Disney CFO Responds To Activist Investor Call For ESPN Spinoff: “We Like The Hand We Have”

David Benedict Jonathan Spector’s 2018 comedy “Eureka Day” first attracted attention in productions in Berkeley and Brooklyn. But in its sharp U.K. premiere starring Helen Hunt, this often very funny satire about parental attitudes to an outbreak of mumps has suddenly leapt into focus — since it’s really about fiercely personal, highly politicized responses to enforced vaccination. This depiction of over-articulate parents fighting it out in initially polite then savage dialogue (now playing at the Old Vic in London) owes a huge debt to Yasmina Reza’s more caustic “The God of Carnage,” but anyone searching for proof that timing is everything need look no further. “You can always spot a Eureka Day kid because at soccer games they’re the ones who cheer when the other team scores.” So says Carina (ideally poised Susan Kelechi Watson), the parent new to the private California school which gives the play its otherwise obscure title. Attracted by the school’s dedication to its “social justice component,” Carina has been newly elected to the executive board, whose deliberations in a perkily-colored children’s schoolroom form the play.

Qatar, which has laws that criminalise homosexuality, will host the football World Cup later this year. But, English Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham claims he has been told Qatar police will not arrest LGBTQI fans for holding hands or kissing in public at the World Cup. The country has faced questions about its human rights records, treatment of migrant workers and homophobic laws ahead of the World Cup. Homosexuality in Qatar  is illegal.

A next-level Bravo crossover. Over the years, Below Deck viewers have been surprised with cameos from some of the biggest Real Housewives stars.

Former Arsenal forward Paul Merson has admitted that he is 'shocked' Luke Shaw has been included in the latest England squad by Gareth Southgate.

Nick Cannon has welcomed his ninth child, a baby girl named Onyx Ice Cole Cannon. It is his first child with model LaNisha Cole.  Nick Cannon shares his son, Golden Cannon, with Britney Bell.

Jason Sudeikis and Ted Lasso were the big winners of the 2022 Emmy Awards!

Jason Sudeikis tonight claimed his third Emmy, with the award recognizing his lead performance on Apple TV+’s hit series, Ted Lasso. (Watch his acceptance speech above.)

Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has told NME about how the creation of the band’s upcoming tenth album ‘Asphalt Meadows’ made them “feel like a new band”, while also revealing that one of the album’s tracks took 25 years to complete.The band are releasing their follow-up to 2018’s ‘Thank You For Today’ this Friday (September 16) via Atlantic, and so far it has been previewed by the singles ‘Foxglove Through The Clearcut’, ‘Roman Candles’ and ‘Here To Forever’.Work on what would become ‘Asphalt Meadows’ began prior to the pandemic, but Gibbard told NME that the opportunity that was given to the band to “get off the touring treadmill” during the COVID lockdowns changed the album they were making for the better.“I remember specifically saying to my wife, at some point in January 2020, ‘I just wish I had a year off’,” the singer recalled. “The band had intermittent things planned that year, but there were a couple of own goals I had [made] too.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek is opening up about ESPN as activist investor Daniel Loeb had been pressuring the company to spin off the sports network.

reported Sunday.“We have a better understanding of ESPN’s potential as a standalone business and another vertical for Disney to reach a global audience to generate ad and subscriber revenues,” Loeb tweeted Sunday. “We look forward to seeing Mr.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Activist investor Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point has backed off his proposal from last month for Disney to divest itself of ESPN in order to devote even more resources to content creation for streaming platforms. Loeb sent two Twitter messages early Sunday morning that amounted to an olive branch to Disney and its CEO Bob Chapek. Loeb said he had gained a “better understanding” of Disney’s plans to more deeply integrate ESPN into its direct-to-consumer operations and the emerging Disney bundle of channels. The social media missive signals that Loeb will not step up his public pressure on Disney and seek to field an alternative slate of directors at the company’s annual meeting next spring.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor “You should see the backstage,” actor Diego Luna told the D23 Expo crowd Saturday morning as he talked up his new “Star Wars”-branded Disney+ series “Andor” to the 5,000 faithful fans who packed the Anaheim Convention Center. The assembly of boldface names that were brought out at the three-day Disney fan event for a wave and brief chat about upcoming projects was a visual representation of the breadth of content produced by the studio these days. The list of boldface names included Harrison Ford, Angela Bassett, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, Don Cheadle, Owen Wilson, Zoe Saldana, Giancarlo Esposito, Christian Slater, Pedro Pascal, Gael Garcia Bernal, Anthony Ramos and more.The star power on display was impressive and so was the brand power that Disney flexed during D23 Expo by releasing dozens of trailers, teasers and first looks at content bound for Disney+ and theaters in the coming year. The rapid-fire delivery of “Coming Soon” messages was music to the ears of Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who has been telling investors and others that Disney+’s has yet to fully hit its stride in content delivery because of pandemic disruptions.

Since the mid-1980s, William Gibson has set a precedent for heady SF novels, with “Neuromancer” and its “Sprawl” trilogy being the ur-texts of cyberpunk. So, how have William Gibson‘s novels never crossed over to movies and TV? Maybe because Gibson’s speculative fiction is too hard to translate to a broad appeal.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Adding to its slate of auteurs from all over the world, Raphael Berdugo’s Cité Films has boarded “The Fire Doll,” from Chilean director-to-track Niles Atallah (“Rey”) and “Left Over,” from San Sebastian Gold Shell winning Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu (“Pandora’s Box”). Produced by Catalina Vergara at Chile’s Globo Rojo Films, “The Fire Doll” (“La muñeca de fuego”) is one of the 14 projects to be pitched at this month’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of the Spanish festival’s centerpiece industry events. Atallah, whose second film, “Rey,” won a Rotterdam Special Jury Prize in 2017, turns in “The Fire Doll” to the transformation process experienced by a 9-year-old girl, Aurora, who loses part of her memory and goes to her the countryside to spend Easter wither father, an alcoholic in remission.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is back!