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      Marina Cicogna, Italy’s First Major Female Film Producer, Dies at 89

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      A countess from an influential Italian family, she charted her own course and produced films by the likes of Pasolini and Zeffirelli.Marina Cicogna, an Italian countess who became her country’s first major female film producer, guiding to the screen celebrated films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Zeffirelli and Elio Petri, died on Nov. 4 at her home in Rome. She was 89.Her death was announced by La Biennale di Venezia, the organizer of the Venice Film Festival. No cause was given.Rising to prominence in an era when the only female names on film posters were often those of actresses, Ms. Cicogna (pronounced chi-CONE-ya) became one of the most powerful women in European cinema, as both a producer and a distributor.She started from a lofty perch. Her maternal grandfather, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, was an industrialist and statesman who served various government roles, including as Italy’s minister of finance under Mussolini. He also founded the Venice Film Festival. In the mid-1960s, when Ms. Cicogna was in her early 30s, she and her brother Bino took control of her family’s production and distribution company, Euro International Films.Even so, she faced challenges: working with imperious male auteurs; earning the respect of the country’s left-leaning cultural leaders despite her titled upbringing; and openly dating women as well as men at a time when such topics were rarely discussed in public by figures of authority.Ms. Cicogna in 2009. She brought prominent films to the screen, including Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea” and “Teorema,” as well as Elio Petri’s “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” which won the 1971 Academy Award for best foreign-language film.Nick Harvey/WireImage, via Getty ImagesNor was her path as a woman always easy. “At the time I didn’t think about it,” she said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Roma this year. “But at the end of the day, yes, the intention to put you down was there, definitely.”Among the prominent films she produced or distributed were “Medea” (1969), Pasolini’s hypnotic reimagining of the Euripides tragedy, starring the opera singer Maria Callas; “Teorema” (1968), also directed by Pasolini, in which Terence Stamp plays an enigmatic stranger who seduces, one by one, members of a wealthy family in Milan; “Brother Sun Sister Moon” (1972), Zeffirelli’s lush retelling of the life of St. Francis of Assisi; and “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” Petri’s Kafkaesque thriller, which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 1971.Ms. Cicogna also had three films at the 1967 Venice Film Festival, including Luis Buñuel’s “Belle de Jour,” starring Catherine Deneuve as a Paris housewife who secretly works at a bordello, which won the festival’s highest prize, the Golden Lion. In addition, she put her stamp on the proceedings by throwing a lavish party that became festival lore.“I didn’t give a big ball, but rather said that everyone could dress as they wanted, as long as they were in white and yellow or white and gold,” Ms. Cicogna said in a 2013 interview with T, The New York Times’s style magazine. “I sent two small Learjets, one to Corsica to pick up Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and the other to Rome to pick up Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim.”Such obvious displays of wealth would go out of fashion following the leftist student uprisings in Europe in 1968. “You couldn’t have a big party without hurting people’s feelings,” she continued. “You couldn’t go around with a Rolls-Royce without being thrown eggs at.”Ms. Cicogna, center, with the actresses Gina Lollobrigida, left, and Jane Fonda at the lavish party the countess threw for the 1967 Venice Film Festival. The party became festival lore.Giorgio Lotti/Mondadori, via Getty ImagesCountess Marina Cicogna Mozzoni Volpi di Misurata was born on May 29, 1934, in Rome, the daughter of Count Cesare Cicogna Mozzoni, a banker, and Countess Annamaria Volpi di Misurata, who purchased Euro International Films, ultimately handing control over to her children.Growing up, Ms. Cicogna was a cinema lover who mingled among the children of David O. Selznick, the producer of “Gone With the Wind,” and other film heavyweights at the Venice festival.After an education in Italy, she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., where she roomed with Barbara Warner, whose father was the Hollywood film mogul Jack Warner. During a school break, Ms. Warner invited her to California.“I never went back,” Ms. Cicogna told T. “I stayed for three months in California at the Warners’.”She later studied photography in the United States, brokering her platinum connections to shoot luminaries like Ezra Pound and Marilyn Monroe in candid moments.Her early forays into the film business included distributing a 1967 West German film, “Helga.” “It was the first time you saw a birth, a woman producing a child, on film,” she told T. “I decided we should publicize it. We put ambulances at the exit of the film, saying that people would faint when they saw that.”Ms. Cicogna in 1967 with the director Luis Buñuel, whose “Belle de Jour” won the Venice festival’s highest prize, the Golden Lion.Giorgio Lotti/Mondadori Portfolio, via Everett CollectionShe was at times linked romantically with the likes of Warren Beatty and Alain Delon, but she also spent decades in a relationship with Florinda Bolkan, a Brazilian model and actress.After they split, she began a long relationship with Benedetta Gardona, a woman more than two decades her junior, whom Ms. Cicogna legally adopted for financial reasons. Ms. Gardona remained her companion until Ms. Cicogna’s death. (Complete information on survivors was not immediately available).Ms. Cicogna looked back on her career highlights of the 1960s and ’70s in the 2021 documentary “Marina Cicogna: La Vita e Tutto il Resto” (“Life and Everything Else”), directed by Andrea Bettinetti, as well as her autobiography, “Ancora Spero: Una Storia di Vita e di Cinema” (“I Still Hope: A Story of Life and Cinema”), published this year.Still, in a 2017 video interview, she expressed regret that she had not remained in the film business. “If I had to look back, I should have never stopped producing, although Italian cinematography has not been the same since. It’s not so great,” she said, adding: “I am also a person who is very torn between the European rather lazy aesthetic way of life and the American more creative, more active way of life.”“I’ve been more European than active,” she said. “I haven’t done as much as I should have done. But I can’t say I’m sorry. That’s the way it was, and that’s it.” More

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      ‘The Taste of Things’ and the Transcendence of a French Meal

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      “The Taste of Things” is the latest movie to luxuriate in France’s gourmand tradition, a safe way of attracting audiences outside the country.In France, a robust appetite is a virtue if not a heroic trait.Eating gratifies all the senses: We take in the aroma of a handsome dish, delight at the sound of a sizzling steak or crave the crunch of a crusty baguette. So to fully appreciate the various sensory dimensions of a fine French meal is, essentially, to express a sophisticated artistic judgment.“The Taste of Things,” by the director Tran Anh Hung, is a 19th-century French romance powered by this understanding of food’s transcendence. The feature opened in theaters Wednesday in France and will play on screens at New York’s Museum of Modern Art on Nov. 10 before its Oscar-qualifying run in mid-December.The movie is about a distinguished gourmand, Dodin (Benoît Magimel), and his preternaturally gifted chef, Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). They live together in the French countryside and together concoct lavish meals for themselves and Dodin’s coterie of foodie friends. Their lives entirely revolve around the cultivation and creation of these dishes, which Hung emphasizes through long, elaborate cooking scenes.“The Taste of Things” is an 18th-century French romance powered by this understanding of food’s transcendence. via Carole Bethuel/IFC FIlmsWhen I first watched “The Taste of Things” at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, I was surrounded by a delightfully vocal audience. The oohing and ahhing was ubiquitous and, apparently, a visceral response, similar to what is elicited by beholding Monet’s water lilies or being wrapped in the velvety textures of Whitney Houston’s voice. Savoring a tasty meal (or even just watching one come together on a big screen) brings a kind of joy that can’t be explained by logic or reason.Reviews of the film in France have been mixed. Le Monde’s Clarisse Fabre found its blissful atmosphere and near-absence of dramatic tension perplexing and boring. Olivier Lamm of Libération wrote that there’s much more to the film than its food-porn attractions — it’s also about the assault of junk food and globalization on French standards.“Chocolat,” starring Juliette Binoche, also celebrated the French devotion to the culinary arts and made a lot of money at the U.S. box office.AlamyThe country’s rich gastronomic tradition — and its long history of federally regulating the quality and authenticity of its wines and produce — is a particular point of national pride, and French film industry leaders have embraced the gourmand label. This year, “The Taste of Things” was selected as the French submission for the Oscar’s best international film category over Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner, “Anatomy of a Fall.”The decision was met with objections from French critics, who said Triet was punished for the political charge of her acceptance speech at Cannes. However, the selection of Hung’s film isn’t all that surprising given the selection committee’s evident partiality to films commenting on the country’s national identity — or, from a more cynical standpoint, films that offer Oscar voters a tourist-friendly idea of France.The French devotion to the culinary arts is a bit of an onscreen cliché, and Hollywood films like “Ratatouille” and “Chocolat” (the latter, also starring Binoche, made big money in the United States, but fared far less well in France) have relied on stereotypically French settings, like a rustic village and a Parisian bistro, to communicate lessons about food’s revolutionary and unifying powers.More rewarding — and complex — is the 1956 French classic “La Traversée de Paris,” starring the Frenchest of all Frenchmen, Jean Gabin, as an artist-turned-black market courier in Nazi-occupied Paris. This black dramedy stars Gabin and the comedian Bourvil, who play a bickering duo who must transport four suitcases of contraband pork across the city while evading the authorities and a horde of hungry hounds.Political instability not only cuts off access to revered foodstuffs, it drains the very spirit of those committed to the art of eating. In the 1987 Danish film “Babette’s Feast,” Babette (Stéphane Audran), a French chef, is forced to flee from her Parisian neighborhood when the Paris Commune, an insurrectionist government, seizes power in 1871.Seeking refuge in the Danish countryside, Babette moves into a spartan Protestant household manned by two Protestant sisters accustomed to eating the same brown fish stew, which has a mudlike consistency. Fourteen years into her employment with the sisters, Babette miraculously wins the French lottery and, rather than fund her return to France, spends all her winnings on a multicourse dinner for the townspeople.Stéphane Audran as Babette in “Babette’s Feast.”Entertainment Pictures, via AlamyThe feast — a turtle soup, stuffed quail, rum sponge cake and more — breaks the guests’ brains, while Babette, in the final scene, emerges as an emissary of the sublime. Her culinary gifts, her cooking’s ability to disrupt the very foundations of what her Danish friends perceived to be reality, make her angelic.At the same time, isn’t fine dining — like certain kinds of music, literature and art — rather bourgeois? Nothing screams upper middle class like the prim and proper dinner scene. This is delightful in films by, say, Éric Rohmer, who was fond of depicting the natural choreography of mealtime, the mess of wine glasses and plates of fruit and cheese floating between guests in the middle of a meandering conversation.In other films, dinnertime can seem ridiculous. Consider Luis Buñuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” in which three couples try over and over to enjoy a white tablecloth feast, but do not actually eat. Over the course of the film, their polite mannerisms and refined gestures become increasingly absurd.Marco Ferreri’s “La Grande Bouffe” plays like a glutton’s version of “Salo,” linking the pleasure of eating to consumerist society and the gross hedonism of the leisure class. In the film, four friends literally feed themselves to death, feasting on an endless parade of shrimp, turkey, pot roast and sausage while reading excerpts from canonical works of literature and, notably, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s gastronomical bible, “The Physiology of Taste.”Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi and Andréa Ferréol in “La Grande Bouffe,” which links the pleasure of eating to consumerist society.Alamy“La Grande Bouffe” is a nauseating showcase and a welcome retort to the glorification of tunnel-vision foodies like Brillat-Savarin. Ferreri was also a gourmand, and he reportedly had difficulties keeping himself from binge eating. His film points a finger at himself as well as society at large.“The Taste of Things” is an adaptation of the 1961 novel “The Passionate Epicure” by Marcel Rouff, which was itself inspired by none other than Brillat-Savarin. “The Physiology of Taste” is supposed to be about the science of eating, but it often veers off into discussions about sex, love and sensuality.Brillat-Savarin’s passion for food is not unlike the passion he might develop for another person, a dynamic that Hung’s film depicts with a hypnotic warmth. When I see Binoche’s Eugénie, laboring away on a buttery risotto or a vegetable omelet, I’m overcome by the sense memory of something deliciously intimate, like being held tight or a loved one’s scent. In that moment, nothing else seems to matter. More

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      ‘Dream Scenario’ Review: Space Invader

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      Nicolas Cage plays a mild-mannered professor who inexplicably wanders into others’ dreams in this wonderfully weird dark comedy.Balding, bespectacled and bowed by the weight of a thousand disappointments, Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) moves through “Dream Scenario” with a schlubby passivity. At the college where he teaches evolutionary biology, his students sigh and fidget; during a lesson on zebras, he explains that their stripes keep them safe by ensuring that they don’t stand out from the herd. Not standing out is Paul’s entire vibe.Then he learns that, inexplicably, he has been popping up in people’s dreams. At first, it’s just the reveries of family and acquaintances — one of his daughters, a former girlfriend — but soon his invasions spread to complete strangers. A droll running joke has dream-Paul refusing to respond to the dreamer’s cries for help: In one scenario, his daughter is being pummeled by falling objects while Paul calmly rakes leaves; in another, a student is being menaced by a gore-soaked pursuer while Paul, sashaying past, declines to intervene. In Paul’s world, as in our own, it’s possible to go viral by doing virtually nothing.This could seem like a one-trick conceit; but the Norwegian writer and director, Kristoffer Borgli, infuses his screenplay with a sadness that foregrounds Paul’s long-burning need for recognition. At lunch with a former graduate school classmate (Paula Boudreau), who has recently published the book about ants that he himself has struggled to write, he attacks her for stealing one of his ideas. Later, he pushes back defensively when a former girlfriend (Marnie McPhail Diamond) describes his inaction in her dream about a dying friend.“You’re still doing that?,” she asks, incredulous. “Searching for the insult?” It’s perhaps the movie’s most important line, adding layers to a character who could seem a fool. But Paul is dull, not despicable, a vaguely resentful academic who’s loved by his stoic wife (Julianne Nicholson) and yearns to be included in their neighbor’s famed dinner parties. His newfound celebrity has him perplexed, then pleased, and ultimately petrified when the movie takes a dark turn and the dreams become nightmares. Now Paul stands out. Now he will be hunted — and not only online.Pondering the downside of notoriety and our willingness to exchange safety for fame, “Dream Scenario” is often funny and frequently surreal. Borgli’s previous feature, “Sick of Myself” (2023), also examined someone going to extremes to gain the attention she felt she deserved. Here, though, he has more ideas than space to execute them, and the movie’s third act can feel overloaded and indecisive of where it wants to land. Sharp, unheralded cuts from dream to reality leave us little time to get our bearings; yet they also leave Cage free to roam the length and breadth of his considerable acting range. The sight of Paul, in his shabby parka and scrubby beard, attempt to re-enact a young woman’s erotic dream — at her request — could make you want to put your eyes out.Full marks in this scene, though, to the terrific Dylan Gelula who, along with other supporting players like Michael Cera (as an advertising pup who wants Paul to carry a can of Sprite into people’s dreams) and Tim Meadows (as Paul’s department head), help ground the film’s cringe comedy. In the end, “Dream Scenario” is less interested in cancel culture than the fickleness of a mass audience that can rapidly swerve from adulation to condemnation — even when, like Paul, you really haven’t done anything at all.Dream ScenarioRated R for awkward groping and awful outerwear. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Manodrome’ Review: The Manosphere Gets a Crude Awakening

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      An unemployed dad-to-be is seduced by a misogynist group who call themselves “the guys” in this sensationalizing drama starring Jesse Eisenberg.The word “Manodrome,” the title of a new film starring Jesse Eisenberg, is a riff on the “manosphere” — a catchall term for misogynist online communities including so-called incels and men’s rights activists. If your first instinct, like mine, is to snicker, know that this self-important drama is devoid of humor.Directed by John Trengove, the film tracks the seduction of an unemployed worker turned Uber driver, Eisenberg’s Ralphie, by a group of women-hating men, which sets off a violent downward spiral that is, at the very least, not boring.A gym rat, Ralphie pumps iron to make up for the fact that he doesn’t feel very manly. He’s broke, and he’s expecting a baby with his girlfriend Sal (Odessa Young), with whom he lives in a teeny-tiny apartment in Syracuse, N.Y.Sal isn’t particularly excited about starting a family, but Ralphie seems to think fatherhood will save him — if only the system wasn’t working against him. In other words, he’s easy bait.Ralphie’s workout pal Jason (Philip Ettinger) steps in, and introduces him to “the guys”: a diverse gang of bachelors who bunk together in a country mansion owned by the group’s leader and bankroller, Dan (Adrien Brody). They offer a sense of community and material perks, emboldening Ralphie to act out against Sal and unleash his inner alpha.Eisenberg — beefed up in this role and stripped of the cocky, motormouth bravado he’s known for — plays the edgy Ralphie like a ticking time bomb of pent-up feeling. Though the script, which relies heavily on pseudo-psychology, doesn’t leave room for much mystery. Ralphie is self-loathing, intensely homophobic, and was made fun of as a kid for being chubby — connect the dots and you’ll be able to anticipate half of the film’s twists (and there are surplus twists).Crude and sensationalizing, “Manodrome” is like an amalgam of all the headlines you’ve read about the kinds of men who succumb to warped ideologies.ManodromeRated R for sex, domestic abuse, gun violence and cultlike activity. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Journey to Bethlehem’ Review: No Room at the Inn? Try the Multiplex

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      It’s no “Home Alone” or “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but it does have Antonio Banderas as a song-slinging Herod and Lecrae as a quavering Angel Gabriel.Christmas announces its coming earlier every year. We haven’t even hit Thanksgiving and here is this peculiar Nativity movie for, um, someone’s whole family, directed and co-written by Adam Anders. Anders, making his feature debut here, is a former “Glee” writer and music producer, and his co-writer, Peter Barsocchini, is a veteran of “High School Musical.” While their treatment of the ancient world is informed, to say the least, by their prior work, the scenario also feels like Hallmark pulped through a Disney strainer.For instance, the future Jesus-mom, Mary (Fiona Palomo), bridles at her arranged marriage, and actually says, “What about my dream of becoming a teacher, like my father?” She is talked down by girlfriends on a shopping trek who sing, “Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary/It’s good for you.”The familiar story line is festooned with “kicky” touches, like a meet-cute between Mary and Joseph (Milo Manheim) at a fruit market, and the angel Gabriel (the rapper and singer Lecrae) struggling with stage fright before making his presentation to the Blessed Virgin. Later, in a dream, two Josephs ponder the pregnancy issue, with the anti-Mary manifestation singing “Don’t make concessions/for her transgressions.”Antonio Banderas appears as Judea’s King Herod, dead set on making sure the newborn (other) King doesn’t stick around for long.“Did he lose a bet?” one may wonder, seeing Banderas in this role. Apparently not; he clearly relishes playing a singing and dancing villain. In his introductory number, he croons about how, yes, it’s good to be king.“Mine is the kingdom/mine is the power,” he belts out. And Joel Smallbone, as his scheming son Antipater, sidles up beside him to harmonize on “mine is the glory.”The magic of movies does depend on a certain suspension of disbelief, but “Journey” tests the viewer beyond rational credulity, even as it persists in asserting the reality of its existence.Call it a Christmas anti-miracle?Journey to BethlehemRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Killer’ Review: He’s a Deadly Bore

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      Michael Fassbender stars as a loquaciously dull hit man in David Fincher’s latest film about bloody exploits.David Fincher can’t get enough of that murderous stuff — his filmography bleedeth over with miscreants (“Alien 3”), home invaders (“Panic Room”) and multiple maniacs (“Seven,” “Zodiac,” “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl”). During one of his periodic breaks from painting the big screen red, Fincher served as a producer and director on the Netflix show “Mindhunter,” another of his visually impeccable, morgue-cold creep-outs. This one was about F.B.I. agents profiling serial killers like Edmund Kemper, a ghoul whose silkily insinuating manner resonated more deeply than the show, which ended after two seasons.“Mindhunter” was easier to admire than to love, which is habitually true of Fincher’s work and was certainly true of his last movie, “Mank,” an Old Hollywood exhumation about powerful people who kill dreams and souls. In Hobbesian terms, life in a Fincher film tends to be solitary and poor, nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short. That’s the case again in his most recent movie, “The Killer,” about a nameless hit man — played by Michael Fassbender — a chatty loner first seen waiting for a victim to show up. In time, the mark appears, the Killer shoots but misses, and spends the remainder of the story trying to clean up the mess.“The Killer” is based on a French comic book with the same title written by Alexis Nolent (who goes by Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. The protagonist is an outwardly ordinary-looking hit man who’s as physically unassuming as he is inevitably nihilistic: Other people are awful, the world is hopeless, “we’re living on a pile of corpses,” etc. He quotes Christ and Kazantzakis, pals around with kindred villains, regularly has sex with balloon-breasted ladies but also spends a lot of time alone, which means the comic panels overflow with his loathing and insipid thoughts. What makes him ostensibly interesting isn’t his job or body count; what’s intriguing, at least before your eyes finally glaze over, is that he’s dull.The idea of an anti-Bond type with an illegal license to kill is, yes, an idea, one that flickers weakly on the page amid a mass of genre clichés. What’s most distinctive about the comic is the contrast between its protagonist and Jacamon’s cinematic illustrations, with their rich hues, canted angles and interplay between realism and expressionism. You keep reading only to keep looking. Fincher’s visual approach in the movie is relatively muted by contrast. He bathes the screen with sulfurous yellow, throws in a few showy shots — an unblinking eye seen through a gun scope — and, as he likes to do, goes dark and then darker, as in one extended fight sequence that’s so dimly lit it sometimes hovers on the threshold of visibility.Written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”), the movie ditches a lot of the comic’s gasbag observations, shaves the plot to the bone, folds in some pop-culture yuks (the Killer uses sitcom aliases) and takes a jab at WeWork. Fassbender’s character still prattles on a lot, mostly in voice-over, both when he’s on the job and off, but much of what he says is repetitive and on occasion near-affirmational. “Forbid empathy,” he murmurs. “Trust no one.” On occasion, he sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself or just settle his mind so he can focus on the violent task at hand; at other times, he sounds as if he’s dispensing avuncular advice to students of slaughter: “This is what it takes if you want to succeed.”One problem with the movie is that without the Killer’s anti-humanist rants, his historical references and political entanglements, there isn’t much left other than Fincher’s virtuosity, Fassbender’s tamped-down charisma and the thorny pleasures of watching evil people commit evil with great finesse. What this Killer has are a lover (Sophie Charlotte), who’s merely a plot contrivance, a luxe beachfront house and a storage unit kitted out with the tools of his trade (guns, passports). What he doesn’t have is much of a personality or a code, a way of being that complicates the violence, as in the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and his admirers. So what is the Killer? Mostly, it seems, he is a way for Fincher to kill time.After the first job in the movie goes bad, the Killer finds that he’s now a target, which adds a bit of tension and mystery as he dodges threats amid the bang-bangs — the gunfire is more polyrhythmic than the metronomic editing — and the splashy entrances and exits from the other generic types: the Lawyer (Charles Parnell), the Client (Arliss Howard), the Expert (Tilda Swinton), the Brute (Sala Baker). Throughout, Fassbender holds the center with his lissome, controlled physicality and near-unmodulated voice. The character is boring and so is this movie, but like the supremely skilled Fincher, who can’t help but make images that hold your gaze even as your mind wanders, Fassbender does keep you watching.The KillerRated R for ultraviolence. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood Studios Agree to Deal to End Actors’ Strike

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      The agreement all but ends one of the longest labor crises in the history of the entertainment industry. Union members still have to approve the deal.One of the longest labor crises in Hollywood history is finally coming to an end.SAG-AFTRA, the union representing tens of thousands of actors, reached a tentative deal for a new contract with entertainment companies on Wednesday, clearing the way for the $134 billion American movie and television business to swing back into motion.Hollywood’s assembly lines have been at a near-standstill since May because of a pair of strikes by writers and actors, resulting in financial pain for studios and for many of the two million Americans — makeup artists, set builders, location scouts, chauffeurs, casting directors — who work in jobs directly or indirectly related to making TV shows and films.Upset about streaming-service pay and fearful of fast-developing artificial intelligence technology, actors joined screenwriters on picket lines in July. The writers had walked out in May over similar concerns. It was the first time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the head of the actors’ union and Marilyn Monroe was still starring in films, that actors and writers were both on strike.The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, reached a tentative agreement with studios on Sept. 24 and ended its 148-day strike on Sept. 27. In the coming days, SAG-AFTRA members will vote on whether to accept their union’s deal, which includes hefty gains, like increases in compensation for streaming shows and films, better health care funding, concessions from studios on self-taped auditions, and guarantees that studios will not use artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval.SAG-AFTRA, however, failed to receive a percentage of streaming service revenue. It had proposed a 2 percent share — later dropped to 1 percent, before a pivot to a per-subscriber fee. Fran Drescher, the union’s president, had made the demand a priority, but companies like Netflix balked, calling it “a bridge too far.”Instead, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of entertainment companies, proposed a new residual for streaming programs based on performance metrics, which the union, after making some adjustments, agreed to take.At 118 days, it was the longest movie and television strike in the union’s 90-year history. SAG-AFTRA said in a terse statement that its negotiating committee had voted unanimously to approve the tentative deal, which will proceed to the union’s national board on Friday for “review and consideration.”It added, “Further details will be released following that meeting.”Shaan Sharma, a member of the union’s negotiating committee, said he had mixed emotions about the tentative deal, though he declined to go into specifics because the SAG-AFTRA board still needed to review it.“They say a negotiation is when both sides are unhappy because you can’t get everything you want on either side,” he said, adding, “You can be happy for the deal overall, but you can feel a sense of loss for something that you didn’t get that you thought was important.”Ms. Drescher, who had been active on social media during the strike, didn’t immediately post anything on Wednesday evening. She and other SAG-AFTRA officials had come under severe pressure from agents, crew member unions and even some of her own members, including George Clooney and Ben Affleck, to wrap up what had started to feel like an interminable negotiation.“I’m relieved,” Kevin Zegers, an actor most recently seen in the ABC show “The Rookie: Feds,” said in an interview after the union’s announcement. “If it didn’t end today, there would have been riots.”The studio alliance said in a statement that the tentative agreement “represents a new paradigm,” giving SAG-AFTRA “the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.”There is uncertainty over what a poststrike Hollywood will look like. But one thing is certain: There will be fewer jobs for actors and writers in the coming years, undercutting the wins that unions achieved at the bargaining table.Even before the strikes, entertainment companies were cutting back on the number of television shows they ordered, a result of severe pressure from Wall Street to turn money-losing streaming services into profitable businesses. Analysts expect companies to make up for the pair of pricey new labor contracts by reducing costs elsewhere, including by making fewer shows and canceling first-look deals.The actors, like the writers, said the streaming era had negatively affected their working conditions and compensation.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesFor the moment, however, the agreements with actors and writers represent a capitulation by Hollywood’s biggest companies, which started the bargaining process with an expectation that the unions, especially SAG-AFTRA, would be relatively compliant. Early in the talks, for instance, the studio alliance — Netflix, Disney, NBCUniversal, Apple, Amazon, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. — refused to negotiate on multiple union proposals. “Rejected our proposal, refused to make a counter” became a rallying cry among the striking workers.As the studio alliance tried to limit any gains, the companies cited business challenges, including the rapid decline of cable television and continued streaming losses. Disney, struggling with $4 billion in streaming losses in 2022, eliminated 7,000 jobs in the spring.But the alliance underestimated the pent-up anger pulsating among the studios’ own workers. Writers and actors called the moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era had deteriorated the working conditions and compensation for rank-and-file members of their professions so much that they could no longer make a living. The companies brushed such comments aside as union bluster and Hollywood dramatics. They found out the workers were serious.With the strikes dragging into the fall and the financial pain on both sides mounting, the studio alliance reluctantly switched from trying to limit gains to figuring out how to get Hollywood’s creative assembly lines running again — even if that meant bending to the will of the unions.“It was all macho, tough-guy stuff from the companies for a while,” said Jason E. Squire, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. “But that certainly did change.”There had previously been 15 years of labor peace in Hollywood.“The executives of these companies didn’t need to worry about labor very much — they worried about other things,” Chris Keyser, a chair of the Writers Guild negotiating committee, said in an interview after the writers’ strike concluded. “They worried about Wall Street and their free cash flow, and all of that.”Mr. Keyser continued: “They could say to their labor executives, ‘Do the same thing you’ve been doing year after year. Just take care of that, because labor costs are not going to be a problem.’ Suddenly, that wasn’t true anymore.” As a result of the strikes, studios are widely expected to overhaul their approach to union negotiations, which in many ways dates to the 1980s.Writers Guild leaders called their deal “exceptional” and “transformative,” noting the creation of viewership-based streaming bonuses and a sharp increase in royalty payments for overseas viewing on streaming services. Film writers received guaranteed payment for a second draft of screenplays, something the union had tried but failed to secure for at least two decades.The Writers Guild said the contract included enhancements worth roughly $233 million annually. When bargaining started in the spring, the guild proposed $429 million in enhancements, while studios countered with $86 million, according to the guild.For an industry upended by the streaming revolution, which the pandemic sped up, the tentative accord takes a meaningful step toward stabilization. About $10 billion in TV and film production has been on hold, according to ProdPro, a production tracking service. That amounts to 176 shows and films.The fallout has been significant, both inside and outside the industry. California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Because the actors’ union prohibited its members from participating in promotional campaigns for already-finished work, studios pulled movies like “Dune: Part Two” from the fall release schedule, forgoing as much as $1.6 billion in worldwide ticket sales, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant.With labor harmony restored, the coming weeks should be chaotic. Studio executives and producers will begin a mad scramble to secure soundstages, stars, insurance, writers and crew members so productions can start running again as quickly as possible. Because of the end-of-year holidays, some projects may not restart until January.Both sides will have to go through the arduous process of working together again after a searing six-month standoff. The strikes tore at the fabric of the clubby entertainment world, with actors’ union leaders describing executives as “land barons of a medieval time,” and writers and actors still fuming that it took studio executives months, not weeks, to reach a deal.Workers and businesses caught in the crossfire were idled, potentially leaving bitter feelings toward both sides.And it appears that Hollywood executives will now have to contend with a resurgent labor force, mirroring many other American businesses. In recent weeks, production workers at Walt Disney Animation voted to unionize, as did visual-effects workers at Marvel.Contracts with powerful unions that represent Hollywood crews will expire in June and July, and negotiations are expected to be fractious.“It seemed apparent early on that we were part of a trend in American society where labor was beginning to flex its muscles — where unions were beginning to reassert their power,” said Mr. Keyser, the Writers Guild official.Brooks Barnes More

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      A Mixed Mood as Hollywood Strikes Finally End

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      Celebratory feelings are competing with resentment over the work stoppage and worries about the business era that is coming.It should be a rapturous time in Hollywood.Writers have been back at their keyboards for a month, having negotiated a strike-ending deal so favorable that it seemed to leave even them a bit gobsmacked. On Wednesday, the actors’ union said it had negotiated a tentative contract of its own, all but ending its 118-day strike and clearing a path for the film and television business to roar back to life for the first time since May.Champagne for everyone!Instead, the mood in the entertainment capital is decidedly mixed, as celebratory feelings compete with resentment over the work stoppage and worries about the business era that is coming.“People are excited — thrilled — to be getting back to work,” said Jon Liebman, co-chief executive of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, a venerable Hollywood management firm. “But they are also mindful of some sobering challenges that lie ahead.”Analysts estimate that higher labor expenses will add 10 percent to the cost of making a show, and studios are expected to compensate by cutting back on production.“Companies are not going to increase their budgets accordingly,” said Jason E. Squire, editor of “The Movie Business Book” and host of a companion podcast. “They will compensate by making less. The end.”Hulu, for instance, expects the number of new shows it makes in 2024 to fall by about a third from 2022.The Directors Guild of America also has a new contract that guarantees raises. And two more union contracts, both covering crews, come due in the next few months. Studios will either have to pay up or risk another shutdown. “READY for our contract fight next year,” Lindsay Dougherty, lead organizer for Teamsters Local 399, recently said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Her branch represents more than 6,000 Hollywood workers, including truck drivers, location managers and casting directors.Even before the strikes, Hollywood was swinging from boom times to austerity. Peak TV, the glut of new programming that helped define the streaming era, ended last year as Wall Street began pressuring streaming services to put a priority on profit over subscriber growth. TV networks and streaming platforms ordered 40 percent fewer adult scripted series in the second half of 2022 than they did in the same period in 2019, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm.Put another way, 599 adult scripted series were made last year. Some analysts predict that, by 2025, the annual number will be closer to 400, a roughly one-third decline. Even the most modest series employs hundreds of people, including agents, managers, publicists and stylists, who in turn fuel the broader economy.“With the strike over, we’re all staring down the barrel of a painful structural adjustment that predates the strike,” Zack Stentz, a screenwriter with credits like “X-Men: First Class” and “Thor,” wrote on X. “A lot of careers and even entire companies are going to go away over the next year.” (He added, on a glass-half-full note: “This is also a time for clever little mammals to survive and even thrive in the new landscape. Your job is to be a clever mammal.”)The streaming profitability problem remains largely unsolved. Netflix and Hulu make money, and Warner Bros. Discovery has said its Max service will turn a profit by the end of the year. But Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock and others continue to lose money. Peacock alone will bleed $2.8 billion in red ink in 2023, Comcast said last month.Most analysts say that there are too many streaming services and that the weakest will ultimately close or merge with bigger competitors.The entertainment industry’s underlying cable television and box office problems also remain dire, in some cases growing worse during the five months it took to restore labor peace.Fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable or satellite television by 2027, down from 64 million today and 100 million seven years ago, according to PwC, the accounting giant. In July, Disney announced that it was exploring a once-unthinkable sale of a stake in ESPN, the cable giant that has powered much of Disney’s growth over the past two decades. Paramount Global’s once-venerable cable portfolio, centered on Nickelodeon and MTV, has also been pummeled by cord cutting; Paramount shares have dropped nearly 50 percent since May.The film business is also unsettled. Movies now arrive in homes (either through digital stores or on streaming) after as little as 17 days in theaters, compared with about 90 days, which had been the standard for decades.Audiences have finally started to tire of Hollywood’s prevailing movie business strategy — endless sequels, each more bloated than the last — with lackluster results for the seventh “Mission: Impossible” film, the fifth “Indiana Jones” installment and 11th “Fast & Furious” chapter as evidence.Movies now arrive in homes (either through digital stores or on streaming) after as little as 17 days in theaters, compared with the decades-old standard of about 90 days.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesTheaters are not dead, as blockbuster turnout for “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” has shown. But ticket-buying data suggests a worrisome trend: People who were going to six to eight movies a year before the pandemic are now going to three or four. Even the most ardent fans of big-screen entertainment are paring back.Cinemas in North America sold about $7.7 billion in tickets this year though October, a 17 percent decline from the same period in 2019.There is more competition for leisure time; TikTok has 150 million users in the United States, a majority of them younger than 30, and the average time spent on the app is growing quickly.Everywhere you look in Hollywood, or so it seems, businesses are trying to cut costs. Citing the strikes and “volatile larger entertainment marketplace,” Anonymous Content, a production and management company, laid off 8 percent of its staff last month. United Talent Agency also trimmed its head count, as did several competing agencies.DreamWorks Animation recently eliminated 4 percent of its work force, while Starz, the premium cable network and streaming service, is reducing head count by 10 percent. Netflix is restructuring its animation division, which is expected to result in layoffs and fewer self-made films.Consider what is happening at Disney, which is widely considered the strongest of the old-line entertainment companies, partly because it is the largest.Before the strikes, Disney had about 150 television shows and a dozen movies in production. But worries about streaming profitability and the decline of cable television have battered Disney’s stock price. Shares have been trading in the $80 range, down from $197 two years ago. Sorting out ESPN’s future is Disney’s first priority, but the company is also selling holdings in India and weighing whether to part with assets like ABC; the Freeform cable channel; and a chain of local broadcast stations.Disney is so vulnerable that the activist investor Nelson Peltz has made it known to The Wall Street Journal that he intends, for the second time in a year, to push for board seats. Disney fended off Mr. Peltz in February, partly by saying it would cut $5.5 billion in costs and eliminate 7,000 jobs. On Wednesday, Disney said that, in the end, it had cut $7.5 billion and more than 8,000 jobs. It added that it would continue to tighten its belt.Phil Cusick, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, said of Disney in a note to clients in late September, “The company plans to make less content and spend less on what it does make.”Nicole Sperling More