Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, November 2, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

On Oct. 27, Netflix’s freshly installed global TV head, Bela Bajaria, unveiled a new organizational structure designed to break down silos and make the company’s priorities in comedy and drama clear. “What I wanted to do was set up the team to be creator-friendly and to reflect how TV is made,” Bajaria tells THR. While those efforts have been applauded, many inside suggest it will take more than a new org chart to quell anxiety at the streaming behemoth. “It didn’t used to be this way,” says one executive in the original series group who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. “Now, it’s all, ‘Who’s going next? Am I going to have a job? What’s it going to look like?’” That seismic shift in morale, as at least…

It’s been a setting-of-the-sun time for Hollywood power players of a certain age lately. Ron Meyer, 76, was ousted as vice chairman of NBCUniversal amid scandal. In August, former Universal chairman Tom Pollock died suddenly of a heart attack at 77. Now Jeffrey Katzenberg, who will turn 70 in December, finds himself contending with the high-profile failure of Quibi only six months after the premium streaming service launched in April. While some say they think he has the resilience to fight another day, others question what future awaits him. What he has accomplished in the entertainment industry has been more than formidable: Working with powerful allies Steven Spielberg and, for many years, David Geffen, Katzenberg enjoyed enormous success: running the Disney Studios, launching DreamWorks and then overseeing DreamWorks Animation. It…

While scores of major players in Hollywood keep their focus on the U.S. election, a number of celebrities are spotlighting two crises overseas: one, the armed conflict between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh; the other, protests against ongoing police brutality in Nigeria. In Africa’s most populous country, young Nigerians have been out in force, marching against police shootings in their oil-rich country in what is known as the #EndSars movement, a push to do away with the government’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). On Oct. 20, in a violent response by the government, at least 12 Nigerians were killed by soldiers during a peaceful protest, according to Amnesty International. Among the stars who have spoken out about the lethal crackdowns are Rihanna (who tweeted, “My heart…

Before she starred in Ryan Murphy’s Pose and American Horror Story, Angelica Ross was CEO of TransTech Social Enterprises. Founded in 2014, her talent incubator offers a path to employment for the trans community by providing skills training, workshops and networking. Ross is readying the third TransTech Summit (Nov. 14-15), a virtual event featuring sessions on business, design, media, web and app development as well as racial and social justice. “Before I was famous, I was working for nonprofits. I tried pushing them to consider teaching computer skills, and they told me [that] was over the heads of the people we were serving,” says Ross. “I thought it was a severe underestimation and undervaluing of our community.” The summit’s nontech offerings include a “Beauty Means Business” workshop featuring Cardi B…

Here’s a little-discussed tidbit: Hollywood studios are under no obligation to reveal box office grosses. Certainly, a conglomerate has to disclose an official write-down to shareholders, but that duty is rarely triggered when it comes to individual film titles. So why would studios willingly reveal grosses day after day, weekend after weekend, exposing themselves to the risk of a film being declared a bomb mere hours after opening? Well, to engage consumers and generate global headlines. It worked for decades until the novel coronavirus struck, decimating moviegoing and sending high-profile titles to streaming or PVOD, where they escape that scrutiny. Now studios get to rethink whether they want to continue sharing grosses on a 24/7 basis with rivals, analysts and the media. After all, box office transparency didn’t always exist.…

On Sept. 6, beloved Broadway actor Nick Cordero was remembered by industry family and friends after he succumbed to COVID-19 following a months-long battle. Taking place virtually — and more than two months after Cordero’s death — the memorial illustrated the major adjustments many are making to honor stars and industry figures who’ve died during the novel coronavirus era. The resulting event featured everything from a photo collage prepared by Cordero’s wife, Amanda Kloots, to video tributes, including one from Robert De Niro, who spoke lovingly of Cordero’s role in 2016’s musical A Bronx Tale. The memorial was streamed live on the video platform Broadway on Demand and included a philanthropic component to benefit the Save the Music foundation. Elaborate in scale, Cordero’s memorial reflected the extent to which his COVID…

Created by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, HBO’s Industry was intended as a voyeuristic look at a London investment firm. Instead, it plays as a pre-COVID fantasy about young people who work on a much-too-crowded trading floor, spend their evenings at much-too-crowded nightclubs and hook up all over the place. Throw in a relentless use of finance jargon, and the series feels like borderline sci-fi — which is odd since the pilot was directed by Lena Dunham, whose aesthetic and narrative M.O. are anything but. The more seriously you take Industry, the less satisfying it’s bound to feel. This is essentially a series about 20-something sexcapades against a “first job” backdrop — think a kinkier version of Freeform’s The Bold Type — in which characters occasionally blather about currency exchanges…

In late October, European governments — in Germany, Italy and France — shuttered movie theaters, again, amid a rise in COVID-19 infection rates. In the U.S., New York has allowed most theaters in the state to reopen as of Oct. 23, but New York City cinemas remain shut. It’s a similar story in Los Angeles, where a rise in average daily new coronavirus cases makes it increasingly unlikely that L.A. county theaters will be allowed to reopen soon under California’s safety guidelines. Film distributors and exhibitors, battered by the first COVID-19 lockdown in early March, had hoped the worst was behind them. Outside the U.S., box office returns in countries that had reopened have been climbing steadily — albeit from a lower level, the result of restrictions on theater capacity…

For the past four years, the YouTube channel Binging With Babish largely has been a one-man show in which self-taught chef Andrew Rea shot, edited and starred in all his own videos about pop culture-inspired culinary creations. But on Sept. 24, he introduced his 8 million subscribers to a new face, former Bon Appétit YouTube star Sohla El-Waylly. El-Waylly — who stopped appearing in Bon Appétit videos after revealing that she wasn’t being paid for that work — now hosts the weekly video series Stump Sohla (a game show-style series in which her cooking skills are put to the test) on the rebranded Babish Culinary Universe YouTube channel. She’s the first of several personalities who will be making the channel their new home in the coming months, says Rea, 33,…

Every year, THR surveys industry professionals to get their take on the world’s finest institutions of musical learning, and in particular how they stack up in terms of positioning composers and musicians for jobs in media. This year, however, the focus is on COVID-19 and the challenges it has presented, including limiting the number of players who can perform student compositions. “We’re trying to find that compromise for the next incoming group so that they can still have a legitimate, unique experience,” says USC’s Daniel Carlin. Nevertheless, with help from a survey sent to the roughly 1,700 members of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Alliance for Women Film Composers and the Composers Diversity Collective, here are the 20 music schools still thriving despite a year of sour notes.…

FilmLA typically sets up an exhibit booth at LocationEXPO, an annual event for dozens of film commissions, government agencies and production managers around the globe. But like many in-person gatherings in the age of COVID-19, the event, which runs concurrently with AFM, is going virtual. Paul Audley, president of the nonprofit that tracks filming in the greater Los Angeles area, is welcoming the change. Here, Audley talks with THR about the state of filming in L.A., when we can expect to see normal production levels again and the biggest challenge in bringing the industry back. There are a lot of places productions can film now. What is your pitch to have folks shoot in L.A.? I think one of the biggest advantages for Los Angeles right now is that it…

Back in the mid-1980s, Kevin Costner shopped a spec script called Dances With Wolves around town, but Hollywood wasn’t buying. Westerns were mostly extinct thanks to the 1980 debacle Heaven’s Gate. But in 1988, Costner — then 33 and a major star after turns in The Untouchables and Bull Durham — convinced Orion Pictures to fund his first directorial effort. It was the Civil War story of a Union soldier (played by Costner) stationed on the Western frontier, where he befriends and is accepted by a Sioux tribe. Graham Greene, who earned an Oscar nom for playing medicine man Kicking Bird, the adoptive father of white tribeswoman Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell), remembers being blown away by Michael Blake’s screenplay. “I went, ‘Holy wow. This is really nice,’” recalls…

In an interview with CNBC on Oct. 22, the day after disclosing that the 6-month-old mobile entertainment startup Quibi would shut down, CEO Meg Whitman described returning money to the company’s investors as “the honorable thing to do.” Unmentioned during the appearance were the hundreds of crewmembers who would lose their jobs during a pandemic as Quibi wound down production on its original shows. Although many of those crewmembers long doubted the viability of the business model, Quibi’s Oct. 21 announcement that it was closing shop came as a blow in a tight job market. Several show sources tell THR that they, just like most Quibi employees, did not know about the news in advance of the general public. “We were blind-sided. We had just signed contracts and turned down…

Veritas (DOUBLEDAY, AUGUST 2020) BY Ariel Sabar AGENCY UTA The Da Vinci Code meets Can You Ever Forgive Me? in the true story behind the 2012 discovery of a fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my wife” and the subsequent debate over its authenticity that takes the author from Berlin to Florida. Boop and Eve’s Road Trip (SHE WRITES PRESS, OCT. 6) BY Mary Helen Sheriff AGENCY The Unter Agency In this buddy road trip mystery, a grandmother and granddaughter travel across the South searching for the granddaughter’s missing friend and confront old family traumas.…

While accepting an award in 2018 from the Thirst Project, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the global water crisis, Cameron Boyce, then 18, referenced a quote from Denzel Washington. “He said, ‘I’ve never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse,’” said Boyce, who then put his own spin on it, adding: “We all go. I hope that all of you really think about what it is that you want to leave. What you leave should be bigger than you.” The sentiment was met with a round of applause that night, and in the days since Boyce’s tragic demise at age 20 on July 6, 2019, from sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), it has helped to define his legacy. Carrying the torch has been the Cameron Boyce Foundation, a nonprofit launched…

Hollywood Scribes Running Pro Bono Political Content Studio The town’s newest entity has no name, but its impact in 2020 would make any mogul envious. Five writer-producers — led by Gregg Hurwitz with Marshall Herskovitz, Laeta Kalogridis, Billy Ray and Shawn Ryan — have created 100 commercials (as well as writing op-eds and campaign speeches) for such groups as the Democratic Coalition, The Lincoln Project, Voto Latino, Fair Count, and Red, Wine & Blue. The viral “Still a Shining City on a Hill?” ad (seen above) for Republican Voters Against Trump featured a vintage Ronald Reagan speech cut over footage of President Trump that showed how much the GOP has shifted during the latter’s administration. “It’s stunning that [politicians are] not as good at telling their own story, much less…

Second acts are tricky. Second acts for stars of long-running sitcoms can feel damn near impossible, as Kaley Cuoco, who last year wrapped a 12-season run on CBS juggernaut The Big Bang Theory as one of the highest-paid actors in TV, is exceedingly aware. “I have accepted that nothing I ever do will compare to the experience, the show, the success,” she says. Cuoco hopes a segue to producing will ease the transition. Her 3-year-old Warner Bros. shingle, Yes, Norman Productions (named after her 14-year-old pit bull, one of seven rescues with whom Cuoco and her husband share their L.A. home), has already seen niche success with HBO Max cartoon Harley Quinn. But the Nov. 26 premiere of The Flight Attendant, also at HBO Max, brings its own set of…

Mangrove NOV. 20 (ALL FILMS ON AMAZON PRIME) The true story of Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes), whose restaurant is subjected to relentless police raids, the narrative follows nine protesters, including British Black Panther leader Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright), who clash with police in 1970 and endure a dramatic trial. Lovers Rock NOV. 27 An ode to the romantic reggae genre called “lovers rock,” this fictional story is about young love at a house party in 1980. Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn makes her screen debut as a teenage character, inspired by McQueen’s aunt, who sneaks out of her parents’ home to go to dancing. Red, White and Blue DEC. 4 John Boyega plays Leroy Logan, a forensic scientist who applies to become a police officer in 1980s London, hoping to change the…

Visually cramped, clammily atmospheric and undeniably underwritten, Hannah Fidell’s 2013 feature debut, A Teacher — about a high school English teacher in a sexual relationship with one of her students — isn’t anyone’s idea of slam-dunk adaptation material, grossing slightly more than $8,000 during its theatrical run. Indeed, it’s taken Fidell six years, since a version was announced for HBO in 2014, for her miniseries to make it to the screen, now for FX on Hulu. This time, Fidell’s canvas is larger. The 10-part half-hour series is a triptych, with two time jumps lending scope to its story of trauma, abuse and their lasting aftereffects. And to Fidell’s credit, this A Teacher isn’t a stretched-out “five-hour movie” of her original vision, but a miniseries that feels fuller and more thought…