| | | | | Good morning and I hope you had a restful Labor Day weekend: With Abid out for the week, I'm returning to the newsletter grind for a few days. Read on for a record-breaking Labor Day box office (it's been a while since we could write that); remembrances for Michael K.Williams, Willard Scott, and others; and of course the latest from Telluride and Venice. Plus: Time's Up trouble, A major exit from an Amazon series, Telemundo's loss is MSNBC's gain, and a superhero pic moves up its release date. — Alex Weprin |
A Labor Day Box Office Record ►Heroic effort: Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings made a strong showing at the box office, where it has smashed the record for Labor Day openings with a four-day haul of $90 million and has posted the second-biggest three-day debut of the pandemic year so far, behind fellow Marvel Studios pic Black Widow. --Shang-Chi, from filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton brought in a domestic three-day total of $75.5 million from 4,300 locations. Shang-Chi‘s global haul is an estimated $127.6 million. The PG-13 movie, which earned positive reviews and a glowing A Cinemascore, stars Simu Liu as Marvel’s newest hero and is the studio’s first to center on an Asian lead. --Its three-day haul is the second-biggest domestic opening of the year, behind Black Widow, which debuted to $80.3 million over three days in July, and ahead of Universal’s F9, which brought in $70 million in late June. The full story. +Carnage will be unleashed a little early next month. Sony has moved up Venom: Let There Be Carnage two weeks to Oct. 1, from its previous date of Oct. 15. The strong showing by Shang-Chi surely played a role in the move. The story. +Related stories: Richard Newby on where Shang-Chi will take Marvel next... Simu Liu says Shang-Chi will change the world by bringing “pride where there was shame”... Aquaman has a new green and gold costume... |
Remembering Michael K. Williams ►Gone far too soon: Michael K. Williams, the mesmerizing actor and five-time Emmy nominee best known for his role as Baltimore stick-up man Omar Little on HBO’s The Wire, has died. He was 54. --“It is with deep sorrow that the family announces the passing of Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams. They ask for your privacy while grieving this insurmountable loss,” his longtime rep, Marianna Shafran of Shafran PR, said. --Williams was found in his Brooklyn home on Monday afternoon, a New York Police Department rep told THR. No cause of death was immediately available.
--More recently, Williams portrayed Montrose Freeman on HBO’s Lovecraft Country, for which he received a 2021 Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series — the awards are Sept. 19 — and was Bobby McCray, the father of Antron McCray (Caleel Harris), who convinced his son to sign a false confession, on Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix miniseries When They See Us. The obituary.
+The tributes: In the wake of Williams’ death on Monday, Hollywood figures took to social media to pay tribute to the actor. More.
+Dan Fienberg's critic's notebook: Williams "built a career on the complicated task of being an indispensable part of some of the greatest ensembles in television history, while at the same time being an actor who you couldn’t look away from," Fienberg writes. "That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. A great ensemble is a complex network of meshing pieces. Sure, you might have favorite characters within an ensemble, but anybody who’s too dynamic runs the risk of pulling focus from the collective to the individual. Williams didn’t do that." The notebook.
+More: Williams "is nominated for the best supporting actor in a drama series Primetime Emmy for his performance as Montrose Freeman on HBO’s Lovecraft Country — and is widely expected to win, for the first time in his illustrious career, just 13 days from now," Scott Feinberg writes... The actor also reflected on his career and struggles in an interview with Feinberg in 2011...
Sadly the weekend saw a number of notable losses...
►Irma Kalish, the pioneering sitcom writer and producer who teamed with her late husband, Austin “Rocky” Kalish, on hundreds of television episodes, including emotional installments of All in the Family and Maude, has died. She was 96. --Kalish died Friday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her family announced. The couple had written for such shows as My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun and F Troop but achieved a breakthrough in 1965 when they were hired by producer Ed Hartmann to write for My Three Sons and then for another CBS comedy, Family Affair, for which they also served as story editors. The obituary.
►Willard Scott, the clown prince of weathermen and patron saint of centenarians who spent 65 years at NBC, the last 35 of those as a regular on the Today show, has died. He was 87. --The good-natured Scott, a favorite son of the Washington area who created and portrayed the original Ronald McDonald and also played Bozo the Clown, died Saturday, current Today weatherman Al Roker said. The obituary.
►Jean-Paul Belmondo, the rugged French actor who swept to international stardom as the anti-hero in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic Breathless, has died. He was 88. Belmondo died Monday in his Paris home, his lawyer Michel Godest told the AFP. The obituary.
►Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding succumbed to breast cancer Sunday morning, her mother announced on social media. She was 39. The model, actress and singer in the award-winning British-Irish pop girl group announced in August 2020 from the hospital that she had been diagnosed with the disease, which had spread to other parts of her body. The obituary. |
Festivals Update ►Scott Feinberg and Rebecca Keegan on Hollywood's return to the Rockies. THR's awards columnist and senior film editor recap everything you need to know from Telluride 2021: Kristen Stewart, Benedict Cumberbatch, the pandemic mood and more.
--Keegan: "It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since we were last here at Telluride, Scott, and this year’s festival was like no other I’ve ever experienced. The longest lines in town weren’t for films, but for Covid tests, and we watched all our movies masked. Despite the spectre of the pandemic hanging over us — or actually because of it — I felt more grateful than ever to be seeing these movies on big screens shoulder to shoulder with appreciative, vaccinated and Covid-tested audiences."
--Feinberg: "Absolutely. It’s been so nice to see you and other friends in-person again, and to be here — anywhere, really, but especially here — that I have tried to muzzle myself any time I’ve been tempted to whine about feeling out of breath or exhausted or reluctant to write more. And yes, after the first three-quarters of 2021, which have yielded almost no narrative movies with any real shot at getting Academy recognition, it’s been thrilling to see several movies here which I really liked and which seemed to pop with a lot of people." The full conversation.
+Scott Feinberg's Telluride awards analysis: Kristen Stewart looks Oscars-bound for Spencer... Cyrano puts Peter Dinklage in the hunt for his first Oscar nom... C’mon C’mon is a fest favorite, but will it register with awards voters?... Olivia Colman poised to land third Oscar nom in four years for The Lost Daughter... Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, a favorite of critics and audiences, has major Oscar potential... Paolo Sorrentino could put Italy back in the Oscar hunt with The Hand of God ...
+Notable Venice reviews: Tim Roth in Michel Franco’s Sundown... Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage... Madeline Collins...
+In other festival news: The 2021 BFI London Film Festival — set to run Oct. 6-17 — has unveiled its full program, with a sizeable haul of major titles joining the lineup... Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival — set to have its first edition this December — has revealed the recipients of its 2020-2021 funding program... Venice has reported zero COVID-19 infections, so far... |
Time's Up For Time's Up►Time's Up turmoil continues: Following the recent resignation of Tina Tchen, several Time’s Up board members are set to exit amid a reshuffling of the organization’s leadership. --Shonda Rhimes, Eva Longoria, Jurnee Smollett, Katie McGrath, Christy Haubegger, Hilary Rosen, Michelle Kydd, and Time’s Up’s interim board chair Nina Shaw are among the members stepping down from their positions with the gender equity group based on a statement posted Saturday to the organization’s website. Colleen DeCourcy, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, Ashley Judd and Gabrielle Sulzberger are to remain on the board during this period “to help ensure a smooth transition,” according to the statement.
--Existing board members are slated to step down within the next 30 days, “giving our CEO the ability to refocus the organization’s leadership to suit its mission and needs.” The statement from the board states that “TIME’S UP is ready for new leadership,” with new board appointments set to move the organization towards its new iteration. The story.
►Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is in the market for a new leading lady. Phoebe Waller-Bridge has exited the straight-to-series adaptation of the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie 2005 New Regency film. Sources say that the Fleabag Emmy winner had a different creative vision for the series than Donald Glover, with whom she was poised to star alongside. More.
►Harrowing escape: Sahraa Karimi, an Afghan director who narrowly escaped the Taliban to safety in Europe just weeks ago, is turning her harrowing true story into a feature film. Called Flight from Kabul, the film will trace the 40 hours from the moment on Aug. 15 when the Taliban invaded the Afghan capital to when Karimi finally managed to flee with her family, traveling first to Istanbul and finally to Kyiv in Ukraine. More. In other news... --MSNBC is shaking up its dayside lineup, with José Díaz-Balart returning to anchor José Díaz-Balart Reports in the 10 a.m. hour weekdays starting Sept. 27. Diaz-Balart previously served as a dayside anchor for MSNBC from 2014-2016. The longtime Noticias Telemundo anchor will step aside at the Spanish-language evening newscast to take on his new role. --And in other TV news, news: Van Scott has re-joined ABC News as vp of communications, following a stint at Vice. He will lead media relations and program publicity, and report to ABC News president Kim Godwin, and marketing and entertainment marketing chief Shannon Ryan. --Howard University’s College of Fine Arts has officially been renamed in honor of graduate and beloved actor Chadwick Boseman. --Angelina Jolie is addressing allegations of abuse she’s made against Brad Pitt amid their custody battle and is speaking out about his decision to work with the convicted rapist and former movie producer Harvey Weinstein following an encounter in the ’90s she now says was “beyond a pass.” --In an emotional tribute posted to his Instagram on Monday, Hugh Jackman announced that his father, Christopher John Jackman, has died. What else we're reading... --"Nielsen's grip over TV ratings loosens amid streaming boom" [ WSJ] --"'There's so much I want to do': The world according to Zendaya" [ Vogue U.K.] --"If Gawker is nice, is it still Gawker?" [ NY Times] --"Bill Clinton portrayals in pop culture, ranked" [ The Ringer] Today's birthdays: Julie Kavner, 72, Gloria Gaynor, 72, Evan Rachel Wood, 34, Leslie Jones, 54, Diane Warren, 65. |
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