Latest news with #DayoftheJackal
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘Succession' creator Jesse Armstrong freshly explores mega wealth through tech bro one-upmanship in ‘Mountainhead'
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong is continuing to use his distinctive satirical tone to explore how the 1 percent wields power over the world. In his directorial debut Mountainhead, Armstrong hones in on the oversized influence of a group of tech bro billionaires played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith. The HBO film, which will premiere on HBO and Max on May 31, finds the four friends tucked away in a modern mansion in the snowy Utah mountains as one of their social media apps spurs global unrest and violence due to unrestricted generative AI. More from GoldDerby TV composers roundtable: 'Adolescence,' 'Day of the Jackal,' 'Interview With the Vampire,' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' composer Dominic Lewis on matching the show's tonal shifts and writing the catchy theme song 'The Joneses' Composer Volker Bertelmann on the shifting tempos and percussive sounds that punctuate 'The Day of the Jackal' At the Mountainhead premiere held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Thursday, Carell spoke to reporters on the red carpet about the "overwhelming" experience of slipping into the identity of a billionaire. Early in the film, his character Randall, who ranks highest in the group in terms of seniority, is embittered when his net worth falls below that of Youssef's Jeff, who's created tech that safeguards against the dangers of AI. "When somebody is worth 60, 200 billion dollars, the actual amount doesn't even mean anything anymore, I think, to these people. It's a number," Carell said. "But the number itself kind of means something, if that makes any sense. There is a hierarchy within that, even though the actual physical ability to buy things doesn't really change between 60 and 200 billion. But the fact that within this hierarchy of four people, he's second and may end up being third is not a good thing. So that's a huge component of all of this." Armstrong, who traces his script inspiration back to writing a review of Michael Lewis' book about Sam Bankman-Fried, explained to Gold Derby why he's keen on examining the lives of the ultra wealthy. "I guess it's not especially the 1 percent-y wealth that interests me — I think it's the power that comes with that. So for myself, I wouldn't tend to write things that were necessarily just about rich people. It's the fact that they have that power on the world. And that's what Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his family had, and it's what these guys have, or at least some of them. And that's the bit that I'm really interested in: Why is the world the way it is, and who's shaping it?" SEE HBO unveils trailer for Jesse Armstrong's Mountainhead In the film, the four protagonists are decidedly separate from the rest of the world as they stay put at the titular Mountainhead mansion that belongs to Schwartzman's character (who is nicknamed Souper for having the lowest net worth in the group with nary a billion to his name). Armstrong detailed how the secluded property was found and its significance to the storyline. "Paul Eskenazi, location manager from Succession, helped us find it. We looked at a lot of places in Canada and Utah, and we wanted to be somewhere sequestrated away from other people. And that's a common thing about wealth, right? Private planes, gated communities. So it needed to feel isolated. It also needed to feel isolated for some of the action that happens in the movie. I wanted them to feel like they were almost like a horror movie removed." Notably, Mountainhead came together in less than a year's time. Executive producer Will Tracy sees the project as "the perfect thing" to release in our current sociopolitical climate. "In many ways, that was part of the appeal, is the urgency of it, that we can maybe get it out very soon, before anyone else had a crack at this fairly new world of government that has in some ways been captured by the techno-futurists, by the Musks and so forth of the world," he said. "It's changing so rapidly, what's happening in the government, so hopefully we got it right." Tracy also spoke to the appeal of telling stories spotlighting the 1 percent. "I think it starts with the characters and the kind of small, more human stories we want to tell about those people — Succession being kind of a family story, and this being kind of a story about male friendship, in a way. And we tell those stories on a very small level," he said. "But the finance and the money and the power just raises the stakes of what these, I think, very emotionally difficult people, the ripple effects they can have on our world, which, as we're seeing right now, those ripple effects can be quite large ripples — waves even. Tsunamis." Mountainhead premieres Saturday, May 31 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max. Best of GoldDerby TV composers roundtable: 'Adolescence,' 'Day of the Jackal,' 'Interview With the Vampire,' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' composer Dominic Lewis on matching the show's tonal shifts and writing the catchy theme song 'The Joneses' Composer Volker Bertelmann on the shifting tempos and percussive sounds that punctuate 'The Day of the Jackal' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Layoffs Hit Universal International Studios
EXCLUSIVE: There have been layoffs at The Day of The Jackal and One Day outfit Universal International Studios (UIS). Deadline is told that redundancies have hit UIS globally in London HQ and in its Australia and L.A. hubs. We haven't confirmed the number laid off but are told the percentage is in the single digits of overall headcount. More from Deadline List Of Hollywood & Media Layoffs From Paramount To Warner Bros Discovery To CNN & More NBCUniversal To Handle Sales For Comcast's Cable Spinoff Versant Under Two-Year Agreement 'Allegiance' Creator Anar Ali Signs With Atlas; Channel 4 & The Sun Partner On Madeleine McCann Doc; ITV Buys Kiefer Sutherland Drama 'Rabbit Hole'; BBC Studios Hires Nordics Entertainment Boss - Global Briefs The layoffs come at a time of change for the studio. Execs Kelsey Balance and Rob Howard were recently promoted at UIS while global scripted SVP Tesha Crawford exited. Despite the layoffs, we are told UIS is still looking to replace Crawford. Another recent departure is ex-VP Production Laura Burrows, who is not part of this layoff round and will also be replaced. UIS is a division of Universal Studio Group. The studio has numerous employees and also owns fabled production outfits like Day of the Jackal maker Carnival, We are Lady Parts producer Working Title and David Heyman's Heyday. Made in Chelsea label Monkey recently shifted from UIS to Universal Television Alternative Studio and subsequently its name was retired. The news has emerged less than a fortnight after we told you about a larger round of layoffs at UIS stablemate NBCUniversal mainly on the unscripted side in the States, which has been impacted by the SpinCo (now Versant) spin-off actioned by Comcast. A few dozen employees across NBCUniversal's television and streaming business were let go, we revealed, including the likes of Stephanie Steele, SVP Unscripted Current Production, and Jenny Ramirez, SVP Unscripted Formats. Outside of unscripted, there were a few cuts across various scripted divisions, most notably Vivian Lin, VP Development at Universal Content Productions. UIS declined comment on today's layoffs anno. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Arrive On Peacock? Everything We Know About Celine Song's 'Materialists' So Far 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
War Is Coming in Exclusive Sneak Peek of This Week's 'MobLand'
Last week's episode of MobLand literally ended with a bang. Tensions between the Harrigans and the Stevensons hit a boiling point in the wake of Tommy Stevenson's funeral. As the families tried to maintain appearances, the uneasy peace shattered behind closed doors. Richie (Geoff Bell) privately confronted Conrad (Pierce Brosnan), revealing that he knows Eddie (Anson Boon) was responsible for Tommy's murder. Though Richie claimed he didn't want a war, he made one condition clear: Eddie was fair game. 🎬 🎬 Maeve (Helen Mirren) wasn't going to take that threat lightly. The next day, in a brazen act of retribution, she had Richie's wife, Vron (Annie Cooper), killed via a planted car bomb and blowing up any remaining hope for diplomacy and pushing both families to the brink of all-out war. And you can see the tension mount even further in an exclusive sneak peek of this week's Episode 6 below. In the clip from Sunday's new episode, Richie calls Harry (Tom Hardy), who puts him on speaker with Conrad and Maeve. It soon turns into a declaration of war when Maeve hands the phone to Eddie. With no remorse, he confesses to killing Tommy and adds, with a sneer, that the boy 'squealed like a pig.' Conrad, cold and deliberate, asks Richie if he has anything to say. Richie's response is a single, chilling word: 'Run.' Related: With the fragile ceasefire obliterated and personal losses mounting on both sides, MobLand barrels into its next chapter with vengeance in the driver's seat. Loyalties will be tested, and no one seems safe from the storm that's coming. If last week was the breaking point, this week promises to be the reckoning. MobLand, which comes from Ronan Bennett (Day of the Jackal) and includes Guy Ritchie as an executive producer, has quickly become a global phenomenon and success for Paramount+. According to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day figures, the series brought in 8.8 million viewers during its debut week, which quadrupled its premiere day viewership of 2.2 million, marking a 298% increase. That explosive growth makes MobLand the biggest global series launch week in Paramount+ history, placing it alongside hits like 1923 and Landman as one of the streamer's top three debuts to date.
The Independent
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘A sibling's suicide is like an explosion going off in slow motion'
It's tempting to read Richard Mason's life like one of his fictional characters. Elite education, book deal at university and more than three million copies of his first novel sold. Twenty-five years on, he's published four more acclaimed novels and we talk while he's in Australia researching a new show for Apple. So far, so gilded. But our initial Zoom conversation is also cancelled because Cyclone Alfred is battering eastern Australia and Mason has had to flee the place he was staying after a fire broke out. Our second attempt cuts out midway when power lines go down. It's a neat encapsulation of two themes – one part charmed life, the other seemingly out-of-the-blue destruction with traceable roots – that sum up Mason's life. Running in tandem with all the success and acclaim is a story of intergenerational mental illness, anguish and his beloved sister Kay's suicide. 'A sibling's suicide is like an explosion going off in slow motion because there's the original blast and then the ripple effects that go very, very, very slowly over decades through the people who are left,' Mason says when we finally talk. He rarely gives interviews any more. In the year after his first novel, The Drowning People, was published to huge hype in 1999, he spoke to 1,800 journalists, travelled internationally and was featured in Vogue. At just 21, it left him exhausted and suffering crippling panic attacks. 'Our civilisation says you'll be happy if you're famous, but I absolutely hated it and thought I was going crazy because I had all those things I'd been told I should want. But the fun wears off very quickly and then you're just left with the relentlessness of it. These days, I value my privacy.' We're talking because the Kay Mason Foundation – the charity he set up in his sister's name to help children born in the toughest circumstances become transformative leaders – is having a fundraiser in London on 20 March. There's also an online public auction of lots including two appearances in season two of Day of the Jackal, a game of tennis and lunch at Wimbledon with Bear Grylls and personal shopping with ex- Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman. However starry it sounds, Mason's motivation remains deeply personal. 'My sister Kay was a connector,' he says. 'She could see things from different people's perspectives, so the foundation is really an empathy engine. We connect people who have resources with real individuals they can help. To be a Kay Mason scholar means you're special, smart and unusual – as my sister was.' There were no signs in Kay's childhood of the mental illness that would overshadow her early adulthood. Richard, Kay and their two siblings, William and Jenny, were all born and raised in South Africa by politically active parents. 'I think Kay found life quite easy,' says Mason. 'She was beautiful, intelligent and had lots of friends. She was also incredibly lucky. You played backgammon with Kay, and she'd say, 'I'm going to roll a double six'. And she would.' But after leaving home to study computer science at university, Kay started experiencing mood disturbances sparked by a combination of being trailed by police because she was politically active, as well as overwork and too little sleep. In 1988, she took her own life. 'It's such a tidal wave of grief that it becomes quite hard to connect with your emotions,' he says. 'You know that if you let it overwhelm you, you won't function. So you keep it in its own place. For a long time, I couldn't cry at all. Or I'd laugh when I wanted to cry, which is also terrible.' The experience however also concentrated his ambition to be a writer. With a new sense that time was limited and having moved to the UK with his parents, Mason decided to write 500 words of his first novel each day before school assembly and rewrote the book twice during a gap year. The Drowning People was published to great acclaim when he was studying at Oxford. And it was from the book's royalties that the Kay Mason Foundation was born. Creating change was part of his family story. Mason's Afrikaans mother Jane worked for politician and renowned activist Helen Suzman and was herself vocal in her opposition to apartheid. Mason remembers her setting up a racially mixed – and very illegal – nursery in their back garden when he was young, to enable black women working in white neighbourhoods to leave their children somewhere safe during the Soweto riots. He also remembers his mother chasing off the police who came to shut it down. 'The injustice of apartheid was very clear to me as a little boy and I'd had a good education which gave me opportunities and the ability to take risks,' he says. 'I wanted to help other people have those chances.' But writing his second book was complicated. The commercial aspirations of publishers who wanted to repeat a global hit collided with his newfound commitment to the children the foundation was funding. Four had been put through school when it started in 1999 and four years later, Mason had committed to funding 30 students through his sister's foundation. 'The thing about having responsibility for children is that you can't know what it's like until you've got it and there's no plan B. My most commercial publishers said the book I'd written was too complicated and asked me to rewrite it. 'If the kids weren't involved, I'd have just said no. But a lot was riding on it, so I tried to rewrite the book into a thriller. It was like taking a very blunt knife and pushing it slowly into my own chest. I just couldn't take it.' Aged 25, Mason also experienced a crippling suicidal depression. Desperate to keep the charity going, he asked readers to donate. They responded, and he was able to return to the original idea for his second novel. He also saw a psychiatrist for the first time. 'I felt suicidal, but he gave me some vital advice. He said the important thing is not to avoid going down, it's to avoid going up. Maintain a steady mood state. A six and a half, or seven, out of 10. He was right. 'I learnt that the feeling of being suicidal will pass. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and has so many consequences for the people around you. But there are ways to get through what you're feeling and to find happiness again.' Both Kay's and Richard's mood disturbances, however, were not simply chance events. They came from a genetic line that was one part adventure and rebellion, the other a genetic predisposition to a particular, and severe, kind of mental illness. Their great uncle and mother's cousin had taken their lives and other relatives had also suffered extreme highs and lows. A combination of medication and healthy habits such as daily meditation, getting enough sleep and plenty of exercise, allowed Mason to stabilise his mood and develop his career as a novelist. He says he now prefers writing for TV because it takes him out of the long periods of isolation that novel writing requires. 'I'm an introvert brought up to behave like an extrovert, but I do like being around people,' he says. Twenty-five years on, the Kay Mason Foundation has funded 500 of South Africa's brightest children and created some extraordinary trajectories. Siyamthemba Mrawli had grown up in a gangland and had been stabbed several times when Mason met him. After a KMF scholarship, he got a business degree from the University of Lancashire. Now, his first start-up Blankspace Technologies has just been given a multimillion-dollar valuation. Patricia Hector was born on the streets, grew up in an orphanage and is now a corporate attorney for a major bank. She's also training to be a pilot and has set up an NGO to help girls in the orphanage where she spent her childhood. Siphosethu Pama was a 12-year-old cleaning toilets when Mason first met her: she is now a senior account manager at Publicis, as well as the chair of the Kay Mason Foundation global board. 'We need ethical leaders who know what it is to be poor,' says Mason. 'And our model works because we don't fund thousands of kids but our alumni become leaders across society, and can bring about real change.' Today, the KMF supports children from secondary school into the first years of their careers through financial aid, nurture, and access to a network of 350 global mentors. Mason continues to write, and while death and grief were repeated themes in his fiction for a long time, he now writes more about 'pleasure, sex and the challenges of loving people'. His recent novel, History of a Pleasure Seeker, was described by The Washington Post as 'the best work of fiction … in many moons' and was an Oprah pick. He admits, however, that Kay's suicide has left an indelible mark on his family. 'There are a lot of individually close relationships in my family and a lot that's really wonderful in it,' says Mason. 'But Kay's death broke something in our family connection that we haven't really recovered from.' The foundation in Kay's name, however, has also reclaimed vital hope. 'Working for the KMF over 26 years has accessed something very profound in me,' says Mason. 'For many years, the words 'Kay Mason' only signified loss. But now that has changed. All these amazing people have come into my life as a result of having lost my sister and some of that tragedy and trauma has been transformed into a profound joy. I know that is what she would have wanted.' The Kay Mason Foundation auction will be held at 7pm on 20 March. To view lots online and make silent bids, or submit a pre-bid for the live auction, click here here If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@ or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
Telegraph
14-02-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Victory for Edward Fox as council pulls support for ‘hideous' ramp at railway station
Edward Fox has helped force a council to withdraw its support for Network Rail's plan to install a 'hideous' ramp at a listed railway station. The Day of the Jackal actor, 87, helped to persuade his local council to reconsider its support after an impassioned speech against a new ramped bridge being built on to the Grade II-listed Victorian station at Wareham, Dorset. He was greeted with enthusiastic applause from 250 people during a protest last month as he urged the local MP to 'go into battle for the community and not kowtow to the bureaucrats'. Network Rail planned to replace a level crossing at the station with a sloping zig-zag bridge, claiming that the original structure was a safety risk. The Liberal Democrat-run Dorset council said that it now 'opposed the closure' of the level crossing because of the 'clear message sent by Wareham residents including Edward Fox'. On Friday, Fox praised the council for having 'real courage to publicly reverse its position'. But he said that he will be keeping the pressure up on Network Rail to maintain a level crossing, which has been used by Wareham residents for 40 years to travel from one side of the town to the other, without any reported accidents. About half of the town's 6,000 population live on the north side of the railway, with the crossing being the only pedestrian route to the town centre. Many people feared that they would be cut off from vital services because they would be unable to negotiate the lengthy, uphill bridge. Fox urged Network Rail to 'do the right thing and remove the threat of closure of the level crossing'. He said: 'This is indeed most welcome good news. Nick Ireland, the leader of Dorset council, should be loudly applauded for listening carefully to the concerns of local people and for doing absolutely the right thing for the residents of Wareham. 'It takes real courage to publicly reverse a decision. 'The thousands of people who use the crossing will be most sincerely grateful that a temporary reprieve on closure has now been won. 'Mothers won't have to struggle to school up and down lengthy ramps on cold rainy days, those pushing wheelchairs will not have a daunting journey to get to the doctor's surgery and children will be able to continue to cycle safely to school on the flat. 'Our beautiful listed station will be saved from being despoiled by a hideous modern eyesore.' He added: 'I now urge Network Rail to listen carefully to the concerns of local people and other crossing users and find a way of keeping the level crossing open in the long term. 'This is the only solution that will avoid the town from being cut in two, the only solution that makes real sense. Wareham is a special case and this needs to be recognised. 'It is now for Network Rail to do the right thing for the people of Wareham and remove the threat of closure from the level crossing.' Mr Ireland said: 'Our previous approach has been to work with partners to find a solution to this closure so pedestrian access can be kept at this location. 'However, the strength of the Wareham community's opposition to previous proposed alternatives cannot be ignored. 'So rather than accept that the removal of ground-level pedestrian access is inevitable, we are now opposing the closure itself. 'This current administration will not seek to impose any solution that involves ramps or lifts. 'We're only interested in proposals that maintain ground-level pedestrian access at the crossing without any lifts, ramps, or any other similar alternatives. 'Recently, I attended a public demonstration at the crossing alongside local councillors; Vikki Slade MP, and many other prominent community representatives including the actor, Edward Fox OBE. 'We will stand alongside the Wareham community and fight the closure, because it's the right thing to do.' The current level crossing costs the taxpayer £120,000 a year because the local authority has to employ crossing attendants. Following the protest, Network Rail said: 'We recognise the strong attachment the local community has to Wareham level crossing and remain committed to working with everyone to identify a safe, accessible and sustainable long-term solution. 'The safety of our passengers, residents and colleagues is our number one priority and the most effective way of removing risk at Wareham is to close the crossing entirely. 'Despite years of efforts to explore safer and fully accessible alternatives – including multiple planning applications and consultations with the community – previous proposals have not been supported by the local planning authority. 'The crossing has a history of misuse, to the point where our regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), issued us an improvement notice, which led to the introduction of electronic gates and crossing attendants, funded by Dorset council. 'Network Rail and the ORR are fully aligned that any alternative must be safer and put public safety first, and a recent independent report said only a full closure and replacement with an accessible bridge with lifts or ramps would remove the safety risk entirely. 'While we know this proposal is contentious, we are committed to working closely with Dorset council, local stakeholders and the community to find a way forward.'
