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      Participant, Maker of Films With Social Conscience, Calls It Quits

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      The company had critical and commercial hits over two decades but never made money consistently and faced a challenging entertainment landscape.For 20 years, Participant Media has been Hollywood’s pre-eminent maker of activist entertainment, backing socially conscious films like “An Inconvenient Truth,” a climate change cri de coeur, and “Wonder,” about a boy with birth defects. Its movies have won 21 Academy Awards.But the company never quite managed to do good while also making money, at least not consistently. Matt Damon in a fracking drama (“Promised Land,” a 2012 Participant effort) has a hard time competing with “Avengers: Infinity War” in 3-D.On Tuesday, the company’s founder and financial lifeline, the eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll, pulled the plug — a decision based, at least in part, on the atrophying entertainment business. Participant relies on studios and streaming services to distribute its content, and those partners are cutting back — especially on the “niche” films and shows in which Participant specializes — as they contend with continuing weakness at the box office, higher labor costs and increased profit pressure from Wall Street.Streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix have started to sell ads, and advertisers prefer all-audience, apolitical content. Eat-your-broccoli documentaries and dramas that explore underrepresented communities (both Participant sweet spots) are harder to sell than ever.“The entertainment industry has seen revolutionary changes in how content is created, distributed and consumed,” Mr. Skoll said in an email to Participant employees that was viewed by The New York Times. A spokesman said Mr. Skoll was unavailable for an interview.Participant will immediately lay off most of its 100 employees. A skeleton staff will remain for a time to work on coming films like “Out of My Mind,” about a nonverbal sixth grader with cerebral palsy, and “BLKNWS,” about what the media leave out, or misrepresent, in reporting on Black culture.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ Film Will Stream After 54 Years on Disney+

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      Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s unloved — or misinterpreted? — 1970 documentary, the source for Peter Jackson’s “Get Back,” will stream on Disney+.In 2021, the director Peter Jackson’s sprawling and vibrant Beatles docuseries, “The Beatles: Get Back,” streamed on Disney+ to nearly universal acclaim. The three-part epic, which ran nearly eight hours, captured the drama and frenzy as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded, over the pressure-filled month of January 1969, what would become the last album that the Beatles released, “Let It Be.”As fans were well aware, Jackson’s series was culled from nearly 60 hours of behind-the-scenes footage originally shot by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for “Let It Be,” his little-seen, though often dismissed, 1970 documentary about those recording sessions.After its initial theatrical run, Lindsay-Hogg’s film largely disappeared for more than a half-century with the exception of low-quality VHS versions and bootlegs. Fans tend to remember it as an intriguing historical document capturing the late-stage creative flights of a seismic musical force, but also as a divorce proceeding of sorts, with stark moments of internal discord as the band hurtled toward a nasty split.By that view, “Get Back,” with its abundant moments of jokey banter and on-set clowning, was seen by some as an overdue corrective to “Let It Be.”Little surprise but Lindsay-Hogg, 83, has a very different view. The acclaimed director had a hand in inventing the music video, with his promotional films for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s, and went on to win plaudits for the 1980s British mini-series “Brideshead Revisited.” He has fought for a half-century for “Let It Be” to get a second look and, in his mind, a fair shake.On May 8, he will get his wish, when “Let It Be,” meticulously restored by Jackson’s production team, begins streaming on Disney+ in collaboration with Apple Corps, the company that oversees the Beatles creative and business interests. Lindsay-Hogg spoke to The New York Times about the culmination of a long crusade. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Man’s Castle’: Free Love, Hard Times

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      Restored to its original length and screening at the Museum of Modern Art, this 1933 movie starring Spencer Tracy feels at once surprisingly frank and disquietingly coy.A celebrant of redemptive love, Frank Borzage (1893-1962) was the most romantic of classic Hollywood directors and, however unconventionally, perhaps the most religious as well. “Man’s Castle” (1933) conflates an economic crisis — namely the Great Depression — with a spiritual one. The movie also represents premarital pregnancy as salvation rather than sin, and scenes were consequently cut for its post-Production Code rerelease in the late 1930s.Restored to its original length of 78 minutes, screening at the Museum of Modern Art (April 18-24), “Man’s Castle” feels unique — at once surprisingly frank and disquietingly coy.A leading director of silent films, Borzage (Bor-ZAY-ghee) left the Fox studio and went independent in 1932. His first production was an adaptation of Hemingway’s World War I novel “A Farewell to Arms.” “Man’s Castle” also concerns love in extremis with the starving innocent Trina (20-year-old Loretta Young) falling for and shacking up with an older if equally indigent man of the world, Bill (Spencer Tracy).Their meet-cute on a park bench, with Bill feeding the pigeons as ravenous Trina looks longingly on, proceeds to a nice restaurant (where Bill gets out of paying the check) and winds up back at his jerry-built hovel in a homeless encampment near the East River. A natural man, Bill amazes Trina (and possibly the viewer) by diving naked into the water. She more discreetly follows. Cut from Edenic skinny-dipping to radiant Trina at the washboard happily scrubbing Bill’s clothes.A brash roughneck with a golden heart, Bill inspires Trina’s puppy-like devotion. In his New York Times review, Mordaunt Hall praised the stars’ “thoroughly efficient portrayals” — an odd choice of words to describe their evident mutual attraction. Indeed, the chemistry was real. Young’s daughter would later detail the pair’s guilt-ridden love affair. (Both were Catholic; Tracy was married.)For Trina, Bill’s Hooverville home is “heaven,” with various down-and-out denizens adding to the allegorical flavor. Bragg (Arthur Hohl) is not only a lech and a thief but a leftist loudmouth. His alcoholic companion, Flossie (Marjorie Rambeau), is both a fallen woman and a salvation project tended to by a former minister (Walter Connolly). Dismissive of all three, the cynical Bill is tempted by the fun-loving cabaret star Fay La Rue (a reliably sassy Glenda Farrell, here mimicking Mae West).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How They Pulled Off the Ending to ‘Civil War’

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      The action thriller from Alex Garland concludes with an explosive sequence in the nation’s capital. A behind-the-scenes look at how it was done.This article contains spoilers for the film “Civil War.”When Alex Garland was writing the script for “Civil War,” he started with the ideas in the last moments. “In some ways the film was kind of reverse engineered from the ending,” he said during an interview in New York.The path to that ending finds the rebel Western Forces reaching Washington, D.C., laying siege to the White House and cornering the president (Nick Offerman), all while the journalists at the center of the film capture it through their own lenses. It’s a relentless, loud 20 minutes of screen time, during which the Lincoln Memorial is blown up. Garland said he wanted the audience to feel “aversion to it and to feel dismayed.”It also was an intricate production challenge, which involved digitally recreating Washington, shooting on sets throughout the Atlanta area, and executing detailed choreography that Garland likened to “football plays.” (Garland is British, but he noted that “football” could refer to soccer or American football. “It’s like little circles and triangles and arrows,” he added.)From the start of “Civil War,” two journalists at the center of the story — Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a photographer, and Joel (Wagner Moura), a correspondent — want to get to the White House for an audience with the president. They reach it alongside Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a younger, novice photographer who idolizes Lee. In the end it’s Jessie who gets the most important shot.But before that, they have to navigate a treacherous military operation on Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding streets.The process of designing the sequence began with a trip to Washington with crew members including Garland, the cinematographer Rob Hardy and the visual effects supervisor David Simpson. The team walked the route of the invasion, Simpson said, mapping out how the troops would move from the memorial to the White House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Stranger’ Review: Somewhere Over the Freeway

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      In this tense thriller on Hulu, Maika Monroe plays Clare, a Kansas transplant in Los Angeles who parallels Dorothy in Oz.“The Stranger” is a tense if tidy thriller that chronicles a ride-hail driver’s journey to surveillance hell and back. Her survival against all odds mirrors that of the movie itself: The film’s footage originally premiered in 13 short-form episodes in 2020 on the streaming service Quibi, several months before it shut down.The recut version (on Hulu) bears little trace of its earlier form, although its life span across algorithm-driven streaming companies does cast the villain’s tech preoccupations — “whoever figures out the mathematical formula determining the losers and the winners in life will rule” the world, he declares — in a new, meta light.Written and directed by Veena Sud (“The Killing”), the film follows Clare (Maika Monroe), a recent transplant to Los Angeles who falls into a freeway nightmare after her ride-hail passenger, Carl (Dane DeHaan), identifies himself as a serial killer. He claims he will murder her unless she tells him a good story.If this opening sounds cliché, the film at least seems aware of the pitfalls. Sud creates parallels between Clare in Hollywood and Dorothy in Oz, assigning Clare a Kansan back story, a yapping terrier and a guileless attitude. And DeHaan embodies the tech-savvy Carl as a pasty, smirking male chauvinist who is sillier than he is scary.It follows as something of a surprise, when, over the course of the second act, the film builds to a deeply agitated mood. Sud pulls off the tonal shift by keeping Carl largely offscreen; his looming absence, alongside Monroe’s knack for portraying paranoia, simmers with menace.The StrangerNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      Prince Harry Hits the Polo Field in Front of Netflix Cameras

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      The Duke of Sussex competed in a match in South Florida the day after the announcement that he will be working on a new polo-related Netflix project.In front of rolling cameras and a crowd of nearly 300 guests, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, barreled toward one end of a polo field in South Florida on Friday.“The Duke of Sussex may score a goal!” an announcer cried through a loudspeaker at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge to Benefit Sentebale, which was attended by spectators including Serena Williams and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and by film crews with Netflix. The streamer is producing a polo-related project with Harry and Meghan that was announced on Thursday and that will be filmed in Wellington, an affluent area near Palm Beach known for its equestrian scene.The announcer and many in the crowd groaned audibly when Harry missed the shot. He was wearing a blue and white jersey with the No. 2 on it, along with a logo for Sentebale, a charitable organization he founded to support children in the African countries Lesotho and Botswana, and a logo for Royal Salute, a whisky brand and a sponsor of the invitation-only charity match involving three teams.The event took place at the Grand Champions Polo Club and its organizers included Melissa and Marc Ganzi, members of Wellington’s polo community as well as the founders of the World Polo League and the owners of the Grand Champions club. The Ganzis also own the Santa Rita Polo Farm in Wellington and the Aspen Valley Polo Club in Colorado. Mr. Ganzi is the chief executive of Digital Bridge, an investment firm formerly known as Colony Capital, where he succeeded Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the chairman of former President Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee.Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Serena Williams were among the spectators at the event.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated PressHarry, 39, one of the highest-profile polo players in the world, competed in the match with other stars of the sport like the renowned Argentine player Adolfo Cambiaso; the English player Malcolm Borwick, an ambassador for Royal Salute; and Nacho Figueras, the Argentine athlete who has regularly faced off against Harry on polo fields and whose career has made him a face not only of the sport but also of Ralph Lauren, a brand that has intertwined its identity with polo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Civil War’ Is No. 1 at Box Office

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      Alex Garland’s movie, starring Kirsten Dunst, surpassed “Godzilla x Kong,” with an estimated $25.7 million in North American ticket sales on its first weekend.Hollywood executives — not all, but most — have insisted for years that uncomfortable, thought-provoking, original movies can no longer attract big audiences at the box office.Moviegoers continue to bust that myth.Alex Garland’s dystopian “Civil War,” set in a near-immediate future when the United States is at war with itself, sold an estimated $25.7 million in tickets at North American theaters, enough to make the film a strong No. 1, surpassing the monsters sequel “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” Ticket sales for “Civil War” exceeded the prerelease expectations of some box office analysts by roughly 30 percent. IMAX screenings provided nearly 50 percent of the “Civil War” gross.More than 70 percent of the total audience was male, according to exit-polling services. PostTrak, one of those firms, said that people with “liberal” or “moderate” political views attended most heavily.“Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a journalist on a military embed, became the latest example of ticket buyers breaking with Hollywood’s conventional wisdom about what types of films are likely to pop at the box office. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour period drama about a physicist, took in $968 million, wildly surpassing studio expectations. “Poor Things” collected $117 million, a solid total for a surreal art film.Garland (“Ex Machina”) wrote and directed “Civil War,” which gave A24, the specialty film company, its first No. 1 opening. (A24 was founded in New York in 2012.) The movie also cost more to make than any A24 movie to date: at least $50 million, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing.The R-rated film benefited from a savvy release date — a time when Americans, sharply divided, are paying attention to the coming presidential election but are not yet completely worn out by it — and a marketing campaign that positioned the story as more of an action thriller than a gritty exploration of the frightening but not unthinkable.“Dystopian thrillers are generally set in futuristic worlds that look very different from contemporary life,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said in an email. “They use a lot of special effects and science fiction to tell their stories. ‘Civil War’ is doing the opposite: It looks like right now.”That storytelling choice, he added, “is bending the genre into something contemporary and relatable. The story is not directly partisan, but it’s provoking partisan feelings. It’s a fine balance to strike. Audiences are emotionally engaged, and that’s impressive.” More

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      Queer Women Behaving Badly: These Movies Scrap the Coming-Out Story

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      “Love Lies Bleeding,” “Bottoms” and “Drive-Away Dolls” are leading a wave of stories about lesbians living their lives, committing crimes along the way.To a queer woman going to the movies, it may seem as if there has been something in the ether for the past year. First, in August, there was “Bottoms.” Then “Drive-Away Dolls” arrived in February. “Love Lies Bleeding” joined the fray in March. This cluster of relatively mainstream films about queer women, deliciously frothy and fun to watch, feels unprecedented.It isn’t, of course — film always has a precedent. But the latest titles are different. These movies lean into camp: heightened realities, suspended disbelief, larger-than-life plots. What’s more, queer women had a significant hand in crafting each release, and none of the movies involve coming-out stories. Their protagonists are already out, living their lives, committing crimes along the way.“I don’t think that these three films, even taken individually, could have quite existed in the pretty mainstream public sphere even a few years ago,” said Clara Bradbury-Rance, a film scholar and the author of “Lesbian Cinema After Queer Theory.” “At what point,” she added, “do you reach a sense that lesbians are represented enough to represent them in their badness and toxicity and irritation?”“Bottoms” follows two lesbian high school seniors, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), who start a fight club (sorry, self-defense club) as a ruse to hook up with cheerleaders. “Drive-Away Dolls” is a crime caper about unsuspecting friends, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), who find a mysterious package in the trunk of their car during a road trip. And in “Love Lies Bleeding,” Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder, comes to town and falls for Lou (Kristen Stewart), a gym manager with a shadowy past.With their offbeat B-movie feel, these stories are “managing to mess with this dichotomy between the good representation and the bad representation,” Bradbury-Rance said, allowing us to think, “there are ways of finding pleasure in ambivalence and ambiguity and tension.”These films are part of a recent larger wave of lesbian stories that includes “Tár,” “Nyad,” “The Color Purple” and “Silver Haze,” and they stand in stark contrast to another recent cluster: the period dramas of the late 2010s. Think: “Carol,” “The Favourite,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Ammonite.” Andrea Torres, one of the programmers behind the recent Sapph-o-Rama series at Film Forum in Manhattan, referred to this as the “lesbian saints era.” It even had its own “Saturday Night Live” sketch: “Lesbian period drama,” went the tagline. “You get one a year — make the most of it.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More