The Entertainment Industry finally features in COVID-19 relief bills

With the House of Representatives narrowly passing the American Rescue Plan this weekend, we see the first steps towards the U.S’s largest COVID bail-out to date. If it passes the Senate as well, this bill will hit President Biden’s desk, making it his first major legislative achievement to date. For the entertainment industry, it’s one that’s been a long time in coming, and, in some aspects, desperately needed. BLAKE & WANG P.A Entertainment Attorney take a closer look at this historical milestone.

At 1.9 trillion, there’s little wonder that the bill didn’t draw any Republican votes. More surprising, there were 2 democratic representatives to also vote against the bill. However, it’s been immensely popular with the public at large, especially those suffering under the current COVID-19 restrictions.

This includes, of course, a disproportionate amount of the entertainment business. This is primarily due to the fact that many in the industry report as freelancers, contractor, or ‘gig worker’, sectors for whom accessing state-run programs have historically been hard. Despite copious attempts to keep people working (and some efforts to get sets reopened from Q3 last year), a huge segment of the entertainment industry has had to rely on Washington to support them through the current hardships. Most of the Entertainment industry works as contractors or freelance artists, and since regular benefits like unemployment have not been reshaped to include them, this is hardly surprising.

A vast segment of the bill focuses on testing schemes and vaccine distribution, as well it should. Luckily, there’s also provision made for the businesses and workers suffering under current conditions, which we will look at in more detail later. Overall, it moves in a very positive direction for the entertainment industry. Combined with further moves from President Biden to make accessing relief easier for workers, there’s definitely a more positive horizon opening up for smaller players in the entertainment industry. As always, BLAKE & WANG P.A one of the top entertainment law firms Los Angeles will keep you informed.

How Detective Chinatown 3 Helped Rally the Chinese Box Office

Just this week we’ve seen immensely positive news from the Chinese Box Office. With a Box Office totaling over $1.2 billion for the Lunar New Year, a record-busting stat that pushes past 2019 peaks, it’s hard not to hope we’ll see a similar rally in the U.S. The anticipated release of Detective Chinatown 3 has had a huge hand in these successes. BLAKE & WANG P.A one of the best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles crunches the numbers on this exceptional performer.

We saw the hit crack records for opening day and opening weekend both over the Feb12th-14th period. To date, it’s grossed over $551 million. This places it as the top movie of the year, not just in China but globally. This also puts it a meaty 20% ahead of China’s The Eight Hundred, 2020’s top title worldwide.

Did we mention this is just 6 days into opening?

It’s not the only hit to carve out a notable spot over the New Year, however, with Hi, Mom, a time-travel comedy, managed to top the charts from Monday to midweek. It’s taken $423 million to date. This is expected to double by the end of the run. If accurate, this would make it the second top movie ever to hit their market. Despite overtaking Hi, Mom for its opening weekend, Detective Chinatown 3 is expected to peak at around $700 million- a good third again ahead of the previous installment in the series.

Overall, seven strong releases (of which Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom were the pillars) over the Lunar New Year season have created a resounding Box Office Boom it’s hoped will carry over worldwide. Despite running with capacity restrictions, this weekend’s takings represent a record-breaking attendance, fuelled in part by people’s inability to travel to family over the holiday period. All in all, it’s a positive global trend BLAKE & WANG P.A one of the top entertainment law firms Los Angeles hopes to see continue.

Netflix Dominates Golden Globe Nominations

In one of the strangest years for TV and movies ever seen, it can hardly be surprising that the applecart was completely upset when it came to Golden Globe nominations. In an ironic twist of fate, this year’s entire award season is heavily influenced by what didn’t get made last year, as well as what did.

Specifically, many Big Name studios put Oscar-anticipated projects on the back burner. With the field left wide open, it was inevitable we’d see smaller studios and projects shine. Netflix has been gunning for some recognition from major awards ceremonies for a good few years now, and this year the Golden Globes delivers. BLAKE & WANG P.A Entertainment Lawyer Los Angeles dive deeper into Netflix’s nomination domination.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Mank, following the story of the screenwriter for Citizen Kane, came out swinging. It earned six nominations, closely followed by 5 for The Trial of the Chicago 7, an in-depth look into the trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.

Having two key films dominate must be exciting for the streamer, but it was far from their only success. In TV, they scored 20 more nominations, 6 going to season 4 of The Crown alone. It’s close to a full sweep for the cast, there. Ozark, a darker drama focusing on money-laundering, also picked up some seriously heavy nominations with 3 actors and Netflix’s first drama series nomination.

Of course, being nominated doesn’t mean you won (yet). All the same, this represents a massive jump up the nomination’s ladder for Netflix, and we’re sure execs are smiling ear-to-ear as they finally get some big-ticket recognition for their content. With the channel focusing on higher and higher budgets and compelling content, these nominations (and some inevitable wins) will seal the deal for moving Netflix productions, especially its feature films, into the big leagues for good.

Historic Win For The WGA Could Alter How Agencies Do Business

Just this week we have seen the final holdout, WME, agree to the WGA’s proposed working terms. Aimed to address both packaging fees and the commercial interest of talent agencies in production companies, this historic (and long-drawn-out) dispute/agreement returns the agency industry to a place it has not been for decades- and could have intriguing knock-on effects down the line. BLAKE & WANG P.A entertainment lawyer San Francisco analyze the situation.

It’s possible that the DGA’s recent coming-out in favor of the WGA argument was an influencing party in WME finally dropping its antitrust suit and returning to the negotiation table with the WGA. Or perhaps the argument and court posturing have simply run their course, with even the courts suggesting they would prefer to see mediation over litigation. With both threatened court actions finally put to bed and a productive agreement reached, this represents the culmination of an action begun in the far-back mists of April 2018. While it’s been frighteningly close to 3 years coming, now it has finally arrived, what does this mean for the talent agency industry as a whole?

Firstly, we return to a 10% commission structure that hasn’t been in play for many years. As was always the intent behind the WGA’s campaign, they wish for writer’s agents to ‘only make money when (their) client does.’ With the juicy allure of packaging fees and incentives created by owning in-house production entities gone, it will certainly be a different world for talent and the agencies that represent them.

Hopefully, we will also see relations between the WGA and the Association of Talent Agents return to normal. The forerunners for WGA ire in April 2018, the ATA refused to negotiate with the WGA, which in turn led to the individual agreements reached between agencies and the WGA. We may even see SAG-AFTRA, who haven’t dealt with the ATA since a similar, earlier, dispute, return to the table with them.

It’s not rare for strikes and disputes to have a long-term impact on the industry, of course. Yet this is a major defanging of some critical conflicts of interest in the industry, and will undoubtedly have a profound impact on things to come. BLAKE & WANG P.A entertainment lawyer San Francisco will be watching carefully.

Brandon Blake– Managing Director Blake & Wang P.A.- Entertainment Attorney

What do the new award season nominees suggest for the Oscars ahead?

This is a difficult year to be an Academy member. With no chance for peer-to-peer social interaction, a broad and unusual field heavily influenced by the blockbusters we didn’t get in 2020, and a fast-approaching nomination deadline, there’s none of the usual clarity on Oscar contenders we’d usually see. So what do the latest nominees and winners from other awards suggest we may see gain an Oscar nomination too? BLAKE & WANG P.A went looking for clues.
Entertainment Lawyers

Currently, only the Trial of the Chicago 7 and Nomadland appear as any kind of widely floated can’t-miss. Apart from them, however, it’s up in the air. Other awards nominations have suggested some firm directions to look. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods has made it back to the spotlight with some attention from the AFI and NBR awards. Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom certainly seems to have pulling power, too.

Amazon’s Sound of Metal and A24’s Minari would have been relegated to ‘arthouse’ in other years, but they’ve seen intense attention this year, and now have a spot on the AFI list to call their own- even over big-budget titles AFI usually would choose. The Spirit Awards have also showered Minari with love, and both have got acknowledgment from the NBR.

Another shining indie, Miss Juneteenth, seems set to stun, harvesting Spirit, Gotham, and NBR awards. Focus’ Never Rarely Sometimes Always starred in the Spirit Award nominations, and got some NBR love too. So have A24’s First Cow and Pixar’s Soul.

While Focus’ Promising Young Woman was expected to do well with the AFI’s list and Spirit both, it missed out a little. Netflix’s The Midnight Sky and Hulu’s Palm got none of the anticipated attention, either. Several anticipated films- Warners’ Tenet and The Way Back, Amazon’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Hulu’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and others were nowhere to be seen.

It’s an interesting look at how the Oscar nominations could go, for sure, and will probably focus critical attention on some unexpected films. All the same, there are still more awards to go, and everything remains up in the air for now. BLAKE & WANG P.A will be keeping a careful eye on the situation.

Brandon Blake is the managing partner at BLAKE & WANG P.A.- Contact for more details.

What are the differences between the Oscars and the SAG Awards?

The Screen Actors Guild Awards, or SAG awards, are seen as a critical step in the campaign to earn an Oscar. How did this perceived milestone come to be, and why is one ceremony so influential on the other? BLAKE & WANG P.A Entertainment Lawyer San Francisco takes a look.

The SAG awards are different from the Oscars in one key area- they also look at the TV industry. There’s 2 separate nominating committees each year, one for the TV side of the industry and the other for film. 2500 random active members of the guild are chosen for each. All will be actors, and each can only serve once in every eight years. They choose the nominees, but after that have little active say in the winner. That is decided by all eligible voting members.

That’s a little different from the Oscars, where nominations come from those who work in the same industry as the category. So directors nominate Best Director, and so on. Anyone can nominate for Best Picture. Again, once nominations are complete, anyone eligible may vote.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards have been seen as the go-to barometer for Oscar Campaigns in the coveted Best Acting and Best Picture categories since they first started back in 1994. That said, they also have something of a reputation as a place for Hollywood to nominate golden-age actors who missed out on Oscar fame in their prime. For this season, we could see Sophie Loren’s performance in The Life Ahead and Bill Murray for On the Rocks get some recognition from that very same nostalgia.

With the 2020 film year having been so disruptive, it’s nice to be able to say that the SAG Awards voting opened on January 11th, giving a pleasant sense of normalcy to the tumultuous industry. It will be interesting to see who receives this critical nod on their Oscar journeys, and BLAKE & WANG will be monitoring closely.

Is the film industry’s back-to-work plan an example for the nation?

Amid praise from SAG-AFTRA for the overall success of commonly adopted back-to-work protocols on film sets, one key thing becomes clear: America could probably do to learn more than one lesson from the industry. BLAKE & WANG P.A one of the best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles takes a closer look at a rare 2020 success story.

The film industry is a complex landscape in which there are many players. From working guilds for crew, actors, writers, directors and more, to agencies and authorities overseeing their special niches of work, a set is a difficult environment at any time. To this has been added a complex layer of diverse health and safety protocols- from zoning areas of the set, to basics like mandatory testing and screening as well as environmental decontamination.

While it’s an added layer of administrative difficulty for all concerned parties to navigate, they’ve been widely adopted on working sets since June 2020- and have largely been a success. While there have been isolated health incidents on some sets, for the most part, movies continue to be filmed in a safe working environment, even where the cities around them face soaring case numbers.

Observers country-wide have praised the industry wide collaboration at the heart of such a successful program. With this success comes jobs, job security, and the ability to expand back to normal work levels. Most critically of all, it brings wages to the many cast and crew members who rely on a thriving industry to work- and, coincidentally, the businesses around the sets that see an uptick in custom and the cities that host them.

In an America that’s hurting economically as more and more face uncertain work and wage futures, there’s valuable lessons to be learned from the success of the film industry and its COVID-19 set restrictions.

Building off of Parasite’s success, we see ambitious Oscar entries bloom

Satire-mysticism. Claustrophobic horror. Quirky fables…. These are not the things that previous International Feature Film nominees have evoked in the imagination. Building on the indisputable success of Parasite in the 2020 Oscar season, we’re finally seeing a flourishing of novel ideas and intriguing settings among the foreign film selection. BLAKE & WANG P.A takes a closer look.

For 2021, we see the following 4 nominees:

Never gonna snow again (Poland)
Beginning (Georgia)
Apples (Greece)
Jallikattu (India)

This year, there is no theme or message to unite the four nominations, except possibly an urge to confound and dazzle their audiences. Let alone the need to find moralistic worth in the films nominated. Here we see films delighting in the weird and the wonderful, setting unlikely scenarios and abstract concepts off against absurd backgrounds and hints of mysticism. In short, they maintain staggering story-telling, deliciously thought-provoking ambiguity, and evocative cinematography, but there’s no art-house pretension to be seen. In fact, humor laces several of the entities. This is in noted contrast to the typically somber predecessors in the International Feature Film category.

For the most part, this can be chalked up to the previous season’s Oscar win for the exceptional South Korean film, Parasite. Parasite represented a genre-busting addition to the Oscar category sometimes called ‘the art house’ category, and in destroying the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable to put forward.

The approaching 2021 Oscar season is already one with many dark horses running. With the COVID-19 crisis keeping many big-ticket films off of our screens, it’s given smaller pictures and unique projects a chance to flourish. The International Film Feature category, in particular, has proven to be a fertile and imaginative selection unlike anything we’ve ever seen here before. It will be interesting to see how this trend develops over the next few years- but one thing is certain. Interesting viewing lies ahead!

Other side-effects of the proposed COVID-19 bail-out for the entertainment industry

Just this week we’ve finally seen some signs of the long-hoped-for bail-out package for businesses struggling in the wake of the pandemic-caused economic recession. News that the bill has passed the senate, and has just to head to the President’s desk for final signing, is certainly positive. Yet- slightly oddly- the bill itself goes far beyond actual COVID-19 relief. BLAKE & WANG P.A best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles have the details you need.

Odd inclusions

For example, the bill includes a measure making illegal streaming services a felony. Likewise, there will now be a ‘small claims panel’ to weigh in on disputed copyright claims. Whether or not you feel these things are necessary, they seem like strange additions to a much-needed bill that’s supposed to focus on being a lifeline to decimated sectors of industries like the entertainment industry.

Much good news

Despite the oddities, however, the passing of the bill is certain to bring relief to many in the entertainment industry. Alongside expansions to Save our Stages and a direct employee retention scheme, the bill also caters for a federal tax incentive for TV/movie productions. Productions will be able to write off $15 million of expenses in the year incurred, rather than as depreciation, and it has been extended to 2025. As such incentives are typically rolled out year-on-year, that’s exciting in itself. There’s also loans for local media to provide a paycheck protection program under key circumstances.

Alongside the provisions directed at the entertainment industry specifically, we also see exciting extensions to the unemployment insurance fund that will impact those working in the entertainment industry, a direct stimulus, rent payment assistance, propositions to increase broadband access, and a PSA campaign focusing on promoting confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine.

Overall, the news is overwhelmingly positive. We can only hope the bill rolls into full legislation soon.

WGA vs WME: What the judge has to say

Judge André Birotte Jr of the Federal Court this week has weighed in on the ongoing dispute between the WME and WGA, as the matter was brought to (virtual) court last week. Like most of us, shocked at the lengthy boycott of major agencies by the WGA, he seemed keen to see a speedy conclusion to the matter. BLAKE & WANG P.A one of the best entertainment law firms los angeles examine the matter.

Judge Birotte opened with an overview of the case to date. He frames the matter as two sides who want the same thing, swiftly, but disagree on how to about them. He also pulls attention to the possibility of ‘lost focus’, mentioning “exceptional lawyers and executives- and the egos that may sometimes come with that.” He seems keen to reframe the matter as both sides caring about writers, albeit in different ways, and losing focus on the end goal by pursuing litigation. He even went as far as to scold them that “It’s the writers and the agents who have been in this state of tumult while you all fight loudly and publicly about this.”

He’s quick to take some of the sting out of that, noting that he appreciates great lawyers and the zeal that powers them, but perhaps the gentle rebuke isn’t so far fetched, in that they are not directly affected by the permanent pause that’s been placed on the WGA/WME relationship by the ongoing refusal to see eye-to-eye. Into this concern for the people most affected by the lack of agreement, he also brought mention of the unprecedented global health crisis and its unforeseen effects on livelihoods, wellbeing, and the same business relationships under threat with the boycott. He called the WGA’s demands an attempt at a “paradigm shift,” and urged all parties to bear this in mind in negotiations.

All in all, while the Judge ended by agreeing to take the matter under submission, his words read like a sensible, yet firm, urging to drop any posturing and get negotiations back on track. It’s clear he’d rather see the 2 Hollywood stalwarts settle the matter themselves, rather than be forced to settle it in his court. Will he get his Festive wish? BLAKE & WANG P.A Entertainment Lawyer will be watching the situation with interest.