In mid-May, with the writers strike still in its infancy, UTA partner and media rights co-head Jason Richman found himself trying to gauge the industry’s appetite for dealmaking. A few years earlier, indie studio A24 had scooped up the rights to his client David Gauvey Herbert’s 2021 Esquire article, “Daddy Ball,” but the option had lapsed, and he was eager to test the market. So, Richman sent around the 6,700-word piece, about two Little League dads with complicated pasts who took a deep rivalry way too far. In a matter of weeks, there were eight offers, some of them with major talent like Ben Stiller or Jason Bateman attached.
Netflix, which was already in business with Bateman via his Aggregate Films, ultimately proved triumphant, plunking down what multiple sources say was a staggering $2 million outright for the article. Bateman would not only direct but also star in what’s...
Netflix, which was already in business with Bateman via his Aggregate Films, ultimately proved triumphant, plunking down what multiple sources say was a staggering $2 million outright for the article. Bateman would not only direct but also star in what’s...
- 10/25/2023
- by Lacey Rose and Lesley Goldberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lauren O’Connor was alone at a deli in an office park in Santa Monica, having a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich while on her lunch break from Amazon Studios, when she suddenly, terrifyingly, found herself front-page news. It was Oct. 5, 2017, the day The New York Times published its first piece alleging that Harvey Weinstein had been paying off sexual harassment accusers for decades, a story that would kick off a wave of revelations, firings and court cases across industries. As soon as the story broke, O’Connor’s cellphone started to explode with so many messages that it crashed, and she began to feel woozy and faint at the table.
The then-30-year-old development executive had been having trouble eating since about a week earlier, when reporters from the Times told her that they had obtained and planned to publish a blistering memo she had written in 2015, while she was...
The then-30-year-old development executive had been having trouble eating since about a week earlier, when reporters from the Times told her that they had obtained and planned to publish a blistering memo she had written in 2015, while she was...
- 12/8/2022
- by Rebecca Keegan
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The same book scout who urged Holly Bario to buy the rights to the book The Girl on the Train when it was a mere manuscript has struck again; Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, where Bario is president of production, is now planning a film of the psychological thriller The Wife Between Us by a new writing duo: Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. The novel hits bookstores Jan. 9 from St. Martin’s Press.
“Marcy Drogin, who found Girl on the Train, called me when we were in production for that movie,” Bario recalls. “She had read The Wife Between Us and...
“Marcy Drogin, who found Girl on the Train, called me when we were in production for that movie,” Bario recalls. “She had read The Wife Between Us and...
- 10/26/2017
- by Laura van Straaten
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The first look at action movie "The Mechanic" has been made available for viewing pleasure through a brand new promo trailer. While the first half of the snippet gives a preview to Jason Statham who trains Ben Foster in fighting skills, the rest of the video contains a lot of action scenes. A glimpse of raunchy footage is also featured in this snippet.
"The Mechanic" centers its story on Foster's Steve McKenna, a young man who becomes an apprentice to a hitman portrayed by Statham. This remake of 1972 movie with the same title picks up the idea of a spy thriller in a post 9/11 world.
Directed by Simon West, this action drama still has no U.S. release date as no studio has bought the distribution rights for the movie. Karl Gajdusek provides the screenplay for "The Mechanic", while Robert Chartoff joins forces with Rob Cowan, Marcy Drogin, Irwin Winkler...
"The Mechanic" centers its story on Foster's Steve McKenna, a young man who becomes an apprentice to a hitman portrayed by Statham. This remake of 1972 movie with the same title picks up the idea of a spy thriller in a post 9/11 world.
Directed by Simon West, this action drama still has no U.S. release date as no studio has bought the distribution rights for the movie. Karl Gajdusek provides the screenplay for "The Mechanic", while Robert Chartoff joins forces with Rob Cowan, Marcy Drogin, Irwin Winkler...
- 3/17/2010
- by AceShowbiz.com
- Aceshowbiz
"The Sentinel" is a slick enough thriller about a presidential assassination attempt. It is also a rather mechanical, soulless affair that avoids politics or anything else that might clearly define who these characters are and why we should care other than that's the First Family and these are the valiant Secret Service agents sworn to protect the president's life. Michael Douglas heads a sharp cast that performs with drill-like precision under fast-paced direction from Clark Johnson ("S.W.A.T".). Business looks good for opening weekend, but because better White House dramas have been on TV in recent years, boxoffice probably won't rise above midrange in major markets.
For all its D.C. trappings and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the White House, Secret Service and the Presidential Protection Division's elaborate, state-of-the-electronic-arts control center, "Sentinel" basically reworks every police thriller where a top cop falls under suspicion and must use the tools of his trade to prove his innocence while on the lam.
"You are chasing your worst nightmare," barks agent David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) as he sends fellow agents after Secret Service superstar Pete Garrison (Douglas), his former buddy and now greatest antagonist. Pete once took a bullet for President Reagan, but now he is being framed and blackmailed. So Pete must save his reputation and the president from assassination in a matter of hours.
The trouble is that the "worst nightmare" line comes past the halfway point. Getting there takes too much time and too many leaps of logic that never get closed in a final shootout that is a wee over the top. The movie could have used more of the cop-against-his-own-system and less of the contrivances and implausible melodrama from screenwriter George Nolfi (working from Gerald Petievich's novel).
First we're asked to believe that the first lady (an unusually demure Kim Basinger) is conducting an affair with the head of her Secret Service detail under the president's nose. That would be Pete and, yes, it's really Michael Douglas, but c'mon! The first lady and a Secret Service guy!
OK, let's move on to the murder of Pete's colleague moments before he was to share confidential information with Pete. The investigation falls to Breckinridge, who hates Pete's guts because he thinks Pete slept with his wife, whom he has since divorced.
An old informant of Pete's turns up with convincing evidence that a traitor exists within the Secret Service. That investigation gets folded into the murder inquiry just as Pete receives photos of him and the first lady in what used to be called "compromising positions."
Once Pete goes underground, the film picks up stream. Douglas is now free to be an action hero, while Sutherland makes an intriguingly conflicted nemesis. Along for the ride is a glamorous rookie agent played by Eva Longoria. (She keeps interrupting the trains of thought of all the male characters.) Martin Donovan, as the agent in charge of the president (David Rasche), holds down the fort with whimsical ambiguity, while the women -- Basinger and Blair Brown as the National Security Adviser -- get sidelined by the action.
"Sentinel" fails in comparison to the last really good Secret Service movie, Wolfgang Petersen's 1993 "In the Line of Fire" starring Clint Eastwood. There, the cat-and-mouse game between an agent and potential assassin dripped with believable character details without shortchanging action or suspense. Here, the filmmakers seem to feel this is an either/or thing. So they opt for action over character. Thus we never get to discover why such an exacting, conscientious guy as Pete is such a moral screw-up. That might have been the real guts to this movie.
This D.C./Toronto production does benefit from Gabriel Beristain's deep-color cinematography, Cindy Mollo's sharp editing, Andrew McAlpine's solid production design and Christophe Beck's rousing score.
THE SENTINEL
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises present a Further Films/New Regency production
Credits:
Director: Clark Johnson
Screenwriter: George Nolfi
Based on the novel by: Gerald Petievich
Producers: Michael Douglas, Marcy Drogin, Arnon Milchan
Executive producer: Bill Carraro
Director of photography: Gabriel Beristain
Production designer: Andrew McAlpine
Music: Christophe Beck
Costumes: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Cindy Mollo
Cast:
Pete Garrison: Michael Douglas
David Breckinridge: Kiefer Sutherland
Jill Marin: Eva Longoria
William Montrose: Martin Donovan
Handler: Ritchie Coster
Sarah Ballentine: Kim Basinger
National Security Adviser: Blair Brown
President Ballentine: David Rasche
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 108 minutes...
For all its D.C. trappings and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the White House, Secret Service and the Presidential Protection Division's elaborate, state-of-the-electronic-arts control center, "Sentinel" basically reworks every police thriller where a top cop falls under suspicion and must use the tools of his trade to prove his innocence while on the lam.
"You are chasing your worst nightmare," barks agent David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) as he sends fellow agents after Secret Service superstar Pete Garrison (Douglas), his former buddy and now greatest antagonist. Pete once took a bullet for President Reagan, but now he is being framed and blackmailed. So Pete must save his reputation and the president from assassination in a matter of hours.
The trouble is that the "worst nightmare" line comes past the halfway point. Getting there takes too much time and too many leaps of logic that never get closed in a final shootout that is a wee over the top. The movie could have used more of the cop-against-his-own-system and less of the contrivances and implausible melodrama from screenwriter George Nolfi (working from Gerald Petievich's novel).
First we're asked to believe that the first lady (an unusually demure Kim Basinger) is conducting an affair with the head of her Secret Service detail under the president's nose. That would be Pete and, yes, it's really Michael Douglas, but c'mon! The first lady and a Secret Service guy!
OK, let's move on to the murder of Pete's colleague moments before he was to share confidential information with Pete. The investigation falls to Breckinridge, who hates Pete's guts because he thinks Pete slept with his wife, whom he has since divorced.
An old informant of Pete's turns up with convincing evidence that a traitor exists within the Secret Service. That investigation gets folded into the murder inquiry just as Pete receives photos of him and the first lady in what used to be called "compromising positions."
Once Pete goes underground, the film picks up stream. Douglas is now free to be an action hero, while Sutherland makes an intriguingly conflicted nemesis. Along for the ride is a glamorous rookie agent played by Eva Longoria. (She keeps interrupting the trains of thought of all the male characters.) Martin Donovan, as the agent in charge of the president (David Rasche), holds down the fort with whimsical ambiguity, while the women -- Basinger and Blair Brown as the National Security Adviser -- get sidelined by the action.
"Sentinel" fails in comparison to the last really good Secret Service movie, Wolfgang Petersen's 1993 "In the Line of Fire" starring Clint Eastwood. There, the cat-and-mouse game between an agent and potential assassin dripped with believable character details without shortchanging action or suspense. Here, the filmmakers seem to feel this is an either/or thing. So they opt for action over character. Thus we never get to discover why such an exacting, conscientious guy as Pete is such a moral screw-up. That might have been the real guts to this movie.
This D.C./Toronto production does benefit from Gabriel Beristain's deep-color cinematography, Cindy Mollo's sharp editing, Andrew McAlpine's solid production design and Christophe Beck's rousing score.
THE SENTINEL
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises present a Further Films/New Regency production
Credits:
Director: Clark Johnson
Screenwriter: George Nolfi
Based on the novel by: Gerald Petievich
Producers: Michael Douglas, Marcy Drogin, Arnon Milchan
Executive producer: Bill Carraro
Director of photography: Gabriel Beristain
Production designer: Andrew McAlpine
Music: Christophe Beck
Costumes: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Cindy Mollo
Cast:
Pete Garrison: Michael Douglas
David Breckinridge: Kiefer Sutherland
Jill Marin: Eva Longoria
William Montrose: Martin Donovan
Handler: Ritchie Coster
Sarah Ballentine: Kim Basinger
National Security Adviser: Blair Brown
President Ballentine: David Rasche
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 108 minutes...
- 4/21/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Sentinel, a political thriller to star Michael Douglas, has landed at 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises with Clark Johnson attached to direct. Kim Basinger and Kiefer Sutherland are in negotiations to star alongside Douglas, who is producing with his Furthur Films topper Marcy Drogin. Outlook Films, an equity-based film financing company formed last year by former CAA agent Adam Krentzman and Francois Lesterlin, is co-financing with Fox and Regency. Krentzman and Lesterlin are executive producing.
- 1/14/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Michael Douglas and his Furthur Films have signed a two-year first-look production deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. The deal comes just a few months after Douglas wrapped shooting Franchise Pictures' The Wedding Party, which he stars in and Furthur co-produces. Warners is distributing the picture. Furthur will continue to maintain offices in Los Angeles and New York under the leadership of president of production Marcy Drogin, who is based on the East Coast, and Lisa Bellomo, senior vp production, who heads the West Coast office. Director of development James Lavigne also works in the New York office.
- 2/26/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Michael Douglas and his Furthur Films have signed a two-year first-look production deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. The deal comes just a few months after Douglas wrapped shooting Franchise Pictures' The Wedding Party, which he stars in and Furthur co-produces. Warners is distributing the picture. Furthur will continue to maintain offices in Los Angeles and New York under the leadership of president of production Marcy Drogin, who is based on the East Coast, and Lisa Bellomo, senior vp production, who heads the West Coast office. Director of development James Lavigne also works in the New York office.
- 2/26/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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