Could Elon Musk X-ify MSNBC? Don’t Bet on It; 'Wicked' and Hollywood’s Bumpy Road to Oz; 'Moana 2' Review

[View on web]( [New reader? Subscribe]( November 27, 2024 What's news: Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were paid the same salary. Disney will pay $43.25m to settle a gender pay discrimination suit. Oh, Mary! has recouped its $4.525m Broadway capitalization. Netflix has greenlit another Harlan Coben series adaptation. Vanderpump Rules will be returning for S12, with an all-new cast.— [Abid Rahman]( Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at [tips@thr.com](. Could Elon Musk X-ify MSNBC? Don't Bet on It ►Lots of hurdles. Big Tech oligarch Elon Musk has been on a posting spree about MSNBC, the left-leaning cable channel that is owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal. Musk, who has posted about MSNBC nearly every day for a week, has been suggesting that he wants to buy the channel. THR's [Alex Weprin]( looks into whether a deal is even possible. [The story.]( —Settlement. Disney will pay $43.25m to settle a class action from roughly 9,000 female employees in California accusing the company of pay discrimination. Under the deal, Disney will retain experts to address “significant pay differences” using a model commissioned by lawyers representing the women, they said in a statement. The lawsuit, filed in 2019, centered on claims from female workers employed by Disney since 2015, who said they’re being paid less than their male counterparts for substantially similar work. [The story.]( —Suit filed. Warner Bros. Discovery has been sued by investors who claim that the media conglomerate lied about potential fallout from losing NBA rights. A proposed class action, filed in New York federal court on Monday, accuses WBD of mischaracterizing the impact that losing rights to regular and postseason games for its TNT network would have on its business. In August, a month after the NBA officially rejected WBD’s offer to match the rights package that it cut with Amazon, the company took a $9.1b goodwill impairment charge related to the depreciation of its TV networks, which accounts for its failure to renew its deal with the league. The company’s stock fell by nearly nine percent in after-hours trading the day the announcement was made. [The story.]( —Getting messy. A dispute over distribution of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune has become the legal equivalent of a Daily Double. Four weeks after Sony Pictures Television filed a lawsuit against CBS related to licensing of the two long-running game shows, CBS has answered with a countersuit that alleges Sony is using the legal claim to try to escape the two companies’ current deal. “Sony is attempting to obtain in court what it could not get at the bargaining table: the rights to the Series for free, by finding any excuse it can muster,” reads the cross complaint, filed Tuesday in L.A. County Superior Court. [The story.]( Jim Abrahams 1944 - 2024 ►Comedy legend. Jim Abrahams, the writer-director who with brothers Jerry and David Zucker turned the comedy genre on its ear with such zany efforts as Airplane!, Police Squad! and The Naked Gun films, died Tuesday. He was 80. Abrahams died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica, his son Joseph told THR. The filmmaker trio known as ZAZ made their first mainstream impression by writing the sketch-filled Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), directed by John Landis, and they also combined for Top Secret! (1984), starring a young Val Kilmer, and Ruthless People (1986), featuring Bette Midler and Danny DeVito. [The obituary.]( Regal Reveals 'Nosferatu' Popcorn Sarcophagus ►It doesn't suck! Regal Cinemas revealed a Nosferatu collectible popcorn sarcophagus for the upcoming Robert Eggers horror film. The ornate box will be priced at $30.99 with a large popcorn — or $25.99 for those who just want to sit in a theater watching a movie with an empty sarcophagus on their lap. The Nosferatu box will be on sale one week in advance (Dec. 18) of the film’s official release date of Christmas Day. [The sarcophagus.]( —"Generally it’s a contest you didn’t volunteer to be in." A brutally honest Samuel L. Jackson feels it’s time to drop the facade when it comes to awards season. “We’ve been in the business long enough to know that when folks go, ‘It’s just an honor to be nominated.’ No it ain’t,” Jackson said in a new interview. “It’s an honor to win.” Jackson went on to say that most people forget Oscar-nominated performances, and even some winners. “You get nominated and folks go, ‘Yeah I remember that.’ Or most people forget." [The story.]( —"It was the darkest and hardest year of my life." Melissa Barrera has opened up on the traumatic aftermath of her firing from the Scream franchise. In a new interview, the actress reflected on being axed from Scream 7 over social media posts she’d shared related to the Israel-Gaza conflict. "I had to reevaluate everything. There were times where I felt like my life was over,” she said. Barrera admitted that job offers got scarce after the incident. "It was quiet for, like, 10 months. I was still getting offers for small things here and there — I’m not going to lie and say there was nothing — but [the message] was, like, ‘Oh, she probably doesn’t have work, she’ll say yes to anything.'" [The story.]( —"The Crown Act was actually birthed from that incident." Celebrity stylist Law Roach believes Zendaya wearing dreadlocks to the 2015 Academy Awards had far-reaching cultural and political consequences. Roach, who has also been a longtime client and close friend of the actress since she was a teen, recently opened up at the Teen Vogue Summit about the style decision for her Oscars appearance when the Challengers star was 18 years old. At the time, Fashion Police co-host Giuliana Rancic drew criticism on the night for saying Zendaya looked like "she smells like patchouli oil or weed." Roach said these “really awful comments” actually led to important conversations. [The story.]( —"I wasn’t taking good care of my mental health and I was drinking too much." Patrick J. Adams says his relationship with alcohol impacted his final season on Suits. In a podcast interview, the former star of the hit USA series says he was struggling with depression and drinking too much during the seventh season, when his character Mike Ross was written out of the show with a concluded story. “I was in a zone of living a pretty unexamined life. Pretty miserable [and] I would say, pretty depressed. I didn’t have the tools to deal with that depression beyond just spending money and drinking too much, and not really knowing how to talk about it," Adams told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on Tuesday’s episode of the Dinner’s on Me podcast. [The story.]( —"I have terrible anxiety about feeling good enough physically." Luke Evans, with a movie star face, enviable physique and impressive résumé, is not immune to the same spirals of regular folks. In a candid interview on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, the Welsh actor opened up with his struggles with anxiety and self-confidence especially over his physique, admitting that "staying fit and in a certain physical fitness level" is part of his job. [The story.]( 'Wicked' and Hollywood's Bumpy Road to Oz ►Mixed results. For THR, Richard Newby writes that Jon M. Chu’s Wicked is defying gravity at the box office — but it was a winding yellow-brick road of Hollywood adaptations to get here from 1939's The Wizard of Oz. Despite the 14 Oz books written during L. Frank Baum’s lifetime and the 26 canonical novels that followed, the success of the books has rarely resulted in the same success from adapted media. [The analysis.]( —Don't believe social media! Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were paid the same salary for their work on Wicked. Unsubstantiated rumors about Erivo and Grande’s salary surfaced this week on TikTok and Reddit, with social media users claiming Grande made $15m for the film while Erivo earned $1m. Multiple news outlets picked up the social media commentary, only adding to the firestorm. “Reports of pay disparity between Cynthia and Ariana are completely false and based on internet fodder. The women received equal pay for their work on Wicked,” a Universal spokesperson said in a statement to THR on Tuesday. [The story.]( —Getting stronger. Wicked continued to make box office history with $15.8m in Monday ticket sales, a November record for the first day of the week, not adjusted for inflation. That’s well ahead of the previous record-holder, 2019’s Frozen II, which skated to $12.7m on its first Monday after unfurling the weekend before Turkey Day. The list of top November Mondays also includes 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with $12.3m and 2012’s Skyfall with $11.3m (the latter two were also Thanksgiving titles). [The box office report.]( John Krasinski, Matthew Rhys to Star in Amazon's Serial Killer Drama ►🎭 Next up 🎭 John Krasinski is headed back to Amazon’s Prime Video, albeit in a very different role than that of CIA operative Jack Ryan. Krasinski and Welsh acting legend Matthew Rhys have signed on to star in and executive produce Silent River, a drama about the cracks that emerge in a small town when it’s discovered a serial killer lives among its residents. Prime Video has given a series order to the show, which comes from creator Aaron Rabin, a writer an co-executive producer on Jack Ryan, and Amazon MGM Studios. Krasinski and Allyson Seeger’s Sunday Night Productions has also renewed a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios. [The story.]( —📅 Dated! 📅 Disney+ is moving up its Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premiere date — at least, by a little. The latest Star Wars drama series will now premiere Monday, Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. The show was previously slated to premiere Dec. 3. The remainder of the eight-episode season will premiere Tuesdays at 6 p.m. A coming-of-age series, Skeleton Crew is considered a more kids-targeted Star Wars adventure than some of Disney+’s earlier efforts. [The story.]( —Can't quit each other. Netflix and author Harlan Coben are going back into business. The streamer has greenlit a limited series based on Coben’s novel I Will Find You. The drama is the latest product of an overall deal Netflix signed with the best-selling author back in 2018 and will be the first U.S.-based series based on one of Coben’s books. Robert Hull is co-creating the series with Coben and will serve as showrunner. Netflix has already adapted several of the prolific Coben’s novels — including this year’s breakout Fool Me Once and the forthcoming Missing You, premiering Jan. 1 — across four different langauges to date. Other Coben titles on Netflix are Stay Close and The Stranger (produced in the U.K.), The Innocent (Spain), Gone for Good (France), Hold Tight and The Woods (Poland). [The story.]( —It’s official. Bravo announced on Tuesday that hit reality series Vanderpump Rules will be returning for season 12 — but with an all-new cast. The news comes as the series, which was born as a spinoff of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, has been on hiatus following the aftermath of “Scandoval,” the scandal that catapulted the original cast into the zeitgeist and played out over the last two seasons to both eye-popping ratings and mixed audience results. Season 12 will feature Lisa Vanderpump — Vanderpump Rules executive producer and the boss of SUR, the L.A. restaurant around which the show orbits — with a new group of "close-knit SUR-vers." [The story.]( —FAST expanding empire. Mythical, which is behind the hit YouTube series Good Mythical Morning, is launching a free, 24/7 ad-supported streaming channel on Samsung TV Plus. It will be the first FAST channel on the Samsung platform from a creator studio. Mythical was founded by GMM hosts and YouTube creators Rhett & Link, and has since expanded to include other shows like Buddy System, podcasts like Ear Biscuits and channels like Mythical Kitchen. The FAST channel will be programmed with shows from across the Mythical portfolio, with Samsung also picking up Buddy System, which will be available on VOD. [The story.]( 'Oh, Mary!' Recoups $4.5M Broadway Investment ►Boffo. Oh, Mary! has recouped its $4.525m Broadway capitalization. The play, written by and starring Cole Escola, has recouped its Broadway production costs, after opening at the Lyceum Theatre on July 11. The production has broken its own box office record nine times, including last week, when it brought in just above $1.2m, with an average ticket price of $171.32. In Oh, Mary!, Escola reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a wannabe cabaret star, railing against her life in the White House and against wishes of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln. [The story.]( —Starting off strong. Gypsy, starring Audra McDonald, got off to a big start on Broadway, bringing in $770,349 in its first three preview performances last week. The revival, directed by George C. Wolfe, is the first show to play the Majestic Theatre since the closure of The Phantom of the Opera and since the theater has been renovated. The musical, which also stars Joy Woods and Danny Burstein, played to more than 100 percent capacity last week, and is scheduled to open Dec. 19. As the movie adaptation of Wicked breaks records, the Broadway musical continues to stay on top of the industry charts, as the highest grossing show of the week with $2.56m and playing to 100 percent capacity. [The story.]( —Fitting tribute. The previously announced New York memorial for Broadway star Gravin Creel will now be livestreamed for audiences in the U.S. and the U.K. Creel, a Tony-winning actor known for leading roles in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hair and the recent revival of Into the Woods, died in September after being diagnosed with metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, in July. He was 48. Friends and family of the beloved actor announced a memorial scheduled for Dec. 2 at the St. James Theatre in New York City. The event will begin at 4 p.m. ET and is open to the public with a capacity of 1,500 attendees. [The story.]( 'JonBenét' Documentarian Was Motivated by Desire to Clear Family Name ►"I truly believe this is one of the most brutalized families in American history." For THR, Brande Victorian spoke to filmmaker Joe Berlinger about the three-part Netflix documentary, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. Berlinger discusses why he decided to revisit this case now, his hopes for the outcome of the documentary and why he believes JonBenét’s murder can finally be solved. [The interview.]( —"It’s fun to see our girls start to interact with the class underneath them." THR's [Christy Piña]( spoke to Sex Lives of College Girls co-creator Justin Noble about the season three premiere of the Max show. Noble opens up about the new characters introduced in the wake of Reneé Rapp's exit, putting friendship above any other relationship in the show and following the story through the college years. Warning: Spoilers! [The interview.]( —"Dwayne has been aching to do a Christmas movie forever." THR's [Brian Davids]( spoke to Red One writer Chris Morgan. The scribe discusses working with Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson on the Xmas film, and the movie's hopeful ending, and also dishes on the potential for a Hobbs & Shaw sequel. [The interview.]( —"I’m a much more seasoned man right now than I was then, a much more seasoned actor." For THR, Abbey White spoke to Sean Patrick Thomas about returning to the world of Cruel Intentions for the new Amazon Prime Video series. The actor shares what’s changed about his professor-student relationship in the modern retelling, and how opportunities for Black actors have (and haven’t) progressed since he starred in the 1999 movie. Warning: Spoilers! [The interview.]( Film Review: 'Moana 2' ►"Stunning visuals in search of an emotional core." THR's [Lovia Gyarkye]( reviews David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller's Moana 2. Disney Animation's follow-up to its 2016 hit sees its wayfinding heroine assembling a ragtag crew for a dangerous quest to find a lost island, in order to save her own community. Featuring the voices of uli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Tudyk, Nicole Scherzinger, Temuera Morrison and Rachel House. [The review.]( —"Intriguing but (so far) inconsistent." THR's [Daniel Fienberg]( reviews Paramount+ with Showtime's The Agency. Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith and Richard Gere star in the spy drama created by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, which looks at the world of international espionage through the CIA's London station. [The review.]( In other news... —Squid Game [player 456 returns to deadly arena in Netflix’s S2 trailer]( —Dexter: Original Sin trailer: [Patrick Gibson is a serial killer in training]( —Nicole Avant, Malcolm Washington [set to be honored at 2025 AAFCA Awards]( —Paramount+ [releases first look at series adaptation of The Crow Girl]( —ICG Publicists [announce 2025 award nominations]( —Shondaland [ups Sandie Bailey and Chris DiIorio to co-presidents]( —International [TV series to binge over the holidays]( —Olivia Culpo, Brittany Mahomes [design team-ready merch ahead of the NFL’s Black Friday game]( —L’Ermitage Beverly Hills [gets a major glow-up for 50th birthday]( —[Earl Holliman]( actor on Police Woman, dies at 96 ​​​What else we're reading... —VyceVictus interviewed Aldis Hodge about his new Amazon show Cross, and what it means to be a Black cop in America [[Men's Health]( —Kathryn VanArendonk spoke to Anthony Jeselnik about his long standup career and his new comedy special Bones and All [[Vulture]( —Casey Newton goes inside Bluesky's rapid growth, and platform's plans to quadruple the size of its moderation team [[Platformer]( —Stefanos Chen and Olivia Bensimon report on a remarkable day in court for Rudy Giuliani, where the disgraced pol hit a new low [[NYT]( —Wild Mia Sato story on two Amazon influencers in a legal dispute over one allegedly stealing the other's whole look and vibe [[Verge]( Today... ...in 1976, MGM’s prescient drama Network hit theaters. The R-rated title, which went on to claim four Academy Awards, remains as relevant as ever decades after its release. [The original review.]( Today's birthdays: Kathryn Bigelow (73), [Tadanobu Asano]( (51), Lashana Lynch (37), Alison Pill (39), William Fichtner (68), Fisher Stevens (61), Noémie Merlant (36), Jaleel White (48), Sharlto Copley (51), Cherien Dabis (48), Lee Sang-yi (33), Brooke Langton (54), Samantha Bond (63), Kirk Acevedo (53), Elizabeth Marvel (55), Robin Givens (60), Anja Savcic (32), Zoe Colletti (23), Morgan Davies (23), Curtis Armstrong (71), Michael Vartan (56), Jennifer O'Dell (50), Chris Reid (36), Alec Newman (50), Ali Astin (28), Michael Rispoli (64), Randal Reeder (53), Rosie Cavaliero (57), Arjay Smith (41), Todd Giebenhain (50), Steve Oedekerk (63), Chin Han (55), Thomas Bo Larsen (61), Reid Miller (25) Helen Gallagher, the spunky Broadway triple threat who received two Tony Awards and starred as the matriarch Maeve Ryan for all 13-plus years of the ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope, has died. She was 98. [The obituary.]( ADVERTISEMENT This email was sent to {EMAIL} by The Hollywood Reporter. Please add email@email.hollywoodreporter.com to your address book to ensure delivery to your inbox. Visit the [Preferences Center]( to update your profile and customize what email alerts and newsletters you receive. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 11355 W Olympic Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90064 [View in Browser]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Your Privacy Rights]( | [Ad Choices]( | [Terms of Use]( | [Unsubscribe](