| | | | What's news: Hugh Johnston is the new CFO of Disney. Ellen Stutzman is the new executive director of the WGA West. Taylor Swift's 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sold 3.5m units globally in its first week on sale. Starz is cutting 10 percent of its staff and pulling out of the U.K. Five Nights at Freddy's crossed the $200m mark at the global box office. — Abid Rahman
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SAG-AFTRA Evaluating Studios' Offer ►"Last, best and final offer." Hollywood studios and major streamers met with SAG-AFTRA leadership on Saturday to present an over-arching package of proposals in an attempt to end the actors’ strike. The union dispatched a note to its members after the meeting ended, saying the negotiating committee is now reviewing what it says is the companies’ “last, best and final offer.” It also urged members to ignore outside conjecture and rumors. After a staff review on Saturday, the union’s negotiating committee convened on Sunday to discuss the terms. The story.
—"Our membership owes David a great debt." After 18 years at the top of the WGA West, executive director David Young is departing. And the chief negotiator who led the union in its latest round of negotiations amid a historic strike — Ellen Stutzman — will take his place. Stutzman joined the union in 2006 as a researcher and has risen through the ranks since, becoming research & public policy director and, later, assistant executive director. The story.
—"A perfect addition to Disney’s senior leadership team." Disney has named Hugh Johnston as its senior executive vp and CFO, the top financial role in the company, and a critical deputy to CEO Bob Iger. Johnston, currently the CFO of food and beverage giant PepsiCo, effectively succeeds Christine McCarthy, who stepped down earlier this year. Kevin Lansberry had been serving as interim CFO after her departure. The story. |
'The Bear' Renewed for S3 ►Best news ever, cousin. FX has handed out a third season renewal for its critically acclaimed comedy series The Bear. The behind-the-scenes story on a restaurant and its staff, from creator Christopher Storer, will return in 2024. The first season of the series has been nominated for 13 Emmys, and season two, which bowed in June, has a 99 percent rating among critics and a 92 percent score from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. The story.
—🎭 Lead found 🎭 FX’s upcoming anthology American Sports Story has found its Aaron Hernandez. Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes star Josh Andrés Rivera has been tapped to portray the embattled former NFL star in the anthology series from executive producer Ryan Murphy. The series, first announced in August 2021, will expand Murphy’s American franchise to reexamine a prominent event involving a sports figure through the prism of today’s world and will tell the story from multiple perspectives. The story.
—Spinoff! Josh Horowitz, the entertainment journalist behind the Happy Sad Confused podcast, is expanding his footprint. On Monday, Horowitz launched Watch-A-Long, a spinoff podcast miniseries in which Horowitz invites filmmakers to rewatch one of their films in full while the two chat. The inaugural episode features Louis Leterrier and his 2008 Marvel Studios feature, The Incredible Hulk. The story. |
'Rhapsody' Screenwriter Settles Profits Lawsuit ►Hollywood accounting strikes again. Bohemian Rhapsody screenwriter Anthony McCarten has settled a lawsuit alleging he hasn’t seen his share of profits from the hit Freddie Mercury biopic despite it earning more than $900m at the box office. THR's Winston Cho reports that McCarten, on Oct. 31, moved to dismiss the lawsuit against producer GK Films. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. The Oscar-nominated scribe, who has a 5 percent backend stake in the movie, took issue with accounting statements showing the hit movie has lost tens of millions of dollars. The story.
—Common Taylor W. Taylor Swift's new album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), a rerecording of her 1989 album, is now the top-selling album in America for 2023 in under one week. The album has topped the Billboard 200, along with the vinyl albums and streaming albums charts this week, with over 1.6m units in the U.S. and over 3.5m globally. The latter achievement makes her the first artist to score six No. 1 album debuts with over 1m units sold in history. The story.
—"We were hoping she could do a song for it." Sofia Coppola has revealed that Lana Del Rey was nearly featured on the Priscilla soundtrack. In a new interview, the filmmaker went on to share that she first learned about fans’ correlation between Del Rey and the King of Rock and Roll while filming Priscilla. She said, “I’m learning that people really connect Lana Del Rey and Priscilla and I didn’t realize that, but I got a lot of requests with, ‘How is she gonna be a part of the movie?’” The story. |
'Barbenheimer' Movie Hits AFM ►"D-Cup, A-Bomb." Charles Band’s Barbenheimer, which was launched at AFM, mixes bombs and dolls for the ultimate low-budget comedy cash-in. While the prolific B-movie icon freely admits his upcoming feature — about a scientist doll in Dolltopia who tries to take out humanity with a nuclear bomb — is a shameless attempt to profiteer off the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer, he tells THR's Alex Ritman that it's a great opportunity to have some tongue-in-cheek fun blending the two very different films. The story.
—🎭 Triple dilemma 🎭 Lucy Hale is set to star in F*** Mary Kill, an action-comedy and the latest feature from Lionsgate and BuzzFeed Studios. Directed by Laura Murphy and written by Ivan Diaz and Meghan Brown, the film follows a true-crime junkie who must determine which of the three guys she’s dating is her f*ckboy, which is marriage material, and which is the Swipe Right Killer. Lionsgate is selling the film at AFM. The story.
—Mixed bag. The ongoing actors strike cast a pall over this year’s AFM, which closed on Sunday, with far fewer projects on offer. THR's Scott Roxborough writes that producers and sales agents have complained about the difficulties in attaching name talent to projects until SAG-AFTRA reaches a new deal with the AMPTP. But the indie business finds a way. Indeed, despite the strike-induced slowdown, a number of star-studded packages have launched at AFM this week. The story. |
The End of 'Yellowstone' ►What is known about the final episodes. Following delays over a scheduling dispute with star Kevin Costner as well as the writer and actor strikes, the second half of season five of Yellowstone finally has a premiere month. THR's Jackie Strause runs through what else we know about the final few episodes of television's biggest show. The story.
—"I didn’t get into movies to become a meme." Nicolas Cage may have found himself at the center of viral memes that constantly flood social media, but that was not what he ever intended to do. In a new interview to promote A24’s upcoming film Dream Scenario, the Oscar-winning actor admitted that he initially “didn’t understand how to process what was happening” with all the memes and video mashups of him and the characters he had played for projects. The story.
—"It was a tsunami of misfortune." Michael J. Fox has been open about his health battles, including his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis at age 29, but now he’s revealing other medical setbacks he’s experienced over the years. In a new interview, the Back to the Future actor shared that he has broken his arm and shoulder, smashed his orbital bone and cheek, and broken his hand in recent years, adding that his hand got infected once and he almost lost it. The story. |
Fincher Calls for Hollywood to Get "Back to Work" at LACMA Art+Film Gala ►"I’d also like to take this opportunity to insist that cinema is not dead. It’s not even close." A-list talent mixed with the few hundred guests at the 2023 LACMA Art+Film Gala on Saturday night. THR's Degen Pener joined Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian, Brad Pitt, A$AP Rocky, Blackpink’s Rosé, Billie Eilish, Keanu Reeves, Andrew Garfield, Jessica Chastain, Pedro Pascal and more in an evening which raised $5m to support LACMA. This year’s honorees were David Fincher and artist and activist Judy Baca. The story.
—"I didn’t want to write about any of them." With her new memoir My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand says she hopes readers will finally “know the truth” about her. In a new interview, Streisand revealed she wasn't so keen on discussing her past relationships — including with Don Johnson, Ryan O’Neal, Andre Agassi and former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau — in the book, but that her editor told her, "You have to leave some blood on the page!" The story.
—ICYMI. Starz is restructuring ahead of its planned separation from Lionsgate early next year. The streaming service and premium cable channel will cut 10 percent of its staff, and exit its business in the U.K. The changes were announced by Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch on Friday. Lionsgate first announced its plans to spin out Starz last year, splitting the company in two, with its film and TV studio in one company, and the Starz channel and streaming platform in another. The story. |
'Five Nights' Leads Slow Frame With $19.4M ►Still punching. Universal and Blumhouse’s horror hit Five Nights at Freddy’s led a frightfully slow frame at the domestic box office. Domestic ticket sales for all films are expected to come in at around $64m for the weekend, one of the lowest showings of the year so far.
THR's Pamela McClintock writes that Five Nights remains a star in its own right. The pic earned $19.4m from 3,789 theaters in its sophomore outing as it jumped past the $100m mark domestically in less than 10 days. It’s no surprise that the pic tumbled a steep 76 percent, considering it’s also available on Peacock. Overseas — where it is only available in theaters — Five Nights pulled in an impressive $35.6m for a foreign tally of $103.5m and a total global haul of $217.1m against a modest $20m budget.
Taylor Swift: Eras Tour continued to impress, grossing another $12m to $13m from 3,604 cinemas to hold at No. 2. The record-breaking concert pic has now cleared the $165m domestically, according to rival estimates.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, from Apple Original Films, came in third with an estimated $7m from 3,706 locations for a domestic total of $52.3m through its third weekend. Paramount is distributing Killers on behalf of Apple, which fully financed and marketed the $200m movie. The box office report. In other news...
—Netflix's Lift trailer: Kevin Hart attempts to steal fortune from mid-flight plane
—Marvel unveils violent trailer for Echo, its first TV-MA rated show
—Red Sea Film Fest unveils Saudi selection, special screenings, competition lineup
—Former Bachelor host Chris Harrison marries Lauren Zima in two weddings
—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Seattle for Miami
—José Andrés brings Feeding Hope dinner series to Los Angeles
—Shannon Wilcox, actress in Songwriter, Six Weeks and Dallas, dies at 80
What else we're reading...
—David Weigel writes that the Israel-Gaza war, and its coverage on TikTok, is driving further divisions between Democrats and Gen Z [Semafor]
—A rewarding long read by Robert Rubsam on Paul Schrader's “Man in a Room” movie trilogy and its relationship with the violence that America inflicts abroad and the violence we inflict on each other [Baffler]
—Edward Helmore writes that Robert De Niro's current court battle lifts the veil on the lives of celebrity assistants [Guardian]
—Wonderful Gabriella Paiella interview with Danny “Short King” DeVito that covers his friendships with Michael Douglas, Bruce Springsteen and Arnold Schwarzenegger and his thoughts on the actors strike [GQ]
—Twenty-five years after the release of American History X, Tom Joudrey looks into whether the harrowing Ed Norton film foreshadowed the resurgence of white nationalism in the U.S. [BBC]
Today...
...in 2001, Fox debuted a new hourlong action series, 24, during the 9 p.m. hour. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Emma Stone (35), Ethan Hawke (53), Thandiwe Newton (51), Sally Field (77), Maria Shriver (68), Bowen Yang (33), Susan Downey (50), Rebecca Romijn (51), Hero Fiennes Tiffin (26), Taryn Manning (45), Zoe McLellan (49), Kelly Rutherford (55), Lori Singer (66), Peter DeLuise (57), Katie Leclerc (37), Wiley Wiggins (47), Robert Aramayo (31), Patina Miller (39), Lee Dong-wook (42), Cam Clarke (66), Lisa Berry (44), Vera Graziadei (41), Luke Allen-Gale (39), Danny Keough (59) |
| Peter White, who portrayed Linc Tyler on the ABC soap opera All My Children over four decades and starred in the original stage production and film adaptation of The Boys in the Band, has died. He was 86. The obituary. |
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