Innholdsfortegnelse for June 23, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

It’s well known among people of color that Hollywood prefers its coffee with lots of cream, not black. That casting bias has again been exposed with the recent backlash regarding In the Heights’ exclusion of dark-skinned Afro-Latino characters, who largely populate the real Washington Heights. Unfortunately, when it comes to casting characters who are Black — especially leads — Hollywood prefers to dilute the color to a less threatening coat. Colorism is so destructive that it has long infested the Black community to the point where there has been discrimination against darker Blacks by lighter-skinned Blacks. And now there’s a movie written and directed by POC, yet it still reflects the popular adage of my youth: “If you’re white, you’re all right. If you’re brown, hang around. If you’re black,…

During the pandemic, CAA agent Thao Nguyen embarked on something counterintuitive: a live events company, Constellation Immersive. An affiliate of CAA and theatrical entertainment group Crossroads Live, it brought a drive-thru Elf on the Shelf experience to the Fairplex in late 2020. Up next: “In July, we’re launching the DiscOasis, a sonic experience that unites dance, roller skating, collective joy and performance art at the South Coast Botanic Garden. We’re really lucky to have the legendary Nile Rodgers as our Groovemaster, curating our music,” says Nguyen. (DiscoOasis runs from July 16 to Sept. 6, $34-$94, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., thediscoasis.com.) Nguyen, who oversees the art collection in CAA’s L.A. and N.Y. offices, is herself a collector. She recently got a chance to see art for the first time in person post-lockdown.…

The Quick Pitch Walter and Margarita Manzke, the beloved chefs behind Republique, opened their new Paris-inspired spot June 16, led by a menu of classics including steak au poivre and burgundy escargot en croute, with an all-French wine list. Located just off the corner of Pico and South Beverly Drive, Bicyclette is opening the doors for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, with plans to launch its tasting-menuonly concept, Bicyclette Restaurant, a floor above this year. Comedian and foodie Eric Wareheim was among the first in line, posting, “Gorgeous French bistro dishes with incredible wine. What else do you freaking need?”…

Netflix canceled Jupiter’s Legacy, the superhero series based on Mark Millar’s comic book, on June 2, four weeks after it premiered. A day later, Nielsen’s weekly rankings of streaming titles — which lag by about a month — showed Jupiter’s Legacy as the No. 1 original series on the service. It repeated that feat, and rose to No. 1 among all titles on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, for the week of May 10-16. The juxtaposition of the show’s end and the fairly strong viewing figures raises a question: How much insight are the Nielsen numbers really giving into the typically obscured field of streaming measurement? Jupiter’s Legacy is the second Netflix show to be scrapped after ranking first among original streaming series by Nielsen’s metric, which measures…

FILM ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE Theo Anthony’s brilliant doc confronts the permeating presence in our lives of automated surveillance, zeroing in on a focus group wearing hard-to-believe tracking devices; a leading U.S. body camera manufacturer; a classroom where Baltimore police are trained to use those cameras; and a company that specializes in aerial surveillance. The result is chilling. — SHERI LINDEN BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR Kristen Wiig reteams with Bridesmaids co-scribe Annie Mumolo in this sweet, screwy comedy about two Nebraskan pals who hit up a Florida resort for midlife singles. The result, an unapologetically delirious frolic in which friendship is tested by romance, adventure and a very weird villain, was just what we needed at a dark time. — DAVID ROONEY I CARRY YOU WITH ME…

During the TV industry’s upfronts in May, Disney enlisted Jimmy Kimmel to liven up the proceedings with a stand-up routine. The ABC late night star roasted the broadcast community but reserved arguably his sharpest words for NBCUniversal, saying, “NBC is planning to move forward with the Olympics this summer, even if they have to kill every last person in Japan to do it.” As the Tokyo Olympics’ July 23 opening ceremony draws nearer, the outrage behind Kimmel’s zinger indeed has become a matter of urgency and zero humor within the host country of Japan, where just 6 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and polling regularly reports a large majority of the public is steadfast against the games going forward. The event has been engulfed in…

With the launch of major streaming services and fewer new movies released during the pandemic, there’s been an insatiable appetite for content, prompting viewers to rediscover old favorites. That has fueled an explosion in the demand for library titles — and the restoration work to reintroduce those films and shows. Take ViacomCBS, which acquired a 49 percent stake in the 700-film Miramax library in April. “For the period of April 2020 through March 2021, our home entertainment library sales were up 45 percent globally compared to the year prior,” Paramount president of worldwide home entertainment Bob Buchi tells THR. “That’s digital growth at almost 70 percent and even physical disk growth of 10 percent.” Library titles helped fuel Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, which includes roughly 4,000 titles (among them, the…

L.A. bar impresario Jared Meisler has spent 15 years running some of the entertainment community’s key watering holes. In addition to such spots as Bar Lubitsch, The Roger Room and The Little Friend, he’s also now a partner in Venice’s beloved The Brig (above), which recently reopened after a renovation. He spoke with THR about the state of nightlife as summer kicks off. How has the local nightlife industry reckoned with COVID-19 closures? The pandemic has been tough for every business, but for us, it’s just been insane — incredibly brutal. Even during the Depression, bars were allowed to stay open. For our employees, it’s been the toughest time. With full reopening here, do operators believe they’re out of the woods? Everyone still seems to be holding their breath, waiting…

When MGM’s Thelma & Louise hit theaters 30 years ago, the media predicted “there are going to be so many movies about women,” Geena Davis recalled of the Ridley Scott film co-starring Susan Sarandon. “We’re still waiting.” The film did score six Oscar noms and a win for scribe Callie Khouri, and the three reunited for a Cinespia anniversary drive-in screening at the Greek Theatre. “You saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” said Sarandon. “I completely underestimated that we were backing into territory held by white heterosexual males. They got offended and accused us of glorifying murder and suicide. … All hell broke loose.” Davis and Sarandon stuck close together all night and, like other attendees, enjoyed the end-of-mask mandates and capacity limits. Got tips? Email rambling@thr.com…

Engagements David Daitch, a TV writer, producer and lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve, got engaged to Katherine Taylor, an OB-GYN at UCLA, on May 5. Births Candice Ashton, vp originals publicity at Hulu, and husband Robert Valenziano, senior director of real estate at Rivian, welcomed Elle Marie Valenziano on May 18. Congrats Chris Perez was appointed name partner of newly minted entertainment law firm Donaldson Callif Perez on June 16. Sarah Scott was named managing partner of boutique entertainment firm LaPolt Law on June 14. Talent agent Shawn Scallon joined Buchwald on June 16. Becky Clements was promoted to partner at Tomorrow Studios on June 15. Comic book veteran Jamie S. Rich joined Tapas Media as editor-in-chief June 21. Magic Johnson joined Cameo’s board of directors June 15. Madison Square…

Architect Peter Gluck — whose New York-based firm, Gluck+, recently completed an expansion of Queens’ Kaufman Astoria Studios — built his first house in the mid-’60s for his own parents. “It’s still there,” says Peter of the vacation home in Westhampton, New York. “I built it myself with a friend, with my own hands.” More than 50 years later, one of his newest projects is for family as well: a new home with sweeping views for his son Will Gluck, the director of the recently released Sony animated film Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, and Will’s wife, writer Trista Gladden, and their two teenage daughters. “We always knew that we wanted my dad to design us a house, and we knew we would trust him in the design process, because,…

DANIEL FIENBERG We’ve known since last fall that the story of the 2021 Primetime Emmy Awards will be “change.” Nobody who snagged an Emmy in any major acting, writing, directing or series category last year would be eligible to repeat. Yes, this year is a chance for change, and in that spirit, let me emphasize the following: The limited/anthology series category is where the stars and the best things on TV are. It’s home to my favorite show of 2020 (HBO’s I May Destroy You) and the most essential thing I’ve watched in 2021 (Amazon’s The Underground Railroad). Six months ago, it seemed as if it might be a lock for Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, but it definitely doesn’t anymore. ROBYN BAHR I couldn’t agree more: Limited series are where…

When Conan O’Brien — a 30-year-old Harvard-educated writer who’d worked on The Simpsons — was tapped in 1993 to replace David Letterman as host of NBC’s Late Night, the general reaction was, “Who?” Twenty-eight years later, the 6-foot-4 comedian with the swooping red hair becomes history’s longest-running late night host when his TBS show, Conan, broadcasts its final episode June 24 after a decade on air. Beside him for much of the journey was Andy Richter, who originally was brought on as a Late Night writer. “I picked a deli in Westwood,” recalls Richter, 54, of his first meeting with O’Brien. “We just hit it off. I mean, we’re the same kind of stupid.” It was head writer and Saturday Night Live veteran Robert Smigel who thought Richter might be…

In early June, UTA began shopping a redhot documentary project based on Chris Fenton’s 2020 book Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business, with Oscar winner Alex Gibney producing and Emmy nominee Gabe Polsky writing and directing. But instead of the film being greeted by a bidding war, sales agents faced closed doors. Sources say the major players in the doc space, including Netflix and HBO, declined even to see the project pitch, which touts “a character-driven essay film exploring how the United States and Western countries helped to build an ultra-powerful rival with an increasingly totalitarian agenda.” As Hollywood faces a deteriorating relationship with China, it appears committed to keeping the flame alive even if that means going to humiliating lengths…

I’m not particularly good at giving writing advice to aspiring screenwriters. What I’ve learned over the years is that what works for me as a writer doesn’t much work for others — and vice versa. At film school, an excited workshop teacher once implored us students to outline our script ideas using a 72-beat model he swore by. When it came time to write the actual script, all the discovery and revelation had been stripped from the process. I felt like I was transcribing a grocery list. My script was bloodless. Others found the experience revelatory. More recently, a writer friend suggested I rent an office to escape my noisy household. It had done wonders for his creativity. The quiet! The escape! The unbothered life! I conceded and found an…

Big Deal When Vivendi unveiled a deal June 20 to sell a 10 percent stake in Universal Music Group (UMG) — home to Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga — to investor Bill Ackman’s firm Pershing Square Tontine, the agreement took out some of the guesswork for Wall Street ahead of an expected UMG IPO in the third quarter of this year. The stake sale values UMG at 35 billion euros, or $41.6 billion, above the $36 billion-plus valuation in December when Chinese internet giant Tencent doubled its stake in the company. “You could say this floor price is now market-tested thanks to the deal, but investors had expected a much higher valuation from the listing,” says Bernstein analyst Matti Littunen. Still, as Citi analyst Thomas Singlehurst notes, “the valuation, even…

The pandemic was “devastating” to L.A.’s hotel industry, Doane Liu, executive director of the city’s Department of Convention and Tourism Development, says. Before COVID, he notes, “our hotels [were] averaging over 80 percent occupancy.” That plunged “to a low at one point where we were under 20 percent.” But after a dire year and change, things are rebounding, with some businesses having an especially busy May. Hotel occupancy is now up to around 60 percent, while interviews with specialists in L.A.’s luxury sector suggest that pent-up demand will also be a boon for very high-end shopping, dining and spas, partly due to the return of domestic and international visitors. Add to that the fact that Americans had stockpiled more than $1.5 trillion in excess savings since the COVID-19 pandemic began,…

When Nicole Brown took the reins of iconic Sony label TriStar Pictures in 2019, she became the first Black woman to run a film label at a major studio. It so happens she was treading familiar ground. The Culver City native grew up a block away from her current office in the Poitier Building and used to roller skate around the Sony lot. “My mother would let me venture off, and I’d ask the security guards if there were famous people in there,” she recalls. “I was always enamored with the studio. And that’s how it all began.” She set her sights on acting, landing childhood roles in John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood and Kids Incorporated. As she got older, she became more curious about what went on behind…

On Aug. 14, 1951, William Randolph Hearst, 88, lay dying in a gilded Mediterranean Revival mansion in Beverly Hills. Five years earlier — in declining health and with his reputation wounded by Citizen Kane — he agreed to move from his beloved Hearst Castle in San Simeon to Los Angeles to be closer to doctors. Hearst’s longtime mistress, movie star Marion Davies, lost in a fog of alcoholism and sedatives, awoke that day to find that his deceased body had been removed without her knowledge. “Do you realize what they did?” she asked later. “They stole a possession of mine. He belonged to me.” Today, Beverly Hills’ 1927 Hearst Estate (a location for The Godfather) is on the market for $89.75 million, listed with Hilton & Hyland’s Gary Gold,…

At one point during The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Comedy Actress Roundtable, Hacks star Jean Smart paused the rollicking conversation to poll her peers, certain they were drawn to the profession for the same reason she was. “OK, raise your hand if you were a middle child,” she said. But, to her shock, no one did. Instead, her fellow Emmy hopefuls — The Flight Attendant’s Kaley Cuoco, Made for Love’s Cristin Milioti, Master of None’s Lena Waithe, Mr. Mayor’s Holly Hunter and Shrill’s Aidy Bryant — revealed their status as either the oldest or youngest in their respective families. “My God,” Smart responded, acknowledging: “This is my excuse for being an actor; I didn’t get enough attention.” Without missing a beat, Waithe replied, “The rest of us are just hams,” and…