Hollywood has become such a drag. Last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes may be over, but the industry, along with the audience, is still paying the price. Everywhere you look there’s bad news: Box office is in the toilet .
Television is in constriction mode. Studios and networks continue to merge, with mixed results. Writers, actors and crew members struggle to find work .
Linear television is dying, and streaming subscribers are faced with rising prices and/or ill-placed and repetitive ads. Then there’s “Bridgerton.” Tossing roses (Bridgerton-themed bouquets are now available at many florists) and trailing tea cakes (available at the Republic of Tea and Williams Sonoma), the third season of the Regency romance is shedding the light of a thousand (Bridgerton-inspired, Bath and Body Works-branded) candles on a weary and anxious business.
Forget “Deadpool and Wolverine,” “Despicable Me 4” or whatever film pundits are predicting will finally permeate the summer zeitgeist . If you have managed to avoid the ambitious and pervasive media campaign for “Bridgerton’s” now wildly popular third season, broken into two parts for maximum impact, you have better filters than I do. Based on the novels of Julia Quinn, the first co-production of Netflix and Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland debuted in the still COVID-plagued month of December 2020 and quickly became a pandemic hit.
Reaching a broad and historically underserved audience of period-romance fans, “Bridg.
