jeff bewkes
5 Burning Questions We Still Have For ‘Content Kings’ at Warner Bros.
5:15AM STV | We took the better part of two days to process the NYT’s recent recognition of Warner Bros. as the crown jewel at Time Warner, where Jeff Bewkes, Barry Meyer, Alan Horn and Co. are venerated at length for emphasizing “content” (i.e. their film and TV properties) ahead of “distribution” outlets like AOL, DVD and on-demand services. It’s an oddly situational success story; in fact, it opens with WB chairman Meyer literally inhaling the incoming fax telling him The Dark Knight made $66 million on opening day, and namechecks Two and a Half Men among a handful of TV series that are finding lucrative traction internationally. There’s also the HBO factor and the Turner channels’ flourishing as well.
Guilt, Blame and Other Wreckage From the Picturehouse/WIP Crash
3:05AM Defamer Hollywood | The eulogies are on following Thursday’s twin killing of Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures by the executioners at Warner Bros. — or perhaps more accurately, by hooded, high-ranking Time Warner axeman Jeff Bewkes, to whom some today are attributing the death penalty that ended in nearly 75 lost jobs between the two mini-majors. While we still suspect that WIP’s demise in cosmically linked to its acquisition of the poisonously atrocious Alan Ball film Towelhead (another blogger disagrees, citing Funny Games instead), at least a few other observers have more official diagnoses from the murder scene.
Why Don’t We Feel Better About All These New Movies on ITunes?
5:30AM Defamer Hollywood | The inevitable grouping of the major studios under the iTunes roof finally occurred today, when Apple officially announced it had reached agreements with Universal, Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros., Sony and Lionsgate (along with previous bedfellow Disney) on day-and-date downloads of their new DVD titles. The studios had made most releases available for rental since earlier this year (with catalog titles for sale before that), but this marks the first time users can buy and download new releases on their DVD street dates. More »
