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.
SOME YEARS AGO, AT A LUNCHEON SPONSORED by New York magazine in the Four Seasons Restaurant pool room, I found myself in an unlikely seat between Fox News anchor Paula Zahn, in the headlines for a public dustup with her boss, Roger Ailes, and the then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Indeed, we were talking about Ailes, who had greeted Zahn’s just-announced move to CNN with a swirl of brutal and profane denunciations. Ailes happened to be lunching in another part of the restaurant. Suddenly there he was, with the kind of everywhere presence that can strike fear into his staff, slowly, in his pained gait, coming across the room toward us. He paid his respects to Sen. Clinton, introduced himself to me, pulled up a chair and sat down,…
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS HAVE been wading into virtual reality cautiously, using it mostly as a tool to promote movies as Sony Pictures did with its Ghostbusters: Dimension VR experience at Madame Tussauds. But that’s changing quickly. On June 27, Sony tapped Jake Zim as its first senior executive dedicated solely to VR production. Fox is in the game as well, with Ted Schilowitz heading the studio’s Innovation Lab. On the TV front, NBC will provide VR coverage of the Rio Olympics to users with Samsung Galaxy phones. With so much activity, talent agencies are jockeying to stake their claims. But with commissions all but nonexistent until now, the biggest challenge has been finding internal support despite little or no immediate return on investment. “If you’re working with a director who’s making…
JAMIE ERLICHT WAS on vacation in Oregon when he got the call from Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton. Erlicht and his partner of more than a decade, Zack Van Amburg, officially were being elevated at Sony Pictures Television, assuming the duties of ousted chief Steve Mosko. When the news was announced June 2, a deluge of congratulatory calls and comical gifts followed. “Why didn’t they consult me first because I may have some things to share,” Rescue Me co-creator Peter Tolan emailed. The Goldbergs’ Adam F. Goldberg sent over a vintage standup arcade game with a big bow to house in their lobby; A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc had a batch of cookies with their faces etched onto them delivered to their offices. And so began a new era at…
JERRY SEINFELD RECENTLY SAID HE took home the sofa from his sitcom set and was looking for a place to exhibit it. Incredibly, there’s no collecting institution dedicated to TV in Southern California. Shouldn’t Seinfeld’s iconic apartment be on view where TV always has been innovated? The bar from Cheers? Don Draper’s office from Mad Men? You may be surprised that they are already here, conserved and ready for their spotlight. I’ve spent the past 30 years rescuing the original costumes, props and sets from the most memorable TV shows of all time. Forbes recently crowned ours “the world’s greatest collection of TV memorabilia,” but our only goal was to gather what Hollywood routinely relegated to its dumpsters. There is a system in place for hiring crews to demolish sets…
LEGENDARY PICTURES’ WARCRAFT easily is the most lopsided Hollywood release in recent years. As it winds down its global run, fully 89 percent of its $430.1 million global gross has come from international. And more than half of all revenue ($220.8 million) came from China after the film bombed in the U.S. with $46.6 million. “Warcraft is a strange box-office beast and unlike anything the industry has seen,” says analyst Jeff Bock. “If China didn’t end up grossing what it did, this would have been an utter failure. Now it’s only a mild concussion.” Those close to the $160 million-budgeted video game adaptation say the loss only will be about $15 million. But any deficit stings because Warcraft is the first movie Legendary’s Thomas Tull has released since the company…
After a week that included the police killings of black men Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, as well as the shooting deaths of five police officers in Dallas, the following column was inspired by a conversation that film and television writer-director Salim Akil had with his 12-year-old son about race and fear in America. SON, I’VE BEEN watching you and your brothers — your bodies move through the world so beautifully, confidently — slicing through time and space like high-definition slow motion. Watching you fills my heart with love, like it would any parent, like it would any father, but then the paranoia of life creeps in. The realization that you have a black body conjures up images of 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s murder in my mind.…
