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.
Afew months ago, a film executive called to pitch himself for the Heat Index in the magazine. (Yes, people do that; no, it doesn’t work.) As he chatted up a recent hit released by his studio and his own influence in Hollywood and beyond, I couldn’t help but point out he wasn’t the executive who greenlit the movie, nor was he the producer who found the material, nor the filmmaker who made it, nor the star whose performance connected with moviegoers. How, exactly, did this film make him a power player? His response: “Who in this town has actual power, anyway?” In short, the people in this issue do. In compiling the THR 100, our second annual ranking of Hollywood’s most powerful people, we used one overarching criterion: the power…
KATHRYN ROMEYN writes about hair loss in Hollywood and the extensive and expensive ways men are dealing with it (page 58). “No one is willing to talk about the problem or what they have done to fight it,” says the 33-year-old L.A.-based journalist. “There’s such secrecy around this topic.” DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN, 44, photographed ABC’s Channing Dungey, the first black president of a broadcast network, with the first black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, for the THR 100 list (page 86). The shoot incorporated “incredible” vintage studio equipment. JAY Z, 47, penned an essay about the vitality of TV for enlightening audiences about the systemic forces working against black men in America (page 24). He is an executive producer on Time: The Kalief Browder Story and producing a TV doc about Trayvon Martin.…
I n October 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s then co-chairman Amy Pascal was mulling a pitch from Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter: bring on Marvel Studios as a producer for a new series of Spider-Man films — the studio’s crown jewel and, at nearly $4 billion, the top-grossing comic book film franchise — that would be full-fledged members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The previous summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the second in the Andrew Garfield films, had grossed $709 million worldwide, down from the first installment’s $758 million despite the sequel’s higher budget at $265 million. And perhaps most importantly, after more than a decade in the webslinging business, Sony execs were creatively spent, struggling to find a way to retackle the 900 characters in the Spider-Man comic series covered…
In November, Toby Emmerich was announced as president of the Warner Bros. film studio, and Hollywood has been watching since with interest, not to say wariness, for signs of how he will run the place. Insiders are hoping some light will be shed June 22 when executives gather at the Montage Laguna Beach for an off-site retreat. Emmerich, 54, has yet to greenlight a movie that truly bears his stamp: Sources say that first project will be The Goldfinch, an ambitious film based on the Donna Tartt novel, with John Crowley (Brooklyn) directing. That should stir some excitement. It may also soothe some who have business with Warners and who have been concerned that Emmerich plans what one important producer calls the “New Line-ization” of the studio. That would mean…
Hopes that the TV Apple wants to buy is the kind of TV Hollywood likes to sell were sent soaring by the technology giant’s June 16 hire of the well-regarded heads of Sony Pictures TV, Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, to lead worldwide video programming. The marquee exec additions are seen as a signal that Eddy Cue, who’s overseeing Apple’s TV efforts, wants to get into the prestige drama business. The news release announcing the duo’s hire emphasized their “for your consideration” caliber track record at Sony, including FX’s The Shield, AMC’s Breaking Bad and Netflix’s The Crown. “Hopefully they pull the biggest company in the world into series programming — and that’s really exciting,” WME TV lit agent Ari Greenberg tells THR. “There’s no learning curve. They know…
Where will UFC — the MMA outfit that WME-IMG bought for an eyepopping $4 billion last year — end up in 2018? Fox Sports now pays about $115 million annually to air the UFC across networks FS1 and FS2 as well as on Fox, though the biggest fights remain on pay-per-view. WME-IMG’s Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, who negotiated UFC’s deals with Fox, are under pressure to extract a hefty rights increase as talks begin July 1. While nowhere near the draw of the NFL or NASCAR, UFC programming featuring stars like Conor McGregor are on par with college football, and its programs are typically the top-rated among young men in their time period. “It’s a tonnage buy for Fox,” notes Frank Hawkins of sports and media consulting firm Scalar…
