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 WEINSTEIN CO. DODGED ONE BULLET when its Dec. 7 premiere of The Hateful Eight took place without a promised “surprise” from the Fraternal Order of Police, the law enforcement group fuming over director Quentin Tarantino’s October comments about police “murderers.” But co-founder Harvey Weinstein and his top lieutenant, COO David Glasser, will have to surmount more hurdles before they can exhale. Sources tell THR that Weinstein’s board of directors will meet Dec. 11 in New York to discuss the company’s future. It’s the first get-together of the board since Weinstein and Glasser instituted cost-cutting measures (including about 50 layoffs) and put together a new business plan for the veteran indie studio. As rumors of a possible sale of some or all of its assets continue to swirl, the board…
THE SORDID SPECTACLE OF PACKS OF journalists on live television combing through the intimate belongings of a married couple and dead terrorists in their abandoned apartment near San Bernardino was hardly inspirational. But it was hardly a new normal, either. Journalists have hunted in packs since the dawn of their profession. What was unusual Dec. 4 was the laxity of local police in their failure to prepare the apartment’s landlord for the horde’s onset — and that the event aired live. “Breaking News,” as the chyron loves to boast, is the killer app of 24-hour television news. Just as cable system operators rely on the appeal of live sports to prevent subscribers from cord-cutting, just as broadcasters rely on red-carpet awards shows and single-elimination reality TV contests to prevent viewers…
IT’S REALLY CHALLENGING, ESPECIALLY IN THE PROVERBIAL 24-HOUR NEWS environment, to always do things the right way. There is a sincere effort on the part of reporters to convey the latest information to a public that is hungry for details and anxious to understand the story. As a result, people literally don’t have time to think before they broadcast, and they’re so anxious to impart the information to the public that sometimes the best decisions aren’t made. It’s because they’re trying to get as much information as they can. But the gap between newsgathering and news delivery has shrunk to literally nothing, so people are now, and have been for some time, privy to how news is made. That presents a lot of challenges. News organizations probably need to step…
THIS IS WHAT A HOLLYWOOD blockbuster looks like in Spain these days: a low-budget rom-com that pokes fun at the Catalan independence movement. Universal’s A Spanish Affair 2 became the top opener in the country with $8.4 million in November, beating the $8.2 million record set by the studio’s Fifty Shades of Grey in February. The $3 million-budgeted sequel is on track to become the top earner in Spain this year, just one of several local-language hits bankrolled by U.S. studios. In the past decade, Hollywood increasingly has invaded key foreign markets with custom-made films, producing and distributing non-English titles from Buenos Aires to Berlin to Bangalore. Warner Bros. is behind a series of German comedy hits, including Til Schweiger’s 2014 blockbuster Head Full of Honey ($66.5 million local gross),…
RACE Sundance festival director John Cooper and programmer Trevor Groth never shy from hot-button topics, but the 2016 lineup seems especially newsdriven. Into America’s race debate comes Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, which chronicles the deadly 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. Comic W. Kamau Bell is bringing United Shades of America, a CNN docuseries that includes an exchange with a Klansman. And the fest will premiere Ezra Edelman’s 7½-hour racially charged documentary O.J.: Made in America. POLITICS Barack Obama woos Michelle Robinson on a 1989 date in Richard Tanne’s sure-to-bedissected Southside With You. Documentarians Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg got full access to Anthony Weiner’s New York mayoral campaign and the sex scandal, and wife Huma Mahmood Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s adviser, plays a big role. “What’s…
UNDER NEW CEO BRENT MONTGOMERY, ITV America will depend in part on the power of celebrity. Rather than focus on adding production companies to the ITV group, Montgomery and chief creative officer Adam Sher say they will seek entrepreneurial talents with whom to partner, including Bethenny Frankel and upcoming Fox reality star John Cena. Other priorities for Montgomery, tapped Dec. 3 to take the helm of the largest independent U.S. producer of nonscripted content, include ramping up development across the ITV portfolio, which includes ITV Entertainment (Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen), Gurney Productions (A&E’s Duck Dynasty), Thinkfactory Media (Lifetime’s Preachers’ Daughters), High Noon Entertainment (TLC’s Cake Boss) and DiGa (MTV’s Teen Wolf). Montgomery, 41, says he planted seeds for his role when his New York-based Leftfield Entertainment was acquired by ITV for…
