| | | | | | What's news: Lionsgate is offering U.S. employees voluntary severance and retirement packages. Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's attempt to overturn her conviction has been denied. Charli D’Amelio is set to make her Broadway debut. Amazon has picked up a Reacher spinoff. Ryan Murphy's The Beauty has landed at FX. The Penguin has become a huge ratings success for HBO. — Abid Rahman
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Sony Shake-Up: Vinciquerra Stepping Down ►Changing of the guard. Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra is set to step down, with Ravi Ahuja set to become president and CEO beginning in 2025. Ahuja was elevated to president and COO earlier this year, a move meant to position him as a successor to Vinciquerra and give him experience across the company. Vinciquerra will remain with SPE as non-executive chairman through 2025. The veteran exec joined SPE in 2017 in the aftermath of the devastating Sony hack, helping to turn the company’s balance sheet and strategic focus around. Along the way he led SPE through the pandemic, last year’s Hollywood strikes and the larger shift toward streaming video, notably opting not to launch a broad-based streaming service like Sony's studio rivals. The story.
—Cutting costs. Lionsgate is offering employees in the U.S. voluntary severance and retirement packages, CEO Jon Feltheimer wrote in a memo to staff on Monday. A target for the number of staff reductions at the Santa Monica-based company was not disclosed. As of its latest annual report, Lionsgate employed 1,500 staffers worldwide. The studio has released a series of underperforming titles in the past two months, including Borderlands ($32m in box office receipts globally), The Crow ($23.5m), 1992 ($2.9m), The Killer’s Game ($5.8m) and Never Let Go ($8.3m). The story.
—Codified. California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a union-supported bill that seeks to protect entertainment workers’ use of loan-out companies after an audit earlier this year provoked widespread concern about their future. The governor’s office announced that Newsom had officially greenlit SB 422 on Monday. The bill, which received the backing of the Entertainment Union Coalition — consisting of the California IATSE Council, the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, the Teamsters Local 399 and LiUNA! Local 724 — codifies that a loan-out company is the employer of entertainment workers that set up these companies and work under their auspices, and is responsible for paying employer taxes. The story. |
Where Is Bob Weinstein? ►"Bob Weinstein has no business running anything, let alone launching a new production company." As disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein awaits a retrial of his landmark 2020 rape conviction and faces a new sexual assault charge in New York, his younger brother Bob is getting ready to make his comeback. THR's Rebecca Keegan reports that a new Danny Trejo horror movie is the first of three new films from Bob Weinstein's Watch This Entertainment, which he founded in 2019 after The Weinstein Co. filed for bankruptcy. The story.
—Latest move. Sean Combs is appealing a prior ruling ordering that he be detained while he awaits trial. The scandal-plagued mogul, in a notice filed on Monday, appealed a federal court’s order denying him bail. The two-page filing didn’t specify arguments. The legal maneuvering seeks to overturn a ruling from U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter, who found that Combs poses a safety risk to the community and witnesses in the case. This came after the government unsealed a three-count indictment accusing Combs of crimes related to an alleged decades-long pattern of physical and sexual violence against people in his orbit. The story.
—Rebuffed. A bid from Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to overturn her conviction for involuntary manslaughter over the accidental shooting death of the film’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has been denied. A Santa Fe judge on Monday upheld the guilty verdict, finding that the charges shouldn’t be dismissed and that Gutierrez-Reed isn’t entitled to a new trial. The court rebuffed arguments that prosecutors suppressed evidence of a batch of ammunition, some of which matched the bullets found on the set of the production. The story.
—"People are talking about the case." As the controversy over Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story and its portrayal of the two men who killed their parents in 1989 has become a back-and-forth between the show’s producer and the people and family whom the series portrays, several members of the cast weighed in to defend the hit Netflix show and explain the perspective shifts that caused Erik Menéndez to call it “blatant lies” from behind bars. THR's Kevin Dolak spoke to castmembers Cooper Koch, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Nathan Lane and Ari Graynor for their views on the pushback from the Menéndez family. The story. |
Don't Expect Trump or Harris to Appear on 'SNL' ►No dice. For the time being, Saturday Night Live viewers will have to settle for the show’s political impressionists, including Maya Rudolph and James Austin Johnson. In a recent interview with THR ahead of the show’s 50th season, SNL creator and long-running maestro Lorne Michaels revealed that he hadn’t reached out to the real-life candidates, and he didn’t intend to before the 2024 election. The story.
—"Project 2025 poster boy." New digital ads targeting J.D. Vance went up outside Madison Square Garden on Tuesday ahead of the vice presidential debate. The digital ads, which went live this morning, cheer on Kamala Harris‘ running mate Tim Walz, while calling out Trump’s vice presidential pick for being the “poster boy” for Project 2025, the controversial set of conservative policy proposals also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The story. |
Inside Disney's $60B Parks Investment ►"This is the future for our company." THR's Alex Weprin spoke to Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro about the company's ambitious and expansive plans for its theme parks that will see a slew of IP-driven attractions, as well as making a multi-billion dollar bet on gaming. The interview.
—Long-overdue. Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, who recently appeared in Greg Kwedar's movie Sing Sing, had his conviction overturned Monday, after being wrongfully imprisoned for murder for decades. Velazquez, now 48, was convicted by trial in 1999 of shooting and killing a retired police officer, Albert Ward, amidst the robbery of a gambling parlor in Harlem. He served more than 23 years in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility but was released in 2021 after he had his sentence commuted by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In the A24 film Sing Sing, starring Colman Domingo, Velazquez plays a version of himself as a participant in the prison’s theater program. The story.
—🎭 Broadway debut 🎭 TikTok star Charli D’Amelio is joining the company of the Broadway musical & Juliet. She will take on the role of Charmian, a dance-heavy ensemble part, starting Oct. 29 at the Sondheim Theatre, for a three-month run through Jan. 19. D’Amelio has more than 155m followers on TikTok, making her one of the most popular accounts on the social media app. Before launching her TikTok career, D’Amelio was a competitive dancer. She also won the 31st season of Dancing With the Stars. The role in & Juliet will mark her Broadway debut. The story. |
James Dean Biopic in the Works Based on Gay Memoir ►Intimate history. THR scallywag Ryan Gajewski has the scoop that a feature exploring the personal life of legendary actor James Dean is being developed. Writer-director Guy Guido has acquired the rights to late author William Bast’s 2006 memoir Surviving James Dean and plans to film a biopic of the same name. Having written the script, Guido has begun meeting with potential producers and is in the process of landing the right cast for the key roles. In his book, Bast described meeting Dean at the UCLA theater program at the age of 19 and wrote that the two men became roommates, close friends and eventually lovers. The story.
—🎭 First Nations hero 🎭 Leading Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton has signed on to direct First Warrior, an epic feature about Australian Aboriginal resistance fighter Pemulwuy. Aussie stars Sam Worthington and Jason Clarke have boarded the project in major roles, while a casting search is said to be underway for the lead role of Pemulwuy. A Bidjigal man of the Sydney area tribes, Pemulwuy led a 12-year resistance against British settlers moving into his people’s traditional lands as Australia was brutally colonized in the late 1700s. The story. |
'Reacher' Spinoff Gets Amazon Green Light ►Enter Neagley. Amazon Prime Video has officially picked up a Reacher spinoff centered on Jack Reacher’s former military colleague and sometime collaborator Frances Neagley. Maria Sten, who has appeared in both seasons of Reacher thus far (and will also be part of season three), will continue the role in the currently untitled spinoff. Amazon MGM Studios, Skydance Television and CBS Studios (taking over for the now-shuttered Paramount Television Studios) are behind the Neagley series, as they are with Reacher. The parent show’s creator, Nick Santora, and Nicholas Wootton are co-creators of the spinoff. The story.
—🎭 Another one 🎭 FX will be home to yet another series from Ryan Murphy, with the outlet picking up a drama titled The Beauty from the prolific producer's eponymous production company and 20th Television. The series, which will star Evan Peters, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope, is based on a 2016 Image Comics title of the same title. Murphy and Matthew Hodgson are credited as co-creators. The graphic novel on which the series is based, by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, is set in a world where a sexually transmitted disease spreads across the world — largely because it makes people more physically attractive. Two detectives, however, stumble on a conspiracy surrounding the disease’s origins. The story.
—🎭 Coming aboard 🎭 Leighton Meester is joining Apple TV+'s period drama The Buccaneers for its forthcoming second season. Details on the character the former Gossip Girl star will play are being kept quiet for now. Meester will become part of a cast that also includes Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag, Imogen Waterhouse, Christina Hendricks, Mia Threapleton, Guy Remmers, Matthew Broome, Josh Dylan and Barney Fishwick. The Buccaneers is based on an unfinished novel by Edith Wharton and follows a group of American girls who burst onto the London social scene in the 1870s, setting off an Anglo-American culture clash. The story. |
Chris Brown Domestic Violence Doc Set at ID ►"Chris Brown’s an amazing and talented musician, but let’s call a thing a thing. He’s an abuser of women. Consistently, unapologetically." THR's Etan Vlessing has the scoop on singer Chris Brown becoming the subject of an Investigation Discovery documentary. Chris Brown: A History of Violence will launch the true-crime network’s third annual No Excuse for Abuse campaign on Oct. 27. The doc from the TV network behind this year’s bombshell Quiet on Set doc will explore the iconic singer’s years of alleged offstage aggression, including intimate-partner violence, assault charges and even sexual assault allegations. Following the premiere, The View co-host Sunny Hostin will lead a discussion with experts and advocates on intimate partner violence for ID’s audience. The story.
—Can't be stopped. Chris Distefano is bringing his comedy to Hulu. His latest hour, which is being executive produced by Jimmy Kimmel, arrives as the streaming service makes an aggressive push into the stand-up arena, elbowing its way into an increasingly frothy market that’s been dominated by Netflix in recent years. It’s Just Unfortunate, as Distefano’s new special is titled, is his third, following previous hours Size 38 Waist and Speshy Weshy at Comedy Central and Netflix, respectively. The story.
—So hot right now. The Penguin, the HBO series starring Colin Farrell as the notorious DC villain, has racked up 10.4m cross-platform viewers for its series premiere, which debuted Sept. 19. That 11-day figure, according to the network, is outpacing every other current HBO series over a similar time frame, other than its two biggest ones: House of the Dragon and The Last of Us. Last week, HBO reported that The Penguin’s first episode stood at 5.3m viewers after four days of release, meaning about 5.1m more people watched in the subsequent week. Sunday’s second episode, meanwhile, gathered 1.6m viewers across all platforms (including a couple of on-air replays), a 17 percent improvement on night one for the premiere. The ratings.
—Strong out the gate. Saturday Night Live began its milestone 50th season with a sizable ratings bump. The season premiere, hosted by Hacks Emmy winner Jean Smart, delivered 5.3m viewers, according to same-day ratings from Nielsen (which don’t include streaming). That’s the best start for an SNL season since 2020 and a 15 percent improvement over the 4.6m viewers who tuned in for last year’s premiere. The ratings. |
Film Review: 'When Fall Is Coming' ►"A delicious chill in the air." THR's Leslie Felperin reviews François Ozon's San Sebastián competition entry, When Fall Is Coming. In this French drama, a retiree with a complicated past finds her relationship with her disapproving daughter and darling grandson derailed by an accident involving poison mushrooms. The review.
—"Sad smiles on a warm night." Leslie reviews Sylvia Le Fanu's My Eternal Summer. Danish director Le Fanu's feature debut chronicles an ailing mother's final weeks, as seen through the eyes of her 15-year-old teenage daughter, over an eventful family vacation. The review.
—"Poignant future nostalgia." THR's Dan Fienberg reviews Andrei Ujica's TWST: Things We Said Today. In this experimental documentary about The Beatles, Ujica blends archival footage with animation and narration for a unique feature that's built around, but never actually shows, the band's iconic 1965 Shea Stadium concert. The review.
In other news...
—Netflix’s new releases coming in October
—Travis Kelce becomes gameshow host in Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? trailer
—Australia’s 9Network buys all English versions of Married at First Sight
—Veep reunion fundraiser brings in $735K for Harris-Walz
—How to watch Walz-Vance VP debate online without cable
—Julia Roberts to receive honorary French César Award
—Nathan Crowley to receive EnergaCamerimage’s production designer award
—Pete Rose, baseball’s banned hits leader, dies at 83
—Dikembe Mutombo, Hall of Fame NBA player and tireless advocate, dies at 58
—Kalen Gorman, producer of behind-the-scenes content for Glee, dies at 59
What else we're reading...
—David Weigel breaks down what to expect from the Walz-Vance VP debate [Semafor]
—In a wide-ranging interview, Nilay Patel talks to NBCU’s streaming chief Matt Strauss about the decline of cable, the Olympics and more [Verge]
—Raymond Ang looks at how the Criterion Closet, where actors and directors stopped by to talk about their favorite films, became internet famous [GQ]
—Noah Shachtman details the secretive alliance between Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and Eric Adams, that initially pushed the NYC mayor into the spotlight [Intelligencer]
—A fascinating Rebecca Feng story about tens of millions empty housing units in China that are becoming more of a problem with the shrinking population [WSJ]
Today...
...in 2010, Sony released David Fincher's The Social Network in theaters. Written by Aaron Sorkin, the film told the story of the founding of Facebook and was a huge critical and commercial hit. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Julie Andrews (89), Brie Larson (35), Michaela Coel (37), Charles Edwards (55), Emerald Fennell (39), Zach Galifianakis (55), Jurnee Smollett (38), Esai Morales (62), Matthew Daddario (37), Hazal Kaya (34), Sarah Drew (44), Katie Aselton (46), Danika Yarosh (26), Ayden Mayeri (34), Danielle Bisutti (48), Marielle Heller (45), Josh Brener (40), Luna Blaise (23), Angela Giarratana (31), Jay Underwood (56), Priah Ferguson (18), Nanci Chambers (61), Hakeem Kae-Kazim (62), Sherri Saum (50), Ciarán McMenamin (49), Cassandra Freeman (46), Elizabeth Dennehy (64), Christian Borle (51), Olga Fonda (42), Tara Buckman (68), Isaiah Stannard (20), Natalija Nogulich (74), Ted King (59), Roxane Mesquida (43) |
| Gavin Creel, the Tony-winning Broadway actor known for his leading roles in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hair and the recent revival of Into the Woods, has died. He was 48. The obituary. |
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