Innholdsfortegnelse for August 18, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

Earlier this year, Netflix announced that Bridgerton, a show I created and ran, was the streaming giant’s biggest series debut ever. I was astounded. How could this Regency period piece that had consumed the better part of the last three years of my life be capturing the zeitgeist in such a big way? I’m convinced it’s due in no small part to the show’s intentionally inclusive world — one where every viewer, no matter who they are, could see themselves onscreen. A world that’s not color-blind, as some have suggested, but one that’s color-conscious. My pitch for Bridgerton was straightforward: I wanted to turn the period genre on its head and reimagine it in a new and exciting way. One that included characters of different colors and backgrounds. One that…

Big Deal Endeavor Content is officially on the market. Just a few months after WME signed a franchise agreement with the WGA that saw WME parent Endeavor promise to divest 80 percent of its stake in the Endeavor Content studio, Endeavor president Mark Shapiro told THR on Aug. 16 that “we have started that sale process.” “We’ve had a couple of presentations and are getting books out to qualified buyers,” he said, noting that Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine sold a majority stake that valued her company at $900 million. “They sold it for $900 million for six shows, three hits and three in development? That’s insane,” Shapiro adds. “We have 15 hits, we have hundreds of shows that are in development, greenlit or already in production for Apple, Netflix and…

For the global film industry, the 2021 Venice International Film Festival feels uncomfortably like a case of deja vu. Last year, as much of Europe emerged from its first coronavirus lockdown, Venice 2020 was the first major film festival to hold an in-person, physical event. “We thought [the festival] would be the start of the reopening of everything — of production, distribution, theaters and so on,” says Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera. “This was not the case, obviously.” A year on, Barbera is hoping Venice 2021 will serve as the real restart. “We don’t know yet, of course,” he says. “But I’m optimistic ours will be the first festival of a new era.” That is, if the delta variant doesn’t spoil everyone’s party. The highly contagious version of the coronavirus…

A pair of fishing waders are hanging on the deck and some cowboy boots are lined up neatly in the mudroom, but today Michael Keaton is wearing his flip-flops and leaning back in a rocking chair on the porch, watching the Oregon wildfire smoke that had cloaked the mountains around his Montana ranch finally start to blow out, leaving behind a few plum-colored clouds. Despite air-quality warnings on the local news, Keaton had gone for a run. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” he says. “My eyes were burning and my throat was hurting, and I thought, ‘This is really stupid,’ but I was getting so antsy, I had to get out and do something.” Keaton bought this land more than 30 years ago, and at one point in the prime…

Liz Garbus, who has built her career as a documentarian tackling true crime, voter suppression and the justice system, made her first foray into directing scripted television with the season-four finale of The Handmaid’s Tale — and was subsequently recognized with an Emmy nomination, her seventh (she’s won twice before). Garbus, who this year also executive produced and directed multiple episodes of HBO’s Golden State Killer docuseries I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, spoke to THR about collaborating with Elisabeth Moss and bringing her documentarian eye to Gilead. What was your experience like directing this episode? I imagine coming in to do the season finale is stressful. I’ve directed documentaries, I’ve directed a scripted feature.… Episodic television is different, right? All of these mediums are different and they have their…

Early in the COVID pandemic, the phrase “nature is healing” began to be used in earnest — shorthand for the way the lockdown contributed to a measurable drop in air pollution as well as a rise in unexpected urban cameos by wild animals, until then scared into seclusion by man-made cacophony. In the midst of global misery, it was a sign of something resembling hope, evidence that we hadn’t screwed up the planet beyond recognition. Months later, as with all things online, irony had replaced sincerity and “nature is healing” became a punchline for any signs of resumed frivolity, however dumb. The bakery ran out of Cronuts? Nature is healing! The evening commute returned to gridlock? Nature is healing! Netflix canceled a show despite an infuriating cliffhanger ending? Nature is…

Candyman, which returns Aug. 27 to terrify audiences in an all-new version directed by Nia DaCosta and co-written by Jordan Peele, began as the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker, first published in 1985. English writer-director Bernard Rose optioned the story — about a hook-handed urban legend that comes to life — and relocated it from Liverpool to the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago. Rose further reimagined the title character, who appears when his name is uttered five times into a mirror, as being the ghostly son of Black slaves, attacked by a lynch mob for fathering a child with a white woman. They cut off his right hand (hence the hook) and smeared him with honey, resulting in death by bee stings. “I didn’t audition. I had to pass…

Hopes were running relatively high on studio lots across Hollywood in June. A true box office recovery seemed within sight. Executives could feel some confidence about their fall releases after having to rearrange their entire calendars at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020 and then again during last winter’s surge of COVID-19 cases. But the sense of calm wasn’t to last. The aggressive delta variant sparked a spike in COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles, some Southern states and now nationwide. Moviegoing comfort levels plummeted in a matter of weeks, according to polls conducted by the National Research Group, waylaying the recovery indefinitely. Overall comfort had been running at a pandemic-era record of 81 percent in early July; now it has fallen to 64-or-so percent. The response was swift…

For years, the story has been the same. New Yorkers, fed up with their cramped, expensive city, were fleeing to Los Angeles, the land of spacious yards and ample sunshine. But now, real estate agents in NYC have noticed a surprising number of Angelenos are buying pieds-à-terre in NYC. “There’s an attraction right now. People are gravitating back to New York,” says Jim St. André of Compass. “It’s been shut down and things haven’t been happening at all. Now it feels like it’s going to be better than ever, and I think a lot of people want to be a part of that.” This year, says St. André, “25 percent of my clients are from L.A.” In past years, that number was closer to 10 percent. So what’s fueling this…

Respect Producers Arranged Early Preview for Obama Family The Obamas didn’t need to rush to the cineplex to see MGM’s Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, which opened Aug. 13 and stars Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul. They’ve already seen it. THR learned producers arranged for a private screening for Barack and Michelle Obama a week ahead of the former president’s well-publicized 60th birthday party in Martha’s Vineyard. The Obamas know Hudson well from Chicago, and she sang at the 2013 inaugural ball. And Franklin performed at Obama’s history-making 2009 inauguration and moved him to tears during Carole King’s Kennedy Center tribute in 2015. Producer Jonathan Glickman tells THR: “It was very important for us to make sure that they saw it first and foremost. He actually called to FaceTime…

Weddings Jasmine Luv, who starred in BET’s The Waiting Room, married Corey Barrett on June 12 at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Births THR reviews editor Jon Frosch and husband Martin Gaillard welcomed son Ezra Diego Frosch-Gaillard on Aug. 8. David Davoli, president of television at BRON Studios, and wife Colette Coleman, head of strategy at Zinc Learning Labs, welcomed son Luca James Davoli on July 7 in New York. Congrats Kerry Kennedy was named executive vp business affairs at ABC Entertainment and Walt Disney Television Unscripted on Aug. 10. Jason DeMarco joined Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios as senior vp anime and action series and longform Aug. 10. Nishika Kumble was hired as senior vp scripted television for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Productions on Aug.…

Dr. Steven Harris has had it. The owner of the Harris Clinic in London, who employs a “less is more” approach in his use of Botox and fillers, has taken to social media to sound the alarm bells. On Instagram, the aesthetic doctor — whose Hollywood clients regularly fly across the pond to see him for his revered correction work — posted a picture of a stick of dynamite with a ticking clock next to it, writing, “Our industry is fast becoming a breeding ground for mental health illness … What sort of twisted standard of beauty are we creating for the younger generations and how does it affect those with mental health disorders such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder?” Speaking with THR, he says, “Things have gone really wrong…

Lucia Aniello doesn’t remember exactly what Paul W. Downs did more than a decade ago in an improv class that made her laugh so hard, but her instinct was to record it. “I turned to our teacher and said, ‘Write that down,’ ” she says with a laugh as she recounts the story. “What an unbelievably rude thing for a student to say to a teacher, as if she were a writer’s assistant!” The couple, who co-created HBO Max’s Hacks with Jen Statsky and are nominated for Emmys (along with Statsky, Aniello and Downs are up for writing for a comedy series; Aniello also is nominated for directing), have been making each other laugh since they met in their level one improv class at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2007.…

John Fithian, the level-headed chief of the National Association of Theatre Owners, has grown accustomed to being in the line of fire — literally and figuratively. The organization’s president and CEO spends part of each summer in Greece. Earlier in August, devastating fires erupted in the Athens area, forcing Fithian and his Greece-born wife to flee to his sister-in-law’s house. They would be evacuated one more time before returning safely home. Thousands of miles away in the U.S., the delta variant was disrupting the box office recovery. In a series of Zoom calls with his board members, a majority agreed not to oppose a new rule in New York requiring people attending indoor venues — including movie theaters — to show proof of vaccination (kids under age 12 are…

With sitting SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris opting not to seek reelection this year after five years in the role (secretary-treasurer Camryn Manheim also won’t be running again for her position), the performers’ union is bound for a leadership shake-up when 2021 national election votes are tabulated Sept. 2. And the four candidates now vying for the high-ranking roles are locked in a contentious battle for support — with diverging views about how best to lead the union’s 160,000 members during a tumultuous time in Hollywood. At the top of the ticket for the Unite for Strength party, affiliated with Carteris and Manheim, are veteran activists Fran Drescher (star of The Nanny, who is running for president) and Anthony Rapp (of Star Trek: Discovery and vying for secretary-treasurer). Rival group Membership…

First Look Heimat, a new gym concept from RSG Group (owner of Gold’s Gym), is due this fall in the Sycamore District near Hollywood. Gymgoers (who must apply for membership) will enjoy a rooftop pool, restaurant, spa, co-working space and cultural programming (monthly rates TBD). “Heimat is a German word used to describe that familiar feeling of home,” says managing director Ed Bell, who adds the gym will be “a luxury experience [that] we want to feel comfortable.”…

Lips Selecting the right injector is paramount if one wants to avoid the dreaded duck look, where the upper lip appears overly projected. “Natural results are achieved by respecting anatomy,” says Dr. Steven Harris, who regularly corrects overfilled lips. “Subtlety and balance are key.” Three L.A. professionals known for their skillful touch are dermatologist Dr. Janet Vafaie (dermatology.com); Melissa Haloossim, nurse practitioner of Skin Thesis (skinthesisinc.com); and Pawnta Abrahimi, RN of Beverly Hills’ SkinSpirit (skinspirit.com). Kylie Jenner, who had some of her lip filler removed in the past, is now Abrahimi’s client. Facial Restoration When seeking a fullface transformation, a surgical face-lift is known to deliver dramatic, long-lasting results. Downtime and anesthesia are usually required, although Dr. Ben Talei (beverlyhillscenter.com) often performs his revolutionary AuraLyft on patients while they’re awake…

Let’s start easy. Finish this sentence: Looking back on the last season, I can’t believe … CECILY STRONG I can’t believe we didn’t get shut down once. AIDY BRYANT I can’t believe we made comedy through all of it. KATE MCKINNON And I can’t believe that I had the most meaningful season I’ve ever had. I thought it was just going to be, “Well, if we manage to physically get through it, it’ll be something,” but it turned out to be … “favorite” is not the right word but definitely the most meaningful. I certainly felt the most connected to everyone in the building, despite the distance and the masks, because of the enormity of what we were trying to pull off together. Cecily and Aidy, can you relate? STRONG…

In this scene from The Boys’ season two finale, Ryan Butcher (played by Cameron Crovetti) unleashes his superpowers for the first time, and in the process accidentally deals a fatal blow to his mother, Becca Butcher (Shantel VanSanten). With her dying breath, Becca asks her estranged husband, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), to protect her son, who was fathered by Homelander (Antony Starr), who soon arrives to discover Ryan’s powers have also eviscerated Homelander’s romantic partner, Stormfront (Aya Cash).…

The Voice, returning Sept. 20 for its 21st season on NBC, will mark its 500th episode this fall, having turned its iconic chairs for hundreds of contestants and welcomed a dozen A-list judges since its April 2011 debut. As Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, John Legend and stalwart Blake Shelton take a seat on this year’s panel, longtime host and producer Carson Daly breaks down the highs and lows of the past 10 years. How has the show managed change over 500 episodes? When the show started, had a show like [American] Idol, for instance, had a panel change as many times as we’ve had, that would have been a bad thing; it would have been like, “Oh, this group of coaches or judges are falling out with each other.” But…