Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday August 22 2018 i The Hollywood Reporter

Big Deal Late-night remains the programming white whale that eludes Netflix. Following the Aug. 17 cancellation of The Break With Michelle Wolf and The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale after just months on the platform, industry analysts are skeptical about prospects for its next attempts, September’s Norm Macdonald Has a Show and October’s Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj. “Netflix is all about binge watching, so topical TV just doesn’t work,” insists Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter, adding that despite their experience, Wolf and McHale weren’t the “caliber of performer” to cut through the landscape. Others are waiting to see as the streamer continues to tinker with the format in real time. “[These shows are] part of a larger experiment,” says one insider, echoing Netflix’s internal messaging on the space. Indeed,…

‘She Was a Real Soldier’ The Blues Brothers director John Landis on Franklin’s most memorable film role You have to remember, we shot Blues Brothers in 1979. Back then, it was all disco, all the time — soul music was out. Aretha’s career was in a bit of a lull, so she was thrilled to be in the movie. Lucky for us, because we had written that scene in the diner for her — we would have been in trouble if she said no. But she wanted to change the song. She wanted to sing “Respect” instead of “Think.” But we had written “Think” into the script, with the dialogue leading into the song and the song actually furthering the plot of the film, so we didn’t want to change…

*All items available at Everafter, Brentwood, Los Angeles and everaftershop.com…

The Center for Early Education Reveta Bowers retired in 2016 Mark Brooks began in June 2016 Bowers “was an institution in L.A., and when she [retired], everybody was nervous: How do you replace someone who was such a guiding force?” says consultant Fay Van Der Kar-Levinson, who adds that Brooks, who came to the center from L.A.’s Pilgrim School, has been a “brilliant choice. He’s not coming to make changes. Hollywood Hills families have been thrilled.” Consultant Sandy Eiges also approves of Brooks, as does Nambiar: “Reveta was iconic and it’s hard to follow her, but he’s doing a great job.” John Thomas Dye School Ray Michaud retired in 2014, died 2016 Andrea Archer July 2014-June 2016 John Amato interim head in 2016 Rose Helm began July 2017 Since losing…

Vanessa Redgrave doesn’t mince her words. To speak with the 81-year-old actress, as THR did by phone at her home in Italy, ahead of her Aug. 30 lifetime achievement award ceremony in Venice, is to be constantly taken aback by her candor, by turns gently arch (“Scotto, Scotto, Scotto, not so fast,” she chides after one poorly phrased question) and disarmingly blunt (“The politicians, across Europe and the United States, with very few notable exceptions, are working to destroy people’s lives, plain and simple”). After making her screen debut at age 21 in the forgettable medical thriller Behind the Mask (her father, Michael Redgrave, was the film’s lead), Redgrave went on to collect virtually every acting honor available, including an Oscar for best supporting actress (for Julia in 1978), a…

Digital Ready to Read Stars look to audiobooks as new revenue stream p. 16 ↑ TV Late-Night Chill Can Netflix make topical talker shows work? p. 22 Kevin Kwan and Jon M. Chu The Crazy Rich Asians author and director passed on Netflix riches to gamble with a Warner Bros. theatrical release and are rewarded with a $35.3 million five-day domestic debut. Danny Boyle The Oscar winner drops out of directing the 25th James Bond movie over “creative differences” with producers and star Daniel Craig. Adam Aron The AMC Entertainment CEO may end up the beneficiary of MoviePass’ woes as his subscription ticket service, Stubs A-List, hits 260,000 subscribers in just eight weeks. Donald Tang The Global Road founder scrambles to raise cash as lenders take over his upstart mini-studio,…

About five years ago, Timur Bekmambetov was on a Skype call with a colleague who used the app’s Screen Share feature, allowing the director-producer (Wanted and Ben-Hur) to quickly view a social media post on her desktop. But the colleague forgot to unshare the screen. “I said to her, ‘Sorry, I see your screen,’ ” he recalls. “And we laughed, but then we understood that if I see the screen, I’m kind of inside the character. It’s a very, very powerful storytelling tool.” That moment spawned a cheap film technique — not unlike The Blair Witch Project launched the cost-effective found-footage craze nearly two decades ago — where movies are told entirely from the vantage point of computer and iPhone screens. Since then, Bekmambetov has produced several “screen life” films,…

FILM Laura Dern (CAA, Untitled) is in talks to join Meryl Streep in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women for Sony. Eva Longoria (CAA, Brillstein) will star in Paramount’s Dora the Explorer movie. O’Shea Jackson Jr. (WME, Ziffren Brittenham) will join Michael B. Jordan in Warner Bros.’ drama Just Mercy. Ron Perlman (Gersh, LINK) and Michael Pitt (CAA, LBI, Schreck Rose) will star in the indie drama Run With the Hunted. Paramount has signed a three-year, first-look deal with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions and its sister company Gloria Sanchez. STXfilms is partnering with Lantern Entertainment to distribute Bryan Cranston’s The Upside. Tencent Holdings’ China Literature will acquire the powerhouse film and TV studio New Classics Media for $2.25 billion. TELEVISION Mary J. Blige (APA, Grubman Shire) has joined…

Early Work (FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX, JULY 10) BY Andrew Martin AGENCY ICM Partners The debut novel tackles the particular neurosis of aspiring millennial novelists, focusing on an MFA grad who is trying (and comically failing) to contend with his traditional literary ambitions and the realities of publishing in the shadow of the internet. Vox (BERKLEY, AUG. 21) BY Christina Dalcher AGENCY UTA Set in a near future, where a fundamentalist dictatorship has confined women to a daily quota of 100 words, this story centers on a female neurolinguist who uncovers a government plot to silence women once and for all.…

New York’s annual Fleet Week is so iconic that it was immortalized on Sex and the City — but the Port of Los Angeles’ 3-year-old version (chaired for 2018 by Mayor Eric Garcetti and Wallis Annenberg) hasn’t had much pull with Hollywood. Until now: Amazon will hold the U.S. premiere of one of its splashiest productions yet — Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, starring John Krasinski — aboard the Battleship Iowa on Aug. 31 (the same day the drama’s eight episodes roll out online). In an unprecedented event for the floating San Pedro museum, an auditorium for several hundred is being built on deck, with the screening visible from the pier for members of the public, who can also catch the fireworks to follow. Also free to 5,000 attendees Sept. 1:…

Weddings Adam Londy, vp talent and development at Comedy Central, married Claire Abramowitz, head of development at Freddie Highmore’s Alfresco Pictures, on July 5 at Chateau Cazenac in Coux-et-Bigaroque, France. The couple met in 2013 and got engaged in 2017. Pat Shin, a publicist at Sony Pictures, officiated the wedding. Sandy Hall, assistant dean of communications at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, married Kevin Robertson on Aug. 4 at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills in front of 120 guests. Hall’s 6-year-old son, Julian, walked her down the aisle. Births Dan Sheldon, a talent agent at APA in New York, and wife Bailey Sheldon welcomed daughter Lily Ann Sheldon on Aug. 6. Congrats Sara Auspitz, who oversaw current programming at Game Show Network, joined E! as senior vp…

There has been talk, for years now, about who should play the next James Bond. There are the obvious choices, like Henry Cavill or Chris Hemsworth, and the outliers, like Tom Hardy or Tom Hiddleston. And then there’s Idris Elba. In those emails hacked out of Sony, former studio chief Amy Pascal said what anyone who had seen the now-45-year-old actor steal every scene he was in on The Wire, prowl through Luther and cancel the apocalypse in Pacific Rim know to be true: “Idris should be the next Bond.” When that rumor caught fire again last week, the reaction was two scoops of very familiar flavors: “Elba should play everything,” and “James Bond is white and should always be white.” Now, I have skated close to this third…

Buckley grade inflation School head James Busby was accused of changing grades of board of trustees’ children, sparking an investigation in February. After independent investigators concluded that five students had their grades inflated in the past five years — adding that Busby did not violate school policies — students held a sitin and about 170 signed a petition to protest the lack of transparency. Busby resigned; Andrew Wooden serves as interim head. Social media abuse “Topless photos are popular in middle and high school,” says a private-education expert. Lori Getz, who teaches responsible technology use to kids starting in third grade, says students circulate nude pictures of classmates taken in locker rooms and bathrooms — a federal offense. Cyber impersonation is an issue, Getz adds: “I see kids creating accounts…

The endless crass stands that blight Cannes’ Marche du Film or the soulless booths of the AFM’s Loews Hotel are nowhere in evidence at Venice. Don’t expect many one-sheets, flyers or promo reels either — Venice isn’t about the mass market and in fact has no official market at all. The world’s oldest (and still most expensive) film festival is all about exclusivity. “There’s actually not that many buyers that go, but the quality of the buyers is something else. It’s the film lovers, the cineastes that go to Venice,” says Alex Walton of production and sales group Bloom, which is handling world sales on Venice titles Dragged Across Concrete, the actioner starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn; and Shadow, the period martial arts epic from Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou.…

Everyone from Netflix to Amazon to Byron Allen has been mentioned as a possible suitor for Landmark Theatres since owners Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner put the country’s premier cinema circuit for independent and foreign films up for sale in April. Insiders tell THR that talks are in advanced stages with a handful of prospective buyers. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates that a chain of Landmark’s size — with 56 theaters in 27 markets, including a posh new cinema near Columbus Circle in New York City and marquee venues in West Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. —could be worth around $100 million. That would be a significant discount for Landmark, which was valued at around $200 million when Cuban and Wagner came close to selling it seven years ago in…

Deal of the Week The movement to drive Crazy Rich Asians to the top of the box office was dubbed #GoldOpen, and its success — the film finished with a $35.3 million domestic five-day bow — has ushered in a gold rush of Asian-American-centered projects. First up is a sequel to the groundbreaking romantic comedy, the first studio movie in 25 years with an all-Westernized Asian cast. Warner Bros., which has the option for Kevin Kwan’s entire best-selling book trilogy, is planning to develop the follow-up with the original team — Color Force producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, Ivanhoe producer John Penotti, director Jon M. Chu and screenwriters Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim — intact. On Aug. 20, as Warners was reporting final numbers for Crazy Rich Asians’ historic…

First Look It looks like any of the dozens of co-working spaces that have popped up around L.A. in recent years — a cluster of long tables with easy access to electrical outlets, a whiteboard next to a comfy couch, a fridge stocked with boxed water. But there’s something that makes ParagonSpace a little different. When the Hollywood spot opens its doors to members Sept. 1, it will become the city’s first shared workspace for the cannabis industry. Look a little closer and those angular green chairs in the cafe do resemble marijuana leaves. “I wanted to create a space that a soccer mom could feel comfortable in, an athlete could feel comfortable in,” says Paragon CEO Jessica VerSteeg as she shows off the four-building complex (on a 4,300-square-foot lot…

“Anthony was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us.” ASIA ARGENTO The actress, in a statement claiming her late partner Anthony Bourdain agreed to pay $380,000 to child actor Jimmy Bennett, who alleges he was sexually assaulted by Argento in 2013. “I was in the room.” PENN JILLETTE The former Celebrity Apprentice star, revealing to Vulture that tapes of President Trump making “racially insensitive comments” do indeed exist, as alleged by Omarosa Manigault Newman. “I remember them saying I was to drop my dress and appear in my underwear.” ROSAMUND PIKE The actress, in an Audible Sessions interview, recalling her audition for the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day. “We need to constantly show that we are not…

Big Little Lies’ Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep shared a table at Lucques. … Lawyers Jeffrey Frankel and Joel McKuin lunched at Piccolo Paradiso. … Kelsey Grammer stopped by Craig’s. … WME’s Richard Weitz was at Nate ’n Al. … Rob Reiner, Channing Tatum, Michael Kors and Ricky Strauss shared the room at Tower Bar. … Brett Ratner was in a Polo Lounge patio booth. … Busy Philipps and her husband, screenwriter Mark Silverstein, checked out Petty Cash. … Nicole Richie and manager Michael Baum were at Chateau Hanare. The Four Seasons Restaurant The Quick Pitch Manhattan’s famed power spot returns after a two-year hiatus and a $30 million price tag, sitting three blocks from its former home. Chef Diego Garcia (Le Bernardin, Gloria) breathes new…

The 45th edition of the Telluride Film Festival, which kicks off Aug. 31 and runs through Sept. 3, will once again serve as a veritable out-of-town tryout for awards hopefuls. Tradition dictates that the lineup won’t be revealed until participants are en route to Colorado, but insiders expect to see the world premieres of such films as David Lowery’s crime story The Old Man & the Gun, starring Robert Redford (in what he has said is his final film as an actor) and Casey Affleck; Joel Edgerton’s look at gay conversion therapy, Boy Erased, starring Lucas Hedges; and Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner, with Hugh Jackman portraying 1988 presidential candidate Gary Hart. Other films — like Damien Chazelle’s space odyssey First Man, Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-autobiographical Roma and and Yorgos Lanthimos’…

38% of Crazy Rich Asians’ opening-weekend audience was Asian Last year for the first time, the annual theatrical report compiled by the Motion Picture Association of America gave Asian moviegoers their own category, versus lumping them with “other.” The report says that Asian-Americans, a demo long ignored by Hollywood, bought just 7 percent of all movie tickets sold in 2017. But the Asian portion of the audience for Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians rom-com was 38 percent over the Aug. 17-19 weekend, an unprecedented share, accounting for more than $13 million of the film’s five-day debut of $35 million. It’s the latest win for diversity at the box office, where summer revenue is up more than 12 percent over an abysmal 2017 (and up 9 percent for the year).…

HARRIETT BAY Educational consultant Bay has been in practice for more than 30 years and was a teacher in the L.A. area. She graduated from UCLA and got a master’s from California State University, Northridge, in educational psychology. BETSY BROWN BRAUN Brown Braun, founder of Parenting Pathways Inc., is a child development and behavior specialist, school consultant and director/founder of school programs. She’s taught in public and private schools, and written two best-sellers, including Just Tell Me What to Say: Sensible Tips and Scripts for Perplexed Parents. KAT COHEN Cohen is the founder of IvyWise, a consulting company staffed by former college deans and directors of admission. She received two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale University, and got her start reading applications in Yale’s admissions office. She’s the…

The Sisters Brothers Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed are pursued by outlaws Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly in French auteur Jacques Audiard’s English-language Western. Roma Shot in black and white with a cast of unknowns, Alfonso Cuaron’s autobiographical drama focuses on a middle-class family in 1970s Mexico City. The Favourite Prolific Greek iconoclast Yorgos Lanthimos offers up an 18th century female power struggle starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. A Star Is Born Bradley Cooper makes his directing debut and also stars as a downward-spiraling alcoholic guiding the career of a young singer played by Lady Gaga. The Nightingale Australian actress turned director Jennifer Kent’s second feature is a Gothic revenge thriller set in 1825 in the British penal colony now known as Tasmania.…

In February, Errol Morris was sitting on the opposite side of an ordinary banquet table from Steve Bannon when he experienced “probably one of my favorite moments in filmmaking.” The Oscar-winning documentarian behind The Fog of War was invoking John Milton’s Paradise Lost and telling the former White House chief strategist that the epic poem’s protagonist, Lucifer (aka Satan), is sort of Bannon-esque. That drew a hearty chuckle from Bannon, the subject of Morris’ latest doc, American Dharma, a film shrouded in mystery that will make its world premiere Sept. 4 at the Venice Film Festival. “It’s not every day that you compare someone to Satan and they embrace the idea,” says Morris with a laugh. What happens next in the scene lies at the crux of the film, which…

After two weeks of meetings and premieres in Venice, many industry insiders opt to extend their stay in Italy, and head south to Rome and Sicily to decompress. Take a page from the book of travel planners Angelo and Simone Amorico, a father-son duo who own Access Italy, a Rome-based service that specializes in highly customized, private tours (from $500 a day). The Amoricos have hosted Oprah Winfrey, the Obamas, Ben Stiller and Penelope Cruz, among others. Says Winfrey: “In the early ’90s, my lawyer said to me, ‘If you’re going to Italy, I know the guy you should meet, he’ll take good care of you.’ Angelo seems to know everybody in the whole country.” The Amoricos’ recommendations: ROME Opt to have the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel all to…

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 Aug. 14. Rankings are based on a formula blending weekly additions of fans as well as cumulative weekly reactions and conversations, as tracked by MVP Index.…