The all-new Hollywood Reporter offers unprecedented access to the people, studios, networks and agencies that create the magic in Hollywood. Published weekly, the oversized format includes exceptional photography and rich features.
NBC SPORTS EXECUTIVES ARE remaining optimistic that the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus won’t interrupt plans to deploy thousands of employees to Rio de Janeiro for the Summer Olympic Games. “We are packing our shipping containers and bringing down our many thousands of pieces of equipment,” NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel tells THR. “Right now it’s full steam ahead, and we anticipate a great Olympics.” The positivity comes as Brazil has become the epicenter of an outbreak linked to a spike in cases of microcephaly, which causes small heads in newborns. The World Health Organization, which in January declared Zika a global health emergency, said Feb. 12 that vaccine trials still are 18 months away and advises pregnant women to consider delaying travel to affected countries. The same day,…
TOP EXECUTIVES OF MAJOR MEDIA COMPANIES aren’t doing a very good job convincing Wall Street that cord-cutting won’t crush profits. Shares of such top Hollywood conglomerates as Disney, Viacom and 21st Century Fox teetered near 52-week lows after quarterly earnings were disclosed in mid-February amid a new wave of concern that Americans are canceling cable TV services at a fast pace. Viacom reported earnings Feb. 9, and the stock plunged 21 percent; Disney revealed its most profitable quarter in its history later that day, and the stock dropped 4 percent; Time Warner unveiled strong earnings Feb. 10, and the stock slid 5 percent. CBS chief Leslie Moonves spoke of scatter pricing for advertising being “way up” over last year. Nonetheless, CBS stock dropped after its strong earnings, as did shares…
THE ELUSIVE, DISTRACTED young men have returned in force to the multiplex, first for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and now for Deadpool. The Ryan Reynolds superhero movie opened to an astounding $132.4 million for the three-day Valentine’s Day weekend and $152.2 million for the four days, the biggest R-rated debut of all time and the seventh-biggest for a comic book movie. Few in Hollywood predicted those types of numbers — even Fox — since the movie’s rating was seen as limiting. But the demographics tell the story: At least 62 percent of ticket buyers were males, according to PostTrak. And 47 percent were under age 25, a higher share than any recent comic book movie. Nearly 37 percent of Deadpool’s audience was between 18 and 24, a stellar turnout…
PARAMOUNT SPENT three years developing a period rock ’n’ roll drama with Martin Scorsese, Terence Winter and Mick Jagger — only to see the project fall apart and migrate to the small screen as HBO’s Vinyl. But there’s a silver lining. The film studio quietly worked out a deal to retain a financial stake in the TV series, which debuted Feb. 14. Sources say Paramount received an upfront payment and will earn fees per episode and a small backend piece of any profits from Vinyl. That means if the Bobby Cannavale-Olivia Wilde series runs for multiple seasons, the deal could be lucrative for the studio. So why would HBO and Paramount — representing rival media empires Time Warner and Viacom — agree to such a deal? After trying to squeeze…
Matt LeBlanc On-the-air series LeBlanc, 48, might be the most active of the Friends alums. Showtime’s Episodes is set to start production on a fifth (and likely final) season this summer. He’ll also host Top Gear for the BBC. Not-quite-on-the-air series He’s hoping the CBS pilot I’m Not Your Friend (get it?) scores a pickup. It comes a decade after NBC’s Friends spinoff Joey was canceled. David Schwimmer On-the-air series Schwimmer, 49, is getting strong reviews for playing Robert Kardashian in FX’s hit The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Not-quite-on-the-air series He scored a starring role in AMC’s straight-to-series drama Feed the Beast, which comes two years after ABC passed on Schwimmer’s 2014 pilot Irreversible. Lisa Kudrow On-the-air series Kudrow, 52, returned last year for HBO’s The Comeback,…
APPLE’S EFFORTS TO BREAK INTO THE streaming video business have received most of the industry buzz, but it’s actually Apple Music that could benefit the most from the technology giant’s first scripted TV series. THR revealed Feb. 12 that Apple is bankrolling an edgy, semiautobiographical project from one of its own executives, Beats Electronics co-founder Dr. Dre. Vital Signs, from veteran music video director Paul Hunter and writer Robert Munic (Empire), is planned as six half-hour episodes, each focused on a different emotion that Dre’s character experiences. It likely will be distributed via Apple’s $9.99-a-month music streaming service. The move to bolster programming for the 7-monthold service comes after Apple spent the better part of 2015 in talks with TV networks about creating a “skinny” programming bundle that it would…
