Academy Award-winning filmmaker and philanthropist Steven Spielberg presented President Barack Obama with the USC Shoah Foundation's Ambassador for Humanity Award at a glittering Beverly Hills gala that included guests Barbra Streisand, Samuel L. Jackson and Kim Kardashian.Wednesday's evening event, which was hosted by Conan O’Brien and featured a performance by Bruce Springsteen, marked the 20th anniversary for the foundation that Spielberg founded after making Schindler’s List, for which he was honored with a best director Oscar. Initially conceived as a repository for the oral and filmed personal histories of Shoah survivors, the center's archives have come to house nearly 52,000 first-person histories in 58 countries -- not only of Jewish Holocaust survivors but of gays, Jehovah's Witnesses and Roma persecuted by the Nazis. VIDEO: White House Correspondents' Dinner: Obama Jokes About CNN, MSNBC, Fox NewsThe crowd of 1,300 guests was packed with an array of industry execs and personalities, including frequent Spielberg collaborator Kathleen Kennedy, Jim Gianopulos and his wife, Ann, Phil Rosenthal and his daughter Lily, Jeff Skoll, Howard Gordon, Katie McGrath, Colin Hanks, Rita Wilson, Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant, Jeff Garlin, Tom Rothman, TNT’s Michael Wright, Stacey Snider, Kathleen Marshall, Octavia Spencer, Judge Judy Sheindlin, Sue Kroll, Mitch Hurwitz and Jami Gertz, among others.The director and the president took to the stage together shortly after 8 p.m., where they presented a video program about Shoah. Spielberg thanked Obama for taking steps to combat genocide worldwide. In arguably one of the most powerful speeches of his presidency on Israel and genocide, Obama then told the crowd that because of Schindler's List "we were reminded that the Holocaust was not a matter of distant history. The voices, the memories of survivors became a part of us. It entered into our DNA. That's what stories do. That's what Steven does. That's what Bruce (Springsteen) does. They tell a story that stitches up our fates with the fates of theirs. That film gave us a stake in that history and a stake in insuring autocracies like that don't happen again."Now, if the story had ended there, it would have been enough. But Steven didn’t stop with Schindler’s List, because there were too many other stories to tell. So he created this foundation to undertake what he called 'a rescue mission' -- preserving the memories that would otherwise be lost to time," he explained.Over the past two decades, "you freed voices who could tell their own story in their own way. You've turned that testimony into tools that could be used by scholars all around the world. I know that for you and for so many here, this is deeply personal. You lost people in the Holocaust ... None of these stories could be preserved without the men and women who have the courage to tell them ... To turn to those moments and remember those darkest days."He revealed: "If the memories of the Shoah survivors teach us anything, it is that silence is evil’s greatest co-conspirator. And it’s up to us -- each of us, every one of us -- to forcefully condemn any denial of the Holocaust. It’s up to us to combat not only anti-Semitism, but racism and bigotry and intolerance in all their forms, here and around the world. To speak out against rhetoric that threatens the existence of a Jewish homeland and to sustain America’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security," said the president, prompting an outburst of loud applause.In his address to the 1,300 guests, Obama also touched on the situation in Syria, the kidnappings in Nigeria and the Ukraine. "I wake up, and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria -- when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids -- and having to think through what levers, what power do we have at any given moment, I think, 'drop by drop by drop,' that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive; that we can tell a different story," vowed the president.VIDEO: White House Correspondents' Dinner: Joel McHale's 5 Most Biting JokesEarlier, host O'Brien lightened the tone and gave Obama a hard time for causing traffic chaos across Los Angeles whenever he visits, telling him: "I know you left Washington six hours ago, but I left Burbank seven hours ago." He also joked that Spielberg "was recording evidence of intolerance long before Donald Sterling’s girlfriend."Springsteen then entertained the audience with a moving performance of "The Promised Land," from his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town, and his hit "Dancing in the Dark."When the evening began, reality star Kardashian tweeted that she was attending the event, writing: "Honored to be at the USC SHOAH Foundation event to support Armenian genocide testimonies. I'm sitting next to the most inspiring 100 year old Armenian genocide survivor."Obama arrived in Los Angeles earlier on Wednesday for a series of high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers aimed at bolstering the Democrats' efforts in the mid-term elections.Shortly after landing at LAX at 5 p.m., the president headed to an exclusive fundraiser -- with tickets ranging from $10,000 to $64,800-per-person -- at the Bel Air estate of Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn and his wife, Cindy.The take from the Horn event will go to the DCCC and the DSCC. That gathering also featured House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DCCC chairman Steve Israel and DSCC chairman Michael Bennet.PHOTOS: White House Correspondents' Dinner: When Media, Celebs and Politicos MeetIn their invitation to the event, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the Horns wrote that "with the mid-term elections approaching, this event provides an opportunity to hear directly from President Obama on his positions on many issues that we all care deeply about, and to offer thoughts and suggestions. We urge you to join us in supporting the president's important goal of taking back the House of Representatives and holding the Senate to further his legislative agenda."The president addressed the 90 guests, including Streisand, James Brolin and Jeffrey Katzenberg, for approximately 15 minutes at the event held under a tent at Horn's house, during which he said that despite the progress the administration has made, "there's still a disquiet around the country. There's an anxiety and a sense of frustration ... the challenges out there remain daunting and we have a Washington that's not working."For families in particular, even with the recovery, they still have not seen an increase in wages, an increase in incomes. They're still worried that they are not going to be able to retire when they planned to retire," he went on to say. "They worry about the prospects for their kids, whether they are going to be able to live out their American dream the same way that they did."Obama revealed that the principle reason was the difference in what "Democrats believe and what this particular brand of Republicans that we've got in Congress believes."Couples on the handpicked guest list were invited to become co-sponsors for $64,800, while individuals who wanted to attend the dinner and get their photo taken with the chief executive, were allowed to purchase tickets for $10,000.On Thursday morning, he is scheduled to attend a DNC roundtable discussion -- with tickets set at $32,000 per person -- at the Beverly Hilton before heading to San Diego.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Ellen Page's Cannes Cover: The Creative Concept, Capturing Her Tomboy Style
On Apr. 23, two-and-a-half months after Ellen Page publicly announced she was gay, The Hollywood Reporter photographed the self-proclaimed tomboy actress at the Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles for its annual Cannes issue.
"We wanted [the photo shoot] to be something that could tie into her personality, her news about coming out and the fact that it's our glamorous Cannes cover," said THR's photo and video director, Jennifer Laski. The inspiration behind the shoot was the 67th Cannes International Film Festival poster, which features a photo of Marcello Mastroianni from Federico Fellini’s 1963 film 8½.
"I thought it would be interesting to see two different sides of Ellen Page: one as a very chic Italian movie director, and the other as an homage to the French and Italian ingenues of that time."
STORY: 'X-Men's' Ellen Page on Life After Coming Out, the Bryan Singer Case and Her Battle With Depression
Page, who plays Kitty Pride in X-Men: Days of Future Past (out May 23), donned an array of clothes for the shoot reflecting both men's and women's wear that were inspired by Jane Seberg's character in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.
The actress, however, was candid in her interview with THR senior writer Seth Abramovitch and did not hold back about her hatred of dresses: "I would rather be in boy underwear with my hands on my tits," she confessed.
Watch video from the shoot below:
Photos: 'X-Men's' Ellen Page: Her Career in Pictures
Photographer Olivia Malone captured the actress in three pockets of the Ace: the 1927 United Artists Theater, the cafe and a hotel suite. When asked why THR chose the cover shot, Laski commented that the photo embodied glamor (hair and makeup), a Parisian feel (striped T-shirt) and risk (Page looking away from the camera). "I think there's something about this pensive moment of Ellen in this very pivotal stage of her life -- she just looks beautiful," Laski said, adding, "It was a very quiet shoot...this is just her. We weren’t making her do anything."
VIDEO: Ellen Page: Coming Out Gave Me 'Freedom' to Wear Jeans, T-Shirt
In the May 16 issue feature, Page opens up about battling depression, her X-Men director Bryan Singer’s alleged under-age sex scandal and life since coming out. The actress made her public declaration on Valentine's Day in Las Vegas at the Time to Thrive social-welfare seminar for LGBT youth, where five minutes into her speech she announced: "I am here today because I am gay."
"I knew I would be happier," Page told THR. "But I wouldn't have anticipated just how f---ing happy I am and how every tiny little aspect of my life feels better."
Sunday, May 11, 2014
LeBron James, Method Man Join Judd Apatow's 'Trainwreck'
NBA star LeBron James and hip-hop musician Method Man are heading toward a Trainwreck.
The Miami Heat player and Cliff Smith (better known as Method Man) have nabbed roles in Judd Apatow's upcoming comedy Trainwreck. They'll star alongside Amy Schumer (who wrote the screenplay), Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Vanessa Bayer, Tilda Swinton, John Cena and Mike Birbiglia.
EXCLUSIVE: Judd Apatow's Amy Schumer Comedy 'Trainwreck' Adding Three to Cast
James is already in business with Universal, the studio that is distributing Trainwreck. Universal recently acquired rights to a feature based on the high-school years of the Miami Heat star. The project is based on a pitch by Frank E. Flowers, with Terence Winter and Rachel Winter attached to produce with James and his manager, Maverick Carter.
Apatow is directing Trainwreck, as well as producing via his Universal-based Apatow Productions alongside Barry Mendel. Senior vp production Erik Baiers is overseeing for the studio.
STORY: LeBron James High School Movie Heading to Universal
The plot of the comedy, which is set for release July 24, 2015, currently is under wraps.
James, who has won two NBA championships and four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, was the subject of the 2008 doc More Than a Game. He is represented by WME, manager Carter and Ziffren Brittenham.
Smith recently wrapped the indie The Cobbler with Adam Sandler. His past credits include The Sitter and How High; he is repped by UTA, SGP and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC.
'American Idol' Renewed for Season 14
American Idol is coming back. The singing competition series has been renewed through season 14, Fox announced Wednesday.
Idol will hit 15 cities for auditions beginning June 18 in Minneapolis, with stops also planned in Portland, Oreg., Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Mo., Richmond, Va., Albuquerque, N.M. and more.
Despite another significant season-to-season ratings hemorrhage for American Idol, a renewal was never in question. After the January axing of The X Factor, Fox was not about to lose that many hours of dependable programming. As for that ratings dip, a 28 percent slide in the key adults 18-49 demographic, this 13th season has seen more and more record lows -- but its season average still sees the benefit of heavy sampling during the audition weeks.
PHOTOS: 'American Idol' Season 13: Meet the Top 10 Singers
Wednesday's show is still at an average 3.6 rating in the demo and 12.3 million viewers. The full state of Idol's latest fall, which has it performing below previous reality runners-up like Dancing With the Stars and Survivor, will come to light after the May finale.
Idol wraps season 13 on May 21 with judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. Meanwhile, host Ryan Seacrest is nearing a deal to return.
From 'Maleficent' to 'Hercules': Summer's 5 Biggest Box-Office Risks
This story first appeared in the May 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Maleficent (MAY 30)
Budget: $175 million-plus
Why it's vulnerable: Disney's fairy tale might need to gross $500 million worldwide just to recoup.
Path to success: Frozen has revived interest in princesses.
Hot seat: $20 million star Angelina Jolie and first-time director Robert Stromberg.
Edge of Tomorrow (JUNE 6)
Budget: $175 million-plus
Why it's vulnerable: The Warner Bros. sci-fi epic feels just like Tom Cruise's last (soft) film, Oblivion.
Path to success: Overseas: Oblivion earned nearly $200 million internationally, compared with $89.1 million domestically.
Hot seat: Cruise and director Doug Liman, who needs a hit.
STORY: Summer Box-Office Forecast--Studio-by-Studio Breakdown
Jupiter Ascending (JULY 18)
Budget: $150 million
Why it's vulnerable: The Wachowskis' last film, Cloud Atlas, failed ($130 million global).
Path to success: The Matrix filmmakers have appealing stars in Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis.
Hot seat: Tatum (in pointy ears).
Hercules (JULY 25)
Budget: $100 million
Why it's vulnerable: Sandal movies largely have failed of late.
Path to success: Bankable global star Dwayne Johnson.
Hot seat: MGM and Paramount, which co-financed.
STORY: Box Office--'Amazing Spider-Man 2' Kicks Off Summer With $92 Million Debut
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (AUG. 8)
Budget: $120 million
Why it's vulnerable: TMNT have been out of movies for 20 years.
Path to success: Cross-generational appeal.
Hot seat: Producer Michael Bay.
Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Books Strong First Quarter
ProSiebenSat.1 CEO Thomas EbelingGermany’s ProSiebenSat.1 broadcasting group continues to grow across all sectors, with revenues up 3.3 percent and consolidated recurring operating profits 9.5 percent stronger in the first quarter of 2014.
First quarter sales hit $809 million (€581.1 million) with EBITDA results topping $195 million (€140.1 million). Increased investment in new business areas – particularly online operations – and write downs of financial assets hit ProSieben’s bottom line, however, and consolidated net profit attributable to ProSieben shareholders fell to $50.4 million (€36.2 million) from $74 million (€56.1 million) over the same period last year.
The company’s core television business in German-speaking Europe remains the biggest contributor to sales, with broadcasting operations in the region showing 1.8 percent growth to $625 million (€449.2 million).
STORY: NBC Orders Comedy 'Marry Me,' Katherine Heigl Drama 'State of Affairs,' 'Allegiance,' 'Odyssey' to Series
But the strongest growth at the group came from its smaller ancillary operations. Global sales and production division Red Arrow Entertainment continued to expand in the U.S., acquiring factual entertainment group Half Yard and taking a 20 percent stake in online multi-channel network CDS. Red Arrow already has a global collection of boutique production companies, including L.A.-based Fabrik Entertainment, who just received a straight-to-series order from NBC for their thriller Odyssey and are producing the crime drama Bosch for Amazon Studios. Overall revenue at the group’s production and global sales segment was up 3.6 percent to $36 million (€26 million) in the first quarter. Higher costs, including ones associated with the acquisitions and investment in productions such as Bosch (which Red Arrow will distribute outside North America and Germany), meant the division booked a $3.5 million (€2.5 million) operating loss for the quarter.
ProSieben’s digital and adjacent business, which includes online gaming, grew by 9.6 percent to $147 million (€105.9 million). Earlier this year the company acquired games publisher Aeria Games Europe in a move that made ProSieben one of the top 3 players in the European online gaming market. Following the deal, ProSiebenSat.1’s gaming community grew from 27 million to 77 million players, according to the company’s own figures.
STORY: ProSieben's Red Arrow Makes Collective Digital Studio Investment
"We had a good start to the year: All segments continued to grow in Q1 2014. In our core TV business, we not only further increased advertising revenues, but were also able to significantly improve distribution income,“ said ProSiebenSat.1 CEO Thomas Ebeling. " In the digital business, our core areas continued to develop dynamically. In total, we are benefiting across all business segments from the continuing positive macro-economic climate. That makes us optimistic for full year."
In mid-April, ProSiebenSat.1 secured a new seven-year financing structure amounting to $835 million (€600 million), entered into two new five-year facilities comprising an unsecured term loan of $1.95 billion (€1.4 billion) and an unsecured revolving credit facility of $835 million (€600 million). Net financial debt was up 10.1 percent to $2.2 billion (€1.59 billion) in the first quarter compared to December 31, 2013.
For the full year, ProSieben expects its growth momentum to actually increase and is forecasting strong revenue growth of mid to high single-digit percentage as well as an increase in net profits. Eberling confirmed the company’s long-term target of increasing revenues by $1.4 billion (€1 billion) by 2018 compared to 2012.
AMC Networks Quarterly Earnings Rise as 'The Walking Dead' Boosts Ad Revenue
"The Walking Dead" helped boost advertising revenue at AMCAMC Networks on Thursday reported improved first-quarter earnings as original shows helped boost advertising revenue, but the results came in below Wall Street estimates.
The owner of cable channels AMC, IFC, WE tv and Sundance Channel, also posted a revenue gain driven by higher U.S. ad revenue, helped by strong ratings for the fourth season of AMC hit show The Walking Dead.
PHOTOS: Inside 'The Walking Dead's' Spooky Season 4 Premiere
Quarterly earnings from continuing operations of $72 million compared with $62 million in the year-ago period, below analysts' average expectation amid higher programming and promotional costs. Costs tied to a recent acquisition were also a drag on results. Operating profit rose 15.8 percent to $148 million.
Revenue jumped 37.3 percent to $525 million driven by a 20.7 percent gain at the company's U.S. networks arm. The unit's ad revenue grew 26.8 percent, with the company citing "strong demand for our original programming, primarily at AMC."
The company has been expanding its lineup of original series, with The Walking Dead a particular hit. In the current quarter, AMC saw the return of Mad Men. In the summer, the company will see the return of Hell on Wheels.
But not all originals have been big hits. AMC Networks, led by CEO Josh Sapan, had in the previous quarter taken write-offs for crime drama Low Winter Sun, which AMC late last year canceled amid weak ratings for its first season, and The Killing, which was canceled after three seasons.
PHOTOS: 'Mad Men' Stars Before They Were Famous
The first quarter marked the first quarter that included the performance of Chellomedia, the international networks business that AMC recently acquired from John Malone's Liberty Global.
Its inclusion boosted the international unit's revenue, but also widened its operating loss due to higher depreciation and amortization expenses.
"AMC Networks continued to build momentum in the first quarter of 2014, with double digit increases in revenue" and adjusted operating cash flow, said Sapan. "At our national networks, our original programming performed well, driving attention for and strengthening our network brands, with series including IFC's Spoils of Babylon, SundanceTV's The Red Road, WE tv's SWV: Reunited and AMC's The Walking Dead, which grew 24 percent in total viewers for its fourth season and remains the highest-rated show on television among the most coveted demographic."
Added Sapan: "Having completed our acquisition of Chellomedia, we are quickly integrating those networks and are streamlining our operations. We view our now-robust international platform as a springboard for additional growth for the company in the years ahead as we continue to focus on creating and delivering maximum value for our shareholders."
E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
'Modern Family' Star Ty Burrell Joins the NFL Draft
Ty Burrell isn't trying out to be a professional football player, but the Modern Family star will be taking part in the NFL draft Thursday.
The die-hard St. Louis Rams fan, who plays dad Phil Dunphy in the ABC comedy, will be the first celebrity ever to participate in the football league's biggest night, which kicks off Thursday, 5 p.m. PT, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City and airs live on ESPN.
STORY: ESPN's 'Baseball Tonight' Makes Its Red Carpet Debut at the 'Million Dollar Arm' Premiere
Burrell's main duties will be to hand the Rams jersey to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell when the team makes the 13th pick (assuming they don't trade up or down), which could be Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel, aka "Johnny Football," according to analysts.
The Rams' Twitter page shared their excitement over their star attraction, as well as a flashback from the 46-year-old actor's visit to Rams Park last fall.
Ty Burrell (aka Phil Dunphy) is in NYC to represent the #Rams at the #NFLDraft tomorrow! #RamsDraft pic.twitter.com/GpEtDk8WOA
— St. Louis Rams (@STLouisRams) May 7, 2014
The Oregon native's fandom "dates back to our parents, who grew up in Southern California," he told the team's website. "It was the family team, and when the Rams moved to (St. Louis) we stuck with them."
Take a look at the best photos from Ty Burrell's visit to #Rams Park last fall: http://t.co/Zi2ViyPZkI pic.twitter.com/SEeAzCeXm1
— St. Louis Rams (@STLouisRams) May 7, 2014
It will be a night of firsts at the draft, as Goodell has decided to let players pick their own presentation music for the first time, according to Bleacher Report, with Buffalo's Khalil Mack already revealing that he is opting for Pharrell Williams' hit "Happy."
VIDEO: Gay NFL Draft Prospect Michael Sam Received Messages From Closeted Pro Athletes
Another major landmark will be University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam becoming the first openly gay draft prospect. After it was announced that Sam will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at this year's Espys, he told Good Morning America on Wednesday that he's both nervous and excited and doesn't care which team drafts him, as long as he gets a chance to play in the league.
The NFL will begin the proceedings with the national anthem for the first time, with a performance from a West Point cadet who will be joined onstage by military servicemen and women, their mothers as well as alumni from the Wounded Warrior Project.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Fox Cancels 'Dads,' 'Enlisted,' 'Surviving Jack' and 'Rake'
"Dads," "Surviving Jack" and "Enlisted"Less than a day after handing out a batch of new series orders, Fox is cutting ties with several of its series. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the broadcast network has canceled comedies Dads, Enlisted and Surviving Jack as well as drama Rake. Of the network's freshman comedies for the 2013-14 season, only Brooklyn Nine-Nine is returning.
PHOTOS: Broadcast TV's Returning Shows 2014-15
Not a big hit to start, Dads ended up having an abbreviated freshman season. Seth MacFarlane's live-action debut on the network that's been home to three of his animated series averaged a 1.7 rating with adults 18-49 and 4.1 million viewers with seven days' worth of DVR. Dads' early exit from the Tuesday block made it look even more competitive in hindsight. Its season average trails The Mindy Project, which scored an early renewal with comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine and New Girl, by only 10 percent.
Fox's military comedy Enlisted -- one of the best reviewed freshman shows of the year -- was buried on Fridays and moved from its November bow to January. A semi-autobiographical comedy from Kevin Biegel about three very different brothers (Geoff Stults, Chris Lowell and Parker Young) serving in the Rear Detachment unit, Enlisted averaged a 0.7 rating among adults 18-49, growing an impressive 71 percent with DVR to a 1.2 and 3 million total viewers. Meanwhile, leads Stults and Young have starring roles in CBS comedy pilot Cuz-Bros, which they took in second position to Enlisted.
PHOTOS: Faces of Pilot Season 2014
Fox entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly expressed his affection for Enlisted in January, noting he would stick with the show through 13 episodes before making a decision based on its DVR performance. Biegel, meanwhile, has led the cast and producers' live-tweet of episodes on Hulu after Fox pulled the beloved comedy from the schedule April 11, with the rest of the episodes expected to return after sweeps for a summer burn-off, and has been vocal about Nielsen not counting viewing on military bases, with service members regularly praising the series.
Surviving Jack, the network's second-to-last scripted entry of the season, got its American Idol lead-in a little too late. By the time the reality show dropped to its half-hour results, ratings were already suffering, and Surviving Jack saw a soft start because of it -- pulling just a 1.3 rating with adults 18-49 and an admittedly solid 5.1 million viewers.
Season-to-date, the comedy has averaged just a 1.5 rating in the demo. And that's with a very modest 25 percent DVR boost, dangerously small. The show marked Chris Meloni's TV return after departing his longtime Law & Order: SVU gig in 2011.
STORY: Complete Network Scorecard
A sophomore season for Rake was never in the cards. Fox declined comment, but sources tell THR that the drama is done. An American spin on an Australian series of the same name, it opened to a very modest 1.7 rating among adults 18-49 despite an American Idol lead-in. Fox quickly shuffled the series to Friday -- and ultimately Saturday -- and the season has all-told averaged just a 1.2 rating in the demo and 4.7 million viewers. It was a high-profile play for the network, finally luring star Greg Kinnear to television after he turned down several other offers. But the production had its share of troubles, and the pilot was ultimately swapped with the fourth episode for the premiere.
Of Fox's comedy pilots, the network has passed on Dead Boss, starring Jane Krakowski, Nahnatchka Khan's Fatrick and No Place Like Home, starring Jane Kaczmarek. The network is still in talks to pick up Sober Companion, starring Justin Long, and Cabot College, starring Margaret Cho and Fortune Feimster. The latter, from 30 Rock producers Matt Hubbard, Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, has been generating buzz that the network could pick up the comedy -- which has a hefty series commitment penalty attached -- for midseason with a likely six-episode order. Khan, meanwhile, still has NBC comedy pilot Far East Orlando in the mix.
Fox bulked up its drama offerings earlier in the week. The official order came down for Batman prequel Gotham. The network also picked up hip-hop drama Empire and its remake of Spanish drama Red Band Society starring Octavia Spencer.
On the comedy front, Fox added 10 episodes to the previously ordered John Mulaney comedy -- bringing its freshman episode count to 16. Other new comedies include Last Man on Earth and Weird Loners.
Fox previously canceled freshman drama Almost Human.
New 'Flintstones' Movie in the Works at Warner Bros. (Exclusive)
It’s Yabba Dabba Doo time again.
Warner Bros. is hoping to bring The Flintstones back to the big-screen, this time as a full-length animated feature.
Chris Henchy -- who is partners with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay in Gary Sanchez Productions and who also co-wrote the script for Warners' Ferrell-Zack Galifianakis comedy The Campaign -- is penning the script.
Ferrell and McKay will executive produce Flintstones, which is in development stages.
Flintstones was The Simpsons of its day, a primetime cartoon and sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 and then entertained millions in the ensuing decades when it aired on syndication.
The show was set in the Stone Age and told of the antics of Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, his best friend Barney Rubble and Rubble’s wife and Wilma’s best friend, Betty. From the town of Bedrock, Fred worked in a quarry, liked to barbecue brontosaurus burgers and live the modern stone age family life.
The show had several short-lived reboots over the decades (Seth McFarlane recently tried to mount one but tabled it after the pilot script didn’t wow) and has a solid hold in pop culture.
Universal made the live-action 1994 movie (Steven Spielberg was one of the producers) that starred John Goodman, Elizabeth Perkins, Rick Moranis, and Rosie O’Donnell. Elizabeth Taylor played Flintstone’s mother-in-law. The movie was famous for having had 32 writers work on the script.
Warners picked up the rights to Flintstones as part of Time Warners’ 1996 acquisition of Turner Broadcasting, which had bought Flintstones producers and animation powerhouse Hanna-Barbera in 1991.
Andrew Fischel and Cate Adams are spearheading the project.
Henchy is repped by CAA.
Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @borys_kit
'Moms' Night Out': Will Hollywood's Religious Movie Boom Extend to Comedy?
This story first appeared in the May 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Hollywood's religious revival of 2014 is being put to a key test: Can a faith-based film pack in big audiences if it's a comedy?
The recent success of religion-themed dramas God's Not Dead, Heaven Is for Real and Son of God has awakened many traditional film executives to the power of the Christian audience. Now, with Moms' Night Out, which stars Patricia Heaton and is being released May 9 on about 1,000 domestic screens, that audience is being asked to support a lighter movie about a group of mothers out on the town.
STORY: T.D. Jakes on Bringing God to Hollywood and Brushing Off Criticism From Cynics
Moms' Night Out boasts a pedigree for success, given its distributors include TriStar Pictures, Provident Films and Affirm Films, all Sony-based companies behind such faith-based hits as Facing the Giants and Fireproof that have earned as much as 100 times their production budgets. Plus, several cast and crew from those and other faith-based movies are involved with Moms' Night Out. Fireproof director Alex Kendrick, for example, plays a Christian pastor in the film, and it is co-directed by brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin, whose microbudget October Baby rode a strong anti-abortion message to $5.4 million domestic in 2011.
The PG-rated religious message in Moms' Night Out is less overt. In the $5 million film, a stressed-out mother of young children (Sarah Drew) attempts an outing with other moms from the same congregation, including Heaton, whose production company, FourBoys Films, is a producer. "The faith is clear but soft, whereas most films targeting Christians seem to go heavier on the message," says Ben Howard, senior vp at Provident. "We hope this movie broadens the audience."
PHOTOS: Katie, Nicole and Now Leah -- 7 Stars Who Quit Scientology
The film also stars Heaton's husband, David Hunt, along with Sean Astin and country music star Trace Adkins as a tattooed biker who comes to the aid of the women when their plans go awry. Jon Erwin says the script is based on an idea by castmember Logan White, who's married to David A.R. White, a producer not only of Moms' Night Out but also God's Not Dead, a $2 million film that has earned $54 million this spring.
Moms' Night Out is getting a marketing push on TV and talk radio, but like most faith-based films, it mainly is relying on social media and word of mouth. It has screened about 150 times for roughly 20,000 people, including church groups, military wives and "mom bloggers" who reach 15 million women, says Kris Fuhr, founder of Moviegal Marketing.
"We're calling it a mom-com," says Jon Erwin. "My goal was to make a movie where moms can identify with everything on the screen and be reminded of how valuable they are."
Paul Simon Makes First Public Appearance Since Arrest
Paul Simon performed a rousing set and accepted an award from New York University in his first public appearance since he and wife Edie Brickell were arrested on disorderly conduct charges.
The 72-year-old performed more than a dozen songs Wednesday night at the Beacon Theatre in New York, where he was honored at the 2014 NYU Steinhardt Vision Award Gala. He played guitar and sang hits such as "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," ''Late In the Evening" and "You Can Call Me Al."
Simon and 48-year-old Brickell became physical with each other during an argument inside a cottage on their New Canaan, Connecticut, property last week. Brickell told police Simon shoved her and she slapped him.
STORY: Paul Simon, Edie Brickell Release Post-Arrest Duet
Brickell didn't attend Wednesday's event, which raised $1.1 million for scholarships.
"After my fee of a million is deducted, that's $100,000," Simon said to laughs.
He was energetic and danced onstage, and the crowd stood dancing with him on songs like "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" during the 75-minute set.
Simon was honored for his humanitarian work and accomplished music career, which includes 12 Grammy Awards and two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a solo artist and as part of Simon & Garfunkel, among other accolades.
Performance students and alumni from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development joined him when he sang "Still Crazy After All These Years."
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"So, money well spent," Simon said after the performance as the crowd laughed. Tickets were priced at $300 and $200, and only the ground floor of the three-tiered Beacon Theatre was occupied.
NYU has history in Simon's family: His father earned degrees from the university and his son currently attends its Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Simon taught songwriting at the school in the 1970s.
"I cringe to think of how little I knew," he said.
Simon closed his set with "American Tune" and "Graceland."
Simon recently wrapped up a tour with Sting. Brickell and Steve Martin will perform Friday in Eugene, Oregon, on their collaborative tour.
Dish Adds Subs in First Quarter, Earnings Drop
Dish Network chairman Charlie ErgenDish Network on Thursday reported lower first-quarter earnings as it added pay TV and broadband subscribers and grew revenue.
The satellite TV giant, led by chairman Charlie Ergen and CEO Joe Clayton, added 40,000 net new pay TV subscribers in the latest period, compared with 36,000 in the year-ago period. It ended March with a total of 14.097 million TV subscribers.
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The company also grew its broadband customer base by 53,000 to about 489,000.
First-quarter earnings of $176 million compared with $216 million in the first quarter of 2013, coming in below Wall Street expectations amid higher costs and expenses that were only partially offset by higher prices.
Dish's quarterly revenue rose 6.2 percent to $3.59 billion from $3.38 billion.
E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
ESPN's 'Baseball Tonight' Makes Its Red Carpet Debut at the 'Million Dollar Arm' Premiere
If Jon Hamm's acting career ever flounders, he can always try his hand at sports commentary!
ESPN's flagship show Baseball Tonight aired live for the first time from a Hollywood premiere Tuesday when the Mad Men star's latest film, Million Dollar Arm, debuted at the El Capitan Theatre. The Hollywood Reporter was invited behind the cameras for an inside look at the production.
A movie about a sports agent and two Indian teens who aspired to play professional baseball was the perfect reason for host Karl Ravech, ESPN analyst Barry Larkin and MLB insider Tim Kurkjian to go on a road trip, and they prepared for the special broadcast by watching the L.A. Dodgers game and analyzing the action before they went in front of the hundreds of fans gathered on Hollywood Boulevard to see Hamm on the baseball-themed green carpet.
Back home at ESPN's hub in Bristol, Conn., the team has 16 different screens airing every play of the MLB action; however, at its temporary base below the historic movie theater on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, the experts had to manage with one TV, their trusty cell phones, iPads, laptops and a helping hand from their producer who makes it look as seamless as possible.
STORY: Jon Hamm Hits a Home Run at 'Million Dollar Arm' Premiere
"This is the first time we've aired at a movie premiere," Ravech, who has a cameo in Million Dollar Arm, tells THR.
"Barry, myself and Curt Schilling sat on the film set and did a segment like we were just appearing on the show. It was very easy and natural. People think we were actually acting but that’s just what we do. They just told us to ad-lib and pretend that the pitchers we were talking about weren't very good," he explains of his rookie movie role.
"We're not doing anything different from what we normally do," adds Baseball Hall of Famer Larkin.
Broadcasting live at a Hollywood premiere, however, is something different, even though they have done the show on the road at historic stadiums such as Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, as well as at numerous World Series games.
"We’re used to filming in baseball stadiums surrounded by thousands of people, but they’re all baseball fans," explains Kurkjian before the cameras start rolling. "There are some curious characters out there and I’m not interviewing baseball players, I’m talking to actors, and I don’t know some of them. This is going to be a big thing," he says cautiously. "Alan Arkin is going to look at me and think, 'Who are you?'
"It is harder to prepare on the road," he explains, saying that his favorite part of the process is sitting around beforehand watching the highlights -- such as Clayton Kershaw's return to the Dodgers after an injury Tuesday -- and bouncing ideas with his co-hosts. "We're well aware of how lucky we are to have this job!"
Whether at a ball park or a star-filled bash, when it is noisy, "the biggest challenge is the producer communicating with us because sometimes it’s hard to hear...but sometimes we pretend we can’t hear them," admits Ravech.
STORY: Million Dollar Arm: Film Review
"Trying to balance a Baseball Tonight show and the premiere of the movie is a juggling act to make sure we get it right because people are tuning in to ESPN to watch baseball. But at least it is a movie about baseball and the star is a big fan," he says, referring to Hamm's die-hard obsession with the St. Louis Cardinals.
That star later actually joined Ravech and Larkin onstage to host the show before facing the flood of reporters and flashing photographers on the green carpet. Hamm also announced that he will be a guest analyst May 11 for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN when the show travels to Pittsburgh for the Pirates game against his beloved Cardinals.
Million Dollar Arm tells the true life story of J.B. Bernstein, a sports agent looking for the next big thing in baseball in India by launching a reality show competition among the millions of kids playing cricket there, prompting him to bring back two 18-year-olds who had never seen a baseball glove -- or a TV -- before and didn't speak a word of English.
"The movie is about so many things, it is not just a sports movie -- it is about love, family, growing up -- just like Rocky was not just a sports movie, neither was Bull Durham," says Ravech.
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Larkin actually went to India last year as part of the Obama administration's broader objective to encourage youth participation in sport, and got firsthand experience of some of the Third World conditions.
"The portrayal [in the film] is pretty spot-on -- there aren’t any sports facilities or equipment, but it is an untapped market so you try to rustle up the enthusiasm of people and teach them how to play the game."
Surprisingly, although baseball isn't popular there yet, "there were a lot of female softball payers and more female involvement in a leadership standpoint," but there also were "cultural issues in terms of who they could talk to," he explains.
"A woman was our lead person but the guys we were dealing with wouldn’t address her because that is not in their culture. The country is so spread out and so far away from having any real organization," he adds.
"That was why the only way to pick talent from there is to do a program like [Bernstein's reality show] Million Dollar Arm. I assume after the movie comes out there will be more interest in baseball there, but it’s a cricket country and they are crazy about it, as that’s how they grew up. The baseball community is in the infant stages," he reveals. "You can't find a baseball there, you can't even find a glove."
"Baseball is one of the few sports where a story like this can actually happen," Kurkjian went on to explain. "I have about 25 stories of players who came out of nowhere and ended up making it in the major leagues, from Mike Piazza coming out of the 62nd round of the draft, to a guy at Baylor who was on the football team's marching band and his trombone crushed, so he decided to try out for the baseball team and is now in the Hall of Fame," he laughs.
"So the track to the big leagues is often different to that in other sports and crazy things like this can happen."
Million Dollar Arm, also starring Suraj Sharma, Aasif Mandvi, Bill Paxton, Lake Bell and Arkin, opens in theaters nationwide May 16.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Japan Box Office: 'Frozen' Passes $150 Million, Enters All-Time Top 10
"Frozen" becomes one of the ten highest grossing films of all time in Japan.TOKYO – Frozen remains untouchable at the Japanese box office, surpassing $156 million (?15.9 billion) over the Golden Week holidays, and overtaking Avatar and Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo on a Cliff to enter the all-time top ten highest grossing films in the territory.
Golden Week -- a bunch of public holidays grouped together that ended Tuesday -- is usually a bumper box office period, and Walt Disney Studios Japan timed the release of the 3D Japanese-language version of Frozen to coincide with it. The soundtrack album has also been at number one in the local charts for the last two weeks, after spending two months in the top 10.
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Local time-travel comedy Thermae Romae II climbed up a spot to number two, and is heading past $24.5 million (?2.5 billion), though it looks unlikely to match the $60 million the first installment took in 2012.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 held on to the number four spot it bowed in on the previous weekend, and its 12-day $19.35 million (?19.7 billion) take has already beaten the final total of The Amazing Spider-Man in Japan. The Marvel sequel has been breaking box office records across Asia, including in China, Hong Kong and India
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In eighth place, BBC Earth's high-definition Enchanted Kingdom 3D, released locally as Nature, opened on 575 screens on May 2, and finished Golden Week with more than $3.9 million (?400 million), a strong performance for a nature documentary.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier fell to ninth place in its third week on the charts.
Twitter: @GavinJBlair
ASC President: Sarah Jones' Death Result of 'Spiritually' Ailing Industry
American Society of Cinematographers President Richard Crudo says the death of Sarah Jones is a symptom of an industry that is in trouble "spiritually."
In a letter published on the organization's website, Crudo writes that the Feb. 20 death of Jones illustrates a "loss of humanity" in society, adding that on today's soundstages, it is likely that "notions of warmth and common decency will prevail only as long as they can generate cold, hard cash."
STORY: A Train, a Trestle and 60 Seconds to Escape: How Victim Sarah Jones Lost Her Life
Jones was killed while working as a second camera assistant on the Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider. Crudo asks if members of the industry will respond to her death by bowing their heads for a moment, or if they will effect a real change in her honor.
"As directors of photography, we have always been responsible for the safety of our crews, and it is incumbent upon us to find ways to be more decent and caring not only to them, but also to everyone we know," he writes. "It won’t always be easy; at times, it will run counter to initial impulses. But if our example proves worthy, it might make a start toward curing the spiritual sickness I have described. It would also stand as the most profound tribute any of us could offer to the memory of Sarah Jones."
Read Crudo's full letter here.
Alex Russell, Willa Holland, Miguel Gomez Starring in Indie Thriller 'Pacific Standard Time' (Exclusive)
From left: Alex Russell, Willa Holland and Miguel GomezChronicle star Alex Russell, Arrow's Willa Holland and Miguel Gomez, who appears in FX's new vampire show The Strain, are starring in Pacific Standard Time, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
Benjamin and Orson Cummings wrote the script and are directing the indie, which is currently shooting in L.A.
The movie is described as a dark and sexy thriller involving 20-somethings trying to live above their means and getting involved in a love triangle that goes terribly wrong.
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Mitch Sandler is financing and producing along with Magnet Management’s production arm, Pull Pictures. Mitch Solomon also is producing.
Gigi Causey, Jennie Frisbie, Zach Tann and Bob Sobhani are exec producing. Joanna Colbert and Yesi Ramirez are casting the picture.
Pacific Standard Time is the sophomore effort of the Cummings, who were behind the thriller Blue Blood, which was made independently for around $500,000. They are repped by Magnet Management.
Russell has appeared in movies such as Carrie and The Host and is part of the up-and-coming cast of Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken.
Holland starred in the adaptation of Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes and appeared in movies such as Straw Dogs and Legion.
Gomez, a relative newcomer, is part of the cast of The Strain, co-created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.
Russell and Holland are repped by UTA while Gomez is repped by Greene and Associates. Russell also is repped by United Management in Australia whlie Gomez is also repped by Anonymous Content.
HGTV Cancels Pilot Over Hosts' Anti-Gay Views
HGTV has pulled the plug on its upcoming reality series Flip It Forward, after a controversy emerged surrounding the anit-gay views held by its hosts, twin brothers David Benham and Jason Benham.
"HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers' series," the network announced on its Facebook page.
The pilot for the show -- which follows families trying to convert fixer-uppers into their dream homes, with guidance from the Benham brothers – was set to premiere in October.
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But HGTV had begun to draw fire, on its Facebook page and elsewhere, over their views on gay marriage.
At a 2012 rally organized by their father, Flip Benham, promoting a constitutional amendment in North Carolina that would define marriage only between a man and a woman, David Benham said: “We have no-fault divorce; we have pornography and perversion; we have homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation." He added that the Christian majority must repent for standing idly by and "tolerating" such things.
Many commentators hailed the decision on HGTV's Facebook page, with one writing: "Good decision not to stab every LGBT employee and viewer in the face."
Many more, however, praised the decision by saying they were sick of real estate shows and would prefer more reality programming built around decorating and gardening tips, along the lines of the network's Decorating Cents.
Quentin Tarantino Withdraws Lawsuit Against Gawker Over 'Hateful Eight' Leak (Exclusive)
Quentin Tarantino is sheathing his sword. At least for the moment. In an about-face, the director has voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit against Gawker only a week after it looked like the dispute was expanding.
Tarantino sued in January with claims that Gawker had "crossed the journalistic line" by linking to the 146-page script under a post titled, "?Here Is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script."
The case was grounded upon the claim that the news site had committed contributory copyright infringement by leading its readers to a copy of the script that had been uploaded to a third-party storage site.
But the allegation appeared to need more factual support. Gawker's attorneys attacked the idea that the mere possibility of someone reading the script amounted to a direct infringement act, and the judge agreed.
According to U.S. District Judge John F. Walter, "Plaintiff's complaint fails to allege the identity of a single third-party infringer, the date, the time, or the details of a single instance of third-party infringement, or, more importantly, how Defendant allegedly caused, induced, or materially contributed to the infringement by those third parties."
Still, it wasn't yet over because the judge allowed Tarantino to amend his lawsuit, which he did, this time with the claim that Gawker itself illegally downloaded to its computers an unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the screenplay and thus committed direct copyright infringement. Tarantino also attempted to buttress his contributory claim too with the assertion that Gawker had solicited its readers before the original post, asking them to provide Gawker with the screenplay, and then later, amending its post with a new link to a copy that one of its readers had uploaded.
Now, a week later and before Gawker made any response, Tarantino has withdrawn the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning he can re-file at a later time if he chooses.
And in fact, Tarantino's dismissal motion hints but hardly guarantees a sequel. It says, "This dismissal is made without prejudice, whereby Plaintiff may later advance an action and refile a complaint after further investigations to ascertain and plead the identities of additional infringers resulting from Gawker Media’s contributory copyright infringement, by its promotion, aiding and abetting and materially contributing to the dissemination to third-parties of unauthorized copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted work."
E-mail: Eriq.Gardner@THR.com
Twitter: @eriqgardner
'X-Men's' Ellen Page on Life After Coming Out, the Bryan Singer Case and Her Battle With Depression
This story first appeared in the May 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
On the morning of Feb. 15, still dazed and giddy from the events of the night before, Ellen Page shuffled through LAX to catch a flight to Montreal, where she was shooting X-Men: Days of Future Past. Had that really just happened? Thousands of congratulatory tweets, still pouring in, confirmed that yes, it had. Just half a day earlier, the compact movie star (5-foot-1 in sneakers, and she's usually in them) who broke through playing a punk-rock-loving pregnant teen in 2007's Juno had stood in front of a crowded Las Vegas ballroom and, in an electrifying declaration of personal identity, come out as a gay woman.
Like her X-Men character Kitty Pryde, whose powers allow her to pass through solid matter, Page had traversed the proverbial closet door as gracefully as if it never had been there at all.
Now, two months later, the 27-year-old is seated on the terrace at the Chateau Marmont -- not far from her new $1.7 million home in the Hollywood Hills -- for her first extensive interview since the Valentine's Day speech heard round the world. She's outfitted in her preferred uniform of jeans, red flannel shirt and black bomber jacket, a "TOM BOY" trucker hat pulled snugly over her head. It begins with a handshake and a world-weary smile, and not long after she's reminiscing about the warm welcome that greeted her on the X-Men set upon her arrival: "I can remember sitting behind monitors with Hugh Jackman, and he was like, 'You seem so different already!' And I was like, 'I feel different already.'"
PHOTOS: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Star Ellen Page-- Exclusive Portraits of the Actress
Over the course of a wide-ranging two-hour conversation, Page gets fired up (about "binary gender systems," as well as discussion of her producing her first film), starry-eyed (at the thought of one day getting married and raising kids) and flat-out silly (about her addiction to renaming people's pets on Twitter). She also proves disarmingly open about her years-long battle with depression. "I was sad, honestly," she later admits. "And obviously that's a very personal thing to say, but I say it to encourage whatever other people are feeling. Very sad, isolated, a lot of anxiety. No more."
In 2014, as roadblocks to same-sex marriage topple throughout the country and such gay-friendly shows as Glee and Orange Is the New Black proliferate, the prospect of another celebrity coming-out story might not seem all that remarkable. It has been 17 years, after all, since Ellen DeGeneres declared, "Yep, I'm Gay," on the cover of Time -- a landmark moment for gay and lesbian visibility that, America tends to forget, was followed by the cancellation of her ABC sitcom and three years of industry radioactivity.
Yet while many more since have followed suit, it's unprecedented for a celebrity at Page's level -- under 30, Oscar-nominated and still wielding the clout to get projects of a certain budget greenlighted -- to come out of the closet at all, much less make the unequivocal statement, "I'm gay." Robin Roberts, to offer one recent high-profile example, chose to do it by thanking her girlfriend in a Facebook post, while Jodie Foster said, well, just about everything but the G-word during a speech at the 2013 Golden Globes that drew complaints for being needlessly opaque. Page, for her part, loved it. "You have no idea how hard that moment is, even though they're not fully saying what you want them to say," she says, addressing Foster's critics. "It's not about you."
Page's declaration did not come entirely out of the blue. The viral response to it -- the YouTube video racked up 6 million views -- was like a mass exhalation of relief, as if a key puzzle piece to this endearing yet enigmatic star had at last clicked into place. But for all the peace it brings to Page's personal life, a large question mark still hangs over how the revelation might affect her professional standing. In the years since Juno, she never has had that type of success again, and there are more than a few people in Hollywood who will say privately that a label like "gay" affixed to any young actress will have an adverse effect on her career prospects.
But there's another way of looking at it: that Page's secret was what was holding her back all along and that she now is poised for a midcareer renaissance. With Days of Future Past opening May 23, two indie starring vehicles in preproduction (including Freeheld, a lesbian drama she's been trying to get off the ground for nearly six years) and, perhaps most intriguingly, a potential studio action franchise on the horizon, there's certainly something about Ellen Page wafting through the air these days that wasn't before.
Click the photo above to see more exclusive portraits of the actress.
As Page sees it, coming out has consumed her thoughts for years, but she kept it in check. "For so long I just sort of thought, 'You just can't. I love being an actor, it's a huge part of my life, so I'm going to keep that private.' And, 'Oh, I have to keep it private because my job is about creating an illusion' and kind of all those bullshit excuses," she says. "Because I don't see heterosexual actresses going to great lengths to hide their heterosexuality."
Although no single incident led to her decision, she does reference a Dan Savage appearance in July 2013 on the Canadian talk show George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight as having had a profound effect on her. Savage, the in-your-face columnist behind the "It Gets Better" campaign, laid out his argument for coming out in very plain terms. "He was like, 'It's a social responsibility and a moral imperative,' " recalls Page. "And I was like, 'You're right. You're really intense -- but you're right.' " By early fall, her mind was made up. The next step was to call a meeting with her closest confidante, who also happens to be her main career strategist: manager-slash-bosom buddy Kelly Bush, who, as founder of ID Public Relations, is one of Hollywood's shrewdest image-wranglers.
The topic had been broached before, and each time, the 47-year-old Bush -- herself a lesbian, who raises two daughters with her wife, with whom she's been with for 18 years -- would lead her client down a winding road of what-ifs, and the conversation would end with Page feeling that the moment was not yet right. But this time was different. Page had the experience of two same-sex relationships that she'd painfully had to keep secret: a two-year romance that began shortly after Juno's premiere and a second, pricklier affair that played out after that. She still bristles at the memory of the "neuroses of keeping it quiet and always thinking about it and thinking about when you're staying in the hotel and when you're leaving the hotel. It's so awful and hurtful."
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The next step was to figure out how to go about it. "She knew what she didn't want, which is a media tour. She didn't want it to be the 'Today show I'm Gay story,'" explains Bush, who arranged for a consultation with her friend Chad Griffin, president of influential LGBT lobbying group the Human Rights Campaign. Griffin listened patiently as Page spoke of wanting to keep the focus off herself and instead on "something that means something to me, because I'm boring." He mentioned Time to Thrive, an upcoming social-welfare seminar for LGBT youth, and it became obvious that this would be the perfect platform for Page's announcement. "And then he was like, 'But it's five months away,'" says Page. "And I was like, 'Goddamnit.' Part of me thought, 'I don't think I can wait.' I thought maybe something would happen before, I'll just tweet something -- but I waited."
That Page should want to reach out to struggling gay kids is understandable, seeing as it wasn't so long ago that she was one herself. She was born in 1987 in Halifax, Nova Scotia -- a picturesque Maritime province where the license plates read "Canada's Ocean Playground" -- and says she was "a total tomboy" from the time she could talk. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, and Page split her time between her schoolteacher mother, Martha, and her father, Dennis, a graphic artist who has designed Canadian postage stamps. Dennis remarried when Page was 5, while Martha has remained single all of these years. Her chip-off-the-block daughter can't really understand why: "She's cute, she's sporty, she plays soccer, she likes beer," says Page. "She's just a really cool chick."
Page's acting career began when a casting director dropped by her school and spotted a cherubic 10-year-old with soulful brown eyes. Page proved a natural at the audition, and she was cast as an orphan in Pit Pony, a period TV movie about a poor Nova Scotian mining town. The role earned her a Gemini Award nomination, Canada's answer to the Emmy, and two years later it became a regular gig when Pit Pony was spun off into a weekly series.
Meanwhile, Page also was developing into a fiercely competitive soccer player and got teased at school for being a tomboy: "I started getting made fun of and getting called a dyke and stuff," she recalls. It was around that time, at around 14 or 15, that she "really started solidly thinking" about the fact that she actually might be gay.
Not quite accepting her blossoming same-sex attraction, she tried in vain to date boys. "Any of my first experiences with guys," she says, "I sort of was like, 'What? This is what the whole world freaks out about? And every poem is about? I don't get it at all.' "
But there wasn't much time for dating in those hungry early days: "I worked and worked and worked. Very self-disciplined, much more so than I am now. I was like on fire." She left home in 2005 and moved to Toronto to enroll in the Interact program at Vaughan Road Academy -- the same arts school that produced Drake and Alison Pill -- where Michael Alex, her former social sciences teacher, remembers her as being a "humble, curious and intelligent" student. Around that time, she was cast as a homeless teen wandering the streets of Europe in Mouth to Mouth, a British indie that required her, just 17 years old, to shave her head.
Her portrayal of a naive-seeming teen who turns the tables on a sexual predator in 2005's Hard Candy won her the attention of Jason Reitman, who was looking to cast the lead in his second film, a quirky teen comedy that turned out to be Juno.
For all involved in that movie -- Reitman, Page, her co-star Michael Cera and the stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody -- life never would be the same. Reitman still marvels at Page's tremendous talent and work ethic: "I find that actors kind of fall into two categories," he says. "They're either kind of hyper-aware technicians who are able to puppet their face and bodies, or they're kind of emotional creatures that get lost in the moment. Somehow Ellen Page is both -- she is completely emotional and lost in the moment and simultaneously has the ability to hit every mark. I haven't worked with another actor like her since."
Cody remembers her first encounter with the film's young stars and not being quite sure what to make of them: "Ellen and Michael Cera were these quiet, little Canadian teens." But like Reitman, the screenwriter was astonished by what the young actress ended up bringing to her story: "Despite her being nominated for an Oscar, it's actually an underrated performance," says Cody. "I don't think people realize how different she is from that character. It's really a tour de force."
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During the shoot, the shy Page divulged little about her personal life, but an understanding developed amid the intimacy of a film set. "She didn't have to talk about it, you know what I mean?" says Cody. "The people close to her knew."
Fame hit like a hurricane. Page remembers being struck with terror when she emerged from a subway station to see her face on a Times Square billboard. Random fans would approach her excitedly, quoting back lines of Cody's dialogue, a kind of teen-girl Internet patois. But nothing distilled Juno's cultural-sensation status more than Page's deer-in-the-headlights appearance alongside Cody on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "That was when you knew," she says. "When everyone was like, 'Oh, now it's going to make $100 million.' "
The film, made for $7 million, went on to gross $143 million domestically.
It was during that dizzying period that Page first met Bush, who was introduced to her at the film's L.A. premiere by John Malkovich, one of Bush's many clients. Bush says Page was nearly unrecognizable from the woman she is today -- a guarded outsider who was "very fragile and not able to enjoy the success she was about to experience." Page agreed to a meeting at Bush's office the following day, during which Bush offered her own perspective on the publicity game: Press needn't be the enemy, she explained, so long as one could maintain "a sense of ownership" of one's own image. Page found Bush's spiel compelling and comforting and hired her on the spot.
Neither woman can remember a specific moment when they sat down for "the talk." But at some point in the months that followed, the 20-year-old Page confided that she identified as a bisexual. A similar scenario played out around that time with her parents, too, from whom she always has felt "very independent." Says Page: "The thought of having to come out to them never really crossed my mind. I was just like, 'Oh, I'm in love with this woman.'" (It wasn't until she turned 24 that she gave up completely on trying to have sex with men, having grown "comfortable" with the thought of calling herself a lesbian.)
Bush offered the same advice she still gives all of her clients, regardless of sexual orientation: "Your private life is your private life, and once you open that door, you leave it open for others to judge. I really believe you should leave your relationship stuff for yourself -- keep it sacred and protect it."
Click above to take a look at photos of Ellen Page's career through the years.
She heeded her handler's words, but as Page was herded through a perilous awards-season gantlet -- six crazy months of red carpets, magazine shoots and world travel, culminating in an Academy Award nomination and Barbara Walters interview -- she found herself incapable of embracing her own Cinderella story. "I can imagine that was incredibly stressful for her," says Cody. "Because a young ingenue, which is how she was being positioned, is expected to wear a dress on the red carpet, look a certain way, have that kind of It girl femininity. I did sense as early as our premiere in Toronto that she was really stressed out by those expectations and felt that she couldn't be that girl."
Says Page: "It's hard to talk about because everyone perceives as anything you say that's nothing but, 'Oh my God, my dreams are coming true,' that you're ungrateful. And that's not true at all. You're a human being whose life is absolutely changing and you're going through all this stuff, and it can be overwhelming."
She says putting on the dresses was among her biggest pet peeves -- including the custom-made, seafoam Dior gown she wore with red Manolo Blahniks on the cover of Vanity Fair's 2008 Hollywood issue -- and felt her obvious discomfort usually was written all over her face. She's not smiling in the - photograph, but then again, neither were fellow "fresh faces of 2008" Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway and Zoe Saldana.
"I used to wish that it was a switch that I could turn, and play the game and do the thing and put on the thing and smile and whatever. And I just couldn't on an inexplicable level -- soul, if I may," says Page of those early obligations. "I used to say in photo shoots, 'I would rather be in boy underwear with my hands on my tits than put that thing on.' "
Page was linked romantically back then to everyone from Canadian actor Mark Rendall, a good friend from her Vaughan Road Academy days, to Ben Foster, her co-star in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand. But idle talk about her sexuality trailed her, too, and grew only louder on Feb. 24, 2008. That was the night that her power-lesbian publicist sat next to her on her big Oscar night, where she'd wind up losing to Marion Cotillard, the star of La Vie en Rose.
It was gossip warhorse Michael Musto who, five days after the ceremony, first floated the question of Page's sexuality in a Village Voice column titled, "Ellen Page: Is She or Isn't She?" In the same article, Musto wondered whether she'd attended the ceremony "with her mother" -- certainly the most efficient way to land a lifetime position atop Bush's shit list. Musto later wrote a follow-up in which he took a measure of sadistic delight in recounting an angry phone call from Bush, in which he described the publicist sounding "as if her cat had just gotten stuck in a drainpipe or something." (Bush denies ever having raised her voice during the conversation.)
Page's fears about celebrity media had been confirmed.
But rather than deny or ignore Musto's tauntings, Page played right into them, participating two days later in a Saturday Night Live sketch as an earnest young woman who'd returned overjoyed from a Melissa Etheridge concert. The part, written by veteran SNL writer Paula Pell (herself gay), had Page gushing to her unfazed boyfriend, played by Andy Samberg, about all the lesbian wonders she experienced at the event. "They were kind of like, 'Are you … OK with this?' And I was like, 'Yeah!' " says Page. If there was any backlash, Page never felt it: "Sometimes I think when you're like, 'Hey, I don't give a shit,' that's the moment where people don't give a shit."
VIDEO: Ellen Page Comes Out as Gay
Ellenmania quieted down after those whirlwind months, and the ensuing years brought with them a series of professional disappointments. There was the 2009 bomb Whip It, a sweet, messy roller-derby comedy from first-time helmer Drew Barrymore, notable for a press tour throughout which director and muse held hands and kissed. (Page denies a romance with Barrymore.) She then played a rape victim in Peacock, a Psycho-esque thriller that barely registered. But her profile would skyrocket in 2010 with Christopher Nolan's mind-bending Inception, a part that required her to dash alongside Leonardo DiCaprio through the streets of a pop-up-book Paris. The smartly conceived blockbuster grossed more than $800 million worldwide.
She then nearly made the leap to TV, signing on to play a scheming assistant in Tilda, an HBO comedy starring Diane Keaton as a Hollywood blogger inspired by Nikki Finke. But the network passed, and Page instead landed a prestige project of a different stripe: Woody Allen chose her to play a self-absorbed actress in 2012's To Rome With Love -- a part that required her to deliver a rapturous monologue about having sex with a woman. "He's a very different director to work with," says Page of Allen. "He doesn't really communicate with you. He just kind of lets you do it. There's not a lot of direction happening."
Last year, when she appeared in The East, with Alexander Skarsgard, she became close to the handsome True Blood star, provoking a fresh round of tabloid rumors. "People really thought we were dating," says Page.
But with each passing year, Page had grown a little bolder in expressing her own gayness. By late 2013, she was making no secret at all of her sexual orientation in her day-to-day life: "I would talk about being gay, make jokes about it, or go to a meeting and [mention it] -- you know, because I'm also producing and starring in a lesbian civil rights movie and I've been working on it for years." By her own estimates, 80 percent of the industry was aware of her sexual identity when she made her speech.
Six years after her pseudo-coming-out on SNL, on Feb. 14, 2014, Page stood at the precipice of the real thing. Or lay, rather, on a bed in one of the lower-brow properties on the Vegas Strip, waiting out the several torturous hours before she was scheduled to take the stage. The speech was written, its words having flowed from her as naturally as "breathing" -- particularly the most personal passages, in which she decried the "crushing standards" of the media machine. "I had to read it to a lot -- like, a lot -- of family members and friends to get to a place where I didn't cry the whole time," she says. At around 6:30 p.m., Page was snuck into a boxy ballroom and took her place behind a podium. She stared out at the decidedly un-Hollywood crowd -- mostly teachers, social workers, cops and other people in the trenches doing granular work of mentoring, fostering and in some cases incarcerating LGBT youth-- and prayed that she wouldn't break down sobbing or, worse, succumb to a panic attack, to which she occasionally is prone.
As the crowd quieted, she took a deep breath and began.
It wasn't until five minutes into the speech that she uttered the magic words: "I am here today because I am gay." By then, the audience knew what was coming, but the power of the statement nonetheless shook the room. Says Fred Sainz, HRC's vp communications, "It was vintage Ellen Page in that it was clear, direct and to the point, and she didn't mince words."
Sainz worried that because it was a Friday evening and Valentine's Day, the story might not get much pickup. He couldn't have been more wrong: As Page, Bush and Griffin celebrated with tequila shots at a nearby gay bar (Beyonce's "Drunk in Love" was playing when they walked in, which Page took to be a sign), Sainz frantically was addressing HRC's website, which crashed under the traffic deluge.
PHOTOS: Stars' Best Speeches When Coming Out
Page has made just two public appearances since her announcement -- presenting an award to transgender Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox at the GLAAD Media Awards on April 12 and introducing an X-Men clip at the MTV Movie Awards the following night. Shooting a promo spot for the awards, in which she and host Conan O'Brien were trapped inside an inflatable ball, Page improvised the line, "This is why I stay away from balls," then excitedly texted a friend about her joke. "You know, all of those little things mean so much because it's so brand-new," she says. "It's so nice."
There are no more heated negotiations with frustrated stylists, as Page now is able to gravitate unchallenged to the clothes she loves to wear -- primarily men's suits, neckties, dress shirts. She's well aware that her personal style rankles some, far more even than her sexuality might: "I get more hate, honestly, about dressing androgynously than about being gay. It blows my mind."
Her newfound freedom carries over to her acting career. She's aware that she's not up for romantic leads, which is fine with her. "In a lot of the roles, especially now that I'm getting older, women are devices for the men in the story and very sexualized," she says. "That's what it's all about -- being seen through this male, patriarchal gaze. Let's just get real; that's just what most scripts are."
Instead, she's set about creating her own projects, including Into the Forest, an adaptation of the Jean Hegland novel about two sisters fending for themselves in postapocalyptic Northern California. Production on the film, which Page will produce and star in opposite Evan Rachel Wood, begins in June on Vancouver Island.
That will be followed by filming in the fall of that long-gestating "lesbian civil rights movie," Freeheld. The script, from Philadelphia scribe Ron Nyswaner, tells the tearjerking true story of a New Jersey police woman who, as she wastes away from cancer, fights for her right to transfer her pension benefits to her domestic partner. When she learned that Julianne Moore had signed on to play the cop, Page, who'll play the surviving girlfriend, broke down in tears. "Julianne is so f---ing badass," gushes Page. "Because a part of me thought, 'Oh, she played a lesbian not a long time ago in The Kids Are All Right, and she did Chloe, where she and Amanda Seyfried had a thing -- and she's not going to want to do another.' Which is a horrible thing to think. I mean, I am the gay person and I thought that."
But first she'll be front and center as the latest chapter of Fox and Marvel's multibillion-dollar mutant franchise helps kick off the summer movie season. Page says she was shocked to be asked to reprise Kitty Pryde, a part she originated in the Brett Ratner-helmed Last Stand. "I was 18, and nobody knew who I was -- just this kid and working with this insane cast," she says of the star-packed installment. "It was so fun to go back and be with everybody again." She delights in the sweet antics of stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen and says of Jackman, with whom she shares the majority of her scenes, "You know how they say things like 'the nicest guy in Hollywood'? But it's true!"
With regard to the controversy currently plaguing the film's openly gay director, Bryan Singer, who stands accused of sexual assault on a minor, she acknowledges that the allegations are "super, super disturbing. … I guess the truth will come out in the way that it does, but it's hard to hear about someone being in that situation, someone you like working with." Having grown up on film sets, Page is all too aware of the kinds of abuses that can take place behind doors in Hollywood: "Whatever comes of it," she says, "I do think that there's a systemic issue of people in places of power manipulating and abusing young people."
PHOTOS: Loud-and-Proud Meter -- Hollywood's Art of Coming Out
So taken were Fox execs with Page's work in X-Men, the studio now is developing her own action vehicle. Based on the award-winning graphic novel, Queen & Country is an espionage thriller in which Page would play an expert sniper in the British Secret Service. Says Fox vp production Mike Ireland, "Ellen brings a certain kind of intelligence to the role that will allow us to subvert genre conventions in a believable, cool way."
She may still identify as a "tiny Canadian" in her Twitter profile, but her roots are planted firmly in Los Angeles, where she's getting settled into her new home, a midcentury hideaway that previously belonged to Venus Williams. There she surrounds herself with her tight-knit group of supportive friends such as Skarsgard and Kate Mara, with whom she trades public flirtations (purely innocent, she says) on social media. While she's not currently tied to any one person romantically, she's definitely on the lookout for Ms. Right: "I'm so stoked to get married," says Page, with a sigh. "I'm such a romantic, it's awful. And I don't think I'd want to make a kid, but I'd love to raise one. I'd love to raise a kid."
The tears come rather unexpectedly, in response to an offhand observation about how happy she seems. As Page pauses to reflect, those soulful brown eyes begin to well up and her voice rises half an octave. "I knew I would be happier," she says. "But I wouldn't have anticipated just how f---ing happy I am and how every tiny little aspect of my life feels better."
Email: seth.abramovitch@thr.com
Twitter: @SethAbramovitch
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Bryan Singer’s Lawyer Blasts Accusers’ Attorney
Bryan Singer’s lawyer, Marty Singer (no relation) condemned his accusers’ attorney, Jeff Herman, on Wednesday as a liar and publicity hound driven by avarice, demanding in a letter obtained by The Hollywood Reporter that he dismiss and not refile lawsuits against Bryan Singer and warning of future sanctions and an action for malicious prosecution. The letter slams the lawsuits as “frivolous,” “meritless,” inaccurate, and legally deficient.
“You seek to preen for the media in an effort to solicit new clients, ultimately looking for a payday for yourself,” said Marty Singer’s letter. “You have now resorted to lying to the public concerning your actions, including your false statements to the media this week to the effect that our client has refused to accept service of your earlier lawsuit on behalf of Michael Egan.”
STORY: Bryan Singer Sex Abuse Case: The Troubling History Behind the Accusations
Egan is the plaintiff -- and Herman the plaintiff’s lawyer -- in suits filed in Hawaii against Bryan Singer, Gary Goddard, Garth Ancier and David Neuman. Herman is again the lawyer, and an anonymous U.K. actor denominated “John Doe 117” the plaintiff in a separate suit filed Saturday in Los Angeles against Bryan Singer and Goddard. The latter suit was closed Tuesday on administrative grounds -- it had been filed electronically rather than manually as required -- but can be refilled.
Marty Singer’s letter warned against refilling in dire terms: “On behalf of Mr. Singer, I am hereby demanding that you immediately dismiss, with prejudice, the Egan lawsuit and refrain from re-filing the ‘John Doe’ lawsuit that you filed against him. If you fail to do so, then you will be exposed to significant liability.”
It was not possible to reach Herman for comment after midnight Wednesday night / Thursday morning. However, he has previously said that he would not back down. “I’m not going to be bullied,” he said. “And my clients are not going to be bullied. They’re going to be protected.”
STORY: Lawyer for New Bryan Singer Accuser Shows Photos, Says He Has Physical Evidence
Referring to Herman’s alleged false statements regarding service of the lawsuits, the letter added, “Perhaps we should not be surprised that you have made such gross misrepresentations given your suspension by the Florida Bar for engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and deceit.”
That’s a reference to an eighteen-month suspension imposed by the Florida Supreme Court in 2009 for actions adverse to a client (investing in and controlling a business competitor of the client) and “engage(ing) in conduct involving dishonesty (or) deceit” (failing to tell the client he had done so).
The letter also criticized Herman for suing Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash after the statute of limitations had expired, and said “You have demonstrated a pattern of filing legally deficient lawsuits. Your repeated failure to properly investigate claims before rushing to the courthouse and then hosting press conferences is inexcusable and rises to the level of sanctionable conduct.”
The letter also complains that Herman filed the Hawaii suits without first contacting Marty Singer to discuss them and determine whether there was evidence -- as Marty Singer says there is -- that Bryan Singer was not in Hawaii at the time of the alleged sex parties.
Instead of fully investigating the facts, says the letter, “You only care about seeking publicity for yourself and attempting to revive your career after being so publicly and embarrassingly suspended from practice.”
AUDIO: Bryan Singer Sex Abuse Suit: Bret Easton Ellis Says He Dated Two People Who 'Went Through World of Underage Parties'
The “John Doe 117” suit is, says the letter, “replete with absurd factual inaccuracies” and also alleges conduct that is not actionable, because the age of consent in the U.K. is 16. The lawsuit argues that the California age of consent, 18, should apply because Singer and Goddard allegedly formulated their sexual plans regarding the U.K. teen while in California. In addition, the federal age, also 18, assertedly applies to travel from the U.S. for sexual purposes.
Herman said at a press conference Monday, where he displayed evidence regarding the “John Doe 117” suit, that he expected to file additional Hollywood teen sex suits, involving both male and female plaintiffs and not necessarily involving the same defendants as the current suits.
Email: jh@jhandel.com
Twitter: @jhandel
'Simpsons' Episode Stirs Syrian Civil War Conspiracy Theories in Egypt (Video)
A screen capture of the al-Tahrir broadcast featuring "The Simpsons" episode. Egyptian TV network al-Tahrir stirred the Arab conspiracy theory pot this week, suggesting in a news segment that a 2001 episode of The Simpsons indicates that the U.S. might have incited the Syrian Civil War as part of a broader plot to destabilize the Arab world.
In the episode, titled New Kids on the Blecch, the always mischievous Bart Simpson Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph, are recruited to form a boy band, whose first single "Drop Da Bomb" is actually part of a subliminal recruitment campaign orchestrated by the Navy. In the video, the boys pilot war planes and drop bombs on an unnamed Arab country, where they also teach the local women to wear bikinis and play tether ball.
The episode was uncomfortably prescient in some sense, given its broadcast just months before 9/11 (later repeat broadcasts of the same episode excised a few segments because it was believed they could be upsetting, given what was then transpiring in the world).
PHOTOS: THR Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Simpsons'
But it's a key detail that the Egyptian TV network has seized on as a possible sign of more elaborate conspiracy at work.
In a brief section of the video, a jeep bears the exact same flag currently used by the Syrian opposition.
Before showing the segment on air, Al-Tahrir's anchor told viewers: "The video you are about to see shows animated figures dancing, flying airplanes and dropping bombs on what must be Syria because there are other animated figures below in Arab garb and the Syrian [opposition] flag appears on one of the vehicles."
She then alleges that the video "suggests that what is happening in Syria today was premeditated" and that U.S. likely played a role, adding, "this was from 2001, before there was such a thing as the Syrian opposition." She then notes how such theories have been trending among local Facebook users.
The flag in the episode does indeed closely resemble that of Syrian rebel groups, but as The Times of Israel has pointed out, it has been used previously in the country, prior to 1963, when the Ba'ath party took over.
Watch the segment below, courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
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