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      in Movies

      ‘Barbenheimer’: Fans Plan to See ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Back to Back on July 21

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      The “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” movies look very different. But some fans are planning a double feature for their release on July 21.Barbie is everything. He’s just … Robert Oppenheimer.That’s right. The main character competing with Barbie for attention right now isn’t Ken, her plastic significant other. It’s the man who designed the atomic bomb.Fans have been waiting for this summer’s release of two movies — “Barbie,” from Warner Bros. and directed by Greta Gerwig, and “Oppenheimer,” from Universal Pictures and directed by Christopher Nolan — which are both coming out on July 21, and they have been poking fun at the stark contrast in the movies’ themes, moods and color schemes.The result of the release schedule is a mash-up many people may not have seen coming: Barbenheimer. Or Boppenheimer, if you will.Only one month left. pic.twitter.com/n6PKQBtTcc— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) June 20, 2023
      “Oppenheimer” is Nolan’s prestige movie based on “American Prometheus,” a biography of Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the Manhattan Project, which during World War II produced the first atomic bombs. The trailers for that film, with intense music and suspenseful scenes starring a pensive-looking Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, are in stark contrast with the pink and sparkly trailers for “Barbie,” which show Margot Robbie as the doll living in Barbieland before setting off on an adventure into the real world.The two characters could hardly be more different (does this Venn diagram even have a middle?). And yet, Robbie and Murphy are appearing on T-shirts and sweaters together.Memes, videos and online chatter have flooded social media, and some people are making plans to see the two movies on the same day. A debate about which order to see them in — “Barbie” first to start the day off light, or “Oppenheimer” first, to end on a more cheerful note — hasn’t been settled.The curious crossover is also giving rise to real-life merchandise. A Google search for “Barbenheimer T-shirt” brings tens of thousands of results, and sellers on Etsy have designed their own versions. Some feature Robbie and Murphy, while others combine Barbie’s pink font with a pink drawing of an atomic cloud.One such T-shirt, and an early entry in the crowded field, is a simple split-screen combination of the two movie logos, spelling out “Barbenheimer” with the release date of the films.Hunter Hudson, 23, a filmmaker in San Antonio, said he originally designed and created the shirts for him and his friends to “roll up to the Barbenheimer double feature” on July 21. But when he posted pictures of the shirt on his Twitter feed, he said, it took off beyond his expectations.“I normally get about three or four likes on anything I post,” Hudson said. But after sharing a few mock-ups of the shirt, he woke up one morning to hundreds of messages from people asking him if they could buy it.Hudson makes the shirts himself, with a friend, and charges $40. So far he said he had made about 150 shirts, with a second batch of about 70 more on the way. It takes him about 45 minutes to an hour to make one T-shirt, which he does by cutting two shirts in half, pinning them together and sewing and pressing them.“I had a couple of movie theaters reach out to me privately to do bulk orders for employees,” he said. “It’s been overwhelmingly positive.”This kind of organic marketing is probably good for both films, said Robert Mitchell, the director of theatrical insights at Gower Street, a company that does predictive analysis for the film industry.Not that the studios’ marketing has been lacking: There are life-size cardboard Barbie boxes in theaters for people to take pictures and a selfie generator. There have been collaborations with multiple brands: The frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry is offering a Barbie flavor, Gap has a line of Barbie-themed clothes, and Airbnb is offering a real-life Barbie Dream House in Malibu. Warner Bros. declined to comment on the movie’s marketing efforts.What all this hype means for box office results for either film is unclear, and awareness doesn’t always translate into attendance, Mitchell said. Predictions for opening weekends are tricky and a lot can still happen before July 21, said David Gross, a movie consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. Some conservative industry estimates, he said, have “Barbie” opening between $55 million and $65 million in the United States and Canada, and “Oppenheimer” between $40 million and $50 million. Both of those estimates would be strong for a fantasy comedy and a historical drama, neither of which are sequels. Superhero, big action and big animation movies usually open higher, Mr. Gross said.Still, the hype around the films could be beneficial to the numbers. “Every time ‘Barbie’ released a trailer, ‘Oppenheimer’ would start trending,” Mitchell said.“They’re so vastly different,” he said, “that they allow for the narrative that popped up organically: This would be strangest double bill ever.” That online conversation, he said, “is pretty much a gift for distributors.”While social media is full of people showing off their tickets to see the double feature, it’s unclear how many really will. “But it shouldn’t matter,” Gross said. “Audiences are going to find them, and both films are going to do extremely well.” More

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      in Theater

      Tony Awards Give a Box Office Boost to Prize-Winning Shows

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      “Leopoldstadt,” which was named best play, and “Kimberly Akimbo,” which won best musical, saw considerable increases in ticket sales.“Leopoldstadt” and “Kimberly Akimbo,” the two shows that took home top Tony Awards last week, saw big bumps at the box office in the days following that ceremony.The increases for the award-winning shows, which far outpaced a slight rise in the box office overall, seemed to support the industry’s argument to Hollywood’s striking screenwriters that a Tony Awards telecast can play an important role in sustaining struggling shows. “Kimberly Akimbo,” in particular, needed the boost; despite strong reviews, it had been soft at the box office.“Leopoldstadt,” a heart-wrenching drama by Tom Stoppard about the effect of the Holocaust on a Jewish family in Vienna, had the biggest assist: The show won the Tony Award for best new play on June 11, and its grosses for the week that ended June 18 were up 42 percent over the prior week. The grosses were most likely boosted by the fast-approaching end of the show’s run on July 2.“Kimberly Akimbo,” a quirky show about a high school student with a life-threatening genetic condition and a comically dysfunctional home life, got a 32 percent boost at the box office after winning the prize for best new musical. The show, written by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori, played to full houses through the week, which had not been the case previously.“After this won, I’m like, ‘I want to see this before I leave, just because it won a Tony,’” said Brad Steinmeyer, 30, who was visiting from Colorado and bought tickets to see the Tony Award winning-actors in “Kimberly Akimbo” on Saturday.Rhys Williams, 27, a theater actor from New York City, also said that watching the Tony Awards cemented his decision to buy a ticket for the show.“It made it something I didn’t want to miss,” he said.Overall, Broadway grosses were up 6 percent last week, reflecting some combination of recovery from the effects of the previous week’s wildfire smoke, the slow build of the summer tourism season, and heightened awareness of Broadway shows because of the awards ceremony and attendant media coverage.The other Tony-nominated musicals also saw improvement after their performances on the telecast, including “Shucked,” a corn-themed country-music show, which was up 23 percent; “& Juliet,” a revisionist take on “Romeo and Juliet” set to pop hits, which was up 18 percent; “New York, New York,” about two musicians making their way in the post-World War II city, which was up 17 percent; and “Some Like It Hot,” which was up 10 percent.“Parade,” which won the Tony Award for best musical revival, was also up 10 percent. The show is about the lynching of a Jewish businessman in Georgia in the early 20th century.Among plays, “Prima Facie” was up 17 percent after its lead actress, Jodie Comer, won a Tony; on Tuesday, the producers announced that the play had achieved the rare feat of recouping its capitalization cost, which was $4.1 million and means it will now begin generating profits in the days before it closes on July 2. But “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,” a madcap comedy that had no presence on the Tony Awards, was up even more — 22 percent — serving as a reminder of the capriciousness of grosses.Simply performing on the Tony Awards did not pay off for “A Beautiful Noise,” the Neil Diamond musical, which was not nominated for any prizes, and suffered an 11 percent box office drop after its cast performed a singalong version of “Sweet Caroline” on the telecast.Meanwhile, “Life of Pi,” adapted from the best-selling novel that had also been developed into a film, announced Tuesday that it would end its run on July 23. The play arrived from London after winning the Olivier Award there for best new play, and it received generally positive reviews upon opening on March 30 in New York, but never caught on with audiences. It picked up three Tony Awards for design, but was not nominated in the best play category; a North American tour is planned. More

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      in Theater

      L.A.’s Center Theater Group Lays Off Staff and Halts Work on One Stage

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      With box office revenues, subscriptions and donations all down since the pandemic, the theater said it would pause production on one of its three stages, the Mark Taper Forum.In the face of what is described as a “crisis unlike any other in our 56-year history,” the Center Theater Group, a flagship of the Los Angeles theater world, announced a series of sharp cutbacks Thursday to deal with drops in revenue and attendance and said that it would suspend productions at one of its three stages, the Mark Taper Forum.The theater said it would lay off 10 percent of its 200-person work force.In a note to patrons, the theater said it “continues to feel the aftereffects of the pandemic and has been struggling to balance ever-increasing production costs with significantly reduced ticket revenue and donations that remain behind 2019 levels.” Theater officials said the organization posted an $8 million shortfall for the 2022-23 fiscal year and a $7 million shortfall the year before, much of which had been covered by federal pandemic assistance that is now ending.The 736-seat Taper, a semicircular amphitheater that has been a showpiece for innovative productions — “Slave Play” recently enjoyed a mostly sold-out run here — will suspend productions beginning this July and at least through the 2023-2024 season.And the theater is postponing a world premiere that had been set to open there this August, “Fake It Until You Make It” by Larissa FastHorse. As a result, the final production at the Taper for this season will be “A Transparent Musical,” a world premiere based on the television show “Transparent,” about the patriarch of a Los Angeles family coming out as transgender.The Los Angeles organization becomes the latest arts organization in the country — from regional theaters to symphony orchestras to opera houses — to grapple with a drop-off in attendance in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.The center, which has a long record of championing new and innovative work, has been struggling to redefine its mission and regain its financial footing since reopening after the pandemic. The group is made up of three theaters: the Taper, the Ahmanson, and the Kirk Douglas Theater. The Ahmanson and the Taper are part of the Music Center complex in downtown Los Angeles; the Kirk Douglas is in Culver City.Season subscriptions at the Taper are 35 percent below what they were before the pandemic shutdown began; subscriptions at the group’s main theater, the Ahmanson, are down 42 percent. Its longtime artistic director, Michael Ritchie, stepped down in December 2021, six months before the expiration of his contract. He was replaced by Snehal Desai, the producing artistic director of East West Players, who will step into his new role this summer. He will take the helm at a reduced institution.“We didn’t think that it would happen this fast or this dramatically — before he got in the door,” said Brett Webster, a spokesman for the center. “He did go in knowing this was a possibility.”The Taper is particularly admired here because of its relatively intimate feel and its willingness to take on new productions, sometimes to acclaim, and sometimes not.“Pausing season programming at the Taper is a difficult but necessary decision that will impact artists and audiences; and is particularly painful for the talented and committed CTG staff who have dedicated so much to bringing great theater to L.A.,” the theater said.The Center Theater Group has a long and distinguished history here, the site of such pathbreaking productions as “Angels in America” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” the Anna Deavere Smith play. More

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      in Music

      Live Nation and Other Ticket Giants Promise Transparency on Fees

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      Live Nation and SeatGeek said they would show customers the full cost of concerts, after the White House’s complaints that “junk fees” for tickets and hotel stays can mislead consumers.Under pressure from the Biden administration, some of the biggest companies that handle ticketing for concerts and other live events announced on Thursday that they will make it easier for consumers to see the full price of tickets they want to buy, including the fees that can often add more than 30 percent to the total cost of an order.Live Nation, the world’s largest concert company, said it would begin introducing “all-in pricing” — showing consumers the full price up front — at the venues it controls, which include more than 200 amphitheaters, clubs and other spaces in the United States. Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, said it would make this tool available to other venues and promoters as well. Those changes are expected beginning in September.SeatGeek, a major vendor for reselling tickets that also works for major venues and sports teams like the Dallas Cowboys, said it too would begin introducing a feature that would reveal to consumers the full price of a ticket.Those changes come as the Biden administration has stepped up its pressure on the entertainment and travel industries to rein in what it calls “junk fees.” Before beginning a round table at the White House with executives from Live Nation, SeatGeek, Airbnb and other companies on Thursday, President Biden framed the crackdown on surcharges as a way to appeal to the working class — a major theme of his re-election campaign.“These hidden charges that companies sneak into your bill make you pay more without you really knowing it initially,” Mr. Biden said. “Junk fees are not a matter for the wealthy very much but they’re a matter for working folks like the homes I grew up in.”As Mr. Biden spoke, a screen showed an example of a “service charge” of $12.99. But for the most in-demand concerts, those fees can be many times higher. For one Drake concert, for example, a screenshot ricocheted around social media in March showing that for two tickets costing $544, three surcharges — service fee, facility charge and order fee — added another $541, nearly doubling the total cost.Ticketing, and questions of competition and consumer fairness in the entertainment industry, became hot-button issues in Washington after a botched presale in November for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Ticketmaster’s system was overrun with bots, and many fans reported that tickets they had selected disappeared from their online shopping charts.At a Senate Judiciary hearing in January, Live Nation came under harsh, bipartisan attack, with senators openly calling the company a monopoly. The Justice Department has separately been investigating Live Nation for potential violations of the consent decree that was a condition of the company’s merger with Ticketmaster in 2010; among the terms in that agreement were that Live Nation cannot threaten venues with retaliation for not using Ticketmaster as their official ticket vendor.But the extent to which the most recent promises by Live Nation and SeatGeek would substantially change the ticket market are unclear. The concert industry is complex, with pricing and fees controlled by various parties that have little incentive to reduce their take — especially with live music rebounding after its near-disappearance during the Covid-19 pandemic, and ticket sales now reaching record highs.The changes by Live Nation and SeatGeek do not lower prices or include any commitment to reduce surcharges, which are often set by venues; those companies are simply promising to disclose fees as part of a ticket’s total cost.After Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address in February — at which he said, “We can stop service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make companies disclose all the fees upfront” — Live Nation proposed federal legislation that, among other things, would mandate all-in pricing.Without all competitors held to the same standard, many executives in the ticketing world say, those that comply voluntarily would be put at a competitive disadvantage, since other venues and ticketing services could lure customers by advertising lower prices, only to reveal surcharges once a customer completes a transaction.Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut who is a sponsor of a bill called the Junk Fee Prevention Act, offered a mixed review of Live Nation’s pledge of transparency.“Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s announcement is a step in the right direction,” Mr. Blumenthal said in a statement, “but no substitute for legislation to provide consumers with transparency and prevent companies from imposing ridiculous junk fees.”Still, Mr. Biden said that all the companies he had gathered for the round table were “voluntarily committed to ‘all-in’ upfront pricing,” and he called it a victory.“This is a win for consumers in my view,” Mr. Biden said, “and proof that our crackdown on junk fees has real momentum.” More

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      in Movies

      Universal Says On-Demand Film Strategy Has Increased Audience

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      The studio let viewers rent or buy movies earlier for a higher price. This made more than $1 billion in less than three years, with nearly no decrease in box-office sales.In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Universal Pictures and its art-house sibling, Focus Features, set off alarm bells in Hollywood by ending the long-held practice of giving theaters an exclusive window of about 90 days to play new movies. Instead, their movies, which have since included “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “Belfast,” “Cocaine Bear” and “M3gan,” would become available for digital rental or purchase — at a higher price — after as little as 17 days.For a change-phobic industry that still views the 1981 arrival of armrest cup holders as a major innovation, the introduction of the service, known as premium video on demand, prompted extensive hand-wringing. Filmmakers and theater owners worried that ticket buyers would be more reluctant to leave their sofas if they could see the same films on their TV sets or iPads just a couple of weeks later.Universal’s competitors mostly stuck with the status quo.But the willingness by Universal to experiment — to challenge the “this is how we’ve always done it” thinking — seems to have paid off. Universal has generated more than $1 billion in premium V.O.D. revenue in less than three years, while showing little-to-no decrease in ticket sales. In some cases, box-office sales even increased when films became available in homes, which Universal has decided is a side effect of premium V.O.D. advertising and word of mouth.Universal, for instance, made “Minions: The Rise of Gru” available for premium V.O.D. after 33 days in theaters in 2022. The movie stayed in theaters after that, selling more tickets than “Minions,” released in 2015, did after 33 days, according to data from Comscore, an analytics company. Data for Universal’s “Jurassic World” and “Fast and Furious” franchises show a similar effect.An interesting wrinkle: Donna Langley, the chairwoman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, which includes Focus Features, said the company had seen only a small decrease in revenue from traditional V.O.D. That service lets viewers rent or purchase movies at a lower price after 90 days in theaters. She said the premium offering was “an additive, important new revenue source that didn’t exist three years ago.”In other words, Universal thinks that, to some degree, it has found an entirely new customer.“It has had a hugely positive impact on our business,” Ms. Langley said, adding that without it, Universal would have likely had to make fewer movies. Universal and Focus will release 26 movies in theaters this year, more than any other Hollywood studio.Donna Langley, the chairwoman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, calls premium on-demand “an additive, important new revenue source.”Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesUniversal charges as much as $25 to rent a film for 48 hours and $30 to buy it during its premium V.O.D. sales period. Those prices can drop to $6 and $20 in the later, traditional sales window.About 80 percent of premium V.O.D. revenue goes to Universal, with sales platforms like iTunes and Google Play keeping most of the rest. (A small cut goes to theater chains like AMC Entertainment — grease to get them to agree to reduced exclusivity.) Ticket sales are typically split 50-50 with theaters.Premium V.O.D. revenue is small compared with box-office sales. But it’s certainly not nothing.“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has generated more than $75 million in premium V.O.D. revenue since May 16, Universal said. “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “The Croods: A New Age” and “Sing 2” each collected more than $50 million. Universal said 14 films, including “News of the World,” a period drama starring Tom Hanks, and “M3gan,” each had more than $25 million.Films from Focus, including “Belfast” and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” have generated roughly $5 million each. For some art films, a theatrical release has become valuable mostly as “a marketing tool” for premium V.O.D. rentals and purchases, according to Julia Alexander, the director of strategy at Parrot Analytics, a research firm.Much like DVD sales in the 1990s and 2000s, premium V.O.D. has started to provide a type of financial safety net on box-office misses. “The Focus titles, in particular,” said Peter Levinsohn, the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group’s chief distribution officer. “Those smaller films aimed at older moviegoers have become, I wouldn’t say reliant on it, but they have benefited hugely.”It’s also about flexibility, Mr. Levinsohn said. The studio often decides that 17 days (three weekends) of theatrical exclusivity is enough. Sometimes, based on ticket sales, it allows for longer. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” played exclusively in theaters for 41 days.“We have also taken back control of the decision of when to make our content available in the home, based on the most optimal timing for an individual film,” Mr. Levinsohn said. NBCUniversal said in January that revenue from its studios (both film and TV) increased 23 percent in 2022 from a year earlier, to $11.6 billion.Every studio has been trying to find creative ways to maximize movie profits in a fast-changing business. Part of Universal’s challenge is guessing what kind of impact premium V.O.D. might have on streaming: If movies are sold or rented more widely before they arrive on a streaming service (in Universal’s case, on Peacock and Netflix), does that make the movies less valuable tools for encouraging people to sign up for streaming services?“The impact on streaming is not quite as big as people might have expected, but it’s still notable,” Ms. Alexander said. More

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      in Movies

      The Man Reimagining Disney Classics for Today’s World

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      Sean Bailey is in charge of live-action remakes of films like “The Little Mermaid.” It’s a job that puts him in the middle of a partisan divide.For more than a decade, Sean Bailey has run Disney’s animated film “reimagining” factory with quiet efficiency and superhero-sized results. His live-action “Aladdin” collected $1.1 billion at the box office, while a photorealistic “The Lion King” took in $1.7 billion. A live-action “Beauty and the Beast” delivered $1.3 billion.Disney likes the cash. The company also views Mr. Bailey’s remake operation as crucial to remaining relevant. Disney’s animated classics are treasured by fans, but most showcase ideas from another era, especially when it comes to gender roles: Be pretty, girls, and things might work out.The reimaginings, as Mr. Bailey refers to his remakes, find ways to make Disney stories less retrograde. His heroines are empowered, and his casting emphasizes diversity. A live-action “Snow White,” set for release next year, stars the Latina actress Rachel Zegler as the princess known as “the fairest of them all.” Yara Shahidi played Tinker Bell in the recent “Peter Pan and Wendy,” making her the first Black woman to portray the character onscreen.“We want to reflect the world as it exists,” Mr. Bailey said.But that worldview — and business strategy — has increasingly put Disney and Mr. Bailey, a low-profile and self-effacing executive, in the middle of a very loud, very unpolite cultural fight. For every person who applauds Disney, there seems to be a counterpart who complains about being force-fed “wokeness.”Many companies are finding themselves in this vise — Target, Anheuser-Busch, Nike — but Disney, which has a powerful impact on children as they are forming life beliefs, has been uniquely challenged. In this hyperpartisan moment, both sides of the political divide have been pounding on Disney to stand with them, with movies that come from Mr. Bailey’s corner of the Magic Kingdom as prime examples.Consider his remake of “The Little Mermaid,” which arrived in theaters two weeks ago and cost an estimated $375 million to make and market. The new version scuttles problematic lyrics from the 1989 original. (“It’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man.”) In the biggest change, Halle Bailey, who is Black, plays Ariel, the mermaid. Disney has long depicted the character as white, including at its theme parks.The casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” was met with racist commentary online.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesSupport for Ms. Bailey, notably from people of color and film critics, has been offset by a torrent of racist commentary on social media and movie fan sites. Others have blasted “The Little Mermaid” for failing to acknowledge the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean. A few L.G.B.T.Q. people have criticized Disney for hiring a straight male makeup artist for the villainous Ursula, whose look in the animated film was inspired by a drag queen.Disney has long regarded these kinds of social media storms as tempests in teapots: trending today, replaced by a new complaint tomorrow. In 2017, for instance, a theater in Alabama refused to play the live-action “Beauty and the Beast” because it contained a three-second glimpse of two men dancing in each other’s arms. It became a global news story. Ultimately, the fracas seemed to have no impact on ticket sales.The upshot? Disney hoped “The Little Mermaid” would generate as much as $1 billion worldwide, with the furor evaporating once the film arrived in theaters. Feedback scores from test screenings were strong, as were early reviews. “Alan Menken just told me that he thinks this one is better than the animated film,” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said at the film’s premiere last month, referring to the Oscar-winning composer.Instead, “The Little Mermaid” will top out closer to $600 million, box office analysts said on Sunday, largely because the film faltered overseas, where it was “review bombed,” with online trolls flooding movie sites with racist one-star reviews. The film has done well in North America, outperforming “Aladdin” and receiving an A grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls, although attendance by white moviegoers has been soft in some parts of the United States, according to analysts. Support from Black and Latino audiences have made up the slack.Mr. Bailey declined to comment on the racist responses to the film. “While the international opening was softer than we would have liked, the film is playing exceptionally well which we believe sets us up for a very long run,” he said on Saturday.Mr. Bailey, 53, has survived box office shoals that were far worse, including misfires like “The Lone Ranger.” The less said about his live-action “Mulan,” the better. But Disney has always supported him. “I’ve taken some big swings and had some big misses,” Mr. Bailey said. “I’m grateful that the leadership of the company understands that is part of any creative business.”Mr. Bailey has been president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production for 13 years — an eternity in Hollywood, where film chiefs are often jettisoned every few years. Over that time, Disney has been roiled by executive firings, multiple restructuring efforts and shifting strategies for film distribution. The steady-handed Mr. Bailey, who is popular with stars and their agents, has helped provide stability.“He’s a nice, decent, respectful, fair guy who does his job quietly, without fanfare,” said Kevin Huvane, a Creative Artists Agency co-chairman. “But that doesn’t mean that he is passive. Quite the opposite. He gets his hands dirty. If a deal isn’t working, he gets in there and he finds a way to make it happen.”Angelina Jolie’s two “Maleficent” films took in a combined $1.3 billion at the box office.Disney EnterprisesIn 2014, for instance, Mr. Bailey flew to Budapest from Los Angeles at a moment’s notice to have dinner with Angelina Jolie. She had agreed to star in “Maleficent” but seemed to be getting cold feet after reading a revised script. Whatever he told her worked; “Maleficent” and a sequel took in a combined $1.3 billion.“Sean is what we don’t see often these days, and certainly not in film,” Ms. Jolie said by email. “He’s consistent, stable and decent. When we have challenges, as all films do, he is even and fair. It may not be exciting for a story, but it is what we need more of.”Disney’s live-action films did not often showcase women before Mr. Bailey arrived, and diversity was almost nonexistent. Mr. Bailey has almost exclusively focused on female-led stories. He has also championed young actresses of color — Storm Reid, Nico Parker, Naomi Scott — and female directors, including Ava DuVernay (“A Wrinkle in Time”), Julia Hart (“Stargirl”) and Mira Nair (“Queen of Katwe”).“I think what he is doing is vastly important,” said Geena Davis, an actress and gender equity activist. “It’s not just about inspiring little girls. It’s about normalizing for men and boys, making it perfectly normal to see a girl doing interesting and important things and taking up space.”“Haunted Mansion,” based on the Disneyland ride, will arrive in theaters on July 28.Walt Disney StudiosThe next film from Mr. Bailey’s division, “Haunted Mansion,” arrives in theaters on July 28 and stars LaKeith Stanfield (an Oscar nominee for “Judas and the Black Messiah”), Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson and Tiffany Haddish. “Haunted Mansion” was directed by Justin Simien, the creator of “Dear White People,” and inspired by a Disney theme park ride.“I felt that we had an opportunity to try and create a really cool, Disney-appropriate PG-13 movie that does have some real scares but also charms and delights,” Mr. Bailey said.Mr. Bailey, who watched “The Little Mermaid” 18 times as it worked its way through Disney’s pipeline, has more than 50 movies in various stages of development and production, including live-action versions of “Moana,” “Hercules” and “Lilo and Stitch.” Yes, “Hocus Pocus 3” is happening. (His division makes two or three big-budget films annually for release in theaters and three modestly budgeted movies for Disney+.)“Mufasa: The Lion King,” a photorealistic prequel directed by Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning “Moonlight” screenwriter, is scheduled for release in 2024. Mr. Bailey said “The Lion King” could expand into “a big, epic saga” like the “Star Wars” franchise. “There’s a lot of room to run if we can find the stories,” he said.Restarting the five-film “Pirates of the Caribbean” series is another priority, although nothing official has been announced. “We think we have a really good, exciting story that honors the films that have come before but also has something new to say,” Mr. Bailey said. Will the franchise’s problematic star, Johnny Depp, return as Captain Jack Sparrow? “Noncommittal at this point,” Mr. Bailey said, seemingly inching the door open.One of the knocks on Mr. Bailey is that he has not created a new franchise; almost none of his bets on original movies have paid off. The sled-dog drama “Togo,” made for Disney+ in 2019, was a critical hit that failed to break out. “Tomorrowland,” an ambitious fantasy from 2015, crashed and burned. At some point, studios cannot endlessly recycle old stuff. A Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox ends up as a blank page.“It’s really hard to crack through and get an original, hugely commercial win,” Mr. Bailey said. “We’re going to keep trying.” He pointed to a project based on “The Graveyard Book,” about a boy raised by the supernatural occupants of a cemetery.One criticism of Mr. Bailey is that he has not created an original franchise. “We’re going to keep trying,” he said.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesEvery studio has been struggling to come up with original hits. But the added glare that seems to come with any Disney effort adds a degree of difficulty.Like Mr. Iger, Mr. Bailey does not hide his political leanings. He is close to Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, a friendship that started in 2000, when Mr. Bailey held a fund-raiser for him in Hollywood. (Mr. Bailey has a lot of famous friends. He goes way back with Ben Affleck, helped Dwayne Johnson start a tequila brand and serves on the board of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute.)But Mr. Bailey is in the business of making movies for everyone. That challenge is part of what keeps his job interesting, he said.“How do you deal with audiences that are changing outside our country, inside our country?” Mr. Bailey said. “How do you tell stories — stories that matter to everyone — in a world that is increasingly polarized?” More

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      in Movies

      ‘Movie Theaters Are the Marketplace of Free Ideas’

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      John Fithian saw a lot during his nearly three decades as the president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, the top lobbyist for movie theaters, a tenure that ended on May 1.He grappled with the transition from film projection to digital cinema and engaged in multiple battles over the studios’ desire to shorten the amount of time newly released movies can exclusively be shown in theaters amid the rise of streaming services. Yet it wasn’t until spring 2020, at the start of the pandemic, when Mr. Fithian actually wondered whether his business was going to survive.Mr. Fithian said he was receiving calls “multiple times a day, from people saying, my third-, fourth-generation family business will be gone in a couple of months if you don’t get something for us,” he said with a nervous laugh. “That was that was when the crisis was very, very real to us.”He helped secure more than $2 billion in tax relief for the industry, allowing most of the country’s theater chains to stay afloat. In the end, only 2,000 screens were closed down.Mr. Fithian, 61, was raised in Washington, D.C., the son of former Representative Floyd Fithian of Indiana. He began his career as an outside counsel for clients that included the Major League Baseball players’ union and the theater owners’ association.“Hearing theater owners talk about why they went into business or why their grandparents went into the business was completely inspiring,” he said. “It sounds silly, but movie theaters are the marketplace of free ideas.”This interview, which was condensed and edited for clarity, was conducted during CinemaCon, an annual industry trade event, in Las Vegas.When was the moment when you felt like the movie theater business was going to be OK?About a month ago. (Laughs.) In 2022, we knew that people were coming back on a per-film basis at prepandemic rates so that kind of gave us the inkling that everything would be fine if the movies kept coming back. But, to be completely confident that this business will now grow to higher levels, that was only within the last few months, with pronouncements from the leaders of the major studios about their release slates going forward, by Amazon and Apple jumping into the theatrical business.Do you now see some silver linings to the pandemic?The so-called streaming wars that had started before the pandemic had the companies who owned streaming services, and Wall Street and its financial backers, believe that the only thing that mattered as a competitive business model was the number of subscribers to streaming services. We had heard from several studio leaders prepandemic that they really wanted to experiment with the elimination of a theatrical window.Eliminate it completely?“Some executives thought that. Others thought it should be dramatically shorter. There was a lot of pressure coming into the pandemic and during the pandemic. And release models totally changed. A lot of movies went only to streaming services. A lot of movies went simultaneously to theaters and streaming services. At the time, these were thought of as crisis moments for the creative community and for theater owners.But what happened is that a whole bunch of data came out of the pandemic about these theories of the theatrical window. One, it was quite clear when you compare the movies during the pandemic, the ones that had an exclusive theatrical window did much better theatrically, but then also did better when it got to the home. Two, we learned that piracy is exacerbated by shrinking the theatrical window. If movies are only in cinemas, the only way you can pirate a movie is with a recording device. And the quality level is not great. When a movie gets released to the home, a pristine digital, easily replicable, easy-to-distribute-around-the-world copy becomes available. So you’re literally cannibalizing movie theater sales from the very first day.Netflix is the last holdout when it comes to the theatrical space. Now that you have Amazon and Apple demonstrating a much greater interest in theatrical, does Netflix’s position matter as much?I’m just stoked that one of my goals before retirement was to get two out of three of the streamers to go theatrical. We got two out of three. I just didn’t think those would be the two.Do you believe you’ve permanently lost moviegoers because of changing habits developed during the pandemic?We don’t think so. We were very nervous about that right when we started coming out of the pandemic, and there was data early in the reopening that suggested that two demographics, seniors and families with small children, weren’t prepared to come back to cinemas. Then it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because studios wouldn’t theatrically distribute movies that appealed primarily to seniors, or to families with young children. Now the data is clear that movies released targeting those demographics are performing similar or better than they did in 2019, just like the movies targeted to other demographics. It was not a big surprise to us that the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” was going to do an extraordinary amount of business.People love to criticize the moviegoing experience: It’s too loud, and people talk, use their phones, and you have to sit through 30 minutes of ads before the movie starts. Is there an awareness that there are issues with going to the movie theater?We surveyed lots of theater owners about their plans coming out of the pandemic about adding premium large format screens, about replacing their sound systems, about adding alcohol service, about continuing to replace their seats. And the numbers are really strong. Now that the business is coming back, the theater owners have already started to continue to innovate and improve the experience so that it’s always better than the home.In both Los Angeles and New York, quite a few prime theaters that catered to independent film have shut down. Do you think independent film is struggling for a home nowadays?There’s a fascinating thing to me that I’ve noticed throughout my 30 years of representing theater owners, and that is what happens in Los Angeles or New York suggest to the creative community, the moviemakers, the reporters who cover our business, and the financial community, that is the movie experience. There’s a lot more out there. One company, Pacific Theaters, which ran the ArcLight, is the only company in the country who filed Chapter Seven bankruptcy. They went out of business entirely. There were a couple Chapter 11 reorganizations, but the only one that said, “Eh, I’m done” was Pacific. It does not mean that the art houses across the country closed down.What is a misconception people have about the movie theater business that you’ve tried to correct but didn’t succeed?Ticket prices. Even through all the innovations and improvements in the technology, and the sound systems and the premium screens — all the ways that we’ve improved the cinema experience over the last decade or two, it’s still the case that the average price of a ticket today on a cost-of-living basis is less than it was in the 1970s. And yet people always say movie tickets are too expensive.What are the biggest challenges facing the theatrical exhibition business going forward?I think the existential challenges — the pandemic, the streaming wars — are gone. I’m really the most optimistic I’ve been in 30 years about the future of the business. The biggest immediate challenge is it’s going to take a while to fix the balance sheets.Long term, it’s still about two things: the creation and distribution of really good movies that appeal to all demographics in all different genres, with diverse casts and diverse themes, and really good operational experiences at theaters that also offer diversity and different value-based judgments. If the studio partners keep making really good movies that appeal to diverse audiences, and we keep innovating and upgrading cinema experiences, I’m very bullish on the long-term health of the industry.Were you a movie lover before you took this job?I like movies. But I was principally a First Amendment lover, and a First Amendment lawyer in Washington. Our members will play everything: the most radical, left-wing anarchist film, the most conservative religious film, and we get protests on both sides. To me it was always like, “Bring it on.” Movie theaters are the town halls of modern society. It’s where people go to experience something collectively, and then debate the issues of the day.What is the thing you are going to miss the least?I don’t know who I’m going to miss the least, the really aggressive know-it-alls in Hollywood or the really aggressive know-it-alls in Washington, D.C. A lot of these people are my really good friends, and I’ll have some lasting relationships with both creatives and studio executives, but, you know, sometimes just because you run a big studio or you’re a United States senator doesn’t mean you know everything. I will not miss that. More

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      in Music

      The Los Angeles Opera, Post-Plácido Domingo

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      LOS ANGELES — When the tenor Russell Thomas appeared at the Los Angeles Opera in 2017, Plácido Domingo, the company’s general director, asked him to return one day to sing the title role in Verdi’s “Otello.” It was a notable invitation coming from Domingo, the leading Otello of his day, who sang the role in 1986 at the very first performance of the Los Angeles company.Six years later, Thomas is back in Los Angeles starring as Otello in a six-performance run that begins Saturday. But Domingo, who had initially contemplated singing opposite him as the opera’s villain, Iago, is gone, having resigned in 2019 at the age of 78 amid allegations that he had sexually harassed multiple women over the course of his career.So it is that the company’s season-ending production of “Otello” is at once a look back to its foundations and a glimpse into its future, as the Los Angeles Opera charts its course in a post-Domingo era at a moment when it faces the same challenges as other companies in recovering from the loss of audience members and revenues since the pandemic.“It’s slow — it’s much slower than I would have desired,” Christopher Koelsch, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said of the audience’s return. But he noted that attendance was in line with what other opera houses across the country were seeing these days, and that there were signs that the company was overcoming its recent setbacks. “By most criteria, other than audience attendance, the company is in significantly better shape than it’s been in its 38-year history,” he said.Christopher Koelsch, the company’s president and chief executive officer, has been programming new work alongside the classics to reach new audiences.Damon Casarez for The New York TimesAttendance so far this season has averaged 64 percent of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s 3,033-seat capacity — still short of the 83 percent the company logged in 2018-2019, but showing improvement since it first reopened after the shutdown. Two productions that sold well, and sometimes sold out, reflected the company’s efforts to balance new works with the classics: “Omar,” the new Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels opera based on the autobiography of an enslaved Muslim scholar that won the Pulitzer Prize for music this week, and “The Marriage of Figaro,” the Mozart comedy.In a season when the Metropolitan Opera in New York was forced to dip into its endowment to make up for declining revenues, the Los Angeles Opera’s endowment is at a record high — $74.1 million, up from $28.8 million in 2012 — reflecting a continued influx of contributions, said Keith Leonard, the chairman of its board. It survived the downturn without running a deficit, relying on salary reductions, a handful of layoffs, a $5 million five-year loan against the endowment, and federal aid.Domingo’s downfall stunned Los Angeles and its opera company, which had been so closely identified with the star tenor, who had been singing there since the 1960s and was instrumental in the creation of the company. An investigation by the Los Angeles Opera found accusations that he had engaged in “inappropriate conduct” with women “to be credible,” but did not find evidence that he had engaged in “a quid pro quo or retaliated against any woman by not casting or otherwise hiring her at L.A. Opera.” When he left, the company pledged to strengthen its measures for preventing misconduct.It is difficult to say precisely whether attendance was affected by the departure of Domingo, given that the coronavirus shutdown followed so soon afterward. For many years his performances had drawn the biggest crowds, and his image was as integral to the company’s marketing as Gustavo Dudamel’s is for its neighbor, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “It is unmistakably a loss because he’s such a titanic figure in the world,” Koelsch said. But, he added, “a scientific controlled experiment is impossible here.”The opera never filled the general director position after Domingo left; those responsibilities were picked up by Koelsch, who already was running its day-to-day operations.Domingo, in an email interview, said that in his view, the company had continued to thrive even after what he made clear was his unhappy departure from a position that had been a high point of his career.Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Desdemona, Thomas as Otello, Sarah Saturnino as Emilia and Igor Golovatenko as Iago during a rehearsal for “Otello.”Damon Casarez for The New York Times“I saw it grow and I believe that I gave it my all, to the point that it became one of the leading opera houses in the U.S. and the world,” he said, adding: “I see the programming and the seasons appear to be very diverse, with a big focus on new works that can attract new audiences and I think this is a great added value for all the people of Los Angeles.”With a $44 million operating budget, the Los Angeles Opera is the fifth largest company in the United States. Despite its (by opera standards) short existence, and with its modest roster of six productions a season (compared with 23 this season at the Met), it has been establishing itself as one of the more adventurous mainstream opera houses in the country: working to be more edgy than stuffy.Even before Domingo left, the company — aware of his age, and that an institution should not be too closely tied to any one person — had been planning for its future, working to forge an identity that would combine war horses with more contemporary work.For a decade it has been working with Beth Morrison Projects, which has been at the vanguard of producing contemporary opera: they collaborated on the world premiere of Ellen Reid’s opera “p r i s m” in 2018 at Los Angeles’ smaller Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, or REDCAT, and the work won a Pulitzer Prize. And in 2020, “Eurydice,” by Matthew Aucoin, who was then the opera’s artist-in-residence, had its world premiere at the Dorothy Chandler before moving to the Metropolitan Opera.“L.A. Opera is doing very, very well,” said Marc A. Scorca, the president of Opera America, a nonprofit service organization for opera companies. “Of all the major companies in the country, it is the youngest and is still discovering new audiences and new momentum as L.A. continues to build out its cultural infrastructure. I am very optimistic about the company.”James Conlon, the music director, said that the company has work to do to regain its audience after the pandemic.Damon Casarez for The New York TimesThis spring, it collaborated with Beth Morrison Projects to present two operas by Emma O’Halloran, the Irish composer, at the 250-seat black box theater inside REDCAT.One of them, a 70-minute, two-person work called “Trade,” explores an emotionally unsettling hotel room liaison in working-class Dublin between an older married man and a younger male prostitute, hardly the kind of story that has historically been presented on the opera stage.“When we started this relationship, most opera companies were not doing new work,” Morrison said. “L.A. Opera, in terms of the big companies, was very much ahead of the curve on that. They believe in experimental work, and they believe we need to have these things to make sure that opera evolves into the future and brings in new audiences.”Now other large companies, including the Met, are programming more new works in hopes of attracting new audiences.If this is a recovery, it is still a tentative one; crucial questions about how audience behavior has changed remain to be answered. James Conlon, who has been the opera’s music director since 2006, after being recruited for the job by Domingo, said that the opera was “working very hard to regain that audience.”“My own suspicion,” he said, “is that a lot of the competition is not going to be other venues but people who are sitting home who became used to making more use of their televisions.”With “Otello,” the company is returning to the work it opened with in 1986.Damon Casarez for The New York TimesThat is a particular issue in Los Angeles, considering the early evening traffic that can make trips downtown to the Music Center an exhausting, hourslong adventure.When the company was first formed, there was much talk about whether Los Angeles had an appetite for grand opera. “Up until the early 80s the received opinion by many of the leading figures at the Music Center was that ‘L.A. is not an opera town’ and ‘L.A. can afford a great symphony or a great opera, but not both,’” said Don Franzen, an original member of the opera’s board of directors.But 38 years after that opening night, that question appears to have been answered.“Los Angeles is very much an opera town — I see the growth of the company and its success as a testimony to that,” Scorca, of Opera America, said.Now Thomas, the company’s current artist-in-residence, is getting ready to take his place singing the demanding role that launched the company: Otello. He recalled that invitation from Domingo, who had floated the idea of appearing with him in the lower-lying baritone role of Iago, since he had stopped singing high tenor roles.“He was very interested in my singing Otello, and he and I performing the show together,” Thomas said the other day. “I would have loved that to happen. I would have loved to be onstage with one of the legendary singers in opera. Things happen the way they do.” More