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.
THE BROADCAST NETWORKS HEAD INTO THE critical upfront advertising market with one debatable new hit (NBC’s Blindspot), while the last series to break out (Fox’s Empire) is showing weaker live ratings compared with its meteoric inaugural run. CBS is the only Big Four network that isn’t down in the critical 18-to-49 demographic, thanks to airing the 2016 Super Bowl, while ABC has fallen the most (nearly 20 percent). The industry is in a state of flux — yet the market still is expected to be good to broadcast TV this year. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke asserted that NBC will be “in the pole position” going into negotiations. And CBS Corp. president, chairman and CEO Leslie Moonves says he’s “salivating” at the chance to dive into the upfront season. Despite the…
CBS AGENT 1: Theoretically, you go to CBS because they’re the most consistent shop and they have the most stable schedule. What’s unique about this year is that they typically launch five new series and two or three are hits, and it was a real struggle this year. AGENT 2: In comedy, you know exactly what works for them: big stars in big, multicamera vehicles that you could not see — nor could you really sell — anywhere else, unless you want to be on Friday night at ABC, and that’s not where big stars want to go. It’s getting harder to get stars to come to broadcast, but at least with CBS actors know what they’re getting into. So they’ve attracted the best actors — Matt LeBlanc, Kevin James,…
THEY’RE ACCUSATIONS. There’s no obligation to mention them.” It was September 2014, and I was preparing to interview a journalist about his biography of Bill Cosby, which omitted allegations of rape and sexual abuse against the entertainer. A producer at my network was warning me against focusing on the omissions. There was no conviction. It wasn’t news. So we compromised. I would raise the allegations with just one question late in the interview. On air, the author said he’d looked into the allegations, and they didn’t check out. A month later, those allegations were everywhere. The author apologized. And reporters covering Cosby (myself included) were forced to examine decades of questions unasked, stories untold. Shortly before the Cosby story exploded, my sister Dylan had told her own story — alleging…
ON MAY 9, FOR A FLEETING FEW MINUTES, it seemed like the legal saga engulfing media mogul Sumner Redstone was about to fade away. A judge tossed out former girlfriend Manuela Herzer’s lawsuit demanding she be reinstated as his health agent, removing a distraction that dogged investors and employees of Viacom and CBS for nearly six months. Then the next wave hit: Herzer’s attorneys immediately filed a new lawsuit, this time against daughter Shari Redstone, her two sons and several of Sumner’s home staffers. The legal action seeking $100 million in compensation claims the defendants conspired to turn the 92-year-old billionaire against her. As if that wasn’t enough, gossip website Radar Online released a salacious series of phone calls purportedly made by Sumner Redstone trying to set up orgies for…
DEAL OF THE WEEK WHEN ACTOR Alden Ehrenreich was emerging as a finalist in the hunt for Han Solo this year, the 26-yearold sent an email to his close friends. He asked them to change their email addresses, especially if their handles included their names, because what he potentially was doing would bring them undue scrutiny. That proved a prophetic move after Lucasfilm and Disney indeed settled on Ehrenreich (CAA, Brillstein, Felker Toczek) to play one of cinema’s most iconic characters in their stand-alone Star Wars movie about the roguish space smuggler, set for a May 25, 2018, release. It was one of the widest casting calls to date, according to sources, beginning in the fall and culminating in more than 2,500 actors meeting in person or putting themselves on…
Meternity (Mira) BY Meghann Foye AGENCY Gersh The Redbook editor’s lighthearted novel about an overworked New York City magazine editor faking a pregnancy to carve out some “me time” has generated buzz as well as outraged backlash from real-life overworked moms. Spindle Fire (HarperCollins) BY Lexa Hillyer AGENCY UTA The solo effort from the co-founder of literary incubator Paper Lantern (Legacy of Kings), out in 2017, is a multibook YA reimagining of Sleeping Beauty in which the title princess must save her dream realm from a mad faerie while her blind half-sister embarks on a dangerous journey in the real world.…
