Noticias

For the first time since they introduced the In Memoriam segment, the Academy Awards is giving us a reason to tune in: the 2025 Oscars host is Conan O’Brien.

Yes, we have high hopes for the former late-night comedian who brings at least a small chance of talking about butthole gerbils before an audience of self-congratulating millionaires. Certainly, O’Brien doesn’t need our advice for mastering his first-ever time hosting the Academy Awards, but if he did want to take inspiration from anyone, he should look to the King of Late Night himself: Johnny Carson.

Carson hosted the Academy Awards five times — and nearly back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back — in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Many of his jokes have remained fairly relevant, too. Exhibit A: When he greeted his celebrity audience in 1979 with, “I see a lot of new faces — especially on the old faces.”

However, given the standard topicality of the Academy Awards,...

Wherever you go, there you are. That iconic line has become a pop culture mainstay thanks to one of the strangest movies of the 80s, Buckaroo Banzai or, as it is formally titled, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. This 1984 science fiction movie has been a cult classic for four decades and remains a fan favorite thanks to its virtually unexplainable plot. Part comedy, part action, part scifi, part martial arts, part musical, part western, part satire and part of a franchise that never came to be, Buckaroo Banzai may be the single most bizarre movie we have ever covered for this series.

A box office bomb when it was released, grossing only six million against a seventeen million dollar budget, Buckaroo Banzai holds a decent 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes where critics sum it up succinctly as “violating every rule of storytelling and narrative structure in creating...

Wolfgang Puck’s now-iconic Chinois on Main, which pioneered what came to be known as Asian fusion or Pacific Rim cuisine, has turned 40 this year. An entertainment industry haven since the day it opened in Santa Monica at the address of a former New Wave punk club, it’s since gone from radical to old guard. The restaurant’s starry clientele has ranged from Tom Selleck and Mike Ovitz to Gwyneth Paltrow and Frank Gehry (who is now designing Puck’s planned replacement of the oceanfront Gladstone’s restaurant along Pch).

Wolfgang Puck

Back in 1983, Angelenos first got a streetside sneak peek of Chinois in the months before its arrival, when the chef was buying a dozen ducks at a time from Chinatown wholesalers and blowing them up with a compressor at a gas station a few blocks down from Spago, the Sunset Strip restaurant that had earned him renegade...

We have some sad news to share today, as Hollywood has lost one of its most legendary icons: Raquel Welch has passed away at the age of 82. Deadline reports that Welch’s passing was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management, who simply said that she had died after a brief illness.

Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois, but her family moved to San Diego, California when little Raquel was just two years old. She knew as a youngster that she wanted to get into the entertainment industry, and studied ballet for several years while entertaining – and winning – beauty contests. She attended San Diego State College on a theater arts scholarship, but despite doing some stage acting and landing a job as a weather presenter on the local news, it took a while for her to break through into films. In fact, Welch had married...

Raquel Welch, the big-screen star of the 1960s and ’70s who gained fame in movies including Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years B.C., Myra Breckinridge and many others, died today after a brief illness. She was 82.

Her death was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management.

Related: Raquel Welch: A Career In Photos

Welch’s career spanned more than 50 years, 30 films and scores of TV series and appearances, including about a dozen visits to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson spanning two decades. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Imagen Foundation in 2001.

From left: Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence in ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (Everett Collection)

Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch’s family moved to San Diego when she was a toddler. She attended San Diego State on a theater arts scholarship and got her start as a local TV weathercaster before starting to...

David Zaslav, who is famously gregarious and high-energy, has been oddly quiet lately with an absence of media interviews or social events on his schedule. Even his regular booth at the Polo Lounge has been somnolent.

That’s about to change: Zaslav arrived back in Hollywood yesterday and the industry has been forcefully reminded that “the deal” is real.

As federal regulators and other random bureaucrats remove their barriers, the long-awaited entity called Warner Bros. Discovery becomes a functioning reality in four short weeks.

There are high expectations of imminent moves that will impact the power structures spanning television, movies and news.

For over a year the managements of Warner Bros, CNN, HBO and beyond have labored in a bureaucratic cloud, with executives implementing policies they knew were likely evanescent.

So now starts the guessing game. Who will be anointed to fill the $43 billion power vacuum? Barred from occupying offices...

Slate includes Indecent exposure adaptation with The Bureau director Eric Rochant.

Eager to mine his back catalogue of IP, veteran US producer Ed Pressman is lining up local-language remakes of Bad Lieutenant, the crime drama he first made with Abel Ferrara nearly 30 years ago and subsequently remade with Werner Herzog.

Pressman, who joined son and Pressman Film VP of production Sam Pressman in Cannes this week to unveil the Evolver-Prologue VR collaboration with Terrence Malick, has lined up directors and local producing partners to adapt Bad Lieutenant in the UK, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Argentina.

Scripts are being written...

Two decades ago, Edgar Bronfman Jr., having just acquired control of Universal, took me on a tour of his studio. Pointing to the black tower, he told me: “I hate black buildings. That one will soon be white.”

It’s still black. I remember his faux promise as a sort of metaphor for why Hollywood always greets corporate takeovers with a yawn. Dealmakers may boast of their deals, but history tells us that nothing ever changes.

Except history may be about to change its mind. The massive maneuvers newly engineered by Discovery and Amazon will substantially transform the cultures of their respective companies. They will also trigger further mega-deals that will reshape the industry, sharply changing content offered audiences and the technology of its delivery.

Given their resources and ambitious visions, David Zaslav and Jeff Bezos will not conveniently disappear like the wannabe moguls of the past. Zaslov will reign...

Hollywood screenwriter Guy Thomas died Friday at his home in Ventura County, Calif., of a suspected heart attack, his friend Gerri Malcolm confirmed to Variety. He was 66.

Thomas was best known for his screenplay of “The Magic of Belle Isle,” directed by Rob Reiner and starring Morgan Freeman as a struggling alcoholic writer and Virginia Madsen as his neighbor. His other screenplay credits include 1980’s “Wholly Moses!” and 2001’s “Chasing Destiny.”

Before his death, Thomas was working on an alt-history science fiction Western series, “Billy Stars,” with Oscar-nominated producer David Valdes.

Born in Bay Shore, N.Y., Thomas grew up in Georgia, where he first wrote for live theater and eventually for the screen. He sold his first screenplay, “Jungle Boy,” when he was 22. Columbia Pictures head David Begelman hired Thomas as a staff writer of the ABC Series “Carter Country” as an incentive to get him to move to Los Angeles,...

Guy Thomas, who wrote the screenplays for the Dudley Moore-starring Wholly Moses! and the Rob Reiner-directed The Magic of Belle Isle, has died. He was 66.

Thomas died Friday of a suspected heart attack at his home in Newbury Park, California, friend and writing partner Gerri Malcolm told The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in the town of Bay Shore on Long Island, Thomas and his family moved to Georgia when he was a youngster, and he sold his first screenplay, Jungle Boy, when he was 22.

Columbia Pictures head David Begelman placed Thomas on the writing staff of the ABC series Carter Country ...

Guy Thomas, who wrote the screenplays for the Dudley Moore-starring Wholly Moses! and the Rob Reiner-directed The Magic of Belle Isle, has died. He was 66.

Thomas died Friday of a suspected heart attack at his home in Newbury Park, California, friend and writing partner Gerri Malcolm told The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in the town of Bay Shore on Long Island, Thomas and his family moved to Georgia when he was a youngster, and he sold his first screenplay, Jungle Boy, when he was 22.

Columbia Pictures head David Begelman placed Thomas on the writing staff of the ABC series Carter Country ...

His credentials seemed impeccable. He was 60, a Yale graduate, a former studio chief, a gifted dealmaker and now a newly named company president. But there were a few clouds: He was also a convicted embezzler, a compulsive gambler and his Yale degree was bogus.

This was 1981 and David Begelman, the new boss of MGM, was in many ways representative of the executives who were running Hollywood in that period – men who compulsively operated on the margin.

The cast of characters of that generation would not have been comfortable in the same room with the corporate soldiers who are presently taking their seats at the CEO table – Jason Kilar (WarnerMedia), Bob Chapek (Disney), Jeff Shell (NBCUniversal), et al. All came armed with Harvard MBAs and have already proved their management skills at various corporate levels: Kiler built Hulu. Chapek ran the world’s biggest theme parks. Shell built a giant global distribution machine.

As the pandemic wears on, New York and Los Angeles have never felt farther apart—and it seems likely that even more distancing, both social and cultural, will be the unhappy drill for years to come.

In truth, the two great sister cities have never been as close as you might think, at least in movie and media terms. Rather, they were a polarity, tightly linked, but often frustrated with and suspicious of each other, and rarely on the same page. When Louis B. Mayer and MGM were all about entertainment in Culver City, Nicholas Schenck and fellow owners at parent company Loew’s in New York were focused on finance. At Paramount, Adolph Zukor, who died at age 103 in Los Angeles, suffered the same rift with East Coast counterparts and unhappy backers on Wall Street. Later, David Begelman, at Columbia’s studio in Burbank, had it out with corporate overseers back on Fifth Ave.

Deadline has learned that Jack Gordon, veteran MGM International Distribution President, passed away on Sunday, Feb. 16 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.

Gordon, born in Brooklyn, New York on March 13, 1929, was the son of Oscar winning American composer and lyricist, Mack Gordon, who had won Best Original Song for “You’ll Never Know” from the 1943 H. Bruce Humberstone movie Hello Frisco, Hello

Gordon joined MGM as an interim employee in the 16mm department shortly after returning from active U.S. Army duty in the Korean War. During his 44-year career he served under studio heads Nicholas Schenck, Dore Schary, Robert O’Brien, James T. Aubrey, David Begelman, Alan Ladd, Jr. and Frank Mancuso.

He began in the studio’s distribution department in the mid 1950’s and in 1972 he was appointed VP of MGM International. He was promoted to Evp in 1979. After MGM merged with United Artists in 1981, he became Svp of International Distribution.

Jack Gordon, who spent 44 years as a distribution and international executive at MGM, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 90.

The son of Oscar-winning composer-lyricist Mack Gordon ("At Last," "You'll Never Know," "Chattanooga Choo-Choo"), he served under studio heads Nicholas Schenck, Dore Schary, Robert O'Brien, James T. Aubrey, David Begelman, Alan Ladd Jr. and Frank Mancuso at the studio. He was critical in leading MGM's accession into pay TV and home video.

Born on March 13, 1929, in Brooklyn, Gordon joined MGM as ...

Jack Gordon, who spent 44 years as a distribution and international executive at MGM, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 90.

The son of Oscar-winning composer-lyricist Mack Gordon ("At Last," "You'll Never Know," "Chattanooga Choo-Choo"), he served under studio heads Nicholas Schenck, Dore Schary, Robert O'Brien, James T. Aubrey, David Begelman, Alan Ladd Jr. and Frank Mancuso at the studio. He was critical in leading MGM's accession into pay TV and home video.

Born on March 13, 1929, in Brooklyn, Gordon joined MGM as ...

Exclusive: Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me, the memoir written by Judy Garland’s manager and female power agent Stevie Phillips, is being adapted into a ‘Mad Men’-style television series.

Athena Pictures, the new banner set up by Andra Gordon and Sarena Khan, and American Entertainment Investors, which has backed feature films including Hotel Mumbai, are developing the project.

Stevie, written by Gordon, who worked on Tatiana Maslany-fronted feature The Other Half, will tell the story of Phillips’ rise from secretary to tour manager to agent to producer in a pre-MeToo era.

Having started as a secretary, working for McA’s Freddie Fields and David Begelman, under the glare of Lew Wasserman, she moved with the pair to Creative Management Associates, where she became Judy Garland’s “shadow”. Phillips went on to manage Garland’s daughter Liza Minnelli as well as Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Henry Fonda,...

In January 2013, Martin Scorsese assembled the cast of his projected next movie, titled The Irishman, for a read-through of the shooting script. Their names — De Niro, Pacino and Pesci – did not resonate as “Irish.” Moreover, the actors, all in their 70s, would play ages 30 to 80 with the help of newly developed technology. The movie would likely be the most expensive non-superhero movie of the year — that is, if it found financing.

And that, the cast knew, was largely in the hands of producer Irwin Winkler, whose recent adventures in funding pictures had been more suspenseful than the plots of his films. Since Winkler has been defying the odds for some 50 years, it’s no surprise that The Irishman will finally get its release this fall, albeit seven years after the reading. The final cost is rumored to approach $140 million, due to its multiple locations set in different periods – a total...

Thomas also suggested the UK film establishment undervalued Roeg in his lifetime.

Award-winning UK producer Jeremy Thomas has paid heartfelt tribute to Nicolas Roeg, with whom he collaborated on films including Insignificance, Bad Timing and Eureka.

Roeg died aged 90 on Saturday (November 26).

“I will miss him forever. I had a 10-year lesson from him about everything,” said Thomas, speaking from Rome this weekend. “He was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, director I worked with and he left a legacy of magnificent films.”

As well as his directorial credits Thomas cited Roeg’s work as a cinematographer on...

Exclusive: Annapurna and Plan B have partnered to acquire the rights to give Spotlight-like treatment to the story of how New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey worked with editor Rebecca Corbett to break the biggest scandal story Hollywood has seen in decades, the one that took down Harvey Weinstein. The stories landed the reporters a Pulitzer earlier this month.

The bombshell first story ran last October 5, when Kantor and Twohey revealed an array of alleged sexual harassment and assaults against women by The Weinstein Company co-chairman and indie film mogul Weinstein that dated back decades. The article included details of hush money paid to cover up the sexual indiscretions and first-person accounts by actresses while Weinstein denied — and continues to deny — an charges of non-consensual sexual indiscretions, and the article hit Hollywood like a bombshell.

Weinstein was immediately fired by the TWC Board of Directors, and a...

Freddie Fields, who reigned as the personification of the free-wheeling, high-living Hollywood agent from the 1960s through the '70s, has died. He was 84.

He died Tuesday of lung cancer at his home in Beverly Hills.

Although Fields went on to become a studio executive and film producer, he made his mark on the industry through the Creative Management Agency, which he co-founded with David Begelman in 1960. CMA -- which later evolved into the current ICM -- exemplified what at the time was called the New Hollywood.

From its headquarters on Beverly Boulevard, it boasted a glittering talent roster that included Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen along with such directors as Arthur Penn, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Sydney Pollack, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Mazursky. It also employed some of the era's most dynamic agents including Sue Mengers, Richard Shepherd, Guy MacElwaine and Mike Medavoy.

Jeff Berg, who joined CMA as a young agent and now heads ICM as its chairman and CEO, said: "It was a very high-energy environment, a very collegial place. Freddie taught us a great deal about how to think and operate. He was extremely creative. He understood the needs of artists and how to manage the complexity of a career. All of us in the agency business owe him a huge debt."

Fields worked aggressively to ensure that his clients not only got the best projects but also were richly compensated with lucrative backend deals, often augmented with top-of-the-line perks.

When Fields first decided to go into business for himself with a handful of clients that included his then-wife Polly Bergen and Phil Silvers -- at the time, Fields had spent 10 years at MCA -- one of the first performers he pursued was Judy Garland, even though her career was then at a low ebb.