The Business

Producer Jason Blum thinks stars and filmmakers deserve a piece of the profit from their work. So naturally he opposes a push from studios to pay Netflix-style flat fees instead. But that didn’t stop him from taking a big flat fee to make three new “Exorcist” films. Blum weighs in on big battles underway in the industry, including Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney. He hopes it’s the first of many. 

For nearly the past decade, media mogul Barry Diller has backed award-winning movies and Broadway shows from now embattled mega-producer Scott Rudin. Asked about allegations that Rudin engaged in a decades-long pattern of abusive behavior, Diller pushes back. In part two of KCRW’s conversation with the Diller, he emotionally defends Rudin and decries cancel culture.

Barry Diller, who made his name as a powerful studio boss, recently told NPR that “the movie business is over.” Expanding on those views, the legendary mogul and former chairman of Paramount and Fox tells KCRW why, with the pandemic and rise of streaming, Hollywood will never go back to what it once was. In the first of a two-part conversation, Diller — now the chairman of online empire IAC — weighs in on a transforming industry and its future.

The new HBO series “Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes” includes a 2019 interview between Kim Masters and Ronan Farrow for his podcast “Catch and Kill,” which explores the fall of Harvey Weinstein. The Business airs a portion of that interview in which Masters elaborated on her interactions with Weinstein over the years.

Multi-hyphenate Daveed Diggs has a lot going on, including writing and producing his new series on Starz, “Blindspotting.” The broadway hit “Hamilton” launched his career, but at this point, he’s moved beyond the version of himself that won a Tony and a Grammy. “That Daveed Diggs that everybody fell in love with in that show does not exist anywhere but on that stage,” he says. Daveed Diggs tells KCRW about developing the version of himself after “Hamilton.”

Investigative reporter and documentary producer David Holthouse was sexually assaulted as a child. He says that trauma led him to devote his life to unmasking monsters, both real and imagined. His newest project took him to a dangerous part of Northern California — the supposed home of Bigfoot. Holthouse tells KCRW about investigating a more than 25-year-old triple homicide for the Hulu series “Sasquatch.”

Filmmaker Edgar Wright's new music documentary “The Sparks Brothers” celebrates two musicians whose work he loves. Ron and Russell Mael are brothers who make up the band Sparks, and they’re a pair of complete originals. Wright is an original, too. His hit movie “Baby Driver” and upcoming thriller “Last Night in Soho” are based on ideas he made up. And he can’t help but wonder why movie studios aren’t willing to take a few more chances on fresh ideas.

Writer Nida Manzoor wanted “We Are Lady Parts,” her series about an all-female Muslim punk band, to be funny. But as a Muslim woman writing about very underrepresented characters, she also felt some heavy responsibility. Manzoor shares her process for writing comedy while also breaking new ground with “We Are Lady Parts,” now on Peacock.

Kim Masters and Matt Belloni offer a fresh banter about the current awkwardness at WarnerMedia. The company is set to spin off from AT&T and merge with Discovery, but the deal will be delayed while undergoing federal review. And The Business replays a conversation with director Sam Feder and executive producer Laverne Cox about their documentary “Disclosure,” which explores the history of trans representation in Hollywood.

Earlier in his career, Hugh Grant played the charming lead in romantic comedies. But lately, Grant has relished performing the role of the bad guy, including in the HBO series “The Undoing.”  He talks about embracing his dark side on screen and reflects on his decade of work as an activist following the UK phone hacking scandal that engulfed the Murdoch clan a decade ago and continues to reverberate today.