| | | | What's news: The ax was swung on Friday as Netflix and The CW both canceled high profile shows. Geoff Morrell's tortured 3-month tenure as Disney comms chief is over. Blake Lively has lined up her feature directorial debut. Apple renews Pachinko. Cannes adds 2 new films to the 2022 lineup. Plus: Amazon has put a dollar figure on the value of MGM's film and TV library and it's way, way, way less than the $8.5b it paid for the studio — Abid Rahman |
Netflix Cancels 'Space Force' ►Expensive critical failure. Newly cost-conscious Netflix has canceled Space Force, the Steve Carell comedy from The Office creator Greg Daniels, after two critically panned seasons. The news comes after the streamer attempted to creatively reboot the pricey comedy in its second season, moving the production from L.A. to Vancouver in a bid to reduce its budget. The show set a record for talent pay as Carrel’s deal for the series topped $1 million per episode. The story.
—Trim, trim, trim. Netflix is stopping production on a pair of animated series for kids. Dino Daycare, from executive producer Chris Nee, and the South Asian-inspired adventure Boons and Curses won’t move forward at the streamer. Sources tell THR's Rick Porter that creative impasses on each show led to the decision to scrap them. The story.
—Cancellation fever. The CW has canceled the DC drama Batwoman after three seasons. The cancellation comes a month after Batwoman aired its third season (and now series) finale on the network. It also comes as the network's owners, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, are exploring a sale of the broadcaster. That has led to speculation that the network would pare back its slate of scripted series. The story.
—The cuts keep coming. The CW has also canceled Legends of Tomorrow after seven seasons. The end of Legends and Batwoman leaves The CW with a smaller DC roster for the 2022-23 than it’s had in years. The network has renewed The Flash and Superman & Lois, which currently are the only DC shows set for next season. The story. |
Jon Watts Exits 'Fantastic Four' ►Shocker. Jon Watts will no longer direct Marvel's upcoming Fantastic Four film. Watts, who helmed the massively successful Spider-Man trilogy for Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, has withdrawn from the MCU project. Although no specific reason was given, Watts' statement to THR mentioned that he had spent the last seven years of his life working on superhero movies. The story.
—The ol' switcheroo. Disney is swapping release dates for The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The Marvels, formerly Captain Marvel 2, was dated for Feb. 17, 2023 and now moves to July 28, 2023, making way for Quantumania to fill the earlier slot. It is understood Quantumania is further along in the production process, and so the decision was made to swap dates. The story.
—Torrid three months. Geoff Morrell, Disney's communications chief, is leaving after just three months on the job “to pursue other opportunities,” Morrell and CEO Bob Chapek told staff Friday. Kristina Schake, who joined Disney earlier this month, will now oversee all communications globally for the company. Morrell's short stint included Disney's disastrous public handling of the Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill controversy. The story. |
CinemaCon: Theater Owners' Swagger Returns ►Who's afraid of streaming? After a jam-packed and newsy few days in Las Vegas, THR's intrepid CinemaCon team of Chris Gardner, Pamela McClintock and Carolyn Giardina present their wrap up of the industry confab, and find that studio execs, theater owners and attendees, in the main, left the event in a buoyant mood as some semblance of normality returns to the box office and streaming turns out not to be the boogeyman that exhibitors feared. The analysis.
—Laters gators. The debut of Moon Knight put up decent numbers for Disney+, while Netflix’s Bridgerton reigned over the Nielsen streaming rankings in the first full week after its second season premiere. Moon Knight racked up 418 million minutes of viewing time for the week of March 28-April 3 (it premiered on March 30), good for fifth place among original streaming series. The series streaming rankings.
—Blake Lively, director. THR's Borys Kit and Ryan Parker have the scoop on Blake Lively lining up her feature directorial debut with Seconds, an adaptation of the graphic novel by Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley that is set up at Searchlight. Edgar Wright, who adapted the cult classic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, is also involved with Seconds . The Brit filmmaker wrote the script and is producing along with Marc Platt. The story.
—Captain Pike to the rescue. Bruce Greenwood has joined Netflix's limited series The Fall of the House of Usher. Greenwood will take over the role of Roderick Usher from Frank Langella, who was let go after an investigation into alleged misconduct on set. Langella'a dismissal came partway through production, and Greenwood will now reshoot scenes. The story. |
Amid Streaming Boom, Some Companies Love Linear TV ►Backwards to go forwards. After years of preparing to go all in on streaming, linear TV is no longer a corporate priority for most Hollywood giants. THR's media reporter Alex Weprin writes that a few companies, A+E, Fox Corp. and AMC Networks, are betting that they can’t compete with Netflix and hoping a diversified approach is more lucrative, and are leaning into the cable bundle (and ad-supported streaming). The analysis.
—No surprise here. Apple TV+ has solidified the future of Pachinko, one of the year’s most critically praised dramas. The streamer has handed out a second-season renewal for the series based on Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel of the same name. The pickup comes as season one of the series from creator Soo Hugh had its finale on Friday. The story.
—Translations, meticulous set design and those opening titles. Staying with Pachinko, THR's Mikey O'Connell spoke to Soo Hugh about the first season of the epic, critically acclaimed show, with the showrunner reflecting on the four-year journey to Friday's finale. The interview.
—New signing. Smokehouse Pictures, the production company founded by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, has inked a multi-project development deal with Audible for a slate of original audio projects. The partnership follows a number of deals Audible has struck with companies like Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco, Steph Curry’s Unanimous Media, Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Productions and LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill. The story. |
A Black Female-Led Studio Rises in Georgia ►"It all boils down to having stories told. Television and film are such powerful mediums." In March, Tammy Williams was set to become the first Black woman to own a major production studio in Fayetteville, Georgia, when the $135 million Cinema South Studios project broke ground (not far from Trilith and Tyler Perry studios). THR's Winston Cho spoke to the trailblazing writer-director-producer about the project, its mission and how it helps underserved communities. The interview.
—The price of "goodwill." How much is an iconic film and TV library that includes James Bond, Rocky, Thelma and Louise, Survivor and The Handmaid’s Tale really worth? According to an Amazon SEC filing, those 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes are worth about $3.4 billion. While Amazon cited MGM’s enormous library of content to justify the $8.5 billion deal, most of the company’s value is in $4.9 billion worth of “goodwill,” according to the filing. The story.
—Late adds. Just over two weeks before the kick-off to the Cannes, festival organizers have added another two titles to the official 2022 lineup. New additions include As Bestas from director Rodrigo Sorogoyen in a Cannes Première slot this year and a special screening for Salam, a doc from French filmmakers Mélanie Georgiades aka Diam’s, Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé. The story.
—"I would just say thanks and I’ll accept it because the fans vote." Dolly Parton has changed her mind and will now "accept gracefully" her nomination for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The iconic country star said in March that she was going to "bow out" of consideration this year but the Hall of Fame shared that the nominated singer was on the ballot sent to voters. The story. |
How Underselling 'Northman' Proved to be its Biggest Box Office Battle ►"There is a seeming hesitance to say The Northman is fantasy." THR's Richard Newby is out with a compelling take on The Northman's tepid box office returns, despite critical love, a starry cast, a hot director and lots of social media chatter. Robert Eggers' film has been called everything from a from historical drama, to an art film by critics and audiences, but Richard writes that Universal/Focus' failure to define the $90m Northman as a fantasy genre film may have hurt its prospects more than anything else. The analysis. — "I don’t want to come off as being cagey." Elisabeth Moss is opening up about her relationship to Scientology in a new profile for the New Yorker, in which she explains why she doesn’t talk at length about it publicly. Moss claimed she "open book about it" with people she's close to, but, she added, she wants to keep a distance from her personal life with her performances and her work. The story. In other news... —Kim Kardashian dropped from Blac Chyna’s defamation lawsuit —Marvel's Roy Thomas remembers his X-Men artist Neal Adams as "bigger than life" —Celine Dion pushes European tour dates to 2023 amid ongoing health issue —Joey King to star in Holocaust survival story We Were the Lucky Ones for Hulu —Michael Eisner seeks record sale with $225m price on Malibu compound —Union files new unfair labor practices charge against Activision Blizzard —IATSE, Reel Works team to train hairstylists from historically excluded backgrounds What else we're reading... —Critic Arifa Akbar on Viola Davis' "astonishingly thin-skinned" reaction to criticism of The First Lady [ Guardian] —Alissa Wilkinson on how Paramount+'s The Offer is a TV show about how great movies are [ Vox] — Richard Lawler on every ridiculous thing we learned about Elon Musk’s plan to take over Twitter [ Verge] —Mark Olsen on how The Northman team pulled off that village raid and the (naked) volcano battle [ LAT] —Helen Bushby on James Corden leaving The Late Late Show and how his viral success divided the internet [ BBC] Today... Today's birthdays: Jane Campion (68), Ana de Armas (34), Gal Gadot (37), Kirsten Dunst (40), Kunal Nayyar (41), Johnny Galecki (47), Sam Heughan (42), Olivia DeJonge (24), Dianna Agron (36), Paul Gross (63), Georgina Amorós (24), Jacques Audiard (70), Rose Rollins (41), James Marsh (59), Steven Mackintosh (55), Sandra Hüller (44), Lisa Dean Ryan (50), Pell James (45), Travis Scott (31), Amanda Palmer (46) |
| Neal Adams, the legendary comic book artist who reinvigorated Batman and other superheroes with his photorealistic stylings and championed the rights of creators, has died. He was 80. The obituary. |
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