Innholdsfortegnelse for 4/26/2023 i Variety

One of the most powerful men in Hollywood is suddenly ousted from his job. He apologizes and expresses “regret.” As time passes, the story becomes clearer. He was allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with one of his employees, and she filed a complaint that he’d sexually harassed her. Years into the #MeToo movement, misconduct in the workplace is still shaking up the entertainment industry. That happened again over the weekend when Jeff Shell, the CEO of NBCUniversal, got axed as the result of a recent internal investigation into his behavior. In this week’s cover story, Variety executive editor of film and media Tatiana Siegel offers a pull-back-the-curtain look at what exactly happened after Comcast learned about Shell’s years long relationship with a CNBC anchor. But what does this high-profile firing…

Tucker Carlson Age: 53 The firebrand conservative pundit has logged stints at all three U.S. cable news networks as well as PBS. ▶ Fox News 2009-23 Joined as a contributor; elevated to primetime host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016 ▶ MSNBC 2005-08 Hosted 6 p.m. interview series “Tucker” ▶ PBS 2004-05 Hosted weekly public affairs show “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered” ▶ CNN 2000-05 Co-hosted “The Spin Room,” 2000-01; co-hosted “Crossfire” until it was canceled in 2005 Don Lemon Age: 57 The veteran anchor came up the ranks in local TV news before making his mark at CNN. ▶ CNN 2006-23 Joined as co-host of “CNN Newsroom” in 2006; promoted to primetime host of “CNN Tonight” (later renamed “Don Lemon Tonight”) in 2014; moved to co-anchor of “CNN This Morning” in…

Armen Nahapetian wants the world to know: “I’m not AI.” While the 16-year-old actor is gaining notice, it isn’t just for playing a teenage version of Joaquin Phoenix’s titular worrywart in Ari Aster’s epic dark comedy “Beau Is Afraid.” He added the disclaimer to his Instagram bio because people keep thinking he’s not a real person but a digitally de-aged Phoenix. “I went to the movie theater a few weeks ago, and one of the employees was pointing at the poster saying, ‘Oh, my God, you’re real!’” Nahapetian recalls. The main poster art features four versions of Beau, all posing in shimmering gray satin pajamas. There’s a Phoenix wearing a farmer’s hat, a Phoenix sporting male pattern baldness, a Phoenix buried under wrinkles — and a smooth-faced Nahapetian. The theater…

Wearing a nondescript gray T-shirt with a backstage pass dangling from his neck, Jeff Shell looked more like a snowy-haired roadie than a VIP as he milled about in the wings of the Sahara Tent ahead of Blink-182’s set at Coachella on April 14. The NBCUniversal CEO had spent the day at the festival with his wife, Laura, in anticipation of the band’s first show in nearly a decade. Later, he took a seat alongside a leather-clad Kourtney Kardashian, whose long-running “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” holds a significant presence in the NBCUniversal spread, with all 20 seasons of the reality show having recently moved from Hulu to Peacock. But Shell wasn’t there on business. He enjoys close ties with the band’s bassist and co-lead vocalist, Mark Hoppus, a friendship…

PRESENTED BY Deloitte.…

In a climate where tech reigns supreme and a panoply of filmmaking applications remain at our disposal, does film school continue to have value? The answer is yes. From fostering professional relationships to learning cutting-edge editing and cinematography skills, the following is a curated list of entertainment education programs catering to every budding filmmaker. Belmont University Nashville, Tenn. Its motion picture program provides students the opportunity to learn to mix in Dolby Atmos on a feature film-sized mixing stage, use of top-of-the-line cameras, including the ARRI Alexa LF, advanced lighting and grip gear, a 250-seat theater, a color correction suite and multiple 4K edit bays. There’s also a new documentary course where students learn to make their own short film. “Students are provided a robust academic and hands-on learning experience…

As Carol Burnett turns 90, she bristles at the idea of looking back at her legacy. She’s not one to watch old episodes of her iconic “The Carol Burnett Show,” for example. “I’m not like Norma Desmond,” she quips, referring to the fading star in “Sunset Boulevard.” “The only time I do it is if I have to for a reason.” In this case, NBC gave her a good one. The network is set to air “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love” on April 26, and the special features both new performances and clips from Burnett’s storied career. And it gave Burnett a chance to reminisce with old friends — and new. “It’s exactly what I wanted,” Burnett said. “I didn’t want a birthday party with cake and…

FILM REVIEW Director: Kelly Fremon Craig Starring: Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson, Benny Safdie Judy Blume’s landmark 1970 young adult novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” remains unusual in its candor. An 11-year-old girl talks freely to the reader, and God, about the anxieties, fantasies and contradictions tripping her up on the path to maturity. Preteen Margaret’s concerns are timeless — peer pressure, crushes, menstruation, faith — and Blume treated them seriously, never passing judgment on her protagonist’s immature mistakes. Yet this adaptation, written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”), seems uneasy putting funny, flawed and all-too-realistic Margaret on-screen exactly as she is. Today, it’s not enough to be representative: Margaret must be a role model too. (Even an accusation that she plagiarizes her…

PRESENTED BY PRESENTING PARTNER OFFICIAL PARTNER…

Executive editor of film and media Tatiana Siegel revisited the 2020 firing of NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer in a bid to shed light on the shocking ouster of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell for this week’s cover story. Senior TV editor Brian Steinberg has spent the past decade chronicling the ups and downs of the TV news business — chances are your favorite anchor has yelled at him at least once. It wasn’t easy to find a photo of Jeff Shell without a smile on his face, says creative director Haley Kluge, who opted for a splash of red with a black-and-white image to produce a breaking-news, ripped-from-the-headlines look. “From the moment Joshua Jackson arrived in a pink suit, I knew we were both going to have a lot of…

A key player on “Yellowjackets” has opted to sit out Emmy season. Nonbinary actor Liv Hewson, who plays the scarred teenage goalkeeper Van Palmer on Showtime’s hit drama, won’t be submitting themselves for this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards despite being eligible in the main acting races. Hewson, 27, tells Variety they made the decision because of the Television Academy’s separation of acting categories into male and female. “There’s not a place for me in the acting categories,” Hewson says. “It would be inaccurate for me to submit myself as an actress. It neither makes sense for me to be lumped in with the boys. It’s quite straight-forward and not that loaded. I can’t submit myself for this because there’s no space for me.” An integral part of the “Yellow-jackets” ensemble,…

Since joining the American Film Institute faculty as dean and executive vice president in 2019, Susan Ruskin has kept a steady eye on what lay ahead in film school education. Ruskin, Variety Entertainment Educator of the Year, discusses why TV and film are more alike than different, what advances in technology mean for screenwriters and why film school is still a rock-solid bet when it comes to forging a career in the cinematic arts. • With so many avenues to break into the biz, why choose AFI? There are many different pathways to get into the industry, but I do believe that film school offers one thing that going straight into the industry does not — and that’s a safe place to fail, and a place to meet your collaborators…

The subject was cable news, but it played like scripted drama. Two of cable TV news’ most prominent personalities, Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon — ideological archenemies, no less — were taken out within 90 minutes of each other on April 24 in part because of their backstage behavior among colleagues. Carlson was done in at Fox News despite his stature by his disparaging private comments about Team Murdoch that were disclosed as part of the now-settled Dominion Voting Systems litigation battle against the Fox News empire. Lemon was forced out when his position became untenable after a bizarrely sexist on-air remark about Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley drew additional scrutiny to his performance at CNN’s morning program. “Cable news is now sort of seen as a place where people…

MINI ROOMS The WGA wants to mandate a minimum number of writers per TV show. Studios are increasingly using “mini rooms” — where just a handful of writers break a whole season in a matter of weeks. The guild worries that if left unchecked, studios could do away with the traditional writers’ room model, replacing it with a cheaper way of making scripted TV. STREAMING RESIDUALS The current WGA streaming residual is a fixed amount, regardless of whether a show is watched by 10 million people or 10. The WGA wants to add a “success factor,” where shows that generate more views receive a higher residual. But that would require opening up viewership data, which the streamers are unwilling to do. SPAN PROTECTION Writers are typically paid by the episode.…

April 19 ‘Star Trek: Picard’ FYC Screening AMC The Grove, Los Angeles Jonathan Frakes not only plays Will Riker in the “Star Trek” universe but also goes behind the camera as director. “It’s a pretty director-friendly group of actors,” he told Variety. “I have a shorthand with most of them. Especially with Patrick Stewart, who generally when I come forward says, ‘I know, act better.’ Brent Spiner will say, ‘What if I tried this?’ I’ll say, ‘Why don’t you try that?’ I think we read each other’s minds.” April 17 ‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant’ Premiere DGA, West Hollywood Jake Gyllenhaal stars in the action drama as an Army sergeant who is wounded and taken captive by the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan. In one brutal sequence, Gyllenhaal’s character is…

Joshua Jackson has no problem talking about sex. In our time together, he doesn’t blush when referencing a woman’s nipples or breaking down how two people “fuck” on television. He’s been viewed as a sex symbol since he was a teen, playing the class-clown-turned-heartthrob Pacey Witter on “Dawson’s Creek,” and now it’s just who he is. And it’s a very big part of “Fatal Attraction.” “The sex scenes are of great importance,” says Jackson, 44, “because they’re furthering the narrative. You have to believe that these people want to fuck each other.” The series, which premieres on Paramount+ on April 30, doesn’t shy away from the kind of nudity that Hollywood used to pepper R-rated adult movies with in the ’70s and ’80s. Most know the story behind the 1987…

Since its founding, it’s been a safe place for storytellers — musicians, animators, directors, writers, and artists of all kinds — to learn, grow and thrive. As CalArts celebrates its golden anniversary, it also faces the future head-on. Broad trustee emeritus Tim Disney, whose great-grandfather, Walt Disney laid the foundation for what is now a world-class art school, says that CalArts was founded with very large-scale, utopian ideas by Walt Disney. “Disneyland and CalArts were very grand things,” Disney says, adding that Walt died before the school opened and that his grandfather, Roy Disney, “had the very hard job” seeing the plans through. “His commitment was a very beautiful thing.” It’s not a coincidence that Tim Disney spearheaded the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (RedCat) in Downtown L.A., which…

Rod Aissa Exec VP, Unscripted Content, Pictures NBCUniversal TV Aissa oversees all unscripted lifestyle and doc programming across NBC, Bravo, E!, USA Network, Peacock and more. In 2022, Bravo soared to new successes with more than half of the top 20 reality shows on cable in the 18-49 demo, plus “Top Chef” and “Below Deck Mediterranean” snagged Emmy noms. Reality show guilty pleasure: “I have no guilt about watching any and all unscripted series across a variety of platforms!” Lauren Anderson Head of AVOD Original Content and Programming, Amazon In a new role this year, Anderson oversees unscripted programming and strategy across Amazon Studios and has worked to expand the content slate for FreeVee, which earned its first Emmy win for “Judy Justice.” Change you’d like to see in the…

“At every moment, it was like, how do we make Keegan uncomfortable?” Aaron Tveit has been a fixture on New York stages, appearing in shows including “Wicked,” “Next to Normal” and “Catch Me if You Can,” and he recently wrapped a second run as Christian in “Moulin Rouge!,” which bowed before the pandemic arrived and returned after Broadway reopened. But it’s television that has been helping him most rapidly expand his repertoire. Tveit takes on a cavalcade of roles in Apple TV+’s “Schmigadoon!,” a parodical love letter to musicals, created by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio and starring Keegan Michael-Key and Cecily Strong as a couple working out the kinks in their relationship in a magical land populated by characters from the stage. The series, which focused on musicals of…