Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, February 5, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

For those of us fortunate enough to attend the Oscars each year, certain personal traditions develop. The late Academy lawyer George Hedges once told me he wore the same gold cuff links to every show; they were his father’s, and his dad loved to watch the Oscars. One executive I won’t name likes to sneak away from his seat during the final speeches, so he can be first to the sushi spread at the Governors Ball. Awards strategist Tony Angellotti always puts on the same socks with movie reel canisters printed on them, just for good luck. (They worked last year — his contender, Green Book, won best picture.) My tradition is a bit different. Since I’m never invited with a plus-one, my wife, Kimberlin, has volunteered most years to…

In 2016, when AT&T revealed its intention to pay $85 billion for Time Warner, it said the deal would “enhance its revenue and earnings growth profile.” Shortly after the merger closed in June 2018, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson predicted TV subscribers would expand “over the next couple of years.” But Jan. 29, he disclosed that between DirecTV and U-verse, the telecom had 19.5 million video customers, 15 percent fewer than a year earlier, while AT&T net income slid 25 percent to $13.9 billion in 2019 on operating revenue that dipped 2 percent to $45.1 billion. Revenue and operating income also declined at WarnerMedia. UBS analyst John Hodulik downgraded AT&T shares Jan. 30 to neutral while cutting his price target, suggesting the firm faces “secular pressure within its entertainment and WarnerMedia…

The Life Below (HARPERTEEN, FEB. 18) BY Alexandra Monir AGENCY Gersh As Lionsgate develops a Hunger Games prequel and The CW’s The 100 enters a seventh season, Hollywood is not yet done with teenaged dystopia. The Life Below offers a new way into the genre, following teens sent to establish a new world on Jupiter’s moon. The Heap (WILLIAM MORROW, JAN. 7) BY Sean Adams AGENCY WME A massive urban project goes awry, leaving 20 acres’ worth of rubble in a desert known as “the heap.” Orville Anders is a Dig Hand, a person who is employed to clean the site, and is searching for his brother, the only known survivor of the imploded city.…

Think 2017 will go down as the most embarrassing awards mishap in Oscar history? That was when La La Land was named best picture — for two minutes and 23 seconds — until Moonlight was. But 1940’s 12th annual Academy Awards puts 2017’s mix-up of just one award to shame. That year, the Los Angeles Times ruined the Oscars by publishing the full list of winners in its evening edition two hours before the ceremony. Back then, just as today, there was endless speculation about who would win. James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Clark Cable in Gone With the Wind ran neck and neck for best actor — and both lost to Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ Robert Donat. Best director nominees John Ford, Frank Capra and William…

It was THR that came up with the idea of interviewing him and me together [in 2010]. He was one of the legends, and I was just about to move to NBC. I went out to his house, and I remember he had an old-fashioned scheduling board on the wall in his den. A killer lineup — Mary Tyler Moore and all those shows — frozen [in time]. After that, he’d call me occasionally and give me advice or tell me “I like this show” or “I don’t like that show.” Probably a year into my job there, so 2011, he reached out and we had lunch in the commissary at NBC. By this point, we’d announced all of our pilots, and he pulls out a piece of paper and…

Profit participation in the TV industry was born in the 1960s, when studios and independent production companies dominated prime time at the three networks. The definition of “profits” for creative talent working on scripted series has since evolved. In those early days, the production company owner of a show would simply charge large distribution fees (typically 30 percent to 40 percent) and overhead fees (15 percent to 20 percent), which prevented stars, creators and virtually all potential profit participants from reaching defined profitability. Then, in the ’80s, the pendulum swung in favor of talent. A top writer-producer would go to one of the broadcast networks, secure production commitments for a pilot or series and then turn to a studio for financing and distribution. Talent would even enjoy the benefit of…

Oscar-nominated for his original screenplay for Knives Out, writer-director Rian Johnson created one of the most viral style moments of the awards season. “Ransom’s sweater,” says Johnson, 46, referring to Chris Evans’ character’s cozy Aran Islands-style pullover, which launched a thousand memes. “I told [costume designer] Jenny [Eagan] to put holes in the sweater. The character has really nice clothes that he kind of treats like trash.” Even so, the sweater stood out. “My wife, Karina, came to the set one day and Chris walked in and she paused a second and said, ‘That’s a good sweater.’ I should have had a tip-off. No one rocks a sweater like Chris.” Johnson — who is married to You Must Remember This podcast host Karina Longworth — says he took extra care…

It’s been 30 years since Raymundo Romero became a valet at Chateau Marmont, and he’s still the junior partner on the four-man crew. “He has to wait for one of us to retire — or be run over — to get a daytime shift,” jokes Ray Garcia, 58, who joined the hotel four years earlier and is himself on duty from early afternoon to late evening. “They are the unsung heroes, the unknown stars of the place — the big smiling faces,” says actor Michael Madsen, a Chateau regular who once lived in Bungalow Four of the hotel for nearly a year in the 1990s. “When I roll up and Raymundo’s there, I just hug the guy, for Chrissake — I just can’t help it. It’s become personal.” Patricia Clarkson,…

Our cinema is real estate but like any successful filmmaker, we’re major control freaks—accessible, patient, fair and fierce, yet still in the driver’s seat. Our idea of hair and makeup is staging a flawless home that buyers crave. Through Compass Concierge, we offer sellers interest-free financing and transform homes with an eye that would make your set decorator swoon. Each home we list becomes a canvas for buyers to create their own masterpieces. Two of us—Liz and Jill—have entertainment marketing backgrounds, and Fran is a storied agent with four decades of experience serving Los Angeles clients. Together we provide a unique mix of traditional, time-tested expertise and cutting-edge modern marketing. Like a well-oiled production, we each have our specialties but know when we need to step in and help each…

In Hollywood, good talent is hard to find. From the landscape, to the economics, to the inventory, to the financing … it takes a special type of real estate agent that knows how to assemble a luxury real estate transaction. What it really takes is an agent that knows how to package talent. For over 20 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work at some of the most highly regarded real estate and entertainment companies—from South Coast Plaza, to United Talent Agency, to FOX & American Idol. Now, I’m leveraging my cross-industry knowledge to provide my real estate clients with an empathetic and exceptional luxury real estate experience, whether buying, selling or renting real estate properties. This experience leverages the resources of the Compass platform: collaborating across our 15,000 agent…

The Academy has attempted to rectify #OscarsSoWhite by pulling on the only lever at its disposal, but it’s not just adjusting the composition of the membership that determines a more inclusive Oscar night. Decisions made earlier in the pipeline — by distributors, marketers, festival programmers, critics and tastemakers — all shape how projects fare with voters. Since 2015, 98 of the 120 Oscar-nominated performances have come from films that debuted at a festival, with Sundance, Cannes, Toronto and Telluride identifying awards season’s key contenders. In 2017, Sundance selected Get Out for its midnight secret screening, and the film’s rapturous reception ignited buzz that lasted 14 months, all the way to four Oscar nominations and a win. “How films are positioned matters,” says TIFF artistic director and co-head Cameron Bailey, whose…

Since the moment the lights went up last May at the Grand Theatre Lumière in Cannes (which preceded an eight-minute standing ovation), Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite has broken precedent after precedent: first South Korean film to receive the Palme d’Or, first foreign movie to win the SAG Awards’ ensemble prize, Korea’s first Oscar nominee (it has six nods) — and, come Feb. 9, the $162 million grossing social thriller has a credible chance to win best picture, which would make it the first non-English-language film to do so. Behind Parasite’s — and Korea’s — catapult to the forefront of the cinematic conversation is Miky Lee, the heiress turned media mogul whose $4.1 billion entertainment empire serves as the foundation of much of the country’s cultural output, from television dramas streamed…

When thousands gathered Dec. 16 in Hollywood for the world premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — supposedly the last Skywalker film — they heard Bob Iger, Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams thank everyone from creator George Lucas to the actor who played R2-D2. But one name was not so much as whispered, despite this person’s critical 1970s role in launching what would become the most successful movie franchise of all time: the all-but-forgotten Ashley Boone Jr. Although his contributions have been mostly lost to history — he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page — Boone, who died in 1994 at age 55, was a marketing and distribution wizard who championed Lucas’ space opera when nearly everyone else — including the board of 20th Century Fox — thought…

By the time I was 3 years old, I knew my way around a movie set better than my preschool. I knew the craft services table was where I could find my favorite snacks. I knew the makeup trailers were where I could hear the liveliest conversations. And I knew that my father, Bruce Beresford, was something called a director, a guy who made movies. The only thing I got wrong back then, in my befuddled toddler brain, was that I thought he made all the movies. Like, in the world. But in the summer of 1989, while I was watching him on a set in Atlanta, he was making just one picture. He was shooting Driving Miss Daisy, which went on to win four Oscars (including best picture, best…

39% Percentage of Americans who say they’d be more likely to watch the Oscars if Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were named surprise hosts. However, America’s top two picks for that duty are Will Smith and Dwayne Johnson (at 44 percent each). WHO VIEWERS WANT TO SEE PRESENT AWARDS 44% Dwayne Johnson 43% Eddie Murphy 45% Will Smith 42% Adam Sandler 41% Samuel L. Jackson FAVORITE BEST PICTURE WINNER (SINCE 2000) More U.S. adults have a favorable impression of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) and Gladiator (2000) than any other films claiming the top Oscar this century. FAVORITE BEST ACTOR AND ACTRESS WINNERS (SINCE 2000) Sandra Bullock and Denzel Washington are the most favorably viewed performers (78 percent each) who have claimed the top acting…

Sandy Powell has garnered more Oscar nominations for best costume design — 15 — than any other living designer. She has won three times. And if she claims her fourth Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman with codesigner Christopher Peterson, the British designer will tie Milena Canonero and Colleen Atwood for the most wins by a living costume designer. Powell is renowned for dressing casts of thousands on films like Disney’s Cinderella and Mary Poppins Returns, plus seven movies with Scorsese, including The Irishman. (Costume budgets on studio films can range from $1.2 million to $3.5 million.) But Powell —who dropped out of London’s Central Saint Martins to create the wardrobe for Derek Jarman’s 1986 drama Caravaggio — is equally famous for crafting dazzling costumes on a shoestring, as she…

When it comes to black hair, it’s the best of times and, still for some, the worst of times. On the upside, last July, the California legislature passed the Crown Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair), which bans discrimination on the basis of hair textures. In August, Hair Love, about an African American dad learning to care for his daughter’s curls, screened before Sony’s Angry Birds 2, garnered 13 million YouTube views and nabbed an Oscar nomination for best animated short. “The reach is pretty insane,” says writer/co-director Matthew A. Cherry. “We started as a Kickstarter campaign.” And yet, on Hollywood productions and photo shoots, many black actors continue to face challenges with their hair. In November, actress Gabrielle Union (an exec producer on Hair Love)…

Guest Column We were lucky to live through the most beautiful time in Los Angeles’ history. A decade when we were all equal in public: the struggling actor and the head of a studio, the caterer and the cateree, the nonprofit lawyer and the very-profit lawyer, the James Franco and the Dave Franco. It was a moment when liberal Los Angeles’ desire to virtue-signal overpowered our desire to success-signal. When people who dreamed their entire lives of owning a Porsche and could now afford said Porsche, bought that Porsche but left it in their garage and bitterly drove a Prius to work, to parties and to restaurants. We lived in a time when everyone had to own a Prius. The Prius said, “I care so much about the environment, I…

As Cynthia Erivo sings “I’m A Here,” the song from The Color Purple for which, perhaps, she is best known, she takes you on a journey with her voice. The opening is clear and unadorned, but as the song builds, as we witness a woman realizing the innate beauty and strength she possesses, Erivo’s voice swells into fullness, rich with emotion. During a concert at New York City’s Town Hall in 2016, she sang “Still Hurting,” from the musical The Last Five Years. With each note, she conveyed the entire story of a marriage in an indescribably affecting performance. No matter what she sings, Erivo has a voice that regularly brings people to their feet as she brings the house down. Cynthia Erivo was born in South London in 1987…

In August, Parasite director Bong Joon Ho and his South Korean movie’s star, Song Kang-ho, were resting under the shade of a pine tree at a picnic table in Colorado, having just made a 27-hour journey from Seoul to the Rocky Mountains to kick off their Oscar-campaigning season at the Telluride Film Festival. Bong and Song were invited to join the Academy in 2015, a year before the organization’s concerted diversification push that has seen 39 percent of new members coming from outside the U.S., according to a THR analysis. When asked about his relatively new membership despite his 20-year-plus acting career in Korean cinema, Song paused. “I’m going to vote for Parasite for everything this year,” he said, with a wink. Six months later, it’s clear that Bong and…

Netflix’s Locke & Key is the story of plucky kids exploring a rambling house filled with magical keys — including the Matchstick Key, which starts fires, the Head Key, which lets you rummage around in your brain, and the Ghost Key, which lets you become a ghost. The challenge for showrunners Carlton Cuse and Meredith Averill seems to have been finding the Consistency Key. The 10 hour-ish-long episodes of Locke & Key vary wildly in quality and tone, sometimes delivering fun for all ages, sometimes getting bogged down in a darkness nobody’s able to commit to. The pilot begins with the Locke family — mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), teens Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and elementary-school-age Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) — moving to their coastal Massachusetts ancestral home…

Five years ago, the Russo brothers launched an unverified Twitter account and started posting cryptic photos from the Captain America: Civil War set just to see if anyone would notice. Today, that account (@Russo_Brothers, now verified and managed by one of Joe Russo’s daughters) boasts more than 1 million followers and served as a key marketing tool for Avengers: Endgame, which went on to earn $2.797 billion worldwide in 2019 and pass Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time. After a whirlwind year (they just wrapped principal photography on the Tom Holland crime drama Cherry), Joe, 48, and Anthony, 49, will be jointly honored as Motion Picture Showman of the Year at the 57th Annual ICG Publicists Awards in Beverly Hills. Joe spoke with THR ahead of the Feb.…

The stress of applying to college is one thing. The stress of applying to college during postproduction on your first feature film is entirely different. “I was editing pretty much anywhere I could sit down for more than 30 minutes,” Phillip Youmans tells THR of the drama feature that went on to garner two Independent Spirit Awards nominations. Shot over the summer of his junior year in high school in New Orleans, Burning Cane is set in the sugar cane fields of rural Louisiana and follows Helen Wayne (Karen Kaia Livers), who is navigating her religious convictions and the addictions of her son and pastor. In April, Youmans — by then a student at NYU film school — became the youngest director to screen a film at the Tribeca Film…

In C-suites and writers rooms throughout Hollywood, chatter is growing: Will the Writers Guild of America’s roughly 15,000 members walk out as they did a decade ago if they can’t reach an agreement with the studios? And if they do, is the town ready for a strike? The current three-year contract won’t expire until May 1, and it’s hard to know how amenable the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will be to the WGA’s demands, which are likely to center on compensation in the streaming era, when backends are being limited or eliminated, residuals are down and shows are producing fewer episodes. That hasn’t stopped executives at the major studios, networks and streaming outlets from building contingencies wherever they can. In recent months, that’s meant ramping up unscripted…

Ten months after Disney gobbled up 20th Century Fox as part of a $71.3 billion deal, Emma Watts was still working out of Building 88, the structure on the Fox lot with the gold doors through which studio founder Darryl Zanuck used to walk. Watts, who served as vice chairman and president of production at 20th, had been one of the few top Fox execs to survive the merger — until Jan. 30, when she resigned from the newly renamed 20th Century Studios. After leading a major studio, Watts realized she couldn’t stomach the diminishment in power and autonomy that came with running a pared-down fiefdom within Disney, sources close to her tell THR. The executive’s departure also is a blow to Hollywood’s small sorority of female studio executives. Rare…

Big Deal Hamilton: The Movie is coming — sort of. After what is believed to have been a long period of competitive negotiations, Disney has paid a massive $75 million for worldwide distribution rights to a filmed stage production of the musical theater phenomenon, to be released in North America on Oct. 15, 2021. The live capture took place in 2016, which means that it features the original Broadway cast, which includes Tony winners Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry alongside creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Disney deal has quietly been brewing for more than a year, and major studios have circled Hamilton ever since the show became a bona fide sensation. Since hitting Broadway in 2015, it has earned $636.5 million as of press time,…

In the past month, Joaquin Phoenix has swept the best actor categories at the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards and the SAG Awards for his titular performance in Joker. Now he’s the heavy favorite for the Oscar. Phoenix — known to not enjoy awards-circuit glad-handing and posing for photos — has famously been averse to campaigning. This season, though, he has jumped in, and has paired his Oscar pursuit with animal rights and climate change activism. “For someone who’s having a pinnacle moment in their career, he’s giving back at the same time,” says actress Jorja Fox, producer of the 2019 animal-rights documentary The Animal People, which Phoenix, a longtime vegan, executive produced. Indeed, not many contenders have so closely wed promotional duties with radical activism. On Sept. 9, on…

Before the Academy opens the doors to its long-awaited museum later this year, it will need to face a tricky issue: how to acknowledge Hollywood’s #MeToo reckoning. After all, the list of Oscar winners accused of sexual assault continues to grow, including Roman Polanski, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr. and even the late Kobe Bryant. Similarly, there’s a long line of winners who have been accused of sexual harassment. And that’s to say nothing of the golden-era moguls whose behavior would fall squarely into #MeToo malfeasance. To date, only Polanski and Weinstein have been kicked out of the Academy. How exactly curators and programmers plan to weave in the message is a work in progress. An Academy Museum spokesperson tells THR it “will explore the full scope of…

In 2015, at the beginning of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, I wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter called “Hollywood Diversity Is a Special Effect.” Yet, here we are again, five years later, singing the same sorry song. But rather than wring my hands over the frustration, irony and inevitability of it all, I’m going to look at another aspect of the Oscar nominations for best picture that isn’t about inclusivity but is almost equally culturally devastating: the disturbing familiarity of some of the films and timidity of the filmmakers. All the nominated movies are good, all are worth paying to see. But almost half do little to elevate art or illuminate the human condition. With so many excellent television shows streaming daily, the “best” movies must step up their game,…

Over the past several years, former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard has elevated himself from largely unknown tabloid whiz into a headline generator in his own right. He’s played the role of villain — or at least a henchman — in national scandals involving Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Jeff Bezos. In the process, he left his perch at the Enquirer and was part of a probe by the U.S. Justice Department. Yet despite the disrepute of his recent past, Howard, 38, is in the midst of repositioning himself as a Hollywood player, developing multiple projects in the white-hot true-crime arena. And, intriguingly, he is doing so with the support of a group of industry stalwarts — including Endeavor, Megyn Kelly and Dr. Phil McGraw — who had, until recently,…

Several of the natural hair salon owners listed below say their star clients often visit them before call time to prevent the awkwardness of potentially sitting in a chair being worked on by unskilled hands. All five cater to textures from 3A to 4C, including thick Afros, tightly coiled tresses, even the big chop — cutting off all relaxed hair, leaving only natural hair. DR. KARI WILLIAMS (151 S. Doheny Dr.) in Beverly Hills specializes in braids, twists, locs and cornrows —without chemicals. Clients have included Tessa Thompson. … Also in Beverly Hills, Emmywinning stylist Kiyah Wright’s MUZE SUITES (8383 Wilshire Blvd.) delivers color treatments, cuts and styling for all textures. … Ava DuVernay and Angela Bassett are fans of Mid-City’s I LOVE LULU HAIR SPA (733 S. La Brea…

Like on set, days as a real estate agent are long, exciting and unpredictable, so a little humanity and humor go a long way. My solutions-oriented approach and attentive people skills ensure that my clients always feel supported and confident. Real estate can be very intimate—I’m in my clients’ private spaces where they raise their families and create memories, so it’s crucial I honor their trust with transparency and expertise. A buyer recently walked into my open house and said, “I see your touch on every one of your listings.” It’s not a happy accident. I deploy a brilliant team of stagers, painters and handymen so every property exudes that closeup-ready vibe, and through the Compass Concierge program sellers don’t pay anything upfront. We stage every home to reflect an…

Before legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins picked up a movie camera for the first time, the British DP had already discovered a love for still photography. “I used to paint as a kid and I went to art college [Bath Academy of Art],” says Deakins, who entered a graphic arts program and was drawn to photography. “I would hitchhike to Bristol and take pictures.” It was at college that Deakins, who earned his 15th Academy Award nomination this year for Sam Mendes’ 1917, decided to apply to the U.K.’s new National Film School. “Most of my photography was very documentary-oriented; it seemed like a good opportunity,” he says. Today, Deakins is considered one of the most influential cinematographers ever, with credits including The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, No Country for Old Men,…

The first time I crashed the Oscars, I was 22. It was 1972, and my fraternity, Phi Sigma Delta, had this crazy idea to get stars to front a charity dance marathon at our school, the University of Denver. The father of a fraternity brother offered a ride in his private jet as a prize, and with Oscar week coinciding with spring break, my friend Todd and I decided to fly to Los Angeles in search of celebrities. The game was on. Faking NBC letterhead, I typed a letter introducing myself as the grandson of Robert Sarnoff, the head of RCA, parent company of NBC, the network broadcasting the awards that year. We drove with the letter to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and were awarded two white badges that allowed…

The announcement of Hulu’s gender-flipped High Fidelity reboot headlined by Zoë Kravitz was a head-scratcher. The syndromes diagnosed in Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel and the John Cusack-starring 2000 Stephen Frears film adaptation — about a music snob in denial about how badly his most recent breakup has shaken him — aren’t exclusive to men, but they’re largely male phenomena. There’s a reason The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy is a guy, and The Police’s stalker ballad “Every Breath You Take” is more potent when sung by a man. Consider the fact that the film version begins with a soliloquy about teenagers “listening to … songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss,” and you can’t escape the subtext that the protagonist’s objectification of the women in his…