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.
Derek Hunt’s cellphone wouldn’t stop ringing, but he was too busy rescuing horses to answer. It was Nov. 9, and a blaze that erupted the day before in Thousand Oaks morphed into the inferno of the Woolsey Fire. Hunt, the manager of Sable Ranch, a filming location in Santa Clarita, was stationed along Las Virgenes Highway near Paramount Ranch. He, along with friends, had carted about 50 area horses to safety at the Hansen Dam, 45 miles away, when he stopped short. Flames licked the ground a couple of hundred yards away. Less than half a mile ahead, a plume of smoke boiled upward from Paramount Ranch. “It looked like a bomb went off, except there was no sound,” Hunt recalls, “just a big cloud of smoke. That was the…
Karey Burke The Freeform exec lands the top job at ABC Entertainment as Channing Dungey exits and new Disney TV chief Dana Walden builds her team. Sheryl Sandberg The Facebook COO is under fire after a New York Times exposé reveals the company ignored Russian meddling and hired a PR firm to slime critics. Jim Acosta The CNN reporter gets his press pass back (at least temporarily) after a D.C. judge rules the White House can’t suspend access without due process. Jimmy Fallon Two years after falling behind Stephen Colbert in total viewers, the Tonight Show host now cedes the 18-to-49 demo crown as well, with NBC trailing CBS season to date. Showbiz Stocks $17.49 (+14%) E.W. SCRIPPS CO. (SSP) The owner of more than 30 TV stations posts better-than-expected…
The list of content assets controlled by WarnerMedia is massive — from the Harry Potter and DC Comics universes to classic movies and TV shows like Gone With the Wind and Friends — but those might not be enough to compete in the streaming wars, especially when Disney launches its Disney+ service next year. Hence, Wall Street wasn’t too surprised to read that WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey and NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke recently held preliminary talks about licensing titles for WarnerMedia’s forthcoming streaming service. Such a partnership makes sense, considering that the AT&T property could add popular franchises like Fast & Furious, Sherlock Holmes, Back to the Future and Jurassic Park to WarnerMedia’s already impressive arsenal of 7,000 movies and 5,000 TV series. And NBCUniversal, which, outside of a 30…
About a year ago, Anne Schedeen realized she hadn’t seen any residuals in a while from Alf, the hit ’80s series in which she co-starred. That seemed odd to the actress, so she asked her husband, Chris Barrett, to give SAG-AFTRA a call. The response he got? “Oh,” said a staffer, according to Barrett, formerly the head of Metropolitan Talent Agency. “That show hasn’t paid residuals in four years.” Schedeen’s story isn’t unique. Robert Sherman, the son of comedian Allan Sherman, says he’s been attempting to get SAG-AFTRA to obtain unpaid residuals on animated Dr. Seuss projects featuring his late father, who voiced The Cat in the Hat. “It’s two and a half years, 60 emails, and the resolution isn’t in sight yet,” he says. Across the five major Hollywood…
BEST PICTURE First Reformed Writer-director Paul Schrader’s austere drama about faith in the modern world saw a big boost from the 34th Spirit Award nominations on Nov. 16. The A24 release earned best feature, director and screenplay noms as well as a lead actor nomination for Ethan Hawke, who plays a tortured Protestant minister. You Were Never Really Here Director Lynne Ramsay’s film, in which Joaquin Phoenix plays a hired gun looking for a missing girl, also built momentum as the Amazon picture earned four Spirit noms — for feature, male lead, director and editing. This comes on the heels of Cannes prizes for Ramsay’s screenplay and Phoenix’s performance. ACTRESS Nicole Kidman Destroyer The Oscar winner’s vanity-free portrait of a tough detective in Karyn Kusama’s drama won applause at its…
AMAZON SCARES UP BLUMHOUSE: ‘IT’S A BIT OF AN INNOVATION’ Deal of the Week The lines among film, television and digital media continue to blur with Amazon and Blumhouse’s new pact. The streamer’s first global, direct-to-service deal for feature-length programming calls for Jason Blum’s Blumhouse TV to produce a thematically linked series of eight thrillers, all made by underrepresented filmmakers. Blumhouse TV co-president Marci Wiseman tells THR that her studio is filling a hole for Amazon: original content that falls outside the all-at-once series model that’s become the hallmark of streamers. “There’s a lot of need for feature-length content on video-on-demand and other platforms,” she says. “The ability to do things that are made directly for that audience and have some connective tissue creates another kind of viewing experience than…
