Innholdsfortegnelse for October 30, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

The Walt Disney Co. is betting that James Gorman can pull off a succession twofer. The former Morgan Stanley CEO executed what is considered among the smoothest succession processes in recent corporate history: He announced his plan in May to exit the investment bank; revealed that three internal candidates were in the running to replace him; chose one (Ted Pick); and did it while keeping the others in the firm after it was over. Gorman will become chairman of the board of Disney in January, with finding a successor to CEO Bob Iger as his top priority, targeting an “early 2026” decision. It’s no easy task, with two years having passed since Iger returned to the company with a promise to figure out succession once more alongside a contract extension…

Of the hundreds of original scripted series Netflix has greenlit the past decade (excluding kids shows), only a handful have lasted as long as seven seasons. Virgin River, starring Alexandra Breckenridge, is the latest to make the club with its early renewal Oct. 23. When Netflix started creating originals, including such shows as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, it followed the template set by premium cable outlets — 12- or 13-episode seasons. Those were relatively long runs, however, as Netflix’s model has changed somewhat, and it now favors shorter-episode orders (eight to 10 episodes is the norm) and fewer seasons, with the great majority shows not going beyond four. Here are the longest-running titles in the Netflix library: 8 Seasons • Big Mouth (final season set…

Beyoncé and Post Malone aren’t the only pop stars gunning for country Grammy nominations. Add “It” girl Sabrina Carpenter to that list. The “Espresso” hitmaker submitted her guitar-tinged track “Slim Pickens” to the best country song and best country solo performance categories. And though the Recording Academy’s country committee has rejected songs from outsiders in the past, they accepted the track, and it could help Carpenter continue her musical takeover when nominations are revealed Nov. 8. This year is packed with artists who don’t traditionally release country music submitting to the genre — one of the many interesting facts revealed in the 2025 Grammy ballot, which isn’t made public but was exclusively retrieved by THR, which breaks down what you need to know. COMING FOR COUNTRY They dominated the country…

Reality bites: Hollywood lunching just isn’t what it used to be. Thank the pervasiveness of video meetings, the persistence of remote work and the dwindling of expense accounts. While some standbys remain stalwart (Toscana, Hamasaku, The Polo Lounge), many industry-favored restaurants have of late abandoned the midday game, from Spago and Mr Chow to Pizzeria Mozza and Musso & Frank. Who can blame them? After all, their gossamer-thin operating margins, already decimated a generation ago by a town that quiet-quit its day drinking, are now contending with sharply rising labor costs, too. The new contenders, debuting over the past few years, have no tablecloths. They can’t comprehend the notion of reservations. Hundred-dollar-plus table orders are often made at the counter. And yet: They’re drawing devoted crowds. Time will tell, but…

If you’re planning on attending Tom Rothman’s birthday party in November, you’ll need a costume. Rumor has it the Sony chairman is asking invitees to dress up as characters from movies made under his reign. Luckily, it’s a long list of wardrobe choices, stretching back a multitude of decades. You could go as Jack Dawson from 1997’s Titanic. Or Satine from 2001’s Moulin Rouge! Or Miranda Priestly from 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada. Or Rick Dalton from 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The point here is, Rothman is turning 70 and has been in charge at Sony (and before that, Fox) for a very, very long time. As it happens, he’s not the only silver mogul in Hollywood these days. Bob Iger is 73 and has been running…

Steven Spielberg is among the thousands of Universal employees flocking to feast at the most upscale studio cafeteria in recent memory. That’s saying a lot, considering that Spielberg’s Amblin (which is owned by Universal) is famous for employing its own chef for employees’ lunches. Part of The Commons, which also houses state-of-the-art screening rooms, the Marketplace is next-level — and subsidized for employees. Various food stations range from a proper sushi bar (if you’re willing to wait in line) to comfort foods from a popular burrito bowl with pork chili verde to a BBQ salmon dish with Cajun rice and crispy brussels sprouts to pepperoni and hot honey pizzas. Designed by Lever and Field Operations, the refurbished digs at Universal also include a new office building and a paseo with…

When pitching a movie to Ridley Scott, you had better be quick about it. The 86-year-old has a lot on his plate, after all. “I say, ‘Narrow it down to something very simple and brief — tell me the film in two sentences,’” says the renowned and prolific British director of such films as Blade Runner, Alien and Napoleon. “You should light the idea up, and within that you’ve got to have a fuse — a time bomb. When you just have [characters] doing something for something’s sake, that’s dangerous.” A lit fuse could be, for instance, a group of young scavengers trapped on a derelict space station that’s going to crash into a planet’s rings in 36 hours — the plot of the summer hit Alien: Romulus, which was…

While Hollywood’s strikes last year yielded certain protections for writers and actors, many other workers say they’re now seeing a higher barrier to entry-level jobs on the other side of it. Across the industry, organizers say they’re hearing of multiple assistant-level jobs being cut and of increasing requirements to get those starting jobs, while the pay remains low amid a rising cost of living. “You essentially have to be overqualified in order to get this entry-level job,” says Alex Rubin, co-leader of Pay Up Hollywood, a grassroots movement that advocates for fair pay and safe workplaces for support staff. Rubin notes that even pre-strike, when she was seeking to make a career change, she applied to more than 100 jobs and feels she was only able to get a job…

OCT. 30 W Hollywood Relaunch Party The Hollywood Boulevard hotel shows off its recent transformation, 15 years after its opening. OCT. 31 West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval The free event takes over a 1-mile stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard with a live DJ set, food trucks and thousands of costumed revelers. NOV. 1 ↑ Día de Muertos Gala Carlos Eric Lopez throws the fourth annual celebration at Paramount Studios, this year honoring Eva Longoria and Anthony Ramos (pictured). NOV. 2 LACMA Art + Film Gala Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow once again co-chair the star-studded event, recognizing Baz Luhrmann and artist Simone Leigh, with a performance by Charli XCX. Poguelandia Netflix brings Outer Banks to life in L.A. as the cast takes part in the immersive fan event in…

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Wallace, the entrepreneurial protagonist created by the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park, has an invention for everything. The modest suburban home on Wallaby Street that Wallace shares with his expressive beagle, Gromit, is filled with Rube Goldberg-esque gizmos. One machine, functioning as a kind of alarm, ejects Wallace out of bed and tosses him into a chute that leads right into a warm bath. Another dresses him, offering variations of his signature sweater vest and brown slacks. A third contraption slathers spoonfuls of jam on toasted bread, while yet another pets the dog. Still, these tools aren’t enough for Wallace, whose chronic need to optimize his life rivals the obsessiveness of the most ardent Silicon Valley technocrats. At the beginning of Wallace &…

After 44 years in Los Angeles, the American Film Market is betting on Vegas, hoping that moving the U.S. indie event to Sin City will help reset and reignite a distressed and disrupted industry. Compared to Cannes’ Marche du Film, which was jam-packed with big A-list packages, buzz ahead of the AFM has been muted. That hasn’t stopped the AFM’s new location at the Palms Casino Resort from quickly selling out, with all the major indies, domestic and foreign — from A24, Lionsgate, Neon, FilmNation and Black Bear to StudioCanal, Rocket Science, Protagonist Pictures and XYZ Films — ready to set up shop. “While most companies are bringing fewer projects to any given market than they were five years ago, they now have a stronger sense of what’s sellable,” says…

Hollywood employment can be great fodder for buzzy comedies, from The Larry Sanders Show to 30 Rock. But one sitcom that may have been ahead of its time was The Famous Teddy Z, which debuted on CBS 35 years ago on Sept. 18, 1989. Created by Hugh Wilson, the series starred Jon Cryer as Teddy Zakalokis, a mailroom worker at a fictional UTA — Unlimited Talent Agency — who punches Hollywood’s top actor shortly after meeting him and is soon picked by the Marlon Brandoesque star to be his rep. The concept was inspired by the reallife story of young MCA agent Jay Kanter, who became Brando’s rep after picking him up at a train station. Cryer had landed a CBS deal off the success of Pretty in Pink, but…

There was opining — think the hissing of a coiled rattlesnake — when Venom: The Last Dance opened to a franchise-worst $51 million domestically during the Oct. 25-27 weekend but prospered overseas to boast a global opening of $175 million against a budget of $120 million-plus. It’s easy to forget that Venom does brisk business overseas, with The Last Dance pulling off the biggest China opening ($46 million) in recent memory. Sony’s Marvel movies — outside of Spider-Man and Spider-Verse titles — get savaged by critics, with few cracking the 30 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. (2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the high point with 57 percent.) And none of its non-Spidey movies have cultural staying power à la Christopher Nolan’s Batman films or Marvel Studio’s Avengers movies.…

On Thursday, Oct. 24, nearly three decades after Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of killing their parents in a salvo of shotgun blasts inside the den of their Beverly Hills mansion, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced that he would seek a reduced sentence for the brothers. The decision relates to newly uncovered evidence corroborating their claims that they were sexually abused as children by their father. Their case sat dormant for years but was thrust back into the media spotlight with Monsters, Ryan Murphy’s polarizing, massively popular nine-part Netflix series that follows the 1989 killings of José and Kitty Menendez. For the brothers, now in their 50s, it’s a chance at freedom. For Gascón, it’s a political Hail Mary to remain L.A.’s top prosecutor — a move that’s…

60 Minutes Angry about how CBS edited the show’s Oct. 7 sit-down with Kamala Harris, Trump (who declined his own 60 Minutes interview) threatened to sue and has argued that the network’s license should be pulled. ABC After his shellacking at the Sept. 10 debate, Trump argued for pulling the network’s license. He’s also suing George Stephanopoulos over saying (correctly) that Trump was found liable for rape. Fox News Turning on the usually friendly conservative network for airing pro-Harris ads, among other offenses, Trump pressed for a meeting with Rupert Murdoch to demand more positive coverage. New York Times In August, Trump threatened to sue the paper “at some point very soon” because the outlet correctly reported that Trump’s claim about almost dying in a helicopter crash with Willie Brown was…

In December 2023, Sydney Sweeney starred with Glen Powell in Anyone but You, Sony Pictures’ rom-com that made $220 million on a budget of $25 million. Sweeney’s fee for the movie was $2 million. Less than a year later, in October, Sweeney nabbed a $7.5 million payday to star in The Housemaid, a Lionsgate thriller that will co-star Amanda Seyfried and be directed by Paul Feig, multiple sources tell THR. It’s a jump that is not too common in modern Hollywood. But Sweeney has become one of the most in-demand actresses thanks to Anyone but You, and has capitalized on that success by lining up a savvy range of movies since, including a boxing biopic and a Hollywood period drama looking at the relationship between Kim Novak and Sammy Davis…

At the Cannes Film Festival six years ago, British producer Tessa Ross arranged a meeting with an emerging German-born filmmaker named Edward Berger. Ross — the Oscar-winning force behind 12 Years a Slave, Slumdog Millionaire and The Zone of Interest — had fallen in love with Berger’s British historical miniseries Patrick Melrose and wanted to work with him. She proposed several projects — she won’t say which — but none took. Pondering her options back in London, Ross hit on it: Conclave, an adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel to which she controlled the rights. The story told of the infighting, scandals and crises of faith at the Vatican after the pope’s unexpected death — a compelling if hardly uncontroversial yarn. Enchanted by a first draft from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Straughan…

Justin Spitzer is the nice guy’s Armando Iannucci — which is to say that if the Superstore and American Auto showrunner’s work were 25 percent angrier and 75 percent more profane, perhaps more attention would be paid to his comic critiques of eroding institutions. Created with Superstore veteran Eric Ledgin, Spitzer’s latest NBC comedy, St. Denis Medical, shifts his satirical focus to a midsized hospital in Oregon. The three episodes sent to critics are a little toothless, steering away from scathing commentary on our dysfunctional health care system in favor of familiar plotlines about egomaniacal doctors, overworked nurses and wacky patient misadventures. Nevertheless, the ensemble cast is good enough to make St. Denis Medical a show worth checking out. St. Denis is a so-called “safety net hospital,” providing care for…