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.
Behind the Headlines Ahit TV show? Apple thinks it has an app for that. The tech giant screened its first original series, Planet of the Apps, for crowds of devotees at its annual developer conference June 6 before dropping the first episode of the unscripted series online. The rollout is meant to kick off a summer of releases for Apple, which plans to unveil its star-studded Carpool Karaoke show Aug. 8. Executives are relying on original video to bolster the 27 million paid users of the 2-year-old Apple Music service. But is Apple now a TV network? Does it want to be one? “It’s yet another reason to subscribe to Apple Music,” says Eddy Cue, the senior vp in charge of software and services. As he sees it, Planet of…
Plans by Netflix to give its warmly reviewed sci-fi drama Okja traditional theatrical releases in two Asian territories — South Korea, home to director Bong Joon-Ho, and China, where the government has rebuffed Netflix’s attempts to launch its service — may fall through. Next Entertainment World is set to open Okja in South Korea on June 28, the same day it goes live worldwide on Netflix. Given Bong’s celebrity status there — his previous film, 2014’s Snowpiercer, earned $60 million in South Korea — a theatrical run in the country could go a long way to recouping Okja’s $50 million budget. But in recent weeks, buzz in Korean film circles has it that CJ CGV, which accounts for 40 percent to 50 percent of all film admissions in South Korea,…
Behind the Headlines Guest Column Political comedian Lenny Bruce, who was often arrested for the provocative material in his act, once theorized that if everyone used the N-word matterof- factly in daily life, then that would rob it of its power to “make a 6-year-old black kid cry” when someone at school used it on him. In a way, that’s exactly what some in the African-American community have done by using the word freely among themselves. But in times when hate crimes are on the rise, when we have an administration actively and gleefully dismantling civil rights gains and when the word is being scrawled on LeBron James’ home, Bruce’s dream that we could defuse the word-bomb is still far from a reality. Which is why Bill Maher’s joking use of…
Good luck booking Barack Obama now, Bill. “This president has done virtually every other show in the known universe,” Bill Maher bemoaned in early 2016. His plea led to a sit-down with the thenpresident four days before the November election. Now, in the wake of the N-word scandal engulfing the host, Obama’s reluctance looks prescient as public relations experts polled by THR say booking Real Time’s five guest chairs will be an especially tough challenge for its three lead bookers who are based in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Sen. Al Franken canceled a scheduled appearance on the June 9 episode — the first since Maher said he was “a house n—” in response to Sen. Ben Sasse’s invitation to come “work in the fields with us” in Nebraska. Franken…
Behind the Headlines A week after the broadcast networks peddled their new fall programming to advertisers in New York, the studios that produce them did the same for some 1,600 international buyers at the global confab known as L.A. Screenings. While a crop of down-the-middle procedurals and reboots excited foreign programmers most, the influx of military dramas, including NBC’s The Brave, CBS’ SEAL Team and The CW’s Valor, left them lukewarm. “If you want escapism, it’s the wrong thing,” says Rudiger Boss, head of acquisitions at Germany’s free TV network ProSiebenSat.1. Sky U.K.’s head of series acquisitions Lucy Criddle offers a more optimistic take: “They can play well, even if they’re very American — they just have to have some sort of international twist.” In the case of SEAL Team,…
EMMYS: THE RACE At the first-ever Transparent table read, Jill Soloway stood up and declared that her purpose for creating the show was to make the world a safer place for her own transgender parent. The mission was imminent and quickly expanded to safeguarding and empowering all transgender people (and eventually all marginalized/underrepresented voices). This revolution in artmaking and culture changes everyone who comes in contact with the show. Even my character, Josh Pfefferman, whom Jill refers to as “the roving male id” of the show, opens to the idea of gender fluidity in season three. In the fallout from losing his greatest love and future child with Rabbi Raquel (Kathryn Hahn), Josh finds chemistry with Shea (Trace Lysette), a gorgeous trans woman who shows up at a messy Pfefferman…
