BILLBOARD-2

THЄ ЄXISTЄNTIΛL CHRONICLЄS

►About | ►Explore | ►Links | ►Updates | ►Alerts

Summer's Scary Box Office; Inside the VMAs; Todd McCarthy's Fall Fest Preview; Ann Coulter Roasted

August 29, 2016

Happy Monday: In the final days of August it's time to look forward to the fall film festivals. With Venice and Telluride kicking the season off this week, chief critic Todd McCarthy surveys the titles worth watching. Plus: Summer box office wrap and everything MTV didn't show on the VMAs (including an off-camera kiss). — Matthew Belloni, Erik Hayden and Jennifer Konerman.

VMAs "Actually Felt Different"

Yes, Beyonce claimed her 21st trophy and broke the record for most Video Music Award wins last night. But, elsewhere, this year's MTV honors "were the first in recent memory that actually felt different," as Billboard's reviewer Jem Aswad writes:

"The show's format was only the most obvious change. It was less rigid and predictable — for an awards show, anyway — and, in a way that reflects the changing power dynamic in the music business, large segments were basically handed over to superstar artists.

Rihanna performed four separate times and was presented with the Video Vanguard award by a be-tuxed — and possibly lovelorn — Drake, occupying approximately 30 minutes of the nearly three-hour-long show (Watch).

Kanye West filled around 12 minutes with a stream-of-consciousness speech (Watch) and a soft-porn new music video; Alicia Keys spoke and sang a poem inspired by Martin Luther King (Watch).

Beyonce, suiting her imperial status, delivered a mind-blowing 15-minute medley that showed her peerless mastery of the live television moment (Watch)."

► Red carpet I Winners I Best-dressed I Worst-dressed I What happened off-camera.

Elsewhere in TV...

► Comedy Central's Rob Lowe roast turned into a roast of Ann Coulter. Staff writer Ryan Parker, at the event (to be televised on Labor Day), has the rundown of harsh jokes at the expense of the conservative commentator. What else happened.

► About HBO's The Night Of finale last night. Critic Daniel Fienberg: "Although the finale was full of frustrations both because of an absurd 100-minute running time and despite it, I came away feeling that the episode honored what the show was about."

► O.J. prosecutor Marcia Clark gets chance at her own show. NBC has handed out a put pilot commitment to a legal drama based on Clark's novel Blood Defense. She will co-write the series alongside writer-producers Elizabeth Craft and Sara Fain.

► ABC nabs comedy from Mara Brock Akil, Salim Akil. The husband-and-wife pair have scored a pilot production commitment for the half-hour multicamera comedy Documenting Love. The sale is the first for the Akils under their new three-year pact.

► Roger Ailes kept files on his biographer. The former Fox News CEO sent out a 400-page "opposition file" on Gabriel Sherman, who Ailes viewed as an enemy. The memo, per CNN Money, included a section called the "Gabriel Sherman Hit List."

► NBC's Lester Holt caught up in LAX chaos. The Nightly News anchor tweeted as he arrived off a flight last night that airport security were saying "shots fired, run!" Actor Josh Gad was also at the airport and tweeted that police bearing rifles had stormed the terminal building. Authorities later said the "report of shooting at LAX proven to be loud noises only."

► CBS anchor Charles Osgood retires. The personality said that he will be signing off from the network after 22 years. His final broadcast as anchor will be in late September. No successor was named.

Worth listening to on your commute...

↱ Podcast: Tracy Morgan opens up in a 37-minute discussion about returning to SNL after the car wreck that nearly claimed his life: "Most people that suffer the injuries that I suffered aren't hosting no f—ing TV show ... They're in vegetative states." Listen. ↲

↱ Podcast: Jerry Seinfeld says in a 53-minute chat that he was ripped off by Friends ("our show with better-looking people") and that he'd like to act in the next Star Wars film (playing a character named "Areyouserious"). Listen. ↲

► On TV this week: Premieres of You're the Worst (FXX, Wednesday), Narcos (Netflix, Friday) and Chef's Table (Netflix, Friday). On late-night: Mel Brooks sits down with Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday, and Larry Wilmore chats with Stephen Colbert on Thursday for his first late-night interview since The Nightly Show was canceled.

Rep Sheet Roundup: Keke Palmer signs with publicity firm PMK*BNC … The Get Down leading lady Herizen Guardiola signs with Paradigm … The Maze Runner's Dexter Darden signs with APA … Actress Charlotte Riley signs with ICM. More here.

Finally, Fall Festivals Are Here

What to watch for at Venice, Telluride and Toronto: After a dismal summer movie season, the big fall festivals feature a slate of intriguing offerings, chief film critic Todd McCarthy writes in his survey:

Which are the most anticipated movies? Certainly the recently revitalized Venice is offering the world premieres of several of them, beginning with its opener, Damien Chazelle's original, highly stylized modern musical La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

It's surmised that this one will turn up almost simultaneously at Telluride, as will, it is thought, Denis Villeneuve's much-anticipated first venture into sci-fi (prior to his now-shooting Blade Runner sequel), Arrival, which features Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker.

For those of us who consider Tom Ford's A Single Man one of the most exceptional directorial debuts in recent times, seven years has been too long to wait for the designer's follow-up, but it is finally upon us: Nocturnal Animals, which also stars Amy Adams, along with Jake Gyllenhaal, will surface first in Venice, then turn up in Toronto. Other contenders.

Elsewhere in film...

↱ Summer box office wrap: A red alert. The clear winner in terms of the six majors is Disney, whose summer films have amassed $2.56B globally, well ahead of its next nearest rivals, Warner Bros. and Universal, which are each at roughly $1.9B. The Disney domination is impressive, providing enough cushion to withstand the losses sustained from The BFG and Alice. Disney chairman Alan Horn: "It's tough out there."

This weeekend: Screen Gems' Don't Breathe opened ahead of expectations to $26.1M. Warner Bros.' Suicide Squad fell to No. 2 with $12.1M. Lionsgate's Mechanic: Resurrection debuted to $7.5M. Obama first date movie Southside With You opened to a mediocre $3M from 813 theaters while The Weinstein Co.'s Robert De Niro drama Hands of Stone opened to $1.7M from 810 locations. Overseas, Universal's Jason Bourne ruled with $56.8M. U.S. results I China box office. ↲

► An indie summer success story. CBS Films' modern-day Western Hell or High Water, starring Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges and Ben Foster, is prospering in art house theaters on blue coasts and commercial theaters in red states with $8.5M since its release. A few reasons why.

► Nate Parker speaks about rape trial. During a panel in L.A., the first event that the Birth of a Nation filmmaker appeared at since the new controversy began, he offered an apology to women for his past behavior and called his younger self a "dog." Also: A look at the Parker backers who penned an open letter of support for the filmmaker.

► Behind Hollywood's secret class system. Executive features editor Stephen Galloway writes: "The fear of failure is omnipresent in Hollywood. You can almost sniff it in the hungry producers and executives and writers and agents who’ll tout everything they’re doing in an attempt to make it more real." Full column.

► Bilingual actors are "the future of filmmaking." So says Julio Quintana, director of The Vessel, starring Martin Sheen: "The days of actors speaking English with bad Spanish accents is over." Adds Sheen: "We did every scene in English and in Spanish."

► Comic-Con Thor video finally arrives online. The mockumentary from Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi shows Chris Hemsworth living in Australia during the events of Marvel's Civil War. Watch here.

► In theaters this week: DreamWorks' adaptation The Light Between Oceans, starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender, and Fox's sci-fi thriller Morgan, starring Kate Mara. Both have yet to be reviewed.

Who will get an honorary Oscar this year? Ahead of tomorrow's big vote, awards analyst Scott Feinberg finds that a record number of names have been submitted for consideration; letter-writing campaigns have been mounted for Robert Evans, Lina Wertmuller and Jonas Mekas; and Doris Day has asked not to be honored. Other possibilities.

What's Worth Reading...

It's the start of Week 20 for this newsletter, so now is a good time to check in. What types of stories do you want to see more of: Film deals, agency news, TV happenings, in-depth features and profiles or _____? Let us know: newsletter@thr.com. We'll be responding.

What we're reading...

— "The Race to Save the Films We Love." Preservationists Michael Pogorzelski and Heather Linville take movie critic Manohla Dargis through the restoration process: "What happens to an art when its foundational medium disappears?" [The New York Times]

— "The Shameful Trolling of Leslie Jones." "This is the sleaziest chapter in an ongoing saga that might be called Jones v. the Worst People on the Internet. Who are these people, and what could they possibly want?" [The New Yorker]

— "How Philippe Dauman Lost the Battle for Viacom." James Stewart's conclusion in his latest column: "Mr. Dauman had little choice after he lost the backing of many of his handpicked directors on Viacom’s board, who concluded that his confrontational tactics were harming the company." [The New York Times]

— "How Hollywood Predicted the Year of the Accidental Politician." The "movie business offers an illuminating archive of the dream and nightmare candidates across the electoral spectrum." And 1972's Robert Redford drama The Candidate leads the way. [The Guardian]

— Roadies: "Would This Show Have Worked Better as a Movie?" A spoiler-filled recap debating the "mostly good, occasionally frustrating finale." More: "Because woven throughout these 10 hours is the Great Lost Cameron Crowe Film that he otherwise never would've made." [Vulture]