Author: Deadline

Paramount Skydance seems to be nearing a deal to secure funding from three Gulf nation sovereign wealth funds to back its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a Sunday report in the Wall Street Journal. Per the outlet, the corporation is seeking signed equity commitments of close to $24 billion, for which Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has agreed to contribute approximately $10 billion. The talks, which also involve Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co., may result in a signed agreement as soon as Monday. The move comes after Democratic lawmakers expressed national security concerns…

It’s officially official: The Writers Guild of America has agreed to a tentative new four-year contract with the studios and streamers, said the Greg Hessinger-led Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the guild tonight. The shocker deal, which was on very few people’s Holy Week and/or Passover bingo card, could prove transformative for how Hollywood labor works, literally and figuratively. “The AMPTP has reached a tentative agreement with the WGA,” a spokesperson for the group said tonight. “We look forward to building on this progress as we continue working toward agreements that support long-term industry stability.” Mum on…

Blake Lively made very clear today: the lady is not for turning. That’ seems especially true when it comes to taking Justin Baldoni to trial for what may have gone down on It Ends With Us and in the aftermath. “Don’t be distracted by the digital soap opera,” the actress proclaimed Friday. A day after seeing the sexual harassment claim dropped from her lawsuit against her IEWU co-star Baldoni and his inner circle, and six weeks before the trial starts, Lively said that she “will never stop doing my part in fighting to expose the systems and people who seek…

Although Miranda Priestley earned 20th Century Fox more than $326 million worldwide, The Devil Wears Prada had to fight for its budget. Meryl Streep recently recalled how the 2006 movie’s classification as a “chick flick” made it difficult to pull together a budget for the David Frankel-helmed adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s novel. “Twenty years ago, it was categorized as a ‘chick flick,’ and that designation has kind of not worn well after Barbie and Mamma Mia!—to throw that in—and other films that completely catch the studios by surprise that people want to see them, because they have girls in the…

EXCLUSIVE: The DOXA Documentary Film Festival – Western Canada’s largest nonfiction film showcase – today announced the lineup for its 25th anniversary edition. The festival, running April 30-May 10 in Vancouver, will open with live cinematic performance piece Bella Sutra, directed and narrated by OK Pedersen and accompanied by musicians Eden Glasman and Jakob Tokarczyk. It’s described as “a personal essay about life as an innkeeper in Bella Coola, BC. With honesty and levity, the piece reflects on our current communication crisis, the rural/urban philosophical divide, and the myth of progress.” The festival’s Mid-Week Gala presentation will be the BC…

EXCLUSIVE: Plan B Europe, the recently launched London-based subsidiary of Brad Pitt’s L.A.-based Plan B Entertainment, is expanding its team with two key producer hires. Former Sony Pictures Television International exec Maria Fleischer joins as Executive Producer, while Charlie Silver arrives from House Productions to take up the role of Development Producer. The hires come seven months after the subsidiary was launched with Baby Reindeer producer Ed Macdonald at the helm. The pair will support the subsidiary’s founding mission to develop and produce projects in the UK and across Europe. Fleischer was previously at Sony Pictures Television International as VP,…

EXCLUSIVE: Damian Abraham, frontman of punk band F*cked Up, and former CBC producer Zach Feldberg have launched Cut & Paste Pictures out of Toronto, Canada. The company has been quietly operating since last year and now officially debuts with a development slate spanning, scripted, unscripted and a documentary that’s currently in production. The slate is being geared toward authored voices rooted in music, counterculture and “outsider perspectives,” according the co-founders, who named their company due to their DIY approach to creativity. Cut & Paste is currently in pre-production on a feature-length documentary about the unlikely lifelong friendship between Rise Against…

Rob Schneider wrote in a social post over the weekend that he believes the United States should reinstate a military draft system.  “We must once again recommit ourselves to one nation under God, indivisible,” Schneider said. “Therefore, we must restore the military draft for our nation’s young people. Each and every American, at 18 years of age, must serve two years of military service. They could also choose to serve part of that time overseas or in the country in a volunteer capacity.” Schneider continued to write that American citizenship comes with “unparalleled freedoms and opportunities,” which are the “envy of…

David Alan Grier has some regrets about certain casting choices. The St. Denis Medical star recently appeared on NBC’s Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, where he addressed why he passed on roles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Seinfeld. “I passed on it because it was a bad script,” the Tony winner and Grammy-nominated musician said of the 1994 comedy film. “What I didn’t see is what Jim [Carrey] saw, which was, ‘Can I do anything?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ So he had total freedom. He took that script and he reinvented it. And that’s why it was so successful.”  While…

Although Antonio Banderas has led a versatile onscreen career, he experienced ethnic stereotyping and typecasting early in his career. The Oscar nominee recently recalled being told he could only play “bad guys” due to Hispanic ethnicity, which is why he’s proud of breaking out of that box with his roles in the Zorro and Shrek franchises. “They said, you are here, like the blacks and the Hispanics, to play the bad guys,” Banderas recalled to The Times. “The problem was a few years later I had a mask, hat, sword and cape and the bad guy was Captain Love, who…