Billy Friedkin, who died yesterday at 87, remains a uniquely unforgettable figure to his friends and colleagues — an eternal contradiction, both cantankerous yet kindly, argumentative yet thoughtful. He was a brilliant creator of popular entertainment but, to his close friends, also was brooding and cerebral.
Typically in his final days, Friedkin was looking forward to visiting Venice for the festival screening of his newest movie, a remake of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for Showtime. At the same time, he was prepping an opera that he would direct in Florence.
Although forging ahead with new ventures until the end, Friedkin loved to revisit his past and the characters who inspired him. I reunited him two years ago with Norman Lloyd, the brilliant actor and director who nurtured Friedkin’s Hollywood career when he first worked as a director of Alfred Hitchcock television thrillers.
When Friedkin went over budget on his first show, Lloyd urged Hitchcock to be patient with the talented if impetuous neophyte. Friedkin, it turned out, had been a fan of Lloyd in his early stage career, and they remained friends until Lloyd died in 2021 at age 107. “I was a dumb kid, and you saved my butt,” Friedkin told Lloyd. >>>Stories From The Director's Company
More:
Coppola Pays Tribute To Friedkin: “Billy’s Work Represents True Milestones In Cinema”
‘The Exorcist’ Star Ellen Burstyn Honors “Smart, Cultured, Fearless And Wildly Talented” William Friedkin
Directors Eli Roth, Guillermo Del Toro & Scott Derrickson, ‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’ Star Kiefer Sutherland Pay Tribute
David Gordon Green & Jason Blum Reflect On Loss Of “Brilliant Artist” William Friedkin
William Friedkin Dies At 87: Deadline's Obituary
'French Connection' Director's Career In Photos |
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For Deadline readers who are William Friedkin fans, we offer a replay of this bracingly honest conversation with Mike Fleming Jr. on the occasion of a reissue of Sorcerer, Friedkin's adaptation of the Georges Arnaud novel that first was filmed as The Wages of Fear in 1953. The whole interview is presented as originally published nearly a decade ago. >>> Read The Q&A |
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Call Her "Boss" - Alex Cooper, creator and host of breakout podcast smash Call Her Daddy, is continuing to build out her business with the launch of a new talent network. Cooper is behind The Unwell Network, which will work with content creators such as Alix Earle and Madeline Argy, the company’s first two partners. The Unwell Network is a new subsidiary of Trending, the Gen Z media company that Cooper has established with her fiancé, XO Kitty producer Matt Kaplan, who runs ACE Entertainment. >>> Areas Of Focus
Bundle Up! - Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish isn’t ruling out the possibility of the company teaming with other players in the media space to create a more viable streaming bundle. “We’ve been believers in bundling for a long time,” the exec said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “Bundling has been one of the tried-and-true methods of value creation in media and certainly as we enter the streaming space, bundling is part of our strategy.” >>>"A Growing Part Of What We're Doing"
'Beetle' Juice? - Warner Bros/DC’s Blue Beetle hit tracking with an eye on a $30M start when it opens on Aug. 18. True, this projection is lower than the $55M start of The Flash, which didn’t see a huge turnout by its cast to promote, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods at $30.1M, but movies aimed at Hispanic and Latino moviegoers often over-index in their first weekends due to walk-up business. And, the Angel Manuel Soto-directed pic is very hot with Latino and Hispanic moviegoers right now on tracking. >>> See The Comps
'Lotus' Star's New Locus - Meghann Fahy has signed with WME. She is coming off her starring turn as Daphne in the second installment of HBO’s The White Lotus, which earned her a 2023 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Fahy met with the three biggest talent agencies after leaving Paradigm last month. >>>Next Project |
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More News 👩💼 Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA boss Priya Dogra is exiting the company after 14 years in the post and her role is being eliminated. Dogra has been serving as President & Managing Director, EMEA since the high-profile merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery closed in April 2022. In an email to staff, WBD international chief Gerhard Zeiler said he and Dogra had “mutually agreed” that she will leave at the end of this year.
📺 Fox Corp. matched Wall Street analysts' estimates in its fiscal fourth quarter despite a 4% year-over-year drop in advertising revenue. In a conference call, execs made passing mention of the $787.5 million settlement of Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News, but said their balance sheet remains "robust."
🍿 Top exhibitor AMC Entertainment swung back to profitability in the second quarter, aided by a marked improvement at the overall movie box office. The company released numbers before the opening bell and will convene a conference call with analysts this afternoon.
🤻 Perry Sook, CEO of CW parent Nexstar Media Group, sees the broadcast network as increasingly resembling Fox, with a growing sports portfolio and programming lineup. Speaking on Nexstar's second quarter earnings call, Sook said the network won't suffer much due to the writers and actors strikes. "We kind of like our chances in this chaotic environment," he said.
⚖ Federal prosecutors say that Donald Trump was seeking a court order “designed to allow him to try this case in the media rather than in the courtroom.” Special counsel Jack Smith’s team singled out Trump’s attorney, John Lauro, and his Sunday morning talk show blitz. Lauro defended Trump on five shows — a feat known in the media business as the “full Ginsburg,” or appearing on the Beltway shows of ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News and CNN all in one morning. They have argued that a protective order should be issued in the case, restricting Trump and his attorneys from disseminating discovery materials.
♻️ Jeopardy! is undergoing a big change for its Season 40 as a result of the writers strike. Michael Davies, who took over as exec producer and showrunner on a permanent basis last year, admitted that a lot of his plans for Season 40 and the post-season episodes have been “derailed” and that the show is now in a “holding pattern." Essentially, it will bring back previous contestants for Season 40 and will use a combination of questions written by the writers before the strike as well as recycled material.
🧜♀️ Disney’s live-action reimagining of The Little Mermaid is hitting Disney+ on Sept. 6, after a very healthy 103-day theatrical window. The Little Mermaid debuted over Memorial Day weekend to $118.8M domestic before finishing its run north of $564M worldwide. The early September frame has become a key launch pad for Disney+, which began eventizing it during Covid with the streaming release of live-action pic Mulan.
💰 Funny Girl, the Broadway revival with one of the strangest casting histories in recent theatrical memory, has recouped its $16.5 million capitalization, producers announced. Box office receipts for the musical surged when Lea Michele replaced Beanie Feldstein in the title role of Fanny Brice. In fact, the show began setting box office records. |
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Trending  Jersey Shore Family Vacation is heating up MTV’s summer ratings. The second half of Season 6 premiered on August 3 with a 0.6 rating among adults 18-49, according to live+same-day Nielsen data. That helped boost MTV’s Thursday primetime rating to a 0.3, which is up 306% over the 0.1 average rating from the previous four weeks.
🔻 Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty returned to HBO on Sunday with 629,000 total viewers tuning in for the Season 2 premiere across Max and linear telecasts. That’s a fairly notable drop from Season 1, whose debut drew 901,000 viewers in March 2022. By May of that year, the debut season had grown to 1.6M same-day viewers for the finale. |
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On the Radar
Tue - Endeavor and AMC Entertainment earnings; Only Murders In The Building S3 debut
Wed - Disney earnings; Sony Corp. earnings; 100th day of the WGA strike
Thu - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2 finale
Sun - Billions S7 premiere |
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Birth Sign - It wasn't a regular day when Charlize Theron joined Seth MacFarlane on the picket line at Fox, even beyond the urgency of the strike. "@CharlizeAfrica bringing support to the picket line on her birthday!" wrote MacFarlane as he posted photos of them on social media. |
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