Variety 01/26/2024

Nobody loves handicapping the Academy Awards more than our journalists at Variety. And the Oscar nominations always bring on a wave of cheers and sighs in our newsroom at each surprise (and this week, there were a few). The latest crop of nominated movies — led by Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which earned 13 nods — make up as excellent a field as we’ve seen in years. Still, there’s room for disappointment over the absence of America’s new favorite leading lady. “Barbie” was the highest-grossing movie of 2023, and widely beloved by critics and fans alike. The Warner Bros. release landed eight nominations, including best picture, but its lead actress Margot Robbie and its director Greta Gerwig were inexplicably left out of their key categories. (Robbie was nominated as a producer,…

Senior entertainment and media writer Matt Donnelly shared a bountiful platter of crudités with Lily Gladstone, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio for this week’s wide-ranging cover interview. TV business writer Jennifer Maas purchased one of the 24 million copies of “Hogwarts Legacy” sold in 2023, helping to make it the bestselling game of the year. Photographer Art Streiber recently visited Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s Rothko exhibition in Paris. His cover photo this week is an homage to Dutch master Thomas de Keyser, using a backdrop that echoes Rothko’s compositions. Illustrator Rafa Alvarez was a gamer before becoming a parent, so he was excited to work on our WB Games story. “I had a blast seeing how some of the characters have evolved over the years,” he says.…

Depending on whom you ask, Don Lemon is planting his feet firmly in media’s next frontier. Or its last one. The former CNN star anchor is the latest in a parade of onetime TV-news personnel to dip their toes into the entrepreneurial waters of digital and social media. He announced in early January that he would launch “The Don Lemon Show” on X, part of a bid to build a broader media outlet. “Don is extremely passionate about launching his own media company,” says Oren Rosenbaum, partner and head of audio at UTA, which represented Lemon in his deal with the social-media giant. “His first priority is the show, and as that becomes more and more successful, he will build a business around that and become a platform for other…

High-profile broadcast journalists make headlines all their own when they split from their longtime media outlets. They rarely stay as firmly in the public eye — but there are exceptions. Here are a few business ventures crafted by TV-news figures after their mainstream runs came to an end. • DAN RATHER In 2006, CBS News did not renew the veteran anchor’s contract following a controversy around the authenticity of documents used in a 2004 report he led on “60 Minutes II” that examined George W. Bush’s Air National Guard record. Rather launched programs on cable network HDNet and continued to experiment with digital formats. • SOLEDAD O’BRIEN The anchor left CNN in 2013 after a decadelong run and formed Starfish Media Group. She hosts a weekly public-affairs program distributed by…

There were a smattering of big sales and buzzy premieres, but as the 40th edition of Sundance ends, it’s impossible to ignore that the indie film business is suffering from an identity crisis. The box office for art-house movies has yet to regain its pre-COVID stride. Streaming services once inflated the prices for movies that debuted at the festival because they were desperate for content. Now, in this era of economizing, the all-night bidding wars that made Sundance sizzle have become a thing of the past. That’s good for agents and filmmakers looking to get more shut-eye, but it’s not a great sign of the financial health of the industry. Still, there was plenty to celebrate. Movies like “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” and “Will & Harper” received emotional standing…

Discovery Channel’s hit franchises, like “Gold Rush” and “Deadliest Catch,” feature plenty of blood and sweat. But where are the tears? That’s something Howard Lee immediately began asking, after taking control of the network at the end of 2022. As head of TLC, Lee helped grow the network to new heights thanks to blockbuster franchises like “90 Day Fiancé,” where emotion was his bread and butter. But Lee felt that there just wasn’t enough of it on Discovery. “I do think that men have a lot of emotions as well,” says Lee, who is now president of Discovery Networks (which includes Discovery, Animal Planet, Science and Travel channels) and TLC. “It is the one thing I do carry over from my DNA of TLC. I asked everybody if we were…