Innholdsfortegnelse for March 16, 2022 i The Hollywood Reporter

Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family. That’s been an unspoken rule at Disney — as in much of corporate America — for generations. But, in a dramatic departure from the company’s long-standing culture of public positivity, some LGBTQ employees of the media giant have been breaking that rule to object to Disney’s handling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. What in previous eras might have sparked internal employee grumbling about a company policy instead went public in spectacular fashion, thanks to mounting frustration over anti-gay legislation cropping up nationally, a generational change in how employees view their activism at work, and a tight job market in animation that means there are other attractive places besides Disney to make animated films and TV shows. There isn’t monolithic agreement…

Pilot orders at the five broadcast networks have hit a 10-year low as ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW shift to year-round development and reduce the overall number of pricey scripted originals. The March 2020 shutdown wiped out that year’s pilot season production and saw 20 of the 60 comedies and dramas rolled into 2021. This year, the broadcast nets face rising costs associated with filming amid COVID-19 and competition for top talent behind and in front of the camera as Disney, Paramount, Fox, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. reallocate budgets to feed their respective streamers. Total Volume (Comedies and Dramas Across All Five Networks) 2022 Volume by Network vs. 2021 Source: THR research…

On March 10, the U.K. government made the decision to sanction seven Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of English top-flight soccer team Chelsea FC, and restrict business interests, freeze assets and bar any travel into the country. In singling out Abramovich, the owner of one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world — last year, Forbes valued Chelsea at $3.2 billion — those sanctions spotlight how the global sports industry, unlike any other segment of the entertainment business, has been a tool in Russia’s use of soft power worldwide. “There is no doubt that Russian economic and political interests are deeply embedded within the global sport ecosystem,” says Simon Chadwick, global professor of sport at the EM Lyon business school and director of the center for…

Deal of the Week The Shawn Levy-Ryan Reynolds bromance has entered the Marvel Universe. After working together for the first time on Free Guy, a surprise hit in summer 2021, and The Adam Project this year, the director and star have set their sights on Deadpool 3. The superhero sequel will be the first in the franchise to be made by Marvel Studios, following Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. That means it will be the first to be guided by Kevin Feige, who took meetings with Levy and Reynolds before ultimately signing off on the hiring. Feige will now serve as a producer on the project. Levy might be the biggest filmmaker to board a Marvel project. Despite the current stature of directors such as Joe and Anthony…

The Alliance for Children’s Rights returned to the Beverly Hilton on March 8 for its Champions for Children event with a program featuring performer Charlie Puth and speakers Rob Lowe and LL Cool J, who helped the org honor their agent, WME partner Richard Weitz, and his daughter, Demi. The duo have raised $30 million for dozens of causes since March 2020 via their pandemic phenomenon RWQuarantunes and were feted in a room that included such power players as Disney’s Dana Walden; 20th Television’s Karey Burke; Paramount’s Nicole Clemens; WME’s Rick Rosen; producers Warren Littlefield, Richard Suckle, Orly Adelson and Melvin Mar; and music man Jimmy Jam. “The notion that Richard Weitz could focus on something for more than 90 seconds, let alone a year and a half, really speaks…

With directorial efforts like Spy, The Heat and Ghostbusters earning north of $1.2 billion in the past decade and a reputation for donning three-piece suits, Paul Feig may be Hollywood’s highest-grossing dandy. A once-struggling actor who created the landmark NBC show Freaks and Geeks before going on to helm the 2011 smash hit Bridesmaids, he’s also a comedy powerhouse. His Feigco Entertainment produces a growing slate of series — HBO Max’s Minx, about the foibles of creating the first erotic magazine for women, and Fox’s Welcome to Flatch, which follows a documentary crew in a small town, join the roster March 17 — while its namesake makes a steady drip of blockbuster features. The latest, The School for Good and Evil, arrives on Netflix this year. The bona fide renaissance man,…

Thanks to a spate of new properties, Hollywood-beloved getaway spot Los Cabos is bigger and better than ever before. “Cabo continues to reinvent itself,” says Smartflyer travel consultant Kara Slater, adding that her L.A. clients love the sunny Mexican hotspot — anchored by the towns of San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas — for its “stunning views of the sea meeting the mountains, reliable hospitality and unparalleled culinary offerings.” WHERE TO STAY Cabo’s luxury additions include Zadún, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve (rooms from $1,499 a night), just east of San Jose del Cabo. The biggest draw at the contemporary resort — one of only five Reserve properties in the Ritz-Carlton portfolio — is its 115 ultraprivate, freestanding rooms, suites and villas. These indoor-outdoor havens offer dramatic views of the…

Early in 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic, Michelle Yeoh was in an IRS building in the Valley, shooting a fight sequence with a couple of stuntmen. It was just another day on the job in her nearly four decades of kicking ass in action classics — save for the makeshift butt plugs in the scene. “Andy has his pants halfway down and he’s jumping around, and then I turn around and there’s his brother without pants, with the thing hanging …” Yeoh dissolves into chuckles, still in disbelief as she recalls fight choreographers Andy and Brian Le’s unorthodox but totally plot-motivated use of office accessories as sex toys. “I was on the ground, like, ‘This is just too much. What have I gotten myself into?’” That record-scratch,…

A Romancing the Stone-like adventure featuring a more unlikely pair of lovers-to-be than Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, Aaron and Adam Nee’s The Lost City follows a romance novelist (Sandra Bullock) as she’s caught up in a plot every bit as loony as those she has grown tired of inventing for her fans. While it’s no longer surprising to see the sensitive and funny sides of co-star Channing Tatum, his hunky character’s puppy-like devotion to Bullock’s dismissive damsel in distress serves the pic quite well, enlivening action that (after a winningly over-the-top kickoff) might otherwise grow too generic. A vastly bigger undertaking than The Last Romantic, the microbudget debut the directors brought to SXSW in 2006, it’s a thoroughly commercial film despite feeling only a little bit more of-the-moment than…

The late Sidney Poitier was a Hollywood icon who took on film roles that broke racial barriers. But not many people know the part he played in changing another side of the entertainment industry for the better, making it fairer and more equitable for women and people of color still working in it to this day. At the Oscar ceremony this year, there no doubt will be heartfelt tributes to Poitier, and he is most deserving of every bit of that recognition. There’s another important tribute, however, that has yet to be bestowed by the Academy — one with which Poitier likely would have agreed. That is honoring the first Black stuntmen and stuntwomen who helped transform Hollywood, making it more diverse and inclusive. It was because of Poitier and…

Etéreo, Auberge Resorts Collection, Riviera Maya With a name that means ethereal and a Mayan life-cycle motif woven into the interior design, this luxury resort within Riviera Maya’s new Kanai development puts a focus on open-air experiences, spa treatments and dining that embraces the culture of the Yucatan Peninsula; from $1,299 a night, aubergeresorts.com/etereo Casona Sforza, Puerto Escondido Designed by famed Mexican architect Alberto Kalach with asymmetric arched vaults, this independent boutique hotel in a Oaxacan surf town is sun-washed and sand-hued. It features locally made decor and seasonal cuisine, plus private yoga classes; from $320, casonasforza.com ↓ Playa Viva, Zihuatanejo When sustainable and eco-friendly aren’t enough, there’s truly regenerative travel, like this high-end, off-the-grid resort that practices permaculture (a holistic approach to land management), grows cacao on site…

Benedict Cumberbatch has had quite a run over the past few months, receiving critical acclaim for his harrowing role in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, a film that ultimately received 12 Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actor for Cumberbatch. After his nomination, which marked his second Academy recognition (the first was for 2014’s The Imitation Game), Cumberbatch spoke to THR about his nomination and how he tried to impress Campion. “[Jane’s] a poet,” Cumberbatch says of the writer-director. “As opposed to writing a New York [Times] op-ed on Trumpism, this is poetry. This is really leaning into the visual medium at its richest. And when I first saw it, I saw that I was part of the world I was part of, and it blew me…

About halfway through the eight episodes of Apple TV+’s WeCrashed, an investor named Cameron (O-T Fagbenle) shares with his Benchmark Capital colleague Bruce (Anthony Edwards) his skepticism about WeWork’s spend-heavy business model. “We’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we?” Cameron says. Bruce insists Adam Neumann (Jared Leto), the company’s magnetic co-founder, makes all the difference. But Cameron’s words will prove prescient. We’ve indeed seen this story before, and while WeCrashed makes for a rather entertaining reenactment by relishing in the absurdity of Neumann’s worst impulses, it has little to add to the beats we already know. Created by Drew Crevello and Lee Eisenberg and based on the podcast by Wondery, WeCrashed follows a familiar formula, tracing Neumann’s journey from flailing “serial entrepreneur” to world-famous CEO of a company theoretically worth…

When the American Society of Cinematographers celebrates its 36th annual ASC Awards on March 20 at the ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood, Ellen Kuras — whose cinematography credits include Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Ted Demme’s Blow — will become the first woman recipient of the American Society of Cinematographers’ lifetime achievement award. “[In some ways,] things have changed so much,” says the cinematographer and director, remembering when she was invited to join the society in 1999. “There have been a lot of new opportunities for women working in episodic, working in television and commercials. While things [overall] haven’t changed enough — and really they haven’t — there’s so much more room for us to be able to be much more inclusive and to encourage inclusivity, not only…

In the 1960s, Hollywood was grappling with how to address the ongoing Cold War embroiling the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Two years after Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove sent up the tension by launching a character out of a plane blissfully straddling a bomb, Norman Jewison’s 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming took a lighter but still thoughtful approach. The film offers an empathetic take on a Soviet team searching for a boat after their submarine runs aground on a quiet island off the coast of New England, leading locals to believe the Russians are invading. The movie was a box office success (earning $21.7 million domestically, or $189.9 million today) and a critical hit, and picked up four Oscar nominations including best picture and best…

In 2021, not one of the top five titles at the domestic box office skewed female as far as tickets sold, a Motion Picture Association report showed on March 14. Black Widow came the closest, and even then, there wasn’t parity between genders. Go back just two years to 2019, and females (and moms) fueled three of the top five releases (see chart below). The pandemic changed moviegoing habits, with younger males showing the most willingness to return to the multiplex. Older consumers were the most skittish; those over age 60 bought 15 percent of all tickets sold in 2019, but only 9 percent in 2021. The 50-to-59 age bracket fell from 11 percent to 7 percent, says the MPA in its assessment of the year, and 40-to-49 from 15…

BEST PICTURE The Power of the Dog Netflix’s great hope for its first Oscar in this category had a huge weekend, claiming the top DGA award and best picture and director BAFTA and Critics Choice prizes. But Jane Campion’s comments about Venus and Serena Williams lost her some goodwill. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE The Mitchells vs. the Machines Encanto took home this category’s BAFTA award and the Society of Composers & Lyricists prize for best score (studio film), but Mitchells upset it at Critics Choice and dominated at the Annie Awards, winning eight prizes. BEST COSTUME DESIGN Cruella At the Costume Designers Guild Awards, Jenny Beavan’s work prevailed over three fellow Oscar nominees — Cyrano, Nightmare Alley and West Side Story — to win the prize for excellence in a period…

Hulu: We’re Going to Need a Name for that Talking Penis In the second episode of Hulu’s Pam and Tommy, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan as notorious ’90s couple Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, a new character pops out. While high on ecstasy, Stan’s Lee has a heady conversation with his penis, who encourages Lee to keep up his promiscuous ways. At a finale event March 8, co-showrunners D.V. DeVincentis and Robert Siegel told THR that DeVincentis originally had voiced the penis, but that Hulu was seeking a name to rerecord the role. It was Seth Rogen who suggested Jason Mantzoukas, pointing to the comedian’s voluminous experience with below-the-belt voicework on Netflix’s raunchy animated Big Mouth. “There was no other choice, honestly. I wish I could say he was…

Weddings Symon, radio host of SiriusXM Hits 1, married Jake Davis on Dec. 23 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The couple will honeymoon in Italy this summer. Kyle Schmitz, vp comedy development at Warner Bros. TV, married David Sylvia, vp new channels and partnerships at Seed, on Aug. 28 at Deer Creek Ridge in Malibu. The couple honeymooned in Greece. Births Sabrina Taitz, a book agent at WME, and Eric Taitz, senior vp and GM of ventures at Boat Rocker Media, welcomed Isla Sloan Taitz on Jan. 6. Congrats Allen Media Group promoted Bill Vergos to head of digital film distribution for Freestyle Digital Media on March 11. Katy Alimohammadi Crown was promoted to partner at entertainment law firm Donaldson Callif Perez on March 9. Former Marc Platt Productions exec…

In 2019, rerecording mixer Paul Massey received a warm hug from Queen’s Brian May, who was sitting on the aisle at the Dolby Theatre as Massey approached the stage to accept an Oscar for his meticulous work on Bohemian Rhapsody. From working with members of the iconic band Queen, to longtime collaborations with Ridley Scott and James Mangold and his early career mixing albums and live shows for 1970s-era bands such as Yes and Supertramp, Massey was a clear choice for the Cinema Audio Society career achievement award, the group’s highest honor, which will be presented March 19 during the 58th Cinema Audio Society Awards. The mixer won an Oscar, BAFTA and CAS Award for Bohemian Rhapsody, as well as BAFTA and CAS Awards for Mangold’s Walk the Line and…

Our influx of inquiries has increased more than 1,000 percent over the past three months,” says Dean Cryer, vp international operations at Building Consensus/Panic Room Builders, a firm specializing in the building of safe rooms. “It’s gone insane.” Because of the perceived increase in crime in metropolitan areas and high-profile murders and robberies in high-net-worth neighborhoods like Beverly Hills, “hidden rooms are definitely trending right now,” says Cryer. In the L.A. area, some houses selling for as low as $4 million or $5 million are being kitted out, particularly spec homes. “I think they are not something that, in an immediate sense, increases value,” says Douglas Elliman real estate agent Greg Holcomb. “But when a buyer is interested in the house anyway, I think it does help [boost interest].” Real…

Here’s an example of a Hollywood testimonial to the power of a trusted producing partner: Several years ago, Charlize Theron was making the usual eightminute drive to pick up her kids at the school bus stop on an ordinary afternoon in early October when she received a call saying that Megan Ellison’s Annapurna was pulling out of Bombshell, the movie she was making about the women of Fox News who set out to expose Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Theron, who was producing and starring as anchor Megyn Kelly, freaked. Bombshell was only two weeks away from shooting. If they didn’t meet the start date, they could lose co-stars Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie because of scheduling conflicts. Theron’s first and only call was to Aaron Gilbert, who, alongside his…

This year’s WGA Awards are set to take place in a virtual ceremony March 20, with A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Ashley Nicole Black — also nominated this year for her work on Ted Lasso’s second season — serving as emcee. Among the nominees are previous WGA Award winners Wes Anderson, Tony Kushner, Adam McKay, Eric Roth and Aaron Sorkin. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Being the Ricardos (Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) Don’t Look Up (Screenplay by Adam McKay, story by Adam McKay and David Sirota) The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (Screenplay by Wes Anderson, story by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartzman) King Richard ↑ (Screenplay by Zach Baylin) Licorice Pizza (Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson) ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CODA (Screenplay by Sian Heder) Dune…