Innholdsfortegnelse for August 11, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

Brad Winderbaum spent much of 2007 sitting in a hot trailer in Playa Vista, California, listening to Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. hash out the story for Iron Man. Winderbaum, then an assistant to Marvel exec Louis D’Esposito, often heard the team posing a fundamental question of storytelling: “What if … this happened?” Now Winderbaum, recently promoted to head of streaming television and animation at Marvel Studios, is about to ask that question again with What If …? (debuting Aug. 11), the studio’s first foray into animation on Disney+. While animated series of Marvel comics have been made since the 1960s, this is the first animated show under the purview of Marvel Studios boss Feige, who gained oversight in late 2019 with a promotion that saw him…

In 2009, I sat in front of a reality TV development executive and pitched him an idea for a show centered on a traditional Indian matchmaker and her modern-minded clients in America. The show would explore the culture clash between old-school ideas about marriage and the modern world of dating. It would dive deep into the universal search for love and desire for belonging. And, perhaps most importantly, it would be entertaining as hell. “But, would there be Americans in it?” the executive asked at the end of my 10-minute pitch. “Americans?” I asked, genuinely confused by the question. “You know …” he said, trailing off because he probably knew better than to finish his sentence. And then it dawned on me what he meant. He meant white people. This…

Big Deal Telemundo Enterprises, the NBCUniversal-owned Spanish-language media company, is looking to “supercharge” its investment in streaming, launching a division with a mandate to significantly expand its presence on NBCU’s Peacock. The new division, NBCUniversal Telemundo Hispanic Streaming, will be led by Romina Rosado as executive vp and GM and will develop more than 50 projects for 2022 and beyond. Rosado, who most recently was executive vp entertainment and content strategy at Telemundo, will report to Telemundo Enterprises chairman Beau Ferrari. Rosado will work with Peacock leadership on developing its content slate, including drama, comedy, unscripted and telenovelas, while working with Telemundo Streaming Studios on bringing the projects to fruition. (TSS is focused on production, while the new division is focused on programming.) Spanish-language TV, like its English-language counterparts, is…

With gospel performances by Donald Taylor and the L.A. Mass Choir, MGM delivered an inspirational premiere Aug. 8 of Liesl Tommy’s Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin. Also raising a mic were Franklin’s granddaughter Grace and son Edward, who sang “Ain’t No Way” and “My Girl,” respectively. Draped in a custom Dolce & Gabbana dress, Hudson offered a message that came out like a prayer. “God bless Aretha and her beautiful family.… Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity.” Got tips? Email rambling@thr.com…

The Olympics aren’t just an exciting sporting event featuring the best athletes in the world, they’re a reflection of humanity’s social values — and the battle in Tokyo this year over those values was just as exciting as the actual competitions themselves. Sports is a measure of how far the human body has evolved through disciplined passion. It is also an attempt to create a model of fair play that doesn’t exist in the real world. This Olympics was especially revealing, rewarding and repulsive, with lessons to be learned for all of us interested in maintaining sports as a pinnacle of a competitive but compassionate community. Certainly, one of the highlights that demonstrates both the grit of being an athlete and the competitive spirit of the Olympics was Dutch runner…

I don’t know how many times I’ve met someone who bought the classic car of their dreams and once they drive it around, they found their whole experience disappointing,” says Marc Davis of Austin-based Moment Motor Co. “If you have a gas-powered car that’s 60 years old, getting it on the road and driving it is a real process. These cars are old and things get gummed up with a gas engine. What we do is remove 90 percent of the problems by making it an EV.” Moment, along with EV West, Icon, Zelectric Motors and a few other custom shops, have built a cult following by specializing in converting classic cars from gas power to EV power and filling a growing market demand for these vehicles. Davis, who has…

BACK IN MAY 2018, DAMON Lindelof was watching an episode of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale with his wife when his antenna went up and he felt “that intangible thing.” He was witnessing that rare actor whose onscreen charisma is so palpable that you can’t avert your gaze even as he shares the screen with an already established star. Lindelof had felt that same sensation once before, in 2007, when he and J.J. Abrams were combing through Star Trek audition tapes and came across Chris Pine. Now, the actor he was transfixed by was Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, whose biggest credits to date were as the sixth lead in Baz Luhrmann’s short-lived hip-hop origins series The Get Down on Netflix and a cop in the Baywatch movie. “First off, if you’re in…

A series with 15 straight Emmy nominations for outstanding reality competition — and one win, in 2010 — may not want to tamper with a foolproof recipe, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced Top Chef to tinker with its format. In addition to the general protocols taken by every production — bubbling, social distancing, daily testing — the show took advantage of the COVID-necessitated spirit of change to introduce some more experimentation. In lieu of having a celebrity chef on the judging panel, season 18 welcomed a dozen of the series’ most beloved alumni, who provided the contestants — and the Bravo show’s loyal viewers — with a dash of comforting familiarity amid an uncertain time. Overall, Top Chef: Portland served as a love letter to the battered restaurant industry and…

Aretha Franklin chose Jennifer Hudson to play her in a feature based on her life, and Hudson repays that act of faith by honoring the late singer’s towering legacy in Respect. A powerful account of self-actualization spanning 20 years, Liesl Tommy’s biopic (premiering at the Locarno Film Festival) also is rich in spirituality, Black pride and feminist grit. The music, of course, is the galvanizing force, but it’s the personal struggle behind it that makes the story so affecting. A South African-American theater and TV director making a confident move into features, Tommy doesn’t escape the conventions of the bio-drama, but she injects every scene with feeling. And this is easily Hudson’s most persuasively committed screen performance since Dreamgirls, alive not just in the musical interludes but in the interactions…

NEW YORK City College of New York The school’s BFA film program picks 25 students a year for a two-year curriculum, with emphasis placed on single-camera narrative filmmaking and documentary production. At the end of the program, students complete a thesis project that is either a 10-minute film, 30-page screenplay or journal-ready academic research paper. SUNY Stony Brook First-year students in the three-year program get a master class in independent film production from Killer Films’ Christine Vachon (who is artistic director of the MFA film program) and business partner Pamela Koffler before embarking on their own short film productions. New School The New School program is notable for its flexibility, which allows students — 80 percent of whom receive some type of merit-based university scholarship — to combine courses to…

Before NBCUniversal’s Olympic coverage was beamed to its Peacock app, it passed through the streamer’s digital network operations center. The Peacock DNOC, as it’s called, sits in a far corner of NBC Sports’ headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, with a wall of monitors at the front of the glass-encased room and a two-story window overlooking oversized Olympic rings in the parking lot outside. Rows of desks are stacked with Rokus and Xboxes and PlayStations and Fire TVs, with technical staff making sure the live connection is working on every conceivable device and TV. Peacock, led by chairman, direct-to-consumer and international Matt Strauss, is NBCU’s big bet on streaming, and it is hoping that live sports will drive users and subscribers. For the Tokyo Games, the company made gymnastics and track and…

Fast & Furious Spy Racers Netflix The ongoing Netflix series, centering on Dom Toretto’s cousin, Tony Toretto, is executive produced by such Fast mainstays as Vin Diesel, Neal Moritz and Chris Morgan. Camp Crustaceous Netflix Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow is hands-on with the series, in its third season, which takes place between Fallen Kingdom and the upcoming Dominion film. Lower Decks, Prodigy Paramount+ While Lower Decks is aimed at adults, the Star Trek universe also has the kid-focused Prodigy, starring Kate Mulgrew, reprising her role from the early 2000s live-action series Voyager. The Bad Batch Disney+ The Star Wars animated show, which takes place after Revenge of the Sith and before A New Hope, adds to the franchise’s roster of series including The Mandalorian.…

The Startup Wife (SCRIBNER, JULY 13) BY Tahmima Anam AGENCY UTA As the rise and fall of tech bros behind big companies like WeWork and Uber have become fodder for Hollywood projects, Anam’s novel is centered on a woman and technical brain behind a lauded startup founder. App Kid (KNOPF, SEPT. 21) BY Michael Sayman AGENCY ICM This memoir, from the son of Latino immigrants who taught himself to code and became Facebook’s youngest employee at age 17, chronicles his journey from helping to support his family during the Great Recession of 2007-09 to coming out as gay.…

Early A-listers vacationed a bit differently from today’s stars. In the 1920s, silent movie actor brothers Noah and Wallace Beery — with the help of investors including Charlie Chaplin — opened Paradise Trout Club in the Angeles National Forest, where Hollywood’s brightest (Gloria Swanson, Clark Gable, John Wayne) partied (and fished for rainbow trout) away from the public eye and police during Prohibition. Today, the mountain property — an elegant mountain retreat with a large ballroom for parties and stone-clad accommodations, complete with the original pool where future Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller trained for the Olympics — is Huttopia Paradise Springs, a French-owned glamping resort that preopens Aug. 13 with a dozen spacious, utilitarian wood and canvas tents, a restored pool filled with water straight from Paradise Springs and an…

When Netflix launched in Japan in late 2015, its first move to win local subscribers was as predictable as it would prove effective: acquire and finance as much beloved anime content as possible. Now, with the brand gaining traction in the country just as competition from other U.S. streaming rivals arrives, Netflix is diversifying its Japanese content offerings by doubling down on live-action originals — but it’s doing so by working against local expectations rather than adhering to them. Kaata Sakamoto, Netflix’s head of content for Japan, says nearly every show on his slate of more than 50 Japanese scripted originals is something unlikely to have been attempted by Japan’s increasingly conservative and cost-focused domestic TV industry. “We’re looking for stories that haven’t been told — and visually, in terms…

Since it was first seen as Tony Stark’s car in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame in 2019, there’s been much anticipation for the sleek, four-door coupe all-electric Audi to hit the market. Now available in two guises — an e-tron GT and the sportier RS e-tron GT — it’s part of Audi’s larger push to electrify the brand’s entire lineup by 2025 (as either fully battery electrics or plug-in hybrids). Both models feature a 93 kWh battery, good for about 230-plus miles on a charge and with the ability to fast-charge to 80 percent in about 23 minutes. The punchier RS produces 637 horsepower, while the standard GT produces 522 horsepower and includes some nice touches like a leather-free interior option as well as a standard carbon fiber roof on the RS.…

Survey the industry’s top starmakers and they’ll all tell you a version of the same thing: Hollywood stardom isn’t what it used to be. Sure, a fresh-faced actor can still burst onto the scene, captivating industry insiders and audiences alike (as Timothée Chalamet did with Call Me by Your Name a few years back). But agents, managers and studio executives say it has become harder and harder for those actors to take hold of the cultural zeitgeist the way a Leonardo DiCaprio or Jennifer Lawrence once did. “The idea of the movie star has died,” says one top agency talent rep, “and everyone is now trying to reinvent what movie stardom looks like.” Blame it on the increasingly fractured media landscape, the slow demise of movie theaters or the ubiquity…

In the same way that film and television professionals across the globe have had to navigate the brave new world of pandemic-era productions, so too have film students. From shooting thesis projects on cellphones to hiring in-house COVID-19 safety officers, America’s top film programs sought to prepare the next generation of filmmakers for an industry that looks vastly different from the one that existed only 18 months ago. The majority of these programs are now readying for in-person instruction, and students will be greeted with additions like a new soundstage for University of Texas at Austin and Columbia Chicago’s multicamera broadcast setup. All of THR’s top film programs have an eye on the future, largely focusing on adding technologies (like Chapman University’s new LED wall for virtual production) and…

Free Guy, the Ryan Reynolds comedy out Aug. 13 about a video game character that develops sentience, has drawn comparisons to another high-concept comedy, 1998’s The Truman Show. That film, which debuted six years after the MTV series The Real World but before the U.S. launch of Survivor and Big Brother, was credited with anticipating the reality TV revolution. It follows a sweet-natured naif named Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who for 30 years has unwittingly starred in a hugely popular TV show about his own life. Everyone around him — his cheerful wife (Laura Linney), his mom (Holland Taylor), his best friend (Noah Emmerich) — are actors meant to sell products while keeping the illusion alive. The idea was screenwriter Andrew Niccols’, who was inspired by “Special Service,” a 1989…

As the Federal Trade Commission examines Amazon’s proposed $8.45 billion buy of MGM, pressure from unions and progressive politicians is mounting on the regulator to take action, either by blocking the deal or requiring the company to abide by conditions such as decoupling Amazon Prime Video from the rest of Prime to secure approval. The latest salvo comes from the Strategic Organizing Center, a federation of labor unions that includes the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. In a letter to be sent to FTC chair Lina Khan on Aug. 11, obtained by THR, SOC executive director Michael Zucker writes that the acquisition “would further bolster Amazon’s ability to leverage power across multiple lines of business related to the SVOD market and create further harmful vertical integration in the…

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Aug. 3 that proof of vaccination against COVID-19 will be required for indoor activities — including movie theaters — cinema owners remained silent. Behind the scenes, the National Association of Theatre Owners began consulting with its members. An alarming surge in cases in many parts of the country caused by the delta variant has left box office recovery disrupted as half of the U.S. population remains unvaccinated. NATO has decided not to take a position either way on the looming New York City ordinance and won’t object. Nor is it trying to block the proposed Los Angeles rule. “In order for the exhibition industry to fully recover, we need more people to be vaccinated,” NATO president John Fithian tells THR. “It’s…

Rarely can apartment renters tell house dwellers, “My yard is bigger than yours.” But The Park, the new mixed-use residence at 500 Broadway in Santa Monica, aims to change that in the most luxe way. Its standout feature is a 1-acre rooftop park overlooking the Pacific Ocean. “Residents are increasingly prioritizing properties that feature outdoor amenities, and we believe Angelenos will be drawn to our accessible open space in a private residential setting while living just steps from the beach,” says Alex Witkoff, principal at Witkoff, the real estate development firm responsible for the property. Open for leasing Aug. 12 and located in downtown Santa Monica between Fifth and Sixth streets, the four-structure, eight-story property was designed by Koning Eizenberg and Large Architecture with interiors by MR Architecture +…

The paradigm is shifting in the luxury car world. At the high end, nearly every brand is now offering a plug-in hybrid version (PHEV) of their most popular vehicles. For instance, a high-end SUV like BMW’s X5 xDrive45e PHEV (from $65,400) has a 30-mile EV range, which is usually enough to get you to and from work running on EV power alone — not too shabby for a 5,600-pound, fully loaded SUV. It’s a far cry from the heyday of the Prius, when everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks to Jessica Alba drove the ecoconscious but aesthetically uninspiring autos. “The future is electrification,” Christophe Georges, president and CEO of Bentley Motors America, tells THR. “Our aim by 2030 is for all our cars to be fully electric and, as…

As The Chair opens, its heroine (Sandra Oh) could not look more thrilled with her recent promotion. There’s a bounce in her step as she makes her way through the ancient, august halls of Pembroke College — pointedly decorated with portraits of old white men —and she pauses to admire the gleaming nameplate on her new office door: Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim, Chair, Department of English. And then, not 30 seconds later, she’s tossed to the floor when her chair collapses under her. It’s the arc of the series in miniature: This is not the tale of a Korean-American woman triumphantly shattering the glass ceiling but one of her breaking through only to realize she’s teetering on the edge of a glass cliff. Created by Amanda Peet and Annie Wyman, the…

Australian Film, Television and Radio School This Sydney-based school benefits from a deep pool of industry lecturers and close ties with the Australian film community. Notable alumni include Black Widow director Cate Shortland and a slew of Oscar winners and nominees, including Jane Campion (The Piano), writer-director Chris Noonan (Babe) and David White (sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road). The school has developed and implemented a “COVIDSafe Plan” that sets out a return to on-campus learning, with protocols being revised on a weekly basis in accordance with local public health circumstances and government advice. Beijing Film Academy The USC of the Middle Kingdom, China’s most prestigious film school offers its graduates a wealth of industry ties in what has become the world’s largest theatrical film market. BFA now has…

With Netflix’s Top 10 littered with true crime and documentaries breaking Sundance sales records, nonfiction films have never been more in demand. While narrative filmmaking remains the more popular subject of study, several universities offer robust programs for aspiring documentarians. Stanford’s MFA in documentary film and video production has garnered more Student Academy Awards in the documentary category than any other college or university. Admitting only eight students a year, the program culminates in a short thesis film, with past student works going on to screen at major festivals like SXSW and on such broadcasters as PBS. Also offering an MFA program is Northwestern, where Oscar nominee Joshua Oppenheimer (Act of Killing) oversaw a master class. The emphasis at the Illinois institution is on docs, but elective courses can be…