Innholdsfortegnelse for May 31, 2023 i The Hollywood Reporter

Awards strategists managing this season’s Emmy campaigns may have issued a collective gasp on the night of April 9 — at least those who were watching the third episode of Succession live as it aired that evening. With little warning, and off-camera, Logan Roy (played by Emmy winner Brian Cox, twice nominated for his role in the HBO drama) collapsed while traveling on a plane — leaving his children Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin), trapped on a boat for their half-brother Connor’s wedding, struggling to come to terms with his sudden death and what it meant for the future of Waystar Royco. Logan Roy, dead in episode three! A tragedy for some (and one that was inevitable given the entire premise of the series), but…

Bad Seeds PRODUCED BY iHeartMedia AGENCY UTA Forget drugs; have you heard about the black market for rare plants? Plant expert Summer Rayne Oakes takes listeners into the underground world of endangered and otherwise sought-after plant species, complete with cartels and corrupt government officials. Deep Cover: Never Seen Again PRODUCED BY Pushkin Industries AGENCY WME Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern leads an investigation into a woman who steals the identity of a missing person and winds up as a student at Columbia University. As investigators begin hunting her down, she goes on the run.…

I was at the premiere of The Little Mermaid a couple of weeks back,” says Kean Almryde, a marketing manager at Disney. “Scuttle, the bird in the cartoon version, was a seagull. In the new movie, it’s a northern gannet. I’m like, ‘What’s that about?’ So I did a little bit of research. I made a TikTok video explaining the decision behind changing Scuttle from a seagull to the northern gannet that ended up going viral! It has like 420,000 views.” The reason for the change? Animators wanted more underwater scenes, and unlike the air-bound seagull, a northern gannet can dive around 70 feet underwater. This research dovetailed perfectly with Almryde’s passion for birding, which was sparked during the pandemic and he says provides a respite from the hustle and…

“So, same time next week?” Abbott Elementary star Tyler James Williams jokes with the others — Steven Yeun (Beef), Jason Segel (Shrinking), Mo Amer (Mo) and John Mulaney (John Mulaney: Baby J) — after a particularly therapeutic hour of conversation in early May. It is THR’s annual Comedy Actor Emmy Roundtable, and the five men gathered, a mix of top stand-up and scripted talent, use the platform to swap stories and speak candidly about the pressures of the business, the splurges that they made (or urged others to make) and what, exactly, has prompted tears, hives and periods of necessary silence. If a fan is to approach you all on the street, what is he or she likely to recognize you from? MO AMER I usually get, “I’m a huge…

DANIEL FIENBERG It’s hard to tell the story of spring TV in 2023 without discussing HBO’s Succession and Barry, as well as Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. Those three shows, two of which came to an end and one that’s seemingly coming to an end, account for four of the last six Emmys for outstanding drama and comedy series, as well as many nominations for acting, writing and directing. With their shocking deaths, wild deviations in tone and, in the case of Ted Lasso, expanded runtimes, they’ve dominated social media and watercooler convos since March. That’s why we’re not going to focus on them here. There’s more to TV than Barry, Succession and Ted Lasso — or at least HBO and Apple hope there is after awards season. Even not counting…

1973 Tichi Wilkerson Kassel (she married Arthur Kassel in 1983), the publisher and editor of The Hollywood Reporter, founds WIF in March 1973. She knew first-hand how limited opportunities were for women in Hollywood. 1977 WIF launches the Crystal Awards, the first program to exclusively honor women working in the entertainment industry. The inaugural Crystal luncheon recognizes Lucille Ball, screenwriter Eleanor Perry, actress-director Nancy Malone and attorney Norma Zarky. 1984 The Film Finishing Fund is created to provide annual cash awards and in-kind production services to ensure that innovative films made by women could be completed and seen by audiences worldwide. Since its inception, the fund has awarded north of $2 million in cash and in-kind services to more than 280 films from all over the globe. Recipients have gone…

↑ Deals ‘Time to Monetize’ The merging WWE and UFC eye TV rights sales p. 22 Theater Post-COVID Rebound A closer look at Broadway’s 2022-23 season p. 18 Heat Index Casey Bloys In a win for the newly rebranded Max, the HBO chief sees the Succession series finale hit a ratings high of 2.9 million viewers on all platforms. Shari Redstone It’s not a sign of great stability when National Amusements, the owner of Paramount Global, needs to turn to outside financiers for an extra $125 million in liquidity. SZA The artist’s “Kill Bill” breaks Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart record held by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” with 21 weeks in the No. 1 spot. Elon Musk As the mogul tries to position Twitter as a rival to…

Many comedy writers view AI as no laughing matter. “It’s horrific,” Seth Rogen explained to THR at the May 10 premiere of Apple TV+’s show Platonic, in which he stars. “Any use of AI seems terrifying and also just unfair from a financial standpoint because it’s all being input with things that they’re not keeping track of,” referring to how the technology is trained on material without its creators’ consent. The wariness has intensified during the ongoing writers strike. A key sticking point in the broken-down contract negotiations between the WGA and the AMPTP, which bargains on behalf of studios, is a proposal to regulate the use of artificial intelligence. Machines wouldn’t be allowed to write or rewrite literary material, or to be used as a source, and union-covered output…

All the Details on Wes Anderson’s ‘Quirky’ Cannes Protocols The mega cast of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City — including Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie — landed on the Cannes red carpet May 23 by mega bus, which has become something of a tradition for the Paris-based filmmaker. Anderson, known to prefer that his collaborators hit the Palais together, last relied on a bus for The French Dispatch at Cannes in 2021. It’s not Anderson’s only “quirky” Cannes protocol, per sources. Rather than opt for a hotel like the Carlton, Anderson and crew stay at his favorite hideaway during the fest, an hour outside of Cannes. The sources added that the Asteroid cast first went by bus to an hours-long pit stop at the JW Marriott for glam. Also,…

Through a strange twist of fate, I had become the most famous birder in America, which is not hard because who the hell knows who birders are in the first place,” says Christian Cooper, of gaining national attention in 2020 when a white woman in Central Park called the cops on him after he asked her to leash her dog in a protected wildlife area. It’s an incident “I psychologically moved on [from] three minutes later,” he says. “Maybe it’s just being Black in America, but you develop a fairly thick skin.” Cooper was in Central Park that day to go birding. It’s a lifelong passion that the NYC Audubon board member will soon share widely with the world as the host of his own National Geographic series, Extraordinary Birder…

IN THE THREE DECADES SINCE SCHOOL DAZE AND THE EQUALLY INFLUENTIAL TV SERIES A Different World were released, HBCUs, or historically black colleges and universities, have seen a resurgence of much-needed attention. In 2019, Beyoncé’s Homecoming docufilm celebrated Black marching band and dance team culture, a pinnacle of any HBCU football game. The 2021 inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris put her undergraduate university Howard in the national spotlight; that same year, the Washington institution would rename its College of Fine Arts in honor of the late Chadwick Boseman, who graduated there in 2000, with Phylicia Rashad as dean. For HBCU alums working in Hollywood, there’s a connective thread of deep pride for their educational foundations. THR spoke with nearly 30 executives, producers, directors, actors and writers who collectively acknowledged how…

A force of nature, TichiWilkerson became the publisher and editor of The Hollywood Reporter after her husband, Billy Wilkerson, died in 1962. Yet no matter how prominent her position, the publisher, who was of Mexican heritage, felt isolated professionally from Hollywood with its men’s clubs and associations, according to Mollie Gregory’s 2002 book, Women Who Run the Show. In 1973, Wilkerson formed the advocacy group Women in Film. Wilkerson ran a front-page editorial in THR introducing readers to WIF, stating that Hollywood was more prejudiced against women than anyone cared to admit. “Now is the time to verify our reputation as an equal-opportunity industry by opening the doors wider to an ever-increasing group of talented female filmmakers,” she wrote. “They do need a chance to be seen and heard.” At…

For more than 20 years, the Tribeca Festival has given up-and-coming directors a star-studded New York City showcase. This year, though, the fest is offering well-known actors a chance to show up as directors. Michael Shannon, David Duchovny, Chelsea Peretti, Jennifer Esposito, John Slattery, and partners Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater all directed movies that will world premiere there, with Rabe and Linklater, Shannon, Peretti and Esposito making their feature directorial debuts. In addition to those selections, Tribeca will feature the North American and New York premieres, respectively, of Steve Buscemi’s The Listener, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and Randall Park’s Shortcomings, which debuted at Sundance. And the festival will close with a 30th anniversary screening of A Bronx Tale, the directorial debut of…

Right now, Warren Leight — the veteran showrunner of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Writers Guild strike captain — is losing sleep to make sure a TV program doesn’t make it to air. He’s a key figure in his union’s pivot to embrace a more targeted picketing strategy, which seeks to shut down productions. “This morning we had two dozen people at 2 a.m. out on the street, blocking Billions, which is metaphorically perfect,” he told THR’s TV’s Top 5 podcast on May 24, discussing a recent expansion from show-of-force protests at corporate headquarters to more disruptive actions meant to affect bottom lines and reorient power dynamics. The strategy change-up emerged from the membership’s rank and file, he says, although the guild brass now “realizes that this is…

In the 2022-23 season — Broadway’s first full season since the pandemic began — the industry almost bounced back to pre-COVID levels. The total gross for the season reached nearly $1.6 billion, which is a marked improvement from the previous two seasons but still below the pre-pandemic total of $1.8 billion in 2018-19, according to new data from the Broadway League. Attendance reached 12.3 million, above the previous two years’ totals but also below the 14.8 million in 2018-19, which was the highest-grossing and best attended season ever. Total capacity reached 88.4 percent, largely in line with pre-pandemic levels. This past season was the first without major disruptions from COVID-19 — in contrast to the 2021-22 season, which began later than the usual May opening, with the first show starting…

795M Minutes viewed The third (and potentially final) season of the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ comedy is enjoying its best run to date. Ted Lasso recorded series highs in Nielsen’s streaming rankings in three of seven weeks since season three premiered, topping out at 795 million minutes of viewing for the week its seventh episode debuted. Though Nielsen counts all episodes of a show toward its viewing time totals, with weekly releases, half or more of the total comes from the new episode. Given the possibility that the series is ending, it’s likely viewing will keep building into the finale.…

Hacks. Abbott Elementary. Grace and Frankie. Curb Your Enthusiasm. The lion’s share of Nancy Meyers’ films. All popular, all featuring characters advanced in age. In the conversation about diverse representation in media, the importance of seeing older adults onscreen (technically defined as over age 65) has historically gone largely ignored. This, of course, is a reflection of how seniors are overlooked in society. But philanthropist Wallis Annenberg’s GenSpace — a 7,000-square-foot senior center in L.A.’s Koreatown, and the site of THR’s Raising Our Voices gala on May 31 — is working to change that. In addition to its daily fitness, wellness, and arts and crafts classes, the community center hosts such events as a January luncheon with the cast of 80 for Brady and its producer Donna Gigliotti. The occasion…

After premiering at Sundance this year, You Hurt My Feelings took New York on May 22 as writer-director Nicole Holofcener and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague and Jeannie Berlin brought their A24 comedy to a special screening. The film follows a novelist (Louis-Dreyfus) who overhears her husband (Menzies) admitting that he hates her new book, a premise that when Louis-Dreyfus first heard it, she thought, “Oh bam, that is huge.” She told THR, “As a creative person, the idea that somebody would lie to you on such a fundamental level about something so personal — that spoke to me. That was more interesting to me than an infidelity, for example.”…

TAIKA WAITITI AND STERLIN HARJO have a routine they’ve done at parties that kills. They perfected it at Sundance in the early 2000s, in a condo dance-off with two Navajo guys. “Taika would strike this Michael Jackson pose with his hand pointing in the air and unbutton the pearl button on his shirt,” says Harjo, the Seminole-Muskogee director with whom Waititi would go on to co-create the FX comedy series Reservation Dogs in 2019. “And I was the wind in his shirt.” The duo also delivered a full-throated karaoke version of Queen’s “Under Pressure,” for which they still get requests. Before he became a global acting-writing-directing star with an Oscar and a Marvel résumé, Waititi, a Maori-Jewish filmmaker from New Zealand, found community in the U.S. among Native American filmmakers…

CHANNING DUNGEY“I woke up like this.” GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD“White savior” KERRY WASHINGTON“ ‘Sexy’ corpse” DAN LIN“Asian men as nerds. Guys like Jo Koy, Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng and Hasan Minhaj are showing the funny side of Asian males, and Steven Yeun, Simu Liu and Daniel Dae Kim are showing that we can be action stars, too!” GLEN MAZZARA“It’s hard to be a white guy these days.” RISHI RAJANI“Overcoming one’s otherness”…

THR TITAN James Wan has become the example he never had. Born to Malaysian Chinese parents, Wan immigrated with his family from Malaysia to Western Australia when he was 8, and by then he had already fallen in love with film through Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s supernatural horror classic Poltergeist (1982). That feature includes something that would become a staple of Wan’s later work (more on this later), but the journey to this point was by no means an easy one. Wan’s hometown of Perth is one of the most remote capital cities in the world, and his childhood dream of becoming a mainstream genre director in Hollywood felt even more out of reach when he quickly realized that there were virtually no Asian filmmakers making studio genre films…

The missing-plane drama Manifest has had a hell of a ride. First came the now infamous cancellation by NBC, followed by months of uncertainty over the show’s remaining two seasons and then culminating in a last-minute, 20-episode order from Netflix. The second half of the abbreviated final season will hit the streamer June 2 — right in the middle of the WGA strike that prohibits its prolific writer-showrunner, Jeff Rake, from promoting the series. Luckily for the show, star Josh Dallas (who plays Flight 828 passenger Ben Stone and will appear at the ATX TV Festival with other cast-members June 1) is picking up the baton. He spoke to THR — while enjoying his time at home in L.A. with his wife, actress Ginnifer Goodwin, and their two young children…