I skim the trades, so you don’t have to.
◊ The Insult That Awoke A Ferocious Writer’s Voice In ‘Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan — Deadline Disruptors
My two-cent takeaway: Sheridan is a busy guy, and he still manages to get up early every morning, get on a horse and move cattle around? No more excuses.
◊ Wall Street Hits the Croisette: Why Private Equity Investors Are Bullish on Indie Film
My two-cent takeaway: Private Equity could be the future of the midrange film. There’s nothing new about moving operations to Europe to save a buck (that was the main component in the birth of Italian neorealism), but it does help open doors for those of us that aren’t writing for the MCU.
◊ Amazon has handed out a formal two-season order for The Hospital, an animated sci-fi comedy from exec producers Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne. The comedy has also set its star-studded cast with Keke Palmer, Greta Lee, Kieran Culkin, Sam Smith, and Rudolph and Lyonne to voice central roles in the series from creator Cirocco Dunlap.
My two-cent takeaway: Dunlap will act as showrunner. She has also written episodes of Natasha Lyonne’s Russian doll and several other shows, including working as a staff writer on 240 episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The Hospital doesn’t have any other writers listed. ICM reps Dunlap.
◊ Apple ordered a first season for the Spanish-language crime drama series “Las Azules,” inspired by the true story of Mexico’s first female police squad.
My two-cent takeaway: Fernando Rovzar and Pablo Aramendi are the series’ creators. Rovzar, with a more extended history as a producer starting in his teens to early twenties, has been writing for Spanish language productions since 2008. Aramendi has credits dating back to 2005 and has worked exclusively on Spanish TV series with no less than 15 credits.
◊ The Good Fight, the first scripted original series for the former CBS All Access, is coming to a close. The previously announced sixth season of The Good Wife spinoff will be its last.
My two-cent takeaway: Quick interview about the fate of “The Good” franchise. The biggest takeaway is their lack of knowledge about how they will finish the series. For those of you who think a series has to be plotted entirely out in detail from beginning to end, you’ll be happy to learn you don’t have to be that precise, but the more direction you have, the better.
◊ Cannes Film Festival: Egyptian thriller nabs screenplay prize, ‘Triangle of Sadness’ wins Palme d’Or
My two-cent takeaway: Boy From Heaven, written and directed by Tarik Saleh, won for best screenplay. According to IMDb, it’s a dramatic thriller about a grand imam who collapses in front of his students on the first day back after the summer holidays, which turns into a battle to determine who will take his place. Saleh is a multi-award-winning writer/director for films dating back to 2002 with Who Betrayed Che Guevara. He is best known for The Nile Hilton Incident in 2017, a movie about a mysterious death in Egypt at the beginning of the Arab Spring.
◊ How Screenwriters Are Flexing Their Muscles To Find A New Way To Control The Script — Deadline Disruptors
My two-cent takeaway: Spec screenwriters are taking back control of their credits and are in high demand to create content for the streamers, especially with the tendency for some subscribers to just watch the first 10 minutes of a show before moving on to something else.
◊Flash Fact: An Unnamed 2023 Superhero Film Has Run Through 45 Writers
My two-cent takeaway: If this is true, it’s ridiculous. If you consider it could take up to a year to write a draft, that’s 35+ years of writing time for one movie. It better be good.
What’re your two cents?
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