Variety 8/24/2022

In most cases, watching people pack their bags for Italy signals the beginning of summer. But in Hollywood, the opposite is true. Just look at the publicists, executives and movie stars headed to the Venice Film Festival next week, the first of the trifecta of September film festivals — arriving only a few days ahead of Telluride and Toronto. The gathering on the Lido has grown in prominence and stature under the watch of chief Alberto Barbera, becoming the place to launch your next Oscar movie. (See “The Power of the Dog,” “A Star Is Born,” “The Shape of Water,” “Birdman” and more.) And as our Italy correspondent Nick Vivarelli has been exclusively reporting on Variety.com, Venice has another slam-dunk lineup this year. Starting on Aug. 31, film aficionados will…

Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister got high tea in London with Olivia Wilde for this week’s cover story. She most recently profiled the Kardashians for our magazine. Variety Italy and Middle East correspondent Nick Vivarelli interviewed Angelina Jolie on the set of “Without Blood” at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. They share a passion for Italian author Alessandro Baricco and for Roman rock band Måneskin. Variety senior international film editor Elsa Keslassy interviewed French screen icon Catherine Deneuve and playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller. Keslassy lives in Paris. London-based fashion and celebrity photographer and director Zoe McConnell captured Olivia Wilde in London on July 28. “It felt like a genuine collaboration,” says McConnell. “We enjoyed playing dress-up together to a soundtrack of Peggy Lee and Nancy Sinatra!”…

Amazon’s Prime Video is going big with fall TV, launching the most expensive TV series in history, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and taking full control of NFL’s “Thursday Night Football.” But on the film side, things are a little less groundbreaking and more in flux as the industry waits to see what the e-commerce giant plans to do with MGM and which top movie-studio exec Amazon will select to run its film business. Among those whom Variety hears Amazon has spoken with in recent weeks about the role are Netflix film chief Scott Stuber, Paramount Pictures alum Emma Watts and Warner Bros. vet Toby Emmerich. But according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, though Amazon “loved” Watts and doesn’t see Stuber as being interested…

It wasn’t that long ago that live telecasts like major league sporting events and star-studded awards shows were considered the savior of networks struggling to maintain relevancy in a streaming age. And while streamers have taken their lumps lately — and sports is indeed keeping the lights on in linear — the age of blockbuster awards shows appears to be over. Which would mean it’s perhaps an inopportune time for the ceremonies out there looking for a new home or, in the case of the Golden Globes, looking to return, period. Late last month, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. agreed to let Eldridge Industries, run by Todd Boehly, take over the Golden Globes and make that part of the HFPA a for-profit enterprise. Eldridge has also taken control of Dick…

A decade into the streaming revolution, seams are showing and stitches are starting to pop. The recent uproar about HBO Max removing a significant number of series episodes and movies from its platform amounts to Unintended Consequence No. 9,789 for an industry that has been turned inside out by digital disruption. The situation that Warner Bros. Discovery is scrambling to address by lightening the content load should be crystal clear to anyone who has ever worked in retail sales management. Simply put, HBO Max has an inventory problem. The long-tail theory of content that has fueled the streaming business conflicts with the focus on tentpole hits that has traditionally fueled the entertainment economy. With the major exception of Netflix, no network or platform in the 75-year history of commercial television…

When Brian Stelter signed off from the last installment of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Aug. 21, the number of mainstream vehicles analyzing an increasingly confusing media industry shrank even further. Stelter bid farewell the same day Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan ended her run — asking such notables as Carl Bernstein and Jeffrey Goldberg on air whether the press is doing enough to cover topics ranging from disinformation to climate change. The lead story of his hour was a dire one: his program’s own cancellation after three decades. “It’s going to be on you to hold CNN accountable,” Stelter told viewers in the show’s waning moments, later adding: “The free world needs a reliable source.” Why did CNN terminate a show that has been on its Sunday schedule since the…