Hollywood Hotline - Week of September 19, 2024
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Howdy Hotliners!
It’s finally cooled off here in L.A., thank God. Love that the first day of Fall falls on the 22nd this year, which is the day my late maternal grandmother, Louise Georgeen Kobida, was born in 1919. (She passed in 2014 two days shy of 95 ;) My late babká would not have been a fan of A.I.
TOP STORY:
Lionsgate Teams Up with A.I. Firm
“The new AI is designed exclusively to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work by generating cinematic video…”
I knew studio executives were illiterate and disdained reading or if they did read know how to read they didn’t know how to analyze or interpret what they read but this is ridiculous.
I can just see it now:
Screenwriter in a Lionsgate executive’s Santa Monica office. Pitching their heart out. Lionsgate exec. quietly listening, maybe zoning out. Screenwriter finishes. Takes a swig of bottled water. As they’re swallowing, Lionsgate exec. finally asks, “Could you just use Runway’s suite of tools to make all that, of what you just said, into a short, cool, flashy one-to-two-minute sizzle reel trailer? With, like, a cool slow-speed cover song of an old Dolly Parton track?”
Without further ado, let’s check the Hotline:
FUTURE FILMS:
James Cameron Tells Christopher Nolan To Hold His Beer
James Cameron doesn’t do what James Cameron does for James Cameron. James Cameron does what James Cameron does because James Cameron is James Cameron and James Cameron wants some of that OPPENHEIMER (2023) cheddar too!
Dude’s been making AVATAR (2009) for the past 20-years. I’ll believe it when I see it in terms of him making another movie after AVATAR 8 or whatever.
Baz Luhrman Going to Try and One Up Luc Besson
Following up ELVIS (2022) with Joan of Arc. Nice. He should totally cast Milla Jovovich in the title role. Give her a chance to dig deeper this time.
TRENDY TV:
“Forget it Tim, it’s Chairtown.”
Tim Robinson (I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE 2019-) is making a new show for HBO, THE CHAIR COMPANY. “In The Chair Company, after an embarrassing incident at work, William Ronald Trosper (Tim Robinson) finds himself investigating a far-reaching conspiracy.”
I’m getting UNDER THE SILVERLAKE (2018) and POOLMAN (2023) vibes but way funnier than both those two put together if it’s anything like coffin flops.
TANGY THEATER:
Robert Downey Jr. Sells Out AGAIN!
Somehow I missed the first press release back in May announcing Bob Downey Jr. doing a Broadway play (a full two months before his Doctor Doom Comic-Con Faustian Deal-Announcement).
The play, McNEAL is “Written by Ayad Akhtar and directed by Bartlett Sher, [and] will star Downey as a talented writer who struggles with family issues as he works on his next novel. According to the official synopsis, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal. Jacob McNeal (Downey) is a great writer, one of our greatest, a perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But McNeal also has an estranged son, a new novel, old axes to grind and an unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence.”
“Will begin previews on Sept. 5 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater ahead of opening night on Sept. 30. The limited run will end on Nov. 24.”
So WONDER BOYS (2000) but [Sean Connery voice]: “He’s the Michael Douglas man now, dawg!” Sounds so smugly self-satisfying. I can already hear the audience laughing in agreement at how clever they think everything coming out of Downey Jr.’s mouth is.
COMING SOON:
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE - “Cillian Murphy, you’ve just won Best Actor! What do you want to do next!?”
MICKEY 17 - What if GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) but just the suicide segment at feature length? What is UP with dat accent???
WOMAN OF THE HOUR - Talk about a first date from hell. Based on a true story (!)
KRAZY HOUSE - This looks. . . interesting. . .
BROTHERS - Not to be confused with the 2009 Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman Afghanistan PTSD coming home from war movie. This looks so bad I couldn’t finish the trailer
Until next week, Hotliners! Thanks for calling in.
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