From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

It was just about two years of constant rejection, also trying to go after certain casting that resulted mainly in constant rejection.

It was just sort of one thing after another where the projects seemed to kind of die more and more each day that passed.

Sure, director Damien Chazelle's Lala Land is a hit

now with 14 Oscar nominations, but in the beginning, his dream of making an original musical

seemed like it might just be too crazy of a gamble. Chiselle and his longtime friend and collaborator,

composer Justin Hurwitz, tell us how they fought through setbacks to make one of

the year's most formidable awards contenders. But first on the news banter, the studio with this

year's most impressive Oscar performance is, stick around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my colleague in banter, Matt Bellany of The Hollywood Reporter.

This is our first conversation since the Oscar nominations came out.

A really good go-round for Lionsgate, which has a bunch of films in competition in a bunch of different ways.

Right. If you're looking at the studio scorecard, which everyone around Hollywood tends to do this time of year, you've got to look at Lionsgate as the big winner.

Not only are they the distributor of La La Land, which is the record nominations 14.

They have Hacksaw Ridge, the Mel Gibson movie, which got a ton of nominations as well,

and a surprise nomination for Mel Gibson as Best Director. They also are the distributor for CBS films, Hell or High Water, which got a Best Picture nomination. And then they also own

a portion of roadside attractions, which is the theatrical distributor for Amazon for Manchester by the Sea.

So if you look at the behind the scenes machinations here, Lionsgate has a piece of four

best picture nominations. That's kind of nuts. And a bunch of other significant nominations,

obviously Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea, Jeff Bridges, best supporting actor,

Heller High Water. So, yes, and Lucas Hedges and Manchester by the Sea, just a bunch. So that's good.

And I'll mention one of the kind of counterintuitive thing, which is that Paramount Pictures,

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