Hollywood Archives - California Political Review

‘It feels empty’: is Hollywood film and TV production in a death spiral?

April 30, 2025 By Staff 1 Comment

Filming in Los Angeles is at a historic low, with some suggesting the city might go the way of Detroit

When screenwriter David Scarpa visits the great Hollywood studios these days, he is struck by what is missing. “It used to be you’d walk around those back lots and you’d see many people and they were very busy,” Scarpa muses. “They were like small cities. Now often you’ll walk around and have nobody else there. It feels empty. You definitely feel the absence of life on those lots.”

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Like the once proud industrial factories of the midwest, the dream factories of southern California are in decline. Last year was the worst for on-location filming in Los Angeles since tracking began 30 years ago apart from pandemic-hit 2020. Of all the TV shows and feature films that North American audiences watch, only one-fifth are now made in California.

This is because Hollywood is facing intense competition for film production from domestic rivals such as Atlanta and New York, and international challengers such as Australia, Britain and Canada, all offering more aggressive financial incentives. California’s politicians stand accused of resting on their laurels too long.

Donald Trump has a plan but, critics say, it will be no more effective for Hollywood than his notorious tariffs for the rust belt. The US president’s appointment of the actors Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight (combined age 233) as “special ambassadors” to rescue the local industry met with widespread scepticism. Instead campaigners are focused on the hard graft of legislating new tax incentives in California’s state government.

Scarpa, whose recent credits include Gladiator II and Napoleon, adds: “The state and the city are both struggling with big fiscal issues and in a way it becomes an arms race: is LA going to be able to compete with eastern Europe? We have the best people in the world here but often producers find themselves shopping for the best price. If LA wants to remain a hub of production, they’re going to have to have some form of tax incentives to compete with them.”

Hollywood has been synonymous with film for more than a century. Southern California’s sunny weather allowed year-round outdoor filming while land and labour were cheaper than in eastern cities. Film-makers such as Cecil B DeMille and companies such as Paramount and Universal set up studios that ensured a creative ecosystem of actors, directors, musicians, writers and technicians. Hollywood burnished its self-mythology through films such as Sunset Boulevard, Singin’ in the Rain, The Player, Mulholland Drive and La La Land.

Click here to read the full article in the Guardian

Filed Under: CaliCulture Tagged With: California Politics, Hollywood

Gov. Newsom visits Hollywood to propose doubling state’s film tax credit to $750 million

October 29, 2024 By City News Service 1 Comment

The Los Angeles area, long considered the center of film and TV production in the U.S., has struggled to retain its hold in recent years, losing business to Canada and other states that offer more attractive incentives.

HOLLYWOOD — Gov. Gavin Newsom was on location in Hollywood Sunday, where he unveiled a proposal to more than double the tax credit the state offers to producers of films and TV shows that shoot in California.

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Appearing with industry union leaders, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, Newsom announced a plan to boost the annual tax credit from its current $330 million to $750 million, which would represent the largest amount offered by any state except Georgia, which has no cap on its credits.

The plan, which still needs approval by the state Legislature, could take effect as early as July 2025.

The Los Angeles area, long considered the center of film and TV production in the United States, has struggled to retain its hold in recent years, losing business to Canada and other states that offer more attractive incentives, most prominently New York and Georgia.

“We wanted to reconcile the stress that’s been building up here for, frankly, the better part of a decade,” Newsom said, referring to the competition from other places, the coronavirus pandemic and the crippling writers and actors strikes of 2023.

“I don’t know how they can continue to afford that program (in New York), and we’ll see” how it goes in Georgia, he added.

In a statement released earlier Sunday, Newsom called California “the entertainment capital of the world, rooted in decades of creativity, innovation, and unparalleled talent. Expanding this program will help keep production here at home, generate thousands of good-paying jobs, and strengthen the vital link between our communities and the state’s iconic film and TV industry.”

Bass, who worked on California’s original film tax credit policy in 2009 when she was speaker of the state Assembly, said, “We have to do everything we can to strengthen and protect one of the foundational blocks of our economy in Los Angeles.”

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Hollywood

Hollywood power brokers put their money on Harris

July 26, 2024 By Stacy Perman, Seema Mehta and Samantha Masunaga 1 Comment

Barely a month ago, a veritable who’s who of Hollywood A-listers turned out for President Biden. The event, organized by former DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, drew George Clooney, Barbra Streisand and Julia Roberts.

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Jimmy Kimmel moderated an interview with Biden and former President Obama at the gathering in downtown Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater. Sheryl Lee Ralph sang and Jack Black entertained the star-studded crowd wearing a pair of American flag overalls.

The evening raised more than $30 million, the largest one-night campaign haul in Democratic history.

But behind the fawning praise and laughs, cracks began to appear in the public façade.

Some of the most powerful members of Hollywood, who had steadfastly supported the president, harbored some serious reservations about the 81-year-old’s mental acuity.

At times during the event, Biden’s answers meandered and Obama occasionally jumped in to redirect the conversation.

Then came Biden’s disastrous debate performance. And those very same industry stalwarts who had just feted Biden began saying he should not seek reelection.

“Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof, who attended the fundraiser, was one of the first to publicly call for Biden to step aside.

“Biden has to go & the Dems need to wake up,” he wrote in a column for Deadline, adding that donors should withhold checks until he did so. Within days others followed suit. Netflix co-founder and major Democratic donor Reed Hastings also called on Biden to end his reelection bid.

The most damaging blow came a week later, when Clooney wrote a blistering op-ed for the New York Times, saying, “The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Clooney’s public excoriation proved to be a tipping point, creating a public relations disaster for the Biden campaign, said a confidant close to a senior Democratic leader who was not authorized to speak publicly. Soon others, including actor-filmmaker Rob Reiner, began airing similar sentiments, contributing to the pressure that culminated in the incumbent president’s extraordinary decision to step aside as the Democratic nominee.

The remarkable turn of events underlined the outsize role that Hollywood — long known as the “ATM of the Democratic Party” — plays in political campaigns and the money that fuels them.

“In the world of politics, money is what drives these things, and the fact that many in Hollywood closed up their checkbooks had a very big impact,” said Steve Caplan, adjunct instructor of public relations and advertising at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Now, entertainment heavyweights are putting their money behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House campaign. Hastings contributed $7 million to a super PAC supporting Harris, the largest donation that he has made to a single candidate, said a person close to the Netflix co-founder who was not authorized to comment. The Information first reported the donation.

“We are all in for Kamala and have been since the moment she announced,” said Andy Spahn, a Los Angeles political consultant to media moguls such as Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. “Tremendous excitement and energy here around Kamala’s candidacy. We are all in.”

Unease over Biden’s gaffes and goofs

For months, Biden’s gaffes and stumbles became hard to ignore. He fell walking up the stairs to Air Force One; he mixed up Syria and Libya at a news conference and called Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”

While allies and critics alike began commenting, the campaign dismissed their concerns as isolated incidents; Biden described his debate performance as a “bad night.”

As momentum for Biden sputtered and his failings became more publicly evident, some supporters vented their frustration toward Katzenberg, one of the campaign’s co-chairs, who assured them Biden was on his game, even calling his age his “superpower.”

Katzenberg took to making comparisons to Harrison Ford starring in a new Indiana Jones movie at 80 and Mick Jagger performing on tour with the Rolling Stones, also while turning 80, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

Katzenberg declined to comment for this story.

But Biden’s lackluster approval ratings and an unmistakable enthusiasm gap continued apace, particularly among celebrities, who were not jumping on to endorse the campaign.

Even before the debate, it was difficult to get industry players to publicly back Biden, according to someone who works closely with celebrity surrogates and was not authorized to speak publicly.

“There was a general lack of enthusiasm. Some wanted to bury their heads in the sand, and there was a legitimate group of people who felt that there was a value misalignment with what was happening in the Middle East and a larger group that did not see the benefit in speaking out,” said this individual. “It was extremely difficult, even with stalwarts.”

While Clooney and others had taken public stands, this person said there were a number of private conversations going on between about 40 prominent artists and the campaign’s leadership.

John Legend, the Grammy-winning singer, shared the concerns about Biden’s viability in an interview.

“There would be a lot of challenges to overcome if we stayed with Biden and to defeat Trump with him as our nominee,” Legend told The Times. “For months the American people were telling us that they didn’t like either choice.”

Within days of each other, Disney heir Abigail Disney and billionaire media mogul Barry Diller said they were halting any further financial support to the Biden campaign.

Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Endeavor chief Ari Emanuel took Biden’s advisors to task for their lack of candor about his health and criticized the president for backtracking on his pledge to pass the baton after one term.

“I had a father who died at 92, but at 81 I took away his car, and it was a very simple test for me,” said Emanuel, whose brother Rahm Emanuel served as Obama’s White House chief of staff. “If you were driving from downtown Beverly Hills to Malibu, would you want Biden to do it at night?”

A dramatic shift toward Harris

On Sunday, Biden announced he would not carry on as the Democratic nominee and endorsed Harris.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Biden, Donald Trump, Hollywood

Biden, Obama raise more than $30 million at glitzy L.A. event

June 17, 2024 By Seema Mehta and Liam Dillon 1 Comment

President Biden and former President Obama railed against former President Trump, touted the Democratic incumbent’s policy achievements and slipped in a few jokes at a Saturday night fundraiser in downtown Los Angeles that shattered Democratic fundraising records.

“I could have done nothing and done better than him,” Biden replied when late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who was moderating the discussion between the two Democrats, asked about the presumptive GOP nominee, whom Kimmel referred to as “Orange Julius Caesar,” before noting the strength of the nation’s economy, the low unemployment rate and other accomplishments. “We’re trying to give ordinary people a chance, just a chance.”

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Obama added that Biden had built upon their policies when he was president and Biden was vice president, such as expanding access to the Affordable Care Act and increasing funding for efforts to stop climate change.

“At its best, the presidency is a relay race. You take the baton and you run the race” and then hand it your successor, Obama said. “I take great pride in what the Biden administration has accomplished. And it’s a reminder that we don’t have to just vote against something in this election. … But we can take pride in affirming the extraordinary work that Joe has done.”

The star-studded fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A. raised more than $30 million — the largest cash haul from a one-night event in Democratic history. Biden, Obama and First Lady Jill Biden repeatedly attacked Trump, a notable escalation of their rhetoric typically heard on the campaign trail and at fundraisers.

Obama, George Clooney and Julia Roberts were the headliners. Thousands of Biden supporters paid between $250, for a seat far from the stage, and $500,000 — for a ticket package that includes prime seats, photos with both presidents and a VIP after-party — to attend what is likely to be one of the president’s last major L.A. fundraisers before the November election.

“This Saturday, we are going to see an unprecedented and record-setting turnout from the media and entertainment world,” said media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Democratic megadonor and the only nonelected official who is a co-chair of the president’s reelection campaign, before the event took place. “The enthusiasm and commitment for Biden-Harris couldn’t be stronger. We all understand this is the most important election of our lifetime.”

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Biden, fundraisers, Hollywood, Millions, Trump

Nobody’s ever lost their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Will Trump be the first?

December 27, 2023 By Caroline Petro-Cohen 4 Comments

Hollywood Hills resident Andrew Rudick is on a mission.

Over the last three years, he’s submitted public records requests, retrieved case documents from the Los Angeles County Superior Court, spoken at City Council meetings and corresponded with government officials.

He’s determined to get Donald Trump’s star removed from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s not an easy task.

“The reasonably conveyed message to the millions who have walked past that plaque since 2021 is the city’s endorsement of a man who attempted a coup against the United States,” Rudick said at a Los Angeles City Council meeting earlier this month.

Although multiple City Council members said they do not support the former president and would like to see his star removed, nobody knows exactly how to make that happen. Several groups with varying levels of jurisdiction have a hand in operating the Walk of Fame, including the City Council, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood Historic Trust.

The removal of a star is unprecedented, and a process for doing so has never been established. Rudick’s activism, however, is forcing city officials to confront the unknown.

The star itself draws all kinds of attention.

Elodie Toutain, a 21-year-old originally from France, said she stomped on Trump’s star while visiting the Walk of Fame this month. “There are so many people who have better intentions than him,” she said.

The star has been vandalized and smashed several times, costing more than $20,000 in repairs since 2016, according to the Hollywood Historic Trust. One street artist placed prison bars on the star in 2021 and brought a toilet, bathtub and stacks of fake documents to the site of the star in 2023 in a reference to the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

Stuart G, who declined to share his last name for privacy reasons, has been selling Trump merchandise beside the star since August.

“Trump offends people, and those people want to have his star removed,” Stuart said. “But I don’t think he’s half as bad as some of the other people on here.”

Spade Cooley, a swing musician who earned his star in 1960, was convicted of murdering his wife one year later.

Stuart G, who declined to share his last name for privacy reasons, has been selling Trump merchandise beside the star since August.

“Trump offends people, and those people want to have his star removed,” Stuart said. “But I don’t think he’s half as bad as some of the other people on here.”

Spade Cooley, a swing musician who earned his star in 1960, was convicted of murdering his wife one year later.

“Donald Trump is a racist, fascist, and a threat to our democracy,” Soto-Martínez said in a statement. “Since there’s no known precedent for removing a star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, we’re looking into where the authority lies, what the legal issues may be, and what a process for it might look like.”

Trump’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment. The Republican Party of Los Angeles County said any efforts to remove Trump’s star would be a waste of time.

“Los Angeles government fails on every level,” a spokesperson for the party said in an email. “They should focus on their job — getting all our sidewalks clean and safe.”

The Los Angeles City Council has so far avoided engaging in the process of removing a star. In 2018, the West Hollywood City Council unanimously passed a resolution requesting that L.A. remove Trump’s star from the Walk of Fame. The resolution was never acted on.

As a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, the Walk of Fame receives some protections dictated by the city’s Cultural Heritage Ordinance. But changing or removing one star would not violate these protections, according to the city Planning Department.

“Changing lettering on one or a handful of star panels out of over 2,700 would not constitute a substantial alteration to the Monument,” a city planning representative said in an email. “The removal of any individual’s name and recognition emblem would leave intact the historic materials that make up the remainder of the Walk of Fame.”

The Walk of Fame is not a California Historical Landmark, said Jay Correia of the California Office of Historic Preservation, although it is commonly mistaken as one. There is a lot of confusion surrounding the landmark status of the Walk of Fame, Correia said.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce itself incorrectly claimed that the Walk of Fame was included in the National Register of Historic Places. It is included only in the California Register of Historical Resources.

“Even though the property is listed in the California Register, all land use authority resides with the City of Los Angeles,” Correia said. “None of what we do overrides local land use policy.”

In other words, it’s theoretically up to the Los Angeles City Council to decide to remove a star. According to Rudick, the first step is simple: City Council should ask the city attorney to draft a report on a star removal process.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Donald Trump, Hollywood, Walk of Fame

Biden launches a Hollywood fundraising blitz to tap into star power with strikes over

December 10, 2023 By Will Weissert 1 Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Here’s a Hollywood ending that President Joe Biden wants to bring to life: An incumbent facing tough polling numbers and questions about his advanced age overcomes a brash opponent to win a second term at the White House.

With strikes by writers and actors now over, Biden is beginning to make that pitch to the Southern California set in person. He and first lady Jill Biden were attending six fundraising events and meetings between them this weekend in the Los Angeles area, asking some of the glitziest names in town to open their checkbooks for his reelection campaign.

“This is an incredibly successful night,” the president said at his first fundraiser kicking off the weekend on Friday night, joking that he didn’t want to talk long because he was “the only thing standing between you and Lenny Kravitz.”

Friday night’s event featured a performance by Kravitz was hosted by celebrity designer Michael Smith and his partner, James Costos, and has already pulled in over $8 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal campaign details.

“It’s just a normal Friday at our house,” Costos joked to the crowd of hundreds that filled his backyard to near overflow capacity. He added, “This is not just a Hollywood gathering, it’s more like a national event,” saying that supporters from around the country joined the event.

Biden used the event to lay into Donald Trump, calling him “the first losing president and candidate in history who refused to except the result” of the 2020 race.

“He refused to show up at my inauguration. I can’t say I was disappointed,” Biden said. Then he added, to hoots, ”My guess is he won’t show up at the next inauguration.”

Hundreds of protesters demonstrating against the Biden administration’s support for Israel during its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip could be heard chanting and blowing whistles down the hill from the fundraiser, but it’s unlikely the president could hear them from the stage.

Some of the events will be public and others private over roughly 36 hours in California. But organizers say Biden should raise more this weekend than in any similar time frame since announcing his campaign in April and could potentially take in more than any presidential candidate has in greater Los Angeles this far out from Election Day.

“The pent-up excitement, enthusiasm is really unprecedented,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks Pictures and longtime Democratic presidential fundraiser in Los Angeles, who is one of the Biden campaign’s national co-chairs. “People are excited. They’re mobilized. And they’ve been waiting months to show their support for him.”

This weekend’s events are aimed at helping Biden reach a fundraising target of roughly $67 million for the fourth quarter of the year, according to a source close to the president’s campaign who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal numbers.

The Friday night fundraiser featured luminaries like Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand, director Rob Reiner, recording industry mogul David Geffen and Shonda Rhimes, the showrunner of “Scandal” and executive producer of “Bridgerton.” Rocker Lenny Kravitz performed and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the crowd.

Another fundraising meeting is set for Saturday at Katzenberg’s home.

Biden, who frequently calls himself the “most pro-union” president in U.S. history, stayed away from raising money in Los Angeles during the monthslong writers and actors work stoppages. Now, though, he’s free to court Hollywood — a traditional source of large-dollar donations for Democrats — without political blowback.

Katzenberg said this weekend should kick off more frequent fundraising travel out West by Biden.

Biden has also been collecting cash on the East Coast. He flew to Boston on Tuesday for a trio of gatherings to raise money, including one that featured singer-songwriter James Taylor, and attended a high-dollar event Wednesday at a hotel near the White House.

Biden has another fundraiser scheduled Monday in Philadelphia that’s expected to feature Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has been mentioned as a potential post-2024 presidential candidate. He is also planning an upcoming Maryland reception with Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, 45, a key voice for Biden’s campaign with young voters.

The major push to raise money could quiet some donors who have privately grumbled that the president hasn’t done enough to stock his campaign coffers ahead of a 2024 race that is likely to be hard-fought and close.

Some in the broad coalition of voters that helped Biden defeat Donald Trump in 2020 are wary about Biden’s low approval ratings and there are questions, even among reliable Democrats, about whether the 81-year-old president’s age could be an issue in 2024. Others, though, have watched Trump build a commanding early lead in the Republican presidential primary and are now even more anxious to back Biden, given that a rematch with Trump seems likely.

“Whether the enthusiasm is because of the exceptional accomplishments of President Biden, or because of the extreme alternative of someone who is declaring themselves to be an autocrat, either way, you get to the same place,” Katzenberg said. “Which is, Joe Biden’s your person.”

Costos, a former HBO executive, was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Spain. His partner, Smith, is a celebrity interior designer who helped redesign the Oval Office during the Obama administration.

Other co-hosts for Friday’s event included Jim Gianopulos, former chairman of Paramount Pictures, and Wendy Schmidt, wife of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another possible presidential candidate after next year’s election, was also set to attend.

Ticket prices ranged from $1,000 for general admission to $500,000 to attend at “chairman” level.

Also listed as cohosts were Bob Tuttle, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom under Republican President George W. Bush, and his wife, Maria Hummer Tuttle.

Biden has held just one campaign rally so far, addressing a summer event in Philadelphia with large unions who jointly endorsed his reelection. Instead, he’s focused on governing and raising money. The campaign has also coordinated with the Democratic National Committee to help defray advertising costs and build out staffing in key states around the country — trying to keep spending low until the race heats up next year.

The president and the DNC reported raising more than $71 million in the quarter ending Sept. 30. Biden’s joint fundraising agreement with the DNC and state parties allows him to receive a check from a single donor that is in the range of $1 million.

His third-quarter haul exceeded the roughly $70 million that Obama and his affiliated committees raised in the same quarter in 2011, without adjusting for inflation. But it fell short of Trump, who reported raising $125 million with the Republican National Committee during the third quarter when he was seeking reelection in 2019.

The Biden campaign also noted, however, that its third-quarter total outpaced the $45.5 million Trump’s campaign reported taking in during the same period this year, and said that the president had $91 million cash on hand at the end of September, which it said was the highest total by a Democrat at that point in an election cycle.

Click here to read the full article in AP News

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Biden, California Politics, Fundraiser, Hollywood

President Biden is heading to Hollywood for a major fundraiser featuring Steven Spielberg and Shonda Rhimes

December 4, 2023 By Staff 4 Comments

President Joe Biden will head to Los Angeles next week for a big-dollar event that will be his first since strikes by writers and actors effectively ground his fundraising to a halt in the heart of the entertainment industry, which has long served as the ATM for the Democratic Party.

The event next Friday at the home of Michael Smith, a celebrity interior designer, and his partner James Costos, a former HBO executive who was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Spain, is expected to raise millions and draw a star-studded crowd. Rocker Lenny Kravitz is slated to perform.

Director Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, who starred in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” are among the hosts of the event, as are recording industry mogul David Geffen, “Scandal” showrunner Shonda Rhimes and “This is Spinal Tap” director Rob Reiner, according to an invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is also a co-host. Barbra Streisand is set to attend.

“We are overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. We don’t do many events, but when we do, we do it out of a great passion,” Smith said.

The event is part of a broader fundraising swing by Biden and comes as the Democratic president tries to stockpile cash for what will likely be a grueling rematch against Republican Donald Trump.

Biden is also planning fundraisers in Boston, which will include a concert by James Taylor, Washington and Maryland, where he will appear with Gov. Wes Moore, according to two people familiar with the schedule who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal planning details. He will also appear in Philadelphia alongside Gov. Josh Shapiro.

With a cash haul from elite party donors expected to reach into the millions, the Los Angeles event could help ease concerns among Democrats about Biden’s reelection chances. He already has drawn one primary rival, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, whose candidacy is a symbolic challenge to national Democrats trying to project the idea that there is no reason to doubt Biden’s electability, even as many Americans question whether the 81-year-old Biden should serve another term.

As of the last fundraising reporting deadline at the end of September, Biden and his party reported $91 million cash on hand. He is helped by the fact that as the party’s leader he has entered into a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, as well as state parties, which enables him to receive a check from a single donor that is in the range of $1 million.

This being Hollywood, there is a bit of intrigue and melodrama playing out.

For decades, Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks Pictures, has served as an arbiter of presidential fundraising in Los Angeles, usually dictating the terms of who gets to host the first premier event — often himself.

Katzenberg, now co-chairman of Biden’s campaign, will be hosting his own fundraising “meeting” during Biden’s California visit, according to three people with direct knowledge of the event who insisted on anonymity to provide details.

Should Katzenberg be outshined, it could help reshuffle a Hollywood pecking order that has been in place since Bill Clinton was president.

A Katzenberg spokesman declined to comment.

During the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Smith and Costos hosted Biden’s first major fundraiser in the area, during a Los Angeles swing that raised over $1 million.

Click here to read that the full article in the Mercury News

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Biden, fundraisers, Hollywood

WGA, Hollywood Studios Close to a Deal on Ending Writers’ Strike, Sources Say

September 25, 2023 By Meg James Leave a Comment

The Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood studios are closing in on a deal that would end a 145-day strike that has roiled the film and TV business and caused thousands of job losses.

Lawyers for the two sides were haggling over the details of a possible agreement on Saturday during a meeting that began mid-morning, according to people close to the discussions who were not authorized to comment.

However, the union and studio alliance had not announced a deal as of early Saturday evening.

In a joint statement, the WGA and the studios said they would meet again Sunday.Studio sources told The Times the two sides hoped to finalize a deal then.

“Thank you for your continued encouragement as we press ahead to secure the best deal we can for writers,” the WGA’s negotiating committee said in an email to members Saturday night.

Saturday marked the fourth straight day of talks, which kicked off Wednesday with the heads of four major studios participating directly.

Should the companies reach a pact this weekend, they won’t immediately restart productions. The entertainment company leaders still must turn their attention to the 160,000-member performers union, SAG-AFTRA, to accelerate those stalled talks in an effort to get the industry back to work.

The thorniest issues in the long-running labor dispute have included language governing the use of artificial intelligence, minimum staffing in writers rooms and the establishment of residuals to reward scribes based on viewership of streaming series.

The work stoppage began in early May and gained momentum as actors led by SAG-AFTRA joined writers on the picket line in mid-July, further shutting down film and scripted television productions and hobbling studios’ ability to promote would-be blockbuster movies.

Any agreement on a new three-year film and TV contract would have to be ratified by a vote of the WGA’s 11,500 members, who have strongly supported the walkout and have enjoyed unusual levels of solidarity from fellow unions amid the nation’s “hot labor summer.”

There has been significant pressure on both sides to reach an agreement in recent weeks. Many Hollywood industry workers have struggled to pay their rent and bills, with some moving out of state to make ends meet. Studios have also felt the financial pain, modifying their film slates and leaning on live sports and unscripted television.

WGA negotiators met with studio representatives Wednesday for the first time since a disastrous meeting in late August. This week, top executives joined the proceedings: Walt Disney Co.’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley.

Friday’s marathon session started at 11 a.m. at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which represents the big entertainment companies — in Sherman Oaks. The meeting ended at about 8:30 p.m., amid growing hopes that the sides would be able to reach an accord before the Yom Kippur holiday.

The apparent progress marked a stark contrast with the last round of talks, which started in August after three months of striking.

Negotiations fell apart after an Aug. 22 meeting with the four leading CEOs — Iger, Zaslav, Langley and Sarandos — which writers’ representatives described as a “lecture” and a browbeating session in which they were pressured to accept an Aug. 11 proposal from the AMPTP.

After the meeting, the alliance released a summary of its proposal, causing an uproar among writers who saw it as a tactic to go around the WGA’s negotiating committee. The effort deepened the mistrust between the two sides.

Studio brass thought the move would allow writers and the larger community to see that the AMPTP had given substantial ground in an effort to reach a deal.

The studio’s proposal offered wage increases and signaled a willingness from the alliance to negotiate on topics it previously considered off the table, such as sharing of viewership data with the WGA and staffing in writers rooms.

But the WGA’s negotiating committee felt the proposal did not go far enough. Writers on the picket lines were not impressed, calling the studios’ proposals “half-measures.”

Frustration among workers, including film crew workers, continued to build as the strikes stretched beyond Labor Day.

Political leaders including Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and state Treasurer Fiona Ma also weighed in, urging the parties to settle the dispute.

For weeks, the two sides remained at a standstill, arguing over whose turn it was to make a counteroffer. The WGA’s negotiating committee even suggested that some studios might be willing to break from the alliance and negotiate separately with the guild, exploiting potential fractures in the alliance. The AMPTP rejected that notion.

This week, though, talks got serious.

Studios wanted to get a deal done by early October to salvage their 2024 film slates, which would require them to be back in production soon. They’re also hoping to salvage what they can of the 2023-24 television season.

Click here to read the full article in LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Hollywood, Hollywood Strike, unions

Newsom and Lawmakers Cut a Grand Deal for Hollywood: Refundable Tax Credit and New Set Safety Rules

June 26, 2023 By Lauren Rosenthall 1 Comment

SACRAMENTO — Hollywood studios will get a lucrative tax benefit they have long sought and workers on film productions will get new safety protocols they’ve wanted since the deadly “Rust” shooting under new legislation that Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign into law by the end of this week.

It reflects a grand deal between the governor and state lawmakers to tackle Hollywood’s thorniest political fights in Sacramento in one sweeping bill that was made public Saturday as lawmakers race to finalize the state budget.

The legislation will extend California’s film and television tax credit for five more years with a new “refundable” feature allowing studios to receive cash payments from the state if their credits are larger than their tax bills — a perk studios have lobbied for in California for several years in the face of competition from other states.

It weaves in the set safety issue by requiring that productions receiving the tax credit follow new safety rules including hiring a safety advisor to perform a risk assessment and be on set during filming. For all productions, it will require that prop masters and armorers handling weapons have firearms training and a special state permit.

And it adds new diversity requirements that were a priority for Democratic lawmakers who have been frustrated that Hollywood workers do not reflect California’s ethnic and gender diversity. A portion of the tax credits that productions will receive will depend on meeting diversity targets. A larger slice of the tax credits will go to job training programs in community colleges that predominantly serve students of color. And the legislation requires adding a new member to the state film commission who has expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion.

“It’s the art of compromising and negotiating, finding a solution that works for everyone,” said Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), who played a key role in crafting the bill.

“The studios want refundability and have been wanting to have more access to these dollars. The unions have been advocating for set safety supervision, given what happened on the ‘Rust’ set. … On both ends, this was an agreeable compromise to see if it works.”

Attempts to pass set safety legislation last year stalled amid disagreements between the Motion Picture Assn. and the IATSE union that represents entertainment industry workers. They continued negotiating this year and had come to agreement on the terms in Senate Bill 735, which has been folded into the new film tax credit bill.

The author of that legislation, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), said that some version of the bill for greater safety and firearms protections on film sets has been in the works since the week after the “Rust” shooting in 2021.

He recalled contacting Cal/OSHA and the Department of Industrial Relations after the fatal shooting and asking what laws were on the books to prevent that from occurring in California.

“I thought there’d be all kinds of bill history,” he said. “But there was nothing.”

This year, Cortese said, after he facilitated negotiations with the Motion Picture Assn. and IATSE units to put together SB 735, a conversation began to happen among the governor’s office, the Motion Picture Assn. and labor groups about including the film safety bill in the budget bill.

“There’s a certain efficiency and expediency in getting it done now,” he said.

Cortese said that he visited Universal and Warner Bros. sets during the drafting of the bill to see how they worked and that the firearms component of the bill is meant to codify into law what those top studios are already doing.

“Just because they do it doesn’t mean it trickles down to the rest of the industry,” he said. “We wanted it to be law so it applied to everyone, top to bottom.”

The legislation incorporates much of Newsom’s proposal earlier this year to make $330 million in film tax credits available per year from 2025 to 2030. By making the credit refundable, Carrillo said more companies will be able to take advantage of it, which should bring more productions to the Golden State.

Currently, she said, only Disney and Universal Studios benefit from the tax credit because they have larger tax bills in California due to their theme parks. Making it refundable will allow Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony and Paramount to benefit from the program too, Carrillo said. Even if their California tax bills are smaller than the tax credit they qualify for, the new program will allow them to get a portion of the credit paid in cash.

“We are in a very competitive fight to ensure that these jobs stay in California, and they are jobs that primarily impact Los Angeles County and the city of L.A.,” Carrillo said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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