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In 2019 it was revealed WB made a lowball offer to AdeIe Lim for writing the sequel's screenplay, so she walked. You wonder if all the other Asian women screenwriters refused to work on it in solidarity (or an implicit threat of blacklisting). Also, Gemma Chan got caught accidentally liking an extremely negative tweet about Constance Wu. The biggest factor was probably the pandemic changing WB priorities.

Previews get separate CinemaScores now? Okay...

Paramount+ has it already, I don't know how much it'll do. It would have been really funny if they'd debuted it theaters on 4/20. It's a Saturday so I know that's not how the release schedule works, but it would have gotten great publicity.

It's going to be this year's, "Wait, Dear Evan Hansen isn't about a gay kid who breaks his arm?" when the trailer gets released. So many ardent stans of the original, but if the trailers hint at the book's story at all, the broader public is going to have some serious questions...

IDK sometimes it takes a few attempts before a nugget of information truly sticks with people and makes them want to "do something". Sometimes the audience isn't receptive at first because the new info goes too far against what they believe about the entity being criticized, or story goes underreported, so it's like yelling into the wind. But a few months or years pass, there's a shift, and suddenly people are willing to listen. In this case I wouldn't be totally stunned if the Very Online critics of Civil War's politics and Garland by extension, catch wind of A24 doing fresh business in Russia and raise a new fuss. And maybe it catches wind now because the crowd that's angry about this movie might be in a "takedown" sort of mood. Not that it'll sink the movie, but the Civil War dissenters have already tried pushing negative stories about it with far less juice than A24 possibly circumventing an economic boycott with geopolitical implications.

Ukrainian Cinema Union Calls Out Lionsgate, A24 and More for Releasing Films in Russia, Claims It Supports ‘Terrorism’ (Variety, May 18 2023): Lionsgate did say they wouldn't do further business in Russia. Third party arrangements are still legal, however... I don't think typical A24 fan would like it at all if they're doing new business in Russia right now...

In awards spaces, people have been saying she's "Blue MAGA" for years. I became disenchanted over a decade ago but recall her misogyny towards younger women in the industry and repeated meltdowns about awards results. Many awards stans display a total inability to understand that tastes differ, so voters liking The King's Speech or Lady Bird or whatever is not part of some nefarious plot—but when being a Oscar pundit is your career, you should really try to keep things professional. Supposedly, the 2016 election outcome was the real breaking point. Some cynics wonder how much of the displayed beliefs are real, versus positioning oneself as an anti-woke "beacon" in a glut of liberal/progressive awards pundits. Blogging doesn't pay like it did in the aughts, but there's a lucrative audience in appealing to right wingers in the culture wars. OTOH, Sasha and Jeff Wells were friendly once and he's been widely loathed for his racial and gender politics even before #MeToo, so maybe she was never as enlightened as her (old) image.

It was the AMC Screen Unseen movie on Monday and it is pretty much Guy Ritchie's Inglourious Basterds. For $5 it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but don't expect anything too deep or rigorous about historical accuracy.

It wasn't a total waste of money—the wedding special got ABC better ratings than reruns, plus it helped advertise the premiere of the (young) Bachelor's newest season later that month. The wedding was also on a Monday, another way to keep down the costs. The show had stopped doing the big wedding specials. By the time the couples actually got married (a year, 18 months later—you know, a sensible timeframe for an engagement), several more seasons of Bachelor content had been pumped out, and fans had moved on, so the ratings stopped being good enough to justify the cost. The Golden Bachelor got the franchise its biggest ratings in years, so ABC wanted to cash in while it was hot. And now they've been burned. The Hollywood Reporter did a Golden Bachelor exposé about his past and he didn't bother to deny the claims really. Fans were all in on him, but with this divorce maybe more dirt will come out.

So many Bachelor fans have lamented how the shows now are just full of wannabe influencers and people there "for the wrong reasons" instead of trying to find love. A cast with seniors was supposed to mean the contestants were more grounded and sensible. Ha! Most Bachelor couples don't work out but the ones that have married were engaged for a year or two first. The Golden Bachelor season didn't even start filming until last August and he's already divorcing the woman he picked in April. The producers probably dangled a bunch of money in front of them for a live TV wedding (and it needed to be in January for promotional reasons). The first Bachelorette couple got $1 million for their wedding special, plus a lavish ceremony all expenses paid. At least they're still married (20 years last December).

This is like the celebrity version of staying on your parents' family cell phone plan even after you've moved out and gotten married. At least his mom wasn't scamming him! Shohei seems to live a pretty sheltered, uneventful life off the field, yet he's still lost millions like the pro athletes who were partying it up and paying hush money to Instagram models.

I'd have figured that any agency/law firm/etc working with such a big-time athlete would hire Japanese speakers just to make him more comfortable and ingratiate themselves with him. Even if it's a contractor rather than someone full-time, make the effort. But Ohtani seems like he'd delegate dealing with money to others even without any language barriers. * The OJ Simpson chase/trial was just such a circus and dominated American culture for a year and a half. I wonder if people who didn't experience it can really understand the scope and craziness of it all. "Nice guy" athlete turned pitchman turned actor OJ a double murderer? The NBA Finals got shoved to the side of the screen to show the freeway chase. Soap operas were often preempted for the televised trial. CNN basically morphed into the OJ Network with the coverage even having its own intro/outro theme music. The trial became a referendum on race and LAPD corruption rather than the killings. Friends, hangers-on and lawyers on both sides became household names, and the judge was most infamously parodied by The Tonight Show's Dancing Itos.

I think announcing on Monday or Tuesday was traditionally meant to give studios a few days to advertise the expanded theatrical release of newly-minted Best Picture nominees, to remind people to go out and watch them that weekend. Now that most nominees are available for home viewing by the time nominations are out anyway, announcing on Friday morning cuts out the lag time. People will hear about what's nominated throughout Friday and just decide to watch it later that night or in the next day or two. There's less chance for some other pop culture thing coming up between Tuesday and Friday to be a distraction from the Oscar nominations.

They're moving ahead of the daylight savings change, which historically tanks live TV ratings for the week. Announcing on Friday is interesting. I always wonder if AMPAS will ever do a nomination TV special like the Grammys.

Teaser trailer: