Innholdsfortegnelse for Thursday, March 26, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

Huw Samuel had planned to take his girlfriend to see Universal’s The Invisible Man in a theater near his home south of London. Then the coronavirus crisis changed his plans, as it has for people around the globe in ways both dramatic and mundane. Like those in America, U.K. cinema chains were forced to close in mid-March, so Samuel, 29, did the next best thing for a date night — he brewed a pot of tea, turned off the lights in his apartment and rented Invisible Man on Amazon Prime for £16, or about $18. “I thought it was a pretty reasonable price — about what we would have paid for tickets,” says Samuel, an actor and director whose work on a commercial and a feature have been delayed by…

A mid the coronavirus pandemic, Hollywood giants face a catastrophic earnings hit this year, and debt burdens are in renewed focus as ratings agencies are busy exploring or handing out downgrades. AT&T, for one, shelved a $4 billion stock buyback deal to boost its financial flexibility, with other companies expected to follow suit. As of March 19, S&P Global noted 23 virus-related rating actions, which includes downgrades, for North American media and entertainment firms, including the likes of Disney, National Amusements, Endeavor and its subsidiary UFC, AMC Theatres and Cinemark. “Right now, it’s all about liquidity,” Moody’s analyst Neil Begley says. Exhibitors are most at risk from high debt burdens and fixed costs, such as theater leases, while revenue is wiped out because of cinema closures. Regal owner Cineworld, which…

After sweeping the most recent primaries, Joe Biden has all but guaranteed that he will win the Democratic nomination, a fact that leaves loyal supporter Jim Gianopulos feeling “pure joy,” the Paramount chairman tells THR. “I always felt that Joe was the statesman that the country needs right now. And, no — I never wavered.” But the political world that Biden and supporters like Gianopulos now inherit has changed dramatically. The severity of the COVID-19 outbreak began to hit home in the U.S. around the time of South Carolina’s primary, which was the kickoff of Biden’s big comeback. (Other industry names whose Biden support dates to 2019 include Sony’s Tom Rothman and Screen Gems exec Eric Paquette, who’s on the candidate’s national finance committee.) Now, Biden must dramatically adjust his…

In Los Angeles, foodie culture usually swims upstream from real estate, so when chef Travis Lett decided earlier this year to sell his stake in Venice restaurants Gjelina, Gjusta and MTN to pursue a project in West Adams, it felt like a page had turned in the city’s history. The 2008 opening of Gjelina helped reshape the beachside community, and Lett’s departure to reopen the Johnny’s Pastrami on West Adams Boulevard has warmed the hearts of locals while leaving Venetians feeling like yesterday’s news. “We’re not going to be Abbot Kinney in a year or two — that’s going to take a while longer,” says Claire Lissone, founder of the Real Estate Collective, which focuses on West Adams, the 1.5-square-mile neighborhood in South L.A. that is home to charming Craftsman…

TALENT James Adams Schreck Rose CORNELL LAW SCHOOL A theater major, New York-based Adams has a soft spot for actor clients who look for behind-the-camera opportunities — like Jack Ryan star and A Quiet Place Part II director John Krasinski, who struck a landmark first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios. Meanwhile, Rashida Jones will star in and executive produce Kenya Barris comedy Black Excellence for Netflix, where client Natasha Lyonne’s Russian Doll has been renewed. Please reboot M*A*S*H TALENT Karl Austen Jackoway Austen HARVARD LAW SCHOOL Austen’s longest-standing client, Matt Reeves, is directing The Batman while his shingle, 6th & Idaho, expanded its Netflix deal to include TV projects. Meanwhile, Seth MacFarlane moved from Fox to Comcast in a five-year, $200 million deal and Norman Reedus signed a $90 million holding…

Five years ago, the 133-year-old record for fewest paying fans at a Major League Baseball game was broken. It had been set in 1882, when only six people watched the Worcester Ruby Legs of Massachusetts host the Troy Trojans of Alabama. But the record went to zero — as would have happened with current sporting events had the NBA, NHL and MLB not postponed games because of coronavirus — when the Baltimore Orioles played the Chicago White Sox on the afternoon of April 29, 2015. The fan-free day was brought on by civil unrest in Baltimore after the death of 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray, who had received a spinal injury while in police custody. The Hollywood Reporter said the Orioles’ decision was made “in light of the city’s rioting.”…

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping millions of people at home, TV use has spiked, with figures from Nielsen showing rises across all demographics. Kids and teenagers, home from school, are posting the largest percentage gains. Nightly usage levels, which typically tail off on Fridays and Saturdays, have been steadier on those days in recent weeks. Traditional TV viewing, as measured by Nielsen’s households and persons using its television metric, was up 4 percent across all dayparts the week of March 9, with bigger increases during daytime hours given the larger share of the population staying home. The biggest gains came from young viewers who were at home rather than school: Kids ages 2 to 11 increased their TV use by 14 percent, and 12-to 17-year-olds watched 18 percent more. Usage…

TV Docs Sending Their Scrubs and Gloves to the Pros They’re not real doctors, they only play them on TV. Still, they’re helping to battle the COVID-19 pandemic just the same, with shows like Fox’s The Resident, NBC’s Chicago Med and ABC’s The Good Doctor donating such props as surgical masks, gloves and gowns to hospitals and first responders around the country. “We were lucky enough to have about 300 of the coveted N95 masks,” says Krista Vernoff, a Grey’s Anatomy veteran who now serves as an exec producer on Station 19, ABC’s Seattle-based firehouse drama. “We donated [them] to our local fire station — they were tremendously grateful.” In Atlanta, The Resident packed up two trunks’ worth of scrubs, surgical caps and lab coats and sent them to Grady…

Separation Anxiety (HARPERCOLLINS, MARCH 3) BY Laura Zigman AGENCY WME As a means of coping with an apathetic teen son and an estranged husband, a failed children’s book author begins to wear her dog in a baby sling. The novel is reminiscent of character-driven dramedies like Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale. You and Me and Us (WILLIAM MORROW, APRIL 7) BY Alison Hammer AGENCY Gersh Comparable to the sentimental work of oft-adapted Me Before You author Jojo Moyes, Hammer’s debut novel follows a working mom trying to reconnect with her teenage daughter after her stay-at-home husband is diagnosed with terminal cancer.…

Thanks to West Adams’ average lot size of 5,500 square feet, it is an ideal neighborhood for homeowners to consider building an accessory dwelling unit, which is a small residence, aka a granny flat, next to a single-family home. And there’s never been a better time to build one in California. A state law that went into effect Jan. 1 cuts much of the red tape that made ADUs a permitting headache. The impetus to streamline the process is the state’s housing crisis, and elected officials are hoping that ADUs might serve as a new affordable housing-stock option (most current ADUs rent at below-market rates). As a result, a cottage industry has sprung up, with hopes of capitalizing on the new law. Below are three companies approaching ADUs in distinct…

In late February, the biggest concern facing the industry was the threat of a strike as writers and studios prepared to enter heated contract negotiations. But, in recent days, that great unknown has been displaced by a global pandemic that’s brought Hollywood — and society at large — to a screeching halt. Says lawyer Jamie Feldman, who works with Steven Soderbergh: “It now feels like all the time we’ve spent talking about the WGA and the ATA and the potential strike issues was just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, its domino effect is becoming increasingly evident in Hollywood. Offices have emptied as studios, agencies and law firms transition to remote work, major events and festivals including SXSW have been canceled and dozens of productions…

When Jodi Peikoff joined hundreds of other women working in law who shared their abortion stories with the U.S. Supreme Court in December, it wasn’t the first time she fought for the cause. But the amicus brief she signed, which argues against the constitutionality of Louisiana’s 2014 Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, was far more vast in scope than when she challenged a similarly restrictive Texas law in 2016. Coordinated by the firm Paul Weiss, the brief signed by 368 female legal professionals excerpts (and anonymizes) stories from women who wouldn’t have been able to realize their goals were it not for their “ability to control their reproductive lives.” In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Peikoff, a New York-based talent lawyer who represents Cynthia Erivo, Felicity Jones, Lili Reinhart, Carrie…

David Byrnes Ziffren Brittenham Byrnes engineered Beyoncé’s Netflix deal for Grammy-winning film Homecoming, with colleague David Lande, and her role in Lion King. He also oversaw the posthumous release of Mac Miller’s Circles and negotiated Blake Shelton’s contract for The Voice. Damien Granderson Granderson Des Rochers Clients don’t get much bigger than Granderson’s: Kanye West, Cardi B, A$AP Rocky and J Balvin — who the rep says signed a “revolutionary” deal with Universal Music Latin Entertainment. Grace Kim Grubman Shire In 2012, Kim met and signed a Minneapolis artist who could belt tunes, spit rhymes and play a killer flute — and the rest is Lizzo history. “I hate when people on their way to being established have shitty deals,” says Kim, who recently inked the star’s publishing pact with…

It should have been a joyous time in Hollywood. The First World War was about to come to an end — in November 1918 — and the nascent silent film industry was booming, distributing pictures to more than 20,000 theaters across America. But this rapid progress was threatened by the outbreak of an influenza pandemic, one that would claim millions of lives worldwide. Much like Hollywood today amid the COVID-19 crisis, studios and theaters were forced to come to terms with an H1N1 viral threat. “Filmland is full of gloom and germs,” Moving Picture World reported in November 1918. For months, L.A.-based studios and theater chains believed that the so-called Spanish influenza was an East Coast problem. But the flu was moving westward. In early October, the National Association of…

Deal of the Week As production grinds to a halt amid a global pandemic, television, like nearly every other industry, is navigating uncharted territory. And at least for now, there are many more questions than answers. Resuming production, for instance, won’t be as easy as it sounds. Given the demands of the Peak TV era, soundstages and crews are booked out several months, even years, in advance; and the same is true of writers, directors and stars, who increasingly commit to other projects during their hiatuses. To accommodate, studios are in talks about extending the standard June 30 expiration date for cast options for bubble shows and network pilots. Hardest hit, at least in the near term, are those broadcast networks, which are still tethered to a pilot system and…

Book Scene In his new memoir, Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker, the cinematographer turned director (The Addams Family, Men in Black) traces his rise from nebbish teen (the title refers to when his mother had him paged during a concert) to the heights of Hollywood. The book covers his early days shooting XXX movies (he learned “maximum efficiency”) and working with Scott Rudin (“Read [the script] in the next two hours,” the producer once ordered him) and Penny Marshall. The Telluride-based director, 66, finds home isolation easy: “I don’t do much. I don’t ski or hike. I walk the dog and read.”…

In the enthralling thriller series Hunters, leftover German Nazis from World War II are living the high life in America while planning a Fourth Reich built around a biological attack aimed at killing the poor, particularly people of color. Far-fetched liberal posturing? Not if you’ve followed the Trump administration’s blame-the-black-guy rhetoric and foot-dragging in reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak. Seeing its response has been like watching the gleefully unrepentant Nazis on the Amazon show. For almost two months, Trump, like a sneering Bond supervillain, allowed the virus to spread knowing that poor communities made up of people of color would pay the greatest cost. It wasn’t until it started affecting the Mar-a-Lago set and their businesses (and therefore his reelection) that he started to take it seriously. On March 5,…

Harvard Law School (19 ALUMNI) Despite being 3,000 miles from Hollywood, Harvard’s impact on the industry is undeniable. The Cambridge school’s Entertainment Law Clinic and Recording Artists Project offer hands-on experience with trademarks, copyrights and rights acquisition for companies and talent across film and music. Classes on intellectual property, technology and entertainment range from artificial intelligence to fashion to sports law. UCLA School of Law (15 ALUMNI) The Westwood campus, which celebrated its centennial in 2019, is home to the Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law. UCLA also launched a tech, law and policy institute with its engineering school and a Master of Legal Studies program to teach non-attorneys skills like negotiation and contract drafting. USC Gould School of Law (10 ALUMNI) Its newest law class is…

DANIEL FIENBERG We’ve all spent a lot of time recently staring at picked-over grocery-store shelves, pondering why one kind of peanut butter is out of stock while another remains. It’s the same when we look at our TV options in these long, socially distanced or quarantined days and nights. Who doesn’t know the feeling of having an hour for free viewing and wasting that time looking over the menu bars at Netflix? Often, of course, what jumps out is the show from the big-name creator or headlined by the A-list star, when the reality is that some of the best stuff out there is the stuff that doesn’t come with that pedigree, that preordained aura of prestige. INKOO KANG I think I saw a Wile E. Coyote cartoon once where…