Support independent journalism, free from the trades and other publications that are part of the tinsel town machine.
For 12 years, Showbiz411.com has been covering Hollywood, Broadway, the music business and the business of celebrity. Ads are our main source of funding, but contributions (not tax exempt) from readers who enjoy the scoops, exclusives, and fact based reports are always welcome and very appreciated. To inquire about ads, email us at showbiz411@gmail.com.
When is number 1 really number 1? Or is it number 5?
Bon Jovi debuted its “Forever” album this week and sold more CDs, LPs, and downloads than anyone — 52,000.
But the album had no streaming whatsoever.
The result is “Forever” is number 5.
Number 1 is — you guessed it — Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poets.” Total was 128,380 copies. All but 23,000 came from streaming.
Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” came in at number 2. Not having a designated single from this album has hurt it. As much as everyone likes “Chihiro” and “Birds of a Feather,” they aren’t propelling the album.
As for “Forever,” one week should do it. All legacy albums behave this way now. No singles, nowhere to play them, no tour.
Disney Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” will hit somewhere in the vicinity of $140 million tomorrow for its opening weekend.
The sequel to the 2015 hit, “Inside Out,” made $50 million Friday night for a total opening of $62 million! .
For Disney, this couldn’t have come any sooner. The company that got very taken away with itself thanks to Marvel movies had a dreary 2023. Only five releases cleared $100 million. Of those, only one — “Elemental” — was animated. And even that one was not a breakout hit.
The rest of 2023 included “Wish,” “The Marvels,” and “Haunted Mansion,” all non-starters. And while “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” scored $359 million, there wasn’t a lot else to celebrate.
But now, after a long drought, “Inside Out 2″ looks to be the hit everyone needed. Perfectly timed for the end of school, aimed at girls, ‘inside Out 2” is off to a stunning start. If only Richard Kind were in this one, it would have done even better!
Google — and AI — are doing as predicted — killing oft the media business.
Yesterday there were a lot of layoffs again, all top people with a lot of experience. Forget print sales! Internet traffic is way down. It started last September, when Google employed a drastic change to it algorithm.
But now it’s even worse the web traffic, which has dropped like a stone over the last three months. Some sites have seen their readership cut in half as Google and other search engines point to artificially created links.
Yesterday, Penske Group’s The Hollywood Reporter let go of several staff including long time top TV editor Lesley Goldberg, and editor writer Rebecca Sun (who’d been laid off before and rehired). Penske owns the Reporter, Variety, Deadline, Rolling Stone, and Billboard among others. I’m told these layoffs aren’t the end.
The Daily Beast has reportedly offered buyouts to 70% of its unionized staff. Non-unionized staff is next as former Hearst editor Joanna Coles and ABC News chief Ben Sherwood take the reins to save the Beast from closing.
Media news: The Daily Beast buyout results are in, and they're just about gutting the site. 25 (or 70%) of unionized staffers took the buyouts, including nearly all of the most senior journalists. Meanwhile, non-union editors expect to face a round of firings at end of the month.
Over at The Sun.com, there’s buzz of more were sent packing. According to Semrush, The Sun.com has lost 20 million visitors since February. I’m surprised considering YahooNews just told me they’re relying on tabloid news. Go figure.
In Canada, 35 media people were laid off the by Global News. That’s in addition to 11 who already got the axe this year.
I do read snarky comments about all these layoffs who think that media people getting cut is funny, or that they deserve it. How stupid can people be? Is there really a desire for a fascist dictator — Donald Trump — and no free press? Were education programs cut so deeply in the 1980s that we have a generation of ignorance? The more media shrinks, so do the opportunities to know what’s going on in the world — whether you like it or not. The media contracts, the more you should worry.
And back to the headline: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc are the villains, and they’re doing this all unchecked. The government has yet to to intervene for any kind of oversight or regulation. We were warned about AI more than a year ago, and no one took it seriously.
Actor Jonathan Majors was convicted of assault last December in New York. He didn’t get jail time, but he did get a sentence of 52 weeks of an in-person batterer’s intervention program. He was also ordered to continue his mental health therapy.
But this is Hollywood. So on June 21st, Majors will receive the Perseverance Award from an organization called the Hollywood Unlocked Awards. The event will recognize designer Christian Louboutin with the Innovator Award, legendary rapper Fat Joe with the Culture Award, and Cardi B with the Inspiration Award. Tiffany Haddish will host the Los Angeles show, held at the Beverly Hilton.
How did Majors persevere? Despite scuffling with his girlfriend, and being convicted by a jury, he’s continued to pursue his Hollywood career. That shows get-up-and-go, apparently.
What is Hollywood Unlocked? Also, who would sponsor an awards event honoring a convicted abuser?
Hollywood Unlocked is run by someone named Jason Lee. He sells health insurance on his website. Lee has registered a 501 c3 (because who hasn’t?) called the Hollywood Cares Foundation, which so far has filed nothing with the IRS.
Every generation has a Jason Lee. Think David Gest. But even David Gest wouldn’t have honored a recently convicted domestic abuser. The party is on June 21st, and when sponsors are revealed, we’ll tell you.
On Saturday he’s the co-host of a big Hollywood fundraiser for Joe Biden. Julia Roberts is also featured, and there will be plenty of stars and heavy hitters.
But last night, George was in New York. According to Keith McNally’s Instagram report, Clooney made an appearance at Balthazar last night where he joined Francis Ford Coppola and daughter Sofia Coppola for dinner along with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
What were they discussing? We don’t know, but one topic could have been Coppola still unable to find a distributor for his “Megalopolis” a month after it was shown in Cannes. (We’re rooting for this movie!)
I guess a private plane will whoosh Clooney back to LA in time for the fundraiser. Tomorrow night all eyes will be on the Oscar winning actor because his wife, Amal, who is British and Lebanese, has come out strongly against Israel. As a member of the International Criminal Court, it was Amal who helped issued a warrant of arrest for Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu. She wrote the papers herself. This is completely in opposition to the US stand on Israel.
WIll Amal be at the fundraiser? I think she will be. If she’s not, her absence will raise more questions, particularly for tabloid writers who are looking to stir up trouble. But Mrs. Clooney is not only a diplomat, she’s a fashionista. She won’t miss a chance to appear in some incredible frock.
Paul McCartney turns 82 on Tuesday, so he’s sent us a gift.
“One Hand Clapping” is a collection of in-studio recordings Paul did with Wings in 1974. They are songs from “Band on the Run,” as well as a few Beatles tunes and oldies, plus some never heard tracks.
Listen, these were probably on bootlegs for 50 years, but most fans, including me, never heard them. Now they’re all cleaned up and remastered. The result is we owe Paul and his staff a thank you note.
What a lovely surprise. Live recording is always preferable to heavily produced, and “One Hand Clapping” proves the point. Paul, wife Linda, Denny Laine, and Jimmy McCulloch sound fresher and more vibrant than ever. The songs could be brand new, that’s how invested with life they are after five decades of listening to the conventional recordings.
“One Hand Clapping” is meant for a stereo, not headphones. The new production puts right in the middle of that studio. The sound is surrounding in the least technical way. Minor songs like “Soilly” and “C Moon” — which were dismissed as B sides when they were released — are more enjoyable than ever.
The main thing about “One Hand Clapping” is that McCartney comes off relaxed and invested. His singing is supple and fun. His rhythm section is tight, and his piano playing on “Long and Winding Road” and “Lady Madonna” is sort of brilliantly off the cuff and simultaneously masterful.
All of this was before Wings went out on the 1976 Wings Over America tour, which was in stadiums and, of course, bombastic compared to this. So consider this at the home preview. There are a few new songs that got away like “Let’s Love” and “All of You” that could and should have been properly released a long time ago. (This is like “Flaming Pie” cast offs “Same Love” and “Love Come Tumbling Down.”) Also, a 1982 B side called “I’ll Give You a Ring” gets a whole new resonant life.
I think from now on I will use these new, sparkling versions only of “Band on the Run,” “Hi Hi Hi,” “Junior’s Farm” — all records we know so well — as my standards. Wow. And sluggist ones that we also know — “Let Me Roll It” and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” — are equally revived.
“Inside Out 2” is going to save the movie business.
Last night, Disney’s sequel to the hit “Inside Out” scored $13 million in previews. The weekend looks insanely good as Disney could hit $75 million for an opening weekend.
The Mouse House hasn’t had a hit in a long time, certainly not an animated one. Also, with Marvel in a lull, Disney’s run as box office king has been diminished greatly.
But the first “Inside Out” won the Oscar in 2016 for Best Animated Feature, and was a financial hit as well. Preview night in 2015 brought in $3.7 million and total weekend take was $90 million. Nothing like a good IP to brighten the box office.
The ending of The Sopranos continues to be topic A at any gathering of its cast and creators.
Tonight was no different as HBO screened a 25th anniversary documentary by Alex Gibney called “Wiseguy: David Chase and the Sopranos” at the Beacon Theater for the Tribeca Festival.
The longish film is one of Gibney’s best ever. It’s very well organized as there are a lot of stories to tell. “Wiseguy” is full of revelations, laughs, tears. It also peels back Chase like an onion, Gibney does his best to explore Chase’s brilliant mind. The ending is such a clever surprise that drew a standing ovation from the Beacon crowd. It will be shown on HBO sometime later this year.
The breaking news from the film is that Chase admits he was planning to kill Tony Soprano off in the last episode. He said his plan was for Tony to leave the family in the diner and drive into New York for a meeting. He would be murdered on a bridge (not sure which one).
But Chase had already decided to use the Journey song, “Don’t Stop Believin'” for the finale. The lyrics “Whoa, the movie never ends/
It goes on and on and on and on” got his attention and he changed his mind. The movie — in this case the TV series — would never end. It would just go on and on and on.
Still, many people — this reporter included — feel that abruptly cutting to black before the song ended indicated that Tony or Tony and his family were murdered, probably by the man in the Members Only jacket. In the doc, after Chase reveals his original plan to Gibney, he declares: “Now they’ll say you got me!”
Lorraine Bracco says in the doc that she watched the finale with James Gandolfini, and that they were shocked by the ending. “Shocked!” she repeats. They had no idea what was coming. Michael Imperioli, who also wrote on the show, said that was typical David Chase.
Some other nuggets: Gandolfini gifted a lot of the cast with checks for $30,000 apiece after he renegotiated his contact for $1 million per episode. In the film, Edie Falco says this was a surprise to her. At the after party tonight, Kathrine Narducci told me she didn’t get a check, but Gandolfini gifted her a watch she still treasures.
Also: the cast nickname for Chase was “the master cylinder” because every change to the script had to go through him.
Guests last night included Chase, writer Terence Winter, “Mad Men” creator Matt Weiner, who wrote for Chase the last two seasons, plus Edie Falco, 93 year old Dominic Chianese, Aida Turturro, Steve Schirripa, Annabella Sciorra, Michael Imperioli, Jamie Lyn Sigler, Robert Iler, Steve Buscemi, Joe Pantoliano, Al Sapienza, 95 year old Jerry Adler (looking spiffy in a suit, though he uses a wheelchair), and Drea De Matteo (who says in the film that when she went on the audition she thought “The Sopranos” was about opera singers!).
Also spotted in the audience: former HBO chief Jeff Bewkes, and famed Nobu restaurateur Drew Nieporent.
And what is Chase doing these days? After “The Sopranos” he made “The Many Saints of Newark,” which I liked. He told me, “People hated it.” Chase is a genius, but does not take himself lightly. Anyway, I can tell you exclusively that he and Winter are working on a horror movie together. So stay tuned…
UPDATED You have to go all the way down to number 81 on Amazon’s bestseller list to find a book by a “literary” writer.
That would be “All Fours,” by Miranda July, the writer-filmmaker-artist.
Otherwise most of the top 100 is taken up Father’s Day books, Mother’s Day books, self-help, and airport fiction. The latter comprises paperback reads by authors like Colleen Hoover and Sarah J. Maas.
There are a few oases: Griffin Dunne’s memoir about his family is at number 51. Stephen King, the rare commercial author who is also a writer, has a new title.
But things are so bad that Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” originally published in 1936, is at number 96.
What’s missing? What we used to call literary or quality books. There is no breakout hit. We used to read the bestseller list and count “real” books by Philip Roth, John Irving, Margaret Atwood, VS Naipaul, and so on. Even Amazon’s Literature and Fiction list is cluttered with pedestrian commercial fare, not the stuff that comes from the Iowa Writers Workshop, or Yaddo.
Again, on that list you have to go all the way down to number 43 to find “James,” by Percival Everett, the only literary work. Otherwise, it’s more Colleen Hoover, a posthumous Michael Crichton somehow constructed by James Patterson, movie tie-ins, and so on.
This shabby state of the business is definitely causing trouble in the book business. Three weeks ago, two major literary publishers were fired without notice. Reagan Arthur, the publisher of Alfred A. Knopf, and Lisa Lucas, the publisher of Pantheon and Schocken were dismissed. Lucas was so surprised that she freaked out a bit on social media and then headed off to Paris.
Last week, Little Brown laid off seven top editors including Tracy Sherrod, Pronoy Sarkar, Jean Garnett and Ben George. They were just as shocked.
All of this follows a huge exit of legacy editors last summer at Random House’s Alfred A. Knopf that included veteran star Victoria Wilson, plus Penguin’s Wendy Wolf, Rick Kot, and Paul Slovak. Some, like Wilson, took a retirement package. Others were simply laid off.
If you don’t think there’s a correlation between all these top people getting the axe, and real books disappearing, you’re wrong.
Meantime, publishers keep putting resources in books by personalities, only to see them backfire. Kristi Noem’s “No Way Back,” is already well below number 10,000 on amazon. Tom Selleck’s autobiography is number 598. Whoopi Goldberg’s memoir, which couldn’t have had more publicity, is at number 895. Michael Richards — Kramer from “Seinfeld” — has a memoir that expired within a week.
Meantime, Lorrie Moore’s “I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home,” which just won the National Books Critics Circle award for fiction, is at number 36,379 on the paperback list. Moore is an established author who’s won many prizes and publishes in the New Yorker. But it’s doubtful many people even know she has a book out, let alone an award winner.
What’s going on here? I recently responded to a Tweet from a frustrated author who was upset that she had to pay for her own publicity. But that’s been the case for decades. Publishers don’t care about creating legacies around important writers. If they ever did, that’s long over. They sell Colleen Hoover as if she was a vacuum, sucking up as much money as they can in the process.
Tomorrow would have been the birthday of the late, great author Laurie Colwin, whose novels and essays are still in print. When I was a book publicist in 1984, I was assigned the paperback of her novel, “Family Happiness.” The publisher, Ballantine, didn’t even want me to do publicity, just send out a postcard press release. They were more interested in Garfield the cat books.
Ariana Grande is not being managed by Scooter Braun for music or movies.
Scooter — who’s actually been doing a great job with his Nova Music Fest remembrance events — announced this on Instagram.
Ariana is actually managed by Brandon Creed. She left Scooter last year.
But Braun says he’s helping her with with a Korean platform called Weverse, which Hybe — the corporation he runs in the US — owns. He’s also working with her on a cosmetic line called REM, which is not connected to the legendary rock group.
Clearly, Ariana must be invested in these two projects, so I guess Braun wanted remind us of that. For everything in her actual career, it’s Brandon Creed.
Ariana just had a new album, “Eternal Sunshine,” which was not much of a hit. She will appear this winter in part 1 of “Wicked,” the movie of the musical, and part 2 after that.
