The Hollywood Reporter - 06.11.2019

Deal

of the

Week

Big

Deal

7 Days of DEALS

Who’s inking on the dotted line this week

The Report

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 30 NOVEMBER 6, 2019

ABERNETHY: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES.

EXTRA

: NOEL VASQUEZ/GETTY IMAGES. MURDOCH: ANTHONY HARVEY/GETTY IMAGES. GAGA: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES.

DOMINICANA

: COURTESY OF MACMILLAN.

Dominicana (FLATIRON, SEPT. 3)

BY Angie Cruz AGENCY ICM Partners

This 1960s-set coming-of-age tale about a 15-year-old girl who

marries and leaves her native Dominican Republic for New York

City could help address the recent USC study that found Latin

characters represent just 4.5 percent of all speaking roles in film.

I’m Telling the Truth But I’m Lying

(HARPER PERENNIAL, AUG. 6)

BY Bassey Ikpi AGENCY UTA

While shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and You’re the Worst have

portrayed mental illness onscreen, the best-selling essay collec-

tion adds the Nigerian-American immigrant’s perspective.

Rights Available! Hot new books with Hollywood appeal BY MIA GALUPPO

FILM

Lady Gaga (CAA,

Grubman Shire) will star in

Ridley Scott’s untitled film

about the murder of Guccio

Gucci’s grandson, playing

the slain heir’s wife.

Peyton Reed (WME,

Sloane Offer) is staying

with the Ant-Man franchise

to direct the third movie.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi’s

David Gelb (WME,

Myman Greenspan,

Ziffren Brittenham) will

helm thriller Consume,

based on his pitch, for Fox

Searchlight and 21 Laps.

Sue Kroll (Hansen

Jacobson) is teaming with

Masters of Sex creator

Michelle Ashford to adapt

Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of

Girls for Warner Bros.

Vince Vaughn (WME,

Jackoway Austen) and

Extra and TMZ may be at the forefront of a change in

the TV syndication business.

Fox Television Stations and Warner Bros.

Domestic Television Distribution, which together

syndicate the two daily programs, have agreed to a

format change (along with multiseason renewals):

Instead of an ad break following the end credits,

each show will now flow seamlessly into the next.

TMZ spinoff TMZ Live and talk show The Real, which

both also earned multiyear pickups, will incorpo-

rate the tweak, already a long-standing practice for

network primetime shows and national news pro-

grams. The changes will take effect in December.

“You don’t want to signal in a linear world that

the show’s over, go look for something else,” Fox TV

Stations CEO Jack Abernethy tells THR. The four

shows will still have the same runtime and amount

of ad space, he says, but those ads will be distributed

earlier in the show, including as part of a new break.

Fox already has implemented the seamless

transition at the end of the three shows that its own

syndication unit, Fox First Run, distributes: Divorce

Court, Dish Nation and 25 Words or Less. Abernethy

hopes the deal with Warner Bros. will spur the rest

of the industry to follow suit.

“We started with Warner Bros., which was very

receptive,” he says. “They understood the value

because in many cases they have one of their shows

running into [another] of their shows. They saw the

value of eliminating that break and helping Extra.

But they also saw if we can get the entire industry

[to do it], then everybody benefits. That’s the idea.”

As ratings for syndicated shows fall throughout

the market, Abernethy says he didn’t commission

any research on whether having seamless flows

from one show to the next helps with audience

retention, but he did a “mind exercise” that con-

vinced him that eliminating the end-of-show ad

break, as well as the producers’ and distributors’

title slates at the end, was the way to go. “When are

you more likely to leave a show: in the middle or at

the end?” he says. “What we’re trying to do is what

they do in national news, which is before you real-

ize the show’s over, I’m telling you what’s coming

on next.” — RICK PORTER

‘BEFORE YOU REALIZE THE SHOW’S OVER,

I’M TELLING YOU WHAT’S COMING NEXT’

Extra will look

to capitalize on

TMZ’s lead-in

by eliminating

the ad break

between

the shows.

It’s been a busy week for
Elisabeth Murdoch’s movie
ventures.
First up: a multi-film
deal between Locksmith
Animation — which she co-founded in
2014 with former Aardman Animations
executives Julie Lockhart and Sarah
Smith — and Warner Bros. to develop and
produce family features for worldwide
distribution. Locksmith previously had a
multiyear production partnership with 20th
Century Fox (before its sale to Disney) and
is currently in production on its first film,
Ron’s Gone Wrong, which will be released
by Disney in November 2020.

Murdoch Pacts With Studios — and Spielberg

“In recent years,

animation has become a

tremendously important

part of our slate, and

this deal with Locksmith

dovetails perfectly with

our plans,” Warner Bros.

Pictures group chairman Toby Emmerich

and president of production and develop-

ment Courtenay Valenti said in an Oct. 31

statement announcing the new pact.

Meanwhile in live-action, Murdoch’s

content venture Sister — which she

launched alongside Stacey Snider

and British TV producer Jane

Featherstone in October — has lined

up its first project: a Bee Gees biopic for

Paramount, co-financed and co-produced

with Bohemian Rhapsody producer

Graham King’s GK Films.

The partnership hit an immediate snafu,

though — Steven Spielberg had been

developing a Bee Gees movie under his

Amblin banner for a decade but had been

unable to secure the band’s life rights

and was unaware of the new deal. After

it was announced Oct. 31, Paramount

chief Jim Gianopulos rushed to cut the

filmmaker into the project on Nov. 1, with

Amblin now financing 25 percent of the

film and Paramount and Sister splitting the

rest. — PIYA SINHA-ROY

Abernethy

Lady

Gaga

Murdoch