Innholdsfortegnelse for July 14, 2023 i The Hollywood Reporter

While regional sports networks, or RSNs — in L.A., think Spectrum SportsNet LA for the Dodgers — aren’t dead yet, the ripple effect of their business model challenges are already being felt across the TV ecosystem. But the game is in the early innings. RSNs, the pay TV channels built around live local sports, mostly featuring teams in the NBA, MLB or NHL, usually have full slates of programming. But, of course, it’s the live games that are key, and fans within local markets can watch them all only if they have access to an RSN via cable or satellite providers. A sea change is being driven by cord-cutting, which has put the pinch on RSN finances. While some bigger-market RSNs are staying the course for now, many others are…

Deal of the Week The (second) Bob Iger era at Disney will go beyond its scheduled end date. The Walt Disney Co. said July 12 that the venerable CEO has signed a contract extension, one that could keep him at the helm of the media and entertainment giant through 2026. The decision by the board was unanimous and cited the need to transform the company and to execute a transition plan, “which remains a priority for the board,” Disney said. Iger returned as CEO in November in a shock move that saw his predecessor (and handpicked successor) Bob Chapek ousted. At the time, Iger inked a two-year deal with an eye toward a finding a successor. As of now, there is no successor in place, though the board has created…

James Cameron has listed a 8,000-square-foot, five-bedroom residence in Gaviota, California, for $33 million. … John Fogerty has listed a 22-acre Hidden Valley estate for $20 million. … Shaun White and Nina Dobrev picked up a 3,793-square-foot, four-bedroom Hollywood Hills home for $4.3 million. … Alexandra Daddario and Andrew Form purchased a 2,432-square-foot, four-bedroom Brentwood house for $2.8 million. … DJ Don Diablo bought a 2,417-square-foot, four-bedroom Hollywood Hills home from Tom Shadyac for $2.6 million. $1B Big Number In a difficult market, David Ellison’s Skydance secured a credit facility with JP Morgan at that figure, boosting its flexibility to invest.…

Jeffrey Katzenberg Shares Hitler Letter With Israeli President Jeffrey Katzenberg and Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, took a trip to Jerusalem late last month to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The pair presented Herzog with a facsimile of the Hitler Letter, a correspondence written in 1919 by Adolf Hitler that espouses the destruction of the Jewish people by “a government of national strength.” The piece is on permanent display in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in L.A. During the trip, Katzenberg toured the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem for the first time. “As the former head of the Jewish Agency, President Herzog has traveled the world and understands what the current global uptick of antisemitism and bigotry means,” Hier tells THR. “He…

Weddings Innovative Artists agent Brian Davidson wed marketing director Jordan Traxler on June 7 at La Badia di Orvieto in Italy. The couple honeymooned at Capo la Gala in Vico Equense on Italy’s southern coast. Births Jess Noble, head of client services at Shareability, and her husband, writer-director Jesse Peyronel, welcomed Uma Belle Peyronel at home in Altadena, California, on May 8. Nicole Riley, an agent and executive in TV business affairs, global television and corporate strategy at CAA, and Jordan Peagler, managing partner at MKP Law Group, welcomed Kendall June Peagler on April 12 at St. John’s Health Center. Congrats NBCUniversal upped Donna Langley to chairman of the NBCUniversal studio group and chief content officer July 6. Tamika Etheart was hired to lead the New York operations of the…

Just a month after the Vanderpump Rules season 10 reunion became the most watched Bravo telecast in nearly a decade, production began on No. 11. Exec producer Alex Baskin is used to the grind. And in March, when news broke that original castmember Tom Sandoval had been cheating on longtime partner Ariana Madix with fellow castmate Raquel Leviss, cameras were back rolling on a wrapped season in mere hours. With interest in “Scandoval” still strong, the showrunner spoke to THR about returning cast, contracts and the perks of a long drought between episodes. Was the plan always to resume filming this soon? Or did Scandoval change the schedule? We’re sticking to our normal, pretty aggressive timeline as opposed to rushing back. The challenge is that there’s always a lot of…

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which drops July 21, chronicles the Manhattan Project and Trinity, or the creation and detonation of the world’s first nuclear bomb. The Manhattan Project (1986) also chronicles the making of a nuclear weapon — but this one is whipped up from green goo and built in a teenager’s bedroom. The film, from writer-director Marshall Brickman — best known for being Woody Allen’s screenwriting partner (they share an Oscar for Annie Hall) — is about a scientist (John Lithgow) secretly refining plutonium at a government lab in Ithaca, New York. A brilliant local student named Paul (Christopher Collet) and his aspiring journalist girlfriend (Cynthia Nixon, already a stage and screen veteran at 19) discover the plot. Paul decides to steal the plutonium to make a bomb of his…

The beginning of what may be a more militant era in Hollywood studio-labor relations has been ushered in, with actors joining writers on the picket lines in a major stand against film and TV producers that will effectively shut down the industry during the impasse. On July 13, SAG-AFTRA, led by president Fran Drescher, called the union’s first strike against film and television companies in 43 years. Combined with Hollywood writers’ ongoing strike, the work stoppage — applying to 160,000 members, from actors to singers to dancers — marks the only simultaneous strike for the two unions since 1960 in a sign of an industry in tumult. “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher said at a press conference July 13. The…

Big Deal Microsoft is primed to become a video game behemoth now that a federal judge has declined to delay its $69 billion bid to acquire the Bobby Kotick-run Activision Blizzard, with the possibility that the deal closes in July. On July 11, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley turned down the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have paused the deal long enough for the agency to challenge it in its internal court. She found Microsoft’s ownership of Activision won’t suppress competition in the game library subscription and cloud gaming markets. The suit from the FTC was one of the last remaining obstacles for Microsoft, and the move clears the way for the megadeal. The court’s temporary restraining order, which was issued before a mini…

THR, Esq. The first target was Starbucks. Then it was Morgan Stanley. The Hershey Co. and McDonald’s were hit next, with BlackRock close behind. Since last year, America First Legal Foundation, a conservative group founded by former White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, has been filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against major companies, arguing corporate diversity and hiring practices run afoul of civil rights laws. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down race-conscious admissions in colleges and universities, experts say Hollywood should brace for elevated scrutiny around diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and that employers in the private sector could see a surge of reverse discrimination suits. The legal challenges will be bolstered by the court’s reasoning that questions the use of racial preferences in…

In early 2023, L.A.’s luxury real estate market experienced a boom as deals were closed before the April 1 implementation of Los Angeles’ Measure ULA, known as the “mansion tax.” In the first quarter, the number of $5 millionplus homes sold increased by 35 percent, with Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Hancock Park proving particularly active. Before the tax went into effect, Brad Pitt sold a compound for $33 million, while Mark Wahlberg sold a mega-mansion for $55 million. After April 1, taxes on those properties would have been about $1.8 million and $3 million, respectively. (Measure ULA adds a transfer tax of 4 percent for sales above $5 million and 5.5 percent for deals above $10 million.) “The flurry of activity that happened up until April 1 was pretty phenomenal,”…

After a worldwide fan-event tour, Barbie finally made its debut July 9 at the film’s world premiere in L.A., on a pink carpet transformed into a real-life Barbie Land, complete with Barbie’s Dream House and a beach with a lifeguard tower. Stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Hari Nef, Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera joined soundtrack artists Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa at the event, along with director/co-writer Greta Gerwig, who weighed in on the viral response to Robbie’s Barbie foot. Saying she didn’t expect the reaction to the already iconic foot — which stays arched even when stepping out of her heels — Gerwig explained, “I did always think of the arched foot as like a bat signal, but everybody was like,…

Despite the writers and possible actors strike, from July 20 to 23, Comic-Con once again is set to take over San Diego with plenty of head-turning cosplay. As the city’s most anticipated event approaches, it has stepped up its culinary and hospitality offerings with a slate of unforgettable places to wine, dine and rest. Near Comic-Con’s home at the San Diego Convention Center, Bun & Patti (2171 Kettner Blvd.) spotlights burgers like the Smoke Show, made with 14-day dry-aged beef and served with flourishes of smoke under a glass dome, while the jungle-themed Zama (467 Fifth Ave.) offers Latin American cuisine as well as sushi. Elsewhere, Paradisaea (5680 La Jolla Blvd.) in La Jolla offers dishes highlighting locally sourced ingredients and drinks such as the Keys Razor cocktail (with Producer…

Everybody’s got a role to play in The Glen, the gritty locale that is the setting of Juel Taylor’s sleek directorial debut, They Cloned Tyrone. The manager of the food mart keeps the fridge stocked with cold tallboys and the counter filled with rillos and scratch-off cards. An old man parks himself outside the dingy store and dispenses cryptic advice (“It’s in the water, young blood”) in exchange for generous pours of beer. Dancers from the strip club and sex workers form a kind of ad hoc CCTV, watching the goings-on in the neighborhood; they’ll dish the secrets for the right price. Their pimps, those alligator-print-shoe-wearing tricksters, have a role — and so do the drug dealers, patrolling their territories in their vintage whips. The community happenings look somewhat typical.…

What if you held a red carpet and nobody came? For organizers of the fall film festivals — and studios planning splashy summer premieres — that nightmare scenario looks likely to come true after contract negotiations between the actors guild, SAG-AFTRA, and the AMPTP ended without a deal. On a call July 10 with top PR firms and hundreds of agents, SAG-AFTRA leaders outlined how strike rules could impact promotion and campaigning. A source familiar with the call tells THR that the promotion and press of film and TV projects from struck companies would not be allowed, meaning that top talent cannot walk the Venice and Toronto red carpets or take part in Emmy For Your Consideration campaigns. The strike already is having an impact. Universal moved up the red…

From long hold times on the phone because there’s no way to cancel online, to high-pressure pitches from customer service reps, or having to click through a labyrinth of discount offers and “are you sure?” messages, each year thousands of people complain to the Federal Trade Commission that they can’t get out of a recurring subscription service they want to cancel — or, even worse, one they didn’t realize they’d signed up for. “Subscription models have proliferated in recent years, especially during the pandemic,” says David Nahmias, an attorney with the Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law. “Businesses learned quickly that they could use deceptive and manipulative techniques to keep consumers hooked. One study we cited found that consumers spend an average of…

One windy night in March 2022, in the desert outside Belen, New Mexico, Cillian Murphy was waiting to climb a 100-foot steel tower, a copy of the one that held the first nuclear bomb ever detonated in 1945. The conditions were right for summoning the emotion of the historic scene the Irish actor was about to play as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. “You could see this sand coming up off the desert and the skies were ominous,” Murphy says. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is fucking great.’ ” Nearby, as gusts whipped at the production tents, producer Emma Thomas was having the opposite reaction. “Imax cameras shooting film in the middle of a windy desert. The absolute worst,” says Thomas. “Miserable for people. Terrible for cameras.” Though tense…

With Arnold Schwarzenegger blowing up bad guys on Netflix and Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford sprinting across trains on the big screen, the summer of 2023 is playing the classics. Into this fray of graying icons strides Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens. For 78 episodes of FX’s Justified, Raylan was a throwback personification of anger-fueled masculinity. Justified had an all-time great series finale; there was seemingly no place for it to go. The relief of FX’s eight-part Justified: City Primeval is that not only does it not besmirch the conclusion of the original, but showrunners Dave Andron and Michael Dinner carve out new and distinctive terrain for Givens and a fresh, sometimes spectacular ensemble. The limited series begins with Givens pausing his U.S. Marshal duties to transport his moody 15-year-old, Willa…

When San Diego Comic-Con launched in 1970, it was a niche convention for about 300 fans. In the decades that have followed, it has, of course, become a mandatory stop for the biggest franchises in Hollywood, from the universes of Marvel and DC to Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings. But after years of movies and TV (and top actors) taking center stage and propelling the event to new heights, 2023 will be the least star-packed Comic-Con in more than a decade. As the writers strike rages, preventing showrunners from talking up their series, and financial stress puts pressure on studio travel budgets, most Hollywood majors, including Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, Netflix and HBO, are sitting out this year. This year also marks the first time…