Innholdsfortegnelse for May 17, 2022 i The Hollywood Reporter

↑ Earnings Disney’s New Drive Bob Chapek homes in on streaming profits p. 14 Agencies CAA’s Deal Intrigue What’s the holdup on the ICM buy? p. 10 Heat Index Michelle Yeoh Word of mouth for Everything Everywhere All at Once, led by the star, is keeping the A24 film near the top of the domestic daily box office chart as it hits $43 million. Mark Pedowitz For the first time in a decade, The CW, led by the CEO, canceled more shows (10) than it renewed (eight) amid sale talks for the broadcast network. Dick Wolf The producer, and his Universal TV-based banner, went nine-for-nine in series renewals from NBC and CBS, led by his Law & Order revival and FBI franchise. W. Erik Carlson Dish Network’s pay TV subscriber…

T he term “Hollywood royalty” gets easily bandied about, but few entertainment figures have a stronger claim to showbiz aristocracy than George Stevens Jr., director, producer, screenwriter, playwright and founder of the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors, among other distinctions. His father, George Stevens Sr., directed some of the most enduring classics of American cinema, among them A Place in the Sun and The Greatest Story Ever Told. Three of his grandparents were thespians, including silent-film actress Alice Howell. When he fell into the pool as a child, he was saved from drowning by Johnny Weissmuller — Tarzan himself. In May, the 90-year-old multihyphenate can add author to his résumé. Stevens’ memoir, My Place in the Sun ($35, University of Kentucky Press) recounts his path from Tinseltown…

Lenard McKelvey, better known as Charlamagne tha God, is often referred to as a shock jock — a title well earned over his two-decade career of revelatory interviews with rappers, a few guest walkouts and audience response ranging from adulation to ire. But he’d rather be known as a media mogul — and not without justification. The 45-year-old firebrand host has made Power 105.1 FM’s The Breakfast Club New York’s most culturally relevant morning radio show for more than a decade, while adding TV projects (Comedy Central’s Tha God’s Honest Truth), podcasts (The Brilliant Idiots), multiple best-selling books, a comics imprint, scripted development and even a video series for The Hollywood Reporter (Emerging Hollywood) to his snowballing workload. “Audio is my world,” he says over a Zoom in early May.…

With the 2022 midterm elections kicking into gear, and what is sure to be a heated presidential election cycle just over the horizon, star journalists are in high demand. But while TV anchors and correspondents have seen their profiles (and compensation) rise for decades, the past few years in particular have turbocharged that shift. “News talent in the last five years have become stars in their own right,” says UTA co-president Jay Sures, noting his agency’s clients: “The likes of Don Lemon, David Muir, Anderson Cooper, Bret Baier, Jake Tapper, Norah O’Donnell. They are stars. They are walk-down-the-street stars. And as a result of that, they are compensated in a commensurate way with what they bring to their respective employers, which is a real trusted source in news — people…

PART OF a mini-wave of piano bars in New York — including the new Melody’s on the Upper East Side (1020 Lexington Ave.) — The Nines opened in January in a space above Acme bistro. Jeremy Strong held a viewing party for Succession there before the official opening, and Bradley Cooper, Chris Rock, Anne Hathaway and Sienna Miller have stopped in as well to hang in the cozy 70-seat NoHo spot decorated with Murano glass chandeliers and leopard-print carpets. A variety of piano players perform seven nights a week. Says owner Jon Neidich, “People are really celebrating being able to go out and interact with friends again and experience live music.” 9 Great Jones St., ninesnyc.com…

It is a question I lay in bed thinking about at night,” Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst tells THR of the question posed by journalists covering Russia’s war in Ukraine since Feb. 24, when the first missiles rained down: “How do I make people care?” Just before that night, Ukrainians were “going about their lives, going to school, to work, taking their children to the playground,” CBS News correspondent Holly Williams says. “They were worried, but not all Ukrainians thought it was going to happen.” Then everything changed, and journalists began to take risks to make viewers care — for example, by broadcasting the refugee crisis through graphic images, including civilians killed in Russian bombardments and miles-long lines of people seeking to cross the border into Poland. “The core…

Annie, Columbia Pictures’ lavish 1982 adaptation of the Broadway musical about the plucky, ever-optimistic orphan, appeared to crisscross New York City, from Radio City Music Hall to Daddy Warbucks’ Fifth Avenue mansion (his opulent digs were filmed at a 1929 mansion in New Jersey that’s now part of Monmouth University). But the bulk of the movie was actually shot on Warner Bros.’ Burbank lot. Legendary producer Ray Stark (Funny Girl), pulling out all the stops on the $40 million production (that’s $110 million today), gave production designer Dale Hennesy free rein to rebuild Warners’ Tenement Street, which dated to the 1930s, into a four-story-high replica of New York’s Lower East Side, complete with fire escapes and alleys. Carol Burnett was cast as Miss Hannigan, the forever-tipsy head of the orphanage.…

The pairing of an exclusive in-theater teaser trailer for James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar sequel with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness proved a significant moment beyond the Marvel movie’s heroic $449 million global opening (including $187 million domestically) during the May 6-8 weekend. Nearly 10 percent of moviegoers in North America opted to pay 20 percent to 30 percent more for a 3D ticket, an unheard-of jump for a format that many had written off even before the COVID-19 crisis. No film exemplified the promise of 3D more than 2009’s Avatar, which, with $8.45 billion in global ticket sales, remains the top-grossing film of all time. But in the years that followed, the lure of higher box office returns derailed the 3D train just as it was leaving the…

As Broadway emerges from one of its most embattled seasons, industry experts are cautiously optimistic. Based on current trends, live theater is expected to see a broader return to financial normalcy starting this summer. The key to getting there is smart pricing among long-running musicals, increased domestic tourism and the gradual return of international tourists, an important segment for both the industry and New York City’s recovery. After the industry reopened this fall following an 18-month shutdown, productions had to contend with reduced tourism numbers (international tourists could not easily enter the country until November 2021), new COVID-19 safety regulations for audience and company members, and then the delta and omicron waves, which led to canceled performances, the closure of several productions and shaken consumer confidence. Returning shows were helped…

CAA CAA represents talent spread across the network morning shows, a lucrative platform for news. UTA New CNN CEO Chris Licht will surely be dealing with UTA regularly, as the agency represents many of CNN’s key anchors. WME WME agents represent much of MSNBC’s weekday talent, among other star clients.…

The always-coveted Hamptons have become even more indemand over the past two years as buyers prioritized space, privacy and comfort during the pandemic. Inventory in the first quarter was down 41.5% year-over-year, while average prices were up nearly 25%, according to Douglas Elliman. SUSAN BREITENBACH Corcoran Group Breitenbach has handled sales for the likes of Christie Brinkley, and recently sold a Bridgehampton compound for close to $25 million. CHRIS COLEMAN Compass Coleman sold $225 million worth of Hamptons real estate in 2021, including Dick Cavett’s historic Tick Hall for $23.6 million, which was Montauk’s most expensive sale last year. CHRISTOPHER BURNSIDE Brown Harris Stevens Burnside recently listed developer David Walentas’ three-acre Southampton estate for $37 million. ERICA GROSSMAN Douglas Elliman Among her listings is a $55 million spread on East…

On May 25, The Hollywood Reporter will launch the New York Power Broker Awards with a ceremony at Les Trois Chevaux restaurant in the West Village. An East Coast counterpart to the first annual Los Angeles Power Broker Awards (which debuted in 2021), the NYC event will include a dinner honoring the elite sellers who made THR’s 2022 Top New York Real Estate Agents list, followed by a presentation of awards in seven categories. The evening is presented with The Society Group, a luxury real estate PR firm, and sponsored by Vesta Home, an interior design and home staging company. The categories and nominees are: • POWER BROKERS OF NEW DEVELOPMENT (for sales in new builds): Douglas Elliman’s Eklund | Gomes Team, Serhant’s Ryan Serhant, Compass’ Leonard Steinberg • PENTHOUSE…

Signs and banners advertising the revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite went up on 43rd Street’s Hudson Theatre in early March 2020. Above the marquee were glamorous portraits of its stars, Sarah Jessica Parker, 57, and Matthew Broderick, 60, New York’s most famous — and famously private — acting couple sharing a stage together for the first time in nearly 30 years. In hindsight, if a Broadway mystic had told the show’s creators that the signage would remain there for more than two years, they would have popped champagne. Unless they were told why. Parker and Broderick were onstage in full wigs and costumes on the afternoon of March 13, hours before the first preview performance, when they saw their colleagues huddled in conversation. “We kept going like, ‘What are…

Oct. 9, 2021, is the day everything changed for Please Don’t Destroy. That was when the viral-video trio — Ben Marshall (the ginger, 27), John Higgins (the short one, 26) and Martin Herlihy (glasses, 23) — went from mere Twitter notoriety to the newest breakout stars of Saturday Night Live, on a highly rated episode hosted by Kim Kardashian. The sketch, shot in a cramped 30 Rock office (their actual workspace), spoofed the ubiquity of hard seltzers with new flavors from JCPenney and Jiffy Lube. It was a simple premise delivered upon by three unabashed comedy nerds. In doing so, they reminded a pandemic-weary world that good comedy doesn’t require reinventing the wheel — it just requires being funny. The trio had joined the show as writers a few months…

When Kimberly Godwin introduced herself to the staff at ABC News in May 2021, the incoming president talked about her family and her kids, being raised by a single mother, her love of running and fast cars, and her professional wins as well as the times she had been passed over. “I say all of this to say that all of you need to bring your authentic selves to ABC News, and that will make us a better organization,” she said. “Everybody has an equal voice here.” The tone-setting declaration was necessary because the division, like many other media brands after the summer of 2020, had made headlines over workplace inequity and racial hostility. Godwin’s interview for the top job had notably included questions on how she would reform newsroom…

Never leave a deal open” is a phrase agents know too well. The longer it stays open, the more it invites scrutiny, and the more chances there are for it to go sideways or south. CAA’s acquisition of rival agency ICM Partners has now been open since September, when the mega agency first unveiled its plans, at the same time signaling its expectation that the buy would close by the end of the year, if not by the beginning of this one. Cut to … spring. The deal still hasn’t closed, and fatigue is setting in. “Every week that goes by, it becomes a concern,” notes one agency partner who was not authorized to speak publicly. Morale is low at ICM, sources inside and outside the agency say. In early…

6M viewers The series about the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers may not be popular with some of the real people it’s portraying, but viewers are drawn to it. Per Nielsen and HBO, the May 1 season finale had season highs in both on-air (534,000, more than double the audience for the premiere) and multiplatform (1.6 million) viewers. Across all platforms since the show’s March 6 premiere, Winning Time is averaging about 6 million viewers per episode — on par with the most recent season of another Adam McKay-produced HBO series, Succession.…

Jesse Williams’ Take Me Out Nude Scenes Causing a Stir on Broadway (and Twitter) Those cheers you’ve been hearing from the Hayes Theater — host of 2nd Stage Theater’s revival of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 play Take Me Out — are not all in response to the show’s four Tony nominations. The night THR took a seat in the mezzanine, a woman two rows back burst out with applause and shrieked “Oh my God!” seconds after Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams dropped a towel and revealed his, well, anatomy. Sources say it’s become a trend with audience members gasping and generally making noise during the full-Monty shower scenes that figure prominently in a show about how a major league team adjusts to its star player (Williams) coming out. To ensure the…

Weddings Actress Naturi Naughton married talent manager Xavier “Two” Lewis on April 2 at the St. Regis in Atlanta. The wedding party included Lala Anthony, Angela Yee, Teyonah Parris, Omari Hardwick and Sinqua Walls, with Montell Jordan officiating and a performance by ’90s crooner Tevin Campbell. Births WME talent agent Kathleen Lewis and husband Ethan Lewis, senior vp unscripted at the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, welcomed Brady O’Neil Lewis on Jan. 22. Congrats AGBO, the Russo brothers’ production shingle, named Scott Nemes president of television, Marian Koltai-Levine president of marketing and communications and Rik Toulon general counsel May 3. Nathan Lump was named editor-inchief for National Geographic on May 5. Paramount Global promoted Colin Hickey to senior vp operations and Sarah Tortoreti to senior vp marketing and communications at VidCon on…

As the name would imply, Long Island’s Gold Coast has long been a favorite escape for New York City’s rich and powerful. Sands Point, one of the North Shore’s marquee neighborhoods, was the inspiration for the old-money East Egg in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, while Kings Point was the basis for West Egg. And the area still has the grand old mansions and estates to prove it. Wealth along the Gold Coast first exploded during the Gilded Age of the early 20th century, and mansions that once belonged to prominent families such as the Guggenheims and the Vanderbilts are still standing to this day. “There’s still a smattering of beautiful late 19th and early 20th century estates,” says Maggie Keats, a broker with Douglas Elliman on Long Island.…

More than two years into the pandemic, just 8 percent of office workers in Manhattan have returned to work full-time, according to a poll by the Partnership for New York City. That’s a prime reason why so many people are clamoring to leave the house and connect in-person, say NYC restaurateurs who are seeing a return of the power lunch. Classics like Balthazar, Le Bernardin and Scarpetta remain popular, as do Estiatorio Milos and The Grill. Here are nine other restaurants — a combination of new hotspots and a few ever-buzzy mainstays, some with new locations, menus or chefs — that are seeing a boom in business lunches. AMERICAN BAR 33 GREENWICH AVE., WEST VILLAGE While not located near many office buildings, American Bar remains a popular lunch spot because,…

SAMANTHA BEE Host, Full Frontal The Daily Show alum’s TBS series reaches nearly 3 million viewers across platforms, which helped it secure a recent renewal even as her network cedes much of its originals push to streamer sibling HBO Max. Passing 200 episodes in 2021 and shifting to Thursday nights in January, Bee mixes her mockery of Washington with earnest pleas — like her recent segment on universal free lunch in schools. Eric Adams’ top priority should be “You mean after he fixes our swagger deficit?” JOY BEHAR, WHOOPI GOLDBERG, SARA HAINES AND SUNNY HOSTIN Panelists, The View As always, The View tends to make as many headlines as it covers (see Meghan McCain’s messy departure and Goldberg’s two-week suspension for comments about the Holocaust). With Goldberg on hiatus to…

DANIEL FIENBERG Over the past few years, television has gotten over its insistence that international programming is just a feeder system for Americanized remakes. From Lupin to Squid Game, folks will watch shows with subtitles. Ten years ago, My Brilliant Friend would have been about two friends growing up against the tumultuous backdrop of … Orange County. We’re better off now! Instead, a memo seems to have gone out saying, “You know what audiences like best about documentaries? The staged reenactments!” Every other show this spring feels like it’s been based on a Dateline segment, podcast, documentary or docuseries, as if nonfiction programming were a pupa awaiting the emergence of storytelling’s idealized form: Emmy-bait limited series about murder or fraud, featuring big-name actors encased in latex. Some of these adaptations…