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.
THE WORLDS OF HOLLYWOOD AND high fashion grow more entwined each year, and never is their symbiotic relationship on more display than during awards season, when the stakes are stratospherically high. Consider the recent $12.7 billion and $12.4 billion valuations of Michael Kors and Gucci, respectively. That’s big business, and the creators who drive those two brands, celebrated on THR’s second annual Top 25 Red Carpet Designers list (page 88), take it very seriously. As Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld has said, “This job is for warriors. This is not for romantic softies.” Still, that doesn’t mean these warriors don’t bring fun and flair to the battlefield, as evidenced by the quartet of diverse and playful covers of this issue. Zac Posen and his muse (and friend of 15 years) Katie Holmes…
IT’S A TRADITION: FOR FIVE DAYS EACH September, The Hollywood Reporter takes over Brassaii, transforming the chic eatery into one of the hot stops on the Toronto Film Festival circuit. This time around, the THR lounge hosted more than 180 of Hollywood’s biggest names — Sandra Bullock, Naomi Watts and David Oyelowo among them. Talent sat for video interviews and portraits shot by frequent THR and Billboard cover photographer Austin Hargrave. “He comes up with cool and inventive poses, which is hard to do when you shoot that many people back to back in a small space,” says THR photo and video director Jennifer Laski, who brought Hargrave to the festival with her team. On the morning of Sept. 14, the casts of three hot titles — Black Mass, Being…
NO FRANCHISE IS MORE IMPORTANT TO Universal Pictures than Fast & Furious, the carracing series whose seventh installment grossed $1.5 billion worldwide this year. But the effort to mount an eighth picture is proving more difficult than first imagined for the studio. As its announced April 2017 release date inches closer and screenwriter Chris Morgan works on the script, Universal still has not found a director for the next outing. And in this case, it seems that the job will involve more than just the usual challenge of overseeing a big-budget thrill ride. There also is the recent exit of studio co-president of production Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, who oversaw the series, and the prickly matter of star-producer Vin Diesel. Following the death of Paul Walker in November 2013, Universal enlisted Diesel,…
JANA BENNETT The FYI chief replaces ousted History GM Dirk Hoogstra (the second top A+E Networks exec booted in seven months after A&E chief David McKillop) and must fix falling ratings at the cable network. JOHN SKIPPER The ESPN chief braces for more layoffs as the high-flying network deals with weaker financials and pressure from parent Disney. HOWARD RODMAN The screenwriter and USC professor is elected president of WGA West, making him the leader in the guild’s next studio contract negotiations in 2016. JIA ZHANGKE The Chinese director fails in his public campaign to persuade the country’s film bureau to submit his drama Mountains May Depart for Oscar consideration in place of Wolf Totem from French auteur Jean-Jacques Annaud. SHOWBIZ STOCKS $20.83 (+12.2%) PANDORA MEDIA (P) The U.S. Registrar of…
WITH TELEVISION’S ANNUAL LAUNCH WEEK IN FULL SWING, the broadcast network chiefs might have cause for concern. Critics haven’t been particularly kind to their new shows — save perhaps for Supergirl (CBS), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW) and Fox comedies The Grinder and Grandfathered — and viewers continue to fracture in a crowded landscape. But the nearly two dozen fall offerings could benefit from slower-than-usual trigger fingers as the networks account for a growing cadre of viewing platforms and competition from 400-plus originals. THR checked in with each network to discern the narrative of the 2015-16 TV season. (ABC declined to participate.) If you were preemptively to write the headline for this fall season, what would it say? JENNIFER SALKE (NBC) “Survival of the Fittest” DAVID MADDEN (FOX) My dream headline…
WITH VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN apparently edging closer to a 2016 presidential run, some Hollywood donors are signaling they plan to support him over potential rival Hillary Clinton. UTA managing director Jay Sures, who has become a force on the political fundraising scene, tells THR he would back Biden, 72, and expects other leading industry Democrats to do the same. Sures says Biden’s much-talkedabout Sept. 10 appearance on CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, during which he movingly discussed the recent death of son Beau Biden, prompted many in Hollywood’s donor community to take a second look at the vp. “It exposed a side of him people here have not seen before, a much more human side,” says Sures. “I would get front and center behind him if he…
