Time for On The Lot, our weekly look at the business of entertainment with Rebecca Keegan of the LA Times.
The big news this week has to do with a website called Deadline.com and its founder Nikki Finke. About four years ago, an upcoming media mogul, Jay Penske — he's the son of the racing legend Roger Penske — purchased Deadline.com, giving Finke's site a big infusion of cash. But things went sour last year when he also bought Variety.
Finke started tweeting up a storm about Penske. Here's one of her tweets: "Earth to Penske: Hollywood tried and failed to intimidate me. Big media tried and failed to intimidate me. I like to brawl, remember?" That's just one of many. Have we heard anything from Jay Penske?
Seems like this is almost sure to end up as a made-for-TV movie or something. But let's talk about some actual movies, and what seems like a odd string of films about piano playing pop stars. Of course, there was HBO's "Behind the Candelabra" about Liberace. There's a movie about Queen's front man Freddie Mercury in the works, and Rocketman, about, who else, Elton John.
Hollywood lost a legendary stunt man and director. Hal Needham, who according to your paper, broke 56 bones in the course of his long career and a pretty incredible life story.