Matt Belloni, executive editor of the Hollywood Reporter joins Kim Masters to discuss top entertainment news stories of the week.
- The new Star Wars movie doesn’t come out until December, but it’s already breaking ticket pre-sale records.
- Director Alejandro Iñárritu’s upcoming movie, The Revenant, was shot in sequence, using all natural light, in very cold weather. According to some members of the crew, as well as lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio, filming conditions were extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. DiCaprio said he had to do things like sleep in animal carcasses, eat raw bison liver and swim in freezing rivers.
- Netflix released its new movie, Beasts of No Nation, in a few theaters and simultaneously online. In theaters, it tanked. Online? We’ll never know. Even though the film was a flop by box office standards, Netflix can still say they’ve got an awards-qualifying film and they let the director pursue an artistic vision that never would have found a home at a traditional studio.
- In another side effect of viewers cutting the cord, big cable companies are feeling the squeeze. The once unstoppable ESPN is having to do some belt-tightening, including laying of 4% of its workforce.