Weekly Journal #129
Industry News
YouTube Ad Revenue Rises Just 5% In Q2 As Alphabet Undershoots Wall Street Targets (Deadline)
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Keeps Hiring White Men for Top Jobs (Bloomberg)
NBCU Earnings Rise, But Peacock Loss Hits $467M and Paid Subs Stall at 13M (Hollywood Reporter)
Feds Take Aim at Books Megadeal, Their Tactics May Be Used Against Hollywood (Hollywood Reporter)
Sydney Sweeney on Fame, Hollywood Fakery and the Pressure of Paying the Bills (Hollywood Reporter)
Film
Movie Debates Are Back: ‘Nope’, ‘Gray Man’ & ‘Crawdads’ Energize A Buzzworthy Summer (Deadline)
Netflix’s ‘The Gray Man’ Is Better Than Critics Say, And Worth Your Time (Forbes)
Ignore the Critics Bashing the #1 Movie on Netflix – the Gray Man Is Pure Escapist Fun (BGR)
‘The Gray Man’ As Sequel & Spinoff In The Works (Deadline)
The Gray Man: Netflix Subscribers Say Thriller Is ‘Actually’ Good, Despite What Critics Say (Independent)
Television
Roku Claims $1B In Upfronts Ads, Eyes Changes to Content Spend Amid Downturn (Hollywood Reporter)
‘Abbott Elementary’ Full Seasons To Stream On Both HBO Max & Hulu (Deadline)
400+ Showrunners Demand Netflix, Disney Offer Safety Protocols in Anti-Abortion States (Variety)
Disney Says Hulu Will Now Accept Political Issue Ads (Deadline)
In Other News
Hardly Anyone Talks About How Fracking Was an Extraordinary Boondoggle (New York Times)
The Congressional-Staffer Rebellion (New Yorker)
Rethinking a First Novel (New Yorker)