It came in the morning from Skydance CEO David Ellison confirming what they had read online the previous night in an anonymous report: that they would not be joining the new merged Warner-Paramount studio. That their upcoming slate of a half-dozen releases, including “Batman 2” and “Gremlins 3,” would be handled by someone else. And that their services were no longer needed. 

It was certainly an inelegant way to handle the exit of two studio chiefs who had ushered Warner Bros to glory at the Academy Awards earlier this year, with the triumph of “One Battle After Another” winning Best Picture and Michael B. Jordan taking Best Actor for critical darling “Sinners,” capped off by a standout 2025 at the box office. 

All day the internet was feeding on the unconfirmed (until now) report of their exit by Puck, with Paramount (now renamed Skydance) declining to comment. The executives were left dangling in the news cycle, increasingly angry at the slight. 

Ellison called each of the executives, separately, to inform them in a tense exchange. According to knowledgeable individuals, he told them that the merged companies have a ton of debt and needed to restructure in order to meet those obligations. That, of course, is no secret to anyone. The combined entity is expected to carry around $80 billion in total debt. 

They were not offered a production deal. Their film slates will be handled for the moment by their deputies, Jesse Ehrman and Mike Ireland, who are currently the Presidents of Production. Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are co-chairs of Paramount Pictures and expected to lead the merged film studios. 

Both De Luca and Abdy were livid at the way their exit was handled, according to individuals with knowledge of their reaction. Abdy was particularly offended and told the mogul with some bitterness: “Good luck to you. I left you 39 movies.” 

Warner’s go-forward film slate is packed with likely blockbusters, including “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” “The Batman Part II,” “Gremlins 3” and “A Minecraft Movie Squared.”

Under De Luca and Abdy, Warner Bros. had a spectacular year in 2025, with two films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” ultimately winning the top prize, and multiple box office hits, including “A Minecraft Movie.” 

But 2026 has been much tougher with movies like “The Bride!” and “The End of Oak Street” failing to motivate audiences. The reported decision comes ahead of an expected underwhelming domestic opening weekend for the Tom Cruise-led film, “Digger,” which is predicted to bring in $12 million to $15 million. Update: the film opened on Friday to just $3.4 million and is now looking to hit just $7.5 million in its opening.

Abdy and De Luca had no comment for this story. Paramount/ Skydance declined to comment. 

The executives’ last day is expected to be when the two companies complete their merger on Tuesday. 

The post David Ellison Finally Calls Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy to Inform Them of Exit They Read About in the Press | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.

Three individuals close to the deal confirmed that Raine, led by co-founder Joe Ravitch and partner Erik Hodge, had accepted a purchase price. One individual said that the deal with a private equity-backed marketing firm was expected to close in the next two weeks. However, other M&A deals involving Imagine have been on the table in the past and not closed.

Raine has been “invested for a long time,” said one insider close to the deal. “It’s time to come out.”

The move to sell Raine’s stake to private equity comes as Imagine has struggled in recent years to produce the kind of film and TV hits that made it so formidable in the 2000s with titles like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “24” and “Arrested Development.”

Howard, 72, most recently directed the Sydney Sweeney indie thriller “Eden” and is in post-production on a true-story Afghanistan war drama called “Alone at Dawn” starring Adam Driver for Amazon MGM. Grazer, 75, is the producing force behind Howard’s films and others at Imagine, like the Netflix documentaries “Marty, Life Is Short” and “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing.”

The deal is complete in principle, one individual close to the transaction said, but the name of the buyer and price could not be learned immediately. TheWrap understands that Grazer has been negotiating the deal himself.

Raine has become frustrated with Imagine’s lackluster output in recent years, and the relationship between Raine and Grazer had become strained, according to a knowledgeable individual. Another individual close to the relationship said it was not strained.

It is also true that Raine does not usually stay partnered in investments for a decade.

A representative for Imagine called TheWrap’s report “factually inaccurate” while declining to give any further detail.

Imagine has been exploring a sale since at least 2024, when the company started working with an investment bank, but a planned sale to Centricus Asset Management Ltd. valued at $700 million fell apart as interest cooled in production companies, as TheWrap exclusively reported at the time.

Raine’s initial investment in 2016 marked a turning point for the company behind films like “The Da Vinci Code” franchise and TV series like “Parenthood” and “Friday Night Lights,” as the arrival of streaming opened up new distribution avenues. Later in 2016, China Media Capital came onboard as an investor with $100 million, while FountainVest Partners invested another $100 million in 2018.

By 2021, Imagine was valued in the $850 million range, but independent production companies have had a rough go over the last couple of years. LeBron James’ SpringHill Company, once valued at $750 million, merged with Fulwell 72 in 2024, just four years after it was founded by the NBA superstar; and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat, once valued at $650 million, has gone through several rounds of downsizing over the last two years. Even Hello Sunshine, valued at nearly $1 billion at one point, shuttered its kids and family unit in 2023.

Imagine has, of course, a much longer tail of content and a track record that includes lucrative library titles, although the company’s last global theatrical hit was 2016’s “Da Vinci” sequel “Inferno” starring Tom Hanks.

Imagine was behind Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” in 2025, which grossed just $9 million worldwide despite a starry cast that included Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, and Howard’s “Eden” eked out only $2.8 million at the box office after Vertical picked it up for distribution.

The last Imagine film to crack $100 million at the box office was 2017’s Tom Cruise crime movie “American Made,” which still only grossed $135 million against a $50 million budget.

The TV side has also been light, although 2022’s “Under the Banner of Heaven” limited series received critical acclaim and the Keke Palmer-led “The ‘Burbs” was a hit on Peacock last year, scoring a renewal for a second season.

Imagine has been very busy in the documentary space with films and series for Netflix, Disney+ and Peacock like “Jim Henson Idea Man,” “Music by John Williams” and “Avedon.”

Next up, the studio is behind the 20th Century “guy gets trapped in a whale” thriller “Whalefall” that’s in theaters in October, and also produced David Leitch’s heist thriller “How to Rob a Bank” for Amazon MGM and Pete Berg’s sports drama “The Mosquito Bowl” for Netflix.

TV-wise, Imagine has the Andrew Garfield/Jude Law Siegfried & Roy Apple series “Wild Things.”

And perhaps most importantly, a sequel to “The Grinch” that would reunite Howard and Jim Carrey is in early development.

Raine Group, meanwhile, has been behind several big sports and gambling deals over the last few years, including investing in and advising DraftKings. Most recently, Raine teamed with Ares on a $750 million catalog acquisition fund for music and artist management company Firebird.

The post Raine Group Close to Sale of Majority Stake in Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.

Change, as we know, happens slowly and then all at once. In the last year or two nearly all of Hollywood’s legacy studios have celebrated a century of existence and the many changes that have come through those decades, including the talkies, color television, cable, VHS then DVDs then OTT.

But this change is different. What looked like a secular shift a decade and a half ago – the move to streaming – has become something more transformative and profound. The disruption to Hollywood’s major studios are the symptoms and not the cause of this transformation. Paramount and Warner Bros. are the two most impacted in the past 18 months in their highly contested merger, but hardly the only institutions affected.

When you pull the lens back, the industry as a whole shows us something bigger: a shift in the balance of power between content and technology. Technology companies have either built alternatives to legacy studios like Netflix or bought them, like Apple and Amazon MGM. This is redefining what the entertainment economy looks like. And of course AI is changing everything inside those studios as well. 

Part of what we are doing this year at TheGrill is digging down deep to identify what is the core value of what Hollywood offers. Yes, we will explore the pace of mergers and acquisitions, and especially delve into the Paramount-Warner merger.

But regardless of the platform, it always comes back to authentic storytelling, whether in one-minute videos or eight-hour series. Whether it’s on TikTok or at the multiplex. It is what audiences are still hungry for, as “Obsession” and “Backrooms” and “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” have proved, to billions of dollars at the box office. 

Speaking of that, apparently theatrical moviegoing isn’t dead after all. The box office is headed to a $10.5 billion year, driven by five billion dollar global hits so far. 

Creators are a whole category that barely existed five years ago. The tools we have today means that a single individual can build their own business from scratch. They no longer need permission or even the infrastructure that a studio provides, and creators are building on their own to the tune of multi-million dollar deals. We have some of the key players in that space as well as a look at a new event that we launched just for Creators on Tuesday.

And as subscription models hit maturity, advertising has come back as an important part of the entertainment ecosystem. Whether in FAST channels or in the competitive dealmaking around sports, brands and their dollars are once again a growth engine. 

We’ve been convening TheGrill for 16 years and change has been the constant of this annual look at the state of the industry. But if you’re in this room today, your odds of surviving the overwhelming gale winds of change are pretty good. This community is consistently filled with the innovators and risk takers, both in the audience and on stage. It’s fun to look around and see new companies joining our stage – like aTwist from Jana Winograde and Susan Rovner, which just launched, and Mansa from Nate Parker and David Oyelowo – who are adapting to new formats like the microdrama.

This year we are able to show samples of AI generated entertainment using some of the newest tools that are making production cheaper, faster and more flexible. We feel lucky to have some of the brightest and most cutting edge minds in AI’s intersection with Hollywood.

And of course among business leaders we have some true heavy hitters coming today, from the founder and CEO of Draftkings Jason Robins, to the California attorney general Rob Bonta and Paramount chief legal counsel Makan Delrahim. We’ll have a busy morning session followed by a networking lunch where you can meet TheWrap’s top journalists and ask them anything. 

We’re excited to get today kicked off. We will continue to believe in the promise of disruption.

The post Hollywood Faces a Century-Defining Shift as Tech Tips the Power Structure appeared first on TheWrap.

Just after issuing a manifesto on Elon Musk’s X earlier this week urging Hollywood to embrace rather than fear AI, he spoke to WaxWord about his plans to launch a new animation studio focused on making quality film and television programming using the new technology.  

“For me, it is time for artists, creatives, storytellers, to actually seize the day,” he said. “These new AI tools are about innovation and opportunity. If barriers and cost come down, more films will get made, there will be more jobs, new forms of storytelling will emerge.”

Katzenberg, one of the most accomplished Hollywood executives of our time, has spent much of the last 10 years building relationships in Silicon Valley, and the last eight months closely following the evolution of generative AI. And what he has seen of AI output in the last few months convinced him that something revolutionary has arrived. 

“Up until recently it was slop,” he said. “It didn’t hold any interest for me. That has changed only in the last couple of months for me in ways I don’t think we can ignore anymore. Where they [the technologies] are today, where we are likely to be in coming months, in a year or two or three is a real transformative moment.” 

It is true that Katzenberg had already seen the future a couple of times, whether in evangelizing for 3D filmmaking in Hollywood, which never really materialized, or in launching the short-form video company Quibi in 2020 backed by $1.75 billion in capital, which fizzled in just six months. Seeing the future is no doubt hard. Last year Katzenberg partnered with Kimbal Musk to invest in drone technology that would create a new form of entertainment with the sky as the canvas. 

None of his past false starts have dampened Katzenberg’s enthusiasm for AI and what it can do for animation, his area of expertise and heartfelt passion since helping to revive Walt Disney Animation Studios and leading it to greatness in the 1980s and ’90s with “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King” and many other enduring titles. 

Katzenberg shared that he has decided to jump into the deep end, creating either a digital platform or an actual studio to create animated entertainment content using AI.  

“I am fired up, and going to go out and do something that actually shows what’s possible here,” he said. “Partner with talented filmmakers and AI to deliver the resources of the AI world and to marry that with best talent.”

I pointed out to Katzenberg that a lot of companies have already jumped in to create high quality AI-driven content, though no one of his experience has done so in the animation category. Disney, however, is making technology its concerted focus under new CEO Josh D’Amaro. 

Katzenberg was effusive there too. “I love what Josh is doing. He is making all the right ambitious moves.” But, he added: “Here’s a fact: Pixar could never have been created inside Disney animation. Just the opposite. They fought it. Roy Disney specifically asked me not to make [“Toy Story”]. To Michael Eisner’s credit, he overrode it and said: make ‘Toy Story.’”

Katzenberg intends to make animated features films and television “with the best talent and the most aspirational content,” he said. “I want to be able to show at the top of the waterfall what is aspirationally possible with the best tools in the hands of the best talent. That waterfall will go to pro-sumer, to consumer.”

What is his barrier to success, after being too early on short form video with Quibi? Easy, he said: talent. “That’s the hard part,” he said.  

“I believe we are on the cusp of what can be a true renaissance for Hollywood storytelling, and a complete transformation for all video forms as of today,” he said. 

Stay tuned for details. 

The post Forget Quibi; Jeffrey Katzenberg Is Launching a Next-Gen AI Animation Studio  appeared first on TheWrap.

The consensus isn’t wrong in the sense that Paramount didn’t have to provide any structural changes to the deal to get to a settlement. The consent decree requiring the production of 30 films a year — including both blockbusters and independents — $1.5 billion over five years invested in U.S. production and continuing to operate the cable companies separately were all things Paramount CEO David Ellison would have agreed to months ago. He pretty much said so in his New York Times op-ed piece in August.

As for the news “oversight board” meant to ensure editorial independence for CNN and CBS News, I doubt that will be something we hear from very much. A bunch of former journalists are going to stop the 24/7 news juggernaut that is CNN from functioning? Right. From what I’m told on the Paramount side, the intention is to allow CNN to continue functioning as it does. (Though in a world where Trump bans the network from the White House, that may make for some interesting conversations in the board room.) 

Bonta had been saying for weeks that he was not seeking a remedy. He said he was seeking to actually stop the merger. But that, transparently, became impossible once Paramount threatened to leave California. 

Ellison made clear that he was prepared to leave the state where the entertainment industry is based. Leaks abounded that executives were shopping for housing. That Paramount was negotiating for office space in Nashville, or Texas. And that Larry Ellison had made good on this in 2020, moving Oracle’s corporate headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

Bonta lost his ability to maneuver when California Governor Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra all urged a settlement. Without the backing of his own state’s power players, Bonta had little negotiating space. 

And then on Sept. 12 came the “leak” of a report by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, estimating that Paramount moving out of the state could resulted in the loss of up to $21.2 billion in annual economic output, 57,980 full-time jobs and $1.17 billion in state and local tax revenues.

The jig was up. On one side of the arena you had these stakeholders lined up and shouting: Settle. That included the Hollywood guilds, studio CEOs like Lionsgate’s Jon Feltheimer, and exhibitors like AMC Theatres and Regal. And all of Bonta’s political allies in the state. 

On the other side shouting Fight you had Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, activist attorney Norm Eisen and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. 

This is not difficult math. Karen Bass is up for reelection in November. Becerra is aiming to become governor of the country’s biggest state. Newsom is about to leave office and try to become the president of the United States. None of those politicians can afford to have Paramount leave the state on their watch.

Bonta was in an impossible vise and did what he had to do, extracting the best concessions available at that point. And that point came quickly.

Over the weekend, I reported that a novel maneuver might be used to close the gap and settle the lawsuit, a “hold separate.” That would have held Warner Bros. Discovery separate from Paramount Skydance through the end of litigation, allowing the merger to proceed provisionally. Used in the 2018 DOJ challenge to AT&T’s purchase of Time-Warner, it would have avoided the dreaded ticking fee and created a path for the deal to close and Bonta to save face. (Because the trial probably would never have come to pass.) 

That didn’t happen. It was one option being held by Paramount. But it turned out not to be necessary. As my original source put it: “Bonta had no cards. At least he was smart enough to settle.”

The post Why Rob Bonta Caved on the Paramount Settlement | Analysis  appeared first on TheWrap.

The maneuver, called a “hold separate,” would provisionally allow the merger to proceed while litigation challenging the deal as a breach of antitrust laws could make its way through the courts. Doing so would allow Paramount to avoid the painful ticking fee that begins on Oct. 1 and move the merger forward. But if the AGs’ litigation were to prevail, the deal would have to unwind.

Still, this move may be the key to getting to a compromise over what has been a stubborn standoff between Bonta and Paramount for weeks. Negotiations between the two sides kicked off on Friday and seemed to quickly lock in to a path toward resolution.

Other measures being discussed include an independent oversight board that would ensure independence for CNN and CBS News and assure the production of 30 films per year, as Paramount CEO David Ellison has promised, as has been reported in numerous outlets.

A Paramount spokesperson had no comment when reached by TheWrap.

There is a precedent in media mergers for the “hold separate” move involving Warner, or at least its predecessor: AT&T voluntarily entered into a hold separate agreement with the Department of Justice over acquiring the Turner cable channels as part of its bid to buy Time-Warner in 2018. This allowed the deal to close while the legal battles continued; the DOJ ultimately lost the case and the Turner Broadcasting division was folded into the corporation.

(Ironically, AT&T eventually sold off WarnerMedia to Discovery in 2022.)

Sources on both sides of the negotiation told TheWrap late Saturday that talks were continuing and a deal was within reach. “It will be done by Tuesday,” said one insider in touch with the principal parties, though this person acknowledged many details could derail what appears to be momentum to settle the lawsuit.

Among those details is disagreement among the 12 Attorneys General who are suing Paramount over antitrust concerns to block the merger. While Bonta is under intense pressure from fellow state Democrats including Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass to settle, due to Paramount’s threat to leave California, not all are in agreement to settle the suit. New York AG Letitia James and AGs from two other states are disinclined to settle, according to a knowledgeable insider. Any concessions won by Bonta about California would not benefit the other states.

The settlement is an attempt to address concerns that the combination of the two historic studios would have a devastating impact on both the local economy and the entertainment industry as a whole. Paramount has insisted the deal would lead to more opportunities and give it a better fighting chance against the tech giants.

Starting Oct. 1, Paramount is on the hook to start accruing a 25 cent per share ticking fee, which translates to a payout of $650 million per quarter or $7 million per day until closing, giving it extra motivation to settle quickly.

The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimated that Paramount moving out of the state could result in the loss of up to $21.2 billion in annual economic output, 57,980 full-time jobs and $1.17 billion in state and local tax revenues.

Meanwhile, an analysis ordered by the LA County Board of Supervisors estimates that the merger closing could put 4,500 local TV and film jobs and over 5,800 indirect or induced jobs from related small businesses at risk over the next three years. The economic impact of losing these jobs would be $1.26 billion in wages, $2.78 billion in economic value.

The post Latest in Paramount-Bonta Negotiations: ‘Hold Separate’ Maneuver May Be Key as Deal Nears | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.

Now 80, she has just completed a new documentary about unions and workers, this time aimed at our gig economy – the vast army of unseen delivery workers who scrape by for Amazon, Doordash, Uber and other giants for minimum wage, tips and very little protections, physical or otherwise. 

“Union Town,” which premieres at the Venice Film Festival this week, follows the stories of three of those workers and their attempts to unionize. Like “Harlan County,” the film gets up close with the workers themselves, many of whom are undocumented, and reveals their struggles, their suffering and ultimately their humanity.  

It’s pretty much a story of the invisible people in this country. Unions have had a small resurgence in politics in the past several years, but in truth, the subject of labor and the working class has sunk below the radar in the United States as we focus on billionaires, tech IPOs and AI. 

Kopple, as feisty as ever, is still interested in the little guys. 

“It’s about getting to know all these people and really finding out who they are, where they’re from, what their dreams are all about, why they came here,” she said in a conversation at the Excelsior Hotel. “That was what intrigued me about it all, because they’re so invisible. You know, someone delivers something, maybe you see their face, or you see these truck drivers with all these things, and rarely do you have a relationship with somebody.” 

Despite her age, Kopple spent three and a half years interviewing activists, hanging out with undocumented workers and among labor organizers who risked their jobs – and lost them – trying to organize into a union. 

Undocumented immigrants make up about 90 percent of the “Deliveristas,” as they call themselves, Kopple said. The UPS workers seem to make the most, at $15.50/hour. The app delivery workers make far less – just $7/hour in New York before tips. 

But because of the lack of protections, a delivery worker may be docked pay or suspended from a platform for a perceived infraction – with no recourse (a new law is changing the worst of these abuses). One deliverista Kopple follows was injured during a delivery but had his account suspended even though it was not his fault. He could not make a living and instead became an activist.  

I asked her what had changed in the five decades since she documented labor struggles in the south, and she said something surprising.

“The issues are the same, except they don’t use guns now like they did in Harlan County,” said Kopple. “They use union busters now, and pay them huge amounts of money, like $15,000 a week, and a company like Amazon just spent $26 million more to have union busters.”

“Harlan County” followed 180 coal miners and their families at the Brookside Mine—owned by Duke Power Company’s Eastover Coal Company—as they fought to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for better wages, safer working conditions and basic dignity.

“Union Town” is not all that different, with one major distinction — the arrival of ICE to make things even more difficult.

I asked Kopple if she felt viewers would be less sympathetic to the workers trying to organize since so many are undocumented.

“Without these people, you will have nobody to do these jobs,” she said. “Nobody will clean your house. Nobody will deliver things to you at these wages. It would be a whole different world.”

At one point during the making of her new documentary, Kopple was in a conversation with a UPS driver who mentioned he had seen this film called  “Harlan County, USA” and that he hoped the Kopple’s film would be as good as that one. 

“And I said, ‘Oh, my God, do I say anything or not?'” she recalled “I said, ‘Well, I made that one.’ And he said, ‘Oh, get out of here.”

The film is up for sale.

The post Veteran Filmmaker Barbara Kopple Returns to Worker Struggles in ‘Union Town’ Doc appeared first on TheWrap.

Through the daily life of a young Palestinian father named Osama al-Ashi, the documentary reveals up close and in detail the suffering of Gazans and their struggle to survive during the devastating war that has killed more than 70,000 people in the tiny strip. The war in Gaza followed Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, the savage massacre of 1,200 people and the taking of 250 hostages to Gaza.

Osama is a journalist – presumably in Gaza City in the northern strip – trying to keep his family safe while chronicling the war. Frustratingly, the film does not tell us very much in the way of simple facts: where and when the footage was shot, for example, or for whom Osama is working as a journalist. (He seems to be a videographer rather than a reporter.) This basic information matters for lots of reasons, not least for offering the viewer a framework for taking in a rare, ground-level view of a Palestinian’s daily experience. 

What “Citizen Osama” shows us effectively is the suffering of Palestinians on the daily. Gaza City is a hellscape in the midst of ongoing hostilities. Piles of rubble are heaped beside half-broken buildings, all in Osama’s neighborhood. When buildings collapse on nearby residents during the shelling, he and other neighbors dig through the rubble with no visible tools to retrieve the dead and wounded. Deprivation is beginning to set in; Osama wanders from one vendor to another in search of diapers and formula for his baby. He finds a kilo of flour but must sift out the worms before it can be used in cooking. He and his friends exchange fantasies of having chicken and meat, because there isn’t any. 

And Osama’s mother is hysterical with worry every time he goes out in the street to work, video camera in hand. But then the family apartment is hit by shrapnel during a shelling, and it seems just as dangerous to be at home. Osama is driven to bear witness, though what happens to his footage we never know. 

In this documentary, as in so many other images that we have been privy to in Gaza, there’s nonstop suffering and chaos in the absence of context. In one scene there are flatbed trucks packed with dozens of shouting young men, followed by other flatbed trucks with piled what appear to be dead bodies. There’s a fleeting glimpse of what appears to be men with guns taking humanitarian aid. Who are the men? Where are they going? Who died and how? No one explains. 

Throughout, there is no sign of a government of any kind. Or Hamas fighters. Or official anything. There’s no humanitarian organization, no civil services. There’s not a bulldozer or a backhoe or any machine of any kind to move rubble; there are not even hardhats and gloves for the digging to save the people caught under collapsed buildings. It’s just full-on chaos with men like Osama running around, trying to chronicle the devastation and save their families. 

So as a portrait of human suffering, the film is effective, but it is not the full picture and leaves hanging all these unanswered questions. Where is Hamas in all this? There is a scene shot outside a hospital where Palestinian journalists apparently gather, but the only ones we ever see are Osama and his friends. There’s no mention of Israeli hostages, which is not a real surprise. And of course, you almost never see any women, anywhere, and when they appear they are often obscured. (Surely they exist?)

Palestinian director Hassouna, who studied journalism at Al-Azhar University in Gaza,  previously directed the 2019 non-fiction feature “Istrupya” and participated in the 2024 anthology work “From Ground Zero,” which featured 22 local directors telling stories from Gaza and was the 2024 Palestinian Oscar entry.

The storytelling and first-person footage is important because international journalists have not been allowed into the Gaza Strip since October 2023, including since the ceasefire of last October. Fake reporting and deliberate propaganda has drip-drip-dripped like poison into the charged public debate over important subjects like famine and alleged genocide, without the benefit of independent, first-person reporting.  

This film has the opportunity to fill in missing parts of the story, but instead it raises questions about all the parts that are left out. 

My guess is the film was shot around 12 months into the war, during one of the many evacuations of Palestinians from the north to the south to evade Israel’s invasion of Gaza City. The film depicts humanitarian aid pallets floating down in parachutes as men storm across a dusty field to retrieve food. It also shows the flurry of leaflets of war dropped by the Israeli army warning residents to evacuate to the south. There is a brief image of Israeli tanks, but that’s the only sign of those forces. 

There is talk of starvation and hunger, but no evidence of it. There is talk of journalists being targeted and two having been killed, but very little context of who these journalists are working for and how they died. There is never any suggestion of how the war started, how it might end, or what the political, military and humanitarian crisis might require. 

Palestinian suffering is not new and it is the centerpiece of worldwide protest against the devastation of this war. But it is also a deliberate political strategy that has cynically been conducted by Hamas, both to allow their people to suffer and to make sure that it is witnessed and seen by the world.

If you were looking for understanding beyond the pain, you will have to wait for another film. 

Another documentary about the war in Gaza, “NAZA,” will have its world premiere in Venice on Thursday. That film was directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the filmmakers whose “No Other Land,” also set during the war won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature two years ago.

The post Gaza in Venice: ‘Citizen Osama’ is Piece of a Puzzle, But Never the Whole Picture  appeared first on TheWrap.

But – let’s take a beat. 

That era, the decades after World War II, was an inflection point in America, especially for women. As the 1950s gave way to the ‘60s and ’70s, it seemed like endless opportunity beckoned. A generation led by young people was determined to break with the conventions of the past and chart a new course for themselves.

For women, it produced a stunning set of changes that resonate today, from abortion to sexual independence to the basic expectation that women be treated equally in pay and workplace conditions. We never got the ERA passed, but we did get the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act in 2009, eventually. 

Most of all, that era led to the resetting of expectations that women could achieve whatever they wanted. Certainly, I grew up expecting to compete with men and, more importantly, believing it was possible. I raised my daughter that way. I hope she will do the same. 

For the women’s movement, both Steinem and Parton carved out paths that were singular for their time. For all her down-home Southern charm, Parton chose a career instead of a family, endlessly explaining but never apologizing for why she chose not to have children. 

Her meteoric rise from hardscrabble poverty in the Tennessee back country to international stardom over a half-dozen decades is as unlikely as it is inspiring. Dolly Parton literally invented herself, from her towering blonde wigs to her oversized bosom and dimpled smile. More than that, Parton refused all conventions of the society that made her; she left her husband Carl back home while she toured, recorded and built an entertainment empire.

In the interviews that are resurfacing in the wake of Steinem’s passing at 92, there are many that explore her own singular path. She explained how she always planned to marry and raise a family, but she just kept putting it off, finding other things to do with her life – like create MS magazine, become a feminist activist, write books and lecture. 

She did finally get married in her mid-60s to Christian Bale’s father, David – but only for three years. 

Another singular figure remains with us, Jane Fonda, who I sought out backstage at the Diane von Furstenberg awards in Venice. She teared up as she recalled her friend and fellow traveler, Steinem, and it was heartbreaking to think that she was still reeling from the loss of her other dear friend Dolly Parton the week before.

Fonda, Parton and Lily Tomlin created their own icon of feminist culture in the movie “9 to 5,” which has surged on all streaming charts in the wake of Parton’s death at age 80.   

From our vantage point of today, it is easy to believe that we’re moving backward as far as women are concerned. The very real setbacks of today – whether the end of Roe v. Wade or the popularity of trad wives – are tough. But I believe it is temporary. Long term, women are not going to be relegated to the back rooms again.

So while it’s tempting to sit in the sadness of it all, I prefer to look at the abundance of gifts these women leave us. What their generation made us believe is that the future is better than the past. And that the present can be full of joy and kindness, along with ambition. 

I met Gloria Steinem at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, where she came for the film “The Glorias,” a biopic directed by Julie Taymor that was based on her book and tells the story of her life.

In the film, five Glorias trace her journey from her time as a young woman in India to her role in the women’s rights movement that started in the 1960s. For Steinem, everything changed when she covered an abortion speak-out for New York Magazine in 1969. 

She told me at the time a story that illustrates just how far we have come as women in society: 

“In New York state, the legislature was considering whether to liberalize the law, so they invited 14 men and one nun to testify. So a group of women — I was being a journalist — said, ‘No, let’s hear from women; let women testify who have actually had this experience.’ I went to cover it, and for the first time in my life I heard women standing up in public, telling the truth about something that was illegal, unacceptable and I thought, ‘Why am I not telling the truth about this?’”

Even Steinem is amazed by how much she and the women’s movement achieved, despite the ongoing setbacks. 

“When I think where we started, I feel amazed, because now the issues that used to be 10, 20 or 30% in the public opinion poll are now majority issues, for all the social justice movements, and that’s huge,” Steinem said.

I got a t-shirt for the film, long-sleeved and black, that I still wear. It has holes under the arms and is all stretched out. I don’t care. It reminds me of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

The post Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton Gave Us Joy and Shared Hope – We Have to Take It From Here  appeared first on TheWrap.

Alkhatib is a senior fellow at the think tank The Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. and has a new book out called “Hamas and its Two Million Hostages,” which argues for ending Hamas rule in Gaza and empowering Palestinians to have agency in their own land. I was interested in learning about the book and he agreed to meet via Zoom. 

But over the previous two days, a controversy had broken out over remarks made by progressive activist and actor Mark Ruffalo regarding Gaza and Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Ruffalo came under intense fire from Paramount itself — and by Sunday, four leading Jewish organizations — for tying the merger to the Ellison family and what he called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza “which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

Both Paramount and the Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, called his remarks “antisemitic.” Ruffalo shot back on social media that their criticism was “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”

I could not resist asking Alkhatib his opinion. He did not take a beat before shooting back. 

“It’s mixing topics that do not need to be mixed,” he said. “It’s using the Palestinian issue as a cudgel that has little to nothing to do with a foreign policy subject. And it is meant to invoke a classic scare tactic – [that] of the omnipresent rich Jews who are in control of every aspect of society. 

“It’s bullshit to say Oracle is enabling genocide,” he went on. “There’s an abundance of capabilities that the US, NATO and foreign countries, the UAE, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Turks [use] – they contract with all of them. 

He went on: “I might not like the consolidation of the studios. It may be fair for some to push back on the consolidation of the media – that’s an entirely valid argument on its own. But to connect it to Gaza, and to proclaim that Larry and David Ellison are uniquely guilty of empowering Israel and enabling its activities against Palestinians and therefore this consolidation with Paramount is inherently evil – is clearly a manipulative effort by Mr. Ruffalo.”

A representative for Ruffalo did not immediately respond to request for a response to Alkhatib’s remarks.

Alkhatib is a somewhat unique figure in Palestinian policy circles because of his strident criticism of Hamas for what he believes was a disastrous decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which brought so much suffering to his people and set back hopes for an independent Palestinian state.  

He was raised in Gaza and says he lost 30 family members to Israel’s war in the territory. He also says he lost hearing in his left ear due to an Israeli shell. Nonetheless, he advocates for what he calls “radical pragmatism.” 

In that vein he is unsparingly critical of the pro-Palestinian progressive movement in the West which, he believes, absolves Hamas of its responsibility by focusing single-mindedly on Israel’s actions and thus undermines Palestinian agency. 

He was typically unsparing of Ruffalo who he accused of grandstanding, and “a cadre within Hollywood who have promulgated the genocide narrative, without thinking critically about its implications, what it means.” 

“There are those who seek to make a point and there are those who try to make a difference,” he said. “It appears that time and time again Mr. Ruffalo is someone who is making a point at the expense of making a difference for the people of Gaza.” 

Ruffalo did not respond to request for a response to Alkhatib’s remarks. 

The controversy began when on Friday he posted a long Instagram piece calling to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, as he has done consistently. But this time he shared a video of Safra Catz, executive vice chair of Larry Ellison’s Oracle, flexing that the company’s “profoundly scary technologies” advanced the Israeli agenda against Palestinians following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks nearly three years ago.

“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros. acquisition,” the actor wrote. “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

Alkhatib disagreed. “This is not about explaining the deal, but the furtherance of his already robustly radical platform and agenda. That has been about virtue signaling, not meaningfully moving the needle on this subject.”

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