Welcome back to What I’m Hearing...

This email is a Ukraine-free space, but I encourage Puck members to read my colleague (and Russia expert) Julia Ioffe’s dispatches on Putin and the unfolding invasion. She’s also been all over cable news this week and will be on the Stephen Colbert show tonight to discuss the situation.   

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

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Thursday Thoughts…

• Can everyone please stop whining about the Oscars? Most of us have complained for years that the show needs a dramatic reinvention, so the Academy is taking the very reasonable step of pre-taping eight category acceptances while not eliminating them from the telecast, and you’d think producer Will Packer had dug up Jean Hersholt and slapped him in the face. This show is fading into irrelevance, and ABC is paying about $1 billion for 10 years of something that a regular person might actually want to watch. In fact, Packer needs to go further and use the saved time to put exclusive and undeniable content on the Oscars. Major trailer debuts, unique performances, beloved cast reunions, star after star after star—stuff that film fans can’t not watch. A Twitter poll won’t cut it.    

• Add Tyler Perry to the list of top creators looking to cash in on the Hollywood investment craze. It’s early, I’m told, but Perry and agent Ari Emanuel are starting conversations about selling a piece of his Atlanta-based Tyler Perry Studios. Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs’ Candle Media and others are expected to be among the suitors. 

• Battle lines are being drawn in the L.A. mayoral race. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and wife Nicole Avant hosted a small gathering this week for Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer of the Grove, and UTA’s Jay Sures followed with a major Caruso event last night. Disney’s Dana Walden and CAA’s Bryan Lourd (who went to college with Caruso) will co-host another event in March, as will Snap’s Evan Spiegel and wife Miranda Kerr...

Disney Has a Weakness in the Streaming Wars

The costly implosion of the Disney+ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ prequel reveals the pressure on legacy studios to bring massive I.P.-driven shows to streaming. So why hasn’t Disney's branded TV division had more breakout hits?

I met a big talent lawyer for a drink on Tuesday, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Man, can you believe how much money people are making?” That’s a common refrain around Hollywood, and it’s a shift, in my experience, from the usual tone among representatives. Agents, managers, and especially lawyers like to bitch about cheap buyers, about who is totally screwing their clients, and about how hard it is for talented people to get a fair deal in this town. In some ways, being upset is kinda their job.  

But these days, it’s harder to complain. Sure, there are anxieties over things like the long-term viability of the streaming business, the vanishing profit participations, the wounded theatrical box office. Yet big picture, through a confluence of economic and societal forces, Hollywood finds itself with more deep-pocketed purchasers of premium content than at perhaps any time in its history. It may not feel this way to a struggling creative person, but it’s the buyers, not the sellers, who are under the most pressure today...

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