The Business

AFTRA approves their deal with producers...and SAG goes back to the negotiating table. Is peace at hand in Hollywood?  

This special edition of The Business features a rare head-to-head conversation about future of acting with the dueling presidents of SAG and AFTRA. It's the first time the leaders have spoken since March 29... Note: This special edition of The Business pre-empts The Treatment at 2:30 and Which Way, LA? at 7pm.

Do sky-high gas prices mean boffo box office? Plus, first there was the writers' strike and now there's strike TV. Plus, the Zen of making movie titles.

The two-way street between American television and British telly. We talk to TV producer extraordinaire Caryn Mandabach about her dealings across the pond.  Plus, last words from the late special-effects wizard Stan Winston.

A makeover at MySpace continues to transform Hollywood into your space.  We chat with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe.  Plus SAG and AFTRA's battle over the hearts and minds of its members.

How will rating ads instead of programs change what you see on your TV? Plus, whether or not to shoot a scene often depends on the weather.

A hit network TV show picks up, moves to New York and stirs up the enduring question: why doesn't California do something to staunch the flow of runaway production?

This week on The Business, everything you wanted to know about being an assistant, but were too terrified to ask. We talk with the authors of The Hollywood Assistants Handbook. Plus, an update on the actors' negotiations for a new contract.

A major studio is getting out of the indie business and one stalwart indie distributor is rumored to be having serious money problems. The two indie film TV channels may roll into one. Is Hollywood going to give indie the bum's Rushmore? We talk to esteemed indie producer Christine Vachon and uber-salesman John Sloss. Plus, 'Hollywood on the Couch,' Part II, with writer-turned-therapist Dennis Palumbo.

We put Hollywood on the couch with writer-turned-therapist Dennis Palumbo.

Pixar's Brad Bird just received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers' Guild. So this week we revisit our conversation with the creator of The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Plus, the entertainment industry home team.

The uneasy alliance between the two actors' unions has turned into outright hostility. Plus, the unions want money from the digital future. When will that future arrive? Finally, who gets credit before the credits roll?

There's been a mad game of musical chairs in the agency business in the last few of weeks. The agency business is changing, but the relationship between agents and clients seems to be as quirky as ever.

Using Tax Day as a very weak hook, we talk to the man who helped clear Wesley Snipes of tax fraud conspiracy charges. The question: what are the special challenges of representing a celebrity in court?

Hollywood's actors' unions file for an untimely divorce. Then, what happens when a novice TV writer gets her own show?

In a town where actors are more likely to wait tables than wait in the wings, how do you define a working actor?  That's the central question in our lively conversation with two actors. How SAG answers that question may determine if there's a strike. Plus, this year's ShoWest movie exhibitors' conference.

Jim Keyes was the former CEO of 7-11 stores.  Now he's applying the lessons of the Big Gulp to the small screen at the troubled video-rental giant Blockbuster. Plus, Variety game reviewer Ben Fritz asks, "Why are hardcore video gamers so sensitive?"  And good agentry with writer and producer Rob Long.

Video games are an $18 billion business in the US, and they just keep growing. Will Hollywood studios get in on some of that interactive action? Plus, will TV's increasingly pilotless way of making shows crash and burn?

What happens when a studio executive comes out from behind his desk to direct a major motion picture? We talk to Kent Alterman, formerly New Line Cinema's EVP of Production and now the Director of Semi-Pro. Plus, we say goodbye to HD-DVD.