Innholdsfortegnelse for February 24, 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

One afternoon in October, ABC Studios’ Cort Cass settled in to hear yet another sitcom pitch. This one, billed as Modern Family meets The Wonder Years, centered on a widowed Midwestern dad who tries to connect with his three teenage kids as he re-enters the dating pool. The more the vp comedy development listened, the more he liked it. The idea had humor and heart, and it was personal in a way that ABC breakout Black-ish had been. But this pitch was different: It came not from a Kenya Barris or a Shonda Rhimes but rather from Jon Moze, a 29-year-old video distribution specialist in Disney’s digital media department. With Cass’ endorsement, Moze now has become a winner in Disney’s second annual Pitch-a-Palooza, an internal competition designed to boost morale…

AWARDS S EASON 20 1 7 P ICTURE La La Land It didn’t manage a sweep, but it still took home five trophies, more than any other contender, at the BAFTA Awards, where it was named best film. And at home, it landed the Art Directors Guild’s prize for contemporary production design. Moonlight With Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney winning the USC Scripter Award, it’s the frontrunner for adapted screenplay, but its best picture prospects are problematic given that it went zero for four at the BAFTAs. ACTOR Casey Affleck Manchester by the Sea The Golden Globe winner, after missing out on a SAG Award, got some momentum back with his BAFTA victory, which came on the heels of a Santa Barbara Film Festival tribute. SUPPORTING ACTOR Dev Patel…

VITAL STATS AGE 31 BORN London BIG BREAK The Good Wife REPS ICM Partners, Curtis Brown Group, Wishlab T he Good Wife long was known for embracing politics, be it with cameos or art-imitates-life stories, but nothing could have prepared the team behind the CBS legal drama’s spinoff The Good Fight for the events of Nov. 8. “We were shooting the pilot next to where [Donald Trump’s election night] party was going to be,” recalls Cush Jumbo, who reprises her role as lawyer Lucca Quinn in The Good Fight. “It was packed with people and journalists and every TV truck in the world, and then none of us could get home. It was an interesting moment.” There would be many more as that premiere episode went through a series of rewrites to…

Hidden Figures will screen Feb. 15 on Capitol Hill, with Sen. Tim Kaine hosting alongside three other Dems, and helmer Theodore Melfi tells THR that even GOPers Sen. Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee have lauded it. “The film is the one thing that people can agree on,” says Melfi. Also capitalizing on the political spotlight with Oscar voting underway, Moonlight has partnered with My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a program launched by the Obama administration, for screenings in celebration of Black History Month. Fences castmembers including Viola Davis will host similar events. “To be part of a conversation that’s bigger, that’s an opportunity that is helpful and irresistible,” says Michael Feldman, founder of D.C.’s Glover Park Group, which is helping with the Figures event. “Every film has a different look, and…

London, Feb. 12 NAACP Image Awards Pasadena, Feb. 11 U.K. Awards Spotlight Trump President Donald Trump was the star of many of the speeches at the 70th EE BAFTA Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall. BAFTA chair Jane Lush kicked things off: “Such is the amount of British talent in Hollywood, I worry that someone will stick a wall across the Atlantic in a bid to keep us out!” Host Stephen Fry predictably offered a few Trump jokes as well, quipping, “If you didn’t win, I’m sure you will take it with grace and not reject the result by an individual judiciary.” BAFTA-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan (5) noted that after the election his daughter woke up in tears, and best supporting actress winner Viola Davis (3) condemned Trump’s post-Golden…

I use sound as a narrative tool,” says Guillermo del Toro, who will receive the Filmmaker Award during the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ 64th Golden Reel Awards on Feb. 19 at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles. Also set to be honored: supervising sound editor and sound designer Harry Cohen (Inglourious Basterds, The Hateful Eight, Deepwater Horizon), who is getting the Career Achievement Award. “The complete sound of a movie is delicately re-created from hundreds of layers of track and mixed over weeks and weeks to support the tone and narrative,” says Del Toro. “When you are impacted viscerally, it’s not just by the visuals, it’s the sound. Take a movie like Pan’s Labyrinth. Those quiet moments are made out of 20 to 30 tracks. You are creating a texture.…

AWARDS S EASON 20 1 7 A t the Visual Effects Society’s 15th annual Visual Effects Awards on Feb. 7, Disney’s The Jungle Book defeated formidable challengers like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to take home five trophies, including the top category: outstanding VFX in a photo-real feature (and on Feb. 12 won a BAFTA). But Jon Favreau’s film not only has earned admirers in the VFX community and proved a hit among moviegoers — the $175 million feature has grossed $966.6 million worldwide — it also points toward the future of “virtual production.” The Jungle Book’s VFX supervisor, Rob Legato, had experimented with earlier incarnations of the process, used in the plane crash in The Aviator and to allow James Cameron’s imagination to roam free with Avatar. So…

Mahershala Ali, just a few months ago, was all but unknown outside a small coterie in the entertainment industry. Despite more than a decade of solid credits in movies like The Hunger Games and such Netflix series as House of Cards and Luke Cage, the actor kept a low, paparazzi-less profile. That all changed with Moonlight, the low-budget drama about an African-American boy’s odyssey to manhood, which became a sensation in August at the Telluride Film Festival and is nominated for eight Oscars. Playing the kindly drug dealer Juan, Ali drew notice as the film’s breakout star (and further kudos in another best picture nominee, Hidden Figures), earning himself an Oscar nomination and winning a Screen Actors Guild Award for best supporting actor. It was at the SAG Awards on Jan. 29 that audiences learned much more…

Television Pitch-a-Palooza Disney looks within for show ideas p. 22 Digital Beastmaster Netflix’s global reality competition p. 24 Adele The singer’s five Grammy wins include a sweep of the album, song and record of the year categories (the only artist to do so twice), and even her flubbed George Michael tribute wins fans online. Samie Falvey The AwesomenessTV exec exits as her venture for premium shortform mobile content is shut down amid investor Verizon’s focus on its go90 streamer. Noah Oppenheim The Today show exec is the new president of NBC News, replacing Deborah Turness, who will shift to NBC News International. PewDiePie The YouTube phenom’s anti-Semitic videos prompt Disney to sever ties and Google to cancel his show. Showbiz Stocks $44.25 (+6.2%) VIACOM (VIAB) The conglomerate’s shares surged as…

With his abrupt exit from CBS News on Feb. 13, Josh Elliott now has left three jobs under a cloud. So where will the sports anchor go for his next act? He declined to comment, but insiders say it’s unlikely he’ll return to ESPN, where he anchored a weekday morning SportsCenter before jumping to ABC’s Good Morning America in 2011. He left three years later after rancorous contract talks with ABC News — then presided over by Ben Sherwood, now president of Disney-ABC Television Group. But Fox Sports is not out of the question: Jamie Horowitz, who runs cable networks Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, is known to have liked Elliott and is interested in exploring a role for him. Horowitz worked closely with Elliott at NBC during…

BERLIN FILM MARKET’S AMERICAN BOOM: ‘IT FEELS LIKE THE EARLY ’90S’ Deal of the Week MGM hasn’t been active at Berlin’s European Film Market for a while, but this year it landed the heavyweight championship belt. It paid $17.5 million — EFM’s biggest studio purchase ever — for worldwide rights to Fighting With My Family, to be written and helmed by Stephen Merchant. Inspired by a U.K. television documentary about a wrestling-obsessed family, the movie is produced by WWE, Film4 and Dwayne Johnson (who will make a cameo). “It was a script that many studios were fans of, but it was the package that resonated as something fresh and exciting,” says Christine D’Souza of WME, which sold the project. The aggressive move reflects the state of this year’s overall market,…

“We’re at The Hollywood Reporter smoking weed!” exclaimed rapper Wiz Khalifa at THR’s Feb. 6 Nominees Night, where A-listers from Isabelle Huppert to Jeff Bridges hardly could avoid a contact high as Wiz and DJ Ricky P shared a joint while spinning beats. California’s full legalization of marijuana may not take effect until 2018, but weed is proliferating at industry gatherings. At Viacom’s Jan. 27 ceremony feting its new Hollywood HQ, Snoop Dogg had one hand on the tracks and the other smoking a seemingly endless supply of pot, even as CEO Bob Bakish and vice chair Shari Redstone took the stage. Snoop’s G Pen Herbal Vaporizers were handed out as party favors. “Weed and marijuana culture has folded its way into the storylines of a lot of the film…

“Obviously we weren’t making her go get our coffee.” LENA DUNHAM The Girls star, on Malia Obama interning for the HBO show in the summer of 2015. “First of all, I do like football. Let me just make that clear.” MERYL STREEP The actress, clarifying in a Human Rights Campaign event speech her Golden Globes remark that without movies and TV, there would be nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts. “No dream is too big, no challenge is to great.” DONALD TRUMP POSTER The president’s official inauguration poster, which was taken down from the Library of Congress’ online store — where it was being sold for $16.95 — after social media users pointed out the spelling error. “This isn’t the first time executives have attempted to ‘put…

Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg shared a corner booth for breakfast at Tavern. … UTA agents Ramses IsHak and Michael Sheresky were at Angelini Osteria. Director Harold Becker sat nearby. … At Toscana, Jaclyn Smith, Fred Specktor, Kathleen Kennedy, Irving Azoff, Al Michaels and Jake Bloom had dinner, separately. Patrick Wachsberger, Bob Daly, Rob Reiner and Tom Pollock also were in. … George Clooney and pals dined at Craig’s. ... Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel ate at The Grove’s Blue Ribbon Sushi. HOT NEW RESTAURANT Farida The Quick Pitch George Abou-Daoud, one of Hollywood’s pioneering neighborhood restaurateurs (Bowery, Delancey), has reworked the longtime Magnolia address into a vibrant, homey modernist room named after his grandmother where he alternately pays homage and remixes the Mideast flavors of his youth. Aiming for…

Progress? Sure, but amid a celebration of racially inclusive nominations, the numbers for women are bleak as 17 of the anointed sound off on an industry-wide ‘shame’ and how to battle when ‘the situation is utterly rigged for young white dudes’ Don’t throw a rock at me, but I think that: A) The movie business is the best business for women and minorities in the world; and B) It’s a very exciting time to be a woman director. That being said, the situation is utterly rigged for young white dudes. Why is this the best business in the world for women and marginalized groups? Because this is an entirely reactive business full of easily shamed people; if the market says “Make X,” we make X. If social media says #OscarsSoWhite,…

In a category that often pays tribute to repeat performers (50-time nominee John Williams, anyone?), it’s a dramatic shift to have four first-timers vying with 14-time nominee (and composing family scion) Thomas Newman, 61, for the Oscar. Two — Volker Bertelmann, 50, and rocker Mica Levi, 29 — come from the alternative music world, while Newman, Justin Hurwitz, 32, and Nicholas Britell, 36, have more traditional music backgrounds. Here, all five share the inspirations for their nominated work, as distinct as the paths that brought them to this moment. Passengers (Sony) Newman turned to the sea for inspiration for his piano and electronic score to Morten Tyldum’s space odyssey, which opens with a bosun’s whistle: “In a movie like this, you’re creating your own vocabulary. The only thing I could…

Awards Watch L ily Collins has played a 1950s-era actress, a postapocalyptic hostage and a fantastical Snow White — and repeatedly championed the costume designers who helped her inhabit those lives. The Costume Designers Guild now will honor her with its Lacoste Spotlight Award on Feb. 21. From the set of The Last Tycoon, the Amazon series based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final unfinished novel, Collins, 27, tells THR about her first costumed experience, her affinity for Old Hollywood and her go-to outfit for penning her memoir. How do costumes help your acting? For certain characters, I sometimes make playlists and collect inspirational photos of the world or time period, and though I already feel very much immersed in the headspace of the character, the last step is getting into…

No one shuffles movies around quite like Harvey Weinstein. On Feb. 13, The Weinstein Co. pushed back the release of the Alicia Vikander starrer Tulip Fever for a third time. The move was made just days before the drama was scheduled to open Feb. 24, a shift that once would have raised eyebrows but has become routine. Shot nearly three years ago, Tulip Fever already was moved from a July 15, 2016, slot. At the time, TWC cited Vikander’s and Waltz’s busy promotion schedules for other movies as a reason for the change. Then, Weinstein COO David Glasser said, “It made the most sense to open when they’ll have more time.” TWC hasn’t rescheduled Tulip Fever. And Weinstein execs offered THR no explanation for the last-minute maneuvers. Earlier in February,…

The contestants on Netflix’s first reality competition show, Ultimate Beastmaster, are fighting to conquer a 600-foot-long obstacle course. But the real test will be whether the series can help the streamer achieve international dominance. When Beastmaster premieres Feb. 24, Netflix will release six different versions of the show tailored to local audiences in the U.S., Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Germany and Japan. Viewers will watch the same set of competitors, but each version will highlight local contestants with commentary from local hosts. (Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews and Fox Sports host Charissa Thompson guide viewers through the U.S. version.) “I believe this will be a game-changer within the industry,” says David Broome, who is producing alongside Sylvester Stallone. Beastmaster would not have been possible at Netflix just a few years…

The Berlin Boxing Club (HARPERTEEN, 2011) BY Robert Sharenow AGENCY UTA Moonlighting as a YA novelist, the A&E and Lifetime exec vp’s second book follows a young Jewish boxer in 1930s Berlin who befriends German champ Max Schmeling. But his hero’s growing association with the Nazis has him worried about his family. Watch Me Disappear (SPIEGEL & GRAU, JUNE 2017) BY Janelle Brown AGENCY Gersh Brown, whose debut novel skewering Silicon Valley was a bestseller, takes a dark turn: One year after a Berkeley mom vanishes, her teen daughter dreams she’s alive, and her husband unearths hidden secrets. Think Gone Girl meets Where’d You Go, Bernadette.…

W hen Pete Holmes’ late-night TBS show was canceled in 2014, he turned to one of his writers: “Are we supposed to get drunk?” he asked. “Is that what we do?” In the end, the Lexington, Mass.-born standup chose other coping mechanisms. Holmes, 37, plugged away on his popular You Made It Weird podcast and fiddled with an idea for a new TV series. With the help of producer Judd Apatow, the latter became HBO’s Crashing, a forthcoming semi-autobiographical half-hour centered on a young comic whose wife leaves him, forcing him to crash on acquaintances’ couches. You first pitched a version of Crashing to Judd Apatow while working with him on a Pete Holmes Show sketch. How long was it brewing? Judd and I were improvising in that sketch, and…

WHERE TO STAY Booking one of the Gstaad Palace’s 100 rooms (from $412/ night; palace.ch/en) includes breakfast and dinner at the Grand, one of the hotel’s five restaurants. The lobby bar (cocktails from $30) is the best place in town to see and be seen. After dark, the GreenGo nightclub ($50 cover for nonmembers; membership by recommendation only) attracts top DJs like David Guetta. The spa offers a traditional hammam and personal training. Hotel guests, seasonal residents and locals all rely on the Palace concierge desk. Opened in 2012, the five-star, 56-room Alpina Hotel (from $850; thealpinagstaad.ch) features the Six Senses Spa and two Michelinstarred restaurants. Other five-star options include Park Gstaad (from $577; grandhotelpark.ch) and Le Grand Bellevue (from $750; bellevue-gstaad.ch). WHERE TO EAT Outside of the Palace restaurants,…

A fter literally decades, the question of why there is such a gender gap in the entertainment industry has become one of those queries for which there never seems to be a substantive or satisfying answer. It’s as though this dilemma has been around for so long that solution-based answers aren’t even sought. We all have seen what happened when the question of why there wasn’t more diversity in the movies being made — particularly Oscar contenders — was put in the spotlight. What started with a very pointed hashtag created two years ago was amplified in 2016 by Jada Pinkett Smith’s criticism on social media, all eventually sending the Academy and the industry into a tailspin. There was a whirlwind of activity and resolutions that moved through institutions at…

BARRAGE Three generations of French women reunite during a turbulent weekend in this second feature from Luxembourger filmmaker Laura Schroeder. The fact that one of the women is played by Isabelle Huppert — and another by her real-life daughter, Lolita Chammah — helps makes the intimate drama an intriguing affaire de famille despite its somewhat detached tone. — JORDAN MINTZER THE DINNER Two couples (Steve Coogan and Laura Linney, Richard Gere and Rebecca Hall) worry about their kids — and their sanity — over a meal in the U.S.-set adaptation of Dutch author Herman Koch’s novel about dysfunctional elites. The actors tear into their roles with relish, but director Oren Moverman (The Messenger) adds too many distracting flashbacks to land the wellaimed gut punch he needs. — BOYD VAN HOEIJ…

Multihyphenate Jon Favreau — who has used sound so effectively in such films as Iron Man, Elf and, most recently, The Jungle Book (which has earned $996.6 million worldwide), is set to receive the Cinema Audio Society’s Filmmaker Award during the 53rd annual CAS Awards on Feb. 18. Also during the ceremony, production mixer John Pritchett (Memoirs of a Geisha) will receive the Society’s Career Achievement Award. CAS Awards Feb. 18 Omni Los Angeles Hotel “Before you get involved in filmmaking, sound is an invisible art,” says Favreau, who has both a Jungle Book sequel and a similar virtual-production The Lion King in the works for Disney. “It’s one of the most important aspects of a film in terms of how much life can be brought into the film and…