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 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY REALLY doesn’t want Alex Gibney to win an Oscar for his documentary Going Clear. Since the film — a scathing critique of the church and its celebrity adherents, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, based on Lawrence Wright’s book — won three Emmys in September, the filmmaker says he has been the subject of an increasingly hostile harassment campaign that has included a Scientology-backed “documentary” and outreach to members of the Academy’s documentary branch, the group that selects the Oscar contenders . “In the last few weeks, Scientology has dramatically ratcheted up its corporate campaign against me and those in the film,” Gibney tells THR. Oscar nominee Rory Kennedy (Last Days in Vietnam), who, like Gibney, is a member of the Academy’s documentary branch and sits…
WHEN XI JINPING MADE HIS FIRST major visit to the U.S. in February 2012, as vp of China, the trip culminated in a landmark agreement that opened the Chinese market to more Hollywood-made films (34 titles a year, up from 20) and boosted U.S. distributors’ share of box-office revenue in the country. When Xi again arrived stateside Sept. 22, this time as China’s president, sources tell THR the MPAA worked to seal a follow-up agreement with China Film Group, the country’s powerful state-backed studio. The negotiations were shrouded in secrecy, but a Beijingbased source with knowledge of the discussions says China made two key concessions: an agreement to allow international firms to audit ticket sales at China’s rapidly expanding box office, and a plan to increase significantly the number of…
THINK EMPIRE …” THAT is how dozens of pitches for new TV shows have begun this development season. “You name it, we’ve probably heard it,” jokes one network exec, who rattles off examples including a “Latina Empire” and “Empire set at a winery.” But the deluge of Empire offshoots isn’t the only theme to emerge this season, which is off to another late start as networks still are vying for several projects well into the fall. As the broadcast nets look to populate their pipelines with projects that can cut through in an increasingly crowded landscape, This American Life’s popular Serial podcast has supplanted Homeland as the frequently touted thriller archtype being pitched around town. Not unlike their film studio counterparts, network execs also are relying heavily on big stars,…
WHEN UNIVERSAL and Sony revealed they would open Everest and The Walk, respectively, in 3D Imax theaters one week before going wide, some proclaimed it the birth of a new distribution model. But that strategy might be backfiring. Over the Oct. 2-4 weekend, Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk — a love letter to French artist Philippe Petit, who walked on a wire between the World Trade Center towers in 1974 — grossed only $1.6 million from 448 Imax and premium large-format theaters. (Even the Oct. 3 live transmission of The Metropolitan Opera’s Il Trovatore earned more.) The Walk’s poor showing doesn’t bode well for its nationwide bow Oct. 9, and Sony essentially is having to pay to promote two wide opening weekends in a row. In addition, Imax operators aren’t happy…
ANEW DATE HAS BEEN SET FOR THE OPENING OF the Academy’s long-planned movie museum: Once promised for mid-2017, it now is slated for spring 2018. While the Los Angeles City Council voted to approve the controversial project in June, building permits were delayed until the Academy reached a September settlement with community group Fix the City, which had threatened to sue until the Academy promised to reduce signage and monitor traffic and noise. Demolition work finally is beginning at the old May Co. Streamline Moderne building at Fairfax and Wilshire. And construction on architect Renzo Piano’s ambitious design is set to begin in March. On Oct. 6, the Academy kicked off a $349 million tax-exempt bond offering so that it will have funds on hand for construction while pledges to…
The Big Number Winning bid for Princess Leia’s slave bikini from Return of the Jedi during an auction Oct. 2. $96,000 ABC FAMILY LEAVES THE NEST AND CHANGES ITS NAME THE EVOLUTION OF ABC Family continues. Come January, the younger-skewing Disney-owned cable network will be renamed Freeform, a moniker that network president Tom Ascheim tells THR will better cater to “becomers,” his word for its target demo of viewers ages 14-to-34, who number an estimated 69 million in the U.S. The term was created to evoke the post-college “firsts” — think cars, jobs and heartbreaks — that shape who their viewers want to become. “If we wanted to grow and reach new people, we couldn’t have this narrow sense of who we were,” Ascheim says of the network, which ranks…
