Given the steep downturn in Amazon’s stock price and stiff operational challenges ahead, Michael Batnick, Managing Partner at Ritholtz Wealth Management, says Jeff Bezos will move back into the corner office. He pins the prediction mainly on the company’s depressed shares, which have lost nearly $1 trillion in market value and halved the personal net worth of the company's founder. Under current CEO Andy Jassy, who took over for Bezos in mid-2021, Amazon’s financial glide path during Covid gave way to turbulence as inflation and a host of other economic factors conspired against it. “There are a lot of cross-currents that Amazon is facing, no doubt about it,” Batnick said. >>> The Return Of The King? |
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| Deadline Exclusives & Originals |
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‘Up’ Oscar Winner’s Feature Directing Debut - (Exclusive) Oscar-winning Up composer Michael Giacchino will make his big-screen directing debut with a reboot of the 1954 giant-ants movie Them! at Warner Bros. “There’s always a movie in your mind that never leaves your head,” Giacchino tells Deadline. “For me, that’s Them! It wasn’t until much later in life until I learned what it was about — the nuclear age… The current version of Them! is about immigration, and to tell a story about the subject through a lens of this insane science fiction monster movie.” >>> Ants Man
Channel 4 Chief Praises Ditching Of Sale -Alex Mahon, CEO of UK TV network Channel 4, praised the government's decision to call off a potential sale of the network to private buyers as “smart and sensible.” Speaking to Deadline, she said a key element was a proposal to allow the network to produce shows in-house, which would let it own the rights to its shows for the first time. >>> Controversy Over Privatization
Ari Emanuel’s Dana White Conundrum - CEO Ari Emanuel often has staked out a moral high ground as he built Endeavor, most recently calling out companies doing business with Kanye West and famously cutting ties with WME client Mel Gibson in 2010 after racist slurs. Now, he faces a conundrum at his company’s crown jewel, UFC, whose longtime CEO Dana White was seen on a rather shocking leaked video smacking his wife on New Year’s Eve. >>> Silence So Far
Disney+ Preps Shardlake Series - (Exclusive) Disney+ is ready to give the greenlight to an adaptation of CJ Sansom’s bestselling Shardlake novels, depicting an unlikely detective working under Henry VIII’s reign. The streaming service will bolster its UK originals slate with the series, which will be made by The Forge, the All3Media-backed production company behind Starz’s Becoming Elizabeth. >>> On The Case
Operation: Tradebom Podcast Set - (Exclusive) The 1993 World Trade Center bombing is to be the subject of Apple’s latest original podcast series, Operation: Tradebom, from Marc Smerling, producer of Capturing the Friedmans and The Jinx . The series will follow the events leading up to and following the then-largest improvised explosive device detonated on American soil. It will also detail a history of modern terrorism, starting in Cairo in 1981 and ending in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. >>> In The Works For A Year
Lionsgate International SVP Marc Lorber Exits - (Exclusive) Marc Lorber, Lionsgate’s SVP International TV Co-Productions and Acquisitions, has exited the studio after almost a decade. The news emerged a day after Lionsgate revealed that Starz International President Superna Kalle is exiting, replaced by Darren Nielson at the helm of Lionsgate+ internationally. >>> Time Of Change |
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THE DEADLINE INTERVIEW
'1923' Star James Badge Dale On Episode's Shocker Ending: "I Left Something In That Dirt" |
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SPOILIER ALERT: A rousing gunfight between the Dutton crew and some local sheep owners led to a shocking conclusion Sunday on 1923, with one major member of the famed ranch taking a fatal hit. That’s right, Taylor Sheridan fans: No one is safe from his fictitious bullets, even a prized member of the Dutton family (we’ll never forget you, Dave Annabel’s Leo Dutton from season one of Yellowstone!) In a Q&A with Deadline’s Lynette Rice, James Badge Dale — the actor best known for The Departed — talks about playing John Dutton Sr. for only three episodes and how he knew from the start that his days on 1923 weren’t going to last forever. >>> Read The Interview |
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CASTINGS
EXCLUSIVE: Gillian Vigman is set as a lead opposite Katelyn Tarver in Open Book , Amazon Freevee’s half-hour scripted pilot inspired by Jessica Simpson’s bestselling memoir. Hailing from Tom Kapinos, Patrick Moran’s PKM Productions and Amazon Studios, the project follows pop star Sadie Sparrow’s (Tarver) rise from ingenue to mogul, introducing us to the family, friends, and lovers she collects along the way. Sadie ultimately comes to embrace herself and the fact that her heart inevitably wants what it wants at every stage of life. Vigman will play her mom.
Oliver Queen will team up with Barry Allen one last time in the ninth and final season of The Flash. The CW said Wednesday that Stephen Amell, who starred as the title character in Arrow and also appeared in spinoff The Flash, will return to guest star in Episode 909, joining previously announced David Ramsey (John Diggle aka Spartan), Keiynan Lonsdale (Wally West/Kid Flash) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Ramsey Rosso/Bloodwork). |
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QUOTABLE
“AI technology is here and moving fast, and will only move faster. It is important for entertainment executives to understand this technology and its potential." - CAA Chief Metaverse Officer Joanna Popper |
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More News ❄️ Actor Jeremy Renner posted his first Instagram video since having a serious snowplow accident on New Year's Day. He joked about having an "amazing spa day" in his intensive-care hospital room -- his first shower and shampoo in a week.
🖥 Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday that the company’s recent review will result in the elimination of more than 18,000 jobs, a much higher number of staff reductions than was signaled when the cuts began last November. 💰 James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has crossed the $1 billion mark overseas and $1.5 billion worldwide to become the No. 1 worldwide release of 2022, flying past Top Gun: Maverick. 🐾 Marvel Studios’ smash sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever finally will hit Disney+ on February 1, some 82 days after its U.S. theatrical release. The movie has grossed more than $820 million worldwide.
🗳 Jon Stewart and Julia Louis-Dreyfus had some fun on social media ridiculing the ceaseless GOP vote for Speaker of the House. Your move, Kevin McCarthy.
📚 UTA has acquired Fletcher & Company, a 20-year-old literary agency with a roster of notable fiction and nonfiction authors including Maggie Shipstead, Daniel Mason, Ken Kalfus, Gretchen Rubin and John Carreyrou.
🏢 Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Fox Corp. have signed 20-year renewals of their leases in their longtime shared headquarters in New York at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.
📺 Lifetime is partnering again with Elizabeth Smart on The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story, about a teenager who survived a brutal abduction and ultimately brought down a serial killer.
⏱ A judge told parties to the Cineworld bankruptcy Wednesday that they need to speed things up as debtors and creditors hash out a restructuring plan for the giant movie chain.
📺 After entering the smart-TV sector years ago by licensing its interface and brand, Roku now plans to design and manufacture its own line of TV sets. The streaming giant also released a new tally of active accounts: 70 million worldwide. |
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BY THE NUMBERS
$146.4 Million - The total 2022 box office for Hong Kong, despite its cinemas being closed for four months. The number is down 40% from the market's pre-Covid 2019 take |
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Obituaries
🕯 Kelly Monteith, a stand-up comic and TV personality who was one of the first American comedians to have their own BBC show, has died at 80. A popular guest on U.S. talk shows who also did sitcom work, he hosted The Kelly Monteith Show on CBS and later the network’s hidden camera series The Hit Squad. Multiple spots on The Des O’Connor Show led to him getting his own eponymous sitcom/sketch series, which aired from 1979-84 on the BBC. 🕯 Fay Weldon, a prolific author known her such popular fiction works as The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Praxis, died Wednesday at 91. She wrote 30-plus novels and also several short stories, plays and works for TV, theater and film. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil was adapted for a BBC miniseries in 1986. 🕯 Todd Brian , a longtime production and development executive who worked on a wide array of children’s programming — including HBO Max’s Daytime Emmy-nominated animated series Esme & Roy — died in Toronto “after a very brief but brave battle with ALS,” according to his family. He was 59. 🕯 See the 400-plus influential figures we lost last year in Deadline's 2022 Hollywood & Media Deaths photo gallery. |
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Trending
 New Year’s Eve specials rocked over the weekend, with ABC leading the way over NBC and CBS. CNN topped cable networks despite hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper teetotaling this year.
🔻 Rick Singer, who masterminded the "Varsity Blues" scheme for well-heeled, mostly celebrity parents to bribe their kids’ way into elite colleges, was sentenced to 3½ years in prison and ordered to pay $10 million in restitution. |
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On the Radar
Fri - Midseason returns of Blue Bloods, S.W.A.T. and Young Rock; Season 15 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race
Sun - National Board of Review Awards gala
Mon - Guild awards nominations from art directors, cinematographers and sound editors; College Football Playoff championship game |
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Ike Barinholtz plays Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in History of the World, Part II, Mel Brooks’ sequel to his 1981 romp. Hulu on Wednesday released the first-look photos from the sketch series premiering in the spring. Brooks, Nick Kroll and Wanda Sykes are also appearing in the show. |
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