Variety 10/19/2022

This month marks 10 years since Penske Media acquired Variety, transforming us from a daily newspaper into a weekly magazine whose covers have become coveted real estate. In that time, we’ve kept up the energy of a Hollywood trade while also boundlessly expanding our coverage of moguls, CEOs and too many Emmy and Oscar winners to count. We visited Lady Gaga in Malibu at the height of “A Star Is Born” mania, brought the world some Harry Styles uplift in the early days of the pandemic, and even photographed first lady Michelle Obama in the White House. But there’s one story that’s eluded us until now: This week marks Variety’s first interview with a member of the royal family. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, sat down with our Matt Donnelly…

Variety senior entertainment and media writer Matt Donnelly interviewed Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, for this week’s cover story. Donnelly is most grateful for the pint of tomatillo salsa Meghan split with him at Montecito’s San Ysidro Ranch. Senior Artisans editor Jazz Tangcay profiled Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell and is presenting her with Variety’s Creative Impact Award at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. She’ll also hand out our inaugural 10 Artisans to Watch kudos at the fest. Associate web editor Ethan Shanfeld hung out with Johnny Knoxville for a chat about Hulu’s “Reboot.” Despite being 22 years old, Shanfeld was lovingly nicknamed “the Teen Reporter” by Bob Odenkirk on the “Better Call Saul” red carpet. Photographer Ramona Rosales captured the Duchess of Sussex on Sept. 1 at the San…

Just over three years ago, Netflix unequivocally shot down the idea that it would ever roll out an ad-supported streaming service. “When you read speculation that we are moving into selling advertising, be confident that this is false,” the streamer said in its second-quarter 2019 investor letter. “We believe we will have a more valuable business in the long term by staying out of competing for ad revenue and instead entirely focusing on competing for viewer satisfaction.” Clearly, Netflix’s thinking about advertising has changed. Both Netflix and Disney+ are launching ad-based tiers this fall, seeking to broaden their addressable markets and tap into a new revenue stream as subscriber growth has slowed — in Netflix’s case, it lost 1.2 million in the first half of 2022, compared with a net…

Banijay Group CEO Marco Bassetti may have made a smart marketing move in being slotted for a Mipcom keynote on Oct. 18, but the Italian executive insists that “PR, for us, comes after.” At the first major TV market for the “Survivor” distributor since its $2.2 billion acquisition of Endemol Shine Group in 2020, Bassetti has a clear message: Producers, including Banijay, need a more equitable business model against the streamers. “It’s the golden age of content, but I’m not sure it’s the golden age of revenue share for producers,” Bassetti tells Variety from Banijay Group’s Paris headquarters. “We need to be careful if we want to continue creating value in the industry. We need to fight to allow producers to keep their model as it was before.” That model…

In Hulu’s “Reboot,” a meta comedy from “Modern Family” creator Steven Levitan, Johnny Knoxville plays edgy stand-up comedian Clay Barber. After multiple stints in jail, he gets the chance to reprise his role in a wholesome family sitcom after, yes, Hulu decides to reboot it 20 years later. Unlike Clay, Knoxville is “very good” at dubbing lines and is — at least according to his co-star Keegan-Michael Key — “an absolute gentleman.” But the 51-year-old stuntman admits that there’s “more than a little” of himself in his character. Both were branded as bad boys and lived fast lifestyles in the public eye. Eventually, Knoxville had to cool off, and in the cleverly named “Reboot,” Clay works to turn his life around and stay sober. Speaking about his own journey, Knoxville…

Is there something in the water? Or have directors just been staring at their reflections too long? This awards season, more helmers than you can shake a statuette at are calling their projects their “most personal film yet” — or something to that declarative effect. What’s with the trend toward the intimate and the quasi-autobiographical? Was it lockdown-induced introspection? Does the label “auteur” make them anxious to share their origin-story bona fides? Whatever the reason, here’s a sampling of the season’s crème de la creators on their latest work. Who: James Gray What: “Armageddon Time” The sell: The coming-of-age drama traces the fleeting friendship between a white sixth grader and his Black schoolmate in 1980 Queens, N.Y. The tell: “I said, ‘Screw it, I’ll make the most personal film I can.’”…