Innholdsfortegnelse for October 23, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

For years, Gordon Ramsay and his hit MasterChef franchise called a converted soundstage in Los Angeles home. From there, contestants crisscrossed the 30-mile zone where Hollywood holds court to film on location at glitzy mansions and Michelin-starred restaurants. Tens of millions of dollars flowed into the economy across the Fox show’s 14 seasons. Enter Australia, which has aggressively been courting the production to relocate. It was a tempting proposition. The burgeoning film hub, unlike California, allows unscripted programming to receive tax credits to shoot there. Still, the math didn’t make sense, at least not until permitting issues with MasterChef’s L.A. soundstage emerged that would require major renovations. So, starting next year, producers will fly dozens of home cooks — and the troves of cash that come with a big-budget network…

Weddings Chicago Med actress Torrey DeVitto married Jared LaPine, part owner of mechanical contracting company R.W. LaPine, on Sept. 14 at the Inisfree Estate in Pullman, Michigan. Births Bianca Doria, director of corporate communications at Crunchyroll, and husband Josh Bancroft, engineering manager at Figma, welcomed son Mateo Paul Bancroft on June 20 at Kaiser Permanente Vacaville Medical Center in Vacaville, California. Jacki St. Thomas, account director at MPRM Communications, and husband Alex David welcomed daughter Riley St. Thomas on Sept. 26. Congrats CAA tapped Matthew Schuyler as its chief people officer on Oct. 17 and promoted Alexa Cook to global co-head of CAA Sports Property Sales and Rob DeAngelis to chief revenue officer of CAA Sports on Oct. 16. Former Tidal exec Joey Seiler joined Granderson Des Rochers’ New Media…

Los Angeles Haunted Hayride — the sprawling attraction that packs a spooky patch of Griffith Park with ghouls, goblins and eerie attractions — has never closed for a private party. Not for the Obamas, the Beckhams, Christina Aguilera or any of the VIPs that have flocked to the pop-up during the Halloween season in its 16 years of existence. That changed on Oct. 10, when the public exited the area known as Midnight Falls to make way for host Janelle Monáe and nearly 100 of her nearest and dearest. As zombie-like “scare actors” bobbed and booed their way through a crowd of her guests including Zola filmmaker Janicza Bravo and Insecure star Kendrick Sampson, a DJ in a skull mask pressed pause on Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” to make way…

On Oct. 11, 1974, a 31-year-old film school dropout from Austin released a homegrown horror flick that he just hoped would get Hollywood’s attention. He got his wish. Shot in the blistering summer heat in and around Round Rock, Texas, using a borrowed 16mm camera, a cast of complete unknowns and a mask fashioned from what appeared to be human skin, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would spin a bargain-basement budget of $140,000 into more than $30 million at the box office, making it — at least for a while — the most successful independent film of all time. Today, 50 years after it first buzzed into theaters and burrowed its way into our collective nightmares, Hooper’s twisted little regional cheapie has been hailed by some as the…

Ask anybody in television what the marketplace is like right now, and they’re apt to respond with a forced smile resembling that emoji with the toothy grimace. It is rough out there. Post-strike optimism deflated in the grip of Hollywood’s financial squeeze. The path to a series order or a renewal has rarely, if ever, been so difficult. There are exceptions. From surprise juggernauts like FX’s Emmy record-shattering Shogun and Amazon smash hit Fallout to the utterly unpredictable success of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer or Ryan Murphy’s outrageous run of fall launches, 2024 has also been a good year for the medium. Viewers are even tuning in to broadcast again. (Thanks, Kathy Bates and Joshua Jackson!) So, as Hollywood continues to search for a path forward, who better to ask for…

When Rachel Morrison was nominated for a best cinematography Oscar for 2017’s Mudbound, she became the first woman to be honored in the category. Then her work as director of photography on Black Panther made her the first female cinematographer of a big-budget superhero movie. She’s shot dozens of renowned films and TV shows, but when it came to finding a project to mark her feature directorial debut, things didn’t come so easily. “I read scripts for years, and I really mean years, looking for something that felt like I was the right person to direct,” says Morrison. Finally, she came across The Fire Inside, the Barry Jenkins- penned story of Claressa Shields, a Olympic boxer who has been fighting for gender parity in the sport. “As a female DP,…

If you’re lucky, you’ll never need to call anybody on this list. But if you ever do find yourself in a tight spot — say, you wrapped your Cadillac SUV around a lamppost in the Hamptons, or got arrested at a five-star New York City hotel and charged with racketeering and sex trafficking — these are the lawyers you’ll want on your side. They’re The Troubleshooters, Hollywood’s top legal fixers (even if some of them are based in New York, Atlanta or Las Vegas). They not only help their A-list clients climb their way out of criminal jams but also steer them through the often even more fraught courtroom dramas surrounding their divorces, workplace disputes and estate planning. On the following pages, THR once again picks the best mouthpieces that…

In 2019, producer Scott Budnick was meeting with Barack Obama in Washington after the former president screened an early cut of his legal drama Just Mercy, in which Jamie Foxx plays an Alabama man who is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. At the time, Obama was in the midst of setting up his production company, Higher Ground, and he mused to Budnick that perhaps “a film could literally change somebody’s brain matter,” Budnick says. Months later, Budnick casually shared Obama’s brain matter comment with Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt when the two were on a panel together, and the seeds of an intriguing new piece of research were planted. “Scott relayed the story as though it was this unknowable thing,” says Eberhardt, who has received a MacArthur genius grant for…

You know what Kim Kardashian’s profession was when she met Paris? She installed wardrobe closets for celebrities,” Elliot Mintz — famed publicist and consigliere to stars like Paris Hilton, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono — confides to me over Italian takeout and chardonnay. “She was hired by someone to build a big closet for Paris.” We’re in the dining room of his house on Mulholland Drive. Built in 1982, it features a tennis court on stilts (Mintz has used it just four times since purchasing the property in 1991) and soaring white walls lined with lithographs by his favorite artist, Tamara de Lempicka. Jack Nicholson lives 12 driveways down the road. “He bought that house with his Easy Rider money in the ’60s,” he tells me. Mintz,…

Hold the Phone! Stars Are Dialing for Kamala Hey, swing state voters, pick up the damn phone already! It could be Jessica Alba calling. Or Patton Oswalt. Or any number of other stars who’ve been diligently manning phone banks for the Kamala Harris campaign the past several weeks. While there haven’t been a whole lot of celebrities turning up in political TV ads this election cycle — there’s always been some doubt about how impactful those are, anyway — Hollywood types have been finding other, more personal ways of whispering into voters’ ears. “About five weeks ago, I started Phone Banking Fridays,” says producer Jamie Patricof (Half Nelson, The Place Behind the Pines), who is now shooting a movie — Roofman, with Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst — in the…

Night at the Museum The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures held its annual gala Oct. 19, this year honoring Paul Mescal, Rita Moreno and Quentin Tarantino — who during his speech announced he was donating his first handwritten draft of the Pulp Fiction script to the museum — while raising more than $11 million to support its exhibitions and education initiatives. The event, one of Hollywood’s starriest nights, was co-chaired by Dr. Eric Esrailian, Salma Hayek Pinault, Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria and Tyler Perry, with a guest list that included Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meg Ryan, Joaquin Phoenix, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian and Cynthia Erivo, who closed out the night with a showstopping performance of “Purple Rain.”…

“I’ve dreamt of having my own haunted house experience for many, many, many nightmares,” says Monáe of her inaugural L.A. Haunted Hayride attraction (open in Griffith Park through Nov. 2). “The best reviews I’ve gotten are from people saying they ran out screaming.” Hayride founder Melissa Carbone, who first launched the attraction in 2009, says, “Janelle is an artist in every sense of the word and she wants input on everything.” (The actress’ screams are even blasted on speakers throughout the experience.) Carbone also teased plans for what she claims will be “the biggest Halloween project in the world” next year, with Monáe on board for those scares, too. This month, fans can also find Monáe hosting AMC’s FearFest, the network’s block of horror programming. “Janelle Monáe is a force…

In 2022, Parker Finn’s Smile became one of the most profitable movies of the year, bringing in more than $217 million on a $17 million production budget. Paramount quickly greenlit a sequel, a no-brainer in an era in which horror is one of the only sure bets left at the box office. Studios embarked on a horror arms race, locking up talent in first-look deals, hiring execs to focus on the genre and figuring out how to get more product into theaters. Two years later, Smile 2 arrived during the Oct. 18-20 weekend in an entirely different landscape, where the marketplace has become increasingly oversaturated, setting off alarm bells at major and indie studios. The well-received Smile sequel went up against the second weekend of Cineverse’s unrated indie slasher sensation…

MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN AND TYLER GILLETT (ABIGAIL) The start of the home invasion in The Strangers (2008) I don’t think anyone took a breath the entire scene. We collectively gasped when he appears behind her and we all screamed when she opens the shades and sees him up close on the other side of the window. It’s a masterfully orchestrated scene, from the use of handheld long takes to the haunting Joanna Newsom song and Liv Tyler’s pitch-perfect performance. From this scene on, all the idle whispering and chatter disappeared as the movie held the audience by the throat. LEIGH WHANNELL (WOLF MAN) The blood test in The Thing (1982) As a filmmaker, I’m always trying to come up with scenes that deliver suspense but do it in a way that is…

“Church Lady! Honestly, I think she moved from the TV screen to our political reality. She’s not as funny anymore …”Issa Lopez “Chris Farley, a hidden camera, decaf coffee crystals. Pure joy.”Patrick McKay “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Phil Hartman was a one-of-a-kind genius.”Ryan Condal “Mike Myers and Ben Stiller as movie critics.”Mickey Down “Steve Martin’s Theodoric of York. I reference it constantly as a perfect commentary on the arrogance and absurdity of certainty.”Jason Segel “The first time Melissa McCarthy did Sean Spicer. Totally destroys.”Michele Fazekas “ ‘Colonel Angus Comes Home’ is a real gem.”Lauren LeFranc “Emily Litella, whose confusion over current events has never seemed more relevant.”David Zabel…

As they prepare to embark on their first tour in six years, the E Street Band reflects on the “responsibility” they feel to deliver the energetic virtuosity they’ve built their reputation on. “We had to recall some of that manic, out-of-control way we played 50 years ago,” drummer Max Weinberg says of a sluggish early rehearsal. “Really get back to where we were.” But Disney+/Hulu’s Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is no deluded attempt to deny the passage of time. Directed by Thom Zimny — who over the past quarter-century has worked on countless films and music videos for the Boss, including the 2018 Netflix special Springsteen on Broadway — the documentary is as much a celebration of what’s changed about the group as what hasn’t…

This was the summer that theatrical audiences really refamiliarized themselves with the famous 20th Century logo, arcing searchlights and all. The Disney-owned division was everywhere thanks to hits like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Alien: Romulus. Guiding 20th is the sure and steady hand of Steve Asbell, who sat down with THR and spilled more than he should about two — yes, we said two — Predator movies coming next year. Where is the balance between originals and franchise plays? Job one was figuring out these franchise movies first and coming up with the right cadence of Avatar, Apes, Alien and Predator specifically. Getting those right was the first part, which we’ve done now. And so that idea is to be able to say, “OK, we know…

A few years ago, audio platforms and media companies threw enormous amounts of money at creators to build their podcasting slates. Spotify, which spent more than $1 billion on its push, inked deals with the Obamas, the Sussexes and more, in addition to bankrolling its biggest star, Joe Rogan. Now, after a content spending pullback, it’s a different landscape. One that, in the telling of SiriusXM president and chief content officer Scott Greenstein, has matured to the point where it’s clear which big players in the audio space still can write checks. Namely, SiriusXM, Spotify, Amazon’s Wondery and iHeartMedia. SiriusXM has been particularly aggressive in making rich talent deals this year, snapping up both SmartLess and Call Her Daddy, two of the most popular podcasts in the industry. The acquisitions…

Light switches, doorbells and curtain rods may soon be domestic relics of a bygone era. In a world drunk on the promise of all things artificially intelligent, that last refuge known as our home is quickly becoming an automated experience, hyper-responsive to our voices, movements and habits. A mattress that automatically adjusts its shape in response to sleep data? A robotic mower that trims the lawn without noise, emissions or invoices? Or a smart fridge that “talks” to your fitness tracker to make meal recommendations based on health data and what’s on hand at home? It’s all currently available to consumers and (relatively) affordable. “Right now, home technology is evolving faster than smartphones,” says Chris Beucler, president of West Coast luxury design firm Blue Heron Nexus. “A pioneering industry of…

OCT. 23 AFI Fest opening night The annual film festival will kick off with the world premiere of Disney’s Music by John Williams documentary at the TCL Chinese Theatre, with producers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. OCT. 24 WIF Honors Kate Winslet, Kerry Washington, Annette Bening and Joey King are among the honorees at WIF’s (previously Women in Film) awards event. A Sense of Home Gala Shawn Levy and wife Serena will be feted at the gala — supporting ASOH’s efforts to fight homelessness — taking place at Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant’s L.A. residence. OCT. 25 New Yorker Festival The three-day fest will host an A-list lineup of talks, featuring sit-downs with Alan Cumming, Amy Sedaris, Audra McDonald, Dax Shepard and Rachel Maddow. OCT. 26…

When Curry Barker moved to Los Angeles a few years ago, he thought getting his short films on the festival circuit would be his path to making it as a director. But soon he discovered just uploading his films directly to YouTube was getting him attention. His 2023 horror short The Chair landed him Hollywood representation and a deal to direct a $1 million movie, Obsession. Then in August, he posted the $800 feature Milk & Serial, which he wrote, directed and starred in. It exploded online, attracting 1 million views. “It just catapulted the amount of meetings I was taking,” says Barker, who notes he met with practically every studio and major horror producer in town. Barker is part of a new class of filmmakers who honed their chops…

“If Aristotle is to be trusted, the characters in a comedy behave worse than people do in real life, but ironically, per Shakespeare, their shenanigans ultimately don’t cause any permanent damage, and lead to happy endings.”J.D. Payne “Make me happy not to be those characters.”Soo Hugh “It must risk offense.”Matthew Read “What do I know? The Sopranos made me laugh as much as any show I’ve ever seen.”Eric Newman “Be a drama about angry chefs.”Seth MacFarlane “Not make me need to watch another comedy afterwards to soothe my anxiety.”Jac Schaeffer “Be relatable. Have recognizable human qualities in all the characters involved.”Richard Gadd “Contain at least one scene where a character overhears something through a door and gets the wrong idea.”Jenna Lamia “Achieve exactly 9.4 laughs per minute — any less…

The Netflix algorithm will lure you into watching Territory for its familiarity. The six-part drama is almost explicitly a Down Under version of Yellowstone, or else a modern-day version of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. It overflows with recognizable faces from American television freed to use variations on their native accents, including leads from Fringe (Anna Torv), Longmire (Robert Taylor), Patriot (Michael Dorman) and The CW’s awful Beauty & the Beast (Jay Ryan). But me, I stuck with it for the handful of ways it’s distinctive — like the combination of Australian slang and cattle ranching jargon that’s practically a foreign language, the gorgeous photography of the country’s Northern Territory and, yes, the number of recognizable actors in chaps discussing obscure facets of international real estate law. Those are the limited promises…

For Richard Linklater, talking about awards and accolades is a lose-lose situation. The filmmaker, who has five Oscar nominations and is about to receive the Lifetime Achievement in Screenwriting Award at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, likens the process to entering a horse race you didn’t ask to be in (a former competitive athlete, he loves a sports metaphor). “If you say that awards and accolades mean everything to you, it’s like, ‘Were you not loved by your parents?’ And if you say they mean nothing, you seem arrogant and privileged,” he says. “So I take the long view: When you do something long enough, they start giving you awards.” Whose opinion of your work means the most to you? There’s no one person. Ethan Hawke said recently, “If there’s…