Latest news with #LenBlavatnik
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Blavatnik Family Foundation Makes $25 Million Donation to USC to Build Virtual Production Center
The family foundation of longtime showbiz investor and film producer Len Blavatnik has donated $25 million to USC's School of Cinematic Arts to establish the Blavatnik Center for Virtual Production. The 15,000-square foot center will help expand the university's virtual production curriculum that aims to give students a foundation in all aspects of using virtual production and the generative AI tools that it requires. Blavatnik, founder of investment firm Access Industries, with interests ranging from Warner Music Group to A24. More from Variety Rebel Wilson Escalates Battle With 'The Deb' Producers in 'Bizarre Outburst of Jealousy' After Cannes Yacht Party Warner Music/Blavatnik Foundation to Donate $1 Million to Fire Relief in Los Angeles Larry Auerbach, Longtime Senior Leader at William Morris Agency and USC School of Cinematic Arts, Dies at 95 'Virtual production has become an integral part of filmmaking, led by the next generation,' said Blavatnik, founder of the Blavatnik Family Foundation. 'I'm proud to support the School and provide young filmmakers with the tools and resources needed to master these emerging technologies and lead the industry's future.' The Blavatnik Center will house two stages with wraparound LED panel walls, as well as performance capture, camera tracking and lighting systems. According to USC, 'the stages can be operated separately or joined together to form a large production set for students. It will contain multiple classrooms and labs equipped with computers with real-time 3D design software and digital asset libraries.' 'We are so grateful for the Blavatnik family's generosity and for what it will mean for scaling up the virtual production workforce our industry desperately needs,' says Elizabeth M. Daley, the dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. 'At USC, we understand the importance of state-of-the-art tools in helping to facilitate the masterful storytelling that grounds our curriculum. The Blavatnik Center will be an important workspace as we collaborate on creating the dynamic filmmaking of the future.' USC's virtual production curriculum is currently led by Habib Zargarpour, who created the Virtual Production System in 'The Jungle Book' and 'Ready Player One,' alongside Scott Kroopf, who leads the producing track at the School of Cinematic Arts, Ken Williams, who serves as the executive director and CEO of the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, and Brad Kean, director of Creative Technology at the School of Cinematic Arts. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The future of filmmaking? USC gets $25 million for virtual production center
Oil baron and music mogul Len Blavatnik's family foundation has made a $25 million donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts to create a virtual production center, the university said this week. The 15,000-square-foot center will house two stages with wraparound LED walls that students and industry professionals will use to gain experience with virtual production technology, USC said. The facility will also house camera tracking, performance capture and lighting systems, as well as classrooms and labs with computers equipped with real-time 3D design software and digital asset libraries. Virtual production has emerged as a key growth area for the entertainment industry. The technology relies on advancements in gaming software that allow crews to transform a wall of LED screens into fantastical and interactive backdrops. Shows such as the 'Star Wars' series 'The Mandalorian,' sci-fi hit 'Westworld' and fantasy title 'House of the Dragon' were all shot on virtual production stages. As film and TV production in California has slowed and made work scarce for many industry professionals, the boom in virtual production has created new jobs for cinematographers, environmental artists, lighting technicians and professionals who can run the so-called LED walls. With virtual production stages, filmmakers can create the look of a desert planet without going to Tunisia, as George Lucas did for 'Star Wars,' or shoot scenes in daylight at any time of day. 'Virtual production has just become critical to our industry, and our job is to always train students for the future,' said Elizabeth Daley, dean of the School of Cinematic Arts. 'We are very concerned that they leave [the school] really able to work with these tools and with enough serious knowledge of them to be able to adjust and advance.' The center is expected to open in fall 2027, she said. Blavatnik is no stranger to the entertainment business. In addition to founding Blavatnik Family Foundation, he also started the New York-based investment firm Access Industries, which has stakes in entertainment companies including indie movie and TV studio A24 and is the majority owner of record label giant Warner Music Group. Born in Ukraine, Blavatnik acquired Warner Music Group through Access Industries in 2011 and later took the company public. The billionaire is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Britain. In an emailed statement, Blavatnik cited the importance of new technologies to the filmmaking process. 'USC's pioneering approach — building a virtual production studio for the future — makes this the right time and place to invest in our industry,' he said. USC has had a dedicated virtual production program for several years and has trained more than 400 students and alumni on the technology. The university currently has a smaller wall donated by Sony, but demand is high and students often spend time preparing and breaking down their sets. With the new facility, which will be known as the Blavatnik Center for Virtual Production, the multiple stages will allow students more time to work with the technology and less on prep work, said Habib Zargarpour, co-head of the virtual production program at USC. 'Virtual production is definitely here to stay; it's going to be a standard part of production,' he said. 'As more and more of our students and directors and artists learn about the tools, then they can contribute to the success of the technology in the industry because they know how to use it.'
Telegraph
16-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
How DAZN can spend $1bn on Club World Cup – and then give it away for free
The Nantes president Waldemar Kita, an outspoken Polish businessman who made his fortune in eye-lens implants, did not equivocate when he described the deal the Ligue de Football Professionnel had struck with streamer and broadcaster DAZN last summer. It was, Kita said, like being 'driven to a collective suicide – and no one is doing anything'. This contract, said Kita, who bought the club in 2007, 'is s---'. His opposite number at fellow Ligue 1 club RC Lens, Joseph Oughourlian, an investment entrepreneur and Parisian of Armenian heritage, was equally blunt. 'Four-hundred thousand subscribers [on DAZN] is pathetic in a country of 65 million people,' he said. 'We had 1.2 million on Amazon and three million on Canal+'. This was in February as it became clear that DAZN, owned by billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik, would not be able to make the sums work on its five-year deal with the LFP worth €400 million (£340 million) annually. It was, Oughourlian said, 'a f------ disaster'. Blavatnik, a British citizen with a knighthood to go with it, born in 1957 in Odessa, then in the Soviet Union, now Ukraine, is one of the few men in the world rich enough to have lost as much money as DAZN has done. Its last financial results up to the end of 2023 recorded that he had pumped $6.7 billion (£4.9 billion) into the global streamer via its ultimate holding company, Access Industries. The debacle in France this season was DAZN's lowest point in what has been a corporate tale of dizzying losses – and yet for many British viewers the next few weeks may be the first time they discover the London-headquartered company. For it is DAZN that secured the global streaming rights for Fifa's Club World Cup for $1 billion in December, coincidentally at exactly the same time as the Saudi company SURJ Sports Investment bought an unspecified stake in DAZN for the same amount. That money, passed through DAZN to Fifa, has effectively paid for the Club World Cup which kicked off in Miami in the early hours of Sunday morning. DAZN has the premium live men's football offering for the next four weeks and what they do with it – and what it might do for them – is the big question. Salutary warning for the Premier League DAZN paid an exit fee of around €100 million to get out of the LFP deal as well as additional outstanding sums. Remarkably, it may yet play some role in the direct-subscriber service Ligue 1 clubs are hoping to launch next season, although that has not yet been decided. Above all, it showed the problems of launching a new-to-market streamer that offers football and nothing else – a miscalculation that those in the Premier League will have followed closely. It turns out that subscribers find propositions such as DAZN very easy to resist, especially without all the add-ons that established pay-TV providers like Sky and Canal+ offer to keep them from cancelling. In many quarters it was received as a salutary warning for those championing the Premier League going it alone with a global platform direct to consumers. DAZN has a portfolio of rights across Europe, depending on the territory. In Italy, it shows all 10 Serie A games live every weekend. In Spain, it has half the Liga games as well as Formula 1 and MotoGP rights. In Germany, it has around half the Bundesliga games live as well as Champions League and NBA. It has every Japanese J-League game, live and exclusive. In December, it bought Foxtel in Australia, which is a major owner of live Australian sports rights, in a A$3.4 billion (£1.6 billion) deal. DAZN has invested heavily in boxing and MMA rights also. Yet for some time now, though there has been talk of a DAZN IPO, most likely on the Nasdaq, it never seems to get any closer. It would seem that the market does not have the kind of appetite for the levels of losses with which Blavatnik can live. Whatever DAZN might have paid for the Club World Cup rights, it will admit it will make nothing like that back in terms of its sub-licensees. In Britain, there was very little interest, with ITV offering a zero-pounds bid to show some of the games live. A source with knowledge of DAZN's long-term strategy said that the streamer using the Club World Cup as a way into the US market was a move unlikely to succeed. 'There's no way on God's earth it is going to make the money back in advertising,' they said. 'It [DAZN] has made some money back in sublicensing. I hear about $200 million to $300 million in sublicensing. A tiny fraction of that will be for the Channel 5 deal.' It was Channel 5 with whom DAZN agreed a British licensing agreement for 23 games. The British broadcaster is doing it on the cheap. It is not establishing its own roster of studio talent for the Club World Cup – presenters, commentators, pundits – preferring instead to take DAZN's own English-language live feed. 'I'm told ad sales are not going well at all,' the source said. 'It's a classic DAZN play where they force stuff into the market, rather than responding to the market and what the market wants and needs. Walker Jacobs, the chief revenue officer who runs DAZN's US business, has gone from 'this is a premium product' to 'right, stack it high and sell it cheap'. They will try to get away as many deals as they can. But essentially, that kind of cannibalises the revenue.' David Beckham: "It's been an emotional week" 🤩 Inter Miami's owner cannot believe that the long wait is over 🔥 WATCH @AlAhly - @InterMiamiCF in the @FIFACWC now | June 14 - July 13 | Every Game | Free | | #FIFACWC #TakeItToTheWorld — DAZN Football (@DAZNFootball) June 14, 2025 Targeting 100 million new users for its platform DAZN hopes its own free streaming of all 63 games, also available via a premium paid-for service, will bring 100 million new users to its platform around the world. In the US, DAZN has licensed its Club World Cup broadcast rights to TNT Sports for English-language coverage and Univision for its Spanish-language offering. Hope springs eternal that in the Club World Cup, DAZN has landed a huge property for next to nothing and can convert its own streaming coverage into long-term subscribers. If one were to ask the French LFP clubs, they might well say that DAZN has been wrong before. Losses topped $1.3 billion in DAZN's last published results, although its official position is that this is the kind of challenge that all the great streamers had to break through first. The issue for DAZN is that it does not own its content in perpetuity in the same way as, for example, Netflix and its original programming. DAZN simply licenses rights for a fixed term and is then obliged to invest anew. On Saturday, Fifa announced a new agreement with DAZN to operate its Fifa+ content service around the world, which was described in an official communique as 'long-awaited'. The immediate question would be: by whom? Fifa says the offering will include a 'continuous exclusive news service', as well as access to Fifa's archive and a platform for 150 men's and women's leagues. In other words, games from the recent and distant past, and all the games from the present that cannot find a broadcast deal elsewhere. Nevertheless, the close working relationship between DAZN and Fifa – chiefly its president Ginanni Infantino – does not seem to be in doubt. The connecting factor is chiefly the Saudi investment from SURJ that has bound both governing body and streamer to Saudi for the time being at least. Both Infantino and Blavatnik have staked a great deal on the Club World Cup – although only the wealth of the Saudis has allowed both to sanction it being given away for free.
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
British-American Billionaire In Talks For Investment In Telegraph Newspaper
Rita Ora and Len Blavatnik attend the Warner Music Pre-Grammy Party at the NoMad Hotel in 2019 in ... More Los Angeles, California. Billionaire Len Blavatnik has reportedly been approached by Redbird Capital Partners about making an investment in The Telegraph, one of U.K.'s most influential newspapers. Redbird Capital has initiated talks with Blavatnik about becoming a minority investor in The Telegraph, Sky News reported Thursday, citing two sources close to the situation. The report also stated that no agreement had been reached, and it remained unclear whether one would be. Redbird Capital declined to comment. A spokesperson for Blavatnik's investment firm Access Industries said, 'As a matter of principle, Sir Leonard does not comment on market speculation or on any conversations Access may or may not be having regarding potential investments.' Blavatnik's investments span a range of industries and countries. Forbes estimates his net worth at $25.6 billion, placing him at No. 80 on the Real-Time Billionaires List. He is probably best known these days for investments in businesses like Warner Music, streaming service DAZN, chemicals firm LyondellBassell and energy conglomerate Calpine. Blavatnik was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to philanthropy in 2017. He has given or pledged more than $1 billion to philanthropic endeavors with a particular emphasis on supporting universities, including Harvard, Stanford and Yale. Last week, a cross-party group of parliamentarians urged the government to investigate how Redbird Capital is funding its takeover of the venerable British newspaper, according to a report in The Guardian. The group were said to have sent a letter to culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, expressing their concerns about the risk of 'potential Chinese state influence' within Redbird Capital. They MPs point out that the firm's chairman, John Thornton, has served on the advisory council of CIC, China's sovereign wealth fund, and had high-level meetings with Chinese Communist Party members in recent years. The MPs wrote in their letter there was a lack of transparency regarding the sources of funding for the £500 million ($674 million) acquisition, and they contend that it's 'conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors.' But sources close to Redbird Capital confirmed there were no Chinese state funds involved in the proposed acquisition. A consortium of U.K. and U.S. investors will form a new consortium for the deal, led by Redbird Capital. United Arab Emirates-based International Media Investments (IMI) is expected to be a minority investor, subject to new legislation that's currently progressing through parliament. The talks are still ongoing, the sources indicated, so no new deal structure has been put into place and submitted for government approval yet. The Telegraph had been the subject of a two-year takeover saga that began when the Conservative-leaning newspaper was seized by Lloyds bank after the Barclay family failed to repay debts of more than £1 billion. A joint venture between Redbird Capital and IMI effectively gained control of The Telegraph in 2023, after providing a £600 million loan to the Barclay family. But the Conservative government at the time blocked the deal when it adopted new regulations preventing foreign states from taking ownership of the press. Blavatnik is a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K. He was born in Ukraine and raised north of Moscow, before he immigrated to the U.S. in 1978. He studied computer science at Columbia University, and later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard. He started his New York-based investment company, Access Industries, in 1986. Blavatnik's fortune can be traced back to the chaotic post-Soviet days, when he made a series of shrewd investments through partnerships with various Russian moguls, including Viktor Vekselberg (net worth $9 billion) and Mikhail Fridman (net worth $14.9 billion). The billions he earned through privatized factories and oilfields was then used the proceeds to invest in companies and buy assets in the West. His most attention-grabbing acquisition was Warner Music, which he bought for $3.3 billion at the height of the industry's turmoil in 2011. He took the company public on the Nasdaq in June 2020 at quadruple the value.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Billionaire Blavatnik courted to take Daily Telegraph stake
The billionaire who has bankrolled DAZN, the sports-streaming service, is being courted to take a stake in The Daily Telegraph alongside the newspaper's new American majority-owners. Sky News has learnt that Sir Len Blavatnik, whose holding company Access Entertainment owns assets in Britain, including the Theatre Royal Haymarket, has been approached by RedBird Capital Partners about becoming a minority investor in the Telegraph titles. Two sources close to the situation said on Thursday that Sir Len was being sounded out about a deal, although they cautioned that no agreement had been struck and it remained unclear whether one would be. Sir Len, who was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to philanthropy in 2017, is a prolific investor in the arts, media and entertainment industries. Access Entertainment is run by Danny Cohen, the former BBC director of television. Announcing its agreement to acquire Telegraph Media Group last month for an enterprise valuation of £500m, RedBird Capital said it was "in discussions with select UK-based minority investors with print media expertise and strong commitment to upholding the editorial values of the Telegraph". This was principally a reference to Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, who remains in talks to pay more than £30m for a stake in the Mail's rival right-leaning newspaper group. Goldman Sachs is advising DMGT on the investment, with a deal the subject of ongoing discussions, according to insiders. Read more: The Abu Dhabi state-backed vehicle IMI is still expected to acquire the maximum 15% stake in the Telegraph permitted under proposed new media ownership rules. The government's decision to set the ownership threshold at 15% follows an intensive lobbying campaign by newspaper industry executives concerned that a permanent outright ban could cut off a vital source of funding to an already-embattled industry. However, the deal faces continued opposition from parliamentarians, with The Guardian reporting on Thursday that a cross-party group had written to Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, warning of "potential Chinese state influence" because of links between RedBird Capital chair John Thornton and China's sovereign wealth fund. This suggestion has been dismissed by RedBird Capital insiders. Ukraine-born Sir Len's portfolio of investments includes DAZN, which is now also backed by a Saudi sports group, mobile games studio Tripledot and Scenario Two, a theatre production company. Dovid Efune, the owner of The New York Sun, is meanwhile continuing to assemble a rival bid for the Telegraph, having secured backing from Jeremy Hosking, the prominent City investor. His prospects, however, look to have diminished after the former chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, was reported to have withdrawn from his so-called 'British bid'. The Telegraph titles' parent company was forced into insolvency proceedings two years ago by Lloyds Banking Group, which ran out of patience with the Barclay family, their long-standing owner. RedBird IMI, a joint venture between the two firms, paid £600m several months later to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine. That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws, which banned any form of foreign state ownership. Some parliamentarians are continuing to argue that a 15% threshold would be too high, and that the proposed rules are ambiguous because they potentially allow for more than one state investor to aggregate their holdings in British newspapers. The Spectator was sold last year for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Lord Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor. RedBird Capital has been contacted for comment, while a call to Access Industries' London office went unanswered on Thursday lunchtime.
