ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY and AWARD NEWS FROM HOLLYWOOD, compiled by REBECCA KEEGAN
Friday, September 15, 2017
It's Friday, and I intend to end this week by crashing into Saturn.
Hello from Los Angeles, where we're ready to hear your theories about Mother!, put a bow on the Toronto International Film Festival, and give Chrissy Metz an Emmy.
OH, MOTHER!
Moviegoers have two types of scares to choose from at the box office this weekend, as Andy Muschietti's creepy clown record-breaker, It, heads into its second week in release and Darren Aronofsky's genre-bending, hell-is-other-people tale, Mother!, arrives. Despite Aronofsky's art-house pedigree and his penchant for polarizing weirdness, Paramount has made the bold decision to give Mother! a wide release in 2,368 theaters, counting on movie star Jennifer Lawrence to work her ticket-selling magic. Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandrodives into the studio's strategy, which began with a symbolism-laden marketing campaign in the spring and will culminate, the studio hopes, in an explosion of social-media chatter this weekend. With a $30 million production budget, Mother! doesn't need to win over the masses—a $15 million opening would be fine. But at the very least, Aronofsky wants to get some lively conversations started, as he told V.F.'s Julie Millerin a recent interview at the Toronto Film Festival. "One of the highlights of my life was after I made Pi and would walk into a coffee shop hearing people talk about the movie," Aronofsky told Miller. "I'd be eavesdropping for a half an hour. The worst thing you could make would be a disposable meal. You throw away the wrapper and forget what you had."
By Jim Spellman/WireImage.
NORTHERN PROMISES
V.F.'s Katey Rich writes:
Filling out an Oscars ballot is the definition of foolishness (especially in September), but freshly back from seeing so many great films and performances at the Toronto Film Festival, it's hard to resist taking the bait. V.F.'s film critic Richard Lawson and I teamed up to assess the Oscar buzz out of Toronto, where things are looking great for Gary Oldman and Jessica Chastain; and dark horses like James Franco and Allison Janney made strong cases for themselves as well. The winner of the festival's audience award, announced Sunday, may become the best predictor of all; eight of the last nine People's Choice Award winners there have gone on to be best-picture nominees.
TOM HANKS, AUTHOR
V.F.'s Yohana Desta writes:
That Tom Hanks is good at too many things. He can act in dramas and comedies alike. He can charm folks at the drop of a hat. He can heroically help young Fordham students find their missing I.D.s. And now, he would like to add "author" to his endless résumé. The Oscar-winning actor is preparing a book of fiction, titled Uncommon Type: Some Stories, and has published one of the chapters in The Hollywood Reporter. Titled "A Junket in the City of Lights," the story revolves around a fictional movie star named Rory Thorpe reflecting on a busy press tour in Paris. "I was hustled around like a politician, into cars and into ballrooms filled with camera-totin', question-hollerin' reporters," Thorpe muses. The story also hints at Hanks's personal World War II obsession—the man can't help it—with Thorpe noting all the luxurious spots in the city that have a dark Nazi past. "Junket" is a charming little read, made even sweeter by the fact that Hanks's book is dedicated to the late Nora Ephron, a former collaborator and close friend who was known for her light, charismatic storytelling. Uncommon Type will hit shelves on Oct. 17.
THIS IS CHRISSY METZ
V.F.'s Laura Bradley writes:
A year ago, most people would have had trouble identifying This Is Us star Chrissy Metz—but now, the actress is an Emmy frontrunner. Metz's performance as Kate in the NBC breakout drama has been a delight—and, at times, incredibly painful—to watch. The actress portrays her character with a rare level of rawness and authenticity—and yes, as a plus-sized woman in Hollywood, Metz also represents a consistently marginalized minority. As This Is Us began, some seasoned TV fans wondered if Metz's role would follow the usual trope: would her emotional arc focus on the physical transformation of her character as she attempted to lose weight? But while Season 1 did focus a lot on Kate's weight-loss journey, the story that trek uncovered was something far more profound—one of loss, self-doubt, and perseverance. "I always say this," Metz told me, "but if you don't accept yourself for who you are now, you'll never get to the place you want to be." As for Hollywood's intense focus on weight, "It can be frustrating in that the weight is not all that I am or all that Kate is, but it's a really big part of who we've allowed it to be. Allowed ourselves to be. And the only way to tell that story is to tell the story."
WEEKEND BINGE ALERT
V.F.'s Hillary Busis writes:
What are you doing between now and the Emmys? If you've got four and a half hours or so to spare, I highly recommend tearing your way through American Vandal, a delightful new series that just dropped on Netflix. It's a high school-set parody of true-crime shows like Making a Murderer that gets every detail right—and raises low humor to new highs. Want to know more? I reviewed both Vandal and its thematically similar cousin, Big Mouth—another sublimely sophomoric Netflix series premiering later this month—here. Neither one is right for the pearl-clutchers among us—but if you like smart dumb humor with earnest underpinnings, you won't find two finer series this fall.
That's the news for this overcast Friday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and Tom Hanks junket memories to Rebecca_Keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.
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