Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, June 17, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

The end of Live PD on A&E was as fast as it was stunning. Within days of the show being temporarily pulled June 6 in the wake of nationwide protests against police violence, one of the top-rated series on cable was gone for good June 10 when both A&E and producer Big Fish Entertainment decided to shut it down. “It was like the perfect storm,” a source close to the show tells THR of the circumstances leading to Live PD’s end, as major entertainment companies aimed to align themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement amid protestors’ calls to defund police departments. The fallout for the reality TV patrol-car genre also snagged ViacomCBS, whose Paramount Network canceled the long-running Cops on June 9. The conglomerate also cut ties with Live…

It may soon be “game over” for video game studios owned by big entertainment companies. With the M&A market picking up again after a pandemic-spurred lull, AT&T is looking to offload Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the gaming division owned by the entertainment studio. Warner Interactive, which owns the best-selling Mortal Kombat franchise and develops games based on Warner IP, was the last gaming division standing amid Hollywood giants. Disney closed its interactive studio in 2016 to focus on licensing its IP. NBCUniversal shut down its game studio last year, and, in January, Disney sold the FoxNext game studio, which it acquired in the 21st Century Fox merger. The decision for these companies to shutter or sell their studios was multifaceted, analysts say. While games fall within the storytelling scope in…

The Lightness (HARPER COLLINS, JUNE 16) BY Emily Temple AGENCY WME Mixing elements of both Gone Girl and Gossip Girl, the story follows a teenager who sets out to find her lost father at a Buddhist meditation retreat, where she is sucked into a cult-like clique. Diamond City (WEDNESDAY BOOKS, JANUARY 2020) BY Francesca Flores AGENCY UTA This sprawling fantasy novel centers on an orphaned assassin making her way in a corrupt city run by ancient magic. Rife with action sequences and already set up for a sequel, the story lends itself to a larger format.…

Tiffany Haddish has been so desperate for a connection in these trying times, she’s started performing stand-up for her plants. And since those plants aren’t as responsive as she’d like, she’s “been playing YouTube videos of babies laughing and my old comedy tapes [to hear] audiences,” the star of Netflix’s Black Mitzvah and TBS’ The Last O.G. reveals on a mid-June afternoon, as part of The Hollywood Reporter’s virtual Comedy Actress Roundtable. “I’m an addict for laughter,” Haddish adds. “It’s like I need it to function.” The admission resonated with the other actresses — The Great’s Elle Fanning, A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Robin Thede, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’s Jane Levy, The Good Place’s Jameela Jamil and At Home With Amy Sedaris’ Amy Sedaris — who have also used this period…

Quibbling over necessity is a trap I sometimes fall into as a critic. Did Archie Andrews and Norman Bates need reboots or origin stories? What does “necessity” even mean, really, when it comes to art and entertainment? And where does that leave Perry Mason? After watching the eight-episode first season of HBO’s new take on the pugnacious titular defense attorney created by author Erle Stanley Gardner in 1933, I still can’t offer a definitive verdict. With a strong lead turn by Matthew Rhys (The Americans), an ensemble to die for and impeccable Depression-era production values, Perry Mason makes a solid case for itself, without ever giving a fully compelling answer to the question of why, out of all the available IP in the world, this was the brand anybody wanted…

Aweek before July 1, when Unhinged, Solstice Studios’ road-rage thriller starring Russell Crowe, becomes the first new film to hit U.S. theaters since the coronavirus shutdown, independent producers, distributors, sales agents and financiers from around the world will come together — online — to try to reboot the global film industry. The first virtual Cannes film market — the official online Marché (June 22-26) and the parallel market run by U.S. talent agencies and major sales companies (June 22-28) — will be a test of whether, after months of lockdown, closed theaters and disrupted production, the indie film show can still go on. Ahead of the market, execs sound surprisingly positive. “Of course no one knows what will happen, but the mood has shifted,” says Jonathan Kier, president of international…

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, “awards season” doesn’t mean what it used to. The film Academy said June 15 that it’s pushing back the 93rd Oscars from Feb. 28 to April 25 and extending the eligibility period — which began Jan. 1, 2020, and was to expire Dec. 31 — through Feb. 28, 2021. Only three times previously has Hollywood’s biggest night been postponed, most recently 40 years ago. The move follows the organization’s June 12 announcement that it had met its “A2020” goals stemming from the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of five years ago — namely, to double its number of female and nonwhite members by 2020 — and that before the 94th Oscar season, it will set up a task force “to develop and implement new representation and…

How Helpful to Inclusion Is The Help? Just Ask Justin Simien On June 5, amid global anti-racism protests, engagement-metrics firm Parrot Analytics reported that Justin Simien’s Netflix series Dear White People enjoyed a rise in demand of 329 percent over the previous week. “It’s validating. This moment is devastating. Those emotions are right up next to each other,” says the creator, who’s heading into the show’s fourth and final season. Meanwhile, The Help, criticized for its story of a “white savior” recalling Black maids in her hometown, found itself atop Netflix’s most viewed category. Star Bryce Dallas Howard said on Instagram that it “was created by [predominantly] white storytellers. We can all go further.” Says Simien: “I’m not offended. … The Help includes amazing performances by Black women. Perhaps, in…

Nanci Ryder never asked, “Why me?” Not in front of me, at least, while my recorder blinked red. She must have privately wrestled with the question; anyone would have upon receiving an ALS diagnosis 14 years after beating breast cancer. My connection to Nanci started with a rumor. In fall 2014, an editor heard she was leaving BWR, the company she co-founded in 1987, and there was talk that it was perhaps due to issues with uncontrollable slurring and slowed speech. I called Nanci directly. I soon found myself on the line with her protégé, Nicole Perna, who told me the truth was somehow more serious. The explanation would come from Nanci when she was ready to talk. Weeks later, on Oct. 10, 2014, I got an email from Nanci:…

After months of shelter-at-home orders, hotels across the West are starting to reopen as new “public health guidelines allow hotels to welcome leisure travelers in parts of” the state, says Visit California president and CEO Caroline Beteta, adding that “every county is on its own timeline. The state provides the how and the counties provide the when.” These moves come just as interest in vacations is perking up in Hollywood. “My family is very optimistic and adventurous, and we always look forward to summer vacations,” says Tracey Edmonds, president and CEO of Edmonds Entertainment and AlrightTV. Although Edmonds and her family often travel overseas in the summer, they prefer to remain closer to home this year. “We want to stay a bit more local and support our economy post-lockdown,” she…

This long-in-development adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s YA novel, directed by Kenneth Branagh, has enough plot for four or five movies, none of which you will want to see. Josh Gad makes a valiant effort, and Judi Dench puts in time scowling at greenscreens while wearing pointy ears and emerald green leprechaun army regalia (at least it’s not a cat suit). But this big-budget fantasy from Disney is exhausting. The change of plans from theatrical release to Disney+ streaming premiere will guarantee an audience. But how many will stick with it through the hastily drawn characters and unexciting action, not to mention tiresome efforts to milk humor from the collision of olde worlde quaintness with winking modern-day attitudes? The overstuffed screenplay, co-written by Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl, opens with a…

A virtual Cannes means no red carpet, no late-night parties, no 4 a.m. drinks at the Petit Majestic. And while there are some advantages to an online Marché — pants-free meetings, anyone? — some things just can’t be replicated on a Zoom call. THR asked Cannes Film Festival veterans the one thing they’ll miss most this year. PHIL HUNT Founder, managing director of producer/financier Head Gear Films “Those memorable du Cap meetings where I’m at the bar until the early hours of the morning thinking that a bunch of my friends have been ultra-generous buying champagne all night. Next morning when I try to pay for a glass of water on the Croisette, I realize that I maxed out all my cards the night before. This year I was hoping…

Source: THR/Morning Consult poll conducted among a nationally representative sample of 2,200 U.S. adults from June 11-13; percentages are rounded, don’t necessarily equal 100. Respondents were asked, “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Police officers should be portrayed as heroes on TV shows.”…

After weeks of speculation, Warner Bros. revealed June 12 that Christopher Nolan’s $200 million tentpole Tenet will relocate its release from July 17 to July 31 in case theaters take longer than expected to reopen after going dark in March amid the pandemic. Nolan has been adamant about sticking to a summer release for Tenet in hopes of providing a balm to ravaged cinema chains. For now, he’s getting his wish, but cases of COVID-19 are spiking in some locales, raising concerns about whether widespread moviegoing can resume in the near future. Hollywood’s messaging is mixed. While moving Tenet by only two weeks, Warners pushed Wonder Woman 1984 from Aug. 14 to Oct. 2, and took Legendary’s Thanksgiving event pic Godzilla vs. Kong out of 2020 entirely to May 2021.…

The first reference to extras appears 20 pages deep into the industry’s June 12 safety report on COVID-19 protocols. “Background holding areas must be larger than customary to accommodate physical distancing,” states the paper, a joint effort from the DGA, SAG-AFTRA and IATSE. But for thousands of full-time background actors, the fate of their livelihoods is very much top of mind — and the prognosis does not look good. “Crowd scenes make my year,” says veteran casting agent Sande Alessi, whose specialty is extras. She’s filled frames of the Pirates of the Caribbean films with pirates and maidens, convincingly re-created anti-U.S. protests in Argo and broke her own record on Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, employing 1,500 extras. Worlds also earned her a sizable paycheck, as Alessi is paid…

Since the novel coronavirus lockdown began in mid-March, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group CEO Steve Mosko has kept a daily journal, detailing what’s working for his staff of 37, what’s not and what could change going forward. Among the obstacles the company has faced was the production shutdown of Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix 4. (Village Roadshow, majority owned by Vine Alternative Investments, is putting up half the film’s budget through its long-standing deal with Warner Bros.) But the upside of social distancing is the realization that remote work isn’t so bad. “Our team and a lot of people I talked to in the business have been more productive,” says the married father of three adult children. “Meetings are quick and to the point. People found a way to make Zoom work.…

JOHN RIDLEY ‘Are We in a Better Place Than We Were Before This Happened? I Hope and Believe We Will Be’ The Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave writer and director of 2017 doc Let It Fall — about the civil unrest in L.A. after the Rodney King trial — reflects on today’s protests in comparison to those 28 years ago In 1992, we as people were just not there yet. Having spent time looking back at 1992 for the documentary and looking at now, I think one of the big differences is after the Rodney King verdict, there was just this explosion of outrage and anger and indiscriminate violence. It was painful and incoherent in a lot of ways. It did a lot of damage — damage to property and…

“Game of Thrones. If I knew then what I know now, I would travel back in time and make younger Josh record his reaction to the Red Wedding so I could watch it during these dark times.” Josh Gad “The West Wing. Sometimes I’ll think of a particular scene or episode I’d like to see again, and three days later I’m on my 16th episode and ignoring everything else of value in my life.” Adam Scott “Survivor: Micronesia. There are no less than three games of 3D chess going on at the same time, all orchestrated by one reality TV icon, Parvati Shallow. I’d love to relive it without knowing the twists and turns.” Bowen Yang “The Wire. So many shows set up the characters and tell you what to…

For a movie that came out four decades ago, a lot in The Blues Brothers still feels very relevant today. “It’s anti-Nazi. It’s antiracist,” explains its star and co-screenwriter, Dan Aykroyd. “It venerates African American culture and recognizes African American performers and artists.” While any cultural conversation today might cite the comedy as an example of appropriation and “white saviors” rescuing the blues, in 1973, the movie’s origins seemed innocent enough. When John Belushi, then 24, journeyed from Chicago to Toronto to scout Second City performers for The National Lampoon Radio Hour, “it was love at first sight,” Aykroyd, 21 at the time, recalls of their first meeting. The two went to Aykroyd’s 505 Club, where he introduced Belushi — a self-professed heavy metal lover — to the blues. Composer…