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.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.” THAT WAS ONE Warner Bros. executive’s reaction to the excitement at Suicide Squad’s splashy Aug. 1 premiere in New York. Tracking indicates the film could open to more than $140 million domestic and potentially hand the studio its first unequivocal megahit since American Sniper’s $547.4 million in December 2014. With March’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice grossing $873 million worldwide but failing to impress audiences or reach the hoped-for $1 billion mark, Warners still urgently needs to jump-start its critical DC Comics universe, raising the stakes on Suicide Squad, which cost at least $175 million to make. Yet if the villain team-up ultimately works — and it has drawn some harsh early reviews (see page 62) — it will be in spite of the kind…
SUICIDE SQUAD ISN’T THE ONLY studio franchise film with director anxiety. Several insiders say Tony Gilroy, an uncredited writer on Disney’s upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has been empowered to take the lead on postproduction for the Dec. 16 release, even as director Gareth Edwards remains involved in the project. Gilroy, 59, writer of several Bourne movies and director of The Bourne Legacy and Michael Clayton, became the driving force behind Rogue One’s extensive, recently wrapped reshoots, which ran around five weeks. Now he is said to be “supervising” the edit with input from Edwards, who scored the Rogue One job after his 2014 Godzilla impressed Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy. Edwards, 40, remains very much involved and still is the face of the movie, appearing at Star Wars Celebration…
FOR A TIME, COMEDIES — PARTICULARLY THE R-RATED VARIETY — COULD DO NO wrong thanks to uproarious hits including The Hangover (2009) and Bridesmaids (2011). But despite Bad Moms opening to a decent $23.8 million during the July 29 to 31 weekend for STX Entertainment, there’s been a downturn in comedy grosses in 2016. Behind the scenes, studios are re-evaluating comedy slates, even if they aren’t losing tons of money thanks to modest budgets. “What’s happened to the genre is like everything else: If something works, every other studio follows and does something similar until it becomes overkill,” says analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners. “We’re not seeing a big breakout hit.” Source: Box Office Mojo; all grosses worldwide. *Still in release…
ON JULY 26, THE morning after Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo for $4.8 billion, CEO Lowell McAdam announced that the company’s catchphrase “Can you hear me now?” had become “Can you see me now?” It was a nod to how important video content has become for the telecom giant, which in the past year has bought or invested in a stable of media properties that includes AOL, AwesomenessTV and Complex. The deals are key to Verizon’s plan to avoid obsolescence in an age when young people would rather Snapchat or watch YouTube videos than talk on the phone or switch on a TV. It’s a future in which Verizon’s 113 million customers use their phones to open a Verizon app like streaming service go90 and watch videos produced or licensed…
WHAT VERIZON/AOL HAS WHAT YAHOO BRINGS SPORTS Verizon is a partner of the NFL and streamed Super Bowl 50 for its customers on the go90 app, which now offers a mix of live games, highlights and sports-themed shortform web shows. Yahoo showed off the strength of its home page by attracting 15.2 million unique viewers to its live stream of an NFL game from London. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam has teased future such content deals. NEWS Arianna Huffington’s The Huffington Post has grown under AOL to include a global roster of video and editorial content. In June, it had 75 million visitors in the U.S. alone, according to comScore. Yahoo’s top star likely is anchor Katie Couric, whose RNC videos drew more than 18 million views. But with her contract…
MICHAEL BAY’S 13 HOURS: THE SECRET Soldiers of Benghazi did modest business at the box office after its January release, earning $52.9 million domestically and $69.4 million worldwide. But in an election-year surprise for Paramount, the film is doing herolike business in home entertainment, amassing more than $40 million since it became available digitally in May, followed by its Blu-ray/DVD and rental release June 7. That’s a huge number for a movie of its size. (Digital purchases total about $7.1 million, digital and physical rentals are at $20.2 million, and $13.5 million is from Blu-ray and DVD sales.) “The gross could end up being on par with the box office,” says Bob Buchi, Paramount’s president of worldwide home media distribution. Interestingly, Paramount says Bay’s $50 million-budgeted film about the deadly…
