The Warner Bros. Studios water tower in Burbank, Calif. (Photo by Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
On February 9, the day SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee began contract talks with the group representing studios and streamers, Netflix chief global affairs officer Clete Willems warned that a Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery would trigger $6 billion in job cuts and create “a Noah’s Ark problem.” The significant overlap between the studios, he concluded, meant “they’re going to have two of everything.”
The immediate reaction Thursday to the stunning news that Netflix was dropping its WBD bid, clearing the way for Paramount’s takeover, not surprisingly focused on competitive and political aspects of the hunt, who had “won,” and the $110 billion price tag that Paramount chief David Ellison, his father/benefactor Larry, and assorted investors would have to justify. Many fixed on Donald Trump’s sizable shadow, and the authoritarian echoes in the government seeking to steer the studio, and particularly CNN, into the oligarchic arms of an ally.
But in conversations with Status over the last 48 hours, entertainment industry players quickly turned to the…
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The latest episode of Power Lines just dropped.
In this week’s episode: We go inside CNN, where staffers are in full-blown panic after a shocking twist delivered the network to the MAGA-friendly David Ellison. We discuss how Netflix's deal for CNN's parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, collapsed. And, most importantly, we break down what is to come for the network now that Bari Weiss is positioned to take charge.
Plus, we take a look at Tucker Carlson’s interview with Mike Huckabee, in which the right-wing extremist humiliated the U.S. Ambassador. And we save some parting words for Ben Shapiro, who shredded Candace Owens this week as “evil.”
You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jason Bateman and David Harbour in “DTF St. Louis.” (Photo by Tina Rowden/HBO)
‘DTF St. Louis’ Delivers the Fun: Don’t let the title—which sounds like a bad Bravo show—fool you. “DTF St. Louis” takes midlife crises and lives of quiet desperation, stirs them up with Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini as its anchors, gives them shifting perspectives “Rashomon”-style, and tosses in a murder mystery for good measure. The resulting HBO drama manages to keep the audience consistently off balance, and turns out to be a lot richer than expected.
Yes, the “DTF” means precisely that, referring to a website for people looking for casual hookups outside their marriage. But the interest in that from a local TV weatherman (Bateman) and a paunchy ASL translator (Harbour) who forge an unlikely…
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