Variety 9/5/2023

“I write to discover what I know,” the Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor once declared. Her vivid mind, always in joyful discovery of new ideas, has made her work — including the novels “Wise Blood” and “The Violent Bear It Away” and the short-story collection “Everything That Rises Must Converge” — into American literary classics. Nearly 60 years after her death, new readers are still discovering that O’Connor was anything but conventional. Maya Hawke, the 25-year-old “Stranger Things” breakout, is among O’Connor’s younger devotees. And, as she tells our Rebecca Rubin, she’d wanted to work with her dad — himself a novelist, among other achievements — to adapt a movie about O’Connor’s life as a writer. But would Ethan Hawke really direct it? Going from father and daughter to artistic…

Rebecca Rubin had oysters and burgers with onetime vegetarians Ethan and Maya Hawke at a restaurant in Chelsea for this week’s cover story. Deputy editor Carole Horst has been overseeing Variety’s coverage of Toronto for two decades. She notes that the excitement surrounding new movies from international auteurs marks a hopeful sign that cinema isn’t dead. Senior awards editor Clayton Davis loves the Telluride Film Festival, minus the thin mountain air, the steep hills and the painful reminder that he didn’t use his Peloton as much as he should have to properly prepare for awards season. Photographer Heather Hazzan, who shot this week’s cover, says, “It was a special gift to capture the enchanting Ethan and Maya Hawke. Their father-daughter bond is electric yet grounded, fueled by conversations about poetry, film…

It’s back, baby. As summer winds down and fall festivals begin, it’s time for awards season. Hope and uncertainty are in the air as studios, streamers and their army of Oscar strategists gear up for the long slog of getting their movies in front of voters — all in pursuit of those golden baubles. The 2023-24 edition promises to be memorable, as it will unfold against the backdrop of two strikes, an upcoming presidential election and a spirit of belt-tightening by major media companies. As Hollywood braces for the ups, downs and twists in the quest to win big at the Academy Awards, here are five burning questions consuming the movie business. 1 Is it Bradley Cooper’s turn at the podium? Talk about long overdue. Cooper partnered to electrifying effect…

Harmony Korine used to be a movie junkie, someone who’d watch anything and everything. These days, when people recommend a movie, “I’ll look at it and I feel nothing, like dead inside,” says the guy whose own films, from “Spring Breakers” to the controversial screenplay for Larry Clark’s “Kids,” are nothing if not disruptive. “Watching a lot of this shit, you really feel the algorithms,” he says the day before receiving the Pardo d’onore Manor prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Whereas, “I’ll see a clip on TikTok that is so inexplicable. … Like, I can have an experience with a 30-second clip that goes so far beyond” what movies do for him. TikTok. YouTube. Video games. Those are the influences operating on Korine’s latest feature-length provocation, “Aggro Dr1ft,” which…

Anna Wintour was running over an hour late. It was an anomaly for the regimented and exalted editor of Vogue, who typically works through lunch but dined that day with her old friend Bruce Bozzi. Tucked away at the Italian spot Via Carota in New York’s West Village, she was unusually candid about showing up for personal relationships while creatively navigating Condé Nast. They weren’t alone. Beside them was Bozzi’s recorder, which captures his podcast “Table for Two.” In the series, Bozzi, a 32-year veteran of the hospitality industry and spouse of CAA super-agent Bryan Lourd, sits for languorous meals and expansive conversations with some of the boldest names in media. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson have all been guests. Rosé is served, and so is…

Gambling is often full of risk, but it may also be the surest bet that stressed executives in the frenzied media business can make. Disney last month became the latest of the traditional media conglomerates to hook up with purveyors of sports wagering. Under terms of a deal struck with Penn Entertainment, Disney’s ESPN stands to receive $2 billion in cash and warrants over 10 years from the gambling firm. In return, ESPN will help market a new sportsbook, ESPN Bet, by incorporating the name into its shows and other on-air content. “It has become a big part of storytelling,” Mike Morrison, ESPN’s vice president of sports betting and fantasy, says about betting. ESPN runs a show called “The Daily Wager” that is devoted to oddsmaking. And he sees more…