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    ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Debuts Apple’s New Film Strategy

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    Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic is the first of three high-profile movies the tech company will give wide theatrical releases in the coming months.The box office results for Martin Scorsese’s new film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” will be revealed on Sunday and analyzed by reporters and industry insiders. Did the movie perform well? Did it fall short? Did Leonardo DiCaprio’s inability to promote the film because of the actors’ strike ultimately mean fewer people went to see it?This is a normal opening weekend practice for any major theatrical release, but it will be a first for Apple Studios, the producer and financier of the $200 million movie. It is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to release the three-and-a-half-hour R-rated film in more than 3,600 theaters.Until now, Apple’s films were streaming-first. But “Killers of the Flower Moon” won’t reach its streaming service, Apple TV+, for at least 45 days. It is Apple’s clearest embrace of movie theaters since the start of Apple TV+ four years ago, and the first of three major theatrical releases from the company scheduled for the next six months.During Thanksgiving weekend, Sony Pictures will work with Apple to release Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. In February, Apple is joining forces with Universal Pictures to release the spy caper “Argylle” in theaters around the country.Bradley Thomas, a producer of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” called Apple’s partnerships “comforting,” because traditional studios have decades of experience with theatrical releases.“So Apple is dipping its toe into it,” he said. “They aren’t taking the whole thing on by themselves.”The producer Kevin Walsh, who began developing “Napoleon” with Apple in 2020, has watched its approach to theatrical release evolve. The turning point, he said, came after the top Apple TV+ executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amberg saw the success that Paramount had with “Top Gun,” which brought in $1.5 billion at the global box office last year.“What ‘Top Gun’ did to the box office they are trying to emulate with movies like ‘Napoleon,’ and ‘Formula 1,’” Mr. Walsh said in an interview, referring to the upcoming Brad Pitt movie that Apple is making with the “Top Gun” director Joseph Kosinski. “I think there is money to be made, of course, for spectacle movies in the theater. But they also serve as a massive billboard for the Apple TV service when they are successful and rolled out well.”Apple’s recent embrace of movie theaters is welcome news for a movie theater business that has been upended by streaming companies’ penchant for making films largely for their at-home services. Netflix first disrupted the long-held tradition of the theatrical release by putting films in a limited number of theaters for a limited time — usually the minimum required to appease filmmakers and qualify for Oscar consideration.Amazon Studios recently reversed its approach, giving commercial films like Ben Affleck’s “Air” significant time in theaters before releasing them to streaming subscribers.Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” will open in theaters on Thanksgiving weekend.Sony Pictures and Apple Original FilmsBut Apple, with its deep pockets, reputation for secrecy (it doesn’t share streaming subscriber numbers and declined to comment for this article) and interest in controlling all components of its ecosystem, has surprised some with its willingness to team up with others to market its films to moviegoers. It’s a situation that leaves the company open to the vagaries of the theatrical marketplace.And “Killers,” with its high price tag, has to do big business to become a success. Analysts are predicting that the film could fetch anywhere from $18 million to $30 million in its opening weekend. That would be a tough beginning even for a film by Mr. Scorsese, whose movies traditionally have staying power in theaters and often eventually gross close to five times what they brought in on opening weekend. The film’s long run time and dark subject matter — the plot revolves around the murders of Native Americans — could also be commercial hurdles.“We are a little more bullish than the industry expectations floating around,” said Shawn Robbins, an independent box office analyst, who predicts the film will open in the $30 million range. “The film certainly has its hills to climb with a long run time and DiCaprio’s absence from the press circuit.”But “strong reviews and Mr. DiCaprio’s own box office history — especially with Mr. Scorsese — provide ample amounts of good will for audiences,” he added, and work in the film’s favor. “The market hasn’t had a high-profile film targeted toward adults for a while.” (“Oppenheimer,” with a similar run time and equally serious subject matter, defied odds this year and earned $942 million worldwide.)While Apple has said very little about its shift in strategy, theater owners are ecstatic.Apple is “a major company that has the ability to do a lot of high-quality work, and I think that the recognition on their part that movies belong in theaters is a strong signal,” Michael O’Leary, chairman of the National Association of Theater Owners, a trade association, said in an interview. “Prioritizing theatrical will help them get major filmmakers to come into their tents, and to create even more dynamic, entertaining fare in the years ahead.”Mr. Scorsese and his co-writer, Eric Roth, began adapting David Grann’s nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon” in 2017. Paramount agreed to finance and distribute the film, but when the production costs soared, the studio brought in Apple in 2020 to finance the project.Others wanted it, said Mr. Thomas, who initially purchased the adaptation rights to “Killers” with his partner, Dan Friedkin. It was Apple, however, that guaranteed a full theatrical release — a must for Mr. Scorsese, whose last film, “The Irishman” for Netflix, had a truncated run in theaters.Paramount stayed on in a deal that saw Apple reimburse the studio for its development costs on the movie and a portion of Mr. Scorsese’s overall deal, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were not public. Paramount controls all theater bookings and media buys for the film’s trailers and commercials, while Apple controls its publicity and marketing materials.Apple made similar, though less expensive, deals with Sony Pictures for “Napoleon” and Universal Pictures for “Argyle,” with Sony and Universal sharing the marketing costs with Apple and handling each film’s distribution.And while all three studios would like the opportunity to enter into long-term partnerships with Apple, the tech giant has not committed to any one partner.“I’d be surprised if they take a single-studio approach for distribution,” said Tim Bajarin, chief executive of Creative Strategies, a high-tech research firm based in Silicon Valley. “Apple is willing to work, and they have shown that they can work well, with multiple studios. I think that track is more likely to be what they’ll use in the future. They are extremely calculating.” More

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      Stella Stevens, Hollywood Bombshell Who Yearned for More, Dies at 84

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      She starred alongside the likes of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis. But she wanted to direct and write, and she felt held back by industry sexism.Stella Stevens, whose turn as an A-list actress in 1960s Hollywood placed her alongside sex symbols like Brigitte Bardot, Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch, but who came to resent the male-dominated industry that she felt thwarted her ambitions to be more than a pretty face, died on Friday at a hospice facility in Los Angeles. She was 84.Her son, the actor and director Andrew Stevens, said the cause was Alzheimer’s disease.Ms. Stevens was among the last stars to emerge from Hollywood’s studio system, an arrangement that guaranteed her work but, she often said, also limited her creative aspirations. She won a Golden Globe in the “most promising newcomer” category for her role in “Say One for Me” (1959), a musical comedy starring Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds, but felt coerced into joining the cast of “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962), an empty Elvis Presley vehicle.Like Ms. Welch, who died on Wednesday, Ms. Stevens was ambivalent, if not outright indignant, about being cast as a Hollywood sex symbol. She described herself as introverted and bookish, and she sought to work with auteurs like John Cassavetes, who cast her as the female lead in “Too Late Blues,” his 1961 drama about a jazz musician (played by Bobby Darin).”I wanted to be a writer-director,” she told the film scholar Michael G. Ankerich in 1994. “All of a sudden I got sidetracked into being a sexpot. Once I was a ‘pot,’ there was nothing I could do. There was nothing legitimate I could do.”She worked with many of the top directors and actors of the 1960s. She starred as the love interest of the title character, a timid college professor who undergoes a personality transformation, in “The Nutty Professor” (1963), which Jerry Lewis wrote, directed and starred in; “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963), a romantic comedy directed by Vincent Minnelli; and “The Silencers” (1966), a spy spoof starring Dean Martin.In between, though, she had to take a series of mediocre roles in mediocre movies, and critics came to view her as a star who was perpetually kept away from realizing her full potential.From left, Shelley Winters, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall and Ms. Stevens in “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972).20th Century FoxTwo exceptions came in the early 1970s: She acted opposite Jason Robards in “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” (1970), a comic western directed by Sam Peckinpah, and as part of an all-star cast assembled for “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972), joining Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Gene Hackman in an overturned ocean liner.By then her sex-symbol days were fading, and Ms. Stevens hoped to have the time and reputation to become a director. But female directors were almost unheard-of at the time, and her attempts to get support for what she called “a marvelous black comedy” that she wanted to make met repeated dead ends.“Every man I’ve gone to for four years has smiled at me and then double‐crossed me,” she told The New York Times in 1973. “Every man I’ve talked to in every office in this industry has tried his best to discourage me from directing. They don’t want me to find out it’s so easy because it’s supposed to be terribly hard.”Stella Stevens was born Estelle Caro Eggleston on Oct. 1, 1938, in Yazoo City, Miss., though she often told interviewers she was from a town called Hot Coffee, a nearby community. Her agent said anything sounded better than “Yazoo.”Her father, Thomas, worked for a bottling company in Yazoo, and her mother, Estelle (Caro) Eggleston, was a nurse. When Stella was still young, they moved to Memphis, where her father worked in sales for International Harvester.Stella dropped out of high school at 15 to marry Herman Stephens. They had one child, Andrew, and divorced in 1956. (She later changed her surname to Stevens because, she said, it was easier for people to pronounce.)Ms. Stevens in 1968. She worked with many of the top directors and actors of the 1960s, but she also had to take a series of mediocre roles in mediocre movies.Jack Kanthal/Associated PressShe returned to school after the divorce and earned a high school diploma. She enrolled at Memphis State College, now the University of Memphis, with plans to become an obstetrician.She also took up theater. A role in a college production of William Inge’s “Bus Stop” brought an invitation to audition in New York, and by 1959 she was in Los Angeles, on a three-year contract with 20th Century Fox.She finished three movies in six months, including “Say One for Me,” but the studio dropped her soon after. With a young son to feed, she took an offer from Playboy to pose nude for $5,000. After the shoot, she said, Hugh Hefner, the magazine’s publisher, would pay her only half and told her that she had to work as a hostess at the Playboy Mansion to earn the rest.Before the photos ran she signed a new contract, with Paramount. She asked Mr. Hefner to cancel the magazine feature, but he refused, and she appeared as Playmate of the Month in the January 1960 issue, a few months before winning her Golden Globe.“People don’t realize how horrible men can be toward a beautiful woman with no clothes on,” she told Delta magazine in 2010.Her relationship with Playboy remained complicated. Despite her anger at Mr. Hefner, she posed nude for the magazine two more times. She then sued Mr. Hefner and Playboy in 1974, citing several instances of invasion of her privacy, but the case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired.In 1998, Playboy named Ms. Stevens 27th on its list of the 20th century’s sexiest female stars, just behind Sharon Stone.Ms. Stevens in 2002. She became a regular guest star on television shows. Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesIn addition to her son, Ms. Stevens is survived by three grandchildren. Her longtime partner, Bob Kulick, died in 2020.Despite her career’s post-1960s fade, Ms. Stevens remained eager to work. She turned to television and had roles in some 80 episodes over the next four decades. Most of them were guest appearances on shows like “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Love Boat” and “Magnum P.I.,” though she was also a member of the regular cast of several shows, including the soap opera “Santa Barbara.”When she did return to film, it was often for soft-core erotic thrillers and campy horror movies, like “Chained Heat” (1983), in which she played a prison warden, and “The Granny” (1994), in which she played a wronged grandmother who comes back to life to get revenge on her scheming family.She eventually did get into the director’s chair, for “American Heroine,” a 1979 documentary, and “The Ranch,” a 1989 comedy starring her son. She also wrote a novel, “Razzle Dazzle” (1989), which featured a thinly fictionalized version of herself.“I don’t feel I’ve been successful yet,” she told The Vancouver Sun in 1998. “I’m still waiting to be discovered. I see myself as a work in progress. I keep trying to work and improve and do things I’m proud of.”Danielle Cruz contributed reporting. More

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      Teen Stars of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Sue Over Nudity in 1968 Film

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      Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting assert in a lawsuit that Paramount Pictures should have known nude images of them in their teens were “secretly and unlawfully obtained.”When Franco Zeffirelli’s film “Romeo and Juliet” was first released in 1968, a brief scene of its teenage star-crossed lovers waking up in bed together nude caused what the film critic Roger Ebert described as “a lot of fuss,” including blaring headlines that Queen Elizabeth II had witnessed the scene at the London premiere.Earning two Oscars and critical acclaim, the film became a classic adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy and a staple of many English classrooms for decades.But now, more than 50 years later, the two actors who portrayed the titular characters, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, have filed a lawsuit against the film’s distributor, Paramount Pictures, claiming that the bedroom scene was deceptively filmed when they were underage and that they had been assured that no nudity would be included in the final product.The lawsuit, filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, lays much of the blame for the deception at the feet of Mr. Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, but it asserts that Paramount Pictures “knew or should have known images of plaintiffs’ nude bodies were secretly and unlawfully obtained during the performance.”The company is “repackaging what is essentially pornography,” the complaint said.Representatives for Paramount did not respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.In the scene, Mr. Whiting’s Romeo rises from bed and basks in the Veronese sunshine, his bare backside onscreen for several seconds. Juliet remains mostly tucked under the sheet, before leaping out of bed — her bare chest showing briefly.Ms. Hussey was 16 years old when the scene was filmed, and Mr. Whiting was 17, said Tony Marinozzi, a manager for both of the actors, who are now 71 and 72. (The scene was filmed in September 1967, he said, though the lawsuit that was filed contains an inaccurate date.)According to the lawsuit, Mr. Zeffirelli told the actors that no nudity would be filmed and that they would be wearing flesh-colored undergarments during the bedroom scene, but on the morning of the shoot, he told them that “they must act in the nude or the picture would fail.”The director “showed them where the cameras would be set so that no nudity would be filmed or photographed for use in ‘Romeo & Juliet’ or anywhere else,” the lawsuit said.The actors sued just before the end of a three-year window in California that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations so people who said they were sexually abused as children could file civil cases. In recent days, the state has seen a flood of litigation under the statute, called the California Child Victims Act, before the window expired on Saturday.The lawsuit alleges sexual harassment and childhood sexual abuse, among other claims.Giuseppe Zeffirelli, one of the director’s sons whom he adopted as an adult, said in a statement on Thursday that the scene was “as far from pornography as you can imagine,” noting that his father was an outspoken critic of pornography.“It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional distress,” Giuseppe Zeffirelli, who is known as Pippo, said in the statement.He said that over the years, the actors had maintained a “relationship of profound gratitude and friendship” with Mr. Zeffirelli, noting that Ms. Hussey had worked with the director again in the 1977 mini-series “Jesus of Nazareth,” playing the Virgin Mary.In her 2018 memoir, “The Girl on the Balcony,” Ms. Hussey recalls the filming of the scene, writing that after a makeup artist approached her to apply full body makeup, she confronted Mr. Zeffirelli following a “small panic attack,” and he assured her that she would be wearing a nightgown in the scene.“‘Although should things, you know, flow in another direction, I want you to be ready,’” Ms. Hussey recalled the director saying.The scene was filmed on a closed set, Ms. Hussey recalled in the memoir, meaning that only essential crew members were allowed to be present, but there was one incident in which a “dirty old man” on the crew had to be removed, she wrote.In interviews from around the time of the memoir’s publication, Ms. Hussey had expressed some approval of how the scene was filmed, telling Variety that it was tastefully shot. She told Fox News that “it wasn’t that big of a deal” and that the film’s production crew had become a “big family.”John C. Manly, a lawyer who has long represented plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse, said that Ms. Hussey’s statements as an adult would likely make the case more difficult for her to win.Mr. Marinozzi said that Ms. Hussey’s interviews about the scene showed her trying to “come to grips” with the situation and express her pride for the film and her performance, although, he said, she was never proud of that scene.“They did what they were directed to do because they were professionals,” he said.Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. More

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      ‘Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank’ Review: A Tail of Two Samurai

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      Michael Cera and Samuel L. Jackson lend their voices to this unlikely animated adaptation of Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles.”Michael Cera stars as an anthropomorphic dog, who is in training to be a samurai, and Samuel L. Jackson plays his washed-up feline mentor in Paramount’s latest animated family flick, “Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank.” The film sounds like standard CGI family fare, until you learn that the movie, originally titled “Blazing Samurai,” is a PG adaptation of Mel Brooks’s 1974 satire of Western films and race relations, “Blazing Saddles.”Sure enough, the basic story elements of “Blazing Saddles” are all here — only now, rather than an evil railroad baron employing an unwitting Black prisoner to be the sheriff of a racist town, a conniving cat (Ricky Gervais) convinces Hank, a lost beagle, to become the samurai for a village with a prejudice against canines. (Brooks even reprises his “Blazing Saddles” role as the Governor, now reimagined as a geriatric shogun.) Many of the same slapstick jokes and gags from Brooks’s film are referenced, too, though they have been retooled to remove any outdated references or obscenity. Some quips, however, still slip under the radar: At one point, Jackson’s character, the retired samurai Jimbo, refers to a group of village invaders as “N.W.A. — Ninjas With Attitude.”Despite its risqué origins, “Paws of Fury” manages to dish out lighthearted fun, swashbuckling action and surface-level messaging about following your dreams, though not every joke lands. The anachronistic sight gags in “Blazing Saddles” don’t work as well in the hyperreal world of a children’s cartoon, where the sight of a dog and a cat in kimonos attending a bottle-service nightclub circa 2009 isn’t as absurd as it would be in live action. Still, if watching those same characters sword-fight around the bowl of an enormous jade toilet sounds like fun to you or your children, this may be the movie of the summer for you.Paws of Fury: The Legend of HankRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Tom Cruise Aims to Fly High at the Box Office With ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

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      The helicopter had the star’s name painted on it, the letters coming into focus as it landed on the retired aircraft carrier, which was adorned for the occasion with an expansive red carpet and a smattering of fighter jets. Tom Cruise. Top Gun. Maverick.It couldn’t have been anyone else.Decked out in a slim-fitting suit, his hair a little shaggier and his face a little craggier than when he first played Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell more than three decades ago, Mr. Cruise took the stage on the U.S.S. Midway while Harold Faltermeyer’s iconic theme music played in the background.Gesturing to the spectacle around him, including the crowd of fans and media members, Mr. Cruise said: “This moment right here, to see everybody at this time, no masks. Everyone. This is, this is pretty epic.”Tom Cruise arrived at the world premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” in a helicopter that he landed on an aircraft carrier in San Diego.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt also felt like a time capsule. The three-hour promotional escapade — which included a batch of F-18 fighter jets executing a flyover to the sound of a Lady Gaga song from the film — harkened back to the halcyon days of Hollywood glamour. Days when Disney didn’t think twice about shuttling an aircraft carrier from San Diego to Hawaii for the premiere of Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” in 2001. Or when the same studio built a 500-seat theater at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., for the premiere of “Armageddon.” That kind of extravagance seems almost unthinkable today, when the streaming algorithm and its accompanying digital marketing efforts have replaced the old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground publicity tour with stars circumnavigating the globe, and studios spending millions to turn movie openings into cultural events.Making these events go were the film’s megastars. In Hollywood, stardom has an elastic definition. There are screen legends who are not box office stars. A global movie star is someone whose name is the draw. They have broad appeal, transcending language, international borders and generational differences. In short, they can get people of all ages into theaters around the world by virtue of their screen personas.They are the kind of stars — like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone — that box office blockbusters were built around for decades.And they are the kind of stars who no longer really exist. Actors like Dwayne Johnson, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt are ultra successful but they are also either closely tied to a specific franchise or superhero film or have yet to prove that multigenerational appeal.Now, it’s the characters that count. Three actors have portrayed Spider-Man and six have donned the Batman cowl for the big screen. Audiences have shown up for all of them. The Avengers may unite to huge box office returns but how much does it matter who’s wearing the tights?Yet there is Mr. Cruise, trundling along as if the world hasn’t changed at all. For him, in many ways, it hasn’t. He was 24 when “Top Gun” made him box office royalty and he has basically stayed there since, outlasting his contemporaries. He’s the last remaining global star who still only makes movies for movie theaters. He hasn’t ventured into streaming. He hasn’t signed up for a limited series. He hasn’t started his own tequila brand.The Great ReadMore fascinating tales you can’t help but read all the way to the end.A small Colorado town maintains the country’s only public outdoor funeral pyre. One man saw it as his own perfect ending.The singer-songwriter Ethel Cain has an elaborate vision of becoming a different kind of pop star. She’s doing it from rural Alabama.The #MeToo movement has swept through Hollywood studios and corporate boardrooms. But it has struggled to take root in places like the insular underground tattoo industry.Instead, his promotional tour for “Top Gun: Maverick,” which opens on May 27, will last close to three weeks and extend from Mexico City to Japan with a stop in Cannes for the annual film festival. In London, he walked the red carpet with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. (The tour would have been longer and more expansive if Covid protocols didn’t make things so complicated and if he wasn’t in the middle of finishing two “Mission Impossible” movies.)The actor still commands first dollar gross, which means that in addition to a significant upfront fee, he receives a percentage of the box office gross from the moment the film hits theaters. He is one of the last stars in Hollywood to earn such a sweetheart deal, buoyed by the fact that his 44 films have brought in $4.4 billion at the box office in the United States and Canada alone, according to Box Office Mojo. (Most stars today are paid a salary up front, with bonuses if a film makes certain amounts at the box office.) So if his movies hit, Mr. Cruise makes money. And right now, Hollywood is in dire need of a hit.Audiences have started creeping back to theaters since the pandemic closed them in 2020. The box office analyst David Gross said that the major Hollywood studios were expected to release roughly 108 films theatrically this year, a 22 percent drop from 2019. Total box office numbers for the year still remain down some 40 percent but the recent performances of “The Batman,” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” have theater owners optimistic that the audience demand is still there. The question is whether the business still works for anything other than special effects-laden superhero movies.“They just don’t make movies like this anymore,” Brian Robbins, the new chief executive of Paramount Pictures, the studio that financed and produced the $170 million “Top Gun: Maverick,” said in an interview. “This isn’t a big visual effects movie. Tom really trained these actors to be able to fly and perform in real F-18s. No one’s ever done what they’ve done in this movie practically. Its got scale and scope, and it’s also a really emotional movie. That’s not typically what we see in big tent-pole movies today.”A big box office showing for “Top Gun: Maverick,” would depend in no small part on the over-40 crowd. They are the moviegoers who most fondly recall the original “Top Gun” from 36 years ago — and they are the ones who have been the most reluctant to return to cinemas.To reinforce his commitment to the industry, Mr. Cruise sent a video message to theater operators at their annual conference in Las Vegas late last month. From the set of “Mission Impossible” in South Africa, standing atop an airborne biplane, Mr. Cruise introduced new footage from his spy movie and the first public screening of “Top Gun: Maverick.” “Let’s go have a great summer,” he said, before his director, flying his own biplane next to Mr. Cruise, shouted “action” and the two planes tore off across the sky.The release of “Top Gun: Maverick” was delayed because of the pandemic, but Mr. Cruise said putting it on a streaming platform was never an option.Paramount Pictures“Top Gun: Maverick” finished production in 2020 but its release was delayed for two years because of the pandemic. Mr. Cruise declined to comment for this article. But when asked during an interview on the stage of the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday (where eight fighter jets coursed across the skyline, blowing red and blue smoke to match the colors of the French flag) whether there was ever talk of turning the film into a streaming release, Mr. Cruise swatted the idea away. “That was never going to happen,” he said to applause.Now, theater owners across the country are keeping their fingers crossed that Mr. Cruise’s million-watt smile and his commitment to doing his own stunts — no matter the cost or the fact that he will turn 60 in July — will bring moviegoers back to theaters for what they hope will be a long and fruitful summer.“There’s been a lot of questions about the older audience and their affinity of going back to the theatrical experience,” Rolando Rodriguez, the chief executive of the Wisconsin-based Marcus Theatres, the fourth-largest theater chain in the country, said in an interview. “‘Top Gun’ is certainly going to bring out the audience of 40 and over and momentum builds momentum.”Audiences have remained loyal to Mr. Cruise through his offscreen controversies — his connection to Scientology, the infamous couch-jumping interview on “Oprah,” his failed marriages, including to the actress Katie Holmes. And he has remained focused on the process of making movies and then promoting them to as many people as possible — often through very controlled public appearances where he is unlikely to face any uncomfortable questions about his personal life that could embarrass him or turn off moviegoers.“He eats, sleeps and dreams this job,” said Wyck Godfrey, the former president of production for Paramount. “There is nothing else that takes his attention away. He outworks everyone else. He knows every detail.”The question now, in the world of streaming and superhero intellectual property, is does it still matter?‘We Don’t Create Movie Stars Anymore’In the 1980s, Mr. Cruise starred in a string of hits including, clockwise from top left, “Taps,” “Risky Business,” “Cocktail,” “Top Gun,” “Rain Man” and “The Color of Money,” cementing him as a bona fide movie star.Mr. Cruise came of age in Hollywood in the shadow of movie stars like Mr. Schwarzenegger and Mr. Stallone, where the name above the title meant everything. Show up to see Mr. Schwarzenegger play a cyborg assassin? Sure. How about a cop forced to play with kindergartners? Absolutely. What about a twin separated at birth from an unlikely Danny DeVito? Why not? In those days, the genre didn’t matter. Moviegoers showed up for the actors.That is not the case today.“We don’t create movie stars anymore,” said Mr. Godfrey, adding that studios have been pulling back on marketing and publicity commitments for years. “As a result, there are less and less meaningful names who will help open a movie.”Mr. Robbins agreed that it was much more difficult today to become a global star in the vein of Mr. Cruise, not because of the studios’ commitments but rather the state of the industry.“It’s Batman. It’s Spiderman. It’s very different,” he said in an interview from Cannes. “And it’s not just because a lot of these characters are hidden by a mask and tights and a cape. It’s a very different type of filmmaking. And the world is different because of streaming, and all of the other content, the fight for attention is just much more fierce than ever before. Thirty-six years ago when ‘Top Gun’ came out, there was no streaming, there was no cellphone. There was no internet. We went to the theater to be entertained. There’s just so much choice now.”The entertainment world has undergone seismic change. But Mr. Cruise’s success also owes a debt to his tirelessness. Will Smith, in his 2021 memoir, affectionately called Mr. Cruise a “cyborg” when it came to his endurance on the promotional circuit. Reminiscing about his own efforts to reach the pinnacle of stardom, Mr. Smith said that whenever he’d land in a country to hype a new movie, he would ask the local executives for Mr. Cruise’s promotional schedule, which often included four-and-a-half-hour stretches on a red carpet. “And I vowed to do two hours more than whatever he did in every country,” Mr. Smith wrote.Mr. Cruise tirelessly promotes his films, often through public appearances that are tightly controlled.Emmanuel Wong/Getty ImagesMr. Smith wasn’t the only one to notice. Studio executives have come to rely on Mr. Cruise’s commitment to promotion as his superpower.“He’s one of a dying breed that will literally work the world and treat the world as though each region is massively important. Because it is,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “So many others roll their eyes. ‘I don’t want to do that.’ With Tom, it’s always built in. It’s a massive undertaking. But it pays off. It’s why he has legions of fans around the world.”Some would argue that the age of the movie star died when the Marvel Cinematic Universe took over pop culture and movies based on known intellectual property seemed to be the only way to get large numbers of people into theaters. Mr. Cruise has not been immune to these changes.In the past decade, Mr. Cruise starred in original titles like “American Made,” “Oblivion,” and “Edge of Tomorrow”— all movies that played up his action bona fides. None were hits. His reboot of “The Mummy,” which was supposed to jump start Universal Pictures’ monster movie series, was a disappointment for the studio, generating only $80 million in domestic receipts. The series never took off.Mr. Cruise has had box-office success playing the homicide investigator Jack Reacher and in the “Mission: Impossible” series.Chiabella JamesBut while not taking part in any superhero franchises, Mr. Cruise has managed to capitalize on intellectual property that he’s already successfully exploited. Roles like the homicide investigator Jack Reacher, and the secret agent Ethan Hunt in “Mission Impossible,” have performed well at the box office. He’s hoping to pull that off again with “Top Gun: Maverick.”“I think there is so much choice in the world right now with the amount of content that is produced that every movie has turned into a bull’s-eye movie,” said David Ellison, chief executive of Skydance, the producer of “Top Gun: Maverick” and a number of other films with Mr. Cruise. “The opportunity to have something work and be anything less than A-plus is simply not the marketplace that we’re living in.”Glen Powell, one of Mr. Cruise’s co-stars in “Top Gun: Maverick,” cites him as one of the reasons he pursued acting. Mr. Cruise is also the reason Mr. Powell is in the film. Mr. Powell initially tried out for the role of Rooster, the tough guy son of Maverick’s former wingman Goose — a part that went to Miles Teller. Disappointed when he was offered the role of the cocksure daredevil Hangman instead, Mr. Powell only took the part after Mr. Cruise gave him some advice: Don’t pick the best parts, pick the best movies and make the parts the best you can.“I will never forget that moment,” Mr. Powell said in an interview. “He asked me, ‘What kind of career do you want?’ And I’m like, ‘You man, I’m trying to be you.’”Mr. Cruise’s 44 films have made more than $4 billion at the Canadian and U.S. box offices.Isa Foltin/Getty ImagesAs such, he’s studied Mr. Cruise’s career and is trying to emulate it. He’s shied away from the superhero genre, so far, and has some theories on what makes Mr. Cruise unique.“He is the guy that’s not trying to occupy the I.P. He’s trying to tell a compelling story that just ends up becoming the I.P. because it’s so good,” Mr. Powell said. He sees a substantive difference there — the difference between going to the movies to see Tom Cruise, the movie star, or going to see other I.P. Or, as Mr. Powell puts it: “There’s a difference between stepping into fandom rather than creating your own fandom.”He knows he’s learned from the master. “Even if I pick up a little of what Tom taught me,” he said, “I’m going to be way more prepared than any other actor out there.”He might. Or he might be learning from an outdated playbook.There is a moment in “Top Gun: Maverick” where Ed Harris, playing Maverick’s superior, tells him, “The end is inevitable. Your kind is headed to extinction.”And Mr. Cruise, still holding on to that brash self-confidence that made him a movie star four decades ago, grins at him and replies, “Maybe so, sir. But not today.”There are plenty of people in the movie industry who hope he’s right. More

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      In Echo of Soviet Era, Russia’s Movie Theaters Turn to Pirate Screenings

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      In a Cold War throwback, some venues are showing bootleg versions after Hollywood studios pulled films from the country. Still, viewer numbers have tanked.Since the invasion of Ukraine, Hollywood’s biggest studios have stopped releasing movies in Russia, and Netflix has ceased service there. But recently, some of the companies’ films have started appearing in Russian movie theaters — illegally.The screenings are reminiscent of the Soviet era, when the only way to see most Western films was to get access to a pirated version. Whereas those movies made their way to Russians in the form of smuggled VHS tapes, today, cinemas in the country have a simpler, faster method: the internet. Numerous websites offer bootleg copies of movies that take minutes to download.Some theaters in Russia are now openly screening pirated movies; others are being more careful, allowing private individuals to rent out spaces to show films, free or for a fee. One group, for example, rented out several screening rooms at a movie theater in Yekaterinburg, then used social media to invite people to buy tickets to watch “The Batman.”Theatergoers can also see “The Batman” in Ivanovo, a city about a five-hour drive from Moscow, in at least one venue. In Makhachkala, capital of the Dagestan region, in the Caucasus, a movie theater is screening “Don’t Look Up”; and in Chita, a city near the border with Mongolia, parents can take their children to watch “Turning Red,” the animated film from Disney and Pixar.Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky and Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy in “Don’t Look Up.”Niko Tavernise/NetflixIn “Turning Red,” an animated Disney/Pixar feature, a teenager is transformed into a giant red panda.Disney+Robert Pattinson is the star of “The Batman.”Warner Bros.These surreptitious screenings are the latest attempt by movie theaters in Russia to survive after American studios like Disney, Warner Brothers and Paramount left the country in protest. Before the war in Ukraine, movies produced in the United States made up about 70 percent of the Russian film market, according to state media.But despite the attempts to draw viewers, last month, Russians barely went to the movies. Theaters saw ticket sales fall by about half in March, compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Association of Theater Owners.Artem Komolyatov, 31, a video game producer in Moscow, noticed the shift when he and his wife went on a Friday date to the movies a few weeks ago. With everything that has been going on politically, the two of them wanted to spend a couple of hours in a relaxed environment with other people, Komolyatov said, “watching something together, maybe laughing and crying.”They chose “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” a film from the independent American studio A24, which stopped releasing films in Russia in mid-April.The scene they found when they arrived at the movie theater was bizarre, Komolyatov said. “Besides us, there were three other people,” he said. “We went at 8 p.m. on a weekend. Usually the theater is completely full.”The Cinema Park complex in Moscow on April 12. The poster on the right is for “Uncharted,” with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, which came out just before the Ukraine war started.Nikolay Vinokurov/AlamyGiven the dearth of viewers and of content, the Association of Theater Owners predicted that at least half the movie theaters in Russia would go out of business in the next two months.Even if that prognosis is true, history has shown that films will reach audiences with or without legal channels. Decades ago, Soviet citizens gathered in empty office spaces, living rooms and cultural centers to view pirated copies of Western classics like “Rocky,” “The Terminator,” and “9 ½ Weeks” that had made their way behind the Iron Curtain.During the tumultuous years that followed the crumbling of the Soviet Union, piracy continued to be the main access point for Hollywood films in Russia. Movies recorded on VHS tapes that were sold at local markets were often clearly shot on a hand-held camcorder in a movie theater. Continuing a Soviet tradition, the movies were dubbed into Russian with a time delay by voice actors, often just one for all the male characters, and another for the women.Once the first Western-style movie theater opened in 1996 in Moscow, illegal distribution paths began to peter out, according to a study by the Social Science Research Council, a New York-based nonprofit. In the early 2000s, Russians flocked to theaters to see legally distributed global hits like “Avatar” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Russia became the ninth-largest foreign box office market, according to the Motion Picture Association.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Biden’s speech. More

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      Why TV-Inspired Vacations Are on the Rise

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      TV-themed itineraries are on the rise, taking travelers on adventures with familiar shows during a time of uncertainty.With 70 percent of Americans watching more TV in 2021 than they did in 2020, binge-watching has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Now, as borders reopen, restrictions ease and travel restarts, tour advisers are fielding an increasingly popular request: immersive, TV-themed itineraries that allow travelers to live out their favorite shows’ story lines.In Britain, where all travel restrictions are now lifted, hotels in London have partnered with Netflix to offer Lady Whistledown-themed teas inspired by “Bridgerton” high society. In Yellowstone National Park, travelers are arriving in Wyoming not for a glimpse of Old Faithful, but for a chance to cosplay as John Dutton from the hit drama “Yellowstone.”And in South Korea, where vaccinated travelers can now enter without quarantine, street food vendors on Jeju Island are anticipating a run on dalgona candy, the honeycomb toffees that played a central role in “Squid Game.”“When you fall in love with a character, you can’t get it out of your mind,” said Antonina Pattiz, 30, a blogger who last year got hooked on “Outlander,” the steamy, time-traveling drama about Claire Beauchamp, a nurse transported 200 years back in history. Ms. Pattiz and her husband, William, binge-watched the Starz show together, and are now planning an “Outlander”-themed trip to Scotland in May to visit sites from the show, including Midhope Castle, which stands in as Lallybroch, the family home of another character, Jamie Fraser.Mr. Pattiz is part Scottish, Ms. Pattiz said, and their joint interest in the show kicked off a desire on his part to explore his roots. “You watch the show and you really start to connect with the characters and you just want to know more,” she said.The fifth season of “Outlander” was available in February 2020, and Starz’s 142 percent increase in new subscribers early in the pandemic has been largely attributed to a jump in locked-down viewers discovering the show. During the ensuing two-year hiatus before Season 6 recently hit screens — a period of time known by fans as “Droughtlander” — “Outlander”-related attractions in Scotland, like Glencoe, which appears in the show’s opening credits and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, saw more than 1.7 million visitors. “Outlander”-related content on Visit Scotland’s website generated more than 350,000 page views, ahead of content pegged to the filming there of Harry Potter and James Bond movies.The Pattizs, who live in New York City, will follow a 12-day self-driving sample itinerary provided by Visit Scotland, winding from Edinburgh to Fife to Glasgow as they visit castles and gardens where Claire fell in love and Jamie’s comrades died in battle. Private tour companies, including Nordic Visitor and Inverness Tours, have also unveiled customized tours.The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.Enduring trend, new intensityScreen tourism, which encompasses not just pilgrimages to filming locations but also studio tours and visits to amusement parks like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, is an enduring trend. Tourists flocked to Salzburg in the 1960s after the release of “The Sound of Music”; in recent decades, locations like New Zealand saw a huge bump in visits from “Lord of the Rings” fans and bus tours in New York City have offered tourists a chance to go on location of “Sex and the City” and “The Marvelous Ms. Maisel.”But in this pandemic moment, where travel has for months been synonymous with danger and tourists are navigating conflicting desires to safeguard their health while also making up for squandered time, screen tourism is taking on a new intensity, said Rachel Kazez, a Chicago-based mental health therapist. She has clients eager to travel — another major trend for 2022 is “going big” — but they are looking for ways to tamp down the anxiety that may accompany those supersized ambitions.She said her patients increasingly are saying “‘I was cooped up for a year and I just want to go nuts. Let’s do whatever fantasy we’ve been thinking about’.”“If we’ve been watching a TV show, we know everything about it, and we can go and have a totally immersive experience that’s also extremely predictable,” Ms. Kazez continued. Cyndi Lam, a pharmacist in Fairfax, Va., has longed to go to Morocco for years. But she didn’t feel confident pulling the trigger until last month, when “Inventing Anna,” the nine-episode drama about the sham heiress Anna Delvey, began streaming on Netflix.In episode six of “Inventing Anna,” the character flies to Marrakesh and stays at La Mamounia, a lavish five-star resort. Ms. Lam and her husband are now booked to stay there in September.“Everybody can kind of relate to Anna,” Ms. Lam said. “I found her character to be fascinating, and when she went to Morocco, I was like, ‘OK, we’re going to Morocco.’ It sealed the deal.”In December, Club Wyndham teamed up with Hallmark Channel to design three suites tied to the “Countdown to Christmas” holiday movie event. They sold out in seven hours.Courtesy of Club WyndhamSensing a new desire among guests to tap into the scripted universe, dozens of hotels over the past year have rolled out themed suites inspired by popular shows. Graduate Hotels has a “Stranger Things”-themed suite at its Bloomington, Ind., location, with areas designed like the living room and basement of central characters like the Byers. A blinking alphabet of Christmas lights and Eleven’s favorite Eggo waffles are included. And in December, Club Wyndham teamed up with the Hallmark Channel to design three “Countdown to Christmas”-themed suites where guests could check in and binge Christmas films. They sold out in seven hours.“It was the first time we’d done anything like this,” said Lara Richardson, chief marketing officer for Crown Media Family Networks, in an email. “One thing we hear over and over from viewers is that, as much they love our products, they want to step inside a ‘Countdown to Christmas’ movie.”Vacation homes are also going immersive. For families, Airbnb partnered with BBC to list the Heeler House, a real-world incarnation of the animated home on the beloved animated series “Bluey,” and Vrbo has 10 rental homes inspired by “Yes Day,” the 2021 Netflix film about parents who remove “no” from their vocabulary. Celebrities are jumping in, too: Issa Rae, creator and star of HBO’s “Insecure,” offered an exclusive look at her neighborhood in South Los Angeles in February with a special Airbnb listing, at a rock-bottom price of $56.Tea on TV, now in London (and Boston)“Bridgerton,” Netflix’s British period drama about family, love and savage gossip, was streamed by 82 million households in 2021. (For comparison, the finale of “Breaking Bad” in 2013 had 10.3 million viewers; more recent streaming hits, including “Tiger King” and “Maid,” had fewer than 70 million). When season two of “Bridgerton” premieres on March 25, Beaverbrook Town House, a hotel built across two Georgian townhouses in London’s Chelsea, will offer a “Bridgerton” experience that includes a day out in London and drinks in the British countryside; nearby at the Lanesborough, a Bridgerton-themed tea, cheekily dubbed “the social event of the season,” will kick off the same day. In Boston, the Fairmont Copley Plaza now has a “High Society Package” for fans with flowers and a private afternoon tea.Contiki, the group travel company for 18- to 35-year-olds, had a “Bridgerton”-themed itinerary set for September 2021 but had to scrap it when the Delta variant hit; they’ve now partnered with Amazon Prime on a Hawaiian Islands trip inspired by “I Know What You Did Last Summer” set for July.Both Netflix and Amazon Prime have brand partnership teams that handle collaborations of this nature.“As we come out of this pandemic, the desire for more immersive experiences is really stronger than ever,” said Adam Armstrong, Contiki’s chief executive. “It’s about getting under the skin of destinations, creating those Instagrammable moments that recreate stuff from films and movies. It’s really a strong focus for us.”The popularity of “Bridgerton” on Netflix was eclipsed by “Squid Game,” the high-stakes South Korean survival drama, and despite that show’s carnage, travelers are booking Squid Game vacations, too. Remote Lands, an Asia-focused travel agency, reported a 25 percent increase in interest in South Korean travel and created a Seoul guide for fans and a customized itinerary.Some travel advisers say that some clients don’t even want to explore the locations they’re traveling to. They just want to be there while they continue binge-watching.Emily Lutz, a travel adviser in Los Angeles, said that more than 20 percent of her total requests over the past few months have been for travel to Yellowstone National Park, a result of the popularity of “Yellowstone,” the western family drama starring Kevin Costner on the Paramount Network and other streaming services. And not all of her clients are interested in hiking.“I had a client who wrote me and said, ‘All we want to do is rent a lodge in the mountains, sit in front of the fireplace, and watch episodes of ‘Yellowstone’ — while we’re in Yellowstone’,” she said.52 Places for a Changed WorldThe 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022. More

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      ViacomCBS renames itself as it plays catch-up with Paramount+, its streaming service.

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      On Tuesday, Shari Redstone staged her second hourslong investor presentation in two years. Both events were designed for the same purpose — to reposition her old-line media company, ViacomCBS, as a streaming giant in the making, one capable of competing head-on with Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, despite a late start.This time, there was less snickering.“Some of you thought we were on an impossible mission,” Robert M. Bakish, the chief executive of ViacomCBS, said during the presentation on Tuesday. “It’s not only possible. It’s happening.”To highlight the importance of its fast-growing Paramount+ streaming service, Ms. Redstone, the company’s chair, announced that ViacomCBS would rename itself Paramount Global.Paramount+ had 32.8 million subscribers worldwide at the end of its most recent quarter, up from fewer than 19 million a year earlier. In the three months that ended on Dec. 31, Paramount+ added 7.3 million customers, the result of offerings like “1883,” the prequel to “Yellowstone”; “Clifford the Big Red Dog”; and National Football League games. (A year earlier, ViacomCBS was adding about a million streaming subscribers a quarter.)The company’s streaming portfolio (Paramount+ and niche services from Showtime, BET and Nickelodeon) now has about 56 million subscribers. Mr. Bakish said that number would grow to 100 million by 2024, more than the roughly 70 million the company had previously forecast. The company also raised its 2024 streaming revenue goal to $9 billion, from $6 billion.Streaming brought in about $4.2 billion last year, including advertising sales from the free Pluto TV service.Paramount+ unveiled a barrage of additional programming to fuel continued growth. The expanded lineup will include fresh content from franchises including “Yellowstone,” “Beavis and Butt-Head,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Real World,” “Dora the Explorer,” “NCIS,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Transformers” and “South Park.” Paramount+ will be the exclusive first stop after theatrical distribution for all Paramount Pictures movies beginning in 2024. (Many previously went to Epix, a premium cable channel.)Starting this summer in the United States, Paramount+ subscribers will be able to upgrade to receive Showtime content, including the new hit drama “Yellowjackets” and older series like “Billions.”ViacomCBS shares declined about 6 percent in after-hours trading. Richard Greenfield, a founder of the research firm LightShed Partners, cited investor concern about Mr. Bakish’s “meaningfully stepping up spending” on content.It may be growing quickly, but Paramount+ continues to lag behind competitors like Disney+, which added 11.8 million subscribers worldwide in its most recent quarter to reach 129.8 million. Netflix has about 222 million. More

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      New Paramount chairman continues to clean house, showing another executive the door.

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      Regime change at Hollywood studios is almost always bloody. A new king or queen arrives and those loyal to the previous court lose their jobs.But the guillotine has been dropping at Paramount Pictures with surprising speed, creating something of a panic inside the 109-year-old film company.ViacomCBS, which owns Paramount, ousted Paramount’s chairman, James N. Gianopulos, on Sept. 13 and replaced him with Brian Robbins, a children’s television executive. By Sept. 17, Chris Petrikin, the studio’s respected executive vice president of global communications and corporate branding, had been shown the door. Emma Watts, president of the Paramount Motion Picture Group, was dismissed last week. And on Thursday, Paramount parted with its animation president, Mireille Soria.Paramount declined to comment on the departures.The speed with which Mr. Robbins is making changes reflects his personal style — forward charge! — and the vulnerable position in which Paramount and its corporate parent find themselves.Paramount was once the most powerful studio in Hollywood, delivering culture-defining films like “The Godfather,” “Grease,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Forrest Gump” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” But severe mismanagement in the 2010s left it on life support. Mr. Gianopulos pulled it back from the brink, but the studio remains an also-ran, with many analysts viewing it as unequipped to compete with franchise-rich competitors like Disney and Universal.Similarly, ViacomCBS ranks as a small player in the streaming business that has come to dominate the media industry. Mr. Robbins, who has online entertainment experience on his résumé and little attachment to calcified Hollywood business models, was installed at Paramount because ViacomCBS wants the studio to prioritize streaming distribution for films — in particular, feeding content to Paramount+, the conglomerate’s nascent streaming service. More