“The transition will be seamless.”
Those words usually accompany an announcement of a corporate takeover and, of course, it never works out that way. And it likely won’t for Paramount 2024.
Consider history: When MGM found it had become a corporate conquest in the mid-1960s, not only was the studio staff fired but three major movies were canceled mid-production. The executive guillotine was also in action at Warner Bros a year later, when the production team was decimated by its new proprietor and even Looney Tunes was dropped.
Paramount’s “transition” in 1966 was even more lethal: Not only did the new studio owner cancel existing shoots but he also greenlit three of the biggest flops in Hollywood history – earning renown as “Bluhdorn’s Bombs” (see below).
History may not automatically repeat itself in the deal now unfolding behind the filigreed Paramount gates, but the “seamless transition” already sounds problematic:...
Those words usually accompany an announcement of a corporate takeover and, of course, it never works out that way. And it likely won’t for Paramount 2024.
Consider history: When MGM found it had become a corporate conquest in the mid-1960s, not only was the studio staff fired but three major movies were canceled mid-production. The executive guillotine was also in action at Warner Bros a year later, when the production team was decimated by its new proprietor and even Looney Tunes was dropped.
Paramount’s “transition” in 1966 was even more lethal: Not only did the new studio owner cancel existing shoots but he also greenlit three of the biggest flops in Hollywood history – earning renown as “Bluhdorn’s Bombs” (see below).
History may not automatically repeat itself in the deal now unfolding behind the filigreed Paramount gates, but the “seamless transition” already sounds problematic:...
- 5/9/2024
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
“That movie was the President’s idea, not mine, but it was a demand, not a suggestion.”
The speaker was Jack Warner in a 1947 foreshadowing of his Donald Trumpian style. I recalled his remarks this week as I drove onto the Warner Bros lot, the fabled arena where Warner long reigned.
In his heyday, Warner was a Trump pre-clone in terms of temperament and rhetoric – a man who boasted about his mental acuity yet, to Hollywood’s power players, seemed occasionally unhinged.
I was visiting Warner Bros this week to spend some time with David Zaslav, a figure who, in temperament and politics, is the mirror opposite of Warner but whose empire is nonetheless a product of Warner’s erratic vision. Some believe that Zaslav’s studio – Hollywood in general – might still glean some insight from its founder’s idiosyncrasies.
A career maverick, Warner promoted gangster movies like Public Enemy...
The speaker was Jack Warner in a 1947 foreshadowing of his Donald Trumpian style. I recalled his remarks this week as I drove onto the Warner Bros lot, the fabled arena where Warner long reigned.
In his heyday, Warner was a Trump pre-clone in terms of temperament and rhetoric – a man who boasted about his mental acuity yet, to Hollywood’s power players, seemed occasionally unhinged.
I was visiting Warner Bros this week to spend some time with David Zaslav, a figure who, in temperament and politics, is the mirror opposite of Warner but whose empire is nonetheless a product of Warner’s erratic vision. Some believe that Zaslav’s studio – Hollywood in general – might still glean some insight from its founder’s idiosyncrasies.
A career maverick, Warner promoted gangster movies like Public Enemy...
- 3/7/2024
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
“I despise auditions,” Marlon Brando barked as he launched into the audition for his role in The Godfather. It was his idea, I reminded him, so he himself had caused his actors angst, not the studio.
Actors’ angst was much in evidence yet again last weekend at the SAG Awards. Brilliant performances were being honored, formidable talent was on display, and Barbra Streisand clearly owned the room.
But the evening had a problematic subtext: The anticipated turnaround in job opportunities hadn’t happened across Hollywood. The epoch of “peak TV” seems to be drifting away, with words like “contraction” echoing in the trade.
To be sure, none of this inhibited SAG honorees from thanking their casting directors for their good picks and even endorsing the Academy’s decision to create a new entity: a casting branch.
Related: Casting Society Sets Its Artios Awards...
Actors’ angst was much in evidence yet again last weekend at the SAG Awards. Brilliant performances were being honored, formidable talent was on display, and Barbra Streisand clearly owned the room.
But the evening had a problematic subtext: The anticipated turnaround in job opportunities hadn’t happened across Hollywood. The epoch of “peak TV” seems to be drifting away, with words like “contraction” echoing in the trade.
To be sure, none of this inhibited SAG honorees from thanking their casting directors for their good picks and even endorsing the Academy’s decision to create a new entity: a casting branch.
Related: Casting Society Sets Its Artios Awards...
- 2/29/2024
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
When Barbra Streisand delivered her 992-page memoir to her editor at Viking earlier this year, did anyone urge her to cut? Even gently?
Not that it would have done any good, for Streisand has a lot to say and her opus was termed “exhausting, ecstatic and undeniably moving” by the New Yorker this week.
Streisand hasn’t changed. On her first day of shooting On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), when her director Vincente Minnelli shouted “cut,” she shook her head, saying she intended to keep going.
Minnelli had made great movies like An American In Paris and Gigi and had even survived working with (and being married to) Judy Garland. “One doesn’t say ‘no’ to Minnelli,” Streisand was warned by legendary writer Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady).
Neither had as yet learned their Barbra lesson. Nor had her agent, Sue Mengers, who later tried to...
Not that it would have done any good, for Streisand has a lot to say and her opus was termed “exhausting, ecstatic and undeniably moving” by the New Yorker this week.
Streisand hasn’t changed. On her first day of shooting On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), when her director Vincente Minnelli shouted “cut,” she shook her head, saying she intended to keep going.
Minnelli had made great movies like An American In Paris and Gigi and had even survived working with (and being married to) Judy Garland. “One doesn’t say ‘no’ to Minnelli,” Streisand was warned by legendary writer Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady).
Neither had as yet learned their Barbra lesson. Nor had her agent, Sue Mengers, who later tried to...
- 12/7/2023
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
“Try to Remember,” the most famous song to have come out of the stage musical “The Fantasticks,” was noted for its autumnal feel, sung by someone reflecting back on youthful days. The happy irony is that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt wrote that song prior to the show’s original 1960 staging when they were both still relatively young men of about 30, fellows who still had about two-thirds of their lives ahead of them. Schmidt, who wrote the music, died in 2018 at age 88, and Jones, who penned the show’s lyrics and book, died Friday at 95.
Here’s to it having been a heck of a long way from September to December.
When the movie version of the show came out in the fall of 2000, I wrote about it for Entertainment Weekly and said that “for my money, ‘The Fantasticks’ is the best pure live–action movie musical since ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’” Now,...
Here’s to it having been a heck of a long way from September to December.
When the movie version of the show came out in the fall of 2000, I wrote about it for Entertainment Weekly and said that “for my money, ‘The Fantasticks’ is the best pure live–action movie musical since ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’” Now,...
- 8/13/2023
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
“How did I become Tom Joad? I used to write for a living.”
Tom Joad was the hapless farmer in The Grapes of Wrath who fled the Dust Bowl to find a better life in California. The man who cited him this week is a successful screenwriter who’s been walking the picket line and asked that I not use his name.
While the cast of pickets might not mirror John Steinbeck’s characters in his great novel, still “the rhetoric of this strike has taken on a ‘rich against the poor’ obsession,” in the words of one studio CEO.
The bargaining jargon once focused on residuals, but now it’s about “land barons” and “tone-deaf greedy bosses” (the words of SAG-AFTRA’s Fran Drescher). Little wonder polling shows only 7% of the public siding with the “bosses.” The “class warfare” has passed the 100-day mark, with L.A. city workers joining in Tuesday.
Tom Joad was the hapless farmer in The Grapes of Wrath who fled the Dust Bowl to find a better life in California. The man who cited him this week is a successful screenwriter who’s been walking the picket line and asked that I not use his name.
While the cast of pickets might not mirror John Steinbeck’s characters in his great novel, still “the rhetoric of this strike has taken on a ‘rich against the poor’ obsession,” in the words of one studio CEO.
The bargaining jargon once focused on residuals, but now it’s about “land barons” and “tone-deaf greedy bosses” (the words of SAG-AFTRA’s Fran Drescher). Little wonder polling shows only 7% of the public siding with the “bosses.” The “class warfare” has passed the 100-day mark, with L.A. city workers joining in Tuesday.
- 8/10/2023
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
"The Offer" is the new biographical drama TV miniseries following the development, production and underworld interference in director Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 feature "The Godfather", from the Pov of producer Al Ruddy, now streaming on Paramount+:
Cast includes Miles Teller as 'Albert S. Ruddy', Matthew Goode as 'Robert Evans', Giovanni Ribisi as 'Joe Colombo', Colin Hanks as 'Barry Lapidus', Dan Fogler as 'Francis Ford Coppola', Juno Temple as 'Bettye McCartt', Burn Gorman as 'Charles Bluhdorn', Justin Chambers as 'Marlon Brando', Patrick Gallo as 'Mario Puzo', Josh Zuckerman as 'Peter Bart', Meredith Garretson as 'Ali MacGraw', Nora Arnezeder as 'Francoise Glazer', Paul McCrane as 'Jack Ballard', Anthony Skordi as 'Carlo Gambino'...
...Jake Cannavale as 'Caesar', James Madio as 'Gino', Michael Rispoli as 'Tommy Lucchese', Stephanie Koenig as 'Andrea Eastman',...
Cast includes Miles Teller as 'Albert S. Ruddy', Matthew Goode as 'Robert Evans', Giovanni Ribisi as 'Joe Colombo', Colin Hanks as 'Barry Lapidus', Dan Fogler as 'Francis Ford Coppola', Juno Temple as 'Bettye McCartt', Burn Gorman as 'Charles Bluhdorn', Justin Chambers as 'Marlon Brando', Patrick Gallo as 'Mario Puzo', Josh Zuckerman as 'Peter Bart', Meredith Garretson as 'Ali MacGraw', Nora Arnezeder as 'Francoise Glazer', Paul McCrane as 'Jack Ballard', Anthony Skordi as 'Carlo Gambino'...
...Jake Cannavale as 'Caesar', James Madio as 'Gino', Michael Rispoli as 'Tommy Lucchese', Stephanie Koenig as 'Andrea Eastman',...
- 12/9/2022
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
When Michael Eisner was making a ceremonial exit as Disney’s CEO in 2005 he acknowledged that the intrigues of succession had become “Shakespearean.” Rival corporate factions were vying for power. Some insiders were persuaded that Eisner never would actually depart.
Eisner himself heightened the drama by “forgetting” to introduce his announced successor, Bob Iger, at key functions. Iger famously stormed out from one of them.
Wall Street, too, was nervous about a transition. Under Eisner’s 20-year reign Disney’s revenues had increased from 1.6 billion to 30 billion and major investors doubted whether Iger or anyone else could successfully govern such a politicized Disney. Veteran employees openly yearned for a return to the peace and focus of old Walt’s tenure.
They still do. Now, with Iger assuming the helm a second time, some Disney denizens see similar Shakespearean subplots re-intruding in the script. Their question: Can anyone, even Iger, actually...
Eisner himself heightened the drama by “forgetting” to introduce his announced successor, Bob Iger, at key functions. Iger famously stormed out from one of them.
Wall Street, too, was nervous about a transition. Under Eisner’s 20-year reign Disney’s revenues had increased from 1.6 billion to 30 billion and major investors doubted whether Iger or anyone else could successfully govern such a politicized Disney. Veteran employees openly yearned for a return to the peace and focus of old Walt’s tenure.
They still do. Now, with Iger assuming the helm a second time, some Disney denizens see similar Shakespearean subplots re-intruding in the script. Their question: Can anyone, even Iger, actually...
- 12/1/2022
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
Marlon Brando's performance as Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather" is one of the best remembered in film history. The part won Brando his second Academy Award for Best Actor (an honor he declined). The film's opening, where Don allows the people of the neighborhood to ask him for favors on the day of his daughter's wedding, is one of those scenes that everybody knows. Even if you've never seen "The Godfather" itself, you've probably seen a homage or parody of that moment.
However, the road to Brando getting the part wasn't an easy one. While he had the support of director Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter/novel author Mario Puzo, the producers were dead set against casting him. It took a lot of pushback from Coppola, and a screen test from Brando, for the bigwigs of Paramount Pictures to relent.
Why Paramount Wanted Anybody But Brando
According to...
However, the road to Brando getting the part wasn't an easy one. While he had the support of director Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter/novel author Mario Puzo, the producers were dead set against casting him. It took a lot of pushback from Coppola, and a screen test from Brando, for the bigwigs of Paramount Pictures to relent.
Why Paramount Wanted Anybody But Brando
According to...
- 9/12/2022
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" is an elegy for a genre that has died countless deaths. The Western has passed in and out of favor many times since the advent of the motion picture, and is currently ticking anew thanks to Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" franchise. But as the 1970s approached, there was a realization that the stars and filmmakers who'd transformed the oater into the most American of movie genres were on their way out. John Ford had been driven into retirement. John Wayne was dying. Anthony Mann was dead. A glorious, yet complicated era was drawing to a close.
This was the perfect moment for Sergio Leone to go once more to the Western well with a mythic send-off to the films on which he'd built his international reputation. But his scope wasn't limited to "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More...
This was the perfect moment for Sergio Leone to go once more to the Western well with a mythic send-off to the films on which he'd built his international reputation. But his scope wasn't limited to "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More...
- 8/19/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
“It’s one of the icons of contemporary American cinema and I felt a tremendous responsibility,” declares Oscar-nominated production designer Laurence Bennett (“The Artist) about the challenges of designing “The Offer.” “The first time they called about seeing if I was interested in designing the project, I told my agent no, I was not interested because it just felt like there was great risk involved with messing with the classics,” he admits, adding for our recent Q&a, “I just found so much humanity in all the individual stories and everyone had so much investment in the project; it was incredible.” We talked with Bennett as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2022 Emmy Awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
See over 350 interviews with 2022 Emmy contenders
“The Offer,” is a 10-episode limited series streaming on Paramount Plus, written by Oscar nominee Michael Tolkin...
See over 350 interviews with 2022 Emmy contenders
“The Offer,” is a 10-episode limited series streaming on Paramount Plus, written by Oscar nominee Michael Tolkin...
- 6/7/2022
- by Rob Licuria
- Gold Derby
Classic movie lovers have been lucky of late, as some new, terrific interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and James Caan have hit various outlets, as well as reflections on the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather.” The winner of three Academy Awards was also just re-released in 4K for home viewing.
If that weren’t enough, now soon Paramount + will offer a chance to go behind-the-scenes with a limited miniseries, chasing the dragon, it seems, of recent Ryan Murphy hits. “The Offer,” written by Michael Tolkin (who made his movies-about-The-Movies bones with “The Player”) with episodes directed by Dexter Fletcher, has as its lead not Coppola or the Paramount’s charismatic head of production Robert Evans, or Brando, or even Mario Puzo, but the man who picked up the Best Picture trophy on Oscar night, Albert S. Ruddy.
Ruddy, who turns 92 in just a few days, is played by Miles Teller in “The Offer,...
If that weren’t enough, now soon Paramount + will offer a chance to go behind-the-scenes with a limited miniseries, chasing the dragon, it seems, of recent Ryan Murphy hits. “The Offer,” written by Michael Tolkin (who made his movies-about-The-Movies bones with “The Player”) with episodes directed by Dexter Fletcher, has as its lead not Coppola or the Paramount’s charismatic head of production Robert Evans, or Brando, or even Mario Puzo, but the man who picked up the Best Picture trophy on Oscar night, Albert S. Ruddy.
Ruddy, who turns 92 in just a few days, is played by Miles Teller in “The Offer,...
- 3/24/2022
- by Jordan Hoffman
- Gold Derby
The Godfather, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest movies of all time, is turning 45, and the Tribeca Film Festival is saying saluti on Saturday with a back-to-back special anniversary screening of the film and its sequel, The Godfather Part II — as well as a reunion event.
Celebrating the milestone, the film’s director Francis Ford Coppola and members of its cast, including Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, will hold a conversation moderated by filmmaker Taylor Hackford after the screenings.
Released on March 15, 1972, The Godfather — with its multi-generational portrait of the...
Celebrating the milestone, the film’s director Francis Ford Coppola and members of its cast, including Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, will hold a conversation moderated by filmmaker Taylor Hackford after the screenings.
Released on March 15, 1972, The Godfather — with its multi-generational portrait of the...
- 4/28/2017
- by Mike Miller
- PEOPLE.com
As the Viacom melodrama nears its dubious climax, a growing sector of the creative community has come to accept this reality: bigger is not better. "Hollywood was far better off before the corporate giants annexed the studios and networks," argues one of the town's prominent players, who does not want to be identified because he works for a multinational. Going back to the days of Steve Ross and Charlie Bluhdorn, Hollywood has always been suspicious of the conglomerators…...
- 6/30/2016
- Deadline TV
As the Viacom melodrama nears its dubious climax, a growing sector of the creative community has come to accept this reality: bigger is not better. "Hollywood was far better off before the corporate giants annexed the studios and networks," argues one of the town's prominent players, who does not want to be identified because he works for a multinational. Going back to the days of Steve Ross and Charlie Bluhdorn, Hollywood has always been suspicious of the conglomerators…...
- 6/30/2016
- Deadline
Producer Robert Evans, circa 1970s, in the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture.
Robert Evans: The Kid Is Alright
By
Alex Simon
I interviewed legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans in 2002 for Venice Magazine, in conjunction with the release of the documentary "The Kid Stays in the Picture," adapted from his iconic autobiography and audiobook. Our chat took place at Woodland, Evans' storied estate in Beverly Hills, in his equally famous screening room, which mysteriously burned down a couple years later. Evans was still physically frail, having recently survived a series of strokes, but his mind, his wit and his charm were sharp as ever, with near total recall for people, places and stories. Many, many stories. Here are a few of them.
It’s a widely-held belief that the years 1967-76 represent the “golden age” of American cinema. Just look at a few of these titles: Rosemary’s Baby,...
Robert Evans: The Kid Is Alright
By
Alex Simon
I interviewed legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans in 2002 for Venice Magazine, in conjunction with the release of the documentary "The Kid Stays in the Picture," adapted from his iconic autobiography and audiobook. Our chat took place at Woodland, Evans' storied estate in Beverly Hills, in his equally famous screening room, which mysteriously burned down a couple years later. Evans was still physically frail, having recently survived a series of strokes, but his mind, his wit and his charm were sharp as ever, with near total recall for people, places and stories. Many, many stories. Here are a few of them.
It’s a widely-held belief that the years 1967-76 represent the “golden age” of American cinema. Just look at a few of these titles: Rosemary’s Baby,...
- 7/5/2015
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
By luring Fox Broadcasting Co. entertainment president Gail Berman to Paramount Pictures, Viacom co-president Tom Freston and Paramount's new chairman Brad Grey have sent a message to Hollywood. They want to change the way the movie business is done. And they are willing to bring in talent from outside the film industry to replace more experienced managers. Clearly, Freston, Grey and Berman now have an opportunity to update a studio that has lost touch with mainstream audiences. But how they approach that task -- positioning themselves as powerful insiders or critical outsiders -- could mark the difference between success and failure. For when other Hollywood outsiders have overhauled movie studios, the results have been mixed. Innovation worked brilliantly when Gulf & Western chairman Charlie Bluhdorn hired Barry Diller, ABC's 32-year-old vp primetime programming, as chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures in 1974.
- 3/31/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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