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

As Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and Apple TV+ launch billion-dollar programming budgets in search of scale, will that leave small streaming services struggling? In this group, streamers from AMC Networks and WWE to nonfiction programmer CuriosityStream and indie purveyor Sundance Now are finding that there is no room for error as the field crowds. As MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson put it in a Nov. 1 research note, the question AMC faces is “whether it can make this strategic transformation, or build a ‘lifeboat,’ fast enough to offset the declines in the traditional business.” Clearly, these companies think the market is big enough to support their ambitions, especially with such smaller content spends. AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan told analysts Oct. 31 that the addressable market for its offerings, which include…

BEST PICTURE Motherless Brooklyn Edward Norton’s long-gestating passion project, based on Jonathan Lethem’s novel — he adapted, directed, produced and stars in the $26 million Warner Bros. production — grossed just $3.7 million from 1,332 theaters, significantly less than analysts forecasted. Mixed reviews out of fall film festivals didn’t help. Harriet Kasi Lemmons’ $17 million portrait of Harriet Tubman surpassed projections with a $12 million debut. The Focus Features movie outpaced 2018’s BlacKkKlansman release with a rare A+ CinemaScore. And on Nov. 3, star Cynthia Erivo picked up the Hollywood Film Award for breakout actress. Dark Waters While Harriet is a hit, Focus’ other drama — the issue-driven Dark Waters, which is based on a true story — began screening ahead of its Nov. 22 release, and early reactions are…

About 80 miles south of Miami Beach, where Andy García grew up as the son of Cuban exiles, sits Key Largo. The largest of the Florida Keys, it was immortalized in the 1948 Warner Bros. film Key Largo, in which Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall find themselves stranded in a hotel during a hurricane when — to make a bad situation worse — they’re taken hostage by a ruthless mobster, played by Edward G. Robinson. The John Huston picture is one of García’s favorites. “The first time I saw it, I noticed the credits said it was based on a play,” he says. “I thought, ‘Wow, it would be great to mount that. It’s all in one place. You have the storm, these great characters.…’” A late-night inspiration several decades…

A Eulogy for Bob Evans’ Tennis Court Robert Evans weathered tough times in his 70-plus-year career, but there was one constant: tennis. Evans, the producer and executive who died Oct. 28 at 89, hosted many stars on his Woodland Drive court in Beverly Hills, including Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson, Henry Kissinger and Serena Williams. Evans’ black-and-green court was “the number one action court,” says tennis instructor Darryl Goldman, 60. “They stopped painting courts that color years ago, but Bob had a sense of style,” he says. “Novak Djokovic loved it.” Of Evans’ skill, Goldman adds that he was “crafty and could beat players you wouldn’t think he could,” including Johnny Carson and O.J. Simpson “when he was just a football player.” Once Kirk Kerkorian stormed off the court because of…

When Mr. McFeely, the upbeat mailman on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, hands Tom Hanks’ Fred Rogers a package in director Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the original Mr. McFeely was standing behind the cameras, keeping a close eye on the scene. The involvement of David Newell, who played the character on the beloved children’s TV series, and others from Rogers’ world, help to up the authenticity of production designer Jade Healy’s meticulous re-creation of the set. Opening Nov. 22, Sony’s Beautiful Day, based on a 1998 Esquire cover story, dramatizes how an assignment to profile Rogers changed the perspective of a cynical journalist (Matthew Rhys). Re-creating the look and feel of Rogers’ world in 1998 was a labor of love for Healy and her team, assisted by Newell…

I wanted to shoot it like an old-style Western,” says James Mangold, director of Ford v Ferrari, the Fox feature that chronicles the 1966 battle between the two auto companies to win the world’s most prestigious car race, the Le Mans in France. “It’s a showdown between Ken Miles” — the Ford driver, played by Christian Bale — “and [Ferrari driver] Lorenzo Bandini, and I wanted it to have a touch of Sergio Leone,” adds Mangold of Le Mans, which is won by covering the greatest distance in 24 hours. In the movie, which cost just under $100 million and is out Nov. 15, Matt Damon portrays Carroll Shelby, the engineering legend who built Miles’ iconic car, the Ford GT40. “They rev the engines and … it’s almost like a…

FILM MANDY BECKNER / 34 Director of Original Independent Film, Netflix With an eye toward breaking in new directors, Beckner is building out Netflix’s homegrown film slate after joining the company two years ago from David Heyman’s Heyday Films. She just wrapped principal photography on the first project she brought to Netflix, the horror film There’s Someone Inside Your House from Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and James Wan’s Atomic Monster. On the horizon is Liz Garbus’ serial killer drama Lost Girls, the anticipated sequel to The Kissing Booth and the Édgar Ramírez-fronted crime thriller The Last Days of American Crime. The Washington, D.C., native lives in Culver City with her husband of one year, I, Tonya producer Bryan Unkeless (Next Gen Class of 2012), with their two dogs and tortoise.…

Jeffrey and I were very deliberate about building a company that was a reflection of who we thought our audience would be. Our target audience at Quibi is 25 to 35 years old, so we said, “What better way to get content for that target demo than hiring our target demo?” Over 70 percent of our staff is under the age of 40 and more than 30 percent is under the age of 30. We had the same demographic at eBay back in the day, so I’ve experienced this before. What I’ve learned is that this age group sees the possibilities. They’re not jaded. They haven’t lived through 20 or 30 years in a corporate environment where they’ve been told no. So they imagine that they can do things that…

Pretty much every actor Taika Waititi approached to star in Jojo Rabbit had the same reaction as Sam Rockwell. “I was a little reticent to play a Nazi,” he says. Understandably, the story of a 10-year-old boy in World War II Germany who discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home and enlists the guidance of his imaginary best friend — a wacky, kid-friendly Adolf Hitler — was not a particularly easy sell. “There is no ‘in’ with that logline,” Scarlett Johansson, who plays the mother, notes with a laugh. But according to Waititi — the 44-year-old New Zealand director whose previous credits include quirky indies like What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, as well as Marvel tentpole Thor: Ragnarok — a…

American Film Market Nov. 6-13 Santa Monica For the independent film industry — the motley crew of producers, financiers, sales agents and international distributors that descend on Santa Monica in early November for the American Film Market — it is the best of times and the worst of times. There’s arguably never been more money sloshing around the entertainment industry. New deep-pocketed SVOD services — Disney+, Apple TV+ and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, among them — have entered the market alongside established big spenders Netflix and Amazon. And a recent report by Ampere Analysis found global TV spend on content — including films — has exploded, growing nearly $50 billion in the past five years alone. But the traditional theatrical business, particularly in North America, is under pressure. Whatever you think…

In one eight-month period during the mid-1980s, the British duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, also known as the pop supergroup Wham!, made history twice: In April 1985 they were the first major Western pop act to visit Communist China (15,000 fans paid about $1.75 each to watch them perform at the People’s Gymnasium in Beijing), and in December 1984, they recorded their generation’s most enduring holiday song, “Last Christmas.” While not quite as popular in the U.S., “Christmas” was the 21st century’s most played holiday song in the U.K. and Ireland (until it was overtaken in 2015 by The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York”). It has been covered by dozens of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Gwen Stefani, and the music video generated 65 million views…

As of the end of October, nearly 152 million Americans were working, the Bureau of Labor Statistics disclosed Nov. 1. But the entertainment and media sectors are not sharing the good times, as mergers and acquisitions and the layoffs they typically cause appear to be taking a toll. Hit hardest: sound recording and film, where jobs are off 4 percent year-over-year, while overall U.S. employment rose more than 1 percent. For years, Disney had been in hiring mode, closing fiscal 2018 with 201,000 employees, up from 199,000 the prior year, according to filings, though it has slashed at least 400 jobs since closing its $71 billion deal for most of 21st Century Fox in March, and observers predict 3,000 layoffs will eventually be attributed to the partial merger. Analyst Richard…

Dominicana (FLATIRON, SEPT. 3) BY Angie Cruz AGENCY ICM Partners This 1960s-set coming-of-age tale about a 15-year-old girl who marries and leaves her native Dominican Republic for New York City could help address the recent USC study that found Latin characters represent just 4.5 percent of all speaking roles in film. I’m Telling the Truth But I’m Lying (HARPER PERENNIAL, AUG. 6) BY Bassey Ikpi AGENCY UTA While shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and You’re the Worst have portrayed mental illness onscreen, the best-selling essay collection adds the Nigerian-American immigrant’s perspective.…

Without the support of the entertainment industry, Katie Hill never would have pulled off her upset victory in 2018’s midterms, in which she flipped CA-25 from a red district to a blue one. The same supporters reeled in shock — following sexual misconduct allegations against Hill, 32, who resigned Oct. 27 — before regrouping. “We may be brokenhearted about Katie Hill, but we need to protect this seat,” says Christy Callahan, wife of MGM Motion Picture Group president Jon Glickman, who with her husband will host on Nov. 10 the first of many fundraisers for Christy Smith. The assemblywoman said Oct. 28 that she’d be vying for Hill’s seat. Hill resigned after a conservative website published texts and photos, some nude, indicating that the openly bisexual congresswoman had been in…

John Wells is quick to remind guests at his sprawling headquarters about his 30-year legacy in television — or at least his greatest hits. Parking spaces greeting visitors to the Hollywood enclave are labeled with names such as Bartlet (Martin Sheen’s West Wing president) and Ross (George Clooney’s ER doc), a tip of the hat to some of the marquee series on the writer-producer’s TV résumé. Its interior carefully decorated with black-and-white photos and classic movie posters, John Wells Productions’ 3-year-old office bustles with 20 staffers working on two shows (Showtime’s Shameless, returning Nov. 10, and TNT’s Animal Kingdom) as well as a jam-packed development slate of 13 new projects. For Wells, 63, consolidating two writers rooms with a few floating offices, where scribes can work on practice pitches, into…

Last September, Netflix’s Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s Spanish-language period piece, staked its place as the frontrunner for the best picture Oscar after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the first in a battery of victories that looked likely to climax at the Academy Awards. In the end, of course, the movie fell short, earning laurels for director, cinematographer and foreign-language film but being outflanked for best picture by that feel-good drama Green Book, a movie helmed by Peter Farrelly, a cineaste more famous for Dumb and Dumber than awards entries. Now Netflix is back, this time with three heavyweight contenders. Foremost among them is The Irishman from director Martin Scorsese and the power combo of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. Ten years in the works,…

Hollywood jobs come with a few rites of hiring — the ID card, the HR paperwork, the nondisclosure agreement. From film sets to agencies to executive suites, NDAs still are in common use in the entertainment industry, despite coming under scrutiny recently for their application in high-profile sexual misconduct settlements at NBCUniversal, Fox News and The Weinstein Co. Young entertainment professionals eager for jobs are — so far — still signing the controversial confidentiality agreements. “People may grouse about NDAs, but it’s still the case that people want to work in this industry, and they will most often sign what they’re required to sign in order to do so,” says Ann Fromholz, an employment lawyer who conducts investigations into workplace misconduct. That’s certainly the case for actor Arvin Lee, 28,…

On a typical Tuesday night at Craig’s, you can find a studio chief taking a business dinner, or a network executive enjoying a Meldman’s Honey Truffle Chicken. One thing is in shorter supply: millennials. Young Hollywood is skipping out on the more traditional industry networking spots, instead flocking to watering holes that offer something aesthetically pleasing, gastronomically satisfying and geographically ideal. The Melrose corridor offers locales like Melrose Umbrella Company, The Fat Dog and Zinqué, while the rooftop balcony E.P. & L.P., heavily trafficked by the likes of Harry Styles and Justin Bieber, is often packed with 35-and-under execs hashing out deals. While the company town classics include pigs in a blanket at Craig’s or chicken Parmesan from Dan Tana’s, the tastes of young Hollywood are different. If a dinner…

Returning to Netflix after a hiatus of nearly two years, The Crown always was going to be a series in transition during its third season. Not only was creator Peter Morgan replacing the entirety of his award-winning cast, but the time period covered — the ascension of Harold Wilson as prime minister in 1964 through the Silver Jubilee of 1977 — feels in many ways like a lead-up to a juicier fourth season promising the introductions of Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana. Even in transition, though, these 10 new episodes make for thoughtful, gorgeously produced drama. Accessibly austere and immaculately polished, The Crown remains a model for carefully crafted episodic storytelling and a trenchant examination of the nature of power. And the new ensemble — fronted by Oscar winner Olivia…

Probably the dullest of the live action (or quasi-live) remakes of Disney animated films, Charlie Bean’s Lady and the Tramp further reveals the limitations of having real (or digitally realistic) critters stand in for the talking animals of yesteryear. Serving as the marquee offering of the Disney+ streaming service, it’s nearly personality-free, suggesting the studio will save features with real charm for the big screen. Kiersey Clemons and Thomas Mann play Darling and Jim Dear, a married couple celebrating Christmas with new cocker spaniel puppy Lady. Darling gets pregnant, and Lady (voiced by Tessa Thompson) feels the couple’s affections shifting. She ends up sharing her concerns with a new dog in the hood, a mutt named Tramp (Justin Theroux). Many viewers won’t recognize the name Andrew Bujalski. But cinephiles will…

Even as American indies are proving a harder sell internationally, a new market is opening up for foreign-language titles, driven by the power of Netflix — and the People’s Republic. Reed Hastings’ streaming giant, in its aggressive push to localize in every one of the more than 190 countries it operates in, has become the largest buyer of non-English-language films worldwide. Recent acquisitions include international feature Academy Award contenders Atlantics (from Senegal), Joy (Austria) and Chiwetel Ejiojor’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (submitted for the Oscars by the U.K.), as well as Spanish-language sci-fi thriller The Platform, one of the genre hits in Toronto this year. At a recent industry conference in Zurich, Wild Bunch boss Vincent Maraval noted that Netflix has become “the biggest client of the French…

How will consumers afford Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and on and on? To many industry analysts, the answer is simple: They won’t. Consumers will be selective in deciding which digital services are worthy of their money. Hence, the socalled “streaming wars.” But there’s another way to look at the issue. Thanks to rampant free-riding, one account doesn’t mean one viewer. Passwords will be shared, and platforms will be hacked. Under this framework, the streamers aren’t battling with one another. They’re teaming up against the grifters to fight Piracy 2.0. On Oct. 30, just a day after WarnerMedia’s John Stankey previewed HBO Max at a glitzy event, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment announced a working group to reduce unauthorized access to content, specifically mentioning…

LACMA’s Art + Film Gala Los Angeles, Nov. 2 Breakthrough Prize Mountain View, California, Nov. 3 Party Crawler Art and Soul LACMA’s ninth Art + Film gala earned the “Met Gala of the West” nickname for its A-list mix of fashionistas (thanks to sponsor Gucci), movie stars (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jared Leto) and museum backdrop ($4.6 million was raised). “It’s very chic and a different group of people,” says Salma Hayek, who singled out honorees Alfonso Cuarón (1) and artist Betye Saar (5). “It’s a rough moment we’re in — a year to the elections, California is on fire, and it all can get you down,” said Liz Goldwyn. “It’s nice to come here and experience joie de vivre.” After dinner, Billie Eilish (4) introduced Anderson. Paak (3), who gave a…

I owe $104,530 in student loans,” says Brian Kemm, an aspiring screenwriter who also works as a production assistant on a variety of film sets and as a bartender. “And it will be higher by the end of this call.” Though Kemm understands that plenty of today’s Hollywood power brokers didn’t have a college degree — examples include dropouts Steven Spielberg and Ellen DeGeneres — he attended a master’s screenwriting program at U.K.’s Sheffield Hallam University. “I could come to L.A. with empty pockets and no connections or I could come to L.A. with empty pockets, no connections and a master’s degree that could tell someone reading a résumé that I am serious,” he says. Kemm, 33, is a part of a growing contingent of young professionals trying to make…

When Ana de Armas first arrived at London’s Pinewood Studios to shoot No Time to Die, the 25th installment in the James Bond franchise, she was a bit starstruck — though not when introduced to lead Daniel Craig. It happened as she was walking into a meeting with director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who was chatting with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the British creator of Fleabag and Killing Eve who’d been hired to bring a fresh female perspective (and some humor) to the film’s script. “I saw Phoebe, and I just blushed — I got red like a tomato,” says de Armas, 31. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, can I hug you? I want to be your friend.’” De Armas’ co-star, Lashana Lynch, had a similar reaction when she learned of Waller-Bridge’s…

PETER SARAF A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD Something that we all needed — which I wasn’t sure that we were ever going to get because it took years — were the rights to the show [Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood] and the music. We developed this project for seven years because it took that long to earn the trust of the people who worked with Fred [Rogers] and his family and the people who are charged with protecting his legacy, and they are, rightly so, very protective. There were many times when I thought we weren’t going to get the rights and that we weren’t going to be able to tell this story that we were determined to tell, but it was also one of the most gratifying challenges. Because out…

There is a magnificent economy in Back to Life, a BBC-produced British series to air on Showtime. It will get headlines because the show has some of the same producers as Amazon’s Fleabag and because it also has an extremely talented writer and star at its center: Daisy Haggard (Episodes). There is darkness and laughter here, just as there was in Fleabag, and the two series share a similar melancholy-filled mysteriousness — though Back to Life isn’t built to brilliantly spring a reveal on you at the end, as the first season of Fleabag did. It’s just a wonderfully nuanced story that’s both extremely funny and tragically sad but never leans too hard in either direction just to get a reaction. Haggard and Laura Solon (Hot in Cleveland) wrote all…

For years, music schools could be divided into two camps: conservatory-style programs that concentrated on classical training, and others that focused on media scoring degrees for film and TV work. Lately, however, those lines have been blurring, with even the esteemed Juilliard School branching out into the cinematic arts (or at least offering a summer seminar). In some ways, that blurring makes picking a music school even harder. So, to help, THR once again presents its annual Top 25 Music Schools list, ranking the best of the best. To calculate the rankings, the magazine relied on the results of a survey sent to more than 1,500 members of the Society of Composers & Lyricists. 1 THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL NEW YORK Juilliard has been training musicians since 1905 — long before…

Location Expo Nov. 9-12 Santa Monica In states’ increasingly competitive bid for film and television productions, New Mexico has emerged as a formidable contender. Among its victories: Netflix’s acquisition of Albuquerque Studios, where it plans to spend more than $1 billion on production over the next 10 years, and NBCUniversal’s separate in-state studio investment, through which it plans to shell out $500 million over the same period. Appointed by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to the post of state film director earlier this year, former locations manager Todd Christensen, 70, will be tasked with keeping the Southwestern state a top filming destination. Christensen’s efforts will be helped by newly passed legislation that raises the amount New Mexico can pay out to qualifying productions from $50 million to $110 million a…

Since it was announced in August 2017 — with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as co-stars and co-executive producers — Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, centered on a fictitious morning news program, has generated plenty of its own headlines. From Aniston’s and Witherspoon’s $2 million-per-episode fees to a creative dust-up that saw first-time showrunner Jay Carson replaced by Kerry Ehrin, every move on the tech giant’s first big original was scrutinized as keenly as the #MeToo scandals that helped inspire it (including Matt Lauer’s ouster from Today amid allegations of sexual misconduct). Based on CNN anchor Brian Stelter’s 2013 book Top of the Morning, the show premiered the first three chapters Nov. 1 (with seven more rolling out weekly through the end of the year). The trio of episodes dropped just…

Nineteen years before they joined forces for Apple TV’s The Morning Show, Witherspoon locked horns with Aniston on NBC’s Friends — she played Rachel Green’s sister Jill, who (gasp) goes on a date with David Schwimmer’s Ross. Where would the Green sisters be now? “Making The Morning Show,” jokes Aniston. Starting in May 2020, you’ll find Rachel and Jill on HBO Max; the WarnerMedia service locked down domestic streaming rights to Friends in a $425 million deal amid a library arms race that continues to escalate.…