Fred Topel

Netflix's cutbacks after a subscriber loss sent the streamer’s stock price tumbling down have worried some in the industry that the content gold rush is ending. Producers at the "IP IQ" panel, sponsored by Deadline, at the Produced By conference, said there's no need to worry. Girl From Plainville and The Dropout…

Producers Dan Lin and Chris Miller spoke about the return of the theatrical release market during a conversation at the Produced By conference. Lego Movie co-director Miller presented his producer Lin with the inaugural Vance Van Petten Award for entrepreneurial spirit. One of Miller's questions for Lin was: are…

JuVee Productions CEO Viola Davis and her husband, JuVee President Julius Tennon, said the entertainment industry must become a kinder workplace. They spoke at a Produced By conference panel moderated by Yvette Nicole Brown. "We really have to think more about how this work-life balance works out," Tennon said. "Where…

Producers Eva Longoria and Charles D. King shared their frustrations today at the Produced By conference, relating that studios tell them they looked for diverse crew members, but couldn't find any. MACRO CEO King and UnbeliEVAble Entertainment founder Longoria said they are creating a database of diverse talent they…

Daniel Pemberton composed the music for Phil Lord and Chris Miller's movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Lord and Miller then hired him for their Apple TV+ series The Afterparty, but the job was exponentially more complicated. "There's 10 different film genres within this show," Pemberton said during a panel at…

Seeing superstar Will Smith visit remote locations on the planet was the hook for the National Geographic docuseries Welcome to Earth. Daniel Pemberton's job was to provide Smith's journey with a sound, and he said during a panel for the series at Deadline’s Sound & Screen concert event that he used some he'd never…

Composer Sean Callery said he incorporated themes from Xbox’s iconic Halo video game into his score for the Paramount+ series. However, he added his own themes for the main characters including Master Chief (Pablo Schrieber) and Kwan (Yerin Ha). "It really was born on one person's description of him saying he was…

Composer Amanda Jones works on two HBO/HBO Max shows, Somebody Somewhere and A Black Lady Sketch Show, simultaneously. However, she says both are so different that the overlap isn't a problem. “I feel like the nature of Black Lady Sketch Show, each sketch is its own universe, its own vignette. So I can have a lot of…

Amanda Seyfried, Naveen Andrews and creator Elizabeth Meriwether were filming the Hulu series The Dropout while subject Elizabeth Holmes was on trial. During a Contenders TV panel Sunday at the Paramount Theatre, they recalled following the trial closely as they told Holmes' story. Meriwether incorporated information…

The Peacock limited series Dr. Death stars Christian Slater as Randy Kirby, one of the doctors who exposed Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson)'s malpractice. Series creator Patrick McManus said the real Dr. Kirby was very sure of the story's merits for television. “I will tell you that my very first phone call…

In the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, Solomon (Jin Ha) speaks Korean, Japanese and English. The show, based on Min Jin Lee's book, traces four generations of his family from Korea and Japan (as Zainichi Koreans), so all three languages are involved. Ha does not speak Japanese and studied the different dialects with vocal…

John C. Reilly plays Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. Buss recruited Magic Johnson and turned the Lakers around beginning the late 1970s. Although Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was already on the team, Reilly said Buss's color-blind recruiting paved the way for…