movies

WGA Responds To David Ellison’s Threat To Pull Paramount From CA

Published

5 minutes ago

August 12, 2026

As expected, the Writers Guild of America has not taken kindly to Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison‘s latest threat to pull the storied studio out of California if state AG Rob Bonta refuses to settle an antitrust suit to block the planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

“By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community,” the guild said in a statement to Deadline on Tuesday afternoon. “This type of behavior is precisely why the merger should be blocked.”

The WGA is also suing to block the merger. That lawsuit, filed jointly by the WGA East and West in the Northern District of California, seeks to stop the $110 billion acquisition on the grounds that it violates federal antitrust law and would cause specific harm to writers.

The writers opted to file their own suit rather than join Bonta and a group of 20 state Attorneys General in their case in order to target labor-specific concerns the AGs’ action doesn’t cover — though the cases are related and have been assigned to the same judge.

Bonta’s case is set to go to trial in federal court in the Northern District of California March 2027. He’s already responded to Ellison’s threats as well, calling it “another attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through.”

Ellison made his comments to the company’s top executives at a meeting last week, affirming that he will start the process of exiting California on October 1, unless Bonta negotiates a settlement. October 1 is the day Paramount starts to accrue a so-called ticking fee of $7 million a day agreed to in the WBD deal terms if the transaction hasn’t closed by then. Paramount had asked the judge for a November trial date.

movies

‘Mel Brooks’ Documentary Directors Judd Apatow & Michael Bonfiglio

Published

52 minutes ago

August 11, 2026

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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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National CineMedia To Acquire Ad Platform Captivate For $275 Million

Published

1 hour ago

August 11, 2026

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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.

movies

Crunchyroll Acquires Makoto Shinkai’s Next Feature Film

Published

2 hours ago

August 11, 2026

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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.