Innholdsfortegnelse for 3/15/2023 i Variety

Variety|3/15/2023

CAA

95th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS® Actress in a Supporting Role JAMIE LEE CURTIS EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Actor in a Leading Role BRENDAN FRASER THE WHALE Animated Feature Film GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO ALEX BULKLEY SPECIAL CONGRATULATIONS TO EDWARD BERGER* DIRECTOR International Feature Film ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT AND SALUTES GLENN WEISS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR 95th Academy Awards® Telecast WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA Drama Series SEVERANCE ANDREW COLVILLE DAN ERICKSON Comedy Series THE BEAR SOFYA LEVITSKY-WEITZ New Series SEVERANCE ANDREW COLVILLE DAN ERICKSON Comedy/Variety Sketch Series INSIDE AMY SCHUMER ROSEBUD BAKER CAZZIE DAVID JON GLASER YAMANEIKA SAUNDERS Short Form New Media THREE BUSY DEBRAS DIANA TAY Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement CHARLIE KAUFMAN Writers Guild of America West Paul Selvin Award REBECCA LENKIEWICZ Writers Guild of America…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

A24 Isn’t Ready for Its Close-Up

A24, the scrappy indie studio that has built a brand for itself as a home for hip and cutting-edge movies, triumphed over its deeper-pocketed rivals at the Oscars on Sunday. It scored a leading nine wins, topping that of its closest competitor, Netflix, which had to settle for six trophies. Plus, A24 not only captured best picture for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” but also pulled off the incredibly rare feat of winning every major acting category, with three statuettes coming for the cast of the head-spinning adventure film and the other one recognizing Brendan Fraser’s work in “The Whale.” “A24 has taken a part of the movie business that had seemed geared to older tastemakers and injected a youthful swagger by betting on emerging talent.” But don’t expect the…

4 min

Variety|3/15/2023

The Last of ‘Lasso’?

Here’s how important “Ted Lasso” is to Apple: CEO Tim Cook was among the hundreds gathered in L.A.’s Westwood last week for the show’s Season 3 premiere. Events like that are normally a bit more low-key by the time a series reaches its third season. But not “Ted Lasso,” which filled the 1,400-person-capacity Regency Village Theatre, followed by a party that drew 700 RSVPs — and yes, Cook was there too, holding court and meeting with the marquee talent. This is a show that is still at its pop culture peak. That’s why, as the Emmy-winning comedy returns to Apple TV+ on March 15, its fate is on everyone’s minds — including star Jason Sudeikis’. For months, almost all involved have hinted that “Lasso” would wind down after these episodes.…

2 min

Variety|3/15/2023

WME

Academy Awards Winners WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY) WOMEN TALKING SARAH POLLEY ANIMATED FEATURE FILM GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO GUILLERMO DEL TORO COSTUME DESIGN BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER RUTH CARTER BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS GUNEET MONGA BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) AN IRISH GOODBYE TOM BERKELEY ROSS WHITE DGA Awards Winners DRAMATIC SERIES SAM LEVINSON EUPHORIA, “STAND STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD” VARIET Y/TALK/NEW S/SPORTS – REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING LIZ PATRICK SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, “HOST AND MUSICAL GUEST JACK HARLOW” VARIETY/TALK/NEWS/SPORTS – SPECIALS BEN SIMMS RUNNING WILD WITH BEAR GRYLLS, “FLORENCE PUGH IN THE VOLCANIC RAINFORESTS OF COSTA RICA” COMMERCIALS KIM GEHRIG ACCESSIBILITY, APPLE RUN BABY RUN, IPHONE, APPLE MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND LIMITED SERIES DAVID NICKSAY Unit Production Manager STATION ELEVEN, “WHO’S THERE?” PGA Awards Winners THE STANLEY KRAMER…

5 min

Variety|3/15/2023

‘The Lunch Bunch’?

In 2021, Paramount was testing a new movie called “Something’s Wrong With Rose” — a supernatural horror film about a therapist named Rose who loses touch with reality after witnessing a patient’s bizarre suicide. Audiences at the research screening were responding enthusiastically to the scary movie, but studio executives noticed that they were stumbling over its name. “Walking out of the theater, we were like, ‘We need a simpler title,’” remembers Marc Weinstock, an executive at Paramount. One component in the story — the bone-chilling grins that slowly creep over the faces of victims — distinguished this horror film from others, and Paramount knew those scenes would frighten crowds in a big way. So they landed on “Smile,” a common word that took on new, more sinister meaning after the…

8 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Nina Yang Bongiovi Puts Her Stamp on Filmmaking

Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi admits her enthusiasm for being recognized for the profound social and cultural weight of her output. “Usually producers are kicked to the curb when a movie is released,” she says, laughing. “I always remember walking on a red carpet and they’re like, ‘Oh God, producer, can you step to the side?’ And you’re like, ‘I bled for this film!’” Born in Taiwan and raised in Los Angeles since age 5, Yang Bongiovi, who will receive Variety’s Creative Impact in Producing Award at the Sun Valley Film Festival and participate in a Coffee Talk on March 31, says she initially did not see any obvious cultural on-ramp into the film industry until her studies at USC made it begin to feel possible. Even so, her first studio…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Michael Bublé Soars Higher

It’s 25 minutes before showtime at Krakow, Poland’s Tauron Arena, and Michael Bublé is cool as a cucumber. A February chill in Europe, where he is touring across more than a dozen countries including the U.K., Germany, France, Spain and Italy, is nothing new to the singer raised outside Vancouver. Likewise, the dressing room serves as a familiar home away from home for the five-time Grammy winner, who picked up his latest gramophone statuette for traditional pop vocal album in February. A dual citizen of both Canada and Italy, from where his maternal side hails, Bublé never gets stage fright. And 11 albums in — “Higher” was released last March — with sales topping 75 million and his songs streaming over 14 billion, sold-out crowds have also become de rigueur,…

6 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Mason Gooding

“My life was the first season of ‘Glee.’” It’s not often you find a prolific 26-year-old, but Mason Gooding is quickly earning the title. Since he began acting at age 20, he has racked up credits in HBO’s “Ballers,” the trailblazing Hulu series “Love, Victor,” Olivia Wilde’s feature directorial debut, “Booksmart,” and more. Perhaps none has been as notable as his role of Chad Meeks-Martin in the “Scream” franchise. As the sixth installment opened last weekend to massive fanfare, Gooding discusses the “nepo baby” phenomenon (he is a son of Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr.), the inherent terror of New York and collecting his baby teeth. • “Scream VI” leaves the sleepy suburbs for Manhattan. Is that a plausible location for a slasher? The location lends itself to horror in…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

The Oscars Finally Have Some Good News — With Decent Ratings

The 95th Academy Awards were both radical and retro. On one hand, the movie that swept the Oscars — “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — was a metaverse action film that ignited the indie box office for A24, but pundits thought it would alienate older voters. Yet it did no such thing, collecting seven statuettes, including best picture, and making history by crowning Michelle Yeoh as the first Asian woman to receive the best actress award. At the same time, the Oscars managed to return to their drama-free roots (sans Will Smith) of honoring movies and the behind-the-scenes people who craft them. After last year’s ill-conceived idea to dole out some of the trophies before the show, the ceremony again handed out all awards during the live telecast. And it…

2 min

Variety|3/15/2023

The Logan Goodbye

Last month, when “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong announced that the fourth season of the Emmy-winning HBO drama would be its last, the internet howled in despair. But Brian Cox — who’s played the ferocious mogul Logan Roy since the show’s 2018 premiere — applauds Armstrong’s decision. “He’s very disciplined in that way, and also he’s very British in that way,” says Cox, who is Scottish, and in conversation seems to mention birthplace to explain behavior. “The American inclination is to milk it for all it’s worth.” Not that Cox, 76, won’t feel the loss. “I’ll miss the cast, I’ll miss the atmosphere, I’ll miss the bonhomie,” he says, ticking off reasons during a recent Zoom interview from London. And Logan? “Logan, probably, I’ll miss a bit. But upward and onwards.”…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Jason Bateman Doesn’t Play

Jason Bateman is fresh off his SAG Award win last month as best male drama actor for the final season of “Ozark.” But his next project couldn’t be more different: Through his Aggregate Films, Bateman is an executive producer on Netflix’s reality competition series “Outlast,” which launched March 10. The eight-episode show pits 16 contestants dropped into the Alaskan wilderness, where they take on team challenges that help them survive in the harsh environment. No one is voted off, but people who’ve had enough leave of their own accord — and the last one standing wins $1 million. What really drives “Outlast” is the question of morality and the lengths that people will go to survive. Actually, it sounds a lot like “Ozark.” “There wasn’t a deliberate continuation of that…

2 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Top of the World

Ke Huy Quan was on a mission. He’d just been named best supporting actor for his performance as Waymond Wang, the goofy husband of a laundromat owner in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and he wanted to experience the moment with Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, you see, was the filmmaker who cast him in his breakout role in 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” when Quan was 12 years old. So during a commercial break in the Academy Awards telecast, Quan, 51, went over to where Spielberg was sitting with his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, whom Quan hadn’t seen since they co-starred in “Temple of Doom” four decades earlier. After hugs all around, Spielberg put his hands on Quan’s shoulders and said, “You are now an Oscar-winning actor.” The…

8 min

Variety|3/15/2023

KUDOS

THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR AWARDS SEASON COVERAGE & EVENTS ANGELA BASSETT BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER VARIETY COVER GEOFFREY BAUMANN BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER VARIETY FYC FEST: THE SHORTLIST EDWARD BERGER ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT VARIETY FYC FEST: THE SHORTLIST CATE BLANCHETT TÁR VARIETY MUSIC FOR SCREENS VARIETY ACTORS ON ACTORS VARIETY COVER AUSTIN BUTLER ELVIS VARIETY CREATIVE IMPACT AWARD HONOREE VARIETY COVER RICK CARTER THE FABELMANS VARIETY FYC FEST RYAN COOGLER BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER VARIETY FYC FEST VARIETY ARTISANS SCREENING SERIES VARIETY COVER JOEL CRAWFORD PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH VARIETY FYC FEST ANA DE ARMAS BLONDE VARIETY ACTORS ON ACTORS VARIETY COVER GUILLERMO DEL TORO PINOCCHIO VARIETY ARTISANS SCREENING SERIES VARIETY FYC FEST: THE SHORTLIST VARIETY FYC FEST SARA DOSA FIRE…

2 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Variety’s 10 Producers Blaze New Trails

In conjunction with Idaho’s Sun Valley Film Festival, Variety presents its 2023 class of 10 Producers to Watch. Whether they came up in the studio system or followed less conventional paths, their work is making waves, exciting insiders and audiences. Along with Nina Yang Bongiovi, Variety’s 2023 recipient of the Creative Impact in Producing award, these noteworthy creatives will be honored at the fest March 29-April 2, including a panel discussion about their careers and work. MALI ELFMAN “Birth/Rebirth” Elfman became a producer almost by accident: after co-writing her first film, “Do Not Disturb,” as an acting vehicle for herself. The former entertainment journalist realized there were a few jobs on set she didn’t want after all — and others she did. “I was like, I don’t want to star…

15 min

Variety|3/15/2023

John Wick: Chapter 4

FILM REVIEW Director: Chad Stahelski Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Ian McShane In “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the epic culmination and last installment of the flamboyantly brutal death-wish-meets-video-game-meets-the-Zen-of-Keanu-Reeves action series, our hero finds himself in a Berlin nightclub that resembles a pulsating Bauhaus Eurodisco by way of “Fellini Satyricon.” The place is like a concrete cathedral, with giant mosh pits of dancers throwing their arms up to the heavens as waterfalls cascade down the side walls (it almost looks like it’s raining). But Reeves’ John Wick, as he makes his way through the neon wetness, isn’t dancing. He’s getting ready to start shooting — which, for him, is more or less the same thing. As he skulks forward, oily hair hanging down the sides of his face, the…

6 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Contributors

Senior awards editor Clayton Davis almost convinced Ke Huy Quan to jump in the pool at the end of his Variety cover shoot. But like every true Californian, Quan said it was too cold outside. It was 70 degrees. Senior culture and events editor Marc Malkin is going to miss seeing Austin Butler, Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis on an almost daily basis — and Brendan Fraser’s gummy bear deliveries. However, he is looking forward to a much-needed vacation in Miami. Senior entertainment and media writer Matt Donnelly spent Oscar Sunday wrangling Hollywood’s biggest executives for red carpet photos, powered by the gift of Starbursts from the daughter of Warner Bros. exec Pamela Abdy. Andrew Eccles photographed Ke Huy Quan on March 13 in L.A.: “Ke brought the same…

1 min

Variety|3/15/2023

A Family Affair

To call “Spinning Gold” a labor of love is an understatement completely uncharacteristic of its subject: the late Neil Bogart. The larger-than-life founder of Casablanca Records launched the famously freewheeling 1970s powerhouse that brought the world Kiss, Donna Summer, Parliament-Funkadelic and the Village People. Some 25 years in the making, the biopic was written, produced and directed by Bogart’s eldest son, Tim — a veteran TV producer, writer and director — with his youngest son, Evan (a songwriter who co-wrote Beyoncé’s “Halo,” among many hits) as executive music producer and other family members as producers. Out March 31, it features Broadway star Jeremy Jordan as Bogart, Michelle Monaghan as his first wife, Lyndsy Fonseca as his second and Wiz Khalifa as George Clinton. Casablanca’s hot streak — and overreach —…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

The Overlook Gets a New Caretaker

When Lee Unkrich was 12, he saw “The Shining” for the first time. Even more than the screening itself, what happened shortly afterward set in motion a lifelong obsession with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of horror. On his way to summer camp, Unkrich bought the movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s novel. “There were photos of Wendy cooking breakfast in the kitchen,” he tells Variety. “I realized that wasn’t a scene that was in the movie. And that got a bug in my head — I wanted to know more about that world.” For Unkrich, a 25-year Pixar veteran, that deleted scene would beget decades of collecting Kubrick ephemera, a stream of Easter eggs in his work from “Toy Story 2” to “Coco” and now, “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining,” a 12-years-in-the-making,…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Champagne Wishes

Arrivals Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, March 12 INSTEAD OF RED, the Academy opted for a Champagne carpet accented by burnt orange drapery. Whatever the decor, the 95th Oscars once again proved the film industry’s biggest schmoozefest. “The Little Mermaid” star Halle Bailey was nervous being introduced to supporting actress nominee Jamie Lee Curtis. “Hi, Jamie, I’m Halle. I’m such a huge fan,” the singer-actor gushed. Curtis replied, “I know who you are!” Lead actor nominee Paul Mescal’s date was his mom, Dearbhla. “This is just the most incredible moment — and it’s real,” she said. “It’s actually not fantasy.” Post-Parties Los Angeles, March 12 VANITY FAIR’S ANNUAL SOIREE drew its usual A-list crowd, with marquee names arriving even past midnight. Jodie Turner-Smith made her debut at the legendary affair in a…

7 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Snow, Screenings and Skiing

The 12th annual Sun Valley Film Festival runs March 29-April 2 and will feature 18 narrative and documentary titles, including opening night selection, “Fancy Dance,” which is the directorial debut of Erica Tremblay, who also co-wrote the film, and Anthony Mandler’s “Surrounded,” which will close the festival. Award honorees at SVFF include Josh Brolin (“No Country for Old Men,” “Outer Range”), who will receive the Vision Award, and Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets,” “The Book of Boba Fett”), who will be given the Rising Star Award. “Last year, people were dying to get out, and this year our ticket sales are outpacing 2022. Once again, there’s a strong appetite for live events,” says festival founder and executive director Teddy Grennan. SVFF was launched on the backs of celebrities, including Ernest Hemingway, Gary…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

New Vision for Locations Org

The new head of the AFCI has big goals for the organization, and looks to promote stability within the leadership, which has seen a few presidents come and go in the past handful of years. “I really want to reassure people that I’m in this for the long haul and I feel like I have the right skill set to take the organization through and develop a really good strategy for it for the next 10 years,” says Jaclyn Philpott, the recently installed AFCI exec director. “I’ll be ready and willing to answer any questions that they may have. You know, I’ve had a very good look under the hood at the organization, from the financials through the previous strategies to what’s happening in the market right now, and I feel…

3 min

Variety|3/15/2023

Stoned Cold Country

MUSIC REVIEW Artists: Various Label: BBR Whenever we consider country-rock pioneers of the late ’60s and very early ’70s, the Rolling Stones tend to be left out of the conversation. Maybe that’s fine: It’s not as if there aren’t other reasons to bring them their (dead) flowers. Still, they were experimenting with hybrid genre elements as early as 1968’s “Beggars Banquet” LP. Those elements mostly stayed kind of latent: Even though Keith Richards — admirer of Merle Haggard, close pal of Gram Parsons — took country very seriously, Mick Jagger admitted, “I don’t know if I’m able to do it without being tongue-in-cheek.” But if the group could move only so close to actual country music, the genre indisputably moved closer to them over the years. Think of how many…

3 min