Innholdsfortegnelse for September 11, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

Call the banners and muster the dragons, there is trouble in the kingdoms! HBO’s big-budget fantasy epic House of the Dragon and Amazon’s even bigger-budget fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are encountering a hailstorm of catapulted projectiles. For Rings, the issue was familiar. The $715 million series — which debuted two years ago to strong ratings and fandom discord — unveiled the first four episodes of its new season. The consensus is that this new run is firmly an improvement, but some critics and fans maintain it’s not as strong as it should be (many contrast the show to Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning trilogy — and how can you not? — even though that saga arguably set an impossibly high bar for a prequel series…

Entitlement (RIVERHEAD, SEPT. 17) BY Rumaan Alam AGENCY CAA Alam’s last novel became the hit Netflix film Leave the World Behind (starring Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali), and now his follow-up work arrives — wholly new in subject matter yet equally ripe for the screen. Entitlement’s protagonist is Brooke, a 20-something New Yorker working for a billionaire’s philanthropic fund whose new exposure to the one percent gives her an insatiable taste for the finer things. She descends into a sort of madness, losing friends and family in her quest to enter the world of wealth. But even when she’s unlikable, she’s never hard to understand — and certainly never boring.…

Strolling through Palace Costume is a bit like stepping into a Tim Burton movie. Everywhere you turn, there’s a surreal riot of outrageous outfits, from over-the-top Beetlejuice-style attire to Ed Wood-ish 1950s dresses to paste jewelry in a rainbow of Pee-Wee tints. In fact, a lot of the costumes found in Burton’s movies were sourced from these very racks, along with outfits appearing in hundreds of other films. Forrest Gump, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Austin Powers, The Big Lewbowski, Don’t Worry Darling — they all featured clothing that was pulled from Palace Costume, known among Hollywood stylists as “the Louvre of vintage.” “It started 60 years ago,” says owner Melody Barnett, as she shuffles through room after room filled with fashion history. “I…

SEPT. 13 Emmy Nominees Night THR and SAG-AFTRA once again co-host the Emmy weekend celebration, held this year at the Stanley II mansion overlooking L.A. and sponsored by Heineken. SEPT. 13-15 Boyz II Men and Paula Abdul at the Hollywood Bowl The iconic acts team up for three nights at the Bowl, closing out its 2024 season alongside a fireworks display. SEPT. 14 BAFTA TV Tea Party After a four-year hiatus, the star-studded Emmy event takes over The Maybourne Beverly Hills, toasting nominees from the U.K., the U.S. and beyond. Friendly House Luncheon Lucy Hale receives the Humanitarian Award at the 34th annual soiree, hosted by the residential substance-abuse recovery home. The event at the Fairmont Century Plaza features performances by Bishop Briggs and Portugal. The Man rocker John Gourley.…

For better or worse — and we’ll find out which it is on Sept. 27, but it’s not looking good — Francis Ford Coppola spent about $140 million of his own money bringing Megalopolis to the screen. Of course, the Godfather director isn’t the first to roll the dice with self-financing. Here, other big gamblers. Kevin Costner Costner frequently invests in his own movies — he put $3 million into Dances With Wolves in 1990 — but this time he went big. The actor-director reportedly mortgaged his Santa Barbara ranch to help finance Horizon, putting himself on the hook for $38 million. So far, the Western hasn’t even grossed $30 million. George Lucas Everyone, including Lucas, expected Star Wars to flop, so when he began working on its 1980 sequel…

Power list perennial Jason Oppenheim and Mary Bonnet, stars of the Netflix reality series Selling Sunset, are set to cohost the fourth edition of THR’s annual LA Power Broker Awards on Sept. 17 at a private location. As with the previous ceremonies, the event is presented by luxury real estate PR firm The Society Group. Below, the winners and nominees: TEAM OF THE YEAR Aaron Kirman, Christie’s International Real Estate | Southern California PHILANTHROPIC IMPACT AWARD Linda May AGENT OF HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE Nominees The Altman Brothers Team; Jade Mills; Smith & Berg Partners CONDO SALE OF THE YEAR Nominees James Harris & David Parnes (Carolwood) and Ginger Glass (Compass); Sally Forster Jones, Tomer Fridman & Amir Ensani (Compass) and Josh Altman & Chase Koplow (Douglas Elliman); Michelle Montany, Taaseen Qureshi & Mauricio…

Drama OUTSTANDING SERIES In a thin year (The Crown is the only repeat nom), contenders include shows new (Fallout, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 3 Body Problem) and returning (The Morning Show, The Gilded Age, Slow Horses). But the clear frontrunner — with a field-leading 25 noms — is an epic that was expected to be a limited series before going over so well that a second season was ordered. — S.F. WILL WIN Shogun The TV Academy needs to send FX a muffin basket for saving what was going to be the weakest drama field since before the days of prestige cable. Even if FX finally decides that a second Shogun season is a bad idea — and it is — Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ respectful, immaculately produced, astonishingly…

Dana Walden Going into the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Disney Entertainment co-chair has momentum: Disney TV has 51 Creative Arts wins; the next highest is Netflix, with 18. Rupert Murdoch The News Corp mogul is challenged by hedge fund Starboard Value over a succession plan that props up son Lachlan’s control over his sprawling empire. Pedro Almodóvar The Spaniard’s first English-language feature, The Room Next Door, received a 17-minute standing ovation in Venice en route to the fest’s Golden Lion best film honor. Francis Ford Coppola After betting $120 million on his epic Megalopolis, the famed director is eyeing a $5 million domestic bow on Sept. 27, according to major tracking firm NRG. Showbiz Stocks $179.55 (+2.9%) AMAZON (AMZN) The tech company cut a deal with the NFL to provide…

When Natasha Rothwell set out to create her first TV series, she had no idea the corner she was writing herself into by setting it at JFK. As it turns out, there’s a reason you don’t see any workplace comedies about airports. “Standards and practices sanitized so many logos that I was wondering, ‘Is this going to look like JFK?’ ” she says. “When Hudson News finally agreed to let us show their sign, it was really such a get.” The red tape for something as simple as using a newsstand storefront is one of many unexpected hurdles in making How to Die Alone, Rothwell’s starring vehicle that premieres Sept. 13 on Hulu — seven years after she initially developed it at HBO. Though she’s written for Saturday Night Live…

Anderson .Paak, the Grammy-winning musician who’s also half of Silk Sonic with Bruno Mars, opens Andy’s on Sept. 25. It’s an intimate throwback live-music venue with a focus on R&B and jazz. His partners are his friends: seasoned L.A. nightlife impresarios Mark and Jonnie Houston, whose other industry-favored ventures include La Descarga, Break Room 86, No Vacancy and Level 8. “It’s going to be a little like you’re in my home studio, or mom’s basement,” .Paak says of the West Hollywood club at 9077 Santa Monica Blvd., right between the Troubadour and Dan Tana’s. “But with bomb-ass food and a top-notch sound system for the stage.” The space most recently was known as the Doheny Room and before that The Lounge. In 2002, the property entered into pop-culture legend as…

Weddings Narcos actress Andrea Londo married business owner Greg Bekkers on June 15 at Le Domaine du Rey in Saint-Félixde-Pallières, France. The couple said “I do” at the Santa Barbara Courthouse before heading to France for their larger celebration. Births THR senior reviews editor Jon Frosch and husband Martin Gaillard welcomed daughter Olivia Carmen Frosch-Gaillard on Sept. 4. Congrats Tayanna Todd was named head of inclusive content at Lionsgate on Sept. 5. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley joined PR and crisis communications firm Edelman as vice chair of its EGA unit Sept. 4. Jeannine Tang was appointed COO and general counsel of SK Global Entertainment on Aug. 21. Kelsey Goldberg was promoted to creative executive for Roddenberry Entertainment. Kids and family-focused Sycamore Studios launched Aug. 27 with Christian McGuigan…

Apocalypse in the Tropics VENICE, TELLURIDE Brazilian documentarian Petra Costa chronicles the dire state of democracy with this eye-opening exposé, delving into the troubling ties linking Christian evangelism and politics. Getting up close and personal with some powerful people amid a wave of social and political unrest, she shifts between the epic and the intimate, history and the present, to shed light on a phenomenon not only in her home nation, but around the world. — JORDAN MINTZER April VENICE, TORONTO Dea Kulumbegashvili’s miraculous feature centers on an OB-GYN (a marvelous Ia Sukhitashvili) who performs secret abortions for desperate women in deepest rural Georgia. Like Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the drama emphasizes the risks of backstreet terminations as well as the shame and expense that…

Destin Daniel Cretton, the filmmaker behind Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, is in talks to direct Spider-Man 4, THR has learned. The move brings an end to speculation of who would spin the web for one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood. Cretton will bring fresh blood to this iteration of Spider-Man, which stars Tom Holland in a co-production between Sony and Disney-owned Marvel Studios. It will make him the fourth director to take on a Spidey solo feature. Jon Watts directed the previous three Holland-starring movies, while Marc Webb helmed the two Amazing Spider-Man installments that starred Andrew Garfield. Sam Raimi directed the trilogy that featured Tobey Maguire. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers are back for script duties, while Marvel head Kevin Feige and former…

Late night, it appears, is now firmly in belt-tightening mode. Or, as one veteran producer says, “There’s definitely a new reality when it comes to budgets.” On Sept. 6, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon announced plans to trim back its production schedule, airing four nights a week instead of five, swapping its Friday edition for a rerun. The network noted that The Tonight Show was the last of the major shows to produce five days a week. Earlier this year, NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers had to drop its house band as part of budget cuts. And last year, CBS decided to end its Late Late Show after James Corden left, opting to replace it with the less expensive After Midnight comedy game show. Now, of course,…

Franchises are both the lifeblood and bane of Hollywood’s existence. When everything clicks, a series can keep consumers intrigued for years if not decades — James Bond, Batman, Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, Superman. But sooner or later, fatigue sets in and the complaints begin (i.e., what happened to originality?) The 2024 summer box office was a rare exception. For the first time in recent memory, “franchise” no longer was a dirty word, says one top studio executive. Those big brands helped push year-to-date domestic grosses to more than $5.4 billion as of the weekend of Sept. 6-8, which is still down about 13 percent compared with a year earlier but better than expectations for this point in 2024. The reversal in fortune began after a rough May that saw The…

Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan Looks like Harry and Meghan have done it again — they’ve chewed up yet another American adviser. Josh Kettler, the Santa Barbara-based consultant who’d been serving as chief of staff to the Duke and Duchess, reportedly resigned in August — after just three months on the job — becoming the latest member of the ever-expanding “Sussex Survivors Club,” as some former employees have taken to calling themselves. Before Kettler, there was Toya Holness, who was their global press secretary until 2022, and Christine Weil Schirmer, the onetime Pinterest communications director who quit as Harry and Meghan’s PR head in 2021. Earlier, there was Keleigh Thomas Morgan, a Sunshine Sachs partner who started repping Meghan when she was still a commoner (well, a…

It’s been another 12 months of rough sailing in L.A.’s luxury real estate sector. Confronted with market-chilling headwinds — from the year-old “mansion tax” to stubbornly high interest rates and scarce inventory — many of the area’s top agents saw their numbers dip. But the 35 brokers below (selected according to metrics that include total sales volume from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024; media visibility; and the wattage of their celebrity clientele) have found a way to power through the storm. “2024 was an incredible year for the people that chose to be in the market,” Carolwood’s Cooper Mount says. “There were struggles across the board. However, buyers that had patience and perseverance were able to secure some of the great deals that exist in the city. On…

What a difference four years makes. Back in 2020, companies loudly proclaimed their commitments to DEI via million-dollar pledges, conspicuous hires and black squares on Instagram. These moves now have been walked back — to put it mildly. That’s why the work of the people comprising THR’s Forces for Change is all the more vital. The annual list recognizes industry leaders who actively use their clout and platform to create opportunities in the business for those who are historically excluded — even and especially when it is not in their job description to do so. This last criterion has grown even more critical as companies shed their DEI-designated employees en masse. “The most powerful DEI agents don’t have it in their title,” says Lionsgate’s Kamala Avila-Salmon, who knows of what…