Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday August 15 2018 i The Hollywood Reporter

On July 25, news broke that James Franco was in talks to direct Focus Features’ ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun, a film about the origin of the network. The hire seemed especially significant considering Franco would mark the first case of a Hollywood figure accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault or domestic violence in the post-#MeToo climate to land a high-profile job. The project was coupled with news the same day that Chris Hardwick would be reinstated as host of Talking Dead after AMC investigated claims made by ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra of sexual assault and emotional abuse. Between Franco and Hardwick, it appeared the dam holding back Hollywood’s dozens of accused was about to burst. Not so fast. According to a knowledgeable source, Franco signed a development deal…

There’s a new reason to tune in to the 91st Oscars on Feb. 24. In a major break with tradition, the Academy will not only introduce a new Oscar — the first since the best animated feature award 17 years ago — but it is putting out the welcome mat for big commercial, fan-friendly movies that haven’t been considered typical Oscar fare. On Aug. 7, the Academy’s board of governors approved the creation of an award for “outstanding achievement in popular film.” It was immediately dubbed the “Popcorn Oscar” by its critics; making things worse, the Academy hasn’t yet settled on what criteria to use to determine eligibility for the prize. A few industry notables applauded. “I think it’s great,” Jason Blum, who scored a best picture nom for Get…

Deal of the Week With UTA’s Aug. 7 reveal that it is finally taking the private-equity plunge, industry talk now turns to what it will do with the money. UTA has sold a mid- to high-30 percent stake to Investcorp and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board for about $200 million, say sources. The agency has made no secret of its ambitions to join CAA and Endeavor — majority-owned by private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners, respectively — in the race to build scale, and the infusion of outside investment automatically distinguishes the trio from the rest of the agencies. The past half-decade has seen rapid, exponential growth for UTA, which has more than doubled in size — in part through the steady acquisition of specialized agencies…

Weddings Ryan Draizin, a TV literary agent at WME, married Alexis Alagem, an original series executive at Netflix, on July 22 at Meadowood in Napa in front of 275 guests. The ceremony, cocktails and dinner were outside, followed by dancing in a Moroccan-inspired tent. The couple met on a blind date in October 2016, set up by a Netflix exec. THR associate editor Patrick Shanley married Alexandra Mosher, an exhibition designer at the Getty Museum, at Lomas Santa Fe Country Club in Solana Beach, California, on Aug. 4 in front of 117 guests. The couple, who became engaged in December, will honeymoon in Honolulu in November. Births Joe Trofino, associate general counsel at ICM Partners, and his wife, Melissa Trofino, welcomed daughter Milarose (Mila) Matilda Trofino on July 20 at…

The next big opening for director Joe Russo won’t be the follow-up to his and brother Anthony Russo’s $2 billion-grossing Avengers: Infinity War, but a decidedly more chill affair: Simone, an epicurean, vegetable-forward, art deco-inflected bar and restaurant in L.A.’s Arts District that debuts Sept. 20. Though it marks Joe Russo’s first foray into hospitality, he’s hoping his A-list talent — Michelin-starred chef Jessica Largey and Iain McPherson, a legendary barman out of Edinburgh, Scotland — will ensure a hit. “It’s always been a dream to open up a restaurant,” says the foodie of the outpost, which will offer sweet potato with tahini, shishito peppers and harissa vinaigrette as a signature dish. Rather than just throw down money, Russo, 47, is lending his skills by focusing on the booze side…

HIRED GUNS ALAN TAYLOR “Beyond the Wall” Game of Thrones (HBO) DRAMA He’s been working on the HBO drama since its first season in 2011 and has helmed seven episodes total. He sometimes serves as a co-executive producer. KARI SKOGLAND “After” The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) DRAMA JESSE PERETZ “Pilot” GLOW (Netflix) COMEDY MARK CENDROWSKI “The Bow Tie Asymmetry” The Big Bang Theory (CBS) COMEDY DANIEL SACKHEIM “Tonight We Improvise” Ozark (Netflix) DRAMA CRAIG ZISK The Looming Tower (Hulu) LIMITED SERIES/DRAMATIC SPECIAL ALEX RUDZINSKI AND DAVID LEVEAUX Jesus Christ Superstar (NBC) LIMITED SERIES/DRAMATIC SPECIAL EDWARD BERGER Patrick Melrose (Showtime) LIMITED SERIES/DRAMATIC SPECIAL He helmed every episode of the fivepart limited series, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch. JEREMY PODESWA “The Dragon and the Wolf” Game of Thrones (HBO) DRAMA EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS + WRITERS…

WHO Helena Howard in Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline (out in New York and coming to Los Angeles on Aug. 17). WHERE YOU’VE SEEN HER BEFORE You haven’t. The 20-year-old’s lead turn as an unstable teen torn between her stressed-out mother (Miranda July) and a captivating acting teacher (Molly Parker) is her bigscreen debut. WHY YOU SHOULD CARE NOW The New York- and New Jersey-raised Howard drew across-the-board raves at Sundance, where the film premiered in January. THR’s Jon Frosch wrote that the “volcanically gifted” actress “yanks you right into her character’s fraying headspace,” while Deborah Young, in her review, called Howard “sensational … a dynamo who demonstrates astounding intensity.” HER HOLLYWOOD ROLE MODEL Meryl Streep. “When you’re watching her, you don’t see her — you see the story she’s telling,…

↑ Awards The Popcorn Oscar How the new “popular” category could work p. 20 Deals Agency Wars UTA’s $200 million private-equity war chest p. 26 Travis Scott The rapper’s third album, Astroworld, tops the Billboard 200 chart with the second-largest debut of 2018, trailing only Drake. Jack Dorsey The Twitter CEO becomes Silicon Valley’s punching bag for allowing Alex Jones to remain on the platform as others boot the Infowars pundit for violating hate speech policies. Ethan Peck The actor and grandson of legend Gregory Peck lands the coveted Spock role in CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery reboot. Fan Bingbing As the Chinese star is investigated for tax evasion, the government aims to crack down on film and television actor pay and sharply curtail earnings. Showbiz Stocks ↑ $55.38…

How do you keep the always-unwieldy Oscar show from running into overtime? The Academy’s board of governors has vowed the Feb. 24 Oscars will clock in at a brisk and “more accessible” three hours. Easier said than done. In March, the 90th Academy Awards ran 3 hours and 53 minutes. The reduction plan calls for presenting some of the 24 awards during commercial breaks, then airing highlights later in the broadcast. But even if all eight craft categories as well as the three short-film categories (which, combined, took up nearly 40 minutes during the most recent show) were eliminated — and insiders are predicting only six or seven categories will be affected — the telecast still would spill over three hours. And that’s before the Academy introduces an Oscar for…

The past few years, I have taken a break from writing fictional comedic films and have focused more on making documentaries. After co-directing two films with Michael Bonfiglio — one about Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden for ESPN’s 30 for 30 and another about the band The Avett Brothers called May It Last — I spent the past two years directing a film about my friend and mentor Garry Shandling for HBO. These are the pros and cons of directing documentaries as opposed to comedies. PRO You don’t have to work with actors. CON You don’t get to work with actors. PRO You don’t have to make anything up. The story already exists, you just need to find it. But where is it? PRO You don’t have to make anything…

Big Deal Tribune Media’s Aug. 9 decision to call off its planned $3.9 billion acquisition by Sinclair Broadcast Group and instead sue the company for breach of contract may set off an M&A chain reaction. Already, the move has impacted 21st Century Fox, which was to buy 10 Sinclair stations had the deal gone through. Fox, of course, is selling most of its assets to Disney, and the added stations would have boosted the position of the remaining “New Fox” — the broadcast net, Fox News, Fox Business, FS1, FS2 and 28 local channels — as a news and sports powerhouse. Fox is still in the market for stations, possibly regional sports networks, given that all 22 of its existing RSNs will go to Disney, which will sell them as…

First Look There’s a big change happening on one of Hollywood’s major awards nights. Nope, not the “popular” Oscar. Rather, it’s the Television Academy taking a gamble on L.A.’s weather by moving its Governors Ball — following the 70th Primetime Emmys on Sept. 17 at Microsoft Theater — from the L.A. Convention Center to a partially tented outdoor space atop L.A. Live next door. Easily accessible by stairs or elevators, the space (which will also host Creative Arts balls Sept. 8 and Sept. 9) won’t offer the seated dinner of past years but instead will be designed as an “interactive, mix-and-mingle format” allowing guests to move through interior and outdoor spaces, says Cheryl Cecchetto, who has produced the balls with her Sequoia Productions team for 21 years. Guests will be…

When CAA opened its doors in 1975, its most powerful partner wasn’t Michael Ovitz or Ron Meyer. It was Rowland Perkins. Of the agency’s five founders, all of whom came from William Morris — there was also Michael Rosenfeld, who died in 2010, and Bill Haber, now spending much of his time in France — Perkins was the most senior. “He gave us credibility,” says Meyer. “Everybody respected him. There would be no CAA without him.” That pecking order would change, but for years Perkins handled CAA’s biggest TV clients. “He was quiet and wry,” recalls George Stevens Jr., who produced the Emmy-winning 1991 telefilm Separate But Equal that Perkins packaged. “And persistent. Nobody wanted to make a TV movie about Brown v. Board of Education.” Perkins exited the agency…

Guest Column Last October, I went public with my #MeToo story in THR. Maybe you read my account of how, when I was a baby writer on Showtime’s It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, an actor laid his flaccid penis on my right shoulder in an attempt to make Shandling laugh (and make me go blouse shopping). Right after that, I got fired even though I had written two of the first six episodes and was mentioned in a favorable L.A. Times review — me, the only woman on the staff. It would have been a career-ender to sue, so instead I made this my go-to anecdote and told it in every single writing room I was in. More than 30 years later, two young writers — Jessica Goldstein and Chrissy Pietrosh,…

In 2017, George Clooney’s tequila company, Casamigos, sold for a reported $1 billion, the biggest payday for an A-lister’s liquor brand ever. It left many in both the spirits and show businesses wondering how far this convergence will go. According to the U.S. Distilled Spirits Council, domestic liquor sales topped $26 billion for the first time in 2017, with no sign of slowing; that’s 2.7 billion bottles of booze. Whether the market can bear another Casamigos-sized sell-off is anyone’s guess, though the label has recently branched out into mezcal. “I’m still very involved,” says Clooney. “I worked with Rande [Gerber] and Mike [Meldman] on the mezcal for a couple of years before we launched. But in full disclosure we didn’t try 700 more samples of the mezcal. More like 100.”…

“And at the same time you see from Chris, ‘Oh, this is how you should feel — how a normal person feels — when they kill someone.’” “Chris’ backtracking was so painful! That’s how we knew it was right.” “This scene is acted so brilliantly by Bill [Hader] and Chris [Marquette] — it is a testament to their incredible talent that the scene works,” says Sarnoff. “We needed the audience to go through the same process we did and know in their bones that Barry doesn’t have a choice.” “And yet, we’re still on Barry’s side: He has to do it — he had no choice.” “It was Alec’s [Berg] idea to have another car pull up and stop — to mine the tension but to also test what Chris…

The Big Bang Theory helmer Mark Cendrowski received his first-ever Emmy nomination in the most unusual way: Seven hours after the nominations were announced, the TV Academy revealed he’d been left off the list because a new rule requiring that at least one multicamera director be included in the comedy category was overlooked. “It wasn’t my plan to do it that way!” Cendrowski jokes. How did you find out about your nom? I was in the editing bay working on CBS’ Happy Together and got a call from the Academy’s [president and COO] Maury McIntyre, who said, “I have to apologize, but I think you’ll be OK with it when you hear why.” He said I’d been nominated for best director for comedy and because of the rules, it just…

Among her many achievements, Madonna, who turns 60 on Aug. 16, once starred in the top-grossing documentary of all time. Though the record has since been broken by docs on subjects as varied as penguins and Justin Bieber, when Madonna: Truth or Dare was released in 1991 and grossed $15 million ($28 million today), it was a box-office behemoth. The film got its start when Madonna approached Alek Keshishian — then 26 and with several award-winning videos for Bobby Brown under his belt — about doing an HBO special on her Blond Ambition tour. After shooting in Japan, Keshishian says, he found the backstage scene to be “a Fellini-esque dysfunctional family” and persuaded her to focus the film on that, with the performances interspersed. “She’s a person of instincts,” says…

Like it or not, the Academy’s board of governors decided Aug. 7 to create an Oscar for “outstanding achievement in popular film.” Because no specifics were spelled out, it’s unclear how it will define “popular.” So here’s a proposal for making it work. 1. Create a shortlist based on box office. Identify the 20 highest-grossing movies of the year and the films that had the year’s 20 highest-grossing opening weekends so that a movie is not disadvantaged by opening at year’s end. (All numbers should be worldwide, not domestic, as the Academy is an international organization.) There will be overlap, so the norm will be a shortlist featuring about 25 titles. 2. Clearly differentiate it from best picture. It should be explicitly emphasized on the ballot, directly above the best picture…

FILM Oliver Stone (CAA) and Benicio Del Toro (CAA, Hansen Jacobson) will team for New York-set drama White Lies. Gal Gadot (WME, Sloane Offer) will voice-star in Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet. Brie Larson (WME, Authentic, Sloane Offer) will join Michael B. Jordan in Warner Bros.’ Just Mercy. Ben Schwartz (WME, Haven, Gang Tyre) will voice Sonic the Hedgehog in Paramount’s Sonic film. Guy Pearce (CAA, the U.K.’s Independent, Australia’s Shanahan) is in talks to replace Michael Sheen in Sony’s Bloodshot. Tessa Thompson (Green & Associates, Mosaic, Jackoway Austen) and Ruth Negga (ICM, the U.K.’s Markham Froggatt, Principal) will co-star in Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut, Passing. It Follows director David Robert Mitchell (CAA, Good Fear, Myman Greenspan) will write the feature adaptation of horror short They Hear It for Legendary.…

Hope Never Dies (QUIRK BOOKS, JULY 10) BY Andrew Shaffer REPS UTA The summer’s second presidential mystery — following Bill Clinton’s — to make the New York Times best-seller list. In this escapist romp (look at that cover!), Barack Obama and Joe Biden, fresh out of office, road-trip to stop the conspiracy behind opioids. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (DUTTON, SEPT. 25) BY Hank Green REPS Anonymous Content The debut (adult) novel from popular science vlogger and brother of The Fault in Our Stars’ John Green is sci-fi with humor: 20-something April documents the weird 10-foot Transformers like sculptures (nicknamed “Carls”) popping up all over the world.…

“If you need me, I’ll be on my Bat Phone.” RUBY ROSE The actress, in an Instagram post explaining why she deactivated her Twitter account amid backlash over her casting as a lesbian Jewish Batwoman in the upcoming CW series. Some fans were upset that she’s not a lesbian (she is). Others complained she isn’t Jewish (she’s not). “What I can’t abide is the Nazis … and the systemic corporate protection of Nazis.” MICHAEL SCHUR The TV producer, in a thread explaining why he’s taking a “break” from Twitter. He went on to call Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s refusal to ban Alex Jones “pathetic.” “I still look at PornHub … Black is my favorite category. A lot of black on white, obviously.” KANYE WEST The hip-hop star, responding to Jimmy…

Kate Beckinsale celebrated her birthday at Doheny Room. … Lawyer Matt Johnson, LAPD chief Michel Moore, Ari Emanuel, Adam Venit, Dave Wirtschafter, Troy Carter and Michael Eisner shared a table at Mr Chow. … Michael Avenatti lunched at Avra Beverly Hills. … All five Kardashian-Jenner sisters, Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kylie and Kendall, powwowed at the Polo Lounge. Bob Simonds also was in. … At The Grill on the Alley, Mike Medavoy, Jerry Bruckheimer, Tucker Tooley, Cavalry Media’s Keegan Rosenberger and Verve’s Bill Weinstein shared the room. … Kelsey Grammer was at Craig’s. The Golden Bull The Quick Pitch A proletarian relic of the Pacific Palisades’ far less glitzy past, this watering hole with a rep for forgettable chophouse fare has been fine-tuned under new ownership. That means newly installed chef…

When Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan premieres Aug. 31 on Amazon, it will mark the end of producer Carlton Cuse’s nearly four-year journey to bring the best-selling novels to the small screen. The first season of the show, which cost between $8 million and $10 million an episode and stars John Krasinski as the title CIA analyst (played in movies by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine), was shot in 11 countries across three continents. It marks the showrunner’s biggest foray into TV since Lost wrapped its blockbuster six-season run on ABC nearly a decade ago. The Boston-bred, married father of three’s passion for Jack Ryan stems from his interest in the military, which dates to childhood stories his mother would share about a friend who threw himself…

DRAMA Peter Dinklage Game of Thrones Landing his seventh nomination, all for playing Tyrion Lannister on the HBO hit, he becomes the most nominated person ever in the category. He won in 2011 and ’15. Millie Bobby Brown Stranger Things The 14-year-old British breakout earned her second consecutive nomination for playing the telepathic Eleven on Netflix’s ’80s-set sci-fi binger. COMEDY Henry Winkler Barry It’s been 18 years since the Happy Days star was nominated (in 2000 for The Practice). He’s a frontrunner for playing the quirky acting coach on HBO’s dark comedy. Alex Borstein The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Borstein (also nominated for Family Guy) portrays Susie Myerson, an employee at the Gaslight Cafe who becomes Midge’s manager on Amazon’s critical hit. LIMITED Edgar Ramirez The Assassination of Gianni Versace: ACS…