Innholdsfortegnelse for 7/27/2022 i Variety

Hollywood created a series of lavish immersive experiences for the first full Comic-Con since 2019, giving fans gathered in San Diego the chance to visit the worlds of Apple TV+’s “Severance,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” and the upcoming “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” movie, among others. Here are five of the most notable activations this year. Abbott Elementary: ABC’s “New Teacher Dis-Orientation” gave fans of the Emmy-nominated freshman comedy a chance to walk through the “school,” located next to the Hilton Bayfront hotel. Attendees could visit Janine’s classroom and contribute to real teachers in need through curated wish lists. Performances included a professional step-dance crew. Severance: Apple TV+ turned a wing of the Hard Rock Hotel into the mysterious Lumon Industries, giving visitors their…

Last week, the French government reappointed Dominique Boutonnat for a second three-year term as president of the National Film Board (CNC), the country’s most powerful film institution, in a controversial decision that illustrates the country’s halfhearted embrace of the #MeToo movement. Boutonnat, a former producer and financier with close ties with newly reelected French president Emmanuel Macron, was indicted in February 2021 for alleged sexual assault of his 22-year-old godson the year prior. After a lengthy investigation, the prosecutor’s office has requested that the case be brought before a criminal court. A judge will soon rule if Boutonnat will face trial or if the case will be dismissed. Boutonnat’s appointment is the latest signal that France, which remains a major entertainment market, is less eager than other countries to turn…

AWARDS CIRCUIT We talk a lot about history-making Emmy nominations and wins, and it’s always fun to talk about “firsts” — such as “Squid Game” becoming the first non-English-language show to land a series nomination. But one breakthrough that struck me was BET’s significant showing via its streaming service. That includes a nod in the directing for a comedy series category, for the freshman series “The Ms. Pat Show,” and choreography for scripted programming via the period drama “The Porter.” It’s the first time BET has received any scripted series nominations; its previous three nods were for music direction, actress in a short-form series and exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking. The company’s only Emmy to date came from the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which honored…

1989 At 17, he launches Wise Guy Prods. and signs his first management clients, Ice-T’s DJ Evil-E and his brother, Hen-Gee. When they join the rapper on the inaugural Lollapalooza tour, Oseary goes along, leaving behind a brief stint at California State University, Northridge. 1992-95 Via Beverly Hills High schoolmates, Oseary meets Freddy DeMann, Madonna’s manager and the co-founder of Maverick Records. As an A&R scout for Maverick, he strikes gold in 1994 with Candlebox and 1995 with Alanis Morissette. 2014 Touted by Billboard as a consortium that will “shake up the industry,” the Maverick management collective Oseary leads “helps elevate Guy’s place in music and solidify his next chapter as a strong, credible manager,” Rapino says. 2013 Oseary is hand-picked as U2’s new manager after Paul McGuinness retires. “I’ve…

The TV Academy recognized the talents below-the-line, gave a second look at nostalgia and honored many familiar faces for their guest spots Can nostalgia be strong enough to garner an Emmy nomination? If the 2022 list of nominees is any guide, the answer is yes. In the live variety special category, the proof is in the pudding. Per usual, the Grammys, the Tonys and the Oscars — slap and all — are nominated. However, the final two slots are filled by ABC’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes” and NBC’s “Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.” The Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel live special has been nominated each time it has aired previously — first for the re-creation of “All in the…

“The Gilded Age” production designer Bob Shaw didn’t want to go overboard as he gave the grand home of Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) a “lived-in” feeling. He hung portraits on top of one another and used patterns on the wallpaper, the curtains and the chairs — all of this to show old money. “The layering is what gave that sense that they had lived there for 20 years,” says Shaw. Airing last summer, Disney+’s “Loki” was still Emmy eligible, earning six nominations. Emmy nominee Kasra Farahani was tasked by series creator Michael Waldron to build a look inspired by “Mad Men” meets “Blade Runner.” Farahani says the architecture of the Time Variance Authority offices, where a lot of action takes place, was influenced by brutalism and Soviet-style modernism. The…

Set after the events of “Return of the Jedi” and a spinoff of “The Mandalorian,” Disney+’s “The Book of Boba Fett” follows the titular bounty hunter. As part of the “Star Wars” universe, production visual-effects supervisor Richard Bluff says the VFX team weren’t just visual storytellers — they were also custodians of the “Star Wars” legacy. That meant respecting the visuals that audiences had connected with for generations. Established in “Phantom Menace,” spaceport Mos Espa was given a brand-new appearance, since the team could bring the visuals to a whole other level of detail and sophistication compared to those in the 1999 film. Whether it was building Mos Espa “outside on a parking lot,” adding practical creatures, animatronic puppets or miniature ships, all contributed to the show’s visual authenticity that…

The Television Academy’s music branch is leading the way in rewarding diversity. Nearly half or 46% of all of this year’s nominees in the music categories are women, people of color or both. Nine of the 41 nominees (22%) are women; 13 of the 41 — nearly a third — are people of color. While the female contingent is a slight decline from last year (27% in 2021), the POC percentage is way up (from one-fifth of the nominees last year). Women composers are nominated in five of the seven music categories; people of color, in six of the seven. It is a near-complete repudiation of the decades-long, studio-promulgated white male power structure that kept both women and POC out of contention for prime gigs. Academy officials are elated. “We’re…

For its 75th edition, Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, long known as a global indie cinema temple, is looking to the future while repositioning itself as a forward-thinking hub for a wider range of movies, including studio and streamer titles, with broad audience appeal. “We believe that entertainment can be both serious and fun: I don’t see an opposing scenario where entertainment is only cheap, and seriousness is only extremely highbrow,” says the fest’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. e fest’s helm, the Italian critic is putting his stamp on Locarno with a lineup that, along with straightforward auteur movies of various kinds, increasingly includes comedies and genre films. The fest’s eclectic nature is illustrated by the choice of the opener, Sony’s frothy action thriller “Bullet Train,” directed by David Leitch,…

FILM REVIEW Director: Jordan Peele Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea Jordan Peele’s “Nope” is a tantalizingly creepy mixed bag of a sci-fi thriller. It’s a movie that taps into our fear and awe of UFOs, and for a while it holds us in a shivery spell. It picks the audience up and carries it along, feeding off spectral hints of the otherworldly. Yet watching the movie, you can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Nope” mirrors the trajectory of other films that have been made in the shadow of “Close Encounters,” like M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival.” Here, as in those films, the anticipation works better than the payoff. Daniel Kaluuya, an actor so…

In Hollywood, it’s never too early to start thinking about the Oscars. There are seven more months until the next Academy Awards, but studios and indie players are busy planning their campaigns for films they hope will go the distance. Already there are a pair of populist contenders in Paramount’s blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” and A24’s metaverse action-dramedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which have cemented themselves in the best picture discussion. But as fall festivals such as Venice and Toronto unveil their slates, it’s clear the battle will be joined by many more Oscar candidates. “Many of the studios that are expected to vie for awards are grappling with major corporate shifts or even new parent companies.” To be sure, a lot has changed since “CODA” captured the top…

“Bullet Train” producer and 87North co-founder Kelly McCormick’s guiding principle in filmmaking has been “finding the truth in fiction,” a response to earlier documentary work, where “it was not uncommon to twist stories to make them more entertaining.” So she pivoted to producing content that packs a different sort of emotional — and physical — punch. McCormick’s latest film, “Bullet Train,” directed by her husband and 87North partner David Leitch, stars Brad Pitt as a hit man who finds himself on a snatch-and-grab job that grows more complicated by the minute. Pitt leads an ensemble cast, including Sandra Bullock, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry and Bad Bunny, in a wild ride that showcases the company’s signature blend of hyper-violence and heart. “I look at action as melodrama,” McCormick…

Before striking gold with her breakout role on “Ted Lasso,” Hannah Waddingham (1) was already a bona fide theater star. However, the Brit actor-singer tells me she won’t be returning to the stage anytime in the near future. “There have been plenty of opportunities that have come up, but I’m not ready to do that yet,” Waddingham says. “Not least of which my little girlie — the love of my life — is about to turn 8. I’m not ready to be out at night. It’s a very muscular, all-encompassing career shift. It’s eight shows a week, and I’m just about to turn 48 at the end of this month, so I’ll leave it to other people at the moment.” Tommy Chong (2) says reuniting with the “That ’70s Show”…

Guy Oseary has proven himself in every field he’s taken on: as a music manager, as an early digital investor and most recently as an entrepreneur in the emerging world of NFTs and Web3 entertainment. But for all that, he had privately catered to one bit of insecurity that he finally let go during the downtime imposed by COVID shutdowns. “A silver lining of the pandemic is that Guy Oseary became a silver fox,” says Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a longtime friend and now client of Oseary. The two hadn’t seen each other for a year when “I went to an island he was hanging out on, and he was 100% radiant,” the singer continues. “He looked like a friggin’ movie star from the 1930s. Not…

The estimated $55 million music market in Israel, like the Middle Eastern country’s comparatively small size, would quantify as the equivalent of a rounding error for a global music company. But its recorded music revenue growth was up 10.2% in 2021, per the IFPI, and the majors are taking notice. In 2021, UMG opened a Tel Aviv office housing a recorded music division and an arm of Universal Music Publishing Group (headed by Yoram Mokady and Itamar Shafrir, respectively). In addition to developing local Hebrew-language talent, the company has partnered with James Diener, who signed Maroon 5 to its first label deal, and Ken Levitan, whose Nashville-based Vector Management is home to T Bone Burnett, Kesha and Kid Rock. Their goal: to find a six-to 10-member boy band — Israel’s…

It was hard not to feel a pang of frustration while scanning through the supporting and guest acting categories for this year’s Emmy nominations. As has become an increasingly alarming trend, voters saw fit to reward actors from a precious few series while leaving so many fantastic other possibilities in the dust. With so many of television’s very best performances unfolding in supporting roles, and at a time when there’s more TV than ever, it remains a curious shame how few shows tend to dominate the Emmys come nomination morning. Just as last year, “Succession” and “Ted Lasso” made their presences known. As my colleague Adam B. Vary calculated out of sheer nerdy curiosity (his words), “Ted Lasso” cast members make up a quarter of the total comedy acting nominees,…

Composer Siddhartha Khosla landed three Emmy nominations, this year, including one for original main title theme for “Only Murders in the Building.” The catchy earworm, Khosla says, happened with ease. “I got on my piano, and just sang it over.” The quirky, emotional tune is backed by Khosla’s humming and upside-down buckets, which are used as drums. Says Khosla, “That begins the piece, and they’re the driving momentum.” The drummer is James McAlister, who plays with Sufjan Stevens and the National. “I called James and asked if it would be weird to put Home Depot buckets on this piece of music,” Khosla adds. “He went out and bought five buckets to create a drum set. He put microphones on top and it looked like he was a street musician.” The…

Although there’s been a bit of controversy about how few series are recognized in the Emmys’ guest actor and guest actress categories, there are quite a few talented stars who have yet to win an Emmy — or even be recognized at all by the Television Academy. Rookie nominees in the guest actor categories include Jerrod Carmichael (“Saturday Night Live”), Colman Domingo (“Euphoria”), James Lance and Sam Richardson (“Ted Lasso”), Christopher McDonald (“Hacks”), Arian Moayed (“Succession”) and Tom Pelphrey (“Ozark”). On the guest actress side, Harriet Sansom Harris (“Hacks”), Martha Kelly (“Euphoria”), Sanaa Lathan (“Succession”) and Lee You-mi (“Squid Game”) are all looking for their first win. There are also seven guest actors and actresses who have been nominated in the past but have yet to secure the trophy: Harriet…

From the private clubs and high-rises of New York to the sweltering oil fields of West Texas, B.J. Novak’s “Vengeance,” in theaters July 29, dives into a fish-out-ofwater story. “The Office” alum Novak, who also wrote and stars in the dark comedy, plays Ben, a writer for The New Yorker and wannabe podcaster who finds himself traveling to a remote Texas town. Cinematographer Lyn Moncrief wanted audiences to understand the sudden shift in perspective Ben is experiencing. Early in the film, Ben is in New York trying to pitch his new podcast idea. “It’s a darkly lit scene,” Moncrief explains. It’s nighttime when he gets a call from Ty (Boyd Holbrook), the brother of Abilene (Lio Tipton), a former hookup who has died from an apparent overdose. Ben has been…

TV REVIEW Drama: HBO Max (8 episodes; 5 reviewed); July 28 Starring: Bailee Madison, Chandler Kinney, Zaria, Malia Pyles, Maia Reficco A slick although not-so-subtle iteration of Sara Shepard’s novels, “Pretty Little Liars” ran for seven seasons on ABC Family before the channel became Freeform. Now, after two previous tries at spinoffs failed to launch, a new attempt at reviving the franchise has arrived in “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin,” and it asserts itself as a visceral nightmare of a teen slasher. Though the original 2007 series eventually leaned harder into horror, 2022’s offshoot — created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring of “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” — immediately embraces the genre. (Think “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Halloween,” or, more accurate to the plot,…

However this tweetstorm ends, Elon Musk will come out a loser. This spring, the right-wing celebrity tech CEO agreed to pay $44 billion for Twitter — boasting that he would turn his favorite social media site into a bigger revenue machine and a bastion of “free speech.” (Critics interpreted that as Musk condoning a flood of misinformation and harassment.) A little more than 10 weeks later, Musk told Twitter he wanted to kill the deal. What happened? After waiving his right to due diligence in the Twitter agreement, the entrepreneur complained that he suddenly needed verification of Twitter’s estimate that fake and spam accounts are less than 5% of its total user base. On July 8, Musk’s lawyers accused Twitter of failing to provide necessary data after his repeated requests…

Variety has elevated two key members of its international editorial team: Manori Ravindran and Elsa Keslassy. Ravindran, who joined the publication in 2020 as international editor, has been promoted to executive editor of international and senior writer. She will continue to lead Variety’s award-winning team of correspondents around the world, while expanding the brand’s presence at festivals and markets and growing its events outside the U.S., working closely with executive VP of content Steven Gaydos. Covering both film and television, she will also continue her work as a reporter breaking industry news and contributing to a pipeline of investigative stories out of international. Based in London, Ravindran reports to Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton and incoming co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh. Ravindran was previously editor of Television Business International magazine and prior to…

Friends who play together, stay together. That’s certainly true for Music Mogul of the Year Guy Oseary and pals Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey and Chris Rock. As they vacationed off the Croatian coast earlier this month, the three took a break to play reporter, producer and director for the Variety video team. Oseary could barely get through his introduction without McConaughey laughing at him or Harrelson telling him to “add more energy” to his line readings and to “smile more.” “It’s to do things outside of the traditional,” Oseary says when Harrelson grills him on what it means to be a mogul. “That’s possibly why they awarded me this. Going outside of the traditional and looking beyond what I had been working on, expanding into other areas and, luckily, being…

When Ashton Kutcher first met Guy Oseary about two decades ago, Oseary needed advice on caring for his new dog. “My first impression was ‘Who doesn’t know how to take care of a dog?’” Kutcher recalls. Despite the inauspicious beginning, the two hit it off and would spend hours playing, of all things, dominoes — a decidedly analog pastime that led them to go into business together as tech venture capitalists. Kutcher, the actor, producer and entrepreneur best known for starring in “That ’70s Show,” says he and Oseary had crossed paths when they were individually looking at investing in the same Silicon Valley startups. “At one point Guy came to me and was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we partner up, and we’ll go raise some money, and we’ll do…

From bringing back the 1990s in Hulu’s “Pam & Tommy” to styling for a lesbian cruise on “Hacks,” the Emmy-nominated costume designers delivered a wealth of contemporary looks. Kameron Lennox landed her first nom for “Pam & Tommy,” which took audiences back a couple decades as Lily James and Sebastian Stan captured the wild antics and looks of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Perfecting the iconic “Baywatch” red swimsuit was imperative. The original suit was made by TYR swimwear, which was not only able to match the red precisely, but also helped her find the right fabric and cut. “On Pam, the way that it was cut was very sexy,” says Lennox. “The leg was high-cut to elongate her leg and cut low on the sides to accentuate her bust.”…

“Lisey’s Story” director Pablo Larrain needed a sequence that was about Lisey’s (Julianne Moore) emotions. It was Larrain who suggested puppetry to express her inner life. “Marionette strings, deliberately made visible, suggest the ways Lisey is tethered to her late husband, a famous writer,” says Emmy-nominated creative director Karin Fong. Fong, also nominated for Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop,” used the main title song, “Tank” by Yoko Kanno, as their backbone. Merging live-action and animation with fan-favorite imagery, Fong says, “We used Japanese typography. Our approach was always about how to echo the original titles while giving a twist on the retro-graphic, film-noir language that is the hallmark of the show.” With Hulu’s “Candy,” Emmy-nommed Ronnie Koff used metaphor, humor and symbolism in the show’s title sequence, employing animation to tell the…

The Emmy lineup might have looked like this: Kanye West nominated for music supervision. Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Mary J. Blige, Phoebe Bridgers and Sheryl Crow up for song. Mick Jagger, Imagine Dragons, 50 Cent and Isabella Summers nominated for main-title theme. Finneas O’Connell up for limited-series score, and Meshell Ndegeocello nominated for series score. All those superstars entered songs, themes, scores and music-supervision lineups for the 74th annual Emmy Awards, yet none of them wound up with a nomination. Emmy’s music peer group comprises 460 composers, songwriters, music supervisors and other professionals involved in making tunes for TV. And they are not impressed by big names. The closest they came was a dual nomination for Zendaya in the original song category for HBO’s “Euphoria” — “Elliot’s Song,” co-written with…

Television’s new international identity was confirmed on both sides of the camera with this year’s Emmy noms. Actors, writers, helmers, producers and below-the-line talent from outside the U.S. have all emerged as global contenders in the annual kudos contest. Be it “Succession,” mentioned in 25 categories; “Ted Lasso,” which received 20 noms; or South Korea’s “Squid Game,” recipient of 14 noms and the first-ever drama series Emmy nominee not in the English language, TV’s international face came to the fore. “Succession” was commissioned by HBO but the show, said to be inspired by the feuding Murdoch dynasty, was created by British screenwriter Jesse Armstrong, nominated for an Emmy in one of the writing categories. In common with so much highend TV, fish-out-of-water feelgood saga “Ted Lasso,” a breakout hit for…

A camera sets up a shot of a model of Jerusalem used for “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem”; a well-lit alleyway in the actual city. At roughly 8,550 square miles, Israel is a small country. But with a bounty of varying topography, it has become a plum location site for a bevy of TV and film productions, including “Fauda” and “Shtisel,” which have made an impact stateside on Netflix. You can drive the entire length of the nation in eight hours. “I think this is our gift,” says Shimrit Yekutieli, the line producer of “Fauda,” one of the streamer’s hottest Israeli imports. “We have everything except snow — so we can shoot in Israel and make it look like Syria and Lebanon.” Season 4 of “Fauda,” which tells the stories…