Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 371st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Writers Guild Awards 2019: ‘Haunting of Hill House,’ ‘GLOW’ Among TV Nominees.

2019 Oscars: Best Original Screenplay Predictions.

Oscar Futures: How the Golden Globe Nominations Reshuffled the Race.

Where the Golden Globes Are Great: Highlighting New TV Shows.

The biggest snubs and surprises of the 2019 Golden Globe nominations.

Why Kevin Hart’s Oscar Host Implosion Was Self-Inflicted And Avoidable; What Does Academy Do Now?

The Kevin Hart Oscar Host Scandal Shows the Academy Must Enter the 21st Century.

Not a crazy idea: Oscars should consider an ensemble category.

Why Oscar Host Has Become the Least Wanted Job in Hollywood.

Superhero Movies Are Taking Over the Oscars, and That’s Good News for Everyone.

Box Office Revenue Hits $11B in U.S., Guaranteeing a Record 2018.

The Biggest Box Office Hits and Flops of 2018.

Movies Starring Women Outperform Male-Led Titles at Box Office.

L.A. Film Critics Association Awards: ‘Roma’ Wins Best Picture.

Berlin Film Festival Unveils First Competition Titles.

‘Roma’ Targeting Major Theatrical Release in China.

Morocco Enjoys Spike in Foreign Shoots, Raises Global Profile for Local Films.

Could a Younger Audience Await Indie Films Under the New Landmark Theaters Deal?

How Movies Handled The Social Reckoning of 2018.

“We Need New Voices, New Storytellers”: The Animation Roundtable.

The Guy Who Owns ‘Avengers: Endgame’ URL Is Holding It For Ransom to Score Premiere Tickets.

‘The Shining,’ ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ and 23 More Titles Added to National Film Registry.

MoviePass Is Still Alive, Announces New 2019 Plans and Location-Based Pricing.

CAA Tries in Vain to Hush Up Star Agent’s $15 Million Arbitration Win.

Nexstar’s $6.4 Billion Tribune Buy Spurs More Dealmaking.

Disney Sued for Home Video Profits by ‘Young Doctors in Love’ Writer.

Disney, Comcast to Dominate Global Content Spending.

Streaming Isn’t Everything, and Blu-Rays Are Back to Prove It.

Fandor Lays Off Staff, Restructures Assets of Indie-Film Streaming Service Under New Entity.

Digital Doubles Are Revolutionizing Hollywood, But Why Do Movie Stars Hate Them?

How Cinestate Is Trumping Hollywood.

Making of ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’: How Disney Turned eBay and Amazon Into Cartoons.

Why do so many animated films have great stories? One secret: storyboarding.

Animators Embrace VR as ‘Age of Sail’ and ‘Crow’ Make Audience Inroads.

Can Special Effects Be Special Again?

Which Animated Feature Genres Are Audiences Looking For?

Unlike ‘The Last Jedi,’ Mark Hamill Isn’t Allowed to Keep ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ Script Overnight.

Constance Wu in Talks to Star in Romantic Comedy for Screen Gems.

Blumhouse Hires Another Woman Director: Sophia Takal’s All-Female Horror Movie.

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Writer on What the Movie Has Done for Asian-American Scribes.

Aaron Sorkin Film ‘Trial of Chicago 7’ Shuts Down.

Steven Soderbergh to Receive 2019 Founders Award at Slamdance Festival.

How Barry Jenkins Turned His James Baldwin Obsession Into His Next Movie.

Anne Fletcher’s Hit Rom-Com ‘The Proposal’ Made $160 Million, Then the Genre Disappeared.

M. Night Shyamalan Talks Original 3 Hour ‘Glass’ Cut & Pitching The Film To Universal And Disney.

Cannes Screenplay Winner Meryem Benm’barek on ‘Sofia,’ Moroccan Cinema, Next Projects.

The fractured masculinities of Alfonso Cuarón.

Luc Besson’s Film Empire Crumbles Amid Sexual Misconduct Claims.

Paul Schrader Has Won More Than 2,000 Games of Words With Friends.

Meet the Auteur Activist Who Made 600 Campaign Videos for the Midterms.

The Great NFL Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever.

CBS Sells Iconic Television City Property for $750 Million.

The Original Shark Used in Universal’s ‘Jaws’ Ride Can Now Be Found in a Staten Island Restaurant.

A Brief History of the X Rating.

What’s With All the Dead Parents in Made-for-TV Christmas Movies?

Smithsonian Networks Launches New Subscription VOD Service, Folding in Smithsonian Earth.

Reed Hastings and Netflix Upended Hollywood, But Is His Model Built to Stay on Top?

Netflix Exec Talks ‘Roma’ & Says Film Fans “Will Love It On Their Phone”.

Netflix Orders ‘Queen Sono,’ Its First African Original Series.

Netflix Original Series Viewing Climbs, but Licensed Content Remains Majority of Total U.S. Streams.

Apple to Inject $1 Billion Into New Campus in Austin.

Amazon Bid for Fox Networks May Escalate Sports Rights Arms Race.

YouTube Rewind 2018 Officially Becomes Most-Disliked Video Ever.

Why Tony Hawk Brought His Signature Skateboarding Game to Mobile.

‘Red Dead Redemption 2’s’ Voice Actors Discuss Years of Capture Sessions.

The Game Awards Winners 2018: Full List.

Grammys: Kendrick Lamar Tops Nominees With ‘Black Panther’ Soundtrack.

Is Rap Finally Ready to Embrace Its Women?

The 25 Best Albums of 2018.

The 10 Best Comedy Albums of 2018.

The 10 Best Classical-Music Performances of 2018.

The 20 Best Action Movies Of 2018.

New Yorker: The Best Movies of 2018.

The Best New Movie Characters of 2018.

The Memorable On-Screen Deaths of 2018.

Presenting the 2018 Bitch 50.

Matt Zoller Seitz’s 10 Best TV Shows of 2018.

The 36 Biggest TV Deaths and Cast Departures of 2018.

The best board games in 2018.

The Best Books of 2018.

The 20 Most Riveting YA Books of 2018.

The Best Podcasts of 2018.

The 10 Best Crime Books of 2018.

Listen: Judd Apatow interview.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

My popular one week online class begins Monday, January 7, 2019.

Be sure to check out two special holiday deals at the bottom of the page!

20 movies produced. 19 movies #1 at the box office. Worldwide B.O. gross $13.3 billion. Average B.O. per film: $663M by far the highest average per film of any studio in Hollywood history.

It’s not just dollars and cents, it’s also quality storytelling. 15 Academy Awards, 9 Golden Globes, 11 Grammys. Indeed 8 of Pixar’s 20 films are in the IMDB Top 250 Movies of all time.

No disrespect to Disney, but I think the real Magic Kingdom lies 397.8 miles north of Anaheim in a city called Emeryville, California where you’ll find this:

Longtime GITS readers know of my fascination with Pixar having blogged about them dozens of times. Due to having two sons who quite literally have grown up in what someday is likely to be called the Pixar Era, I have seen every one of the company’s movies, most of them several times.

In my estimation, the filmmakers at Pixar are master storytellers.

But how do they successfully wrangle magic time after time in their films? Are there lessons we can learn from Pixar to inspire and upgrade our own writing?

Those are two key questions I undertook in creating the online course Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling which begins Monday, January 7, 2019. My answer: An emphatic yes!

First off, there are the practices Pixar uses in developing, breaking, writing and rewriting a script. In our 1-week class, we go through that process step by step, then see how we can adapt that approach to our own writing.

Then there are several narrative principles evident in Pixar movies, six of them we focus in our online class: Small Story / Substantial Saga, Special Subculture, Strange Sojourners, Separation, Sentimentality, Sires and Siblings, Stumbles and Switches, and Surprise. Going through every Pixar movie, we explore how these dynamics work in the context of each narrative and their overall applicability to storytelling.

There are 7 lectures, each of which I wrote, the content buttressed by an exclusive interview I conducted with Mary Coleman, Senior Development Executive at Pixar since the days of Toy Story 2, so we get a real inside look the outfit’s creative process.

The class also has a Logline Workshop where you can post a story idea and revise per peer feedback. And two teleconferences to accommodate peoples’ schedules where participants get a chance to dig into the course content with me as well as discuss anything related to writing, screenwriting, and movies.

Here are some nice comments from just a few folks who’ve taken the class:

“I was lucky enough to be able to take Scott’s Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling class. It was my first class and a wonderful experience. I learned a ton and now have some important utensils that will help make all my stories better. Scott’s a great teacher and it was a pleasure learning from him!” — Valencia Stokes

“This course is awesome. I refer to these notes and lessons all the time.” — Traci Nell Peterson

“A course on Pixar movies? Apart from legitimately letting out my inner child and renting Up ‘for research purposes, I learnt about the ethos of the Pixar Brain Trust and the essential elements contained in all of their movies. Scott took us on an all-inclusive week long journey into why Pixar are so successful and how to practically apply this to your own script.” — Camilla Castree

“I recommend this course wholeheartedly. Plus you get to watch Pixar films as homework.” — TheQuietAct

“Scott Myers is a brilliant teacher and unites his knowledge and experience, insight and depth of thought in his lectures as well as he is providing help and support to his students. I highly recommend the class.” — Eva Brandstätter

A few words about the format: I’ve been teaching online since 2002, worked with over 1000 writers in that context, and honestly believe it is superior to the onsite class environment in many ways:

• You can do virtually everything on your own time: Download lectures, read forum conversations, add your own comments, upload writing exercises and assignments. In your pajamas. In bed. Drinking coffee. However you want to access online course content, you can do it.
• As opposed to listening to a teacher present lectures verbally, you get to download lectures and read them. Again at your leisure, but even more importantly, instead of feverishly trying to jot down notes from a verbal presentation, here you get everything laid out for you. I take great pride in my lectures, as they not only provide great content, they also have a narrative flow to them. Yes, they tell a little story.
• Feedback and conversations online tend to be much more thoughtful and therefore beneficial than onsite settings. Why? Because instead of off-the-cuff, random comments, participants online tend to spend more time and reflection in composing posts for online.
• Finally I’m constantly amazed at how much of a community emerges in online class environments. Writers from all around the world and somehow we bind together into remarkably vibrant learning communities, time and time again.

So if you’ve never tried an online screenwriting class, come on in! The virtual water’s fine!

For more information on Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling which begins January 7, 2019, go here.

So join me to learn some incredible insights into crafting a story with the practices and principles at work in Pixar movies. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you! Or to put it another way…

In the spirit of the season, I have two special deals for you! Check out the entire schedule of 10 Craft classes I will be offering in 2019:

January 7, 2019 — Craft: Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling
Learn More

January 21, 2019 — Craft: Story Summaries — From Loglines to Beat Sheets
Learn More

February 4, 2019 — Craft: Handling Exposition
Learn More

February 18, 2019 — Craft: Scene Description Spotlight
Learn More

March 4, 2019 — Craft: Character Development Keys
Learn More

March 18, 2019 — Craft: Create a Compelling Protagonist
Learn More

April 1, 2019 — Craft: Write a Worthy Nemesis
Learn More

April 15, 2019 — Craft: Scene-Writing Workshop
Learn More

April 29, 2019 — Craft: Dialogue-Writing Workshop
Learn More

May 13, 2019 — Craft: The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling
Learn More

The first holiday offer: Each Craft class is on sale. Regular price: $95. Sale price: $79.

But here’s the really big second deal: You can enroll in the Craft Package which includes all 10 Craft classes at a savings of nearly 50% off the already discounted sale price. Special price: $400. That’s each course for $40 apiece! You not only get all 10 one-week classes, you also obtain exclusive access to the Craft Package site enabling you to go through all of the Craft lectures — 70 in all, each written by me — at your own pace and on your own time.

Know somebody who’s a writer? Or is someone looking to get you a special writing gift? Check out the Craft Package for something truly unique and turn 2019 into an excellent learning opportunity.

Happy Holidays!