Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/25/2016 i The Hollywood Reporter

It’s not every day I go out and decide to take on extra work. Trust me, I have plenty. But when I heard that our senior awards editor Anna Lisa Raya had booked our first-ever Songwriter Roundtable and needed a moderator, I raised my hand. On Nov. 7, it was my pleasure to greet six of the biggest talents in music today: Justin Timberlake (who not only wrote and performs Trolls’ “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” but stars in the movie), Alicia Keys (Queen of Katwe’s “Back to Life”), Pharrell Williams (Hidden Figures’ “I See a Victory,” a film Williams produced), Sting (“The Empty Chair” from the documentary Jim: The James Foley Story), John Legend (“Start a Fire” from La La Land) and Tori Amos (“Flicker,” from the anti-bullying doc Audrie…

$7.6M Silver’s purchase price in 2012. He used the property for a $15.6 million loan When Joel Silver purchased the iconic Venice Post Office building in 2012, the producer of The Matrix and Lethal Weapon films told elected officials that converting the 1939 building into the headquarters of Silver Pictures would result in jobs, free arts-related programs and the preservation of historical features — including the famous Story of Venice mural that adorned the building’s entry for 70 years. Four years on, Silver’s pledge has become a debacle. The structure at 1601 Main St. is covered in graffiti and scaffolding. Signs warn squatters to keep out. “It’s an eyesore,” says Teddy, a tattoo artist and barber who works across the street and who regularly sees people urinating and defecating at…

Television The so-called Golden Age of Television is living up to its name for many top talents. With more than 50 outlets now producing scripted original programming (and competing for available stars and producers), the price tag for Hollywood’s upper echelon has skyrocketed beyond what longtime TV insiders have ever seen. At the same time, fees are so high (and material so diverse and alluring) that the final holdouts among film actors are migrating to the small screen. Robert De Niro is getting $750,000 for each of 20 episodes of an upcoming Amazon series produced by filmmaker David O. Russell. Kiefer Sutherland is said to be getting around $300,000 per episode to star in ABC’s fall hit Designated Survivor, the highest pay ever for an actor on a first-year broadcast…

BEHIND THE SCR EEN AWARDS SEASON 2 0 1 6 Astampede of new, computer-generated magical animals from the imagination of J.K. Rowling will be let loose on the screen when Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first of a five-film follow-up to the Harry Potter franchise, opens Nov. 18. Author Rowling described their powers in detail, but it was up to the visual effects team on the $180 million production to figure out how the whole menagerie should look and move. “We were briefed that they should look like real animals, not fancy animals — creatures you might come across if you were on a safari, but slightly odd,” says Tim Burke, who served as VFX supervisor with Christian Manz. The pair are both Harry Potter…

In 1969, Paramount asked Francis Ford Coppola to make Mario Puzo’s The Godfather into a film. “I intended to turn the project down,” he writes in the introduction to his new book about the movie, which went on to gross $245 million and win three Oscars. “It was more commercial and salacious than my own taste.” But the young father, then 30 and coming off Finian’s Rainbow, ultimately needed a paycheck, and a second reading changed his mind about the book. “[It] fell away in my mind, revealing a story that was a metaphor for American capitalism in the tale of a great king with three sons.” To organize his thoughts, Coppola made a “prompt book,” a theater trick he learned in college at Hofstra. Into a three-ring binder he…

In 2006, after six seasons, Gilmore Girls separated from its creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, following her contractual dispute with Warner Bros. Television. Fans, watching a seventh season steered by a new showrunner on The CW, noticed that motherdaughter besties Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) no longer talked the way they used to or related to each other with the same affection. The ending didn’t feel like the right ending. Now, after nine years expanding its reach on DVD and various streaming platforms, Gilmore Girls returns on Netflix — and, importantly, the show’s creator returns with it. Netflix wisely sent the entirety of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life to critics because while the miniseries’ structural conceit — it’s divided into four movie-length “episodes” — is more distracting…

Not since John F. Kennedy, whose father, Joseph P. Kennedy, had once owned a major movie studio, and Ronald Reagan, movie star and California governor, has a president-elect been on such familiar terms with the leaders of the American media business. And to add to all the other Donald Trump paradoxes — rich man but populist leader, social liberal but head of the Republican Party, libertine but beloved by evangelicals — he’s a mogul buddy but at war with the media. CBS Corp. chairman Leslie Moonves, Disney chairman Bob Iger, 21st Century Fox and News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, WME-IMG co-CEO Ari Emanuel, CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker, former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and Viacom and CBS controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone (and his daughter, Shari, now running her…

Hollywood, Nov. 12 The Academy’s Other Awards Fete Was a Winner This year’s edition of the Governors Awards — AMPAS’ less stressful, non-televised ceremony, also at Hollywood & Highland — was its most polished yet. Worthy honorees ranged from pioneering film editor Anne V. Coates and documentary legend Frederick Wiseman to bar-setting casting director Lynn Stalmaster and martial arts master Jackie Chan (2). Jeff Bridges, Don Cheadle and Tom Hanks presented their awards while Helen Mirren toasted the recipients and everyone from Jonah Hill to Werner Herzog mingled. The event itself is now an essential station on the awardsseason whistle-stop tour as tables were filled with Oscar hopefuls including Emma Stone, Barry Jenkins, Octavia Spencer and Mark Wahlberg.…

Weddings Lauren Gaba, creative coordinator of marketing at CAA, married Brian Flanagan, COO of Mythical Entertainment and executive producer of The Night Manager, on Oct. 15 at the Gaba family summer home in Montecito, Calif. The bride wore Oscar de la Renta, and the couple will honeymoon in Europe. Heather Weiss, COO of East 2 West Collective, married musician Kevin Besignano on Oct. 29 at Camarillo Ranch House in Camarillo, Calif., surrounded by 125 guests. Births UTA comedy agent Susie Fox and her husband, TV writer Adam Schulman, welcomed daughter Lucy Jayne Schulman on Oct. 14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Congrats Universal Pictures promoted Simon Hewlett to president of international marketing Nov. 11. Mike Marshall was appointed president of business affairs at Columbia Pictures on Nov. 8.…

In 2014, Edgar Ramirez experienced what every watch collector fears most: His timepieces were stolen from his apartment in Caracas, Venezuela. “I had just come back from the movies and saw all of my things on the floor. I didn’t have a safe, and the watches were in my kitchen because that was the place I would put them on before I left the house. They stole the only valuable thing that I had, which was my watches,” says the actor, 39. It wasn’t the loss of the objects that bothered Ramirez so much as the trespassing on the moments in his life that each piece represented. To Ramirez — who was studying to become a diplomat before he decided to pursue acting in 2002 — his growing watch collection…

Turns out the heralded smartwatch revolution hasn’t dethroned highend watches on the wrists of Hollywood’s elite. In third-quarter 2016 (before the new launch), Apple Watch sales declined a precipitous 72 percent compared with last year’s period. “I know quite a few men who’ve retired their Apple watches,” observes executive style consultant Dana Asher Levine. “The women still seem to be wearing their Hermes Apple — mainly for counting steps.” But traditional timepieces remain high on industry wish lists. These below start at $5K (for steel models), $19K (for gold) and can easily range into the high-five figures for complicated pieces. MEN ELEGANT SPORT WATCHES Ask industry execs to describe their ideal work watch, and one style reigns supreme: a combination of sporty and dressy elements in one perfect-for-L.A. package —…

Gather six of Hollywood’s top singersongwriters and what you get, not surprisingly, is more like a symphony than an ordinary conversation. Each of the celebrated artists on THR’s first-ever Songwriter Roundtable — Alicia Keys, 35 (who composed “Back to Life” for Queen of Katwe); Justin Timberlake, 35 (“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” for Trolls, in which he also stars); Tori Amos, 53 (“Flicker” for Audrie & Daisy); previous Oscar nominees Sting, 65 (“The Empty Chair” for Jim: The James Foley Story), and Pharrell Williams, 43 (“I See a Victory” for Hidden Figures, which he also produced); and 2015 Oscar winner John Legend, 37 (“Start a Fire” for La La Land) — has a unique voice that came through loud and clear as they shared their artistic and political passions. On Nov.…

Six years ago, Hollywood learned that Ronni Chasen, one of its grande dame film publicists, had been gunned down while driving along a leafy stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills just after midnight. On Nov. 16, 2010, she had been heading home from the afterparty at the W Hollywood hotel for the premiere of Burlesque. Chasen represented producer Donald De Line and lighting designer Peggy Eisenhauer as well as songwriter Diane Warren, whose tune, “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” was sung in the film by Cher. “Me and Ronni were so excited,” Warren told THR days later. “It was just the funnest night.” Added De Line: “She was being her usual mother-hen self. It was so not anything out of the ordinary. Just like a hundred…

OPENS Friday, Nov. 18 (Warner Bros.) CAST Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton DIRECTOR David Yates Rated PG-13, 132 minute The author of a textbook used by a magic student named Harry Potter gets his own franchise in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Working from the first screenplay penned directly by J.K. Rowling, David Yates’ film is likely to draw in nearly all Potter fans and please many of them. The picture also has things for mere casual observers of the Potter phenomenon, though those viewers may be less convinced that the spinoff demands the five feature-length films Warner Bros. and Rowling have planned. Eddie Redmayne makes an ideal Newt Scamander, who’s endearingly sheepish around humans but gifted with the nifflers,…

A s for many of you, last Tuesday was a very bad day for me. It actually didn’t start out that way. As I boarded a 7 p.m. flight for home, I couldn’t have been more confident. Then I began to get intermittent Wi-Fi and, off and on, I saw results that weren’t supposed to happen. As alarmed emails flooded in, the inconceivable started to become very real. By the time I landed, it was over. It’s now been a week since this heartwrenching, devastating event. However, this morning the sun still rose, the world still turned, the flag still waved. Many times during the past week, I’ve been asked by family, friends and colleagues what I think it all means. So, I thought I’d write down some thoughts in…

Los Angeles, Nov. 9 Party Crawler An Election Hangover as Hollywood Toasts THR’s Next Gen 2016 On the evening following Donald Trump’s win as president-elect, Hollywood’s fastest-rising executives and actors gathered at Nightingale Plaza for The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Next Gen party, sponsored by American Airlines and Audi. “It was a bright spot in an otherwise murky day,” said Verve agent and Next Gen honoree Melissa Solomon (7), whose father, Tennis Channel CEO Ken Solomon (7), previously made the list and joined her in taking selfies at the party. “It’s fun to share this with him,” she said. Keeping it in the family, Amazon’s Morgan Wandell (3) (another Next Gen alum) came out to support his cousin, FX’s Kevin Wandell (3), who was part of the 2016 list. Said Disney’s…

Anti-Gentrification Fight Comes to ‘Art-Washing’ UTA On Sept. 18, the morning after UTA Artist Space opened in L.A.’s Boyle Heights with a Larry Clark exhibit, a fake eviction notice was posted, citing agency partner Jim Berkus, head of fine arts Joshua Roth, ex-client Johnny Depp, current clients Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers, Lena Dunham and “others of Beverly Hills” for “displacement of working class and low-income residents.” Signed “the People of Boyle Heights,” it was placed there by BHAAAD, a coalition of groups against “art-washing” and gentrification, and called for closing the space. “These galleries aren’t meant for the community,” Joshua Hernandez of Defend Boyle Heights tells THR on Clark’s photos of teens shooting up. “We still struggle with addiction. It was for an affluent group, so this is commodifying…

Executive Suite For the past two years, Lisa Nishimura and her husband have been renovating their Mar Vista home, slowly assembling what she calls “our humble little dream house,” as she simultaneously builds Netflix’s influence in documentaries. The executive, who brought hit Making a Murderer to the streamer, and her 10-person team have been assembling a slate of projects almost as eclectic as her personal taste, which, when it comes to home design, leans toward Danish furniture and Japanese art. Among new offerings: Ava DuVernay’s look at mass incarceration in 13th, poaching doc The Ivory Game and Werner Herzog’s sweeping volcano pic Into the  Inferno. Nishimura, 45, now looks increasingly like Netflix’s best hope to bring home its first Oscar this year. “It’s important to us because it’s important to…

AWARDS SEASON 2 0 1 6 Donald Trump’s election was a wake-up call for liberal Hollywood — which, of course, is most of Hollywood — and right now throughout the industry, it’s mourning in America. It wasn’t just a rejection of all of the prominent Hollywood players who were front and center in Hillary Clinton’s campaign — from Haim Saban and Rob Reiner to Barbra Streisand and Beyonce. Insofar as the election also represented what CNN commentator Van Jones has called a “whitelash,” it was a rejection of the multicultural ideal — with all its talk of diversity and inclusion — that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has put at the top of its agenda. Don’t look for a Trump appearance at the upcoming Feb. 26 broadcast…

In La La Land, director Damien Chazelle’s heralded love letter to jazz and Los Angeles, pianist Sebastian, played by Ryan Gosling, laments that jazz is a dying art form. Jeff Garlin begs to differ. The Emmy-nominated producer, comedian and star of ABC’s The Goldbergs — who has been a jazz aficionado for 35 years and says the music even influences his improvisational stand-up style — insists L.A. is on the verge of a major jazz rebirth. “Hell yes,” says Garlin, “L.A. is turning into a hip place for jazz with a lot of great young players.” The comedian is hardly the only A-lister happy to use his name (and checkbook) to keep the scene growing — others include such hardcore jazz buffs as Billy Crystal, Bill Maher, Kevin Spacey, Tommy…

Clint Eastwood was a 21-year-old draftee during the Korean War when his plane went down. He was the only passenger in a Douglas AD torpedo bomber, flying in severe weather off the coast of Northern California, when the pilot told him they were going to attempt an emergency landing in the shark-infested waters off Point Reyes. “We went down at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon,” Eastwood, 86, recalls of the crash and his swim back to shore. “I could see the Marin County coast from a distance. I don’t know how far it was — it seemed like 50 miles, but it was probably a mile or two. Then it got dark. It was quite a way into nightfall before we reached it.” It is perhaps not surprising that…