Variety 05/22/2024

Netflix’s “Ripley” has had an unusual trajectory. Steve Zaillian’s limited series, based on novelist Patricia Highsmith’s notorious con artist, was originally set up at Showtime. But when the stand-alone television network dissolved into Paramount+ earlier this year, Tom Ripley had to reinvent himself once more. And so “Ripley” found a new home at Netflix, where the eight episodes first streamed in April. Unlike some Netflix programming — see the recent “Baby Reindeer,” for example — this show didn’t become an overnight pop culture binge-obsession. Instead, “Ripley” has been a slow burn. And that’s just fine: Zaillian’s elegant black-and-white noir series is built to stand the test of time. As more viewers catch on ahead of the Emmys, where “Ripley” will be a force in limited-series categories, we expect some spirited…

So this is what economizing looks like in Cannes. The rosé still flowed, though not as freely, and it was easier to get a reservation at the Michelin-starred restaurants that are usually booked months in advance of the film festival. There were still rooms to be had at the Hôtel du Cap, the posh resort where studio chiefs and movie stars typically stay. Most troubling, the deals — both for completed films that premiered in Cannes and the packages that hit the Côte d’Azur searching for financing — are taking much longer to close. Even in the shimmering south of France there’s no escaping that the movie business, having endured COVID shutdowns and two devastating labor strikes, has lost much of its luster. Donna Langley, the chairman of NBCUniversal Studio…

Scarlett Johansson called out OpenAI this week for mimicking her voice for a new chatbot, underscoring the urgency that many artists feel about regulating artificial intelligence. But in Congress, taking on AI is starting to resemble wrestling an octopus. It’s so sprawling, it’s hard to know how to begin. The Senate AI Working Group issued a “roadmap” last week. But that left it vague where Congress is going or when it will get there. Some have warned against stifling innovation. And while regulation is on the horizon, it appears it will be done piecemeal — one tentacle at a time. “From the House perspective, part of the challenge is that we’re under Republican control,” Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California, co-chair of the House task force on AI, tells Variety.…

Network executives once came to the up-fronts on a mission to get advertisers ex-cited about a handful of new series coming in the fall. This year, TV’s big players took a T-shirt cannon approach. Every one of the major presentations during the May 13-15 sprint in midtown Manhattan — NBCUniversal, Fox, Disney, Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix — emphasized the breadth of the company’s content offerings. Call it the everything-every-where-all-at-once strategy for the streaming age. As always, common themes emerged across the week. “Connections” was the buzziest of buzzwords used by executives pitching their hearts out from the stage. Without question, the song of Upfronts ’24, the one heard at most if not all events, was Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em.” After sorting through the firehose of shows and spin,…

Jason Salarnis knows that for some people, the Investigation Discovery network has stood for one thing: murder mysteries, frequently gruesome in nature and usually told in self-contained hourlong episodes. But with the success of docuseries “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” that perception is quickly changing. “It has been a fundamental shift for us,” says Salarnis, who is president of TNT, TBS, TruTV and HLN in addition to ID. “It has brought a spotlight back to all the other things that are outside of the lane of what people expect an ID show to be.” Those include recent limited series like “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace” and “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster,” as well as partnerships with producers Octavia Spencer (whose output for the network…

Even if you didn’t personally know my mentor and dear friend Peter Caranicas, who died May 19 after a brave battle with cancer, I’m certain your career has been touched by his pioneering journalism. And if you were lucky enough to know him as his friends at Variety did, you were gifted with having known a one-of-a-kind person. Peter was a widely respected editor at Variety for the past 16 years, capping four decades as a trusted voice who provided balanced and insightful coverage of topics including, notably, entertainment technology and its impact on the art, science and business of our industry. He wisely identified trends and interpreted what they mean for those who dedicate their careers to this field. But it was the combination of his intellect and wisdom,…