The Apple-Sony-Paramount Ménage à Trois; Heist in the Zeitgeist; Hollywood's New Dealmakers

Happy Thursday, everybody!

Last night, after being bowled over by The Iron Claw (see review below), I stayed up late to watch the 2.5-hour finale of Surviving Barstool, which ended somewhat predictably, but so what? The show was still wildly entertaining, and certainly worth my $9.99. And for those of you who represent reality show hosts, take a look at Jeff D. Lowe, who did a great job with Season 3.

Tonight, I plan to catch up with the latest episode of Fargo and maybe knock off a 7/11 so I can afford Netflix Is a Joke tickets when they go on sale tomorrow.

In tonight’s newsletter, you’ll read about George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s new Apple movie, Paramount shot-caller Shari Redstone, 51 new agents who won’t return your phone calls, and Hollywood’s ongoing obsession with heist movies, plus my thoughts on Sean Durkin’s wrestling drama The Iron Claw, featuring a hulked-out Zac Efron. Read on for more…

Apple Gets Hot and Heavy With Sony, Even Though Paramount Is the Pretty Girl With Glasses

This is going to be a bit of a stretch, as we say in the biz, but bear with me through this item, which combines multiple strands that have been growing throughout the week.

For starters, Apple has partnered with Sony on a pair of high-profile films — the Brad Pitt-George Clooney fixer pic Wolfs (an awful title, by the way, please change this) and the Scarlett Johansson-Channing Tatum movie Project Artemis. This, on the heels of their partnership on Napoleon, which has grossed an impressive $171 million worldwide in theaters.

When this double deal was announced, someone suggested I read between the lines, implying a larger deal between Apple and Sony may happen down the line. That studio has long been considered an acquisition target, and if Apple truly is in the movie business for the long haul, it would help to have some top-tier IP like the Spider-Man franchise.

There has also been recent speculation that Apple could make a play for Disney and that Bob Iger is cutting costs to make the studio more attractive for a sale, though I necessarily don’t see that happening. I understand why Apple might be interested, I just don’t know why, if you’re Disney, you’d sell at this point.

The whole “Now Is The Time to Sell!” thing being pushed by the media is overblown, in my opinion.

But if Apple is looking to acquire a major studio for the right price, I think they should be looking at Paramount, which has been quite the subject in Newsletterland of late.

The Paramount Situation

The company’s stock price jumped 14 percent on a report from Puck’s Matt Belloni that Skydance and Redbird Capital were kicking the tires of National Amusements, its majority shareholder. But I’m not sure that deal makes sense for Paramount, as Belloni and William D. Cohan later argued about. It strikes me as a lateral move. Paramount needs to be acquired by a larger company, not a smaller one, as such a deal wouldn’t address the problems Paramount is facing.

And really, why does Shari have to sell at all? She has enough money to last her a lifetime. Paramount is what keeps her powerful and important, not to mention busy. So why sell off the asset just because everyone else is in sell mode? People say that “if she doesn’t sell now, the options are going to be terrible very quickly,” but why? It seems to me that the longer she hangs on to it, the more valuable it’ll be.

It’s not that David Ellison would be a terrible buyer — he has respect for Hollywood and wouldn’t just gut the studio for parts — but I tend to believe that time is actually on Shari’s side.

A filmmaker who reads Puck says they were shocked that Shari didn’t sell BET when Tyler Perry came calling. It’s because he’ll come calling again, or some other billionaire will, so why sell low? BET will always have an audience. 

Yes, Shari’s media empire has lost significant value since 2019, when she re-combined CBS and Viacom. But Paramount+ is growing and the studio is doing better than expected. 

Furthermore, while Apple has entrusted its star-driven movies to Sony for theatrical distribution, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Apple and Paramount were talking about bundling their respective streaming services in an effort to attract and retain subscribers. Combined, both streamers probably have close to 100 million subscribers (63 million for Paramount as of November 2023, and 25 million for Apple as of March 2022).

If Apple were to buy Paramount, combine streaming services, and use its studio lot to shoot movies, television shows, and commercials, that would make more sense to me than David Ellison buying National Amusements and taking on all of those problems just to get his hands on Paramount’s IP.

I think Shari just needs to hold on a little bit longer. Contraction is coming and if she can weather the storm, she’ll be in a better position to sell down the line.

Then again, I graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, not the Stern School of Business, so what do I know?

Meet Hollywood’s New Dealmakers

Meet Hollywood’s New Dealmakers - We’ve got a zillion promotions to announce, starting with WME, which announced a whopping 35 new agents — 27 of whom, I believe, went through its agent trainee program.

Books: Suzannah Ball (London), Sian-Ashleigh Edwards (NY), and Alex Kane
Brand Partnerships: Lindsey Leino and Max Rudman; Derek Otto (NY)
Comedy: Grace Goldstein (NY) and Emily Gross (NY)
Digital: Umer Durrani and Myles Schalet (NY)
Literary Packaging: Peter Dunn
Motion Picture Literary: Max West
Music: Cecilia Yao, Carly Huffman, and Sean McHugh in Beverly Hills; Meera Patel in London; Janelle Flint, Josh Green, Lindsey Hastings, Dan Kuklinski, John Showfety, Jeremy Upton, Carlile Willett, and Laura Williams in Nashville; and Sam Dolen, Jacob Fox, Adam Sherif, and Ben Yekuel in New York.
Non-Scripted: Sophia Heslov and Jackie Maldonado
Theater: Lizzy Weingold (NY)
WME Independent: Maddie Neil and Jonah Rabb
WME Sports: Doug Cohen (NY) and Preston Gittelson

By comparison, CAA upped a modest 16 staffers to agent or executive, including:

Books: Gabrielle Fetters and Peppa Mignone (Agent); Khalil Roberts (Executive)
CAA Search: Sarah Phillips (Executive)
Comedy Touring: Justin Gorkowitz
Commercial Endorsements: Leilani Houston
Motion Picture Literary: Connie Yan
Motion Picture Talent: Max Miller
Music Touring: Megan Glendinning, Evan Greenberg, Alex Hubert, and Ashley King
Television: Hannah Kaiser (Scripted), Kyle Margolis (News), Cami Potter (Talent), and Jack Upton (Talent)

Naturally, Deadline’s comments section called out the agency for not promoting any Latinos this time around — this after launching CAA Latino! — but regardless of the ethnic breakdown of this new class of agents, I wish all 51 of these people the best of luck in their new roles, as I’m very much in the same boat — feeling out my own new role as the publisher of this newsletter. Hopefully, we can grow together, even though I likely have a few years on these rising stars. Onward and upward, I say!

Review Corner: Heartbreaking Wrestling Drama The Iron Claw Is Sean Durkin’s Best Film Yet

Sean Durkin was batting .500 in my book until I saw his new film, A24’s The Iron Claw, which is his best yet. I remember liking the Elizabeth Olsen-John Hawkes thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene when I saw it at Sundance back in 2011, but it was very much a first film and not one I’ve revisited since.

Rather than rush into a follow-up, Durkin pivoted to the world of television with the 2013 British miniseries Southcliffe starring Rory Kinnear, Sean Harris, and Eddie Marsan. We’d have to wait seven more years for his sophomore feature, The Nest, a dreary marital drama starring Jude Law and Carrie Coon. I can’t say I was a fan.

After directing several episodes of Amazon’s Dead Ringers series starring Rachel Weisz, Durkin returns to the big screen with this heartbreaking tale about the Von Erich wrestling dynasty, who suffered a series of terrible tragedies, leading family members to believe they were cursed.

I knew what I was getting into with The Iron Claw, but I wasn’t familiar with the specifics, and they turned out to be pretty brutal. This is a heavy film — especially its second half. Prior to that dark turn, I wasn’t really loving the movie, which felt a little obvious in terms of the way it arranged the chessboard. But the story becomes more powerful as tragedies continue to mount, and by the end of this film, I was practically sobbing in my seat.

Zac Efron delivers a transformative performance that represents his best work yet — even better than his recent turn as Ted Bundy. Yes, the actor’s eye-popping physique has had tongues wagging since the very first image was released, but it’s Efron’s dramatic chops that audiences will leave talking about — he really rises to the occasion and leaves it all out there in the ring.

Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) and Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) are both good as Efron’s wrestling brothers, but it’s newcomer Stanley Simons who really stands out here — and not just because he looks just like Nicholas Hoult. His character, Michael, is more comfortable strumming a guitar than flying off the top rope, but he wants to fit in with his brothers and he hates to disappoint their fiery father, Felix (an excellent Holt McCallany). The whole time, you’re sitting there praying that Michael doesn’t enter that ring, for once he does, you just know it won’t end well. Sure enough, it doesn’t.

That’s the thing about this entire movie — it’s smothered in a foreboding sense of dread, where tragedy always lurks around the corner. One might even say, ‘You can’t make this stuff up,’ but it’s all true… or at least most of it is, anyway. A dark cloud just seemed to follow this family wherever they went, and once you believed in this curse, there was no escaping it, as it became self-fulfilling.

I love how Durkin stages the wrestling scenes, which are crackling with nostalgic energy, but the movie shines when it slows down to just observe the brothers being brothers — teasing each other and being competitive. The director also gets a big assist from both his longtime cinematographer, Mátyás Erdély, and composer Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire.

Lily James isn’t in the movie all that much, but I believed her Texan accent, which was my biggest concern heading into this one (Dickinson’s accent is also good, for that matter), and Maura Tierney makes her presence felt as the boys’ mothers, who doles out tough love just like her hard-driving husband.

There’s a reveal in this film involving Jeremy Allen White’s character that had me audibly wincing in the theater, and by the time certain family members meet their tragic fates, I had a massive lump in my throat. See, I have two brothers of my own, and I can’t imagine how I’d continue if I lost one of them, let alone both. I texted them as soon as it was over, which to me, is the sign of a great movie.

The Iron Claw is a devastating film of surprising maturity that examines the mental and physical toll that wrestling — and having an abusive father — can take on you. It may be the feel-bad movie of Christmas but if it can move a room full of grown men to tears, as it did last night, it must be doing something very, very right.

Grade: A-

Bits and Bobs (A Daily News Roundup)

• Heist in the Zeitgeist - Sony has nabbed that untitled heist project from screenwriter Dan Casey and director Craig Gillespie that I first told you about in my debut newsletter. Heist projects are clearly all the rage right now, as Netflix just bought that Ryan Reynolds heist movie, which landed director Shawn Levy today — surprise, surprise. Levy and Reynolds seem to be a package deal these days after working together on Free Guy, The Adam Project, and the currently-shooting Deadpool 3. Meanwhile, Peacock ordered Kevin Hart’s Fight Night to series earlier this week, and just today, Amazon cast Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer alongside Eddie Murphy in Tim Story’s heist comedy. And pay attention to how George Clooney’s press tour for The Boys in the Boat has focused on how he might do another Ocean’s movie — a different one than the Ryan Gosling-Margot Robbie prequel. So yeah… I hope you’re ready to watch some stars steal some shit!

• A Wilde Decision or a Smart One? - This isn’t a heist, even though it feels like someone is getting away with a robbery here. Another bidding war has ended, and Universal wound up acquiring Naughty, the hot comedy package from director Olivia Wilde, producer Margot Robbie, and Cocaine Bear writer Jimmy Warden. I still don’t love the logline of this one, but it’s not like I’ve read the script or anything. It just seems like this package was too good to turn down, and Universal had some success with its last R-rated Santa Claus movie, Violent Night. Cocaine Bear was a similarly-sized win for the studio, and Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling grossed just about the same amount, and that was without a bear doing cocaine! Don’t forget that, despite all the negative headlines, that movie performed fairly well, as did Wilde’s Booksmart. All in all, this is probably a smart bet for the studio…

• Blood, Bone, and Legends - Two of Hollywood’s top female filmmakers have lined up their next projects, as Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King) has signed on to direct Paramount’s adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s YA novel Children of Blood and Bone, while Kari Skogland (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) will direct The Age of Legends, the first installment in a planned trilogy of films that will explore the origins of Robert Jordan’s bestselling book series The Wheel of Time. Written by Thor scribe Zack Stentz, The Age of Legends isn’t set up at a studio yet, but it hails from three of the executive producers of Amazon’s Wheel of Time TV series, though its cast has no contractual obligations to this film. As for Children of Blood and Bone, Paramount beat out a bunch of bidders after Lucasfilm allowed its rights to lapse, with Daria Cercek and Mike Ireland offering Adeyemi certain creative approvals, in addition to the chance to write the script — though Deadline reports that Prince-Bythewood will develop the next draft. Paramount’s Mika Pryce will oversee the project on behalf of the studio, and Adeyemi will release the final book in her trilogy, Children of Anguish and Anarchy, on June 25, 2024.

• Why Is My Face Leaking? - Apple TV+ has officially picked up the sci-fi drama series Murderbot starring Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård, who’s riding high off his stint in Succession. Based on Martha Wells’ bestselling and award-winning book series The Murderbot Diaries, the 10-episode series hails from Chris and Paul Weitz, who are writing, directing, and producing under their Depth of Field banner. The company’s Andrew Miano will executive produce alongside David S. Goyer and Keith Levine of Phantom Four, while Wells will serve as a consulting producer. According to Deadline, Skarsgård will play a self-hacking security android known as Murderbot, who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe. It sounds very much like an Apple TV+ series, and also like the kind of show that would attract the star of Infinity Pool. I’ll be sure to keep an open mind whenever this hits the streamer.

• Had Me at Hello - Roger Friedman at Showbiz 411 broke the news that George Clooney will star opposite Adam Sandler in Noah Baumbach’s next film, Jay Kelly. The project is set up at Netflix, whose Scott Stuber described it as a “life-affirming” movie in the vein of Jerry Maguire. Deadline reports that it’s a funny and emotional coming-of-age story about adults, so look for Clooney and Sandler to teach each other some valuable life lessons and grow up along the way.

• A Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Big Bummer - Larry David has announced that Season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm will be its last. I guess that Curb producer was right before when he let it slip that the show would be coming to an end. Here’s hoping that Jerry Seinfeld appears in the last episode and gives Larry the ending that his character doesn’t deserve…

• Death Becomes Her - A24 has teamed with Hideo Kojima’s production company on a live-action adaptation of his video game Death Stranding. Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios announced its own Death Stranding movie last December, and will likely co-finance this project, which marks Kojima’s first-ever feature. The game followed an apocalyptic event called the “Death Stranding” that blurred the lines between life and death, and brought forth nightmarish creatures into a world on the brink of collapse. More than 16 million people have played the game since it launched in 2019. No word if any cast members will return, such as Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, or, yes, Guillermo del Toro. Sorry to leave you stranded on that front…

• Just Friends… and Strangers - Apple has renewed the Seth Rogen-Rose Byrne series Platonic for a second season. Rather than playing a married couple, as they do in the Neighbors movies, the two play a couple of old friends who reconnect after years apart. How sweet! I only made it halfway through Season 1 but I do plan to go back and finish — a decision that served me well on Season 1 of Apple’s Severance… And speaking of Friends, Lisa Kudrow is set to join Ray Romano in Netflix’s comedy series No Good Deed from Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman. The eight-episode dark comedy follows three very different families as they try to buy the same house, though the homeowners have already discovered that a dream house can be a total nightmare. Kudrow will play Romano’s wife, a highly-strung former concert pianist… Finally, Schitt’s Creek alum Annie Murphy and the great Christine Baranski will join Nicole Kidman in Season 2 of Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers. They join fellow “strangers” Murray Bartlett and Dolly De Leon among the show’s new ensemble.

• Hail to the Chief - Barbie director Greta Gerwig has been named president of the jury at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. She becomes the first American female director to preside over the jury, and at age 40, the youngest person to take on the role since Sophia Loren held the honor at age 31. Gerwig “replaces” Triangle of Sadness helmer Ruben Ostlund, who served as jury president at this year’s festival.

• Lionsgate’s Great Migration - Remember the Helen Mirren movie White Bird? Well, you shouldn’t, because it hasn’t come out yet, even though it feels like I’ve been seeing trailers for close to a year. I don’t know why Lionsgate is so trigger-shy about this one, but the film has now flapped its little wings and flown to next October, where it will be released as counterprogramming against the Joker sequel. Stay patient, people!

• Say Cheese!- Naomi Scott (Aladdin) has signed on to join Paramount’s Smile sequel, which will hit theaters next October from original writer-director Parker Finn. Elsewhere, Simone Missick (Luke Cage) has signed on to join David Oyelowo in the Apple TV+ series Government Cheese. Oyelowo plays a man who tries to win back his family after being released from prison, though he struggles to keep his criminal past at bay. Missick will play Oyelowo’s wife in the dramedy.

• Condolences - To the friends and family of Kenny DeForest, the talented comedian who was killed in a tragic accident in Brooklyn. He suffered a brain bleed after his bicycle was struck by a car, and he never recovered. He was only 37. Tell your loved ones that you love them, folks, because you just never know when your time will come. R.I.P.

Again, I apologize for the ongoing delay, but we’ll get into some Netflix viewership data info soon. For now, feast your eyes on the streamer’s trailer for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie…

Trailer Time: Eddie Murphy Returns as Axel Foley in Trailer for Netflix’s New Beverly Hills Cop Movie

The original Beverly Hills Cop is a classic, featuring a true movie star turn from Eddie Murphy. The sequels weren’t nearly as memorable, but I remember enjoying the theme park-set BHC III when I was a kid.

30 years later, Axel Foley will have a fourth adventure thanks to Netflix, where Murphy will reunite with Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, and Bronson Pinchot, among others. They’ll be joined by franchise newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, and Kevin Bacon.

Directed by Mark Molloy, the awkwardly titled Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F looks action-packed based on the teaser above, and I suspect it will perform very well for Netflix, especially in relation to its budget — it’s not like Netflix spent $175 million on this.

I wrote a whole thing about this movie for Los Angeles Magazine, so head on over there to give it a read. That’ll do it for me, folks!

Follow TheInSneider on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Got a hot tip, or an interesting pitch? Want to buy an ad or ask a provocative question for future mailbag installments? Email me at [email protected].