Megyn Leaves NBC; Iger Pay Hits $65M; 'Green Book' Writer Drama; Lantern's TWC Assets Plan; 'Upside' vs. 'Aquaman'

The Weekender: How Lantern is navigating its Weinstein Co. bankruptcy assets. Plus: Bob Iger's pay goes way up, Green Book's awards drama continues and Lionsgate lays off 25 staffers. — Will Robinson [The Hollywood Reporter - Today In Entertainment]( January 12, 2019 The Weekender: How Lantern is navigating its Weinstein Co. bankruptcy assets. Plus: Bob Iger's pay goes way up, Green Book's awards drama continues and Lionsgate lays off 25 staffers. — Will Robinson ^Megyn Kelly, NBC News finally go separate ways: After months of deliberation and negotiations, the former NBC News host leaves with the remainder of her $69 million deal and no non-compete clause, Marisa Guthrie reports: + Months in the making: "The parties have resolved their differences, and Megyn Kelly is no longer an employee of NBC," said a network spokesperson. Exit discussions between Kelly's lawyer, Hollywood litigator Bryan Freedman, and NBC lawyers had been ongoing since Oct. 25, 2018, two days after Kelly made her controversial comments during a Megyn Kelly Today segment about Halloween costumes and displaying a decided lack of awareness about the painful racist origins of blackface. + What's next for Kelly?: Though she is able to work immediately, as one well-connected PR executive told THR: "She needs to retreat a little. If I were her, I'd write an op-ed. Start doing things on social [media] to build up an independent following. And then just wait." [Full story.]( ^Reviving Weinstein Co.'s leftovers: Lantern Entertainment, which acquired the disgraced mogul's company in 2018 for $289 million, is searching for a CEO and has been mired in lawsuits as it releases its first movie, Gregg Kilday reports: + Learning curve: Texas-based private-equity investors Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic were show business novices when they became the sole bidders for TWC, which had a handful of unreleased movies and a library of about 270 films. "They're not movie people, but they are nice and respectful and open. They will tell you they don't know this part of the business and have been very receptive," says Todd Black, one of The Upside's producers. + Bumps in the road: Lantern struck a deal with NBCUniversal to move Project Runway back to Bravo, where it originated, after A+E's Lifetime, on which it's appeared for the past decade, canceled its contract. The show will resurface in the spring with new hosts. Plus, a number of TWC's orphan films — like Thomas Edison biopic The Current War, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon — are still without domestic release. + Digging through projects: Mitchell and Brajovic interested MGM in partnering to develop The Boys in the Boat, based on Daniel James Brown's best-selling book about the 1936 U.S. Olympic rowing team that Kenneth Branagh was once set to direct. But the process has been slow because Lantern hasn't yet inventoried all the IP it acquired — "as creative as they were, the Weinsteins were not very good at bookkeeping and tracking things," says one source who's been monitoring developments. [Full story.]( Iger's Pay Jumps Giant raise: Walt Disney Company chairman and CEO Bob Iger's salary went up 80 percent in the company's latest fiscal year to $65.6 million, Paul Bond reports: + The Mouse's financials: While shares of Disney fell in 2018, as did shares of most companies in entertainment and other industries due to an end-of-year correction in the stock market, its shares were nearly 21 percent higher in Disney's fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 29. In its fiscal year, Disney earned $12.6 billion, up 40 percent, on revenue that rose 8 percent to $59.4 billion. + Past years: Iger had earned $36.3 million in 2017 and $43.9 million the year before that. Iger's salary in the fiscal year was $2.875 million, up from $2.5 million a year earlier. He made $35.5 million in stock awards, nearly four times what he was awarded the year before. His options were unchanged at $8.3 million. [Full story.]( Elsewhere in film... ► Lionsgate lays off 25 staffers in Motion Picture Group restructuring. Most of the latest job losses follow the [centralization]( of the studio's film marketing and distribution efforts in the Santa Monica headquarters. From around 50 employees working in the New York office, eight were laid off as theatrical marketing and distribution shifts to Los Angeles. ► CBS Films being folded into CBS Entertainment Group. CBS Films is [still committed]( to theatrical release for upcoming titles like Five Feet Apart and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Layoffs are expected at CBS Films, which employs roughly 40 people, and will begin in mid-March. CBS Films president Terry Press is expected to continue to lead the division. ► Hustle & Flow director direct Coming to America sequel. Craig Brewer is currently working with Eddie Murphy on Netflix movie Dolemite Is My Name. Paramount is behind the project that will see Murphy [return]( as Prince Akeem. ► Green Book screenwriter won't attend Critics' Choice Awards. Nick Vallelonga has been [under fire]( — and apologized — for a 2015 tweet critical of Muslims. Vallelonga, 59, whose father Tony Lip is portrayed by Viggo Mortensen in the film (opposite Mahershala Ali's Don Shirley), won a Golden Globe on Sunday night when the film was awarded best screenplay. ► The Upside in surprisingly close race with Aquaman for No. 1. Projections show the Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston two-hander earning as much as $7 million-$8 million on Friday for a domestic debut in the $17 million-$20 million range. Heading into the weekend, tracking showed the film opening to no more than $9 million-$12 million, Pamela McClintock reports. Aquaman is eyeing up to $20 million. [Weekend box office.]( ► Final Destination reboot in the works with Saw franchise writers. Scary movie mavens Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan [will pen]( the script for New Line. ► Billy Zane to play Marlon Brando in drama film. The actor will also [produce]( Waltzing With Brando, from writer-director Bill Fishman. ► John Green adaptation Turtles All the Way Down finds director. Actress-filmmaker Hannah Marks [will direct]( the Fox 2000 feature. Elizabeth Berger and Issac Aptaker wrote the feature. ► Fast and the Furious producer gets Universal president added to spinoff lawsuit. Universal argued that an attempt to add James Horowitz to the lawsuit amounted to "gamesmanship and forum shopping" since he, as a California citizen, would strip the diversity of parties required to establish jurisdiction in federal court. But U.S. District Court Manuel Real sees enough in a proposed amended complaint to warrant Horowitz' inclusion. [Details.]( ► Blade Runner 2049 studio sues automaker for not living up to flying car deal. Alcon says the Ryan Gosling film [would have grossed]( more but for $30 million less in promised advertising support from Peugeot. -> "Paramount Pictures Is Hollywood’s Comeback Kid." Tara Lachapelle details the Viacom studio's banner year, with comments from CEO Jim Gianopulos: "From January through September, Paramount earned $91 million, a significant improvement from the brutal $445 million loss it suffered in all of fiscal 2016." [[Bloomberg](] ^Why Armando Iannucci ditched his Trump movie idea: The Death of Stalin director and Veep creator made a joke film pitch on Twitter in which Trump is drugged and moved to a replica White House that received a flurry of interest from Hollywood, Alex Ritman reports: + The response: "We got 12 offers. But I just thought, I really don’t want to spend the next year and a half writing about Donald Trump. I just thought, I’ll get depressed," he says. "And also, in the end, the true Donald Trump movie will be in about 15 years time. We’ve got Vice out at the moment, and that’s in response to 18 years ago really." + First film after Veep: "With telly everything is very definite. You know how long your thing is going to be, how many episodes are going out, but the one thing you don’t do is ever see your audience. They’re all at home," he explains. "With film it’s different, there’s great uncertainty. It might get made, you might get the money, it might get distributed, you don’t know which countries. But you do meet your audiences because you have to go out and sell it." [Full interview.]( Box office returns... ► European performance painted a conflicted picture in 2018. Preliminary figures show otherwise comparable markets going in widely different directions with Italy and Germany in the doldrums and the U.K. and Scandinavia showing signs of growth. “It's a very diverse picture, you don't have a single factor impacting every territory the same way,” says Laura Houlgatte, a representative for European cinema associations group UNIC. [Analysis.]( Latest reviews... ► Netflix's The Last Laugh. "Is there anything more desperate than pleadingly self-aware humor?" Keith Uhlich asks. "How about an entire movie in which "desperate" is the default mode?" [Full review.]( ► Entertainment Studios' Replicas. "[The film] manages to be perversely entertaining for its fast-paced first half, if only because of the sheer absurdity of its storyline. But it eventually devolves into tedious thriller tropes," Frank Scheck writes. [Full review.]( * What critics are saying. The Keanu Reeves pic is getting panned, to the tune of 9 percent on [Rotten Tomatoes]( and 17 on [Metacritic](. Film history... ► Lawrence of Arabia tops cinematographers' list of milestone films. The list was released as the American Society of Cinematographers begins its Centennial celebration. Also on the list are Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now and Citizen Kane. [Top 100.]( The Post screenwriter officiates her own manager's wedding. Liz Hannah, whose new film All the Bright Places debuts on Netflix this year, oversaw the nuptials of Echo Lake Entertainment's Brittany Kahan, who married Chris Ward in Los Angeles on Dec. 29: ["My legs were shaking."]( [BEAUTIFUL BOY, based on father and son memoirs that chronicle their experience of addiction, relapse and recovery. Starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet who is nominated for a Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Supporting Actor. For Your Consideration In All Categories.]( Playing Critics' Choice "Natural fit": Stage and screen star Taye Diggs discusses his dream gig hosting Sunday's show, being a part of the re-emergence of the rom-com genre with Set It Up and why he's having "difficulty" with social media amid Kevin Hart and James Gunn drama, Mia Galuppo reports: + Entertainer & critic relationship: "It is unique, which is what makes the show so important," Diggs says. "As an actor, the relationship with critics can go either way. I would be lying if I said I was not affected at all, but early on in the game I knew I wanted to do my own thing and accept the good the same way I would accept the bad. When a show opened, I wasn't the guy who'd be first at the newsstand to read the reviews." + Social media practices: "People need to be aware that whatever you do these days stays with you. How much attention you pay to it, that is up to the person," Diggs says. "I don't necessarily read a lot because I am sensitive and a lot of times people can be harsh. It can get silly when someone tracks down something that someone said years ago, out of context. But, once again, you don't make the rules, you have to roll with the punches." [Full interview.]( Elsewhere in TV... ► CBS, Nielsen end standoff with new deal. The deal [encompasses]( "a range of services" and includes the CBS broadcast network, CBS Television Distribution, Showtime, Pop, Smithsonian, CBS Sports Network and 27 owned-and-operated local stations. Terms weren't disclosed, but the 11-day stalemate — or "contractual impasse," as CBS termed it — reportedly involved some discussion of costs. ► Discovery adding European HQ in Netherlands ahead of Brexit. The company currently runs its European channels, including sports network Eurosport and Animal Planet, out of its main office in West London, but all TV channels broadcast into the EU [require a license]( in an EU country. ► Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch leads to "Choose Your Own Adventure" trademark lawsuit. According to a complaint filed in Vermont federal court on Friday, Chooseco, LLC [has been using]( the mark since the 1980s and has sold more than 265 million copies of its Choose Your Own Adventure books. Netflix actively pursued a license but never got one. ► Better Than People to become first Russian series under Netflix Originals banner. The sci-fi series set in the near future and [focused]( on android robots, was commissioned by Russia's largest free-to-air national network Channel One and Start. The 16-episode series will be available on Netflix worldwide, except for Russia and China, translated into 25 languages. ► Tucker Carlson's Fox News advertisers haven't returned. The host's show included 19 advertisements on Thursday night, [down about half]( from before he said on Dec. 13 that immigration makes America "dirtier." ► Janeane Garofalo defends Louis C.K. in heated podcast interview. "There are so many issues we gotta be motivated on. He’s been my friend — and I stand by that — he’s been my friend since 1985, and I think he has suffered," Garofalo said. "And when he performs at the Comedy Cellar and people get all irate, if nothing else, [care about his daughters](." Ratings notes... ► Brooklyn Nine-Nine hits two-year high in NBC debut. The Universal TV comedy, which relocated to sister network NBC after five seasons on Fox, [scored]( a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49 Thursday. ^All the True Detective changes for season three: The HBO anthology harkens back to its first installment with a new mystery but a similar structure, Rick Porter details: + Different: The race factor: Creator Nic Pizzolatto originally wrote Wayne Hays as a white man, but after Mahershala Ali saw the scripts he successfully lobbied to play the lead role. Hays' race introduces a new element to the series, whose previous two seasons have been populated almost exclusively by white characters. It's not always central to the story, but it's also never far from the surface. + The same: Multiple timelines: "By design, we leaned back into some of the structure elements that worked in season one," said ep Scott Stephens. Season one also followed its characters at three points in time — 1995, 2002 and 2012 — but the first two eventually dropped off as the story caught up to its present. Through five episodes of season three, the 1980, 1990 and 2015 timelines are on roughly equal footing. [Full guide.]( ► What took so long for season three? Josef Adalian talks to HBO boss Casey Bloys about the three-and-a-half-year break: “We had a conversation with Nic, which was, let’s take our time and get this right. Let’s get a pass that we’re really excited about. And let’s not rush to do it, just to do it. I don’t think Nic had any interest in doing that, nor did we.” [[Vulture](] Digital digest... ► "Shitty Media Men" list creator attacks "absurd" masochism theory in defamation suit. Moira Donegan says that Stephen Elliott [can't demonstrate]( actual malice and ridicules his "too submissive to rape" argument, Eriq Gardner reports. Latest reviews... ► National Geographic's Valley of the Boom. "[The show] won't be for everyone, because it unapologetically rips up how a story should be told and takes the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to a very important (and often funny and mind-blowingly relevant and revolutionary) moment in business and cultural history, and has a lot of fun with it," Tim Goodman writes. [Full review.]( Black Mirror: Bandersnatch stars Fionn Whitehead, Will Poulter settle game vs. film debate. The co-stars of Netflix's first interactive for adults discuss "potentially the hardest job" they've ever taken on while speaking to THR's Jackie Strause: "You really have to be on your game and know all the subtle variations of each scene." [Full interview.]( 'The Sopranos' at 20 Woke up this morning... : David Chase, Edie Falco and more Sopranos alumni gathered Wednesday to remember the series, the erstwhile Tony Soprano and the actor who played him in James Gandolfini, Josh Wigler reports: + Treasuring the moment: "This is wonderful," Dominic Chianese (Corrado "Junior" Soprano), told Wigler as he surveyed the red carpet, surrounded by a small army of fellow Sopranos soldiers. "It's a very humane thing for HBO to do, bringing us together. We really liked each other. We worked as an ensemble, and any actor will tell you that in the theater and entertainment, our art form is so collaborative that it's like a family. It's like a family." + Averse to fame: "[Gandolfini] was shy," Lorraine Bracco said. "It's funny, the way people want to describe him. As much as he was a big man, this was not his thing. He wanted to work. He did work very well. He was very committed. He came in and he knew his lines. He was like an animal at working. As soon as that was over, he couldn't give a rat's ass about [the fame]." [Full story.]( What to watch this weekend... THR critic Daniel Fienberg sends his recommendation: That little holiday lull was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? You had the opportunity to get caught up on your DVR and finish some Netflix things that had backed up on you? Welcome back, landslide of TV! There are new seasons of acquired taste comedies like Netflix's Friends From College and Hulu's Future Man. There's the entirety of Surviving R. Kelly, which isn't the easiest of watches, but will [fill you with anger](. And on Sunday, True Detective is back, [boasting]( a slightly clearer mystery and three different ages of Mahershala Ali. This weekend's [real standout](, though, is Sex Education, which answers the question, "What would Big Mouth be like if it were live-action and set in rural England?" The answer: raunchy, graphic, hilarious and surprisingly emotional. Come for Gillian Anderson and stay for a young cast of relative unknowns you'll be hearing a lot more about. What else we're reading... — "The Oral History of Office Space." Stacey Wilson Hunt gets the story on the cult classic — lead Ron Livingston: "The nicest thing people say to me is, 'Every time I watch Office Space, I feel better.'" [[EW](] — "R. Kelly and the Cost of Black Protectionism." Jemele Hill writes: "But a community conditioning itself to accept abuse out of racial solidarity is not only unacceptable, it’s also further jeopardizing the safety and well-being of black women and girls." [[The Atlantic](] — "Hollywood's Doomed Remakes of French Comedies." Manuela Lazic poses: "The complex relationship between character and spectator in these French films, with both intimacy and distance enabled by well-deployed irony, becomes simplified into a list of 'do’s' and don’ts' in American comedies, which are more interested in the phenomenon of self-improvement and self-empowerment." [[The Ringer](] — "Danielle Macdonald of Bird Box Tries Her Hand at Graffiti." Alexis Soloski accompanies the actress: “I’m a perfectionist so this is hard for me. The cool thing about it is it’s almost better when it’s not perfect. But it’s still hard for me.” [[The New York Times](] — "Glenn Close Reflects What Her First Oscar Would Mean." Julie Miller interviews the actress: “I keep myself to zero expectations just for my own mental health.” [[Vanity Fair](] What else we're watching... + "Late-Night Lately: Hart 'over' Oscars, Kimmel's Bachelor pick, hosts mock Trump speech." [[THR](] What we're listening to... -> Alfonso Cuaron joins Awards Chatter podcast. The Oscar winner, one of the key figures of New Mexican Cinema, opens up about being kicked out of film school, the evolution of "The Three Amigos" and the widely-varying scales and genres of his films. [Listen]( | [Subscribe]( -> Award-winning sound mixers Anna Behlmer & Mark Paterson join Behind the Screen. The pair talks about the sound business, how to properly mix a movie and their latest collaboration, Bumblebee. [Listen]( | [Subscribe]( From the archives... + Today in 1959: Berry Gordy Jr. created Tamla Records, which became Motown Records, in Detroit. The label was a massive commercial success and helped integrate popular music through its roster of black artists including Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and The Jackson 5: "[Its] style has resulted in a series of records and a body of music so commanding, so sophisticated, and so fine, as to make Motown a contender for the supreme pop achievement of the ['60s]." [[Rolling Stone](] Today's birthdays: Naya Rivera, 32, Issa Rae, 34, Rachael Harris, 51, Jeff Bezos, 55, Simon Russell Beale, 58, Oliver Platt, 59, Christiane Amanpour, 61, John Lasseter, 62, Howard Stern, 65, Kirstie Alley, 68, Anthony Andrews, 71. Enjoy reading this? Six days a week, look for Today in Entertainment in your inbox to stay up-to-date on the industry. Sign up for this newsletter (and others) at [THR.com/Newsletters](. Follow The News Is this email not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser.]( ©2019 The Hollywood Reporter. 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 All rights reserved. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Preferences]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Use]( January 12, 2019