Variety 11/15/2023

CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Cynthia Littleton “I’ve never really felt like a girl.” That’s a bold statement from Billie Eilish, one of our four Power of Women L.A. honorees this year, who unpacks what she means by that in a terrific profile penned by Katcy Stephan. Eilish’s thoughtful defiance of gender norms throughout her career makes her a pitch-perfect addition to the list of notable women in entertainment we have saluted since the annual franchise launched in 2009. With Power of Women, the emphasis is always on the P-word, because that’s what we celebrate. Our honorees are selected for their prominence in the industry as well as for how they use their muscle when it comes to philanthropy. Eilish has become a big supporter of anti-hunger organization Support + Feed. Fantasia Barrino, star…

Famous Last Words The words that ended the SAG-AFTRA strike did not arrive until the final hours of the negotiations on Nov. 8. The final speed bump to a new three-year contract valued at more than $1 billion involved the threat of artificial intelligence, a technological leap that the union sees as a grave threat to the acting profession. The union’s 42-member negotiating committee wanted to ensure that actors had to give consent if their likeness from a movie or TV show was to be ingested for use by an artificial intelligence platform. The language on consent that satisfied the committee was put on paper fully two days after the studios laid down their “last, best and final offer.” “Anybody who’s done negotiations knows that you go in the room…

In “Masters of the Universe,” He-Man’s nemesis is the evil wizard Skeletor. In Hollywood, his greatest threat has been a list of studio partners that have sidelined him from the big screen for nearly two decades. The muscled, blond barbarian, based on a popular set of Mattel toys, may finally win the day. Amazon MGM Studios is in serious talks to mount a live-action “Masters of the Universe” movie from Adam and Aaron Nee, the writing and directing team behind “The Lost City,” according to multiple insiders. Conversations are taking place with Amazon after Netflix dropped a planned version of the Nee brothers film in July. Netflix spent nearly $30 million in development costs over two years for the project, which was meant to star Kyle Allen (“A Haunting in…

Tom Blyth is tired, but he’s doing a good job of hiding it. When the star of “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” sits down with Variety via Zoom, SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, and it’s been six short days since the Lionsgate thriller received an interim agreement from the guild. That means the press tour leading up to the long-anticipated release, typically spread across several months, has been condensed to just two weeks. But Blyth is animated as he talks about landing the role of Coriolanus Snow in the prequel tale, which explores how a poor young man with a revolutionary spirit eventually becomes the vicious dictator of Panem. “When I got the call, I was ecstatic for a moment,” recalls Blyth, 28, who is best…

Netflix’s “Stranger Things” may be heading into its final season, but fans of the sci-fi phenom needn’t despair. A new Hawkins-set adventure, “The First Shadow,” is just beginning on London’s West End. “The First Shadow” takes fans back in time to Hawkins High in 1959, before Jim Hopper (Oscar Lloyd) took in a strange child called Eleven, Joyce Maldonado’s (Isabella Pappas) son went missing and Bob Newby (Christopher Buckley) was, well, mauled to death by Demodogs. As the series’ signature ’80s neon and synthesizers transform into leather and rock ’n’ roll, the play (which starts previews Nov. 17 and opens Dec. 14) promises to immerse audiences even deeper into the mysterious world of “Stranger Things,” thanks to masterful special effects. “It’s like being in a fucking action film — like…

Bradley Cooper had a problem. The Oscar-nominated actor was gearing up to play Leonard Bernstein, the musical genius behind “West Side Story” and “Candide” and one of the driving cultural forces of the 20th century. Except, Cooper looked nothing like the distinctive composer and conductor. Enter Guillermo del Toro. The two men discussed Cooper’s predicament on the set of del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley,” which the actor starred in while working to get “Maestro,” his look at the private life of Bernstein, off the ground. Cooper confessed that he needed to be transformed, and according to del Toro, only one person was right for the job: Kazu Hiro. The Oscar-winning makeup artist had used his gift for prosthetics to transform Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill in “The Darkest Hour.” When Cooper…