Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 272nd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

How Will La La Land’s Golden Globes Sweep Affect the Oscar Race?

Golden Globes 2017: Complete Winners List.

Golden Globes 2017: The Best Jokes of the Night From Jimmy Fallon, Matt Damon and More.

BAFTA Awards: ‘La La Land’ Leads Nominations.

‘Moonlight’ Named Best Picture by National Society of Film Critics.

The 30 Most Exciting Films In The Sundance 2017 Lineup.

Making of ‘Hidden Figures’: Re-creating the ’60s to Tell an Untold Story of Space, Sexism and Civil Rights.

Disney India to Cut Jobs Amid Exit From Bollywood Productions.

Lionsgate to Distribute Participant Movie Slate Internationally.

Apple Plotting ‘Significant’ Push Into Scripted TV Shows, Movies.

Hollywood Bracing for Wave of Trump-Inspired TV Pitches.

Hollywood’s Merger Mania: Inside the Studios’ “Size Anxiety,” Scramble to Match Silicon Valley.

Fraud in Hollywood: Stealing From Media Companies Has Never Been Easier.

Hollywood’s Top 20 Dealmakers of 2016.

2016 Was a Banner Year For Horror.

Women Made Up 23% of the Protagonists in 2016’s Top 250 Grossing Films.

Study: Female Filmmakers Lost Ground in 2016.

Athena Film Festival Announces its 2017 Lineup.

Lucasfilm Denies That Carrie Fisher Will Return As A CGI’d Character In ‘Star Wars’.

Lessons on Innovating the Movie Industry from an Old School Hollywood Exec — Barry Diller.

Los Angeles will be home to George Lucas’ $1-billion museum.

J.J. Abrams Is Ready to Step Away From Remakes and Reboots.

Coen Bros Announce First TV Project, Old West Anthology ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’.

‘Se7en’ Screenwriter on How a Mixup with David Fincher Led to Its Gutsy Ending.

Broad Cinema: Amy Heckerling’s Generation Leap.

Winter TV 2017 Commitment Calculator: How Many Hours Will You Spend Watching?

CBS Bets on Its New, White-Male-Fronted Shows With Expanded Seasons of Kevin Can Wait and Man With a Plan.

Cannes Planning International TV Festival for 2018.

Lionsgate Invests in eSports Franchise ‘The Immortals’.

Amazon Launches Anime Channel for $5 Per Month, Its First Branded Subscription Channel.

Video Games Are Already Cinema: Maybe we should we skip film adaptations and just play video games instead.

Vinyl on track to become a billion-dollar industry in 2017.

Chuck Wendig: Here’s How To Finish Your Revision, You Filthy Animal.

Bob Staenz: The Art of Backtracking.

Jeff Willis: Sterile Scripts.

Jeff Willis: Representations and Warranties.

Listen: The Broken Projector (Episode 29).

Listen: Scriptnotes (Episode 283).

William Peter Blatty (“The Exorcist)” dead at age 89.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

By popular demand! Pick any two or more of my Craft courses, and pay only $60 per class. That represents a 33% savings. Here is the lineup:

January 16 — Craft: Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling
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January 30 — Craft: Story Summaries — From Loglines to Beat Sheets
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February 13 — Craft: Handling Exposition
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February 27 — Craft: Scene Description Spotlight — Express Your Voice
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March 13 — Craft: Character Development Keys
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March 27 — Craft: Create a Compelling Protagonist
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April 10 — Craft: Write a Worthy Nemesis
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April 24 — Craft: Scene-Writing Workshop
Details TBA

May 8 — Craft: Dialogue-Writing Workshop
Details TBA

May 22 — Craft: The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling
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Each class offers:

• Seven lectures written by me
• 24/7 online forum Q&As moderated by instructor
• Pro insider writing tips
• A 90-minute live teleconference with instructor and class members

Since the classes are online, you can pretty much do everything on your own time, at your own pace. Download and read lectures. Listen to my audio commentary. Track and interact with others in message board conversations. Workshop your own loglines or writing.

You can participate as much or as little as you’d like, although I have to say the writers who take my classes are terrific, so you’ll probably find the community created in each session a welcome one to join in the dialogue.

Also this: Writers from over 40 countries have taken Screenwriting Master Class courses and that variety of backgrounds enhances the educational and social experience.

Access courses anytime and anywhere on your computer, tablet or smartphone.

Learn the craft amidst a supportive, lively, and fun online community from around the world.

Receive feedback from instructors who know the business and have a passion for teaching.

Of course, You can double down on your learning curve by enrolling in the Craft Package which gives you exclusive access to all of the content provided in each of the Craft classes. And in 2017, it’s an even better deal because I am including in the Package two new courses I will introduce in the spring: Scene-Writing Workshop and Dialogue-Writing Workshop.

That means you get not 8, but 10 Craft classes at a savings of nearly 60% off the regular rate.

But if there are only a couple of my Craft courses you need, as long as you sign up for two or more, you get a special multi-class discount of 33%.

Interested? Email me (scott@screenwritingmasterclass.com) and we’ll take care of the details!

THE FIRST CLASS — PIXAR AND THE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING — BEGINS MONDAY, JANUARY 16 SO THERE IS NO BETTER TIME TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS NEW EXCLUSIVE OFFER.

As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!