Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/3/2023 i Variety

Variety|5/3/2023

What Hollywood Can Expect From This Writers Strike

For the first time in 15 years, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. The entertainment landscape is vastly different today than it was in November 2007, when thousands of writers put down their pencils and held up their picket signs. Back then, network TV shows such as “Desperate Housewives,” “House” and “Two and a Half Men” were still pulling in tens of millions of viewers. Without working writers, scripted shows wrapped their seasons with fewer episodes, and extra editions of unscripted reality TV — from “The Amazing Race” to “Big Brother” — were ordered to fill the airwaves. In some ways, the consequences of this strike will be felt immediately — late-night TV shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers have shut down.…

2 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Variety’s CinemaCon Report Card

The major studios came to Sin City last week hoping to dazzle movie theater owners with the next wave of sequels, superhero adventures and even, gasp, movies aimed at adults. The occasion was Cinema-Con, the annual exhibition industry conference, and for the first time in years, there was a celebratory air to the whole affair. That’s because the box office is beginning to rebound to pre-pandemic form, thanks to hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.” But if the good times are going to keep rolling, Hollywood needs to ante up with compelling movies that’ll keep audiences coming back. Based on what they brought to Vegas, some studios have a much better hand than others. Here’s a look at the surefire hits, the potential…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

The Ring of Truth

The behind-the-scenes world of professional wrestling was infamously closed off to the public for decades, frustrating fans who craved a glimpse of what their favorite performers were really like outside the ring. That all changed with the internet and social media. And now, the industry is peeling back the mystique further via a slew of docuseries about pro wrestling’s biggest stars and aspiring grapplers. WWE has a slate of four shows with A&E, including “WWE Rivals” and “WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures.” Meanwhile, Vice TV is releasing Season 4 of the series “Dark Side of the Ring” on May 30. Also in the mix, Apple TV+ recently aired the docuseries “Monster Factory,” named after the famed pro wrestling school in New Jersey where it takes place, and TBS began airing the…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Raise a Glass or Hoist a Picket Sign?

AWARDS CIRCUIT Emmy season is well underway, but you’re forgiven if it hasn’t exactly been top of mind. After all, there have been plenty of recent distractions in TV land — both in real life and in the made-up world of “Succession” conglom Waystar Royco. Jeff Shell kicked off a wild week of news on April 23 after the NBC-Universal CEO was fired, followed the next morning by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and CNN anchor Don Lemon also getting the ax. Casting a further distraction over the start of Emmy campaigning is the drumbeat of industry layoffs, including Disney’s second round of deep job cuts last week. No wonder it’s been hard to direct attention to any of the hundreds of new and returning shows returning now to just…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

A BROKEN BIZ

The Met Gala may have been the last glitzy event to avoid picket signs. ¶ As of 12:01 a.m. on May 2, members of the creative community on both coasts (and production hubs in between) have traded the finery of that event for fire and brimstone on picket lines. The breakdown of the Writers Guild of America’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has unleashed a torrent of emotion not seen among Hollywood union members since the last time the WGA went on strike, in 2007. The strike promises to bring even more upheaval to a marketplace that is already grappling with the fallout from technological disruption and still rebuilding from the pandemic. Six weeks of tense negotiations made it clear that the industry faces…

12 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Category Changes and Overlap Create New Conversations

The Emmy race, once again, is all about breaking through to the voters, as 2022 saw 599 scripted series air — 40 more than 2021. It’s easier said than done, especially with the amount of excellent content from comedy and dramas to limited series and shows that could qualify for multiple genres. (We’ll get to that!) The 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will conside all series airing between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023. Voting runs from June 15-26, with nominations unveiled July 12. Final voting takes place Aug. 17-28, with the Sept. 18 awards ceremony broadcast on Fox. The Creative Arts Emmys will be presented in two ceremonies held on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10. Variety takes a closer look at this year’s race and what to…

6 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Unscripted and Unhinged

In the best way, reality and competition series are hitting an entirely new level this summer, starting this month. After the success of Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking,” spinoff “Jewish Matchmaking” (debuting May 3) features Aleeza Ben Shalom, who’s paired 200 couples, helping Jewish singles search for their partner. A few weeks later, Paramount+ rolls out Sylvester Stallone’s family reality series, “The Family Stallone” (May 17), giving viewers a closer look at his life with his wife and three daughters as they attempt to forge their own paths. Bear Grylls returns this summer with a new series, putting everyday folk to the test in his TBS competition series, “I Survived Bear Grylls” (May 18). The game show/survival of the fittest mash-up follows the survivalist as he teaches contestants new skills and puts…

2 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Citadel

TV REVIEW Drama: Amazon Prime Video (6 episodes; 3 reviewed); April 28 Cast: Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stanley Tucci, Lesley Manville If “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was Amazon’s attempt to supply its streaming service Prime Video with a homegrown version of “Game of Thrones,” the new spy series “Citadel” is its try at a “Squid Game,” “Money Heist” or “Love Is Blind”: a show with the global appeal to match the reach of its platform, and a potential franchise that could support international spinoffs. The idea originated not with a writer, director or producer, but with Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke, who approached AGBO, the production company of Anthony and Joe Russo, with a business plan in search of a creative concept. As with…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Contributors

Senior media reporter Gene Maddaus was at AMPTP headquarters on Monday night when the writers walked out of the building, signaling that a strike was imminent. He’ll keep covering the strike for as long as it goes on. Less was more for our writers strike cover, says creative director Haley Kluge. The missing period in the deck and pencil shavings at the bottom show work interrupted. Geoff Mayfield wades into the music industry’s worries over artificial intelligence. For Variety, he has previously examined how music catalog deals come together and the implementation of the Music Modernization Act. ‘When imagining the threat that AI poses to musicians, the image of AI hands replacing the artist’s quickly came to my mind’s eye,” says New York City-based graphic designer Tyler Comrie.…

1 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Crowning Indifference

Is the U.K. feeling royal fatigue? With three major royal events landing in the past 24 months — Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021, followed by the Platinum Jubilee and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022 — the coronation of King Charles III on May 6 is dividing the nation. The coronation arrives in a period of reflection about the monarchy and its place in modern British society, not to mention the optics of staging a ceremony replete with pomp and splendor while ordinary people are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis. That makes it tricky for U.K. broadcasters to strike a balance between covering a historic event and serving diverse programming. When Prince Philip died, the BBC’s blanket coverage generated so many complaints that the broadcaster had to set up a…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Shuffled Feathers

The new regime at Peacock has spent the past nine months preparing to take its baby bird to new heights. The number of big moves made by the NBCUniversal-owned streamer — from amping up its original content slate to live-stream deals with Hallmark, Reelz and Big 10 college football to bringing NBC shows back into the fold for next-day viewing — is setting the stage for what executives hope will be a growth spurt in 2023. Peacock, which launched three years ago last month, showed off its brighter plumage on May 2 with its NewFronts presentation to advertisers. “It’s all coming together,” says Peacock president Kelly Campbell, who signed on in October 2021 after serving as president of Hulu. “We’re just seeing an increasing interest overall when it comes to…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

JUST FOR VARIETY

Can you believe June 2 marks the 10-year anniversary of the “Red Wedding” scene in “Game of Thrones”? Richard Madden (1), whose Robb Stark met a grisly end in the episode, recalled filming the massacre. “I remember a lot of crying because at the end of it, I was going to be apart from my family that I had lived with for five years — my on-screen mother and my wife and this crew that had spent a lot of time together, so it was traumatic not only to shoot but traumatic because I was losing my family,” the actor told me at the premiere of his Amazon Prime Video series “Citadel.” Madden has yet to watch “GOT” spinoff “House of the Dragon.” “I’ve been very busy doing other things,…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Rage Against the machine

In music, the AI buzz started in October 2022, not long after ChatGPT launched. By Grammy Week in February 2023, it was all the industry was talking about — and that chatter got louder when David Guetta channeled Eminem through artificial intelligence. The volume hit 11 in April, when “Heart on My Sleeve,” a song with AI-generated vocals by a fake Drake and a fake the Weeknd, racked up hundreds of thousands of streams before being removed by streaming services. Artificial intelligence by way of machine learning is the latest existential threat to the music business, and unlike the frequently cited Napster-era piracy, which opened the door to illegal downloads, the industry has mobilized quickly to respond, with takedown orders, petitions, op-eds and the Human Artistry Campaign, an initiative established…

8 min

Variety|5/3/2023

A Princess Remembered

In her 2011 memoir, “Shockaholic,” Carrie Fisher opens with a quote from Jewish poet, playwright and paratrooper Hannah Senesh: “There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.” Self-deprecating to a fault, it’s unlikely Fisher would’ve ever referred to herself in such complimentary terms, but six years after her death, and soon to be bestowed with her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4, it’s impossible to ignore the way her brilliance continues to permeate our cultural consciousness, and how much dimmer the world seems without…

7 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

FILM REVIEW Director: James Gunn Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista For those who didn’t know the Marvel catalog inside out, when James Gunn first unleashed “Guardians of the Galaxy” back in 2014, it felt like the company was suddenly calling in the B-team. Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor. Those guys were household names who deserved stand-alone movies. But Star-Lord? Drax the Destroyer? Lethal green-skinned Gamora, grunting tree-thing Groot and a sarcastic raccoon named Rocket? They felt like parodies of the better-known Marvel characters — not so much superheroes as a ragged crew of sci-fi scoundrels roaming the cosmos in search of trouble. The surprising thing was, “Guardians” turned out to be the most entertaining Marvel movie yet. The characters had chemistry and didn’t take themselves seriously (occasionally, not…

5 min

Variety|5/3/2023

‘Who the Fuck Is Michael Braun?’

Last December, Leonardo DiCaprio and Baz Luhrmann shared a quiet moment at a private residence in Los Angeles. They were gathered at an after-party for a fashion show held that night by luxury brand Celine. Iggy Pop had given a surprise performance at the show, and Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber strutted the runway, and now DiCaprio and Luhrmann sat gazing into an elaborate outdoor fire pit. Facing the famous pair was another guest, Michael Braun. He promptly burst into flames. A lick of fire had sparked what one partygoer described as a mohair sweater. Braun’s entire torso ablaze, DiCaprio recoiled in shock as Luhrmann sprang into action. Braun yanked the sweater off, extinguishing the flames in one lucky swoop. Shirtless and charred, clad in only leather shorts and Doc…

4 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Prince for a Day

• Dominic West “The Crown” Seasons 5-6 Billed by fans as “too hot” to play Charles, the “Wire” star nails the prince’s gravelly voice and faint air of self-pity. • Josh O’Connor “The Crown” Season 3-4 O’Connor brought a youthful angst to the prince, giving audiences a glimpse inside the gilded cage that is being a royal heir. • Harry Enfield “The Windsors” Enfield’s comic (and uncanny) impression of Charles alternates between infantilized prince and Gollum (seriously). • Jack Farthing “Spencer” Farthing comes across as a cold and distant figure in this concentrated biopic of Princess Diana. • Alex Jennings “The Queen” Jennings plays Charles during one of the lowest points in his popularity, shortly after the death of ex-wife Diana. • Roe Hartrampf “Diana: The Musical” Hartrampf’s Charles belts…

1 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Platform’s Latest Swings

• August 2022 NBC Sports sets Big 10 college football rights deal; livestreams and exclusive games to launch in fall 2023 on Peacock • September 2022 “Community” movie ordered at Peacock • November 2022 Peacock sets Hallmark Channel livestream and library deal • November-December 2022 Peacock streams Telemundo’s World Cup coverage • December 2022 For the first time, the streamer accounts for 1% of all TV viewing in the U.S., per Nielsen • January 2023 Peacock eliminates free tier for new users • March 2023 Reelz’s “On Patrol: Live” begins live-streaming on Peacock…

1 min

Variety|5/3/2023

EXPOSURE

April 28 Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center Unveiling MLK Medical Campus, South L.A. The three-story building was renamed in honor of Jacqueline Avant, the late philanthropist, who was murdered last year during a home invasion. Speaking with Variety, her daughter, Nicole Avant, recalled being taught by her mother to be of service. “My mom would wake me up when I was 8 years old and say, ‘We’re going to Watts. We’re going to South Central, and we’re bringing books and food,’” she said. “I’d be like, ‘But I want to go play soccer in Roxbury Park.’ She’d say, ‘You have to remember to serve others all the time. It doesn’t mean you have to dismiss yourself — but you do have to share.’” Avant also explained how she has…

6 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Ready for Takeoff

When Chukwudi Iwuji was a kid growing up in Nigeria and Ethiopia, he imagined he could fly. The second youngest of five, he would spend hours on his own, meticulously reenacting scenes he’d seen on TV, playing every part himself. Virtually all of what captured his imagination were American shows and films from the 1970s and ’80s: “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “The Godfather” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” via broadcast reruns and bootleg VHS tapes. After he first saw “Star Wars,” he would stare intensely at a plastic cup, willing it to move. And “Superman,” of course, convinced Iwuji he could leap tall buildings in a single bound. “I would actually run around the compound as fast as I could, hoping to get fast enough to take off,” he…

9 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Welcome TV’s Class of ’23

The days of fall TV being the time for new shows to premiere are long gone. This summer, prep for bingeing per usual with a slew of unscripted and scripted series coming to both streamers and network TV. Likely the most-anticipated series of the year, HBO’s “The Idol,” will premiere in July after a great deal of delays and reshoots. Original director Amy Seimetz suddenly exited in 2022 after multiple episodes had been filmed; in March 2023, star Lily-Rose Depp released a statement defending creator Sam Levinson, who took over as director. Meanwhile, this summer sees a bumper crop of new unscripted programs and docuseries, including FX’s “The Secrets of Hillsong,” exploring the megachurch in a never-before-seen way. Here’s a look at some of the big new titles coming, in…

4 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Bupkis

TV REVIEW Comedy: Peacock (8 episodes; all reviewed); May 4 Starring: Pete Davidson, Joe Pesci, Edie Falco “Your life is fascinating,” a friend tells comedian Pete Davidson, in character as comedian Pete Davidson. “I don’t know what it’s like to live it, but goddamn, do we have fun watching it.” It’s never a good sign when we have to be told, rather than shown, how interesting a person or project is meant to be. Yet that’s precisely the position in which “Bupkis” decides to put itself. The Peacock comedy is the second Davidson vehicle to draw heavily from the “Saturday Night Live” alum’s autobiography, after “The King of Staten Island” in 2020. In the style of director Judd Apatow, that feature film was already bloated; “Bupkis” takes the movie’s two-and-a-half-hour…

3 min

Variety|5/3/2023

Tom Pelphrey

Though Tom Pelphrey was already a two-time Daytime Emmy winner for his work in the drama “Guiding Light” and had been working steadily on stage and screen, his move to “Ozark” for the series’ third season took his career to a new level. He blazed as Ben Davis, the bipolar brother of Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney), and seemingly shot to stardom overnight. It’s been a busy couple years for the actor both professionally and personally — his partner Kaley Cuoco gave birth to their first child, a daughter, on March 30. And now Pelphrey is starring in “Love & Death,” HBO Max’s limited series from David E. Kelley about Texas housewife Candy Montgomery (played by Elizabeth Olsen), who had a two-year affair with the husband of her friend Betty Gore,…

4 min