Innholdsfortegnelse for 9/28/2023 i Variety

The night of Sunday, Sept. 24, saw major developments in a story our newsroom had been working on for 146 days — and most of our journalists were glued to phones and laptops to seek out the latest details. After nearly five months, the Writers Guild of America finally reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP on a new contract. It’s the biggest news of the year so far, but it’s not time to pop Champagne yet. In this issue, we unpack just what it will take to get the industry back up and running, as SAG-AFTRA — on the picket lines since July — prepares to resume negotiations of its own. As we wait to see what happens next, this week’s cover provides a step outside the news cycle.…

A lot can happen in 146 days. When the Writers Guild strike started in May, Drew Barrymore was one of its folk heroes after stepping down as host of the MTV Movie & TV Awards in solidarity. But four months later, Barrymore became one of its most reviled public figures when she tried to rationalize the decision to bring back her daytime talk show. Many winners and losers emerged from this hot labor summer, and it’s not over yet, as SAG-AFTRA looks to seal its own deal with the AMPTP. But as the WGA prepares to vote on its hard-fought new contract, here are some of the entities that made it to the other side on the rise — or a bit imperiled. WINNERS ADAM CONOVER The stand-up and host…

Sept. 21 Black Music Action Coalition Gala Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills Host Kenny Burns honored the late Clarence Avant, while Doechii was among the presenters who saluted trailblazers including Sylvia Rhone and Jesse Collins. Lizzo tearfully accepted the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award hours after being served with a lawsuit from a former tour employee. Lava Records’ Jason Flom received the Change Agent Award from girlfriend Khaliah Ali, daughter of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali. On the black carpet, Flom spotlighted Toforest Johnson, an inmate on death row in Alabama. “Ultimately the work I do in criminal justice reform is, to me, more important than anything I’ve done in the music industry,” Flom told Variety. Sept. 23 Project Angel Food Angel Awards Gala Project Angel Food headquarters, Hollywood Sheryl Lee Ralph accepted…

Once upon a time, power in New York was measured by what table you commanded at Michael’s. The venerable lunchery is still around, of course, but nowadays, influence is more diffuse, stretching beyond midtown Manhattan through all the five boroughs. Consider this: New York’s hottest restaurant is the Brooklyn chophouse Gage & Tollner, and — seen through the right Instagram filter — every seat there looks like the best one in the house. All of this issue’s power players are mastering this brave new world, one in which sway happens online and where New York’s grit and attitude extend along the farthest reaches of the subway — or at least into the Bronx, which our cover girl, Ice Spice, calls home. Jon Adler Wonder weaver A former senior vice president…

Greta Lee is so grateful her breakout moment is happening at age 40. This year, she plays Nora, a New York City playwright who reconnects with her childhood love, in A24’s Sundance hit “Past Lives,” from debut director and writer Celine Song. She’s also the voice of LYLA, the Spider-Society’s AI assistant, in the blockbuster animated sequel “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and pops up in A24’s “Problemista,” Universal’s “Strays” and Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.” Lee, the daughter of Korean immigrants and mother of two, found unlikely inspiration to pursue acting: Val Kilmer in Phillip Noyce’s “The Saint.” “I felt this undeniable sense of ‘I want to do that,’” she recalls. “Which doesn’t make immediate sense to people. As a young girl, I felt that being Val Kilmer was freedom…

Senior music writer Steven J. Horowitz and Ice Spice bonded over their love of Nicki Minaj, especially her classic mixtape cuts “Itty Bitty Piggy” and “I Get Crazy.” Contributing theater editor Gordon Cox’s feature about the redemptive Broadway production of “Merrily We Roll Along” got him thinking about other musicals he’d like to see rehabilitated. Top of his list: “Chess.” Writing about director Todd Solondz was nostalgic for chief correspondent Daniel D’Addario — he first watched Solondz’s movies in a college class on independent cinema. Cover photographer Quil Lemons says, “In one year, Ice Spice has become the biggest poster in the world. She’s truly an example of the American dream!”…

Ice Spice was born in the Bronx on the first day of the 21st century. A little more than two decades later, she started rapping professionally, with her single “Munch (Feelin’ U)” breaking out in 2022. So far this year, Ice has dropped several Top 5 hits, performed on the Eras Tour with Taylor Swift and landed her own branded Dunkin’ Donuts drink. And she’s only 23. The prodigious artist’s world-beating ambition, and her impatience with anyone who’d get in her way, is a product of — where else? — New York City. As we do every year, we’re turning our attention to the East Coast and looking at the city of endless reinvention and the creative people who are doing the reinventing. New York is the place where, onstage, Stephen…

Every time his close friend and former co-star Andrew Rannells performed onstage, Josh Gad would make the pilgrimage to see him. And after the curtain went down, Gad would be there backstage to greet Rannells with the same refrain: “I miss this,” he’d say. “I just want to be up there with you. We have got to find something to do together.” That goal proved elusive. There aren’t many shows out there that can fully spotlight and support the pair’s prodigious gift for singing, dancing and delivering punchlines with a zip and a zing. Plus, when the actors first appeared together as hapless missionaries preaching the gospel of Joseph Smith in Uganda in 2011’s “The Book of Mormon,” the result was the kind of Broadway sensation that’s lucky to come…

Madonna’s life — and the relentless ambition that fueled her rise — could be the stuff of a great book. And now Pulitzer finalist Mary Gabriel has taken on the challenge. Gabriel, who wrote about the women who helped invent modern art in “Ninth Street Women,” turns her attention to the Material Girl in “Madonna: A Rebel Life,” out Oct. 10. The book follows Madonna’s journey from suburban Detroit to 1970s New York City, where she began cultivating her star power. Ahead of Madonna’s next world tour (set to launch Oct. 14 in London), Gabriel talks about her subject’s New York days. Madonna has always described her move to New York as courageous, but your book really shows why that’s true. She went to New York in 1977 for a summer…

ONLY a year ago, a 22-year-old budding rapper from the Bronx named Isis Naija Gaston attended her first MTV Video Music Awards as a friend’s plus-one. She’d just released what would become her breakthrough single, “Munch (Feelin’ U),” a viral smash, but no one knew who she was yet. Her seat was high up in the rafters and behind the stage. “I couldn’t see nothing,” she recalls now. “I just remember thinking, ‘I can’t wait to be part of that.’” If you don’t know who this is yet, it’s because she’s only recently been reborn as one of the biggest acts in music with the best stage name since Lady Gaga. This year at the VMAs, Gaston (who goes by Ice Spice) was one of the most vivid parts of the…

JULIE BENKO Understudies and standbys don’t get a lot of recognition in the theater — unless you’re Julie Benko. Last season she became the most famous understudy on Broadway as the actor who played the title character in “Funny Girl” when stars Beanie Feldstein and Lea Michele were absent. Now she gets recognized on the street. And this fall, she’s got her first shot at originating a role in a new Broadway musical. In “Harmony,” Benko plays a Bolshevik married to one of the Comedian Harmonists — the wildly popular performance troupe whose stardom was quashed by the rise of Nazi-era antisemitism. “She’s a woman of real valor and substance,” Benko says. “That my character is an activist is so meaningful to me.” A multi-hyphenate, Benko is also releasing a…

The news of Rupert Murdoch’s retirement from the boards of Fox and News Corp. came as a surprise to just about every media watcher — except, perhaps, Michael Wolff. The journalist’s new book, “The Fall,” looks into Fox’s future after Murdoch — a future that’s now accelerated. Wolff spoke with Variety about the news that conservative elder son Lachlan Murdoch will be taking over for his father, and the complicated balancing act he’ll have to pull off. Interesting timing on Murdoch’s announcement, given that your book came out this week. I may have been the direct cause of this. Inside, they’ve been seeing the book as a bus aimed directly at him, and in order to avoid a direct hit, they acted first. But I’m going to offer another informed…

TV REVIEW Comedy: Amazon Prime Video (8 episodes; 6 reviewed); Sept. Starring: Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Shelley Conn, Maddie Phillips Is “The Boys” a satire of superhero franchises or a superhero franchise itself? Such is the question posed by a show that is, among other things, a cautionary tale about corporate monopoly that airs on Amazon. So far, though, the answer is both — a delicate balance “The Boys” has sustained through three acclaimed seasons, an animated anthology series and, now, a live-action spinoff, the college-set “Gen V.” The contradictions of success may eventually take their toll on the pitch-black comedy and its satellites, which portray so-called superheroes as pawns of the rapacious Vought International. But “Gen V” retains the edge, cynicism and (aptly) adolescent humor that make its parent…