Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, March 13, 2019 i The Hollywood Reporter

The February decision by an arbitrator to award a jaw-dropping $179 million in damages to the stars and producers of the Fox drama Bones is shining a new spotlight on the value of a show’s streaming rights. The ruling, made public Feb. 27, found that executives at 21st Century Fox defrauded Bones stars David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel and producers Barry Josephson and Kathy Reichs of their profit participation on the long-running series. Among the findings was a so-called sweetheart deal between Fox and Hulu, in which the studio owns a 30 percent stake, to license the current-season stacking rights to the show at what arbitrator Peter Lichtman determined was a “low cost to build up the value” of Hulu. (Fox is appealing the $128 million in punitive damages.) As…

Michael Cohen’s Mysteriously Disappearing Doc Deal Remember how Republicans hammered Michael Cohen over his supposed plans for a movie deal during his congressional hearings? Turns out those GOPers were on to something. Rambling Reporter has learned that in the months leading up to the thrice-delayed hearings, President Trump’s former fixer was talking with a number of filmmakers, including Michael Moore and Lawrence Bender, and was on the cusp of inking a $3 million deal with one of the town’s digital media companies for a fly-on-the-wall documentary that would have followed Cohen in the weeks before he’s due to head to prison May 6. But then, with no explanation, Cohen, 52, suddenly backed out. Still, that hankering for Hollywood stardom must run in the family: Cohen’s eldest child, 22-year-old Samantha, has…

Now in its 21st year and 33rd season, MTV’s The Challenge is one of the most entertaining reality shows on television. The current season, The Challenge: War of the Worlds (though what worlds are at war is unclear), just had its highest rated episode since 2013. More than 30 contestants are forced to live together in a house without TV, phones or entertainment. When they aren’t socially torturing each other, they face off in physical challenges that often involve scary heights, thick mud and brutal body slamming for a shot at the prize money. It has all the sumptuous excess of Kabuki theater, which is what makes it so addictive. But any show that lasts as long as The Challenge also says something about the culture that supports it. In…

L.A.’s frenzied dining scene is the subject of Jordan Okun’s equally frenzied 5-month-old podcast, Air Jordan. The onetime ICM Partners assistant (“I was on a desk and horrible at it”) is the ultra-opinionated host of the kibitz-fest, which exults in digressions on everything from the contents of the bread basket at Mastro’s to the volume of cappuccino chips in the ice cream at Dan Tana’s to the fate of Nate’n Al. Ball-busting Okun — who, like Marc Maron, typically records out of his converted Sherman Oaks home garage — isn’t about creating a safe space, whether for his sidekick David Stassen (a writer producer and frequent Ike Barinholtz collaborator with credits on The Mindy Project, Blockers and Central Intelligence) or his guests, who run from B.J. Novak and Joel McHale…

“Long shot” hardly begins to describe the premise of the latest comedy from Jonathan Levine (The Night Before, Snatched), in which an unemployed journalist who looks exactly like Seth Rogen woos one of the most powerful women in the world, who looks like just about the most glamorous version of Charlize Theron you’ve ever seen. Like its female protagonist, whose relationship with fun ended when she set out to change the world in high school, the picture (which premiered at SXSW) is in some ways stuck in the ’90s, a time when moviegoers fell for White House romances like Dave and The American President. Very funny whatever you think of its more old-fashioned notions, it’ll charm viewers who can suspend their disbelief. Rogen’s Fred Flarsky is a fearless muckraker whose…

Shanghai Fortress Adapted from a novel by Jiang Nan, the film takes place in 2042: The world is under siege by an invading alien force, and China’s commercial capital is humanity’s last holdout. Already dubbed “China’s answer to Independence Day,” it’s directed by Teng Huatao and stars Lu Han. 800 Huayi Bros.’ $80 million action vehicle seeks to do for the World War II epic what Wandering Earth did for sci-fi. Directed by Guan Hu, the film is the first Chinese feature to be shot with Imax digital cameras. Set in 1937, it tells the real-life story of 800 soldiers and civilians who put up a four-day defense of a Shanghai warehouse as Japanese forces flooded. Fengshen Trilogy This adaptation of a well-known classical Chinese fantasy novel aims to become…

When President Trump passed a tax-reform bill in December that lowered the corporate rate, AT&T celebrated by issuing $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees and by increasing capital expenditures by $1 billion domestically. Brass told employees the move would lead to “7,000 good-paying jobs for American workers.” Three weeks later the telecom giant — still fighting a Justice Department lawsuit to undo its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner — made it clear that those additional jobs would not be at AT&T but in the sector at large, and, in fact, layoffs were afoot. “To win in this new world, we must continue to lower costs and keep getting faster, leaner and more agile,” AT&T technology and operations president Jeff McElfresh told employees in a memo in early January. AT&T won…

The U.S. pay TV industry set a record last year, but no one is breaking out champagne. The largest pay TV providers saw their subscriber count fall by nearly 2.9 million in 2018, and that includes gains for Sling TV and DirecTV Now, the latest earnings reports show. Leichtman Research Group president Bruce Leichtman says cablers are focusing on subscribers who are profitable instead of boosting numbers via promotions, and analyst Craig Moffett notes that “the pay TV business as we know it is beginning to unravel.” DirecTV and Dish alone lost about 2.36 million subscribers in 2018, compared with 1.55 million in 2017, Leichtman estimates. Internet-delivered Sling TV and DirecTV Now, meanwhile, added only 640,000 subs last year. Source: Leichtman Research Group…

On Feb. 26 — amid a deluge of negative posts about the female-led Captain Marvel — Rotten Tomatoes said it would no longer let users say whether they want to see a movie until it begins playing in theaters. Online trolls exacted their revenge by flooding the website with thousands of audience reviews trashing the superheropic once it opened March 8. But the play didn’t work. Captain Marvel is a blockbuster, opening to $154 million domestically and $455 million globally. Rotten Tomatoes now tells THR that additional measures are being considered. Namely, a person may be asked to verify that he or she has seen the film in question before being allowed to post a critique. (It is unclear what that prompt would look like in practice.) “We are disappointed…

In June 2016, Lena Headey traveled with some of her Game of Thrones co-stars to meet with refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos for the “Rescue Has No Boundaries” campaign, part of a partnership between HBO and the International Rescue Committee. What she saw inspired Headey to become an IRC Voice, and on March 5 she made a second trip to Lesbos, where some 7,000 asylum seekers wait in limbo, many at the overcrowded Camp Moria. Headey writes here about the site’s mental health crisis and the need for solidarity with refugees. This is a really tricky piece to write. The situation is multilayered. Heavily political. It’s the most unsexy issue, it’s not cool, its easily ignored by the majority. But here’s the thing: It isn’t going to disappear, it’s not…

Sid Sheinberg was the first person to take my call when I started covering Hollywood. Knowing literally no one in L.A., new on the beat, working for the Daily News (the one in the Valley), I called Sid, the president/COO of MCA, the parent of Universal Pictures. In other words, he was a big freaking deal. I’m not exaggerating when I say that no one at his level or even many rungs below it would have bothered talking to me. (And I tried.) If memory serves — and it may not, fully, as this was, incredibly, more than 30 years ago — the reason for the call was awkward: There were rumors that he and Frank Price, then president of Universal and vice president of MCA, had gotten into an…

Weddings CNN contributor Ana Navarro married Florida GOP head Al Cárdenas at Indian Creek Country Club in Miami Beach on March 2. Their 200 guests included Don Lemon, Dana Bash, Wolf Blitzer, Joy Behar and Jeff Zucker. The couple became engaged in October. Lea Michele and fashion executive Zandy Reich were wed March 9 in Northern California. Engagements Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez became engaged on March 9. They began dating in 2017. Births TV writer-producer Jesse Lasky (Revenge) and wife Danielle welcomed son Bennett Sawyer Lasky on Feb. 19 at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. Congrats Netflix named David Kosse to head its new international film division March 11 and said Bela Bajaria will lead international non-English TV originals and oversee scripted and unscripted series in international markets…

When the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens this year, visitors will pass by a plaque on one wall that marks The Netflix Terrace, reflecting a major donation from the streaming service, whose chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, is also vice chair of the museum’s board of trustees. But even as Netflix stakes out a permanent place in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ $388 million new edifice, some Academy members are asking whether movies appearing on such streaming services as Netflix and Amazon should be able to compete for Oscars. Steven Spielberg, a member of the AMPAS board of governors, appeared to be leading the charge. Speaking a year ago to ITV News, he said, “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie. You…

Idris Elba wants to know exactly how this is going to go. Are we going to spend the next hour or two running through the beats of his career, he asks, with a bluntness I hadn’t anticipated, or am I looking for more of a freewheeling conversation? His investment time, after all, has already been negotiated. He likely isn’t going to read the finished piece, he explains on this early evening in late February, just as he’s never gone back to watch his three career-defining seasons on The Wire or much else that’s come after. Nothing personal, he says, there simply isn’t time to look backward. So, he asks again, what will it be? A freewheeling conversation, I say, as we weave through a smattering of slack-jawed patrons at The…

Tucked away in the Palisades, just off Pacific Coast Highway, is Lake Shrine, a 10-acre self-realization retreat with a hilltop temple, a lush meditation garden and a spring-fed pond, all blocked from the wind and city bustle by a wall of trees and greenery. Here, on this overcast February morning, sitting at the water’s edge as hummingbirds and butterflies flitter nearby, is Winston Duke, the hulking 6-foot-5, 230-pound actor who played M’Baku in Black Panther and who now stars in horror auteur Jordan Peele’s Get Out follow-up, Us, which premiered March 8 at the South by Southwest Film Festival and opens March 22. (“Fiercely scary,” declared The Hollywood Reporter.) “When I’m in Los Angeles, it feels like things never stop moving,” says Duke, 32. “So I seek places of stillness,…

When Project Runway first aired in 2004, The Hollywood Reporter called it “a predictable, time-tested blend of manufactured drama, carefully constructed anxiety and momentous music.” That blend ended up working pretty well: On March 14, the show’s 17th season returns to Bravo, its home for the first five seasons, after an 11-season stint at Lifetime. (Bravo picked up the show from The Weinstein Co. buyers Lantern in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall.) The show has been a consistent ratings generator. “All the reality shows before it, like Survivor or Big Brother, tended to be about cunning and beating the other person,” says creator Eli Holzman. “Runway was about talent.” Designers are forced to make clothes in restricted time and then get judged by big-name fashionistas. “What we stumbled upon…

Legal Bones Fallout A $179 million ruling may alter streaming rights p. 24 Television Zucker’s Pitch Will Turner bet on niche sports next? p. 26 Brie Larson The Captain Marvel star opens Disney’s first female-fronted superhero franchise to $153 million stateside and $455 million worldwide. Felicity Huffman/Lori Loughlin The actresses and TPG Growth’s Bill McGlashan are among 50 charged in connection with a nationwide cheating scheme intended to get their kids into top schools. Gayle King The CBS News host lands newsmaking interviews with R. Kelly, which topped primetime ratings March 8, as well as Michael Jackson accusers and the late singer’s family amid her contract talks. Frankie Shaw Amid a probe into the SMILF creator’s alleged misconduct, Showtime cancels the show and ABC Studios suspends her overall deal without…

Think of Reed Krakoff as America’s luxury brand turnaround artist. In the late ’90s, after reinvigorating Tommy Hilfiger as its creative director, Krakoff moved on to Coach New York and transformed the family-owned leather goods company into a behemoth driving nearly $5 billion in annual sales. Krakoff’s ambition to build his own name brand (before it shuttered after five years in 2015) earned him awards as well as the honor of dressing first lady Michelle Obama in a custom ultramarine dress and cardigan for her husband’s 2013 swearing in at the White House. Instead of disappearing from view following the closing of his namesake line, by January 2017, the Weston, Connecticut born Parsons School of Design graduate (who has an economics degree from Tufts University) was helming Tiffany & Co.’s…

HOT PLATE STEAK FRITES The wealthiest diners in L.A. are some of the most parochial, their cloistered canyon addresses often such a schlep from exceptional restaurants in the flats that they’re content to settle for comparative mediocrity-by-proximity. (Pace, anyone?) Enter 3-month-old Bistro Jolie in Bel Air, a neighborhood that rarely greets a new anything. It’s situated in the same tiny hilltop shopping complex as Vibrato, the jazz club where Sumner Redstone’s two girlfriends once threw him a 92nd birthday party, as well as a sushi spot haunted by Warren Beatty. The hardware at Glen Centre’s valet-only parking lot makes the lineup at Palisades Village look modest. Jolie’s owner, Thomas Plejer, 36, is behind market. He’s brought in an operations team that’s had its hands in Roy Choi’s new Las Vegas…

How does The Hollywood Reporter rank its 25 Most Powerful Stylists? Each year, the red carpet looks that comprise the work of industry image-makers are evaluated over awards season, from Cannes to the Oscars. The weightiest factors are star power, style and social media — whose A-list clients are driving the conversation in the $2.4 trillion fashion industry, and whose looks are consistently topping bestdressed lists. And in 2019, said conversation isn’t only about carefully crafted couture (such as Cate Blanchett’s paint-by-numbers Cannes gown, on which No. 4 stylist Elizabeth Stewart and designer Mary Katrantzou worked for six months), but also about making a powerful statement. From Gemma Chan’s all-Asian designers press wardrobe for Crazy Rich Asians (courtesy of No. 3 stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray) to Tracee Ellis Ross’ all-black-designers American…

“We’re Americans.” That single line will be the portal through which Jordan Peele’s fans might seek sociopolitical meaning in Us, a terrifying thriller whose fantastical premise isn’t nearly as easy to read allegorically as that of his shockingly good debut, Get Out. Clearly the work of an ambitious writer-director who can see himself inheriting the mantle of Rod Serling (the Peele-hosted Twilight Zone reboot launches in less than a month), it offers twists and ironies and false endings galore — along with more laughs than the comedian turned auteur dared to include in his first film. The result packs a punch. Us opens on Adelaide Wilson (Madison Curry), a girl in 1986 Santa Cruz who’s about to have a traumatic experience at a beachside amusement park. Cut to the present,…

THE BEACH BUM Starring Matthew McConaughey as a pleasure-seeking Florida poet, Harmony Korine’s meandering stoner comedy is a gonzo picaresque soaked with booze and filled with gyrating flesh. The film is gorgeous — awash in hot pinks and neon blues and greens — but watching it is like being sober around your highas-a-kite friend: as exhausting as it is amusing. — JON FROSCH BOOKSMART Olivia Wilde delivers a fantastic directorial debut with this hilarious, blazingly paced teen comedy. The story of overachieving high school besties (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever) who embark on an epic night of bad behavior before graduation, the film is as raucous as Superbad — but with characters who are even more full of surprises. — JOHN DEFORE THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON Shia LaBeouf and Dakota…

Albert Lee, incoming executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, has been involved in his city’s fabled movie business for most of his life. He began his career in distribution at legendary studio Golden Harvest in the late 1970s, later taking up the position of CEO at film powerhouse Emperor Motion Pictures. Unlike the struggling local film industry, the HKIFF, now in its 43rd edition, has maintained strong local support over the years, regularly attracting roughly 76,000 festgoers annually. The event will open with Renny Harlin’s Hong Kong-set thriller Bodies at Rest and close with François Ozon’s acclaimed drama By the Grace of God — with plenty of contemporary Chinese cinema packed in between, such as auteur Lou Ye’s latest, The Shadow Play. Lee, 65, sat down with…