Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday October 31 2018 i The Hollywood Reporter

BEST PICTURE A Quiet Place Roma opened the Savannah Film Festival on Oct. 27, but the night’s star power came from this horror pic’s director-star John Krasinski and his wife/co-star Emily Blunt, who each accepted awards. It’s all part of a campaign to encourage voters to recognize an elevated genre film as they did last year with Get Out. First Man Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to La La Land, which may have been dinged by the American flag controversy that flared up before its release, had a disappointing third-place box office opening Oct. 12, and now, after its third weekend, is doing a slow fade, having grossed $37.8 million domestically and $37.5 million overseas. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Free Solo Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s nail-biter of a doc about climber Alex…

Big Deal NBCUniversal will be making the most of its newly acquired awards show. The TV giant hopes a cross-portfolio push for the People’s Choice Awards, formerly owned by Procter & Gamble, will be a high note in a rough year for televised kudos. The 43-year-old populist celebration will air Nov. 11 simultaneously on E!, Syfy, USA, Bravo and Universo, plus E!’s 160 international territories. And at least four marquee advertisers have been secured since the parent company made the show a point of emphasis during its Rockefeller Center pitch to media buyers in May. NBCUniversal’s purchase, which is said to have cost a modest $8 million to $10 million, gives E! freedom to change the show to suit the celebrity-centric outlet without losing any of its brand recognition. (For…

Britannia Awards Beverly Hills, Oct. 26 Big Bash Gala Beverly Hills, Oct. 19 Election Fundraisers Los Angeles and Nashville, Oct. 9-20 Brit Wit “We’re all fucked up,” honoree Cate Blanchett (1) said from the Beverly Hilton podium before urging the crowd at the BAFTA Britannia Awards to “give the person beside you a hug.” The evening also honored Emilia Clarke (2), Steve McQueen (9), Damian Lewis (7), Kevin Feige (3) and Jim Carrey (4). — JENNA MAROTTA $1M for Kids at Risk Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater L.A. raised a record-breaking $1 million at its Big Bash Beverly Hilton gala, honoring Chris Silbermann, Michael B. Jordan, Shark Tank star Lori Greiner (12) and L.A. Police Commission president Steve Soboroff (10). “You can’t relate to what being underserved really means,”…

To draw audiences into Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms — the latest retelling of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic holiday tale that inspired the famous Tchaikovsky-scored ballet — production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, a two-time Oscar nominee (for Inception and Passengers), relies on a sudden burst of color. The film, opening Nov. 2, begins in the home of its young heroine Clara (Mackenzie Foy) that is “sort of cold and devoid of red,” says Dyas. It’s drained of warm colors so “the audiences can sympathize with the actors.” As soon as Clara arrives at the estate of her godfather Drosselmeyer A London (Morgan Freeman), who will gift her with a Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve, the film’s look comes to vibrant life “to uplift the audience and give them a…

What does it mean to be “digital” in 2018? Is Netflix, which will release hundreds of film and TV projects this year, still digital? Or, with its $134 billion market cap, is it simply the second-largest media company in the world? And what about Disney? The $170 billion entertainment conglomerate is planning one of the most buzzed-about subscription streaming services of the year. Does that make it digital? Tech companies that were once considered disrupters — like YouTube and Google — have grown into media giants in their own right. In 2017, online advertising reached $209 billion, for the first time surpassing the TV ad market. So, in this new media environment, where virtually every studio is launching its own streaming service and every tech company is getting into the…

Alfonso Cuaron was nearly halfway through shooting Roma, the black-and-white Spanish-language film based on his Mexico City childhood, when he walked off the set. “I was in a really lousy mood,” recalls the 56-year-old director. “I had been in a lousy mood for a while. And the scene was not working, so I said, ‘Let me take a little walk.’ ” He strolled down a tree-lined street in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, a street his production designer had transformed to look exactly as it did when Cuaron was growing up in the 1970s. Parked along the sidewalk were replicas of old cars — in the exact colors he remembered from those days — while the extras on set were dressed just as his childhood neighbors used to be. Even the…

In place of cookie-cutter projects carried by surefire A-listers and a ton of P&A, buyers and producers at this year’s AFM are taking what could be called the Blumhouse approach: mimicking the playbook of the company behind Get Out, Insidious and BlackKklansman by betting on smaller, more niche films that can stand out in a crowded field. “Basically, either you’re a Marvel or Star Wars film or you’re an Oscar contender,” says Gabrielle Stewart, managing director of Brit sales group HanWay. “You need a film that feels like an event, something that will capture the imagination of the cinemagoing public and give the journalists and critics something to write about.” For The Hummingbird Project — the Jesse Eisenberg-Alexander Skarsgard thriller that HanWay sold strongly following its Toronto debut — the…

NICOLE KIDMAN Career Achievement Award BLACK PANTHER Film Award GLENN CLOSE Actress Award HUGH JACKMAN Actor Award RACHEL WEISZ Supporting Actress Award TIMOTHEE CHALAMET Supporting Actor Award GREEN BOOK Ensemble Award CRAZY RICH ASIANS Breakout Ensemble Award JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON Breakout Performance Actor Award AMANDLA STENBERG Breakout Performance Actress Award DAMIEN CHAZELLE Director Award GREEN BOOK’S PETER FARRELLY, NICK VALLELONGA, BRIAN HAYES CURRIE Screenwriters Award BELIEVER Documentary Award YALITZA APARICIO New Hollywood Actress Award…

↑ Film Queen Chaos Behind Bryan Singer’s Bohemian firing p. 14 Deals Cartoon Boom Why Netflix and CBS are launching ani studios p. 20 Drake Fueled by his appearance on Bad Bunny’s “MIA,” the rapper surpasses The Beatles to claim the crown for most Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits in a year with 12. Kevin Kay The Paramount Network chief, who oversaw its rebranding from Spike, is out after more than two decades with Viacom and is succeeded by Comedy Central president Kent Alterman. Dan Houser The Rockstar Games co-founder launches Western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 to $725 million in retail sales in its first three days of release. Louis C.K. The comic is greeted by protests (and later removed from a line-up) at his first advertised set…

For executives who had worked with — and suffered through — Bryan Singer, the question was: Why? Why give him a shot at making Bohemian Rhapsody when the director had such an established reputation for causing chaos on set? What won the argument, sources say, was that this was Singer’s passion project. Given his enthusiasm, taking a risk even on a deeply troubled talent might have led to rich rewards for 20th Century Fox. But apparently, artistic rewards were not delivered in this case. Reviewers are praising Rami Malek’s portrayal of the late Freddie Mercury, but the movie is at just 55 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at press time. Still, powered by Queen hits, the film looks to open strongly. And even before those numbers are in, Avi Lerner’s…

FILM Idris Elba (WME, the U.K.’s Artists Partnership) and Tilda Swinton (UTA, the U.K.’s Hamilton Hodell, Peikoff Mahan) are attached to star in George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing. Chris Rock (ICM, Untitled, Morris Yorn) will direct Kevin Hart in Universal comedy Co-Parenting. Allison Janney (Gersh, Thruline, Nelson Davis) and Laura Dern (CAA, Untitled) will star in Tate Taylor’s Breaking News in Yuba County from AGC Studios and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories. Anya Taylor-Joy (CAA, the U.K.’s Troika, Felker Toczek) will star as the title character in Working Title’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Emma. Girls Trip writer Tracy Oliver (ICM, Artists First, Myman Greenspan) will write a Clueless remake at Paramount with GLOW grad Marquita Robinson. Rio director Carlos Saldanha (WME, Newhouse Porter) will direct TriStar’s live-action adaptation…

Presidents of War (CROWN PUBLISHING, OCT. 9) BY Michael Beschloss AGENCY ICM Partners For his latest, the noted nonfiction writer focuses on American presidents in wartime, pulling from 10 years of research. With renewed interest in American history thanks to projects like Hamilton, the inherently episodic story lends itself well to series. The Infinite Pieces of Us (SKYSCAPE, NOV. 1) BY Rebekah Crane AGENCY UTA This YA road-trip story is reminiscent of releases like Love, Simon and Paper Towns. When Esther is moved to New Mexico by her stepfather in order to get away from a secret past, she finds a ragtag group of friends who prompt her to search for answers.…

It wasn’t Elizabeth Thorp’s idea to get into acting — or politics — but she’s becoming the first female U.S. secretary of defense on the final season of Netflix’s House of Cards. In 2014, during her tenure as editor of Capitol File, a glossy pub for the D.C. glitterati, she was approached by HoC to audition for a small role. “I just totally blew it,” recalls Thorp, who nevertheless cemented a spot on the creative team’s radar — reading for small parts over the next few years and, last May, getting cast as a member of Madam President Underwood’s (Robin Wright) Cabinet. “Elizabeth has a different kind of gravitas,” says Frank Pugliese, who co-runs the show with Melissa James Gibson. Adds star Michael Kelly, “When you have that chemistry with…

The 47th annual Clio Entertainment Awards (THR is a partner) are set for Nov. 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with America’s Funniest Home Videos host Alfonso Ribeiro serving as emcee. The show, launched in 1971 as the Key Art Awards to celebrate the best in film marketing, has expanded into TV, gaming and other arenas. Some 1,500 execs from across the entertainment spectrum will be there, with nominees including 20th Century Fox, Netflix and Sony Interactive.…

Digital detoxes are often designed around being reclusive, but the real challenge comes when you’re done unplugging. You need new habits to prevent another inevitable digital overload. While senior executives are challenged by managing their email inboxes, junior executives rely on technology for social outlets, making the switch from personal and professional difficult to manage. The following tips for incremental detox — as you work and live your life — help with both scenarios. Use a real alarm clock When you don’t have a phone next to your bed, your morning changes. You’re getting up without sifting through emails or social media and letting 100 notifications enter your mind. Would you let 100 people walk into your bedroom first thing in the morning? Just as it takes time for our…

Before she arrived on the Vancouver set of Deadpool 2 in mid-August 2017, Joi Harris had never performed a stunt. She’d never been anywhere near a movie or TV set, for that matter. Producers and studio 20th Century Fox wanted an African-American double for Zazie Beetz, who’d been cast in the role of Domino. They hired Harris, 40, who had done some motorcycle racing, and flew her in a couple of days before the shoot. The sequence was pretty straightforward. It called for a rider, sitting astride a powerful Ducati 939 Hyperstrada motorcycle, to coast down a set of planks that had been laid over a few stairs. Harris would be traveling about 5 miles an hour, though onscreen it would be made to look as if she were going…

It’s a free-for-all. The 2018 awards season may now be shifting into high gear, but the race has yet to take shape — which is both good news for all the Oscar hopefuls eager to stake a claim and also a source of anxiety for some films that would like to dominate the conversation. Certainly, a top tier of contenders emerged from the first wave of fall festivals, which saw Damien Chazelle’s First Man open Venice to enthusiastic applause, while Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma claimed the top prize, the Golden Lion; Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite scored the runner-up Jury Prize; and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born left the Lido with no prize but a lot of buzz — and by far the fest’s highest glamour quotient. Individual performers — like…

What a pleasure to see Elaine May back on Broadway after 50-plus years at 86, her timing as sharp as ever: She’s alternately funny and heartbreaking as a Greenwich Village fixture whose mind is deteriorating fast in Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery. While the 1999 play is not the most profound work of this keenly observant Oscar-winning writer, it may be his most personal, inspired by the decline of his grandmother as she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Lonergan’s investment is obvious from his surrogate character Daniel, played by Lucas Hedges in his Broadway debut. Daniel opens the play in the middle of a talk with his grandmother Gladys (May) and closes it with a monologue in which he memorializes her and pays tribute to his mother, Ellen (Joan Allen), who…

Queen, the subject of Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody, opening Nov. 2, recorded their first soundtrack album for 1980’s Flash Gordon. The Hollywood Reporter was not impressed. “Queen supplies a rock score that is, to put it kindly, anachronistic,” said the review of the operatic score. But the soundtrack rose to No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and the single “Flash” has had something of an unexpected afterlife. The over-the-top lyrics — “He save with a mighty hand, every man, every woman, every child, with a mighty flash” — play well in comedy, as during Will Ferrell and Jon Heder’s ice-skating routine in Blades of Glory. The sci-fi film, with Flash protecting Earth from the ultra-evil Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow), sprang from Dino De Laurentiis’ desire to have a Star…

What to do when your film’s real-life protagonist becomes embroiled in scandal? Sixteen days after Lionsgate picked up Jay Roach’s untitled film about the Fox News women who brought down Roger Ailes with their claims of sexual harassment, the project’s central character, Megyn Kelly, was on her way out of NBC following her comments about blackface. Though the filmmakers have been calling the drama an ensemble piece, Charlize Theron, who plays Kelly, is top-billed and also a producer. Production on the film began in Los Angeles on Oct. 22, three days before NBC canceled Megyn Kelly Today, leaving the filmmakers in an awkward position — move forward with a tarnished heroine or delay production by tweaking Charles Randolph’s script and refashioning Theron’s Kelly into a roman à clef. The movie…

Deal of the Week Netflix and CBS TV Studios are building up their own Toon Towns. As adult animation continues to explode (more than 10 new series orders in 2018 to date), Netflix is launching an in-house studio to better monetize what can be hugely lucrative programming. As it has with live-action scripted, the streamer will scale back on outsourcing the costly process to animation companies like Bento Box, which is handling the recently ordered Hoops. Netflix’s studio, say sources, will animate kids programming, originals and films, working with writers including Alex Hirsch (Gravity Falls) and Shion Takeuchi (Disenchantment) to create new projects. CBS TV Studios, meanwhile, is launching production arm CBS Eye Animation as it enters the space with CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Lower Decks. The David Stapf-run…

“There’s something more powerful than bombs, and that’s your vote.” ROBERT DE NIRO The actor, in a statement issued the day after his offices in Manhattan were found to be one of the recipients of more than a dozen mail bombs allegedly sent by Cesar Sayoc to critics of President Trump. “Netflix’s fundamental business model seems unsustainable.” ASWATH DAMODARAN The New York University finance professor, expressing skepticism in The New York Times that the streaming giant, which is borrowing billions, has a sound financial strategy. “I think those individuals probably know who they are.” SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS The White House press secretary, responding to a question about who in the media are Trump’s “enemies of the people.” “Sometimes I’d go, ‘Fuck yeah, I want to see that!’ ” SARAH SILVERMAN…

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Stacey Snider rubbed elbows at Craig’s. … Peter Chernin and Bob Iger had dinner at Toscana. … LeBron James and Fergie were at Acai Nation in Brentwood, separately. … Hayden Panettiere checked out D’Amore’s Pizza. … Bruno Mars stopped by Crustacean Beverly Hills. … Chelsea Handler was at The Abbey in West Hollywood. … Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez dined at Avra Beverly Hills. … In New York, Kathie Lee Gifford shared the room at Michael’s with Lawrence O’Donnell, Monica Crowley and UTA’s Nancy Gates. Alta Adams The Quick Pitch Daniel Patterson of San Francisco’s three-Michelin-starred Coi makes his L.A. foray in a low key. Chef Keith Corbin, Patterson’s protege, has built a menu of California soul food — black-eyed pea fritters, pig’s foot salad, candied yam…

Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-autobiographical drama Roma, about a middle-class family and its maid in 1970s Mexico City, enters awards season with the kind of hoopla that usually precedes near-certain winners such as 2007’s No Country for Old Men and 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. And yet, says one veteran strategist, “If I had to bet, I’d say its chances of winning best picture are one in a hundred.” That’s because the Netflix release is in Spanish, and none of the 10 foreign-language features that have earned a best-picture nomination in the past has gone on to win the top award, though four of them did land the foreign-language Oscar. There are reasons besides prejudice. First, some Academy members don’t like to read subtitles; second, some older members still feel a Hollywood picture should…

NOV. 4 • Hollywood Film Awards NOV. 26 • Gotham Awards NOV. 27 • National Board of Review winners DEC. 4 • AFI Awards honorees announced DEC. 6 • Golden Globe Awards nominations DEC. 10 • Critics’ Choice nominations DEC. 12 • SAG Awards nominations announced DEC. 17 • Oscar shortlist announced in nine categories, including foreign-language JAN. 4 • AFI Awards luncheon • PGA Motion Picture nominations JAN. 6 • Golden Globe Awards JAN. 7 • New York Film Critics Circle gala • WGA theatrical and documentary nominations JAN. 8 • DGA feature film nominations JAN. 9 • BAFTA nominations JAN. 13 • Critics’ Choice Awards JAN. 14 • Oscar nomination voting closes JAN. 19 • PGA Awards JAN. 22 • Academy Awards nominations announced JAN. 27 • SAG…