'Austin Powers' Definitive Oral History: Mike Myers, Jay Roach and More Reveal Secrets | Hollywood Reporter. When it was released May 2, 1997, there was no reason to think Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery would be a worldwide sensation. Test audiences gave it piddling scores. Its premiere at the Chinese Theatre was such a sleepy affair, nobody even bothered to take Seth Green's photograph ("It felt like it wasn't happening," he recalls).
The New Line Cinema film performed respectably, if not spectacularly, in U.S. theaters — grossing $53.9 million, off a budget of $16.5 million — but Princess Diana's fatal car crash that August didn't help set the mood for its Sept. 5 U.K. release (even though filmmakers cut the joke about Dr. Evil blackmailing the royal family), and the overseas grosses topped out at a measly $13.8 million.
Mike Myers, "Austin Powers," "Dr. I wrote it in 1995, and the bones of the script came out in two weeks. Jay Roach, director I was just doing it as a friend. Myers I was going to get it made somehow, even if through obscure financing methods. Mimi Rogers, "Mrs. 'Criminal Minds' Actor Thomas Gibson Suffers Defeat in Fight Over Ex-Manager's Commissions | Hollywood Reporter.
Last August, Thomas Gibson lost his job on Criminal Minds after allegedly kicking a writer on-set. Now, the actor has suffered a kick himself in a bid to escape paying a 10 percent commission on the $4.8 million annual salary he earned for starring in the CBS series. In August 2014, Gibson was sued by Frontline Entertainment over money allegedly owed to the firm's Craig Dorfman. The lawsuit not only revealed the actor's salary, but painted Gibson with an unflattering brush with word that he's known as "Captain Vanilla" among industry professionals thanks to his "lack of professionalism.
" According to Gibson, Dorfman was fired because the manager failed to get him a "bump" in salary between seasons 9 and 10 of Criminal Minds. On Thursday, Barton Jacka, an attorney for the Labor Commissioner issued a determination (see here) refusing Gibson's demand. Dorfman began as Gibson's talent agent, getting him the role on Dharma & Greg before moving into management. Bryan Fuller Interview - Bryan Fuller on Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, Dead Like Me. Esquire.com is pitting cancelled-too-soon TV shows against one another in a head-to-head, winner-takes-all bracket. It's the TV Reboot Tournament. Vote now and see which comes out on top. We're also revisiting some of our favorite unjustly defunct gems through interviews with showrunners and performers.
Read what creator Bryan Fuller has to say about his previous killed projects, his resilient Hannibal, and his devoted fans. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below With Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal, Bryan Fuller has made a career out of finding both the humor and humanity in what would largely be considered the darkest of subject matters: death. Sure, Fuller's work has been widely acclaimed and recognized. Dead Like Me was your first series as showrunner, but was it the first series that you actually created? Yes. It premiered in the summer of 2003, but when did you begin writing it? I had written it my last year at Star Trek: Voyager. Ian Penman reviews ‘The Age of Bowie’ by Paul Morley, ‘On Bowie’ by Rob Sheffield, ‘On Bowie’ by Simon Critchley and ‘Shock and Awe’ by Simon Reynolds · LRB 5 January 2017.
In 1975 David Bowie was in Los Angeles pretending to star in a film that wasn’t being made, adapted from a memoir he would never complete, to be called ‘The Return of the Thin White Duke’. This dubious pseudonymous character was first aired in an interview with Rolling Stone’s bumptious but canny young reporter Cameron Crowe; it soon became notorious. Crowe’s scene-setting picture of Bowie at home featured black candles and doodled ballpoint stars meant to ward off evil influences.
Bowie revealed an enthusiasm for Aleister Crowley’s system of ceremonial magick that seemed to go beyond the standard, kitschy rock star flirtation with the ‘dark side’ into a genuine research project. He talked about drugs: ‘short flirtations with smack and things’, but given the choice he preferred a Grand Prix of the fastest, whitest drugs available. He brushed aside compatriots/competitors like Elton John and called Mick Jagger the ‘sort of harmless bourgeois kind of evil one can accept with a shrug’.
David Bowie's Final, Imaginative, Awesome Year | Hollywood Reporter. Henry Hey, musical director of the off-Broadway show Lazarus, was struggling late last year to find a date to record a cast album. Unconventional, impressionistic off-Broadway musicals don't always go to the expense of making cast albums, but this one was a no-brainer: Its book was co-written by David Bowie, its score featured 18 of his songs and its cast was headlined by actors Michael C. Hall and Cristin Milioti, both well known to theater aficionados and TV audiences (for Dexter and How I Met Your Mother, respectively).
Hey's problem was the show's limited run: It had opened Dec. 7, 2015, at the New York Theatre Workshop and was going to close Jan. 20, 2016 — a narrow window. "We found the one date that worked for the cast," says Hey. "It just so happened to be that day. " That day was Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. The passing of an iconic star always devastates fans, but given that Bowie was in the midst of a late-career renaissance, his death seemed unusually cruel. Prince’s Closest Friends Share Their Best Prince Stories. Richard Avedon From Van Jones to Carmen Electra, publicists to Paisley Park members, those close to Prince Rogers Nelson tell tales—ordinary and out there—of the late legend.
He was a legend, a virtuoso, one of the true gods of music. But he was also (at times, anyway) a person in the world like anyone else. He liked to send goofy Internet memes to his friends. He made really good scrambled eggs. He rode his bike a lot, went to the hardware store, called old friends late at night. “Really, I’m normal. Corey Tollefson (Minneapolis-based entrepreneur and fan; attended events at Paisley Park for over 20 years): The thing that was funny was you never saw Prince [first], you smelled him. Kandace Springs (singer; befriended by Prince via Twitter after he discovered her cover of a Sam Smith song online in 2014): He smelled like lavender. Morris Hayes (keyboard player; Prince's longest-serving band member, 1992–2012): I remember taking him to the hardware store in my camping van.
“I can cook. 2016/11 [Millions] Loser on the Moon: On Leonard Cohen, Fandom, and Posterity - The Millions. For those among the world’s inhabitants who take for granted that one day, in some far flung corner of the cosmos, a preternaturally melancholic being — earthling or otherwise — will come by chance to hear a Leonard Cohen song and thereby be made if not suddenly blissful then at least able to enjoy his, her, or its melancholy a little more, a recent edition of Rolling Stone will hold interest. In an interview timed to coincide with the release of Mr. Cohen’s 13th studio album, an event in turn coinciding with his 80th birthday, the man says essentially that he cares not at all what becomes of his work after he dies, nor what his legacy will be. The music? The poems? The novels? Ouch, a Cohen believer might predictably reply. They who tend to be a mite sensitive to begin with. At least that’s what I feel, but why? Theory # 1: Adolescent Attachments Like many people, whether they know it or not, my adolescence extended well into my 20s.
And in this, by the way, I’m far from alone. 2016/11 [Vanity Fair] How Jon Stewart Took Over The Daily Show and Revolutionized Late-Night TV: An Oral History. Jon Stewart (The Daily Show host, 1999-2015): My wildest dream for The Daily Show when I started was “This will be fun. Hopefully we’ll do it well.” Success for me would’ve been feeling like I figured it out. That I got to express the things I wanted to. It was never “I want this to be a cultural touchstone . . . but only for a very small portion of America.” And I was hoping to stay on TV longer than nine months this time. The Daily Show premiered on Comedy Central on July 22, 1996, at 11:30 P.M. Some segments played off the hard news of the day, like the presidential contest between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton.
The day-to-day creative process of the first few years of The Daily Show centered on Winstead, fellow co-creator Madeleine Smithberg, and the writing staff. In November 1996, Comedy Central’s executives moved The Daily Show to 11 P.M., to replace Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, which had jumped to ABC, but also to counter-program the late local news. PAUL RUDD (actor): No. 2016/11 [Hollywood] Meet the Oprah of China, Who Happens to Be Transgender | Hollywood Reporter. Her post-military life was no less ambitious. She became an acclaimed dancer during a stint in New York, founded her own dance troupe in Shanghai and adopted three children whom she raised on her own until her marriage in 2005.
Her career as a TV personality skyrocketed thanks to regular appearances as a judge on a local version of So You Think You Can Dance, where she was a fan favorite for her withering takedowns (she often reduced young aspiring dancers to tears, earning her the name Poison Tongue on social media). Her popularity eventually led to The Jin Xing Show, a wildly successful variety/chat program — it's viewed by an estimated 100 million every week — that includes a dance competition, with Jin as the sole judge. She has been a woman since undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 1995. Now a bona fide superstar, Jin, 49, is a one-woman industry unto herself, a kind of Chinese hybrid of Oprah, Simon Cowell and Caitlyn Jenner. 2016/09 [Hollywood] Hollywood's 25 Most Powerful Authors 2016 | Hollywood Reporter.
"I think people have always been interested in the violence of women, the dark side of women, but it's being tapped now in the proper way," says the Chicago-based author of Gone Girl, who now is juggling multiple screenwriting projects (and not just for her own books). Flynn, 45, spent the summer in L.A. as an executive producer and writer on HBO's adaptation of her 2006 novel Sharp Objects, which will star Amy Adams. "I had not read that book since it came out 10 years ago. So to revisit it and flesh out the characters has been very fun," says Flynn. She also wrote the script for Steve McQueen's next project, the heist film Widows, which will star Viola Davis and will shoot in Chicago in the spring, and penned the scripts for the HBO series Utopia, which, after a stumble and the loss of David Fincher (who helmed the film adaptation of Gone Girl), is back on track and looking for a director.
Jimmy Kimmel Interview: Early Career Tales, Emmy Campaigning, & More | Hollywood Reporter. Oh boy, look at me, my learning curve was (laughs) was wicked. It was filthy, as they say in baseball. But all this stuff is on the outside and Stephen I think doesn't pay a lot of attention to it. And as long as you feel like you're doing good work in your community of co-workers, I think you can be satisfied and not necessarily as stressed out as people might imagine you are. I know it doesn't really happen this way but I kind of like the idea of five or six late-night talk show hosts getting together and having a little chat.
At the Emmys is the only time it really happens. Well it couldn't happen on one of your days when you're not eating, right? I will say I'm pretty religious about the not-eating thing but I will take any excuse then. The last time Kimmel hosted the Emmys — in 2012 — he pulled in 13.2 million viewers. I'm guessing these two days float? They move a little bit. You can't just say I’m not eating Monday and Friday or something like that. You think? That's good. I know. 2016/09 [Vulture] Is ‘Friends’ Still the Most Popular Show on TV? When the TV critic Andy Greenwald, who is 38, returned to his high school near Philadelphia last May to speak to students about his job, he wondered how it would go. After all, today’s students are a digital generation who have only a vague association with the concept of “TV.” Sure enough, when Greenwald mentioned his job to them, one student in the group asked, “So what does that mean?
Do you, like, watch Netflix?” Greenwald said, sure, he watches Netflix, since watching original streaming programming — on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, wherever — is all part of covering the complex new television landscape. Then he asked the teenagers if they watch Netflix. You remember Friends, right? Friends was not only born of that era but may, in hindsight, embody it more completely than any other TV show. But while Friends inarguably excavated the Zeitgeist, it was a very different geist, in a very different Zeit. I’m sitting on the couch. “Post-9/11, the show became more popular,” says Kauffman.
2016/09 Stop Trying to Save the World. In 2010, “Frontline” returned to the schools where they had filmed children laughing on the merry-go-rounds, splashing each other with water. They discovered pumps rusting, billboards unsold, women stooping to turn the wheel in pairs. Many of the villages hadn’t even been asked if they wanted a PlayPump, they just got one, sometimes replacing the handpumps they already had. In one community, adults were paying children to operate the pump. Let’s not pretend to be surprised by any of this. The PlayPump story is a sort of Mad Libs version of a narrative we’re all familiar with by now: Exciting new development idea, huge impact in one location, influx of donor dollars, quick expansion, failure.
I came across the PlayPump story in Ken Stern’s With Charity For All, but I could have plucked one from any of the dozen or so “development doesn’t work” best-sellers to come out in the last ten years. International development is getting it from all sides. I am conflicted about this moment. 2016/09 Thomas Dolby – The Speed of Sound (Part One) – Sproutology. This is the first instalment of a two part interview with Thomas Dolby on the occasion of the publication of his memoir on October 11th.
To pre-order via Amazon UK, click on the graphic of the cover. To anyone interested in the last four decades of music, or who loves Prefab Sprout, the idea that Thomas Dolby – a man who wove himself through the warp and weft of audio-visual innovation during the entirety of that period – has written a memoir is nothing short of thrilling. Leaving aside Dolby’s own diverse and fascinating work, he worked with or met pretty much everyone of note during the period.
You don’t always see him, but he’s ever-present. To take just a few examples, he’s onstage with Bowie at Live Aid (and appears in about two shots of the BBC coverage). So he was both performer and back-room boy. I learned a little while ago that Thomas Dolby was about to publish a memoir, and was chatting about it to Stuart McLaren of the “Paddy McAloon and Prefab Sprout” Facebook group. 2015/12 [Matter] Soft Power – Medium #Zayn. “Have you seen Zayn?” My friend, Sara, messaged me a few months ago. It was the summer and I’d been on Tumblr, my newsfeed virtually a photographic exploration of the ex-One Direction superstar. I knew exactly what she was referencing: when Zayn walked past the cameras at a Louis Vuitton show, sporting newly shaved platinum-blonde hair and a silk floral shirt with a brocaded “Louis Vuitton” stretched across his chest, like a banner. Before Zayn’s departure from the monochromatic boyband lifestyle, he was a poster boy for on trend.
Now, all of the sudden, he was an eccentric. Every action filled with a resoluteness that comes naturally with mapping your own destiny. This Zayn, this handsome Gary Busey-esque creature of well-timed defiance, conquered all questions of masculinity, and its servile definitions. The cruel abstraction of masculinity is that men must be macho, unfeeling; devoid of emotional truth and honesty. You see, Zayn is a Softboy. Sensitive. 2016/04 [Read] N word C word - Shady Shenanigans.