Big
DealThe Report
Who’s inking on the dotted line this week
7 Days of DEALS
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 26 OCTOBER 16, 2019
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Y^ IMAGES.The Education of Brett Kavanaugh
(PORTFOLIO, SEPT. 17)
BY Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly AGENCY UTA
Art imitates politics, with Bombshell out Dec. 20 and Michael
Lewis’ Trump cabinet book The Fifth Risk being optioned for TV.
The controversial Supreme Court justice’s story could be next.The Divines (WILLIAM MORROW, 2021)
BY Ellie Eaton AGENCIES Dunow, Carlson & Lerner, UTA
Described as being in the vein of Sally Rooney (whose Normal
People is being adapted by Hulu), Eaton’s novel dissects teenage
female relationships during the last days of a disgraced all-girls
boarding school in the 1990s, and again in the present day.Rights Available! Hot new books with Hollywood appeal BY MIA GALUPPO
FILM
Zoë Kravitz (Paradigm,
Untitled, Edelstein
Laird) will star as
Catwoman opposite
Robert Pattinson in Matt
Reeves’ The Batman.Aquaman’s Yahya
Abdul-Mateen II (WME,
Anonymous, GSB) is in
talks to star in the fourth
Matrix installment.Ready or Not’s Samara
Weaving (WME, Untitled,
Gang Tyre) is in talks to
play Scarlett in G.I. Joe
spinoff Snake Eyes.Billy Porter (CAA,
Industry, Felker
To c z e k) will play Camila
Cabello’s fairy godmother
in Sony’s Cinderella.Daveed Diggs (WME,
Brookside) is in talks to
play Sebastian in
Disney’s CG/live-action
The Little Mermaid.When Netflix took its
streaming service global in
2016, traditional net-
works worried that Reed
Hastings’ binge machine
would cannibalize audiences and draw
away talent to produce online originals.
Three years on, those networks are
much more relaxed as they wait for the next
wave of online streamers. The upcoming
launches of Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max
and NBCUniversal’s Peacock — and their
impact on the global TV business — domi-
nated conversations at MIPCOM, which
kicked off Oct. 14 in Cannes. For one, the
hope is that Apple, Disney and company will
More Streamers? No Problem for MIPCOM Sellers
end Netflix’s dominance. “Growth for the
new services will come from the audiences
of mature businesses” like Netflix, posits
Tim Mulligan of MIDiA Research.
International producers also see oppor-
tunity if, as many expect, the studios startreserving rights to their new shows for
their global SVOD platforms. “It just means
we can sell broadcasters more European
shows,” says a French producer. Adds
Stephen Mowbray, who buys for Swedish
public broadcaster SVT, “A good European
series can cost half of a U.S. one, and I’ll
get all the rights, including streaming.”
A better strategy for the new SVODs
might be the approach of CBS, which has
made clear that it is still open for business
with global networks. At MIPCOM, the
network signed a major deal with the U.K.’s
Channel 4 for both Star Trek: Discovery
and the Matt LeBlanc comedy Man With
a Plan. — SCOTT ROXBOROUGHENDANGERED? HARDLY. BOB WEINSTEIN
ATTEMPTS A N IMATION COMEBACK
Zoë
KravitzStar Trek: Discovery streams on CBS All Access
in the U.S. but will air on Channel 4 in the U.K.Deal
of the
WeekJust two years after The Weinstein
Co. crumbled under the weight of
sexual misconduct allegations against
Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein is
mounting a comeback.
The younger Weinstein brother, 64, has
launched production banner Watch This
Entertainment and is teaming with Té a
Leoni on animated feature Endangered.
The new venture, announced Oct. 11, is
self-financed by Bob Weinstein after he was
unable to raise funding from outside inves-
tors, says a source with knowledge of the
situation. Watch This Entertainment will be run by
former TWC publicist Pantea Ghaderi, who reported
to Bob for a decade. Ghaderi, who did not respond
to a request for comment, is president of creative
development at the production house, which aims to
produce two or three films a year.
Weinstein and Leoni have been developing
Endangered, based on photographer Tim Flach’s 2017
book of animal images, since December. Leoni is
a co-producer and will lead the voice cast. Details
on when the film is scheduled for production or
release, or how it would be distributed, have not
been disclosed.
“There’s no distributor in the world that would
touch this film with a barge pole,” says MatthewJoynes, chair of major European anima-
tion distributor SC Films. “It would be
a catastrophe at the box office.” Adds an
exec at another studio: “I wouldn’t culti-
vate [a relationship with Bob Weinstein].
There are so many bodies on the road.”
After Lantern Capital Partners bought
a bankrupt TWC for $289 million in 2018,
Bob Weinstein was expected to launch
a venture named after his catchphrase
“Watch this.” His new company now
bows amid the release of Jodi Kantor
and Megan Twohey’s She Said and Ronan
Farrow’s Catch and Kill, books that delve into the
Pulitzer-winning reporting that exposed Harvey
Weinstein’s decades of alleged sexual misconduct,
of which many believe Bob was aware.
“There could have been no ‘Harvey Weinstein’
without the complicity of Bob Weinstein, who for
years put profits ahead of people’s lives as Harvey
terrorized women throughout the industry,” Time’s
Up vp communications Amanda Harrington said in
an Oct. 11 statement. “Bob Weinstein has no busi-
ness launching a production company while dozens
of survivors are still searching for some small mea-
sure of justice.” — PIYA SINHA-ROY AND ETAN VLESSINGTim Flach photographed threatened species in Endangered.B. WeinsteinLeoni