By Lindsey Bahr
Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson are stepping up to help curate programming for Turner Classic Movies, amid a tumultuous week of layoffs and leadership changes that had fans worried about the future of the channel.
Last week Warner Bros. Discovery laid off some top TCM people including General Manager Pola Changnon and programming head Charles Tabesh, prompting public outcries from the film community who tweeted with the hashtag #SaveTCM and wrote passionate op-eds about its cultural value.
By Wednesday, under the leadership of WBD CEO David Zaslav, the company had stabilized plans for TCM's future, enlisting Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy to oversee TCM, bringing on Spielberg, Scorsese and Anderson as official curators and reversing course on Tabesh's layoff.
"TCM is a cultural treasure, and we are honored to help steer the future direction of this beloved brand with the partnership of three of the most iconic filmmakers of our time, Steven, Marty, and Paul," De Luca and Abdy said in a statement.
The strategy, all noted, was led by Zaslav. And Spielberg, Scorsese and Anderson are already working on ideas with De Luca and Abdy.
"We are thrilled that longtime programmer Charlie Tabesh will be staying with TCM and gratified to know that the team is focused on preserving TCM's mission of celebrating our rich movie history while at the same time ensuring that future generations of filmmakers and film lovers have TCM as a valuable resource," the filmmakers said in a statement.
TCM's on-air hosts, like Ben Mankiewicz, Dave Karger and Alicia Malone are expected to stay on too and plans are still in motion for the annual film festival in Los Angeles to continue as well.
Mankiewicz earlier this year spoke to The AP about the channel's passionate fanbase, from civilians to celebrities like Tom Hanks, who mentioned TCM frequently in his recent memoir. Scorsese also famously keeps it on in his editing suite.
"There's no channel like us where people's identification is with the channel," Mankiewicz said. "When you look at people's social media pages, they'll be like 'lawyer, mother, wife, TCM fan.' No one says that about Showtime. No one says 'I'll watch anything on ABC.' It's an absurd thing to say but they say it about us."
A spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery said the company "is fully committed to safeguarding, supporting, and investing in (TCM) for the future" and said that the content investment has grown by over 30% this year but that TCM is not immune to "the very real pressure on the entire linear ecosystem." The changes and cuts, the spokesperson said, mean a more sustainable operation behind the screen and protect the channel's mission of bringing more titles to the air and "preserving and protecting the culture of cinema."
Lindsey Bahr is an AP film writer
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More