Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/3/2022 i Variety

Mo Ostin, who died July 31 at age 95, transcended tectonic events in the business. Starting at Verve and then joining Frank Sinatra at Reprise, he always knew there was something more than the expected. Verve was a jazz label but signed Ricky Nelson; it’s an understatement to suggest that Sinatra wasn’t fond of rock ’n’ roll, but somehow, Mo convinced him to sign the Kinks. Ostin was open-minded: He went beyond the predictable and took chances on real artistry. He signed the Beach Boys when they were thought to be passé; he brought Jimi Hendrix to Burbank from what seemed to be outer space and backed artists of dubious commercial potential just because they were good at what they did. He believed in talent and that belief usually paid…

THE LIGHTS were dim and the air clouded with mist as a bearded gentleman holding a tall wooden staff bade his guests to reach into a giant fire pit and select a personal dragon egg. Later, as everyone waited their turn to sit atop the Iron Throne, a woman in a long Renaissance gown approached them: “Do you know any Targaryens? Lannisters? I’m a lady who likes the wealth.” The elaborate activation — boasting a colossal dragon skull and dozens of actors playing palace guards, local drunks and more — was part of HBO’s efforts to get the 130,000 attendees at San Diego Comic-Con excited for “House of the Dragon,” the first of what executives dearly hope are many spinoff series from the most gargantuan hit in the network’s history,…

While saltier reality shows including Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise and HBO Max’s “FBoy Island” are still very much a thing — and very popular — there has also been a bumper crop of “nice” reality programming infiltrating the arena. And, it turns out, Television Academy voters are fans. A look at the reality categories in this year’s Emmys race include Netflix’s A-for-effort baking competition series “Nailed It!,” the long-running, pride-focused VH1 series “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and both NBC’s mentorship musician series “The Voice” and its goofy-sweet crafts program “Making It.” Even the vibe of perennial Emmy nominee, Bravo’s “Top Chef,” comes with a message of respect for the artistry of cooking. “Our brand is to do aspirational programming,” says Jo Sharon who, with Casey Kriley, is the co-CEO of production…

STRUCTURED Antiques Roadshow (PBS) The PBS series has garnered 20 Emmy nominations across multiple categories over the years, shifting from non-fiction to reality program and finally into structured reality program in 2015; it has yet to win a single statuette. Will the long-running series ever go beyond collecting noms and move to trophies? The appraisal seems to be low at the moment. Fixer Upper: Welcome Home (MAGNOLIA NETWORK) The first nomination for Chip and Joanna Gaines is priceless, but it also came with the launch of their own Magnolia Network. Not just renovating homes, they continue to renovate the TV landscape and Academy voters are noticing. The Lone Star state couple could start a new winning trend for the Emmys. Love Is Blind (NETFLIX) The streaming sensation has tickled the…

LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES Dopesick (HULU) The second-most nominated limited series, Hulu’s “Dopesick” is the front-runner for star Michael Keaton and is very competitive in races such as directing and writing for Danny Strong. A story of the moment, drug addiction affects every demographic and may hit closer to home for Television Academy voters more so than other shows about lighter subjects. The Dropout (HULU) Even though the series landed six respectable nominations, it missed some expected categories, including for supporting actors Naveen Andrews and William H. Macy. That points to less-than-stellar support leading into phase two voting. The Hulu drama about the Elizabeth Holmes saga may have to settle for a win for Amanda Seyfried. Inventing Anna (NETFLIX) Down but not out, the Netflix summer midyear sensation picked up…

Warner Bros. Discovery is about to find out whether bigger and broader really is better when it comes to streaming. Ever since he took over the merged company in April, CEO David Zaslav has been clear about his vision for one global platform, and with the company’s latest earnings release this week, Wall Street anticipation about details regarding a combo HBO Max and Discovery+ offering is growing. This would enable people who signed up to binge-watch “Barry,” “Succession” and “Last Week To night With John Oliver” to get their fill of “Naked and Afraid” and hundreds of hours of the excitable Food Network personality Guy Fieri hosting supermarket competitions and chowing down on chicken-fried steak or meatloaf at dining hot spots. Will the two fit together? The names HBO and…

Patton Oswalt is OK with making you squirm. After all, the actor and comic once performed a number called “The Cringe” on an episode of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a title that could describe his approach to making people laugh. “Real comedy comes from those moments,” Oswalt says. “I fully ascribe to Tracy Morgan’s maxim that ‘Cool is the enemy of funny.’ Cringe and awkwardness are real humanity, and that’s where the real funny stuff comes from.” A comic’s comic adored by peers and audiences for wry, observational humor that often comes at his own expense, he’s also proven to be a skilled dramatic actor, recently playing Nixon’s hatchet man Chuck Colson in the limited series “Gaslit.” But his new film, “I Love My Dad,” ups the ante in discomfort while offering…

The mob in Italy, besides being an endemic plague, has always been grist for the film and TV mill, with gritty Naples-set show “Gomorrah,” the country’s top TV export, being one recent example. But a major change is underway in how Italian producers and talents are tackling organized crime tropes that were once exclusively imbued in patriarchal pathos. Mob stories coming out of Italy are primarily a woman’s thing these days. Or, rather, the perspective is a female one. Take Amazon’s recently launched Italian original “Bang Bang Baby,” the 1980s Milan-set tale of 16-year-old Alice Barone (rising star Arianna Becheroni), who while living with her single mom learns by chance that her dad, whom she thought dead, is very much alive and a boss of the Calabrian crime syndicate known…

AWARD SCIRCUIT As the number of major late-night shows continues to shrink, so does the Television Academy’s window to figure out how to handle the variety talk and variety sketch categories. It has resisted making any more changes since unsuccessfully attempting to remerge talk and sketch in 2020, but given monumental shifts in the genre, the Academy will have no choice but to map out new rules for 2023. “Desus & Mero” and “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” — two of the few late-night shows not hosted by middle-aged white dudes — have officially ended, further shrinking next year’s Emmy submission pool. Technically, “Full Frontal” can compete for next year’s trophies due to the fact four episodes aired in June, but the odds are probably not in her favor: “Conan”…

When it comes to the production design in a variety, reality or competition series category, there’s been a clear leader. “Saturday Night Live” has been nominated in the category 17 times, winning six. The NBC show remains the title holder, last year taking home the trophy for the Kristen Wiig-hosted episode. Vying for the same Emmy this year — for its nominated second episode of Season 47, hosted by Kim Kardashian — “Saturday Night Live” faces smartly put together competition from HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Netflix’s “Queer Eye” and VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” As always, the job means being proactive and provocative as production designers create and carry out the overall aesthetic vision of a script’s throughlines (or a reality series’…

Before he was a director of spectacles like “Deadpool 2,” David Leitch did stunts for dozens of productions, often doubling for Brad Pitt in “Troy,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “Fight Club.” Leitch puts his stunt background to good use in the action film “Bullet Train,” opening Aug. 5, in which he reteams with Pitt, this time as director. Based on a Japanese novel, the action comedy revolves around five assassins from around the globe who find themselves on a fast-moving train. Pitt stars as Ladybug, alongside Sandra Bullock, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Shannon, Zazie Beetz, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bad Bunny. Leitch aimed to deliver a character-driven story that captures the action in camera rather than relying on CGI and green screen. It was up to Greg Rementer, the film’s…

FILM REVIEW Director: Dan Trachtenberg Starring: Amber Midthunder, Dane DiLiegro, Dakota Beavers “Prey,” a prequel in the “Predator” series, stands as proof that Hollywood today can make a socially conscious movie out of anything. I offer an advance apology to fans of this dogged franchise when I say that over the last 35 years, it would be hard to find a strain of sci-fi action cinema more trashy or degraded than the “Predator” films. The original “Predator,” directed by John McTiernan in 1987 (the year before he made “Die Hard”), was a what-are-we-going-to-do-with-Arnold-this-time? vintage-’80s Schwarzenegger combat showdown, and in its overwrought and derivative way it was reasonably well-made. The first sequel, released in 1990, was the pits, but you could already perceive the rationale of the executives. They thought they’d…

Dan Trachtenberg was still developing “Prey,” an 18th-century-set installment in the “Predator” action series with a Native storyline, when he was informed that the Fox project would debut on Hulu rather than in theaters. But the director wasn’t going to let altered distribution plans derail his aspirations for the project. “I’ve worked in a lot of television where we’re always boxed in the format we have to work in,” says Trachtenberg, who made his feature directorial debut with “10 Cloverfield Lane.” “That was not the case here.” “Prey” transports the “Predator” franchise first fronted by Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the Great Plains at a time when encroaching Colonial forces had not yet affected some Native Americans. A Comanche Nation woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder) is hungry to prove her hunting…

Tarion Egerton knows about fame — especially after the attention he received for his award-winning work as Elton John in 2019’s “Rocketman.” But Egerton never felt as popular as he did on July 23 when Britney Spears posted videos on her Instagram of them together in London. “I felt very, very, very famous for a second,” Egerton tells me on this week’s “Just for Variety” podcast, crediting her “passionate fans” for all the love and attention. The video — which Spears captioned, “Coolest guy ever!!! Such a freaking fan!” — was taken at a mutual friend’s dinner party. “She was very, very, very lovely,” the actor reports, explaining he’s been a fan of the pop star since her early days. “I was exactly the right age to have been swept…

In 2011, Jennifer Coolidge’s agent came to her with an offer: A theater in London was putting on a production of the musical “Legally Blonde,” based on the 2001 film in which Coolidge played the lovably dizzy manicurist Paulette. (The seductive “bend-and-snap” move Paulette practices on film? In the show, it’s a whole number.) And the theater wanted her to audition. ¶ “I said to my agent, what do you mean, audition?” she recalls. “It’s not a straight offer?” He reiterated the request: Would she be willing to fly to London to try out for a part she’d already played? “My agent said, ‘I think they just want to see if you can sing and dance.’ Look, if I got up onstage and farted, and that’s all I did, it…

While an encouraging message swirls through the unscripted space, the limited series and TV movie hopefuls are packed with familiar stories “The Amazing Race” still holds the record for most wins in the competition category, with 10 altogether starting in 2003, the year the category launched, to its most recent win in 2014. That means married producers Elise Doganieri and Bertram Van Munster together have 20 statues, which got us curious: Where do you put all that hardware? The duo invited us to their home to find out, and it turns out they’re very tastefully displayed on shelves in a living area. “The first win, 2003, was so nerve-wracking, that I almost didn’t want to go on stage,” Van Munster says. “I was almost hoping we wouldn’t win so I…

The Amazing Race (CBS) The most nominated series in the category's history with 19, the CBS staple has only missed a nom once since the competition category’s creation in 2003. With its two nominations this year, it seemed to benefit from the expansion to six nominees in this category due to submissions. However, the mention may be its reward with buzzier new shows in the mix. Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls (AMAZON PRIME VIDEO) The new "grrrl" on the block, Lizzo scored with her first series, a contest promoting body positivity. The series surprised kudos watchers by landing an incredible six Emmy noms, including directing, editing and casting noms, three key areas that can amount to a winning evening even if Lizzo was not nominated as host. Nailed…

One year ago, the team behind NBC’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” was devastated when the broadcast network pulled the plug on the musical series after two seasons. At the time, the show’s cast, as well as creator Austin Winsberg, were vocal about how sad they were about the untimely end; after pitching it around and hoping for a pickup, it seemed to be dead in the water. And then the Roku Channel came around and offered a chance to wrap it up in the shape of a movie; the two-hour holiday pic focused on the Clarke family’s first Christmas without patriarch Mitch (Peter Gallagher), who died at the end of the first season. “We had ended Season 2 on a massive cliffhanger, but we had many new stories we still wanted…