The high-stakes feud between Paramount Skydance President Jeff Shell and Las Vegas gambler and self-professed “fixer” Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani spilled into court on Monday.

Cipriani filed a lawsuit against Shell on claims of fraud and eight other counts, alleging that he reneged on an oral agreement to develop an English-language version of a Spanish music show that streams on Roku TV.

He is seeking $150 million in damages.

In the 67-page lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Cipriani claims that in exchange for providing “sophisticated, high-value crisis communications services, entirely without compensation” over 18 months, Shell had agreed to develop the show “Serenata De Las Estrellas,” (Star Serenade), but failed to do so. Cipriani and his wife were to be named as co-executive producers.

“This case arises from the oldest form of fraud: a powerful man took everything a less powerful man had to offer, promised to repay him, lied to him when he asked about it, and then refused to compensate him at all,” states the complaint.

Cipriani — who has producer credits on a 2020 documentary about Vegas, “Money Machine: Behind the Lies,” and the 2015 movie “Wild Card” — intended to make “Serenata” as a “lasting legacy for his mother,” Regina, saying the effort “has been the driving force and the most important thing consuming [Cipriani’s] entire life of almost sixty-five years,” according to the suit.

The show was inspired by a song that the Philadelphia-born Cipriani used to sing to his late mother when he was growing up.

The litigation is the latest twist in a simmering behind-the-scenes scandal that has left much of Hollywood slack-jawed.

For weeks, Cipriani had threatened to file a lawsuit against Shell, with the potential to derail his comeback at Paramount, three years after he lost his job as NBCUniversal’s chief executive over an inappropriate relationship with an underling.

Cipriani’s suit alleges Shell wasdesperate for help in quelling negative stories about him.

It also portrays him as someone who was indiscreet, allegedly sharing sensitive information during the period when the Ellison family, through Skydance Media, was preparing to close its deal to acquire Paramount and then was actively pursuing Warner Bros. Discovery to add to its growing entertainment and media empire.

The eventual rift between the unlikely pair began in August 2024. Patty Glaser, the high-powered entertainment litigator, convened a meeting between the two men.

During the meeting with Shell, the executive expressed to Cipriani his concern that emails and texts between him and Hadley Gamble, the CNBC anchor Shell had been involved with, would come out, saying “that would absolutely destroy me,” according to the suit.

Cipriani claims in his lawsuit Shell was facing “catastrophic personal exposure arising from his conduct toward yet another woman in the media industry,” similar to what had prompted his ouster from NBCUniversal and that he “solicited” his “crisis communications services.”

According to the suit, Cipriani was in a position to help him, having engaged in a “longstanding practice of exposing misconduct in the entertainment and media industries.”

A high-rolling blackjack player, Cipriani’s colorful résumé includes aiding the FBI in the arrest and conviction of USC athlete-turned global drug kingpin Owen Hanson, who was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, and filing a RICO suit against Resorts World Las Vegas.

Leveraging his “unique media relationships and industry influence,” Cipriani said in his complaint that he provided Shell with “ongoing threat-monitoring and intelligence services,” and “took proactive steps to suppress, redirect, or neutralize” negative coverage against Shell before publication.

Cipriani said Shell expressed “effusive gratitude” to him after he planted a story about another entertainment industry figure “in order to divert media attention” away from Shell. “Thank you thank you thank you,” Shell wrote in a text to Cipriani, according to the lawsuit, which included a copy of the text.

During tense negotiations over Paramount’s streaming rights for the highly successful “South Park” franchise last summer, Shell allegedly asked to talk to Cipriani about the matter. Cipriani then “orchestrat[ed] the placement of a highly favorable news article,” that was “devastating to Shell’s and Paramount’s adversaries in the dispute,” the suit states.

After a story published in a Hollywood trade, Cipriani wrote to Shell on WhatsApp, “I’m the one that put the article out for you!!!” and “I didn’t want to tell you till it hit so you have plausible deniability.”

According to a message cited in the lawsuit, Shell responded, “I love you!!!! …Thank you Rj,” adding “I owe you dinner at least!”

Despite those boasts, Paramount ultimately paid “South Park” creators millions more than Skydance had intended. To remove obstacles from Skydance’s path to buy Paramount, the media company agreed to two blockbuster deals that include paying the “South Park” production company more than $1.25 billion to continue the cartoon — making it one of the richest deals in television history.

During the course of their relationship, Cipriani further alleges that Shell alerted him to a then-pending $7.7-billion Paramount deal for the rights to UFC fights, while Netflix “believed” it had a “handshake deal” for the same rights, according to the suit.

Cipriani disclosed in his lawsuit that he filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the disclosure of material information, claiming that Shell told him that not even UFC President Dana White knew of the transaction. In a WhatsApp message cited in the lawsuit, Shell told Cipriani that the deal was “very hush, hush until we sign.”

While the gambler continued to provide his services to Shell gratis, their relationship began to sour.

Cipriani became enraged that Shell did not uphold his end of the alleged deal to help him with the TV show, viewing it as a slap to him and his mother.

In February, the pair met to resolve their growing dispute. According to the lawsuit, also in attendance was an unidentified entertainment attorney who had represented both men in separate matters.

Patty Glaser has been widely reported as having represented Shell and Cipriani. She introduced them in summer 2024, as The Times reported Saturday.

“We were presented with a draft complaint riddled with clear errors of fact and law,” Glaser said in a statement last week. “We will strongly respond.”

The February meeting did not go well.

Shell not only “refused to compensate” Cipriani, but also told him that he could not “assist” him “in obtaining a television show or other entertainment industry opportunity.”

Cipriani further alleged in his lawsuit that during their “failed summit,” Shell revealed his “disdain” for David Zaslav, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, and disclosed that Paramount intended to “sweeten” its pending hostile offer for the studio to fend off Netflix prior to announcing its intention to do so publicly.

After the meeting, Cipriani stated in his complaint that Shell’s attorney privately offered Cipriani a “$150,000 personal loan” to resolve the dispute.

Walt Disney Co. and Pixar’s “Hoppers” took the box office crown this weekend in an encouraging sign for the company’s original animated films.

The film generated $46 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, marking the highest domestic opening for an original animated movie since 2017’s “Coco,” according to studio estimates. The global box office total for “Hoppers” was $88 million.

The zany movie features a young environmental advocate who “hops” her consciousness into a robotic beaver and bands together with other woodland creatures to stop a planned freeway expansion through a glade.

The film is directed by Daniel Chong, who created the Cartoon Network animated series “We Bare Bears.”

The muscular debut for “Hoppers,” as well as the strong performance from Sony Pictures Animation’s “Goat” last month, has been a positive sign for audience interest in original animated films.

Since the pandemic, theatrical returns for animated sequels have far surpassed that of original films. Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” for instance, has grossed more than $1.8 billion in global box office revenue, with more than $426 million domestically. Disney and Pixar’s 2024 hit “Inside Out 2” also crossed more than $1.6 billion globally.

By contrast, Disney and Pixar’s 2025 original film “Elio” brought in about $154 million in worldwide box office revenue.

Original films are vital to Pixar’s future, as the Emeryville, Calif.-based studio built its reputation on its string of nearly uninterrupted original blockbuster hits, including 1995’s “Toy Story” and 2004’s “The Incredibles.”

Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream 7” came in second at the box office with $17.3 million in its second weekend in theaters. Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Bride!,” Sony’s “Goat” and Warner Bros.’ “Wuthering Heights” rounded out the top five at the box office, according to data from Comscore.

With several strong releases, as well as popular holdover films from 2025 that continue to bring in revenue, the first few months at the box office have been a notable improvement over last year’s dismal first quarter.

Domestic box office revenue so far is up more than 12% compared with the same time period in 2025, according to Comscore.

Laid-off tech worker Joseph Tinner has spent almost a year hunting for a job. It has been a depressing crash course on the sea change in Silicon Valley.

The former product instructor from the San Francisco Bay Area has ridden the tech wave throughout his career, easily jumping from Verizon to Fitbit to Workday. Since losing his job early last year, the 59-year-old has hit a wall.

He applied for hundreds of roles — sometimes going through multiple rounds of consideration — only to get rejected again and again.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said. “It just takes a lot of resilience, honestly, to be in this job market.”

He isn’t alone.

Tech companies that aggressively hired during the COVID-19 pandemic have been slashing tens of thousands of jobs. For workers like Tinner, it has been a rough realization that the Silicon Valley shakeout is stretching into another year.

Just last week, Block — the financial tech company that owns payment services Square, Cash App and Afterpay — said it is laying off 4,000 people, or half of its workforce.

Many other tech companies outside the hot artificial intelligence sector are slashing staff. Block blamed AI, saying the powerful technology means it no longer needs as many people.

“The intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Block and a founder of Twitter, said in a post on X.

U.S.-based tech employers announced more than 33,000 job cuts from January to February, up 51% compared with the same period last year, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.

Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for the firm, said he used to be skeptical that companies could replace workers with AI, but he’s starting to become convinced.

“Artificial intelligence has overtaken the attention of these companies in such a dramatic way,” he said.

Mass layoffs in the tech industry started in 2022, after a hiring surge during the pandemic, when demand for online services increased as people were stuck at home.

But many of the world’s most powerful tech companies have continued cutting, even as their profits have grown. They’ve cited various reasons for layoffs, from strategic shifts and restructuring to pivoting to smaller teams and fewer managers.

Tech companies such as EBay, Meta, Google, Autodesk, Pinterest, Salesforce and others have been shrinking their workforces. Layoffs have also hit the media and entertainment companies, including Los Angeles video game developer Riot Games.

On LinkedIn, laid-off workers who have been out of work — some for more than two years — have been asking for help finding a job. They’ve been sharing stories about their financial and emotional struggles, including losing their confidence, homes and savings as they search for work.

Tech workers who have seen their employers grow over the last decade have noticed a shift in corporate culture. Workers who have been laid off before said it has been tougher and taken longer to land a new job than in previous years.

A longtime Salesforce employee, who was recently laid off and asked to remain anonymous, concerned that speaking to the media could affect their severance, said the sales software company used to be more focused on helping its employees. Salesforce broadcast this value by highlighting its “ohana,” culture, using the Hawaiian word for family.

“I was just incredibly grateful every day to be able to wake up and make a positive change in the world,” the worker said. “I thought that the company was devoted to the same thing.”

But the tone at Salesforce shifted in 2023 as the company faced pressure to cut costs and increase profits. New leaders came in, and the focus changed.

“The company is trying to erase any semblance of the way that it used to be,” the worker said.

Salesforce has said AI is helping it squeeze more profit from fewer people.

“AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now,” the company’s co-founder and Chief Executive Marc Benioff told Bloomberg.

Salesforce didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce Inc., during a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos,

(Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Although technology is changing the way people work, experts and even some AI executives think companies sometime use AI as an excuse to cut workers in what’s referred to as “AI washing.”

Enrico Moretti, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, said other factors besides AI are fueling layoffs. As a company grows larger and matures, it doesn’t hire as much as before.

“It’s a shift in their position and the maturing of their product, and therefore the technologies and their employment needs,” he said.

Roger Lee, an entrepreneur who created a website to track layoffs, Layoffs.fyi, in 2020, said in an email that tech companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI investments, and cutting headcount helps offset those costs.

When he started tracking layoffs six years ago, Lee wanted to create awareness around tech layoffs and help laid-off workers find their next job. He never anticipated the layoffs would continue today.

“I do think 6 years of persistent layoffs have led many tech workers to re-evaluate the perceived ‘safety’ of tech jobs and their relationship with the industry overall,” he said in an email.

According to Layoffs.fyi’s latest count, there have been more than 35,000 layoffs in the tech sector worldwide so far this year.

Close to half of that total is from Amazon alone.

Unemployed tech worker Tinner was laid off from Workday, a Pleasanton company that provides a platform to businesses, universities and organizations to manage payroll, benefits, finances and other tasks.

In 2025, Workday slashed roughly 1,750 jobs, or 8.5% of its global workforce, citing a prioritization of investments in artificial intelligence and platform development. Then in February, the company said it plans to cut 2% of its workforce, or roughly 400 employees.

As job cuts pile up, Tinner is up against intense competition in a job market flooded with talent from the top companies in tech.

As he ponders his next career steps, he’s also redefining his identity and relationship with work.

He’s even tried pouring beer for fun or thought about doing more artwork.

“Maybe what I need to do is just celebrate all I’ve done instead of getting back into this rat race, on this treadmill, and look for something totally different,” he said.