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Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney is offering a significant discount on the ad-supported version of Disney+, as it looks to drive up subscribers for the package before the end of the current quarter. Starting Sept. 6 and running through Sept.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Comments Aaron Paul made to Entertainment Tonight Canada at a recent SAG-AFTRA rally are gaining traction on social media after the Emmy winner suggested he is not seeing any money from Netflix when it comes to “Breaking Bad” residuals. Paul starred opposite Bryan Cranston on all five seasons of the acclaimed AMC drama series. Netflix is credited with greatly boosting the show’s popularity after making the first three seasons available to stream before Season 4 started airing on AMC.

Addressing Thursday night’s carriage impasse with Disney, Charter Communications executives told Wall Street investors on a conference call today that their linear video business is “at the edge of a precipice.”

California Treasurer Fiona Ma has sent letters to the CEOs of seven Hollywood studios urging a return to the bargaining table with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA to end a months-long double strike that’s shut down much of the entertainment industry and is taking a major toll on the California economy.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid growing speculation of internal divisions within the C-suites and a lack of any apparent path forward to end the writers and actors strikes, the chiefs of Hollywood’s biggest studios are set to gather today.

Disney has been hit again with another lawsuit from investors over the alleged sleight of hand accounting the company used to hide streaming losses.

EXCLUSIVE: Nautilus, the U.K. live-action Captain Nemo series commissioned by Disney+ two years ago, is no longer headed to the streamer, Deadline has learned.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a focus on content curation and Disney-owned IP, Disney+ is not proceeding with The Spiderwick Chronicles, its live-action series adaptation of the popular children’s fantasy books, Deadline has learned.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America told members Wednesday that the latest offer from the studios is “not yet good enough,” and said that it would continue to fight to address “existential threats” to the writing profession. In an email, the WGA picked out half a dozen areas where it believes the studio offer falls short. The guild noted that the studios are willing to enshrine the concept of a TV staff size in the contract for the first time.

Universal Studios Group Chair Pearlena Igbokwe has said there is determination from all sides to find an “equitable” solution to the Hollywood labor strikes.

Disney+ has “pretty much” hit its target of creating 50 original international titles, according to its Europe content boss.

Just hours after the studios and streamers made public their latest “comprehensive package” towards a deal with the WGA, the guild has responded – and its seems the AMPTP and top CEOs may have strategically overplayed their hand.

WGA leaders met face-to-face with key CEOs on Tuesday evening as executives sought to pitch the guild on their most recent contract offer in the hopes of ending the nearly four-month-old strike. Late Tuesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers released details of the contract offer presented to the WGA on Aug. 11.

About a month ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger talked about the ongoing dual SAG and WGA strikes. In his statements—which he clearly didn’t think through all the way—he mentioned how the demands by the unions were “not realistic.” This was his way of saying that the unions are asking for too much money.

mockumentary comedy “Underdeveloped,” premiering Sept. 8 on free streamer Tubi.He is also a member of both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, both of which remain on strike.

“I know how to change bad news into good news,” Edward L. Bernays, the father of public relations, used to boast. Since he was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, I wonder how he’d find a positive mind-set among today’s practitioners of his craft.

Trustees of New York City’s $250 billion pension funds have warned Disney, Paramount and Comcast that they risk losing investor confidence if they allow the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes to drag on much longer. The WGA has been on strike since May 2, and SAG-AFTRA since July 14.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America responded Tuesday to the latest proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, but any hopes for an easy resolution of the 106-day strike were quickly dispelled. The WGA did bend slightly on a few items, according to sources familiar with the talks. But the union negotiators did not offer the significant concessions that the studio side was looking for in response to its own offer.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer TSG Entertainment, which has invested more than $3 billion in 140 Fox films including “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “The Shape of Water,” accused Disney in a lawsuit on Tuesday of using Hollywood accounting tricks to cheat it out of hundreds of millions of dollars. The slate financier alleged that Disney had engaged in “self-dealing” by diverting Fox films from a lucrative HBO license to its own Disney+ and Hulu platforms. The lawsuit also alleges that Fox engaged in “sweetheart” deals when it licensed its films to the FX cable channel.

So it looks like there might be a big change to the planned Marvel/Disney+ release schedule in 2023.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged The Walt Disney Co. to drop its lawsuit against him, while telling CNBC that he has “moved on” from his battle with company and that it should drop the lawsuit against him.

As the ongoing WGA strike hits 100 days, the entirety of Hollywood wonders how long both that and the SAG-AFTRA strike will last. In the case of WGA, this strike is no officially longer than the 2007-2008 strike, but has a ways to go before it hits the 1988 writers’ strike 153 days, the longest in the union’s history.  Disney CEO Bob Iger hopes neither strike lasts that long, though.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney is coming for the streaming password-sharing freeloaders. Taking a page from Netflix’s playbook, Disney chief Bob Iger announced that the media conglomerate has put a priority on finding ways to convert password-borrowing users into paying customers.

Disney CEO Bob Iger shook up the entertainment industry and Wall Street last month when he declared to CNBC at Sun Valley that linear television may be non-core and that he’s looking for partners for ESPN as the company pivots to streaming.

Hulu will increase its ad-free subscription from $14.99 to $17.99 per month.Disney+ will also see a jump from $10.99 to $13.99 for its monthly ad-free plan.And before you and your close circle decide to chip in for a shared account, you should know that Disney CEO Bob Iger also announced Wednesday that the company is “actively exploring ways to address account sharing and the best options for paying subscribers to share their accounts with friends and families.”In other words: a crackdown on password sharing, perhaps similar to what Netflix introduced in May, is coming to Hulu. What’s more, the company introduced a new ad-free Disney+ and Hulu bundle — without ESPN+ — called “Duo Premium,” available Sept.

Disney interim chief financial officer Kevn Lansberry said the company is “very comfortable with our current liquidity position” as the time approaches for it to buy Comcast’s one-third stake in Hulu.

Disney’s giant theme park division was first out of the gate in a post-pandemic recovery, showing giant jumps in revenue and profit due to pent-up demand. But the engine is sputtering.

Get ready to pay more for Disney+ and Hulu if you’re a subscriber.

“It is my fervent hope that we quickly find solutions to the issues that have kept us apart these past few months, “said Bob Iger today of the Writers Guild and actors’ union’s strikes on Disney’s earnings call. “And I am personally committed to achieve this result.”

Disney is following through on stated plan to raise streaming prices (welcome news to investors if not to many consumers), as well as launching a bundled version of Disney+ and Hulu and expanding the ad-supported version of Disney+ to Europe and Canada.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney CEO Bob Iger addressed the ongoing writers and actors strikes during the Mouse House’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday, just as the WGA’s work stoppage hit the 100-day mark. “Nothing is more important to this company than its relationships with the creative community. That includes actors, writers, animators, directors and producers,” Iger said.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney, trying to swing its streaming business into the black, has set substantial price hikes for Disney+ and Hulu standalone premium plans in the U.S. — while also rolling out a heavily discounted Disney+/Hulu ad-free combo bundle. As of Oct.

Billy Porter is one of the many working actors being affected by the ongoing Hollywood strikes.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The Walt Disney Co. saw its streaming losses narrow in the second quarter amid an exodus of 12.5 million subscribers from its Disney+ Hotstar streaming platform in India. For the quarter, Disney exceeded Wall Street’s targets on earnings per share but missed on revenue.

Disney saw direct-to-consumer losses shrink and adjusted EPS top estimates for the three months ended in June as CEO Bob Iger said the company’s on track to exceed $5.5 billion in anticipated cost savings.

actors and entertainers are striking in Hollywood and around the country with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) as they demand a rise in pay and residuals in the streaming era.And while the strikes may have a positive outcome in store for actors, Porter is already dealing with the negatives of the situation.“I have to sell my house. I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work],” the “Pose” star, 53, told the Evening Standard.“The life of an artist, until you make f–k-you money, which I haven’t made yet, is still check-to-check,” he added.Porter, who played ballroom emcee Pray Tell in “Pose” from 2018 to 2021, revealed he was gearing up to work on a couple of upcoming projects in September.However, due to the strike, “none of that is happening,” according to Porter.“So to the person who said, ‘We’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments’ — you’ve already starved me out,” Porter told the outlet.The actor’s comments come after it was reported that film execs were willing to “allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” according to Deadline.The newly-single Porter also slammed Disney CEO Bob Iger who said actors’ expectations of treatment are “just not realistic.”“The business has evolved,” Porter said, referring to the streaming era of film and TV.“So the contract has to evolve and change, period.