Innholdsfortegnelse for November 15, 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

PICTURE Mudbound After debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, Dee Rees’ drama about post- World War II racial tensions, which hits Netflix and a few theaters Nov. 17, had a second coming-out when it was feted at a Quincy Jones-hosted Nov. 8 reception before opening AFI Fest a day later. I Love You, Daddy On the same day many critics got screeners for Louis C.K.’s new movie, the comedian acknowledged that he was guilty of sexual misconduct, and distributor The Orchard scrapped the film, which had been looking like a Golden Globes best comedy possibility. Murder on the Orient Express With its all-star cast, this remake had all the earmarks of a possible SAG ensemble contender. But while it attracted an older audience (it opened in third place with a…

Immortal Life (SIMON & SCHUSTER, DEC. 5) BY Stanley Bing AGENCY Gotham Group The latest novel from business columnist Bing (who’s actually CBS communications chief Gil Schwartz) follows a high-tech tycoon in the slightly distant future trying to cheat death by transferring his consciousness to a younger, more reluctant human. Start Without Me (WILLIAM MORROW, OCT. 17) BY Joshua Max Feldman AGENCY ICM Partners Just in time for potential buyers to read during their Thanksgiving break, this novel, from the author of the critically acclaimed The Book of Jonah, takes place over a single Turkey Day in which two strangers’ lives intersect at an airport restaurant.…

The L.A. City Council voted Nov. 7 to grant landmark status to 6715 Sunset Blvd., The Hollywood Reporter’s home from the ’30s until the ’90s. W.R. Wilkerson III, son of the magazine’s founder, recalls the building’s secrets and charms. Bursting at the seams with success, THR publisher Billy Wilkerson moved into his new offices, custom-made to his specifications, in 1936. Ever thinking outside the box, he installed a barbershop and haberdashery in the front to cater to the well-heeled. Sunset House, as it was called, became a haven for organized crime. Bugsy Siegel routinely stopped by for a shave. The illustrious, too, beat a path to its door, from Charlie Chaplin to Cary Grant. In fact, all of Hollywood intersected at the building, including its scandals. After an unflattering editorial about…

Quotes “I’ve almost got the hair!” HELEN MIRREN The actress, speaking to THR about wanting to play the “Shakespearean character” of President Donald Trump. “We’re not going there, Meryl.” ANNA WINTOUR The Conde Nast artistic director, interrupting Meryl Streep during an interview on Vogue’s YouTube channel when the actress began to describe her character in The Devil Wears Prada as among her most challenging. “It makes me reassess every relationship I have ever thought was playful and mutual.” RICHARD DREYFUSS The actor, in a statement to Vulture in response to writer Jessica Teich’s claims of sexual harassment. “I was told I had done a ‘silly’ thing … thwarting my own potential to be a leading man.” EZRA MILLER The Justice League star, opening up to ShortList about being advised throughout…

The Harvey Weinstein scandal now includes a layer of intrigue fit for an espionage thriller. A Nov. 6 New Yorker piece by Ronan Farrow revealed that the producer employed private investigators in an effort to kill stories detailing sexual harassment and assault and to dig up dirt on the women making claims and the journalists reporting them. Two investigators from Black Cube, a private security firm staffed largely by former Israeli intelligence agents, allegedly used false identities to gain the trust of the women and journalists and, in some cases, surreptitiously recorded conversations. Increasing the opaqueness is the fact that the contract with the P.I.s may be protected by attorneyclient privilege because it was funneled through former Weinstein attorney David Boies. Boies admits to executing the contract and arranging payment…

Rob Morgan MUDBOUND In Dee Rees’ post-World War II drama, Morgan’s silence speaks volumes in his portrayal of Hap Jackson, a black preacher and sharecropper who grows cotton on a leased part of a white family’s land to provide for his wife and four children. “Being a black male in the Deep South after World War II, you could actually come home in your uniform and be lynched on the spot or be connected to some horses and buggies and dragged on the street in front of your wife and children,” says Morgan. “Understanding that capacity of knowing when to be charming, when to shut the hell up, when to be humble and when to basically disappear for your safety and survival — that’s the kind of conversation you’d have…

Film Marvel vs. DC Why the fight isn’t just Thor versus Justice League p. 24 Digital Facebook Feed Inside a new push for better, more professional shows. p. 26 Heat Index Rian Johnson The Last Jedi director gets a vote of confidence from Lucasfilm and Disney with a rich deal to create a new Star Wars movie trilogy. Evan Spiegel The Snapchat founder sees his company’s stock plunge as user growth slows, revenue disappoints and an app redesign seeks to make it easier to use. Taylor Swift The artist sells more than 1 million copies of her latest album, Reputation, in just five days without making it available on streaming services. Marc Shmuger The EuropaCorp CEO is stepping down from Luc Besson’s French company after it posts a record $135 million…

Is a 70mm film rebirth ahead? The wide, high-resolution format — used to display classics like Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia — is a movie buff favorite, but its use has been limited since the start of the digital cinema era. That may be changing. A 70mm presentation of Fox’s Murder on the Orient Express opened the Camerimage international cinematography festival Nov. 11, and the film unspooled in the format on four screens in New York and Los Angeles. The grosses for the film were solid but not spectacular, according to exhibition insiders (the sampling was too small for Fox to break out). When Warner Bros. released Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk on July 21, it included 31 Imax 70mm screens and roughly 100 standard 70mm sites, making it among the largest wide-format…

Deal of the Week Have Amazon and Disney both found their Game of Thrones? Amazon Studios announced Nov. 13 that it is teaming with the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien, publisher HarperCollins and New Line Cinema to bring The Lord of the Rings to TV with a multiple-season commitment. That news followed Disney CEO Bob Iger’s Nov. 9 reveal that the company would create a live-action Star Wars series for its forthcoming subscription video service. The big bets by streaming services new and established on well-known IP come after CBS All Access set new subscriber records for its SVOD service with the launch of Star Trek: Discovery, the first new liveaction series in the franchise in decades (it already has been renewed for a second season). “The shift is the speed…

Big Number Hot Lot Racing heir and Deadline owner Jay Penske has purchased the former First Baptist Church of Venice site for $11.8 million, and in October the Venice Neighborhood Council approved his plans to convert the 12,000-square-foot lot (he also acquired a neighboring parcel of land) into a family residence. The historically black church moved out of the 107-year-old building two years ago. Michael B. Jordan (WME, Bloom Hergott) will make his directorial debut with Endeavor Content’s adaptation of The Stars Beneath Our Feet. The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan (CAA, Ireland’s Lisa Richards, Hansen Jacobson) is joining STXfilms’ Mile 22. TELEVISION Julianna Margulies (WME, Gendler Kelly) will star in AMC’s Dietland. Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh (WME, the U.K.’s Julian Belfrage, Bloom Hergott) will star in AMC’s miniseries adaptation of…

In the upcoming Netflix sci-fi series Altered Carbon (based on the popular 2002 novel), Joel Kinnaman plays a commando trying to survive against all odds. “In this future, you can store your consciousness in a chip. This technology has made it so that the billionaire class have now become immortals because they clone new bodies. And my character was part of a rebellion that got crushed,” says Kinnaman, 37, sitting in a cabana by the pool at the Hollywood Proper Residences, wearing his favorite watch, a Rolex Datejust with a black dial. In the 2018 big-budget TV show, after his character is killed, he is brought back to life in a new body 250 years later by one of the ultra-rich overlords. “I have two choices. Either go back to…

1. Chanel The new Code Coco is packed with brand references, from the clasp over the black lacquered dial, taken from its 2.55 purse, to the stainlesssteel bracelet that echoes quilting on a Chanel bag; $9,100, at Chanel Fine Jewelry, Beverly Hills and New York 2. Rolex Offered for the first time in stainless steel, the Lady-Datejust 28 features a pink dial with date display at 3 o’clock in a 28mm case on an Oyster bracelet. Rihanna is a fan of the brand; $6,300, at Rolex at Gearys, Los Angeles, and Tourneau Time Machine, New York 3. Tiffany & Co. The stainless-steel Tiffany Metro 3-Hand is crafted with a selfwinding mechanical movement and includes a seconds counter and diamond indexes on the white lacquered dial. The 34mm case is embellished…

After a breathtaking number of women (84 and counting) have spoken loudly and powerfully in recent weeks to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, the producer’s empire almost undoubtedly will crumble. But how? To paraphrase Robert Frost, some say it will end in fire. Some say in ice. A fiery conclusion means prison sentences, a harried sale of assets and restitution for victims. But even if The Weinstein Co. and those associated with it avoid those fates, they still confront a war between brothers that will have nearly everyone in Hollywood freezing them out. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Larry Hutcher, co-managing partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, who has decades of experience dealing with intracorporate issues. Harvey Weinstein’s legal future is a messy endeavor, touching on many…

Louis C.K.’s Nov. 9 confession to masturbating in front of multiple women without their consent, following similar graphic allegations against Harvey Weinstein, James Toback and Brett Ratner, shifts the stereotype of the sexual exhibitionist from subway flasher to Hollywood heavyweight. Although the urge to force others to witness sexual acts can be found in individuals at all socioeconomic levels (and in all industries), experts say a unique combination of several factors enables that type of predilection among Hollywood’s most powerful. First, whereas the gratification of basic urges — like lust — is typically checked by social layers, “power basically knocks out those constraints,” says UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, author of The Power Paradox. “Power leads people to take the shortest, easiest path to expressing their desire, no matter…

CHINA’S DWINDLING INVESTMENT IN THE U.S. ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY Why did Paramount’s $1 billion slate financing deal with China’s Huahua Media and Shanghai Film Group finally come undone on Nov. 8? Parent Viacom’s explanation fit the pattern industry watchers recently have come to expect from deals involving China: “Changes to Chinese foreign investment policies” were to blame, the company said. But sources close to Huahua, however, counter to THR that the Shanghai-based company deliberately aborted the pact because of the poor performance of Paramount’s recent releases and dismal projections it was seeing for the studio’s lineup. Paramount declined to comment, and Huahua did not respond to requests for on-therecord comment. The failed Paramount pact joins a scrap heap of aborted deals totaling billions, including China buyouts of Dick Clark Productions, Voltage…

Box-office source: comScore; estimates in $ millions; ()Weekends in release; *Territories. Broadcast source: Nielsen, live-plus-3, week of Oct. 30. Cable TV source: Nielsen, live-plus-3 scripted series, week of Oct. 30. Less than three months after Facebook began rolling out its video tab, Watch, the social network is prioritizing premium programming. Several digital media executives tell THR that they expect Facebook to stop partially funding videos from publisher and producer partners as it focuses on buying high-end projects outright. The move is expected to provide more funding opportunities for shows that keep viewers coming back and watching for longer periods of time, as opposed to oneoff viral hits. These fully funded projects, known internally as “hero” shows, include ambitious TV-style series such as recent pickups Five Points, a teen drama exec…

Big Deal Emmy Rossum and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail are bringing THR’s recent Angelyne exposé to life. The Shameless actress is set to star and executive produce a limited series based on THR senior writer Gary Baum’s investigative feature about L.A.’s mysterious billboard icon. Rossum will star as Angelyne, the self-created pop culture icon whom Baum uncovered to be the Polandborn Renee Goldberg, daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Rossum will executive produce via her Grey Matters Pictures alongside Esmail (her husband) and his Universal Cable Productions-based EsmailCorp banner. Esmail’s manager, Chad Hamilton, will executive produce via Anonymous Content. The project will be shopped to cable and streaming outlets. Baum, who spent months researching Angelyne’s past, will serve as a consultant on the drama. “From the moment I read Gary’s…

People, Places, Preoccupations When Zack Snyder called to offer him a role in Justice League, Ray Fisher reacted like the superhero fan he has been since his childhood in New Jersey. “I started rolling around the floor, telling him, ‘You’re lying!’” the actor recalls with a laugh. But no lie: Audiences will see Fisher’s first major big-screen role Nov. 17 in Warner Bros.’ superhero team-up (reviewed on page 95), in which he plays Victor Stone, a college athlete who becomes the hero Cyborg when much of his body is replaced with machines following an accident. Raised by his single mother and grandmother (he’s the second youngest of five siblings), Fisher found his way into theater in high school and later earned a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy…

Author, Author When nobody wanted to buy Krysten Ritter’s TV pitch, the star of Netlix and Marvel’s Jessica Jones decided to turn her idea into a book instead. “I love my acting job more than anything, but I get in my car when I’m told and I act when someone says ‘action.’ I have to harness that creativity on someone else’s time,” says Ritter, 35, who spoke to THR en route to Oregon for her book tour (she missed a Nov. 10 stop in Chicago due to a brief illness, posting a hospital-bed apology on Instagram). “This was a way to do it on my own time.” Her thriller Bonfire published Nov. 7 to rave reviews — so, natch, Ritter’s original TV pitch now has fresh heat. Notes the author…

Hollywood, Nov. 11 AFI Fest Hollywood, Nov. 9-16 Film Pioneers Honored by AMPAS “To our honorees, to innovation and to excellence,” said Steven Spielberg as he toasted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ninth annual Governors Awards, where honorary Oscars were presented to Donald Sutherland, director Charles Burnett (7), cinematographer Owen Roizman and director Agnes Varda (4) at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland. Helmer Alejandro G. Inarritu (2) received a special award for his virtual reality project Carne y Arena. AMPAS president John Bailey, presenters including Whoopi Goldberg (1) and Jessica Chastain (6) and honorees steered clear of the topic of sexual harassment, yet the political subtext couldn’t be ignored: “We need to draw strength from artists like Agnes,” said Angelina Jolie (4) of Varda…

Will Smith, aka Deadshot, has varied tastes in watches, including (from left) a sporty limited-edition TAG Heuer Monaco and a denim-dial Hublot Big Bang Ceramic Jeans ($17,100) on Suicide Squad’s tours. Jared Leto, who is expected to reprise his role as The Joker, tends to wear pieces only for big awards shows, including these worn to the Oscars (from left): Piaget’s Altiplano ($19,000) and Cartier’s Cle de Cartier ($19,000). Dwayne Johnson, rumored to be playing Black Adam, prefers large-faced watches, including (above left) Panerai’s 47mm Luminor 1950 ($9,200). On Ballers, he has worn Arnold & Son’s Time Pyramid ($43,200).…

1. Rolex The dual time zone Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller has been updated for 2017 in two-tone stainless steel and 18-karat yellow gold. The champagne-hued dial also features the date at 3 o’clock and stop seconds, all in a 42mm case with fluted bezel; $17,150, at Rolex, Beverly Hills, and Tourneau Time Machine, New York 2. Omega Limited to 3,557 pieces, the Speedmaster ’57 Chronograph pays tribute to the original Omega worn on the moon. Small seconds are found on the black dial in a 38.6mm case with a tachymeter. Ryan Gosling has worn Omega both on the red carpet and in his films; $7,250, at Westime, Beverly Hills, and Omega, New York 3. Audemars Piguet This special-edition Royal Oak Chronograph features a rich brown dial with Grand Tapisserie pattern and…

A few days after 9/11, I accompanied Tina Brown and Harvey Weinstein to a smoldering Ground Zero. Our purpose was to distribute food, procured from a nearby restaurant co-owned by Weinstein and Robert De Niro. Weinstein carried a stack of paper plates and Brown clutched a bunch of bananas while I struggled behind them with an enormous vat of hot soup. A bit later, while Harvey chewed on a bagel grabbed from the firemen’s table, Tina, in heels, picked her way across the rubble, scribbling furiously in her notepad. It was one of many surreal moments during my year as editorial director of Talk, the ill-fated magazine Brown had started with backing from Weinstein’s Miramax. When she hired me, Tina confided that she had been keeping journals since her school…