July 02, 2024

What's news: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will open Venice. Tubi is launching in the U.K. Barry Diller is eyeing Paramount Global. Richard Gere will star in Showtime's The Agency. Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman has been accused of bullying and creating a toxic environment on the show. Sean Penn's Ukraine doc Superpower will stream for free on YouTube. — Abid Rahman

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Breaking Down the IATSE Basic Agreement Deal

►A closer look. The crew union IATSE is revealing more specifics of the tentative West Coast contract deal that it struck with Hollywood studios and streamers on June 25. THR's Katie Kilkenny takes a closer look at the deal that includes new streaming residuals, more safety officers, AI guardrails as well as heightened financial penalties for long workdays and also provides $700m in funding for the union's health and pension plans. The analysis. 

—Heading home? Barry Diller appears to be taking a look at Paramount Global. The mogul’s digital media firm IAC is the latest to throw its hat in the ring to make a deal with Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, multiple sources told the NYT in a report published Monday. Diller, one of the most quotable Hollywood moguls, once ran Paramount Pictures as studio chief for more than a decade before his pivot to digital media. The story. 

—'bout bloody time, innit. Fox's free ad-supported streamer Tubi is looking to significantly add to its 80m monthly active users by launching in the U.K. today. The streamer said it would debut in the U.K. with more than 20,000 movies and TV episodes on-demand, with special focus on Hollywood films, modern British classics. Tubi U.K. will also offer shows and films from Bollywood and Nollywood as well as arthouse cinema. The story. 

—🤝 A new giant 🤝 Six Flags and Cedar Fair have completed their $8b merger, creating a live experiences behemoth that owns 27 theme parks, 15 water parks, 9 hotels and resorts, as well as safaris, marinas and other properties across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Cedar Fair owns Knott’s Berry Farm in Anaheim and Cedar Point in Ohio, among other properties. Six Flags owns Six Flags Over Texas, Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, among others. The story.

—🤝 Olympics deal 🤝 FuboTV has inked a deal with NBCUniversal to offer multi-platform coverage of the upcoming Paris Olympics to its subscribers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement comes as Fubo battles on another front against a planned sports super-streamer from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. The 2024 Olympics coverage will be made available as part of FuboTV’s existing subscriber plans and at no extra cost. The story. 

—New offer. Comcast has unveiled plans to launch Now TV Latino as a $10 a-month streaming video product aimed at Spanish-speaking U.S. consumers. The offering includes 25-plus live Spanish-language streaming channels, and the flagship Peacock online service, for $10 per month. Now TV Latino, to include movies, novellas, sports and live news, will comprise streaming TV and free ad-supported streaming TV channels. The story.

Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Over Miniseries

►"Distorts the truth." Hunter Biden is suing Fox News over The Trial of Hunter Biden, a fictional six-part miniseries in which it staged a criminal trial related to his foreign business dealings. In a lawsuit filed on Sunday, Biden alleges the series “intentionally manipulates the facts” while displaying images of him in the nude and engaged in sex acts. He brings claims for a violation of a New York’s so-called revenge porn law, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unjust enrichment. FNC pulled the miniseries from its streaming platform in April after it was threatened with a lawsuit. The story.  

—Suit filed. Kanye West and Milo Yiannopoulos are being accused of engaging in “forced labor and cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment” toward the team brought on to create the app that the rapper-mogul hoped would compete with Tidal and other streaming players. In a lawsuit filed this weekend in Los Angeles, West and his company Yeezy LLC hired developers who had created the YZYVSN streaming service app. It is alleged that West never paid a group of Yeezy employees, who claim they were subjected to illegal conditions and bullying from managers. The story. 

—Toxic allegations. Steve Blackman, the showrunner of Netflix’s hit fantasy series The Umbrella Academy, has pushed back on allegations reported in a Rolling Stone exposé that detailed a group of former staffers on the series accusing him of creating a toxic and bullying environment that they say ultimately discriminated against women. According to 12 anonymous sources in the report, Blackman is alleged to have bullied and harassed Umbrella Academy staff and, particularly, a group of women writers. The story.   

Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock to Lead Netflix's 'Sirens'

►🎭 Stacked 🎭 Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock will star in Netflix's Sirens, the series which comes from Maid creator Molly Smith Metzler and LuckyChap. Fahy and Alcock will play sisters drawn into the world of a wealthy socialite (Moore) in the dark comedy. The show is based on a play, Elemeno Pea, that Metzler wrote while she was a student at Juilliard. Sirens is the first product of an overall deal Metzler signed with Netflix. The streamer also announced that Nicole Kassell will direct the first two episodes and serve as an EP on Sirens. The story. 

—🎭 First major TV role 🎭 Richard Gere is joining several other major stars headlining the Showtime political thriller The Agency. The casting marks the 74-year-old Pretty Woman actor’s first major TV series role (he’s previously been in a couple miniseries over the years, including his Emmy nominated turn in 1994’s And The Band Played On). Gere will play Bosko, a London station chief with a storied past after serving as an 8-year undercover agent, joining previously announced stars Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright. The story. 

—Two for one. Amazon Prime Video has ordered a docuseries about the 2022 University of Idaho murders and the investigation, arrest and upcoming trial of Bryan Kohberger in connection with the case. The series, from Skydance Television and Story Syndicate, is based on an upcoming nonfiction book by James Patterson and journalist Vicky Ward. Liz Garbus and Matthew Galkin are set to co-direct the docuseries. Amazon, Skydance and Story Syndicate are also developing a scripted series based on the case, with Garbus attached to helm the first episode. The story. 

—🎭 Patrick from dispatch 🎭 Colin From Accounts star Patrick Brammall has grabbed the lead role in Apple TV+ crime thriller The Dispatcher. The Aussie actor will play Ian Hunt, a police detective whose 3-year-old daughter disappeared without a trace 10 years earlier. Believing she was abducted, Hunt loses his marriage and faces emotional turmoil. Set in Australia, The Dispatcher is adapted by writer and executive producer Kris Mrksa from author Ryan David Jahn’s book of the same name. The story. 

Why Ryan Serhant Returned to Real Estate Reality TV

►"The question was, what will make people look up from their phones?" For THR, Hadley Meares spoke to birthday boy Ryan Serhant about his new Netflix reality series Owning Manhattan. After a break following a decade on Bravo with Million Dollar Listing: New York, the agent to the stars reveals why he wanted to do something different. The interview. 

—🏆 Congrats! 🏆 The African American Film Critics Association has revealed the winners of this year’s AAFCA TV Honors, which recognizes achievements in TV and streaming. Black Twitter: A People’s History won the best documentary prize, while best ensemble went to Masters of the Air and best limited series/special was awarded to Genius: MLK/X. The Bear's Ayo Edebiri was honored with the best TV acting (female) prize, while Elsbeth's Wendell Pierce won the male award. The winners. 

—Eating big. Hulu says the third season premiere of The Bear racked up 5.4m views worldwide over its first four days of release (it premiered June 27). The show streams on Disney+ outside the U.S. and hasn’t premiered in every territory yet. That 5.4m figure represents a 24 percent jump over the season two opener in June 2023 (which would put the latter around 4.35m views) and the show’s biggest episode over a four-day span to date. It also snagged the largest view tally ever on Hulu for an FX season premiere, or a scripted season debut, from any source. The ratings. 

—Regency rules. The reign of Bridgerton — and Shonda Rhimes — on the Nielsen streaming charts continued into the first two days of June. Bridgerton declined about 37 percent in viewing time from a week earlier, but the Regency-era drama still ranked No. 1 overall on Nielsen’s charts for May 27-June 2 with 1.38b minutes of watch time on Netflix. The series has claimed the top spot for three straight weeks since its May 16 premiere, with another surge likely coming when results for the second half of the season (which debuted June 13) begin to arrive. The streaming rankings. 

Kevin Costner's 'Horizon' Box Office Boondoggle

►Where for art thou Yellowstone fans? Kevin Costner's Western epic Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 opened to just $11m, a dismal start for an event title that cost $100m to produce. In terms of headcount, that means roughly 1m people turned out. THR's Pamela McClintock looks into why the film failed to connect with audiences, particularly fans of Costner's now-former TV show Yellowstone. The analysis. 

—Di' il suo nome. The world premiere of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will open the 81st Venice Film Festival. The film, the hotly-anticipated sequel to Burton's 1988 comedy-horror hit, will screen on Aug. 28 out of competition. Venice has become something of a lucky place for Warner Bros., the studio premiered Todd Phillips’ Joker on the Lido in 2019, and Denis Villeneuve's Dune in 2021, with both films going on to achieve critical and commercial success. The story. 

—Remake. John Wick filmmaker Chad Stahelski is set to produce an English-language remake of the Indian action thriller Kill for Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions. Stahelski, Jason Spitz and Alex Young will produce the remake for 87Eleven Entertainment Nikhil Nagesh Bhat wrote and directed the 2023 Hindi-language film that takes place on a train trip to New Delhi, and sees a pair of commandos battle an army of bandits. Kill will get a U.S. release this weekend, starting July 4. The story. 

—Brühl in the chair. The producers of All Quiet on the Western Front are teaming up with The Ink Factory on the German- and English-language period drama Break, based on the life of 1930s German tennis champion Gottfried von Cramm. Felix Kammerer will play von Cramm, with his All Quiet co-star Daniel Brühl in the director's chair. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini will pen the script, adapting Marshall Jon Fisher’s non-fiction book A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. The story.

—📅 Edging ever closer 📅 Universal announced Monday that Jon M. Chu's musical feature Wicked will hit theaters Nov. 22. The film has moved up from its previously scheduled release on Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, with the new date giving the movie more time to build word of mouth heading into the holiday corridor. The new date also allows it to avoid Disney’s Moana 2. Wicked will now compete against Paramount’s Gladiator II, which also hits theaters Nov. 22. The story. 

—📅 Dated 📅 Lionsgate is going back to the early 1990s this summer, with help from Tyrese Gibson and Snoop Dogg. The studio will release director Ariel Vromen’s crime thriller 1992 in theaters Aug. 30. Snoop Dogg has boarded the feature as executive producer through his Death Row Pictures production company, with Fast & Furious star Gibson starring alongside Scott Eastwood and the late Ray Liotta in one of his final movie roles. The story.

—Maximum reach. Superpower, Sean Penn's two-hour documentary on Ukraine, will stream free of charge for one year in the U.S. on the Paramount+ YouTube channel. The Paramount+ original doc chronicles Ukraine’s fight for freedom from invading Russian military forces and is directed by the actor, filmmaker and activist alongside Aaron Kaufman. Penn also took a pivotal role by conducting intimate interviews with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others during seven trips to Ukraine over two years. The story. 
—Big opener. The world premiere of Steve McQueen's Blitz, starring Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson, will open this year's BFI London Film Festival. The Apple original film is set against the backdrop of the Germans' infamous WWII bombing campaign across London. The London-born McQueen has opened the LFF twice before, with Widows in 2018 and Mangrove in 2020. The story. 

Inside Casey Wasserman's Lavish 50th Birthday Bash

►"Lew ’n Casey." THR's Gary Baum reports that Casey Wasserman, the sports management mogul and head of L.A.'s 2028 Olympic bid, threw himself an elaborate party on June 28 that drew power players like Bob Iger and Bill Clinton. At the birthday blowout, Gary writes that Wasserman hardly shied away from his powerful entertainment lineage. The story. 

—"It was about doing something that felt joyful." THR's nicest man Chris Gardner spoke to Alison Rou, a Hollywood power publicist known for working with producers and showrunners, about her career switch. Rou discusses partnering with beauty industry veteran Sarah Tallman to launch Casa Cara, the lifestyle and home goods brand. The interview.