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      Lena Waithe, Gillian Flynn to Become Book Publishers With Zando

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      The two women are joining Zando, an independent publishing company founded last year that plans to work with authors and sell books in unconventional ways.When Gillian Flynn submitted her novel “Gone Girl” to her publisher, Crown, she wasn’t sure what executives would make of the story’s twists and its churlish, unreliable female narrator.“We knew it was weird and complex and risky,” said Molly Stern, who was publisher of Crown at the time. “We also knew that it was a masterpiece.”“Gone Girl” became a blockbuster, selling millions of copies, inspiring a film adaptation starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and creating a booming market for psychological thrillers featuring unstable women.Now Flynn and Stern, who left Crown three years ago, are teaming up again. Flynn is joining Zando, the publishing company that Stern started last year — not as a writer, but as a publisher with her own imprint, Gillian Flynn Books. Flynn will acquire and publish fiction as well as narrative nonfiction and true crime. (Her next novel, which she is currently writing, will be published by Penguin Random House.)“The industry is a harder place to break into. Everyone wants something that feels like a sure thing,” Flynn said in an interview. “What attracted me was that ability to give people what I got, which was a chance in the market. So now I get a chance to champion writers who are a little bit different.”“What attracted me was that ability to give people what I got, which was a chance in the market,” said the “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn, who is starting the imprint Gillian Flynn Books.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesAlong with Flynn, Zando has brought on the screenwriter, producer and actor Lena Waithe, who will start an imprint dedicated to publishing “emerging and underrepresented voices,” including memoirs, young adult titles and literary fiction. As the company’s first founding publishing partners, Flynn and Waithe will each acquire and publish four to six books over a three-year period, and will be involved in marketing and promoting the books to their own fan bases.Flynn and Waithe both have built considerable followings and shown themselves to be versatile in different mediums. In addition to writing the screen adaptation of “Gone Girl,” Flynn was an executive producer on the adaptation of her 2006 novel, “Sharp Objects” and was the creator and showrunner of the TV show “Utopia.”Waithe is also a Hollywood powerhouse. After winning acclaim for her work as a writer and actor on “Master of None,” becoming the first Black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing, Waithe wrote and produced the movie “Queen & Slim” and created the television series “The Chi” and “Twenties.”Stern and Waithe met in 2017, when Stern asked if she wanted to work on a book.“Molly was trying to get me to write a book, and I just didn’t want to,” Waithe said in an interview.She was more enthusiastic about the possibility of publishing other people’s books. When Stern asked her about working with Zando, Waithe developed the idea for an imprint, Hillman Grad Books, which she will lead with Rishi Rajani and Naomi Funabashi, executives at Waithe’s production company, Hillman Grad.“Our mission is to introduce people to authors they may not have otherwise heard of,” Waithe said.At a moment of accelerating consolidation in the publishing industry, Zando, an independent company, is something of an outlier. It will likely publish fewer than 30 titles a year and invest heavily in marketing those books, rather than acquiring many more and hoping a few break out, as most corporate publishing houses do.“I’m hoping we can have a force multiplier effect on books that would have sold modestly or wouldn’t have been a priority at a large publishing house,” Stern said. “Now there will be air around them.”“Our mission is to introduce people to authors they may not have otherwise heard of,” Lena Waithe said of her imprint, Hillman Grad Books.Ike Edeani for The New York TimesLike Hollywood studios, mainstream corporate publishers are increasingly reliant on blockbusters to drive profits, and have grown more risk averse when it comes to promoting new writers. Those authors are struggling more than ever to find their audience in today’s algorithm-driven marketplace, which favors recognizable brands and books that are already selling.Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Jenna Bush Hager and Emma Watson can provide boosts through their book clubs, but those kinds of plugs are the publicity equivalent of lightning strikes — powerful but rare. Zando’s model attempts to reverse-engineer the process by recruiting cultural influencers to select the books.To combat what she called a “crisis” of discoverability, Stern is bringing on high-profile publishing partners, which will include businesses and brands as well as celebrities, to promote books to their own fans and customers. Zando’s partners will get a cut of the profits, though Stern declined to say how much.Zando received a significant start-up investment from Sister, an independent global studio founded in 2019 by the media executive Elisabeth Murdoch, the film industry executive Stacey Snider and the producer Jane Featherstone. Zando’s print books will be distributed by Two Rivers, a distributor run by Ingram, but Zando also plans to experiment with unconventional channels like direct to consumer sales.In addition to its imprints, Zando has its own editorial team making acquisitions. Its first batch of books, due out next spring, is heavy on fiction, including “The Odyssey,” a novel by Lara Williams that takes on consumer capitalism; Steve Almond’s debut novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” set in 1980s Sacramento; and Samantha Allen’s “Patricia Wants to Cuddle,” about contestants on a dating TV show, which is billed as a “queer Grendel for the Instagram era.” More

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      A Hollywood Producer and a Master of Adaptation

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      Freedom, Maine, population 722, is about as far away from Hollywood as you can get. So when Erin French, who runs the uber-popular Lost Kitchen there, had boldface names flocking to her virtual doorstep looking to buy the film rights to her best-selling memoir, she approached them with a lot of trepidation and a bit of awe.“It was intense,” Ms. French said of the experience of selling her personal story of food, addiction and abuse, told in the 2021 book “Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life From Scratch.” “Here you are, sitting in the middle of nowhere, a girl who felt like she had grown up a nobody, and then all of a sudden you’re having Zoom calls with Blake Lively. It was definitely a wild time.”In addition to Ms. Lively, Ms. French and her husband, Michael Dutton, met with others like MGM and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment. In the end, Ms. French and Mr. Dutton sold the rights to Bruna Papandrea and her four-year-old company, Made Up Stories. The couple said they were won over by Ms. Papandrea’s passion for the project, her clear vision of how to turn it into a movie and her track record for finding the right talent for projects.“We’re heading into what’s referred to as ‘Shark Territory,’ getting into this whole world of Hollywood-ness,” said Ms. French, “and we felt like Bruna’s a fighter and Bruna was going to always protect us and keep pushing forward.”Erin French, center, sold the rights to her book to Ms. Papandrea, who she felt had a clear vision of how to turn her story into a movie.Stacey Cramp for The New York TimesFor decades, Ms. Papandrea, 50, toiled in the entertainment business shadows of more famous collaborators, most notably Reese Witherspoon. Together, they produced hit adaptations like “Wild,” “Big Little Lies” and “Gone Girl.”With Made Up Stories, though, Ms. Papandrea has stepped firmly into the spotlight. Her latest series, “Nine Perfect Strangers,” which stars Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy and concludes Wednesday, is Hulu’s most-watched original series, according to the streaming service, beating the audience numbers for acclaimed shows like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Act.” Like “Big Little Lies,” it was adapted from a book by Liane Moriarty.The show’s success, according to those involved, is proof of Ms. Papandrea’s tenacity. “She’s hard to say no to,” said Craig Erwich, president of Hulu Originals and ABC EntertainmentShut down in Los Angeles by the pandemic, Ms. Papandrea and her team quickly shifted the entire production to Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. Ms. Papandrea persuaded the brand-new Soma meditation retreat to open its doors to the production before opening to the public.“I was like, listen, I made a show called ‘Big Little Lies,’ I’m telling you it just makes your property more, it brings it a lot of attention,” she said with her clipped Australian accent.Sitting outside at a beach cafe in Santa Monica, Calif., last month, Ms. Papandrea spoke with a machine gun cadence, dropping words at the ends of sentences as she toggled between topics. It’s a pace mirroring the frenetic schedule she’s managing as she prepares some seven productions for five streaming platforms — all movies or television shows centered on complicated female protagonists.In the next year alone she will debut one movie and two television shows for Netflix, including the long-gestating adaptation of the best-selling novel “Luckiest Girl Alive”; a series for Spectrum Originals and BET on women’s college basketball; an anthology series for Apple TV+ titled “Roar”; an Amazon original series starring Sigourney Weaver; and a romantic comedy series for Peacock that stars Josh Gad and Isla Fisher.Melissa McCarthy stars in “Nine Perfect Strangers,” a series on Hulu by Made Up Stories.Vince Valitutti/Hulu, via Associated PressIt is a sign of how Ms. Papandrea, known for her penchant for finishing novels in one sitting, is uniquely suited for a moment in the entertainment industry when the number of major companies able to buy content is shrinking but the need for compelling shows that will draw audiences continues to grow.“I’m watching it all curiously because it doesn’t matter what network you run or what streaming platform you head, you have to have curators, you have to have people who have taste,” she said. “The hardest thing in the world is to find something someone wants to make, and that’s my skill.”Ms. Papandrea teamed with Ms. Witherspoon for three years, shepherding projects like “Gone Girl” and “Big Little Lies” to the screen and racking up accolades along the way, including best actress Oscar nominations for both Ms. Witherspoon (“Wild”) and Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”). The two went their separate ways in 2017. Ms. Witherspoon formed Hello Sunshine, which was just sold to a new company backed by the investment firm Blackstone Group for $900 million.Ms. Papandrea took the company’s two former employees and with her husband, Steve Hutensky, started Made Up Stories. The company now has 12 employees and offices in Australia and Los Angeles.She attributes the split to the two women wanting different things and having “slightly different tastes.”“Ultimately, she built a big company and I built a big company,” she said with a chuckle.Ms. Witherspoon declined to comment for this article.To finance her new operation, Ms. Papandrea sold a passive minority stake in her business to Endeavor Content, the production arm of the entertainment and sports conglomerate Endeavor. The companies also formed a joint venture — renewable every calendar year — that allows both to serve as co-studios on all Made Up Stories television projects and some Made Up Stories films. The two share the economic risk of their entire TV development slate, but Endeavor does not pay for Ms. Papandrea’s overhead costs. She and Mr. Hutensky maintain independence over all creative decisions.Ms. Papandrea, with Reese Witherspoon, produced hit adaptations like “Big Little Lies,” seen here with some of the cast.Christopher Polk/Getty Images for the Critics’ Choice Awards“I just love being independent. I love it,” she said. “This path has given us the freedom and resources to compete in the marketplace for top material and writers, to bet on up-and-coming creators, to find the right path for each project and to choose the best homes for distribution among the many platforms.”Made Up Stories is one of many companies with a partnership with Endeavor Content.“We are platform agnostic, so we can sell her shows and our shows and other people’s shows to any platform,” said Graham Taylor, a co-president of Endeavor Content. “We’ve kind of built a United Artists 100 years later that we supply shows to every outlet.”The job of a producer has never been easily defined. There are those who take on the title simply because they contributed some money along the way. Others, like Ms. Papandrea, work tirelessly from book option all the way to postproduction and marketing to ensure that the promises they made at the beginning of what is an often long and tortuous process will still be met at the end.“It’s a problem. Producing credits are passed out like lollipops,” said David E. Kelley, the prolific writer and producer, who has worked with Ms. Papandrea on five projects including “Nine Perfect Strangers.” “What we just did in ‘Nine Perfect,’ for example, that’s kind of a miracle. Bruna had to blaze so much trail with the government just to get people into the country in order to shoot. It’s hard work, and it’s a lot of work.”Ms. Papandrea works tirelessly from book option all the way to postproduction and marketing.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images For Stella ArtoisMs. Papandrea, the third of four children, was raised by a single mother in a housing commission flat in the working-class neighborhood of Elizabeth, South Australia. She dropped out of college twice: once after starting a commerce law degree at Melbourne University and later bailing on an arts degree at Adelaide University.She tried her hand at acting. That didn’t stick.She then got a job working as the assistant to the Australian cinematographer Dion Beebe, an opportunity that led her first to being a producer of commercials and then films. Her big break, she said, came when she started working for the directors Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack.The job took her to London and then to Los Angeles, where she learned the art of adaptation from two of the best in the business.According to Ms. Papandrea, Mr. Minghella hired her because she was smart and she made him laugh. He taught her how to treat creative people with respect and to never work with anyone she didn’t want to have a meal with.She held on to those early lessons and has vowed to pay it forward by hiring only young talent with no Hollywood connections.“When we hire people now, we make sure they’ve had no access to the business. We won’t hire someone off a desk,” she said. “We try and find people who have come up with no experience, because how else do you break those people in?”Jessica Knoll was one such author. Ms. Papandrea worked with her to turn her novel “Luckiest Girl Alive” into a feature film. The two first came together seven years ago, just after “Wild” was made. But executive shuffles, changing tastes and other challenges kept the film in development for years. All the while, Ms. Papandrea stuck with Ms. Knoll as the film’s only writer — a feat in modern-day Hollywood.“She was just so fierce in terms of how much she championed writers and how much she protected them and their stories,” said Ms. Knoll, who had never written a screenplay before adapting her own and recalls Ms. Papandrea giving her Mr. Minghella’s memoir “Minghella on Minghella” and coaching her through the process.“I want to be in business with her forever. The room is a brighter room when Bruna Papandrea is in it.” More

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      Anthony Johnson, Actor Known for ‘Friday,’ Dies at 55

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      Mr. Johnson, whose other film credits include “House Party” and “Menace II Society,” died on Sept. 6, his agent said.Anthony Johnson, an actor and comedian known for small but memorable roles in “Friday,” “House Party” and about two dozen other movies, died on Sept. 6. He was 55.His death, in a hospital in Los Angeles County, Calif., was confirmed by his agent, LyNea Bell, and the county medical examiner’s office; neither specified a cause.Mr. Johnson is perhaps best known for playing Ezal, a drug addict and thief who unintentionally interrupts a heist, in the 1995 movie “Friday,” starring Ice Cube. Mr. Johnson’s other film credits, sometimes as A.J. Johnson, include “House Party” (1990), “Menace II Society” (1993) and “B.A.P.S.” (1997).Mr. Johnson was born on Feb. 1, 1966, and grew up in Compton, Calif.“If you made it out of Compton, you can make it anywhere,” he said in a 2018 interview with VladTV. “You had to be really careful and watch yourself back in them days.”In a 2013 interview for a YouTube series called “Conversations of an Actor,” Mr. Johnson said his father, Eddie Smith, was a stuntman who worked with Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and other stars. His father, he said, helped him get his start in the industry by getting him involved in work behind the scenes.“He told me whenever I’m on camera to always stand out, to do something on camera to make people remember me,” Mr. Johnson said in the 2018 interview.In the 2013 interview, Mr. Johnson said he had never taken an acting class.“It’s, like, real easy to act,” he said. “You just put yourself in the situation that you’re not in but you really want to be in.”Mr. Johnson’s survivors include his wife, Lexis, and three children, as well as a brother, Edward Smith, and a sister, Sheila.As the news of Mr. Johnson’s death spread on Monday, actors and performers shared memories and brief appreciations on social media. Ice Cube described Mr. Johnson on Twitter as a “naturally funny dude.”The rapper and actor Shad Moss, who is also known by his stage name, Bow Wow, credited Mr. Johnson with helping to set his career in motion. In a video on Instagram, he said that Mr. Johnson had been serving as the M.C. on the 1993 Chronic Tour, headlined by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, when he picked Mr. Moss out of the crowd and invited him backstage.“If it wasn’t for A.J. Johnson’s eyes, and then picking me out of the crowd out of 20,000 people in Ohio, I don’t think there would have ever been a Bow Wow,” he said. “You will truly be missed, and you’re definitely going to go down in history as one of the greatest.”In addition to performing standup comedy and acting in movies, Mr. Johnson said in 2013 that he had also appeared in plays, and expressed a desire to return to the stage.“It’s like doing standup,” he said. “I love it. I love the theater. That’s where I’m going back.”Mr. Johnson said that Robin Harris, an actor and comedian who also appeared in “House Party,” had helped him early in his career, including by giving one of his first shots at doing standup.“I did about three minutes and got booed,” Mr. Johnson said in the 2013 interview. “He told me to go home and make up some jokes. I came back, and the rest is history.” More

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      “Dune”: quid des Oscars et d'une deuxième partie?

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      Notre critique évalue les chances et les attentes du film à l’approche de la saison des grands prix de cinéma. Aux USA, le film sort le mois prochain à la fois en salle et en streaming.The New York Times traduit en français une sélection de ses meilleurs articles. Retrouvez-les ici.L’épice doit couler. Mais le public sera-t-il au rendez-vous ?Le film très attendu de Denis Villeneuve a été projeté en avant-première à la Mostra de Venise le 3 septembre. C’était un choix de lieu inattendu pour le lancement d’une franchise de science-fiction qui aura coûté près de 160 millions de dollars — mais “Dune” n’a rien d’une locomotive de studio ordinaire.C’est un objet cinématographique plus étrange et onirique, une oeuvre effrontément à cheval entre un film d’auteur et un blockbuster de studio, de telle façon que même après l’avoir vu, je ne peux pas prédire quel succès il rencontrera à sa sortie en salle (aux USA et sur HBO Max le 22 octobre). A l’issue de la projection, le premier critique à qui j’ai parlé était conquis. Un autre a fui la salle comme si Villeneuve y avait posé une bombe.Pourtant, après une décennie de films Marvel réalisés avec moultes prouesses techniques mais sans grand risque formel, c’est stimulant de voir un film de cette envergure prendre de tels risques artistiques. Trois questions me trottent dans la tête depuis cette séance à Venise.‘Dune’ percera-t-il au grand écran?‘Dune’ a beau être fondé sur le grand classique de science-fiction par Frank Herbert, ses adaptations sont loin d’avoir enflammé les foules. Celle de David Lynch en 1984 est un célèbre fiasco que le cinéaste lui-même a désavoué. Quant aux deux adaptations en mini-séries, elles auront plutôt marqué par les lentilles de contact bleues déjantées qu’y porte un jeune James McAvoy que pour avoir inspiré quelque réaction significative dans le monde de la pop-culture.Mais ‘Dune’ a les reins solides, et ils ont supporté beaucoup depuis la publication du roman en 1965. Il a inspiré tant de films que les gfrands traits du récit nous sont désormais familiers : un jeune homme (joué ici par Timothée Chalamet) est envoyé sur une planète exotique où l’on exploite une ressource naturelle précieuse — en l’occurrence la fameuse “épice” hallucinogène — mais décide finalement de prendre le parti des autochtones et de lutter contre leurs oppresseurs archi-militarisés.C’est à peu de choses près l’intrigue d’ “Avatar”, direz-vous… et c’est peut-être tant mieux ! “Avatar” a pulvérisé les records, et si Chalamet est novice dans ce type de rôle, Villeneuve l’a entouré d’un casting de vétérans : Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista et Josh Brolin sont des vétérans de l’univers des super-héros, Oscar Isaac est frais émoulu de la trilogie “Star Wars” et Rebecca Ferguson tient le rôle principal dans l’adaptation de “Mission : Impossible”. Si tant de films à succès ont emprunté à “Dune”, ce n’est que justice que “Dune” leur emprunte en retour.En dépit de son pedigrée, “Dune” fait cependant face à des obstacles de taille. Le tournage s’est terminé il y a plus de deux ans et la sortie programmée d’abord pour novembre 2020 a été reportée d’environ un an par Warner Bros. Ce délai réservait l’espoir que “Dune” voit le jour dans une ère post-Covid; en réalité, les ravage continus du variant Delta font trembler les studios au point de repousser à 2022 la sortie de quelques films majeurs — comme “Top Gun : Maverick”.D’une certaine manière, ce n’est peut-être pas si mal pour “Dune” : avec moins de blockbusters de marque sur le marché, le film a plus de chance de sortir du lot et d’attirer les amateurs de grand spectacle. Mais aux USA, à la consternation de Villeneuve, le film sortira sur HBO en même temps qu’il ouvrira en salles, menaçant ainsi de rogner sur les recettes du box-office et de torpiller les chances qu’une suite du film voit le jour.Cela pourrait aussi affecter le buzz de départ : le public qui verra “Dune” en salle se sentira certainement plus immergé dans le film (avec les sensations sonores et visuelles qu’il dispense), tandis que les non-initiés ou les curieux qui arrivent sur HBO Max au moyen d’un simple clic seront forcément moins sensibles à la mise en scène de Villeneuve. La première séquence d’action de taille — l’attaque d’un ver des sables géant — n’arrive qu’au bout d’une heure. Les spectateurs à domicile seront-il aussi disposés à aller jusqu’au bout du film que ceux qui ont fait l’effort de payer leur place en salle?Timothée Chalamet et Rebecca Ferguson dans “Dune.”Chiabella James/Warner Bros.Comment “Dune” sera-t-il reconnu aux Oscar?Une des choses partciulièrement frappante de “Dune” est le sens de la texture qu’a Denis Villeneuve, à contrario d’autres réalisateurs de films à gros budget. Quand un personnage tombe lors d’une bataille, c’est le battement des cils du mourant qui le fascine. Durant l’assaut donné sur un retranchement, la caméra se détourne de l’action pour nous montrer de magnifiques palmiers en flammes, leurs couronnes de feuilles rayonnant de puissance destructrice.Même si les jurys des Oscars ne sont d’habitude pas très friands de films de science-fiction, je soupçonne que ce regard si particulier de Villeneuve distinguera “Dune”, car le film est indéniablement envoûtant. Il est sûr de s’attirer une tonne de nominations secondaires, dont pour la photographie de Greig Fraser et pour les décors de Patrice Vermette. La musique de Hans Zimmer, le son et le montage sont tous bien plus audacieux que ce que le genre nous offre d’habitude : les effets sonores et les plans en coupe semblent élaborés pour vous mettre en transe comme sous l’emprise de l’épice.Et je n’en suis pas encore aux costumes ! Leur design (par Jacqueline West et Bob Morgan) est étourdissant, surtout pendant la première heure du film. Avec Rebecca Ferguson en nonne de l’espace habillée de fourreaux extravagants, et Charlotte Rampling voilée en Jean-Paul Gaultier telle le Chevalier vert, “Dune” a des airs de défilé de haute-couture où passent à l’occasion des vaisseaux spatiaux — et pour moi c’est une bonne chose.“Blade Runner 2049” , le dernier film de Villeneuve, s’est vu décerner 5 nominations aux Oscars et un Academy Award mérité de longue date à son chef opérateur Roger Deakins. Mais il n’a pas pu percer dans les deux catégories d’excellence des Oscars — meilleur film et meilleur réalisateur. Est-ce que “Dune” a de meilleures chances d’y réussir?Je botte en touche et opte pour le ‘wait-and-see’. Aucun des acteurs de “Dune” ne semble avoir de chance d’être nominé, ce qui aurait accru la légitimité du film auprès des membres du jury. Ajoutons qu’une nomination pour le meilleur scénario adapté n’est pas non plus certaine. En même temps, après une année 2020 relativement confidentielle, je pense que l’Académie souhaitera voir un film de grande envergure sélectionné pour le prix du meilleur film. Et le combat qu’a mené Villeneuve pour que son film passe sur grand écran trouvera écho après des jurés réfractaires au streaming, pour lesquels son obstination est une croisade digne d’être soutenue.Le réalisateur Denis Villeneuve, au centre, à la Mostra de Venise entouré du casting de “Dune”. De gauche à droite: Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac et Josh Brolin.Yara Nardi/ReutersY aura-t-il un “Dune : 2ème partie” ?Les spectateurs qui s’attendent à l’expérience complète risquent une déconvenue à la lecture du titre : il ne s’agit pas de “Dune”, mais de “Dune : 1ère partie”.Villeneuve a grosso modo coupé le roman d’Herbert en deux, avec pour conséquence que la trajectoire des personnages principaux ne s’esquisse que vers la fin du film. Et si la promotion du film suggère que Zendaya est le premier rôle féminin, c’est plutôt Rebecca Ferguson qui occupe le récit. Exceptées quelques visions d’anticipation de l’avenir, Zendaya ne contribue pas encore de façon déterminante à l’histoire.Denis Villeneuve compte bien livrer “Dune” en deux parties et travaille déjà au scénario de la suite. Mais la Warner Bros n’a toujours pas donné son feu vert. Le studio a déjà tenté l’expérience d’une adaptation en deux parties avec “Ça” de Stephen King, mais les films sont sortis à deux ans d’écart alors qu’un projet de suite pour “Dune” prendrait vraisemblablement bien plus longtemps à monter. (Le studio se soucie peut-être aussi du fait que le “Ça: Chapitre II” a rapporté, au niveau international, quelque 250 000 dollars de moins que le premier film, malgré une pléthore de stars à l’affiche.)Peut-être la Warner opte-t-elle aussi pour le ‘wait and see’, l’œil sur le box-office avant de donner le top de départ d’un second “Dune”. Mais avec la concurrence du streaming accentuée en temps de pandémie, les critères de succès ont pris une tournure nouvelle. Étant donné que HBO Max prépare une série dérivée sur les Bene Gesserit — un ordre clandestin et exclusivement féminin comptant les personnages de Charlotte Rampling et de Rebecca Ferguson — je m’étonne que le studio ne s’engage pas fermement sur une suite, ne serait-ce que pour favoriser une dynamique en amont de la sortie du film.Cela signalerait en outre clairement au public que le récit est encore inachevé à la fin de ce “Dune”, lequel passe par deux pics d’intensité avant d’atterrir en douceur pour un dénouement quelque peu amorti. Villeneuve n’est pas avare de teasing: on entrevoit beaucoup d’événements majeurs à venir, comme si le film était impatient d’entrer dans le vif du sujet. Combien de temps devra durer cette attente ? More

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      How Jessica Chastain Became Tammy Faye

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      To transform the actress into the title televangelist of “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” it took a little faith and a lot of artists.Jessica Chastain spent years pursuing the opportunity to play Tammy Faye Messner, the indefatigable star of Christian broadcasting. Better known to an audience of millions as Tammy Faye Bakker, she and Jim Bakker, her husband at the time, presided over the popular PTL television ministry until they were brought down in the late 1980s by financial and sex scandals.So when Chastain finally got that chance in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” a new biopic co-starring Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker and directed by Michael Showalter, she was determined to look the part. As Chastain said of the woman behind her character: “She never really did anything halfway. She didn’t have an ounce of being cool or being aloof about her. So I just felt like I couldn’t dip my toe in or be cool and aloof in the performance. I had to jump in the most wild, extreme way. Because that’s how she lived every moment.”Chastain had done her own research for the film, which Searchlight Pictures released on Friday: she sought out magazine articles about Messner, who died in 2007, as well as old photographs and TV appearances. But making that transformation required a team of makeup, hair and wardrobe artists. Some of them had worked with Chastain before and they knew what they would be expected to deliver. “It’s basically what she says she wants,” said the hairstylist Stephanie Ingram, adding, “At that point you’ve just got to make it happen.”Here, Chastain and several of the artists who worked on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” talk about how they were able to fill the TV personality’s shoes (not to mention her wigs, sequins and acrylics).ProstheticsJustin Raleigh, the film’s prosthetic makeup designer, and his team faced a twofold challenge. First, designing prosthetics (artificial skin appliances made of gel-filled silicone) that struck the right balance between character and performer: “Jessica wanted to be lost within the role and to really embody Tammy without completely obliterating Jessica as well,” Raleigh said. “We had a really careful dance of how much prosthetics we were going to use or not.” Second, creating consistent looks that would build up to Bakker in her most recognizable eras: “Working in reverse, once we established what we had to do for the 1980s and ’90s, the only way to make the rest of it work would be to add prosthetics to her younger look,” Raleigh explained. “We had to keep that level of continuity, anatomically speaking, throughout the entire film.”During the 1960s and ’70s, Chastain wore prosthetics on her cheeks, an appliance on her chin (to cover a dimple) and tape to pull up the tip of her nose. In scenes set in the ’80s, she added a body suit, a full neck prosthetic and an appliance on her upper lip; for the ’90s she added eye bags. Throughout, Raleigh said, “The cheeks were the hallmark element that had to carry all the way through.”Kelly Golden, center, the lead prosthetic applicator, and Justin Raleigh, the prosthetic makeup designer, work on Chastain before filming.Daniel McFadden/Searchlight PicturesTammy Faye Baker got bolder with her makeup as she got older, and so did the screen version.Daniel McFadden/Searchlight PicturesMakeupFor all the cosmetics that Messner wore — and as much as she was ridiculed for it — members of the makeup team said they wanted to avoid mockery. “It was just really making sure that nothing we did compromised the authenticity of who she was and that we never crossed a line into a caricature,” said the makeup artist Linda Dowds, who has worked with the actress on 15 movies, beginning with the 2013 horror film “Mama.”Dowds, who headed the makeup department on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” said there always had to be a “beauty element” in how the character used makeup: “She absolutely loved makeup and she loved looking the way she did in makeup. She just got bolder with it.”Pink was a prominent color in her youthful palette, but over time, her coloring got darker and she tattooed her eyeliner, eyebrows and lip liner (recreated with marker on Chastain). “We also had a lot more lashes to deal with — we went from one coat of mascara to four or five,” Dowds said. “She would say things in interviews like, ‘Who said you can’t put mascara on false lashes? Where do these rules come from? You don’t have to be dowdy to be Christian.’”CostumesTo build a wardrobe for the onscreen Tammy Faye, the film’s costume designer, Mitchell Travers, had to get into her character, too: “Honestly, I went shopping like Tammy did,” Travers said. “She had an expression where she would say that shopping was her favorite cardio. And she was a woman who loved the hunt.”He scoured swap meets and estate sales, shopped on Etsy and at T.J. Maxx, in search of clothes for a woman who wanted to look powerful even before she could afford to and who later had access to money, then lost it.“I could tell the story of what it was like to be comfortable with money and almost forget that things had prices,” Travers said. “And I could also tell the story of what it was like to have lost it all and the pressure to live up to that persona when you didn’t have the funds.”At her 1980s zenith, the character’s apparel looked new and everything about it was big: the shoulder pads, the clip-on earrings, the polka dots. And for Tammy Faye’s post-PTL life, Travers said, he tried to reuse earlier looks he’d already assembled, “so that you get the sense that it’s a woman holding onto something that used to be there but it’s not coming as easily.”The costumes were intended to reflect Tammy Faye’s growing comfort with money.Fox Searchlight PicturesHairGetting Chastain’s hair to look like Tammy Faye’s memorable tresses required no less than 11 wigs: brunette ones for her youth; big blond ones for her heyday in the ’80s and red ones for her later years — even a removable wig with a built-in headband that Chastain could pull off to reveal the character’s short, spindly locks (in fact, another wig). And don’t assume that Stephanie Ingram, head of the film’s hair department and another veteran of many Chastain projects, simply found these wigs on a store shelf.“It’s funny because people say, ‘You take ’em out of the box, you put ’em on,’” Ingram said. “I’m like, mmm, no, you don’t.” Some wigs were colored and fit to Chastain’s specifications and others were made custom for her. A given day on set could also call for five to 10 more stylists to provide period hair for the rest of the cast. Near the end of the shoot, when Tammy Faye asks for a divorce from her husband, Ingram said, “I just fell apart. I guess my body just went, oh my God, you actually did it.”PerformancePlaying a role under many layers of wigs, clothing, makeup and silicone was a largely new process for Chastain. She said her closest previous experience was portraying the dowdy heroine in a Broadway production of “The Heiress,” on which she didn’t have the benefit of such a large artistic team: “I had a prosthetic nose, which I applied myself,” she said. “So I have the utmost respect for what they do. Because it was really hard.”Turning herself into Tammy Faye each day could sometimes take as long as five to seven hours, even before any filming started, but Chastain said that lengthy preparation at least offered her the additional time to connect with her character. “When you sit in a chair for that long it can be draining,” Chastain said. “I was constantly watching videos of her, listening to her voice. I was using it as a runway. Sometimes when you’re playing a character, you get a 30-minute runway, and then you take off and you’re shooting. My character had an extra-long runway.” More

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      An Eerie, Thrilling Trip to the Toronto International Film Festival

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      With theaters at 50 percent capacity, our critic found herself somewhat isolated as she took in highlights like “The Tsugua Diaries” and “Hold Your Fire.”“Would you like to move to the orchestra?” a voice from the dark whispered.I was at the Toronto International Film Festival and, moments earlier, had just realized that I was the only festivalgoer in the very capacious, very empty balcony. In normal years, this 2,000-seat theater, a festival mainstay, is packed with excitedly buzzing attendees. But normal is so very 2019 as are crowds. It felt awfully lonely up there with just me and some ushers, so I said Sure! and ran down to the orchestra, settling amid other attendees who, perhaps like me, were trying to feign a sense of togetherness — at a Covid-safe distance, of course.One of the largest film happenings in the world, the Toronto festival celebrated its 46th anniversary this year and, more gloomily, its second year of putting on a show during the pandemic. On a number of levels, it was a success: Although scaled down from its preplague era, the festival, which ends Saturday, presented some 200 movies, in person and digitally, from across the world. There were premieres, panels and lots of mask-muffled “Have a great day!” from the staff. Benedict Cumberbatch — the star of Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” and Will Sharpe’s “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” — popped in via satellite for a chat.It was much the same while being profoundly different. More than anything, as I attended movies in the festival’s eerily depopulated theaters — sitting in rooms that, per Canadian safety rules, couldn’t exceed 50 percent capacity — I was reminded that a film festival isn’t simply a series of back-to-back new movies. It’s also people, joined together, and ordinarily jammed together, as one under the cinematic groove. There is always vulgarity, of course, the red-carpet posing, the Oscar-race hustling, and I’ve watched plenty of profane monstrosities at Toronto, Sundance, et al. But even when the movies disappoint, I am always happy at a festival, watching alongside people as crazy about movies as I am.Benedict Cumberbatch, left, and Jesse Plemons in “The Power of the Dog.”Kirsty Griffin/NetflixThere weren’t many people, but there was still a lot to like and to love in Toronto, including Cumberbatch flexing his muscles in the nude as a 1920s Montana cowboy in Campion’s magnificent “The Power of the Dog” and playing a rather more buttoned-up cat fancier in “Louis Wain.” A charming, poignant biographical account, that film portrays the life of a British artist who, starting in the late 19th century — with pen, vibrant ink and a fantastically wild imagination — helped teach the joys of cat worship to a dog-besotted Britain. The movie may make some gag, but I dug its tenderness and Wain’s work, which grew trippier the older and more mentally unstable he became.For higher-profile selections like these, the fall festivals — Telluride and Venice recently ended — serve as a legitimizing launchpad for the fall season, a way to distinguish themselves from the hundreds of movies also vying for attention. Disney can scoop up spectators by the millions. Titles like “The Power of the Dog,” which falls under the fuzzy heading of art film yet is entirely accessible to those actually paying attention, need to seduce a smaller viewership, even if Campion has long been a revered auteur. They need festival audiences, critics included, on the front lines, particularly if a movie is headed toward next year’s Academy Awards. (“Dog” is more likely to go the Oscar distance than Wain’s cats.)And, after months and months of streaming new movies in my living room, I was exceptionally happy to be at Toronto. I’ve attended the festival for years, largely because of the variegated bounty of its offerings, from the commercial to the avant-garde. When it was founded in 1976, it was called the Festival of Festivals, partly because it screened films that had played elsewhere. It was intended for the general public (Cannes is invitation-only), a mandate that helped give Toronto a democratic vibe. In the words of one of its founders, Bill Marshall, “There’s something for everyone, but not everything for everyone, but something.”A scene from “Hold Your Fire,” about hostage negotiations.InterPositive Media, via Toronto International Film FestivalIn the decades that followed, Toronto rebranded itself as the Toronto International Film Festival and opened a handsome complex called the Lightbox in a soulless area called the entertainment district, where construction crews always seem to be building glass-and-steel apartment complexes for young professionals with dogs. Even so, the event’s populist ethos continues, as does its hodgepodge programming. Here, as usual, you could catch movies that had played in Berlin, Cannes and Telluride and would soon make their way to New York and beyond. One of the best things about Toronto, though, is that it isn’t an auteur-driven festival or an Oscar-baiting one: It’s just a flood of movies — good, bad and indifferent.There were teary melodramas, cryptic whatsits and period dramas like Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” which is as watchable as it is predictable. A story in black-and-white — visually and in its beats — the movie takes place in the title city in the 1960s, just as partisan violence descends on a cozy street where Catholic and Protestant families live alongside one another in dewy harmony. Centered on a cute tyke nestled in the bosom of a loving family whose members are mostly known commodities (Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds play the grandparents), the movie is in the vein of John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory,” a far finer coming-of-age story set during World War II.Among the other offerings were movies that belong to familiar subgenres that I call the Sad Single Women With Dying Plants Movie (“True Things”) and the ever-popular Damaged Woman Film, some more outré (this year’s risible Cannes Palmes d’Or winner, “Titane”) than others (“The Mad Women’s Ball”). And then there was Edgar Wright’s frenetic “Last Night in Soho,” which is a female-friendship movie of a kind and putative empowerment story about another sad woman (Thomasin McKenzie) and her glamorous sad doppelgänger (Anya Taylor-Joy). The two meet across time in a London crawling with mean girls and unspeakably predatory men.Jacques Cousteau’s life is examined in a new documentary.Story Syndicate, via Toronto International Film FestivalAs usual, the documentaries were often a sure bet. Although “Becoming Cousteau,” about the underwater French explorer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, is a fairly standard biographical portrait, the director Liz Garbus manages to push the movie into deeper depths. Filled with beautiful archival images of pristine waters, the movie opens as a fairly straight great-man story only to evolve into a thoughtful examination of what Cousteau’s early adventures wrought, including his lucrative work-for-hire helping to find oil in the Persian Gulf. As development progressively destroyed the undersea world that he helped illuminate, Cousteau became a fervent environmentalist — too late but still laudable.More formally audacious were two of my festival highlights: “Flee,” a Danish movie about an Afghan refugee, and “Hold Your Fire,” a jaw-dropper about a decades-old American hostage crisis. Directed by Stefan Forbes, “Hold Your Fire” looks back on a 1973 robbery in Brooklyn that went catastrophically wrong when its painfully young perpetrators were discovered midcrime. (Forbes also edited the wealth of archival material and shot the recent interviews with survivors and witnesses, like the psychologist Harvey Schlossberg, the definition of a mensch.) The incident quickly mushroomed into a televised spectacle and became a turning point in hostage negotiating; more than anything, it exhumes an instructive, bleakly relevant chapter in the city’s long racially fractious history.“Flee” is focused on an Afghan refugee, a friend of the documentary’s director. Final Cut for Real, via Toronto International Film Festival“Flee,” directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, is a beautifully, at times expressionistically animated documentary — punctuated with shocks of unanimated newsreel-style imagery — about the filmmaker’s longtime friend, Amin (a pseudonym), a refugee from Afghanistan. The two met in high school and remained in touch, but it was only when Rasmussen started making this movie that he actually learned the real difficulties and intricacies of Amin’s story. “Flee” unwinds piecemeal as Amin — often lying on a couch, as if in a shrink’s office — recounts his harrowing travels, with a brother or alone, in a journey that, in some painful ways, is ongoing.My favorite movie of this year’s festival, “The Tsugua Diaries,” doesn’t easily fit into any obvious genre category, which is one of its attractions. Like some other titles in this year’s festival, the movie was shot during the pandemic, but it is also very much about the pandemic. Or, rather, it’s about time and its passage as well as friendship and the deep, life-sustaining pleasures of being with other people. It was directed by Maureen Fazendeiro (she’s French) and Miguel Gomes (he’s Portuguese) who are a couple, and is both formally playful — its divided in chapters, each of which take the movie back in time — and unexpectedly moving. I wept buckets, and I can’t wait to see it again. More

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      Tom Cruise Talks to SpaceX Inspiration4 Astronauts in Orbit

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      Maverick has called space.The Inspiration4 crew has talked to the actor Tom Cruise: Maverick was the call sign of his fighter pilot character in the 1986 movie “Top Gun.”Rook, Nova, Hanks, and Leo spoke to @TomCruise sharing their experience from space. Maverick, you can be our wingman anytime. pic.twitter.com/5YTfyRZhrd— Inspiration4 (@inspiration4x) September 17, 2021
      Like the Top Gun character, the four astronauts orbiting Earth have their own call signs. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire underwriting the mission, has flown fighter jets and already had a call sign: Rook, short for rookie. As part of the training for flying to orbit, Mr. Isaacman took his crewmates up in the air for fighter jet flights so they could experience high-G forces during sharp turns.The other three crew members chose their own call signs. Hayley Arceneaux is Nova, Sian Proctor is Leo and Christopher Sembroski is Hanks.Mr. Cruise also has space dreams. In May 2020, Jim Bridenstine, then the administrator of NASA, confirmed that the space agency had talked with Mr. Cruise about shooting a film on the International Space Station.Since then, there has been no update about the progress of the movie or when Mr. Cruise may blast off. But he will return to the cockpit in a sequel called “Top Gun: Maverick,” now expected to be released in May 2022.But if he does go, he will probably not be the first actor shooting a movie in space. A Russian actress and a director are scheduled to visit the space station next month to make a movie named “Challenge,” about a surgeon sent to orbit to save the life of a Russian astronaut. More

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      ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ Review: Drag Queen Dreams

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      Despite its clichés, this musical about an aspiring teenage drag queen is a charmer.You have to credit “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” for boldness: This new British musical is not afraid to be predictable. Characters who are all archetypes leave no cliché unturned as they navigate plot turns we have seen a hundred times before.And yet … Jonathan Butterell’s film, now streaming on Amazon, is a charmer, every bit as sunny, confident and ultimately compelling as Jamie himself.A 16-year-old Sheffield gay boy who yearns to be a drag queen, Jamie (Max Harwood) faces familiar foes (a hostile dad, a school bully, a stern teacher) with the support of familiar allies (a loving mom, a nerdy bestie, a flamboyant mentor) as he sashays his way to not one but two cathartic epiphanies in highly judgmental environments — a drag show and prom night.An adaptation of a hit West End show, itself based on the 2011 documentary “Jamie: Drag Queen at 16” (also available on Amazon), the movie joins a long British line of features about salt-of-the-earth folks, preferably from the gritty north, who overcome various odds to either follow their dream or simply be themselves — both are intertwined here, with identity and purpose melding together. “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” stands out from the pack thanks to Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’s infernally catchy songs, which bear the influence of the exuberantly melodic pop music of the late 1990s and early 2000s. (British musical-theater composers have a much surer grasp of this particular idiom than their American brethren.)The movie is also, as is often the case in this genre, boosted by an ace cast. Harwood is as charismatic as he needs to be, while also making Jamie’s occasional narcissism at least understandable. And the supporting actors are crucial in selling the boilerplate script. Richard E. Grant tackles the role of the gay father figure Hugo Battersby and his alter ego, the drag queen Loco Chanelle, with barely contained glee; that character gets an excellent new number that puts Jamie’s aspirations in historical and political context without being heavy-handed. Sarah Lancashire and Sharon Horgan are just as good in the less showy parts of Jamie’s mother and teacher. As ever, it takes a village to raise a queen.Everybody’s Talking About JamieRated PG-13 for language, bullying and sexual allusions. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More