Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov-13-15 i The Hollywood Reporter

THE MENTAL COMPETENCY OF SUMNER Redstone could be openly challenged as his longtime companion Manuela Herzer — who was ejected from Redstone’s life in October — might be set to square off against the frail 92-year-old Viacom and CBS executive chairman’s family, which recently has taken a leading role in his care. Herzer, who a source says was Redstone’s health care agent until his daughter, Shari, and her family asserted themselves in his life in September, has retained Pierce O’Donnell, the combative litigator who represented Donald Sterling’s wife, Shelly, in her successful battle to have Sterling declared incompetent, leading to a $2 billion sale of the L.A. Clippers in 2014. While O’Donnell declined to tell THR whether Herzer will seek to reassert herself as the primary person in charge of…

BEST PICTURE The Big Short Buzz has been through the roof after the first carefully orchestrated industry screenings for Adam McKay’s look back at the 2008 financial crisis, which will premiere Nov. 12 at AFI Fest. Steve Jobs The Aaron Sorkin-scripted film had a great first weekend in only four theaters, but when it went wide Oct. 23, it ranked no better than seventh for the weekend, quickly losing commercial momentum. Truth The controversial film about the Rathergate scandal was a nonstarter at the box office. And it doesn’t have the luxury of another indie that tanked in theaters, Beasts of No Nation, that will live on on Netflix. Bridge of Spies Steven Spielberg’s latest period piece drama, set during the Cold War, is resonating with older moviegoers and holding…

STAR TREK IS ON A MISSION into uncharted territory: streaming. CBS revealed Nov. 2 that it is teaming with Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the 2009 film reboot and its sequel, for another TV take on the cult hit. The new Star Trek will be produced by CBS Television Studios for CBS All Access, the network’s digital subscription and VOD service. Only the series premiere will air on the linear network in January 2017, about four months after the sci-fi classic’s 50th anniversary. Star Trek will mark the network’s first series developed specifically for All Access, which debuted in 2014. As CBS looks to boost original content (and subscribers) for the $5.99 monthly service, Trek was a logical first choice, given all of the franchise’s previous series are available on All…

The Right to Show Oscar in a Compromising Way J.J. Abrams recently found himself depicted in a compromising position (with an Oscar statuette), along with President Barack Obama (with a Washington Monument), on posters designed by conservative artist Sabo and headlined “Presidential Circle Jerk.” The art was put up in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica ahead of an Oct. 10 Obama fundraiser hosted by Abrams at his Palisades home. Though sources say that Abrams asked his Bad Robot staffers to remove the posters near the office in Santa Monica, Abrams revealed that he wasn’t personally offended when THR ran into him at GLSEN’s Respect Awards. “I didn’t care about it for me, but as an American, I felt offended for our president. But I also believe in free speech…

SAM MENDES’ SOPHOMORE JAMES Bond film, Spectre, begins with a tracking shot that appears to go on for a full four minutes before the first cut. No, 007 doesn’t get stuck in Times Square in his underwear. Rather, he climbs through a window in Mexico City to chase after a villain. Birdman may have made the arty long-take technique trendy — winning a Best Picture trophy for it last year — but it’s never before been done quite on this scale. And certainly not in a $250 million action movie with potential to become a billion-dollar grosser (Spectre is already breaking U.K. box-office records; it opens in the U.S. on Nov. 6). Says Hoyte van Hoytema, 44, Spectre’s Dutch-Swedish cinematographer, “It was a very visceral way for the audience to…

THANKS TO THE SONY HACK, PATRICIA Arquette’s rousing Oscar speech and Jennifer Lawrence’s recent essay, “Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?,” gender-pay issues are front and center in Hollywood. So the six film studio chiefs at The Hollywood Reporter’s annual executive roundtable Oct. 20 tackled the topic head-on. “I probably could mentor more,” admitted 20th Century Fox cochairman Stacey Snider. Sony chairman Tom Rothman agreed: “More needs to be done. And there is a certain cynicism that needs to be overcome.” Both Snider, 54, and Rothman, 60, are relatively new to their posts, the former shifting from DreamWorks Studios, and the latter having replaced Amy Pascal in February in the aftermath of the attack on Sony Pictures. The hack and its impact was another hot topic. Lionsgate…

JON STEWART The former Daily Show host inks a four-year production deal at HBO and first will focus on shortform content for the network’s digital platforms. But will he appear on camera? BRADLEY COOPER & SANDRA BULLOCK Two big stars, two epic flops as Bullock’s Our Brand Is Crisis ($3.2 million) and Cooper’s Burnt ($5 million) become the latest October movies to fizzle in U.S. theaters. ADELE The U.K. singer’s comeback single, “Hello,” sells a record 1.11 million downloads in its first week and sets a mark for Vevo video streams ahead of her album’s Nov. 20 release. RAVEN SYMONE ABC’s The View ratings drop below CBS’ The Talk despite the actress’ addition as a co-host, and more than 130,000 sign a petition to have her fired for inflammatory race comments.…

TWENTY YEARS AFTER David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s influential sketch series Mr. Show With Bob and David premiered on HBO, the comedy has a revival of sorts on Netflix. The Nov. 13 bow of With Bob and David (no “Mr. Show”) is the fruit of barely two weeks of filming in early 2015. But the seeds of the four-episode project were planted by Netflix’s Ted Sarandos way back in 2001. “I was the only Netflix employee in L.A., and my first office outside of my home was at the Raleigh Studios lot, directly above Bob’s,” recalls Sarandos, the streaming service’s chief content officer and a self-professed comedy nerd. In the days before Netflix’s original series, he focused solely on acquisitions for the company’s DVD-by-mail business. “One of the reasons we…

KA-CHING! WHO’S INKING ON THE DOTTED LINE THIS WEEK DEAL OF THE WEEK WHILE TRADITIONAL networks are scrambling to go over-the-top, leave it to Vice to go the other way. A+E Networks has closed multiple carriage deals for Viceland, set to replace H2 in 70 million cable and satellite homes in first-quarter 2016. Shane Smith’s youngmale-focused Vice Media will have editorial control of the channel; Spike Jonze is the network’s creative director. Sources say Smith, 46, has bristled at the pace of the launch, which has dragged on since the spring. According to SNL Kagan estimates, H2 earns an average of 7 cents a subscriber per month. But multiple providers will get the Vice channel for free as part of A+E’s suite of networks, a common bartering practice for upstarts.…

“It’s a bit toxic, fame. I got enough toxins in me body, I don’t need any of that!” ADELE The singer — whose new single, “Hello,” was the first to sell a million downloads in a week — explaining why she hasn’t done an interview since her son’s birth three years ago. “What am I even doing down here? I make movies.” PAUL RUDD The Ant-Man actor, while standing on the field helping the Kansas City Royals celebrate their first World Series championship in 30 years. “We may yet see J.K. Dearest!” J.K. ROWLING The Harry Potter author, joking about the possibility of her 22-year-old daughter or 11-year-old son someday writing memoirs about what a terrible mother she is. “If you can’t handle those guys, I don’t think the Chinese…

Sharing the room at The Grill: David Ellison, Patrick Whitesell, Jeanne Newman, Michelle Bohan and Howard Weitzman. … All in at once at the Palm: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Peter Guber at one table; Leslie Moonves, Lucian Grainge and French distributor Tarak Ben Ammar at another; Richard Lovett with Ben Silverman at a third; and Sherry Lansing and Cynthia Yorkin at a fourth. Stacey Snider and Elton John rounded out the scene. . … Dustin Lance Black broke bread with Josh Hutcherson at Soho House. Jon Favreau and Nanci Ryder visited at other times. … Kevin Hart ordered the bone-in filet at STK. … Nicolas Winding Refn met with WME’s Jeff Gorin and David Karp at Sushi Park. … Pharrell took a meeting with Elizabeth Gabler and Marisa Paiva…

LUXURY LID Hermes cap, with buttoned-up earflap, in canvas and cashmere; $630, at Hermes stores nationwide, 800-441-4488 GRAY MATTERS Loro Piana Melange cashmere; $385, at Neiman Marcus, Beverly Hills FITS THE BILL Paul Smith melton wool; $110, mrporter.com BRIMMING WITH STYLE Gents two-tone wool Mack hat; Chris Hemsworth sports the brand’s caps; $59, at Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills NOD TO NORMCORE Brunello Cucinelli wool; Chris Pine is a fan of the designer; $330, at Brunello Cucinelli, Beverly Hills and brunellocucinelli.com…

MENSWEAR’S MAJOR PLAYERS ARE OF late ramping up on Made to Measure, an option between old-school bespoke tailoring and suits off the rack. MTM offers a client a selection of signature styles, to be made up in the fabric of his choice and with modifications to suit his physique. “Especially in Hollywood, everyone wants things right away,” says Hollywood executive style consultant Andrew Weitz, explaining how MTM’s existing suit models allow the client to visualize the final result immediately. “If you know you look good in a designer’s cut of suiting and want it in a higher button stance, you can adjust that.” One sign of MTM’s emergence was a fall ad campaign featuring actors Dan Stevens, Matt Bomer and Chinese star Chen Kun for Giorgio Armani, the first to…

STEP OFF A NEW YORK SUBWAY OR DRIVE A LOS ANGELES FREEWAY and it’s hard to miss billboards promoting YouTube’s biggest stars by the size of their fan bases. But how much value do beauty guru Michelle Phan’s 8 million subscribers really have? Marketing giant Ogilvy & Mather believes that subscriber numbers mean a lot less than a creator’s ability to build a community. So Ogilvy has put together a list of the 30 online stars with the most-engaged fans. “There’s a bias of looking at the world through the lens of TV,” says Rob Davis, executive director of content and video marketing at Ogilvy. “The value of TV is the value of the eyeballs that are tuned in at any given moment, but I think it has taken a…

EARLY SIGNS ARE POINTING TO ANOTHER slow film market as AFM 2015 kicks off with a dearth of obvious hits to compare with Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight or the Meryl Streep-Hugh Grant starrer Florence Foster Jenkins, two of the event’s 2014 sales successes. With fewer independent titles delivering big box-office numbers overseas, foreign buyers have become increasingly cautious and less eager to sign big checks. “It’s not just about how good the script and the package is but whether you trust the company to deliver,” says buyer Rudiger Boss of ProSiebenSat.1. “We’ve been burnt too many times.” Also, sales agents continue to fight to close deals in time to launch projects. Sierra/Affinity CEO Nick Meyer, who will be shopping Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa 2 (which has landed a…

Steve Jobs $7.1M Theaters 2,493 A hit in four theaters, it tanked when it expanded Oct. 23. It then tumbled 65 percent in its second weekend. Burnt $5M Theaters 3,003 The Bradley Cooper chef film abandoned a limited release in favor of a wide bow Oct. 30 — audiences sent the movie back. The Walk $3.7M Theaters 2,509 It went wide Oct. 9 after debuting in Imax-only. Its $10 million total is a career low for Robert Zemeckis. Our Brand Is Crisis $3.2M Theaters 2,202 Warner Bros.’ $28 million political film suffered the lowest nationwide start of Sandra Bullock’s career. Rock the Kasbah $1.5M Theaters 2,012 Barry Levinson’s film opened wide Oct. 23 and delivered the worst debut ever for distributor Open Road. Jem and the Holograms $1.4M Theaters 2,413…

A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith (Simon & Schuster) BY Donald McRae AGENCIES Curtis Brown U.K., ICM Partners This cross between The Imitation Game and Raging Bull tackles the life of Emile Griffith, a black bisexual boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who killed an opponent with a barrage of blows during a 1962 bid to regain his world title. “The Darknet” (Rolling Stone) BY David Kushner AGENCY CAA This deep dive into the web’s untraceable, anonymous “Wild West” is generating buzz. Originally launched by the U.S. government, the “darknet” now is home to some of the world’s most dangerous drug dealers, hackers, arms runners and sex traffickers.…

Hollywood Film Awards Beverly Hills, Nov. 1 BILLED AS “THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE awards season,” the HFAs often are handled as an untelevised practice round for ensuing months of awards shows. Amy Schumer, Inside Out’s Pete Docter, Saoirse Ronan and the cast of Straight Outta Compton turned out for the ceremony, as did many A-list honorees, including Concussion’s Will Smith, Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl and The Hateful Eight’s Channing Tatum and Kurt Russell. Jamie Foxx introduced the Quentin Tarantino cast with a word of support for the director, whose anti-police-brutality protest Oct. 24 unleashed a call from law enforcement to boycott the film. As performers were being lauded for work that has yet to be released, host James Corden joked: “Technically these should be called the ‘IMDb…

HOW DO YOU DEFINE A “MOVIE”? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been wrestling with that issue for more than 40 years, and the question of exactly what types of filmed entertainment should qualify for Academy Award consideration is only getting trickier as the dividing lines among theatrical motion pictures, made-for-TV movies and, with the arrival of streaming services like Netflix, films distributed via the Internet only have gotten more amorphous. Enter Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation, Netflix’s first bid for acrossthe-board Oscar recognition. Having already established itself as an Emmy force, the company, which acquired the $6 million Beasts for $12 million in March, now is attempting to muscle into the Oscar race. Over the past two seasons, it has earned noms for documentaries The…

THE OUTDATED VIEW OF A POLISHED Hollywood dealmaker confronted with a Silicon Valley solely populated by hoodie-clad hackers is as cliched as the last Entourage feature. These days, if there is a style continuum, both sides now live sartorially more in the middle. But where the two cultures still stand apart is in how the meetings themselves are valued and conducted. For Hollywood, the jiujitsu of scheduling and rescheduling the meeting is sometimes more complicated than the deal being discussed. In the Valley, this version of the “Hollywood Shuffle” has no analogue. Meetings are seldom rescheduled, and to reference a classic Larry David sketch, the fact that the meeting is set means that it also is confirmed. What this means is that since schedules are as tight as conference room…

FIFTEEN STUDENTS. FIVE categories. All Oscar. This fall, the Academy revealed a roster of Student Academy Award winners — plucked from 1,686 films delivered by 375 colleges and universities — to follow in the footsteps of such previous winners as Pete Docter, Spike Lee, Trey Parker, Robert Zemeckis and John Lasseter. Lasseter, who won student Oscars in 1979 and 1980 while at California Institute of the Arts, has a son, Bennett, among the 2015 crop of winners. All were presented medals during a September ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The award doesn’t come with tickets to the grownup Oscars, but some of these students might make it there anyway: Past winners have gone on to receive 47 Oscar noms and have won or shared eight trophies.…

IN TERMS OF SHEER NUMBERS, the current lineup of Republican presidential hopefuls has nothing on the dozens of films all vying for attention this awards season. By January, once Oscar nominations are unveiled and the Golden Globes and SAG Awards are handed out, the jostling for attention should be intense, amid sharp elbows flying and inevitable cries of foul play. That’s because, as the season began to take shape during the Venice-Telluride-Toronto rollout, no dominant frontrunner was quick to emerge. With plenty of individual performances earning applause, a few dozen films have moved forward to stake a claim for best picture and other awards. And a number of key films that could upend the competition — Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful 8, David O. Russell’s Joy, Alejandro Inarritu’s The Revenant —…