Ben Fritz
@benfritz
Entertainment industry reporter @wsj. Formerly AI Editor. My podcast: "With Great Power." My book: "The Big Picture." My email: ben.fritz@wsj.com
Paramount landed the next "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie because Wes Craven's estate got the rights back from New Line with help from everyone in LA and SF's favorite lawyer, Marc Toberoff. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Extremely well funded tech startups throwing money at smaller startups to try and lock them in as customers. 🤔 www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-g...
Obviously a very strong opening for "Toy Story 5." But it won't come anywhere close to "Zootopia 2's" $1.87 billion worldwide total. Why?
Something unusual is happening with movie theater operators: For the first time in a long time, they're in a very good mood. www.wsj.com/business/med...
Silk is a totally unfiltered quote machine. He was a drug dealer before he went to prison, where he started writing urban crime fiction. After success in self-publishing, he turned to filmmaking. And he compares production to his work on the streets:
Is Imax a more meaningful brand for some people than the movies playing on its screens? This is one of the collectable popcorn buckets for "The Odyssey"
I've covered box office results literally hundreds of times in my career. The mind-blowing success of "Backrooms" and "Obsession" this weekend easily ranks in the top 1% as far as long-term significance for the movie business. My story w/ John Jurgensen: www.wsj.com/business/med...
When you cover the entertainment business out of Los Angeles, you don't expect to write a story with a dateline in Carlstadt, NJ. But while production, and employment of production workers, is plummeting across the U.S., it's booming in New Jersey. www.wsj.com/business/med...
Here's a type of email auto-reply from a powerful person I've never seen before.
Interesting insight on Hollywood's content recession from a Bernstein analysis of Disney. This includes spending on sports, but sports rights certainly haven't gotten cheaper in the past few years.
Vin Diesel exaggerating about upcoming Fast & Furious projects?! What's next? The sky will be be blue???
Most big streaming services are plateauing. Sony's Crunchyroll grew nearly 25%(!!!) in the past year. Latest sign of how once-niche anime has become a white-hot business, appealing to young people bored by what Hollywood has to offer. www.wsj.com/business/med...
Big news on the "Miami Vice" movie, the next "Mummy" movie, "Untitled Universal Event Film" and "Untitled Blumhouse Event Film."
When I interviewed producer Graham King about "Michael," he said, "Critics notoriously don't like biopics. You can never win. Let's let the audience talk and see how see how they enjoy it." I guess he saw this coming!
This seems bad if you think employee morale matters. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/behi...
You thought "Michael' was getting terrible reviews, but the Lionsgate marketing team found some great ones on social media.
If you like ads on movie screens, you'll love them in movie theater lobbies! www.ncm.com/post/premium...