Which andrew lloyd webber musical launched in the west end this year

UPDATED with content spend stats from annual report: Giant Amazon said its total expenses for video and music came to $16.6 billion last year, up from $13 billion in 2021. Video and music expense includes licensing and production costs associated with content offered within Amazon Prime memberships, and costs associated with digital subscriptions and sold or rented content, according to the company’s latest annual report that followed fourth quarter financials yesterday. On an earnings call Thursday, CFO Brian Olsavsky noted that Amazon spent $7 billion on originals, live sports and licensed content in 2022, up from $5 billion the year before. It’s unclear if those figures include all worldwide video content, which is increasingly central to Amazon’s strategy in driving membership for Prime, the biggest loyalty program in the world and the beating heart of the company. Amazon (which acquired MGM last year for $8.5 billion in cash) carefully evaluates its return on … [Read more...] about Amazon Praises Video As Key Driver Of Prime; 2022 Content Spend, Including Music, Hit $16.6 Billion

TMZ.com Anderson .Paak wasn't about to let a whole group of people stand still while he DJ'd some of his best music ... jokingly issuing a threat to play some R. Kelly if they didn't start moving. AP played a barrage of new wave and funk records during Spotify's Best New Artist party Thursday in L.A. The playlist didn't appear to get the reaction .Paak had hoped for, and he repeatedly instructed the crowd to get their groove on ... even after his trusty trumpet player Maurice "Mobetta" Brown arrived on the scene to spruce things up. At one point, AP singled out a particular stick in the mud who was killing his vibe on the turntables, but eventually powered through and even rocked out on the drums to close his set. Gallery Launch Gallery Getty Finally, he threatens the crowd he'd turn on some R. Kelly if they didn't get their act right. Of course, R. Kelly's music is a point of controversy over the last few years ... he's got decades … [Read more...] about Anderson .Paak Threatens Crowd with R. Kelly Music Unless They Start Dancing

Two years ago to this very day, Seth Rudetsky , the Broadway composer, musician, podcaster, host of a show on SiriusXM radio, fundraiser , musical cruise host, conveyer of pop culture trivia and, now, “source music consultant,” received a text from Craig Mazin, the screenwriter, director and producer. Mazin was friends with Ted Griffin, who is married to Sutton Foster, who knows, as does seemingly everybody else in musical theater, Rudetsky. “I get this text,” Sudetsky remembers, “in all capital letters, saying IT’S EMMY AND GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD WINNING CRAIG MAZIN. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING. I NEED YOUR HELP.” Specifically, Mazin needed a song for a TV episode he was working on, a show tune along the lines of “I Miss The Music” from the 2006 Kander & Ebb musical Curtains , only older. If you’ve seen the third episode of HBO’s The Last Of U s, the post-apocalyptic drama created by Mazin and Neil Druckmann (based on a 2013 video game), you’ll know where this is … [Read more...] about ‘The Last Of Us’ Has Made A New Hit Of Linda Ronstadt’s 53-Year-Old Song ’Long Long Time’ – All Because Seth Rudetsky Knows Everything

Gallery Launch Gallery Getty It's Grammy weekend once again in Los Angeles, and some of the industry's biggest stars aren't wasting any time in celebrating music's biggest honor. Tons of parties popped up across the city Thursday ... events dedicated to the rookies of the biz and even some dedicated to the veterans. Gallery Launch Gallery Getty For starters -- there was the Warner Music Party at The Hollywood Athletic Club -- which brought out Anderson .Paak , Nile Rodgers , Missy Elliott , Wiz Khalifa , Saweetie and Bebe Rexha ... just to name a few. BACKGRID Some of the biggest names turned out at the Black Music Collective Party at The Hollywood Palladium. While there was plenty of celebrating, Lil Wayne was honored with the Global Impact Award at the event. Drake presented him with the awards, cracking jokes about The Grammys in the process. BACKGRID Lil Kim , DJ … [Read more...] about Grammy Weekend Kicks Off in Los Angeles with Celeb-Packed Parties

There was a moment last November when Channel 4 ’s senior executives breathed a sigh of relief. Sat at the top table of Channel 4’s 40th birthday party, Chief Executive Alex Mahon was flanked by her friend Elisabeth Murdoch and doyens of UK broadcasting, including BBC Director-General Tim Davie and Carolyn McCall, ITV’s Chief Executive. They were raising a glass to a British success story in a rare public display of unity. On the same table was Thérèse Coffey, a senior government minister who had survived three prime ministers in the space of little more than three months. Her presence at the V&A Museum event bemused others, who believed the government only had hostile intentions for Channel 4 after sanctioning a sale of the broadcaster against its wishes. Things soon got weirder. Coffey turned to Mahon and asked if she could raise a glass to Channel 4. She then proceeded to surprise the room full of TV luminaries by serenading her hosts with a rendition of happy … [Read more...] about Channel 4: Inside The Doomed Sale Of A Crown Jewel Of British Television

TMZ.com Latto seemingly wasn't phased by the fact she can't sell her panties ... she got back into her MC bag performing for Spotify's Best New Artist on Thursday!!! The "Big Energy" rapper was among several performers at the event inside Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood ... and blitzed through a melody of hits dropped by her own DJ Von . She and her backup dancers also put on a twerking display right before wooing the crowd with her signature "Big Energy" banger, which is up for Best Melodic Rap Performance at this year's Grammys!!! Gallery Launch Gallery Getty Latto is also up for Best New Artist at the upcoming awards ... and we can safely say she's capping off a crazy week after nearly becoming $100K richer after attempting to pawn her used underwear on eBay. TMZ.com As we told you, eBay removed the sale of the cheetah-print panties just as it was hitting the six-figure mark, -- potentially giving her manager … [Read more...] about Latto Performs Melody Of Hits At Spotify’s Best New Artist Party

With negotiations for a new set of SAG-AFTRA film and TV contracts set to begin May 5 , the plight of the unions’ lowest-paid members is coming to light. Data obtained by Deadline shows that earnings for SAG’s film and TV extras have been in a steep decline during the past 10 years, leaving fewer and fewer of them eligible for SAG’s basic health plan. Data collected by the SAG Pension and Health Plans shows that during the past decade, the number of SAG members who have qualified for SAG health benefits based on their earnings from extra work alone has plummeted by more than 67%, down from 2,782 in 2003 to only 905 in 2011, the most recent year for which those numbers have been made available (see chart 1). Related: SAG-AFTRA Working On Wide-Ranging Casting Diversity Report The numbers began their precipitous plunge in 2004, when the SAG Pension and Health Plans raised the earnings needed to qualify for basic health coverage from $7,500 a year to $11,000, an … [Read more...] about SAG-AFTRA Extras Squeezed Out Of Health & Pension Plans As Their Annual Earnings Continue To Plunge

There’ll be fireworks but no fire, and there will be a deal in the end. That’s the word I’m hearing from both sides out of the WGA ’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers after two days of talks . No one is commenting publicly, but I’ve learned that besides presentations from both sides during the opening days, there’s palpable unease in the room at AMPTP HQ thanks to the multimillion-dollar rollback proposal producers sent the WGA more than a week before negotiations began. “There’s a feeling of, Why did you have to insult us?’” a WGA insider told me over the producers’ request for $60 million in rollbacks from the health and pension plans, residuals and targeted screenplay minimums. “Once again it makes us the least favored child of the guilds.” Some on the other side of the table don’t disagree with that assessment. “Those were ridiculous proposals meant to appease the people at the top, not anyone in the room,” a well-placed … [Read more...] about WGA Contract Talks Brittle In Opening Days Over “Ridiculous” AMPTP Proposals

EXCLUSIVE: Which guild will go first at the bargaining table – the DGA , the WGA or SAG-AFTRA – remains undetermined for the upcoming cycle of film and TV contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. If history is any judge, who goes first could foreshadow whether there will be a strike – or more than one strike – this year. In the end, it will be up to each guild, working in consultation with the AMPTP , to decide when, and in what order, they start bargaining. The DGA has gone first in each of the past three three-year bargaining cycles, even though its contracts expire at the same time as SAG-AFTRA’s – on June 30 – and two months after the WGA’s contract on May 1. The DGA often begins its negotiations many months in advance of the expiration of its contracts. “When it comes to making the decision about when to start negotiations,” the DGA said recently, “we are guided by one simple principle: We will only begin bargaining … [Read more...] about Going First At Bargaining Table Means A Lot, But No Word Yet If It Will Be DGA, WGA or SAG-AFTRA

Leave it to a sitcom vet like Melissa Rauch to remind the industry that everything old can be new again. After persuading Warner Bros. TV to dust off the Night Court IP and revive it for NBC, multi-cams are suddenly hot again, with every broadcast network — and even a few streamers like Netflix (home to new hit That ’90s Show , which just got renewed ) are putting studio audience comedies in development. While no one is straight-up abandoning single-cams — the success of CBS’ Ghosts and ABC’s Abbott Elementary have certainly made sure of that — there’s no beating the cost-effectiveness of one of TV’s most tried and true genres. “Everybody had a hunch they should probably be doing more of them,” says one high-powered comedy agent. “Night Court is a good sign there is an appetite for that. Everything I’m hearing out of CBS, for example, is that they have pretty hard caps they are trying to hit on these multi-camera shows. The Conners is an exception because … [Read more...] about Thanks, ‘Night Court’! How Multi-Cams Are Having A Moment … Again