Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business. FLEMING: The Academy went crazy with an Oscar overhaul yesterday. I feared they might go the other way, making it harder for…

One prominent film agent says Netflix, which for years provided an outlet for independent films that otherwise might have struggled to find distribution at movie theaters, is gravitating to splashier cinematic fare as it ramps its movie production. “The problem is, now they're not buying those movies,” said Jessica Lac…

At this point, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ governors election looks more like a round-up than a race; more than 180 members have declared their interest in filling 17 contested spots on the 54-member Board of Governors. Voting in the run-off round starts on Monday and ends May 18. That will narrow…

Come Monday, film producer and executive Bill Mechanic's sizzling letter of resignation from the governing board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—which he has since said was not intended for public consumption—will set the agenda for what might be the most interesting Academy board election since…

Dan Fellman, the longtime Warner Bros distribution exec who retired in 2015, has been named governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Executives Branch, where he will serve out the term of Bill Mechanic, who resigned the post last week in news that broke yesterday. The Academy's 17 branches are each…

UPDATED: Deadline obtained a copy of Bill Mechanic’s letter to the Academy Board which you can read below. John Bailey President, AMPAS Dear John: There’s a moment when if you fail to make an impact, the right thing to do is make for the exits. After Saturday’s meeting, I’m at that moment and I respectfully must…

EXCLUSIVE: Former Fox Studios head Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium Entertainment has optioned Bennett Fisher’s screenplay adaptation for Damascus. His award-winning play was the second prize winner in the Samuel Goldwyn screenplay contest, a finalist in the O’Neill Conference, and has won numerous other honors. Mechanic (H…

Editors Note: Bill Mechanic is chairman and CEO of Pandemonium Films and a former top executive at Paramount, Disney and chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment when the studio generated Die Hard With A Vengeance, Independence Day and Titanic. He most recently produced Best Picture Oscar nominee Hacksaw Ridge. He …

Editors Note: This story originally ran on December 1, 2016. When Mel Gibson and Andrew Garfield gather to speak on their WWII film Hacksaw Ridge, each has jetted into LA from Europe where they are making other movies. Gibson left the set of The Professor and the Madman, a movie he's starring in with Sean Penn…

Every presidency comes with its own type of cinema. The Ronald Reagan administration of 1981-1989, which led into the tail end of the Cold War, saw a number of raunchy escapist comedies like Porky’s and National Lampoon’s Vacation, as well as the rise of the American action hero in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s canon and…

The Capri Hollywood International Film Festival is honoring Mel Gibson with its Director Of The Year Award, in recognition of his pacifist WWII drama Hacksaw Ridge. Producer Bill Mechanic, who was already named by the festival as its Producer Of The Year, is accepting the prize on Gibson’s behalf. Hacksaw had its world…

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Mechanic, who was instrumental in building Disney’s home entertainment unit, worked as an executive in pay-per-view before that, helped run 20th Century Fox studio and is now a filmmaker, told Deadline that closing the theatrical window on a day-and-date business model the way The Screening Room…