Innholdsfortegnelse for July 16, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

Perception is everything. A day after The Walt Disney Co. announced that Marvel Studios’ Scarlett Johansson starring Black Widow debuted to $218.8 million — including $60 million from Disney+ Premier Access and $158.8 million in global box office — the company’s stock jumped 4 percent July 12 while theater stocks dipped across the board. Disney’s ability to boast a $200 million-plus worldwide opening, without relying solely on box office, certainly pleased investors, but traditional Hollywood studios and cinema owners are less than enthusiastic about trumpeting streaming success. Until now, no traditional studio has publicly shared viewership numbers for any of the multitude of their movies that are playing in homes earlier than ever because of COVID-19. The Black Widow reveal could mark a paradigm shift. Sources say Disney is likely…

I’m here in Europe during COVID-19 producing a documentary based on the Denver Art Museum’s current exhibition, From Paris to Hollywood: The Fashion and Influence of Veronique and Gregory Peck. Directed by their daughter, Cecilia Peck, the film uses Veronique’s collection of haute-couture dresses as a backdrop to this couple’s legendary love story and how they used their style to accomplish so much in support of the arts and social justice. For years, the Pecks had a home in Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera. The film combines interviews of beloved friends and never-before-seen home movies shot by Gregory. Cecilia — whose Starz docuseries Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult played to great acclaim at the new Monaco streaming film festival on July 3 — and I also went to Lake…

After a starry week of Cannes events, the French Dispatch premiere July 12 may have been the most A-list of them all, bringing together Bill Murray, Timothée Chalamet, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Stephen Park and Benicio Del Toro. Following the red carpet walk and screening, the cast received a nine-minute standing ovation — among the longest so far — for Wes Anderson’s journalism ode that’s set at an American magazine in a fictional 20th century French city.…

General Hospital also celebrated at the June 25 ceremony The Daytime Emmys, hosted by The Talk’s Sheryl Underwood, handed out its first round of awards June 25, and The Kelly Clarkson Show, Jeopardy! and General Hospital were among the winners. Clarkson won for entertainment talk show and talk show host, while posthumous awards went to Larry King and Jeopardy!’s Alex Trebek. Netflix, aided by The Letter for the King and Julie and the Phantoms, led the trophy count with nine Daytime Emmys, followed by ABC with five wins and CBS with four. General Hospital led all individual shows with six awards, including outstanding drama series.…

Hollywood and marijuana long have been inextricably linked, from Cheech & Chong establishing the stoner comedy genre with 1978’s Up in Smoke to beloved weed-based hits like The Big Lebowski, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Pineapple Express. In recent years, though, Hollywood’s involvement with marijuana has transitioned offscreen and into business, with celebrities launching their own cannabis lines and companies. Seth Rogen, Jay-Z, Jim Belushi, Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Wiz Khalifa, Bella Thorne, Jaleel White and Melissa Etheridge are just a sampling of the famous figures who have gotten into the cannabis industry since 2012, when Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize recreational use. “If you’re smart enough, you get in, you know how to take your celebrity and create a real business for…

Foxy x Uncle Paulie’s Deli Ginseng OG is a collab with the L.A. deli that includes 3.5 grams of indica flower, a rolling tray and a breakfast-sandwich gift card. Ashley Benson is a fan; $90, foxyusa.com Potent Goods Dressed up in a chic snake print, the Amplify sativa-blend vaporizer pen is part of the new cannabis-and-clothing line by Juicy Couture co-founder Gela Nash-Taylor and her son Travis Nash; $34, potentgoodslashop.com Raw Garden Key Lime Live Sauce extract, from the brand’s Santa Barbara farm, has lime and floral notes; $36, at MedMen, West Hollywood and rawgarden.farm Tradecraft Farms A hand-rolled, glass-tipped pre-roll with 1 gram of high-grade flower wrapped in palm leaves and finished with a traditional cigarillo band; $18, at Tradecraft Farms in Port Hueneme, California, and tradecraftfarms.com…

ON the Warner Bros. lot in the summer of 2019, a soundstage housing a basketball court flanked by greenscreens hosted four-time NBA MVP LeBron James, who—while talking to a cardboard cutout of Daffy Duck—played against a small armada of local collegiate athletes wearing motion-capture suits. The cheering fans on the sidelines included Batman sidekick Robin, murderous clown Pennywise and Game of Thrones’ White Walkers, with CG spectators like King Kong to be added later. At the center of this Warners-sponsored fever dream was Malcolm D. Lee. During the course of a career that established him as a go-to director of studio comedies, Lee, 51, is taking his biggest swing yet with Space Jam: A New Legacy. From 1999’s The Best Man (and its sequel) to 2017’s Girls Trip, his goal,…

Marvel fans were flying high with the release of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as the Disney+ series rose to top Nielsen’s closely watched streaming chart with 855 million minutes viewed during the April 12-18 frame. Yet one person fans were surprised to learn wasn’t watching was Ed Brubaker. The comic book writer, who co-created the Winter Soldier character and whose work helped inspire $1 billion grossers like 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, made waves with a widely circulated interview in which he expressed dissatisfaction with his Winter Soldier pay. “I have made more on SAG residuals than I have made on creating the character,” Brubaker told Kevin Smith on the Fatman Beyond podcast, referencing his cameo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In May, Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose…

Will your favorite Netflix show be interrupted with screeching noises and then urgent news from the nation’s leaders sometime in the future? That’s a possibility Congress could soon hear about when the FCC reports on the feasibility of making streaming services adopt the Emergency Alert System. In the 1960s, a predecessor system to the EAS was established to warn Americans to get into bomb shelters in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Later, all broadcast stations and cable and satellite operators were required to install and maintain the system. These days, the EAS has shown rust. Notably, in January 2018, citizens of Hawaii woke up to the ominous alarm of a ballistic missile threat that proved to be a mistake. In the wake of this errant…

Appleseed (CUSTOM HOUSE, JULY 13) BY Matt Bell AGENCY UTA This high concept sci-fi epic novel takes place in three time periods — 18th century Ohio; the latter part of the 21st century, when one company owns all of Earth’s resources; and 1,000 years in the future, when North America is covered by ice. The Candy House (SCRIBNER, APRIL 2022) BY Jennifer Egan AGENCY ICM Partners The Pulitzer Prize winner’s anticipated novel — a multi-narrative drama that lends itself to episodic adaptation — is set in a world where all memories can be extracted and digitized but must be shared in order to do so.…

Dosist Bliss lemon-lime gummies (5 mg THC) from Dosist, a go-to label for Gwyneth Paltrow; $19 for a can of 20, at Boutiq Dispensary, Venice, and shop.dosist.com Cann The cannabis-infused Ginger Lemongrass Social Tonic Crafted beverage has 5 mg of THC; 20 for four cans, drinkcann.com Paul Arnhold x Edie Parker Handblown glass bong created by Brooklynbased artist Arnhold for Edie Parker Flower. Kacey Musgraves is a brand ambassador; $795, edieparkerflower.com Her Highness The Thigh High Ashtray in marble with brass legs. Emma Roberts and drag queen Laganja Estranja are fans of the brand; $90 at herhighnesscbd.com Jacquie Ai che Lighter case in 14-karat yellow gold, diamond and malachite with opal inlay; $10,000, jacquieaiche.com Humble Pride Handblown glass pipe by Oregon-based artist Michael Sorenson with leaf details that double as a…

1992 Before his first NBA retirement, Michael Jordan stars in a Super Bowl ad with Bugs Bunny titled “Hare Jordan,” helmed by future Jam director Joe Pytka. 1996 Jordan stars in Space Jam, which earns $250 million at the global box office, but he does not sign on for a sequel 2001 Following the success of Rush Hour, Jackie Chan negotiates to star in a Space Jam sequel titled Spy Jam, which never gets past development. Warner Bros. confirms development on the NASCAR-themed Race Jam starring Jeff Gordon. Pytka later reveals a Tiger Woods-starring sequel also was pitched. 2003 Looney Tunes: Back in Action is released, receiving slightly better reviews than Space Jam but grossing a disastrous $68.5 million worldwide against an $80 million budget. Tony Hawk is approached by…

Global streaming video revenue could soar 60 percent to $94 billion by 2025, but a theatrical box office recovery may not hit pre-pandemic levels for another three years. Those are among the predictions from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual look at the media and entertainment landscape on July 12. By 2025, streaming growth is expected to be powered by subscriptions to services like Netflix or Disney+, with revenue totaling more than $81 billion globally, while $13 billion may be from transactional video-on-demand revenue. In the U.S., total 2020 media and entertainment industry revenue fell 4.5 percent, from $717 billion to $685 billion, but the sector is expected to consistently grow to reach $855 billion in 2025 after hitting nearly $724 billion in 2021. When it comes to global advertising revenue, dollars…

The story of how a Native American film director, an iconic actor and the writer of Game of Thrones teamed for an AMC series based on the Dark Wind novels goes back decades. In 1979, Thrones author George R.R. Martin moved to New Mexico and met Dark Wind writer Tony Hillerman, who hosted a monthly luncheon at the Albuquerque Press Club for writers. The authors became friends, and Martin got hooked on Hillerman’s series, which follows a pair of New Mexican Navajo police detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, from opposing backgrounds. Fast forward to 1988. Robert Redford discovered the Leaphorn/Chee novels and picked up rights with the intention of making a series of films. Yet Redford struggled to get a major studio on board. “Getting an all-Native American cast…

Is There a World in Which Bill Cosby Could Make a Stand-Up Comeback? Days after Bill Cosby was released from prison June 30, his spokesperson Andrew Wyatt telegraphed that the comic, who turned 84 on July 12, was eyeing a comeback tour in the U.S., Canada and London. But it remains to be seen if any comedy clubs will host the disgraced icon. THR checked in with a smattering of L.A.’s top live venues — The Comedy Store, Laugh Factory, Westside Comedy Theater, Hollywood Improv and Saban Theatre, among them — and (shocker) only one venue insider, who requested anonymity, chose to weigh in: “Under no circumstances would we ever have Bill Cosby here. He’s a monster. I would sooner host a live tiger.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s…

Everyone’s cutting the cord. Then again, maybe the demise of traditional broadcasting has been wildly exaggerated. That’s the reexami-nation happening after a June 17 Nielsen report showed streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube accounted for just 26 percent of total TV viewing time—while broadcast and cable dominated at 64 percent. “Wild that most TV time in USA is still legacy linear,” tweeted Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings. CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter, “Streaming might take up three fourths of the media world’s attention, but right now it’s only one fourth of viewership time. Streaming might eventually cannibalize everything, but that day is a long way away.” Oddly, much of the conversation in media circles around Nielsen’s June 17 report overlooked the very thing that’s been largely…

While last year’s ceremony was among the first awards shows to take place amid the pandemic, the 2021 Emmys give full weight to COVID-19’s impact on television. Academy favorites Succession and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel postponed their seasons, making room for new contenders. Netflix’s The Crown and Disney+’s The Mandalorian lead the field with the most noms (see chart, right), and WandaVision and Ted Lasso delivered big numbers for Disney+ and Apple TV+, respectively. HBO continues to lead the cable presence, and—with 130 noms between them—its HBO Max streaming counterpart had the best showing among the newly launched platforms. Here, THR breaks down this year’s nominations. THE TOP NOMINEES DRAMA LIMITED SERIES COMEDY FIRST-TIME NOMINEES! Straying out of comfort zones and risk-taking were rewarded STACEY ABRAMS The voting-rights advocate was…

When Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open in May, her decision shocked officials, media and fans. It shouldn’t have. Days earlier, Osaka had announced that she would not participate in mandatory news conferences at the tournament; she suffered from anxiety, and interviews only added to her stress. Officials responded by levying a fine against her. So she left. “I never wanted to be a distraction,” she wrote in an Instagram post that intimated the kind of athlete, the kind of person, she wanted to be. How she became that person is the subject of Garrett Bradley’s delicate and absorbing new Netflix docuseries. The three episodes (each roughly 40 minutes) follow Osaka over two years, elegantly mapping the development of her craft and voice. Bradley, known for Time, her stunning…