Closing the book. Ariana Madix teased that she is getting ready to move out of the Los Angeles home she shared with ex Tom Sandoval following his affair with costar Raquel Leviss.
05.05.2023 - 18:37 / thewrap.com
You are reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Subscribe to WrapPRO.David Mandel isn’t one to sugarcoat. It’s a trait that appears in his work, from the vicious insults of “Veep” to the intentionally reprehensible characters at the center of HBO’s “White House Plumbers.” It also emerged when TheWrap asked the longtime series creator his thoughts on the currently unfolding WGA strike.
“I have no good answer, except to say, I think it’s going to be long and bloody, and it’s going to suck,” Mandel said. Mandel, who is currently 52 years old, emphasized that he’s been working in Hollywood for a long time but the current state of the industry “doesn’t make sense” to him. His IMDb page reads like a collection of comedy’s greatest hits — “Seinfeld” in the ’90s, the cult hit “EuroTrip” in the 2000s, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Veep” in the 2010s and over 60 episodes of “Saturday Night Live” over the course of three decades.
And yet Mandel has noticed that “in the last two years, even” his contemporaries have struggled.“I’m not talking about COVID. I’m talking the changes are not working,” Mandel said. “They are scrounging for jobs in a way that doesn’t make sense to me.
I don’t know what else to say. It does not make sense.”Mandel has heard leadership say they’re trying to turn writing into more of a “gig economy.” “It makes perfect sense because these are no longer studios. These are studios that are pieces of giant corporations.
Closing the book. Ariana Madix teased that she is getting ready to move out of the Los Angeles home she shared with ex Tom Sandoval following his affair with costar Raquel Leviss.
K.J. Yossman Sky boss Stephen van Rooyen said the streamers will have to adapt and change just as linear networks did a decade or so ago. Van Rooyen, who is CEO of Sky U.K. and Ireland and CCO for the Comcast owned-Sky Group, was in conversation with Sky News anchor Sophy Ridge at the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms conference on Thursday in London. When Ridge asked the media boss whether he had relaxed about the threat of streamers since the great “Netflix reset” of last year, he replied: “Actually I never really thought about it that way.” “There’s been a lot of rhetoric about traditional TV versus new TV and all that stuff, particularly over the last seven or eight years,” van Rooyen said. “But we never really thought of it that way. We’ve thought about the customer, we’ve thought about the competition, we’ve thought about how it either presents an opportunity or how it can be aggregative to the consumer experience we deliver.”
EXCLUSIVE: UK company Architect was recently founded by sales executives Calum Gray and Max Pirkis, together with Patrick Fischer and Richard Kondal of financier Creativity Capital.
This year’s Honorary Palme d’or recipient Michael Douglas received a lengthy standing ovation as he cruised on stage in Buñuel theatre to chair a masterclass session where he broke down his career as an actor and producer.
Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Boy George, lead singer of Culture Club, was synonymous with 1980s pop culture. Following a string of ubiquitous international radio hits such as “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” and “Karma Chameleon,” the Grammy-winning singer embarked on a solo career, with his recording of “The Crying Game” punctuating Neil Jordan’s Academy Awarding-winning film of the same name. A steady fixture on reality shows as host of “The Voice Australia” and “The Voice U.K.,” Boy George is hitting the big screen, playing himself in Arclight Films’ comedy adventure “Arthur’s Whiskey,” starring Oscar-winner Diane Keaton, David Harewood (“Homeland,” “Blood Diamond”) and legendary Scottish recording artist Lulu. Arclight Films is handling worldwide rights to “Arthur’s Whiskey,” directed and co-written by Stephen Cookson. Arclight Films is selling the pic at the Cannes market.
Nothing but love! Kate Bosworth revealed she had a hand in her fiancé Justin Long’s appearance on his ex Drew Barrymore’s daytime talk show.
For the second time in a week, the Writers Guild of America has shuttered Billions.
Fran Drescher. While on Sirius XM’s “The Julie Mason Show,” the actor teased that the possible November special could “maybe” become a backdoor pilot. She also highlighted the importance of SAG sticking with the Writers Guild of America during the WGA strike.
in solidarity with the WGA, and MTV scuttled plans for red carpet interviews and an in-person ceremony in order to to avoid run-ins with picketers (and lack of talent willing to show up).The show that aired was largely made up of clips of memorable moments from past MTV Movie Awards ceremonies — everything from Jim Carrey accepting his award as Jim Morrison to Sacha Baron Cohen landing crotch-first into Eminem’s face after a “stunt gone wrong.” They even played Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg’s performance of “California Girl” from the 2010 show in full, just to fill some time.As for the awards themselves, nominees from each category were called and the winner then accepted in the form of a pre-recorded message.
Judd Apatow is opening up about the ongoing writers’ strike.
Timeless lady! Princess Kate arrived at King Charles III’s coronation in a regal outfit fit for a royal.
Royal heartthrobs! Prince William and Prince Harry have surprised and impressed the world with their impeccable physique.
Hollywood labor presented a united front last night at the Shrine Auditorium in support of the Writers Guild of America’s ongoing strike, which is now in its third day. That included Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399, whose secretary-treasurer and chief negotiator Lindsay Dougherty had the biggest mic-drop moment in front of the crowd of 1,800 WGA West members.
Chelsea Handler is standing with the WGA strike — “obviously.” The comedian told TheWrap as much during an interview promoting her “Little Big Bitch” comedy tour, which will see Handler headlining the the Red Rocks Amphitheater near Denver on May 10 for SeriesFest.“Obviously, I stand with the writers, absolutely, and the WGA,” Handler said. “It’s unfortunate that it has to come to this.”To Handler, sharing profits and offering better deals to writers seems like an “obvious move” for large corporations that “make tons of money.” “The trickle-down economics don’t necessarily work. So I think it’s the only fair thing to do, and hopefully it’ll be over sooner than later,” Handler said.The actor and writer also spoke about potentially taking over “The Daily Show” after Trevor Noah left the late-night show in December.
Naman Ramachandran The next decade will belong to Indian stories, according to Sushant Sreeram, country director of Prime Video India. Sreeram was delivering a keynote at the ongoing FICCI-Frames 2023 convention in Mumbai. “The coming decade belongs to Indian stories, with streaming enabling expansion of linguistic palette and content diversity,” Sreeram said. The executive also highlighted the impact of streaming services on the Indian media and entertainment industry, noting their role in taking Indian stories to a global audience. “By offering convenient and easy access to the finest Indian content, OTT [streaming] players have made Indian entertainment accessible to viewers worldwide,” Sreeram said.
The Writers Guild of America strike is underway with hundreds of TV and film writers taking to the picket lines. Of course, that means writing work has come to a halt on many TV shows such as Cobra Kai, Yellowjackets, and Abbott Elementary, among others. Deadline will update you with latest on delays and potential production shutdowns as a result of the strike, so keep refreshing the page.
Jon Burlingame Composer Jeff Cardoni found precisely the right sound for “White House Plumbers,” the five-hour miniseries about the Watergate burglars that debuted Monday on HBO: He revisited the 1970s musically, and it’s both effective and ultra-cool. Cardoni, whose credits range from “CSI: Miami” to “The Kominsky Method,” scored “White House Plumbers” like a caper film, using both a small jazz combo and a larger, string-based orchestra depending on the scene. He likened the approach to a David Shire score from the ’70s, along the lines of “The Conversation” and (no surprise) “All the President’s Men.” Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux play E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, the ex-CIA and FBI agents recruited by President Nixon’s re-election committee to dig up dirt on his Democratic opponents, bungled the job so badly that they wound up bringing down the entire Nixon administration. Director David Mandel plays it for both laughs and tragedy as their plans constantly go awry.
walked off the job Monday night in the entertainment industry’s first strike in 15 years, after the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to reach a deal.WGA said the decision to strike was made after six weeks of negotiations with the umbrella organization that is representing Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony. But it’s the studios themselves where writers and supporters will carry signs and march. Picketing it set to take place from 1 p.m.
Alison Herman TV Critic For seven seasons, “Veep” painted a portrait of the Washington elite as unflattering as it was accurate. Our nation’s capital, the satire argued, is filled with neither dedicated public servants nor savvy political operators, but bumbling sycophants whose self-importance far outstrips their actual abilities. “White House Plumbers,” the new HBO limited series, extends that argument from fictional characters to actual history. Created by “Veep” writers Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory and directed by David Mandel, the “Seinfeld” alum who ran “Veep” after the departure of Armando Iannucci, “White House Plumbers” charts the awkward bromance of two men who tried and failed to break into the Watergate Hotel. The result is a shotgun marriage of “Step Brothers” and “Slow Burn.”
The Vanderpump Rules drama made it to Capitol Hill.