Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, February 12, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

On Jan. 5, Parasite writer-director-producer Bong Joon Ho gave his acceptance speech for foreign-language film at the Golden Globes and entreated the audience, via his translator Sharon Choi: “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” A month later, the South Korean movie obliterated conventional wisdom with four historic Oscar wins, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim best picture. International filmmakers and distributors are now eying Bong’s triumphs with hope and hunger: hope that Parasite’s success will open the door to global cinema, giving other non-English-language movies shots at the world’s No. 1 film award; hunger for the sort of global box office returns that, with few exceptions, have been beyond the reach of films made outside Hollywood. “It’s…

The Hunt, the satirical thriller that depicts “elites” kidnapping and then hunting “deplorables,” is now set for release March 13 after Universal pulled the film from its September opening in the wake of mass shootings that shook the nation. Following those attacks, Universal and producer Jason Blum decided to pause the ad campaign for the film. But after THR and other outlets reported on the film’s premise, it generated instant controversy. Fox News pilloried the concept, and the movie was attacked (though not by name) in a President Trump tweet. Now Universal is going to release and market the film with attitude: A one-sheet reads, “The most talked about movie of the year is one that no one’s actually seen,” with its original release date crossed out and blurbs highlighting…

A pair of progressive women — with ties to the entertainment industry — are gunning to unseat L.A. City Council member David Ryu in a big-money council race that’s shaping up as a potential referendum on the homeless crisis. Screenwriter and activist Sarah Kate Levy and Nithya Raman, former executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment, have both amassed sizable war chests to compete in the March 3 election for Council District 4, which stretches from the Miracle Mile to Silver Lake and all the way over the hill to Sherman Oaks and Toluca Lake. As of Jan. 18, Levy had raised nearly $237,000, with Raman generating $221,000. Ryu, though, has amassed $947,635 — the most ever recorded by the City Ethics Commission for a council race. Ryu’s donors include Ron…

The Parkland Shootings: Two Years (and Four Docs) Later A pair of new Parkland docs are screening in L.A. on Feb. 12, the eve of the two-year anniversary of the Florida school shooting that killed 17. Voices of Parkland, produced by Judd Apatow (and screening at Theatre at Ace Hotel), tells the story through interviews with those impacted. “No photos, no B-roll, no music — just individuals speaking to the camera,” says photographer turned filmmaker Jeff Vespa. In the other, an ABC doc called After Parkland — screening at Laemmle Royal and five other L.A. theaters — Nightline vets Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman embed themselves with students to follow them from trauma to activism. Two more docs — one by Newtown director Kim A. Snyder and another produced by…

Back in the mid-2000s, everyone on Myspace was automatically friends with co-founder Tom Anderson, but Chris DeWolfe boasted a real-life relationship with the internet icon. The pair founded the social networking platform together and grew it into the most popular website in the U.S., with more than 135 million unique monthly visitors during its heyday. DeWolfe, 53, has a knack for getting in on the ground floor of booming industries. Following the $580 million sale of the social network to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in 2005, he and fellow former Myspace execs Colin Digiaro and Aber Whitcomb bought gaming startup MindJolt and rode the boom in the now $109 billion digital gaming industry to turn the company, since rebranded Jam City, into one of the world’s biggest mobile game studios.…

I’m just happy we’ve got this in L.A now. I hope we can keep it here,” Brad Pitt told The Hollywood Reporter last year at the VIP preview of Frieze Los Angeles’ inaugural edition, held at Paramount Studios. Pitt was referring to the fact that art fairs with a world-class presence have struggled in Los Angeles. Case in point: Paris Photo, the French fair that also set up shop at Paramount in 2013, only to pull the plug after three years. But Frieze L.A. got off to a rousing start last year, with every public day sold out, 30,000 visitors over its four days, some galleries selling out entire booths and at least seven works fetching more than $1 million. Now, with the sophomore outing set to run Feb. 14…

Conservatives are unhappy with Big Tech. Some even accuse social media companies like Twitter and Facebook of suppressing their political viewpoints through “shadow-banning,” the act of making certain posts less visible than others. And politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have suggested that the Justice Department should review that supposed censorship. During a Senate hearing in April, Cruz commented, “By almost any measure, the giant tech companies today are larger and more powerful than Standard Oil was when it was broken up [in the early 20th century]. They are larger and more powerful than AT&T when it was broken up [in 1982]. If we have tech companies using the power of monopoly to sanction political speech, I think that raises real antitrust issues.” Asked whether it’s the role of antitrust…

Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity has had quite the postpublication life. In 2000, it was adapted into a Disney film when Joe Roth headed the studio. It starred John Cusack and brought him a Golden Globe nomination. In 2006, the book was then turned into a Broadway show that The New York Times called one of the “all-time most forgettable musicals.” (It closed after 10 days.) And, on Feb. 14, the High Fidelity TV series launches on Hulu starring Zoë Kravitz. (In a showbiz confluence, her mother, Lisa Bonet, co-starred in the film.) Fidelity’s plot focuses on a music-obsessed, 30-something record store owner with a talent for making clever top-five lists but none for maintaining relationships. In the novel, the store is in North London; in the film, it’s…

Big Deal After Parasite’s four wins at the Academy Awards, Hollywood has one question for its history-making filmmaker: What now? Bong Joon Ho (WME, Jerome Duboz, Cohen & Gardner) is writing two features — one in Korean, one in English — that he began developing long before the awards frenzy for his latest. “Regardless of what happened at Cannes and Oscars, I had been working on two projects before then,” he said backstage at the Feb. 9 ceremony. Bong’s plans are much more solid on the American TV side. TNT’s adaptation of Snowpiercer, his 2013 English-language debut, will finally leave the station May 31 after a wild five-year journey that included a showrunner change and reshooting the entire pilot. Bong was added to the series as an exec producer this…

In 2011, the voluminous black cape that enveloped Bela Lugosi in his most famous role as Count Dracula was put up for auction with a suggested starting bid of $1.2 million. When it failed to sell, the late actor’s family — his son Bela G. Lugosi and granddaughter Lynne Lugosi Sparks — was actually thankful. “The experience made us realize we didn’t want it in some collector’s closet,” says Lugosi. Adds the late actor’s granddaughter, “I think subconsciously the price we put on it was high enough that there wasn’t a bid.” So in 2019, they decided to donate it to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, opening Dec. 14, where it will join such artifacts as the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. The Hungary-born Lugosi, who died…

This year’s Sundance Film Festival saw a record number of diverse filmmakers across four competition categories, some of whom won top awards, but Hollywood’s history with indie directors of color shows they’ll likely face an uphill battle for mainstream success. In 2014, two young filmmakers garnered buzz at Sundance, thanks to award-winning first features. One was Damien Chazelle, who stormed the festival with his tense drama Whiplash, which won the audience and jury awards; the other was Justin Simien, whose searing satire Dear White People nabbed the special jury award for breakthrough talent. Their post-Sundance trajectories are emblematic of Hollywood’s struggle to be inclusive. Chazelle went on to direct two big-budget features, La La Land and First Man, and win an Oscar; numerous film and TV projects are in the…

The Berlin International Film Festival, which runs Feb. 20 to March 1, turns 70 this year and, as with any septuagenarian, the anniversary has triggered some existential reflection. Just what is Berlin for? It’s a question sure to be on the minds of the festival’s new bosses. Artistic director Carlo Chatrian — who picks the films — and executive director Mariette Rissenbeek, who’s running the business side of the fest, take over this year from Dieter Kosslick, who ran Berlin for nearly 20 years. Kosslick, a flamboyant personality whose showmanship often masked a shrewd political and business sense, grew Berlin from an august, if sleepy, institution into the world’s biggest public film festival and, with the European Film Market, one of the key spots for international independent players to buy…

Are the streaming giants enjoying a free ride in Canada? That’s been an increasingly vocal complaint from content creators and regional governments north of the border as Netflix and Amazon continue to take full advantage of generous Canadian shooting incentives and state-of-the-art facilities in an environment that is largely free of regulation. Now, as the streaming wars intensify with the arrival of Disney+, Apple TV+, Peacock and HBO Max, pressure is mounting for the streamers to start giving back. “They are already spending money in Canada. All we’re asking is for them to do it in a more organized way [toward] Canadian cultural content available for Canadians, and for audiences around the world,” Steven Guilbeault, the Canadian heritage minister responsible for broadcasting, told THR while attending the Prime Time conference…

Just five years ago, Canada was experiencing a locations boom thanks to the steady flow of Hollywood shoots heading north of the border. Now the streaming wars are taking the demand for shooting in the country to an entirely new level. CBS Television Studios last year opened a 260,000-square-foot studio in Toronto, and Netflix launched its latest global production hub in the city by taking longterm leases on eight soundstages at Pinewood Toronto Studios and Cinespace Films Studios. Pinewood Toronto already has CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery shooting on a few of its 11 purpose-built stages and is busily adding another 170,000 square feet to be operational in early 2021. “When complete, Pinewood Toronto Studios will be Canada’s biggest production complex and will make a world of difference in…

It says something about the state of the industry that the announcement of Warner Max, a “unique joint venture” that will produce up to 10 movies a year for the HBO Max streaming service, was not greeted with joy in the town. A customer for up to 10 movies a year would seem like a blessing at a time when it’s harder than ever to get a green light for anything other than a comic book movie or sequel, but instead executives, agents and producers reacted to what appears to be an opaque structure and possibly an exercise in misdirection. “It does seem like too many people on a press release screwing in a light bulb,” says one executive with long-standing ties to the Warners film studio. The Warner Max…

Creatures (ALGONQUIN BOOKS, JAN. 7) BY Crissy Van Meter AGENCY WME Set on a small island off the California coast, Van Meter’s debut is a coming-of-age story that follows a soon-to-be bride dealing with a groom possibly lost at sea, her estranged mother’s unexpected reappearance and a dead whale in the harbor. The Only Black Girls in Town (LITTLE BROWN, MARCH 10) BY Brandy Colbert AGENCY ICM Partners The veteran YA novelist’s latest follows Alberta, who is used to being the only black girl in her small surf town, after Brooklyn transplant Edie moves into the local bed-and-breakfast. Together they discover the shocking and painful secrets of their burg.…

Yes, the shortened Oscars season has left film folks exhausted, but now that it’s over, industry execs and talent alike can finally enjoy February’s three-day President’s Day weekend (four days if you’re throwing in Friday’s Valentine’s Day). And what better place to rest and relax than Palm Springs as it showcases the best of its modernist art, design and architecture during Modernism Week (Feb. 13-23)? The annual gathering offers about 350 events, including a tour of the former estate of Kirk and Anne Douglas; Oscar-nominated production designer Jeannine Oppewall discussing how she’s brought worlds alive in films such as L.A. Confidential; and Paula Benson, founder of the website Film and Furniture, joining KCRW radio host Frances Anderton to pick their favorite furnishings in movies. (Tickets at modernismweek.com.) For Palm Springs…

One day last spring, Makan Delrahim was checking in on the day’s news when a story about the Oscars caught his eye. Steven Spielberg was said to be pushing the film Academy to ban from eligibility any movie that premiered on a streaming service rather than in theaters. At the time, Netflix had just won three awards for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and the company was forced to defend its Oscars. That seemed unfair to Delrahim, 50, who in addition to leading the U.S. Department of Justice’s powerful Antitrust Division also happens to be a former movie producer. He says nobody associated with the streaming giant pressured him; he simply felt compelled to do something, so he fired off a letter to Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and warned her that the…

The 70th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival should be a cause for celebration. But recent revelations about the festival’s first director, Dr. Alfred Bauer, are casting a dark shadow over this year’s festivities. Bauer, a film historian who ran the Berlinale from its start in 1951 through 1976, has long been held up as a symbol of the Berlinale’s core values of openness, tolerance and the embrace of the other. Since his death in 1986, Berlin has awarded the Alfred Bauer Prize in his honor, recognizing work that “opens new perspectives on cinematic art.” Baz Luhrmann won the Alfred Bauer for Romeo + Juliet in 1997, Zhang Yimou won in 2003 for Hero, and Polish dissident director Andrzej Wajda won in 2009 for Sweet Rush. But new revelations,…

AIRDATE 10 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11 (OWN) CAST Xosha Roquemore, Alano Miller, Cicely Tyson CREATOR Ava DuVernay SHOWRUNNER Tanya Hamilton Ava DuVernay’s new show Cherish the Day was clearly created with lofty ambitions. Announced as an anthology series, the auteur’s second major project for OWN (after Queen Sugar) sets out to traverse a couple’s relationship through pivotal 24-hour periods. Spanning five years and starring relative unknowns Xosha Roquemore and Alano Miller, the eight-part debut season showcases lushly lit black skin, an aspirational black L.A. and a reverent appreciation of black artists. It invites respect by paying it first. But the first few episodes also suggest a show so adoring of its characters that it robs the storylines of their tension. The drama strains to conjure flaws for Roquemore’s Gently James,…

Canada’s top film financier has top film financier has claimed success in helping more women move into local movie producing, directing and screenwriting roles. Christa Dickenson, executive director of Telefilm Canada, which annually invests about $100 million in Canadian movies, reports that her government agency is about 80 percent of the way toward 50-50 gender parity by 2020 as it gives a boost to women seeking careers behind the camera. “Canada is a game-changer,” she tells THR. “We’re in the parity zone.” Telefilm in 2019 saw female producers on 61 percent of the projects it financed (up from 48 percent in 2018), with 41 percent of its projects written by women and 39 percent with female directors. “There’s no question that reflecting the Canadian people is important to us,” Dickenson…