Netflix Switches To Virtual Upfront Presentation Amid WGA Strike

The first look pics from Netflix‘s upcoming Painkiller series have just been released.

Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over artificial intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

Gabrielle Union is falling for Keith Powers in their upcoming Netflix movie, The Perfect Find.

Squid Game: The Challenge will premiere on the streaming service this yearSquid Game: The Challenge is a reality TV show based on the popular K-drama Squid Game, and will feature contestants competing for a cash prize of $4.56million (£3.65million) in a series of games inspired by the show – without the violent stakes.This week, during Netflix’s first upfronts event in New York, the streaming service revealed that the upcoming reality TV competition will premiere this November.Netflix gave the Squid Game: The Challenge spin-off the greenlight back in June 2022. “The stakes are high, but in this game, the worst fate is going home empty-handed,” the streaming service said in a statement at the time.“Squid Game took the world by storm with Director Hwang’s captivating story and iconic imagery.

The reality competition version of Squid Game is coming later this year.

Six months after the landmark debut of its ad-supported subscription tier, Netflix said the plan has hit 5 million monthly active users globally.

WGA strike.“We are grateful for the contribution writers make to our company and respect their right to demonstrate it may take some time, but I know we will eventually get through this and the result will be a stronger foundation on which we can all move forward together,” Chairman of NBCUniversal Mark Lazarus said during the New York event. Unsurprisingly, the event scaled back on its celebrities, relying on more executives and reality TV stars to introduce its clips and segments.

The NBCUniversal Upfront kicked off a week of events in New York amid a writers strike.

Even without a once-in-a-generation strike or a Twitter bombshell, next week would already pose a challenge to media companies making their annual upfront pitches to ad buyers in New York.

EXCLUSIVE: The WGA East has hit the pause button on two more shows in New York today.

Mandy Patinkin is feeling the rage.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Netflix is backing away from the live-in-New-York showcase it planned to hold for advertisers during the industry’s annual week of “upfront” presentations for advertisers, a move that threatens to put a damper on the company’s first big public attempt to woo advertisers to its service. The streaming giant is scrapping the event it planned to hold at its own Paris Theater in New York, slated for May 17, and informed advertisers of the switch Wednesday evening. The decision was previously reported by Adweek. Netflix’ decision takes place amid a massive writers strike that is likely to keep many of the actors, comedians and showrunners who might regularly attend away from the glitzy affairs held by most of the networks each year as part of the upfront, the annual attempt by U.S. media companies to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory attached to their next cycle of programming.

Ted Sarandos, who was set to receive the PEN America Visionary Award at the literary group’s gala next week in NYC, won’t be attending amid an ongoing strike and vigorous picketing on both coasts by the WGA.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos will no longer attend a gala meant to honor him next week in New York. The decision comes as labor issues grab headlines across Hollywood. Sarandos was set to accept the Business Visionary Award at the annual PEN American Spring Literary Gala, alongside fellow honoree Lorne Michaels and a host of literati including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Susan Choi, Jennifer Egan, Min Jin Lee, Jay McInerney and Gay Talese. He’s skipping the event, to be held under the blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History, as many industry celebrations weigh how to address the writers strike. “Given the potential to disrupt this wonderful evening, I thought it was best to pull out so as not to distract from the important work that PEN America does for writers and journalists, as well as the celebration of my friend and personal hero Lorne Michaels. I hope the evening is a great success,” Sarandos told Variety in a statement.

tweeted a selfie at the New York picket lines captioned “Let’s do this.”Odenkirk and Patinkin also posed together for a photo, which the latter captioned with: “Saul’s unite.” In addition to Odenkirk’s work as Saul Goodman, Patinkin is also known for playing a character named Saul in “Homeland.”Saul’s unite! #wgastrong Support our writers! pic.twitter.com/VdyElwh7C5Adam Scott, who can most recently be seen in “Severance,” also joined the picket line. Ran into Mandy Patinkin, Bob Odenkirk, and Adam Scott on the WGA picket line.

Fran Drescher. While on Sirius XM’s “The Julie Mason Show,” the actor teased that the possible November special could “maybe” become a backdoor pilot. She also highlighted the importance of SAG sticking with the Writers Guild of America during the WGA strike.

Celebrity documentaries are all the rage these days, and as a recent New York Magazine article points out (a fantastic, must-read), in a feature article about the “murky ethics” in the growing doc and doc series explosion of the last few years, a lot of celeb docs are executive produced by the subject themselves and becoming something of vanity puff pieces or doc infomercials for the subject. But “Arnold,” the new Netflix doc about the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger, does not list Schwarzenegger as any kind of producer, exec or otherwise, which hopefully bodes well (though you sometimes never know what goes beyond the scenes, he could still have a say or final cut as many do with celeb docs).

“You make billions/pay us some!” striking Writers Guild of America members chanted on the street of New York today near where filming was going on for Showtime’s Billions.

Jennifer Lopez is hard at work promoting her new Netflix movie!

EXCLUSIVE: On the third day of its first strike in 15 years, the Writers Guild of America closed down Wall Street drama Billions for several hours Thursday.