Ron Meyer Named Co-CEO of Wild Bunch; 'Clifford' Opens to $22M, 'Eternals' No. 1; 'Summer of Soul' Sweeps Critics Choice Doc Awards

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( November 15, 2021 What's news: Ron Meyer lands his first exec job after leaving NBCU following the Charlotte Kirk affair. The Astroworld death toll rises to 10. Jungle Cruise flops hard in China. Questlove's Summer of Soul was the big winner at the Critics Choice doc awards. Plus: Sesame Street has its first Asian American muppet — [Abid Rahman]( Ron Meyer Named Co-CEO of Wild Bunch ►He's back. Former NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer is joining the European film and TV production and distribution firm Wild Bunch AG as co-CEO. Wild Bunch, which is controlled by The Tennor Group has produced or distributed films like The King’s Speech and The Father, has tapped Sophie Jordan from beIN Media as co-CEO. With Meyer and Jordan taking on CEO responsibilities, Wild Bunch’s current CEO Vincent Grimond will shift to a consulting role. Meyer left NBCU under somewhat scandalous terms, when he disclosed an affair with the actress Charlotte Kirk. NBCUniversal and Meyer ultimately came to a settlement agreement last month. [The story.]( —Tragic. Ezra Blount, a 9-year-old Dallas boy, has become the youngest person to die from injuries sustained during a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston. He is the 10th person who attended the festival to die. [The story.]( —Trailblazer. Ji-Young is making history as the first Asian American muppet on Sesame Street. The 7-year-old Korean American will formally be introduced in See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special. Simu Liu, Padma Lakshmi and Naomi Osaka are among the celebrities appearing in the special, which will drop Thanksgiving Day on HBO Max. [The story.]( —Clooney on demand. Unlike last year, John Oliver kept the final 2021 episode of Last Week Tonight inside the studio — but recruited several celebrities to help him bring the year to an end. George Clooney, Will Ferrell, Cardi B, RuPaul, Leslie Jones, Jennifer Coolidge and Brian Baumgartner all made appearances as Oliver recapped a "tricky year." [The story.]( —Delayed. A planned Nov. 23 ceremony to rename the Duke Ellington School of the Arts high school theater after Dave Chappelle was postponed by several months in light of potential student protests related to the comedian’s latest Netflix special, The Closer. [The story.]( —ICYMI. Saturday Night Live kicked off its cold open by welcoming back Aidy Bryant as Ted Cruz, who offered an alternate version of Sesame Street titled Cruz Street, in light of the Texas senator's one-sided and totally ridiculous Twitter feud with Big Bird. [The recap.]( —"A painting and not a photograph." Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem and writer-director Aaron Sorkin made one of their first public appearances in support of their new film Being the Ricardos on Saturday night, hosting a screening and Q&A at the Bruin Theater in Westwood. [The story.]( 'Clifford' Opens to $22M, 'Eternals' Stays No. 1 ►Red or dead. Clifford the Big Red Dog had one of the best starts of the pandemic era for a family film with a five-day opening of $22 million, even though it was also available to stream on Paramount+. The movie, which launched Wednesday in order to take advantage of Veterans Day, earned $16.4 million for the three-day weekend proper from 3,700 theaters to place No. 2 domestically behind Marvel’s Eternals. THR's [Pamela McClintock]( writes that Eternals, dogged by middling reviews and not-so-great audience scores, grossed $27.5 million from 4,090 cinemas in its sophomore outing for a 10-day domestic total of $118.4 million. The superhero pic fell 61 percent, less than Venom 2 and Black Widow but more than Shang-Chi. Overseas, Chloe Zhao's film is faring better where it earned another $48 million from 45 materials markets for a foreign tally of $162.6 million and $281.4 million globally. [The box office report.]( —Cruise to nowhere. Disney’s Jungle Cruise finally opened in China over the weekend and went absolutely nowhere, making a paltry $3.3 million. The film, estimated to have cost $200 million to make, received quite respectable social scores from the Chinese filmgoers who did see it, suggesting that rampant piracy, a limited marketing effort from Disney and a growing audience tendency towards local fare may have conspired to keep seats empty. [The China box office report.]( —International milestone. No Time to Die has become the top-grossing Hollywood movie of the pandemic era at the international box office after finishing Sunday with $558.2 million in ticket sales and eclipsing the $549 million earned overseas by F9. In North America, the James Bond pic crossed the $150 million mark over the weekend to finish Sunday with a worldwide total of $708.6 million (it hit premium VOD last week). [The story.]( Review: 'Cowboy Bebop' ►"A cheap and artless re-creation of a beloved classic." THR TV critic [Angie Han]( reviews Netflix's big new series Cowboy Bebop. John Cho, Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda lead a live-action adaptation of the classic anime series about a ragtag band of intergalactic bounty hunters in the year 2071. [The review.]( —"Good as a 95-minute feature, could have been great as an eight-hour series." THR's chief TV critic [Dan Fienberg]( reviews Emily Kuester and Brad Lichtenstein's doc Messwood. Two Milwaukee-area public schools, one predominantly white and the other predominantly Black, form a unified high school football team. [The review.]( —"Not a knockout." THR critic Stephen Farber reviews Halle Berry's fight drama Bruised. The Oscar winner's directorial debut, in which she stars, focuses on a disgraced MMA fighter's return to the ring while she tries to repair her family relationships. [The review.]( —It’s a season of haves and have-nots. From Succession to Squid Game, the intersection of economic aspiration and economic desperation was everywhere on TV this fall. THR critics Dan Fienberg and Angie Han sit down for a conversation on the small screen depiction of the extremes of income disparity and discuss how not all explorations of class are created equal. [The critics' conversation.]( 'Summer of Soul' Sweeps Critics Choice Doc Awards ►"This is hands down the best night of my life." Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer of Soul won all six categories in which it was nominated, including best documentary, at the 2021 Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which were handed out Sunday in Brooklyn. The film features footage, largely forgotten and unseen for 50 years, of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, featuring Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder and more. Speaking to THR's [Hilary Lewis]( before the awards, Questlove said that a win would be a “cherry on top” of the effort that went into the film. [The full list of winners.]( —COLA sweet. Bosch, Insecure and The Matrix Resurrections scored wins at the 2021 California on Location Awards, which honors the best location professionals in the industry. The Location Team of the Year prize for a studio feature went to The Matrix Resurrections, while Bosch won Location Team of the Year in the one-hour episodic TV category for 2020-2021. [The full list of winners.]( —Less is more. For the 93rd Academy Awards, a record 97 countries submitted a film for the best international feature Oscar competition, and a record 93 were accepted into the race. For the 94th Oscars, the number of submitted films trickled down to 80, and the process of vetting those entries is still underway. THR's awards analyst [Scott Feinberg]( looks at the selection process that's become leaner but also edgier in terms of the material, something that voters used to shy away from. [The analysis.]( In other news... —Weddings, tennis whites and sea adventures: The Downton Abbey [sequel trailer arrives]( —Cineworld’s CEO touts “real grounds for optimism” as [October revenue nears 2019 levels]( —[Warner Music quarterly financials rise]( as digital revenue jumps 19 percent —[Snap hires longtime Google executive]( to lead global carrier partnerships —Oscars: France’s Titane, Iran’s A Hero and Denmark’s Flee among [top contenders for best international feature]( —Oscars: Mexico’s Prayers for the Stolen, Romania’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn among [dark horse contenders for best international feature]( —Where [Hollywood is moving]( —[Taylor Lautner reveals he’s engaged]( to girlfriend Tay Dome —Edible Insecure: [A map of L.A. restaurants featured on the comedy]( —[Ryan Murphy spends big]( for Cliff May-designed equestrian ranch —The old Santa Monica post office [re-opens as art gallery]( What else we're reading... —Newsmax Goes Fishing for Respectability in Fox’s Talent Pool [[Daily Beast]( —Sex And The City Effect Roars Back to Make Its Mark On Our Wardrobes [[The Guardian]( —"We’re Like the Anti-Billions": How Succession Makes Wealth Look Miserable [[The Ringer]( —How Kristen Stewart Became Her Generation’s Most Interesting Movie Star [[New Yorker]( —Ping. Ding. Chirp. Notifications Are Driving Us Crazy. [[Wall Street Journal]( Today... ...in 1977, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind held its world premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York before hitting wide release and eventually earning nine Oscar noms at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony. [The original review.]( Today's birthdays: Shailene Woodley (30), [Jonny Lee Miller]( (49), Sophia Di Martino (38), Asia Kate Dillon (37), Beverly D'Angelo (70), Virginie Ledoyen (45), Sam Waterston (81), Bob Gunton (76), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (48), François Ozon (54), Sean Murray (44), Susie Abromeit (39), Ildikó Enyedi (66), Jon Hurwitz (44) Jeff Wald, who served as a manager for Helen Reddy, Sylvester Stallone and George Carlin, died Friday. He was 77. [The obituary.]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} by Penske Media Corporation. Please add email@email.hollywoodreporter.com to your address book to ensure delivery to your inbox. 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