Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, June 10, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

After watching hours of racist, violent footage in order to direct her projects Selma, 13th and When They See Us, Ava DuVernay is not easily shaken. But the video of George Floyd’s death that has inspired protests around the world over police violence impacted DuVernay differently — and sparked an idea. “I was surprised at how really traumatized I was after watching the George Floyd tape,” DuVernay says. “It was because of the framing of that tape, because I could see that officer’s face very clearly. He wasn’t obscured behind the body cam. It wasn’t grainy surveillance footage. It was his face looking right at me as the viewer and very unashamed, unaffected. The hand in the pocket, the sunglasses sitting on top of his head that never moved, this…

Guest Column Years ago, I sold a script to Fox Animation that included a character wrongly accused of a traffic violation (believe me, it was more entertaining than it sounds). A few days later, I received a call from Fox’s Standards and Practices department insisting that I change the wrongful accuser from a police officer to a private investigator. The reason: “We can’t portray police officers in a negative light.” In other words, the studio was actively enforcing the harmful and inaccurate narrative that police officers can never do wrong. What if, instead, those execs had looked across their network’s content and raised flags when communities of color were repeatedly the ones depicted as wrongdoers? Those fictional depictions matter in the real world. A mountain of research shows that audiences’…

With California declaring that production can restart as early as June 12, a white paper published June 1 by the Industry-Wide Labor-Management Safety Committee Task Force presented new safety protocols agreed upon by unions, guilds and employers to governors including Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo. Employer-provided personal protective equipment like masks; a COVID-19 “compliance officer” who reviews safety conditions on set; regular testing as a condition of employment; staggered meal times and paid sick leave have been recommended, all of which multiple union sources say they pushed for. Even as Hollywood waits for state feedback on the white paper to determine how sets will proceed, its internal negotiations process is far from over: As the white paper notes, “several elements of the protocols, including testing and PPE, are subject to…

Deal of the Week The Cannes virtual market, running June 22 to June 26, will be the industry’s first major trade event to take place amid the coronavirus pandemic. The all-digital nature of the occasion will ensure that dealmakers’ festival exposure to the novel coronavirus is eliminated, but the landscape they’ll be contending with remains riddled with unknowns. The major studios and streaming platforms have resources to financially mitigate much of the current environment’s uncertainty, analysts say, while the beleaguered indie film sector — where most of the big-ticket buying and selling at Cannes takes place — has been left exposed. With a vaccine not yet in the offing, reinsurance companies — groups that insure insurance companies — are refusing to cover COVID-19-related risks, making production insurance and completion bonds,…

The 2020 Emmy season — like pretty much everything this year — is turning out to be strikingly unpredictable. Traditionally, the knock against the TV Academy has been that voters tend to choose the same handful of shows year after year — a rap not entirely undeserved. But with last year’s comedy and drama winners (Amazon’s Fleabag and HBO’s Game of Thrones, respectively) no longer in the running, the Academy has the chance to salute some new players and even spotlight a few under-appreciated series that feel especially relevant now. The protests of the past few weeks, sparked by the killing of George Floyd and the seemingly intractable pattern of police brutality that brought about his death, have marked a seismic cultural shift in the nation. Based on the suggested…

After weeks of virtual home school in the COVID-19 era, unplugging has never been more essential for children. “Kids are so resilient, but they need to have fun together in outdoor spaces and run free,” says Christy Stratton, co-executive producer of Fox’s Bless the Harts. Like many parents in the industry, she’s wrestling with what to do with her children this summer when most sleepaway and day camps in California are canceled, among them Gold Arrow (the spot in the Sierra National Forest that her son was planning to attend), Hess Kramer, Gindling Hilltop, Canyon Creek and Skylake. River Way Ranch Camp in Fresno County called off its first two sessions but may proceed with later summer sessions, should safety guidelines allow it to do so. A number of East…

BLM Activists: ‘Am I Going to Get Blackballed?’ Industry: ‘No’ After John Boyega delivered a riveting speech June 3 at London’s Black Lives Matter rally (despite his Hollywood-backlash fears: “I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but fuck that”), Oscar-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry started a Twitter chain of support. His tweet — “I would work with John Boyega and I urge Non-Black creators to affirm that they have his back” — was met with overwhelming confirmations from many directors and producers, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Paul Feig and Elizabeth Banks. Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams separately lent support. Cherry tells THR that vocal support can be a tricky line, and it shouldn’t be: “As Black creatives, you want to work … but when you want…

A mericans have certainly faced a lot of adversity lately, from the devastation of the pandemic to the destructiveness of the looters. Yet while Americans as a whole may feel their world is suddenly under siege, Black Americans have always felt under siege. A walk in the park, a jog in the neighborhood, a drive to the grocery store — all can end in arrest or death. The pandemic and videos of Black people being murdered by police and vigilantes only shine light on how embedded racism is. Nationwide protests are an effort to keep that light shining until changes are made. Meanwhile, President Trump continues his Campaign of Blame by accusing China of being responsible for COVID-19. The result is a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. The…

Beverly Hills’ Canon Drive, the nexus of so many Hollywood power lunches, was just getting ready to reopen some businesses — following a surprise May 29 announcement that L.A. County could return to dine-in — when protests against police brutality swept through the area May 30. Via Alloro manager Marco Schiazza was in the restaurant with his staff that afternoon, prepping for a June 1 reopening — “Everything was crazy; it was basically reopening a restaurant from scratch” — when they got the citywide call about curfews and shutdowns. Rodeo Drive was hardest hit with vandalism, but the exteriors of some Canon Drive businesses, including Via Alloro, were spray-painted. The glass storefront of Xi’an, which had planned to welcome patrons back June 3, was shattered despite being boarded up by…

As Hollywood plots to restart film and TV production, the entertainment industry may be in for a wave of post-pandemic initial public offerings. On June 3, Warner Music Group helped breathe life into the U.S. IPO market with the biggest debut of the year. The stock finished its first day above $30, more than 20 percent beyond its $25 IPO price, which had valued the company at $12.75 billion. The music major, which had filed for its stock listing in February but then delayed it, went ahead amid a market rebound and easing COVID-19 lockdowns. That could help pave the way for more sector IPOs, particularly in streaming video, including from foreign companies seeking to tap the U.S. market. “For now, we are returning to some form of socioeconomic normality,”…

Institutional racism. Economic inequality. Systemic police brutality. They’re heavy concepts for most consumers, even those eager to support minority-owned businesses in this current climate of protest. But as the nation recoils from George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, those directly involved in ending racism say it’s no longer enough to simply “buy Black or brown” — #woke shoppers need to understand why their purchasing power truly matters. “This is a moment for people, especially white people, to understand the value of Black businesses,” explains stylist Jason Bolden, a favorite of Taraji P. Henson and Yara Shahidi, who along with his interior designer husband, Adair Curtis, led Netflix reality series Styling Hollywood. “Buying from minority business owners helps sustain their enterprises, while affirming the journeys they…

The summer season in the Hamptons, which usually kicks off with a host of parties and benefits, is starting off in a different way this year: with a socially distanced drive-in movie event that will benefit food pantries on the East End of Long Island. The brainchild of Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade helicopter service, the two-night fundraiser — which will screen the new Kenneth Branagh directed Disney+ fantasy film Artemis Fowl — is taking place at Bridgehampton’s Hampton Classic Horse Show grounds on June 12 and 13. “It’s certainly the first live movie event in months. I think it will really be the first [event] anybody here is doing,” says Andrew Saffir, founder of The Cinema Society, whose co-hosts include actor Bob Balaban and producer Jane Rosenthal. Adds Saffir,…

Weddings Kathryn Kennedy, director of national publicity at Searchlight, married Roger Mancusi, who manages New York programs and member relations at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in a socially distanced ceremony May 23 in Chicago. After canceling their original 250-person celebration, the couple wed in a black-tie event (complete with masks and Purell) in front of their immediate families and a new puppy, Buster. Births Joshua Sussman, executive vp business affairs and operations at ABC Studios, and his wife, Katya, a wardrobe stylist, welcomed son Theodore Max Sussman on March 20 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Marc Kamler, a partner at APA, and his wife, Robyn, a fitness instructor, welcomed Cameron Reign Kamler on March 25. Congrats MGM named Rola Bauer president of international television…

On a recent June afternoon, a splashy commercial for Artemis Fowl, a big-budget sci-fi movie Disney+ inherited from one of the company’s theatrical divisions, aired on ESPN during a 28-year-old rerun of a Michael Jordan NBA game. In late May, when Warner Bros. premiered the second trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, the studio bypassed television altogether and debuted the spot on the popular online game Fortnite. As Hollywood prepares to begin releasing movies in theaters again, possibly as early as July, studio marketers are having to get creative to reach audiences since the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out in-theater trailers and live-sports advertising, the top avenues for promoting a film. What studios now have to sell viewers is an unusually complex message — not just a film but the idea…

DO THE RIGHT THING 1989 Exploring Brooklyn’s racial tension, the film culminates in the murder of a Black man by police. Pundits opined that the film would spark riots. Instead, it ended up with two Oscar nominations and was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress. MALCOLM X 1992 With Denzel Washington in an Oscar-nominated role as the activist, the biopic covered Malcolm X’s incarceration, conversion to Islam, marriage and assassination. The film drew connections between Malcolm X’s and Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid struggles. 4 LITTLE GIRLS 1997 Lee first wanted to make a scripted film about the 1963 murder of the four African American girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. After meeting with the families, he decided on an HBO documentary, which was nominated…

Moments into Da 5 Bloods — Spike Lee’s ballsy adventure saga strewn with pungent commentary on race in America — a scene shows the surviving members of the title’s brotherhood as they boogie through a nightclub to Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” It’s arguably the coolest dance sequence in recent memory, not least because four terrific actors in their 50s and 60s are busting their own moves with a joy you’d have to be dead inside not to feel. But the scene is not just a fun throwaway as we get to know the characters, African American Vietnam vets returning more than four decades later to follow through on a promise while embarking on a treasure hunt. Lee, in addition to being among our most impassioned political filmmakers,…

In late March, when Robert and Michelle King convened the writers room for their supernatural drama Evil, they plotted out a second season premiere in a haunted New York City subway station. Now, more than two months later, as the novel coronavirus continues to ravage so much of the world, the idea has been scrapped at the behest of their line producer, who warned that filming permits would be hard, if not impossible, to come by. When the CBS series does return, the season opener will explore the spiritual consciousness of its characters instead, with a storyline devoted to the “God helmet” and its virtual-reality-meets-peyote-style impact. It’s a plot perfectly suited for a post-pandemic world, explains Robert King, because it relies heavily on visual effects. “You have to look at…

Measuring Up (HARPERCOLLINS, OCT. 27) BY Lily LaMotte and Ann Xu AGENCY UTA The novel combines two mainstay streaming genres: young adult and food. The story centers on 12-year-old Cici, who has moved from Taiwan to Seattle and plots to win a kids cooking contest so she can buy a plane ticket for her grandmother to visit. Fast Girls (WILLIAM MORROW, JULY 7) BY Elise Hooper AGENCY Lynn Pleshette Literary Agency The book centers on the first integrated women’s Olympic team to compete at the Nazi-sponsored 1936 games in Berlin. Female-fronted sports films are seeing a surge, with Netflix planning a movie about the U.S. 1999 Women’s World Cup soccer team.…

Paramount Television president Nicole Clemens was in escrow on a new home when the pandemic hit, prompting the owners to pull out at the eleventh hour. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? This [pandemic’s] just going to be a couple of weeks,’ ” she recounts over Zoom, acknowledging just how wrong she was about the virus that brought Hollywood — and the world at large — to a screeching halt. Holed up at her recently sold Malibu home, along with her writer-producer husband, Vaun Wilmott, and their two boys, 13 and 10 years old, Clemens has been running Paramount’s TV arm out of her kitchen (all the while checking Zillow for new listings). Her work during quarantine has been dominated by conversations about when and how to get the…

For decades, test screenings have been the source of elation, anxiety and even terror for filmmakers and studio executives — as the results can mean anything from extensive reshoots to heightened expectations and additional marketing dollars. With cinemas closed during the pandemic, currently the only option for those who don’t want to wait is to use a new service from Screen Engine/asi that allows movies to be tested in the home by an audience recruited from its database of millions of moviegoers. While many agree it’s better than nothing, no major studio so far has enlisted the service for its tentpoles because of piracy concerns and the lack of a communal experience, according to numerous sources consulted by The Hollywood Reporter. But the longer theaters remain closed, the more the…

ON MAY 31, AS PROTESTS OVER police violence roiled nationwide, Spike Lee released a 94-second movie called 3 Brothers on his social media feeds. The short film intercuts disturbing footage of three Black men who died after being choked by police — George Floyd, Eric Garner and Radio Raheem, the fictional, boombox-toting Brooklynite played by Bill Nunn in Lee’s Oscar-nominated 1989 film, Do the Right Thing. “Will History Stop Repeating Itself?” reads a title card. That’s a question the 63-year-old writer-director has been puzzling over for much of his 40-year filmmaking career. Lee tackles the question anew in his latest movie, Da 5 Bloods, a genre-straddling tale of four Black Vietnam veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who return to their old battle site decades…

In 2006, the TV Academy announced that in the following year, content streamed over broadband internet would become eligible for Primetime Emmys, just like broadcast, cable and satellite content. At the time, the notion that “webisodes” could ever truly compete was so far-fetched that the news was barely covered. But just seven years later, Netflix became the first streamer to garner major nominations, most for drama House of Cards, including a series nom and a directing nom for David Fincher, the latter of which resulted in the first-ever Emmy for streamed content. In the years since, Netflix hasn’t won a series award, but two other streamers — Hulu and Amazon — have, the former for drama The Handmaid’s Tale in 2017 and the latter for comedies The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel…

When Love, Simon, the first gay teen romance released by a major studio, premiered in 2018(!), it was met with as much skepticism as affection by the communities the film was meant to represent. That said, all parties would probably agree that the milestone was necessary, and anyone familiar with the compromises built into studio filmmaking would admit that the protagonist probably had to be a white, upper-middle-class, straight-passing boy. With Love, Victor, a Hulu spinoff (originally developed for Disney+), Simon screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger got the chance to tell a less familiar queer tale. “Dear Simon,” writes high-school sophomore Victor (Michael Cimino), who has just moved to Atlanta from Texas with his religious, working-class Latino family, “Screw you for having the world’s most perfect, accepting parents [and]…