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Debate Mania: Why Hillary Won; Why Trump Actually Won; Twitter’s Records; Late Night’s Best Bits

September 27, 2016

What's news: What else? We’re still waiting for full ratings from last night’s epic Trump-Hillary showdown, but in the meantime, most pundits say Clinton emerged victorious (though don’t tell THR columnist Gavin Polone). Watch the best late-night comic reactions below. Plus: The perils of Fall TV’s pilot twists and Leo DiCaprio unloads some L.A. real estate. — Matthew Belloni and Erik Hayden

EARLY RATINGS: The debate is on track for record highs, early numbers show.

Michael O'Connell writes: Early figures have the 90-minute showdown, simulcast on more than 10 different networks and umpteen streamers, easily top all recent debate coverage. Overnight ratings among Nielsen's metered markets have the Big Four networks pulling a total 31.2 rating among households. (The 2016 Super Bowl, which is the only real comparison for the year, pulled an early 49 rating for CBS and ultimately brought in more than 100 million viewers.) Stay tuned.

DEBATE: Did moderator Lester Holt avoid getting Lauer'd?

THR critic Frank Scheck writes: Like so many candidates and moderators before him, Holt was unable to prevent Trump's constant interruptions and talking whenever he felt like it. To his credit, the news anchor pushed hard, frequently admonishing Trump and often directly contradicting him when he repeated such falsehoods as saying he had been opposed to the Iraq War. But it was to no avail, as the Republican candidate simply talked over him whenever he was challenged.

Other Holt reviews....

"Call him the minimalist moderator." — Michael Grynbaum, The New York Times.

"Lester Holt whiffed." — Rem Rieder, USA Today.

"...struck a deft balance between facilitator, BS detector and lion tamer." — Glenn Thrush, Politico.

"...Holt dug in from time to time, too, and seemed to push harder on the Republican businessman." — Paul Farhi, The Washington Post.

Surprising Trump reads...

► Producer-director Gavin Palone's counternarrative. "Trump won the first debate. I know you want to believe the Democratic surrogates who say Hillary trounced Trump ... All Trump needed in order to post a W was to not seem too much like Trump."

► The view from Hollywood's secret viewing party. Friends of Abe, a private group of conservative industry insiders, gathered to watch the first presidential race last night. The narrative in that corner, as Paul Bond reports, appears upbeat: "On balance, Trump is winning."

► The view from Twitter's water cooler. No surprise, but the social networking platform confirms that it was the most-tweeted debate ever. The top moment came when Trump told the audience that he has a good temperament (Watch). This morning, however, #TrumpWon is the top U.S. trending term.

Late night soundbites...

"He sounded like the coked-up best man in the bathroom at a wedding." — Stephen Colbert on Trump's sniffling (Watch).

"We did not have to wait long for the first lie." — Trevor Noah on Clinton's "good to be with you" intro remark (Watch).

"Basically her tasks looked like advice you'd give a secretary before a job interview in 1950 ... meanwhile his sounds like you'd give a murderer at a parole hearing. They need to believe you won't kill again." — Seth Meyers on debate expectations (Watch).

Wang Jianlin's Next Trophy?

Matt writes: Last month, China's richest man went public with his goal of sealing at least two $1 billion deals for Hollywood companies this year. Looks like he wasn't kidding.

Dalian Wanda Group, run by the outspoken Wang Jianlin (illustrated above), has held preliminary talks to purchase Dick Clark Productions, the prolific company behind the Golden Globe Awards, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards and other live television events, according to sources. The price for DCP is said to value the company in the "neighborhood" of $1 billion.

Sources say Wanda has held talks in recent weeks about DCP, which produces So You Think You Can Dance in addition to its stable of awards shows, though the talks are said to be in the early stages and due diligence on the company's assets has begun.

DCP, whose owner confirmed the talks, is part of a group of entertainment assets controlled by Eldridge Industries, the investment vehicle of former Guggenheim Partners executive and L.A. Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly. (THR and Billboard media brands also are part of those assets, but would not be part of a Dick Clark deal, according to sources.)

Elsewhere in film...

► Experts: New California IMDb age law probably unconstitutional. Scholars and practitioners alike are scrutinizing the new law, with only one of seven lawyers suggesting the enactment would survive a challenge. Full analysis.

► Martin Scorsese's Silence to arrive in awards season. Paramount has set a limited release of Dec. 23, 2016 for the historical drama, and then will open it nationwide in January. Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson star in the film.

► A24's 20th Century Women gets holiday release. The Mike Mills-directed coming-of-age tale, starring Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning, will hit theaters in a limited release on Christmas Day before going wide on January 20.

↱ M. Night Shyamalan's Split, reviewed. James McAvoy plays a kidnapper with two dozen personalities in The Sixth Sense director's latest thriller. Critic John DeFore's takeaway: "A long-overdue comeback." ↲

► Daily Show alum Jessica Williams nabs lead in indie. Williams will star in the writer-director Jim Strouse's untitled new film alongside Chris O’Dowd. Currently shooting in New York City, the film is being produced by Michael B. Clark and Alex Turtletaub of Beachside.

► Fox's Darkest Minds finds star. In a major coup for a young actor, rising star Amandla Stenberg has nabbed the lead role in the YA adaptation. Jennifer Yuh Nelson is making her live-action directorial debut with the teen sci-fi project that is being produced by Shawn Levy.

↱ Amanda Knox, reviewed. In this Toronto fest title, Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst recap the tabloid mystery surrounding the American student accused of killing her roommate in Italy. DeFore: "A cogent exploration of a case the media seemingly spent years getting wrong." ↲

► STX Entertainment marketing chief exits. Jack Pan is leaving the independent studio, with former Universal and Illumination marketing chief Eddie Egan taking over as interim president.

► R.I.P., Herschell Gordon Lewis. The "Godfather of Gore," who directed Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs, died on Monday, the AP reported. He was 87.

France selects "rape comedy" for Oscars. Paul Verhoeven's controversial film Elle, starring Isabelle Huppert, was chosen as the country's pick for the best foreign-language film category at the Academy Awards. Details.

The Perils of TV Pilot Twists

Fall TV season check-in: Have you been noticing some twist endings at the end of pilots? Critic Daniel Fienberg has, and wonders if two of the best fall pilots from Fox and NBC were hurt:

Twist endings to TV pilots are confusing punctuation in the middle of a sentence, intended much more to entice bored development executives than to improve or enhance the television storytelling process. This isn't to say television twists can't work, because obviously they can and nobody would say otherwise.

But pilots are meant to establish the rules of the game, and twists are meant to be game-changers — and it's hard to feel the full effect of a game-changer if you aren't even sure what the game is. A pilot is supposed to tell viewers, "Yo, this is the proof of concept for the series you're about to watch." A pilot twist runs the serious risk of saying, "That thing you thought you were looking forward to watching? That's not what you're going to be watching!"

► A spoiler-filled discussion of Pitch and This Is Us twists here.

Elsewhere in TV...

► Bill Pullman is headed to USA. The actor has joined the NBCUniversal cabler's drama The Sinner starring Jessica Biel. Derek Simonds (The Astronauts Wives Club) wrote the pilot for the hourlong drama.

► Alan Cumming eyes return to CBS. The Good Wife grad is attached to star in and exec produce the drama Dr. Death currently in development at the network. It's based on the soon-to-be-published book of the same name by James Patterson.

► MTV developing social media thriller kRawl. The drama hails from John Swetnam who is teaming with producer Henrik Bastin and Melissa Aouate. It follows the story of a young woman whose social media account begins showing her posts a day in advance.

► TNT orders drama pilot Hinges. The project, from John Wells and Anthony Hemingway, is based on the short story "The Boom" written by Janine Sherman Barrois, who will pen the script.

► A&E renews Born This Way. Fresh off its Emmy win, the cabler has handed out a third season renewal, ordering 10 hourlong episodes of the project, which focuses on young men and women born with Down syndrome.

► FX inks deal with People v. O.J. writer. D.V. DeVincentis, who won two Emmys for the anthology series, has signed an overall TV production deal with FX Productions. Under the pact, DeVincentis will develop, write and produce television projects for all platforms.

► Modern Family casts transgender child actor. Eight-year-old trans actor Jackson Millarker will be featured in Wednesday's episode of the ABC family comedy. Millarker is one of the first openly transgender child actors to appear on TV.

Will & Grace cast's election reunion? Debra Messing, Eric McCormack, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes appeared together in character for the first time in a decade in a video released hours ahead of the first presidential debate.

DiCaprio Lists Two L.A. Homes

Leonardo DiCaprio is unloading several pieces of his Los Angeles real estate portfolio, Peter Kiefer finds:

One property is very much in keeping with his image as one of Hollywood’s tenured playboys, while the other reveals a more surprising, suburban side to the Oscar-winning actor. DiCaprio just listed a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Studio City that he quietly has owned since 2014 for $2.4 million. Built in 1937, the 3,400-square-foot Studio City ranch home sits on a 15,000-square-foot lot in Colfax Meadows.

The Malibu home is a different story. The 1,765-square-foot two-story residence has a gated courtyard, a garage, wood floors, and glass sliding doors that lead to a deck with a Jacuzzi, panoramic views and a private stairway to the beach where paparazzi regularly post up to snap shots of starlets and industry titans.

According to previous reports, the spread periodically has been leased for as much as $50,000 a month. DiCaprio bought the house in 1998 for $1.6 million.

And finally...

^Caption contest winner, from reader Rudy Durand, who gets bonus points for appearing to reference this story about a missing Oscar: "Will you please donate Marlon Brando's best actor statuette for 1954's On the Waterfront to my library?"