Innholdsfortegnelse for June 1, 2022 i The Hollywood Reporter

Rachel Zegler The West Side Story star nabs the lead role in Lionsgate’s Hunger Games franchise prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, directed by Francis Lawrence. J.J. Abrams As new Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav reviews deals, sources say Abrams’ $250 million Bad Robot pact is being scrutinized for lack of output. Ruben Östlund The director’s Triangle of Sadness, a satire on modern-day capitalism, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Neon picked up domestic rights to the feature. Jeffrey Hirsch As Lionsgate puts an end-of-the-summer timeline on a spinoff of Starz, the chief of the pay TV brand is in limbo while multiple bidders weigh in. Showbiz Stocks $14.34 (+26.6%) AMC ENT. (AMC) The theater giant is coming off a huge holiday weekend propelled by Top Gun: Maverick,…

FILM Atlanta star Brian Tyree Henry (CAA) has joined boxing drama Flint Strong, starring Ryan Destiny, as the Rachel Morrisondirected project moves from Universal to MGM. Samuel L. Jackson (ICM) will star with Chris Pratt in Alcon and Sony Pictures’ animated Garfield feature from director Mark Dindal and writer David Reynolds. Rita Moreno (Innovative Artists) is joining Universal’s Fast X to play the grandmother of Vin Diesel’s character in the Louis Leterrier-directed sequel. Laurence Fishburne (CAA) and Clifton Collins Jr. (CAA) will lead Frank & Louis, a prison drama to be directed by Petra Volpe for Participant, Zodiac Pictures and Tyler Perry’s Peachtree & Vine Productions. Tom Hollander (Anonymous Content) will star in director Bille August’s post-World War II coming-of-age drama Me, You alongside Daisy Jacob and Alessandro Gassmann. Brilliant…

Rep Sheet Writer-actor Jordan Firstman left ICM and found new reps at IMG Models and WME. Margherita Mazzucco, star of HBO’s My Brilliant Friend, signed at ICM. R.J. Cutler, director of doc Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, inked at CAA. Matt Lopez, HBO Max’s Father of the Bride writer, signed at CAA. Chris Geere, This Is Us actor, signed with Verve. THR, Esq. CASE Village Roadshow v. Warner Bros. WHY IT MATTERS The battle waged by Village Roadshow, led by Steve Mosko, over Warner Bros.’ day-and-date HBO Max debut for The Matrix Resurrections is going dark. A judge sided with Warners on May 26 in a tentative ruling that the suit be moved to arbitration. Village now won’t get a court order forcing Warners to include it on…

“When we started this show, I couldn’t say ‘gay.’”ELLEN DEGENERES The talk show host, on her final episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, on how much has changed in the industry in 20 years. “If I don’t make this movie before the end of the year, I’ll die.”KRISTEN STEWART The Spencer actress, to Indie Wire, on wanting to start production on her directorial debut, the highly anticipated adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water. “The first thing that comes to mind is he was so kind to my children.” JENNIFER LOPEZThe actress, on Instagram, in a tribute to her late friend and Shades of Blue co-star Ray Liotta. “They wouldn’t dare.”TOM CRUISE The Top Gun: Maverick star, at a Cannes Film Festival Q&A, promising that a streaming debut…

While his brother Casey was busy at Cannes, Ben Affleck had his own full week in Los Angeles, stepping out at both Nerano and Soho House West Hollywood for date nights with fiancée Jennifer Lopez. … After receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Greg Berlanti celebrated a second milestone — his 50th birthday — with a gathering at Mother Wolf alongside his Warner Bros. TV Group team. … In Chicago, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul hosted a party at Bar Louie for their Dos Hombres mezcal brand after a May 7 stop at Miami’s Bottled Blonde. Causita The Quick Pitch This new addition to Silver Lake’s vibrant culinary community is designed around the unique tradition of “Nikkei Peruvian” cuisine, a fusion of Japanese techniques and Indigenous ingredients…

Perhaps it’s understandable that biopics of singularly influential artists so rarely live up to the creative brio of their subjects. After all, it’d be a challenge for any work of art to re-create the lightning-in-a-bottle impact of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, even one whose raison d’être is primarily explaining how and why Never Mind the Bollocks came to exist. FX’s six-episode miniseries Pistol does try valiantly to capture some of the band’s spirit in its frenetic, free wheeling style, courtesy of director Danny Boyle. But these efforts are in service of a narrative that, though often compelling, feels too well trod to be revelatory. Far from the shock to the system that the band intended their music to be, Pistol feels like a cover album of tunes…

In May, MSG Entertainment cleared two milestones in its audacious plan to launch what it describes as a “new medium” in immersive entertainment. It finished the primary structural work on the MSG Sphere at The Venetian in Las Vegas, a massive entertainment venue expected to be completed in late 2023, and officially opened MSG Sphere Studios, a smaller-sized dome with adjacent production and office space near the Hollywood Burbank Airport, which will house development of original content and immersive experiences for the Sphere. MSG believes that, when completed, its Las Vegas Sphere — an estimated $1.865 billion investment — will become the largest spherical structure in the world at 336 feet tall and 516 feet wide. It will accommodate up to 20,000 standing spectators or 17,500 seated guests and include…

Marc Maron has struck a three-year deal with the podcast platform Acast to host, monetize and distribute the comedian’s hit show, WTF With Marc Maron, which will be released twice weekly. Advertisers only need to buy spots on the top 10 podcasts to reach a third of all weekly listeners in the U.S., per Edison Research. As media buyers tighten spending, will scale matter more? Bloomberg has inked a three-year co-production and distribution deal with iHeartMedia for a five-show slate, which includes a cryptocurrency show from Stacy-Marie Ishmael.…

If the 2022 Cannes Film Market is anything to go by, the war between streamers and the traditional cinema business may have reached a detente. Deep-pocketed streamers grabbed the headlines with the biggest single deals of the market: Netflix paid more than $50million for global rights to Pain Hustlers, a conspiracy thriller starring Emily Blunt and directed by David Yates repped by CAA Media Finance and The Veterans. And, as the market was wrapping, Amazon was near a deal to take worldwide rights on MRC’s Saltburn, the next film from Promising Young Woman Oscar winner Emerald Fennell that is set to star Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike. Apple, riding the success of Oscar best picture winner CODA, nabbed worldwide rights to Fingernails, a sci-fi love story with Riz…

In some ways, Iman Vellani was Kamala Khan even before she officially became Kamala Khan. After school, the Pakistan-born Canadian teenager would go across the street to her local comic book store, where her obsession with the Invincible Iron Man series one day led her to pick up a copy of a different title, one with a Pakistani-American teenage girl on the cover. “I’m like, ‘OK, who’s this brown girl now?’” she recalls. Vellani’s the type of die-hard who references exact issue dates, and her first Ms. Marvel was No. 19, the start of the “Mecca” storyline: “It just blew my mind that a superhero comic was showcasing Eid [the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan].” After that, she didn’t miss an issue of the series and even cosplayed…

Weddings Producer Scooter Yancey married Crystal Ming, an aesthetic physician assistant, on April 16 at the Conrad Fort Lauderdale Beach resort in Florida. The couple honeymooned in Maldives, Tanzania and South Africa. Births Composer Kris Bowers and actress Briana Henry welcomed Coda Henry-Bowers on Feb. 28 at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. Congrats Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs’ Candle Media hired Courtney Cappa as senior vp finance and accounting and Kendall Ostrow as senior vp business development and community May 20. Emily Mayer was promoted to executive vp development at B17 Entertainment, a division of Sony Pictures Television, on May 25. Stefanie Liquori was appointed general counsel and partner for UTA on May 24. Former Endemol Shine unscripted chief Eden Gaha was tapped president of Eureka Productions,…

PAULINA ALEXIS RESERVATION DOGS FX/HULU My character summed up in one sentence As rugged as Willie Jack is, no matter what she’s doing, she will always stop to text her mom back. What I relate to most about my character Being a tomboy. What I don’t I don’t like catfish. The best show I watched this year Euphoria NAVEEN ANDREWS THE DROPOUT HULU My character summed up in one sentence Hopelessly besotted with the object of his desire. The best piece of advice from my director Michael Showalter said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” The best show I watched this year Landscapers NICOLE BYER GRAND CREW NBC The best piece of advice from my showrunner Phil Augusta Jackson is such a good friend, and he’s taught me to really…

ALONE TOGETHER Katie Holmes wrote, directed and stars in this tale of two strangers stuck in a vacay rental together. AISHA Letitia Wright fronts a haunting feature about a young asylum seeker stuck in Ireland’s refugee system. JERRY & MARGE GO LARGE Director David Frankel brings you Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening hacking the lottery. LOUDMOUTH This festival-closing documentary traces the life of civil rights activist Al Sharpton. OUT OF ORDER Nicolas Heller, aka Instagram’s New York Nico, helms a short about some eclectic city characters.…

A few months ago, Netflix began circulating an internal Google Doc containing revisions to its culture memo. The document garnered some 10,000 comments from employees before the final product was released to the public early in May. One section in particular, on “artistic expression,” stood out. “Not everyone will like — or agree with — everything on our service,” the note specifies, ending with a message aimed directly at staffers: “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” The updated entry appeared to be a response to internal criticism at the streamer following The Closer, a Dave Chappelle comedy special unveiled in October…

NBC 6.37 million viewers The NBC tearjerker ended its six-season run with its top total-viewer count since November 2020 and the highest same-day rating among adults 18-49 — 1.27 — of any network drama episode this season. (Only Fox’s Next Level Chef and The Simpsons scored higher ratings in the key ad demo, and both had NFL games as lead-ins.) This Is Us also ranked as the top network drama with adults 18-49 for every one of its six seasons; it peaked with a 5.4 rating in 2017-18. And the show helped New Amsterdam (3.45 million viewers) hit its best same-day ratings since the first episodes of its season.…

I love TV. I love all kinds of TV. I haven’t cut any cords, I subscribe to all of the streamers. I have NBA League Pass. I am in two different fantasy leagues pertaining to MTV’s The Challenge. I also have a 3-month-old, so lately there’s a lot of time to kill while feeding the baby in the wee hours of the night. I am a consumer who loves content. And as a creator, I also relish the opportunities to be had in longform storytelling, be it in a limited or ongoing series. Having said that, as a creator, it’s terrifying. In a landscape so rich with content, I’ve had to ask myself: Is there an opportunity to break through? I hope so. I think so. I say this acknowledging…

The Foundling (SCRIBNER, MAY 31) BY Ann Leary AGENCY WME In the vein of Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Leary’s latest novel uses a page-turning narrative to expose a very dark part of our country’s institutional history; this time, it’s a eugenics program disguised as a woman’s asylum in 1920s Pennsylvania. The Evening Hero (SIMON & SCHUSTER, MAY 24) BY Marie Myung-Ok Lee AGENCY CAA In this epic, the journey of an immigrant who leaves Korea and builds an obstetrics practice in a rural Minnesota town — only to be confronted with racism and crumbling infrastructure — is used to examine the big lie of the American Dream.…

Nine miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the red-brown foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is an old casino surrounded by curious artifacts. A crashed helicopter, a couple of 1970s-era police cars and some dome-shaped dwellings dot the landscape of sandstone bluffs and savannah grasslands. This land belongs to the Tesuque Pueblo people, a small tribe of just under 800 that moved here in 1694 after they waged an uprising against Spanish colonizers in the region. Today the Tesuque land is home to a different kind of revolution, a cultural one. The tribe has converted their former casino into the first Native Americanowned film and TV studio, Camel Rock Studios. And among the first productions to shoot there is perhaps the most ambitious Native-led TV show ever made,…

In July 1922, conductor Alfred Hertz led the inaugural concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. At that time, the stage consisted of a simple wooden platform with a canvas top and guests sitting on moveable wooden benches; the first of its iconic shells wouldn’t be put in place until 1926. Cut to 100 years later, and the 18,000-seat Bowl (now on its fifth shell) has become an essential part of Los Angeles’ past and present. It’s been the home to iconic concerts from Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix and The Supremes as well as stage plays, opera, dance and countless performances by the Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. And it’s just as coveted a place today as ever, as H.E.R., who made her Bowl debut…

Before she heads into a grueling six-month production of Marvel’s Madame Web — she’ll co-star opposite Dakota Johnson in the topsecret Sony Pictures action flick — Sydney Sweeney will head to Texas to receive the Breakthrough Award at the ATX TV Festival, an honor that caps off a year marked by showstopping turns in The White Lotus and Euphoria. Ahead of the fest, she rang up THR to reflect on her rise to fame — and the childhood imaginary friends that helped her get there. What do you consider your big break? I have two stages of it. I first felt it when I did Handmaid’s Tale; to be able to say I was a part of history in that way was definitely a breakthrough moment. Then, of course, the…