Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 240th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Cannes 2016: Complete List of This Year’s Winners.
Cannes 2016: How the Cannes Film Festival Made Movies Exciting Again.
Cannes 2016: Amazon just won over the year’s biggest film festival with these 6 movies.
Cannes 2016: 17 Biggest Winners and Losers.
Cannes 2016: Can Any of This Year’s Movies Crash the Oscar Race?
The 2016 Indiewire Cannes Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival.
How My First Trip to Cannes Changed My Perception of the Independent Film World.
Here’s Where You Can Watch Every Palme d’Or Winner.
48 Video Game Movies Currently in Development.
10 Sequels No One Asked For.
The Superhero Franchise: Where Traditional Movie Stardom Goes to Die.
Hollywood Heads for Crowded June in Chinese Theaters.
Apple Exec Raised Prospect of a Bid for Time Warner.
‘Angry Birds’ Flies Away With the Box Office, Leaving the ‘Neighbors’ and ‘Nice Guys’ Behind.
The Progressive Feminism Of ‘Neighbors 2’ Isn’t Afraid To Show Women At Their Worst — Girl Talk.
‘Ghostbusters’: How Sony Plans to Out-Slime the Online Haters.
Ghostbusters, Frozen, and the strange entitlement of fan culture.
Lionsgate Stock Surges as CEO Touts Bigger Film Slate, TV Production Growth.
‘Star Trek Beyond’ Director Pushed Studios to Drop Lawsuit Over Fan Film.
CAA’s Delicious New Expansion: Agency Launches CAA Culinary.
Wanda Chairman Wang: Disney “Shouldn’t Have Entered China”.
Super Bowl to Come to Los Angeles in 2021.
What’s the Future of Hollywood: The Ghetto Film School and Watching Movies on Phones.
Alamo Drafthouse Teams With Legion M Crowdfunded Studio Startup.
How Bryan Singer’s Original ‘X-Men’ Helped Define Superhero Movies.
The Nice Guys is a reminder of the importance, and sheer pleasure, of great screenwriting.
Joss Whedon Reveals Clues About His New, Non-Marvel Script.
J.J. Abrams Is the Golden Child ‘Star Wars’ Deserved.
‘Halloween’: John Carpenter to Produce 11th Film, the ‘Scariest of Them All’.
Guillermo del Toro rants and raves about John Carpenter on Twitter.
Stanley Kubrick’s original treatment for ‘The Shining’.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather notebook to be published as an epic 720-page book.
Read the One-Sentence Pitch That’s Eli Roth’s Next Crypt TV Horror Short.
How a Chinese billionaire’s dream of making an underwater fantasy blockbuster turned into a legendary movie fiasco.
Graphic: The Periodic Table of Storytelling.
Five Signs Your Story Is Sexist — Against Men.
From the Hays Code to ‘Loving’: Hollywood’s History With Interracial Romance.
Hedgebrook Screenwriters Lab: 5 screenwriters. 2 mentors. 1 week.
If Horror Movies Were Remade for Children.
A Letter To My Students About To Graduate From Film School.
Why Fat Is the New Skinny (TV Bundle).
TV Ad Sales Revenues Have Been on the Rise, But Don’t Call It a Comeback.
Will the Amount of Original TV Content Ever Stop Growing?
Study: Video Streaming Is “Approaching Saturation”.
Why Roots Is the Single Most Important Piece of Scripted Television in Broadcast History.
Why Damon Lindelof Is Ending The Leftovers.
HBO’s ‘Westworld’ Troubled No More, Network Confirms Fall Debut.
James Corden’s ‘Carpool Karaoke’ to Be Sold as International Format.
TV Co-Productions Booming Between China and Asia Region.
Why TBS Thinks You’ll Watch Other People Play Video Games.
‘Mad Men’ Auction: Now’s Your Chance to Find Out What’s in Don Draper’s Wallet.
Age of Abundance: How the Content Explosion will Invert the Media Industry.
Netflix Teases Its Big Summer Acquisitions, and Its Even Bigger Deal With Disney.
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Says Service Is Not “Anti-Theater,” Filling Gap Left Open By Major Studios.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Face Content, Investment Quotas in Europe.
Hulu Now Worth $25 Billion, up From $15 Billion, Analyst Says.
Amazon’s New Pilot Season Includes Shows With Kelsey Grammer, Matt Bomer, Lauren Ambrose.
ComiXology Launches Monthly “Netflix for Comics” Subscription.
Spotify Nearly Doubles Revenue in 2015.
Twitter Changes Tweet Rules to Exempt Media, Replies From 140-Character Limit.
Snapchat May Already Be Bigger than Twitter, Leaked Data Suggests.
Legal Fund for YouTube’s H3H3 Raises More Than $145,000 to Fight MattHoss Copyright Lawsuit.
How a teenager created Oculus Rift in his parents’ SoCal garage.
SoundCloud is now offering users free digital mastering.
The New York Times of the future is beginning to take shape.
How Forbes Exposed Peter Thiel as Billionaire Secretly Funding Gawker Lawsuits.
Why Gawker Versus Peter Thiel Isn’t Just About Gawker.
Big Publishing is Not as Big Anymore.
We’re Buying Paperbacks, Audiobooks and Coloring Books — but Not E-Books.
Paris Review (interview): John McPhee.
4 Writers Homes You Can Rent on Airbnb.
3rd & Fairfax (WGA podcast): Episode 23.
Scriptnotes: Episode 251.
Watch: Rachel Bloom’s live performance of “Sexy French Depression”.
Watch: Through The Eyes Of John Hughes.
Watch: ‘Star Wars’ Blooper Reel Uncovered.
Watch: Steven Spielberg- Moments of Humanity.
Watch: The Kubrick Zoom.
Watch: We’ve hit peak lens flare.
Watch: Kicking Against the Chick Flicks: Reclaiming the Hollywood RomCom.
Watch: T.J. Miller’s Alternate Stephen Tobolowsky Insults from ‘Silicon Valley’.
Watch: James Corden Gets Driven to Work by Chewbacca Mask Lady.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: We have a new website! Check it out here. If you look at our course offerings, you will see that Tom Benedek and I have put together a comprehensive curriculum, grounded in our collective 60+ years of working in the movie and TV business, and nearly 30 years of teaching experience.
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Our Writing Workshops provide an excellent way to learn everything from story prep to first draft to rewriting both movie and TV scripts.
Our Private Programs allow you to work with Tom or myself in a private one-on-one arrangement which we can tailor to your specific writing needs and life schedule.
Screenwriting Master Class alumni have set up projects at major studios including Paramount, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures, TV networks including ABC, AMC, HBO, and USA, and signed with top agencies including CAA, The Gersh Agency, UTA, Verve, and WME, as well as managers including Circle of Confusion, Grandview, Lee Stobby, Madhouse Entertainment, Mosaic, and MXN Entertainment.
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May 30: The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling
With Scott Myers
June 6: Prep: From Concept to Outline
With Tom Benedek
June 13: Pages II: Rewriting Your Script
With Scott Myers
June 20: Pages I: Writing Your First Draft
With Tom Benedek
And beginning June 27, I will begin teaching my entire 8 course screenwriting theory Core Curriculum, a holistic approach to Character Based Screenwriting covering Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, and Time. It’s the only time I will be offering these classes in 2016 and you can take them all for a nearly 50% discount by enrolling in the Core Package.
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So please stop by our new website and let us know what you think. While you’re there, be sure to sign up to receive a free tutorial download: TV PILOT CREATION BUILDING BLOCK #1 — FAMILY OF CHARACTERS. Look for new tutorials each month by getting on our email list.
As always, we look forward to the opportunity to work with you!