the focus of the two-part HBO documentary Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! (released as he approached the century mark), directed by Emmy winners Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio. It’s got six Primetime Emmy Awards nominations — tied for the most of any nonfiction project — including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program.
Apatow and Bonfiglio join the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss their profile of one of the greatest comedy minds of this or any century (his career really got started in the aughts – the original aughts — two millennia ago as the 2000 Year Old Man). The filmmakers tell us how they got Brooks to drop the veil to allow a glimpse at the man behind the laughs – how Sid Caesar paid Brooks out of his own pocket to write for Your Show of Shows, how he foresaw that his future lay not in TV but in films, his remarkable lifelong friendship with Carl Reiner, and his magnificent love affair with fellow Oscar winner Anne Bancroft.
Apatow explains how he approached interviews with the legend – and why he feared Mel might yell “cut” at any moment. The writer-director, himself one of comedy’s great talents, explores how Brooks worked around Warner Bros executives who wanted him to dump so many of the best parts of Blazing Saddles before the film’s theatrical release (“Lose Mongo punching the horse,” was just one ill-considered imperative from the exec).
Apatow and Bonfiglio also get into how Brooks managed to skewer racism, Nazism and other “isms” without ever losing sight of the key objective – to make it funny. And they opine on who, along with Brooks, belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Comedy – were such a thing to exist.
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
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movies
National CineMedia To Acquire Ad Platform Captivate For $275 Million
National CineMedia has agreed to buy Captivate Holdings, a leading operator of digital video elevator and lobby advertising in North America, from PE firm Generation Partners for $275 million.
Combining NCM’s cinema advertising with Captivate’s footprint will make it a major player in premium video and digital out-of-home advertising with more than 48,000 screens across theaters, office buildings and residential properties in 185 DMAs, including all of the top 100.
“This acquisition marks an important milestone in NCM’s evolution and represents a key next step in our strategy to build a market-defining premium video and digital out-of-home advertising platform,” said CEO Tom Lesinski.
He called Captivate “an excellent platform that strategically complements and expands our core expertise in connecting advertisers with highly sought-after audiences in premium, high-attention video-enabled environments.”
Captivate operates over 26,000 digital video screens across more than 11,000 office and residential buildings in the U.S. and Canada.
The combination create a larger pool of premium digital out-of-home national, local, and programmatic inventory across cinema, office and residential buildings and will enhance NCM’s data, targeting, and measurement capabilities.
Publicly-traded National CineMedia also reported second quarter earnings Tuesday afternoon. Net losses narrowed to $9.9 million from $10.7 million on revenue up 13% at $58.4 million. The stock is down 16% in late trading at $3.20.
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movies
Crunchyroll Acquires Makoto Shinkai’s Next Feature Film
Crunchyroll has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Makoto Shinkai‘s next feature film. The distribution will exclude Asia, except for India.
Plot details, along with the title and release date for Shinkai’s next film, are not being disclosed at this time.
Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures previously partnered on the global distribution of Shinkai’s Suzume (2023), which grossed over $300 million worldwide and received critical acclaim, including a Golden Globe nomination.
Shinkai’s other films include Your Name (2016) and Weathering With You (2019). Your Name was a success, becoming one of the highest-grossing anime films of all time, while Weathering With You became Japan’s official submission for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.
The filmmaker was born in Nagano Prefecture in 1973. In 2002, Shinkai’s self-produced short film Voices of a Distant Star won several awards. Two years later, Shinkai’s first full-length movie, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, premiered and went on to win the Best Animated Film at the 59th Mainichi Film Concours.
Shinkai’s other animated films include 5 Centimeters per Second (2007), Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011), and The Garden of Words (2013).
Suzume is Shinkai’s most recent film, which went on to win Best Film at the 8th Annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards. The film follows Suzume Iwato, a 17-year-old high school girl who meets a mysterious young man, Souta, who closes doors to the Ever-After before disasters can be released upon Japan. Her actions unintentionally turn Souta into a three-legged chair by the mischievous cat Daijin, sending Suzume on a journey to rescue Souta and prevent further disasters.
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