WGA Collects Over $4 Million In Settlement With Amazon Over Unpaid Residuals

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, has died aged 88.In a statement shared with Deadline, Fletcher’s family revealed that she died in her sleep at her home in Montdurausse, France.After being born in Birmingham, Alabama, Fletcher’s first roles came in TV Westerns including Lawman and Maverick in the 1950s.Her most famous role came in the 1975 film adaptation of , which saw her star as Nurse Ratched alongside Jack Nicholson.For the role, she won an Academy Award, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, becoming only the third woman to do so.In her acceptance speech at the Oscars, she gave a nod to her deaf parents by giving the speech in sign language.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Netflix dismissed a copyright lawsuit on Friday that it had filed against the creators of “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical.” The court filing did not indicate whether the streaming service had reached a settlement with Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, the creators of the musical. However, the pair had earlier canceled a performance of the musical at Royal Albert Hall in London, which was to take place this week. Netflix sued in July, alleging that Barlow and Bear had infringed on its copyrights by putting on a for-profit stage show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The service argued that their conduct “stretches ‘fan fiction’ well past its breaking point.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Danes may have surpassed the French in clashing with streamers. The Danish Producers’ Association and Create Denmark, the guild representing writers, actors and directors, among others, have been involved in a bitter dispute over fees and rights with local and global streaming services including Netflix and Viaplay since January. While Viaplay signed a temporary agreement over the summer which is valid through December, other services, including Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and Amazon Prime have fully stopped the development or production of Danish content since January. The estimated loss of revenue for the country is approximately $200 million, according to Lene Børglum, a leading producer in Denmark whose credits includes Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” and “Copenhagen Cowboy” which Netflix had ordered way before the start of the dispute. The series world premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Amazon Studios has closed a three-year first look film deal with Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell’s Safehouse Pictures.

BreAnna Bell “Cobra Kai” is still kicking at the top of Netflix’s Top 10 list following its Season 5 premiere on Sept. 9. During the Sept. 12-Sept. 18 viewing window, the show scored 95.6 million hours viewed –– which is still a high note despite its drop from the prior week’s astounding 107 million hours watched. Sliding in at No. 2 is Season 2 of “Fate: The Winx Saga.” The new installment debuted on the streaming service on Sept. 16, raking in 49 million hours watched in its first three days of availability. Season 1 of “The Crown” continued its reign on the list, moving up to the third spot with 40.8 million hours viewed, while Season 2 of the series entered the list with 16.7 million hours viewed.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Regé-Jean Page and Glen Powell will star in TV series about Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid for Amazon, Variety has confirmed with sources. The untitled series will be executive produced by The Russo Brothers under their AGBO production banner. Kaz and Ryan Firpo, who most recently worked on Marvel’s “The Eternals,” will write. The search is currently on for a showrunner. According to sources, deals for the series are not yet closed and discussions are ongoing. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps but it is known that Page will play Cassidy while Powell will play The Sundance Kid. Both actors will also serve as executive producers on the show in addition to starring. Mike Larocca, Angela Russo-Otstot, and Scott Nemes of AGBO will also executive.

Goldman Sachs conference on Monday, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel said that his company is in talks with Amazon Studios and Netflix about their plans for releasing films in theaters. “We are having conversations with Amazon about, is it going to be 15 days, 25 days, day-and-date? There is no one way or another,” he said. “Certain movies even on Netflix now, they are going to do four weeks in theaters … There is no set model right now, because they are still figuring it out.”The same could probably be said for almost all of Hollywood’s major studios.

Oprah Winfrey is back on the red carpet at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival!

Kate Aurthur editor On Aug. 15, a coalition of showrunners, TV creators and directors sent a list of demands to studios, outlining the urgent need for abortion safety protocols for productions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade. It was the organization’s second letter — the studios had collectively answered the first one, sent on July 28 — with a response one member of the group, who spoke anonymously to Variety, called “patronizing” in an interview. The group’s second letter more clearly detailed the medical dangers for pregnant women in states where abortion is illegal because of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision — not only for those who want an abortion, but for women whose medical care might be otherwise compromised. Ignoring the collective response, which had been issued by the Motion Picture Association, the Aug. 15 appeal was sent directly to studio presidents, and members of the boards of directors at AMC Networks, Amazon Studios, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery. They gave a deadline of Labor Day for responses from the studios.

Marilyn Monroe biopic “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas premiered at the Venice Film Festival Thursday, earning praise from several critics for its portrayal of the 1950s blonde bombshell. Adapted from the Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name, the film runs nearly three hours and received a 14-minute standing ovation from the crowd, which caused de Armas to break down into tears, according to Variety.“Andrew Dominik’s Venice Film Festival competition entry ‘Blonde’ takes a blowtorch to the entire concept of the Hollywood biopic and arrives at something almost without precedent,” Deadline’s critic said.“[‘Blonde’] is simply inventing fresh indignities for the most positively, permanently persecuted heroine outside of a John Waters movie ever to have to suffer.” As Netflix’s first film with an NC-17 rating, “Blonde” sparked backlash almost instantly when it debuted its first trailer in July over the casting of de Armas due to the fact that she is Cuban and her accent was not “authentic.”Variety’s critic Owen Gleiberman disagreed in his review, saying the film is “built around a performance, by Ana de Armas, of breathtaking shimmer and imagination and candor and heartbreak.

reported the news of the Amazon settlement.In early August, the WGA said it had secured $42 million in unpaid writer residuals from Netflix after an arbitration ruling was handed down regarding the Sandra Bullock horror film “Bird Box.”“Netflix argued the WGA should accept a substandard formula the company negotiated with DGA and SAG-AFTRA. After a hearing, however, an arbitrator determined differently: that the license fee should have been greater than the gross budget of the film,” read the WGA West memo from president Meredith Stiehm and other leaders.

A group of Gulf states are threatening Netflix with legal action if the streamer does not remove what they class as content that “contradicts” Islamic values. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a statement saying it has contacted the SVoD to demand the content, which was not specified publicly, is removed.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Amazon Freevee has given the greenlight to “Clean Slate,” a new comedy from Norman Lear’s Act III Productions, starring Laverne Cox and comedian George Wallace. The original comedy has been in development at Freevee since February 2021, back when the ad-supported streamer was known as IMDb TV. “Clean Slate,” which comes from Cox, Wallace and Dan Ewen, centers on car wash owner Henry (Wallace), whose estranged child comes home to Alabama after 17 years. But he must do some soul searching as he comes to terms with the fact that his adult child is a trans woman, Desiree (Cox). There’s no word yet on an episodic order, when the series might shoot or an estimated premiere date.