ā° HollywoodNetflix has passed on āIcarus: The Aftermath,ā the sequel to the documentary that won the service its first Academy Award for a feature doc in 2018. The film follows Grigory Rodchenkov, an architect of the Russian doping program that tainted the 2014 Sochi Olympic games, as he enters into the witness protection program in the United States. Icarus: The Aftermath screened at Telluride in September of 2022, where it received positive notices. The Hollywood Reporter called it ādocumentary as spy thriller, a portrait of institutional gaslighting, a legal nail-biter, an intimate look at the cost of refuting authoritarian doctrine, and, above all, an affecting character study.ā Two people close to the producers say they believe it hasnāt sold because distributors are increasingly leery of hard-edged political documentaries in general, as they shift their focus to lighter sports and celebrity projects. They also worry that distributors are wary of Russian cyberattacks in retaliation. Fogel confirmed by email that the film has not yet found a distributor, but declined to comment further. He complained publicly that his most recent film, The Dissident, didnāt sell because streamers were afraid of angering Saudi Arabia with a film focused on the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A Netflix spokesperson denied that hacking fears had anything to do with their calculus, and the service did just pick up Alex Gibneyās film about the Russian exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Citizen K. ā Ben Still dying: The DVD business somehow still exists ā and generated $1.36 billion in sales last year. (This per a Variety story headlined: āThe DVD Biz Has Circled the Drain for Years. In 2024, It Goes Down the Tubes.ā) ā NewsHarry Murphy/Sportsfile via Getty ImagesPompās circumstance: A high-profile crypto investor and podcaster is building out his independent media operation, adding original reporting and analysis. Over the last several years, Anthony āPompā Pompliano has become a well-known figure in financial news circles with his commentary on Bitcoin, his podcast, and his increasingly popular Substack, which has over 250,000 subscribers. Semafor has learned that in the coming days, Pompliano will announce that heās launching a new media organization with Phil Rosen, a senior business and markets journalist. The duo have already sold ads for a new daily financial publication, which will have high-profile interviews, analysis, and some original reporting. Rosen previously wrote Business Insiderās 10 Things Before the Opening Bell, a daily newsletter with nearly 2.5 million subscribers. ā Max Iran attack: A story that doesnāt get enough attention is the dangers facing enemies and critics of Iran, even in the West. The recent attack on Salman Rushdie remains bizarrely undercovered. And last week, a presenter for Iran International, a particular target of the regimeās fury, was brutally attacked and stabbed on his way to work in the middle of the afternoon in London. Good doc: Sreenivasan Jainās Al Jazeera documentary about the fall of Indiaās independent news outlets and the rise of āGodi mediaā is well-worth the half-hour. Blind spots: Few commentators expected a group of ISIS-K Tajik terrorists to allegedly attack Moscow ā partly because coverage of Central Asia has evaporated over the last decade, according to a well-timed dispatch from Peter Leonard in Eurasianet. Getting out of town: Radio Free Asia has folded its Hong Kong bureau. Taking access journalism a bit far: āSeveral colleagues of one former White House correspondent for a major newspaper described them hosting a dinner party where all the food was served on gold-rimmed Air Force One plates, evidently taken bit by bit over the course of some time,ā per a much-discussed West Wing Playbook item. Sightings: We were pleased to see great global journalists including TVRain founding editor-in-chief Mikhail Zygar, Scroll co-founder Samir Patil, The New Yorkerās David Remnick, MSNBCās Ari Melber, our own David Weigel, and correspondents from Le Monde, Xinhua, Israelās Channel 13, and more in ā¦ our own New York office to toast the launch of the Semafor Global Election Hub last week. ā TechValueActBundled up: ValueAct, a hedge fund and New York Times investor, produced this remarkable chart in the course of weighing in on Bob Igerās side of the Disney shareholder brawl. Bots, what are they for: Semaforās chief bot Gina Chua eloquently explains to Quartz how we think about AI: āEssentially, youāve got an English major that can do a lot of stuff.ā Deepfakes in the wild: A leading Russian news channel, NTV, ran a deepfaked video of a top Ukrainian official supposedly calling the Moscow terror attack āvery fun.ā ā AudioBig in Indiranagar: The backlash to criticism of Huberman reached an affluent Bangalore neighborhood. (Photo used with permission of @ramyakh.) Softballs: Lex Fridman has become the tech CEO interviewer of (the CEOsā) choice, Bloomberg reports: āWhy risk putting an executive in front of an incisive journalist when thereās a gentler route?ā ā¦ MarketingDept. of Ouroboros: Reddit is using AI to help marketers sound like Redditors. |