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      How Do You Make Teen Comedies Today? Buy a High School.

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      LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — The teenage couple is lounging on the lawn outside a high school, taking advantage of a free period between classes in that age-old way: making out on the quad. A friend runs over, clearly agitated by a drama unfolding elsewhere, and asks for help. The duo reluctantly gets up and follows, dragging their backpacks behind them.Then there’s another interruption to their moment. The director, Sammi Cohen, yells cut. An actor, Tyler Alvarez, asks for another take. “One more, real quick,” he says.This is an early fall day, back to school at American High. The school has not had actual students in the halls for years, but it is once again home to high school drama of the sort generally captured in R-rated teenage comedies.Sitting inconspicuously in the far corner of that grassy area is Jeremy Garelick, 46, a writer/director/producer and the maestro of the American High experiment. Wearing an American High baseball cap, red-tinted sunglasses and a pair of headphones slung around his neck, he watched the scenes on an enormous iPad for this latest American High production, an untitled lesbian love story about an aspiring young artist who’s forced to join her high school track team.He nodded along with the action and laughed as the jokes landed. (“If you go down, I’m going down with you … like the Titanic,” generated a particular chuckle.)Jeremy Garelick, right, with his producing partner Will Phelps, on the school bus they purchased after Mr. Garelick bought the school for $1 million several years ago.Libby March for The New York TimesMr. Garelick, best known as the director of “The Wedding Ringer” and the screenwriter of “The Break Up,” is betting that the time is right now for a surge in hormonal high jinks captured on film: teen stories for the sensibilities of the Gen Z streaming generation. After all, it has been roughly two decades since tales of love, sex and related high school humiliations had created financial and cultural hits like “American Pie” and “Can’t Hardly Wait,” films that themselves were grabbing the baton from 1980s John Hughes classics.Studios, focused on special effects-laden blockbusters that make going to the movie theater into an event, don’t share his conviction. They now shy away from this kind of mid-budget-range film because of the marketing costs needed to help turn it into a box office success — and the risky proposition of selling something to the fickle teen audience. Back in 2007, the comedy “Superbad,” starring then-relative unknowns Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, became a significant hit, earning $170 million in worldwide grosses. Yet fast forward a decade to the female version of that gross-out comedy, the Olivia Wilde-directed “Booksmart,” which was beloved by critics and also featured an up-and-coming cast, but only earned $25 million in box office receipts. It all looks a bit too perilous for the big studios.Chris Weitz, the co-director of “American Pie” and one of the producers of Ms. Cohen’s film, attributes the shift to technology that puts audiences in control.“It was one thing when the gatekeepers, usually old fogies, controlled what kind of content was going to be put out about teens,” he said. “Now teens can get all kinds of content about themselves made by themselves, which gives them a greater sense of truth to them than something that any feature film producer would cook up.”With that landscape in mind, Mr. Garelick decided to make the films really inexpensively on his own. If done correctly, they could easily be funneled onto streaming platforms, which are constantly on the hunt for new material, especially content that attracts the ever elusive teen audience.He figured out if he shot two movies back-to-back in one location he could save one-third of his production costs. If he shot three, he could save half. He could be like the now begone film studio New Line, applying the “Lord of the Rings’” cost-savings method to the world of teen comedy. Peter Jackson relied on the verdant landscape of New Zealand for his Hobbit-driven epic.Mr. Garelick would have an abandoned school.“That’s when I had my ‘aha moment’” he said. “This is how I’m going to make my high school movies. Nobody out there is making them. Now is the time to get into it.”In today’s complex content ecosystem, studios are spending more and more to lure general audiences to theaters with blockbuster franchise films while the streamers are primarily trying to keep their fragmented audiences glued to their services by offering niche content. Teen comedies might not have enough consistent commercial potential for the studios, but Mr. Garelick thought that if he could offer a consistent flow of films, surely a streaming service would bite. And if he were to find a location where he could take advantage of the tax incentives given by local governments, his dollars would go further and he could benefit from the support of the local community.First, he needed a school, something brick and stately, at once lived-in but also easily adaptable for any high school scene. He thought of the basic settings in almost every teen comedy: a school gymnasium, a cafeteria, classrooms, hallways, an auditorium.It also had to be located in a state offering significant tax incentives. After some Google searching, Mr. Garelick and his then assistant and now producing partner, Will Phelps, 30, flew to Syracuse and drove to Liverpool, where Mr. Garelick saw the 89-year old A.V. Zogg School, a regal-looking institution that occupies an entire block in a tree-lined neighborhood. Over the years, it has functioned as both a middle school and a high school, a community church and had been most recently owned by a Thai businessman.For $1 million in 2017, it was Mr. Garelick’s.Mr. Garelick with the actress Teala Dunn. Before beginning production, Mr. Garelick held town halls where residents could ask questions and voice concerns.Libby March for The New York TimesSelling American HighTo sell his idea to investors, Mr. Garelick made a sizzle reel of his favorite high school films (“American Pie,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) — to show that every high school movie has the same basic locations — and took his pitch to the studios, independent financiers, anyone really who was willing to listen to his proposal. He was going to make three movies that looked as if they cost $30 million each but would only cost $8 million. The producer Mickey Liddell and his LD Entertainment bit, and American High was in business.He also had to sell it to his new neighbors. Early on, Mr. Garelick discovered the area wasn’t zoned for filming and the only way he was going to get the city’s approval was if he offered a trade school in addition to a production office. He also had to get buy-in from the community, so he and Mr. Phelps held town hall meetings where residents could voice any and all concerns: Would there be a lot of noise? What about the lights? One man was worried that the production would snap up all the barbers and he wouldn’t have a place to get his hair cut. After sifting through a year of red tape, American High was a go.“Plan B,” with Kuhoo Verma, right, and Victoria Moroles, was an early success for American High.HuluThe first two movies were small. “Holly Slept Over” cost only $500,000 while “Banana Split” was done for $1.2 million.Then American High produced “Big Time Adolescence” with Pete Davidson and Jon Cryer. The raunchy comedy made it into Sundance in 2019 and was sold to Hulu, the start of a partnership with the streaming service. The companies now have an eight-picture licensing deal. The latest film being directed by Ms. Cohen marks American High’s fifth production for Hulu. Others include “Plan B,” which debuted this year to strong reviews; “The Binge,” which Mr. Garelick directed; “The Ultimate Playlist of Noise”; and “Sex Appeal,” which has yet to come out. (A sequel to “The Binge” is set to begin production in January. “It’s our first franchise,” Mr. Garelick joked.)Mr. Garelick’s belief in the potential of this particular slice of American movies is based on his study of the Strauss-Howe generational theory — the notion that distinct groups throughout history share characteristics and values that cycle anew every 18 to 20 years. But audiences are more fragmented today than they were when “American Pie” came out and caught the cultural zeitgeist. And major studios long ago abandoned genre films for the surer bets of big blockbuster action titles.“At Hulu, we know that audiences still really want those genres, so something like a young adult title or a romantic comedy — that is something the audiences are still really clamoring for,” Brian Henderson, Hulu’s senior vice president of content programming and partnerships, said in an interview. “That’s a perfect place for Hulu to step in and bring those kinds of films to streaming audiences.”The new class“How many American High productions have you worked on?” Mr. Garelick asks every crew member he runs into while showing guests around the American High campus. “Nine,” said the costumer Celine Rahman. “Seven,” the location manager Emily Campbell said. In between working on the scripts and putting the films together, Mr. Garelick takes a lot of pride in having transformed his ragtag crew of recent college graduates into a professional operation that can handle bigger budgets and more complex shoots.Some actors have appeared in multiple films, like Mr. Alvarez, 23. “They make it so much fun, and I think that’s when you get the best work,” said Mr. Alvarez, whose previous production, “Sid is Dead,” about a social outcast who gets the class bully suspended has yet to debut. He mentioned the traditional end-of-production parties, which include a ritual where people attempt to throw a fire extinguisher through a wall. Not all the actors were as enthusiastic.“Love the people. Love the script. Hate the location,” quipped the YouTube content creator and actress Teala Dunn. “Terrible food. Terrible bugs.”This all gives the American High set the feel of a well-run summer camp more than a high-stress production environment. Part of that is the slew of young people traipsing around, part is the environment that Mr. Garelick and Mr. Phelps have cultivated where the majority of the work is done before shooting begins. Once the cameras roll, they let the directors do their job.Several of the movies have provided crucial experience for people like the first-time feature director Sammi Cohen.Libby March for The New York Times“There is a reason why Sam was given $7 million to make a movie,” Mr. Garelick said of Ms. Cohen, a veteran television director who is making her feature directorial debut with the current production, which is still untitled. “The biggest challenge for us is getting the script and the movie to a point where it’s awesome enough for somebody to say, ‘Here’s a lot of money to go make it.’ Once everything is put together, it’s really the director’s choice to do what she wants to do, especially on a movie like this. I don’t want to have a lot of input.”Natalie Morales confirms Mr. Garelick’s approach. The actress best known for her role as Lucy Santo Domingo in TV’s “Parks and Recreation” directed “Plan B” in 2020 after enduring six months of delays because of Covid. What she found surprised her, especially since, she said, Mr. Garelick and Mr. Phelps can initially come off more as “fun-loving bros” than serious businessmen.“Jeremy and Will were so trusting of me and so willing to support me,” she said in a recent interview. “That’s not the experience you typically get with men who consider themselves more experienced than you.”“Plan B” stars Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles as two teenagers who must cross the state lines of South Dakota to find a Plan B pill after a regrettable sexual encounter. And it represents the epitome of the American High ethos: the high school experience told from a different point of view. In this case, it involves a strait-laced Indian girl who’s always expected to do the right thing, and her friend Lupe, a wild child whose sexuality may not align with her family’s expectations. Hulu said that “Plan B” was a hit not just with younger audiences, but with older women as well.High school movies rarely deviate from a specific formula. Most chronicle the agony and ecstasy of adolescence: falling in love, tasting your first sip of alcohol, realizing your parents aren’t perfect, discovering what kind of music you love. Those themes play out in American High’s movies, too, but through a new lens.“We all grew up loving John Hughes movies,” Mr. Garelick said. “And we loved them because they’re universal high school stories but when we look back at them, they’re all about a white guy who wants to get laid by the prom queen and winds up with their best friend, or something like that. And the people of color or people from different backgrounds were either in the background or were the butt of the joke. In our movies, they are our leads, and they’re often the ones who wrote these stories.”Of the 11 American High movies that have been shot at the school since 2017, seven have been made by first-time filmmakers, three of them women.“They could have done the thing where they buy the school and they set this all up for themselves,” Ms. Morales said. “That’s not what they’re doing.”A different kind of film schoolThe Syracuse film commission estimates that each film shot at American High leaves 70 percent of its budget in the region, between the local crew members it hires to the money spent in restaurants and hotels.Libby March for The New York TimesBefore American High’s arrival, the Syracuse film commission struggled to attract productions to the area, despite offering sizable tax credits. The inclement weather and meager crew base were major obstacles.Since Mr. Garelick entered the picture, things have changed.“It was a total 180,” the Syracuse film commissioner Eric Vinal said. “We went from very much a gig economy with people working pretty sporadically in the industry to really having full-time, secure positions.”Mr. Vinal estimates that each film shot leaves 70 percent of its budget in the region, between the local crew members it hires to the money spent in restaurants and hotels. American High’s movies initially cost $1 million to $2 million and have now expanded to the $7 million to $9 million range, with roughly 70 crew members, and going from nonunion crews to almost all union employees.Pulling from local colleges like Syracuse University, Onondaga Community College, Ithaca College and Le Moyne College, American High and Syracuse Studios, the company’s production services operation, employs 10 students on each production — students who might otherwise have to move to Los Angeles or New York for film jobs.Costumes for Ms. Cohen’s new movie.Libby March for The New York TimesA scene from Ms. Cohen’s as-yet untitled film.Libby March for The New York Times“It was a fantastic idea for the kind of thing that we’re doing here, which is educating storytellers of the future,” said Michael Schoonmaker, the chairman of the television, radio and film department at Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. “One of our advantages here in the frozen tundra of the snow capital city of the world, is that, you know, we’ve got them captive but also we’re pretty far away from everything. Jeremy’s program connects the two.”Will Sacca, 24, first met Mr. Garelick in the spring of 2017 when the director came to his intro to screenwriting class and pitched American High directly to the students. Mr. Sacca became one of the first summer interns and was charged with reading and analyzing comedy scripts for what could be American High’s first features. After graduation, Mr. Sacca returned to American High and worked in a variety of different departments: locations, production, accounting. He then became Mr. Garelick’s assistant before moving back into development, where now, as the head of the department, he manages a team of readers, including college interns who provide initial reaction to scripts.“I’m really fortunate,” Mr. Sacca said. “If I was at any of the mini-majors in L.A. or one of the big studios, I would be, at best, an executive assistant.”Ms. Rahman’s trajectory was similar. A recent graduate, she was living in New York City trying her hand at acting when she made a decision to return home to Syracuse. First she got a job as a background actor on American High’s second feature, “Banana Split.” That resulted in a move into the costume department, where she’s been ever since.“We’ve got Syracuse University and this really great film school there and you would think that this kind of thing would have been done a long time ago,” she said. “It seems that people are just kind of realizing, ‘Oh wait, there’s a place to make movies here and it’s sustainable.’”‘The Rah-Rah of it all’A classroom at American High. The company employs 10 students on each production, pulling from local colleges like Syracuse University.Libby March for The New York TimesNear the end of a long day of filming, Mr. Garelick sat in American High’s gym, watching a scene unfold and ruminating on his own high school experience. Not surprising, he loved it. Growing up in New City, N.Y., he was a football player, a member of the school’s theater troupe and president of the class. “I loved the Rah-Rah of it all,” he said.Now he gets to relive that feeling every day.American High has the bandwidth to shoot five films a year. Mr. Garelick and Mr. Phelps have also trained enough crew members that they can hand the reins of a production to others and get to work on the next American High film or other projects they’re involved with. (Mr. Garelick recently decamped to Hawaii to begin preproduction on the sequel to the Netflix film “Murder Mystery.”)What weighs on Mr. Garelick now is just how big of a beast he’s created. “We both feel responsible for a lot of people, and it’s definitely a lot of pressure,” he said. “But it’s also incredibly rewarding.” He acknowledged that things have become easier in the last year as more production has come to the area and his crew members have become experienced enough to get jobs on non-American High projects.Mr. Garelick with Mr. Phelps have trained enough crew members that they can hand the reins of a production to others.Libby March for The New York TimesIt also helps that immersing themselves in the world of R-rated teen comedies has made them experts.“We’ve gotten really good at knowing all the talent in this age range and in this space,” Mr. Phelps said. “We know all the scripts that are floating around because we’ve probably read them all.” More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      The Moment That Janet Jackson’s Career Stalled and Justin Timberlake’s Soared

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      Jackson was vilified after her 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, while Timberlake’s popularity seemed to take off. Our new documentary examines how the superstars were treated after their unforgettable wardrobe malfunction.Reuters//Gary Hershorn (United States Entertainment)‘Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson’Producer/Director Jodi GomesReporter/Senior Producer Rachel AbramsReporter Alan LightWatch our new documentary on Friday, Nov. 19, at 10 p.m. on FX and streaming on Hulu.The term “wardrobe malfunction” has been part of our vocabulary ever since Janet Jackson’s right breast made a surprise appearance at the end of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.When Justin Timberlake tore off part of Jackson’s bustier in front of 70,000 people in Houston’s Reliant Stadium, over 140 million people watching on TV gasped — if they noticed.It happened so quickly (the moment lasted nine-sixteenths of one second) that even some of the halftime show’s producers missed it until their phones, and phones all over America, started ringing.“Did you see what just happened?” Jim Steeg, the National Football League’s director of special events, asked Salli Frattini, the MTV executive in charge of the halftime show. She had to rewind the tape to be sure.“We looked at the close-up shot. We looked at the wide shot, and we all stood there in shock,” Frattini recalled in a new documentary by The New York Times.Was it an accident? Was it planned? Was it a stunt?The ensuing uproar — from the N.F.L., from the Federal Communications Commission, from politicians and their allies — was the peak of a national debate at the time over what’s acceptable on America’s airwaves, and who gets to decide.In our documentary, premiering Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern time on FX and Hulu, we hear from the former commissioner of the N.F.L., Paul Tagliabue, and the MTV executives who were in charge of producing the halftime show. And we talk to some of the politicians who seized on the moment to try to rein in content that they deemed inappropriate.We also look back at Jackson’s long career, which never seemed to recover, while Timberlake’s soared. And we consider how issues of race and sexism mixed to consume one superstar’s legacy and propel another’s career to the next level.Supervising Producer Liz DayProducers Fred Charleston, Jr., Anthony McLemore, Timothy MoranCo-Producer Melanie BencosmeDirector of Photography Asad FaruqiVideo Editor Geoff O’Brien“The New York Times Presents” is a series of documentaries representing the unparalleled journalism and insight of The New York Times, bringing viewers close to the essential stories of our time. More

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      in Movies

      ‘3212 Un-Redacted’ Review: Trying to Solve a Mission’s Mysteries

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      The documentary looks into the complex circumstances involving four American soldiers who were killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017.For anyone confused about the circumstances in which four American soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017, the documentary “3212 Un-Redacted” clearly lays out the geography and complicated timeline. It also suggests that confusion is understandable: The movie argues that the Pentagon’s official investigation, which placed the bulk of the blame on junior-level officers, unfairly characterized the events and went out of its way to protect high-ranking officials.“3212 Un-Redacted,” produced by ABC News with the investigative reporter James Gordon Meek serving as a writer and an onscreen presence, visually plays more like a television special than a feature documentary. It devotes much of its first half-hour to remembering the fallen men — we learn, for instance, about how Sgt. La David T. Johnson rode a single-wheeled bike around the Miami area — and introducing their families, no strangers to military culture, who feel betrayed. “The army let me down,” says Arnold Wright, the father of Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright. “They let my son down. And then they lied about it.”Meek is particularly interested in why higher-level officials might have proceeded with the operation, after pushback from the ground; the answer he proposes suggests complex motives that probably couldn’t be fully assessed without more information than is publicly available. But at times, the filmmaking itself could be clearer. Meek indicates that he was first contacted about the project around 2018, but the movie shows footage of an American-Nigerien military meeting in September 2017, the month before the ambush. (A representative for the film says it comes from “Chain of Command,” a series by National Geographic, which isn’t credited until the end.) The lack of labeling only raises questions, slightly marring what otherwise plays like a thorough, outraged exposé.3212 Un-RedactedNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      in Television

      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in November

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Rosamund Pike, center, as the mystic Moiraine escorting the young heroes of “The Wheel of Time.”Jan Thijs/Amazon Studios New to Amazon‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 19Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” saga spans 14 fantasy novels plus various supplemental works, with the last of the books having been completed posthumously by the author’s colleague Brandon Sanderson. So if Amazon’s TV version of catches on, there’ll be enough story to tell to keep the show running longer than the “Game of Thrones” series and “The Lord of the Rings” movies combined. “The Wheel of Time” starts as simply as the novels do: with the tale of the mystic Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) who helps a group of young people escape the shadow forces pursuing them, while knowing that someone in her charge may be their land’s long-prophesied champion in an ancient, eternally recurring battle against civilization-destroying chaos agents. As with the books, the TV series is as much character-driven as it is lore-driven.Also arriving:Nov. 5“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”“A Man Named Scott”“Tampa Baes”Nov. 12“Always Jane”“Mayor Pete”Nov. 19“Everybody Loves Natti”Nov. 29“Burning”Jeremy Renner and Hailee Stanfield in “Hawkeye.”Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel StudiosNew to Disney+‘Hawkeye’Starts streaming: Nov. 24The recent run of Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series have featured some real departures, with shows like “WandaVision,” “Loki” and “What If…?” sporting unusual narrative structures and stories that ventured into the more mystical areas of Marvel Comics. But the six-part mini-series “Hawkeye” promises to be more of a grounded action-adventure, in the vein of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (and with some of the same characters). Jeremy Renner reprises his role as the Avengers’ resident archer and family man Clint Barton, who finds himself training a protégée, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), in hopes that he can take care of his latest crisis and get home in time for Christmas. “Hawkeye” was inspired in part by comic book stories penned by Matt Fraction, who brought a playful quality to the title character that should carry over well to television.‘The Beatles: Get Back’Starts streaming: Nov. 25The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” captured both the recording of one of the Beatles’ final albums and the personality conflicts that ultimately led to the band’s breakup. The director Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries “Get Back” takes the original footage from that documentary (supervised at the time by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and refashions it into a larger story: about the making of the original film, and about what was really happening in the Beatles’ lives back then that even a fly-on-the-wall camera couldn’t catch. Jackson’s version is meant to be a more nuanced take on the band circa 1970, catching the passive-aggressive sniping but also the genuine pleasure these musicians took in working together on classic songs like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “The Long and Winding Road.”Also arriving:Nov. 12“Ciao Alberto”“Home Sweet Home Alone”“Olaf Presents”“The World According to Jeff Goldblum”From left, Douglas Hodge, Elle Fanning and Sacha Dhawan in “The Great.”Gareth Gatrell/Hulu New to Hulu‘The Great’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 19Season one of “The Great” introduced the “occasionally true” story of Catherine II (Elle Fanning), who marries the cruel and capricious Russian emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) and then begins trying to wrest power from him in ways both subtle and overt. The second season picks up not long after the events of last year’s finale, in which the two headstrong aristocrats reached a wary rapprochement, for the sake of their unborn child and for their own private agendas. The series’ creator Tony McNamara was one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of “The Favourite,” another unapologetically anachronistic historical dramedy. Expect more of McNamara’s sensibility in year two — along with an exciting new cast addition in Gillian Anderson, playing Catherine’s mother.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition”Nov. 5“Animaniacs” Season 2Nov. 11“3212 Un-Redacted”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Nov. 17“Marvel’s Hit-Monkey”Tom Hanks as Finch and Caleb Landry voicing Finch’s creation in the film “Finch.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Dickinson’ Season 3Starts streaming: Nov. 5Although the dramedy “Dickinson” is based on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the show’s third and final season. “Dickinson” has always been proudly off-kilter, with its creator, Alena Smith, taking the proven facts of writer’s life and then spinning whimsical and at times humorously impossible fantasies about the historical figures Dickinson might have met in mid-19th century Massachusetts, as well as the decadent parties she might’ve attended as a young woman with a thirst for independence. However the series eventually ends, its star, Hailee Steinfeld, continues to bring wit and passion to the role of an artist who wants badly to leave a lasting legacy, but a stubborn patriarchy and the looming threat of Civil War have her fearing that she’ll never get the chance to be heard.‘Finch’Starts streaming: Nov. 5Tom Hanks gets back into “Cast Away” mode in the science-fiction drama “Finch,” playing the title character: a resourceful scientist who is one of the few survivors of an Earth ravaged by environmental disasters. Fearing he is dying of radiation poisoning, Finch builds a robot named Jeff (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) and fills it with as much useful knowledge as he can, hoping Jeff will help him drive from St. Louis to San Francisco — and that the machine will take care of Finch’s dog after his master is dead. The road trip is filled with surprises and dangers, but most of the movie is just a long conversation between a man and his well-meaning but frequently bumbling creation, as Finch tries to explain to Jeff both how and why to survive tough times.‘The Shrink Next Door’Starts streaming: Nov. 12The journalist Joe Nocera’s true-crime podcast “The Shrink Next Door” tells the story of Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, a psychiatrist who allegedly took control of his patient Martin Markowitz’s life, moving into his ritzy Hamptons estate and eventually guiding his financial decisions. In the TV adaptation, Paul Rudd plays the doctor and Will Ferrell plays Marty. The two actors lean into both the comic and the dramatic possibilities of the codependent relationship that develops between these two men: One who is pushy and the other a pushover. The mini-series’s narrative stretches across decades, as the writer Georgia Pritchett and the director Michael Showalter seek to explain how this situation got out of hand, between a charming opportunist and a person who desperately needed his approval.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Dr. Brain”Nov. 5“Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show”Nov. 19“Harriet the Spy” Season 1“The Line”The cinematographer John Wilson as seen in “How to With John Wilson.”Thomas Wilson/HBONew to HBO Max‘How to With John Wilson’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 26Uniquely strange and sweet, this comic docuseries is built around the eccentric worldview of the persistently upbeat but profoundly confused videographer John Wilson, who tries to make sense of modern human existence by filming the mundane chaos of daily life in New York City and then commenting on it in halting voice-overs. In Season 1, Wilson tried to get a handle on basic concepts like friendship, ownership, security and memory. By the end of the run, he (like everyone else on the planet) saw his life upended by disease and death. It should be exciting — if that’s the right word for a show as gentle as “How to” — to see how Wilson and his crew capture and interpret everything that’s happened in the world since 2020.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words”“Head of the Class” Season 1Nov. 9“Dear Rider”Nov. 16“Simple as Water”Nov. 18“The Sex Lives of College Girls”Nov. 19“King Richard”Nov. 23“Black and Missing” More

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      ‘Jacinta’ Review: A Neverending Cycle of Hurt

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      This haunting documentary by Jessica Earnshaw traces the journey of a young woman struggling with addiction after her release from prison.When we first meet Jacinta — the 26-year-old subject of this distressing documentary portrait that bears her name — she’s on the verge of being released from her eight-month stint at the Maine Correctional Center. Jacinta’s mother, Rosemary, is also serving a sentence there; both women are recovering from drug addiction, and both have gone to prison multiple times. Oddly, the pair — scrappy soul sisters more than mother and daughter — seem at peace with their incarceration. And when it’s time for Jacinta to leave, both women teeter from ambivalence to desperation.The remainder of the film grapples with an issue that might seem counterintuitive to the average viewer: Why might Jacinta dread her freedom? It’s not a simple answer, but the director, Jessica Earnshaw — a photographer turned documentarian who followed Jacinta over three years — responds generously by unfurling a long history of inherited trauma and regret.Earnshaw’s lo-fi, vérité approach gives the documentary the impression of a collection of home videos tracing Jacinta’s post-prison journey. Though she strives to stay sober for the sake of her doting daughter, Caylynn, who lives with her grandparents in the New Hampshire suburbs, home is with her father in a mill town bursting with familiar faces tempting her to relapse. As Jacinta gradually succumbs, Earnshaw weaves in interviews, often in voice-over, with Jacinta’s close ones that explain her early run-ins with the law, her experiences with sexual abuse, and her unwavering admiration for her mother, who taught her to fight, shoplift, and use drugs.Though Earnshaw relies on a cloyingly sentimental score to underscore the tragedy of Jacinta’s situation, this durational portrait is undeniably affecting, highlighting as it does Caylynn’s gradual disillusionment with her mother and the jarring ease with which Jacinta falls back into her old ways. This is not a happy story. The lucidity with which these subjects speak to their own mistakes and sorrows will leave you haunted.JacintaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in October

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of October’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Brian Cox as the Roy family patriarch in “Succession.”David M. Russell/HBONew to HBO Max‘The Many Saints of Newark’Starts streaming: Oct. 1This movie-length prequel to the groundbreaking cable series “The Sopranos” looks back at life in the late 1960s for a notorious family of New Jersey mobsters and their various colleagues and enemies. It’s a film about the evolving nature of organized crime and race relations, at a time when the United States was experiencing rapid social changes that some sectors — like the old-school Mafia — resisted. Written by “The Sopranos” creator David Chase and directed by Alan Taylor (one of the show’s regulars), “The Many Saints of Newark” tells a sprawling story of criminal rivalries, balancing pulpy violence with dark comedy. Chase also returns to one of his core themes, considering how parental pressure and macho pride affect the choices of a young Tony Soprano, played here by Michael Gandolfini (the son of TV’s Tony, James Gandolfini).‘Succession’ Season 3Starts streaming: Oct. 17It has been nearly two years since HBO aired the Season 2 finale of this Emmy Award-winning drama. During the long, pandemic-fueled delay, fans have been eager to find out what will happen to the mega-rich Roy family and their right-wing media empire, after the troubled son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and his goofy cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) went public with evidence of a messy scandal. That cliffhanger ending set up a bloody fight between Kendall and his cantankerous, megalomaniacal father, Logan (Brian Cox), with the other power-hungry Roy kids Siobhan (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) left to decide where their loyalties should lie. Expect another year of jarring twists and unsparing satire from “Succession,” one of TV’s most exhilarating shows.Also arriving:Oct. 7“15 Minutes of Shame”Oct. 11“We’re Here” Season 2Oct. 14“Aquaman: King of Atlantis”“Phoebe Robinson: Sorry, Harriet Tubman”“What Happened, Brittany Murphy?”Oct. 18“Women Is Losers”Oct. 20“Four Hours at the Capitol”Oct. 21“Reign of Superwomen”Oct. 22“Dune”Oct. 24“Curb Your Enthusiasm” Season 11“Insecure” Season 5Oct. 26“The Mopes”Oct. 28“Love Life” Season 2From left, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed as seen in “The Velvet Underground.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Velvet Underground’Starts streaming: Oct. 15It would be hard for any filmmaker to make a documentary about the influential 1960s band the Velvet Underground as inventive and mind-expanding as the group itself, but Todd Haynes sure comes close. The director behind “Velvet Goldmine” and “I’m Not There” clearly understands not just the primitivist art-rock that the singer-songwriters Lou Reed and John Cale pioneered — a sound that inspired thousands of punk, New Wave and power-pop acts in the decades that followed — but also the New York underground culture that nurtured the Velvets. Combining new interviews, vintage audio clips and hypnotic old avant-garde films from the likes of Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas, “The Velvet Underground” captures both the brilliance and the chaos surrounding a band who documented both the ugliness and the beauty underlying the hippie era.‘Invasion’Starts streaming: Oct. 22Shot in locations around the world, this big-budget science-fiction series employs an ensemble cast to tell a story about the arrival of an Earth-threatening alien species. The show stars Sam Neill as a small-town sheriff, Shamier Anderson as a soldier stationed overseas, Shioli Kutsuna a mission-control engineer in Japan’s space program and Golshifteh Farahani and Firas Nassar as married Syrian immigrants living in New York. The “Hunters” creator David Weil and the writer-producer Simon Kinberg (best-known for his work on blockbuster superhero movies, including multiple X-Men films) collaborated on “Invasion,” which uses a fantastical, action-packed plot as a way to examine something relevant to today: how people cope with escalating crises that could wipe out life as we know it.Also arriving:Oct. 8“Acapulco”“Get Rolling With Otis”Oct. 15“Puppy Place”Oct. 29“Swagger”Rosario Dawson as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent facing down the opioid epidemic in “Dopesick.”Gene Page/HuluNew to Hulu‘Dopesick’Starts streaming: Oct. 13An all-star cast tackles the origins of the opioid crisis in this mini-series, based on the journalist Beth Macy’s 2018 nonfiction book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America.” The director Barry Levinson and the writer-producer Danny Strong turn the complicated saga of how Purdue Pharma marketed the painkiller OxyContin into a focused story, mostly about the people in one small mining town: including a compassionate doctor (Michael Keaton) and an addict (Kaitlyn Dever). Michael Stuhlbarg (as a former Purdue leader, Richard Sackler), Rosario Dawson (as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent) and Peter Sarsgaard (as a crusading lawyer trying to expose the insidious effects of a community-wide addiction) add their own strong personalities.Also arriving:Oct. 7“Baker’s Dozen”Oct. 8“Jacinta”Oct. 12“Champaign ILL”Oct. 14“Censor”Oct. 21“The Evil Next Door”“The Next Thing You Eat” Season 1Oct. 22“Gaia”Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy in “Muppets Haunted Mansion.”Mitch Haaseth/DisneyNew to Disney+‘Muppets Haunted Mansion’Starts streaming: Oct. 8The Muppets’ first Halloween special leans on a classic horror-comedy plot, as the Great Gonzo and Pepe the King Prawn explore a ghost-infested house and deal with its baffling secret passageways and untrustworthy human hosts (played by Will Arnett, Taraji P. Henson and Darren Criss, among others). In just under an hour, the Muppets and their guests deliver a rapid-fire assortment of songs and puns, along with some Halloween-themed parodies of “The Muppet Show” itself — plus plenty of references to the original Disneyland attraction that gives this special its name. “Muppets Haunted Mansion” is geared toward longtime Muppets fans, but it should also appeal to anyone who loves old-fashioned gothic horror stories.Also arriving:Oct. 1“LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales”Oct. 6“Among the Stars”Oct. 13“Just Beyond”New to Amazon‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 15Back in 1997, Lois Duncan’s 1973 young adult novel “I Know What You Did Last Summer” inspired a hit slasher film, which itself spawned multiple sequels. Now the book has become a TV series, which updates the original’s premise to the age of social media. Once again the story is about a circle of self-involved high school friends who have to grow up in a hurry when a mysterious killer starts a campaign of revenge against them after a fatal hit-and-run accident. But the themes this time out are more up-to-the-minute, dealing with the disconnect between how some young people present themselves online and the troubles in their personal lives. It’s a thriller where the threat of public embarrassment is as scary as any murderer.‘Fairfax’ Season 1Starts streaming: Oct. 29Fans of “Bojack Horseman” and Adult Swim cartoons will recognize the sensibility of this adult animated series about a handful of Los Angeles teenagers who behave like “extremely online” mini-adults, obsessed with hard-to-find fashions and exclusive experiences. Skyler Gisondo, Kiersey Clemons, Peter Kim and Jaboukie Young-White voice the kids, whose problems include the commonplace (like desperately wanting to buy a kitschy limited edition T-shirt) and the strange (like finding an underground fighting pit beneath a hip boutique). “Fairfax” — named for the Los Angeles avenue — is part slice-of-life comedy, part absurdist satire of Gen Z consumerism, spoofing the next wave of wannabe influencers.Also arriving:Oct. 1“All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs”“My Name Is Pauli Murray”“Welcome to the Blumhouse” Season 2Oct. 8“Justin Bieber: Our World” More

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      ‘Controlling Britney Spears’ Reveals New Details of Her Life Under Conservatorship

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      A new documentary by The New York Times features interviews with key insiders and people with firsthand information about how the conservatorship controlled the pop star’s life.The New York Times Presents/FX/Hulu‘Controlling Britney Spears’Producer/Director Samantha StarkSupervising Producer Liz DayWatch on Friday, Sept. 24, at 10 p.m. on FX or stream it on Hulu.Britney Spears expressed strong objections in June to the court-sanctioned conservatorship, which was largely led by her father, that controlled her life. But how the conservatorship worked had never been fully understood.Now, after her impassioned speech to a Los Angeles court over the summer, key insiders have come forward to talk publicly for the first time about what they saw. They provide the most detailed account yet of Spears’s life under the unusual legal arrangement that, for the past 13 years, stripped away many of her rights.A new documentary by The New York Times, “Controlling Britney Spears,” reveals a portrait of an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored every move the pop star made. This new film, by the makers of the Emmy-nominated “Framing Britney Spears,” features exclusive interviews with members of Spears’s inner circle who had intimate knowledge of her life under the conservatorship.“It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison,” said a former employee of the security firm hired by Spears’s father to protect her. “And security was put in a position to be the prison guards essentially.”Watch our documentary on Friday, Sept. 24, at 10 p.m. ET on FX or stream it on Hulu.Courtesy of Felicia CulottaSenior Producer Rachel AbramsProducer Timothy MoranDirector of Photography Victor Tadashi SuarezVideo Editors Lousine Shamamian, Pierre Takal, Diana DeCilio, Geoff O’Brien“The New York Times Presents” is a series of documentaries representing the unparalleled journalism and insight of The New York Times, bringing viewers close to the essential stories of our time. 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