Business
William Langewiesche, the ‘Steve McQueen of Journalism,’ Dies at 70
William Langewiesche, a magazine writer and author who forged complex narratives with precision-tooled prose that shed fresh light on national security, the occupation of Iraq and, especially, aviation disasters — he was a professional pilot — died on Sunday in East Lyme, Conn. He was 70.
Cullen Murphy, his longtime editor at The Atlantic and Vanity Fair, confirmed the death, at the home of a friend, saying the cause was prostate cancer.
Mr. Langewiesche (pronounced long-gah-vee-shuh) was one of the most prominent long-form nonfiction writers of recent decades. He was an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
For 10 years running, from 1999 to 2008, his pieces were finalists for the National Magazine Award, and he won it twice: in 2007 for “Rules of Engagement,” about the killing of 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. Marines in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq; and in 2002 for “The Crash of EgyptAir 990,” about a flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999 with the loss of all 217 people aboard.
He chose to write often about calamitous events, piecing together a meticulous explanation for what went wrong while portraying the human subjects under his microscope with sympathy.
“At his best there’s a sort of cinematic omniscience in the way he writes,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview. “And so you feel almost as he feels, with your face pressed up against the window watching something unfold, often very rapidly, and often wishing that things would unfold very differently but knowing there’s nothing that can be done.”
Mr. Langewiesche’s account of the EgyptAir crash in 1999, which was profoundly enriched by his own aviation background, blamed a suicidal co-pilot. Egyptian officials refused to accept that conclusion, a response, he wrote, that was rooted in political and cultural chauvinism.
Mr. Langewiesche learned to fly as a boy and worked as a commercial pilot early on to support his literary ambition. He drew on his aviation expertise in a number of articles and books that laid out highly technical subjects in lucid prose.
Writing about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III’s famous landing of a commercial airliner in the Hudson River in 2009, Mr. Langewiesche made the case that that injury-free belly flop was a testament more to modern airplane technology than to the heroism of the pilot.
Captain Sullenberger took issue with that account, telling The New York Times that Mr. Langewiesche’s book about the episode, “Fly by Wire,” contained “misstatements of fact.”
Reviewing “Fly by Wire” in The Times, the book critic Dwight Garner wrote, “Written quickly, it lacks some of the eloquence and steely control of Mr. Langewiesche’s earlier books.” Mr. Garner called Mr. Langewiesche “the Steve McQueen of American journalism,” referring to the author’s muscular prose style and often gripping subject matter.
In other projects — pursued thanks to editors who allowed him months for reporting and writing — Mr. Langewiesche wrote an account in The Atlantic in 2006 about how terrorists might obtain a nuclear bomb; another article, also in The Atlantic, in 2004, dissected the sinking of a ferry in the Baltic Sea a decade earlier.
His 2002 book, “American Ground: Unbuilding The World Trade Center,” based on a three-part series in The Atlantic, was reported over six months at ground zero as he meticulously covered the cleanup after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Not all of his work described life and death dramas. His profile of Robert M. Parker Jr. in The Atlantic, “The Million-Dollar Nose,” opened with the enticing line: “The most influential critic in the world today happens to be a critic of wine.”
Closer to form, he wrote about another aviation mystery: the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight with 277 passengers over the Indian Ocean in 2014, an article that generated enormous readership for The Atlantic.
The plane remained aloft for hours after someone in the cockpit shut down its communication signals, then plunged into the Indian Ocean.
Mr. Langewiesche hypothesized a scenario in which a pilot intent on murder-suicide had asphyxiated his passengers by climbing to 40,000 feet while depressurizing the cabin, then cruised onward until the fuel ran out and the plane plummeted.
“The scene would have been dimly lit by the emergency lights,” Mr. Langewiesche wrote, imagining those hours in chilling detail, “with the dead belted into their seats, their faces nestled in the worthless oxygen masks dangling on tubes from the ceiling.”
Of the captain, the last living soul in the plane, he wrote, “The cockpit is the deepest, most protective, most private sort of home.”
William Archibald Langewiesche was born on June 12, 1955, in Sharon, Conn. His mother, Priscila (Coleman) Langewiesche, was a computer analyst. His father, Wolfgang Langewiesche, a German-born émigré, was a test pilot for the maker of the Corsair fighter used by the U.S. Navy; he wrote a classic book on flying, “Stick and Rudder,” in the 1940s.
William, a late child, had an adult sister and brothers when he was growing up. His father taught him to fly before the boy could see over the instrument panel. Later, as an undergraduate at Stanford University, Mr. Langewiesche helped pay his way through college by piloting air taxis and charters.
After earning a degree in anthropology, he moved to New York City and worked for Flying magazine. But he quit the job because he aspired to write literary nonfiction, in part inspired by The New Yorker writer John McPhee. While struggling to be published, Mr. Langewiesche supported himself as a corporate pilot.
“Other people trying to break into writing have to work as waiters,” he told Aviation News in 2001, “and I considered myself as having a technical skill — like a welder — that I could use to support myself.”
His breakthrough came in 1991, when The Atlantic published as its November cover story his article “The World in Its Extreme,’’ a 17,000-word travelogue and natural history of the Sahara Desert. He went on to write for the magazine as a national correspondent for 15 years. In 2006, he became an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he contributed two to four lengthy articles a year through 2019.
Mr. Langewiesche married Anne-Marie Girard in 1977, and they had two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 2017, and the following year, he married Tia Cibani, who survives him.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his son Matthew and his daughter Anna Langewiesche, both from his first marriage; his son Archibald and his daughter Castine Langewiesche, from his second marriage; and his sister, Lena Langewiesche. He lived in North Salem, N.Y., in Westchester County.
In a 2007 interview with Mediabistro, an online career site for designers and writers, Mr. Langewiesche described his method. Instead of reading exhaustively about a subject and writing questions for interviews in advance, he preferred to plunge right into a subject “with very little preparation, intentionally somewhat naïve about it.”
“I just talk to people and listen carefully and respond to what they’re saying and try to give of myself as much as I’m asking them to give of themselves, so that a true conversation can develop,” he said. “These conversations typically will go on for weeks, on and off. Sometimes I take notes.”
The real work, he said, came later when he sat down to write.
“Writing is thinking; writing is a form of thought,” he said. “It’s difficult for me to believe that real thought is possible without writing.”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
In 2016, Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana” became a box office hit, captivating audiences with catchy earworms from Lin-Manuel Miranda and a spunky young heroine who rejected the label of princess.
Now, just 10 years later, it’s the latest Disney animated film to be given the live-action treatment.
Burbank-based Disney has long reached into its vault in search of animated classics to redo in a live-action format. But a decade is the shortest time between one of the company’s original animated movies and the reimagined film. (2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” which originally debuted in 2002, is the next closest with a gap of 23 years.)
Why go back to “Moana” so soon? The Polynesian wayfarer is extremely popular.
The 2016 animated film grossed more than $643 million at the global box office, then spawned a 2024 sequel that made more than $1 billion worldwide. The original is the most-watched movie in Disney+ history with more than 1.5 billion hours of viewing.
“Every once in a while in Hollywood, we make a film that is more than a film,” actor Dwayne Johnson, who reprises his role as the demigod Maui, said onstage during the movie’s premiere Tuesday at the Hollywood Bowl after a Polynesian dance performance. “I think you could feel it already tonight, with our culture and with what we have represented. But also not only our Polynesian culture … it’s also a shared culture around the world.”
The latest “Moana,” out this weekend, will join a cadre of family films at the multiplex.
That includes Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” which has now racked up more than $774 million worldwide, and Universal Pictures and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters,” which debuted domestically last week to a softer-than-expected opening of $62 million for the five-day Fourth of July holiday weekend.
The weaker haul for “Minions & Monsters” has led to questions about whether there are too many family films in theaters, which could affect the reception for the latest iteration of “Moana.” But as the last of this summer’s trio of major animated films, the runway could be clear for the film to build steam.
“I don’t think two movies make saturation,” said Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios. “There’s a huge fanbase for the ‘Moana’ franchise.”
But with two “Moana” movies in the last decade, will audiences flock to another film? Analysts are expecting an opening weekend haul of $75 million, though studio estimates are closer to $60 million to $65 million. The film’s production budget is about $250 million.
“When you look at these massive movies that were just incredible — ‘The Lion King,’ ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ — they were brought back after years and years,” said David A. Gross, who writes the industry newsletter FranchiseRe. “I think there’s an argument that says absence makes the heart grow fonder with some of these. We’ll see.”
Early reviews of the film have been mixed, and “Moana” has so far notched a 37% rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is a nearly frame-by-frame re-creation of the original.
Disney’s live-action remakes have largely been box-office boons for the company, with a few exceptions.
In the last 16 years, five films have grossed more than $1 billion globally, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” (Other live-action spin-offs based on classic animated movies, such as 2024’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” and 2014’s “Maleficent,” also had solid performances.)
“It goes back to the original [intellectual property] of these movies,” Cripps said of the importance of live-action films for Disney’s slate. “People grow up with it, they become fans of it, they live with it. When you’ve got IP that resonates so well literally around the world with fans, I just think it’s a clever extension.”
There have been some notable misfires, including last year’s “Snow White,” which cratered at the box office amid a myriad of controversies, including racist backlash to the casting of Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, as the titular princess, its depiction of little people and its lead actors’ views on the Israel-Hamas war.
In general, live-action retellings have also typically performed well overseas — a marketplace that isn’t always reliable these days.
Across 13 recent live-action films from Disney and other studios, all made more than 60% of their global box office revenue in international markets, Gross said.
By comparison, films across all genres typically bring in about half of their revenue overseas, he said.
“When these movies connect,” Gross said, “they work everywhere.”
Business
Meta discontinues Instagram feature on new AI image generation tool after Hollywood backlash
A new tool that let people take publicly posted Instagram photos and use AI to generate new images from them drew such a big backlash in Hollywood that Meta has discontinued one of the features.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, on Tuesday rolled out the new AI tool, called Muse Image, which makes it easy to “turn your ideas into high-quality visuals you can download and share anywhere.”
In a promotional video, Meta showed examples like adding a friend into a band photo.
But the tool came under fire from talent agencies, managers and union officials. They noted that many Instagram accounts were opted in by default, allowing users to manipulate the image and likeness of celebrities without their consent.
“I just think it’s wrong again to expect people to opt themselves out of something that literally has been proven to be able to create harm,” said Kyle Hjelmeseth, chief executive of Los Angeles-based influencer talent management firm G&B.
By Friday, Meta said a feature on Muse Image that helps pull photos from public Instagram accounts was no longer available.
“Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is by @-mentioning public Instagram accounts that they want to reference,” Meta said in a blog post. “Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way. We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
Creative Artists Agency, which raised concerns to Meta on behalf of its clients, commended the tech company for its swift decision.
“Putting individual rights and consent at the forefront is essential to building responsible technology,” the Century City-based talent agency said in a statement. “We look forward to ongoing conversations to ensure creators stay protected as technology evolves.”
Hollywood has long been wary of AI, after a string of deepfakes — videos or images depicting celebrities doing or saying things they never authorized. Jamie Lee Curtis and others have appeared in ads for products they never endorsed. Last year, OpenAI’s Sora 2 video tool drew outrage in Hollywood after users conjured up dead celebrities without their estates’ consent. OpenAI later said it would give rights holders more granular controls.
After Meta rolled out its new tool, there was immediate backlash from Hollywood.
“Anything other than a clear and conspicuous OPT-IN for these types of uses of Instagram users’ images is unacceptable, and an utter miscalculation of public sentiment regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in such use,” performers union SAG-AFTRA said in a statement.
United Talent Agency was also critical of Meta, saying it demands opt-in for the use of likeness, image and intellectual property of its clients on any platform.
“The use of such property without OPT-IN consent, credit and compensation is exploitation, not innovation,” the Beverly Hills-based talent agency said.
Meta’s initial response on Wednesday was that users can choose to opt out of having their photos used by Muse Image by changing their settings.
“We built Muse Image with strong controls and safety guardrails from day one,” Meta said in a statement. “Private accounts and those belonging to users under 18 are automatically excluded and adult users with public accounts can opt out with just a couple clicks. We will take action against any content that violates our Community Standards.”
Two days later, Meta removed a key feature from Muse Image, saying it received feedback that it “missed the mark.”
The launch fits a familiar Silicon Valley pattern — ship products first, ask for forgiveness later.
“They leverage their scale to make it easy to use the tools as well as to scale out the content that is available,” said Mickey Maher, chief business officer at Vermillio, which tracks people’s digital likenesses and intellectual property. “It’s not unique to this Meta product.”
Others said opt-out should be the default.
“This dark pattern of AI overreach, where essentially it’s a free-for-all when it comes to your content, information, is something that nobody actually wants,” said Lori Fena, former chair and executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founder of New York-based Personal Digital Spaces. “What we need in this new AI ecosystem is the ability to create trust and to have some sort of understanding and authenticity, and this does exactly the opposite.”
Television City, one of the most famous studios in the entertainment industry where generations of TV shows have been created, is expected to hit the market again as its owner grapples with debt.
It’s the latest sign of distress in Hollywood as the film and TV industry struggles from a sharp falloff in production activity across Southern California.
Television City’s owner, Hackman Capital Partners, is already in the process of selling the historic Radford Studio Center, which gave L.A.’s Studio City neighborhood its name. Hackman defaulted on a $1.1-billion mortgage in January and investment bank Goldman Sachs took over the property, which is now escrow for a sale to Netflix.
The sprawling Television City property is one of the most desirable locations in Los Angeles, sharing fences with the Original Farmers Market and the luxury Grove outdoor shopping center, each of which attracts millions of visitors every year.
If the studio at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue where “American Idol,” “All in the Family” and scores of other shows were filmed becomes available as expected, the owners of the Grove and the Farmers Market would be among the likely contenders for the property for potential expansion of their businesses, said sources familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.
Grove owner Rick Caruso was among the bidders for Television City, formerly known as CBS Television City, last time it was on the market and could emerge as a possible bidder.
The highest bid when broadcaster CBS sold the studio in 2019 came from Hackman Capital Partners, an international movie studio operator and commercial property landlord that paid $750 million for the 25-acre site that is near Hollywood, Beverly Hills and and the Sunset Strip.
Hackman Capital’s plan to recoup its investment included continuing to operate Television City as a studio for rent while adding new revenue-generating features.
Last year the city approved Hackman Capital’s $1-billion plan to add 980,000 square feet of offices, sound stages, production facilities and retail space.
The original studio designed by famed Los Angeles architect William Pereira erected in 1952 has city landmark protections, but newer structures on the property do not and there are acres of surface parking that could be converted to other uses.
Both Caruso and Farmers Market owners A.F. Gilmore have sued to limit the planned expansion of the studio, calling it a “massively scaled” development that “would overwhelm, disrupt, and forever transform the community.”
The debate over the development has played out amid a serious downturn in the region’s entertainment industry, with studios shifting film and television production to Georgia, New Mexico and other out-of-state locations.
L.A.’s entertainment industry also suffered a series of blows including the COVID-19 shutdown, strikes by writers and directors in 2023 and cutbacks at studios that reduced demand for sound stages.
A group of Hackman Capital’s lenders led by Deutsche Bank filed a notice of default last month, saying they’re owed more than $357 million. Hackman Capital is still trying to renegotiate its debt.
“The studio market is evolving, and the financing environment for studio assets remains complex,” Chief Executive Michael Hackman said in a statement. “We are engaged in active discussions with our lending partners and are carefully evaluating all of the alternatives.”
A person familiar with the process but not authorized to speak about it publicly said Hackman Capital will be hard-pressed to pay its debt in light of challenges facing the industry. The notice of default is “the baby step to put Television City in play” for new buyers, the source said, “and it is in play.”
Already in play is Manhattan Beach Studios, another Hackman Capital property encumbered by a $240-million loan from Deutsche Bank that the lender is in the process of selling. A buyer could foreclose on the property and potentially change its use to advanced manufacturing such as aerospace or defense, which is in high demand in Southern California.
Brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, which is managing the sale, emphasized in marketing materials that the 22-acre site has “significant available power capacity” and “offers flexible uses” on “some of the most irreplaceable underlying land in the South Bay.”
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