In today’s episode, host Cynthia Littleton and Variety business editor Todd Spangler compare notes on Paramount Skydance and the vibes and vision shared by CEO David Ellison and his new regime at media Q&A sessions in New York and L.A. And Jenelle Riley, deputy awards and features editor, explains how Variety selected this year’s 10 Storytellers to Watch honorees.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, August fourteenth, twenty
twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co
editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in
la He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:30):
we'll talk with Business editor Todd Spangler about the Paramount
Skuidance merger. He and I compare notes after we both
attended Meet the Press sessions in Gotham and Los Angeles
with the new executive team, and we'll hear from Janelle Riley,
Variety's deputy Awards and Features editor, who gives us the
backstory on Variety's Ten Storytellers to Watch feature. But before
(00:53):
we get to that, here are a few headlines just
in this morning that you need to know. The incomparable
Shenead O'Connor is the subject of a biopic in development.
It's been in the works since the release of the
twenty twenty two documentary Nothing Compares on the trailblazing singer
who died in twenty twenty three at age fifty six.
Alex Rittman in our London bureau has the story YouTube
(01:16):
is experimenting with new age verification technology in the US.
It's designed to determine if viewers are under eighteen. YouTube
began rolling out what it calls an age estimation model
powered by AI this week. If it determines the person
is under eighteen, some viewing restrictions may be added. Ll
(01:38):
Cooljay will host MTV's VMA Awards, airing September seventh on
CBS and Paramount Plus with a simulcast on MTV. The
wording of this announcement tells me it is a new
world order for Paramount and CBS. All of these stories
and so much more can be found on Variety dot
com right now. Now, we turned to conversations with Variety
(02:02):
journalists about news and trends in show business. Next up,
I'll compare notes with business editor Todd Spangler on the
vibes and the vision around the new regime At paramount
S guidance. We both attended media Q and A sessions
with CEO David Ellison and others. Todd went to Times
Square last week on the day the deal closed. I
(02:22):
went to the Paramount lot on Wednesday. Here's our takeaways.
Todd Spangler, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Hello, helone.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
We have a fun opportunity here to compare notes because
we both had the privilege of spending some time with
the new regime. At Paramount's guidance, David Ellison, Jeff Shell.
They did a press event in New York on the
Data merger closed August seventh. Today here on August thirteenth,
they did a similar thing on the Paramount Pictures lot
(02:50):
on Melrose Avenue and Hollywood. You had Paramount Skuydance CEO,
David Ellison, president, Jeff Shell, who's very well known as
a media veteran, and five of their top lieutenants that
to their credit, they just fielded questions from a couple
of dozen entertainment business reporters, including me and my colleague
Matt Donnelly, Todd from your time in Times Square at
(03:11):
fifteen fifteen Broadway, What did you come away with?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So in New York it was literally just three or
four hours after they had officially closed the deal for Paramount.
I think the messaging that we came away with was
David Ellison saying, look, we're going to bring in some
Silicon Valley expertise, which this company has been lacking, but
we're going to remain true to Paramount's creative roots. And
(03:35):
then you had Jerry Cardinally, who's big investor, head of Redbird, saying, look,
we are professional managers were coming in and we're going
to manage these assets better than they had before. I
spoke to Jerry at our event and he was very emphatic,
we will invest. They really pledged to significantly up the
(03:57):
investment to make Paramount Plus a contender alongside Disney Plus
and HBO Max And you and I both know that's
going to take a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
If they're serious about that. They said all the things
fareholder value running the company to making it much more efficient.
They were very candid. It's funny in every merger, the
new regime always picks one or two things that they
point out as being backwards from the old regime, and
this time around there have been critical of Paramount's operation
(04:27):
of two very totally separate, sort of siloed Paramount Plus
Dreamer and Pluto the Fast Channel, and so that they're
saying that there's a lot of savings and even more
corporate benefit to be had by bringing them together.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
They talk good talk, and it is true Pluto and
Paramount Plus, yes, should be on the same platform. But look,
it's taken Disney many years now to merge Hulu and
Disney Plus onto the same tech stack. So this is
not an easy thing. It's super expensive. I think what
I came away from the New York presentation sensing was
they were not allowed connecting the dots. How are you
(05:03):
going to turn this thing around other than just trying
to cut a bunch of costs. Well, between the New
York presentation and the LA presentation this past Monday, they
showed at least part of their hand this seven point
seven million dollar deal with UFC over seven years. That's
a real proof point, right that they're going to invest
in Paramount Plus and bring this premium programming to try
(05:25):
to make baramunt Plus on its own a thriving, standalone
winner in the streaming wars.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Ellison was very strong about that the owners of this
company now the key majority owners, their incentives are aligned
to make Paramount as successful as possible. He pointed to
the previous regime the Redstones had through super majority shares,
they had ironcloud voting control of almost eighty percent of shares,
so they could basically vote in what they wanted, but
(05:55):
they had only ten percent of the economic interest in
the company. Now the Ellisons and that group have seventy
percent of the economic interest and one hundred percent of
the voting power, so they have actually even more sway
over the company.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The skin in the game is definitely compelling statement.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Another thing that stood out to me from our questioning
was that they really David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, who
was going to have a very big hand in steering
film and TV there both made a very strong pledge
to support family programming, truly programming for children. Obviously they
have Nickelodeon, they have a studio that does family features,
but they both emphasize that this is a market that
(06:35):
is very important to them. David Ellison has two young
daughters at home that is going to influence the way
he pilots this company, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
As a media company. To be a big player, you
want to cover all the quadrants, and it's kids, sports, news, scripted, unscripted,
everything and all that takes is money, right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You could see the eagerness. You could tell that it's
been a longslot things that we've covered in depth throughout
the last months here on Variety. You can tell that
they are eager to get to work. And of course,
while a bunch of us were sitting there eating our
quin wa and salmon salads over there at Paramount, the
company was making news in other realms. The stock went
(07:15):
a little crazy. Todd what happened?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, No, one is entirely sure. Because on the day
that they announced the UFC dealed, the stock declined three
about three point four percent, So you know, that didn't
seem to be what something that retail investors were going
to gravitate toward. But today stock went up thirty six percent.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Jim Kramer, CNBC grasping for an explanation, and is only
it's a meme stock, you know, which indicates that their
people or groups of people who are somehow promoting this
on social media somewhere. You couldn't find a real source
of who was promoting this stock in this way, but
it definitely went up and buying today.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
These meme stocks usually seem to revolve around companies that
are really really into stress or extremely flimsy, and Paramount
has its problems but it has truly has lots of
hard assets. And that wasn't the only other headline that
emerged while we were lunching and schmoozing with the executives.
One investor, Mario Gabelli, made his feelings known in a
(08:21):
lawsuit against former owner Sharry Redstone.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
That's right. He'd been talking ever since the deal, even
before the deal was done last summer, that he wasn't
sure that this was going to give the other Class
A investors in Paaramount Global the former Paramount fair shape.
And he said his company asked for documentation from Paramount
and National Amusements and they claimed that it just didn't
(08:46):
provide the transparency to give them assurance that they weren't
getting cheated effectively on a steal. So the lawsuit is
alleging that Sharry Redstones National Amusements Ink received sixty bucks
per share for their Class A voting shares, well Geabelly's
firm and others similarly situated shore Owders got twenty three
(09:08):
bucks a share, and that was the twenty three dollars
to share with public. But he's alleging that Scherry made
out like a bandit and the other classic stockglders got stiffed.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Doesn't this stuff all have to be spelled out in
black and white in these three inch thick SEC filings
around these kind of deals? Or is there a wiggle
room because National Amusements itself was private.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, it was not disclosed what the per share price
per SE was going to be for the NAI portion
of that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I remember there was a lot of back and forth
about that. Well, was Scherry Redstone's overall haul. It's at
one point it was over two billion, and then I
think by the end it was neated at one point
eight if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yep, when you back out the debt, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well, never a dull moment covering the Redstones, even as
they let go of their empire. At the event that
I attended, I'm just going to say it the best,
just hands down. George Cheeks a super cool Sam and
pink suit. He looked very Martha's Vineyard. CBS has been
through a lot is part of this merger, so here's
hoping for brighter days for the Tiffany Network and other things.
(10:16):
Todd is always thank you for helping us sort all
this stuff out.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Next up, we'll hear from Janelle Riley on how she
assembled this year's very eclectic ten Storytellers to Watch feature.
Janelle Riley, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Hi, thank you so much for having me a longtime listener,
first time participant on here.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We published a feature this week, Ten Storytellers to Watch,
and you were the person who assembled it. You spearheaded
the recruiting and the scouting for it. Janelle, what inspired
this particular list?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
We've had so many like Oscar winners and big names
come off ten Directors to Watch list, and we do
ten screenwriters as well, and obviously ten actors. But you know,
storytellers is such a great word because there's so many
unique ways to tell a story. You know, so many
different mediums, and you can do it through music, through words,
sometimes you can do it without any sound at all.
(11:11):
So looking for people who are creative and interesting and
telling stories in new ways, and that could be anything
from composers to podcasters to playwrights to people who will
do all three of those things at once.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Can you give me an example of folks on the
list that you think epitomize this new reformability to be
a creator that is not bound by discipline or genre.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I was not super familiar with what pad, which is
a site where authors can upload their stories, and one
of our storytellers to watch, Ariana Goody, got started by
uploading a story to a website titled Mia More de
pad My what pad Love, and you developed a big
following from there and is now, you know, publishing her
first novels that are also being made into films.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
We've done some interesting stories which you realize is that
there is such a content ecosystem in Asia and the webtunes,
as you say, is not only a platform for aspiring writers,
but also just literary scouts. Now you'll have a bellweather
for how much people are reading, how much they're reacting
to a story, how they react to different characters. Variety
(12:17):
was on the CUSP pair because we had David jay Lee,
who is the big boss of Webtoon Entertainment, one of
the biggest publishers based in South Korea but with increasing
operations in Los Angeles. David jay Lee joined us at
our entertainment conference at CEES this year, and he was
a guest on our Strictly Business podcast back in January.
It's great that you tapped into webtunes as a springboard
(12:39):
for writing talent. Now I kind of addicted to that site.
There's a lot of really great writing on there. There's
so much talent out there. Where did you start in
terms of scouting and narrowing the list of folks that
you thought was worthy of inclusion. We start by asking
for recommendations, you know, from different people in the industry
or just people we know. It reached out to publishing
(13:01):
houses to see who were the up and coming authors were,
but a lot of it really is word of mouth.
In fact, you gave me a great suggestion that ended
up making the list. Thank you for including my suggestion.
Jake Halpern is a very distinctive voice, and I've read
his byline, I've heard his work on radio and podcast platforms.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
We have a lot of discussions about like what is
a storyteller and how it encompasses so much and things
you might not have normally thought of. This year we
have Heather Christian who is a theater artist who writes books,
music lyrics, also performs does scores even for adult swim
programs and for movies for other people. Just a little
(13:40):
bit of everything, and it's really fun. People can be hyphenates.
Nobody feels like they have to be one or the
other anymore. You can work on Broadway and in your
spare time you can write for adult swim. It is very,
very mobile time for creative talent, that is for sure. Well,
all of the storytelling prowess is going to be celebrated
next week, August seventeenth in the Little Rock at the
(14:02):
Film Land Festival. A number of the honorees will be
able to join Variety there at a panel hosted by
our very own chief film critic, Peter de Bruges. Yes,
he's very excited to go to Arkansas. You know, I
was actually in Arkansas recently because the Bentonville Film Festival,
which is done in conjunction with Gena Davis's Media Institute,
(14:24):
is also in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Janelle, thank you for joining me to talk about this list. Absolutely,
thank you so much. As we close out today's episode,
here's a few things we're watching for today. In New York,
Variety and Rolling Stone are hosting our fifth annual truth
Seekers event, showcasing documentary content. We'll have highlights in Monday's episode.
(14:48):
Variety is about to go on a big festival run
for the rest of August. On Saturday, we'll publish the
first of three digital show dailies out of the Sarajevo
Film Festival. On Sunday, we'll have the first of three
digital dailies out of the san Fik Industria Festival in Santiago, Chile.
On Monday, we're on the coast of Norway at the
(15:10):
Haggisond Film Festival. And week after next comes the Venice
Film Festival, which runs August twenty seventh through September ninth.
We'll have a large contingent there. We'll publish five festival
print dailies on site in the city of Canals, and
we'll also have six digital dailies, plus some other cool
(15:30):
stuff that is coming together. There's a lot to cover
before we go. Congrats to Rebecca Hable, the theater veteran
has been named managing director of the Roundabout Theater Company.
Starting next year. She returns to the beloved New York
institution after spending the past six years with the Harold
and Miriam Steinberg Theater Center and what is now the
(15:51):
Todd Haymes Theater on Broadway. Thanks for listening. This episode
was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions
from Todd Spangler and Janelle Riley. It was edited by
Aaron Greenwald. Stick's Next hick Picks. Please leave us a
review at the podcast platform of your choice, and please
tune in Monday for another episode of Daily Variety.
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, August fourteenth, twenty
twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co
editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in
la He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:30):
we'll talk with Business editor Todd Spangler about the Paramount
Skuidance merger. He and I compare notes after we both
attended Meet the Press sessions in Gotham and Los Angeles
with the new executive team, and we'll hear from Janelle Riley,
Variety's deputy Awards and Features editor, who gives us the
backstory on Variety's Ten Storytellers to Watch feature. But before
(00:53):
we get to that, here are a few headlines just
in this morning that you need to know. The incomparable
Shenead O'Connor is the subject of a biopic in development.
It's been in the works since the release of the
twenty twenty two documentary Nothing Compares on the trailblazing singer
who died in twenty twenty three at age fifty six.
Alex Rittman in our London bureau has the story YouTube
(01:16):
is experimenting with new age verification technology in the US.
It's designed to determine if viewers are under eighteen. YouTube
began rolling out what it calls an age estimation model
powered by AI this week. If it determines the person
is under eighteen, some viewing restrictions may be added. Ll
(01:38):
Cooljay will host MTV's VMA Awards, airing September seventh on
CBS and Paramount Plus with a simulcast on MTV. The
wording of this announcement tells me it is a new
world order for Paramount and CBS. All of these stories
and so much more can be found on Variety dot
com right now. Now, we turned to conversations with Variety
(02:02):
journalists about news and trends in show business. Next up,
I'll compare notes with business editor Todd Spangler on the
vibes and the vision around the new regime At paramount
S guidance. We both attended media Q and A sessions
with CEO David Ellison and others. Todd went to Times
Square last week on the day the deal closed. I
(02:22):
went to the Paramount lot on Wednesday. Here's our takeaways.
Todd Spangler, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Hello, helone.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
We have a fun opportunity here to compare notes because
we both had the privilege of spending some time with
the new regime. At Paramount's guidance, David Ellison, Jeff Shell.
They did a press event in New York on the
Data merger closed August seventh. Today here on August thirteenth,
they did a similar thing on the Paramount Pictures lot
(02:50):
on Melrose Avenue and Hollywood. You had Paramount Skuydance CEO,
David Ellison, president, Jeff Shell, who's very well known as
a media veteran, and five of their top lieutenants that
to their credit, they just fielded questions from a couple
of dozen entertainment business reporters, including me and my colleague
Matt Donnelly, Todd from your time in Times Square at
(03:11):
fifteen fifteen Broadway, What did you come away with?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So in New York it was literally just three or
four hours after they had officially closed the deal for Paramount.
I think the messaging that we came away with was
David Ellison saying, look, we're going to bring in some
Silicon Valley expertise, which this company has been lacking, but
we're going to remain true to Paramount's creative roots. And
(03:35):
then you had Jerry Cardinally, who's big investor, head of Redbird, saying, look,
we are professional managers were coming in and we're going
to manage these assets better than they had before. I
spoke to Jerry at our event and he was very emphatic,
we will invest. They really pledged to significantly up the
(03:57):
investment to make Paramount Plus a contender alongside Disney Plus
and HBO Max And you and I both know that's
going to take a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
If they're serious about that. They said all the things
fareholder value running the company to making it much more efficient.
They were very candid. It's funny in every merger, the
new regime always picks one or two things that they
point out as being backwards from the old regime, and
this time around there have been critical of Paramount's operation
(04:27):
of two very totally separate, sort of siloed Paramount Plus
Dreamer and Pluto the Fast Channel, and so that they're
saying that there's a lot of savings and even more
corporate benefit to be had by bringing them together.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
They talk good talk, and it is true Pluto and
Paramount Plus, yes, should be on the same platform. But look,
it's taken Disney many years now to merge Hulu and
Disney Plus onto the same tech stack. So this is
not an easy thing. It's super expensive. I think what
I came away from the New York presentation sensing was
they were not allowed connecting the dots. How are you
(05:03):
going to turn this thing around other than just trying
to cut a bunch of costs. Well, between the New
York presentation and the LA presentation this past Monday, they
showed at least part of their hand this seven point
seven million dollar deal with UFC over seven years. That's
a real proof point, right that they're going to invest
in Paramount Plus and bring this premium programming to try
(05:25):
to make baramunt Plus on its own a thriving, standalone
winner in the streaming wars.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Ellison was very strong about that the owners of this
company now the key majority owners, their incentives are aligned
to make Paramount as successful as possible. He pointed to
the previous regime the Redstones had through super majority shares,
they had ironcloud voting control of almost eighty percent of shares,
so they could basically vote in what they wanted, but
(05:55):
they had only ten percent of the economic interest in
the company. Now the Ellisons and that group have seventy
percent of the economic interest and one hundred percent of
the voting power, so they have actually even more sway
over the company.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The skin in the game is definitely compelling statement.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Another thing that stood out to me from our questioning
was that they really David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, who
was going to have a very big hand in steering
film and TV there both made a very strong pledge
to support family programming, truly programming for children. Obviously they
have Nickelodeon, they have a studio that does family features,
but they both emphasize that this is a market that
(06:35):
is very important to them. David Ellison has two young
daughters at home that is going to influence the way
he pilots this company, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
As a media company. To be a big player, you
want to cover all the quadrants, and it's kids, sports, news, scripted, unscripted,
everything and all that takes is money, right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You could see the eagerness. You could tell that it's
been a longslot things that we've covered in depth throughout
the last months here on Variety. You can tell that
they are eager to get to work. And of course,
while a bunch of us were sitting there eating our
quin wa and salmon salads over there at Paramount, the
company was making news in other realms. The stock went
(07:15):
a little crazy. Todd what happened?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, No, one is entirely sure. Because on the day
that they announced the UFC dealed, the stock declined three
about three point four percent, So you know, that didn't
seem to be what something that retail investors were going
to gravitate toward. But today stock went up thirty six percent.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Jim Kramer, CNBC grasping for an explanation, and is only
it's a meme stock, you know, which indicates that their
people or groups of people who are somehow promoting this
on social media somewhere. You couldn't find a real source
of who was promoting this stock in this way, but
it definitely went up and buying today.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
These meme stocks usually seem to revolve around companies that
are really really into stress or extremely flimsy, and Paramount
has its problems but it has truly has lots of
hard assets. And that wasn't the only other headline that
emerged while we were lunching and schmoozing with the executives.
One investor, Mario Gabelli, made his feelings known in a
(08:21):
lawsuit against former owner Sharry Redstone.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
That's right. He'd been talking ever since the deal, even
before the deal was done last summer, that he wasn't
sure that this was going to give the other Class
A investors in Paaramount Global the former Paramount fair shape.
And he said his company asked for documentation from Paramount
and National Amusements and they claimed that it just didn't
(08:46):
provide the transparency to give them assurance that they weren't
getting cheated effectively on a steal. So the lawsuit is
alleging that Sharry Redstones National Amusements Ink received sixty bucks
per share for their Class A voting shares, well Geabelly's
firm and others similarly situated shore Owders got twenty three
(09:08):
bucks a share, and that was the twenty three dollars
to share with public. But he's alleging that Scherry made
out like a bandit and the other classic stockglders got stiffed.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Doesn't this stuff all have to be spelled out in
black and white in these three inch thick SEC filings
around these kind of deals? Or is there a wiggle
room because National Amusements itself was private.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, it was not disclosed what the per share price
per SE was going to be for the NAI portion
of that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
I remember there was a lot of back and forth
about that. Well, was Scherry Redstone's overall haul. It's at
one point it was over two billion, and then I
think by the end it was neated at one point
eight if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yep, when you back out the debt, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well, never a dull moment covering the Redstones, even as
they let go of their empire. At the event that
I attended, I'm just going to say it the best,
just hands down. George Cheeks a super cool Sam and
pink suit. He looked very Martha's Vineyard. CBS has been
through a lot is part of this merger, so here's
hoping for brighter days for the Tiffany Network and other things.
(10:16):
Todd is always thank you for helping us sort all
this stuff out.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Next up, we'll hear from Janelle Riley on how she
assembled this year's very eclectic ten Storytellers to Watch feature.
Janelle Riley, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Hi, thank you so much for having me a longtime listener,
first time participant on here.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We published a feature this week, Ten Storytellers to Watch,
and you were the person who assembled it. You spearheaded
the recruiting and the scouting for it. Janelle, what inspired
this particular list?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
We've had so many like Oscar winners and big names
come off ten Directors to Watch list, and we do
ten screenwriters as well, and obviously ten actors. But you know,
storytellers is such a great word because there's so many
unique ways to tell a story. You know, so many
different mediums, and you can do it through music, through words,
sometimes you can do it without any sound at all.
(11:11):
So looking for people who are creative and interesting and
telling stories in new ways, and that could be anything
from composers to podcasters to playwrights to people who will
do all three of those things at once.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Can you give me an example of folks on the
list that you think epitomize this new reformability to be
a creator that is not bound by discipline or genre.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I was not super familiar with what pad, which is
a site where authors can upload their stories, and one
of our storytellers to watch, Ariana Goody, got started by
uploading a story to a website titled Mia More de
pad My what pad Love, and you developed a big
following from there and is now, you know, publishing her
first novels that are also being made into films.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
We've done some interesting stories which you realize is that
there is such a content ecosystem in Asia and the webtunes,
as you say, is not only a platform for aspiring writers,
but also just literary scouts. Now you'll have a bellweather
for how much people are reading, how much they're reacting
to a story, how they react to different characters. Variety
(12:17):
was on the CUSP pair because we had David jay Lee,
who is the big boss of Webtoon Entertainment, one of
the biggest publishers based in South Korea but with increasing
operations in Los Angeles. David jay Lee joined us at
our entertainment conference at CEES this year, and he was
a guest on our Strictly Business podcast back in January.
It's great that you tapped into webtunes as a springboard
(12:39):
for writing talent. Now I kind of addicted to that site.
There's a lot of really great writing on there. There's
so much talent out there. Where did you start in
terms of scouting and narrowing the list of folks that
you thought was worthy of inclusion. We start by asking
for recommendations, you know, from different people in the industry
or just people we know. It reached out to publishing
(13:01):
houses to see who were the up and coming authors were,
but a lot of it really is word of mouth.
In fact, you gave me a great suggestion that ended
up making the list. Thank you for including my suggestion.
Jake Halpern is a very distinctive voice, and I've read
his byline, I've heard his work on radio and podcast platforms.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
We have a lot of discussions about like what is
a storyteller and how it encompasses so much and things
you might not have normally thought of. This year we
have Heather Christian who is a theater artist who writes books,
music lyrics, also performs does scores even for adult swim
programs and for movies for other people. Just a little
(13:40):
bit of everything, and it's really fun. People can be hyphenates.
Nobody feels like they have to be one or the
other anymore. You can work on Broadway and in your
spare time you can write for adult swim. It is very,
very mobile time for creative talent, that is for sure. Well,
all of the storytelling prowess is going to be celebrated
next week, August seventeenth in the Little Rock at the
(14:02):
Film Land Festival. A number of the honorees will be
able to join Variety there at a panel hosted by
our very own chief film critic, Peter de Bruges. Yes,
he's very excited to go to Arkansas. You know, I
was actually in Arkansas recently because the Bentonville Film Festival,
which is done in conjunction with Gena Davis's Media Institute,
(14:24):
is also in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Janelle, thank you for joining me to talk about this list. Absolutely,
thank you so much. As we close out today's episode,
here's a few things we're watching for today. In New York,
Variety and Rolling Stone are hosting our fifth annual truth
Seekers event, showcasing documentary content. We'll have highlights in Monday's episode.
(14:48):
Variety is about to go on a big festival run
for the rest of August. On Saturday, we'll publish the
first of three digital show dailies out of the Sarajevo
Film Festival. On Sunday, we'll have the first of three
digital dailies out of the san Fik Industria Festival in Santiago, Chile.
On Monday, we're on the coast of Norway at the
(15:10):
Haggisond Film Festival. And week after next comes the Venice
Film Festival, which runs August twenty seventh through September ninth.
We'll have a large contingent there. We'll publish five festival
print dailies on site in the city of Canals, and
we'll also have six digital dailies, plus some other cool
(15:30):
stuff that is coming together. There's a lot to cover
before we go. Congrats to Rebecca Hable, the theater veteran
has been named managing director of the Roundabout Theater Company.
Starting next year. She returns to the beloved New York
institution after spending the past six years with the Harold
and Miriam Steinberg Theater Center and what is now the
(15:51):
Todd Haymes Theater on Broadway. Thanks for listening. This episode
was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions
from Todd Spangler and Janelle Riley. It was edited by
Aaron Greenwald. Stick's Next hick Picks. Please leave us a
review at the podcast platform of your choice, and please
tune in Monday for another episode of Daily Variety.
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