Norman Lear 1922 - 2023

►"Norman lived a life in awe of the world around him." Norman Lear, the writer, producer and citizen activist who coalesced topical conflict and outrageous comedy in such wildly popular sitcoms as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and The Jeffersons, has died. He was 101.

One of the seven original inductees into the TV Hall of Fame in 1984 (he entered with David Sarnoff, William S. Paley, Edward R. Murrow, Paddy Chayefsky, Lucille Ball and Milton Berle), the six-time Emmy winner, who often teamed with fellow writer-producer Bud Yorkin, also developed Sanford & Son and One Day at a Time, among many other comedies.

Lear and Yorkin came to prominence writing for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin’s variety show in the 1950s, and at one time, Lear had nine shows on the air and finished one season with three of the top four highest-rated series. The obituary. 

SAG-AFTRA Members Vote to Ratify Contract

►"The dawning of a new era for the industry." SAG-AFTRA members have voted to ratify the tentative deal that brought an end to the 118-day actors’ strike. In a vote that ended on Tuesday evening, 78.33 percent voted “yes” on the contract and 21.67 percent voted “no,” with a turnout of 38.15 percent. The union has valued the new three-year contract at over $1b, more than three times the value of the union's 2020 deal. The story. 

—The latest. Grace Jabbari took the witness stand Tuesday, telling her version of the events that led to the arrest and subsequent charges against her ex-partner Jonathan Majors. Jabbari, who began a romantic relationship with Majors after they met on set of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, claims the actor injured her as the two fought about a text message pointing toward infidelity. The story. 

—"Bold intends to siphon the proceeds of the A3 sale to himself." A3 Artists Agency is allegedly locked in a “state of chaos” as it confronts an “exodus of agents and their clients” to competing firms because of majority owner Adam Bold’s mismanagement of company funds, sexual misconduct and drug abuse. The claims are made in a lawsuit filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court that is seeking to block the sale of the company’s most profitable divisions to rival Gersh. The story.

—Banner year. Taylor Swift has been named Time Magazine's 2023 Person of the Year, the first time that an entertainer has received the honor from the long-running publication. Time also named soccer star Lionel Messi its athlete of the year and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman its CEO of the year. The story. 

—A-list help. THR revealed Tuesday that Helen Mirren will present this year’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award to Adele at the annual Women in Entertainment breakfast gala, presented by Lifetime, on Dec. 7 in Los Angeles. Additionally, Will Ferrell will be the opening speaker. A lineup including Camila Cabello, Lily Gladstone, Dua Lipa, Billie Lourd and Bryan Lourd will present more than $1m in university scholarships to high school seniors from underserved communities participating in THR’s acclaimed Women in Entertainment Mentorship Program. The story. 

'Squid Game: The Challenge' Renewed for S2

►No-brainer. Netflix has renewed its reality show spin-off Squid Game: The Challenge for a second season. The news comes as the first season’s finale begins streaming, where the winner of the show’s record-setting $4.56m prize is expected to be revealed. The Challenge premiered Nov. 22 and has ranked No. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 English TV list for its first weeks, and was in the Top 10 in 93 countries. The story. 

—"The stakes for Foundation and Empire are even higher." Apple TV+ has picked up a third season of the sci-fi series Foundation. Based on the works of Issac Asimov, the show comes from Skydance Television and showrunner David S. Goyer, concluded its second season in September. Foundation is a centuries-spanning story based on Asimov’s landmark sci-fi novels, which the author in turn based on ideas Asimov took from Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The story. 

—"We will continue trying to stretch the term ‘entertainment’ to the breaking point." HBO is extending its long-term relationship with John Oliver. The premium cabler has picked up three more seasons of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. The renewal will take the weekly late night show through its 13th season in 2026. Last Week Tonight has won the last seven Emmy Awards for best variety talk series, as well as seven straight honors for writing for a variety series. The story. 

Behind the Scenes of 'Chicken Run 2'

►18 weeks to shoot 30 seconds. Aardman's much-anticipated stop-motion sequel to Chicken Run is now ready to hatch on Netflix, 23 years after the smash-hit animated original. THR's Alex Ritman spent some time on the Dawn of the Nugget set, picking up some interesting, er, nuggets of information about how the film was made. The story. 

—Second chance. Pixar's Soul, Luca and Turning Red — which bypassed the big screen and went straight to Disney+ because of the pandemic — will play in theaters for the first time, Disney announced Wednesday. Studio insiders say there were several reasons for the decision to give the three films a theatrical release, including a slowdown in family product next year because of the strikes. It also provides a prime opportunity to plug Inside Out 2. The story. 

—"Hollywood is not a healthy place." Angelina Jolie has shared that she probably wouldn’t be an actress if she was just starting in the entertainment industry in this day and age. In a new interview, the Maleficent star said she may have considered acting on the stage, but not Hollywood. The actress said she eventually wants to leave Los Angeles since she "lost the ability to live and travel as freely." The story. 

—"Why did I only make 19 movies in my lifetime?" Barbra Streisand has revealed that she has no plans to return to the big screen anytime soon. In a new interview, the EGOT winner, who hasn’t starred in a movie in more than a decade, confessed that she finds the movie-making process "exhausting" but that she also gets "lazy." The story. 

Disney's Nine-Figure VFX Headache

►"Long-running case at the intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley." THR's Winston Cho reports that a complicated legal battle centered on MOVA, a facial motion capture technology that has been featured in top-grossing Disney hits like Beauty and the Beast, Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, heads to trial on Wednesday. At stake is some of the profits from Beauty and the Beast, which grossed $1.27b in 2017. The story. 

—Rising star keeps rising. Longtime Disney executive Tracy Underwood has been promoted to president of ABC Signature, filling the void created in July with the departure of Jonnie Davis from the role. Underwood, a Disney studio exec since 2010, will oversee creative affairs, drama, comedy and limited series development, as well as the current series slate. She will now report to Eric Schrier, president of Disney Television Studios and Global Original TV Strategy at Disney Entertainment. The story. 

—Counsel change. Longtime WGA West general counsel Tony Segall is retiring from the position. As Segall steps into an outside counsel role, in-house WGA West lawyer Sean Graham, currently the director of the union’s agency department, will ascend to the general counsel position. In addition, Jonah J. Lalas — a partner at the labor-focused firm Segall co-founded, Rothner, Segall & Greenstone — will join the union as an outside counsel after previously working on arbitrations for the union. The story.

—New chairman. Telemundo Enterprises, the Spanish-language content division of NBCUniversal, has named Luis Fernández its new chairman. Fernández, the former president of its news division Noticias Telemundo, will report to Cesar Conde, who oversees the NBC News Group, the NBC local stations and Telemundo. He succeeds Beau Ferrari, who was elevated to chairman of Telemundo three years ago. Ferrari will become a senior advisor to Conde. The story. 

2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards

►🏆 Indie darlings 🏆 American Fiction, May December and Past Lives lead the nominations for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Each film garnered five noms, including best feature. Also nominated in that category are All of Us Strangers, Passages and We Grown Now. The Robert Altman Award, which is given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast, will be presented to Showing Up. The nominees. 

—🏆 Wait, what? 🏆 The Critics Choice Association revealed its television nominees for the 2024 Critics Choice Awards. The Morning Show leads with six nominations, including best drama series and best actress in a drama series for both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, followed by Succession with five, including nominations for best drama series and best actor in a drama series for Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong. A Small Light, Abbott Elementary, Beef, Lessons In Chemistry, Loki, Reservation Dogs, and The Bear received four nominations each. The nominees.  

—Vindication. The Sphere in Las Vegas is already bringing in big bucks. The company, controlled by Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan, has only been operating for a little over two months, but it says that its two marquee shows: The U2 residency “U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere” and the original Darren Aronofsky film Postcards From Earth have combined to bring in more than $75m for the company so far. The story. 

The Great Film Performances of 2023

►Best of the best. THR film reviewers Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden and Lovia Gyarkye delight in an assortment of deliciously unlikable lead turns, single out stars delivering career bests (a wild Emma Stone, a wily Natalie Portman) and celebrate new and rising talents from various corners of the globe. The critics' conversation. 

In other news...

—Kingsley Ben-Adir plays defiant Bob Marley in latest One Love biopic trailer

—Palm Springs Film Festival to open with Wicked Little Letters

—Sex and the City opening credits tutu up for sale in Julien’s auction

—Paramount+ launches in Japan in partnership with J:COM, Wowow

​​​What else we're reading...

—Jordan Robertson and Riley Griffin have a bombshell report on a massive cyberattack that hit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the early days of the pandemic [Bloomberg]

—Naomi May laments the recent spate of celeb documentaries from the likes of Beyoncé, David Beckham, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that omit anything remotely controversial [Guardian]

—Lukas Hermsmeier explains the recent worrying rise of far-right populism in Germany and the wave of anti-migrant and anti-Muslim sentiment in the country [NYT]

—As tech site The Information hits 10 years, Charlotte Klein talked to founder Jessica Lessin about how the company has survived in a tough media landscape [VF]

—Matthew Kronsberg reports on the hearing aid manufacturers looking to make the idea of wearing noise-cancelling-voice-focusing listening device as common as putting on a pair of reading glasses [Bloomberg]

Today...  

...in 2013, The Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis was released in theaters. The period black comedy, starring Oscar Isaac, was nominated for two Academy Awards but would subsequently go on to become a critics' favorite, and was ranked No. 2 in THR's 50 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far). The original review.

Today's birthdays: Judd Apatow (56), Sarah Rafferty (51), Nick Park (65), Craig Brewer (52), Shekhar Kapur (78), Janine Turner (61), Colin Salmon (62), Ulrich Thomsen (60), Oliver Masucci (55), Steven Wright (68), Thom Barry (73), Molly Gordon (28), Tom Hulce (70), Stefanie Scott (27), Lindsay Price (47), JoBeth Williams (75), Jefferson Hall (46), K.D. Aubert (45), Tommy Wirkola (44), Arabella Weir (66), Della Saba (34), Ashley Madekwe (40), Nora Kirkpatrick (39), Kelly Frye (39), Angela Gots (40), Patrick Bauchau (85), Jack De Sena (36), Ryan Kennedy (41), Jens Hultén (60), Christina Lindberg (73), America Young (39), Vanessa Rubio (40), James Naughton (78)