| It's Monday, the morning after the Hollywood Film Awards—the first of many weekends to come that will require teleprompters, Spanx, and the ability to feign delight. Hello from Los Angeles, where we're dropping our Kevin Spacey projects, counting Thor: Ragnarok's millions, and consoling Jimmy Fallon. SPACED OUT Netflix has cut its ties with Kevin Spacey, who had been the first movie star to embrace the company's groundbreaking format when the streamer began airing House of Cards in 2013. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter's Kate Stanhope and Pamela McClintock that the political drama's writers are tearing up their drafts for the show's final season, which was almost entirely written, in order to remove Spacey's Frank Underwood from the narrative. The streaming company has also decided not to release Gore, the Gore Vidal biopic Spacey was starring in and producing for them based on Jay Parini's 2015 biography Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal—an especially dramatic decision considering the film, directed by Michael Hoffman, had already finished shooting in Italy and was in post-production. Spacey's other big film project, Ridley Scott's J. Paul Getty kidnapping drama All the Money in the World, is still scheduled to close A.F.I. Fest November 16 and open theatrically December 22. But, as Variety's Kristopher Tapley reports, Sony is nixing its awards campaign centered on the actor. The move comes amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against the two-time Oscar winner, including complaints about sexual harassment on the House of Cards set, which a production assistant told CNN's Chloe Melas had become "a toxic environment for young men." Last week, Spacey's rep, Staci Wolfe, released a statement saying he was "taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment." Wolfe and Spacey's agency, C.A.A., subsequently dropped him. THOR'S DAY V.F.'s Hillary Busis writes: Disney's gamble on Taika Waititi has paid off in spades: the Kiwi director's joke-filled Thor: Ragnarok easily won the weekend box office, rustling up an estimated $121 million domestically—a number higher than the film's predicted take—and an additional $151.4 million overseas, according to Box Office Mojo's Brad Brevet. How did Thor hammer the competition so soundly? Thank Waititi's refusal to slavishly follow the Marvel playbook—and, perhaps, Cate Blanchett's glorious villainess Hela, who comes complete with a goth-fabulous wardrobe and a helmet-sporting sentient antlers. V.F. contributor Nick Romano spoke with Ragnarok V.F.X. supervisor Jake Morrison about designing the goddess's look, a painstaking process that involved tossing hundreds of prospective designs into the trash along the way. MARY AND SARAH AND MARGARET AND GRACE V.F.'s Katey Rich writes: Sarah Polley spent nearly 20 years working to bring an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace to the screen, having first tried to option the rights to the novel when she was 18 years old. But when Polley finally did secure the rights, and had finished writing a six-episode series, she decided to hand off the directing duties to her friend and mentor, Mary Harron. At first, Harron tried to turn down: "I worry Sarah will regret this," she remembers saying to their mutual manager, who responded, "Sarah doesn't regret things." I spoke to Polley and Harron about their collaboration on the terrific series, which is now available on Netflix, and stars Sarah Gadon—completing the quartet of Canadian female superpower—as Grace Marks, an Irish servant accused of double homicide in one of Canada's most sensationalized murder cases. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN | | V.F.'s Yohana Desta writes: The Queen's prim-and-proper world is falling apart in Season 2 of The Crown. Netflix has released a sumptuous new trailer for the series, teasing out Queen Elizabeth's loosened grip on her increasingly debaucherous family. Prince Philip is giving in to his "restlessness"—Lizzie's careful euphemism for his reckless behavior, which might include those many rumored affairs. Meanwhile, Princess Margaret is going through a personal revolution, breaking away from her stiff family and becoming "a woman for the modern age." Tantalizing! The trailer also gives us another peek at Jodi Balfour as Jackie O; she and President John F. Kennedy went to visit Buckingham Palace in 1961, which turned out to be a rather tense meeting. But that's all the better for a TV dramatization, right? The Crown returns to Netflix on December 8. GOODBYE, GLORIA V.F.'s Hillary Busis writes: Sad news from the world of late night: the Tonight Show will go dark this week following the death of Gloria Fallon, mother of Tonight host Jimmy. Gloria died Saturday at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York following a brief illness, according to a family spokesperson. Though as Deadline's Greg Evans points out, Gloria did not play a large on-screen role on the series, Fallon nevertheless mentioned his mother with some frequency; he revealed in a 2004 New York magazine profile that as a young woman, "she was a nun for about a month, but then she was like, 'You know what? I didn't get the calling!'" The Fallon family's announcement prompted supportive tweets from Fallon's comrades in comedy, including his primary rival Stephen Colbert, who tweeted, "Mom is the first audience and the best. Remembering Jimmy Fallon and his family in our prayers today." Colbert lost his own beloved mother, Lorna, in 2013, prompting a moving on-air eulogy on The Colbert Report. That's the news for this cloudy Monday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and Princess Margaret's headscarf to Rebecca_Keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca |
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