Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/10/2022 i Variety

How could Jeff Zucker let himself self-destruct like that? It’s now been reported extensively just how many of his loyalists at CNN are outraged that WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar abruptly forced the charismatic leader out of his post last week for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with his “closest colleague,” chief marketing officer Allison Gollust. After all, his supporters argue, this was a consensual relationship between two single adults, so therefore what was the actual harm? True enough, but unfortunately the harm done was done by Zucker himself, and it ultimately led to his undoing at CNN when an enemy seized an opportunity to bring him down over it. Media outlets are speculating whether there might have been extenuating circumstances that have yet to surface publicly. In any case,…

There will be a lot of music in the Super Bowl LVI telecast on Feb. 13, and no, we’re not referring to the halftime show but the sounds viewers will hear throughout the game itself. The music will begin with John Williams’ “Sunday Night Football” march at the broadcast’s outset. “That’s our theme,” says Super Bowl executive producer Fred Gaudelli. “There’s a grandeur to it, an importance, that lets you know that a big game is about to begin. And there is no bigger game than the Super Bowl.” But, Gaudelli adds, a great deal more music will be heard as the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams take the field, much of it in the tradition of televised sports themes dating back to the 1960s: appropriately muscular music…

Add Hannah Waddingham (1) to the list of actors who would love to be in a superhero movie. “Why do you think I’ve done sci-fi things in the past?” says the “Ted Lasso” star, whose credits include the television adaptation of “12 Monkeys” and “Krypton,” a Syfy series about Superman’s grandfather. “Why wouldn’t I want to play something that goes, ‘Oh, now you’re going to walk through that wall and kill everyone in the room and then shoot up to the sky?’” Does she have a particular superhero in mind? “All the Marvel characters are magnificent,” says Waddingham, who is in London with the cast and crew of “Ted Lasso” prepping to shoot the hit Apple TV Plus series’ third season in early March. “I want to be one that…

Familiar Faces Behind Downtown’s Caldo Verde Lucques restaurant has been gone for a few years, but its many Hollywood devotees can now experience the rustic flavors and well-selected wines of Suzanne Goin and Carolyne Styne two ways at downtown L.A.’s stylish new Proper Hotel, whose interiors were designed by Kelly Wearstler. On the rooftop is Cara Cara: The casual lounge’s menu of salads, tacos and burgers is perfect for sipping a passion fruit caipirinha while looking out at the city lights. Off the lobby, the Portuguese-influenced Caldo Verde — named for the saffron-scented stew of rock crabs, kale and tomato — is the hotel’s centerpiece restaurant. Los Angeles isn’t exactly known for its Portuguese food, so why now? Goin, who worked for several years in Providence, R.I., home to a…

ESPN EXECUTIVES HAVE BEEN TRYING SINCE 2018 to convince Peyton Manning to join the in-studio broadcast team for their flagship “Monday Night Football.” Now they may be happier that he turned down those overtures. That’s because the retired NFL quarterback has gained traction with an alternate “Monday Night Football” telecast for ESPN2 that he began hosting with his younger brother, Eli, another former all-star QB, in September. The stakes couldn’t be higher for ESPN, the NFL or the TV business — even though the decidedly low-tech broadcast, which quickly came to be known as “ManningCast,” feels like a cross between hanging out in a sports bar and a glorified Zoom session. The brothers have held forth for 10 Monday nights during the 2021 NFL season, offering live banter and crosstalk alongside…

The Oscar nominations for 2021 films on Feb. 8 delivered excitement, surprises and the expected controversy, which mostly played out on Twitter. What follows is a breakdown of the major categories. The Academy Awards will be handed out March 27, returning to its traditional format in-person at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Oscar voting closes March 22. Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog” landed the most Oscar noms with 12, including a historic one for director-screenwriter Jane Campion — she is the first woman to be nominated twice in the director category. Campion’s 1920s-set Western dominated Warner Bros.’ epic sci-fi “Dune,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival — giving the Denis Villeneuve film a glamorous boost and the upscale sheen of a major international film festival — earned 10…

The maxim “everything’s bigger in Texas” most definitely applies when it comes to having an out-sized per capita concentration of brilliant songwriters. So, it’s almost surprising to realize that it took until 2005 for a Texas Song-writers Assn. to be formed, for the purpose of finally founding a Hall of Fame. One key figure in its origins was a beloved Texan not everyone realizes had a reputation as “a lover of the song, and a friend to songwriters”: Darel K. Royal, the late UT football coach. But its start really dates back to a meeting in an Austin restaurant backroom between creator Terry Boothe and radio personality Bob Cole, at which ideas about who to induct first were jotted down on a napkin. “I wish we saved that napkin,” laughs…

Ever since Jeff Zucker seized the reins at CNN in early 2013, the cable news network has been one of the loudest voices in media circles. Now, even though Discovery didn’t push the executive out, there’s a sense the company will, after it buys CNN along with the rest of WarnerMedia, look to turn down the volume. In the Zucker era, CNN became more swashbuckling and more opinionated than it ever was under founder Ted Turner or his successors at the former Time Warner. CNN went from deliver-ing the headlines to being in the headlines. But Zucker pushed CNN to be blunt and unstinting in its efforts to hold feet to the fire. Zucker is friends with Discovery chief David Zaslav, and there had been an expectation the two would…

With the Super Bowl taking place in the greater Los Angeles area for the first time in almost than 30 years — Pasadena hosted the 1993 game between Dallas and Buffalo — celebrities, NFL stars and musical acts will descend on the city for a week of parties, concerts, galas and VIP events. But one can’t forget omicron. While the 2022 Super Bowl weekend once looked like it would return somewhat to normal after a quieter 2021, the COVID surge has caused several event companies to alter their plans. For example, Medium Rare co-founder Adam Richman says the company’s Shaq’s Fun House event was meant to host 12,000 guests. However, the organizers have scaled down to 5,000. “We’re working closely with the city of L.A. and the state of California…

Gen Z won’t sit for a three-hour sporting event on boring old TV. They want an interactive, personalized experience that feels more like a video game, one that pulls them into the action with live stats, chats and alternate audio feeds — and maybe even launches them into VR. So goes a running narrative in the sports biz, which has spurred leagues and broadcast and streaming partners to introduce a roster of newfangled options for fans online. The goal: to keep sports relevant for the next generation and develop new ways to monetize media rights on alternate platforms. But analysts say that while it’s smart for the industry to experiment with tech innovations, so far those haven’t really moved the needle in the context of overall sports viewership. Major League…

GRAY’S GOLD After Oscar nominations were announced Feb. 8, the buzz seems equally centered on who was nominated and who wasn’t. There’s an impressive roster of work in both categories. To the nominees, congrats. And to the also-rans, the Academy “snubs” are merely reminders that 2021 offered too many good contenders for Oscar’s handful of slots. So as the dust settles from nominations, let’s pause and reflect on the year in film. One of the big takeaways this awards season is the number of new filmmakers. First-time directors include Maggie Gyllenhaal, with the mem-orable “The Lost Daughter”; Clint Bentley, “Jockey”; Halle Berry, “Bruised”; Rebecca Hall, “Passing”; Stephen Karam, “The Humans”; Fran Krantz, for the powerful “Mass”; Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”; Jaymes Samuel, “The Harder They Come”; and Liesl…

FILM REVIEW Director: Kenneth Branagh Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Emma Mackey Agatha Christie was born in 1890, and the heyday of movie adaptations of her novels goes quite a ways back (like, 70 or 80 years). The whole flavor and structure of this sort of delectably engineered whodunit, with its cast of suspects drawn in deliberate broad strokes and its know-it-all detective whose powers of deduction descend directly from Sherlock Holmes, is rooted in the cozy symmetry of the studio-system era. The last big-screen Christie adaptation that could be considered an all-out success, commercially and critically, was probably Sidney Lumet’s 1974 “Murder on the Orient Express,” a lavishly corny and irresistible amusement in which Albert Finney played the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as a fussbudget egomaniac with…

NBCUniversal’s Peacock service has yet to score a breakthrough hit comparable to its streaming rivals. But the first-time showrunners of the Will Smith-produced “Bel-Air” are bullish about their ability to do so, given its iconic roots and the marketing push surrounding its Super Bowl Sunday debut. “I love our position,” says Rasheed Newson, co-showrunner with T.J. Brady, his longtime writing partner, who suggests that the show could provide a transformative role on the service akin to “Breaking Bad” on AMC during its early forays into original programming. NBC will air a custom spot during the big game on Feb. 13 to encourage pigskin viewers to sample the show, a dark reimagining of 1990s hit sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” that was inspired by Morgan Cooper’s 2019 viral video revisiting…

AWARDS CIRCUIT After years of trying, does Netflix finally have the suitable film, at the right time, to win the coveted top category at the Academy Awards — and become the first streamer to do so? Based on the showing for “The Power of the Dog” at the Feb. 8 nominations announcement — it leads the field with 12 — it sure looks like it might. Netflix received its first feature film Oscar nominations for “Mudbound,” a groundbreaking 2017 release recognized in four categories, including Rachel Morrison for cinematography. But the film did not score a best picture nom. The streaming giant nearly triumphed with the Spanish-language film “Roma” (2018) from Alfonso Cuarón, snaring 10 noms, including best picture. It won four trophies, and Cuarón became the first winner of…

Jan. 31 ‘Moonfall’ Premiere TCL Chinese Theatre, Hollywood The festivities for the world premiere of Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster film were originally planned for 1,200 people in Westwood but were scaled back to a socially distanced screening for 300 due to concerns about omicron. “When Lionsgate said we could do it at the Chinese, I said, ‘Let’s just have the party at my house,’” Emmerich told Variety afterward as guests arrived for a poolside soiree at his Hollywood Hills estate. Feb. 2 ‘Reacher’ Premiere The Grove, Los Angeles Actor Alan Ritchson discussed the work it took to get ready to play the titular character, including putting on 30 pounds of muscle. “Then the fight training was another level,” he told Variety. “Reacher’s a heavy yoke to wear; he left me…

Classic glamour was costume designer Caroline Duncan’s goal when building the wardrobe for Jennifer Lopez, who plays global pop star Kat Valdez in “Marry Me.” In the Universal Pictures film, in theaters Feb. 11, Kat is one-half of a mega-celebrity couple and engaged to Bastian, played by singer Maluma. The two plan to get married onstage and stream their nuptials around the world while performing the titular hit single. Since the wedding dress is a centerpiece of the story, it needed to be a showstopper. Plucked from the runway of Zuhair Murad’s bridal collection, the strapless Cinderella-esque rose-gold metallic gown consisted of nine layers constructed of silk taffeta, horsehair and tulle. The delicate combination of sparkling crystals, silver, ruffles, embroidery and lace “made it extremely heavy,” says Duncan. “The dress…

Sound designer Nathan Ruyle established the post-production studio This Is Sound Design in 2008 to enhance the intern experience for film students and the next generation of sound designers. Ruyle, who has partnered with Temple University, CalArts and AFI, says, “The goal is for each person who comes through our program to have the opportunity to directly participate in every part of the sound-post process: dialogue and FX editing; ADR and foley recording; and mixing, with specific reading and tutorial work as prep for each section of the process.” Further, Ruyle’s collaboration with AFI hopes to integrate the studio’s semester-long internships more formally into short-film projects. “It gives young sound designers a chance to be a mean-ingful contributor to a project from the conceptual stage through the final mix,” Ruyle…