Andrew Wallenstein: Last News

Whitney Cinkala Variety returns with its annual Entertainment and Technology Summit, presented by City National Bank, on Sept. 21 in Los Angeles and streaming virtually. Recently added speakers include Ynon Kreiz, chairman and CEO of Mattel; and Charles D.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst In the second of a two-part interview on Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast, Soul Machines CEO Greg Cross casts his eye toward the future of how his business marrying state-of-the-art animation with artificial intelligence will be utilized in the world of Hollywood celebrity. Cross delves into the challenge of building technology ideally situated for the metaverse, which hasn’t materialized quite as quickly as advocates for that three-dimensional environment had envisioned.

Variety Staff Follow Us on Twitter A new daily newsletter launched Monday as part of an expansion of Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP+), a digital-subscription tier of the Variety website dedicated to thought leadership about the media business. The new offering, dubbed VIP+ Vitals, represents a lower-cost option for accessing a portion of the existing VIP+ product, now known as VIP+ Premium. Every weekday morning, subscribers to VIP+ Vitals will receive a newsletter in their inboxes with actionable insights and data for media industry professionals. Each day’s edition will focus on a different theme that recurs every week:

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst At a time when the creative community is aligned on the picket lines in their disenchantment with the entertainment industry, there’s an innovative new outfit blazing a new path to creating and distributing content. Led by veterans of Disney, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks, Toonstar bills itself as a “Web3 story studio” capable of developing, producing and financing animated projects powered by the blockchain. CEO and co-founder John Attanansio sees an opening for attracting talent looking for new ways to reach an audience. Listen to the podcast here: “There are trends in Hollywood right now that, honestly, I think make it easier,” he said on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” “You can see especially what’s happening now: There are a lot of productions that are getting canceled or halted, things will sit in development for extended periods of time. It’s just getting harder and harder to get something made in the traditional system.”

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst The Magnolia Network series “Restored” just returned for a seventh season with host Brett Waterman, who isn’t doing just another cable-TV house-flipping show; this series is a serious look at the historic preservation of houses from a wide range of architectural styles. With his keen eye, Waterman is able to coax homes back into shape, reinventing previously poorly remodeled areas or reimagining original spaces, all the while giving the viewers the historical background to support the accuracy of the updates. Listen to the podcast here: “A place that’s been there for at least 30 or 40 years has an overall impact on the greater community, and it’s architecturally supported by other structures and memories for many people that are already there,” said Waterman on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business.”

EJ Panaligan editor Top gaming business leaders converged to talk about the exciting state of the industry at the Variety Gaming & Entertainment Breakfast Presented by Pixel United on Oct. 4 at the Palm in Beverly Hills. Across keynote conversations and panels with representatives from Riot Games, Pixel United, Meta and other companies, executives dished on the immense film and television crossover potential of gaming intellectual properties for mediums like television and film, the financial dominance of the mobile gaming industry and future metaverse opportunities for video games. Read on below for the key takeaways from each of the breakfast’s three conversations.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst If anyone has a sense of what Vince McMahon means to the WWE league he founded, it’s Brian Gewirtz. Currently SVP of development at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-led prodco Seven Bucks Prods., Gewirtz spent 15 years working as a writer with McMahon to script the drama in and out of the ring at the wrestling empire. It’s a wild experience he recounts in his new memoir, “There’s Just One Problem: True Tales from the Former One-Time 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE.” Now that McMahon has retired in the wake of a scandal that could impact the future of WWE, Gewirtz believes his former company is in good hands under the triumvirate of its current overseers, co-CEOs Nick Khan and Vince’s daughter, Stephanie McMahon, as well as her husband, chief creative officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

Variety’s Entertainment Gaming Leaders report is an up-to-the-minute look at the key figures driving this dynamic intersection, where nothing less than a visual media revolution is taking place. Variety teams with Pixel United for first-ever Leaders in Gaming & Entertainment Breakfast Oct.

William Earl Variety and Pixel United will host the first-ever Leaders in Gaming & Entertainment Breakfast on Oct. 4. The in-person breakfast, held in Los Angeles, will bring together some of the biggest names in the gaming industry. Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of games for Riot Games, and Shauna Spenley, president of Riot Games Entertainment, will participate in a keynote conversation, moderated by Andrew Wallenstein, president and chief media analyst of Variety Intelligence Platform, about the successful screen crossovers of Riot’s video games, such as their Emmy-winning animated series “Arcane: League of Legends.” Michael Lang, CEO of Pixel United, will be in conversation with Variety Co-Editor-in-Chief Cynthia Littleton about his vision for the mobile games industry, identifying opportunities for the wider entertainment industry to align with the passionate gaming community.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst The signs are everywhere that the film industry is struggling, from the current dry spell at the box office to exhibition giant Cineworld filing for bankruptcy earlier this month. But the movie business is actually more profitable than it’s ever been, according to the CEO and founder of Blumhouse Productions. Jason Blum and his company’s new president, Abhijay Prakash, were positively bullish about the state of cinema in a joint keynote appearance last week at Variety’s Entertainment & Technology Summit Presented by City National Bank. While acknowledging that it’s highly unlikely that the box office will return to it its pre-pandemic peaks, they testified that the rise of streaming has only helped monetize movies more effectively in later release windows.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst As the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jeanie Buss is well known in the world of professional basketball. Now she’s making a name for herself in Hollywood as well.  As if she didn’t have enough on her plate overseeing one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, she is plenty busy as well guiding multiple productions, including a new Hulu documentary on which she serves as executive producer, “Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers,” which premiered last month. In addition, she is about to relaunch beginning Sept. 17 the WOW: Women of Wrestling league — that she owned since 2011 as a syndicated property — both in the U.S. and abroad in partnership with Paramount. She’s also teamed up with Mindy Kaling on a scripted comedy in development at Netflix that offers a thinly veiled fictional version of her life as a team owner. 

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystThe upstart sports brand Overtime announced a Series D round of funding to the tune of $100 million, with Liberty Media Corp. joining its long roster of investors.In an interview for the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Dan Porter, CEO and founder of Overtime, pledged to grow the company’s existing leagues in basketball and football.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystWhen “Downton Abbey: The New Era” arrives in U.S. theaters this week, it will represent just the latest iteration of a franchise more than a decade in operation.Julian Fellowes, the Emmy-winning writer of the period-drama megahit, and Gareth Neame, executive chairman of Carnival Films, discuss their collaboration on six TV seasons and two films on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” including their hopes that there is still more to come for their beloved period drama.“We can go on with these people as long as the audience wants to go on seeing them and as long as they enjoy them,” said Neame of the “Downton” characters.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystIn the pandemic-impacted movie marketplace, it might seem like the only films that succeed in theaters these days are blockbuster titles featuring superheroes. But that’s not the case, according to William Sherak, one of the principals at Project X Entertainment.The company already proved the staying power of mid-budget movies with the success of Paramount Pictures’ “Scream,”  the horror franchise that returned to form at the box office in January.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystVogue’s exclusive Met Gala red carpet livestream in September has set a template for parent company Conde Nast to repeat its success at future events, according to chief revenue officer Pam Drucker Mann.On the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Mann touted the big numbers — 16.5 million views and 54 million minutes watched — as proof positive of what she’ll be selling for Conde Nast’s other blue-chip magazine brands, from a GQ Super Bowl party to Vanity Fair’s annual Oscar bash.“We had more viewers of the Met Gala red carpet than ABC had for the Oscars last year,” said Mann.

By Andrew Wallenstein