Paramount Spins: Sony's Pounce, Ellison's Phone-a-Friend
Plus: The definitive 'Young Sheldon' exit interview, Apple reveals itself
Welcome to the Jamboree, my weekly series of quick(ish) takes on the industry’s passing parade.
Redstone/Ellison/Apollopalooza, Chapter 23
The Paramount drama lurches on — Bakishless, bloodied, but still somehow unbowed. It’s like an international convention of bad choices and shaping up to be a longer-running soap opera than CBS’ Guiding Light.
This week we learned that having even all the money in the world (or the fourth closest thing to it in the case of Pa Ellison) can’t buy you love in Hollywood, or more precisely, can’t buy you the Hollywood simulacrum of love: a public statement of support. Or it can buy you two of those, from Ari (endorsing a deal fresh off his own self-enriching deal missteps; also having done business with Pa) and James Cameron, which is something, but it’s 58 fewer Hollywooders than signed the open letter urging the industry to be more like Participant, as it shuts down.