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The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Weinstein’s Prison LifeOne case is behind him, but Harvey Weinstein faces a slew of legal hurdles, including an appeal of his February conviction for third-degree rape and first-degree sexual assault in New York and criminal charges in Los Angeles. On June 30, a group of women settled a 2017 class action lawsuit against the imprisoned mogul and The Weinstein Co. The $18.875 million settlement also resolved a 2018 lawsuit filed by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that alleged Weinstein created a hostile work environment. Weinstein, who is serving a 23-year sentence in Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, won’t be paying out of his own pocket. Instead, insurance will cover the global settlement, which totals more than $46.7 million. Spokesperson Juda Engelmayer, who talked to the producer after the…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020After a $2.6 Billion Hit, TV Races to Bring Back Live SportsWith pro basketball and baseball set to return in late July after pandemic-fueled delays, the relationship involving the leagues, the TV networks and advertisers is one of mutual necessity. The lack of live sports between March and the end of June resulted in $2.6 billion in lost TV revenue for the networks, per ad sales intelligence platform MediaRadar. Now, with MLB starting July 23 and the NBA returning July 30, the race is on to try to recoup some of that cash.“When the NBA stopped play and said they would come back later, advertisers said, ‘OK, I don’t want to cancel my money, I want to move it to whenever the NBA comes back,’” Disney president of ad sales Rita Ferro says, adding that most advertising agreements are multiyear deals.Long-term…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Deluxe Starts New Chapter With Tom GoresBig DealDeluxe, the storied Hollywood business founded as a film lab in 1915 by William Fox, was acquired by Tom Gores’ Platinum Equity on July 1. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.Today, Deluxe Entertainment Services’ distribution business encompasses localization (subtitling and dubbing), digital cinema, home entertainment and fulfillment (encryption, transcoding and distribution of movies and TV content). Omitted from the acquisition were Deluxe’s creative businesses, including post-production houses Company 3, EFILM and Encore. With the deal, Cyril Drabinsky returns to his role as CEO of the company. Drabinsky was an executive at Deluxe for nearly two decades and led the company’s shift from an analog film processing business into a digital postproduction and distribution service provider. The exec left his role as CEO of Deluxe in 2016 and…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020$ 499.50 Big NumberRep SheetChristopher Jackson, who was featured in Broadway’s Hamilton, has signed with CAA.Jeffrey Donovan, who starred in Burn Notice, has left WME for ICM.Hypebeast, the fashion and e-commerce platform, has signed with WME for film and television projects.Next Big ThingUtkarsh AmbudkarREPS Gersh, 3 Arts, Jackoway AustenWHY HE MATTERSThe Pitch Perfect breakout, 36, will star in the CBS comedy pilot Ghosts from Joe Port and Joe Wiseman that follows a young couple who inherit a country home only to discover it’s inhabited by the supernatural. Ambudkar appeared in The Mindy Project and has upcoming roles in Free Guy and Disney’s Godmothered.…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Hollywood’s Race-Equity ConsultantsNever once have we been so busy and has the outcry been so enormous for help, for resources, for workplace climate assessments. It has been a really intense past four weeks. I will say that so many studios and agencies and entertainment companies here in L.A. have called,” says USC professor Shaun Harper, executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, who advises clients such as Bad Robot and Time magazine on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion). He’s part of a handful of experts who have been working with Hollywood companies on town halls, bias trainings and action plans for years, exponentially so in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the racial reckoning that has followed suit. They’ve been especially in demand recently at…5 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Rambling ReporterOh, the Drama Between Competing Reality TV Awards ShowsOn June 29, the Critics Choice Association announced the winners of its second Real TV Awards, a long list that included Survivor host Jeff Probst, Netflix’s Queer Eye and Cheer, and NBC’s The Voice. The latter also picked up honors just days earlier from the Reality Television Awards. Founders of that 8-year-old event are crying foul, saying they’ve yet to receive respect from the CCA for planting the first flag. “People in Hollywood often steal ideas, and this is a clear example,” says reality TV vet Andrew Ward, who founded RTA with casting director Kristen Moss. At least one person — Dr. Pimple Popper’s Sandra Lee, an RTA Guilty Pleasure winner — has confused the two, thanking Real TV Awards instead of…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Nick CorderoWe first met Nick when [De Niro’s co-director] Jerry Zaks invited him to come in and sing, and we were just blown away by how beautiful his voice was and how much his physical presence and magnetism felt like Sonny’s. And, after we cast him, he just got better and better — he was perfect, and such a lovely guy. It’s very upsetting to us what happened to him [Cordero died July 5 of COVID-19 complications at age 41]. Even though he got sick at the beginning of the pandemic, this didn’t have to be. If President Trump had heeded the warnings he was being given — if he and his administration believed in science, fact and telling the truth — this might never have happened; the way Trump has…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Balm & Calm1 ABA LOVE APOTHECARYAmong the offerings from this Black-owned brand, by certified aromatherapist Aba Gyepi-Garbrah, are its Wanderlust Room & Linen Spray with tranquil wood and citrus notes; $32, abaloveapothecary.com2 ANATOMEThis Balance + Stability Essential Oil Elixir roll-on combines St. John’s wort, angelica seed and black spruce for a blend promoting emotional clarity; $28, net-a-porter.com3 COMMUNEThese serenity-inducing sandalwood incense sticks are hand-rolled in Hayashi Ryushodo, a 180-year-old shop in Kyoto, Japan; $32, communedesign.com4 GOODNIGHT DARLING CO.The hand-blended Deep Detox Bath Soak from this Black-owned business combines pink Himalayan and Dead Sea salts, pink rose petals and lavender and eucalyptus essential oils; $23, goodnightdarling.co5 SEED TO SKINThe Retreat mineral bath salts, made in Italy, include Sicilian sea salt, marine algae, and wild rose and sandalwood essential oils; $91, net-a-porter.com6 THE WELLThe…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020‘WE ARE GOING TO BE THE FIRST FILM SHOOTING IN L.A.’One way to overcome novel coronavirus production hurdles is to make a movie set during a pandemic: protective gear and lockdown play into the narrative itself.The Michael Bay-produced thriller Songbird — set two years in the future, when a virus vaccine remains elusive — is poised to be the first movie to shoot in L.A. since the global pandemic brought production to a halt. The film, which was slapped with a “Do Not Work” notice by SAG-AFTRA on July 2 that was immediately rescinded, has been capturing footage in the weeks before shooting began July 6 with the cast, which includes Demi Moore, Craig Robinson and Peter Stormare.“We worked out the safety issues months ago, and we resolved [the latest issue with the unions] over the weekend,” says Bay, who…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020THE SECRET TO SMALL-SCREEN SUMMER SUCCESSOn June 8, an obscure Polish film appeared on Netflix’s U.S. Top 10 chart, which tracks the most popular TV shows and movies on the streamer each day. 365 Days has little in common with the Netflix originals and years-old library fare that usually trend on the service. The English-language erotic thriller, based on a Polish novel in which a young woman is kidnapped by a member of the Sicilian Mafia and given 365 days to fall in love with him, has been obliterated by reviewers and criticized for romanticizing sex trafficking but was released in theaters in Poland (where it made nearly $9 million) before it began streaming on Netflix. By mid-June, it had clinched the No. 1 spot on the list, which it held for four straight days.…5 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Carl Reiner 1922-2020Billy Crystal: ‘He Became an Uncle’When I started my career, Carl’s legacy taught me that if I could have one career, his was the one that I would emulate because he did a little bit of everything. He showed me that comedy doesn’t have to be nasty to be funny, that it just has to be smart and real and based in the truth.I met him in 1976 through [his son] Rob [Reiner]. We were welcomed with open arms and over the years became part of their family it feels like, which makes the loss even harder because it’s not just an icon and someone who totally inspired me when I was 5, 6 years old — he became like an uncle to me. Because we’re so close with Rob,…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020‘HE MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN IT, BUT HE WAS ALWAYS TEACHING ME’Screenwriter Michael Elias, who co-wrote 1979’s The Jerk, reflects on lessons learned from Reiner on everything from TV to film, food — and toupees.In 1973, George Shapiro was my manager. He said, “I’m assigning you to Carl Reiner. You’ll be his writing partner.” It sounded like “Report to the Forum, you’ll be sharing the backcourt with Jerry West.”I arrived at CBS Radford and met Carl. “George Shapiro sent me,” I said.Carl: “I know. We have a meeting this afternoon. But first, let’s talk about lunch. Do you like The Brisket Basket on Ventura?”CBS had taped eight episodes of the upcoming season of the latest Dick Van Dyke series, but the shows didn’t work. Carl knew it, Dick knew it, and CBS knew it. Freddie Silverman and his execs drove over…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Little VoiceFor a show about a young woman struggling to find her voice, Apple TV+’s Little Voice finds its own fairly quickly. Of course, a series finding its voice isn’t the same thing as a series being good — and it definitely doesn’t mean that voice will resonate with every viewer.In the first of nine half-hour episodes, our songbird heroine ponders, “Compared to what everybody’s listening to, I think my stuff seems, I dunno, earnest?” What else would you expect from a collaboration between the Waitress: The Musical partners, chanteuse Sara Bareilles and I Am Sam writer-director Jessie Nelson? (J.J. Abrams is an executive producer.) Little Voice is earnest and clunky, but those who dig it will forgive those flaws. I sometimes did.Brittany O’Grady (Star) plays Bess, an aspiring singer-songwriter who…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Reality TV Grapples With Racial Reckoning Amid FiringsOver one week in June, the dismissals came almost daily. Eight castmembers from five popular reality TV franchises were expeditiously fired over racist social media posts and, in one particularly damning revelation, news of a malicious act toward their lone Black co-star.Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute, longtime stars of Real Housewives spinoff Vanderpump Rules, called the police on former castmate Faith Stowers in 2018 in an attempt to implicate her in a crime she did not commit. Bravo axed the pair, along with two co-stars with a history of racist tweets, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni, days after Stowers recounted the event during a June 2 Instagram Live — but the need for such a purge on a nearly exclusively white series highlights a pervasive problem facing TV’s most prolific…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020‘It’s Not Just About Including Black Characters’Within days in late June, four animated TV shows that featured white actors voicing characters of color pledged to make changes, all with the actors’ support. Netflix’s Big Mouth creators said June 24 that they would cast a Black actor for the role of Missy, currently performed by Jenny Slate, while Apple TV+’s Central Park creative team said it will recast biracial character Molly, voiced by Kristen Bell. Meanwhile, Fox’s long-running The Simpsons, which had faced criticism for years over the portrayal of the Indian character Apu (Hank Azaria announced he was stepping away from the role in January), said June 26 that the show “will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters.” And Mike Henry, who portrayed the Black character Cleveland on Family Guy, said he would stop…5 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Rights Available!A Song Below Water (TOR TEEN, JUNE 2)BY Bethany Morrow AGENCY UTALike Jordan Peele’s upcoming adaptation of Lovecraft Country for HBO, Morrow’s story dissects racism via fantasy. The story follows a Black siren and her best friend in a magical and tumultuous Portland, Oregon.All My Mother’s Lovers (PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, MAY 26)BY Ilana Masad AGENCY WMEAfter her mother dies in a car crash, Maggie is tasked with hand-delivering sealed envelopes her mom has addressed to five mysterious men. Along the way, she is hoping to better understand the woman who never accepted Maggie’s queer identity.…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020DON’T CALL US ‘LONG SHOTS’A few weeks ago, I found myself reading the Emmy forecast in The Hollywood Reporter — as I always do. Then I found myself being a little bewildered, but not surprised by the usual “front-runners”: Succession, Ozark, The Crown, Better Call Saul, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Morning Show. All fantastic shows. All white as f*ck. (Yes — This Is Us and Westworld are on the list, and I dig those shows, but right now I’m talking about shows with Black creators.) When it comes to comedies, except for Insecure, the list is even whiter. These lists aren’t just a fun guessing game. These lists tell the TV Academy who to vote for.Awards campaigns aren’t that different from political campaigns. The more visible you are, the more likely it’ll be that…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020JIM CARREY, NOVELIST: ‘NIC CAGE JUST LOVED IT’It wasn’t supposed to be a novel. When Jim Carrey swung into writer Dana Vachon’s orbit eight years ago, the star of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Cable Guy and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was simply searching for someone to pen essays inspired by his paintings, which had not yet become those grotesque caricatures mocking Donald Trump that would go viral online.While that idea didn’t quite pan out, the pair instantly bonded over a shared obsession — bingeing quasi-scientific reality shows on Netflix. “You could watch the destruction of Pompeii, you could watch the supposed alien origins of the race, and you could learn about the Megalodon, ‘terror of the ancient seas,’” says Vachon. “That set us off in the right direction.”And so that’s how we meet “Jim…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Social ActionMississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill June 30 to retire the state’s use of the Confederate battle flag, becoming the last state to do so. The news came amid widespread racial-injustice protests as activists successfully lobbied to remove symbols of systemic racism from use as groups like NASCAR and the Marine Corps also retired the flag. Mississippi native Aunjanue Ellis, who was Emmy-nominated for When They See Us, has been working on the issue for years. “When the [Mississippi] House voted on a resolution in favor of removing the flag, I just burst out crying,” says the actress, who moved back a decade ago to care for family and had been declining projects filming in the state. “Seeing that flag every day became insufferable and untenable; it acts as…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Brandon RieggWhen Netflix nonfiction head Brandon Riegg greenlit Floor Is Lava two years ago, he couldn’t have predicted how captive his 2020 audience would be. But with little else to do in the face of the novel coronavirus, Netflix subscribers (and many of their children) have devoured the streamer’s first family-friendly game show, which quickly vaulted to No. 1 on the service, just as Riegg’s other shows The Circle, Love Is Blind and Too Hot to Handle.Now, as rivals scramble to fill slots with foreign transplants and virtually shot fare, Riegg and his staff of 45 have a slate of new programming, including another season of Queer Eye and two new dating series, Indian Matchmaking and Love on the Spectrum, that will take them through year’s end. It’s enough to keep…7 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Coveted and Crash-ProofIt’s been a busy 12 months for Wallace Neff trading. In June, designer Serge Azria plunked down $16.5 million for a 1920s Spanish home in Bel Air codesigned by Neff and John Byers and once owned by Diane Keaton. In May, Ry Cooder paid $2.5 million ($300,000 above asking) for another Spanish home built by the architect-to-the-stars of Hollywood’s golden age. In 2019, Bill Bell, an heir to the Another World soap opera fortune, and wife Maria sold a Bel Air estate, built in the 1930s for producer Sol Wurtzel, for $31 million.Born into one of the families that founded map publishers Rand McNally, Neff, who died in 1982 at 87, is known as a creator of what’s called the California style, a mix of Spanish and broadly Mediterranean influences.…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020ROLAND EMMERICHHere in America, it’s a ritual — you don’t go in to a movie’s second or third week, you go right away because there’s that excitement in the air. For me, seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind was nearly a religious experience. I saw it on the first day in Paris on the Champs-Élysées in a huge theater and in English. And after I saw it, I immediately got back in line and saw it again. It’s still my favorite film of all time. All my films are somewhat modeled after that film. They follow relatively regular people, from all walks of life, who go on their journey — which can involve aliens attacking or climate change or it could be Godzilla marching through the city. But it is…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020MICHAEL BAYI see movies from the perspective of a fan, always. And when I look at summer movies, they are like markers in time — Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jaws. I’m just going back to when I was a kid. Or Top Gun, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They became markers through our lives. All my movies opened in the summer, so I’m very familiar with that rhythm and packed theaters and the fun of it all. It’s a time for wonder and thrills and heroes and laughing and spectacle. On the other hand, when I say they are markers in time, I haven’t talked to anybody who doesn’t want to forget this year. We don’t have these kind of movies right now. But here’s the good…1 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Why Johnny Depp Should Fire His LawyersAs Johnny Depp appears in a London courtroom throughout July to take on the U.K. publisher of The Sun for characterizing him as a “wife beater,” the actor finds himself facing what Hollywood observers increasingly regard to be a no-win situation.Consider what happened in the run-up to the defamation trial that will explore Depp’s 2015 to 2017 marriage to Amber Heard. A U.K. judge ruled that Depp had violated a court order when his attorneys failed to turn over a series of text messages between himself and his assistant over the procurement of drugs while staying in Australia, during which time an incident of domestic abuse is alleged to have occurred. The judge ruled that the trial would move forward anyway, but in the midst of these deliberations, word came…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Which Struggling Stocks Have an Upside?While it was a brutal first half of the year for most media stocks, Wall Street observers are bullish on a few Hollywood firms for the second half of 2020. Despite concerns about the impact of the novel coronavirus on advertising, production, moviegoing and theme park operation, analysts are seeing a near-term upside for a few entertainment giants whose stocks have taken a beating:Fox Corp. “The only media ‘buy’ here is Fox based on the presumption that the NFL will come back in the fall and that Fox News is a share gainer,” forecasts Moffett Nathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, noting that he “moderately” raised his earnings forecast for Fox amid commentary from industry executives that U.S. overall advertising trends were “not as bad as feared.”Comcast The fact that the vertically…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020WRITERS’ DEAL UPS STREAMING PAY BUT ‘PANDEMIC LIMITS COLLECTIVE POWER’Deal of the WeekThe WGA, with WGA West executive director David Young as chief negotiator, reached a June 30 agreement on a three-year TV/theatrical deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, topping off a triennial negotiating cycle like none in recent memory — even though ultimately the guild’s wage, benefit and residuals improvements followed the pattern set by the Directors Guild and mirrored those of SAG-AFTRA.The DGA usually reaches an agreement in December in advance of a June 30 expiration, but this time the directors’ pact didn’t arrive until March 4. This signaled that achieving a deal on streaming residuals had been difficult as the industry pivots to platforms like Disney+ and HBO Max. And it heightened fears that the WGA — under the leadership of Young…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 20207 Days of DEALSFILMBrad Pitt (CAA, Brillstein, Goodman Genow) will star in the Sony assassin action thriller Bullet Train from director David Leitch.Jason Momoa (WME, Edelstein Laird) will voice Frosty the Snowman in Warner Bros. and Stampede Ventures’ live-action adaptation of the holiday story.Zachary Levi (UTA, Untitled, McKuin Frankel) will play NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner in the Lionsgate biopic American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story.Mulan’s Niki Caro (UTA, Lichter Grossman) will direct the movie adaptation of Jess Walter’s romance novel Beautiful Ruins for Amblin Partners.Cate Blanchett’s production company Dirty Films (CAA), which she runs with Andrew Upton, has signed a first-look film deal with New Republic Pictures.John Boyega (the U.K.’s Identity, Sloane Offer) and Felicity Jones (WME, the U.K.’s Independent, Peikoff Mahan) will star in the thriller Borderland from The…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Kendrick SampsonPeople are organizing out of necessity,” says a weary Kendrick Sampson of the intense hours he devotes to his nonprofit, BLD PWR, which focuses on facilitating entertainment industry support of grassroots organizations focusing on racial injustice.On May 30, BLD PWR, formally launched in 2019, co-led a demonstration at L.A.’s Pan Pacific Park to protest the killing of George Floyd, as well as killings of Black Angelenos by police (which one count puts at 886 since 2000). Later that day, a march through the Fairfax District made national news when the LAPD squared off with protesters. Police cruisers were set on fire while rubber bullets, batons and other means of excessive force were used on the crowd. Sampson, 32, said he was hit seven times by rubber bullets.Since then, protests have…3 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Yes, I Did Say That!“We’re going to have to be a little uncomfortable right now.”MEGHAN MARKLE The duch*ess of Sussex, addressing a panel for Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, emphasizing that the current push for racial justice is not just the concern of the U.S.“Go find another hobby, sweetheart.”CLAUDIA CONWAY The budding TikTok activist, on the platform, responding to comments from followers upset that her commentary does not mirror that of her mother — White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway.“We’re not fairies. We don’t magically rebound from pain.”TARAJI P. HENSON The actress, speaking during Essence Fest, describing why she finds the label “strong Black woman” to be “dehumanizing.”“Everyone get your raincoats.”LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA The Broadway star, on Twitter, poking fun at Hamilton actor Jonathan Groff’s visible spit-singing during a viewing of the Disney+ recording of his celebrated musical.“They’re…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Hitched, Hatched, HiredEngagements Melissa Hunter, a writer on Santa Clarita Diet and Disney+’s upcoming She-Hulk, got engaged to Jeremy Belanger, a writer and producer, on Malibu’s Big Dume Beach on June 13.BirthsHend Baghdady, former executive vp development and production at Fox’s SideCar Content Accelerator, and Michael G. Pasternak welcomed son Riyad Ali Pasternak on May 1 at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.CongratsAmazon executive vp Naveen Chopra joined ViacomCBS as CFO, effective Aug. 10.Andrew Calof joined Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios as president of production and development June 30.Cyril Drabinsky returned as CEO of Deluxe Entertainment Services on JulyEndeavor CMO Bozoma Saint John was named chief marketing officer of Netflix on June 30.Jannat Gargi was tapped as vp and head of documentaries in the U.S. at Vice Studios on June 29.Ex-BBC Studios executive Tobi de…2 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Live Capture Could Be Broadway’s Next ActBack in 2008, Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller approached RadicalMedia CEO Jon Kamen about filming the final performance of Rent. Kamen’s New York-based production company already had a foothold in the documentary space, with such credits as Errol Morris’ 2003 Oscar winner The Fog of War and 2004’s Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. The live-capture experiment provided Kamen with an entry into an exciting new subgenre of the nonfiction film. The finished product, Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway, received a small theatrical release from Sony Pictures and, in the process, RadicalMedia “developed the nomenclature and a whole style of filming it in a very cinematic fashion,” Kamen recalls.Fast-forward 12 years, and the so-called live-capture film has become big business. On July 3, Hamilton — which marks another collaboration between RadicalMedia and…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020NOTHING TO SEE HEREIn early June, executives at Warner Bros. convened a video meeting with their top filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, and his producer and wife, Emma Thomas, to strategize about the release of his $200 million espionage movie, Tenet, which at the time was due to open July 17. The studio laid out several theoretical scenarios for Nolan, listing likely profits and losses with his movie being released on different dates, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the call. Presented with an economic case for moving Tenet months into the future, when presumably the novel coronavirus would be a more contained threat and box office grosses more reliable, Nolan pushed back. It wasn’t about money, he said, expressing instead the desire to be the first big studio film back in theaters, to…13 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020TWO SUMMER BINGES FOR SPORTS-STARVED FANSIn these sports-starved times when we’re all standing as attentive as meerkats awaiting Game Day — any Game Day—Netflix is offering two shows featuring international sports that will temporarily quench our competitive thirst. Home Game and Magnetic not only present a variety of sports to entertain us, but each also attempts to make universal observations about the nature of sports and the soul of the athlete, with mixed results.Each of Home Game’s eight half-hour episodes focuses on one sport that appears unusual to the average American but is hugely popular in its native country. The show could have been called Home Grown, because the games are as much about local identity as they are about the individual competitors.The first episode is the most startling: In Florence, Italy, 54 thickly muscled…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020BYRON ALLEN PLANS TO GET ‘10,000 TIMES BIGGER’On June 14, as much of the country poured out of self-quarantine and into the streets in support of Black Lives Matter, Byron Allen let his feelings be known in characteristic fashion — which is to say from the rooftops. The stand-up comic turned media mogul spent $1 million to buy two pages in eight major papers — including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post — to run an op-ed he’d tapped out on his laptop, titled, “Black America Speaks. America Should Listen.”“I knew white media wasn’t going to publish it,” Allen, 59, asserts of the essay, which traces childhood memories of the National Guard invading his Detroit neighborhood after unrest following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, then lays out a nine-step plan to eradicate…14 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020REMOTE PRODUCING AS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCEWhen your parents are lovable and a touch insane, the euphemism “theatrical” is often employed to describe them. Growing up, nothing typified that theatricality more than my mom and dad’s interpretation of our Passover Seder. They’d dress in elaborate costumes (a robed Moses with a fake beard and a feminist Pharaoh, respectively) and literally drape dozens of sheets from the living room ceiling to give us an “immersive experience” of being the wandering Jews in our desert tents after fleeing from the Egyptians — just like the Jews in the Passover story we retell. I’m in my 30s now and we still do this every year.But this March, as New York City went into lockdown, it became clear that my favorite family tradition wouldn’t go on as planned. As with…4 min
The Hollywood Reporter|Wednesday, July 8, 2020Dukes of Hazzard Faced Controversy Since ’79 DebutFor a family show about two good old boys, The Dukes of Hazzard has seen its share of controversy. Before it even premiered on CBS on Jan. 26, 1979, then-CBS programming chief B. Donald Grant squared off with TV critics who hated it. Among their objections was that “the two male leads appear to be on the wrong side of the law, that the subject of illegitimate parenthood was treated humorously, and that one of the female regulars is often seen in skimpy costume,” according to a THR account. One North Carolina critic went further, calling the show’s stereotypes “out of line with the New South.” But what haunts the action comedy these days is the Confederate battle flag painted on the roof of the boys’ ride, the General Lee.…2 min
