How ‘Real Housewives’ Became Hollywood’s Secret Movie Marketing Weapon

The latest in pop-culture news, recaps, and reviews, plus close reads, profiles, interviews, and more from Vulture.com. [Brand Logo]( barbenheimer [How Real Housewives Became Hollywood’s Secret Movie Marketing Weapon]( The film industry looks to Bravoholics to save cinema. Photo: Ser Baffo/NBCUniversal Inside a cavernous Southern California soundstage on an apocalypse-hot day, [Garcelle Beauvais]( is playing life-size Barbie. A suite of digital video cameras tracks the [Real Housewives of Beverly Hills]( cast member as she saunters into what one person on set describes as “Barbie’s dream closet”: a klieg-lit wardrobe wonderland decorated in hues of fuchsia, flamingo, and Pepto-Bismol, chock-a-block with high heels, handbags, costume jewelry, and pair after pair of aggressively fashion-forward sunglasses encased in a shrinelike vitrine. Shot from a top-down POV, the three-season Bravolebrity lies on her back to rollick atop a pink shag carpet amid piles of similarly bubblegum-colored Barbie finery, tossing clothing and garish boas into the air in a paroxysm of glee. [read more]( The Latest TV Recaps • The Real Housewives of New York City: [Caviar Dreams]( • The Righteous Gemstones: [Sins of the Father]( • The Walking Dead: Dead City: [Bring Him Home]( • Luann and Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake: [Blood (and Balls) Bath]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Stories We Think You’ll Like [Skyler Gisondo on Gideon Gemstone’s Redemption Road As soon as the monster truck Redeemer appeared on this season of The Righteous Gemstones, it was a given that Gideon would drive it.]( [I Am Become Barbenheimer, Destroyer of Box Office Records Barbie and Oppenheimer’s staggering returns seem to signal franchise fatigue — or at least that audiences want alternatives to the same old, same old.]( [TIFF 2023 Pushes Through Strikes, Releases Lineup One way to still have stars on the carpet? Make them the directors.]( By Jason P. Frank [Doja Cat Disavows Fans, and Fans Disavow Her Back A mass unstanning has occurred.]( By Zoe Guy [Honey, Wake Up, There’s New Steely Dan Hot from the vaults, it’s a beer jingle recorded before Countdown to Ecstasy.]( By Devon Ivie [Let Us Salute the Unsung Hero of Barbie Allan is a vibe, if having no vibe counts as a vibe. He is the parentheses in the sentence of life.]( [Nancy Sinatra, Elton John, and More Remember Tony Bennett “Tony was one of the most splendid people who ever lived. Kind, loving, talented and generous, he never let us down.”]( By Jason P. Frank [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Today’s Crossword]( 1-Across, Eight Letters: Roles for Joe Pesci, commonly. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images, Everette Hollywood on strike Today on the Picket Line: Did Universal Studio Engage in Malicious Tree Trimming? Photo: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images Tensions are heating up in the ongoing WGA/SAG-AFTRA [strike](, and so is Los Angeles: Temperatures are expected to reach into the mid-90s this week with the heat index making it feel even more hellacious. That’s no fun for the [tens of thousands of workers on strike](, some of whom — the WGA members — [have been on strike]( since May 2. (SAG-AFTRA members [just joined]( the strike last week.) It’s cooler in the shade on the picket lines, of course, but unfortunately, that relief has gotten harder to find after someone at NBC Universal decided it would be a good week to heavily trim back a line of trees outside the studio lot. [Read more from Vulture]( A newsletter of TV and movie recommendations. [Sign up]( to get it every week. [Get the Newsletter]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe]( | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2023, All rights reserved