Brad Pitt's Plan B Seeking Potential Buyer; WBD Reinstates Workshop; 'Black Adam' First Reactions; 'Is That Black Enough for You?!?' Review

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( October 13, 2022 What's news: Alex Jones should pay $965m for claiming Sandy Hook was a hoax. Bad Bunny leads the AMA nominations. Trevor Noah's Daily Show farewell episode has been set. Zooey Deschanel is joining Apple's Physical. T.J. Miller and Ryan Reynolds have straightened out their differences. — [Abid Rahman]( Brad Pitt's Plan B Seeking Potential Buyer ►For sale. Plan B — the Oscar-winning banner run by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner — is seeking a potential buyer. The Moonlight and Minari shingle has tapped Moelis & Co. to shop for a buyer or potential investors. The sale news comes as top-tier Hollywood production banners continue to court big money for outright acquisitions or equity investments. Plan B has a first-look deal for TV with Amazon Studios and a features deal with MGM. [The story.]( —Reinstated. Warner Bros. Discovery has backed off of a plan to shutter workshops for ascendant writers and directors after industry backlash. The company said in a statement Wednesday that it was transferring the directors’ workshop and writers’ workshop programs from its previous home at Warner Bros. Television to the corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion division after the conclusion of the current writers’ workshop, which ends in March 2023. [The story.]( —"This was always our plan." THR's [Rebecca Sun]( spoke to Warner Bros. Discovery’s veteran DEI exec Karen Horne about the future of the long-running writers’ and directors’ workshops after a day of confusion over their status. Horne says the pipeline programs will return even more robust than before and tap into more series across the merged company's portfolio. [The interview.]( —Mark it in your calendars. THR will recognize the top money managers in the entertainment industry on Oct. 19 during its 12th annual Power Business Managers breakfast. This year’s event will honor Richard Feldstein of NKSFB as THR's 2022 Business Manager Icon. The breakfast coincides with THR’s annual Money issue (on newsstands Oct. 19), which highlights the top Hollywood business managers. [The story.]( Alex Jones Ordered to Pay $965M for Sandy Hook Hoax Claims ►Justice. The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965m to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday. The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns. [The story.]( —"It was something that happened to me that was not OK." Anthony Rapp testified Wednesday that he decided to publicly reveal a 30-year-old encounter with Kevin Spacey because he knew he wasn’t the only person Spacey had made inappropriate sexual advances on. Rapp became emotional as he commented in response to a question about his motivations near the end of his third day of testimony in the civil sex abuse lawsuit he brought against Spacey in Manhattan federal court. [The story.]( —"It’s clear an investigation is sorely needed to help restore confidence in the redistricting process for the people of L.A.." Nury Martinez, the Los Angeles City Council member whose racist slurs in a leaked recording created an uproar, resigned Wednesday hours after the state attorney general announced an investigation into possible criminal charges involving a meeting where she made the remarks. [The story.]( —"I am following doctors' orders." Brandy has a message for fans after reports she had been hospitalized in Los Angeles. The singer addressed her followers on her Instagram Stories after the news broke on Wednesday, revealing that she was suffering from "dehydration and low amounts of nutrition." [The story.]( American Music Awards 2022 Nominations ►Year of the rabbit. Bad Bunny tops the 2022 American Music Awards nominations, with the Puerto Rican rapper and singer recognized as this year’s most-nominated artist with eight nods, including his first nod for artist of the year. Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are the most-nominated female artists at this year's show with six nominations each. [The nominations.]( —The long goodbye. Trevor Noah will say farewell as anchor of The Daily Show on Dec. 8. The week of shows leading up to his departure will feature a look back at some of the best moments from his seven-year run as the face of the show. [The story.]( —Throwback. CNN's new morning show, CNN This Morning, will launch Nov.1, ahead of the midterm elections. If the name sounds somewhat familiar, it could ring a bell because of its similarity to CBS This Morning, the morning show that new CNN CEO Chris Licht helped launch a decade ago (that show was recently renamed CBS Mornings). [The story.]( —🎭 Casting news 🎭 Zooey Deschanel has joined the cast of Apple TV+’s dramedy Physical for its third season. She’ll be a series regular in her first TV acting role since 2018, when New Girl ended its seven-season run on Fox. Deschanel will play Kelly, a network sitcom star who decides to enter the burgeoning 1980s fitness industry — which will bring her into the world inhabited by Sheila Rubin (series lead Rose Byrne). [The story.]( —First project. THR's [Etan Vlessing]( has the scoop on Elliot Page signing on to exec produce Backspot, a queer cheerleading drama that stars Reservation Dogs' Devery Jacobs and is directed by D.W. Waterson. The film is the debut feature from Page’s Page Boy Productions and Jacobs' Night is Y. [The story.]( DC's 'Black Adam': First Reactions ►"It's a non-stop thrill ride that is all about spectacle." DC’s Black Adam had its U.S. premiere in Manhattan on Wednesday night. The official review embargo for the Dwayne Johnson superhero film lifts next week, but the social media embargo for early reactions ended after the premiere, and the early reaction is largely positive. [The reaction.]( —"I didn't see her foremost as a victim." Long before Netflix's NC-17 Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde arrived amid controversy, pioneering filmmaker Joyce Chopra made a TV miniseries for CBS based on the same acclaimed Joyce Carol Oates novel. THR's Patrick Brzeski spoke to Chopra about the key differences between her adaptation and Andrew Dominik’s. [The interview.]( —Beef squashed. T.J. Miller says he and Ryan Reynolds have cleared the air after Miller publicly stated that he would never again work with his Deadpool co-star. During Miller’s visit to SiriusXM’s Jim Norton & Sam Roberts on Wednesday, he was asked about his revelation that Reynolds was “horrifically mean” to him one day on set. Miller revealed that Reynolds reached out to him about the incident and that the two have since straightened things out. [The story.]( —🤝 First-look deal 🤝 Kylian Mbappé might be falling out with fans and teammates as he tries to engineer a $400m trade away from Paris Saint Germain, but the French soccer star's media interests are going rather well. Mbappé's production banner, Zebra Valley, has signed a multiyear first-look deal with Skydance Sports, the sports content division of Skydance Media. [The story.]( Film Review: 'Is That Black Enough for You?!?' ►"Ambitious in scope, rich in substance." THR critic [Lovia Gyarkye]( reviews Elvis Mitchell's Is That Black Enough for You?!? The culture critic analyzes a crucial decade in American cinema, crafting an argument about how Black filmmakers reinvigorated the medium through both formal and narrative experimentation. [The review.]( —"Amusing when it goes for nostalgia, flimsy when it aims for more." THR's chief TV critic [Dan Fienberg]( reviews Peacock's I Love You, You Hate Me. The two hour-long episodes of Tommy Avallone's doc focus on the rise and fall of the all-loving purple dinosaur Barney and the adoration and hatred that he generated. [The review.]( In other news... —Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell [deliver playful spin on A Christmas Carol in teaser for Spirited]( —Sam Mendes [to receive Stockholm Film Festival Visionary Award]( —Harry Styles [leads nominations for MTV EMAs]( —Judge dismisses [John Stossel’s defamation suit against Facebook over fact-checking]( —Hackman Capital [raises $1.6b to fuel studio lot buys]( —UTA to [fund creator economy, Web3 startups with Investcorp backing]( —[Willie Spence]( American Idol finalist, dies in vehicle crash at 23 What else we're reading... —After the Quibi debacle, Claire Atkinson writes that Jeffrey Katzenberg is done with media and is betting on cybersecurity and VPNs [[Insider]( —John Koblin reports that Netflix is nearing a deal to build a huge production complex on the Jersey Shore [[NYT]( —Michael Bürgi and Ronan Shields report that Apple is quietly pushing a TV ad product with media agencies [[Digiday]( —Najmeh Bozorgmehr talks to the brave Iranian teenage girls on the front line of the protests [[FT]( —This is a depressing and frankly disgusting story: "TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging" [[BBC]( Today... Today's birthdays: Caleb McLaughlin (21), Sacha Baron Cohen (51), Kate Walsh (55), Ashanti (42), Paul Simon (81), Chris Carter (66), Miss Lawrence (40), Alex Ferns (54), Katia Winter (39), Nell Tiger Free (23), Tisha Campbell (54), Christopher Judge (58), Kiele Sanchez (45), Matt Walsh (58), [Himesh Patel]( (32), Melinda Dillon (83), Susan Blommaert (75), Hiro Kanagawa (59), Florian Munteanu (32), John Lone (70), Katie Walder (40), Luis Tosar (51), Bailey Noble (32), Branden Williams (48), Elizabeth Maxwell (39), Richard Sammel (62), Noah Crawford (28), Marie Osmond (63) Dennis Virkler, a two-time Oscar-nominated editor who worked on such prominent action films as The Hunt for Red October, The Fugitive and multiple entries in the Batman franchise, has died. He was 80. [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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