The Business

Before he co-created the FX comedy series “Reservation Dogs,” Sterlin Harjo directed three micro-budget films in his home state of Oklahoma. He had knocked on Hollywood’s door but somehow he never could find financing. "I even heard, like, this film’s just a little too Indian," Harjo says. "Or, this film’s not Indian enough. So, it was very confusing." Now, FX is preparing to release a second season of “Reservation Dogs" and the series is looking to nab Emmy nominations this year.

Natasha Rothwell played Kelli on HBO’s “Insecure,” and the beleaguered spa manager in “The White Lotus.” Now, she’s in the hit sequel “Sonic The Hedgehog 2.” With her own production company and an overall deal at ABC Signature, she plans to create movies and TV that skip the tired tropes and feature diverse casts. "I think so many scripts use page real estate in Act One just to justify someone's Blackness, or fatness or womanness, and then the story can start," Rothwell says. "We have to...

The longest-running original series on Netflix is coming to an end. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin have played “Grace and Frankie” for seven seasons, telling raunchy and honest stories of older women. After co-creating “Friends,” Marta Kauffman thought up the Netflix hit “Grace and Frankie,” which made it to an unheard-of 94 episodes. While Netflix has been offering a high volume of shows, only to drop many scripted series after a couple of seasons, Kauffman is not surprised that the big-volume...

In 1970, a 21-year-old heir to a margarine fortune became a nationwide sensation when he vowed to give away his money to anyone who needed it. Michael Brody was deluged with thousands of letters, most of which sat unopened for decades, until documentarian Keith Maitland and his team decided to read them. “We started researching people, and we started tracking them down,” Maitland says. “And over and over, we kept discovering that almost nobody remembered having written these letters.”...

Talent agent-turned-producer Theresa Kang Lowe had a pretty good idea of the challenges she’d face in adapting the novel “Pachinko” for television. A series almost entirely subtitled, largely set 100 years ago in Korea, with a huge budget — it wasn’t an obvious greenlight. “At the time when I was an agent and I came across a book, my job was to think about strategy. How are we gonna sell this?” Kang Lowe says. “So the immediate no’s were: period piece. The budget has to be significant for it...

“CODA” won three Oscars this year: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Writing (Adapted Screenplay). When making “CODA,” Marlee Matlin, who won an Oscar in 1987 for “Children of a Lesser God,” realized she was usually the only Deaf person on a set. She told KCRW in January: “I’m the one typically going to my trailer by myself, and it’s just me and my interpreter. But in all honesty, I never thought of it until I got on the set of ‘CODA’ and realized there’s a whole different...

Writer Ellen Rapoport’s workplace comedy “Minx,” about a Playgirl-style magazine, was hard to sell. Set in 1972, the series follows an idealistic young Vassar graduate who teams up with with a pornographer to create a magazine featuring feminist articles alongside photos of naked men. With “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig as a producer, Rapoport was pretty sure the show was a slam dunk. “We took it to everyone. Every buyer. Buyers I didn’t even know existed. Networks I’ve never heard of. And...

The downfall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has inspired books, podcasts, and now the hit limited series “The Dropout.” Showrunner Liz Meriwether (“New Girl”) admits she was surprised when Hulu asked her to pitch her vision for the project. “I was a playwright before I was a screenwriter, and maybe they had some belief in my ability to do something besides write sitcoms. I really don’t know why they came to me. And in fact, when they called me, I was like, ‘really?’”

Bringing Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel “Dune” to the big screen was considered a daunting proposition. But Mary Parent, a top Legendary Entertainment executive, gave filmmaker Denis Villeneuve the biggest budget of his career to realize his vision. Still, it wasn’t Marvel-sized funding and Villeneuve says he’s actually grateful for that. “It’s good to have restrictions, it brings discipline. And I needed that discipline. I’m serious about that. I don’t think I would be comfortable to make a...

Hollywood has dominated in making global blockbusters for years, whereas China isn’t making those hits yet, but it’s now the biggest generator of box office revenue worldwide. The book “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy” explains that China is playing a long game. Plus, director Jessica Kingdon talks about her Oscar-nominated documentary, “Ascension,” which focuses on social class and consumption in modern China.

Filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the first Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. He’s also the first from his country to be up for Best Director since Akira Kurosawa back in 1986. And for Hamaguchi, the success is a lot. “I have been working with very small budgets, very small films,” Hamaguchi says through an interpreter. “So to think that my own work is lined up in a place like the Oscars where Hollywood stars are all there, and to think that...

Before he even landed the job, director Reinaldo Marcus Green could tell that the film “King Richard” was a special project for the superstar sitting across the table from him – Will Smith. “I could sense that this was a really, really important role for him,and that he was going to give everything to it, and that I was the guy to help him get there.” Though he had only directed two features before, Green was hired and got to work building his filmmaking dream team. Although filming hit...

ViacomCBS has rebranded as Paramount, but investors did not respond well. How long will Shari Redstone hang onto control of the company her father built? Plus, there’s chaos at CNN following the ouster of executive Jeff Zucker. A mega-banter with Matt Belloni of Puck News and Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg gets into all the details. Also, who could win the big prize at this year’s Oscar Awards when there’s no clear frontrunner for Best Picture? The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg gives...

Kamau Bell talks about his new documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby.” Also, the Oscars won’t require COVID vaccinations to attend, and Disney+ boasts a growth in subscribers.

Filmmaking team Phil Lord and Chris Miller have been making movies together for years. “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “21 Jump Street,” and “The Lego Movie” are just some of their many credits. In 2017 they were fired from the Star Wars spinoff movie “Solo,” but bounced back with an Oscar for Best Animated Feature with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” And they’re currently working on the two sequels for that. Meanwhile, they’ve just dropped the murder-mystery spoof “The Afterparty”...

Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin is usually the only Deaf person on a set. Matlin came to a big realization when making “CODA,” a breakthrough film featuring Deaf actors. “I’m the one typically going to my trailer by myself, and it’s just me and my interpreter. But in all honesty, I never thought of it until I got on the set of ‘CODA’ and realized there’s a whole different world out there I’ve been missing all this time,” Matlin says. “Realizing that here I am, on the set of ‘CODA,’ in my...

To get a shot at directing his remake of “A Star is Born,” Bradley Cooper passed on an upfront payday in exchange for a piece of the profit. And that gamble paid off. But as Cooper is painfully aware, the movie business has changed. “Those days are completely gone,” Cooper says. “So, there is trepidation I have with that, no question. And I have thought: I really have to actively start thinking about other ways of making revenue that have maybe nothing to do with movie making.” In part two...

Multi-hyphenate Bradley Cooper is out with two new films. There’s “Licorice Pizza,” in which he plays real-life wild man producer Jon Peters, and “Nightmare Alley,” where he stars as carnival worker-turned-con man Stanton Carlisle. Cooper commits to all his roles but says it was a challenge to bare all in Guillermo del Toro's dark drama, “Nightmare Alley.” “It demanded that we be naked — emotionally and soulfully and even physically for me, which actually was a big deal,” Cooper says. “I...

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has won two Oscars and could be up for a third. His new movie “A Hero” is on this year’s shortlist for Best International Film. Working in his home country, Farhadi makes compelling cinema despite strict government censorship.

Actress and now director Maggie Gyllenhaal wanted to set her new drama “The Lost Daughter” in Maine, but New Jersey offered a better tax credit. So the plan was to shoot in New Jersey until Gyllenhaal decided it just didn’t feel right. Gyllenhaal tells KCRW about finding her power as a director and how she ended up making “The Lost Daughter” in Greece.