Innholdsfortegnelse for October 18, 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

LINDA BLOODWORTH-THOMASON The television producer, writer and creator of the hit TV series Designing Women pens an essay about Hollywood’s culture of harassment (page 63). Bloodworth-Thomason helped produce Bill Clinton’s campaign film The Man From Hope, which kicked off the 1992 Democratic National Convention and is considered a groundbreaking piece of political filmmaking, changing the way many politicians marketed themselves. She has been nominated for five Emmys and most recently directed the documentary film Bridegroom. NANCY DUBUC The A+E Networks CEO shares her own professional experiences with Harvey Weinstein — not all of which were horrible. “I think everyone’s afraid to say, ‘I’ve seen charming Harvey,’ ” Dubuc writes on page 68. “But there are many Harveys, and I’ve seen charming Harvey.” In light of the claims against the producer,…

Behind the Headlines Is Amazon Studios emptying its shopping cart? The exit of programming chief Roy Price on Oct. 17 after a harassment claim was made public has prompted observers to question if the retail giant will clean house and reboot its video strategy. Price was put on leave Oct. 12, hours after THR published allegations of his vulgar propositioning of The Man in the High Castle executive producer Isa Hackett. Five days later, Amazon announced Price is stepping down. Now the focus is on whether other execs will survive amid a push to change course creatively and culturally. Amazon Studios COO Albert Cheng is taking over on an interim basis, and the hunt is on for a new — and, according to sources, preferably female — content head. Amazon…

Riverdale, The CW’s teen noir about those once-wholesome Archie comics characters, managed a feat no other returning series has accomplished this season: Live ratings for its Oct. 11 sophomore premiere grew an unprecedented 60 percent from its launch nine months earlier. It’s the first ironclad evidence of a linear windfall that broadcasters have hoped for since studios started making deals to put current series on streamers (Netflix, Amazon and Hulu) for the off-season. As soon as Riverdale’s first season concluded, all 13 episodes dropped on Netflix — where, sources say, it was a summer breakout. But that success presented an obstacle. “Probably more people watched it on Netflix thinking it was a Netflix show,” says The CW executive vp marketing and digital Rick Haskins. “Our real challenge was taking those…

Genow) has launched a new production banner, Spitball, signing a three-picture, first-look deal with Blumhouse Productions. Chris Bremner (UTA, Kaplan Perrone) will write real-life American detective story The Shadows for Paramount and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Pearl Street Films. Tommy Lee Jones (CAA, Jacobson Russell) will join Casey Affleck in Joe Wright’s Stoner from Blumhouse, Cohen Media and Film4. TELEVISION Grey’s Anatomy producers Tony Phelan and Joan Rater (UTA, Myman Greenspan) will redevelop Nancy Drew, previously at CBS, for NBC. The Daily Show alum Wyatt Cenac (UTA, Avalon, Morris Yorn) will star in a comedic docuseries from HBO and executive producer John Oliver. The CW is developing an immigration-focused reboot of the Jason Katims alien drama Roswell from The Originals producer Carina MacKenzie. Andy Cohen (CAA) will co-host CNN’s…

I always knew I wanted to be a writer. As luck would have it, my first three mentors were Hollywood giants Norman Lear, James L. Brooks and Larry Gelbart. These industry icons not only taught me everything I know about writing, they were also perfect gentlemen who never exuded even a hint of sexual impropriety. It wasn’t until a few years later that I began to experience sexual harassment — the producer’s hand rubbing my back inside my blouse during meetings; the studio exec who, on my first day, encouraged me to wear a bikini to work (sadly, I actually asked, “Why, is there a pool?”); the talent agent I literally had to wrestle to the ground in order to get out of his house. I didn’t know then that…

THE ACCUSERS … 40 AND COUNTING H arvey Weinstein embodied the essence of Cannes, a city synonymous with glamour that simultaneously struggles with corruption and criminality. For decades, he was King of the Croisette. But while publicly he was surrounded by distinguished awards and the paparazzi-driven flash of the world’s most prestigious film festival, behind the glare he looked more like a crude and vulgar bully and, many women claim, a brutal and dangerous sexual predator. Weinstein spent much of his time just outside of Cannes at the Hotel du Cap, the luxury resort on the Cote d’Azur. It was there, according to Italian actress Asia Argento’s revelation to The New Yorker, that Harvey lured her to his hotel room and sexually assaulted and raped her. The bartender at the…

I n 1986, after only three or four years in L.A., I got a call from Garry Shandling, offering me a job on his new show. I don’t remember how I knew Garry, but whenever I’d run into him at Hugo’s, we’d share a laugh, and once he asked me if I could help him find a snake man. Even though I lived in a snake-free condo, I found one. And not to brag, but this was before Google. Anyway, he offered me a job on Showtime’s It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. It started out as a lot of fun. A bunch of cool, smart guys and me working on a show where Garry didn’t just break the fourth wall but rode around behind it in a golf cart. Once we…

The following is my list of where the investigation of All of Harvey’s Men should begin: 1 Bob Weinstein The Weinstein Co. board of directors took action to fire Harvey, leaving his brother, Bob, and company president David Glasser in charge. During the decades that Bob was Harvey’s partner in their companies, is it conceivable that he didn’t participate in the settlements that were paid to Harvey’s victims? The board, including Bob, has said the allegations against Harvey came as an “utter surprise.” If I and many others knew, is it possible that Bob didn’t? Yes, it is possible. The likelihood is about equal to that of Bill Cosby’s 50-plus accusers all being liars. The board, which I suspect did know, must hire truly independent outside counsel to dig through…

Villaway, which represents a portfolio of historical Hollywood and industry brass-owned real estate, is taking the vacation rental marketplace to a new level of luxe. With a Rolodex featuring 6,000 properties in 110 destinations from Bali to Palm Springs, some owned by talent and studio/network execs, Villaway offers places like Balthazar Getty’s 7,000-square-foot modern estate above Runyon Canyon and Steve McQueen’s former Hollywood Hills outpost. VIP services include security detail and concierges who stock gluten-free foods, provide Lamborghini Murcielagos and arrange for French-speaking private chefs, nannies and tennis instructors, among other amenities. Vacationer and Walt Disney Co. vp Marlo Carruth testifies that the “exceptional, unique properties allow you to feel like a resident while enjoying hotel-like luxuries,” while Sony Pictures Entertainment exec vp Paul Littmann, a Villaway homeowner, says, “Several…

AZIZ ANSARI Fresh off his Emmy win for writing for a comedy series, the Master of None star will get the Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for excellence in comedy. MATT DAMON The Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award (previously given to Jodie Foster and Meryl Streep) will be bestowed on the Downsizing star. AVA DUVERNAY The helmer of 13th and Disney’s upcoming A Wrinkle in Time will receive the John Schlesinger Britannia Award for excellence in directing. DICK VAN DYKE The excellence in TV honor will go to the 91-year-old icon, who recently apologized for his “atrocious Cockney accent” in 1964’s Mary Poppins.…

Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and trailblazing movie executive and producer Amy Pascal will be honored at THR’s 2017 Women in Entertainment breakfast, taking place Dec. 6 at Milk Studios in Los Angeles. Oscar winner Angelina Jolie will deliver the keynote speech at the 26th annual event, where $1 million in university scholarships will be awarded to young women from disadvantaged backgrounds. All of them are participants in THR’s highly competitive Women in Entertainment Mentorship Program, now in its eighth year. Lawrence, 27, is the youngest person ever to receive the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award. Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep will present Pascal with the second annual Equity in Entertainment Award.…

FREEFORM HITS MAJOR GROWTH SPURT WITH FOUR NIGHTS OF ORIGINALS Nearly two years after rebranding as Freeform, the younger-skewing cable network is expanding its original programming footprint. Beginning in January, the Disney-owned network will shift from two nights of originals to four in a bid to use its extensive film library to better launch scripted programming, with such movies as Harry Potter and Twilight serving as lead-ins and lead-outs. The push will entail doubling its number of pilot orders and adding 10 to 20 more hours of current originals than the network aired in 2017. The goal is to have first-run originals from January through September, with Halloween and Christmas programming blocks airing in the final quarter. “We see it as an opportunity to be competitive,” Freeform executive vp programming…

People, Places, Preoccupations I n entertainment, there can be a lot of gray,” says Lorraine D’Alessio, an attorney who specializes in the O-1 visa — the route by which top non-American talents, from Hugh Jackman to Justin Bieber, have secured employment in Hollywood. And now, with the Trump administration’s increasingly black-and-white stance on immigration, D’Alessio is finding her expertise more in demand. “There’s definitely a lot of anxiety,” she says. “Everyone wants to take whatever action they can to feel more secure in their immigration status.” Intended for those with “extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics” or “extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry,” according to the Department of Homeland Security website, the O-1 visa is sometimes criticized for allowing high-profile stars to float…

People, Places, Preoccupations O ne of the perks of sitting on the board of an arts organization is early access to buzzworthy exhibits. For example, if one were to join the board of The Broad, that might translate to a VIP ticket to the most coveted L.A. museum experience of the moment — “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” (Oct. 21 to Jan. 1). But Sherry Lansing — one of four board members installed just weeks before Eli Broad (who founded the museum with wife Edythe) announced his retirement Oct. 12 — happened to be traveling in Europe when her compatriots got their “Kusama” preview. No worries: Lansing had reserved tickets online for the now-sold-out visiting exhibition. (Museum admission is free; “Kusama” tickets are $25.) She’ll catch the show — which features…

Moguls Officially, Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger is not running for president. At least not yet. The 2020 election may feel eons away, but the Des Moines International Airport will soon start crowding with candidate wannabes, and while Iger has plenty of time to make up his mind, the clock is ticking and the whispers will only grow louder. While Iger, 66, hasn’t explicitly said he’s interested, he also hasn’t ruled himself out, which sets him apart from Sens. Al Franken and Chris Murphy, who recently have taken themselves out of the hypothetical running. Those who know and work with Iger in Hollywood say he is seriously considering a presidential bid, which would be perfectly timed with his plans to step down as Disney CEO in 2019. One fellow…

Harvey and his brother, Bob, begin as concert promoters in Buffalo, New York, where Harvey (left) meets O.J. Simpson backstage at a Bob Hope show. 1973 Paula Wachowiak, production assistant on The Burning, says Weinstein was nude in front of her, signing checks. 1979 1980 1981 Weinstein rapes British actress Lysette Anthony in her home in London, she alleges. 1982 The Weinstein brothers found Miramax, named after parents Miriam and Max. 1983 The concert film The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball is the company’s Aspiring actress Tomi-Ann Roberts encounters Weinstein naked in a bathtub; he asks her to take her top off, she says. 1984 Actress Sophie Dix charges Weinstein invites her to the Savoy, then masturbates. My Left Foot becomes Mirimax’s first best picture nominee. 1985 The acquisition of sex,…

The five blocks of Wilshire Boulevard where Beverly Hills bleeds into Miracle Mile just west of La Cienega is a largely forgettable stretch of strip malls, gas stations and low-slung retail. Hardly the spot where a world-renowned architect like Ma Yansong would want to put his first stamp on a city that is quickly becoming his primary canvas and a new home for him (he purchased a Pacific Palisades house for $4 million in 2014). But when the Beijing-born, Yale-educated 42-year-old — who is also the visionary behind the neogalactic- looking Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the future home of George Lucas’ personal collection — first toured the stretch in 2013, he knew it had all of the right ingredients. “I was so excited because as a creator you think…

Tucked away in a corner of his Santa Monica offices is what Mark Gordon calls his “war room.” Whiteboards are everywhere, with row upon row of projects listed at various stages. Every week, the 61-year-old and his staff of 40 meet here to go over their seemingly endless development and production roster. On the boards at the moment are such upcoming movies as the World War II drama Midway and the fantasy sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, as well as TV series including The Climb, a Detroit-set comedy for Amazon about an office assistant looking for internet fame. “Every project that’s in any way worth discussing is on this board,” says Gordon, an Oscar nominee for 1998’s Saving Private Ryan and a two-time Emmy Award winner (2005’s Warm…

From Utah to the South of France to Toronto, when it comes to the awards festival circuit, a select few destinations come to mind. The latest locale to join the club: Georgia. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Savannah Film Festival, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary, has steadily become a go-to stop for films that are gunning for a little extra buzz before heading into the thick of awards campaigning. Launched by SCAD founder and president Paula Wallace primarily as a competition platform for the college’s students, the fest now regularly features titles that emerge as Oscar best picture nominees and winners, including Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight. And from Lady Bird to Molly’s Game to The Shape of Water, this year’s lineup includes…

It has legions of fans worldwide and is arguably the country’s largest cultural export, yet some within Japan’s $16 billion anime industry believe the art form still fails to get the respect it deserves at home. Since 2014, the Tokyo Film Festival has tried to address the problem with a sidebar devoted to Japan’s greatest animators. While the subject of this year’s focus, Keiichi Hara, welcomes the increased attention, he thinks even more could be done. “If you look at other major festivals, Hayao Miyazaki won the Golden Bear at Berlin,” he notes, referring to his victory for Spirited Away in 2002, which went on to win an Oscar. “It feels kind of odd that there is no case like that in Japan, the country in the world that produces…

Jason Blum The producer’s Happy Death Day, which cost just $5 million, opens to $26 million for Universal, his latest 2017 horror hit after Split and Get Out. Jack Gao The Legendary Entertainment chief and senior vp of China’s Wanda exits after two years as regulatory changes in Beijing spark a further retreat from Hollywood. Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest The Live! duo hits season highs, dominating NBC’s Megyn Kelly by 57 percent among the favored daytime demo of women 25-to-54. Debra Lee With flagship drama Being Mary Jane set to end and Tyler Perry not joining the cable network until 2019, BET has a big scripted void that the CEO has yet to fill. Showbiz Stocks $159.88 (+2.6%) APPLE (AAPL) KeyBanc Capital upgrades the new-media giant, saying its pricing…

One month after Facebook jumped into original programming in early September with its Watch video platform, which shows are working? A batch of early renewals is helping to bring the social network’s original programming strategy into focus. The tech giant is handing out second seasons to Mike Rowe’s unscripted series Returning the Favor, Bunim/Murray-produced reality series Ball in the Family and scripted comedy Strangers. Facebook also will revive Nicole Byer’s MTV comedy, Loosely Exactly Nicole, for a 10-episode second season. “It’s early,” says Facebook vp media partnerships Nick Grudin, “but what we’re looking for with these shows is, are they finding an audience and are they engaging an audience? These shows have done that.” Although Facebook’s video efforts have been lumped in with Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s offerings, the social…

Manhattan Beach SIMON & SCHUSTER, OCT. 3) BY Jennifer Egan AGENCY ICM Partners HBO passed over Egan’s Pulitzer-winning A Visit From the Goon Squad for Vinyl. This time she delves into historical fiction for a Brooklyn-set World War II tale of a young girl (with a mysteriously missing father) who becomes a trailblazing diver at the Navy Yard. If, Then (RANDOM HOUSE, 2019) BY Kate Hope Day AGENCY UTA This debut novel about four people in a sleepy Oregon town who have visions of other lives they have lived (said to evoke The Leftovers and Philip K. Dick) was a hot title at the Frankfurt Book Fair and scored a reported seven-figure advance.…

I t was definitely a late-night idea,” says Saturday Night Live’s Mikey Day of David S. Pumpkins, the more-goofy-thanscary Halloween character getting his own Lorne Michaels-produced animated special on NBC (set to air Oct. 28 at 11:30 p.m.). For the uninitiated, Pumpkins is a pumpkin-suited weirdo — played by Tom Hanks — who hangs out in a Tower of Terror-style theme park attraction and whose entire act involves waving a pair of finger guns and asking, “Any questions?” For added atmosphere, he is backed by breakdancing skeletons Day and Bobby Moynihan. Odd though it was, the “Haunted Elevator” sketch introducing Pumpkins, which originally aired Oct. 22, 2016, generated an instantaneous and huge response. Within days, costume stores across the country sold out of Hanks’ orangeand- black ensemble. (Day found it…

“I was a kid. I was petrified.” GWYNETH PALTROW The actress, revealing to The New York Times that at age 22, after Harvey Weinstein cast her as the lead in Emma, he propositioned and threatened her at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. “It would be extremely unlikely for us to be a bidder.” REED HASTINGS The Netflix CEO, on an earnings call, dismissing speculation that the streaming giant might buy The Weinstein Co. “Shame on this pig and everyone who grunted with him.” ASIA ARGENTO The actress and Weinstein accuser, criticizing James Corden for joking about the alleged assaults at an amfAR fundraiser. He apologized. “It’s just not what I do.” JIMMY FALLON The Tonight Show host, admitting to Today that making fun of President Trump doesn’t interest him.…

Fashion W hen Michelle King, along with her husband, Robert, was Emmy nominated for the first time — for The Good Wife in 2010 — the co-creator received a call from a female agent at her agency, Paradigm, urging her to contact Hollywood style whisperer Dana Asher Levine. “She said, ‘Do you have a pen? She is going to help you find an Emmys dress,’ ” recalls King, who ventured beyond her comfort zone with a black Carolina Herrera gown. “I had never worn anything that fancy, so Dana was very helpful in getting me over my concerns about that,” she says. “When I wear clothes that Dana chooses, people say, ‘Wow, you look great!’ Not that I looked terrible before, but it’s a step up.” On a daily basis,…

Peter Biskind is the author of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, the definitive 2004 account of Harvey Weinstein’s rise to power. You’re well versed in how Harvey alternately wooed and threatened the press. How’d he do it? It was a mixture of charm and retaliation. He’d have screenings with journalists whom he was trying to woo and the ostensible reason was to get their feedback on the films before he released them or even before he bought them. Of course, he was really getting them involved in his process. He knew it was very flattering for a journalist to be invited to a film before it’s released. But if somebody wrote a piece that displeased him, he’d go after them, he’d plant stories…

Nancy Dubuc is the CEO of A+E Networks, which has scrubbed Harvey Weinstein’s credit from series including Lifetime’s Project Runway and History’s Six. As a vocal advocate for women’s issues, Dubuc was the highest-ranking female executive to speak out in the days following The New York Times’ and The New Yorker’s reports. I received a phone call from Harvey. It was a Sunday morning, and I was in the grocery store. The nature of it was exactly the same as the note he’d sent me and other executives: “Can you please help me and email my board?” This was before a lot of things had come out — definitely before The New Yorker piece — and he still had his job. My feedback was simple. “I think you need to…

Hollywood’s unique workplace environment has, for some, blurred the lines of what constitutes sexual harassment. “A request for a massage doesn’t seem as weird as it would in a bank,” says UCLA lecturer Kim Elsesser, author of Sex and the Office: Women, Men and the Sex Partition That’s Dividing the Workplace. THR spoke with experts to define some axioms for working in entertainment: Sexual content is not an invitation to be sexual outside of work. Lena Dunham was sexually harassed in 2016 by a director who told her, “You would show anything. Even your asshole.” But “being sexually frank in their work is very different from giving consent to verbal or physical sexual activity,” says psychologist Debra Borys, who notes a double standard in respecting boundaries of sexually frank men…

FILM PROJECTS Polaroid To keep the lights on, Bob Weinstein plans to release this horror flick on Nov. 22. The Current War The Oscar hopeful is expected to be pulled from its Nov. 24 release date. Paddington 2 On Oct. 13, Bob insisted the sequel’s Jan. 12 opening remains on track. The War With Grandpa Bob also said this Robert De Niro comedy would hit theaters Feb. 23. Mary Magdalene Bob made no mention of this biblical drama’s planned 2018 release. The Boys in the Boat Neil Burger recently came on board this period drama, prepping for an April start. In the Heights Composer Lin- Manuel Miranda has asked to take this musical adaptation to another studio. Untitled Quentin Tarantino The project, reportedly about the Manson murders, has been shrouded…

At-Home Salons “The first full-on glam room I did was for Khloe Kardashian, and it is a musthave now for rock stars,” says Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who outfitted the reality star’s 10,000-squarefoot Calabasas house with a salon including chairs customized to the hairstylist’s height and three stations, as the eldest sisters like to get ready together. A glam room ($50,000-$250,000) can feature a spray-tan area (with wipeable fabrics and nonporous stone) or an Instagram wall. “You press a button to tweak the light to show what you will look like at night or outdoors,” says SFA Design’s Kara Smith, who has worked with Fergie and Oracle’s Jeffrey Henley. Mega Game Rooms “These rooms are luxury lounges with hightech gaming equipment and soon virtual reality gear,” says L.A. designer Cliff Fong,…

In 2015, after listing a 2,000-squarefoot, three-bedroom co-op in NYC’s Greenwich Village for $4.5 million, Julia Roberts snagged a buyer for $850,000 above her asking price, thanks to staging done by Meridith Baer Home (MBH). “Once she moved out, the apartment was empty. We staged it to look amazing and how you’d expect Julia to live in it — and it sold,” says founder Meridith Baer. “People don’t understand how to live in an empty space. We show them the lifestyle.” In the high-end real estate market on either coast, staging a home for sale or lease has become a must. Baer, who’s been on speed dial for Hollywood mega-brokers and developers for 30 years, with clients including Beyonce, Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon and Leslie Moonves (the latter for a…

DAVID FREYNE Writer-director After making a number of awardwinning shorts, Freyne, 35, landed Ellen Page for his feature directorial debut, the zombie thriller The Cured, which, after earning solid reviews at the Toronto Film Festival, was acquired by IFC for distribution. ALAN MAHER Producer With the SXSW docfeature hybrid Song of Granite, Maher, 44, helped bring the dramatic life of legendary Irish sean nos (old style) singer Joe Heaney to the big screen. The film has since been selected as Ireland’s foreign-language Oscar submission this year. AOIFE MCARDLE Writer-director After making a name for herself with music videos for the likes of U2 and Bryan Ferry, McArdle made her feature debut with the Toronto festival entry Kissing Candice, a comingof- age drama set in a seaside town along Ireland’s north/south…

When it came to women, Columbia Pictures founder Harry Cohn was something of a Jekyll and Hyde — but mostly Hyde. On the one hand, he could be their champion: He appointed screenwriter Virginia Van Upp as an executive producer at the studio in 1946, the first woman with that title. But, just as with allegations about Harvey Weinstein — who is often compared to the fearsome Cohn — starlets in the mogul’s orbit were viewed as sexual commodities. And no one had to fend off more unwanted advances than Rita Hayworth. Cohn discovered the Brooklyn, New York, native (born Rita Cansino) in 1936 and groomed her for Hollywood. By the mid-’40s, Hayworth was a major star, appearing in Technicolor musicals like 1944’s Cover Girl and sultry film noirs like…