Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 246th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Comic-Con 2016 Schedule: All the TV Shows Heading to San Diego.
Hollywood Gender Gap: Women Produced Just 19.8 Percent of Recent Films Despite Higher ROIs.
Did Gender Alter the Tone of the ‘Alien’ Series: Narrative Implications of Femininity.
New Iron Man Is a Black Female Teenager.
How the Academy’s New Class Impacts Asian Representation in Hollywood.
How Diversity Initiatives Are Changing the Film Industry.
It’s Just As Bad for Women Directors in Commercials and Ad Campaigns.
‘Ghostbusters’ Marketing Challenges: How Sony Is Selling All-Female Reboot.
Hollywood Screenwriters’ Earnings Rise 1.9%, TV Scribes’ Slide 2%.
Pixar’s Ed Catmull Explains Why The Studio Must Evolve With Each Film.
How Virtual Reality Is Working to Fix Its Puking Problem.
What Animated Films Are Saying About Our Political Culture.
Ignored by youth-obsessed Hollywood, older audiences flock to indie films.
Seniors On-Screen: 10 Films That Got It Right & Why We Need More.
Are movie ratings still relevant in the digital age?
STEVE JOBS And The Current State Of The Biopic.
Success of Warcraft in China helps US open door to audience of 1.4 billion.
China Box Office Growth Poised For First Half Slowdown.
Women Power Movies to Stream this Summer.
17 rare times when a director made five or more great films in a row.
How Stanley Kubrick Still Influences Artists, Filmmakers, and Musicians Today.
Why James Cameron is Wrong About Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
A Diamond and a Kiss: The Women of John Hughes.
George Takei Reacts to Gay Sulu News: “I Think It’s Really Unfortunate”.
Charlie Kaufman: “It Has Gotten Considerably Harder for Me” to Get Projects Made.
David Oyelowo Launches Scholarship for Nigerian Girls.
‘It was such obvious bullshit’: The Rock writer shocked film may have inspired false WMD intelligence.
Infographic: What Will Happen to Your Screenplay.
Seeking Our Story: Mary Pickford and the Feminist Foundation of Hollywood.
The rise of the spoiler alert.
Are All Classic Films Sexist?
Should We Abandon The Phrase ‘Cult Classic’?
The fall and rise of the movie tie-in single.
The Rise of Women’s Pictures on Television.
Big Stars Love TV So Much, They’re Even Hosting Game Shows Now.
A brief history of TV shows’ opening credit sequences.
30 Percent of Millennials Won’t Date Someone Over TV Tastes, Study Finds.
How Mr. Robot’s creator took the reins of season two.
YouTube Has a Quality Problem and 4 More Takeaways From Vidcon 2016.
Is Yahoo Worth $5 Billion: Circling Buyers Get Set to Bid Again.
Young Performers Look to Apps for Stardom.
Pokémon GO Is Making More Money Than Any Other iOS App Despite Being Free.
Women Are Writing the Best Crime Novels.
Marvel Turns Donald Trump Into Comic Book Villain With Giant Head.
Home of the weak: Out of the Past and four ways of framing film noir.
How two boys invented America’s greatest superhero.
Galloway on Film: Why No Hollywood Executive Can Be Called Indispensable.
Amazon Tops Netflix in Germany as VOD Booms.
Movie Stars Matter Most, but Social Media Stars Gain Traction Among Marketers.
Garrison Keillor Says Goodbye to ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ at the Hollywood Bowl.
How Flight of the Conchords outlasted the hipster.
The Collected Wisdom of David Bowie.
2016 is the worst year for album sales in the SoundScan era.
Unreleased Sufjan Stevens Album Discovered in Dumpster.
24 Writing Heavyweights Share the One Piece of Advice They Have for Aspiring Writers.
5 Biggest Mistakes When Writing Mental Illness.
My Summer Waiting Tables at the Writers’ Retreat.
New Data Analysis Suggests Only Six Book Plots Exist.
Can Audible’s New ‘Listening Service’ Capitalize on the Digital Audio Boom.
Podcasting: How to Sound Professional Even if You’re a Beginner.
Scriptnotes: Flaws are features.
Here’s the Thing: Alec Baldwin interviews Michael Eisner.
Watch: Defending The Found Footage Technique.
Watch: The American Dream in Film.
Watch: Psycho — And Cut.
Watch: The Sound Of Blade Runner.
Watch: How Ghostbusters Became Ghostbusters.
Watch: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate.
Watch: The Cult Of The Wicker Man (Burnt Offerings).
Watch: First and Final Frames.
Watch: Lone Figures.
Watch: A History of Horror.
Watch: This Supercut Will Make You Jump (40 Greatest Movie Jump Scares).
Finally Abbas Kiarostami, Palme d’Or-Winning Filmmaker, Dies at 76.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week
Visit our SMC website and scroll down to this:
FREE TUTORIAL — THE LOWDOWN ON HIGH CONCEPT
BRAINSTORM A FAMILY OF CHARACTERS — JOIN OUR WORKSHOP TRIBE
There you can download Lecture 1 of my Core II: Concept class which begins Monday, July 11. If you don’t understand high concept or even if you think you do, this lecture is pure gold. And it’s free!
If you like what you see, check out more about the class here.
As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!