An Oscar statue. (Photo by Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
On Wednesday, as Donald Trump’s FCC chair Brendan Carr lectured senators on Capitol Hill about the need to rein in broadcast television, the Academy announced the Oscars were leaving ABC for YouTube—a once unthinkable move. The split-screen moment offered a stark contrast between the nostalgia-soaked media world Trump is trying to police and the streaming-first reality everyone else now inhabits.
People familiar with the matter said Disney and ABC executives didn’t relish losing a decades-long relationship with the Hollywood institution, but noted the $100 million annual license fee—which will climb above that through 2028, when the existing deal ends—was increasingly…
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A scene from "Avatar: Fire and Ash." (Courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
“Avatar”: The Way of Sequels: When asked about “Avatar” in 2009, my response was as follows: The story’s nothing special, but just in terms of sheer spectacle and state-of-the-art technology, I can’t imagine anyone interested in movies not wanting to see it.
That description has held up through two virtually indistinguishable sequels, subtitled “The Way of Water” in 2022 and now “Fire and Ash,” a 197-minute epic that piles on breathless rescues and battles in a manner whose ultimate goal seems to be…
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