We’re back, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here. After a week away, we’ve got you covered for all the big news as festival season gears up once again. We’ve been mob-handed in Venice while diligently covering all the major TV and film news around the world. Let’s begin…
Venice Vibes
“A difficult time”: After a summer of blistering heat across mainland Europe, the Venice Film Festival opened this week to heavy rainfall and strong winds. But that didn’t halt proceedings, which began early Wednesday with the official jury presser, where we saw our first mention of the Hollywood strikes. Jury head Damien Chazelle arrived at the press conference sporting a ‘Writers Guild on Strike’ t-shirt and badge. Jury members Martin McDonagh and Laura Poitras, sitting in the front row, also donned the same t-shirt. “Today is the 121st day the writers have been on strike, and the 48th the actors have been on strike,” Chazelle said to open the presser, before later adding that the most significant issue relating to the strikes for him was “residuals and people being remunerated for each piece of art… A lot of people who would ordinarily be here aren’t able to be here. It’s a difficult time, particularly for crew and writers in Hollywood.”
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Premieres: Official screenings opened later that day with the world premiere of Edoardo De Angelis’ Italian World War II submarine drama Comandante (pictured). Running in competition, the film took over the slot vacated by Luca Guadagnino’s tennis drama Challengers, which backed out amid the actors strike. In his Deadline review, Damon Wise described the pic as “woefully out of its depth” and a sign of the impact the SAG strike is having on the Lido. Strike talk continued the next day when Michael Mann and team Ferrari drove into town for their highly-anticipated debut. Unlike other major films here at Venice, Ferrari was able to obtain a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, which allows stars of the movie to do promotion. The film’s lead, Adam Driver, described it as a “no brainer” during their press conference Thursday. Driver, who plays Enzo Ferrari in the film, told the Venice press corps she was “very happy to be here to support this movie,” but also, “very proud to be here, [and] to be a visual representation of a movie that’s not part of the AMPTP and to promote the SAG leadership directive [using] an effective tactic, which is the interim agreement.” This, he noted, helps “stop the bleeding a little bit so people in IATSE and SAG can go to work.”
Stand and deliver: Later that evening, Driver and Mann received a seven and a 1/2-minute standing ovation following their premiere. Other films that bowed this week include Pablo Larraín’s latest El Conde. We spoke to the Chilean filmmaker about the pic and working with Netflix here. French filmmaker Luc Besson also made his return with the Caleb Landry Jones-starrer Dogman. Besson appeared visibly emotional at both the film’s official presser and world premiere, where it scored a nearly six-minute standing ovation from the crowd inside the Palazzo del Cinema. The film marked Besson’s comeback movie of sorts, coming after a past few years that included the disappointment of his 2017 tentpole Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the demise of his French studio EuropaCorp and a long-running legal entanglement relating to a rape allegation, of which he was recently cleared.
Coming up: Over the next week, the Lido will also welcome Roman Polanski’s latest, The Palace, out of competition. The filmmaker is not due to attend. Woody Allen’s 50th film, the French-language Coup de Chance, is also playing out of competition. Allen is expected on the Lido. David Fincher, Sofia Coppola and Yorgos Lanthimos all debut new works in competition. Check back on Deadline to follow our exhaustive on the ground coverage. Find all of our news and updates from Italy here and check out our extensive reviews section here.
More Strike Impact In The UK
Government gathers thoughts: Perhaps the biggest theme of a downbeat Edinburgh Television Festival last week was the plight of freelancers, who have seen the downturn in British commissions hit their work prospects and the U.S. labor strikes further diminish their prospects. On Wednesday, Max reported the issue has reached the upper echelons of government. Following a petition of 30,000 signatures demanding support for TV and film crew unable to work due to the strikes, a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said the government is “engaging with industry to understand the impact of the continued U.S. strike action.” However, the government stopped short of committing to a called-for ‘Income Replacement Scheme’ and will instead only help through pre-existing tax reliefs, supporting indie content and broader investment in the industry. Quite how any of those things directly helps an individual freelancer pay their bills this coming winter wasn’t addressed. While British TV shows have largely been unaffected by the strikes and Equity-contracted shows such as House of the Dragon have continued shooting, UK talent has lost out on U.S. work. Brit TV and film workers have broadly backed the American writers and actors strikes and know that, in the long-run, the deals ultimately struck will inform negotiations in Europe and beyond. However, there was much chatter in Edinburgh last week about how the action was hurting UK workers. Ben Winston, the former showrunner of The Late, Late Show With James Corden, even revealed his successful transatlantic indie Fulwell73 had lost a premium unscripted order in the U.S. due to what he believes were budget concerns related to the strikes. With no deal in sight and the UK government making no obvious move to support Britain’s creative sector, it’s going to be a hard few months.
Disney Plays Free Cricket Game
Howzat!: Disney has been ‘rightsizing’ its business around the world as it seeks a path to streaming profitability. In India, where it has run the dominant Disney+ Hotstar since the acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019, this has been more acutely felt than in other countries. Decisions to drop expensive but enticing licensing deals with the likes of Warner Bros Discovery shocked subscribers, but it was the move to drop out of the race for streaming rights to the Indian Premier League cricket that had them ditching their subscriptions in droves. It’s hard to oversell how wild Indians are about cricket — think the Super Bowl and the World Cup souped into one and you’re about half way there. Disney execs felt the streaming rights, which went to JioCinema for $2.9B, were just too expensive to justify the cost and would ruin any chance of making money from its huge customer base (though it did pay to keep the TV rights). After JioCinema started offering IPL games for free, subs switched en masse and a Reuters report suggested Disney had lost 21 million of its 61 million subs by July this year. Though Disney is wrestling with what to do with its Indian business, it has apparently ceded it needs some of those subs back and will offer free cricket games for free on tablets and smartphones. The Asia Cup will stream on Hotstar from August 30 followed by the World Cup, which is being hosted in India in October and November. Whether Disney is stumped or on its way back, these are testing times for the House of Mouse in India. Liz had more, read on.
Fremantle Fund Fires Up
From ‘X Factor’ to A-listers: A few years back it would have been unthinkable that the unscripted powerhouse responsible for making and selling Simon Cowell’s singing shows around the world would be shaking up the world of scripted TV to its core. However, following on from shows like American Gods and This England and investments in leading producers such as Dancing Ledge and The Apartment, Fremantle has forged a mega €150M ($162.7M) high-end TV and film fund with Israeli investor IBI Investment House. The four-year fund, managed by Guy Hameiri from Fremantle-owned producer Abot Hameiri, will aim to fast-track ideas into production. Pablo Larraín and Steven Knight’s Maria Callas biopic, starring Angelina Jolie (who has a deal in place with Fremantle), is the highest profile project emerging from the fund so far, with Bridgerton‘s Sarah Dollard penning mystery thriller Generation Loss and a six-part revenge drama from Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton titled Shelter also coming. More here.
Berlinale Bets On Singledom
Going solo: There’s been a flurry of behind-the-scenes change at Berlinale in recent months. In July, the Berlin Film Festival revealed it was cutting Berlinale Series amid a raft of cost-cutting measures despite growing rapidly over recent years. It had already been announced Berlinale co-head Mariette Rissenbeek (pictured – left) was stepping down after the 2024 edition and she told Deadline earlier this month the cash-challenged fest would need to find an extra €4M ($4.3M) to mount the event but had couldn’t see how it could do so. This week, it emerged German Culture Minister Claudia Roth wants the tag-team, duel-management approach Berlinale has employed to end. In other words, when Rissenbeek exits after next year’s event in February, the fest will switch to a single leader. A committee has been put in place to find Rissenbeek’s successor, so it doesn’t look like her current co-chief Carlo Chatrian (pictured – right) will be in the frame for the new role. Check back in for more on this fast-moving story and read Melanie’s report here.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: Controversial director Roman Polanski’s dark comedy The Palace shopped to a bunch of territories ahead of its Venice premiere, as Mel reported first.
🌶️ Another One: Australian streamer Stan lined up internationally-backed dramas from Bluey studio Ludo and more, I revealed Tuesday.
🌶️ More heat: Channel 4 snapped up a doc about Frank Sinatra, JFK and the mafia from Abacus Media Rights, and boarded another on female heroism in WWII.
🚀 Launching: Keshet Germany, a standalone scripted producer born out of Keshet International’s Tresor TV.
🖋️ Signed: The Almond and the Seahorse writer, star and director Celyn Jones, with United Agents
📰 CN-in: Former NYT and BBC boss Mark Thompson joined CNN as Chairman and CEO.
🤝 New job: For AC Chapter One exec Toby Bentley on the drama team at Netflix UK, as Max revealed.
🤝 Also on the move: Ex-eOne, MGM and Warner Bros exec Tess Charman took a sales post at Euro distrib Eccho Rights.
🍿 Box Office: Oppenheimer launched to around $5.4M in China on Wednesday.
🏢 BBC review: Jake revealed BBC News is assessing if it needs more channel presenters as several anchors’ future remain in limbo.
❤️ “Beloved”: Martin Scorsese was confirmed as special guest at the 20th Marrakech International Film Festival, of which he’s been an active long-term supporter.
📹 Cast: Gary Oldman joined Paolo Sorrentino’s untitled ode to Naples.
🎥 Trailer: For Emerald Fennell’s Amazon Studios drama flick Saltburn.
🎥 Second trailer: For Kaala, the first streaming TV series from Bollywood powerhouse T-Series.
Zac Ntim contributed to this week’s Insider.
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