Innholdsfortegnelse for October 4, 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

An out-of-town wife and 3-year-old daughter forced Adam Steck to cancel plans to attend the Route 91 Harvest music festival Oct. 1 with his cousin. No big deal, thought the veteran Las Vegas show producer, until his phone lit up just after 10 p.m. “I got a text from my company manager at Thunder From Down Under, and I called my cousin as he was walking in,” recalls Steck. “I could actually hear bullets rattling off through his phone, people running down the street. It was just absolute mayhem.” His cousin escaped unharmed. Steck, who also produces Boyz II Men’s show at The Mirage and Mike Tyson’s Undisputed at MGM Grand, spent the next several hours calling artists, friends and family as TV and social media spread word that Stephen…

Deal of the Week In a landscape where networks such as CBS, HBO and Showtime are hoarding their libraries to launch their own over-the-top services, NBCUniversal seems to be taking the opposite approach. The Comcast-owned company has been steadily moving its shows to Hulu, inking a massive SVOD deal Sept. 27 to transplant 30 Rock and Parenthood from their longtime home at Netflix. The pact comes a week after Hulu became the exclusive streaming destination of the original eight seasons of Will & Grace, and four months after the two companies struck a record-breaking deal in May for last season’s breakout drama This Is Us (which is produced by 20th Century Fox TV). As part of the latest agreement, Hulu also will pick up competition series Face Off, from NBCU-owned…

Spielberg Los Angeles, Sept. 26 THR’s Awards Season Kickoff Los Angeles, Sept. 26 THR’s Business Managers Breakfast Beverly Hills, Sept. 27 Curb Your Enthusiasm New York, Sept. 27 Party Crawler Spotlight on Spielberg If anyone can draw the who’s who in Hollywood, it’s Steven Spielberg (1). Indeed, Tom Hanks (2), Vin Diesel, Martin Short (5), Kate Mara (7) and Quincy Jones were just a few of the industry luminaries who came out to Paramount’s Lansing Theater for a sushi supper followed by the premiere of HBO’s two-and-a-half-hour documentary Spielberg. American Masters producer Susan Lacy made the film with the prolific auteur’s cooperation, marking the first time Spielberg has ever taken part in a project that put his process in front of the camera. “He’s never participated in a film about…

for the REALITY STA R Good American for the MULTI-TALENTED McGuire Denim for the EV ERY MA N Buck Mason for the UN DERSTATED HERO Joe’s Jeans for the LEADING LADY Mother Denim for the ECO-LOVE RDSTLD for the POWER PRODUCER Parker Smith for the COOL MOM Re/Done THE REALITY STAR: Good American LABEL LOVERS Chrissy Teigen, the Kardashians, top Hollywood hairstylist Jen Atkin HOT PAIR The Good Legs jean, with grommet accents and sizing up to 24; $179, goodamerican.com. “They cater to women of all shapes and sizes,” says Atkin of the label co-founded by Khloe Kardashian and Emma Grede that made $1 million on its first day of sales, marking the largest denim launch ever. THE MULTITALENTED: McGuire Denim LABEL LOVERS Jennifer Lopez, Zoe Saldana, HBO vp drama programming Kathleen…

With Google hosting its summer camp for billionaires in Sicily (Prince Harry attended, and Elton John and Lenny Kravitz performed) and David Geffen entertaining Bob Iger, Oprah Winfrey and Barry Diller aboard his Portofino-bound yacht, Italy is proving to be an unparalleled draw for Hollywood heavies and tech moguls. Indeed, Italia may seem like one of the few safe options as the State Department issues travel warnings highlighting other parts of Europe due to terrorism and hurricanes continue to slam the Caribbean. This fall, as tourists thinned and truffles came in season, Julia Roberts headed to Italy, The Rolling Stones played in Lucca, and Sting and Trudie Styler hosted a cocktail block party at their villa in Tuscany. “Italy is my favorite country,” says Terry George, who directed Oscar-nominated Hotel…

Days before Morgan Spurlock debuted his anticipated Super Size Me sequel at the Toronto Film Festival, the documentary already was drawing buyer interest. Netflix made a play for Spurlock’s poultry industry exposé, per sources. Hulu and CNN also were said to be in the mix, but a surprising distributor quickly rose to the top: YouTube. The lights had just dimmed on Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken’s Sept. 8 world premiere when THR reported that the streamer would pay $3.5 million for the documentary, committing to a theatrical release and a hefty marketing spend. “YouTube made the most sense for what I wanted to accomplish with this film,” says Spurlock, who is said to have left millions on the table to work with the Google-owned video hub and its 1.5…

WHO’S WATCHING WHERE — AND HOW THAT’S CHANGING When it comes to time spent watching video, TV will dominate for years to come, but digital is closing the gap. The following represents the average time per day, real and projected, spent by over-18 adults: YOUTUBE’S UPPER HAND YouTube and Netflix will remain the dominant providers of over-the-top (OTT) video for many years, though when it comes to U.S. users, Amazon is growing faster. AND THE MOST POPULAR STREAMING SERIES IS … The streamers don’t share ratings, but Parrot Analytics developed a “demand expressions” measurement based on streams, viewers, engagement and more. Via that formula, these are the most popular original shows for for the three primary streamers: Amazon 1 The Man in the High Castle 2 The Grand Tour 3…

They may not have the buzz of Sundance, the prestige of Telluride or the fashion wackiness of Cannes, but AFI’s film festivals and other events are making the institute an increasingly important player in Hollywood’s awards season. AFIDocs takes place over five days in June in Silver Spring, Maryland (home of the AFI Silver Theatre), and is arguably the world’s pre-eminent documentary showcase. This year, it opened its 15th season with Netflix’s Icarus, a docu-thriller about sports doping that’s already regarded as an Oscar frontrunner. In November, there’s AFI Fest, which celebrates films of all genres and nationalities. An outgrowth of the Los Angeles International Film Exposition, or Filmex, it is now entering its 31st year as a standalone event. Its timing has always been problematic; in November, many on…

George Stevens Jr. — son of Giant director George Stevens — was in the Rose Garden the day Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Endowment for the Arts and, along with it, the American Film Institute. Stevens, now 85, went on to become its founding director, from 1967 to 1980, and set up its first home in Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills (the campus moved to Hollywood in 1981). Fifty years later, he sits down with THR and remembers how it all began and how far it has come. How did the idea for AFI come about? I had seen the first legislation for the National Endowment for the Arts. It listed theater, symphony, painting — with no mention of motion pictures. So I wrote to Senator Hubert Humphrey, whom…

With 5 Gold Rings, Talpa thinks it may have cracked the toughest nut in reality TV: the interactive format. Every major player in the nonscripted space has been trying to make reality TV interactive, to stitch together the AARP-heavy live TV audiences with millennialfriendly multiscreen viewers. Everyone, so far, has failed. (Remember ABC’s short-lived Rising Star? Didn’t think so.) 5 Gold Rings is Talpa’s big interactive play. The trivia show, in which contestants place gold rings over their answers on a giant LED screen while viewers play along at home on their phones, has just been renewed for a second season on Britain’s ITV and is also on the air in France and the Netherlands. “We really focused on embedding interactivity in the initial phase of the content process, so…

AIRDATE 10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15 (Showtime) CAST Jay Pharoah, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Jacob Ming-Trent, Lonnie Chavis, Cleopatra Coleman CREATORS Tom Kapinos, Chris Spencer and Buddy Lewis Watchable thanks to a charismatic lead turn by Jay Pharoah, Showtime’s White Famous feels like a relic of the TV landscape three years ago, before series like Atlanta, Master of None and Better Things redefined the making-itin- entertainment small-screen comedy subgenre. In those shows, creator-director-stars funnel familiar stories through a uniquely personal perspective; in this one, co-creator Tom Kapinos (Californication), producer Jamie Foxx and recurring director Tim Story (Ride Along) struggle to make things feel fresh. Pharoah is Floyd, a SoCal stand-up comic content with a level of fame one character describes as “east of the 10, south of Crenshaw.” The alternative is to…

Not great, Bob! Great job! Premiere week ratings for the Big Four networks may have dropped 16 percent from 2016, but most broadcast networks got a surprise silver lining with the arrival of several unquestionably big new series. Put CBS’ Young Sheldon at the top of that list. TV’s best comedy launch in six years, the Big Bang Theory spinoff averaged 21.5 million live-plus-3 viewers and a 5.2 rating among adults 18-to-49 from its Sept. 25 preview sampling. “We did a very effective job of reaching the Big Bang audience,” says CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl, looking ahead to Sheldon’s official Nov. 2 premiere. Military drama SEAL Team also gave CBS a strong first outing, while ABC’s The Good Doctor and NBC’s Will & Grace reboot fared especially well —…

Q&A No one was clamoring for another Cops. But in October 2016, three years into the Black Lives Matter movement, A&E’s promise of “transparency” and “clarity” with Live PD, which follows police from across the country in real time, resonated. The docuseries’ disturbing, sometimes dull but always authentic look at law enforcement (three-hour episodes air twice weekly) has scored, with ratings surging 136 percent since its debut, hitting 2.5 million viewers in July; the network has ordered 300 more hours. “I don’t know that we expected it would be quite this successful,” says host Dan Abrams, who spoke with THR ahead of the second cycle’s Oct. 6 premiere. Why has Live PD resonated with audiences? With Cops, you’re taping the greatest moments and creating a highlight reel. You know how…

Christian Bale’s Secret Dick Cheney Workout At September’s Toronto International Film Festival, Christian Bale, 43, said he packed on the pounds by eating pies to play Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s drama Backseat for Annapurna Pictures. But THR has learned that the Oscar winner famous for his physical transformations (2011’s The Fighter landed him best supporting actor) isn’t completely ignoring his fitness. Word is, before the film, now shooting, started production, he had been hitting an L.A. gym several times a week to work out with a well-known trainer — but only from the neck up. The source says Bale has been focused on neck exercises while ignoring anything below to achieve Cheney’s shoulders-up profile. (Bale also dyed his eyebrows to play the onetime vice president.) Backseat — co-starring Sam…

In the wake of a famously messy stretch at Viacom, 23-year company veteran Kevin Kay has emerged as one of new CEO Bob Bakish’s top lieutenants. A straighttalking executive, Kay, 63, has been handed the keys to two more cable networks (TV Land and CMT) and tasked with rebranding male-skewing Spike — home to breakout Lip Sync Battle and mixed martial arts — as a general entertainment channel with the synergistic name Paramount Network. The Jan. 18 changeover will be accompanied by a fresh batch of high-end originals, including miniseries Waco, with Taylor Kitsch and Michael Shannon; and Taylor Sheridan drama Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner. If all goes as the New York native plans, Paramount Network, which reaches 83 million homes, will be part of the same prestige conversation as…

On a bright summer day at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, young programmers in sandals and carrying backpacks are strolling the immaculately groomed grounds. But they stop and stare as Demi Lovato comes striding across the lawn, trailed by a photographer and a flock of Google executives and assistants. Silicon Valley, meet Hollywood. The 25-year-old former Disney star turned pop diva is visiting the Google campus for a photo shoot promoting Simply Complicated, her YouTube documentary that starts streaming Oct. 17. The idea is to give her fans — some 1.3 million Lovatics, as they call themselves, subscribe to her channel — an intimate look at her life and her process for making her sixth album, which was released Sept. 29. The cameras follow her into the recording studio…

When Jane Lynch took home a shortform Emmy on Sept. 10 for her performance in soap opera satire Dropping the Soap, she shed light on an underthe- radar program at Amazon that is driving audiences to projects that would normally get lost in the glut of video available online. Amazon Video Direct, a self-service platform where anyone can upload a video and make money off of its distribution, is giving a number of filmmakers and digital companies access to the same audiences watching Transparent or The Man in the High Castle. In the 16 months since its launch, the program has paid out “tens of millions” to its partners, executives say, as it has caught on with such firms as Funny or Die and several dozen indie filmmakers. Amazon Video…

I will always associate my late pal Hugh Hefner first and foremost with classic movies. He called them the major influence in his life. And he meant it. Vintage films consumed his life on a daily basis, whether he was watching, cataloging, discussing or writing about them. I discovered this in 2002, when I profiled him for Premiere magazine. He greeted me at the mansion in his satin pajamas and silk bathrobe, and a scheduled one-hour interview turned into a two-hour gabfest as we bonded over the old-time movies and music we both loved. A day or two later, I returned for a movie night screening of Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon. “Good at any time of day,” Hef said with a smile. He would later joke that I…

What does it take for a television show without dragons, zombies or Sterling K. Brown to get a little attention? More than 400 U.S. scripted series are set to air in 2017 — thanks for the sobering stats, John Landgraf — and getting lost in the logjam is the new normal. So in highlighting the most impactful writerproducers working in TV right now, THR focused on a few key factors. These 50 power showrunners rise above the churn with unprecedented deals (ka-ching, Shonda Rhimes), surging output, cultural cachet and legit “hits.” Most have paid their dues (witness the reunions of two pairs of past collaborators), a few struck gold early (hear from Stranger Things’ Duffer brothers ahead of their sure-to-bescrutinized sophomore season) and all have a few choice words to…

ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA • His Riverdale, under Greg Berlanti, may be in hot water over star K.J. Apa’s recent post-work car wreck, but the show signals a new future for The CW. The drama is said to have been an unprecedented hit for CW streaming and Netflix. A sister series (a Sabrina the Teenage Witch reboot) is in the works. DAVE ANDRON • John Singleton’s pick to shepherd his FX cocaine drama Snowfall is finally in the driver’s seat after a successful tenure writing on Justified. The drama, not yet at the level of his network’s critically beloved mainstays, returns for a second season in 2018. SARAH-VIOLET BLISS AND CHARLES ROGERS • These TV newcomers created TBS’ Search Party, back for season two Nov. 19, alongside director Michael Showalter. The dark…

In 1974, less than a decade into the institute’s existence, Mathilde Krim, the wife of United Artists head Arthur Krim and future co-founder of amfAR, wrote a letter to AFI founding director George Stevens Jr. asking a simple question: “Why are there no women directors?” “Not only did she have the idea [for the Directing Workshop for Women], she got the money for it [from the Rockefeller Foundation],” says Jean Picker Firstenberg, who served as AFI’s CEO and director from 1980 to 2007. The inaugural class launched with a student body made up of mostly famous actresses who wanted to direct, including Ellen Burstyn, Lee Grant and Margot Kidder, along with poet Maya Angelou. Says Firstenberg, “There was a theory when we started that women of note should be invited…

• • • Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Mel Brooks, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese — scores of cinematic geniuses have given guest lectures at AFI over the past 50 years and answered questions from classrooms full of future cinematic geniuses. THR was given access to the archives for a few choice highlights.…

Reality TV might be in a tough spot these days, but the same can’t be said for the man who helped invent it. From his home base in tiny Hilversum, Holland, Dutch billionaire John de Mol, 62, CEO of Talpa Media and creator of Big Brother, Fear Factor and The Voice, continues to show the world how to play the nonscripted game. After getting his start in media as a teenager, editing highlights of Dutch soccer matches for the national public broadcaster, de Mol founded Endemol in 1994. He sold his stake in 2005 to launch Talpa, which now has 180 formats on the air and estimates the worldwide audience for its shows at roughly 500 million. The Voice, which just picked up its fourth reality series Emmy in five…

On, Sept. 14, The Hol lywood Reporter and SAG-AFTRA invited the television industry’s elite to raise a glass in celebration of this year’s Emmy Award contenders at their Emmy Nominees Night event. Presented by American Airlines, Breguet, and Dacor, the gathering served as the f irst red carpet event held at the Jean-Georges at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. Throughout the evening, guests enjoyed custom cocktails and sampled Jean-Georges’ signature dishes while enjoying music provided by DJ Myles Hendrik.…

Who owns the future? This is the question at the heart of every stock market. In the competition for delivery of the goods and services that make up the vast majority of the American economy, platforms like Google and Amazon are currently at war with brands like Mercedes-Benz, Nike and even HBO and FX over the answer to this question. In some forms of retail, the writing is on the wall and the platforms have already won. In other segments, such as luxury cars and designer clothes, the future still seems to favor brands. Apple sits on both sides of this conflict as the world’s dominant luxury personal computer brand and a leading internet platform. Maybe that’s why it is the most valuable corporation on earth. Perhaps storytellers don’t need…

The transformation of digital media from a largely text-based format to a predominantly video experience has been underway for half a decade. In 2014, more because it was obvious than that I was prescient, I wrote a book called Television Is the New Television, the thesis being that every digital showboat really wanted to be in the TV business. So the larger question about the overnight fixation on the “digital pivot” (“We will be shifting our resources and business model away from written content and instead focus on our fans’ growing appetite for premium video across all platforms,” declared Fox Sports then-president Jamie Horowitz this summer) is why everybody is acting like it’s new. Along with Fox Sports, Vice, Mashable, Vocativ, MTV News, Mic and in some fashion almost everybody…

It was, in the early 1970s, the most recognizable private jet in the sky. For one thing, it was painted black like a stealth fighter. For another, it had a rabbit painted on the tail fin. The Big Bunny, Hefner’s personal DC-9, wasn’t so much an aircraft as it was the Playboy Mansion at 35,000 feet. It had a living room with leather sofas, a full galley where flight attendants — “Jet Bunnies” — whipped up lobster and roast beef dinners and a discotheque for dance parties. Hef could relax in his salon, lounging on an oval bed covered in silk sheets and opossum fur bedspreads. “There wasn’t anything else like it,” says Katharina Leventhal, who as a 21-year-old became one of the first Jet Bunnies (and wore a black…

On Sept. 29, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson invited a collection of leaders from the arts, entertainment and politics to the White House Rose Garden for the signing of the Arts and the Humanities Act. He promised the creation of a National Theater, a National Opera Company, a National Ballet Company and “an American Film Institute, bringing together leading artists of the film industry, outstanding educators and young men and women who wish to pursue the 20th century art form as their life’s work.” Most of those Rose Garden promises never came true. But AFI, formally established 50 years ago in 1967, proved the exception. “It was a great experiment that blossomed into something that paid off in a culturally seismic way,” says Bob Gazzale, who has served as AFI’s…

• • • Ever since LBJ launched AFI in the Rose Garden, the institute has had a special place in the hearts of U.S. presidents — until now, that is. Barack Obama hosted AFI’s Student Film Festival at the White House for the last three years of his administration. Bill Clinton spoke at Warren Beatty’s Life Achievement Award event in 2008, while both Bush presidents turned up at AFI events and Ronald and Nancy Reagan came to AFI’s Preservation Ball in 1988. Even Richard Nixon, despite the mounting Watergate scandal, managed to attend John Ford’s Life Achievement Award ceremony in 1973. Donald Trump, however, apparently is not such a bigly fan. Sources say the White House has not returned AFI’s phone calls. That puts AFI in good company — Trump…

Talpa was one of the first Western companies to crack the Chinese market. On July 13, 2012, The Voice of China, a local-language version of Talpa’s iconic spinning-chairs singing competition show, launched on satellite network Zhejiang Television and was an instant success, drawing upward of 120 million TV viewers and some 400 million online. The show’s status only grew from there. By season four, which aired in 2015, The Voice topped the ratings virtually every week. The season finale was watched by nearly a third of all TV households in the country of 1.2 billion people. Buoyed by the success, Talpa lined up multiple deals for the Middle Kingdom, including with internet giant Tencent, to produce an online-only version of the Dutch group’s social experiment format Utopia, renamed The 15…

OPENS Friday, Oct. 6 (Warner Bros.) CAST Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto DIRECTOR Denis Villeneuve Rated R, 164 minutes For fans who have been waiting 35 years for a sequel to Ridley Scott’s mesmerizing sci-fi landmark Blade Runner, the good news is that director Denis Villeneuve achieves something close to the same narcotic effect in Blade Runner 2049, with a voluptuous mood bath sustained from beginning to end. The problem is that 164 minutes occupy the distance between that beginning and end, another example of directorial excess where self-discipline would have been a benefit (the release version of the original ran 118 minutes). The French-Canadian Villeneuve has developed — through Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival…

Women of International TV Women ruled at this year’s Emmy Awards as the femalefocused storylines of The Handmaid’s Tale, Veep and Big Little Lies dominated TV’s biggest night. And even in the real world, outside the Television Academy and outside the U.S., opportunities for women in television have never looked better. “It’s a great time for women to be entering the business, whether onscreen or off of it,” says Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO of London-based production giant FremantleMedia Group. But in many parts of the world, says African television pioneer Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu, the power of the patriarchy is still very much in force. “Bottom line, women have to work twice as hard for the same recognition as their male counterparts,” she says. The women on THR’s annual list of the…

The global trends that will shape the TV industry of the future get their test drive in Cannes at the annual MIPCOM trade fair. Disruption has become a theme in recent years, as the expansion of digital and online channels shakes up traditional business models, while local TV has gained strength, not only dominating primetime at home in Germany, Japan or Turkey, but increasingly expanding abroad as well. A fresh focus on the demands of the global audience is being matched by a long-overdue interest in female viewers. The 2017 MIPCOM Personality of the Year, Discovery Communications president and CEO David Zaslav, recently closed a $14.6 billion deal to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive and the largely female audience for its lifestyle channels, including HGTV, Travel Channel and Food Network. But…

When Google bought YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, financial commentators pointed to News Corp’s purchase of Myspace just one month earlier for “only” $580 million and noted what a great deal that had been. But it wasn’t: Facebook ate Myspace’s lunch, and News Corp unloaded it in 2012 for $35 million. Meanwhile, today almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube daily. And some credit for that success goes to Saturday Night Live and cupcakes. In December 2005 — just five months after YouTube went online — SNL’s Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg appeared in what was being touted as an SNL Digital Short called “Lazy Sunday.” Parnell and Samberg play Beastie Boys-style rappers who sing the praises of “bomb frosting” on New York’s Magnolia Bakery cupcakes (“My…