Innholdsfortegnelse for March 27, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

Ariana Grande The star’s Eternal Sunshine album hits No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for the second week in a row with more than 115 million streams, per a Luminate tally Sam Levinson After the creator’s The Idol flamed out with one season on HBO, script issues on Euphoria delay its third run and the cabler releases the starry cast to seek other work. MacKenzie Scott The philanthropist (and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) quietly pledges to donate another $640 million to more than 300 nonprofits across the U.S. Lorne Michaels Pete Davidson’s move to pull the plug on Bupkis’ season two leaves the SNL creator’s producing shingle in the lurch, as shooting was to begin this summer on the Peacock title. Showbiz Stocks $86.23 (+6.3%) TKO GROUP HOLDINGS (TKO)…

In 2015, Imax had little competition. Now there are more than 1,000 premium large-format screens in North America, among them Cinemark Theatres’ XD, Regal Cinemas’ RDX and Canadian giant Cineplex’s UltraAVX. The PLF slice of the opening-weekend pie, including Imax, keeps getting bigger across all genres: Oppenheimer (48 percent), Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (42 percent), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (37 percent), Fast X (32 percent) and The Little Mermaid (26 percent). As a general rule, Imax still makes up about half the PLF pie, despite having less than half the overall screen count. Dolby Cinema is praised for its proprietary projection system and sound, along with state-of-the art seating, but is exclusive to AMC in the United States. Since Imax had no room for…

The blockbuster Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour did sizable business, with Imax screens generating $13.1 million globally on opening weekend, a record start for a concert or documentary. That included $11.1 million from 377 Imax screens in North America, an 11.4 percent share. All told, Imax/PLFs represented 26 percent of the concert pic’s opening weekend. Not bad for a movie whose audience was 70 percent female — a typical gender split for many Imax blockbusters is 70 percent male.…

Great Expectations (HOGARTH, MARCH 12) BY Vinson Cunningham AGENCY UTA Well before he became The New Yorker’s theater critic, Cunningham was an Obama staffer, working on the first presidential campaign and, later, inside the White House. In his debut novel, he uses that experience to craft a bildungsroman about a young man who stumbles into a job in the New York fundraising office of an (unnamed) senator running to be the country’s first Black president. Rife with the lyrical prose one would expect from a writer with Cunningham’s CV, Great Expectations explores (and occasionally eviscerates) the worlds of power, wealth and political strategy.…

“If I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a fuck of a lot more than I am.”OLIVIA COLMAN The actress, on CNN, discussing the lingering — and, in many instances, significant — salary gap between male and female actors: “I know of one pay disparity which is a 12,000 percent difference.” “I will not be bullied or silenced by high-priced lawyers or PR crisis managers.” REBEL WILSON The actress, on Instagram, accusing former co-star Sacha Baron Cohen of trying to censor her reference to him as a “massive asshole” in her upcoming memoir. (Cohen called her claims false.) “Who doesn’t agree with that?” TONY KUSHNER The playwright, on Haaretz Podcast, becoming one of the few Jewish entertainment personalities to publicly support Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar speech, during which the Zone of Interest director…

Neither Hollywood nor Big Tech is letting that legal uncertainty hold them back. According to a review of federal lobbying disclosure reports, a small army of lobbyists is descending on Capitol Hill to talk AI on behalf of companies like Comcast, Apple and News Corp., not to mention unions like SAG-AFTRA, the WGA, the Communications Workers of America and NFL Players Association; and trade groups like the National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America. And they will be competing for time with the likes of OpenAI, Meta and Alphabet, with their own robust lobbying bills. A union source tells THR that its efforts have been focused on the AI threat to jobs, while a studio source says that copyright concerns are a priority. But if it’s…

When 9-1-1 co-creator Tim Minear signed up on Twitter (now known as X), he chose a telling handle to denote his legacy as a screenwriter and director: @Cancelledagain. “I was sort of infamous for all of my thundering failures over the years,” explains Minear. “Firefly lasted one season, Terriers one season, The Inside one season, Drive went for six episodes. Everything was canceled, so I just called myself ‘cancelled again,’ which actually worked out for me because these are all beloved little cult shows now.” With the seventh season of 9-1-1, which he created with Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, underway and a milestone 100th episode premiering April 4, Minear now has a big, long-running show on his hands, plus a successful spinoff in 9-1-1: Lone Star, which will debut…

It seems unnecessary to say about one of the top three podcast publishers, but “Wondery Means Business” is the name of the first of six innovative marketing campaigns being pushed out by the Amazon company this year. Not that anybody doubts it. With 220 active shows, 72 million streams and more than 55 pods reaching No. 1 on Apple Podcasts, the studio known for such binge-worthy hits as Dr. Death, SmartLess and My Favorite Murder is taking a new approach to its programming starting April 1, strategically timing the rollout of its most popular genres. “We are by no means abandoning the concept of one-show marketing,” says Bladimiar Norman, Wondery’s inventive head of global marketing. He adds he’ll be applying the tenets of his box office experience from working on…

Twenty-five years ago, The Matrix’s prescient AI-centric narrative, groundbreaking visuals and oodles of leather were enough to make any viewer say, “Whoa.” Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s journey with the sci-fi epic began in 1994, when Warner Bros. exec Lorenzo di Bonaventura, impressed with their script for the thriller Assassins, signed the duo to a three-feature deal. After earning critical praise for 1996’s Bound, which starred Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon as women who plot to rip off the Mafia, the filmmakers had built enough clout to lead the more ambitious The Matrix. Their script centered on Neo, a computer hacker who learns that humans have been enslaved in a simulation engineered by artificially intelligent machines. Will Smith passed on it, so Keanu Reeves landed the lead alongside Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne…

On March 15 and 16, many workers at the Universal City AMC voted to unionize with IATSE, making the SoCal theater the second chain location that has affiliated with the crew union. With momentum picking up in the labor organizing space in recent years, the move raises the question: Could other major theater chains be next? In New York City, the movement has made gains thanks to the work of two United Auto Workers Locals: Local 2110 successfully organized Anthology Film Archives in 2021 and Film Forum in 2022, while Local 2179 this year took on and won a union election at the dine-in Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Local 2179 also has made headway at the Alamo Drafthouse chain, unionizing locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn in 2023. UAW…

Alex Edelman’s go-to order at Barney Greengrass is whitefish on an everything bagel with a side of scrambled eggs. The Upper West Side institution isn’t exactly his local haunt — he lives out of a blue Samsonite bag these days — but this New York deli is a magnet for the Boston-born comic. “It’s where my friends eat and argue,” he explains. “It’s where ideas start to take root. Oh, and since the show did well, I can always get a table.” That show, Just for Us, is the Jewish writer’s celebrated narrative about the infamous night he attended a meeting of white nationalists in a Queens apartment. An extended downtown run led to stints on Broadway and around the world. Its return to L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum (March 25…

Rebecca Selva, creative director for jewelry houses Kwiat and Fred Leighton, remembers texting one of her company’s execs on Oscar night, saying, “‘Stay awake until the end’ — because I knew if Oppenheimer won best picture, that would be a great opportunity for us,” she tells THR. Minutes later, Selva celebrated the moment she’d been hoping for: Producer Emma Thomas accepted the trophy for Oppenheimer’s best picture victory wearing a dazzling pair of Kwiat earrings, which featured two Colombian emeralds weighing nine carats each. The final category of the 96th Oscars contributed $47,000 to Kwiat’s 2024 awards season total of $504,000 in earned media exposure, a value that luxury labels increasingly rely upon when determining the quantitative impact of their red carpet placements. For major fashion and luxury brands, red…

AIMÉE CROYSDILL Clients: Alison Oliver (Saltburn), Nicola Coughlan (Barbie, Bridgerton) “I assisted Avigail and Damian Collins — they were styling all the coolest music acts, including Rihanna, as part of Rob Zangardi and Mariel Haenn’s team,” says the U.K. stylist, who crossed over from the pop world to Hollywood. Croysdill is gearing up for Bridgerton season three with Nicola Coughlan, whose character, Penelope Featherington, will be the focus. The stylist will simultaneously be working on premieres for the Back to Black Amy Winehouse biopic with lead star Marisa Abela. “Of course, we’ll have some subtle nods to Amy. Oh, and we love black,” says Croysdill, who recently dressed Abela in black and red Moschino inspired by Winehouse’s 2007 performance of “Rehab” at the BRIT Awards. DANYUL BROWN Client: Lisa Rinna…

For years, Nolan has used Imax cameras to shoot his movies, including the Dark Knight trilogy. But no one could have ever imagined that a three-hour biographical drama would earn nearly $1 billion at the box office, with nearly $200 million coming from Imax screens. “If I had shown you the treatment for Oppenheimer and told you it was about a physicist who developed the atomic bomb, that wouldn’t necessarily scream out at you as an Imax film, so it’s about how the vision was executed for Imax,” says Gelfond. The entire town is waiting to see whether Nolan will stick with Donna Langley and Universal after Oppenheimer’s box office and Oscar domination, or return to Warners (many are betting on the former). One thing is almost assured: He’ll be…

The Disney family may have given up the reins of its business decades ago, but there is still no shortage of powerful families in media holding sway. Shari Redstone controls Paramount Global, though for how long remains unclear as she considers a sale. The Ochs Sulzbergers still dominate the board of The New York Times. The Murdochs own major stakes in Fox and News Corp. And Brian Roberts and his family lord over Comcast and NBCUniversal. But, quietly, one of the original New York media families has amassed a multi - billion-dollar fortune: the Newhouses. And while the descendants of Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. don’t exert as much direct power over the majority of their holdings (for the most part, they lean on the professional CEOs at the companies in which…

Justin Timberlake celebrated his new album, Everything I Thought It Was, with a party at Dan Tana’s alongside wife Jessica Biel and the members of NSYNC. … Rich Paul and Aaron Pierre were spotted dining (separately) at The Terrace. … Lindsay Lohan lunched at La Scala. … Paramount TV chief Nicole Clemens stopped by the Polo Lounge with producer Keri Selig. … In New York, Olivia Wilde and David Schwimmer toasted the one-year anniversary of Raf’s with a party at the restaurant. Hot New Restaurant Zozo John Sedlar — the late-’80s L.A. pioneer of modern Southwest cuisine at Saint Estèphe, Bikini and Abiquiu — made early disciples of critics like Ruth Reichl and Jonathan Gold. Now, for the first time since his DTLA restaurant Rivera closed a decade ago, he’s…

It was another high point in a career that was filling up with them. Melissa Barrera was in Dublin, finally back on set after a long actors strike and working on the horror feature Abigail, which reunited her with friends and frequent collaborators Radio Silence. The directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett brought Barrera to new levels of fame when they tapped her to lead the 2022 franchise reviver Scream, and she was looking forward to playing her role as Sam Carpenter for a third time down the road, with Freaky helmer Christopher Landon attached to direct. But then she got the call that would come to dominate the next few months of her life and make her the subject of intense scrutiny. Spyglass, the production company behind…