At first blush, this weekend’s stubborn box office showdown between Warner Brothers’ BARBIE and Universal’s OPPENHEIMER would have appeared to have been nothing more than classic counterprogramming. Yes, both of these stories have their roots in the 1950s. But aside from that, they would not have much else in common. OPPENHEIMER is the true story … Read more
MEMO TO: DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND, NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/CHIEF NEGOTIATOR, SAG-AFTRA FROM: STEVE LEBLANG, CONSULTANT RE: SECOND IMPRESSIONS Dear Mr. Crabtree-Ireland: I must begin by offering you my most humble and complete apologies. The first time I saw you speak, you played the supporting role behind your union president Fran Drescher’s stirring extemporaneous call to action last … Read more
There’s an awful lot of bad news out there in entertainment land. INDIANA JONES and his fedora are limping into the sunset. Ethan Hunt and the IMF ran up far too high a tab to make even their global performance one that has wowed most media pundits. Peacock, the home of so many award-winning original … Read more
So Ethan Hunt and the IMF made a triumphant return to the big screen at last last week, with the much-anticipated and hyped release of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING. It’s the seventh time this supercharged, reinvented IP has been tapped into by Paramount to save the world, let alone its sagging stock price, and given … Read more
I’ve had a little time to digest some of the spirit and energy I saw first-hand on the now joint picket lines of SAG-AFTRA and WGA on Friday. I listened intensely as an actor, being interviewed at length by an outstanding entertainment news reporter I happened to run into chronicle in detail one particular issue … Read more
The first thing one cannot help not notice when you meet Mike Darnell is that he’s, how shall we say, vertically challenged. I’m hardly an imposing figure myself, but I have actually have had to look down when I’ve been huddled in a production truck with Mike, and he wasn’t sitting at the time. The … Read more
So it was only Thursday the 13th, but it was nevertheless a very unfortunate as well as the first truly hot day of the year. SAG-AFTRA indeed struck despite aribitration efforts, and in a lunchtime press conference union president Fran Drescher took to the airwaves and delivered one of the most mspiring and passionate extemporaneous … Read more
As Hollywood awakens to what looms to be, pending an official vote , as the first “double strike” of both writers and actors since yours truly was an infant, there are quite a number of Hollywood executives who owe the world, and certainly union members who directly or indirectly make their livings from them, some … Read more
I keep some strange hours of late. Los Angeles is finally joining a whole lot of the country with a heat wave, and while I’m a bit better off than many (I won’t be experiencing triple digits or ultra-high humidity), the difference is noticeable to me. My body tends to collapse just after lunch and … Read more
One reason I am still so passionate about consumer research is that no matter draconian, desperate and conflated billion dollar companies get about how they try and justify business practices in pursuit of Wall Street cred is that when the end user is finally presented with the option of whether or not they are down … Read more