Disney TV Marketing Chief Shannon Ryan on Working at Unprecedented Scale and ‘Being the Storytellers for Our Storytellers’

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Paramount Global goes back to playing the field this week with two suitors still pursuing the company that has been surrounded by a highly public M&A drama for months. And it’s unlikely to end any time soon. The company reached the end of its 30-day exclusive negotiating window with Skydance Media on May 3 without coming to an agreement.

Drake and Kendrick Lamar have fired brand new diss tracks in the latest series of developments in their feud.Yesterday (May 3), Kendrick dropped his latest diss track against Drake ‘6:16 in LA‘, but now, the pair have traded blows with new diss tracks within an hour of each other, beginning with Drake’s ‘Family Matters’.On the track, Drake sent more shots towards Lamar and his wife Whitney Alford, rapping: “You the black messiah wifing up a mixed queen / And hit vanilla cream to help out with your self-esteem / On some Bobby shit I wanna know what Whitney need / All that puppy love was over in your late teens”.Along with dissing Lamar, Drake took aim at The Weeknd (“a drugged out little punk sissy from the northside“), A$AP Rocky (“Gassed cause you hit my BM first n***a do the math who I was hitting then“) and Rick Ross (“What the fuck I heard Rick drop n***a / Talking something ’bout a nose job n***a“).Drake finally ended his track with a bombshell accusation against Lamar: “They hired a crisis management team to clean up the fact that you beat up your queen/The picture you painted ain’t what it seems”An hour later, Lamar quickly fired back with his own track ‘Meet The Grahams’, which saw the Compton musician address every family member of Drake (real name Aubrey Graham).He began his track by speaking to Drake’s son Adonis: “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest / It takes a man to be a man, your dad is not responsive / I look at him and wish your grandpa woulda wore a condom / I’m sorry that you gotta grow up and then stand behind him”.To Drake’s father Dennis, Lamar said: “You raised a horrible fuckin’ person/The nerve of you, Dennis,” in which he then spoke to Drake’s mother Sandra,

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The Samsung TV Plus platform has logged steady growth as a distribution platform for entertainment and lifestyle content during the past five years. Now, the South Korean electronics giant is putting a bigger spotlight on the potential of its device-based footprint, which encompasses more than 630 million TV sets, smartphones and other devices sold across 24 countries.

Peter Andre has expressed his fondness for a unique name as he decides what to call his newborn daughter.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor After helping to transform a soccer team and a town in Wales, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have set their sights on central Mexico as the next spot to invest in a beloved local sports franchise. Reynolds and McElhenney have purchased a stake in Club Necaxa, the century-old Mexican soccer club that also counts Eva Longoria among its owners. The pair will work with Longoria and fellow investors Al Tylis and Sam Porter to enhance Club Necaxa’s standing and grow its profile in international sports circles at a time of heightened TV and streaming demand for soccer content.

Casting for Netflix’s reality competition series Squid Game: The Challenge was a unique challenge: finding 456 diverse and international lead characters.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor IATSE negotiators are bracing for the next phase of contract negotiations with Hollywood’s major studios and streamers after the conclusion this week of talks with all 13 West Coast local union on the craft-specific aspects of a new master contract. On Monday, IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will shift the focus of negotiations to wages, residuals, working conditions and the use of artificial intelligence in production.

Lady Gaga cemented her status as one of music’s biggest voices and Hollywood’s brightest stars with her role in 2018′s A Star is Born.

Variety’s Entertainment Marketing Summit in Los Angeles, presented by Deloitte, brought together more than 600 marketing professionals, executives, creators and influencers for a daylong event that examined all aspects of marketing as a discipline at a time of massive transition in the entertainment business. Here are the highlights from the event, held April 24 at the Beverly Hilton.

Karen Idelson With the pandemic in media executives’ rearview mirrors, media trends are still emerging at the speed of sound, and this year’s Variety Entertainment Marketing Summit, presented by Deloitte, will spotlight the strategies of top industry marketers. The event will take place April 24 in Los Angeles.

Manchester United and Chelsea are reportedly battling it out to sign RB Leipzig centre-back Castello Lukeba.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music City Parks Foundation has announced the 2024 season of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, New York City’s iconic outdoor performing arts festival, bringing 85 free and benefit shows to Central Park and 13 neighborhood parks across the five boroughs. Andra Day, Ethel Cain, Ghostface Killa and Kim Gordon are just four of the artists slated to perform.

A small piece of contemporary cinema history was written last night in St Andrews, Scotland when Steven Soderbergh sat down with Joe and Anthony Russo on stage at the Sands International Film Festival to discuss their 2002 collaboration Welcome to Collinwood. 

EXCLUSIVE: The ancient Scottish town of St Andrews was hit with a heavy bout of  Spidey fever this past weekend as the third annual Sands International Film Festival opened, pulling in an eclectic set of films, filmmakers, and speakers alongside one popular guest of honor. 

Tom Holland has confirmed that he is definitely returning for a fourth instalment in his run of Spider-Man films.The actor has portrayed the superhero in three lead entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date (2017’s Homecoming, 2019’s Far From Home and 2021’s No Way Home), as well as appearing in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.And now, during an appearance at the Sands International Film Festival in St. Andrews, Scotland, Holland has said that he will be returning in the next MCU Spider-Man movie.“The simple answer is that I’ll always want to do Spider-Man films,” Holland said. “I owe my life and career to Spider-Man.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot points, including the ending, of “Abigail,” currently playing in theaters. The vampire thriller “Abigail” originated as a modern-day update of the classic horror film “Dracula’s Daughter.” But by the time the filmmaking trio Radio Silence — producer Chad Villella and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — began production on “Abigail” in Ireland in the spring of 2023, the movie had virtually no connection to the 1936 Universal picture.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Gov. Phil Murphy has made TV and film a top priority for New Jersey ever since he took the helm of the Garden State in 2018. This week, Murphy made a West Coast swing to talk artificial intelligence with firms in the Bay Area and to talk new business with studios in Hollywood.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Netflix launched four new movie titles into the Luminate streaming originals top 10 movies list for the April 12-18 frame, led by “Woody Woodpecker Goes to College” and Swedish drama “Stolen.” Among streaming original TV series, Amazon Prime Video saw “Fallout” spike to more than 5 million views in its first full week in release. Netflix had sleeper successes with true-crime drama “Baby Reindeer” and docu-series “Unlocked: A Jail Experiment.” Documentary film “What Jennifer Did” saw a 696% week-to-week bounce in its first full week in release to 674.2 million minutes watched, or about 7.7 million views. “Woody Woodpecker” was a distant second with 290.8 million minutes watched, or about 2.9 million views.

Tom Holland and his brother Harry Holland were pictured arriving at the opening night of the Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews. The Scottish film festival is set to take place over three days.

The Directors Guild of America said Thursday that it will hold its 77th annual DGA Awards on February 8, 2025 at the Beverly Hilton.