Vice Shake-Up; Fox's 'X-Men' Debacle; No UTA-Paradigm Deal; Tony Awards Winners; Produced By Highlights

What's news: Winners and highlights from The Tony Awards. What happened to Dark Phoenix? Former New York Post publisher Jesse Angelo is joining Vice, as Vice News Tonight is canceled. Plus Quibi questions answered, and dispatches from E3 and the Produced By conference. --Alex Weprin June 10, 2019 What's news: Winners and highlights from The Tony Awards. What happened to Dark Phoenix? Former New York Post publisher Jesse Angelo is joining Vice, as Vice News Tonight is canceled. Plus Quibi questions answered, and dispatches from E3 and the Produced By conference. --Alex Weprin Why 'Phoenix' Fell ►What doomed Dark Phoenix? "[A] series of missteps by the studio — some prompted by outside forces — came together to cause the failure," Borys Kit writes. A studio effort to placate director James Cameron, and a misread of the room following 2016's Apocalypse, both played a role in what could end up being the X-Men franchise finale. +"Insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter that in a series of postmortem meetings on Apocalypse, execs came away thinking that the movie's failure had been due to an excessive amount of explosions and scale, not due to franchise fatigue generally. 'There was a misguided feeling that [Apocalypse] was an anomaly, that we just got it wrong,' says one Fox insider familiar with those meetings. 'We were wrong.'" [The story](. +Dark Phoenix debuted to $33 million, making it the lowest-earning opening weekend for any X-Men film. 2013's The Wolverine previously held that dubious record, earning $53 million in its debut. The last X-Men movie, 2016's Apocalypse, debuted to $65 million. Universal and Illumination's The Secret Life of Pets 2 won the weekend with $47.1 million. [More](. ►The Tony Awards: This year's Tony Awards were a "celebration of homegrown talent," Scott Feinberg writes, in his analysis of the awards show. "Hollywood, which has increasingly encroached on the Great White Way in recent years, was absent from the proceedings at Radio City Music Hall, save for Bryan Cranston, who, in recognition of his electric performance in Network, won his second best actor in a play Tony in six years, and Elaine May, who, at 87, after 52 years away from Broadway, won her first Tony, best actress in a play, for The Waverly Gallery." [The column](. +The winners: Hadestown, Oklahoma!, The Ferryman, and The Boys in the Band had good nights, alongside the aforementioned Cranston and May. The [full list of winners](. The snubs: Jeff Daniels and Ain't Too Proud had [disappointing evenings](. Also: Kudos to Scott Feinberg for [accurately predicting]( all 17 major category winners +James Corden opened the show with a performance that pitted live theater against TV. "There's only so many series you can see, only so many seasons to be binged, before your eyes glaze over, your ass falls asleep and your mind starts coming unhinged. You watch Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, 'til you can't remember which program is on." [Watch](. +What people will be talking about today: Billy Porter's red carpet [ensemble](. Bryan Cranston's acceptance [speech]( for his role in Network: "The media is not the enemy of the people," he said. "Demagoguery is the enemy of the people." Ali Stroker's win for her role in Oklahoma!, becoming the first wheelchair-using actor [to take home]( a Tony. Here's our list [of memorable moments](. +Here's David Rooney's review of the awards show. "James Corden brought theater-geeky enthusiasm but too few new ideas to his second turn hosting Broadway's big night." [Review](. ►Awards Chatter podcast: Scott Feinberg talks to legendary costume and fashion designer Bob Mackie (who won his first Tony Award last night!) about his 60+ year career, including his 11 year run on The Carol Burnett Show. [Listen](. Elsewhere in film... --Former Viacom and BuzzFeed executive Mark Jafar has joined Imax as global communications chief. [Story](. --Max Saines, an executive at Endeavor Content, [passed away at age 28](. --Peggy Stewart, a leading lady who appeared in more than 30 westerns produced by Republic Pictures, [passed away at age 95](. Vice News Shakeup ►HBO has canceled Vice News Tonight. The daily, millennial-focused news show will end its run in September, Natalie Jarvey reports. Vice is shopping another daily news show to other networks and streaming platforms, and is said to be working on a news program for Hulu that has not yet been announced. +Vice executive shakeup: Vice has tapped former New York Post publisher and CEO Jesse Angelo for a new role overseeing TV, news, and digital for the company. At the same time, Josh Tyrangiel, who heads the company's news division, will leave the company at the end of June, and become a consultant through the remainder of the daily HBO show's run. [Here's the story](. +The end of Vice News Tonight is the end of the long-running relationship between Vice News and HBO. The companies first partnered with a weekly documentary series in 2013, and immediately made news by sending former Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman to North Korea, securing unprecedented access to Kim Jong-Un. In 2015, the company's expanded their deal to include the daily newscast, additional weekly docs, and specials. ►Quibi sets April 2020 launch date. The subscription streaming video service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and being led by former HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman will debut on April 6, 2020. Katzenberg, speaking at the Produced By conference and the Banff World Media Festival, also revealed fresh details about pricing, programming, and the company's business model. Here's [the story.]( +Quibi is targeting a subscription cost of $4.99 per month with advertising, and $7.99 per month without ads. +Steven Spielberg has signed on to write and produce a horror series for the service, with the tentative title Spielberg After Dark. The current plan is to make the series viewable only after sundown. +Quibi is paying producers "cost plus 20%, up to $6 million an hour to make the show," Katzenberg said. The company plans to spend $1 billion on content in its first year, plus close to $500 million on marketing. +Context: Quibi is taking a big swing, but it will face an uphill climb. At $7.99 per month, the ad-free tier is only $1 per month less than a Netflix subscription, while its ad-supported tier is only $1 per month less than Hulu's ad-supported tier. Quibi will have far less content than either service at launch, even if it will boast a number of big names like Spielberg and Antoine Fuqua producing original shows for it. Katzenberg is betting that the focus on mobile and shorter-form content will differentiate Quibi from its TV-focused competitors. ►Dispatches from the Produced By conference: --Warner Bros. execs Peter Roth and Toby Emmerich kicked off the conference this weekend with a joint interview. They discussed the abrupt departure of former Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara, as well as the AT&T acquisition. [More](. --Disney+ and Hulu execs [spoke about]( their respective streaming services. --How Hollywood is [mining podcasts]( for TV content. --Nancy Meyers [in conversation]( with Mindy Kaling. --Showtime's scripted executive VP says Black Monday [originally starred]( two white men. Rep Sheet Roundup: Demi Lovato has left CAA for WME, which has tapped Lucy Dickins to lead its U.K. music division. … Benjamin Walker, Tony-nominated for All My Sons, has signed with Paradigm, which also has hired film lit agent Ryan Saul away from APA. … Mark McGrath and Sugar Ray have signed with APA, which also has signed Superstore's Mark McKinney. … The Red Line's Aliyah Royale has signed with Abrams, which has hired Buchwald talent reps Sheree Cohen and Saraphina Monaco. More [here](. Elsewhere in TV... --The CBS board will hold a regularly scheduled meeting on Friday, and a possible merger with Viacom will be on the table, [according to]( Charlie Gasparino. Gasparino adds that the company may disclose details about the talks after he meeting.--The creator of Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas, told attendees of the ATX TV Festival that he would be interested in seeing the show continue beyond he eight episode revival set to come to Hulu next month. [More](. --Black Mirror creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones talk to Jackie Strause about the new season of the Netflix series, unpacking each of the three episodes. [Story.]( No Deal ►The long-rumored UTA-Paradigm deal is dead. In an email to employees at the agency, Paradigm CEO Sam Gores confirmed that UTA made an offer for the company's talent/literary and music divisions, writing that the proposal "would have represented one of the largest talent agency transactions in the history of our business." --However: "After careful consideration and in consultation with leaders of both the Music and Talent/Literary executive groups, I have made the decision to shut down discussions and not make this deal," Gores wrote. --In a statement released after Gores' note was released, UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer said that he was "disappointed we didn't come to an agreement." --The deal would have been the biggest agency acquisition in years, and would have instantly cemented UTA as a major player in the music space. [The story](. ^E3 is underway. The video game conference officially kicks off Tuesday, but there was no shortage of news this weekend during press previews. Patrick Shanley is on the ground at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Here's what has happened so far: +Microsoft's next-gen video game console has the code name Project Scarlett, and [will launch]( around the holiday season in 2020, alongside Halo Infinite, which debuted [a new trailer](. +Xbox's game streaming service, Project xCloud, will launch in October. It will allow subscribers to stream more than 3,500 games. [More](. +New [footage]( from Doom Eternal, new [details]( on Wolfenstein: Youngblood. +Keanu Reeves will [have a role]( in Cyberpunk 2077, while George R.R. Martin is [helping]( with the development of an action role-playing game, Elden Ring. What else we're reading... --"Google made $4.7 billion from the news industry in 2018, study says." [[NY Times](] --"ESPN and Fox ante up for sports-betting jackpot." [[WSJ](] --"Would you pay to stream endless musicals? Some Broadway insiders are quietly betting on it." [[Washington Post](] Today's birthdays: Gina Gershon, 58, Elizabeth Hurley, 55, Tara Lipinski, 38. 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]( June 10, 2019