Here's some 'news' from Lysette Voytko writing in Forbes:
From ‘South Park’ To Springsteen: The Entertainment Industry’s 2021 Scorecard
"Eyebrows were raised when, just six days into the year, Neil Young announced that he had spun “Heart of Gold” and the rest of his song catalog into actual gold by selling them to song management company Hipgnosis for $150 million. Coming on the heels of Bob Dylan’s similar, $300 million deal made just a few weeks earlier, it seemed clear that it was just the beginning of an entertainment bull market.
Then came the March announcement that Paul Simon was selling his song catalog for $250 million, followed by sales involving members of Fleetwood Mac, heirs to the Prince estate and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The year ended on an even higher note, when news broke that Bruce Springsteen reportedly sold his catalog to Sony Music for at least half a billion to Sony Music in December in apparently the biggest deal ever for the life’s work of an individual artist.
The music sales were just the tip of a massive intellectual property iceberg that soared in value during 2021. In May, Friends once again cashed in on a show that has funneled more than $1.4 billion to the cast and creators as they switched loyalties from Netflix to HBOMax. Then Viacom signed a deal to pay the creators of South Park more than $900 million over a number of years.
With Friends Like These...
The actors and creative minds behind Friends, one of network TV’s most beloved sitcoms made a big splash with their reunion show, which aired on HBO Max in May. The cast earned an estimated $5 million each for their appearance. That’s just the icing on the cake: altogether Forbes estimates the show brought in more than $1 billion in pretax earnings since its 1994 premiere; the cast earned $816 million pretax, or $136 million each
Bilbo Baggins’ Billions
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s foray into visual effects through his shop Weta Digital paid off big time. The New Zealand-based firm, which he cofounded to provide effects for Heavenly Creatures (1994), grew into a Hollywood powerhouse, providing computer-generated imagery for everything from Wolverine (2013) to the 2019 remake of Lady and the Tramp. In November, Weta announced that a chunk of its assets were being sold for $1.6 billion to Unity Software, which makes software for videogames. Forbes conservatively estimates the deal officially makes Jackson a billionaire
Cuomo Non Grata
It wasn’t a great year for the Cuomo family—Andrew Cuomo resigned in August as New York governor amid fallout from his sexual harassment scandal—while younger brother Chris Cuomo was fired from his CNN anchor job in December after legal documents revealed the extent to which he aided Andrew in his battle against the harassment allegations—seen as an unforgivable breach of journalistic ethics.
Gone, But Not Forgotten
Even after death, success in show business can still command a marquee price tag. In September, 31 years after the creator of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory died of cancer at age 74, Netflix paid a reported $684 million for the Roald Dahl Story Company and rights to the British novelist’s stories
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