Reality TV producer Efran Films has rebranded as Bright North Studios after Jeff Zucker and Gerry Cardinales RedBird IMI closed an acquisition of the Toronto-based production banner. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition follows RedBird IMI paying $1.45 billion to acquire the British TV and film production powerhouseAll3Media from Warner Bros. Discovery and Liberty Global. Adding...

Wrapbook, the startup payroll and accounting services firm targeted at film and TV productions,is aiming to bulk up its market share in Hollywood and has secured a new round of cash to do so. The companys co-founders, Ali Javid and Cameron Woodward, tell The Hollywood Reporter theyve raised $20 million from venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners and are announcing...

Warner Bros. Discovery has partnered with Google Cloud to use an artificial intelligence-powered tool to create captions for its content platforms. Caption AI uses Google Clouds Vertex AI platform and will be deployed first to unscripted programming to cut time and production costs around creating captions presumably sports and reality TV content. WBD added real people will still oversee the...

In a major coup for the artificial intelligence company, Stability AI says that Avatar, Terminator and Titanic director James Cameron will join its board of directors. Stability AI is the firm that developed the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI model, an image and video-focused model that is among those being closely watched by many in Hollywood, particularly in the visual...

Paramount is implementing another round of major company-wide layoffs on Tuesday. In a memo to staff Tuesday morning, co-CEOs George Cheeks, Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy said that the company will undergo phase two of its workforce reductions today, but that by the end of the day 90 percent of these reductions will be complete. Last month the executives announced...

Chalk up one last medal for NBCUniversals Olympics coverage. The Paris games were the primary driver of NBCU jumping from third to first place among TV distributors in August, according to Nielsen. The company accounted for 13.4 percent of all TV usage in the United States for the August measurement period (which ran from July 29 to Aug. 25), a...

The crew of a romantic drama starring Julia Fox has unionized with IATSE after a brief picket of the production on Thursday. Workers on the film Perfect, reportedly a queer romantic drama co-starring Ashley Moore (I Know What You Did Last Summer) and Micaela Wittman (Shirley), secured a union contract after staging a six-hour strike on Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter...

How close was Barry Diller to securing control of Paramount Global? Closer than some reports may have made it seem, if Dillers recollection of his pursuit is accurate. Speaking at a Financial Times summit Friday, Diller said that he was genuinely, seriously interested in acquiring the studio, more for symmetry of my life than any other reason. At age 52...

The NFL may be the biggest event programming on TV, but Netflix thinks that it can also bring something to that table. At a Financial Times conference Friday, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters touched on a number of topics close to the streamer, including how he sees the use of artificial intelligence in the entertainment business, and Netflixs foray into advertising,...

Kale Culley, best known for his portrayal of August Walker on The CWs Jared Padalecki-led Walker series, has signed with LBI Entertainment for expanded representation. The Texas actor played the son of Cordell Walker (Padalecki) over four seasons. As a child actor, Culleys first gig was in 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain, the sports thriller that starred Josh Hartnett...

Writers Guild of America East members have re-elected Sara David as vice president of their online media division and appointed Beth Godvik as the new vice president of broadcast, cable and streaming news in their first council election since the unions 2023 strike concluded. Godvik is taking over on the council for Kathy McGee, who did not run for re-election...

Animation workers at Texas Powerhouse Animation Studios have overwhelmingly voted to ratify their first union contract. Ninety-six percent of voting members at the Austin-based Castlevania producer supported the pact in a vote, the Animation Guild announced on Tuesday. The Hollywood Reporter has previously reported that the bargaining unit of more than 100 members includes both production workers and artists at...

Issa Rae says shes continuing to work on building her own studio or a method of controlling distribution for her shows amid a lack of work in Hollywood and difficulty getting the green light for her projects.. Speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in Manhattan Thursday, the Insecure star and creator noted that despite her success, several shows she...