Innholdsfortegnelse for 10/13/2021 i Variety

We in the media have known for some time that Alan Horn would be retiring from Disney at year’s end, as Variety has reported. But somehow when Disney officially announced the news this week that indeed the 78-year-old leader would be leaving as of Dec. 31, it really hit me, and made me sad. I have enjoyed a great working relationship with Horn for so long, especially over these past nine years at Disney and the 12 before that when he headed Warner Bros. Of course, I knew him from his days at Castle Rock Entertainment, which he co-founded in 1987, though less well in his earlier jobs at 20th Century Fox and Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio’s Embassy Communications, where he launched his entertainment career. I have always said…

JUST FOR VARIETY Playing a lesbian on “The Morning Show” isn’t the first time that Julianna Margulies (1) has taken on a gay role. She and Kyra Sedgwick played a couple in the 2000 indie “What’s Cooking?” However, that was years before there was a push for LGBTQ actors to be cast in LGBTQ roles. During an appearance on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast, I asked Margulies if she had any reservations about playing gay on “The Morning Show.” “Who’s to say I haven’t had my own gay experiences?” Margulies says. “We’re making assumptions.” In “The Morning Show,” Margulies is an out television news reporter who ends up dating Bradley, played by Reese Witherspoon. “You’ve got Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon playing these two very strong…

When it comes to creative and impactful figures in animation, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more worthy duo than writers-directors-producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who have delivered game-changing animation for close to two decades. Variety is honoring them this year with the Creative Impact in Animation Award. Their list of credits is huge, spanning both film and television as well as animation and live-action, including producing 2018’s groundbreaking “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which won the Oscar and Golden Globe for animated feature, among many other accolades. They also produced this year’s hit “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” out of Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix, and are involved in a revival of their celebrated, though short-lived, animated series “Clone High.” They also wrote and directed the critical darlings “Cloudy…

The Greatest American Hero ABC (1981-1983) This dramedy spoof of superhero tropes didn’t last long but it reflected a willingness to try something offbeat, one of Roth’s signatures. It was produced by Stephen J. Cannell, who would eventually recruit Roth to serve as president of his bustling independent production outfit. Wiseguy CBS (1987-1990) A gangster drama revolving around an undercover law enforcement agent played by Ken Wahl was the most acclaimed series to come from Stephen J. Cannell Prods. during Roth’s six years as president. The show, which was also an early springboard for Jonathan Banks and Stanley Tucci, earned an Emmy nomination for drama series in 1989. The X-Files Fox (1993-2002) Roth was head of the 20th Century Fox Television banner when Chris Carter’s influential drama series landed on…

TV REVIEW Drama: HBO (Season 3; 9 episodes, 7 reviewed); Oct. 18 Starring: Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin “Succession” is not a show that will back away from a challenge. The end of the second season radically clarified the series’ vision. Though the relationship between patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) had long been a central concern, their bipolar power struggle over the future of the family company felt less reinvigorated than reimagined at season’s end. And in the first seven of nine episodes of Season 3 — perhaps the show’s most sharply observed run so far — “Succession” probes the contours of its new reality. Kendall’s public declaration of his father’s culpability in various scandals has split the Roy family, and the…

In 2014, Fox Searchlight methodically rolled out “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a twee pastiche of old-world Europe, in movie theaters across North America. The quirky comedic drama, from director Wes Anderson, had an opening that would be familiar to most indie films: playing in only four theaters (two in New York and two in Los Angeles) before gradually checking into more venues. The studio was rewarded for its efforts, averaging more than $200,000 per location in its initial run and establishing art-house records that still hold. “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which eventually made $59 million in North America and $179 million globally and won four of nine Oscar nominations, remains a gold standard for commercial success in the arthouse space. “Any time you are mentioned for awards contention, it helps…

Clayton Davis, Variety film awards editor, has been named journalist of the year by the National Assn. of Latino Independent Producers. Davis will be honored Oct. 13 as part of the organization’s virtual two-day Latino Media Fest event, which is designed to showcase the work of Latino content creators across a range of genres. A lifelong movie fan, Davis joined Variety in August 2020 and quickly established himself as a strong voice in covering Hollywood’s year-round awards marketplace. He is co-host of Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, and earlier this year he was tapped to co-host Variety’s weekly entertainment news series “The Take.” “Clayton has gone above and beyond not only with his teaching in the community but with his founding of the Latino Entertainment Journalists Assn.,” says NALIP executive director…

Horses Gallops Into Hollywood Horses is the latest incarnation of the historic Sunset Boulevard space where Ye Coach & Horses was stabled for 73 years before becoming the Pikey. It’s been totally transformed since Quentin Tarantino and Tim Roth legendarily scribbled scenes for “Pulp Fiction” on cocktail napkins there. Color-saturated canvases from artist Kacper Abolik warm up the space, which has the cozy feel of a European bistro. Chefs Will Aghajanian, of Per Se, and Liz Johnson, who won acclaim at L.A.’s haute deli Freedman’s, envision Horses as a “new restaurant with old values,” according to Johnson, with homey dishes reminiscent of the sunny south of France. The compact menu focuses on drink-friendly offerings like iced oysters, smoked salmon lavash, butcher’s steak grilled over vine cuttings or a burger and…

On the evening of March 12, 2015, Critical Role had its first public showing. In a livestreamed event from a dimly lit studio in Burbank, eight players sat at a table immersed in a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game for nearly three hours — their first foray in a form of storytelling that would bloom into an indie media empire, complete with an upcoming Amazon show. Before C.R. began streaming shows on Twitch and YouTube, it started as a group of friends who knew each other from voice-over gigs in animation and video games playing D&D together. The first two sessions were at the L.A. apartment of Matthew Mercer, Critical Role’s long-standing dungeon master, and Marisha Ray, who is now the company’s creative director; they then moved to the house…

JOAQUÍN COCIÑA AND CRISTÓBAL LEÓN “The Bones” Chilean stop-motion animators Cociña and León, who met while studying art and design at Universidad Católica de Chile, have always considered themselves “visual artists.” “I wasn’t into animation,” says Cociña. “I was more into drawing and video. And, basically, Cristóbal came one day to an art show opening of my big charcoal drawings. And he said, ‘Would you like to work with me? We can work together with your drawings.’ So we started working together.” Their inaugural collaboration was the experimental short film “Lucia” in 2007, followed by short films such as “Luis,” “The Arc” and “Padre. Madre.” In 2018, the duo’s debut feature, “The Wolf House,” a dark, gothic-like drama about a young woman who escapes a German cult and takes refuge…

The cutting edge of the convergence of digital storytelling and technology will be on display at the upcoming View Conference, at which industry pros at various levels, fans and geeks of different stripes will be able to take a deep dive into the latest developments in animation, VFX, virtual production and games. On the creative side, the range of top-notch guests at View this year goes from Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, who is being feted and will kick off proceedings with a live chat held with “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise director Dean DeBlois, to eminent animator Jorge Gutierrez, who’s set to deliver the closing keynote by delving into how his anticipated Mexican fantasy series “Maya and the Three” was made, just as it drops on Netflix. In terms…

AWARD SCIRCUIT Coming up on the 20th anniversary of Halle Berry’s historic best actress win in 2002, we’re still looking for a second woman of color to join her. Now that the big four fall festivals — Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York — are over, only a few women of color are contenders in the actress race. And it’s possible that none of them will make the cut when the Oscar nominations are announced in February. (Last winter marked only the second time in Academy Awards history that two Black women — Viola Davis and Andra Day — were nominated for best actress in the same year.) So who is in the running for 2022? Berry, who won her Oscar for playing a waitress in “Monster’s Ball,” is making…

IATSE leadership got a big win on Oct. 4, when more than 98% of the rank and file voted to authorize a strike. Having riled people up, the leaders now face pressure to deliver the goods. Within days of the vote, members were growing frustrated at the slow pace of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. On Facebook, some members called on IATSE President Matthew D. Loeb to order a nationwide strike, which would paralyze the film and TV industry from coast to coast. As of Oct. 12, both sides were still at the table, and they appeared to be making progress toward a deal. But many members were anxious that the negotiators would settle for too little. The membership has united over a call to…

Oct. 3 ‘The Tender Bar’ Screening L.A. Live, Los Angeles George Clooney returned to the red carpet in support of his latest directorial effort, a coming-of-age drama based on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer’s memoir of the same name. “It’s good to see you knuckleheads,” Clooney joked with photographers clamoring for pics of him and his wife, Amal. Ben Affleck stars as J.R.’s bar owner, Uncle Charlie. “It’s a movie about kindness and love and support and goodness — ultimately, of people,” Affleck told Variety. “I think the world is a tough and ugly place, particularly now, so I feel good injecting this movie onto the world.” A post-party, featuring a surprise performance by Jackson Browne, took place at Sunset Tower. Oct. 3 ‘Six’ Opening Night Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New…

Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited “Dune” arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on Oct. 22, and has already become part of the awards conversation for its sumptuous visuals. The action follows Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, whose family inherits the planet Arrakis, an unforgiving desert world that also contains the only source of “spice,” the most valuable material in the universe. Cinematographer Greig Fraser (“The Mandalorian”) was guided by Villeneuve’s passion when it came to framing the film. “He’s been wanting to make this since he was a kid,” Fraser says from London. While the grandeur of the movie wows audiences, Fraser says Villeneuve felt the film should “feel extraordinarily intimate to the characters. We didn’t talk about the scale, because that goes without saying.” “Any decision I made about lens or…

Production designer Alex DiGerlando had a unique opportunity when it came to set-building for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stage-to-screen adaptation of “Tick, Tick… Boom!” (in theaters Nov. 12) — he could walk around the actual Greenwich Street apartment of “Rent” playwright Jonathan Larson. “There are a lot of vestiges of that period that are still there,” DiGerlando says. “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” an autobiographical musical, tells the story of Jon, a promising young theater composer who navigates love, friendship and the pressures of life as an artist in New York City. Larson, played in the film by Andrew Garfield, lived at the address his entire adult life, and died there in 1996 after suffering an aortic dissection on the day “Rent” was about to have its first preview performance. DiGerlando found a…

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the eponymous debut release of Duran Duran, with the iconic group also dropping its 15th studio album, “Future Past,” on Oct. 22. The aptly titled collection is referential of Duran Duran’s signature sounds, teased out by producer of the moment Erol Alkan. Italian disco and EDM composer Giorgio Moroder lends a hand on a couple of songs, and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon brings his inventiveness to the mix. Featured guests on the album include Tove Lo, Ivorian Doll and Japanese band Chai. Duran Duran co-founder and resident tech visionary-image consultant Nick Rhodes talks then and now with Variety. • What are your thoughts about “Duran Duran” and MTV turning 40 this year? MTV feels so much older than us, don’t they? For the…