Innholdsfortegnelse for Thursday, September 18, 2019 i The Hollywood Reporter

THR AND SAG-AFTRA’S EMMY SOIREE The Hollywood Reporter and SAG-AFTRA are back with the third annual Emmy Nominees Night at Avra Beverly Hills on Sept. 20. Hosted by THR editorial director Matthew Belloni and SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris, the bash will toast top Emmy contenders — 2018’s fete saw Tiffany Haddish, Megan Mullally, Tracee Ellis Ross and more grooving to beats by DJ Myles Hendrik. Trevor Noah, Darren Criss, Judith Light, Ricky Martin and Henry Winkler also hit the party alongside such top execs as Dana Walden, Bonnie Hammer and Josh Sapan. This year’s event will be sponsored by SAG-AFTRA, Heineken and Anastasia Beverly Hills.…

When the Directors Guild of America started to seriously discuss an upgrade to its theater, it corralled an Avengers-like team of some of Hollywood’s top filmmakers to lead the project. “It started as a modest renovation, but we as a group quickly decided — why do a modest renovation? Let’s gut the whole place, start over and build the best thing we possibly can,” says Michael Mann, who — along with fellow committee members Michael Apted, Jon Favreau, Shawn Levy, Christopher Nolan and Betty Thomas — guided the reno of the theater, which Mann says is now the best in L.A. for overall cinematic experience. “What we wanted to design,” he says during a Sept. 11 walk-through with THR, “is the optimally impactful experience as determined by directors.” On their…

Bezos and Sanchez ‘Have Great Bodies’ Over the summer, they were spotted sitting at Wimbledon in London, lounging on yachts in the Mediterranean and shopping at Dior in Venice. But fun time is over and now Jeff Bezos, 55, and Lauren Sanchez, 49, are getting back in shape. The Amazon boss and his new girlfriend (after their affair was discovered in January, Bezos split from wife MacKenzie and Sanchez left husband — and Endeavor executive chairman — Patrick Whitesell) were recently spotted working out together at the Oak Fitness Club in Beverly Hills. A source tells Rambling Reporter that the couple took turns on a stationary bike and then did jump squats on a mat while a security detail watched from the sidelines. “They looked great,” says the source. “They…

It was a bolt from the blue when Disney film studio co-chairmen Alan Horn and Alan Bergman summoned Elizabeth Gabler into a conference room on the Fox lot in May and told her that despite previous assurances to the contrary, her highly regarded division, Fox 2000, would be shuttered in the wake of the Disney-Fox merger. Gabler wasn’t the only one caught by surprise: The industry was stunned that the executive behind so many diverse, often moderately priced hits had no place in Disney’s plans. She had made influential, awards-worthy fare such as The Devil Wears Prada, Life of Pi and Hidden Figures as well as family-friendly movies including Alvin and the Chipmunks and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And Gabler was on the all-too-short-list of women in the top…

Natalie was scrambling for a job last spring when she received an offer to work on the latest season of E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians. A story producer with 13 years of experience, Natalie had been hired for another show that fell apart, so she was grateful to receive the offer — until production company Bunim/Murray called her with the rate: $1,100 a week. “I audibly gasped,” says Natalie, who depended on her usual rate of at least $2,500 a week to support her family. With an average of 1.9 million total viewers in its 16th season, Kardashians remains an influential show, and Natalie (a pseudonym to protect her employment prospects) was being offered little more than what a production assistant makes in a week. “It made me angry.…

The schism between the WGA and the ATA means two things for Emmy weekend — awkward run-ins between agents and their former writer clients and, less subtly, a velvet-roped crater in the party landscape. The agencies have all pulled their annual celebrations, making a more manageable itinerary for some party-hoppers and leaving talent to (gasp!) mingle with the proletariat at bigger fetes thrown by the studios and networks. Here’s what’s on deck. THURSDAY, SEPT. 19 Audi and the TV Academy Back as the Emmys’ official automotive partner, Audi will host its annual pre-party along-side the TV Academy at Sunset Tower in West Hollywood. Expect guests Milo Ventimiglia, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Dern and Brett Gelman. FRIDAY, SEPT. 20 The Hollywood Reporter and SAG-AFTRA’s Nominees Night The soiree returns to Avra Beverly…

1999 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premieres Sept. 20 on NBC to 14.1 million viewers, growing to 17.1 million by the 15th episode. 2004 Hargitay forms the Joyful Heart Foundation while on her honeymoon with husband Peter Hermann in Kailua-Kona. 2005 In her Golden Globe acceptance speech, she thanks her dad, Mickey. She wins her first Emmy in 2006, earns a second Globe nom in 2009, and scores two more Emmy nods, the last in 2011. 2008 Robin Williams appears on the show and earns an Emmy nomination, one of SVU’s 16 for guest stars (five, including Cynthia Nixon and Ann-Margret, have won). 2014 Hargitay directs her first episode, “Criminal Stories,” for its 16th season. She is named an executive producer on the series in 2016. 2015 Hargitay stars…

AT THIS YEAR’S PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS ON Sept. 22, a powerful contigent of Hollywood insiders will be paying special attention to the acceptance speeches. The question on their minds: When the winning writers take the stage, will they thank their agents? The Emmys is the first major awards show to take place since about 7,000 writers fired their agents en masse in April after a negotiating stalemate over packaging fees and other concerns about conflicts of interest. With lawsuits filed by both sides and no signs of a peace offering on the horizon, the feud has spurred the major agencies to cancel their Emmy parties and writers to think twice before name-checking their former reps onstage. The conundrum underscores just how charged relationships remain between the sides nearly six months…

WarnerMedia unveiled its newly named HBO Max and its deep bench of 10,000 hours of programming (including Friends) in July. Disney+ showed off new footage of Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian in August. Apple executives revealed Sept. 10 that Apple TV+ will cost just $5 a month, undercutting all competitors. Amid the jostling for position among the next generation of streamers, NBCUniversal had been noticeably quiet. That changed Sept. 17 as the media giant revealed that its forthcoming U.S. service, dubbed Peacock, will be flush with 15,000 hours of programming. New shows from Mike Schur, Lorne Michaels and Sam Esmail? Peacock will have them. Reboots of onetime hits like Battlestar Galactica and Saved by the Bell? They’ll be there, too. Modern classics like The Office and Parks and Recreation? Viewers…

When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage in Cupertino on Sept. 10, he lobbed a grenade into the streaming wars. After unveiling a Nov. 1 launch date for Apple TV+, Cook revealed the grand finale. “And it is just $4.99 per month, for the whole family!” he said, his voice rising as applause grew. “All of these incredible shows for the price of a single movie rental. This is crazy!” To competitors like AT&T’s WarnerMedia, that price is crazy. HBO has long been a profit driver for WarnerMedia (and Time Warner before it), with margins north of 30 percent, and an operating profit of around $600 million per quarter. The company is betting that its forthcoming HBO Max service will bring that model to the streaming era. But if…

HFPA and THR TIFF Party Toronto, Sept. 7 Hollywood’s Toronto Takeover Renée Zellweger (12) introduced her friend and onetime Down With Love co-star Sarah Paulson to Judy director Rupert Goold. Jennifer Lopez (6) celebrated Hustlers’ world premiere by saying how proud she was to have gotten the movie made in the first place. Eddie Murphy high-fived Adam Sandler near the elevator bay. And Kerry Washington (11) shouted, “I love you, Leslie!” to Leslie Odom Jr., who then turned to Eddie Redmayne (20) to admit to being a “big fan,” while Edward Norton (18) snuck in alongside power couple Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell (4). These were just a few snapshots from the lobby inside the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto, site of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Hollywood Reporter’s…

The next wave of streaming service launches will push the number of global video subscriptions to nearly 1 billion in the next five years. That’s a remarkable number considering streaming video barely existed a decade ago. But despite the plethora of options, just four platforms — Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ — will hold nearly half of global subscriptions by 2024, according to my analysis at Digital TV Research. Though Netflix and Disney+ are often pitted against each other in conversations about the race for subscribers, it’s not those companies that need to worry. Both offerings can and likely will thrive without one snatching subscribers from the other. Netflix is augmenting its current subscriber base in emerging markets whereas Disney will push forward through its global brand…

Nicholas Braun has a certain comfort level with suits. As the shambling “cousin Greg” on HBO’s hit series Succession, the 31-year-old actor usually is attired onscreen in the standard corporate uniform, albeit of the off-the-rack, discount variety. “It’s kind of funny when I step out of my trailer to walk to set. I feel like I’m a complete 9-to-5er,” he says over breakfast in New York. But this rising star — facing the increasing sartorial demands of promotional shoots and red carpet appearances — is becoming more knowledgeable about designer wares. Braun regularly works with Jason Rembert, a stylist turned designer whom the actor sought out. “I was looking for somebody who felt like my vibe is a lot like musicians, artists and athletes,” says Braun, a vocalist who intends…

Just when it seemed L.A.’s luxury real estate market was cooling off — the median home price in the second quarter of 2019 was down 7 percent over the same period last year, according to Douglas Elliman — some eight- or even nine-figure deal closes, upending that narrative. In July, the Manor in Holmby Hills sold for $120 million, setting a new L.A. record, and a month later Ron Meyer’s Malibu compound sold for $100 million. “All of us have had to adapt,” says Hilton & Hyland’s Jonah Wilson. “We felt it slow down, but what’s interesting is that there are still these ‘Oh my God!’ sales, which make it hard to define the market.” There are currently more than 91 active listings over $20 million, well above the 79…

ONE DAY late in 2018, the phone of an Albuquerque, New Mexico, man named Frank Sandoval started ringing off the hook. Sandoval runs a local outfit that operates Breaking Bad-themed tours in an RV identical to the battered Fleetwood Bounder that served as a mobile meth lab for Bryan Cranston’s Walter White and Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman on the Emmy-winning AMC show. Five years after Breaking Bad went off the air, the distinctive vehicle had — suddenly and mysteriously — reappeared in town outside a diner on a main road. “People were calling us and saying, ‘Is that your RV up there?’ ” Sandoval says. “We’d heard rumors for years that they were shooting. But nobody we talked to ever knew anything.” Sandoval asked around about the mystery RV and…

DRAMA SERIES Can someone explain to me why this category has eight nominees, but comedy has seven, the variety categories have six, and limited and TV movie have five? Is it asking too much to have a uniform number? I did not watch Pose. I find Ryan Murphy’s stuff to be the same over and over again — pretentious. I’d rather watch RuPaul than have Ryan lecture me about drag. Ozark jumped the shark in season two. This Is Us is lovely, and thank God there’s one network show that got through. Better Call Saul is great, and Jonathan Banks is the best actor on TV — I don’t understand how he hasn’t won. I have voted for Game of Thrones in the past. Even though I didn’t mind the…

I don’t think about outdoing myself on the red carpet. I think more about how much fun it is, and I try to be true to whatever the situation calls for. I’m not trying to “beat” my past looks because that would drive a person crazy. Would it not? I met my stylist, Sam Ratelle, through his husband, Ryan, who was my publicist on Broadway during Kinky Boots. He said, “Oh, we’re starting this agency.” And I took a leap. It was kismet. Sam gets what I’m trying to do, and he understands how to take my ideas and make them high fashion. We work very well together. It’s simpatico. The moment and the scale — whether it’s an awards show, a gala or a dinner — tend to dictate…

WINNERS BY OUTLET WINNERS BY SHOW STANDOUTS…

Super Pumped (W.W. NORTON & CO., SEPT. 3) BY Mike Isaac AGENCIES UTA, Levine Greenberg Rostan The New York Times technology correspondent delves into the rise and fall of Uber under now-ousted CEO Travis Kalanick. Given the dramatic upheaval in Silicon Valley, it could be fodder for a name writer-director to give the story a Social Network-esque treatment. ‘I Was Caroline Calloway’ (NEW YORK MAGAZINE, SEPT. 10) BY Natalie Beach AGENCY CAA The confessional tracks a writer’s trajectory from friend to ghost-writer for a social media influencer. A tell-all for the Instagram generation, the story took Twitter by storm after it was published, falling into the burgeoning “female scammer” genre.…

On Sept. 4, the Federal Trade Commission hit YouTube with a $170 million fine over allegations that it illegally collected the personal data of children. While many saw the fine as a mere slap on the wrist to YouTube owner Google, which boasts a market cap of $856 billion, the people who make kid-friendly programming for YouTube are expected to experience the greatest financial toll from the video giant’s deal with the government. In agreeing to settle over its alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, YouTube also has promised to make sweeping changes to its business, including eliminating personalized ads and turning off comments and notifications on videos made for audiences under the age of 13. Those updates, to go into effect in early 2020, will have…

Of her taller clients, such as Jason Momoa, who stands 6 feet, 5 inches, A-list stylist Jeanne Yang says, “For the Emmys, the first thing I do is have a shirt custom-made, since these guys don’t have the proportions of mere mortals.” Clients with a 42- or 44-inch chest tend to have a 38-inch waist, “not a 34 like these stars whom you don’t want to put in a big baggy shirt,” adds the stylist, who also dresses Robert Downey Jr. and Keanu Reeves. If custom isn’t an option, Yang advises already-made tux shirts from Hugo Boss, which still offers sleeve lengths in longer sizes at stores like Nordstrom that have Big & Tall sections. “It’s so much better than having to add 2 or 3 inches of fabric at…

Wherever midcentury socialite Dolly Green went, a party usually followed. “She would walk into restaurants, and piano players would break into ‘Hello Dolly,’ ” her godson Hernando Patrick Courtright recalls. “She would peel out a hundred-dollar bill and throw it in the fish bowl. When you were with her, you felt like you were with royalty.” In a way, Dolly was royalty: As the daughter of Burton E. Green, an oilman turned real estate developer, she was the princess of the first family of Beverly Hills. A century before Lisa Vanderpump and Denise Richards brought indulgence and sass to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Green luxuriated in extravagance and dominated its social scene, hosting the top movie stars and moguls of her time. Her reign was set before she…

THE CAVE (Toronto) Feras Fayyad’s deeply moving companion piece to his Oscar-nominated doc Last Men in Aleppo follows a doctor in an underground hospital outside Damascus as she treats victims of the Syrian conflict. The director, his cinematographers and his editors wield the cameras and shape the scenes so beautifully that the result is both intensely real and an ambitious, carefully wrought work of cinema. — CARYN JAMES COLLECTIVE (Venice, Toronto) A sports newspaper in Romania launches an investigation into shocking hospital corruption — dangerously diluted disinfectant that contributed to the deaths of dozens of patients in the wake of a Bucharest nightclub fire — in Alexander Nanau’s standout documentary. Tense, tightly edited and emotional, this observational exposé will be ringing bells and sparking outrage long after its festival run.…

At one point, Paul Newman considered playing the role of John Rambo. So did Al Pacino, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, James Garner, Ryan O’Neal, Steve McQueen (with Sydney Pollack directing) and Dustin Hoffman (with Mike Nichols). But, of course, the knife-wielding, touchy-about-authority former Green Beret at the center of 1982’s First Blood (and its four sequels, including Rambo: Last Blood, opening Sept. 20) ended up being played by Sylvester Stallone. “John Rambo had to be part of society that the audience could identify with,” Stallone, now 73, tells THR, explaining the secret of the character’s durability. “He was nonaggressive. He wasn’t hurting anyone; he simply wanted to be left alone.” Although Stallone had already won an Oscar for 1976’s Rocky, his star power didn’t sell everybody at Warner Bros.…