Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, February 6, 2019 i The Hollywood Reporter

The digital media industry is in disarray. Or is it? In the wake of new rounds of cost-cutting at three of the companies most identified with online publishing and experimentation, BuzzFeed, HuffPost and Vice, alarm bells are being sounded about the state of the business. Major Hollywood conglomerates have bet hundreds of millions of dollars on the potential of companies like BuzzFeed and Vox Media, banking on veteran executives like Jonah Peretti and Jim Bankoff to turn digital laboratories into sound businesses. With their investments now looking shakier, industry watchers are questioning whether companies like NBCUniversal, Disney, 21st Century Fox and Discovery could seek to cut their losses and get out from under their stakes. (Disney already wrote down the value of its $400 million investment in Vice by $157…

Hollywood has never been a forgiving place for artists, least of all directors. D.W. Griffith, who pretty much invented film grammar, couldn’t rebound from the disaster of 1916’s Intolerance. He died in 1948, impoverished and alcoholic, occasionally visited by his adoring muse, Lillian Gish, but unable to land a gig even as a second-unit director on Gone With the Wind, for which David O. Selznick briefly considered him, only to think better of the idea. Griffith’s onetime assistant, Erich von Stroheim, fared little better. The silent-era master, responsible for 1922’s Foolish Wives and 1925’s Greed, was relegated to acting work, like the role he called “that goddamn butler part” in Sunset Boulevard, once the moguls turned against him. Charlie Chaplin went into exile. Orson Welles lamented that more money was…

Deal of the Week SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer has big plans for the now-largest audio entertainment company in the world. The satellite radio giant closed its $3.5 billion acquisition of music streaming service Pandora Music on Feb. 1, adding to the former’s 34 million subscribers the 68.8 million-plus active users of the latter (including about 6.8 million paying Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium subscribers). The company forecasts that cost synergies will exceed $50 million per year by the end of 2020, “but this merger has never been about cost synergies,” Meyer said on a Jan. 30 earnings call. Rather, the CEO pointed to the increased scale as conferring such key benefits as reaching “vastly more” users beyond SiriusXM’s traditional car-bound base — Buckingham Research Group analyst Matthew Harrigan says the…

Tom Brady and his New England Patriots are taking home the Vince Lombardi trophy for the sixth time — after the lowest-scoring Super Bowl matchup ever, and the lowest-rated in 10 years (98.2 million watched on CBS; 2.6 million more streamed the game). But Cardi B arguably won the weekend in Atlanta, without ever setting foot in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Having turned down an offer to perform during the halftime show out of solidarity with quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick (Maroon 5 and Travis Scott took the stage instead), the superstar rapper from the Bronx grabbed her share of the spotlight anyway by performing and appearing at a slew of events — including a headline-generating showing at Michael Rubin’s Fanatics party Feb. 2 at the College Football Hall of Fame. During her late-afternoon…

“I didn’t want the motherfuckers to win.”JUSSIE SMOLLETT The Empire singer-actor, before a performance at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, speaking out about being brutally attacked in a suspected hate crime in Chicago on Jan. 22. “The truth will always come out — as it always does.”JOHN LANDGRAF The FX CEO, casting doubt on Netflix’s viewership numbers and suggesting the audience for Sex Education and You was probably closer to 8 million than Netflix’s claim of 40 million. “Adam Levine looks like if the guy from Memento had to keep reminding himself he was an asshole.”CHASE MITCHELL The Fix writer, on Twitter, mocking the Maroon 5 frontman for showing off his tattoos during the Super Bowl halftime show. “I wouldn’t have lasted one more symbol.”ARIANA GRANDE The singer, tweeting about…

First question for industry insiders looking longingly to London for a second home: How is the threat of Brexit affecting the market? Saul Empson, director at bespoke property buying agency Haringtons, says that “Brexit has had an enormous impact — things are on hold,” with one of the effects being “to cut off the supply of good value property.” Sellers are staying put or keeping empty houses in their portfolios, waiting to see how the market shakes out. “There’s a huge amount of volatility — and opportunity” for intrepid buyers, says Thea Carroll of The Buying Solution agency. “Sterling just before Christmas had a 20-month low, so buying dollar to pound, you’re looking up to a 20 percent to 30 percent discount on an already softened market.” THE BROKERS Carroll,…

Combining street style and Italian craftsmanship, the seven-piece shoe and boot collection (from $795 at high-end department stores) by Giuseppe Zanotti and Rita Ora was inspired by the singer’s jewelry. Ora is a longtime fan of Zanotti, who designed shoes for her recent British tour, while the Italian designer, who has collaborated with Rihanna, Beyonce and Kanye West, just loves musicians.”You feel the chemistry,” says Zanotti. “This is not a matter of business, it’s a matter of doing something with artists. I feel happy when I am doing something with a lot of emotion behind it.” Known for his sculptural heels, he adds that music-fashion collaborations are here to stay: “There is something revolutionary at the moment happening to the system in the fashion industry. Big companies are opening their…

Matt Vogel had just moved from Kansas to New York and was looking for work as an actor when his girlfriend showed him an ad in Backstage magazine. “It had a picture of Kermit the Frog,” he remembers, “and it said, ‘Do you measure up to be a Muppet?’ Then it gave all these details about what qualities they were looking for and it turned out I had all of them.” And then some. Today, 23 years later, Vogel, now 48, doesn’t animate just any Muppet — he’s the man inside the Muppet, taking over the role and voice of Big Bird from longtime puppeteer Caroll Spinney after he retired last year at age 85. “My job is to carry on where Caroll left off,” says Vogel of playing the…

Evan Spiegel Despite flat user growth, the Snapchat CEO reels in nearly $390 million in quarterly revenue for the platform, up 36 percent year-over-year. Russell Arons The Machinima general manager presides over mass layoffs and the shuttering of a video network once worth around $100 million as the brand discontinues its YouTube channels. Bob Chapek The Walt Disney parks chair helps grow his division’s quarterly sales 5 percent to $6.8 billion as anticipation builds for the launch of the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction this summer. Liam Neeson The actor derails a press tour for his latest thriller Cold Pursuit in an interview describing a decades-old story about seeking to pick a fight with black men out of a sense of revenge. Showbiz Stocks $169.25 (+15%) FACEBOOK (FB) Despite controversies…

On Feb. 5, the Chinese New Year, Alibaba Pictures and STX Entertainment will unveil the Chinese-language Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year in 65 theaters in the U.S. after a wave of interest in China garnered 1.63 billion social media views on a hashtag related to the movie. For Entertainment One, the Toronto-based film and TV producer with more than 1,000 employees, the project is just the latest iteration of a franchise that the company says generates $1.2 billion in sales of merchandise related to the show annually. And eOne, which owns the Peppa Pig kids property and has Mark Gordon running its production business in Los Angeles, has seen its shares rise sharply of late on sale chatter. 50B Number of combined views of Peppa Pig on VOD platforms in…

LANDGRAF: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. ATLANTA: GUY D’ALEMA/FX. FEUD: BYRON COHEN/FX. AMERICAN: RAY MICKSHAW/FX. FARGO: CHRIS LARGE/FX. VILE: COURTESY OF SUNDANCE. BUNDY: COURTESY OF NETFLIX. UPSIDE: DAVID LEE/STX ENTERTAINMENT. BALA: GREGORY SMITH/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. OLD: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT. MASKED: MICHAEL BECKER/FOX. SIREN: FREEFORM/DAVID BUKACH. TWO: COURTESY OF COMEDY CENTRAL. COLE: STEVEN FERDMAN/GETTY IMAGES. BACKSTREET: MICHAEL LOCCISANO/GETTY IMAGES. BILLBOARD HOT 100: The week’s most popular current songs, across all genres, ranked by audience impressions, sales data and streaming activity by online music sources tracked by Nielsen Music. BILLBOARD 200: The week’s most popular albums across all genres, as compiled by Nielsen Music, based on multi-metric consumption (blending traditional album sales, track equivalent albums, and streaming equivalent albums).…

Big Deal At a time when past social media activity has sunk hosting gigs, directing jobs and awards prospects, a new reputation management firm from veteran Hollywood publicists may prove to be a career-saver. Principal Communications Group partners Paul Pflug, Melissa Zukerman and Hans-Dieter Kopal have formed Foresight Solutions Group in partnership with cyber-intelligence firm Edgeworth Security, which knows how to go much deeper than a Google search in running background checks. “These analysts are able to interpret data and know where to go on the web” — including the dark web — “to find additional information,” Pflug tells THR. “It’s a combination of algorithm and practical experience.” Foresight joins an increasingly indemand category of public relations firms, such as Sitrick and Co. and Hiltzik Strategies, that are known more…

Engagements Sarah Shyn, manager at 3 Arts Entertainment, became engaged to Gabriel Ayala at the end of 2018. The couple will marry in June. Congrats TriStar Pictures president Hannah Minghella expanded her purview Jan. 31 to include TriStar Television. Paramount TV promoted Debra Bergman to head of physical production and Ken Basin to executive vp business affairs and named Robert West as vp production Jan. 29. 3 Ball Entertainment co-CEO Ross Weintraub re-upped and will serve as sole CEO, while former co-CEO and company co-founder Todd A. Nelson received a first-look deal Jan. 28. Dick Clark Productions promoted Linda Gierahn to executive vp production, Kelly Striewski to executive vp communications and marketing and Alexi Mazareas to vp programming and development Jan. 31. Virginia Burgess joined Reed Smith LLP as a…

$11B Johnson’s total worldwide box office, including 2017’s Jumanji reboot, which grossed an overall $965 million. $10M The modest budget for Fighting With My Family, co-financed by the U.K.’s Film4 and the WWE. The film was bought by MGM for $17 million. 13 Seven Bucks projects due in 2019 across film, TV and digital, including Hobbs & Shaw and The Titan Games. $7 All the money Johnson had when he was cut by the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders.…

With square footage at such a premium in London, Empson tells clients from Los Angeles that “never have you spent so much money to live in such discomfort.” A comparison between similarly priced properties in the two cities: CLARENDON ROAD, HOLLAND PARK: $10.8M This semi-detached, five-bedroom, five-bathroom, 3,176-square-foot Victorian house is “picture postcard with a beautiful garden and on one of the best roads in Holland Park,” says Heather. 9051 BRIARCREST LANE, BEVERLY HILLS: $10.5M The four-bedroom, five-bathroom, five-fireplace estate comes with guest house, pool, tennis court, five-car garage and koi pond with waterfall. The 6,867-square-foot property sits, says listing agent, SFJ Group’s Sally Forster Jones, “on over 1.2 acres surrounded by lush landscaping — it’s a luxurious home with a truly tranquil feel.” The London property is Grade II…

“We have a few rules here,” says the puppeteer crouched under the counter. “Always deodorant, never onions.” Her name is Carmen Osbahr and normally she operates Rosita, Sesame Street’s Latina Muppet. Right now, though, she’s squeezed into a cupboard along with four of her colleagues on the show’s Queens, New York, set, where they’re about to shoot a bit in which Elmo and Big Bird wander into Hooper’s Store looking for snacks. A few minutes earlier, a stagehand with a circular saw sliced a half-moon chunk out of the wooden surface so Osbahr and her fellow puppeteers could reach up and manipulate a crate full of talking fruit — an apple, peach, pineapple, banana and orange — while doing their best not to elbow each other in the eye or…

BLACKKKLANSMAN Kevin Willmott “There’s not much of a third act in Ron Stallworth’s book [upon which the film is based]. So we had to come up with a climax. I am always, like most writers, trying to be loyal to the true story you’re telling as much as possible. I have real respect for what happened. If I can make what really happened work, I’ll do that. However, one of the lessons from writing this movie is that you can’t be afraid to take liberties, to take the realities of your story and turn them into a satisfying climax for the movie but remain in the spirit of what actually happened.” IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK Barry Jenkins “One of the most iconic moments in the film, I think, is…

ASC Awards Feb. 9 Ray Dolby Ballroom JAN. 8, 1919 The American Society of Cinematographers was founded in Hollywood by 15 original members dedicated to “advancing the art through artistry and technological progress.” JUNE 20, 1920 Paramount releases the silent Western Sand, whose credits bear the first documented appearance of the familiar “ASC” credential for a theatrical film’s title. 1939 Oscars were awarded for both color and blackand-white for the first time. Gregg Toland won for Wuthering Heights and Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan for Gone With the Wind. 1980 Brianne Murphy (the first female director of photography on a major studio picture, Fatso) becomes the first woman to be invited to join the ASC. 1986 The first ASC Awards ceremony is held, with Gregory Peck handing out its single…

Comcast, Charter and Verizon quarterly subscriber figures are coming in slightly better than Wall Street had expected. But in an ominous sign for AT&T’s push to become an entertainment powerhouse — it spent $85 billion to acquire TimeWarner in 2018, after all — satellite television provider DirecTV has come up short, with even its supposedly high-growth skinny bundle streamer, DirecTV Now, losing subs. Launched with fanfare in late 2016, the streaming service with up to 125 channels of live TV grew its subscribers to 1.86 million as of Sept. 30, but in the fourth quarter recorded its first subscriber drop ever. Analysts were stunned by the loss of 267,000 streaming users (on top of a loss of 403,000 at the traditional DirecTV satellite service) reported Jan. 30, given that the…

Heading into 2019, FX CEO John Landgraf was prepared for a challenging year. Then, a few days after returning to work from the holiday break, he saw the first footage from his upcoming Fosse/Verdon limited series starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams. “It’s going to be one of the best shows of the year,” Landgraf boasted to THR on Feb. 4. (The show is due in April). Given FX’s 2019 slate, there is big pressure for Fosse/Verdon — as well as the Alex Garland limited series Devs and the comedy What We Do in the Shadows — to cut through the clutter. After bidding farewell to The Americans after six seasons, FX will endure 2019 without critical hits Atlanta, American Crime Story and Fargo. Highly anticipated comic book drama Y:…

BEST PICTURE A Star Is Born The musical drama has taken on the mantle of underdog: At the Feb. 2 DGA Awards, Bradley Cooper (who wasn’t nominated for a best director Oscar) was nominated for both director and first-time director — he lost not only the former, as was expected, but also the latter, to Eighth Grade’s Bo Burnham. DIRECTOR Alfonso Cuaron Roma For the second time in six years (following 2013’s Gravity), the Mexican filmmaker won the feature film DGA Award. In the prior 70 years, the DGA winner took home the directing Oscar on all but seven occasions, and that film won the best picture Oscar on all but 15. FILM EDITING Bohemian Rhapsody At the 68th American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards on Feb. 1, the rock biopic’s…

FILM Saw’s Leigh Whannell (Paradigm, Stacey Testro, Myman Greenspan) will write Fox’s Escape From New York remake. Javier Bardem (WME, Spain’s Jose Marzilli, Bloom Hergott) and Zendaya (CAA, Monster, Skrzyniarz & Mallean) have joined Denis Villeneuve’s Dune remake. Judd Apatow (UTA, Mosaic, Ziffren Brittenham) and Pete Davidson (ICM, Brillstein, Gray Krauss) will team for an untitled Universal comedy. Idris Elba (WME, Hertz Lichtenstein, the U.K.’s Artists Partnership) is in negotiations to star in the MGM sci-fi thriller Deeper. James Gunn (UTA, Safran Co., Frankfurt Kurnitt) is in negotiations to direct the second Suicide Squad film. Ryan Reynolds (WME, Sloane Offer) will star in Shotgun Wedding for Lionsgate and director Jason Moore. SUNDANCE Amazon has acquired Shia LaBeouf drama Honey Boy and doc American Factory. … National Geographic has picked up…

Real Queer America (LITTLE BROWN, MARCH 5) BY Samantha Allen AGENCY UTA Allen, a Mormon missionary turned Daily Beast reporter, travels through flyover states, documenting heartland LGBT lives to create a slice-of-life chronicle. Like Apple’s upcoming Little America, the reported anthology can lend itself to a topical series. An American Summer (DOUBLEDAY, MARCH 5) BY Alex Kotlowitz AGENCY APA Set during one Chicago summer, the collection of profiles tracks the toll that continued gun violence has had on a city and its residents. The novel deals with themes also explored in Lena Waithe’s Showtime drama The Chi.…

There are so few theatrically released Sesame Street movies, even a Muppet could count them on one hand (with two fingers left over). Aside from 1985’s Follow That Bird and 1999’s Elmo in Grouchland, there’s been only TV films and direct-to-video releases. That’s about to change. “It’s going to be big,” promises Portlandia’s Jonathan Krisel, who’s been hired to write and direct a still-untitled Sesame Street feature in development at Warner Bros. (a project that moved from Fox in 2015). Exactly how big, he can’t say — sources say it will be in the $50 million range — but Krisel confirms that Anne Hathaway will star and that shooting could begin in late summer. The plot is being kept under wraps, but Krisel reveals that it will be a musical…

ALFONSO CUARON ROMA “My editor said that one scene reminded him of [Federico] Fellini. I was surprised at first but I said, ‘Yeah, I see your point.’ But this is the first project in which I decided that it was a very conscious decision not to take any reference and try to do things as purely as possible.” YORGOS LANTHIMOS THE FAVOURITE “We looked at period films that made bold choices and were creative in how they dealt with the genre, including Amadeus (Milos Forman), The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner), The Draughtsman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway) and Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman).” ADAM MCKAY VICE “I saw the 2008 film Il Divo by Paolo Sorrentino, a movie about an actual corrupt Italian Prime Minister (Giulio Andreotti) that was written…