Welcome back to What I’m Hearing, still in L.A., though I’ll admit to a little FOMO for those at the D.N.C.

To that end, I checked in today with producer Jamie Patricof, WIH’s occasional food and now political convention correspondent, who’s in Chicago this week before heading to North Carolina to begin shooting Derek Cianfrance’s next movie, Roofman, starring Channing Tatum. Jamie also went to Philadelphia in 2016, and this D.N.C. has “far exceeded my expectations,” he reports—and not just because he ate at Mr. Beef, the inspiration for The Bear.

Jamie got a “creator” pass to film interviews for his popular Lunch With Jamie video series with people like journalists Jessica Yellin and Jessica Tarlov (sign up here; he booked Gov. Josh Shapiro next). He’s spent most of his days at McCormick Place meeting rising Dem stars like Anderson Clayton, the 26-year-old chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, who will almost certainly pop up on Hollywood fundraiser lists. “She’s the fire that we need,” Jamie says.

Based on my text chains, it seems like Hollywood showed up this week. Beyond the stars onstage, low-key sightings included Universal’s Donna Langley, RedBird’s Jeff Shell and his wife, Netflix’s Bela Bajaria, CAA’s Bryan Lourd, writer/activist Billy Ray, producers Reggie Hudlin, Lawrence Bender, and Matt Walden (wife Dana, Disney executive and Friend of Kamala, is not there), Spike Lee, Miramax’s Jon Glickman, Wendell Pierce, J.J. Abrams and Katie McGrath, Scooter Braun, Laura Wasserman, tons more… and Jeffrey Katzenberg running around, of course.

Jamie, an indie film veteran, sums the convention up as “if you rolled up Cannes, Sundance, AFM, Telluride, Tribeca all into one… but the future of the Democratic Party was the focus.”

Programming note: I’ll be back on CNBC Squawk Box tomorrow at 7:50 a.m. ET talking the Paramount maneuvers.

Not a Puck member yet? Click here. Got a news tip or an idea for me? Just reply to this email or message me anonymously on Signal at 310-804-3198.

Let’s begin…

• Speaking of Paramount… please make it stop?: Whose bid is actually better? That’s where we are now that lawyers for Skydance have accused the Paramount board’s special committee of improperly extending the “go-shop” period by 15 days to evaluate the $6 billion offer from Edgar Bronfman Jr. The Bronfman bid “is significantly less favorable to the Paramount stockholders from a financial point of view,” Skydance is claiming, arguing that it’s only half the cash the Ellisons are offering non-voting shareholders. Plus, who, exactly, are these 70-ish so-called backers? The crypto guy Brock Pierce? Don’t Google his name with “Bryan Singer.” The grandson of the former president of Kazakhstan? The Baby Geniuses producer? (I misspoke on Monday; Fortress is indeed part of the group, but Bain Capital, which was previously teased, is not.)

  It’s all so slapdash and murky, especially with ownership of U.S. broadcaster CBS and its F.C.C. license at stake here. But, Bronfman argues, at least he won’t dilute the Paramount shareholders with all that overinflated Skydance equity.

  This is now exhausting. Team Skydance has suspected from the beginning that Charles Phillips, the special committee member who was president of Oracle before his relationship with Larry Ellison frayed, is trying to gum up this deal. Now that they’ve publicly accused the committee of an improper process, those beliefs are basically out in the open. This could get ugly fast.

• Iger’s obsessions, real and imagined: Anyone else get a revisionist history vibe from Bob Iger’s new podcast interview with Kelly Ripa? Curious timing during the week of Kamala Harris’s political coronation for the Disney C.E.O. to remind us that, if an anonymous but super-powerful Democrat had had his way, it might have been Iger up there saving democracy onstage at the United Center. “He said to me, ‘You should run for president,’ and I said, ‘Tell me why?’ and his first words out of his mouth were, ‘Well, you really look the part.’ I said, ‘Give me a break. That’s not enough.’” Hmmm. That’s not exactly the way many in Iger’s orbit remember his flirtation with presidential politics. More like Iger wanted to do it, thought he had a shot, was somewhat concerned about the public scrutiny, and slowly but surely, his wife and inner circle talked him out of it.
• More Bob: Iger would also like us to know that he thinks of little else these days besides his successor. “I could say that ‘I’m obsessed with it’ would be probably an understatement.” Got that? No matter that some Disney observers have interpreted this week’s announcement that James Gorman will take over the board’s succession planning committee from chairman Mark Parker as a sign that the search isn’t going great. (Gorman, the former Morgan Stanley C.E.O., has been credited for perfectly managing his own succession, and was brought to Disney last year with that in mind.) No matter. Bob is obsessed.
• Emmys reject rescission: An update to Monday’s item on the letter signed by 150 industry figures seeking to rescind the Emmy nomination of Palestinian journalist Bisan Atef Owda, who the group said was linked to terrorist groups. Adam Sharp, head of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, responded saying the Emmy submissions were, uh, kosher, and “NATAS has found no grounds, to date, upon which to overturn the editorial judgment of the independent journalists who reviewed the material.” Now I wonder if the controversy will help her win…
• Box office Harris over/under: Neither Blink Twice, The Crow, nor something called The Forge is expected to come close to $10 million this weekend, so let’s do Kamala’s ratings tonight. Biden drew 24.6 million viewers across networks in 2020, and Trump lured 25.4 million in June. I’m gonna take the over on Trump, maybe way over.

But then came the more mainstream The Watcher and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, both of which did work. “Netflix should be saying thank you for Monster, which he could do for 14 seasons,” quipped an exec envious of the true crime anthology. (Indeed, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story hits Netflix next month.) Last year, Murphy returned to Disney, where he’s making several new series, including FX’s Grotesquerie and ABC’s Doctor Odyssey, plus more installments of his franchises, and sources say Netflix wasn’t exactly sad to see him go. But he’ll still be involved in Watcher and two more seasons of Monster. So… everyone wins a little?

Darren Star (Paramount)
While Emily in Paris is a major hit for Netflix, Star’s relationship with its studio isn’t as delightfully breezy. After originally signing with Paramount’s TV Land in 2016 (remember when minor cable networks made overall deals?), Star developed the Lily Collins rom-com in 2017 under former Paramount Network head Kevin Kay. It was originally supposed to air alongside his hit Younger on TV Land before Netflix stepped in. Then, with Emily about to premiere, Star expanded his Paramount relationship to a rich, company-wide pact in 2020, but he delivered only Uncoupled, a Neil Patrick Harris LGBTQ-themed comedy that accomplished the rare feat of being canceled after only one season by two different platforms (Netflix and then Showtime). Star’s planned Younger spinoff starring Hilary Duff also went nowhere. He moved to Universal earlier this year with a new eight-figure deal… but he’ll always have Paris.

Greg Berlanti (Warner Bros.)
In just a few short years, Berlanti went from boasting nearly 20 shows on the air to just five. (Blame the demise of The CW.) Still, thanks to that former volume, his 2018 deal with Warners is considered one of the most profitable of the Peak TV era. The four-year extension from 2018, worth $300 million, included buyouts of the backends on Berlanti’s DC-era series and rewarded him for the number of future shows he could get on the air.

Fast-forward to 2023, when new Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. David Zaslav, with a year remaining on Berlanti’s deal, dangled a sizable cash advance to entice him to re-up for another three years as part of a $140 million extension that runs through 2027. The second pact, in a telling sign of the times, includes bonuses not for volume but for keeping shows like NBC’s Found, the upcoming Brilliant Minds, and the last of his CW roster, All American, on the air. “Every deal should be structured to incentivize that,” said a studio-side source. “We’ve moved past the peak; it’s now about building library and longevity.”

Mike Schur (Universal)
With credits including The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Office, Schur may be NBCUniversal’s top comedy creator. But his March 2019 deal—valued at $125 million over five years—has delivered just one signature hit, Hacks, for NBCU’s rival platform Max. Schur also exec produced the little-watched Primo and Rutherford Falls for Amazon’s Freevee and Peacock, respectively, which were canceled after one and two seasons, respectively.

Next, Schur has Netflix’s A Classic Spy, featuring Ted Danson. And the noted Red Sox fan took a swing at Universal I.P. with Field of Dreams at Peacock. It was never reported, but the project fell apart after Chris Pratt agreed to star and then abruptly dropped out, and Schur’s replacement, newcomer Bill Heck, was deemed insufficient by Peacock execs for a show with a $15 million-per-episode price tag. Schur also wanted to film at Fenway Park.

Matt and Ross Duffer (Netflix)
The Duffers turned Netflix upside down for a nine-figure, multiyear deal in 2019 on the back of megahit Stranger Things. But executives have been annoyed that each new season takes longer to produce—some of those cute kids are looking like grown-ass men—and comes in well over-budget. And after the Duffers deliver the fifth and final season sometime in 2025, it’s unclear what’s next. A cryptic Stranger Things spinoff has been teased, there’s an untitled animated series in the works, and the prequel stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow will expand its West End run to Broadway next spring.

But the Netflix development pipeline is filled with big sci-fi swings, including The Boroughs and horror entry Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, as well as takes on Peter Straub and Stephen King’s The Talisman and anime Death Note, yet none of them is being steered by the Duffer brothers. Their deal expires soon and has yet to be renewed, per sources.

Lisa Joy & Jonah Nolan (Amazon)
When HBO let the rights to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories move to Apple TV+, the married creators of Westworld began shopping for a new home. Amazon dangled another sci-fi drama, The Peripheral, to entice the duo to sign a five-year, $150 million deal in 2019, even though they spent the first year-plus finishing Westworld. But then Amazon, which bought out Warners’ share in Peripheral, spent four years making the $140 million, eight-episode opus that would ultimately be axed after a single, little-watched season (despite initially announcing plans for a second season). Amazon faced the embarrassing prospect of a wipeout deal. But after Joy and Nolan’s Ancillary Justice adaptation starring Keira Knightley fell apart, studio chief Jen Salke immediately greenlit Fallout for the duo to executive produce.

Now, Amazon says the video game adaptation is its second-most-watched title ever, with 16 Emmy nominations. Still, some doubt the $20 million-an-episode show, which is renewed for season two, is worth paying Joy and Nolan $30 million a year for when they didn’t write or showrun it. (Sources say Nolan, who directed the first three episodes, is frustrated he didn’t receive a “created by” credit on the series.) Amazon has since downgraded the duo’s deal from exclusive to first-look.

Courtney Kemp (Netflix)
The creator of Starz’s Power franchise has spent the past few years struggling to get a show greenlit at Netflix after signing a three-year deal valued at $12 million-$15 million a year in 2021. Sources say Kemp was prepping a gambling drama starring Julianna Margulies that is close to crapping out. She was also poised to executive produce a YA drama, Black Out, alongside the Obamas’ Higher Ground, but she is no longer involved. On the positive side, Kemp has opened a writers room in advance of a likely series order for the action-drama Nemesis, which she’s poised to showrun.

Ron Moore (Disney)
Following a 10-year run with Sony TV that delivered hits in Outlander and For All Mankind, the Battlestar Galactica grad took meetings at Paramount, where he wanted to make Star Trek shows, before signing a four-year, $60 million deal with Disney in 2020. The die-hard Disney fan then took stabs at creating a “Magic Kingdom Universe” with The Society of Explorers and Adventurers and Swiss Family Robinson for Disney+, both of which died on the vine. The biggest bummer, however, was Moore’s shot at Sarah J. Maas’ popular A Court of Thorns and Roses book series for Hulu, as sources say he is no longer involved in that adaptation. He’s still got a passion project in the works at FX (and another with complex rights issues), but Moore—even if he may own monogrammed Mickey ears—returned earlier this summer to Sony, which is turning For All Mankind and Outlander into multiple show franchises for Apple TV+ and Starz, respectively.

Donald Glover (Amazon)
The Atlanta mastermind left his perch at FX in 2021 for an eight-figure, multiyear deal with Amazon that was supposed to give him his own content channel. That never happened, and Glover’s pact has since been downgraded from exclusive to first-look. But he did deliver a water-cooler mini-hit in Swarm, which earned three Emmy nominations in 2023, as well as the long-delayed Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which landed 16 Emmy noms and is returning for a second season. “The problem with deals like Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is you want to work with them because they’re outstanding at a particular thing,” one agent noted. “But if you pay that much money, you can’t let them do that thing. You can’t let Glover make Atlanta again. You end up saying, ‘Make Smith for us because that pays for the deal, and then you can do some other thing.’ But it’s bananas to do that.”

Amy Sherman-Palladino (Amazon)
Midway through The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, its creator cashed in at Amazon in a deal that pays her $10 million to $15 million a year. (That’s a lot of top hats.) The 2019 pact included the final seasons of Maisel, which ended more than a year ago. Since then, the Gilmore Girls grad has been working on Etoile, a Paris-set ballet drama that Amazon picked up with a two-season order just as Maisel was wrapping. She’s since quietly extended the deal.

Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne (Amazon)
Did you know that season two of Amazon’s most expensive show is premiering in a week? Do you care? That’s a problem. Yet despite the middling response and dismal 37 percent domestic competition rate for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, its showrunners, who originally signed a two-year, $14 million deal with Amazon in 2018, quietly renegotiated to $20 million before the show even aired. Amazon extended the duo for either three or four years in February, but with a reduction to $12 million a year—an indignity that contributed to Payne and McKay firing their reps at Verve and Kaplan/Perrone, respectively, according to sources. After all, they argued, Amazon touted Rings as having delivered 100 million viewers. Now, with season two dropping August 29, Payne and McKay are already in pre-production for a third, because each season takes two years to complete.

Coming Monday: Part 3

See you Monday,
Matt

Got a question, comment, complaint, or good names for shows on the Chick-fil-A streaming service? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.