| | | | | | What's news: Lionsgate is closer to spinning off its film and TV unit. Riz Ahmed has joined the cast of Wes Anderson's latest film. Pamela Anderson will star in the Naked Gun reboot. The Beatles doc Let It Be is coming out of the vault and heading to Disney+. A Crazy Rich Asians musical is under development. — Abid Rahman
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Golden Divorce: The Rise and Fall of Gerry Turner ►Too good to be true. The first-ever Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner and his wife Theresa Nist announced on Good Morning America that they have mutually decided to "dissolve our marriage." Many were touched by the 72-year-old Indiana native's quest for love, only to be disappointed when the news of the divorce broke. THR takes a look back at how Turner’s senior spinoff bloomed to become the franchise golden child — only to wilt in the end. The story.
—Answers wanted. The proposed sports streaming joint venture from Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery is facing scrutiny from Congress. In a letter sent Tuesday, Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) asked probing questions of the venture. The letter, addressed to Disney CEO Bob Iger, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch and WBD CEO David Zaslav, asks for responses by April 30, and to “please copy the Department of Justice in your response.” The still-unnamed sports joint venture was announced in a surprise move back in February. The story.
—Edging closer. Lionsgate has moved one step closer to spinning off its film and TV studios business in a SPAC to create a separately traded public company. Launching Lionsgate Studios as a standalone public company aims to give the Hollywood studio options before completing a long-awaited separation of the film and TV studios and Starz. The newly merged entity will be able to raise fresh capital and merge with existing businesses. The story.
—✊ Strike authorization ✊ Unionized writers at Sesame Workshop have unanimously voted to authorize a potential strike as their negotiations over a new labor contract continue. Thirty-five workers at the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street have greenlit a potential work stoppage to begin on April 24 if a new contract deal isn’t reached by its current expiration date, April 19. The workers, who are members of the WGA East and WGA West, work on writing Sesame Street, Helpsters and The Not Too Late Show With Elmo. The story.
—🤝 Partner deal 🤝 Verizon and Disney are partnering on another bundle deal. The telecom giant is offering select unlimited plan customers six free months of the Disney Bundle, which includes Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. The deal will give new and current Verizon customers six free months of the bundle when switching to the plans, and after that it will cost $10 per month, a $115 savings annually. Verizon previously offered the bundle as an add-on for $10 per month, a $5 discount compared to its normal price. The story. |
Participant Is Shutting Down ►End of an era. After 20 years, Participant Media is calling it quits. Founder Jeff Skoll announced the news in a note to staff Tuesday. During its run, the company was behind best picture winners Green Book and Moonlight, and docs such as An Inconvenient Truth and RBG. eBay co-founder Skoll founded the company in 2004 with a dual mission of making money and inspiring social change through entertainment. Participant's films won 21 Oscars and its series won 18 Emmys, and it earned more than $3.3b at the box office. The story.
—🤝 Renewed 🤝 Fremantle has renewed its first-look deal with Fabula, the Chilean production company run by acclaimed director Pablo Larrain and brother Juan de Dios Larrain. The agreement will see the companies continue to work together with Fremantle’s CEO, global drama, Christian Vesper and Seb Shorr, COO, global drama, to develop a slate of original films and TV dramas. Fabula's filmography includes Larrain’s Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman and the Oscar-nominated Jackie, as well as Spencer and El Conde. The story.
—🎭 First timer 🎭 Riz Ahmed is now a Wes Anderson featured player. The Brit actor, last seen in Apple’s love drama Fingernails, has joined the roster of the acclaimed auteur’s latest project, an untitled feature that is now shooting in Berlin. Plot details are being kept in the breast pocket, but it is shaping up to be another ensemble piece with several of his usual cadre of artists. Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera and Bill Murray are also on the call sheet for the project. The feature has a script from Anderson and Roman Coppola. The story.
—🎭 Jane found 🎭 Pamela Anderson has signed on to star opposite Liam Neeson in Paramount Pictures’ untitled remake of spoof comedy Naked Gun. Plot details scant, but it is known that Neeson is playing Drebin. Anderson will be the love interest, akin to the role played in the original by Priscilla Presley, with a mix of sexiness and goofiness. Akiva Schaffer is directing the comedy, which has a script by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and Schaffer. The trio were behind the popular and Emmy-winning Disney+ movie Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. The story.
—🎭 Back to the big screen 🎭 Denis Leary, who hasn’t appeared in a film since 2014’s Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield, has joined the cast of Michael Showalter’s holiday comedy Oh. What. Fun. for Amazon MGM Studios. He joins Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloë Grace Moretz, The Holdovers discovery Dominic Sessa and Felicity Jones on the call sheet. Described as both a love letter to moms and tonally a cross between Home for the Holidays and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The story.
—🎭 Three more for 3 🎭 Justice Smith, last seen in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and that man Dominic Sessa have closed deals to join Barbie actress Ariana Greenblatt in Now You See Me 3, Lionsgate’s latest installment of its heist-with-magicians thrillers. The trio are the newcomers to the caper, with original cast members Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Morgan Freeman expected to reprise their roles as thieving illusionists. The story. |
'Shōgun' Star Breaks Down the Climactic Penultimate Episode ►"It’s the long fight." THR's Brian Davids spoke to Shōgun star Anna Sawai about, "Crimson Sky," the ninth episode of the hit FX limited series. Sawai speaks freely about her fan-favorite character and the shocking events of the episode. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Finally! Disney+ is adding to its library of music documentaries, bringing a long-lost Beatles doc to its slate. The streaming service is adding the 1970 film Let It Be to its platform, beginning May 8, 2024. It will be the first time that the film, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, has been made available to watch in 50 years. Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production restored the film, with Lindsay-Hogg’s support, allowing for its rerelease. Jackson, of course, directed the 2021 documentary for Disney+ The Beatles: Get Back. The story.
—First TV gig. Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has booked his first TV series job, and it’s hosting a spinoff of the Fox game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? for Amazon Prime Video. The new show is titled Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, and it will have adult contestants answering sixth-grade level questions with the help of some famous faces. Amazon has ordered 20 episodes of the show, hosted by the Super Bowl champ. The story.
—🎭 Winning formula 🎭 Apple TV+ and producers of Slow Horses are teaming up on another series. Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson will star in Down Cemetery Road, a thriller based on a novel by Mick Herron, whose Slough House spy series is the source material for Slow Horses. The new project is the third Apple series from producer 60Forty Films, which is also behind Slow Horses — which was renewed for a fifth season earlier this year — and Hijack. Morwenna Banks, who has penned several episodes of Slow Horses, will be the lead writer. The story.
—🎭 Soo's on board 🎭 ABC's forthcoming drama Dr. Odyssey continues to add to its cast. Hamilton star Phillipa Soo has joined the drama from Ryan Murphy Television, which scored a straight-to-series order in March. She’ll star opposite Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson in the series, which is slated for next season at the network. Details about Dr. Odyssey are being kept quiet, but sources describe it as a medical show set on a cruise ship. The story. |
Mayim Bialik Claims Abuse Wasn't Just at Nickelodeon ►"There were things that we all thought were OK." Mayim Bialik is sharing her thoughts about the harrowing allegations in ID’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV docuseries. On a recent episode of her The Breakdown podcast, former child actress Jenna von Oÿ noted how women’s alleged experiences at Nickelodeon while working under Dan Schneider weren’t much different than “things that I heard about other sets during our time.” Bialik added in response, "Women being berated in the writers room is something that was... considered par for the course." The story.
—Crazy, rich musical. A stage adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians is under development, with Jon M. Chu set to direct. The musical, which is being developed by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and Kevin Kwan, features a book by Leah Nanko Winkler, music by Helen Park and lyrics by Amanda Green and Tat Tong. The production is aiming for Broadway, with a pre-Broadway engagement to be announced shortly. This would mark the Broadway debut for Chu, who directed the film version of Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights, as well as the upcoming film adaptation of Wicked. The story.
—Suit filed. Al Roker and his production banner have been sued by Bill Schultz, a former executive producer on an animated kids TV series in development. Schultz claims he was fired for objecting to the company’s failure to follow a diversity initiative intended to bring minority writers onto PBS television productions. The lawsuit alleges executives at Al Roker Entertainment “callously disregarded” a DEI program mandated by PBS, which covered the bulk of the production expenses for animated series Weather Hunters. The story.
—"People still love it." Family Guy is 22 seasons in, and it doesn’t look like Seth MacFarlane has any plans to end the beloved animates series anytime soon. In a new interview, the creator and star of the popular show recently, that celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, said that "at this point, I don’t see a good reason to stop." MacFarlane added, "It makes people happy and it funds some good causes. It’s a lot of extraneous cash that you can donate to Rainforest Trust and you can still go out to dinner that night." The story.
—"It was kind of like, like Psycho. It was like a lot of quick cuts." Cynthia Nixon has revealed there is a scrapped Sex and the City scene that was shot similarly to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror film Psycho. The actress, who reprised her role as Miranda for And Just Like That, a revival of the hit series, shared on the latest episode of the Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson podcast why the episode ultimately had to be reshot. The story. |
'Civil War' Unites Audiences from Red and Blue States ►Bipartisan love. Alex Garland’s dystopian Civil War sparked plenty of speculation — and assumptions — heading into its debut in theaters over the April 12-14 weekend. Would it galvanize Trumpists eager to view the sort of imagery witnessed during the Jan. 6 attack? Or would liberals assume it would be a balm for their point of view? In a surprise twist, THR's Pamela McClintock writes that Civil War played exactly down the middle as both sides put aside their differences and sat together in cinemas across the country to see for themselves what all the buzz was about. The analysis.
—"Everything was going to be as real as we could do it." THR rabble-rouser Ryan Gajewski spoke to Civil War sound editor Glenn Freemantle about the film's unique score that balanced "oppressive" battle noise with abrupt silences. The Oscar winner talks reteaming with Alex Garland on the A24 film, and explains why the team did not use sound level meters when determining if things were getting too intense. The interview. |
Film Review: 'The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare' ►"Lots of explosions but little explosiveness." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Guy Ritchie's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Eiza González, Alex Pettyfer and Henry Golding star in the semi-fictionalized account of a covert mission unofficially mandated by Winston Churchill to neutralize Nazi U-boats in the North Atlantic. The review.
—"A promising start turns into a mess." THR's Angie Han reviews Hulu's Under the Bridge. A cop (Lily Gladstone) and a writer (Riley Keough) investigate the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old girl in a Canadian town in this mystery based on the book by Rebecca Godfrey. The review.
—"One of a kind." For THR, Jourdain Searles reviews Vera Drew's The People's Joker. A sharp DC parody, this film was the subject of controversy at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival, where Warner Bros. Discovery tried to prevent it from being screened. The review.
In other news...
—Hacks S3 trailer finds Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder right back where they started
—Taraji P. Henson to host Time100 special for ABC
—Screen Actors Guild Awards set 2025 date
—Carol Burnett to be honored with lifetime achievement award at Gracie Awards
—Donna Langley to receive Kering’s Women in Motion Award
—CJ’s Miky Lee to give USC School of Cinematic Arts commencement address
—Paramount advertising ups Ryan Briganti to head of sports
—UTA’s MediaLink elevates execs for a Cannes Lions without Michael Kassan
—Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor signs with CAA
—Southern Charm star Madison LeCroy signs with UTA
—Dan Goozee, renowned Walt Disney imagineering and movie poster artist, dies at 80
What else we're reading...
—Alicia Montgomery writes that NPR is indeed a mess, but "wokeness" is not the problem [Slate]
—Laura Martin unpacks the ancient philosophy behind Bluey's blockbuster episode "The Sign" [BBC]
—After watching Netflix's Ripley, Mark Harris asks whether Tom Ripley is gay — a question that has challenged every adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s book [Vulture]
—In a fun read, Justin Sayles answers 19 burning questions about rap’s civil war [Ringer]
—Leigh-Ann Jackson reports on castmembers of A Different World reuniting to visit and support real-life historically Black colleges [NYT]
Today...
...in 1987, 20th Century Fox unveiled the Matthew Broderick military action film Project X in theaters. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Jennifer Garner (52), Rooney Mara (39), Sean Bean (65), Adam McKay (56), Phoebe Dynevor (29), William Mapother (59), Olivia Hussey (73), Maïwenn (48), Luke Mitchell (39), David Bradley (82), Henry Ian Cusick (57), Beau Knapp (35), Leslie Bega (57), Joel Murray (61), Nicholas D'Agosto (44), Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (37), Alaina Huffman (44), Carlo Rota (63), Monet Mazur (48), Lindsay Hartley (46), Niamh Walsh (36), Gia Mantegna (34), Gavin Warren (16), Michael Forest (95), Kimberly Elise (57), Angela Elayne Gibbs (70), Lela Rochon (60), Sol Rodriguez (34), Kristine Sutherland (69), L. Scott Caldwell (74), Charles Frank (77), Charlie Hofheimer (43) |
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