Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, December 16, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

In the aftermath of WarnerMedia’s decision to put its entire 2021 slate of films on its HBO Max streaming service the same day the titles open in theaters, the AT&T division seems to recognize the need for damage control but not quite how to go about it. As Hollywood has revolted publicly against the plan, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar is making rounds of brief calls to the company’s various creative partners, assuring them breezily that everything will be smoothed over before ringing off. And the offers that follow? One producer involved in the mess tells THR that what’s been proposed so far is “woefully inadequate” and “adds insult to injury.” An agency source references Kilar’s Dec. 13 comment in The New York Times that WarnerMedia is approaching “this situation with…

When Universal, Disney and Warner Bros. revealed changes to their film release plans during the past nine months, the focus had been on tentpoles. What largely hasn’t been addressed yet by these studios are the independent films, smaller titles with tiny budgets. These are films that over the years have been discovered at film festivals like Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and Toronto. Or perhaps they were financed by the former Fox Searchlight, now Disney-owned, or now-defunct specialty labels. It seems reasonable to think the major studios’ push to prioritize streaming will take away significant attendance from movie theaters. If this is the case, and I believe it to be, the theaters playing indie titles will not be able to keep playing them for multiple weeks because of low admissions — that…

Deal of the Week Political advertising usually grinds to a halt after the presidential election, but for some TV companies this year, the cash keeps rolling in. On Jan. 5, as Georgia plans a runoff election for two U.S. Senate seats that will determine whether the Democrats or Republicans control the Senate — making the stakes national — the inbound cash for media has been extraordinary. Political ad tracker AdImpact estimates that $431 million had been spent on the runoff as of Dec. 11. “It’s pretty insane,” says Michael Beach, CEO of Cross Screen Media. “We are seeing off-the-charts spending.” A number of station owners are reaping the rewards of the races, which are all but guaranteed to become the top two record-holders for ad spending on a Senate election…

Weddings Angela Dallas, a TV literary agent at CAA, married Bryan Walsh, a manager at Artists First, at Hummingbird Nest Ranch in Santa Susana, California, on Oct. 23. The couple had their 70 guests tested for COVID-19 ahead of the ceremony and celebrated with a pre-honeymoon in Laguna Beach. Births Julie Rapaport, co-head of movies at Amazon, and her husband, TV writer Greg Levine, welcomed first child Lottie Rapaport Levine on Nov. 23 at Cedars-Sinai in L.A. Matt Grimm, vp motion pictures production at Skydance, and Carolyn Harris, senior vp television at Skydance, welcomed son Mason Jet Grimm on Oct. 25 at Cedars-Sinai in L.A. Congrats Former Hulu executive Jim Keller was named executive vp digital ad sales and advanced advertising at Discovery on Dec. 7. Raffaele Annecchino was promoted…

For as far back as Pearlena Igbokwe can remember, she’s had a single wall, in every home and office that she’s occupied, painted a golden hue. “The color of sunshine,” she says, revealing her love for the kind of shock of color that can immediately warm up a room and put those within it at ease. So, in recent weeks, as the newly promoted chairman of the Universal Studio Group has readied her new space on the Universal lot, she commissioned yet another wall to be painted gold. When it is that Igbokwe, 56, and her roughly 450 full-time employees will actually return to a physical office is anybody’s guess, but the married mother of two teens insists her business hasn’t slowed at all. In fact, although COVID-19 continues to…

The Electoral College has officially voted, and the 2020 presidential election is over — finally? Hopefully! Joe Biden will be sworn in as president Jan. 20, and Donald Trump can pack his bags and retreat to stew in his resentments at Mar-a-Lago, his very own Xanadu-by-the-sea. But that doesn’t mean Hollywood, after mobilizing for the get-out-the-vote effort, will be putting politics aside as it gears up for its COVID-delayed 93rd Academy Awards, to be held April 25. In fact, this year’s Oscars promises to further a blue state agenda, fielding an array of films that speak to the issues that have taken center stage over the past few years. “This is the Academy Awards of protests, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s an honor just to be nominated,” anti-war…

It was on the 2013 set of the World War II romantic drama Suite Francaise that Margot Robbie met her best friends, producing partners and future husband. Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara were assistant directors at the time, but, like Robbie, who was not yet the A-lister she would become, they aspired to careers far grander than the ones they had. “We were all like, ‘I want to make my own stuff,’” recalls Robbie, with Ackerley, now her husband, adding, “It was a bit of, ‘If they’re doing it, why can’t we?’” So, in 2014, the trio, along with Robbie’s childhood friend Sophia Kerr, launched LuckyChap Entertainment out of a London home that the then 20-somethings moved into when filming was done. The company’s first release, I, Tonya, the black…

To suspend The Midnight Sky’s intrepid astronauts in zero gravity, the film’s VFX team planned, from the first, to rely on inventive digital work. But when Felicity Jones announced her pregnancy, which was written into the script, there was no scenario in which the actress would be asked to dangle from wires. In fact, some of her action scenes to be shot in La Palma, Spain — which included her character’s running on the surface of K-23, an imaginary moon circling Jupiter — became problematic. So the VFX wizards turned to Anyma, a facial performance capture system developed by Disney Research Studios, which also proved helpful for zero-G work. “We were always going to have digital spacesuit costumes and a digital exterior space walk, but we went a step beyond…

1. DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA Whether Spike Lee’s thrillingly immersive record of this sui generis theatrical concert is the best film of 2020 is open to debate. But the hyperkinetic hymn to community and connection in a divided world is by far the most therapeutic time I had watching a movie in this year of isolation and anxiety. Byrne’s show already was special on Broadway, with the silver-topped art-rocker flanked by a troupe of virtuosic musicians, dancers and backup singers. Lee and DP Ellen Kuras achieve miracles by putting us right there among the performers in a joyful concert film that stands with Jonathan Demme’s landmark Stop Making Sense. 2. FIRST COW The line between companionship and romantic love all but vanishes in this fine-grained Western, set on the…

1. MY BRILLIANT FRIEND (HBO) Set in postwar Naples and following the lives of two smart, competitive girls, HBO’s Italian-language series finally lives up to its source material (Elena Ferrante’s novels) in its devastating second season, subtitled The Story of a New Name. Among the reasons: aching performances, Hitchcock-suspenseful scenes, luscious production design and enough emotional complexity to fill the entire Mediterranean. 2. MRS. AMERICA (FX ON HULU) Dahvi Waller’s miniseries is the rare fictional treatment more illuminating than a doc on the subject would have been. Each episode humanizes a different woman in the 1970s fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. But the chilly center is anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett), more dead-eyed than a White Walker, ready to exploit her enemies’ fracturing solidarity. 3. P-VALLEY (STARZ)…

At the start of next year, Netflix will no longer have rights to The Office as NBCUniversal’s Peacock becomes the exclusive streaming outlet for the beloved comedy. It’s a big loss for Netflix in one sense, as the series accounts for billions of minutes of viewing time on the service. Then again, maybe Netflix users will just flip over to its other acquired shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds or Schitt’s Creek, all of which are mainstays in Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings. A THR analysis of 15 weeks of data from the Nielsen ratings service’s new, closely watched Top 10 Streaming chart shows the staying power of Netflix’s deep library — and the boom-and-bust cycle of the binge-release model. Nielsen started its rankings of streaming programming the week of Aug.…

Best Picture One Night in Miami Regina King presented the four stars of her feature directorial debut — Kingsley Ben-Adir, (above, who portrays Malcolm X), Eli Goree (Cassius Clay), Aldis Hodge (Jim Brown) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Sam Cooke) — with the ensemble award at the virtual San Francisco Film Awards Night on Dec. 9. The Midnight Sky Two-time Oscar winner George Clooney’s eagerly awaited seventh film as a director, in which he stars as a scientist fighting to save the human race from extinction, hit theaters (and drive-ins) Dec. 11 in advance of its Netflix debut Dec. 23. However, it was greeted with a lackluster 53 percent approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Director Christopher Nolan Tenet Having slammed his home studio Warner Bros. for its HBO Max day-and-date plans, the…

Big Deal With many U.S. theaters shuttered or operating with reduced attendance, advertising on movie screens has been sharply curtailed. So the largest domestic cinema advertising network is searching for revenue outside of theaters. On Dec. 10, National CineMedia hired former Screenvision exec Steve Sapp to drive out-of-home digital ad sales well beyond the multiplex during the pandemic. The move is aimed to help the theater ad firm get its pre-screening ad inventory into restaurants and retail outlets as movie fans go to shopping malls and outdoor venues. National CineMedia has taken a huge financial hit. Overall revenue for the three months ending Sept. 24 fell 94.6 percent to $6 million, compared with $110.5 million for the same period last year. Advertising firm Zenith forecasts out-of-home advertising will shrink by…

Stars Dish About Working Amid COVID-19 Protocols As proof that set life is different these days, a paparazzo captured Chris Evans sticking a long swab up his nose Dec. 10 during the making of Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. On a Zoom Q&A for NBC’s Mr. Mayor, Ted Danson described being ferried in a socially distanced “people mover van. And the only time you take off your protective gear is when you’re filming your scene,” he said, adding that a crewmember spritzed alcohol in the air afterward. Kevin Bacon says filming Showtime’s City on a Hill amid crew covered in PPE is “so weird … I’ve never seen their faces.” Gabrielle Union shot an ad for delivery service Shipt where she says producers eliminated some touch-ups to reduce contact: “If I…

Broadway Playwright Terrence McNally A chat from the afterlife with the gifted dramatist leaves an actor feeling lucky to have ever known him By Nathan Lane So I think I may have chatted briefly with my dear and recently departed friend, Terrence McNally, the other day. Perhaps I should explain. I was having a session with Theresa Caputo, better known as the Long Island Medium, on her podcast, Hey Spirit. (A definite sign I have too much time on my hands. Or my publicist does.) Anyway, there I was, doing my best to be open to the experience of communicating with the dead through a woman with very large hair and frighteningly long fingernails. Don’t get me wrong — she was perfectly lovely while “sharing her gift,” as she calls it,…

It’s the great reckoning,” Kevin Reilly warned in early August, still fresh from his ouster as head of HBO Max and a cadre of cable networks. “With the pandemic as an accelerant,” he continued, “there will not be one corner or sector that will sit with their feet up thinking, ‘I’m good!’ ” Prescient as those words were, even Reilly couldn’t have predicted the upheaval that would come during the back half of 2020, as Hollywood’s legacy companies dramatically overhauled their executive structures to (finally) make their streaming businesses their top, and in some cases seemingly only, priority. “It’s hard to be angry, because these companies had been making so much money from basic cable and they were committed to that cash cow,” says one agency partner. But times —…

Gregg Toland is one of the most influential cinematographers of all time, and his work on Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) — with innovations including deep focus, which keeps the foreground, middle ground and background all looking sharp — is iconic. So when director David Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt set out to make Mank, the Netflix drama that stars Gary Oldman as screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz in the throes of writing Kane, Toland’s efforts had to be carefully considered. “David and I talked at length about it. That was something we wanted to echo and reference and pay homage to, but we weren’t really trying to emulate it,” says Messerschmidt, who earned an Emmy nomination this year for Fincher’s Netflix crime series Mindhunter. “We didn’t want people to necessarily…

On a street typically lined with superheroes and Disney characters, Batman, with precious few tourists to greet, sits on a quiet corner doing crunches. This is Hollywood Boulevard today, nine months into the pandemic-induced shutdown that has stripped the tourist destination of its usual 10 million annual visitors who clamor to take photos with costumed street performers and pose with their favorite celebrity’s star. “The pandemic has canceled what I do for a living,” says another street performer, Mark Roman, who for the past six years has worked on the boulevard as Captain America and Reno 911!-inspired Lieutenant Frank. He has not busked since COVID-19 hit, partly because he cannot naturally incorporate a mask into his costume. “I don’t know how I’m going to financially survive,” says Roman, who has…

AMAZON Productions shut down amid pandemic 2 Productions shot/shooting during pandemic 4 Studio movies bought during pandemic 4 In late May, longtime Amazon executive Ted Hope exited as co-head of movies to return to indie producing. He had been with the film division since 2015 and was integral to acquisitions like Manchester by the Sea, which earned Amazon (and streaming) its first Oscar. This has left Amazon’s film division to be run by Matt Newman, who joined the studio from Amazon proper’s business ranks, and Weinstein Co. vet Julie Rapaport, whose division had been charged with developing more commercial features. The studio used the pandemic to bolster its slate with bigger-budgeted projects, as the streamer augments its regular indie-skewing fare. It picked up STX family action comedy My Spy, as…

There’s so much Margot Robbie can’t tell us about what’s coming. Still, she assures us, LuckyChap is just getting started. Indeed, the company, which now counts 12 employees, has 20 active projects in various stages of development across film and TV. On the film side, the Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie adaptation sits high on company’s priority list, even if Robbie, who is attached to star, can divulge next to nothing about it, apart from the fact that it’ll be subversive. “Sorry,” she shrugs, flashing her movie-star smile. The company also is behind My Year of Rest & Relaxation, an adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2018 novel, and, hitting Christmas Day, Promising Young Woman. In TV, LuckyChap recently inked a first-look deal with Amazon Studios, where it will build out its portfolio beyond…

When the Feb. 20 Oscars ceremony ended a shortened awards season, we had no idea what we know now: that the following awards season would be much longer because of the pandemic that shut down theaters and screening rooms worldwide, disrupting release schedules and leaving voters to struggle with their computers, viewing links and two-factor authentication. Many tentpoles were pushed to 2021, leaving streamers like Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+ and HBO Max to prove that all the other great films don’t need to be seen in theaters, as the Academy loosened its exhibition requirement. With 12 potential contenders — including Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, David Fincher’s Mank, George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky and Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — Netflix in particular has a better chance…

One group that’s likely happy to hear about Warner Bros.’ plan to send 17 of its 2021 movies directly to its parent company’s streaming service the same day the titles hit U.S. theaters? Film pirates. “For sure, pirates are celebrating WarnerMedia’s decision,” says Abigail De Kosnik, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media and an associate professor at UC Berkeley. Traditionally, the theatrical window has provided some buffer against piracy’s erosion of a film’s earnings. Usually, during the early days of a theatrical release, the only pirate copies that become available are low-quality “cam” versions, surreptitiously recorded via phone or tablet by someone in a cinema. Law-breaking consumers in some territories have demonstrated a willingness to watch these copies — especially in places like Russia and Turkey, according to…

It appears that Bob Iger might have a future in public service after all. The Disney executive chairman, who once toyed with the idea of a 2020 presidential run, is at the top of President-elect Joe Biden’s wish list for a key ambassador post, namely China or the U.K., sources tell THR. The U.K. ambassadorship is considered the most plum diplomatic assignment, and China is an intriguing possibility given Disney’s footprint in the Middle Kingdom. Either would be a fitting next act for the most successful Hollywood CEO of the modern era. A Biden spokesperson and Disney rep both declined comment. If Iger, 69, is offered a post and accepts, it would mark the end of his stunning 25-year run at Disney. On Feb. 25, he shocked Wall Street when…

Becoming Muhammad Ali (LITTLE BROWN, OCT. 5) BY Kwame Alexander and James Patterson AGENCY WME Similar to Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series about Colin Kaepernick’s high school years, this looks at the time before Ali became a titan of boxing and activism, including his Louisville childhood and discovery of the sport, back when he was known as Cassius Clay. The Code Breaker (SIMON & SCHUSTER, MARCH 2021) BY Walter Isaacson AGENCY ICM Partners While male scientists have long been feature fodder (The Imitation Game), this is a contemporary story about two women in STEM, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who won the Nobel Prize for the CRISPR gene editing discovery.…

In October, a man dressed as the Hulk took an ax to President Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was the latest in a series of attacks, but Trump’s marker is staying. “We don’t remove stars,” Hollywood Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Ana Martinez, talking about the nearly 2,700 emblems that include Fatty Arbuckle, Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby, told the L.A. Times last year. The drama over the star is part of a larger conversation. This summer, as Confederate statues came down across the U.S., California reckoned with its colonial treatment of Native Americans, resulting in protesters toppling statues of Father Junipero Serra, founder of the state’s Mission system. Here are five Hollywood icons whose tributes have been targeted as their legacies are debated. JOHN WAYNE In…

The only thing people enjoy more than watching a celebrity’s rocketing ascent to international fame is watching an aging celebrity’s flaming plummet to the hard, cold ground of disgrace and obscurity. It is both a warning against hubris — believing you’re too famous to fall — and a reminder that the same people who made you popular can turn on you. Most celebrities nod in understanding at Harvey Dent’s observation in The Dark Knight Rises: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Some, like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, committed heinous acts to obliterate their achievements. But social media has provided a weapon for others to commit instantaneous career suicide and destroy any good-faith legacy they spent a lifetime building. Like Howard…

Matthew McConaughey talked up his Greenlights memoir and related merch with fellow actor Chad Mountain in November, while a month earlier, Garth Brooks performed a live version of A Star Is Born’s “Shallow” with wife Trisha Yearwood as he previewed the Nov. 20 release of his album Fun. Both chose TalkShopLive to host their events. At a time when stars are connecting directly in customizable ways with fans (and earning extra revenue during production slowdowns) via platforms like Cameo and OnlyFans, the 2-year-old website blends e-commerce with livestream spontaneity. Brooks’ album preview had 3.3 million views, while 10,000 viewers tuned in for McConaughey. Call it QVC 2.0. “Everybody does it in a way that works for them, as opposed to the television shopping we’re used to seeing, with talent on…

IT’S A CHILLY DECEMBER MORNING IN L.A., and personal costumer Craig Anthony is pacing outside his Hollywood Hills home, clutching a cup of coffee in one hand while balancing his iPhone in the other. The reception is better outside, and a cathartic meeting awaits. He is hopping on a Zoom call with three others — hair designer Deidra Dixon, makeup designer Siân Richards and agent Michael Greene. Since 2016, this quartet made up the innermost ring of Chadwick Boseman’s inner circle. Richards is on the New Mexico set of the Western Surrounded, stealing a few hours for herself before star Letitia Wright awakens after a long night of shooting. Dixon is huddled under a mountain of blankets in the home of her septuagenarian parents, whom she is caring for during…

On Iceland’s Vatnajokull glacier, the largest ice cap in Europe, George Clooney found himself battling the elements in October 2019. With temperatures well below zero, the actor, playing a lonely witness to a global catastrophe, could barely see the crew or his diminutive co-star, 7-year-old Caoilinn Springall, as they worked under whiteout conditions. “It wasn’t a snowstorm,” he recalls. “There were these winds, sort of tornados, that would be coming toward you and we waited for them. We had whistles and we had string tied to ourselves so that we could never get too far apart, because you couldn’t see your hand if you held it out when these wind gusts came in.” And because Clooney was also directing, the minute he called “Cut,” “they would have to blow a…

1. I MAY DESTROY YOU (HBO) A serrated knife of a show, Michaela Coel’s half-hour dramedy about sexual assault, memory and taking control of your narrative rips and tears at the audience as it makes its way through its 12 episodes. With Coel as writer, star and eventually director, it wasn’t the year’s most consistent series, but it captured the unease of 2020 on an almost cellular level. No piece of TV this year burrowed as deep or provoked as meaningfully. 2. HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON (HBO) It’s hard to describe how documentarian John Wilson’s snapshots of day-to-day life in New York City relate to his broader lessons about making small talk, improving your memory or cooking risotto. It’s harder still to explain how a finale set on the…

Popeye, which turns 40 this month, owes a debt to another beloved character: Little Orphan Annie. Producer Robert Evans desperately wanted to make Annie for Paramount. But when it went to Columbia, he was determined to make his own comic strip musical, and learned that Paramount owned Popeye. Evans asked cartoonist and screenwriter Jules Feiffer (Carnal Knowledge) to pen the screenplay. Feiffer agreed, as long as it could be based on E.C. Segar’s original Popeye strip — “a work of genius,” he said — instead of Max Fleischer’s Popeye the Sailor cartoons, which he felt were not. (“I want to do whatever Popeye you want to do,” Evans replied.) Dustin Hoffman was supposed to play the lead, but when Hoffman wanted Feiffer off the project, Evans sided with the writer…