City Burbank Showbiz Latest News and Updates

IATSE Grips Local 80 closed its offices in Burbank today after receiving a threatening letter. “Local 80 received a letter threatening harm to our employees,” the local said in an email to members. “Burbank police have been notified, and an officer came to assess.

David Jacobs, who created the smash 1980s primetime soaps Dallas and Knots Landing and was a two-time Emmy nominee for Homefront, died August 20 of Alzheimer’s complications at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his son said Tuesday. He was 86.

Michaela Zee David Jacobs, the creator of the CBS primetime series “Knots Landing,” “Dallas” and “Paradise,” has died. He was 84. Jacobs, who battled Alzheimer’s for several years, died Sunday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor As SAG-AFTRA clocked its 40th day on strike, the union’s chief negotiator has called for leaders of Hollywood’s major studios and streamers to step in to bring the sides to a new deal and get the industry back to work. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive secretary and its chief negotiator, said the union has had outreach from industry insiders who aim to help with basic communication between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

This is Day 113 of the WGA strike and Day 40 of the SAG-AFTRA strike. 

The Writers Guild and the AMPTP didn’t come back to the bargaining table Monday. The two sides last met on Friday, after which the guild told its members that talks would resume sometime this week. The strike is now in its 112th day.

Thania Garcia Musexpo, the international music business and showcase event, will be honoring Jacqueline Saturn, president of Virgin Music, with the international music person of the year award at the special VIP Awards Gala Luncheon on March 19, 2024. The luncheon will feature a special awards honorarium and presentations from the City of Burbank; County of Los Angeles and representatives from the State of California to pay tribute to Jacqueline’s remarkable and indelible career in the music business. The luncheon will also be preceded by an exclusive keynote interview with Saturn which will highlight her personal and professional journey.

Florence Pugh is showing her support amid the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Sony’s Indian TV businesses has been nearly two years in the making, but finally cleared a key regulatory hurdle on Thursday. The combined companies have the potential to create a giant in broadcast TV — a sector that is still paramount in India — and are valued at $10 billion. Last week’s other tremblor was news from Burbank that Disney+ Hotstar, India’s streaming market leader, had lost 12.5 million subscribers, following the loss of key sports rights to a competitor.

William Earl Weeks after delivering anti-strike comments during a fan convention, actor Stephen Amell was spotted on the picket line in New York on Friday. Wearing a black “SAG-AFTRA Strong” and carrying a sign, Amell was on the other side of the country from his former “Arrow” costars and creative team, who struck together in front of Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank during a planned reunion picket.

Editors note: One in a series of stories marking the 100th day of the WGA strike.

This is Day 93 of the WGA strike and Day 20 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

It’s Day 13 of the SAG-AFTRA strike and Day 86 of the WGA strike.

Warner Bros. Discovery is searching for start-up media companies to invest in after launching a new accelerator program.

Mandy Moore is sharing just how much she's received in the "This is Us" streaming deal with Hulu. Moore — who starred as Rebecca on the hit NBC series — has voiced her support of the SAG-AFTRA strike. In a recent interview, Moore opened up about receiving "81 cent" checks for the show's streaming residual deal.

Sophia Scorziello editor It was a special night at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, Calif. celebrating the forces behind some of Hollywood’s beloved animated projects for Variety’s 10 Animators to Watch event. The ceremony and cocktail reception honoring 10 creators in the animation (check out the full list here) field kicked things off with a short welcome from President of Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Ramsey Ann Naito. After an exclusive sneak peak from the soon-to-be-released animated film, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” Naito took the stage welcoming the crowd, “I’ve been in animation my entire career and today I can honestly say it’s bigger, it’s brighter and it’s more inclusive than ever.”

Mandy Moore might be a household name, but that doesn’t mean she’s making a ton of money when fans stream her past work.

Joey King is on the picket lines to fight for a fair deal for all SAG-AFTRA members!

Karen Idelson As the Nickelodeon Animation Studio celebrates its 25th anniversary, it’s clearly blossomed from being a small but formidable toon house to a world-class studio with dozens of productions in process and executive Ramsey Naito at the helm. And Naito’s plans include growing relationships with creators who can speak to Nick’s audience.  In the last five to six years, the studio has expanded to include Nick Animation West (Burbank), Nick Animation East (New York) and offices in Hollywood on the Paramount lot. When Naito was named president of Nickelodeon Animation in 2020 (she has since become president of Paramount Animation as well), there were nine shows in production at the studio. Today there are nearly 70 at a place known for its irreverent, fun and boundary-breaking animation.  

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher will be on the picket lines Friday on the first day of the guild’s strike against the film and television industry. She’ll be joined by Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild’s national executive director and chief negotiator, and members of the guild’s negotiating committee.

A fire has broken out after an explosion was heard on the Warner Bros studio lot in Burbank on Friday.

A new report has revealed what happened during the screen tests for the upcoming DC Studios movie Superman: Legacy.

Editor’s note: Bryn Mathieu lives near one of the studios, where WGA picketing and honking occurs daily. In May, law enforcement in Burbank posted an electronic sign outside of Warner Bros warning drivers that excessive horn use violates 27001 of the California Vehicle Code. The law enforces “reasonably necessary” horn blowing to insure safe operation of other vehicles. Otherwise, “the horn shall not otherwise be used, except as a theft alarm system.”

Melissa McCarthy and the rest of the cast of Gilmore Girls felt the heat when they were filming the show.

US soap The Young And The Restless, where he played police detective Carl Williams. His close friend, photographer Mary Ann Halpin, confirmed the news this week ‘with a heavy heart. ’Taking to Facebook, she announced she had said ‘goodbye to my sweet friend Brett Hadley.

Sophia Scorziello editor Brett Hadley, soap actor who starred as Carl Williams for two decades on “The Young and the Restless,” has died. He was 92. Hadley died on Thursday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, according to his friend Darcy Lee. “We talked about movies and art.. and we laughed a lot! He even made me laugh on his death bed,” wrote Lee in a post. “He waited to pass tonight until my show was over and I walked out of the theatre. He took his last bow as I got into the car to come home. I will miss you terribly Brett Hadley – and thank you for being in my life.”

Big news in specialty this weekend as Asteroid City arrives in theaters with Wes Anderson and his army of fans behind it and a major marketing campaign by Focus Features. The director’s latest opens at six locations in New York and Los Angeles, where Focus has partnered with Landmark for the reopening of Sunset, the five-screen theater it took over from AMC early this year.

It’s safe to say that today’s picket line at Warner Bros in Burbank drew a little more attention than some other days. That’s because newly unionized strippers from North Hollywood turned out to support striking WGA writers — and they brought a pole along.

Melissa McCarthy, who played lovable chef Sookie St. James on all seven seasons, recently opened up about one big downside to filming the mother-daughter dramedy starring Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore and Alexis Bledel as her daughter, Rory Gilmore.Though the show takes place in the fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, it was actually filmed at the Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation has hired Shane Prigmore to serve as Senior Creative Advisor for the newly relaunched film unit under President Bill Damaschke. 

She doesn’t smell snow! Melissa McCarthy starred on Gilmore Girls for seven seasons — but filming the beloved show wasn’t always an easy feat.  

James Dolan’s Sphere Entertainment, which was spun off from MSG Entertainment in April, has opened Sphere Studios, a Burbank facility for producers of immersive projects.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Sphere in Las Vegas isn’t just a round vehicle for a series of fall U2 concerts — it’s also host to an immersive screen of mammoth proportions that will be its own attractions when there aren’t any world-class rock bands taking over the space. And even when they are, someone has still got to come up with the visual content that will be part-and-parcel with any live residency there. That’s where Sphere Studios will come in, a division of Sphere Entertainment Co. that was announced Monday as the provider for what will appear on the venue’s ultimate big screen in Vegas (and those like it that are planned for Spheres to be built in other cities). Also revealed Monday as part of the rollout for Sphere Studios was Big Sky, described as “an ultra-high resolution camera system” that is “the first of the Studios’ many groundbreaking immersive innovations.”

Jon Burlingame On the scoring stage at 20th Century-Fox studios in Burbank, composer Jongnic Bontemps is walking around in a “Transformers: The Movie” T-shirt – that’s the animated cartoon from 1986, not the $200-million summer blockbuster he’s just scored. “Violins, play a little softer,” he tells the musicians via intercom from the glass booth behind the stage. “It has to be emotional.” Later, after a rehearsal on a different cue, he tells the string players, “It needs to feel like a warm blanket.” Bontemps is making movie history. He has just spent two years writing the music for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh in the big-screen franchise, and he’s supervising the recording of the final pieces of the score with a 74-piece orchestra. The film opens Friday.

The day that SAG-AFTRA began its talks with Hollywood studios over its own film and TV contract with a strike authorization in hand, picketing Writers Guild members on Wednesday hit up Disney and Warner Bros in Burbank.

Jason Sudeikis holds on to his sign as he joins the WGA Strike in Los Angeles on Monday (June 5).