The Producers Guild of America has announced A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them, a new quarterly speaking event as part of the Guild’s existing “Producers on Producing” series. A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them will feature conversations between independent producers and the producers who made the films that influenced their careers. The first conversation will premiere on Tuesday, November 17 with prolific producer Stacey Sher, film/TV producer and founder of Shiny Penny Productions and one of the producers of the iconic film Erin Brockovich, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Sher is also a producer on the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic Respect starring Jennifer Hudson and directed by Liesl Tommy, which will be released next summer. Selecting Erin Brockovich and leading the conversation with Sher is indie producer and partner at Killer Films, David Hinojosa.
“It feels so appropriate to revisit a movie as impeccably made and socially relevant as Erin Brockovich. That such sophisticated filmmaking could exist at that commercial scale inspired me to understand and pursue producing,” said Hinojosa. A Spotlight on Indie Producers and the Films that Inspired Them is curated by the PGA’s Independent Film Producers Task Force, a group of members dedicated to protecting and advancing the interests of independent film producers. Click here to register for the event.
Launched in 2018 “Producers on Producing” is the Producers Guild of America’s series celebrating the unique and critical role that film and television producers play in taking projects from script to screen. Through lively discussions between producers spanning a project’s development, production and distribution, the series provides audiences with an insider’s perspective on how some of our most iconic productions came together and eventually cemented their place in cinematic history. Streamed live during this period of remote programming, “Producers on Producing” is a must attend event for producers, film students and interested public audiences.
Erin Brockovich was produced by Sher and her then Jersey Films partners Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich starred Julia Roberts in her Academy Award-winning Best Actress performance as the title character. 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the film’s theatrical release by Universal Pictures. In addition to Erin Brockovich, Sher has produced more than two dozen major motion pictures amassing nearly $2.2 billion at the global box office. She is a two-time Academy Award nominee and an Emmy Award nominee. Her many critically acclaimed production credits include Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight; Out Of Sight, Contagion, Garden State, Reality Bites and Get Shorty.
While at Killer Films, Hinojosa has developed Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer’s Academy Award-winning Still Alice and Todd Haynes’ Carol which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and received six Academy Award nominations. Most recently, Hinojosa produced Josephine Decker’s Shirley, Janicza Bravo’s Zola, Mona Fastvold’s The World To Come, and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed.
ESPN and other channels return to DirecTV with a new Disney deal after a nearly 2-week blackout
DirecTV announced Saturday it had reached a deal with Walt Disney Co. that will restore ESPN and ABC-owned stations to its service after a nearly 2-week dispute that blacked out those networks for millions of viewers across the U.S.
The end of the impasse came in time for sports fans to watch ESPN's slate of college football games on DirecTV. It also will ensure that ABC's telecast of the Emmy Awards on Sunday night will be available in more major markets where viewers subscribe to DirecTV's pay service.
ABC had been unavailable since Sept. 1 on DirecTV in several markets where the station is owned by Disney. Those were located in the San Francisco Bay Area; Fresno, California; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; Houston; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
DirecTV's 11 million subscribers abruptly lost access to ESPN, the ABC-owned stations and other Disney-owned channels such as FX and National Geographic during the Labor Day weekend in a dispute over carriage fees and programming flexibility.
Some viewers were watching the fourth round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament when ESPN suddenly went dark and others were getting ready to watch a college football showdown between LSU and Southern California.
The impasse also kept the NFL's opening game of Monday Night Football off of DirecTV's service.
Financial details of Disney's new deal with DirecTV weren't disclosed as part of Saturday's announcement. DirecTV's payments to Disney will be based on "market-based" pricing, according to the announcement about the deal.
The agreement also will give DirecTV the ability to offer Disney's video streaming services a la carte as well as in its own bundled packages. DirecTV won the right to include ESPN's forthcoming direct-to-consumer... Read More