Innholdsfortegnelse for January 18, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

More than a year after his November 2022 termination as Disney CEO, Bob Chapek has settled on his next act. The executive is joining the board of directors of Masimo, the medical device company embroiled in a dispute with Apple over certain features of the tech giant’s Apple Watch. Imports of the Apple Watch were halted after Masimo accused the company of infringing on its patents. Apple has said that it will redesign the watch to remove a blood oxygen measurement functionality to avoid the ban. A Disney filing Jan. 16 disclosed that Chapek was paid nearly $10 million by the company in its previous fiscal year, including two full months as CEO before being ousted in November. The company also revealed that Chapek’s son Brian, who stepped down as…

Scribbled on a chalkboard in director Lulu Wang’s kitchen is a list of films and TV shows she and her partner, Barry Jenkins, have yet to see. As is tradition, their friends, many of them fellow filmmakers, come through their Silver Lake home and jot down suggestions for the pair. On this morning, the list features projects new and old, from the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses to the 1941 comedy The Lady Eve. Not that Wang’s had much time to get lost in the works of others lately. On Jan. 26, she’ll release Expats, her first project since she won over Hollywood (and critics) with her 2019 film, The Farewell, a fictionalized account of her family’s efforts to shield her grandma from a bleak diagnosis. The new series, her…

It’s Christmas at the Kennedys’, and a happy sort of chaos has upended the family home, nestled in the affluent L.A. enclave of Mandeville Canyon. Conor, 29, the heartthrob son once romantically linked to Taylor Swift, has emerged from the backyard sauna and is wandering around the house in a towel. His striking sister, Kyra, 28 — a fashionista and “Page Six” regular back in her party days — is fussing over their father, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 69, in preparation for today’s photo shoot. Amid this flurry of activity, affecting an air of regal calm as best as she can, stands Cheryl Hines. Hines, 58, has been Kennedy’s wife since 2014 — a second marriage for her and a third for him. Kennedy’s second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, mother…

In recent years, a lot of ink has been spilled about the Sundance-to-studio pipeline, where talented independent filmmakers are plucked out of festival lineups to direct the latest Warner Bros. monster movie, Marvel installment or season of prestige TV. Less documented is the journey back. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck will find themselves at Sundance a decade after their feature Mississippi Grind sold to then-little-known distributor A24 in 2015 and 18 years after the 2006 premiere of their feature debut, Half Nelson, starring a then-little-known Ryan Gosling. (He would receive his first Oscar nom for the role.) More recently, Boden and Fleck have been ensconced in the studio system with Marvel’s Captain Marvel and big-budget TV projects like Apple’s upcoming World War II drama Masters of the Air. Fleck has…

The SAG Awards’ top film prize — outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture — is the guild’s equivalent to Oscar’s best picture. But SAG-AFTRA has strict rules about what makes an actor eligible for the award: a solo title card in the film’s credits. Naturally, a film’s major players will be represented, but when it comes to the supporting players, a title card says less about their characters’ stature than it does about an actor’s clout. This season, a surprising number of deserving performers were left out of the SAGnommed ensembles; likewise, a few actors who earned a cast nom were buoyed more by their star power than their character’s screen time.…

I hope we can all agree that whatever she deserved for being, by all accounts, monstrous at times, Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco did not deserve the bizarro accent and makeup job that accompanied Catherine Zeta-Jones’ performance in Lifetime’s 2017 TV movie Cocaine Godmother. If nothing else, Netflix’s six-part Griselda serves as a representational corrective. Colombian actress Sofía Vergara plays Blanco, mostly in Spanish. The series hails from creators Carlo Bernard, Ingrid Escajeda, Doug Miro and Eric Newman, all but one of them alums of Narcos. Colombian director Andrés Baiz directed the entirety of the series. But the show’s understanding of Blanco, her possible genius and her certifiable viciousness is conveyed along very formulaic lines. And, turning Blanco into a tragic figure of Shakespearean depths, Griselda starts off stylish and…

According to his resignation announcement, Kevin Merida’s abrupt Jan. 9 exit as executive editor of the Los Angeles Times came about through a “mutual agreement” with the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech magnate turned publishing dilettante. This may well be true. From everything that can be gleaned about Merida’s less-than-three-year bumpy tenure as Soon-Shiong’s No. 1 at the 143-year-old publishing institution, there was plenty of mutual dissatisfaction, mutual distrust and maybe even mutual disdain. Times watchers will recall that Merida’s arrival at the paper in 2021 was greeted with great fanfare. The 66-year-old former Washington Post editor and Pulitzer finalist had been hired after a grueling monthslong head-hunting expedition that involved some 30 aspirants, including New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet and former Hollywood Reporter editor (and Ankler…

Taylor Sheridan’s impressive Yellowstone universe (with at least five spinoffs) at Paramount may only be outdone by his sprawling real-life ranch — as he’s one of the largest landowners in the U.S. And Sheridan, who first made trade outlet The Land Report’s list of top 100 owners, by acreage, in 2022 after buying the fabled Four Sixes Ranch (where his now-in-development spinoff 6666 is set), is just one of the Hollywood names on the magazine’s new list that was released Jan. 8. Liberty Media chairman John Malone — who was the largest landowner in the country for a decade — came in second in 2023 with 2.2 million acres, behind lumber mogul Red Emmerson. Malone in 2011 acquired more than 1 million acres in the Northeast to nab the top…

Selena Gomez Can’t Seem to Quit Social Media On the heels of fevered speculation about what she and Taylor Swift discussed at the Golden Globes, Selena Gomez announced Jan. 9 to her 428 million Instagram followers that she’s “off social media for a while.” Her fans were less than shocked because it’s far from the first time the 31-year-old has put her phone face-down: She did it in 2018, in 2020, in February and again in November. A day after her most recent departure, Gomez posted a clip featuring her collaboration with chef Gordon Ramsay, followed by an image of her attending an event for her Rare Beauty line. Kris Ruby, president of Ruby Media Group, a New York-based social media marketing agency, says the fake-outs may not end up…

Cipriani The Quick Pitch Years after opening their since-abandoned Mr. C hotel, brothers Maggio and Ignazio Cipriani are taking another chance on L.A. This time around, with their family’s legendary Venetian restaurant, they’re sticking to the Golden Triangle and ensuring that the menu is filled with the classics, including signature preparations of calf’s liver and carpaccio, baked tagliolini with ham and vanilla meringue cake. An adjoining jazz café will soon be open Thursday through Saturday. 362 N. Camden Drive…

Since their respective premieres in 2023, two of this year’s best picture frontrunners have contended with very similar criticisms. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which details the invention of the atomic bomb by an American team of physicists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, does not depict the direct outcome of the Manhattan Project: the nuclear devastation levied upon the Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon tells of a lesser-known historical event: the systematic assassinations of the Osage people in the 1920s by white settlers in order to take control of the oil in their land. Although the film does feature a sizable number of Native American actors in its ensemble, led by Lily Gladstone, the protagonists are the titular murderers, and the story follows…

One of the ghostwriter’s most valuable skills is getting their subjects to talk. So, when I gathered L.A.’s most successful ghostwriters at the Formosa Cafe to gossip, they knew all my tricks. In desperation, I went with the most transparent of all reporting techniques — buying them all fruity cocktails. A reputation for discretion is not only how they get work, but how they avoid getting sued; they sign nondisclosure agreements for every memoir they write. But even if they revealed nothing scandalous about their famous clients — or at least nothing that couldn’t be discovered with a Google search — I learned a lot about the curious craft of ghostwriting and the types of personalities drawn to help famous people tell their life stories. Also, I learned why I…

No one quite knows what to expect of the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, the first major fest following the end of the dual Hollywood strikes. The strikes, which stopped production during the months when many Sundance features normally film, have had some impact on the lineup of U.S.-produced titles, with insiders noting that many titles needed some more time, post-strikes, to finish production than the Sundance submissions deadlines allowed. A slimmed U.S. Dramatic Competition section is now 10 films, down from 13. As for sales, a top agent pegs this year’s market as landing “somewhere between last year’s Sundance and this year’s Toronto.” That is to say, there likely will be several big sellers like Chloe Domont’s Fair Play (Sundance) and Richard Linklater’s Hitman (Toronto), both of…

Upon arriving in the Irish town of Kilkinure, Det. Colman (Daryl McCormack) cannot help but ask about the hairbrushes he keeps seeing in windowsills. Massey (Simon Delaney), a local guard, explains they’re meant to ward off the banshee rumored to stalk the area. It’s not that the citizens necessarily believe in spirits, he clarifies: “Doesn’t mean we’re not afraid of them, though.” But then, this community has more reason than most to fear the wails of mourning women. Showtime’s The Woman in the Wall (which aired on BBC One in the U.K. starting in late August) isn’t a ghost story per se, but it’s the tale of a haunting nonetheless — rooted in the very real atrocity of the country’s Catholic-run Magdalene laundries, to harrowing and ultimately quite moving effect.…

TikTok may have just saved romantic comedies from being banished forever from the big screen to streaming. Sony’s Anyone But You, based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, has become a box office darling and could reach $80 million to $100 million domestically against a $25 million budget, despite mediocre reviews and an equally meh B+ CinemaScore. After opening to a lowly $8 million over Christmas weekend, the Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell romancer went viral after moviegoers began flooding TikTok with videos of themselves reenacting the film’s credit sequence, which is overlaid with actors from the film dancing to and singing snippets of Natasha Bedingfield’s 2004 single “Unwritten.” In its second weekend, the film spiked 45.6 percent, one of the best jumps in history for a wide release, behind…

CNN will undergo a dramatic transformation, its new CEO, Mark Thompson, told staff Jan. 17. In a wide-ranging memo, Thompson urged staffers to channel their inner Ted Turner and “organize around the future not the past. We need to recapture some of the swagger and innovation of the early CNN.” But that plan will also involve “uncertainty,” Thompson acknowledged, with CNN’s linear TV offering likely facing the toughest budget scrutiny. The current production costs of CNN’s domestic TV product “look difficult to support given the changing economics across our industry,” Thompson wrote. “In addition to quality and performance improvement, expect to see us also looking hard at how best to put our TV production machine on a sustainable footing without weakening either the calibre of our journalism or the distinctiveness…

Cal-a-Vie Health Spa The 500-acre expanse (which includes an 18-hole golf course) outside San Diego, is designed to feel like Provence and has long been favored by such Hollywood stars as Julia Roberts and Shailene Woodley. Ten miles of hiking trails were recently added, and three new six-bedroom villas are due in February; from $5,300 for a three-night package, cal-a-vie.com Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa Opened Jan. 1, this luxe sanctuary from recovery guru Richard Taite (who founded Cliffside Malibu) has two locations in Malibu and one in Bel Air, with settings to rival an Aman resort. Lymphatic healing and facials with gold-infused products to stimulate collagen are on the program, along with intense therapy and fitness classes, and each facility takes only six guests at a time. You don’t…

Mean Girls stars old and new united at the Jan. 8 New York premiere of the movie musical adaptation as Lindsay Lohan made a surprise appearance on the pink carpet alongside writer Tina Fey and new cast-members Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, Bebe Wood and Christopher Briney. After the film’s trailer told audiences that “this isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls,” Cravalho — who plays Lizzy Caplan’s role of Janis — joked to THR, “That wasn’t my marketing, I think it’s still your mom’s Mean Girls. We still have ‘fetch,’ we still have ‘You go, Glen Coco,’ but in an entirely different way. If you can imagine the ’04 classic as well as the music from this incredible Broadway show put together with more sparkle, more gay,…

Weddings Courtney Tunney, a manager and producer at Entertainment 360, married Kyle Alleman in Kittery Point, Maine, on Oct. 22. Births Slutty Vegan restaurateur Pinky Cole and husband Derrick Hayes welcomed son David “Dash” Hayes on Dec. 12. Congrats Adam Fogelson was tapped to succeed Joe Drake as chair of Lionsgate’s motion picture group Jan. 10. Jennifer Frees was named chief business and marketing officer of the Toronto International Film Festival on Jan. 11. Late night TV veteran Andy Crystal, who recently worked on The Problem With Jon Stewart, was hired as research director for President Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign Jan. 13. Julian Jacobs was named head of UTA’s New York City office Jan. 9. The Clooney Foundation for Justice appointed Emma Lindsay and David Sagal co-CEOs and Deena Katz COO…

There was a lot to unpack Jan. 11 when the International Animated Film Society ASIFA-Hollywood announced the nominees for the 51st Annie Awards for animation: For respected animation vet Tom Sito, whose credits include Disney classics such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King and who’s now a USC animation professor, it underscores that “diversity has moved into the mainstream. People want to see stories about all interesting people.” Others had a similar reaction to the contenders for the animation awards show taking place Feb. 17 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Nimona leads the feature competition with nine nominations including best feature, direction and writing. A “fairy tale come true” is how Troy Quane, who directed with Nick Bruno, describes the recognition. The film, based on the graphic novel…

As a global pop culture event, it’s hard to match the release of “We Are the World,” the charity single that sold more than 20 million copies in 1985 and united 46 musical stars as enormous and disparate as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Diana Ross at an all-night secret recording session. The story of that night — the scrambling, the egos, the moments of creative kismet — is now told in Bao Nguyen’s documentary The Greatest Night in Pop, which will premiere Jan. 19 at Sundance before streaming on Netflix beginning Jan. 29. “When I heard how they assembled the team, to me it was almost like a heist film,” says Nguyen, who directed the 2020 Bruce Lee documentary Be Water. “You have Quincy Jones as the…

In March of 2020, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, an employee who led a walkout at its Staten Island, New York, warehouse known as JFK8 over pandemic working conditions. A memo that later was leaked to Vice News revealed that an Amazon executive dismissed Smalls as “not smart or articulate” in a strategy meeting with Jeff Bezos. But just as the tech giant was writing Smalls off, some documentary filmmakers saw in the labor organizer a compelling character at the center of a timely story about the modern workforce. Nearly four years later, their movie, Union, which will premiere Jan. 21 at Sundance as an acquisitions title, depicts the formation of the Smalls-led Amazon Labor Union (ALU). “I thought, well, here’s an opportunity to film something from the ground up,” says…

When Kevin Smith shopped Clerks at the Sundance Film Festival, he didn’t anticipate that the comedy would ignite his career at age 23. The budding director was a film school dropout and had penned the screenplay while working at a New Jersey convenience store called the Quick Stop. Clerks focuses on Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), two employees at a mini-mart who chat about movies and life while making small talk with customers. Smith initially envisioned himself playing Randal, and gave the character some of his favorite lines before opting for the smaller role of Silent Bob. “If I’m going to make this movie on my credit cards, I at least want to be in it,” Smith quips to THR. With a meager budget of $27,000, Clerks filmed…