Lin-Manuel Miranda Beats Out Beyonce, The Rock as AP’s Entertainer of the Year
Winning a Pulitzer Prize and a clutch of Tony Awards in a single year would be enough for anyone. Not Miranda. Not in 2016. The Hamilton writer-composer picked up those honors and also earned a Golden Globe nomination, won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, wrote music for a top movie, and inspired a best-selling book, a best-selling album of “Hamilton” covers and a popular PBS documentary. (HRM)
Firings, Power Struggles and Studio Exits: Hollywood’s Year of Executive Turmoil
From Viacom to Twitter to Fox and Sony, this has been an especially volatile year in the upper ranks of the entertainment business as this piece parses the fallout and failures of 2016. (TB)
Film Acquisition Rundown: Samuel Goldwyn Films Picks Up ‘Youth in Oregon,’ The Orchard Buys ‘Monkey Business’ and More
A rundown of all the major (and minor) acquisitions made this past week, as we enter the end of the business year. Read up! (IW)
Twelve International Series to Binge Watch This Holiday Season
Spend your days off snuggling up with an Italian mafia drama, a new British comedy or Brazil’s porn-drenched take on Mad Men. (THR)
The Perils Of Filming In Mexico: Cartel Rumors & Missed Paydays Fuel Latest Production Shutdown
There were three days left of filming Dead Trigger down in Mexico in May when panic swept through the set of the indie zombie movie. A heated argument had broken out among the local drivers – some of whom hadn’t been paid – and rumors began swirling that a cartel had been called in to settle the dispute. (DH)
Contenders: Women-Directed Films in the Running for Best Picture at the Oscars
Oscar nominations won’t be announced until January 24th, but we’re one step closer to knowing which films may score nods. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released a list of feature films in contention for the night’s top honor, Best Picture: The list includes 336 titles, of which 52 are directed by women, amounting to about 15 percent of films in the running. (WAH)
The College Friends Who Helped Make ‘Moonlight’
Director Barry Jenkins depended heavily on two of his friends from Florida State University film school. Adele Romanski, his producer, set up regular Google Hangouts with him to shake him out of his career funk and set to work on this film. James Laxton, his cinematographer, with whom he first worked back in 2003 on his undergraduate short My Josephine, and who also shot Jenkins’ first film. The two also happen to be married. (VUL)
Consider This: Why ‘Hidden Figures’ Is the Inspiring Awards Season Contender We Need Now
Set in the early sixties at the height of the Space Race, Ted Melfi’s film follows the true stories of a trio of forgotten American heroes: real-life NASA employees Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. A closer look suggests that the film had a specific reason for coming into being — to fill an underserved niche for stories of strong women. (AS)
Screenwriters: ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’
The 115-page screenplay by Leonard Schrader. Script is dated October 25th, 1982, and labeled as a first draft. (DS)