Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday July 18 2018 i The Hollywood Reporter

At a town hall in June with 150 HBO employees, a video unspooled with talent asking new WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey about the $85.4 billion merger of AT&T and Time Warner. “Hi John,” Bill Maher began. “Now that you figured out how to get the merger past the Justice Department, the next time Donald Trump sues me, I can use your lawyers, right? Because I think we all know there will be a next time.” Turns out the HBO host’s query was prophetic. On July 12, Trump’s Department of Justice appealed a court ruling that AT&T could acquire Time Warner. In the unlikely event the DOJ wins this time, it would mean the messy unwinding of a merger that already is being implemented. Time Warner shares have been delisted and…

For now, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is largely brushing off concerns that a quarter of weaker-than-expected subscriber growth signals a long-term problem. The streaming giant’s booming year — one that saw its market cap more than double to $174 billion, surpassing Disney along the way — came to an abrupt end July 16 after the company disclosed that it added 5.2 million subscribers in the second quarter, 1 million fewer than planned. Hastings tried to allay analyst concerns in an earnings call by noting that the streamer’s “fundamentals have never been stronger” but that the company has largely been valued based on its ability to add subscribers at astonishing rates. “It definitely throws a wrench into the great story of Netflix over the last few years,” says GBH Insights chief…

35 People of color competing in major acting categories, a record and more than a third of all nominated performances. 15 Years since the last Emmys with no first-time best drama nominees. All seven this year are returning shows. 8 Best comedy nominees, a record in the category. Each will try to fill the void left by HBO’s Veep. 5 People vying for an EGOT: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and John Legend. 1 Nomination for Monica Lewinsky’s anti-bullying PSA, up for best commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys.…

FILM Jesse Eisenberg (CAA, Felker Toczek), Emma Stone (WME, Anonymous, Ziffren Brittenham) and Woody Harrelson (CAA) will return for Sony’s Zombieland sequel. Timothee Chalamet (UTA, Ginsburg Daniels) is in talks to star in Legendary’s Dune remake. Barry Pepper (Kohner Agency, Sloane Offer) has joined Paramount’s Crawl. Chadwick Boseman (Greene & Associates, Management 360, Ziffren Brittenham) will star in action thriller 17 Bridges for STXfilms and producers Joe and Anthony Russo. Tim and Eric comic Tim Heidecker (UTA, Rise, Sloane Offer) has joined Jordan Peele’s new Universal thriller Us. Jamie Foxx (CAA, LBI, Ziffren Brittenham) is in negotiations to join Michael B. Jordan’s legal drama Just Mercy at Warner Bros. Danai Gurira (UTA, Suskin, Jackoway Austen) has joined Legendary Entertainment’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Bill Murray (Ziffren Brittenham), Tilda Swinton (UTA, the…

The Book of M (WILLIAM MORROW, JUNE 5) BY Peng Shepherd AGENCY ICM Partners Depicting a creepy near future, Shepherd’s debut novel could be the next Leftovers. The action kicks off when a man’s shadow suddenly disappears, along with his memories. The inexplicable phenomenon, and the powers that come with it, spread globally. The Incendiaries (RIVERHEAD BOOKS, JULY 31) BY R.O. Kwon AGENCY UTA With shades of Nxivm, a female coed at an elite college falls deep into a secretive extremist cult with North Korean ties founded by a charismatic former student. Kwon, born in South Korea, is a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow.…

“I look at our marriage like The Sixth Sense. You were dead the whole time.” DEMI MOORE The actress, jabbing ex-husband Bruce Willis during a surprise appearance at the actor’s Comedy Central Roast (which airs July 29). “Not stellar.” REED HASTINGS The Netflix CEO, in a letter to shareholders, understating the bad news about the streamer’s softening subscriber growth that sparked a stock slide. “Hi Thelma, I’m Louise — let’s take this asshole down.” KATHY GRIFFIN The comic, revealing to Jimmy Kimmel a conversation she had about Donald Trump with Stormy Daniels. “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.” ELON MUSK The SpaceX CEO, in a since deleted tweet calling British diver Vernon Unsworth a pedophile after Unsworth criticized Musk’s idea to use a submarine for the Thai…

Kathleen Kennedy lunched at Toscana. Eli Broad, Dana Walden, Alan Bergman and Alan Horn were in on separate days. … Lakeith Stanfield held court at La Poubelle. … Shaquille O’Neal stopped by Polo Lounge for dinner. Zac Posen was in for lunch. On a different day, Brooklynn Prince had breakfast there. … Paradigm’s Adam Kanter was at Viale dei Romani. … Nigel Lythgoe stopped by Mr Chow. … Demi Moore checked out The Pikey. … Christoph Waltz, Rita Wilson and Sean Lennon shared the room at Giorgio Baldi. … Isabelle Fuhrman popped into Cleo Third Street. HOT NEW RESTAURANT Elephante The Quick Pitch Santa Monica’s desire for a rooftop hangout has been fulfilled with Elephante, a spacious restaurant bar helmed by owner Nick Mathers (Eveleigh, Goldie’s). The airy space stuns…

Source: The week’s most active and talked-about entertainers on leading social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for the week ending July 10. Rankings are based on a formula blending weekly additions of fans as well as cumulative weekly reactions and conversations, as tracked by MVP Index.…

Digital Netflix Chilled Global growth may be a concern for investors. p. 26 Deals Weinstein Sale Can Lantern buyers actually “begin anew”? p. 32 Rupert Murdoch Quite a week for the mogul as Disney and Comcast fight to buy his Fox assets, AT&T suffers a DOJ appeal over its Time Warner deal and the FCC has “serious concerns” about Sinclair’s Tribune merger. Dwayne Johnson The Rock fatigue? Skyscraper, the star’s fifth film in 14 months, underperforms with a $24.9 million domestic debut as a key China release looms. Keri Russell The Americans star celebrates her third Emmy nom by signing on to J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX and Guillermo del Toro’s next horror-thriller, The Antlers. Bill Shine The new White House press secretary (and former Fox News chief) endures…

Hollywood can’t get enough of real-life rescue movies. In the days leading up to the July 10 extrication of a Thai soccer team from a cave, two films — one from Ivanhoe Pictures (with Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu attached) and another via faith-based distributor Pure Flix — staked their claim. But cable news coverage doesn’t necessarily translate into box-office gold. Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips, about the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, is the rare film that raked in money — $219 million worldwide off a $55 million budget — and landed an Oscar best picture nomination to boot (ditto for Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, which cost $18 million and earned $61 million worldwide). Clint Eastwood’s Sully missed out on a best picture nomination but was highly profitable nonetheless…

Informational Series There’s no historic preference for late Emmy nominees, but Bourdain seems primed to take one final win for CNN’s Parts Unknown. That means Leah Remini (last year’s winner), Neil deGrasse Tyson, Shane Smith and David Letterman should all plan to sit politely in their seats. Actor, Drama Series Vote splitting can put a major damper on Emmy odds, and this is the only big race where it affects nominees from two different series — Jeffrey Wright and Ed Harris for Westworld and Milo Ventimiglia and 2017 winner Sterling K. Brown for This Is Us. Reality Host In a first for the category, or any big Emmy race, nearly all the nominees for reality host — RuPaul Charles, Jane Lynch, Tim Gunn (shared with Heidi Klum), Ellen DeGeneres —…

Deal of the Week The Weinstein Co. is finally no more. Thirteen years after Harvey and Bob Weinstein launched their firm with a $1.2 billion war chest and ambitions to eclipse their first company, Miramax, TWC’s assets were sold July 16 for just $289 million to Texas-based private-equity firm Lantern Capital. It was an anticlimactic end for the once high-flying TWC, which in recent years had been on rocky financial footing even before more than 80 women came forward to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. (While he has denied any nonconsensual sex, he has been charged with six felony counts by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.) Now Lantern heads Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic, who specialize in turning around distressed properties but have no showbiz experience, must pick up…

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again London, July 16 M:I — Fallout Paris, July 12 Skyscraper New York, July 10 Party Crawler The Cher Show “Summer Soiree” was the dress code for the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again premiere in London at the Eventim Apollo. Meryl Streep (3), Amanda Seyfried (4), Lily James (2), Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan were just some of the stars on the blue carpet, where Cher (1), a newcomer to the cast, admitted she was “terrified” she wouldn’t be accepted. But director Ol Parker (6) revealed the singer had nothing to worry about. “The day she finished, everyone — including a Bond and Mr. Darcy — were queuing to have pictures with her,” he told THR. Added Streep: “She steals the movie.” — ALEX…

Don Murphy has been dreaming about making a Buck Rogers movie for quite a while. The producer behind such films as Natural Born Killers and Transformers grew up in Hicksville on New York’s Long Island, reading the space adventures of Buck Rogers in comics and later watching the 1970s NBC series. Once Murphy made a name for himself in entertainment, he saw other producers including Jerry Bruckheimer and Avi Lerner claim adaptation rights even though the copyright on Armageddon 2419 A.D., the 1929 novella by Philip Francis Nowlan that introduced the Buck Rogers character, wasn’t renewed in the 1950s. Timed to Comic-Con in San Diego in 2015, Murphy proclaimed he was making a film based on that early Buck Rogers story, presuming it had entered the public domain. Three years…

Morocco has stood in for places fictional (Game of Thrones’ Yunkai and Astapor) and real (the Middle East), but offers even more as a holiday destination. When Ant-Man and the Wasp’s Walton Goggins went from Marrakech through the High Atlas Mountains, he “had one goal: to wake up deep in the Sahara, to feel connected without words,” he says. “That’s what Morocco gave me.” Here’s where other Hollywood visitors sleep and eat: ATLAS MOUNTAINS Sir Richard Branson built boutique hotel Kasbah Tamadot, where VIPs dine on the master suite’s roof terrace or by the reflecting pool. “One of my favorite activities is hiking up the mountains [with friends], even if we are too out of breath to chat,” Branson tells THR. “Ninety-five percent of the team are delightful Berbers from…

In mid-December, Adi Shankar boarded a plane at Los Angeles International Airport, ready to embark on the two-day journey to Bangalore, India. He was agitated and unable to sit still. An undefined sense of dread was consuming the 33-year-old producer, a feeling of fear and uncertainty that seemed to grow ever worse the better he did professionally. With credits such as 2012’s Dredd and the current Netflix series Castlevania, he’d become successful, but he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight; in tip-top shape physically, thanks to a grueling exercise regimen and hyper-nutritious diet, he was functioning in a mental fog. Shankar had been living with angst for years, at least since moving to L.A. in 2009, but over the past few months it had skyrocketed, fueled by the immense pressure on…

Have you suffered weight loss or weight gain after seeing images of babies being ripped away from their mothers? Is the fact that a Russian dictator is now controlling U.S. policy through a grotesque orange puppet affecting your sleep? Do the expressions “fake news” and “witch hunt” induce feelings of nausea? Well, you may be suffering from what the scientists at Fox News (the same scientists who doubt climate change and evolution) call Trump Derangement Syndrome, but what I call I.B.S., Idiotic Bully Syndrome. Let’s face it, for many of us, the legitimization of white supremacists can be somewhat stressful. I’m not ashamed to admit that when I hear people say that the answer to my country’s gun violence problem is more guns, I will often break out in hives.…

1 DARTH VADER James Earl Jones (voice), Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2016) If things had gone a little differently, Darth Vader would have worn a black silk scarf on his head and sounded like Orson Welles. That’s how George Lucas imagined the character in early sketches and notes. Fortunately for Star Wars fans — and that group includes a huge swath of the people taking this poll who ranked Vader at or near the top across all professions, genders and (most) age brackets — the character ended up with far more sinister headgear and an even deeper voice. “My first introduction to Darth Vader was as an action figure,” recalls filmmaker Kevin Smith. “And he was beautiful — the mask, the chest plate, the black outfit.…

In the 14 months since Sinclair Broadcast Group unveiled a $3.9 billion deal to purchase Tribune Media (and the company’s 42 local television stations), analysts have quietly predicted that federal regulators would approve the deal. But on July 16, the FCC’s politically conservative chairman, Ajit Pai, 45, turned things upside down, revealing that he has “serious concerns” about the tie-up and calling for an administrative law judge to take a look at whether Sinclair is planning to secretly control — through so-called “sidecar” deals — the local stations it must sell off to get the transaction approved. Sinclair, a broadcast behemoth that skews right politically, said it was “shocked” by Pai’s plan to designate the purchase to an administrative hearing, and Tribune Media’s chief executive Peter Kern said he was…

Media mega-merger chatter was once again in the air at Allen & Co.’s elite gathering in Sun Valley during the week of July 10 — even if moguls appeared to keep most gossip from reporters. A few takeaways: 1. QUEST FOR SKY Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Disney’s Bob Iger and 21st Century Fox leaders Rupert, Lachlan and James Murdoch were all in town. While they didn’t discuss the war for Fox and European pay TV giant Sky, Fox sweetened its bid for Sky to $32 billion on July 10, only to get trumped again by Comcast’s $34 billion offer a day later. 2. VIACOM DRAMA CBS Corp.’s Leslie Moonves and Shari Redstone, the boss of National Amusements, CBS and Viacom’s controlling shareholder, both attended but kept a low profile amid…

Hot! Jason Bateman Ozark Netflix A segue into drama proves fruitful for the Arrested Development star, nominated for both lead actor and directing on the Netflix breakout. Sarah Barnett President and GM BBC America Steamrolling her deep-pocketed rivals, she has two actresses vying for drama lead in Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Sandra Oh (Killing Eve). Bob Greenblatt Chairman NBC Entertainment The Big Four boss sees love for his latest live musical (Jesus Christ Superstar) and comes up just short of CBS, ABC and Fox’s combined nominations. Rachel Brosnahan The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Amazon Edging out all other freshman series, Maisel and its nominated star boost a rebuilding Amazon with its top nom haul to date. Not! Sofia Vergara, et al. Modern Family ABC After eight years of best comedy…

Big Deal For Viacom, revitalizing its film and TV fortunes is child’s play. The conglomerate announced July 16 that it has greenlighted a 26-episode, straight-to-series revival of classic 1990s cartoon Rugrats as well as a live-action/CGI feature film, due Nov. 13, 2020, from corporate sibling Paramount Players. For those keeping score, this is the latest Nickelodeon franchise to be mined for new audiences, joining recent revivals Double Dare and Blue’s Clues, among others. Rugrats also is the third Nickelodeon series to be brought back to life for the big screen — after a live-action Dora the Explorer and Are You Afraid of the Dark? — and the first to be paired with a small-screen resurrection. It’s all part of a larger push by Paramount Players, a Viacom division focused on…

CBS News president David Rhodes has navigated a thicket of issues in recent years, none more visible than his network’s series of anchor transitions, with virtually every program undergoing talent changes. The most high-profile — and ignominious — was Charlie Rose’s November exit from CBS This Morning after allegations of misconduct. The revelations forced CBS News to confront a widespread retrograde culture where misconduct was whispered about for years but tolerated. “There may once have been a different standard of behavior in this industry,” admits Rhodes, 44. In the wake of Rose’s departure, CBS News instituted mandatory in-person harassment training for its approximately 1,200 permanent employees and affirmed a focus on pay parity, which began before the current wave of misconduct disclosures. Amid all of this, CBS News, like all…

Frankenstein The works of 19th century English author Mary Shelley have been in the public domain for quite a while, but in 2027, anyone who wishes to make a new Frankenstein movie at least won’t have to worry about infringing on Universal’s 1931 horror classic. The Great Gatsby The 1925 book by F. Scott Fitzgerald has been adapted for the screen several times, most recently in 2013 with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead. The copyright on Fitzgerald’s book lasts 95 years and not a second more. Thus, everyone will be free to make their own version beginning in 2021. Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! Had the 1923 film been released a year earlier, it would have been in the public domain a long time ago. But thanks to the Copyright Term…

1927 Movies Talk Some actors survived the advent of sound, but most didn’t (like all-American farm boy Reginald Denny, who had a British accent). 1944 Down the Tube At first, TV was seen as an existential threat to film — and it was. With tickets in 1964 down 78 percent from their heyday, studios fought back with gimmicks like CinemaScope. 1947 Seeing Red Congressional hearings grilled everyone from Gary Cooper to Robert Taylor to Walt Disney, hunting for communists in show business. 1948 The Big Breakup The Supreme Court ruling that split the studios from theaters stoked big financial fears for the movie business — “This industry is sunk,” a Warner Bros. exec (wrongly) predicted. 1950s Confidential’s Reign of Terror The scandal rag kept stars, especially gay ones, living in…

Scarlett Johansson’s announcement that she was exiting Rub & Tug — the feature film biopic about transgender mobster Dante “Tex” Gill that was to be helmed by her Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders — hit hard and traveled fast when it broke July 13. At that moment, trans actress and producer Rain Valdez (Transparent) was seated in front of a camera in The Hollywood Reporter’s L.A. office for an interview about that very issue — trans representation in entertainment. Informed of the news with cameras rolling, she paused to catch her breath and push back tears. “That actually makes me a little emotional,” she said, her voice shaking. “It’s not an easy industry for trans women. It’s not an easy industry for trans men.” Visibility and acceptance have…

11 Hans Gruber Alan Rickman in 1988’s Die Hard 12 Baby Jane Hudson Bette Davis in 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 13 Jack Torrance Jack Nicholson in 1980’s The Shining 14 Alex Forrest Glenn Close in 1987’s Fatal Attraction 15 Lord Voldemort Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter franchise (2005-11) 16 Hal 9000 Voiced by Douglas Rain in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey 17 Michael Corleone Al Pacino in the Godfather series (1972, 1974, 1990) 18 Tommy DeVito Joe Pesci in 1990’s Goodfellas 19 Alex Delarge Malcolm McDowell in 1971’s A Clockwork Orange 20 The Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator franchise (1984, 1991, 2003, 2015 and 2019) 21 The Shark Steven Spielberg’s mechanical fish in 1975’s Jaws 22 Tony Montana Al Pacino in 1983’s Scarface 23 Scar…