| | | | What's news: A coalition of 35 filmmakers has purchased Westwood's Village Theater. Former NBCU TV exec Jeff Gaspin has joined Netflix. Ousted Verve CEO Bill Weinstein is starting a new venture with several Verve agents. The Creator won big at the Visual Effects Society Awards. Lionsgate is pushing Ballerina's release date back a year. — Abid Rahman
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Inside Disney's Shadow Succession Game ►"While the job appears to be Walden’s to lose, there is some internal competition." THR's Lachlan Cartwright writes that Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden's decision to undertake a major shake-up at ABC News showcased her mettle as a top decision-maker in Bob Iger’s empire. The analysis.
—"Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in." Netflix has added former NBC Universal Television Entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin to its executive team. Gaspin will be vp unscripted series at the streamer, charged with curating and growing Netflix’s slate of reality programming. He joins Netflix a month after Jenn Levy, who previously oversaw unscripted series at the company, departed. Gaspin will report to Brandon Riegg, vp nonfiction series. The story. —Jerry Maguire moment. Days after it was announced that Bill Weinstein would be leaving Verve, the agency that he helped found and where he served as CEO, the agent will be starting his own outfit with several Verve agents following him. Agents Devon Schiff, Matthew Doyle and Jake Dillman are set to leave the agency, according to sources, joining Weinstein at his new company. It is unclear who or what entity is bankrolling Weinstein’s new venture. The story.
—More allegations. A new sexual assault lawsuit has been filed against Nigel Lythgoe, this time by an unidentified woman who claims the former American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer forcibly touched her in 2016. The suit, filed on Saturday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is the latest against Lythgoe accusing him of sexual misconduct and abuse. The story.
—Rejected. The Los Angeles Ethics Commission has unanimously voted to reject the proposed settlement by the city with Les Moonves, the former president and CEO of CBS. The settlement, made public last week, stated that Moonves tried to influence now-retired LAPD Captain Cory Palka amid a sexual assault investigation against the executive. The legal documents noted that Moonves agreed to pay an $11,250 fine on Feb. 5 for violating the city’s ethics code. The story. |
Is Hollywood Sleepwalking Toward Strike Three? ►"I’m telling you, these people are pissed." Just months after the conclusion of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, top crew unions IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 are scheduled to enter the bargaining room March 4. As insiders assure themselves that the entertainment industry is too wounded to let another shutdown happen, THR's Katie Kilkenny checks in with the crew people battered by last year’s walkout who could be ready to do it again. The story.
—"It’s going to be everywhere." The role of AI in the entertainment industry was a sticking point in talks during dual strikes by actors and writers last year, with the unions eventually negotiating guardrails on use, but the kind of tech capable of overhauling traditional production processes and outright replacing skilled workers was still thought to be years away. As OpenAI unveils its new AI product Sora, which allows for intricate video on command, THR's Winston Cho writes crafts workers see the tech displacing artists much, much sooner. The story.
—Heading to trial. ABC must face religious discrimination claims from two former General Hospital crewmembers who sued the network after they were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccination, marking one of the first rulings to clear the way for trial over terminations caused by blanket vaccine mandates widely imposed by studios amid the pandemic. A Los Angeles judge found that James and Timothy Wahl may have had “sincerely held” religious beliefs that ABC should have accommodated by affording them exemptions. The story. |
Hollywood's New Musicverse ►"When musical biopics speak authentically to audiences, they have an opportunity to become a part of the cultural conversation." It's been a big week for the music biopic. Paramount's Bob Marley: One Love overperformed at the box office during a weeklong stretch that included the splashy announcement of four Beatles films from Sony and news that Ridley Scott is in talks to helm a Bee Gees movie for Paramount. The story.
—🏆 No surprises 🏆 The 2024 Writers Guild Awards nominations have been revealed. The nominees for original screenplay are Air, Barbie, The Holdovers, May December and Past Lives and in the adapted screenplay category, the nominees are American Fiction, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Killers of the Flower Moon, Nyad and Oppenheimer. In the TV categories, awards favorites Succession and The Bear are up for three awards each, with the following series scoring two nods each: The Crown, The Diplomat, Jury Duty, The Last of Us and Poker Face. The nominees.
—🏆 Visualizing success 🏆 The Creator won big at the 22nd annual Visual Effects Society Awards Wednesday night. Gareth Edwards' film took home five awards in the feature competition, including outstanding visual effects in a photoreal feature. HBO's The Last of Us was also a top winner in the TV categories, scoring four awards, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse led the animation competition with four wins. The winners. —🏆 Wearing it well 🏆 Barbie, Poor Things and Saltburn were among the winners at the 2024 Costume Designers Guild Awards. Barbie's Jacqueline Durran won excellence in sci-fi/fantasy film while Poor Things' Holly Waddington took the excellence in period film award, and Saltburn's Sophie Canale received the excellence in contemporary film trophy. In the TV categories, Beef, The Great and Ahsoka won excellence in contemporary, period and sci-fi/fantasy television, respectively. The winners. |
What Happened to 'True Detective' Creator Nic Pizzolatto? ►Coming down from the mountain. Nic Pizzolatto's reposting of comments critical of True Detective: Night Country, the latest installment of the HBO franchise he created, have left some wondering what became of the original showrunner. THR's Lesley Goldberg looks over Pizzolatto's career following the huge critical success of True Detective season one in 2014. The story.
—More to come? For THR, Josh Wigler spoke to True Detective: Night Country showrunner Issa López about the finale of the HBO crime drama. The filmmaker behind the franchise's most watched season reflects on the response (including Pizzolatto's) — and stops short of confirming a return, but contemplates a possible sequel: "Well, there's an idea ..." Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Blimey! The BBC unveiled 12 dramas from the producers behind such hits as Poor Things, The White Lotus, Sex Education, Beef, The Crown, Normal People and The Handmaid's Tale. Among the highlights are Film Club, a dramedy co-written by and starring Aimee Lou Wood, an A24 TV adaptation of the novel The Ministry of Time and Rebecca Hall starring in The Listeners, an adaptation based on the novel by Jordan Tannahill. Director of BBC Drama Lindsay Salt unveiled the series orders on Wednesday as part of a speech outlining her vision for the U.K. public broadcaster’s drama offering. The story. —Molly's game. Netflix has greenlit the next project from Maid creator and showrunner Molly Smith Metzler. The streamer has ordered Sirens, a limited series that’s described as a dark comedy that explores “women, power and class.” The series comes from Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap banner (which also produced Maid), and the Barbie star and producer is an executive producer. Sirens is based on Metzler’s play Elemeno Pea, which she wrote during her time as a student at Juilliard. The story. |
35 Filmmakers Buy Westwood's Village Theater ►Saved! Westwood’s historic Village Theater is now owned by a coalition of 35 filmmakers led by Jason Reitman. The 93-year-old cinema is "known for its soaring tower, neon marquee and one of the largest screens in Los Angeles." The coalition of filmmakers includes J.J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, Damien Chazelle, Chris Columbus, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonathan Dayton, Guillermo del Toro, Valerie Faris, Hannah Fidell, Alejandro González Iñárritu, James Gunn, Sian Heder, Rian Johnson, Gil Kenan, Karyn Kusama, Justin Lin, Phil Lord, David Lowery, Christopher McQuarrie, Chris Miller, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Todd Phillips, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Reitman, Jay Roach, Seth Rogen, Emma Seligman, Brad Silberling, Steven Spielberg, Emma Thomas, Denis Villeneuve, Lulu Wang and Chloé Zhao. The story.
—📅 Switcheroo 📅 Lionsgate's Ballerina is departing 2024, with the John Wick spinoff now opening in theaters on June 6, 2025. In a twinned move, The Crow will fly into Ballerina's previous date of June 7, 2024. The year-long delay for Ballerina is sure to turn heads, but studio insiders say it is because of the addition of extra action sequences under the guiding hand of John Wick director Chad Stahelski. Lionsgate feels that with The Crow ready for theaters, it does not need to rush Ballerina into cinemas if they can make it better. The story.
—🎭 New lead 🎭 Josh Brolin is in negotiations to star in Weapons, the New Line horror thriller from Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger. The feature was set to shoot last year, but was delayed by the Hollywood strikes. That caused a conflict with the project’s previous star, Pedro Pascal, whose schedule ran up against his commitment to Fantastic Four, which is shooting this summer. Cregger wrote the script for Weapons, which is described as an interrelated, multistory horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. The story. —🎭 Optimal role 🎭 Bob Marley: One Love star Lashana Lynch is attached to star in Optimize, a sci-fi feature from filmmaker Lindsey Anderson Beer. Paramount is making the project with Beer’s Lab Brew banner as part of the filmmaker’s first-look deal with the studio. According to the logline, Optimize centers on an average woman who "utilizes an AI assistant to optimize all facets of her life, but soon finds that the AI’s pursuit of perfection comes at too high a cost." The story. |
Why Megan Ellison Saved 'Nimona' ►"I needed this movie." Annapurna Pictures founder Megan Ellison picked up Nick Bruno and Troy Quane's animated feature Nimona after Disney balked at its LGBTQ+ themes and closed its studio, Blue Sky Animation, in 2021. THR's Rebecca Keegan spoke to Ellison about what drove her to make sure Nimona, which scored an Oscar nomination, got made. The story.
—"[Baldwin] was an advocate not just for Black people, but for queer people, for people being themselves and being safe." For THR, Brande Victorian spoke to Feud: Capote vs. The Swans director Gus Van Sant and writer Jon Robin Baitz about episode five of the FX/Hulu series. Van Sant and Robin Baitz say the imagined encounter in the episode between Truman Capote and James Baldwin draws from writings found in the latter's diaries. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Nobody's clown. THR's Mikey O'Connell spoke to Jenny Slate about her new Amazon Prime Video special, Seasoned Professional. The stand-up and actress discusses stage fright, potty humor, Gary Oldman's farts, unsent love letters to Greta Gerwig and leaving the agents who suggested she audition for It’s Pennywise. The interview. —Marvel's newest superhero. THR's Seija Rankin spoke to Geraldine Viswanathan about her new film Drive-Away Dolls (the review of which is below). The 27-year-old Aussie actress also discusses replacing Ayo Edebiri in Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts. The interview. |
Film Review: 'Dune: Part Two' ►"Visually stunning and engrossing, as far as it goes." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two. The second film features returning stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, as well as fresh faces Austin Butler and Florence Pugh. The review.
—"O brother, where art thou?" THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls. Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon appear in this nutty comedy set in 1999, written by Coen with his wife Tricia Cooke. The review.
—"A sentimental awakening rendered banal by its cosmic setting." David reviews Johan Renck's Spaceman. Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Isabella Rossellini and Kunal Nayyar star in this Netflix film of the Jaroslav Kalfur novel Spaceman of Bohemia, featuring Paul Dano as the voice of an alien arachnid. The review. —"Enigmatic to a fault." THR's Jordan Mintzer reviews Abderrahmane Sissako's Berlinale competition entry Black Tea. The latest feature from the Timbuktu director follows an African bride who flees to China in order to start a new life. The review. |
TV Review: 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' ►"Seriously, not everything needs a gritty live-action reboot." THR's Angie Han reviews Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender. The streamer's live-action take on the beloved animated series centers on a young boy tasked with saving the world by mastering all four elements: earth, air, water and fire. The review. In other news...
—Jamie Dornan faces an Irish family feud in The Tourist S2 trailer
—First Borderlands trailer sends Cate Blanchett and Kevin Hart to “dumpster fire of a world”
—Zendaya takes Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist to court in Challengers trailer
—Black Girls Rock! Awards return to TV on Lifetime after 5-year hiatus
—Sony Pictures' Robert Lawson promoted to lead Sony Corp. comms
—Christina Aguilera opens doors to 'glam' Airbnb in Vegas
—Instagram exec lists Venice bungalow for just under $2m
—Ewen MacIntosh, who played accountant Big Keith in U.K. version of The Office, dies at 50
—Paul D’Amato, Tim ‘Dr. Hook’ McCracken in Slap Shot, dies at 76
What else we're reading...
—Emma Jones reflects on the international success of Anatomy of a Fall, and in particular the viral popularity of the blistering argument scene [BBC]
—Chris Murphy's fun interview with Barry Keoghan covers everything from the current run of success of Irish actors, his new-found fame and his meme-worthy friendship with Jacob Elordi [Vanity Fair]
—Fletcher Peters writes that the appearance of James Baldwin in the latest episode of FX/Hulu's Feud: Capote vs. The Swans turned the writer into a classic racist archetype [Daily Beast]
—Amy Nicholson talks to Denis Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet about the making of Dune: Part Two and the potential for more sequels [NYT]
—Noah Rawlings goes inside the nascent University of Austin, and reveals the monocle-popping goings-on at the billionaire-backed "anti-woke" college [The New Inquiry]
Today...
...in 1934, Frank Capra’s classic road trip film It Happened One Night hit theaters. The pic went on to win five honors at the 7th Academy Awards, including best actor for Clark Gable and actress for Claudette Colbert. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Kyle MacLachlan (65), Drew Barrymore (49), James Hong (95), Rachel Dratch (58), Nicholas Pileggi (91), Jeri Ryan (56), Dichen Lachman (42), Thomas Jane (55), Elodie Yung (43), Fele Martínez (49), Julie Walters (74), Josh Helman (38), Zach Roerig (39), Ellen Greene (73), John Ashton (76), Han Hyo-joo (37), Paul Lieberstein (57), Celia Rose Gooding (24), Jeremy Shamos (54), Tamara Mello (48), Ethan Wayne (62), Lea Salonga (53), Nigel Planer (71), Steve Speirs (🏴59), Mark Coles Smith (37), Bryce Hodgson (35), Jack McMullen (33), James Blunt (50) |
| Micheline Presle, the standout French actress who starred in the controversial Devil in the Flesh before making a foray into Hollywood that included roles opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died. She was 101. The obituary. |
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