Innholdsfortegnelse for November 16, 2023 i The Hollywood Reporter

Dave Green The Coyote vs. Acme director had his John Cena-starring film shoved into Warners’ vault, then hastily taken back out after protests. Now, is there a buyer for the title? Robert De Niro A jury decides he’s not liable for misconduct against his ex-assistant, but his firm has to pay $1.26 million — and he can’t claw back those 5 million frequent flyer miles, either. Emma Tammi As Five Nights at Freddy’s crosses the $250 million mark globally, the director kicks off a new potential horror franchise for Blumhouse and Universal. Adam Aron The AMC Theatres chief’s $23.7 million pay gets voted down by shareholders. It’s a symbolic move (he still gets paid) but shows discontent among retail investors. Showbiz Stocks $24.40 (+1.6%) PENN ENTERTAINMENT (PENN) The casino company…

I’M GLAD THE STRIKES ARE FINALLY OVER, BUT I FEEL MISUNDERSTOOD. I MEAN, sure, I pull down tons of cash to stonewall and bulldoze artists on behalf of multinational media giants who want to protect their many billions of dollars in beautiful, beautiful profits. And I get that a certain amount of public condemnation and mockery comes with the gig (yes, I’ve seen your mean tweets and memes and yes, I hope all of you die). But before I crawl back into my office in the bowels of a Sherman Oaks shopping mall, before little ol’ Carol is gone and forgotten for the next three years (or at least until next summer, when I get to work on IATSE), I’d like all of you to know that I am a…

BEST PICTURE Rustin EPs Barack and Michelle Obama were on hand when the biopic opened at the HBCU First Look Film Festival on Nov. 10. The former president declared, “Without [Bayard Rustin], I might not have been president and you might not be sitting where you are today.” BEST DIRECTOR Martin Scorsese Killers of the Flower Moon The hottest ticket of the week was the Nov. 13 screening of Killers of the Flower Moon at Los Angeles’ DGA Theater followed by Steven Spielberg interviewing his friend and fellow legendary filmmaker Scorsese. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Ryan Gosling Barbie On Nov. 10, the Santa Barbara Film Festival announced that he’d receive its Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film on Jan. 1, and “I’m Just Ken,” his song from Barbie, was nominated…

Naked in the Rideshare (WILLIAM MORROW, NOV. 14) BY Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold AGENCY UTA Currently the youngest writers ever on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and with an FX series in development alongside executive producer Nick Kroll, the comedy duo have crafted a collection of short stories about the minutiae of Gen Z life. With Regrets (CROOKED LANE BOOKS, SEPT. 5) BY Lee Kelly AGENCY IAG An apocalyptic thriller meets novel of manners, With Regrets follows the guests of a dinner party as they seek shelter in their host’s wine cellar after receiving word of deadly “atmospheric masses” that have been obliterating major cities.…

Weddings Alana Rosu, vp talent relations at FX, married Peter Vilkins II, a private wealth manager, on June 4 at Calamigos Ranch and Beach Club in Malibu. Births Abbey Morris, a senior vp at Irish Cowboy Productions, and Matt Shichtman, head of emerging technologies at The Gotham Group, welcomed Cecily Rose Shichtman on Sept. 2 at Cedars-Sinai. Congrats Sameer Balgi was named CFO of Tubi on Nov. 6. Lauren Stein was upped to head of creative at Sony Pictures Television Studios on Nov. 7. Jessica Kurdali was promoted to senior vp talent strategy at NBCU News Group on Nov. 7. NBCUniversal named Alison Levin president of advertising and partnerships and upped Karen Kovacs to president of client partnerships Nov. 8. Chuck James departed CAA to launch his own Ascend Artist…

The devastation of the fire that ripped through West Maui on Aug. 8 is hard to comprehend. It killed at least 97 people and damaged or destroyed 2,200 structures, and the estimated cost to rebuild is $5.5 billion. In the first few days after the fires, stars including Jason Momoa and Mia Tyler implored tourists to stay away. In the weeks since, many have, even as most of Maui’s hotels remained open. According to The New York Times, on Oct. 9 — the day after West Maui began a staged reopening — there were more than 4,500 arrivals in Maui, down 27 percent from the same day in 2019. On Nov. 1, with the reopening of the West Maui section that stretches from Kahana to Ka’anapali, only the devastated town…

Reece Feldman admits that he broke a couple of rules on his way to becoming the go-to TikTok consultant for Hollywood studios. The 25-year-old behind the @guywitha moviecamera account — which has more than 2 million followers on TikTok — started working on reality shows in 2020, soon landing a gig as a production assistant on the fourth season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He began posting behind-the-scenes videos of his life on set, which, as he can admit now, was definitely not allowed: “It was a calculated risk that I almost got fired for. I made one video there as a test thing, and I was like, ‘Well, this could either be the end of my time here or it could be the start of something cool.’ And it…

One of the year’s buzziest titles is Orion’s American Fiction, the directorial debut from Emmy-winning Watchmen writer Cord Jefferson that has picked up accolades on the festival circuit, including the people’s choice award from the Toronto Film Festival (a major bellwether for the best picture race). Based on Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, the film stars Jeffrey Wright as Monk Ellison, an underappreciated novelist frustrated with his career, the marketplace’s ideas of the kinds of books that Black writers should publish and the success of a “Black” novel that he believes flourishes in stereotypes. Following the sudden death of his sister (Tracee Ellis Ross), Monk returns home to care for his dementia-addled mother (Leslie Uggams). While dealing with his out-of-control brother (Sterling K. Brown) and sparking a relationship with a neighbor…

Napoleon Bonaparte has served as catnip to Hollywood almost as long as movies have existed. Next to don his funny hat is Joaquin Phoenix, who stars in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, out Nov. 22. But the best Napoleon film remains the first. Napoléon is a 1927 silent movie written, directed and produced by Paris-born cinematic pioneer Abel Gance. He envisioned a six-part epic about Bonaparte’s life but only completed part one. That was plenty, as the six-hour film traced the leader (played by Albert Dieudonné) from early life through the French Revolution and ended at his invasion of Italy in 1792. It was a technical breakthrough, introducing techniques like rapid-cutting, handheld cameras and superimposition. Gance also invented a system he called Polyvision, the Imax of its day, which employed three cameras…

WINNERS LINDSAY DOUGHERTY The tough-talking, hard-charging, tattooed Hollywood Teamsters boss leads with her own brand of feminine energy. It was her assistance in directing her drivers to respect the WGA’s picket lines that was key in shutting down productions and making the town quickly understand labor’s 2023 solidarity. Now, she’s got momentum as the clock ticks on her own union’s contract expiration in July. DAVID ZASLAV While the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO was an early strike villain thanks to his nine-figure payday in 2021, the strikes may have set him up for a new lucrative pay package in the company’s next proxy filing. In March, WBD’s board changed Zaslav’s bonus pay to be based on free cash flow. A side effect of the strikes? A ton of free cash flow…

With the SAG-AFTRA strike in the rearview mirror, the 33rd edition of the Gotham Awards will mark the first star-studded awards show of the season when its winners are unveiled Nov. 27 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. Past Lives, A Thousand and One and All of Us Strangers are among this year’s top film nominees; in the TV categories, Beef leads with three nominations, followed by Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, I’m a Virgo, Swarm, A Small Light, The Last of Us, The English and Dead Ringers, all of which garnered two. Rustin, Air and Bradley Cooper will receive special honors at the ceremony. To submit, send an email to hhh@thr.com…

I honestly was concerned that it was over for me,” Billie Eilish confesses at a table with Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Jon Batiste, Cynthia Erivo and Julia Michaels, who came together to discuss their songwriting prowess and process. “We’d been trying and it wasn’t doing what it usually would do in me. I was honestly like, ‘Damn, maybe I hit my peak and I don’t know how to write anymore?’” Struggling for inspiration, the 21-year-old had hit a wall, until Greta Gerwig called in January with an assignment: Write a song for Barbie. The result was the emotional and scene-stealing “What Was I Made For?” that Eilish wrote with her brother and musical partner, Finneas. “Greta saved me, really, honestly,” Eilish says. “It brought us out of it and immediately…

NOAH BAUMBACH & GRETA GERWIG Barbie The box office behemoth is the couple’s fifth film together and their second co-written screenplay, after 2012’s Frances Ha. ALEXANDER PAYNE & PAUL GIAMATTI The Holdovers Nineteen years after Sideways, Payne’s latest comic drama reunites him with Giamatti, playing another lovable grump. MARTIN SCORSESE & ROBERT DE NIRO Killers of the Flower Moon The actor first appeared in the director’s Mean Streets. Fifty years later, Killers marks their 10th feature together. TODD HAYNES & JULIANNE MOORE May December The pair’s fifth film collaboration could earn Moore a sixth Oscar nom, the second for a Haynes film (after 2002’s Far From Heaven). CHRISTOPHER NOLAN & CILLIAN MURPHY Oppenheimer The bombastic biopic is this duo’s sixth film since 2005, a partnership that began with Nolan’s Batman…

Directors Guild No success-based residuals, but a 21.5 percent increase in fixed residuals for TV series and a 34 percent rise for feature films for SVOD services. Overall gains include a 76 percent jump in foreign residuals (in line with other guilds). Writers Guild Writers on movies or seasons of TV that reach the equivalent of 20 percent of a streamer’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of an exhibition year get a new, success-based residual. If the film or show hits that benchmark, scribes get a 50 percent bonus on top of their fixed residual. SAG-AFTRA Uses the same 20 percent success threshold as the WGA. Doubles the fixed residual and includes a distribution fund that will pay 75 percent of the bonus to performers on projects that…

NETFLIX Episodes: 8 1.23B Minutes viewed Horror auteur Mike Flanagan’s fruitful relationship with Netflix continues with The Fall of the House of Usher. The limited series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe topped Nielsen’s streaming charts with 1.23 billion minutes of viewing for its first week of release. That’s the best start for any of Flanagan’s shows for the streamer in the three-plus years of Nielsen rankings (just ahead of 2020’s The Haunting of Bly Manor). The viewing time equates to about 2.48 million complete runs of House of Usher in the U.S., and that’s slightly less than the 40 percent of the worldwide total Netflix reported for the show’s opening week. Also notable: The series knocked summer’s unlikely hit Suits out of the No. 1 overall spot…

“I’ve always been the bridesmaid.”PATRICK DEMPSEY The Ferrari actor, to People as part of his Sexiest Man Alive cover shoot, reflecting on receiving the magazine’s annual honor (at age 57!) after decades in the entertainment business. “Did I sleep with Warren?”BARBRA STREISAND The star, in her just-released memoir, My Name Is Barbra, trying to remember the exact details of her relationship with Warren Beatty. “The Hallmark Channel immediately started shooting all 1,200 of its Christmas movies.”JIMMY KIMMEL The late night host, in his monologue, joking about the backlog of releases after the SAG-AFTRA strike. “There’s a lot of untapped humor.”JESSICA YU The Quiz Lady director, to The Observer, on making films about the Asian American experience. “Get a life.”RIDLEY SCOTT The Napoleon director, in The New Yorker, reacting to criticism…

Zoë Kravitz and Riley Keough had a night out at Craig’s. … Emma Corrin and Rami Malek stopped by Gracias Madre. … Carole Bayer Sager and Sherry Lansing lunched at The Maybourne. … Michael Ireland, co-president of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, celebrated his birthday at Schwartz & Sandy’s with Quantum Leap showrunner Martin Gero. … In New York, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom had a date night at Raf’s. … Sophie Turner dined at Little Charli. … Olivia Rodrigo joined friends at Via Carota. … Brett Goldstein visited Soho Diner. Sushi Note Omakase The Quick Pitch Like the departed Urasawa and nearby Nozawa Bar, this masterful new omakase specialist in Beverly Hills is hidden — in this case, a discreet presence within the subterranean parking garage at the Rodeo…

In the past couple of years, Reese Witherspoon took a hiking-filled girls trip in the Costa Rican mountains; Adam Scott fell in love with the country’s coffee; Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly went on an ayahuasca journey; Zac Efron filmed a Down to Earth With Zac Efron episode in an Alajuela Province sustainable commune; Molly Sims, Netflix’s Scott Stuber and their kids zip-lined over the Tempisque River; and Natasha Lyonne, Freeform president Tara Duncan and Ronan Farrow rode horses on the beach. The biodiverse North American paradise, though, is far more than a burgeoning celebrity hotspot. “Costa Rica, home to over 500,000 species of wildlife, emphasizes the dominance of nature,” says Harry Shum Jr., who was born there. “The country’s motto, ‘Pura Vida,’ reflects a commitment to a pure…

Celine Song has thought long and hard about how her current choices will ripple out into the future. “Who we are now cannot escape from who we were once,” says the director behind this year’s indie breakout Past Lives. To make her point, she starts to script a scene between her future self and mine. “What’s going to happen is, in 20 years’ time, you and I are going to have a conversation again about a movie that I just made,” she tells me. “I just know that you’re going to say, ‘You remember when you were 35 and you were promoting your first movie, Past Lives?’ And we’ll just look at each other and we’ll see very vividly what each other was like.” As she envisions it, we’ll think…