The Business

Director Aneesh Chaganty wanted an actress who really uses a wheelchair to star as a teenaged girl with disabilities in his new thriller, “Run.” And she needed to be able to do action scenes. He found Columbia University student Kiera Allen. Now on Hulu, “Run” tells the story of a mother-daughter relationship gone extremely awry. It’s the first thriller to star an actor who uses a wheelchair since...

Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos has weathered some big storms in the movie business, though nothing compares with COVID. But even as productions struggle and theaters are shuttered, Gianopulos has faith that one day, people will go back to the movies.

Greta Thunberg began a school strike movement in 2018 outside the Swedish parliament. It gained momentum in Sweden, then spread through the rest of Europe and the world. Filmmaker Nathan Grossman documents her rise to become one of the world’s most prominent climate change activists. His new Hulu documentary is “I Am Greta.”

Danika Kohler Doman, a production supervisor who has been working as a “COVID manager,” talks about what it’s like to enforce Hollywood’s new coronavirus protocols.

Steve James, the filmmaker behind “Hoop Dreams,” is out with a new series called “City So Real,” which documents Chicago’s political landscape and the lives of its residents.

Following Quibi’s announcement of closing, The Business e revisits an  interview with founder Jeffrey Katzenberg on his gamble to launch Quibi.

Alex Gibney ’s documentaries often delve into high-level corruption. He’s out this fall with two projects that focus on the Trump administration.

“The Good Lord Bird” started with a handshake deal between Ethan Hawke and author James McBride. The witty, irreverent telling of John Brown’s life story is now airing on Showtime.

The Hollywood Commission, a new organization chaired by Anita Hill, is out with a survey on harassment in Hollywood and plans to launch a reporting platform next year.

Writer/director Billy Ray talks about the making of his Showtime limited series “The Comey Rule,” which stars Jeff Daniels as former FBI director James Comey and Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump.

COVID-19 has buffeted the entertainment industry. The Business looks at major challenges, such as how to release big-budget pictures and how to manage the awards season. 

Isabel Sandoval’s new indie drama “Lingua Franca” arrived on Netflix this month. She produced, wrote, and stars in the film as an undocumented trans Filipina living in New York City.

The Netflix series “Cheer” earned six nominations at this year’s Emmys, including Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. The Business revisits its interview with director Greg Whiteley.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss made their biggest documentary yet with “Boys State,” a process that required many leaps of faith, from securing funding to showing up at Sundance without a distributor.

Sometimes our guests have so much good stuff to say that we can’t fit it all into one show. So this week, we’re bringing you some leftovers from this summer’s interviews: Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of Netflix’s summer smash “The Old Guard;” Prentice Penny, showrunner of HBO’s “Insecure;” and Peter Medak, who talks about his documentary, “The Ghost of Peter Sellers.”

Don Hahn’s documentary “Howard” looks at the life of Howard Ashman, the lyricist behind the soundtracks for “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” Ashman died of AIDS in 1991, leaving a mark on his collaborators, including his songwriting partner Alan Menken.

HBO’s “Insecure” just received its first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series. Prentice Penny, the show’s executive producer, talks about how he got his start in Hollywood, and his personal connection to the show’s creator and star Issa Rae.

The nominations for the 2020 Emmy Awards have been released, and HBO’s “Watchmen” leads with 26 nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series. KCRW revisists host Kim Masters’ interview with showrunner Damon Lindelof.

“The Old Guard is director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s first action movie, and it’s made the list of 10 most-watched original movies on the platform. Prince-Bythewood talks about how she broke into the action world, and how she trained her actors to make her fight scenes believable.

CNN’s Jake Tapper and director Rod Lurie discuss the making of “The Outpost,” a new film based on Tapper's book about American soldiers who faced a deadly Taliban attack in Afghanistan. The film ran into obstacles every step of the way — including the unexpected death of Lurie's son Hunter.

In the new documentary “The Ghost of Peter Sellers,” director Peter Medak revisits the nightmarish production of his 1974 film, “Ghost in the Noonday Sun.” The  biggest challenge was the behavior of Medak’s star, Peter Sellers. “The Ghost of Peter Sellers” reveals how Sellers stymied and manipulated Medak and his crew, even faking a heart attack to get time off. 

David France’s new HBO documentary, “Welcome to Chechnya” looks at the ongoing campaign to eradicate gay people in the Chechen Republic. France talks about the dangers he faced in making the film, traveling to Russia on a tourist visa, shooting on iPhones and GoPros, and using digital face-swapping technology to hide his subjects’ identities.

The new Netflix documentary “Disclosure” examines Hollywood’s portrayal of trans people over the years. Director Sam Feder uses decades of archival footage and personal anecdotes from trans people who were deeply affected by these depictions to tell the story of the industry’s evolving relationship with trans representation. Feder and executive producer Laverne Cox, who is also featured in the fil...

Judd Apatow's latest film “The King of Staten Island,” stars comedian Pete Davidson in a story inspired by Davidson's real life. Apatow is a comedy icon but he’s admittedly not funny on Twitter. As his more than 2 million followers know, he rains scorn not only on Trump, but on Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, whose news network relentlessly bolsters the administration. Apatow wonders why others in the en...

As protests continue across the country, we look at the way policing is depicted on television. It's a topic dream hampton has spent years thinking about and worked on a recent report on the issue. It found that often, even good cops are shown trampling the rules, and that’s presented as heroism. And Dan Taberski made a podcast devoted to the reality show "Cops." What he found was disturbing. Now,...