July 03, 2024

What's news: Legendary Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne has died. Paramount Global is looking to sell BET Media Group. ABC News has scored Joe Biden's first post-debate interview. Jeremy Irons is joining Apple's The Morning Show. Netflix has snapped up Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's RIP. — Abid Rahman

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Skydance and Paramount Restart Talks

►Back to the negotiating table. Shari Redstone’s National Amusements and David Ellison’s Skydance Media are reengaging on talks that could lead to a change in ownership for Paramount Global. The next step is for the potential agreement to go to Paramount’s special committee of the board of directors. The move marks the latest twist in a corporate soap opera that saw Redstone walk away from a deal in June that would’ve effectively merged the owner of CBS, Showtime, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon with the multimedia production company that has co-financed Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible franchise entries. The story. 

—It's happening at PG! After several stops and starts, Paramount Global appears to be renewing its effort to sell off its BET Media Group assets. Paramount is in talks with CC Capital chief Chinh Chu, whose private equity firm is backing BET president Scott Mills in a bid for the BET assets. The unit — comprising the BET channel, streamer BET+ as well as VH1 and BET Studios — has been up for sale multiple times in the past several years as Paramount reevaluated which properties to keep or sell. The story. 

Broadway Box Office: 'Appropriate' Ends Run On High

►Tonys bump wanes. Broadway grosses came down from their Tony Awards highs last week, though Merrily We Roll Along and Appropriate kept powering through the ends of their runs. Appropriate, starring newly minted Tony winner Sarah Paulson, closed out its Broadway run by hitting a new high of $1.2m to a capacity of 99 percent. Meanwhile, Merrily We Roll Along topped the show’s record high seen after the Tonys with a gross of $2.3m and a new average paid admission high of $300 for the week ended June 30. The story. 

—Two divisions. Candle Media, the entertainment company backed by private equity giant Blackstone and headed up by former Disney execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, is reorganizing around two divisions: animation and live-action. The changes will see animated series folded into the company’s children’s media company Moonbug Entertainment, which launched in 2018. A second division, Candle Studios, will encompass live action content and be led by Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden. The story.  

—Investment secured. DNEG, the London-based VFX and animation house that has won awards for the likes of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Netflix’s Stranger Things, said Tuesday it secured a $200m investment from United Al Saqar Group of the U.A.E. The company will use the cash injection to accelerate AI-driven content creation at Brahma, DNEG’s newly-launched technology division. DNEG was also the preferred VFX creator for Christopher Nolan on movies like Inception, Interstellar and Tenet. The story.

—🤝 Strategic stake 🤝 TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of UFC and the WWE, which is controlled by Endeavor, has made a strategic investment in EverPass Media as the media platform gains the ability to stream NFL's Sunday Ticket games for commercial businesses. The platform, which distributes live sports and other entertainment content to businesses, is backed by RedBird Capital Partners and 32 Equity, the strategic investment arm of the NFL. Financial details of the acquisition or of the investment by TKO were not disclosed. The story.

—Extradited. Marianne Smyth, the American whose elaborate con of a reality television producer was the subject of a 2020 THR story, has been extradited to Northern Ireland to face trial over a separate alleged scam she ran there. Between 2013 and 2017, Smyth conned American Ninja Warrior and Shark Tank producer Johnathan Walton while posing as an “Irish heiress” and allegedly several other figures in and around Hollywood. The story.

Ari Emanuel's Aspen Assault on Biden and the Dems

►"I talked to a bunch of big donors, and they're moving all their money to Congress and the Senate." Ari Emanuel insists he’s a kinder and gentler man these days, but in the wake of the first presidential debate, the hard-driving agency head is still fighting mad at Joe Biden and his top aides. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival the morning after the debate, the Endeavor chief also had blistering words for Benjamin Netanyahu, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and a dire warning for the Democratic Party. The story.  

—"If a person who is a convicted felon can still run for president, then we should be removing that box from job applications." Kerry Washington has offered her thoughts on Donald Trump’s conviction and how he’s still able to run for president, revealing that the situation has changed her views on the justice system. In a new interview, Washington opened up about the ways that felons may be seen differently now that the former president has been convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records. The story.

—"This is a war." Orange Is the New Black actress Lea DeLaria uploaded an intense Instagram speech calling on President Joe Biden to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s newly defined executive immunity rules and assassinate Donald Trump. DeLaria posted the video Monday in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling the former president is immune from prosecution for any “official acts” while in office. The story. 

Robert Towne 1934 - 2024

►The writer's writer. Robert Towne, the screenwriter as superstar whose Oscar-winning work on the 1974 classic Chinatown is widely recognized as the gold standard for movie scripts, has died. He was 89. Towne died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, publicist Carri McClure announced. The San Pedro native also wrote The Last Detail, Shampoo and Tequila Sunrise. Towne was highly regarded for his work as a script doctor and consultant, contributing the Marlon Brando garden scene to The Godfather and supplying crucial pieces to other films like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. The obituary. 

How Josh Hartnett Became a Surprise Guest Star on 'The Bear'

►"It feels like a group of friends making a show at university or something. Yet it’s this phenomenal success." THR's Seija Rankin spoke to Josh Hartnett about his guest appearance in season three of FX/Hulu's The Bear. The actor discusses calling series creator Chris Storer, keeping the gig a secret, and why he decided to paint Frank's fingernails. Warning: Spoilers! The interview. 

—Big get. President Joe Biden is ready to meet the press following his disastrous first debate performance. ABC News has scored the first, exclusive post-debate sit-down with the president, who is seeking to reassure voters about his health and reelection candidacy. Biden will be interviewed on the campaign trail Friday by Good Morning America co-anchor and This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos. Biden is facing calls to step down in the wake of his faltering live 90-minute performance last Thursday against Donald Trump. The story.

—🎭 Heavyweight addition 🎭 Apple TV+ is adding another high-profile actor to The Morning Show. Oscar and Emmy winner Jeremy Irons is joining the show’s cast for its upcoming fourth season. He’ll play Martin Levy, the father of Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy. It will be his first TV role since Netflix’s The Pentaverate in 2022. Irons joins Marion Cotillard as a newcomer for season four. The story.

—BTS abroad. BTS members Jimin and Jung Kook are set to star in a new travel reality series on Disney+. The series, Are You Sure?!, was announced via a release from the K-pop supergroup’s label, Big Hit Music, and their parent company, HYBE. The show will debut on Aug. 8 and follows the duo as they travel through three locations in three countries: New York, Jeju Island, South Korea, and Sapporo, Japan. The story. 

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck Thriller 'RIP' Lands at Netflix

►Snapped up. The latest collaboration between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck is heading to Netflix. The streamer has acquired the rights to RIP, the thriller feature that Joe Carnahan is directing. Damon and Affleck will co-star in the movie and also serve as producers through their company Artists Equity. Plot details have not yet been shared. THR reported last month that the film package was being shopped around town, aiming for a fall shoot. The story.

—Wunder(side)bar! The Berlin International Film Festival has introduced a new competitive sidebar section called Perspectives, dedicated to feature debuts. The new section will launch in 2025 as part of the Berlinale reboot spearheaded by incoming festival director Tricia Tuttle. Perspectives, which aims “to provide a more prominent platform for emerging filmmakers,” will showcase up to 14 debut features. The story.  

—Slipping. China's box office made a roaring start to 2024, but sales have waned in the months since. Ticket revenue for the first half of 2024 totaled $3.4b, down 9 percent from the same period last year, according to data released Tuesday by consultancy Artisan Gateway. Legendary Entertainment's Godzilla x Kong: New Empire was the only U.S. title to hit $100m in the first six months of 2024, while local blockbuster Yolo topped the market with $492m. The story. 

—Football is life. Europeans are still crazy for their soccer, but record TV ratings for the Euro 2024 championships haven’t had a major impact on the box office. This past weekend saw second-round matches for Euro 2024 pull in huge audiences across most of the continent's biggest markets, with the U.K., Italy and Spain recording best-ever figures for the tournament. Despite this, box office returns in Europe held up, thanks mainly to Inside Out 2. The story. 

—"The strikes had a much more profound effect on changing the business than COVID did." Legendary independent film producer Christine Vachon offered her assessment of the movie business at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Tuesday. Speaking at an industry session, Vachon said there was a lot of doom at the moment due to the fact there's "so much disruption" in the last few years, including COVID but more particularly the double Hollywood strikes. The story.  

—"We’re used to 90-minute movies. They’ve gotta learn to watch real cinema." Michael Rooker is standing up for Kevin Costner's Horizon saga following the first film’s extremely modest opening weekend box office performance. Rooker — who plays Sgt. Major Thomas Riordan in the film — was asked about Chapter 1's ticket sales, which tallied only $11m for the three-hour film. Rooker seemed to suggest audiences with short attention spans weren’t ready for Costner’s experiment with longform cinema, which includes three more films yet to come. The story.