Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/5/2016 i The Hollywood Reporter

IN LATE JANUARY, GERIATRIC psychiatrist Stephen Read is expected to spend up to an hour evaluating the mental fitness of Viacom executive chairman Sumner Redstone at the frail 92-year-old’s Beverly Park home. Only Redstone’s nurses and speech therapists may be present for the exam ordered by Los Angeles Judge David Cowan. Read has been hired by former Redstone companion Manuela Herzer, 51, who alleges the aged billionaire did not have the mental capacity in October to drop her as his health-care agent and install Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman in her place. Redstone also altered his will in a manner unfavorable to Herzer, as her detractors note, though she insists she has only his welfare at heart. Whatever Herzer’s motive, her lawsuit has unsettled a growing chorus of Viacom shareholders concerned…

BEST PICTURE The Big Short Adam McKay’s zany dramedy triumphed Jan. 23 at the Producers Guild Awards — a big deal because, like the Academy, the PGA is made up of filmmakers, has a similar-sized membership and uses the same sort of preferential ballot. The Revenant Alejandro G. Inarritu’s epic drama has a field-leading 12 Oscar nominations, but its standing as the one to beat has taken hits with losses at the Critics’ Choice and PGA ceremonies to Spotlight and The Big Short, respectively. BEST ACTRESS CHARLOTTE RAMPLING 45 Years She got flack for calling the #OscarsSoWhite furor “racist to whites,” but some Academy members privately share her sentiment. SAOIRSE RONAN Brooklyn The 21-year-old’s career is getting a well-timed weeklong retrospective at The Landmark theater in L.A., which is frequented…

THE GRASS DEFINITELY IS GREENER at some broadcast and cable TV networks as marijuana-themed comedies suddenly are in high demand. Superproducer Chuck Lorre is among those exploring the subject with Disjointed, an ensemble comedy about a group of potheads set at a Colorado marijuana dispensary that hit the marketplace Jan. 15. That project joins the Jan. 6 series pickup for Comedy Central’s Time Traveling Bong, HBO’s web series turned comedy High Maintenance (picked up April 20) and NBC’s Buds, put in development nearly a year ago. In December, Amazon tapped Margaret Cho to star in the streaming giant’s Highland. Not to be outdone, filmmaker and noted stoner Kevin Smith wrote and stars in Hollyweed, a project financed by FremantleMedia and five firms with ties to the rapidly growing cannabis industry.…

THE FACT THAT, FOR THE second year in a row, there are no actors of color nominated for Oscars in the acting categories has triggered a tanker-full of Internet think pieces because that’s what the Internet does. There have been calls for a boycott. There have been suggestions that Chris Rock should recuse himself from hosting the ceremony Feb. 28, although he doesn’t plan to do so. And it has led to changes at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences designed to diversify its membership, which is 93 percent white and 76 percent male. But those responses address the symptoms and not the disease — it’s like prescribing skin cream for red blotches instead of dealing with the underlying condition. The real root cause behind the allwhite acting…

JACK BURDITT (creator) “When I was working on 30 Rock, my agent called me and said that Tim Allen was interested in doing a sitcom again and that he wanted to do a show about a guy trying to remain a guy in a world surrounded by women. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock both said: ‘You’re really an idiot if you don’t do this. This guy is going to get you on the air.’ ” MARTY ADELSTEIN (executive producer) “We went to dinner with Tim, and he says, ‘I love the script, but I’m not doing it.’ He wanted to do something different, which was break the fourth wall. I said: ‘My kids have their own video blog. Your character could have a vlog.’ And it became a really good…

IF IT SEEMS AS IF THE current culture couldn’t conjure a greater ’70s fashion moment (thank you, Saint Laurent’s Hedi Slimane) or more ’70s rock nostalgia with the recent deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, wait until you get a load of HBO’s drama series Vinyl, premiering Feb. 14. It’s got the ultimate perioddetail cred, executive-produced by Martin Scorsese (who also directed the pilot), Mick Jagger, showrunner Terence Winter (who was a CBGB patron in his teens), Jagger’s producing partner Victoria Pearman (Get On Up) and Scorsese colleague Emma Tillinger Koskoff, among others. The costumes worn by Bobby Cannavale as record exec Richie Finestra, Olivia Wilde as his wife, Ray Romano as a sleazy exec and James Jagger (yes, one of Mick’s many offspring) as a Richard Helltype rock…

THE CURRENT STRESS THE ACADEMY (AND THE ENTIRE business) is under regarding diversity is troubling. However, as an older white male currently in the crosshairs, one of a group generally being blamed for a lack of nominees of color, I wish to make a case for my relevance. I have been a member of the Academy’s directors branch since 1998. Though I am on the tail end of a life in the entertainment business (my last feature directing credit was 2003’s Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star), I have served multiple terms on the East Coast Council of the DGA and been a delegate to the National Convention several times. My film work has been honored with a British Academy Award nomination and other awards. In television I have won a…

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) “I was too young to understand much of anything about it, but it was the first time I had seen a film that didn’t just yield up its meanings like I’d come to expect.” ABRAHAMSON APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) It’s one of many managainst-nature films that influenced Inarritu’s decision to shoot The Revenant on location. “We have lost the taste for the real,” he has said. THE VERDICT (1982) “It was wonderfully acted and was compelling, in terms of plot, and incredibly emotional and personal, in terms of character. It was Sidney [Lumet] at the height of his power.” MCCARTHY ELECTION (1999) “It’s a movie about something very small, but yet it’s about everything. It is funny, tragic, specific and perfectly made. Honestly, I’m kind of…

ABC’S MADOFF, STARRING RICHARD Dreyfuss as the Ponzi scheme perpetrator and Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth, wins the race to air against HBO’s upcoming Bernie Madoff film The Wizard of Lies, with Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. But winning isn’t everything, right? Director Raymond De Felitta and writer Ben Robbins have bloated their story into 160 minutes presented in four episodes. The result feels padded but also warped with artificial cliff-hangers, corny precommercial music teases and cheap thriller elements. Still, working from Brian Ross’ book The Madoff Chronicles, the drama includes enough juicy details to remain highly watchable, and Dreyfuss has a great time playing an awful man. Many viewers will find Madoff a generous look at a criminal who bankrupted the rich and poor alike. The guy…

SHE DID MOZART’S BEDROOM, designed Eliot Ness’ office and put Sigourney Weaver’s face into an Andy Warhol painting — but that’s only part of the reason Patrizia von Brandenstein, 72, will be receiving the Art Directors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the ADG’s 20th annual gala Jan. 31. “People think you pick out curtains and towels and chairs,” she says, explaining the art of production design (as the first woman ever to win an Oscar for the craft — for 1984’s Amadeus — she ought to know). “But the primary responsibility is translating the story in visual terms so the vision of the director and cinematographer can coalesce and the dream can come true.” Von Brandenstein grew up in Arizona, worked as a seamstress on Broadway in the 1960s, moved…

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG The media titan and former New York mayor shakes up the presidential race by floating an independent bid, lighting a fire under Hillary Clinton to solidify her support and possibly offering conservatives an alternative to Donald Trump. JACK DORSEY The Twitter CEO loses five high-level executives, sparking concerns about his leadership as shares have plunged about 67 percent since April. DAVID NEVINS The Showtime CEO scores a major Europe deal with Sky Atlantic as his drama Billions opens to 3 million viewers and a quick second-season renewal. JONATHAN NOLAN & LISA JOY HBO’s Westworld EPs hit another delay on the highly anticipated (and pricey) sci-fi project, whose pilot was greenlighted in 2013 but won’t debut until late 2016 at the earliest. SHOWBIZ STOCKS $17.29 (+2.9%) WORLD WRESTLING ENT.…

SUNDANCE STREAMS: HOW THE MARKET TURNED ON ITS HEAD DEAL OF THE WEEK FOR MORE THAN three decades, filmmakers have arrived at the Sundance Film Festival with dreams of landing a seven- or eight-figure deal with a strong theatrical distributor that can turn a passion project into mainstream entertainment. Those whose movies don’t go over as well settle for a direct-to-DVD, VOD or, more recently, streaming service pact. But Sundance 2016 is turning that hierarchy upside down, with Amazon and Netflix striking early and often for the fest’s most sought-after films — shelling out big bucks and infuriating traditional buyers in the process. As of Jan. 25, the four major agencies each could boast at least one megadeal with Amazon, led at the festival by Roy Price, or with Netflix…

“I’m going to be totally honest with you: I completely deserve this.” SHONDA RHIMES The writer-producer, accepting the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television at the Producers Guild Awards. “It’s like the whole place is covered in Oscar nominees.” BILL MAHER The HBO host, jokingly comparing the Academy diversity controversy to what New York City looked like after 26.8 inches of snow during winter storm Jonas. “Uh, guys, there’s no ‘H.’ ” JON HAMM The Mad Men actor, revealing that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association misspelled his given name on his first Golden Globe statuette in 2008. “It’s not an internment camp. If you’re living in that much fear, go get another job.” CHELSEA HANDLER The Chelsea Does star, responding to former Chelsea Lately staffer Heather McDonald’s comments about how…

Michael Lombardo met Toni Howard at Toscana. … Gary Barber, David Ellison, Patrick Stewart, Brian Grazer and Mark Cuban in at different times at Bouchon. … Ryan Gosling was spotted at Smoke’s Poutinerie in Hollywood. … WME’s Dave Wirtschafter shared a table with singer Esperanza Spalding at Mr Chow on one day, while Untitled’s Donovan Daughtry met with attorney Barry Felsen on another. Producer Randall Emmett was also in. … Mena Suvari ordered at the Ammo at The Hammer. … Gwyneth Paltrow checked out Tempura Endo in Beverly Hills. … Screenwriter Josh Zetumer (Gambit, A&E’s upcoming The Infamous) hit La Brea Bakery. … At Sundance Sting was spotted at the Waldorf Astoria bar, while Harvey Weinstein was at the hotel’s Powder restaurant another time. … Elijah Wood was seen at…

CRITICS HAVE APPLAUDED best picture nominee Spotlight for effectively dramatizing the relatively undramatic business of inves tigative journalism as it tells how The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team in 2002 exposed a cover-up of widespread pedophilia in the Catholic Church. The movie sticks to the facts, basically ignoring the reporters’ personal stories. But that, reveals the film’s Oscar-nominated editor Tom McArdle, was a decision that ultimately was made in the cutting room. “We took out about five scenes with the reporters’ personal lives because we wanted to focus on the investigation,” he says, citing a scene between Spotlight editor Robby (Michael Keaton) and his wife in which they talked about how the church meant a lot to the community and another in which reporter Mike (Mark Ruffalo) and his estranged wife…

Stephanie Allain Hustle & Flow After starting as a script reader for CAA, Allain became an executive at Columbia, where she developed Boyz n the Hood and El Mariachi. Since then, she has been a producer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan), director of the L.A. Film Festival and head of Film Independent’s Project Involve, which nurtures diverse voices. Justin Simien Dear White People The Houston native came to Hollywood through publicity, working at Focus Features and Paramount before spending his 2012 tax refund check to produce a trailer for Dear White People, a wide-eyed satire of life for black students at a fictional Ivy-esque university. The film went on to win a special jury prize at Sundance. Alan Yang Master of None The Harvard grad, who did his time…

WHEN TRACY JUSTRICH AND HER THENhusband, Steve Henneberry, a former star of the TV show American Gladiators who went by the name “Tower,” had problems that needed solving, they turned to Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at the Malibu/Lost Hills station. They all were part of a tightly knit community in Agoura Hills — their kids went to the same schools, and the adults socialized in church or at dinner parties on weekends. Henneberry was in a “dads’ group” in church with some deputies and played on a softball team with them, too. When the couple’s eldest daughter was graduating from eighth grade and a neighbor complained about the noise at the celebration party, Justrich says they sought help from a friendly captain. “He handled it for us,” Justrich, a…

Original Screenplay: Real and Imagined Alex Garland Ex Machina “In the last few years, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by artificial intelligence, and in particular our escalating fear of it,” Garland has written of his concept for the film, which he also directed. “It seemed to me that our increasingly holistic relationship with technology and abstract clouds of information was compounding this fear and perhaps edging it into paranoia. Ex Machina tells the story of a young male coder in a tech company who is given the job of assessing the level of consciousness in a female-presenting robot called Ava. He’s bewitched, gives up the day job and starts making plans to elope.” In this scene, the young coder’s boss reveals what his task will be. NATHAN: Do you know what…

MAKING MIDPRICED MOVIES FOR grown-ups is a disappearing art in Hollywood, but Nancy Meyers, 66, keeps proving how profitable a business it can be. Her latest, The Intern, which cost all of $35 million to shoot, has thus far grossed $194 million worldwide. And it’s hardly her only midbudget, adult-targeted hit (see also: What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated). THR spoke with the filmmaker — a week before she’ll be given the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award from the American Cinema Editors, which will be holding its annual gala on Jan. 29 at the Beverly Hilton — and asked her about what it takes to build a career as a female director, how she sometimes casts her films even before she’s finished writing the…

THE ACADEMY OF MOTION Picture Arts and Sciences is taking heat for a perceived color bias, but back in 1985, there was room for a little purple: That was when Prince won the Oscar for best original song score for Purple Rain. (He beat The Muppets Take Manhattan.) It had been an exceptionally good year for the 26-year-old virtuoso. The musical drama came out in July 1984, a month after the release of the Purple Rain soundtrack album, which spent 24 weeks at No. 1. Then the $7 million film went on to gross $68 million domestically ($155 million today). The Hollywood Reporter noted that the “flamboyant singer made an unusually subdued appearance to accept his prize.” Draped in a sequined purple cape with high-heeled boots, lace gloves and a…

Salt to the Sea BY Ruta Sepetys (Penguin) AGENCIES UTA, Writers House This YA tome from the author of the book behind the upcoming film Ashes in the Snow is set against the real-life 1945 sinking of the Wilhem Gustloff, the worst civilian maritime disaster in history, as it weaves the stories of four young refugees trying to escape war-torn Europe. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven BY Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster) AGENCY ICM Booksellers are high on this poignant May novel from the author of Little Bee about an ill-fated love triangle among a pretty socialite, a special-needs teacher and his best friend in World War II London.…

Sundance Film Festival Park City, Jan. 21-31 MAIN STREET IN PARK CITY TRANSFORMED INTO a bustling hotspot once again for the Sundance Film Festival’s opening weekend festivities, which saw A-listers and indie stars alike party-hopping into the late hours. Among the most electric events was the Birth of a Nation premiere at the Chase Sapphire space on Jan. 25, where director-writer-star Nate Parker spent the night hugging well-wishers after his film received a standing ovation at Eccles Theatre. “I made this film for one reason, with the hope of creating change agents,” Parker said of his slave-rebellion story. Other director-stars had plenty to celebrate, like The Hollars’ John Krasinski, who partied at the Acura studio Jan. 24, and Miles Ahead’s Don Cheadle, who dropped by THR and SundanceTV’s Jan. 22…

MEDIA NETWORKS $1.2B in ad revenue during the first nine months of 2015 Includes the flagship Univision, UniMas, Fusion and 60 TV stations nationwide, including Los Angeles RADIO NETWORKS $210M in ad revenue 67 stations including KLVE-FM (K-Love 107.5 in L.A.) and KSCA-FM (101.9) DIGITAL PROPERTIES $47.2M in ad revenue Includes website The Root, Flama and the Univision Creator Network (multichannel YouTube video) Source: Univision Q3 earnings report…

EVEN UNDER THE MOST STABLE of conditions, predicting the housing market can be a tricky proposition — and with plummeting oil prices, rising interest rates, China’s slumping economy and a wildly turbulent stock market, times are anything but placid. THR asked Aaron Kirman, president of John Aaroe Group’s International Estates Division, for his take on the impact recent global economic developments have had on L.A.’s real estate market thus far. “It’s a little too soon to see a major impact, but people are definitely talking about it, and that makes an impact,” says Kirman. “I do have one client who told me last week that he had suffered some big losses in the stock market and needed to sit on the sidelines for a while.” The Realtor works with many…

“We’re not excluding older members,” the Academy is saying in an attempt to reassure its members, some of whom fear losing voting privileges in light of new rules requiring a member to remain “active in the motion picture business” in order to be able to cast an Oscar ballot. While the status of individual members will be re-evaluated every 10 years, Lorenza Munoz, who oversees membership, announced in a Jan. 25 email to members that answers to “Frequently Asked Questions,” including some about how exactly that evaluation will work, could be found on the Academy website. “The new rules are not about age,” the Academy FAQ asserts. To claim lifetime voting rights, a member must be nominated for or win an Oscar or work in the industry over the course…

“With [Jenni Konner’s and my] company, a huge mandate has been to push the ball forward on gender and diverse representation. I’ve been following the comments about the Academy, and anytime someone says something defensive, I’m like, ‘There’s nothing to defend here.’ There’s nothing to defend — all we can do is change and grow and make more work. The unfortunate fact is that a bunch of white men are going to vote for a bunch of white men — and I wish that weren’t the case — but we can’t just educate those people about diversity, we have to change the entire way the thing is structured. It’s so important that we don’t leave it to Spike Lee but that we all get on board and say, ‘This is…

OOPS, HOLLYWOOD DID IT AGAIN. For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has neglected to recognize a single black actor out of 20 acting nominations. Defenders are trying to explain the winter whiteout, but it’s like trying to explain how The Martian received a Golden Globe as a comedy. Can’t be done convincingly. The average moviegoer may shrug at this controversy as just a bunch of pampered, overpaid actors arguing over who sits closest to the champagne and caviar in the stretch limo. After all, awarding “best” of anything in art is silly because the judging is so subjective and the criteria so elusive. It’s like deciding which orgasm in your lifetime was best. As Woody Allen’s character in Manhattan says, “My…

MEL GIBSON 2006 Deputy James Mee arrested the Lethal Weapon actor in 2006 and booked him on charges of drunk driving. On the way to the station, Gibson allegedly went on an anti-Semitic tirade, taunting Mee, who is Jewish, with slurs and threatening to “get even.” It might have ended there, but LASD managers buried Mee’s report, leading to accusations that they were giving the actor “preferential treatment.” An internal affairs investigation was opened after TMZ obtained a copy of the report. Mee was fired in 2012, but his attorney claimed that the LASD had retaliated against him for leaking information about the incident. A County Commission ruled in 2015 that Mee should be reinstated. MITRICE RICHARDSON 2009-2010 Lost Hills deputies arrested the 24-year-old former beauty pageant contestant on Sept.…

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER A grisly tale of American gothic served with a dash of moody Portuguese fado, Nicolas Pesce’s strange, enthralling black-and-white feature debut centers on a young girl’s violent coming of age on an isolated farm. The beauty of the film is its refusal to connect the dots, leaving it up to viewers to draw their own conclusions. — BOYD VAN HOEIJ LOVESONG So Yong Kim’s film about two friends’ (Riley Keough and Jena Malone) ambiguous love digs beneath the cliches of familiar subgenres (road movie, lesbian romance) to come up with something specific and insightful. It’s a quiet drama, but as raw and painful as a fresh wound. — JON FROSCH MANCHESTER BY THE SEA A family tragedy is dramatized with the depth of a high-quality…