Hollywood Remembers Donald Sutherland; Kevin Costner Will Not Be Returning to 'Yellowstone'; Why 'Blade' Can't Cut Through Development Hell

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( June 21, 2024 What's news: Patrick Dempsey will star in Dexter prequel series Original Sin. DirecTV has struck a FAST channel licensing deal with Lionsgate. Jonathan Majors has landed his first film role since his conviction. Universal has landed the rights to Percival Everett’s James. M3GAN is getting a spinoff movie. — [Abid Rahman]( Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at [tips@thr.com](. Donald Sutherland 1935 - 2024 ►Prodigious actor. Donald Sutherland, whose performances in such films as M*A*S*H, Ordinary People and The Hunger Games proved he could portray sinister, sympathetic, comedic or tragic with equal aplomb, has died. He was 88. Sutherland died Thursday in Miami after a long illness, CAA’s Missy Davy told THR. The Canadian actor, who often appeared in three to five films a year, displayed great range during his six-decade career. His celebrated career also included turns in The Dirty Dozen, Klute, Don't Look Now, Animal House and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. [The obituary.]( —"One of the most important actors in the history of film." Hollywood stars took to social media on Thursday to celebrate the life and career of Donald Sutherland. Edgar Wright, Helen Mirren, Gary Ross, Jane Fonda, Nina Jacobson, Ron Howard, Roland Emmerich and Margaret Atwood were among the bold faced names who remembered the Canadian actor. In a statement, his son Kiefer wrote: "Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived." [The reaction.]( Kevin Costner Will Not Be Returning to 'Yellowstone' ►"I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue." Kevin Costner will not be returning to Yellowstone. The actor posted a video to social media on Thursday in which he confirmed long-mooted speculation that he was done with Paramount+’s monster hit neo-Western drama. "Thinking about Yellowstone, that beloved series that I love, that I know you love. I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue, season five or into the future," Costner said, adding that his focus was on his four-film Western movie series, Horizon: An American Saga. [The story.]( —🎭 Another big name 🎭 The upcoming Dexter prequel series Original Sin has signed up Patrick Dempsey as a series regular. The Grey’s Anatomy veteran joins Christian Slater in the Paramount+ Showtime series, with Slater playing protagonist (or antagonist?) Harry Morgan. Dempsey will portray Aaron Spencer, the captain of the Miami Metro Homicide who has a decades-long relationship with Slater’s character Morgan. [The story.]( —🎭 Voices in place 🎭 Matt Reeves' upcoming adult animated series Batman: Caped Crusader has just announced several key voice castings. Hamish Linklater will be voicing Batman/Bruce Wayne, Christina Ricci will be voicing Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Jamie Chung will be voicing Harley Quinn/Dr. Harleen Quinzel and Diedrich Bader will be voicing Harvey Dent/Two-Face. [The story.]( —Prime slots. The NFL's flag football championships will be getting prime TV and streaming real estate under its new deal with Disney. Back in February, ESPN inked a five-year deal for the rights to NFL Flag, and the league now says that the championship games will get distribution that would make other professional sports leagues green with envy. The flag finals will run on ESPN, the ABC broadcast network, Disney Channel and Disney XD, and it will stream on Disney+ in a further expansion of the streaming service’s live sports efforts. [The story.]( —Regency rules. Season three of Bridgerton ruled Nielsen's streaming charts for a second straight week, holding onto most of its premiere week audience and racking up more than 2b minutes of viewing. A pair of sci-fi films, Jennifer Lopez’s Atlas and Dune: Part Two, also had pretty strong showings in the week of May 20-26, and Max’s Hacks and Hulu’s Under the Bridge entered the rankings as they neared the end of their seasons. [The streaming rankings.]( —Moving FAST. DirecTV has struck a licensing deal with Lionsgate that will make five streaming channels available to the platform’s streaming and satellite customers using the DirecTV app. The first Lionsgate channels to reach DirecTV subscribers are MovieSphere for premium movies, HerSphere with female-driven stories, Ebony TV and the single-series comedy channels for Are We There Yet? and Anger Management. [The story.]( Why 'Blade' Can't Cut Through Development Hell ►"It really was a casualty of the ‘too much’ era." Marvel Studios' Blade has been beset by delays, and the latest setback saw the feature lose director Yann Demange, the second helmer to exit the project. Some sources say both sides grew frustrated by Blade’s prolonged development process. THR's [Borys Kit]( and [Aaron Couch]( look at why the stop-start Mahershala Ali-starring vampire thriller has become a meme by this point that even Wesley Snipes is sniping from the sidelines. [The story.]( —In for a penny, in for a pound. Francis Ford Coppola's $120m self-funded epic Megalopolis spent months searching in vain for a backer. Lionsgate, a studio with longstanding ties to the legendary filmmaker, is stepping into the breach. But there's a catch. THR's [Kim Masters]( and Aaron Couch report that Coppola is still paying part of the tab. [The story.]( —🎭 Comeback attempt 🎭 Jonathan Majors has landed his first film role following his much-publicized trial and misdemeanor conviction. The actor will star in the supernatural revenge thriller Merciless from filmmaker Martin Villeneuve, younger brother of Dune filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. The feature centers on a CIA interrogator who is forced to defeat a malevolent force that has overtaken the woman he loves. Frank Hannah penned the screenplay. Christopher Tuffin, who produced box office success story Sound of Freedom, will produce. [The story.]( —Shock horror! Ti West and A24 pulled off a killer surprise Thursday night, unveiling an early screening of their upcoming slasher movie Maxxxine to a group of unsuspecting horror fans. The evening was billed as a double feature of West’s X horror series, which includes X and Pearl, the movies that thrust Mia Goth into the role of Hollywood’s killer queen. During a Q&A in between the two screenings, the script flipped and West told the audience, "You’re going to be the first to see this movie." [The story.]( —Building an award-winning team. Universal has landed the rights to Percival Everett’s James, and is assembling a team of Oscar-winners to bring it to the screen. Steven Spielberg will executive produce the project via his Amblin Partners, with Taika Waititi in early talks to direct the adaptation. The package comes after American Fiction, an adaptation of Everett’s novel Erasure, took home the adapted screenplay Oscar earlier this year. James is a modern reimagining of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the point of view of Jim. [The story.]( —🎭 PWH FTW 🎭 Mark Wahlberg and the in-demand Paul Walter Hauser have signed up to star in action-comedy Balls Up from director Peter Farrelly. The Amazon MGM Studios/Skydance film is written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Deadpool & Wolverine) and focuses on two marketing executives who get fired for botching a potential opportunity. While using a pair of free tickets to a big soccer match, their drunken shenanigans cause everyone in the country to start hunting them down. [The story.]( —Quick as you like. M3GAN, the hit horror movie from James Wan’s Atomic Monster and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse, is getting a spinoff. The two companies, known for their horror output, are in active development on SOULM8TE, a thriller that expands the M3GAN universe, according to Wan and Blum, who are producing the project. SOULM8TE is being fast-tracked — the project is already dated for a Jan. 2, 2026 release via Universal. [The story.]( —In the works. Susanna Clarke's best-selling fantasy novel Piranesi is getting the animated feature treatment. Animation studio Laika has acquired the 2020 book, with the company’s CEO Travis Knight set to helm the project. Piranesi, which won the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction, centers on the titular narrator arriving in a parallel universe made up of endless rooms and hallways where newcomers slowly lose their identity. Knight is currently directing Amazon MGM Studios’ live-action Masters of the Universe feature that hits theaters in 2026. [The story.]( Boulder Emerges as Strong Candidate for Sundance's New Home ►Search narrows. When the Sundance Institute revealed back in April that it was thinking about relocating the Sundance Film Festival from its longtime home in Park City, Utah, where it has been held since 1981, it sparked interest and excitement from numerous other cities across America. THR's Scott Feinberg reports that the search is coming to a head and that the fest specifically invited a request for proposal from Boulder, Colorado. [The story.]( —Natural causes. 9-1-1 crew member Rico Priem, whose May death brought fresh concern over working hours on sets, died of sudden cardiac dysfunction. His body was found inside his crashed vehicle after he’d worked two consecutive 14-hour overnight shifts. Priem, a grip for the Fox procedural, died on May 11 of sudden cardiac dysfunction and cardiomegaly with left ventricular hypertrophy, according to records from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, which released his autopsy results this week. [The story.]( —Pushing back. In what’s likely an industry first, a TV show’s star has written and released a song and music video — complete with dance moves — in response to racist backlash against the show. Amandla Stenberg, star of Disney+’s The Acolyte, posted the track on Instagram on Wednesday and captioned the post: “Happy Juneteenth 🖤. And to those who are flooding me with intolerable racism — since it took me 72 hours on my laptop to make this song and video, u got 72 hours to respond. and I expect choreo!” [The story.]( Jean Smart Reflects on 'Hacks,' Career Turning Points ►"I needed to be sure that real stand-ups could believe I was a comic." For THR, Stacey Wilson Hunt spoke to Jean Smart about her life and career. The five-time Emmy-winner discussed the roles that proved pivotal to her career, such as Watchmen, Fargo and Mare of Easttown, and landing the role of a lifetime with Hacks. [The interview.]( —"If the world stays stitched together, I’ll get to keep making movies over the next five, ten years." THR's [Brian Davids]( spoke to filmmaker Jeff Nichols about his latest feature, The Bikeriders. Nichols discusses how star Austin Butler protected the project that became a victim of the 20th Century-Disney merger, and also reveals he's still developing a $100m original sci-fi film that's now at Paramount. [The interview.]( —Space whales and a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader?! THR's Kimberly Nordyke spoke to Dave Filoni on how Disney+ Star Wars series Ahsoka brought Anakin Skywalker back. Filoni, who co-created the title character in The Clone Wars with George Lucas, reveals the process behind the reunion. [The interview.]( —"I’m grateful every day because I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to do it." For THR, Brande Victorian spoke to birthday girl Carrie Preston about playing the character Elsbeth Tascioni on multiple shows for the last 14 years. The actress reveals her joy at portraying the quirky attorney-slash-detective in The Good Wife, The Good Fight and Elsbeth and reveals she would be interested in playing her more in the future. [The interview.]( Film Review: 'Trigger Warning' ►"Familiar action movie tropes, with a femme twist." THR's Frank Scheck reviews Mouly Surya's Trigger Warning. Jessica Alba plays a former Special Forces commando runs into trouble when she returns to her hometown in Mouly Surya's female-driven star vehicle. [The review.]( Thank Pod It's Friday ►All the latest content from THR's podcast studio. —Awards Chatter. THR's executive awards editor Scott Feinberg talks to the great and the good of Hollywood. In this episode, Scott spoke to Matt Bomer. The actor who made his name on TV series like White Collars and in films like Magic Mike reflects on his journey as a gay man in Hollywood, his many collaborations with Ryan Murphy and the Showtime limited series Fellow Travelers in which he plays a closeted State Dept. official in a secret decades-spanning relationship with another man. [Listen here.]( In other news... —Brandy Norwood [battles the mother-in-law from hell in A24’s The Front Room trailer]( —2024 [Gotham Awards date revealed]( —Salty Water [wins German Jewish Film Fest Award]( —Screen Siren [launches genre-focused film label]( —Leslie Jordan [to receive posthumous lifetime achievement award at Hollywood Museum]( ​​​What else we're reading... —With Kinds of Kindness, Sam Adams believes Emma Stone has changed her whole style of acting — and it’s a wonder to behold [[Slate]( —In a lovely tribute to Donald Sutherland, Matt Zoller Seitz writes that few actors committed as ferociously, and few actors were so damned much fun to watch [[Vulture]( —With Chinatown celebrating its 50th anniversary, Scott Tobias asks if there has been a better screenplay since the film was released [[Guardian]( —Elon Musk has a mixed rep in China, but his mother Maye Musk has become a celebrity reports Selina Cheng [[WSJ]( —Here's your Friday list: "The Brat Pack movies, ranked from worst to best" [[Parade]( Today... ...in 1991, Disney brought Joe Johnston’s The Rocketeer comic book adaptation to the big screen. [The original review.]( Today's birthdays: Chris Pratt (45), Lana Del Rey (39), Juliette Lewis (51), Lana Wachowski (59), Carrie Preston (57), David Morrissey (60), Meredith Baxter (77), Michael Gross (77), Josh Pais (66), Jussie Smollett (42), [Lalo Schifrin]( (92), Dario Marianelli (61), Dan Scanlon (48), Ian McEwan (76), Mariette Hartley (84), Natalie Alyn Lind (24), Robyn Douglass (71), Maggie Siff (50), Erica Durance (46), Daniel Diemer (28), Benjamin Walker (42), Bernie Kopell (91), Nicola Correia-Damude (43), Doug Savant (60), Michael Bowen (71), Annalisa Cochrane (28), Sarah Dugdale (29), Michael Malarkey (41), Arnas Fedaravicius (33), Eleanor Worthington-Cox (23), Benjamin Byron Davis (52), Pedro Alonso (53), Fedja van Huêt (51), Ron Ely (86), Will Thorp (47), David Marshall Grant (69), Jascha Washington (35), Nathan Darrow (48), Cary Brokaw (73), BJ McDonnell (49) This email was sent to {EMAIL} by The Hollywood Reporter. 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