Television loves teenage girls. Especially when they're dead. Innumerable series — from garden-variety procedurals to prestige fare like "The Killing" and "True Detective" — kick off their initial…
There's no shortage of movie franchises in circulation these days, but within their ranks is a more exclusive grouping you might call "mega-franchises": those that have generated seven or more…
For most of the 20th century, the paradigm looked like this: The television set was a piece of furniture — a box that sat in your living room, big and a little ugly, and cozy, too. It was the…
Chuck Barris, the prolific producer who died March 21 at age 87, was a natural-born showman and entrepreneur. He had an irrepressibly raunchy and goofy sense of humor that was on display in his many…
Cable network revenues were up again in the fourth quarter, a development that may reassure investors that cord-cutting doesn't yet seem to be hurting these businesses. But dig a little deeper, and…
On Feb. 8, after eight years and 171 episodes, we called series wrap on "The Vampire Diaries." As the team and I were going through prep and shoot of the last episode, we realized just how rare our…
Disney dominated the box office last year thanks to several big franchises among its 13 releases. In fact, Disney has been the most profitable studio for the last three years, with the other majors…
As the saying goes, seeing is believing. If Hollywood has shown us anything lately, it's that the tides are turning — albeit slowly — in favor of more authentic, diverse stories. Consider one of the…
If 2016 was #OscarSoWhite, then 2017 is perhaps #OscarSoWhiteNoMore. But is that enough? Does this ebullience feel familiar? It should. In 2008, many of us basked in the glow of an election that told…
Once again, Netflix and Amazon took a large share of the acquisitions at the Sundance Film Festival. Just three years ago, the two companies weren't even contenders for acquiring distribution rights…
Home entertainment revenue for the major movie studios has shrunk in recent years as consumers switch from DVDs and Blu-ray discs to streaming video. In theory, revenue from licensing movie rights to…
