| | | | | | Who said August is a slow month? The Hollywood news cycle is in overdrive and The Weekender has this week's great reads below: Marc Maron hits the road, Howard Stern stirs the pot and David Ellison places his bets. —Erik Hayden
+ Ticker: Sheridan's next ranch; The Duffers' move; Eric Warren Singer's Top Gun mess; Efe Cakarel's stand |
Peace OutSixteen years after Marc Maron's show launched an industry and saved his career, the curmudgeonly conversationalist is feeling conflicted about what followed: “Things were better before everyone had a voice.” The cover story.
Behind the cover: Mikey O'Connell writes in — "Maron is one of the more candid subjects you could ask for, so I was surprised by how much more I learned from talking to the people around him. His producer Brendan McDonald told me about how Marc passed on interviewing Hillary Clinton. Conan O’Brien contextualized Maron’s career in a way I hadn’t heard before. Comedian Bobby Lee also called BS on his podcasting retirement. (Marc maintains he is done interviewing others.)" |
Stern Owns Rumor MillTaking on the Fleet Street frenzy isn’t easy, but SiriusXM and Howard Stern are giving it a shot. After The Sun delivered its air quote “to be canceled” headline, a promo began running on SiriusXM leaning in to the drama. “Howard Stern fired, canceled, is it really ‘Bye-Bye Booey’?" It's a set up for the host to reveal his future on Sept. 2. The contract talks gamesmanship.
But what if he's really out?: Stern as the king of all media understands the truth of both parts of this narrative better than anyone. What made you famous one day is what makes you irrelevant the next. The column.
Flashback to last October: "He’s been with me and the company going on two decades, and so he’s pretty happy, but he’s also able, like many great artists, to stop whenever he wants," says SiriusXM's content chief Scott Greenstein. |
Big Media's New OwnerAugust may go down as a landscape-altering month for the NFL. On Aug. 5, the league and Disney's Bob Iger unveiled a major deal, trading the NFL Network and rights to RedZone to ESPN in exchange for a 10 percent equity stake in the media juggernaut. Days later, David Ellison’s Skydance closed its $8 billion deal for Paramount ... instantly giving the league an equity stake as well. The report. |
Paramount's First BetsOn the movies front, Paramount's Josh Greenstein says the studio hopes to release 15 films a year, and then up that to 20. He name checked Star Trek and Transformers, with a surprise being World War Z, the 2013 Brad Pitt zombie feature. He also indicated an interest in both horror (Paramount is home to A Quiet Place and Smile) as well as R-rated comedies. The plan. |
Where Work Is NowIn 1954, the Writers Guild formed to bring screenwriters, TV and radio writers under one union umbrella. A few decades later, the labor group expanded its purview by adding animation primetime writers. In three, five or 10 years, could vertical writers and YouTubers be next? “Like it or not, this is the future of television,” board member Adam Conover says. The report. |
Space CowboyAs Timothy Olyphant swaps his cowboy hat for frosty tips in the Noah Hawley series Alien: Earth, the actor discusses the joy of revisiting work, discovering the "sweet spot" of fame and his love for former co-star Walton Goggins. The interview. |
The Podcasting Power ListFor the fourth straight year, THR presents its tally of the 44 on-air talent and dealmakers who are making the biggest waves in podcasting. The list — which considers chart position, deal size, and cultural cachet — captures the industry at a critical inflection point. The full list.
+ Sketchy podcast metrics I Power players survey I What actually works now |
Everybody Likes IkeOr, more to the point, can Ike Barinholtz make Elon Musk likable? Whether playing the Tesla titan or a coked-up exec on The Studio, the former improv actor and star screenwriter has Hollywood simultaneously cringing and rolling in the aisles. The interview. |
Ed Sullivan Theater's Last Days With The Late Show leaving and no new occupant announced, the future of Broadway's most storied talk show stage is up in the air. For now, the only wrecking ball being swung is at Stephen Colbert. As for the theater, it was designated a historical landmark in 1988, so the building, if not the late show format, will still be standing for its centennial in 2027. The story. |
Now What? Who could have guessed that a seemingly harmless denim campaign would force a footnote on what could have been a glorious few months because of how it stirred up a surprise culture war that stretched from TikTok to the White House. 'Tis the season of Sydney Sweeney. It just now comes with an asterisk. The story. |
7 Days of DEALSAngelina Jolie and Doug Liman are reteaming for Universal thriller The Initiative ... Zach Cregger has a Weapons prequel on the table at Warner Bros. ... Kristen Wiig will voice Roboto in Amazon MGM's Masters of the Universe feature ... Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne and Treadstone book series have been locked up by NBCU ... Anna Faris and Regina Hall are joining Miramax's Scary Movie reboot ... Brie Larson, Lily Collins, Jack Quaid and Henry Golding are set to star in comedy Close Personal Friends for Amazon MGM ... LaKeith Stanfield, Jason Clarke, Sam Claflin and Trevante Rhodes have signed up for duty in F.A.S.T., the Taylor Sheridan-written action movie set up at Warner Bros. ... Chris O’Dowd has joined the cast of Luca Guadagnino ’s OpenAI movie Artificial at Amazon MGM.
+ Quoted: “I love this script, but I’m still walking down the same ground I’ve already walked. It just kind of unenthused me. This last movie, I’ve got to not know what I’m doing again. I’ve got to be in uncharted territory," Quentin Tarantino, on why David Fincher is directing the Brad Pitt Cliff Booth sequel.
+ The Bottom Line: HBO Max's And Just Like That "barely mustered enough energy to close out the current season, let alone the three-season series" ... USA Network's The Rainmaker is "a taut thriller driven by relentless cynicism" ... Prime Video's Butterfly "struggles to take flight" ... Universal's Nobody 2 is "bone-crunching fun" ... Lionsgate's Americana is "a new take on the troubled legacy of the Old West." |
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