Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-25-15 i The Hollywood Reporter

MY DREAM WAS GETTING ED O’NEILL to reprise his Married … With Children character, Al Bundy, with his current co-star Sofia Vergara as Peg Bundy,” says THR awards and special projects editor Stacey Wilson Hunt, who, with assistance from 20th Century Fox Television, helped re-create several beloved series on THR’s list of Hollywood’s 100 Favorite TV Shows (page 116) with the stars of Modern Family. O’Neill’s heart was set on Tony Soprano, but after some coaxing, he eventually agreed. In the end, the Dunphys paid tribute to six classics, including tableaus from Cheers, I Dream of Jeannie, Frasier, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Breaking Bad. All were shot Sept. 2 on the Fox lot during a five-hour session that Hunt says was “incredibly calm.” Adds THR creative director Shanti…

NBC PRESIDENT OF late-night and alternative programming Paul Telegdy couldn’t have said it any better: “The Celebrity Apprentice … will be back!” Two months after the network’s acrimonious split from longtime host and presidential candidate Donald Trump, it announced Sept. 14 that Arnold Schwarzenegger (CAA, Bloom Hergott) will take the reins for season eight (the 15th cycle of the overall Apprentice franchise). The Terminator star quietly met with NBC executives in early September, according to an insider, after which talks “moved really fast.” The network was itching to press the reset button for several reasons: Celebrity Apprentice continues to be an important part of NBC’s primetime schedule, as the network has canceled more than a dozen scripted programs this season and has come to rely more and more on unscripted…

Toronto Film Festival Toronto, Sept. 10-20 WHEN JEAN-MARC VALLEE TOOK TO the stage with Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts for the Demolition premiere, he described his Fox Searchlight openingnight film — and the kickoff of the 40th annual Toronto Film Festival — as pure “rock ’n’ roll.” And while the festival is making noise on the red carpet, with such 2015 attendees as George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Jessica Chastain and Tom Hardy, business has been less raucous, with few major deals. As of press time, Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next had yet to formalize a distribution pact, some say because of its less controversial nature, about which Moore said, “I hope [audiences] appreciate the prankish nature of it all.” — CHRIS GARDNER THR and Bleecker…

SANDRA STERN WILL ARRIVE AT THE Emmy Awards on Sept. 20 with a supersized pit in her stomach. As the newly upped president of the Lionsgate TV Group, the 12-year company veteran is invested heavily in two drama series frontrunners, AMC’s Mad Men and Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black. “I always say you love all your children equally, but some are ugly. Well, these two are not ugly,” she says with a laugh. Stern, a Brooklyn native with a law degree from UCLA, negotiated the original deals for both series and has been intimately involved in keeping each on the air. Working closely with Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer, with whom she’s been employed since 1986, and TV Group chairman Kevin Beggs, Stern spearheads strategy, transactions and dealmaking to continue…

ALL OF THE ROUGHLY 19,000 members of the TV Academy belong to one of 29 “peer groups” (i.e., actors, writers, etc.) and are entitled to vote for the nominees — and, as of this year, also the winners — in the categories that pertain to their specific area of expertise; for series categories, all members vote. THR’s awards analyst Scott Feinberg spoke with one producer who has won an Emmy himself but who has no ties to this year’s nominees to learn how he voted — and why. OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES I would have dumped Homeland, House of Cards and Downton Abbey and put in Bloodline, which was incredibly well done; The Good Wife, which made a really strong comeback this year and would have been nominated if it was…

FASHION’S PENDULUM is swinging in a whole new direction heading into red-carpet season, if the Venice and Toronto film festivals are any indication. While spring’s Grammys and Met Ball ripped the fabric right off Hollywood femmes, fall’s forecast is the polar opposite: more, more, more — of 1970s-inspired ruffles, chiffon, prints, full sleeves and billows. “It’s fresh; we always need fresh in fashion,” says designer Zac Posen, whose romantic, bohemian looks were a hit at his Sept. 8 spring 2016 show in New York. Jumpsuits, which cover up similarly, if not as romantically, also are driving carpet trends. And while this movement toward greater coverage is purely fashion-derived, it should have the side effect of putting shyer, #AskHerMore feminist types at ease. Will TV stars, not known for being bashful,…

LOS ANGELES’ WHITE-HOT LUXURY HOME market shows no signs of cooling. The average luxury home sales price in the city grew 10.5 percent — to $7.4 million — during the second quarter of 2015, while the average number of days on the market fell 11 percent (to 88 days), according to Douglas Elliman. Witness record-setting sales in some of the hottest markets — with many buyers paying all-cash. “It’s a healthy market, and there’s no better place to invest,” says John Aaroe Group’s Aaron Kirman, one of THR’s top 25 agents, in alphabetical order, selected for their client rosters and killer deals. ›JOSH AND MATT ALTMAN Douglas Elliman The Million Dollar Listing stars moved their business to Douglas Elliman in February after nearly a decade with Hilton & Hyland. During…

The most prolific producer in the history of television, Aaron Spelling dominated his industry in a way no single producer in today’s splintered 400-show landscape possibly could. He boasted more than 200 series and TV movies — programs that defined the medium and garnered Emmys for acting, costumes and more, though Spelling himself won only two (for TV films about the A-bomb and AIDS). He changed the face of pop culture in the ’60s and ’70s with counterculture cops on The Mod Squad, female private eyes on Charlie’s Angels and such escapist fare as The Love Boat. He pioneered crossover episodes (yes, the Angels did solve a case on the Love Boat) and season-finale cliff-hangers (Starsky and Hutch chucking their badges into the ocean). In the ’80s, he brought soap…

Moonves Not a Fan of Rather’s ‘Half Truth’ Truth, director James Vanderbilt’s drama about the “memogate” scandal that ended Dan Rather’s CBS News career, was touted as a world premiere at Toronto. But it turns out the movie was shown months earlier to a special viewer: CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves. CBS mostly comes across as the villain, with news chief Andy Heyward firing Rather (Robert Redford) and 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) to appease the George W. Bush White House and protect CBS in the wake of questions regarding documents behind a 2004 story on Bush’s military service. A source close to the film says Moonves wasn’t a fan, but, ever the gentleman, he didn’t ask producers for major changes, and CBS isn’t planning to…

GIVEN THE ATTENTION PAID TO SO MANY mediocre scripted series at Emmy time, what I really want to know is why more people aren’t talking about The White Crow? If you haven’t seen it, it could be because your cable package doesn’t include the TV24 network. If not, go to its website, where you can binge-watch the first four episodes for free (you can also purchase the whole season on iTunes). The first two episodes are a little slow, but the pace really picks up after that, and by episode eight, you’ll be totally hooked. The show stars Scottish actress Charlotte McDuffy, whom I loved as Virgilia in the recent film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Her rural New England accent here is spot-on. The pilot was written and directed by…

1 TRUTH It may be yesterday’s news, but there’s still plenty of juice left in this crackerjack journalism yarn: Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford play Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, who in 2004 became embroiled in a controversy that still raises partisan hackles. While the portrayal of CBS’ handling of President George W. Bush’s questionable Air National Guard career clearly takes the view of the protagonists, James Vanderbilt’s directorial debut should first and foremost be appreciated as a superior account of the pressurized world of high-end TV reporting. Blanchett delivers another galvanizing performance, giving Mapes dynamic intelligence and human dimension. — TODD MCCARTHY 2 LAND OF MINE It might seem hard to find a World War II tale that hasn’t been told, but Danish director Martin Zandvliet comes up with…

SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL THE SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM Festival used to market itself as the last big A-list event on the circuit, where awards contenders could get gala premieres and producers and distributors could gain access to the Spanish market. But with smaller, younger festivals like Telluride snagging world premieres and Toronto sucking up the awards-season oxygen, San Sebastian has had to reinvent itself to remain relevant. The seaside town in Spain’s Basque Country has a population of less than 200,000, but the 2014 festival sold nearly 170,000 tickets. This year’s edition also will play to the crowd with a section of buzzy “best hits you missed” titles from Toronto and sidebars designed to appeal to ordinary film fans. Still, professional attendance has shot up 36 percent during the…

INBODY & WENDLER Rachel Inbody, a publicist at PMK•BNC, married Mansions on the Moon bandmember Ted Wendler Aug. 1 at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu in front of 140 guests. The couple, who became engaged in October, honeymooned in Hawaii. BIRTHS Nat McCormick, senior vp distribution at The Exchange, and Sara Peterson, production coordinator for NBC’s Days of Our Lives, welcomed daughter London Elizabeth McCormick on Aug. 3 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Paramount chairman and CEO Brad Grey and his wife, Violet Grey founder Cassandra Huysentruyt Grey, welcomed son Jules Andrew at Cedars-Sinai in L.A. on Sept. 3. Amy Prenner-Corralez, owner and founder of The Prenner Group, and husband Lance Corralez, executive chef at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, welcomed son Ryder Alexander on Aug. 7 at…

THE DOMINANT FORCE IN REPUBLICAN Party politics for most of the past generation has been Fox News. Every national GOP candidate has had to pay it court and heed. Through Fox, many have found their voice and, as a consolation prize when they lost or a way station between races, a paycheck. The Summer of Donald Trump will be an extraordinarily profitable one for Fox. The longer the Trump surge, the more the network can be expected to make via increased ratings. Any liberal hope that the ascendance of Rupert Murdoch’s sons (and Fox News chief Roger Ailes’ antagonists), James and Lachlan, to leadership of the parent company might mean Ailes’ end is complicated further by the profits Trump adds to Fox News, already the parent company’s most profitable division.…

ELI BROAD, THE billionaire financier, art collector and philanthropist, visited the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank some months ago. He wasn’t appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show or sitting down with CEO Kevin Tsujihara. Instead, Broad, 82, was staking out blue-chip art in an improbable milieu — meeting with Alex Israel, an acclaimed 33-year-old local artist who collaborates with the studio’s scenic painting team on his playful, Hollywood-themed canvases. Broad, who first admired Israel’s riffs on celebrity culture at Art Basel in Switzerland and Miami Beach, was eager to view them in situ. “I was fascinated that he worked on the lot,” says Broad, who acquired five pieces for mid- to high-sixfigures. “My wife, Edythe, and I collect contemporary art because it’s a social commentary on the world, and Alex’s…

NO. 78 — Married … With Children Sofia Vergara and Ed O’Neill as Peg and Al Bundy “I love dressing up like Ed’s first TV wife. I’m starting to think Ed just signs up for roles where his wife has really big boobs. I’m glad I made the cut!” says Vergara. Adds O’Neill: “It was fun to revisit the Bundys with another beautiful woman.” What’s the best TV show of all time? Who knows? This poll is strictly about favorite shows, the programs people in Hollywood hold nearest to their hearts — that remind them of better times or speak to their inner child or inspire their creativity or just help them unwind after a crappy day at the studio — even if one or two of the programs listed here aren’t…

International co-productions are nothing new. Modern filmmakers have been joining hands across borders at least since the 1960s, when Italian directors, shooting in Spain with American stars, produced spaghetti Westerns. But economic globalization has brought new energy to the concept. Hollywood trade publications now regularly announce international co-productions. David Acosta, head of the film and television production team for City National Bank, says that independent filmmakers, searching for tax credits, discounts and welcoming offshore production facilities, are more attuned to this possibility than previously. “It’s not that films haven’t always been shot all over the world,” said Acosta, senior vice president at Los Angeles-based CNB, one of the leaders in financing for independent films, “but they tend to be bigger, studio-type films.” Still, industry insiders are seeing smaller, independent production…

CREATED BY RYAN MURPHY AND GLEE partners Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, the new series Scream Queens initially resembles a bubblier spin on Murphy’s American Horror Story franchise. It’s a familiarity that passes quickly: The Fox show is lighter and livelier, favoring comic gross-out moments over the primal terrors of its FX cousin. Scream Queens revolves around sorority Kappa Kappa Tau, fiefdom of the tyrannical Chanel (Emma Roberts), who treats her sisters like chattel. Abigail Breslin, Billie Lourd and Ariana Grande play minions who have ceded their own names to become Chanels (like erstwhile Heathers). Chanel has the perfect life plan, the perfect outfits and the perfect boyfriend, Chad (Glen Powell), but complications arise in the form of a sorority-hating dean (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a guy in a red…