Clooney Meets With SAG Leadership; 'Eras Tour' Rollout Stumbles; Osage Consultant's Mixed Feelings Over 'Flower Moon'; 'The Kitchen' Review

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( October 18, 2023 What's news: Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan will executive produce the 2024 Academy Awards. A New Mexico grand jury is set consider recharging Alec {NAME} in Rust case. Showtime Sports will shutter by the end of the year. The release of Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders is delayed. Twitter/X is testing a new subscription plan for new users. — [Abid Rahman]( Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at [tips@thr.com](. Clooney Meets With SAG-AFTRA Leadership ►"We meet with members of all profiles every day." George Clooney met with SAG-AFTRA's leaders on Tuesday in a bid to further understand how contract negotiations broke down on Oct. 11. The actor spoke with union national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland as well as president Fran Drescher over Zoom. [The story.]( —Grand jury to weigh in. New Mexico prosecutors will convene a grand jury to weigh recharging Alec {NAME} with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust. New Mexico prosecutors in April dropped charges against the actor to review new evidence suggesting that the gun he was holding had been modified. They reserved the ability to refile charges. [The story.]( —Throwing in the towel. Paramount says that Showtime’s sports division will shut down at the end of the year. Showtime Sports occupied a unique space in the sports market, with its focus on combat sports like boxing and mixed martial arts (through the Bellator brand), as well as longform sports documentaries. Showtime’s exit from sports follows a similar move by HBO Sports back in 2018, when it quit the boxing business. [The story.]( —Now we need a host. Live TV and go-to Las Vegas residency producer Raj Kapoor has been named showrunner and executive producer of the Academy Awards telecast for the first time. He assumes the role after collecting a sprawling list of TV credits, including work on the Grammys, the Emmys and quite a few Disney-branded live celebrations. Joining Kapoor as a first-time Oscar executive producer is Katy Mullan, who comes from live TV production house Mullan Done + Dusted. [The story.]( Lessons Learned From 'Eras Tour' Rollout Stumbles ►What could have been. Taylor Swift: Eras Tour is an unqualified win after opening to $92.8m domestically and $123.5m globally. It is already the top-grossing concert film of all time in North America, as well as ranking as the second-biggest October domestic debut, not adjusted for inflation. THR's [Pamela McClintock]( and [James Hibberd]( write that questions linger as to why Eras Tour came in behind an expected $100m opening in North America and $150m globally, and whether it left millions on the table as a result of its unorthodox release rollout. [The story.]( —Off the calendar. New Regency is delaying the release of Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders due to the ongoing actors strike and the prohibition on talent doing any promotion or publicity. The drama — starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy — had been set to open in theaters Dec. 1. It is the first movie to depart the Dec. 1-3 weekend since Beyoncé’s just-announced concert film Renaissance was set for Dec. 1. Bikeriders remains undated for now, but the intention is to still qualify it for this year’s awards race. [The story.]( —Postponed. This year’s American Cinematheque Awards event, which was set to honor Helen Mirren with its main honor, has been postponed due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. The event, originally scheduled for Nov. 4 in Beverly Hills, will be rescheduled, with a new date announced in the upcoming weeks. [The story.]( —Voice cast set. Indie producer and distributor GKIDS has revealed the English voice cast for Hayao Miyazaki’s anticipated hand-drawn animated feature The Boy and the Heron. The cast includes Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Luca Padovan, Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori and Dan Stevens. [The story](. Britney Says Father "Infantilized" Her During Conservatorship ►"Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back." Britney Spears says her father belittled and degraded her, repeatedly calling her "fat", during her 13-year conservatorship. In a cover story for People, Spears speaks to the magazine about her reason for doing her memoir The Woman in Me, which arrives Oct. 24. In her forthcoming book, the pop icon opens up about the hypocrisy and sexism of her conservatorship, her early career in The Mickey Mouse Club and why she's glad her acting career ended with Crossroads. [The story.]( —"One of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life." On a newsy day for Spears on Tuesday, the singer also revealed she had an abortion while she was in a relationship with Justin Timberlake. The duo, who were together for three years, began dating in 1999 when Spears was 17 and the NSYNC alum was 18, with their relationship ending in 2002. Spears says that her decision to have the abortion was because Timberlake didn’t want to go through with the pregnancy. [The story.]( Jada Explains Why She's Bringing 'Red Table Talk' Back ►"People have gotten it so wrong for so long." For THR, Brande Victorian spoke to the woman-of-the-moment Jada Pinkett Smith about her new memoir, Worthy. In a lengthy conversation, Pinkett Smith discusses taking back her narrative, her ayahuasca experience, that Oscars moment and the enduring importance of Red Table Talk. [The interview.]( —Wait, what? Fugees rapper Pras Michel, who was convicted on charges of conspiring to make straw campaign donations and acting as an unregistered agent for China, is moving toss the conviction based on arguments that his former lawyer’s use of AI tools deprived him of a fair trial. On April 20, attorney David Kenner delivered closing statements for Michel in a closely watched fraud trial, but it turned out that Kenner used generative AI to help craft his remarks, according to a court filing. [The story.]( —Suit filed. Mass Appeal, the multimedia company co-founded by hip-hop icon Nas, was hit on Tuesday with a discrimination lawsuit in which a white executive claims she was the victim of “venomous and racist comments about ‘White folk’ and ‘crackers,’” and was subsequently fired. Melissa Cooper, a doc producer who was head of development at the rapper's firm, sued executives for removing her from "several high value projects, creating a hostile work environment, and terminating her employment." [The story](. Osage Consultant's Complicated Feelings Over 'Killers of the Flower Moon' ►"This film isn’t made for an Osage audience." At the L.A. premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon, Osage language consultant Christopher Cote lamented the focus on Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest Burkhart over Lily Gladstone's Mollie in Martin Scorsese's movie. Cote told THR that he was "nervous about the release of the film. Now that I’ve seen it, I have some strong opinions." [The story.]( —"Put simply, there is no career sustainability for Native actors in Hollywood." As the Native American star of a major Hollywood movie, Killers of the Flower Moon’s leading lady Lily Gladstone will be in rare company, but just how rare? That’s what the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative set out to analyze in its latest research brief. The group found that among those 1,600 films from 2007 to 2022, there was just one Native American lead character: Dani Moonstar, played by Blu Hunt, from the 2020 superhero ensemble film The New Mutants. [The story.]( —The reality of reality TV. According to a new study, reality television more accurately represents real-world gender distribution than its scripted series counterparts. The latest Boxed In report from San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that during the 2022-23 season, women accounted for 50 percent of characters or participants in unscripted programs and 43 percent of characters in scripted shows across broadcast and streaming. [The study.]( EbonyLife CEO Calls on Hollywood to Invest in African and Black Stories ►"There just needs to be a lot more work done." Efforts to diversify the global television industry have fallen short, argued Nigerian-British media mogul Mo Abudu, CEO of EbonyLife Media, in a keynote on diversity and inclusion at global film and television industry at the MIPCOM Cannes on Tuesday. Speaking to THR co-editor-in-chief [Nekesa Mumbi Moody]( Abudu called out what she called insufficient efforts by global media companies to support and promote content from Africa. [The story.]( —"We’ll get there because ultimately, we all want to get back to work." Bob Bakish, president and CEO of Paramount Global, is confident SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will reach a deal to end the ongoing actors strike. Speaking at MIPCOM on Tuesday, where he received the 2023 personality of the year award, Bakish said despite negotiations breaking down last week, he was optimistic the industry will see an end to the three-month-long strike action. [The story.]( —"It’s really a true crime thriller set in the middle of a colossal military conflict." HiddenLight Productions, the production outfit co-founded by Hillary Clinton, Sam Branson and Chelsea Clinton, is backing a new doc on efforts by George and Amal Clooney‘s Clooney Foundation for Justice to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The Swallows Will Return (working title), will follow the investigative work of Anya Neistat, a preeminent war crimes investigator at the foundation. [The story.]( R.I.P. The Palm Beverly Hills ►"It’s where on the same day you’d find Richard Zanuck in one booth, Bernie Brillstein in another and Mike Ovitz in a third." The Palm Beverly Hills has closed. Fourth-generation owner Bruce Bozzi reminisces about the life and times of the famed Italian American steakhouse, first opened in West Hollywood in 1975 and known for its caricatures on the walls and booths filled with moguls. [The story.]( —The end is nigh. Elon Musk's X rolled out a new subscription plan to charge new users of the social media platform to post content on the platform. The company wrote on its website that it started testing “Not A Bot” Tuesday in two countries, New Zealand and the Philippines. According to X, the subscription method will help “reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity.” It also noted that the test will not impact existing users and only new accounts on the web. [The story.]( —🤝 Deal done 🤝 Subscription platform Patreon has acquired digital events company Moment. Launched in 2019 under the name Moment House, Moment allows creators to sell tickets to live-streamed events and has been used by celebrities and brands such as Justin Bieber, Tame Impala, Kygo and Pod Save America. The deal follows Patreon’s rebranding of the platform last month, in which the company introduced new tools to allow all creators to gain community insights and publishing tools. [The story.]( —Shakeup. Roku has promoted several executives as Charlie Collier continues to build up the company’s media ambitions. Among the changes, Alison Levin has been promoted to vp of global media revenue and Kristina Shepard has been elevated to vp of global advertising sales and partnerships. David Eilenberg, Roku’s head of content, will also take responsibility for the Roku Brand Studio, which puts all studio work, including Roku Originals, Roku Studios/This Old House and the Brand Studio under Roku’s content department. Joe Franzetta is the head of sports. [The story.]( —Ad push. Netflix is expanding its ad business, rolling out a handful of new offerings for marketers as it seeks to grow its share in the ad-supported video space. The new formats include title sponsorships, which let a brand become the premier sponsor for a show or season. Frito Lay’s Smartfood has signed on as the first brand to take advantage of the format, being named the title sponsor for the upcoming season of Love Is Blind. Netflix vp global advertising sales Peter Naylor announced the offerings at Advertising Week New York on Tuesday. [The story.]( Film Review: 'The Kitchen' ►"A potent glimpse of a familiar-feeling future." THR's Leslie Felperin reviews Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya's The Kitchen. The closing night gala selection for the BFI London Film Festival is an absorbing study of survival, set in a dark futurist vision of London. [The review.]( In other news... —Zone of Interest trailer: [First look at A24’s haunting holocaust drama]( —Eileen trailer: [Anne Hathaway’s prison psychologist is a twisted influence on Thomasin McKenzie]( —Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story [trailer chronicles media mogul’s rise in life and in Hollywood]( —Tim Allen faces rival Santa [in Santa Clauses S2 trailer]( —Saturday Night Live: [All the S49 hosts and musical guests]( —Barbie, Asteroid City [among FilmLight Color Grading Awards nominees]( ​​​What else we're reading... —Gabriel Sherman goes inside Trump world once more and reports that insiders fear the former president's Netanyahu vendetta could be a gift to Biden [[VF]( —Former Oscars diversity chief Jeanell English explains why a series of "micro- and macro-aggressions" led to her exit from the organization [[LAT]( —David Roth looks into how Michael Lewis got duped by Sam Bankman-Fried [[Intelligencer]( —Matt Cain reflects on what Madonna's Celebration tour reveals about the Queen of Pop's extraordinary influence [[BBC]( —Alex Moshakis interviews Robert De Niro about becoming a father again, family and his ongoing feud with Trump [[Guardian]( ​​ Today... ...in 1961, West Side Story held its world premiere in New York at the Rivoli Theatre, eventually going on to win 10 Oscars at the 34th Academy Awards. [The original review.]( Today's birthdays: Zac Efron (36), Barry Keoghan (31), Freida Pinto (39), Peter Sohn (46), Chuck Lorre (71), Natasha Rothwell (43), Howard Shore (77), [Jean-Claude Van Damme]( (63), Joanna Vanderham (32), Joy Bryant (49), Corinne Bohrer (65), Pam Dawber (72), Joe Morton (76), Arliss Howard (69), Ne-Yo (44), Nic Pizzolatto (48), David Twohy (68), Sophie Thatcher (23), Tyler Posey (32), Toby Regbo (32), Carly Schroeder (33), Vincent Spano (61), Joy Jorgensen (34), Jaeda Lily Miller (17), Jordan Calloway (33), Lisa Chappell (55), Chris McKenna (46), Lucky Yates (56), Nicola Posener (36), Marielle Scott (32), Gloria Garayua (45) Joanna Merlin, who created the role of the daughter Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway and served as a casting director for Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince and Bernardo Bertolucci, has died. She was 92. [The obituary.]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} by The Hollywood Reporter. 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