Innholdsfortegnelse for 12/16/2016 i The Hollywood Reporter

HOW TO MAKE A ‘CULTURALLY AUTHENTIC’ MOVIE ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS Deal of the Week The Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s successful appeal to divert the Dakota Access Pipeline one day may make a great film. In the meantime, Native American onscreen representation remains minimal, accounting for less than 1 percent of characters in the top 800 films from 2007 to 2015, according to a USC study published in September. But a new project from Fox 2000 may offer a rare bright spot amid those dismal statistics. The studio has acquired Sherman Alexie’s 2007 YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Fox 2000 president Elizabeth Gabler has put the coming-of-age story on the fast track with a highprofile producing lineup: Hugh Jackman, Temple Hill’s Wyck Godfrey and Isaac…

People, Places, Preoccupations The question of the glass ceiling took on renewed urgency this year as the possibility of the first female president of the U.S. slipped away Nov. 8. But there’s no containing the ambition of the Power 100 — industry superheroines from Shari Redstone, who triumphed in a complex battle over the future of Viacom, to ABC Entertainment Group president Channing Dungey, the first black woman (or, for that matter, black person) to hold the top post at a broadcast network. Both women are in the Head of the Class, an elite group of 14 leaders who made standout strides in 2016; they along with all the honorees are profiled in the Women in Entertainment issue (available to subscribers and at THR.com) and will be celebrated at the…

Bob Iger, Dana Walden, Lachlan Murdoch, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry David, Bill Maher, UTA’s Jeremy Zimmer, and ICM Partners’ Eddy Yablans and John Burnham checked into Brentwood’s Toscana separately. … Lea Michele caught up with Emma Roberts at Marvin. Demi Moore was at another table with daughters Rumer Willis and Tallulah Willis. … At The Palm, ex-Paramount chief Sherry Lansing dined with current Paramount chief Brad Grey. Brian Grazer and Gotham Group’s Stacey Lubliner sat nearby. Irving Azoff broke bread with Jeffrey Katzenberg. Michael Govan also was there. … Bob Gersh, Steve Tisch, Harry Sloan and CAA’s Shelly Sroloff popped by Nerano in Beverly Hills. HOT NEW RESTAURANT Red Herring The Quick Pitch Eagle Rock’s young-family demo gets its date-night prayers answered with this lively but not rowdy offering from chef-owner…

Telvision President-elect Donald Trump isn’t the only public figure dodging press pools these days. In an unprecedented move, top media executives revealed Nov. 29 that they are turning their backs on the Television Critics Association — the ramshackle body of critics and journalists that meets twice annually in L.A. The biggest news generators during each two-week parade of talent and suits typically are the executive sessions. But three of the Big Four chiefs backed out of the firing-squad pressers for January’s meet-up — after initially passing, Fox now will participate — and Starz’s Chris Albrecht and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos pulled their outlets completely. It’s a blow to the organization and to journalists eager to hear top brass sound off about linear ratings fatigue, election aftermath and the evolution of the…

AWARDS SEASON 2016 Oscar’s never been much of a song-anddance man. Consider his treatment of 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, widely considered the best movie musical of all time (it ranks No. 1 on the AFI list of the greatest movie musicals). Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s toe-tapper scored just two nominations — a supporting actress mention for screechy-voiced star Jean Hagen and another for music scoring — and won neither. Consider, too, how often the Motion Picture Academy overlooked Hollywood’s top musical performers. During the course of his career, Kelly got just one best actor nom, for 1945’s Anchors Aweigh, and, as compensation, a 1952 honorary Oscar recognizing his choreographic work. Similarly, Fred Astaire was ignored until he was given an honorary Oscar in 1950 and then, late in…

Hangouts N ew York’s financial district used to embody the very definition of “sleepy after sunset,” but now walk into the area’s new Four Seasons or Beekman hotels, both of which opened in September, and the lobby bars pulse with two of the city’s buzziest scenes. At the Four Seasons (99 Church St.), the crowd spills over from Cut, an outpost of Wolfgang Puck’s power steak house — and his first proper restaurant in NYC. Like its West Coast sibling, it’s a magnet for Hollywood: Leonardo DiCaprio recently visited with buddy Mark Ruffalo; a few nights later, Kate Winslet dropped in. The soaring Beekman hotel (123 Nassau St.), originally built in the 19th century, also is luring names with two hot new restaurants: Fowler & Wells, a gilded American spot…

The hard thing with adapting It’s Only the End of the World is the playwright [Jean-Luc Lagarce] has a peculiar style that is completely incompatible with movies and how we talk in real life. The first time I read it, I was disoriented and unsure about pretty much everything. How [the characters] would correct their own grammar and were so aggressive — it was not right for me. One day, I don’t know what it was, I pulled it off my shelf and suddenly understood and appreciated this weird and verbose writing style. I knew I didn’t want to lose his style and energy, but I wanted to make it more cinematic and accessible. It’s a story of a man going home to his relatives to say he’s going to…

↑ Digital Amazon Acrimony Good Girls Revolt and a streamer’s issues p. 18 Deals Merger Mania AT&T-Time Warner seeks Trump’s blessing p. 20 Beyonce Queen Bey tops the Grammy nominations with nine, and her Lemonade will face off against Adele, Justin Bieber, Drake and Sturgill Simpson for the coveted album of the year. Scott and Deirdre Gurney The Duck Dynasty producers are put on leave at ITV amid a fraud investigation said to concern billing practices at their Gurney Productions. Jimmy Kimmel The ABC star will become the 10th person to host both the Oscars and Emmys but the first to do it in one year. Mike Lazzo The Adult Swim executive vp cancels controversial comedy Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace after its co-creator Sam Hyde’s connection to the…

With a crowded midseason lineup, CBS is taking a page from an old playbook and has scheduled an original scripted program for the TV wasteland known as Saturday. Ransom, a procedural from producer Frank Spotnitz (The Man in the High Castle), will air at 8 p.m. Saturdays starting Jan. 7, marking the first time since Walker, Texas Ranger aired in 2001 that CBS has broadcast a scripted original series on the night now known as TV’s dumping ground. Of course, Saturday once was a hot programming night, with such hits as The Honeymooners, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi. Broadcasters pulled out of Saturdays as viewers turned to premium cable networks for movies and, eventually, original programming. Ad dollars shifted to Thursdays and Sundays as viewers under…

Moonglow (HARPERCOLLINS) BY Michael Chabon AGENCY UTA The acclaimed novelist and occasional screenwriter (John Carter, Spider-Man 2) has won rave reviews for his latest, in which a dying man finally opens up to his grandson with a wild tale about his life, from World War II to the space program. Dear Miss Sweetie (PUTNAM CHILDREN’S) BY Stacey Lee AGENCY Gersh With inclusive female-led stories in demand, this 1890s Atlantaset YA novel, out in 2018, follows a Chinese teen who moonlights as a supposedly white newspaper advice columnist to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman.…

Quotes “They were so good for butt itching.” JENNIFER LAWRENCE The Passengers actress, telling a story about how rubbing herself against a rock nearly caused a crewmember’s death while filming The Hunger Games. “[It] ended up coming loose. … And it rolled down this mountain and almost killed our sound guy “They might buy your CD or watch your movie, but you don’t put food on their table. You don’t pay their bills. A lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble.” MARK WAHLBERG The Patriots Day actor, expressing his belief that stars are “out of touch with the common person” and should not talk politics. “I think hell is Instagram. … We get sent to hell, we get like locked in the Instagram server.” JUSTIN BIEBER The pop star,…

1925-2016 Tribute The day in 1981 that Grant Tinker left MTM Entertainment to become chairman and CEO of NBC Entertainment felt like the day after our recent presidential election. All of us MTM writers were more than a little lost, as though our spiritual leader had abandoned us. It’s hard to overestimate the impact Grant had on television as the architect of that unique production company at that unique time. He did something that no one else had ever done before him in television. He brought forth a generation of writers, including Jim Brooks (Mary Tyler Moore, Lou Grant), Gary Goldberg (Family Ties), Hugh Wilson (WKRP in Cincinnati) and myself, among many others, whom he empowered to become showrunners, and he nurtured and protected our creative freedom. The result was…

TWO LAPD OFFICERS WORKING THE 15-ADAM-85 BEAT RESPONDED TO A CALL ABOUT A SUSPICIOUS DEATH. They came to a well-tended home in Studio City around noon on Sept. 21, 2010. In one of three bedrooms, they found Amy Breliant, an aspiring actress and model from Beverly Hills. She was slouched over on a bed wearing a blue shirt, a computer in her lap. Crime scene photos show a syringe and cellphone in one hand and a string of rosary beads around her neck. A tinfoil ball with an off-white substance, a spoon and a green lighter lay next to her. She had been dead for several hours. A roommate who had made the 911 call told the coroner he had been staying with Breliant for two months to “help her…

Chris Meledandri may spend most of his time at Illumination Entertainment’s headquarters in Santa Monica, but he always has an eye on the company’s animators in Paris. The company’s main office occupies a loftlike space in Santa Monica that houses as many as 100 employees at one time — among them, its story teams as well as the marketing forces commanded by Gail Harrison. Meanwhile, more than 5,600 miles away, just blocks from the Eiffel Tower, stands the actual studio, Illumination Mac Guff — home to more than 850 animators overseen by Janet Healy, who serves as copresident of the animation facility alongside its founder Jacques Bled. With three to four films in various stages of production at any one time, the work goes on around the clock — literally.…

Three and a half decades since Pedro Almodovar launched his storied career, the Spanish director (Talk to Her, All About My Mother) has yet to helm an English-language picture. But, he tells THR, with his new film, Julieta (opening in the U.S. on Dec. 21 via Sony Pictures Classics) — about a woman who looks back on her life and the steps that led her to lose her daughter — he came awfully close. This movie is based on short stories by Alice Munro. You were going to film it as Silence, in English, with Meryl Streep. What happened? There was a big reason to make it in English, because the original [material] was in English. Then I thought about someone to work with, and I was in New York,…

It’s not exactly rare for a foreign-language entry to go against the current political regime of the country it’s representing (just look at 2014 nominee Leviathan, which was seen widely as a cinematic slap in the face for Putin’s Russia). But the manner in which this year’s Egyptian entry Clash — set during the still highly contentious 2013 coup — has rattled the cages of its military-controlled homeland surely is something unseen before. Shot entirely in the back of a police van, Clash takes place amid one of the many violent street protests that erupted in Cairo in the summer of 2013 between supporters and opponents of the then-elected Muslim Brotherhood government, an uprising that would help army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi sweep into power. The problem for director Mohamed…

AWARDS SEASON 2 0 1 6 So it’s Manchester by the Sea? No, wait, it’s La La Land! Hold on a sec, it’s Moonlight! There’s just no consensus among the first wave of critics’ groups By Scott Feinberg PICTURE Arrival Denis Villeneuve’s brainy sci-fi movie made an unexpectedly strong showing at the Critics’ Choice nominations, earning 10, behind only La La Land and on par with Moonlight. It also crossed $100 million worldwide. The Founder Early critical response to the saga of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, played by Michael Keaton, mostly has been positive — it’s at 84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes — but it has yet to get any mention from the critics groups that have weighed in. DIRECTOR Clint Eastwood • Sully Normally a darling of the National…

When Jude Demorest first was asked to read for Lee Daniels’ Empire follow-up, Star (Dec. 14), it wasn’t for the title role of a girl group leader. But it didn’t take long for the Detroit native to change producers’ minds. “Lee was already calling me ‘Star’ in the audition,” she says. The soapy Fox series’ triple demand of acting, singing and dancing was an easy fit for Demorest, who began performing in church at a young age. She made the move west at 16 when her sister got a job in L.A. “I didn’t even tell my school I was leaving, didn’t get my books out of my locker,” she says. “I just left.” She quickly found work as an actress, appearing in such series as Disney Channel’s Jonas and…

Sometimes a person’s impact on your life and your work doesn’t come into clear focus until you’re asked to write about it. Grant Tinker, I now realize, had a huge impact on mine. All of us in the television business knew the kind of person he was and what he stood for, how he protected and championed the creative process so that writers could hold on to the purity of their vision. He understood that some shows take a while to grab hold of an audience and that the more unique the show, the longer it often takes. As a producer and network executive, he set a high bar for the rest of us. He gave us the examp and the courage, to be fierce in those jobs,…

Accidental Love David O. Russell disavowed this 2015 Jake Gyllenhaal dramedy (originally titled Nailed) after it was caught up in the bankruptcy of companies led by backer David Bergstein and eventually finished by another director. Coming to America Art Buchwald sued Paramount claiming that the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy copied his script idea and the studio cooked books to show a loss despite a $288 million gross. It settled; Buchwald received $900,000. Kurt & Courtney Sundance yanked Nick Broomfield’s 1998 documentary on Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love after Love threatened to sue over the unauthorized use of Nirvana music. Broomfield replaced the tunes. Margaret A six-year legal battle over Kenneth Lonergan’s 2011 drama — a fight that involved final cut and such players as Fox Searchlight, financier Gary Gilbert, and…

Warren Boyd isn’t the only big name in the Los Angeles sober-living world facing allegations. Chris Bathum, 55, sits in a county jail after pleading not guilty to multiple counts of insurance fraud, money laundering, grand theft and sexual assault. Bathum, who was arrested in November, headed up a company called Community RecoveryLos Angeles, a chain of more than 20 sober-living houses and addiction-treatment facilities. Bathum’s alleged crimes include fraudulent insurance claims topping $176 million, $44 million of which was paid out before insurers began to suspect fraud, according to the L.A. District Attorney’s office. Nancy Kincaid, a spokesperson for theCalifornia Department of Insurance (which participated in the sting operation that led to his arrest) tells THR that her office has seen multiple complaints from insurers about suspected fraud involving…