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.
AMEMORABLE DINNER party is more about who’s at the table than what’s on it, and increasingly it also is about who chooses that table — and the lighting, the carpet and even the artwork to convey your host’s just-right mix of moneyed power and can’t-puta-price-on-it taste. That’s where THR’s list of Hollywood’s Top 20 Interior Designers comes in, as they feather the nests of stars, entertainment execs and tech moguls. As the town enters the homestretch of LArchitecture Month (not a typo), this issue also explores the architectural charms of Silver Lake, the city’s most competitive real estate market, and offers a look at film’s ultimate bachelor pad: James Bond’s apartment. Elsewhere, we visit the Murdoch brothers at their new Fox lot work digs and explore how California’s Fair Pay…
AN INSIDE LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES JAMES BOND IS ABOUT TO BECOME A FREE AGENT, setting off a scramble among Hollywood studios eager to win distribution rights to the seemingly gold-plated franchise. Sony Pictures opens Spectre, the 24th official Bond movie, on Nov. 6 in North America (the Brits get an early look Oct. 26), as the 007 adventure chases box-office records established by 2012’s Skyfall, which grossed $1.1 billion worldwide to become the biggest film in the series’ 53-year history. With tracking pointing toward an $80 million-plus domestic bow, the movie has Skyfall’s $88 million debut in its sights. But even if the film proves a big success, it could mark the end of the Sony/MGM collaboration since Spectre is the last in a two-picture deal that Sony struck…
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS DOESN’T open in the U.S. until Dec. 18, but the ticketbuying frenzy is putting Disney and Lucasfilm in the enviable but still challenging situation of managing expectations. Online sales began Oct. 19 for J.J. Abrams’ sequel based on George Lucas’ series, even before the full trailer debuted on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, with ticket sites like Fandango crashing under demand fueled by social media buzz. According to Twitter, between 11 a.m. Oct. 19 and 11 a.m. Oct. 20, there were 1.1 million Star Wars-related tweets. By the morning of Oct. 20, Fandango had recorded record presales, selling eight times as many tickets as it did on the opening day of sales for the first Hunger Games movie. Imax, which will show the film in about…
WITH THE HIRING OF Washington Post editor Kevin Merida to lead The Undefeated, its long-delayed race and sports site, ESPN has quieted some uncertainty (for now) about its strategy of building digi tal verticals around stars and subjects. On Oct. 19, Marie Donoghue, ESPN executive vp global strategy, who also oversees Grantland and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, noted that the hire “represents a key step in the evolution” of the vertical, which lost founder Jason Whitlock. ESPN’s digital hubs have generated outsize attention relative to their P&Ls. (Wall Street has given ESPN a $51 billion valuation, while annual revenue exceeds $10 billion.) And a stream of public digs from Grantland founder Bill Simmons, who was jettisoned in May and since has landed a rich deal at HBO, has been a source…
NOW THAT SNAPCHAT’S ORIGINAL programming push has disappeared as quickly as its messages do, content creators are debating the potential fallout. Nine months after the Venice, Calif.-based messaging app launched the Snap Channel for daily editorial and videos such as its Literally Can’t Even series, Snapchat abruptly shuttered it Oct. 12, laying off most of its staff and bidding farewell to Marcus Wiley, the Fox comedy exec hired to run the initiative. Insiders say the channel, which was launched as part of the Discover platform (which also works with such publishers as ESPN and CNN), was an experiment that generated insights about its young users and that the Evan Spiegelled company doesn’t plan to give up on content. But media observers say it’s no surprise Snapchat left creative endeavors to…
IF A HIT MOVIE, AN EMMY, A HUGE book deal and a friendship with Jennifer Lawrence aren’t enough to prove Amy Schumer has arrived, consider her new film deal: Sources say Schumer, 34, has scored between $4 million and $5 million to star in a Fox mother-daughter comedy to be directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50). It’s a giant leap from the $300,000 the then-obscure comic got in August 2013 to star in Trainwreck (she likely earned more in backend and bonuses when the film grossed $138.3 million worldwide this summer). Schumer and sister Kimberly Caramele also are executive producing the Fox and Chernin comedy as well as polishing Katie Dippold’s original script. The ribald comic, who recently signed with manager Guy Oseary, has enjoyed a meteoric rise in 2015. Besides…
