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EARLIER THIS YEAR, a fight broke out at HBO over a punctuation mark. Should a Veep poster riffing on President Obama’s famous “Hope” tagline read “Maybe?” or “Maybe!”? The network preferred a question mark, but showrunner David Mandel wanted the exclamation point. Weeks later, after hearing Mandel plead his case, then-comedy chief Casey Bloys called him about another issue. “At one point in that conversation, he stops and goes, ‘By the way, you were right about the exclamation point,’ ” recalls Mandel. “To have an executive who in your lifetime says to you, ‘You were right’ about something, I’d elect him president of the United States, never mind president of HBO programming.” Bloys wouldn’t need Mandel’s vote. On May 23, the 12-year network veteran was appointed to that position, replacing…
KEY EVENTS MAY 27, 2015 Sumner’s Party The mogul’s “passion to party”-themed 92nd birthday bash thrown by then-girlfriends Sydney Holland and Manuela Herzer is the last time he’s been seen in public. AUGUST-OCTOBER 2015 Sumner Boots His Ladies Redstone dumps Holland after learning she wasn’t faithful and later ejects Herzer from his home and removes her as his healthcare proxy, giving control to Philippe Dauman. NOVEMBER 2015 Dauman: Redstone Is ‘Engaged and Attentive’ After Herzer sues to be reinstated and claims Sumner is “a living ghost,” Dauman counters in a court filing, “We [just] had an extensive business discussion.” FEBRUARY Dauman: Redstone Wants to Sell Dauman says he visited Redstone in his home and asked whether he wanted to sell a stake in Paramount Pictures. Dauman tells the Viacom board…
AS SHARI REDSTONE MOVES to gain control over Viacom, her father’s replacement of Philippe Dauman and George Abrams with National Amusements lawyer Tad Jankowski and Shari ally Jill Krutick as trustees on the trust that will control his media empire marks a dramatic provocation (Krutick and Sumner granddaughter Kimberlee Ostheimer also joined the NA board). Sumner, who turns 93 on May 27, next could sack Dauman, 62, from Viacom’s board, too, although corporate bylaws, litigation and the prospect of paying Dauman a massive severance will factor into whether to move quickly or play the long game. Shari, 62, and Sumner are demonstrating confidence by asking a California court to affirm his trust changes. They may feel emboldened by a judge’s April dismissal of the health-care lawsuit brought by Redstone’s ex-companion…
WHEN SONY Pictures’ second trailer for its female-fronted Ghostbusters reboot appeared online May 18, fans initially had to find it on Facebook. The studio had switched from YouTube, which hosted the first trailer, in a deliberate effort to combat a cacophony of negative reaction emanating from a very vocal minority online. With the YouTube trailer, bloggers could embed the player on their sites to congregate negativity on Sony’s official YouTube channel, a move akin to spraying toxic green slime all over the studio. As a result, the Ghostbusters teaser was dubbed the most disliked trailer ever — not the kind of buzz Sony or director Paul Feig want just months before the $150 million comedy’s July 15 release. Given the high stakes riding on the franchise reboot starring Melissa McCarthy,…
LONGTIME 60 MINUTES CORRESPONDENT MORLEY SAFER, who died May 19 at the age of 84, had spent an astounding 46 years on the program, joining just two years after it launched. Safer changed war reporting when he revealed video of U.S. servicemen setting fire to Vietnamese villages in 1965. But he also was an artist, and among the first things he did when he was on the road was to paint a still life of his hotel room. Here, 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager remembers his friend and colleague: Some of the most fun I had with Morley was pranking each other or pranking other people. Morley and Mike Wallace got [60 Minutes creator and executive producer] Don Hewitt so badly that they thought he might have a heart…
IN 2012, STEVE CARBONE, known online as Reality Steve, settled the first of two lawsuits brought by producers of ABC’s The Bachelor franchise: For at least five years, Carbone agreed he wouldn’t solicit any information on the show from cast or crew. Flash forward to this season of The Bachelorette, which began May 23. Even before the premiere, Carbone had revealed the man who wins JoJo Fletcher’s heart. How has a Texas-based man turned spoiling into a fulltime job despite the wrath of Hollywood lawyers? The lawsuits may have changed Carbone’s tactics, but they haven’t slowed him down. The terms of the settlement require only that he not solicit information from people under contract to the show. He waits for spoilers to come to him — and they do, says…
