Clooney

In 2014 actor George Clooney married human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in a glitzy affair that saw a host of celebrities descend on the Italian city's canals.

Having secured national broadcasting rights for Good Night, and Good Luck—the megahit Broadway play adapted from George Clooney’s 2005 film—the entertainment giant scheduled a much-anticipated, widely accessible livestream of the show’s penultimate performance on Saturday night.

Zaslav might have agreed to spread the pro-freedom-of-the-press message of Good Night, and Good Luck on George Clooney’s behalf—but he probably didn’t want to deal with the Trump administration’s relentless persecution of news outlets that the president deems “very unfair” to him.

Hollywood A-listers, such as George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” got in on the action, raising Broadway’s media profile along with its ticket prices.

But watching Clooney and company on TV wasn’t the same as being in the Winter Garden with them during the performance.