Latest in MPA

“Just kill them,” says Dwayne Johnson’s title character says at one point in Black Adam, according to his co-star Mo Amer. The comedian said he was taken aback by the departure from the honorable tough-guy persona Johnson has crafted through so many other films. “It just took me a second to…

The Motion Picture Association has tapped Aaron Wais to serve as senior vice president and head of global litigation. Wais has been a partner at Lathrop LPM in their Ip litigation group and also served as partner at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, practicing in their entertainment and intellectual property litigation…

For most of the last decade, the strategy of Hollywood studios and content creators in combating piracy has been in securing the cooperation of Internet companies and related actors in the ecosystem. Earlier this year, MPA Chairman Charles Rivkin signaled a new level of cooperation with Google, after years in which…

A bill that would have regulated the use of guns on film and TV sets in California has failed to make it through the state legislature. The DGA and IATSE issued a joint statement expressing their displeasure. "The DGA and IATSE are disappointed and disheartened that this critical legislation, which would have required…

Next week, a California assembly bill that could change one of the cornerstones of the TV business faces a crucial vote. AB 437, dubbed the Let Actors Work (LAW) Act, would limit exclusivity in TV stars’ deals. That means if a principal on a show wants to do another project with Network X while…

Tom Zigo has been promoted to vice president of communications and public affairs at the MPA. Zigo, who joined the MPA three years ago, will now report to Emily Lenzner, executive vice president of communications and public affairs, and Greg Saphier, senior vice president of external affairs. He’ll be taking on an…

MPA chief Charles Rivkin put piracy front and center at his CinemaCon keynote, touting the ongoing recovery in the entertainment sector but noting gains will always be crimped when intellectual property keeps being ripped off. He spoke to thousands of cinema owners at the Las Vegas confab, as the association that reps…

CinemaCon launches Monday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the second in-person gathering of theater owners and Hollywood studios since August, and Covid. That edition was shadowed by the Delta Variant, ongoing theater closures and shifting release dates. Now the picture is significantly brighter. Domestic attendance…

UPDATED with quotes: California's Film & Television Tax Credit 2.0 Program generated nearly $21.9 billion in economic output in the state over five years at a projected cost to taxpayers of little more than $1.5 billion, according to a new study commissioned by the Motion Picture Association, using data from the Califo…

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), who once had aspirations of an entertainment career, told a D.C. crowd, “I always dreamed, as I was considering acting … that maybe I’d get an Oscar, so this is as close as I am going to come.” Murphy was one of the recipients this week of the inaugural MPA Awards, the studio trade and…

The Motion Picture Association’s annual theme report shows what is readily apparent across the industry: The impact of streaming. The U.S. and Canadian box office reached $4.5 billion, up 105 percent from 2020, but still lower than pre-pandemic levels. But the combined theatrical and home and mobile market was $36.8…

UPDATED with MPA statement: Hollywood hasn’t been the most bullish about taking an action that would dent its bottom line, but Disney today has taken the bold move of pulling its theatrical releases from Russia temporarily in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. We hear that other studios were scrambling to…