Tag Archive for 'Oprah Winfrey'

The Most Powerful Women in Hollywood

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on December 7, 2009
in News and Statistics
. 0 Comments

In conjunction with its Women in Entertainment breakfast, The Hollywood Reporter has published its annual list of the most powerful women in Hollywood. My thoughts are that the list is pretty much the same from last year especially in the top 10 with a couple of women moving around. Angela Bromstad joins the list in the top ten as president of primetime entertainment at NBC (a very hard job nowadays.)

The list also indicates the inroads women have made in TV (and how far women have to go in movies) with 7 of the top ten, TV executives.

These are incredibly powerful women yet all (in the top 10), except Oprah who owns her own company, report to men. The list is also pretty damn white. I counted 8 women of color on the list.

Amy-Pascal

Amy Pascal

This year’s top 10:

1. Amy Pascal, co-Chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment (last year 3)

2. Anne Sweeney, president Disney-ABC Television Group co-chairman Disney Media Network (last year 2)

3. Oprah Winfrey, chairman Harpo (last year 1)

4. Nancy Tellem, president CBS Network Television Entertainment Group (last year 4)

5. Bonnie Hammer, president, NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Prods. (last year 6)

6. Donna Langley, co-chairman, Universal Pictures (last year 11)

7. Stacey Snider, co-chairman and CEO, DreamWorks Studios (last year 5)

8. Dana Walden, chairman, Twentieth Century Fox Television (last year 9)

9. Nina Tassler, president, CBS Entertainment (last year 10)

10. Angela Bromstad, president, primetime entertainment, NBC and Universal Media Studios (last year unlisted)

Full list:
11. Sue Kroll, president of worldwide marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures

12. Judy McGrath, chairman and CEO, MTV Networks

13. Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, president of distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures International

14. Nikki Rocco, president of distribution, Universal Pictures

15. Abbe Raven, president and CEO, A&E Television Networks

16. Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment, The CW

17. Sue Naegle, president, HBO Entertainment

18. Lauren Zalaznick, president, NBC Universal Women and Lifestyle Entertainment Networks

19. Kathleen Kennedy, producer

20. Mary Parent, chairman of worldwide motion picture group and office of the CEO, MGM

21. Andrea Wong, president and CEO, Lifetime Networks

22. Sheila Nevins, president, HBO Documentary and Family Programming

23. Ann Daly, COO, DreamWorks Animation

24. Nancy Utley, president, Fox Searchlight Pictures

25. Emma Watts, president of production, 20th Century Fox

Full list here.

Last year’s list

Mentor Spirit Marks WIE Breakfast (Hollywood Reporter)

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Tags: Amy Pascal, Anne Sweeney, Bonnie Hammer, Nancy Tellem, Oprah Winfrey

Precious in the Age of Obama

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on November 5, 2009
in Box Office, Movies and Racism
. 7 Comments

PreciousPosterI have not stopped thinking about Precious since I saw it almost a week ago.  This is a movie that unleashed many emotions many that have been hard to articulate properly.  Here are some of the things I’ve been pondering (more on the film’s content to come tomorrow.)

Could this film win the Best Picture Oscar?  Now, I’m no Oscar expert but this film has basically won every award at the film festivals it has been a part of since the premiere at Sundance last January.  It wins audience and critics awards.  It gets standing ovations.  (It was however shut out of the Gotham nominations)  It seems that lots of folks (at least those who go to film festivals) love the film. The film rolls out this weekend in Atlanta, Chicago, NY and LA and will then expand in the coming weeks.

The question is, can Precious become this year’s Slumdog Millionaire?  It’s the same type of hopeful movie that can make people feel good about themselves when things around them are still pretty shitty.  But keep in mind Slumdog was about kids from another country.  What they went through is something we can’t, and don’t imagine happening here.

But Precious is about US.  It is about this country.  It is about people here left behind.  Even though it is based on the novel by Sapphire and set in 1987 NYC, it still feels real and present.  That’s why it is breaking hearts everywhere.  You look at Precious and see Hurricane Katrina all over again.  You look at Precious and you see things you don’t necessarily want to see but need to see.

We might be a year into this Obama experiment but the reality of women’s lives – of women who could be like Precious have not changed.

This is not an easy movie to watch.  And that’s one of my big concerns.  It hammers at you and then it hammers again.  It may end hopeful, but it is a tough and brutal slog.  You need to come in with the right mind set and I am just wondering if the Oprah watching minions are going to take the leap to see this film.  Are they (we) ready to confront the racism and classism and abuse that happens here every day? I just don’t know.

This film needs women to see it to be successful.  I think it will even harder to get men in the door because of the Oprah endorsement.  Oprah = women.  This is not a slam dunk by any means.

Let’s also remember that the writer (Geoffrey Fletcher) and director (Lee Daniels) of this film are men.  That still so bothers me.  It wouldn’t bother me as much if the film’s roll out had not become the Lee Daniels show.  So much of the press has been about him (especially the NY Times Magazine piece called the Audacity of Precious which should have been called the “Audacity of Lee Daniels.”)  Granted, the film would not have gotten made without his vision and fortitude, so congrats to him.  But in lots of the press he comes of as this Svengali-like character who orchestrated these women into his perfect picture.  It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  I wonder what the whole roll out would be like with a female director.  He got the chance to direct because he secured the financing and got Sapphire to trust him.  That’s a big deal, especially for someone with only one awful film Shadowboxer under his belt.  The good news is that the press folks have realized that Gabourey Sidibe is a secret weapon for them and now she is doing some great press.

The thing about Precious that is important to note is the conversation that it has created and will hopefully create in all over the country in the coming weeks.  This is a movie about an obese, black, illiterate, abused, pregnant young woman who refuses to count herself out even though many people have already written her off.  The fact that this is getting a mainstream release and is also seriously in the Oscar hunt makes me hopeful for a business where so much of the talk is usually about how much money the latest crapfest made the previous weekend.  So while Precious’ story is a hopeful tale for all of us, the fact that Precious even exists is a hopeful tale for the movie business.

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Tags: Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Precious, Sapphire, Tyler Perry

Precious Takes Top Prize at Toronto

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on September 21, 2009
in Awards and Festivals
. 2 Comments

PreciousPosterLast year Slumdog Millionaire took the audience award — the top award — at Toronto and we all know what happened to the film.  It blew up big and went on to win best picture.  And that movie didn’t even have Oprah shilling for it.

Precious — the film based on the novel Push by Sapphire won the top award at Toronto making it the first film in history to win the audience awards at both Sundance and Toronto.

Director Lee Daniels was already off at the next festival but sent a message:

I made this film for every person out there who ever looked in the mirror, and felt unsure about the person looking back at them. This is not an art film for a select few. This is a movie for everyone that can relate to. This film is for all precious girls, and for everyone who has a little precious on the inside.

Does this now make it the top contender for best picture?

Leanne Pooley’s doc The Topp Twins about a lesbian New Zealand country and western singing group beat out Michael Moore for top honors.  The film has yet to find a US distributor.

This is so special. I’ve been making documentaries for like twenty years. And usually they’re dark, and that is often the world that a documentary filmmaker moves in. But this is a film about joy and laughter and love. It’s just so special to be able to bring a film like that to audiences like yours.

Ruba Nadda’s Cairo Time starring Patricia Clarkson won best Canadian feature.

Precious Tops Toronto Winner (IndieWire)

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Tags: Lee Daniels, Oprah Winfrey, Patricia Clarkson

Hollywood’s Top Earning Women

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on August 6, 2009
in News
. 4 Comments

Forbes has put together its first ever list on the top earning Hollywood women, and not surprisingly to me, half the top earners are over 40.

(PS this list is different from the list of highest earning women celebrities which came out earlier)

The list:

Number 1: Oprah Winfrey  $275 million

Number 2: Madonna $110 million

Number 3: Celine Dion $100 million

Number 4: Beyonce $87 million

Number 5: Stephenie Meyer $50 million

Number 6: Judge Judy $45 million

Number 7 (tie): Britney Spears $35 million

Number 7 (tie): Ellen Degeneres $35 million

Number 9: Tyra Banks $30 million

Number 10: Angelina Jolie $27 million

It’s so great that there are three women of color on the list.

Here how the list was compiled:

To compile the list of Hollywood’s 15 best-paid women, we looked at the top-earning actresses, writers, musicians and talking heads in the industry. We then talked to managers, agents and other Hollywood insiders to come up with estimates of their earnings between June 2008 and June 2009. For the sake of this list, we did not include musicians who perform in a group. So although the country band Sugarland earned $14 million, lead singer Jennifer Nettles could not be considered for the list.

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Tags: Beyonce, Celine Dion, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey