Chapek Secures New Long-Term Contract; CAA Closes $750M Deal for ICM; 'Knives Out 2' to Premiere at TIFF; Netflix Nabs the Russos $200M Feature; 'Beauty' Review

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( June 29, 2022 What's news: Bob Chapek is sticking around at Disney after signing a three-year contract. The DOJ waves through the CAA-ICM deal. The Academy invites 397 new members. HBO greenlights True Detective season four. Baz Luhrmann's Australia will become a Hulu series. Freevee is developing a Who's the Boss? sequel series — [Abid Rahman]( Bob Chapek Secures New Long-Term Contract ►"Unanimous" decision. Disney is sticking with Bob Chapek with the embattled CEO securing a new long-term contract. Chapek’s future at the company had been in some question, following a number of missteps and debacles, and with his contract set to expire in early 2023 the window to renew or begin looking for a successor was closing. Despite the tumult, Disney’s board of directors backed their man and announced the new three-year contract extension Tuesday. [The story.]( —Make sure to RSVP. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited 397 members of the global film community to join the organization. Among those invited are newly-minted Oscar winners Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell and Ariana DeBose and Troy Kotsur, Paramount chief Brian Robbins and Disney general entertainment chief Dana Walden and film critic Leonard Maltin. [The story.]( —Benoit Blanc is heading north. Netflix’s follow-up to Rian Johnson’s 2019 movie Knives Out is set to have its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. A red carpet launch for Knives Out 2 is part of TIFF’s strategy to returns to its pre-COVID roots for its 47th edition — in-person with Hollywood stars for tentpole attractions. [The story.]( —What cutbacks? After nearly half a year of negotiations, Netflix has closed a deal for the next big-budget movie from Joe and Anthony Russo. The duo will direct The Electric State for the streamer, with Millie Bobby Brown on board to star in the feature. Chris Pratt in talks to join her. The project was previously set up at Universal, which eventually balked at the price tag and put it into turnaround. The new budget is north of $200m. [The story.]( —It's official. True Detective season four is happening. HBO announced Tuesday that a new season of the anthology crime drama has been greenlit — titled True Detective: Night Country — and that the series will co-star boxer, actress and motivational speaker Kali Reis. Reis will be a co-lead alongside Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, who was previously announced as making her first foray into TV as an adult with this project. [The story.]( —"I can say fuck the Supreme Court?" Maya Hawke didn’t hold back while visiting The Tonight Show as she discussed her family history with abortion in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Stranger Things star spoke about her mother Uma Thurman's Washington Post op-ed from September 2021 about an abortion the Pulp Fiction actress described having had in her late teens. [The story.]( CAA Closes $750M Deal for ICM Partners ►Finally happening. Over 270 days since the deal was revealed, the Department of Justice has cleared CAA's $750m acquisition of rival ICM after an antitrust review. CAA says the combined company will have some 3,200 employees, in 25 countries. Some 425 ICM employees will join CAA, with 105 expected to be laid off. The move consolidates the Hollywood talent agency landscape into three major players: CAA-ICM, UTA and Endeavor's WME. [The story.]( —Release the Luhrmann cut mate! Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 epic Australia is getting a second life — as a limited series. The Elvis filmmaker will expand and reimagine the film as Faraway Downs, a six-part series that will run on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ and Star+ internationally. The project will be assembled entirely from footage Luhrmann shot for Australia, with a new ending and updated soundtrack. It’s slated to premiere in the winter. [The story.]( —"I didn’t know that I would kind of become the face of religion." Chris Pratt is seeking to change some widespread perceptions about his religious views. In a recent interview, Pratt said that he’s not nearly as religious as people think. Pratt also strongly criticized organized religion for its history of well-documented sins. [The story.]( —"We’re looking into this bug and working on a fix now." Instagram said a technical “bug” was causing content to be placed behind “sensitivity screens” after the AP reported on Tuesday that the company was hiding posts mentioning abortion from public view. The AP identified nearly a dozen posts on Instagram that included information about abortion — not photos of abortions — that were covered by Instagram with a warning. [The story.]( —Put it in the diary. The next Ghostbusters movie will hit theaters on Dec. 20, 2023. The sequel is a follow-up to director Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which at long last revived the marquee franchise for Sony. Earlier this month, Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan confirmed the film will return to the original films’ New York City and firehouse setting. [The story.]( 'Who's the Boss' Sequel Lands at Amazon's Freevee ►She's the boss? A sequel to the 1980s sitcom Who’s the Boss is headed to Amazon’s Freevee streaming service. The project, in development for almost two years, has original series stars Alyssa Milano and Tony Danza attached to reprise their roles. Mike Royce and Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz have also come aboard as writers on the show, which hails from Sony Pictures Television. The new take will focus on Milano’s Samantha Micelli, a single mother who lives in the same house where she grew up on the original series with her retired dad Tony (Danza). [The story.]( —Doubling down on dinos. NBC has ordered an eight-episode natural history series titled Surviving Earth, which will use cutting-edge digital effects to delve into mass extinctions over the course of the planet’s life and the creatures that survived them. The series comes from Universal Television Alternative Studio and Loud Minds, the production company behind the BBC/Discovery series Walking With Dinosaurs. [The story.]( —"I signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making." Dakota Johnson has revealed there was “mayhem” behind the scenes during the filming of Fifty Shades of Grey. In a Vanity Fair cover story, the actress opened up about starring in the trilogy, saying it was "crazy" with author E.L. James wielding a huge amount of power and changing the script to her liking. [The story.]( —Signed and sealed. Melissa Benoist has renewed an overall deal with Warner Bros. for her company, Three Things Productions. The multi-year deal extends a relationship between the Supergirl star and the studio that began when she signed an overall deal in early 2021. Additionally, Benoist has closed a deal to star in HBO Max's The Girls on the Bus, a dramedy about four female journalists covering a presidential campaign. [The story.]( —First-look deal news. Pushkin Industries, the audio company co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, has signed a first-look deal with A24 for film and TV adaptations of podcasts. The first project under the deal is a docuseries based on The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell’s 2021 book about aerial bombing during World War II. [The story.]( —Fresh faces. Freeform has locked in the core cast for its drama pilot AZNBBGRL, set in Southern California’s Little Saigon community. Cathy Bui, Kim Lynn Do and Jazelle Villanueva will play the lead roles of three Asian American teenagers in the coming-of-age story from Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant), Dinh Thai (Wu-Tang: An American Saga) and Kai Yu Wu (American Born Chinese). [The story.]( Film Review: 'Beauty' ►"Dreamy and enigmatic to a fault." THR critic [Lovia Gyarkye]( reviews Andrew Dosunmu's Beauty. A singer on the cusp of fame struggles to balance family life, love and self-worth in a Netflix feature written by Lena Waithe. [The review.]( —"Succession-type vibe." THR's [Katie Kilkenny]( spoke to Brit documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, whose life changed dramatically — and practically overnight — when news broke on June 21 that the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 had subpoenaed footage he had shot of Trump and those close to him. Holder explains why finding distribution for his three-part series Unprecedented "wasn't as straightforward as one might imagine." [The interview.]( —This Week in TV. THR's [Rick Porter]( runs down the TV premieres, returns and specials over the next seven days. Among the things to look out for over the coming week include the fourth season finale of Stranger Things, the return of Netflix's The Upshaws, and the debut of Disney+'s Baymax! Also there's Chris Pratt's return to television in Amazon's The Terminal List and A&E’s two-part documentary Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution examines how Black comedians have used their work to illuminate the Black experience in America. [The full guide.]( In other news... —Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell play divers in [Thai cave rescue in Thirteen Lives trailer]( —The Sanderson Sisters are back in [Hocus Pocus 2 teaser trailer]( —Percy Jackson and the Olympians [takes ILM virtual production route]( —Amazon taps [Charissa Thompson as Thursday Night Football studio host]( —NBCUniversal ups [unscripted executive Benny Reuven]( —Josh Gad [signs with CAA]( —ESPY Awards: [Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Katie Ledecky, Sunisa Lee among nominees]( —Crunchyroll sets [global theatrical release for anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime]( —Why Montenegro is a [Mediterranean haven for stars]( What else we're reading... —Critic James Poniewozik gives his take on a wacky and wild day of testimony at Jan. 6 Committee [[NYT]( —Cristian Farias on the Supreme Court smashing what’s left of the separation between church and state [[VF]( —The full Britt Hennemuth cover feature with Dakota Johnson is well worth a read [[VF]( —Stuart Heritage writes that with Russell Crowe's recent projects, perhaps the actor has become the "new Nicolas Cage" [[Guardian]( —Heather Schwedel watched all three Father of the Bride movies and reflects on the radical changes film to film [[Slate]( Today... ...in 1988, Paramount debuted the R-rated comedy Coming to America, from Eddie Murphy and John Landis, in theaters. The film was a huge success scoring $289m at the box office and would spawn a long delayed sequel in 2021. [The original review.]( Today's birthdays: Melora Hardin (55), Lily Rabe (40), [Bret McKenzie]( (46), Matthew Weiner (56), Addison Timlin (31), Sharon Lawrence (61), Gary Busey (78), Luke Kirby (44), Christina Chang (51), Nicole Scherzinger (44), Camila Mendes (28), Amanda Donohoe (60), Zuleikha Robinson (45), Adam Sevani (30), Brian d'Arcy James (54), Richard Lewis (75), Tom Weston-Jones (35), Sarah Power (37), Colin Jost (40), Will Kemp (45), Riley Stearns (36), Katherine Jenkins (42) 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. Visit the [Preferences Center]( to update your profile and customize what email alerts and newsletters you receive. Copyright © 2022 The Hollywood Reporter, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. 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