Breaking Down Hollywood CEO Perks

►From private jets to security spending. Hollywood executive compensation has been scrutinized amid the strikes — but beyond the hefty salaries, lucrative bonuses and stock options, most top execs also get their fair share of perquisites (ya know, “perks”). THR's Alex Weprin breaks down some of the perks enjoyed by the likes of Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav, Ari Emanuel, Lachlan Murdoch, Bob Iger and more. The story. 

—Deal in sight? On Tuesday, the 110th day of the 2023 actors strike, SAG-AFTRA and the Hollywood studios wrapped their latest bargaining session for the Halloween holiday with a deal seemingly within reach. The two sides broke off in the afternoon after a day that was spent dealing with AI issues and are set to return to talks on Wednesday. Sources tell THR's Katie Kilkenny and Pamela McClintock that talks are headed in the right direction. The story. 

—Worked out rather well. In a blog post commemorating the one-year anniversary of Netflix's ad tier, the streamer's newly-installed head of advertising Amy Reinhard gave an update on the company's ads business. Reinhard writes that it now has 15m global monthly active users for ad tier. That is up from 5m, as announced back in May. Alex Weprin writes that the tripling in the last 5 months suggests that users are increasingly opting for the ad tier when they sign up for Netflix, or that the company’s password-sharing crackdown is working. The story. 

De Niro Testifies Against Former Employee

►"The whole case is nonsense. It’s absurd. But I’m here!" Robert De Niro continued his testimony in court Tuesday on the charges of gender discrimination and retaliation filed against him by a former employee, exclaiming multiple times that the case was “nonsense.” THR's Caitlin Huston reports De Niro frequently pushed back against lines of questioning on whether he had called his former employee, Graham Chase Robinson, while using the bathroom and whether he had directed his lawyers to first file suit against Robinson to damage her reputation. The story. 

—"I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease." After Amy Schumer shared a video clip on social media of Martin Luther King Jr. denouncing antisemitism and defending Israel's right to exist, the civil rights icon’s daughter Bernice King took to social media to clarify that her father would have backed a ceasefire if he were alive today. Addressing Schumer directly, Bernice King wrote on X that her father believed that "militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils." The story. 

—Not attending. Real Housewives of New York City alum Ramona Singer will no longer be attending BravoCon. The news comes after allegations of racial statements and slurs resurfaced in a Vanity Fair story about the Real Housewives franchise that was published on Monday. The story alleges that Singer had expressed racial hostility and used the N-word during a conversation with a Black crew member during production of season 13 of the show, though an ensuing investigation was found "inconclusive." The story.

—One last ride. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is returning to Imax screens on Nov. 3 for a one-week exclusive run. The limited engagement includes six Imax 70mm film projections locations worldwide — four AMC Imax screens in California and New York City, and two more locations in London and Melbourne. The rare encore run for a Hollywood tentpole on Imax screens follows Oppenheimer grossing over $183m worldwide on the company’s large format screens to date. The story.

Meet the Next Gen of Ass-Kicking Movie Stars

►💥 POW! 💥 As the Schwarzeneggers, Stallones, Cruises, Stathams, Chans, Neesons and Butlers head towards retirement, the question of who will pick up the action movie baton arises. THR's Alex Ritman consulted action aficionados, directors, producers and writers to draw up a list of names. From rising talent who have already displayed some decent action chops and are ready to move to the next level, established actors who may be primed to leap into the ass-kicking world, or older faces who could make a later-in-life Neeson-style career pivot, here — in alphabetical order — are 25 potential new action stars. The list. 

—Falling upwards. Fall, the survival thriller that became a critical and commercial hit for Lionsgate in 2022, is set to become a franchise, with Capstone Studios having green lit two sequels. Scott Mann, who directed and co-wrote the original movie, will return to produce both sequels and co-write and direct the third film of the trilogy. The story. 

—🎭 "Dark and sexy " 🎭 Alex Wolff, Victoria Pedretti, Asa Butterfield and Justice Smith are set to star in the “dark and sexy” psychological thriller If She Burns, which Wolff will direct from his own screenplay. The film will follow a fiery young woman who travels to Europe with her dysfunctional family after a traumatic incident. Mister Smith Entertainment will launch international sales of the film at AFM, with WME handling North American sales. The actors were attached to the film prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The story. 

—🎭 Family fun 🎭 Naomie Harris, Gwendoline Christie and Mark Williams have joined the ensemble cast of family adventure film Robin and the Hood alongside rising star Darcey Ewart. The film, which completed principal photography over the summer, comes from director Phil Hawkins and was written by Stuart Benson and Paul Davidson. GFM Global Sales is handling the film at AFM. The story. 

'Friends' Creators Recall Last Conversations With Matthew Perry

►"He was in a really good place, which is why this seems so unfair." Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman spoke to Matthew Perry two weeks before his death, and recalled that the actor was sober and happy. “It was great,” Kauffman said of the conversation during a joint virtual interview with Friends co-creator David Crane that aired on the Today show Wednesday. "He was happy and chipper. He didn’t seem weighed down by anything." The story. 

—"It was magic." In a tribute to his late friend Matthew Perry, former WBTV comedy boss David Janollari remembers the down-to-the wire challenge of filling the iconic Friends role — especially since the actor wasn't even in the mix. The story.  

—🎭 Fresh meat 🎭 Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster will take over the roles of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, respectively, in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Broadway. The two Tony Award winners take over the roles from Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, who will play their final performance on Jan. 14. Tveit and Foster will start on Feb. 9 and play their final performance on May 5. The story. 

—🎭 Kelly's back 🎭 Taylor Kinney is set to return to Chicago Fire for the NBC drama’s 12th season, which will begin production following resolution of the actors strike. Sources say the Chicago Fire writers room has written Kinney’s Kelly Severide back into the show in early episodes; it’s unclear at the moment whether the character will be back for good or just for a handful of episodes. The story. 

New Details Emerge of Karen Carpenter's Battle with Anorexia

►"It’s like being haunted." It has been 40 years since Karen Carpenter — the charismatic sister half of the multiplatinum-selling sibling act The Carpenters — died at the age of 32. In a new biography, Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter, author Lucy O’Brien reframes Carpenter’s life as that of a pioneering woman within the male-dominated recording industry and offers new insights into her tragic battle with anorexia. The excerpt. 

—"It really speaks to what a force of nature she is and the depths of her talent." Seth Meyers praised Taylor Swift for writing her own Saturday Night Live monologue when she hosted the comedy sketch show in 2009. During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the Late Night host shared that most hosts have SNL staff write their monologues, but Swift already had something in mind. The story. 

—Still posting numbers. The Rolling Stones are officially the first act to have newly-charted top 10 albums in the U.S. in every decade since the 1960s. Their latest studio album, Hackney Diamonds, which dropped on Oct. 20, debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 3. The story. 

Has L.A. Become Too High Maintenance for Hollywood?

►"Unless there’s some specific reason to be in Los Angeles, we don’t shoot there anymore." Entertainment industry insiders tell THR's Winston Cho that recent fee hikes by FilmL.A. add to a long list of motives for productions to film in other areas: "L.A. is already so film-unfriendly." The story.

In other news...

—The Batu Project: Adam the First teaser turns Ghana into an alien landscape

—David Oyelowo on helping girls in Nigeria — with Meghan and Harry’s support

—Paramount to combine Pluto TV, Channel 5’s My5 in U.K.

—Jennifer Remling joins WBD in top HR post

—Saltburn, American Fiction win SCAD Savannah Film Fest audience awards

​​​What else we're reading...

—Isaac Feldberg writes that Steven Soderbergh is backing two of the year’s most thrillingly experimental and independently minded sci-fi head-trips in Eddie Alcazar’s Divinity and Godfrey Reggio’s Once Within a Time [Inverse]

—Katey Rich writes that Michelle Williams really could win a Grammy for her epic narration of Britney Spears' memoir [VF]

—Stephen Thomas Erlewine looks into the untold story behind the last Beatles song "Now and Then" [LAT]

—Mattia Ferraresi explains why Italy’s prime minister breaking up with her boyfriend on social media is actually quite a big deal [NYT]

—Derek Guy (yeah, the menswear guy from Twitter) spoke to three expert shoemakers on whether Ron DeSantis is wearing lifts inside those odd-looking cowboy boots [Politico]
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Today...  

...in 2013, Focus Features released Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyers Club in theaters. The biographical drama starred Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto, and won three Oscars, including awards for McConaughey and Leto. The original review.

Today's birthdays: Toni Collette (51), Penn Badgley (37), Anthony Ramos (32), Lyle Lovett (66), David Foster (74), Anthony Kiedis (61), Daniela Melchior (27), Logan Marshall-Green (47), Alex Wolff (26), Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (50), Jamie Demetriou (36), Natalia Tena (39), Matt Jones (42), Peter Ostrum (66), Rachel Ticotin (65), Chad Lindberg (47), Max Burkholder (26), Kaylee Bryant (26), Robert Foxworth (82), Jeannie Berlin (74), Helene Udy (61), Daran Norris (59), Jordan Johnson-Hinds (34), Morgan Krantz (37), Lucky McKee (48), Apoorv Singh Karki (35), Katja Riemann (60), Felix van Groeningen (46), Jake Foy (33), Jayden Bartels (19)