Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/18/2016 i The Hollywood Reporter

WANDA’S TV PUSH: INSIDE DICK CLARK’S $1 BILLION CHINA SALE Deal of the Week On a warm October Sunday at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, Wang Jianlin, chairman of China’s Dalian Wanda Group, joined executives of Dick Clark Productions, producer of the Golden Globe Awards, as well as several members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The meet-and-greet in a conference room behind the bar, organized to introduce HFPA members to Dick Clark’s possible new owner, included a promise from Wang: The Dick Clark leadership, including chairman Peter Guber, CEO Allen Shapiro and president Michael Mahan, would stay on board after a sale, while Dick Clark’s owner Todd Boehly would remain an adviser to Wanda. On Nov. 3, Wanda finalized its purchase for “approximately $1 billion,” moving the Chinese…

1 TOMI LAHREN, TheBlaze The 24-year-old conservative commentator, who has an eponymous show on Glenn Beck’s multiplatform news network, has compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the KKK (which spurred an ultimately futile Change.org petition to get her fired) and kicked the Beyhive in February with a rant about Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime show (criticizing “Formation” as “unfair to little white girls” and asking of the star, “Why be a cultural leader when you can play the victim, right?”). She’s an expert at courting controversy — Beyonce’s team asked if they could license a few seconds of said rant for the Formation tour; Lahren declined — which means she’s likely to stick around post-election and could end up with a spot on a broader platform in the near future.…

Creating the design for the computergenerated spacecraft for director Denis Villeneuve’s $47 million sci-fi drama Arrival, which sets down in theaters Nov. 11, production designer Patrice Vermette knew he wanted something different. “I watched a lot of sci-fi movies to see what has been done, and I realized that since 2001: A Space Odyssey, except for some atypical examples, most movies used the same type of design — lights, windows,” he explains. “Arrival’s spaceship had to be a surprise, a different aesthetic, and it had to give you the sense of beauty and the sense that in beauty, there can be danger.” Vermette settled on a mysterious dark mass, floating aboveground in the mist, as the humans below, which include Amy Adams’ linguist, try to puzzle out its purpose. While…

Bar mitzvahs in Hollywood aren’t just parties — they also can be auditions. Just ask Alden Ehrenreich, who recently snagged the role of Han Solo in the new Star Wars spinoff. The 26-year-old, seen this year in Hail, Caesar!, was discovered at age 14 — by Steven Spielberg, no less — while goofing around in a bat mitzvah video he made for a friend in Los Angeles. When it comes to Hollywood bat and bar mitzvahs — ceremonies celebrating the 13th year, the age at which Jewish youth can worship as adults — Yifat Oren, founder of Yifat Oren & Associates event planning, may have seen it all: “I try not to act shocked at some of these requests, but I am most certainly amused,” she says. “Live camels? Check.…

FILM BRADEN AFTERGOOD • 34 Producer and founder, Eighty Two Films May 25, 2015, was a double birth for Aftergood — the date marked the arrival of his daughter and also the first day of shooting Hell or High Water, the movie that became a sleeper hit this summer. “I named my kid Jeff Bridges. It’s a very strange name for a girl, but I think it suits her,” he jokes. (His daughter, with wife Tracy — a vp at Canvas Media Studio — actually is named Olivia Dylan Aftergood.) The Malibu Canyon native started as an assistant at Peter Berg’s production company Film 44, working on the TV show Friday Night Lights and the 2012 film Battleship. In 2012, Aftergood caught a script called Commancheria and spent the next…

When Clint Eastwood Is in Charge, Even the Weather Cooperates Sully PRODUCER ALLYN STEWART When we shot on the Hudson River, we were in the midst of this huge tropical storm, Joaquin. And Clint just kept shooting. I’ve never seen anybody shoot through those conditions. It was the end of September 2015. We thought it was going to be a hurricane. The challenge was that everybody was wet, cold and miserable. And the boats couldn’t pull up exactly [as planned]. Everything had to be modified a little bit because the Hudson was roiling. I mean, I can get seasick, and I will tell you we were all trying to survive the moment. But the great thing, of course, is when we saw the footage. Guess what? It all was real.…

The lineup of honorees who will be feted at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ eighth annual Governors Awards, set for Nov. 12 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland, reads like one of those lists of the four interesting people you’d like to have dinner with. Each of them boasts an impressive résumé that includes some of the greatest films in Hollywood history. ANNE V. COATES film editor With a bold decision to cut from Peter O’Toole blowing out a match to a wide shot of the sun rising on the desert, Coates, 90, gave David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia one of the most famous edits in movie history and won an Academy Award for the 1962 epic. Of the famous match cut, she says:…

You’d be hard-pressed to find many Americans lamenting the end of the 2016 presidential election, but few likely welcomed its conclusion more than Roger Goodell. The NFL commissioner has spent the first two months of this season battling an unanticipated narrative for the nation’s most watched sport — cratering ratings. NFL viewership was down about 13 percent compared with the same period last season as of Nov. 4, with primetime showdowns suffering most. Football viewership remains robust, but the softening has caused anxiety and finger-pointing. One possible culprit: the campaign circus of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, which many believe diverted viewers to political jousting from the traditional gridiron. Now that theory is being put to the test, with network executives and the league looking to the season’s post-election stretch…

No one understands the forces that are disrupting entertainment — from cord-cutting to Peak TV to time-shifting — better than the generation that’s driving both the supply and demand. So in an effort to get inside the heads of Hollywood’s millennials, THR polled more than 1,500 in the industry between age 20 and 30, who participated anonymously in an online survey. Questions ranged from where they get their news to whether they have cable (um, not really) to the last time they went on a Tinder date (last weekend, said 13 percent of them). Other inquiries were made about who’s still on the parents’ cellphone bill (two-thirds!) and drug use (more pot than cocaine, but a lot of both). And duh, no big surprise: Nearly half primarily watch shows and…

Susan Downey • Partner, Team Downey It’s been a whirlwind decade for Downey, who produced hits like Sherlock Holmes before moving on from Silver Pictures in 2010 to form Team Downey, her production banner with husband Robert Downey Jr. They produced 2014 drama The Judge as their first feature and are developing several projects for film and TV. “Back then, I was focused on just the feature world,” says Downey, a mother of two. “Now, material is not so bifurcated. I love the fact that now when we’re interested in something, we just look for the best way to tell the story.” Zola Mashariki • Head of original programming, BET After 15 years at Fox Searchlight working on such films as The Last King of Scotland and The Best Exotic…

OPENS Wednesday, Nov. 23 (Disney) CAST Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement DIRECTORS Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, Chris Williams Rated PG, 103 minutes Appealing equally to the eyes, ears, heart and funny bone, Moana represents contemporary Disney at its finest — a vibrantly rendered adventure that combines state-of-the-art CG animation with traditional storytelling and colorful characters, all enlivened by a terrific voice cast. Drawing upon the folkloric cultures of the Pacific Islands, this tale of a self-possessed teen who embarks on a quest to save her home turf required the proven talents of two teams of directors: Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid and Aladdin) and Chris Williams and Don Hall (Big Hero 6). When you add in infectious, soul-stirring songs written…

The AFI spotlight will shine on Robert De Niro and Taylor Hackford on Nov. 11 with the world premiere of their film The Comedian, which features De Niro as Jackie Burke, a onetime TV star trying to stay relevant as a stand-up comedian. The Sony Pictures Classics film also stars Leslie Mann and Danny DeVito. Hackford spoke with THR about his 16th turn as a director. You’ve said you couldn’t decide whether this was a drama with comedy or a comedy with drama. Where are you now? I tested the film three times. We asked them what they thought. They thought it was a dark comedy with drama. Are you a fan of testing? I want to see if in fact I’m communicating what I want, and invariably I find…

Los Cabos Film Investor Summit Nov. 10-11 Alex Garcia only has fleeting memories of his grandfather, the famous Mexican actor Arturo de Cordova, who died when Garcia was 7. While he later watched his grandfather’s films, he never considered himself a cinephile. But after 18 years as a banker, he quit his job in 2006 and started a new career, launching the Mexico City-based AG Studios, a holding company for entertainment interests. Today, he’s one of the top film financiers and producers in Latin America and over the past couple of years has been expanding into Englishlanguage cinema. Partnering with former CAA agent Laura Walker, he also launched AG Capital (partnering with producer Scott LaStaiti on a movie about a New Jersey lawyer whose daughter was killed in a 1995…

With the summer release of X-Men: Apocalypse behind it and a Deadpool sequel hitting a speed bump, 20th Century Fox is finding its superhero franchise at another type of X: a crossroads. Fox has had movie rights to Marvel’s X-Men characters since the 1990s, well before Marvel became its own studio and Fox ostensibly launched the modern comic book movie with 2000’s X-Men. But now, after some highs, lows and one reset (2011’s X-Men: First Class), there are signs of wear and tear on a franchise that has grossed more than $4 billion. Apocalypse, directed by Bryan Singer, earned $544 million worldwide, a sharp drop from the $748 million made by previous entry X-Men: Days of Future Past. What’s more, stars Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult…

I f Donald Trump’s more extreme supporters weren’t watching NBC News — and definitely weren’t tuning in to liberal-leaning sister network MSNBC — the then-candidate nonetheless made sure they knew Katy Tur. The NBC News correspondent assigned to cover the Trump campaign, Tur repeatedly was called out by Trump at rallies and news conferences (“third-rate journalist”), on Twitter (“dishonest reporting”) and in her sit-down interview with him in July 2015 (“You don’t even know what you’re talking about”). And when Trump went on the attack again in the waning days of the campaign, at a Miami gathering Nov. 2, Twitter erupted in support; #ImWithTur, a play on Hillary Clinton’s campaign hashtag, was trending nationally. “Obviously it makes me feel really flattered — but a bit unworthy,” says Tur, 33, of…

Heard Around Hollywood Redford’s Zoom Is Doomed The 2017 Sundance Film Festival will be the last for a Park City powerdining staple, Robert Redford’s Zoom restaurant. Rumors of upheaval have been circling since this summer, when Sundance Partners, owner of Zoom, sued 660 Main St. landlord Ken Abdalla (known for buying and razing O.J. Simpson’s Brentwood compound), alleging that he was forcing the restaurant out before the lease was up in 2020 in favor of luxury development. A source tells THR that Zoom staff has been informing patrons of a May 2017 closing, confirmed by the restaurant’s attorney Peggy Tomsic, who said the lawsuit has been settled “so that Zoom can serve the Park City community without distraction” and that the 21-year-old restaurant is exploring “several very exciting opportunities” in…

When Charles D. King was a Howard University law student, a friend gave him a copy of businessman Reginald Lewis’ memoir Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? Years later, that book sits on King’s desk at the Hollywood headquarters of his multicultural media company MACRO, serving as a reminder of what his career has been building toward. King, 47, spent more than 15 years at WME, working his way up from the mailroom to become the agency’s first black partner and along the way representing such clients as Tyler Perry, Ryan Coogler and Janelle Monae. King left the agency in 2015 to start MACRO with eight figures in funding from Emerson Collective, the socially minded investment vehicle of Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow, among others. The company…

L os Angeles long has been a plastic surgery punchline with its glut of perfectly upturned noses, cantilevered cheekbones and lips like breakfast links. But the latest trend in “work” is alarmingly unfunny. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more and more young women — some not even old enough to traipse into Tower Bar — are misspending their youth and savings on soft tissue fillers like Juvederm and paralytics like Botox. In the past six years, the number of noninvasive procedures among the 20- to 29-year-old set has surged nearly 40 percent to almost 170,000 treatments in 2015. So why are these millennials suddenly acting like they’re, well, middle-aged? “It used to be that you didn’t start getting Botox until you turned 35,” says Westside dermatologist Jessica…

How do you get a flabby 54-year-old superhero into tip-top box-office shape? You hire two 20-year-olds. British actor Tom Holland had just finished a three-year stint as Billy Elliot at the Victoria Place Theatre in London when he landed the role that turned Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield into web-spewing action figures. Zendaya was starring on her latest Disney Channel sitcom, K.C. Undercover, cutting a single with Chris Brown and shaking up the fashion world (she has just launched Daya, the first direct-to-consumer celebrity clothing line) when she got cast as … well, nobody will say her exact role in Spider-Man: Homecoming (out July 2017). A lot of fanboys are guessing she’s the new Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker’s perennial love interest (she’d be the first actress of color in…

A massive storm front, with clouds ominously gray, was moving in. Producer Adele Romanski eyed the horizon anxiously. It was near the end of the first week of filming on Moonlight, and with only 25 shooting days and a budget of less than $5 million, she didn’t have the luxury of arranging for a cover set should the weather turn bad. The scene at hand was a crucial one: Moonlight follows the story of a young black boy, adrift and fearful, as he grows into manhood, focusing on three chapters in his life. The day’s shoot called for a wary 10-year-old Chiron (played by Alex Hibbert) to accompany Juan (Mahershala Ali) — a local drug dealer who has, in a moment of generosity, befriended him — to a beach near…

TNT’s latest drama, Good Behavior, has a few big things going for it right out of the gate: a beautifully moody and exceptionally well-crafted pilot directed by Charlotte Sieling (Homeland, The Americans), a virtuoso performance from Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) and the type of intrigue and suspense that make viewers want to keep watching. Even if it’s impossible, after seeing just the first three episodes, to know if the show is sustainable, there are important reasons for optimism. Based on a collection of novellas by author Blake Crouch (the Wayward Pines trilogy), Good Behavior centers on Letty Dobesh (Dockery), a “bad girl” character who’s a welcome relief for anyone who had grown tired of the actress’ reserved Lady Mary on Downton. Indeed, Letty is no lady: She’s just out of…

Memorable moments from a storied history While the recent presidential election had aspects that were absurdly juvenile, 1999’s Election was in many ways more adult in its focus on political absurdities — but those practiced in high school. Alexander Payne’s first studio movie — which he says Barack Obama twice has told him is “his favorite political film; he also likes The Candidate” — also was a favorite with THR: “A sharp, funny, bracingly on-the-money high school satire.” (As for box office, the MTV/Paramount film was a bit too sophisticated for the youth market: The $8 million production brought in $15 million domestically.) But Payne’s tale of ruthlessly overachieving high school princess Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon, then 23), who wants to be student body president but runs up against a…