Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/17/2023 i Variety

Even during this month of uncertainty, great content is still finding audiences. Such is the case for “Still,” the moving documentary that chronicles the monumental life and career of Michael J. Fox. The Apple TV+ project, which came out on May 12, has become one of the most rapturously reviewed movies of the year. As soon as we saw “Still” last winter at Sundance, we knew we wanted to feature Fox on our cover. So on a recent April afternoon, Brent Lang spent the day at Fox’s Manhattan apartment, where the actor reminisced about his roles on TV’s “Family Ties” and in the “Back to the Future” franchise, as well as his decision to go public in 1998 with his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. The big story in Hollywood continues…

May 8 ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ Premiere AMC Lincoln Square 13, New York From riding water taxis in Venice to arriving in Tuscany by helicopter, “Book Club: The Next Chapter” star Jane Fonda had quite the adventure in Italy with Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen and Candice Bergen. “When we went to see the Sistine Chapel at night, and there was nobody else there,” Fonda told Variety, “and we had the whole ceiling explained to us by a great guide — that was a real treat.” The film is a sequel to “Book Club,” released in 2018. “We’ve seen each other ever since we made the first movie,” Fonda said. “We go to each other’s houses for dinner, we text each other, we email each other, we do Zoom together.…

CBS is out; Netflix is in. Nothing encapsulates the tumult in television these days more than the fact that CBS, one of the pillars of network television, has decided not to attend the industry’s traditional upfront week — when media giants make glitzy programming presentations to prospective advertisers — while Netflix will make its debut. A year ago, when Netflix announced it would launch a subscriber tier supported by advertising, it was a seismic event in the history of the industry’s leading streamer. But so far, there’s been no quaking on Madison Avenue. Five executives familiar with recent negotiations between advertisers and media companies say the Netflix offering is not likely to play a significant role in the industry’s next upfront market, when media companies try to sell the bulk…

It’s good to be Ludacris. Twenty years after his first appearance in the “Fast and Furious” action-adventure franchise, 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious,” the Atlanta rapper and actor is set to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same week “Fast X” premieres. Such attention is nothing new to Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. As an artist, he’s sold more than 24 million albums worldwide since he began making music with 1999’s independent “Incognegro.” From there, it was on to a Def Jam contract and mainstream fame with such hits as “Act a Fool” and “Stand Up,” plus collaborations such as his 2004 feature alongside Lil Jon on Usher’s “Yeah!” For a guy who hasn’t made a new album since 2015, the “Dirty South” rapper is jump-starting his schedule…

TV REVIEW Comedy: Apple TV+ (8 episodes; all reviewed); May 17 Starring: Patricia Arquette, Brad Garrett, Rupert Friend Patricia Arquette likes to go big. In 2018’s “Escape at Dannemora,” she donned copious prosthetics to play a prison employee who assists in an escape. In “The Act” the following year, she played an eerily doting mother with Munchausen by proxy. And in “Severance,” she’s an unhinged boss who lives a double life, surveilling her employees on and off the clock. The actor earned an Oscar in 2015 for a grounded turn in “Boyhood”; on TV, she lets her hair down. With “High Desert,” Arquette amps up the volume even further. Unlike those earlier outings on the small screen, the Apple TV+ comedy puts her at the top of the call sheet…

Executive editor Brent Lang has been warned to never meet his heroes. Fortunately, he ignored that advice and profiled Michael J. Fox. Digital editor Todd Spangler contributed to the analysis of Netflix’s rise from a once-dismissed Hollywood disruptor to the streaming leader — and how the Big Red N is confronting its greatest new challenges. Senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson was the first journalist invited to the set of “A Black Lady Sketch Show” and saw a wrap day tradition: For the crew’s lunch break, Robin Thede hired a DJ (who spun Beyoncé’s “Renaissance”). “This portrait session was one of the most moving collaborations I’ve ever had,” says photographer Platon, who captured our cover subject in New York on April 5. “Michael J. Fox gave so much of himself to…

On his Fox News program, Tucker Carlson would often declare himself “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.” So now he wants to launch a show on Twitter? The social media platform has given millions of people the ability to express themselves and communicate in ways they never could before, but it has also become a haven for bullying, tribalism and disinformation. Carlson may become part of the venue’s latest effort to keep its user base actively flowing even as many advertisers keep more than an arm’s-length away. Figuring out how to handle Carlson could be one of the first challenges for Linda Yaccarino, who has been named Twitter’s new CEO. The former NBC-Universal ad-sales chief knows what it takes to line up blue-chip sponsorship at scale. But…

Michael J. Fox has been through hell, and not in the way you’re thinking. In the last few years, his mother died, his father-in-law died, and he had to put his beloved dog, Gus, a 120-pound mutt, to sleep after more than a decade of loyal companionship. And then there was an almost biblical series of health challenges, many of them indirectly related to his Parkinson’s disease. “I broke this shoulder — had it replaced. I broke this elbow. I broke this hand. I had an infection that almost cost me this finger. I broke my face. I broke this humerus,” Fox says, pointing to each part of his fractured body, before concluding with a wry snort. “And that sucked.” That’s to say nothing of the spinal surgery he underwent in…

“Everybody is quite curious on what their role is in life, and what they’re doing here.” For more than two decades, Yann Martel’s novel “Life of Pi” has captivated audiences. In the book’s latest stage adaptation, Sri Lankan actor Hiran Abeysekera reprises his acclaimed West End performance as Pi, who survives shipwreck and isolation on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. Now on Broadway, Abeysekera confronts a range of challenges onstage, including a (very heavy) Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, brought to life by a team of three skilled puppeteers. • You’ve played Pi for years, in different versions and stages. How has your relationship with the piece evolved? Well, a lot happened in the world — in my world and the world world. I grew up. I lost some…

Economists are fretting about a recession. Media stocks are in the toilet. Layoffs are being enacted monthly as a spirit of cut, cut, cut grips Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Oh, and screenwriters are on strike, while directors and actors are threatening to join them when their contracts expire next month. But for the media moguls and tech entrepreneurs who run the major conglomerates, it’s business as usual in one important respect. Yes, most of these corporate chieftains trimmed their pay packages … but not all of them did. Netflix’s Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos got double-digit bumps even as their company suffered a historic selloff. Apple’s Tim Cook’s total compensation neared $100 million, while Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai’s topped $225 million. Even those executives who took pay cuts raked in millions…

GLENN BECK Exit: 2011 Next: Launched “The Blaze”; returned to talk radio BILL O’REILLY Exit: 2017 Next: Launched BillO’Reilly.com; appears on NewsNation cable news network MEGYN KELLY Exit: 2017 Next: Anchored two shows for NBC News; launched Devil May Care Media; hosts video podcast that airs on SiriusXM…

ON MARCH 10, 1998, the first DVD from a brand-new website called NetFlix.com was dropped in the mail. The movie was 1988’s “Beetlejuice,” from director Tim Burton with a cast that included a teenage Winona Ryder, who nearly 20 years later would be tapped to star in the series that has become one of Netflix’s signature original titles, “Stranger Things.” Last year, Burton directed the first four episodes of “Wednesday,” a hot property that turned Jenna Ortega into an overnight star. Those connections are just a few of the full-circle moments Netflix has marked in recent years as the upstart has become the establishment. The Silicon Valley-born company barreled into Hollywood a decade ago in search of shows that were edgy and distinctive and maybe even expensive. Ten years after…