Innholdsfortegnelse for March 31, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

Debra Fisher/Sarah Lampert The showrunner’s and creator’s Netflix dramedy Ginny & Georgia tops Nielsen’s latest streaming chart with 953 million minutes of view time, outpacing Disney+’s WandaVision. Mike Sievert Five months after the T-Mobile CEO unveiled a skinny cable bundle called TVision in November, the telecom giant pulls the plug on its own services. Sean McManus Bucking the downward trend for live sports, NCAA’s March Madness has been a ratings surprise for the CBS Sports chairman, averaging 3.3 million viewers. Suzanne Scott The Fox News CEO’s network faces lawsuits tied to the 2020 election, as Dominion Voting files a $1.6 billion suit after Smartmatic makes a $2.7 billion claim. Showbiz Stocks $58.60 (+3.3%) VERIZON (VZ) Now free of HuffPost after its sale to BuzzFeed, the telecom giant unveiled plans to…

On March 18, the NFL unveiled massive TV rights deals with Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox, ViacomCBS and Amazon set to pay the league more than $100 billion over the next decade. But there’s a chance it could get even more expensive. An overlooked piece of the deal could force the rights holders to pay the league even more, or allow new bidders — say, tech giants like Google or Facebook — to come in and steal those rights away. It wasn’t in the NFL’s official announcement regarding the TV rights agreements, but the league has an option to opt out of the deals after seven years (the 2029 season). The TV partners don’t have the same ability, a source confirms to THR. In other words, if the NFL thinks it can…

The dividing line between fiction films and nonfiction films has become increasingly porous. And this year’s field of Oscar nominees offers further evidence that it’s not always easy to separate a narrative feature’s dramatic reconstruction of reality from documentary film’s real capture of a genuinely dramatic situation. In Nomadland — the moment’s reigning Oscar frontrunner thanks to its recent Producers Guild of America win — when Frances McDormand’s itinerant Fern attends a meetup of fellow wanderers in Quartzsite, Arizona, presided over by the real-life Bob Wells, a sort of sage of the open road, she’s visiting an actual event where van dwellers gather annually, amping up the film’s verisimilitude. And in the nominated feature-length documentary The Mole Agent, when an elderly man by the name of Sergio Chamy is hired…

Back in 2005, Jennifer Fisher, then a film and television wardrobe stylist, stumbled into the jewelry business. While working on set in Los Angeles, gaffers, producers and directors began to comment on a gold-link necklace Fisher had designed bearing a dog tag imprinted with the name of her son, Shane. “They would stop me and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I know someone who would love this!’ ” says Fisher, who was born in San Diego and raised in Montecito. “So I started making them for the wives or significant others of the production people whom I worked with — that’s really how it started.” Fast-forward 15 years, and the California native has opened the doors of her second Jennifer Fisher Jewelry store, a West Coast flagship in Beverly Hills, welcoming…

The cast of Godzilla vs. Kong shows commendable inclusivity for a major studio movie. But pity the actors who had to spend the majority of their time standing around gawping at greenscreens, mouthing countless variations on “Oh my God” shock and awe. Seldom have the human figures been as peripheral to the headline action in a popcorn blockbuster. The good news is that even if the kaiju mythology tends to trip over itself in a plot that only barely makes sense, the Monsterverse face-off delivers plenty of visceral excitement. Whether genre fans catch this in theaters or on home screens during the monthlong simultaneous HBO Max debut, it’s an enjoyable assault. The predominance of CG spectacle over physical action has even more supremacy here than in the film’s direct predecessors,…

The American Society of Cinematographers’ five feature nominees — any one of whom will be a first-time winner when the 35th annual ASC Awards are handed out virtually April 18 from the society’s Hollywood Clubhouse — represent very distinct approaches to the medium. MEMORY MASTER To prepare for Mank — about the writing of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane by Herman Mankiewicz — DP Erik Messerschmidt sent director David Fincher hundreds of images in the form of a look book, “film grabs all through the canon of black-and-white cinema,” which provided a springboard. “David is someone, who, when you communicate with him visually, quickly responds,” adds the cinematographer. After filtering out 70 percent of the images, “I had a better idea of what he envisioned the movie to be.” There are…

Host, a 56-minute-long horror film about six friends who hold a Zoom seance during lockdown, may not have received the same broad attention as, say, the Disney+ hit The Mandalorian. But it struck a chord with subscribers of AMC Networks’ genre streamer Shudder after its July premiere. “It was lauded in those circles,” AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan told investors in November. And that is all that counts for the company’s streaming strategy, which takes a tack that’s different from those of bigger rivals. Unlike deep-pocketed Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hollywood giants, which have created mega services like Disney+, Paramount+ and HBO Max that vie for big hits and big subscriber numbers, AMC Networks has been betting on its smaller, more focused streamers. Its goal: to differentiate itself and…

Winter is coming — to Broadway. As HBO keeps expanding its Game of Thrones franchise with a greenlit series and five more spinoffs in development, George R.R. Martin’s fantasy world is looking to conquer the stage with a big-budget live play, THR has learned. The project is from producers Simon Painter and Tim Lawson (The Illusionists), in partnership with Kilburn Live, with a story by Martin, who is working alongside playwright Duncan Macmillan and acclaimed U.K. director Dominic Cooke. The team’s goal is to eventually have productions in New York City, London’s West End and Australia. The first show is expected to launch in 2023, long after Broadway’s anticipated recovery. The play includes a unique story element that should be a major draw for fans. While there are many GoT…

The moment has met Kwame Onwuachi, a Bronx-bred culinary sensation who’s emerged as one of the food world’s most essential voices. His kitchen-confidential memoir, Notes From a Young Black Chef, which tells of racism in American fine dining, is being adapted into a feature starring LaKeith Stanfield and begins shooting this summer. Onwuachi, 31, is prepping his own mini-role in the project: “Four lines is going to be a lot to remember,” he says. Starting April 1, the former Top Chef contestant — he competed on season 13 in 2015-16 — will return to the show, but this time as a judge in its pandemic-era Portland season, months after host Padma Lakshmi acknowledged the franchise’s inclusion issues. “America is diverse, and it should be reflected in the panel,” says Onwuachi,…

Producing partners Kelly McCormick and David Leitch have been riding a bullet train for the past few years — and it’s not slowing down. In short succession, the couple (married seven years) and co-founders of 87North, launched in 2019 and now with five employees, released the Leitch-directed Atomic Blonde (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018) and Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), which grossed a combined $1.6 billion globally. And, just a few weeks ago, they wrapped production on Sony’s Bullet Train, the upcoming Brad Pitt crime caper shot amid the pandemic. Before producing, McCormick was executive vp production and acquisitions at Sierra Affinity, where she packaged such projects as Whiplash, Nightcrawler and Manchester by the Sea, while Leitch came up in the stunt world and has taken punches for…

For director Michael Matthews’ Love and Monsters, an adventure set in a postapocalyptic world where Earth is overrun by animals that have mutated into large monsters, the Oscar-nominated visual effects team was challenged to create a collection of disparate, computer-graphic creatures. But that wasn’t the only challenge facing the $30 million Paramount production: Calling it a “small but very ambitious movie,” VFX supervisor Matt Sloan says the key was producing “high-end visual effects on what wasn’t a high-end visual effects budget.” One way he and his team controlled their budget while meeting their creative goals was to use physical practical effects like creature puppets wherever possible before proceeding to CG approaches. “It was a great collaboration between the filmmakers, practical creatures and visual effects,” says Sloan. “It was the most…

Not only is the SAG Awards best ensemble award worth watching in its own right, but the list of nominated films in that category can help predict who will take home the individual acting awards. Actors in films that are nominated for best cast are nearly twice as likely to win their individual acting nominations. This year, the individual nominees whose films also are nominated are: lead actor contenders Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Steven Yeun (Minari); lead actress Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom); supporting actor nominees Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Boseman (Da 5 Bloods) and Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami); and supporting actress Youn Yuh-jung (Minari).…

“We would prefer for genocide to have begun and ended with Nazism,” muses filmmaker Raoul Peck in the voiceover for his four-part HBO docuseries, Exterminate All the Brutes. “This would indeed be most comforting.” But genocide was a prerequisite for the establishment and expansion of America — a fact as obvious to some as it is unacceptable to others. Drawing on the work of historian Sven Lindqvist (whose 1996 book provides the title here), the I Am Not Your Negro director argues that in the 19th century, the idea that the extinction of “inferior” races was part of the “natural” course of history gave Europeans cover to annihilate the peoples native to Africa and the Americas with newly developed weaponry. The West won, he asserts, because it was willing to…

A decade before Scream sent up slasher flicks, another comedy thriller had fun with the genre. 1986’s April Fool’s Day was produced by Frank Mancuso Jr., son of then-Paramount chairman Frank Mancuso Sr. Together, father and son had produced five sequels to 1980’s sleeper hit Friday the 13th. Burned out on Jason, Mancuso Jr. wanted to try something different for his first solo foray. He selected a script by Danilo Bach, who had achieved massive success for Paramount writing 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop. April Fool’s Day’s story brought a group of college spring breakers to the island home of Muffy St. John (played by Valley Girl star Deborah Foreman) for a weekend of fun and practical joking, only to see them turn up as corpses one by one. To direct,…

Picture Nomadland Searchlight’s presumptive frontrunner sustains its triumphal march with a win of the top Producers Guild Award — which, like the Oscars, uses a preferential ballot — over a field that included six of the seven films it is pitted against at the Academy Awards. Actress Andra Day The United States vs. Billie Holiday The late-blooming contender, who landed an unexpected Globe win and was touted by Oprah Winfrey on an episode of Super Soul Sunday, is now being talked up on Twitter by everyone from Chance the Rapper to Hillary Clinton. Adapted Screenplay Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Writers are enamored of this film, even if portions of it are improvised and it lists eight writers in its credits, given that it landed a far-from-assured Oscar nom — and then…

Shirley Chung, a Top Chef finalist and owner of Culver City’s Ms. Chi Cafe, recalls an incident last year in which a group of diners made her staff sanitize their outdoor table — twice. “It was very passive aggressive racism against us,” says Chung, a Chinese American who says she now goes far above health requirements to overcome the racist connections some people make between COVID-19 and Asian people. “I stepped up service to protect ourselves.” In the past year, Asianowned businesses throughout L.A. have been doubly hit — by the pandemic shutdowns and by a rise in racist hate crimes. On March 2, the LAPD announced 15 anti-Asian hate crimes reported in the city in 2020, compared with seven in 2019. A new report by Stop AAPI Hate documents…

When Vanessa Williams heard the demo song “Stand for Change,” she knew it would be a perfect match for the new Black Theatre United, an organization that provides support to Black Broadway artists. The Republic Records single, sales of which will be donated to the group, was penned by NYU professors Dave Schroeder and Phil Galdston, the latter a Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer who collaborated with Williams on the blockbuster “Save the Best for Last.” Williams says, “I thought it would be fantastic for Black Theatre United because our mission is all about change.” The coalition came together in the wake of the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd last summer; members include Billy Porter, Phylicia Rashad, Anna Deavere Smith and Audra McDonald (the latter two are…

For all the recent noise about the rise of “cancel culture,” Hollywood has spent no less than 100 years shoring up its ability to distance itself from the most overt sexists, racists and degenerates among us. After all, the 1921 criminal prosecution of silent movie star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle for allegedly raping a woman prompted studios to begin inserting “morals clauses” into contracts, giving employers the right to terminate talent for any behavior that prompts “public hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule.” A few decades later, the entertainment industry had to reckon with the Hollywood blacklist, the result of political pressure to do something about supposed communist sympathizers within the creative community’s ranks that left some unable to work for years. And few should miss the late-20th century innovation known as…

After nearly three decades as a character actor — “You do your work and go home,” he says — Colman Domingo is enjoying a breakout moment. An Independent Spirit Award nominee for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and a series regular on Euphoria and Fear the Walking Dead, Domingo, 51, also is the host of his own interview and cocktail-making program, AMC’s Bottomless Brunch at Colman’s. The year-old show, whose guests have included directors Radha Blank and Victoria Mahoney, is now in its third season. He films it via video chat from the midcentury modern home he shares in Southeast L.A. with his husband, Raul Domingo, who runs their production company, Edith Productions. The Philadelphia-born actor — who next appears in the Michael B. Jordan-starring thriller Without Remorse — spoke with…

FENCES Denzel Washington’s 2016 film earned an Oscar for Viola Davis and $64 million at the box office for Paramount. MUDBOUND After Netflix bought Dee Rees’ 2017 drama for $12.5 million, the film went on to collect four Oscar nominations. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU The 2018 dark comedy with LaKeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson won director Boots Riley a Spirit Award. JUST MERCY The 2019 drama with Jamie Foxx became Warner Bros.’ first film made under a new inclusion policy. RAISING DION Ja’Siah Young plays a boy with superpowers in the drama series, which got a second-season pickup from Netflix. GENTEFIED Netflix has renewed the comedy drama about three Mexican-American cousins chasing the American dream.…

The film producer turned upstart venture capitalist riffs, at length, on his ethical-investing philosophy for the intersection of tech and media. Curly haired, cherubic faced and with a refined British accent, he speaks earnestly of building an “ESG-type framework,” a reference to the new wave, responsible-finance ethos of environmental, social and corporate governance. “We actually action that,” he assures, explaining that “we will give up investing in potentially massive growth companies if we don’t think they match that criteria around sustainability, diversity and inclusion and business ethics. We are adding strings to the bow as we go.” In an era where a socially conscious business strategy — or at least the appearance of one — is practically a necessity, all of this would be unremarkable. But this is Michael Sackler,…

Ayear ago, 1917 seemed poised for Oscar glory. The tracking-shot war film took home top honors from the BAFTAs, the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild. Among the most prominent Oscar precursors, only the Screen Actors Guild went in a different direction, choosing Parasite for best ensemble. Fast-forward three weeks, and Parasite was named best picture at the Academy Awards. Even though the best ensemble category honors just the cast — not every aspect of a film — SAG also nailed tough Oscar best picture wins for Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan, Crash over Brokeback Mountain, and Spotlight over The Revenant. In other words, for Oscar forecasters out there, you’ll want to pay attention to the SAG Awards on April 4. That’s not to say they get every…

In interviews following the 2021 BAFTA film nominations on March 9, the British Academy’s chief executive Amanda Berry was visibly emotional at the responses to the shortlists. “I think I’m going to cry,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. It was, perhaps, understandable. BAFTA had been through an exceptionally punishing year since its previous film nominations, even without a major industry-crippling pandemic to contend with. In January 2020, thanks to an all-white presence in the performance categories and female-free list for directors, the institution was at the center of yet another diversity controversy, the #BAFTAsSoWhite hashtag making an unwelcome reappearance as all corners of the film world weighed in. Fifteen months on, the list of nominees heading into the dual awards ceremonies on April 10 and 11 (split across two nights…