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New York Post
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
How Hollywood almost screwed up ‘Die Hard,' ‘Grease' and ‘Saturday Night Fever'
It was 1977, and Barry Diller — just a few years into his tenure as CEO of Paramount Studios ‚ was sitting down for a preview of 'Saturday Night Fever' at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles when a publicist leaned in to give him a piece of advice. '[John] Travolta's the problem,' the publicist hissed at him, according to Diller's new memoir, 'Who Knew,' out Tuesday. 'He's a television person. You don't put a television person in a movie. The kid just doesn't put asses in seats.' Diller, who was just 35 at the time and still trying to prove himself in the industry, recalls thinking, 'Well, not old Hollywood asses.' 12 In his new book, 'Who Knew,' Barry Diller shares stories from his decades working in Hollywood. 12 Diller writes of how people told him that John Travolta was wrong for 'Saturday Night Fever.' When the movie was a massive hit, Diller was vindicated. Courtesy Everett Collection The movie opened nationwide just two weeks later, becoming an overnight blockbuster. 'There were vast lines around the block at every theater across America,' Diller writes. Paramount, which had dropped to a distant fifth place among the major studios after Diller took over, jumped to No. 1 again. For Diller, it was sweet vindication, especially given how many former executives from Paramount were 'actively mocking' him 'as a parvenu who was destroying their institution,' Diller writes. But during his 10 years with the studio — from 1974 to 1984 — he championed some of the most beloved films of the last century, like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' 'Terms of Endearment' and 'Beverly Hills Cop.' He also, he writes, oversaw his fair share of bombs, including William Friedkin's 'The Sorcerer' — a bloated, over-budget 'nightmare' from 'The French Connection' director that demonstrated 'the sheer perversity of some Hollywood luminaries.' And then there was 'The Last Tycoon,' starring Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Jack Nicholson and Robert Mitchum and directed by Elia Kazan of 'On the Waterfront' fame. 'What could go wrong?' Diller asks. 'Everything. I knew it wasn't going to work when I saw the first assemblage.' 12 Diller championed some of the 20th century's most beloved films, including 'Beverly Hills Cop' with Eddie Murphy and Taylour Paige. ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection But 'Saturday Night Fever' changed 'how movies got made,' Diller writes. The script wasn't pitched as a project for a pre-established A-lister. 'No stars, no pedigree, no package, no nothing — just a good idea,' Diller writes. Even director John Badham, a mostly unproven TV guy, was a risk. 'All these Frankenstein-like parts came together while all those around us thought we were amateurs,' Diller writes. 'It was heady stuff, and quite a shock to the naysayers.' Before coming to Paramount, Diller had cut his teeth at ABC during the 1960s and early '70s, where he invented the Movie of the Week and the miniseries. 12 Diller was CEO of Paramount when iconic films such as 'Terms of Endearment' were made. ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection But the movie industry offered him a new challenge. Unlike TV, it was a business 'where ego and self-promotion corroded everything,' Diller writes. Even his boss, Charlie Bluhdorn, ran the company 'like an old-time emperor.' Diller remembers that Bluhdorn would call him randomly with ridiculous ideas for new movies that he was certain would become 'the blockbuster of all time,' Diller writes. Like 'the tale of Sitting Bull and Hitler at war with each other.' Diller trusted his instincts, which weren't always correct. The movies he championed at Paramount were often 'just darts thrown at the board,' he admits. 'I had to pitch and roll with whatever came my way. That made me a mark for every promoter and rascal in the film industry.' 12 Not all of Diller's movies were big successes. He writes that 'Lipstick' with Margaux Hemingway was 'the essence of putting lipstick on a pig.' Courtesy Everett Collection Some of his lesser achievements include 'Lipstick' with Margaux Hemingway ('the essence of putting lipstick on a pig,' he writes), 'The Big Bus' ('a parody of disaster movies that ended up just being a disaster'), and Roman Polanski's 'The Tenant' (a 'small film that had an even smaller audience'). Even Diller's successes came with controversy. During an advance screening of 'Marathon Man' in San Francisco in 1976, the audience became irate during the notorious 'Is it safe?' scene, in which the Nazi villain (played by Laurence Olivier) tortures Dustin Hoffman's character with dental instruments. Viewers weren't 'prepared for such invasive violence to sweet Dustin's teeth,' the author writes. 'They shouted and booed at what we were doing to them, and many charged up the aisles, enraged.' Diller claims he had to be evacuated from a movie theater for his own safety. 12 Diller writes of the controversy surrounding a scene in 'Marathon Man' where Dustin Hoffman is tortured with dental instruments. Courtesy Everett Collection Some of his most ambitious projects, like a 1976 remake of 'King Kong,' were almost derailed by bad decisions behind the scenes. It was brought to him by the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who insisted 'he'd acquired the remake rights, but of course, being Dino, he really hadn't,' Diller writes. One day De Laurentiis called him and announced, 'I've found the actress to play [the lead in 'King Kong']. She's right now a model with no acting experience, but I'm sure she'll be a star.' Diller was hesitant but curious, and asked if they should give this up-and-coming model a screen test. 'Yes,' De Laurentiis allegedly told him. 'But first I want to have her breasts augmented.' The model was future Academy Award winner Jessica Lange. 12 Diller gave an up-and-coming young model named Jessica Lange a chance when she was cast in 'King Kong.' ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection Sam Spiegel, the legendary producer of classics like 'On the Waterfront' and 'Lawrence of Arabia,' approached Diller about adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel, 'The Last Tycoon.' During his meetings with Spiegel, who Diller describes as 'a true satyr,' he learned more than bargained for about the producer's sex life. 'He often said — and it was hard to know if he was joking — he only liked to have sex with virgins and, if he could find them, lesbian virgins,' writes Diller. Run-ins with directors could be hostile, and sometimes costly. After his 1978 epic 'Days of Heaven,' Diller paid auteur Terrence Malick an enormous sum — $500,000 (or $2.5 million in 2025 dollars) — to, in Malick's words, 'just experiment with things.' 12 After director Terrence Malick (above) squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars, Diller cut him off. Penske Media via Getty Images Every four or five months, Diller would call the director for an update, and get little beyond, 'I'm making progress.' Occasionally Malick would give him some vague sense of his next film, like 'I've got this idea to follow a paraplegic in New Mexico in a footrace.' But beyond that, Malick wouldn't give details, declaring that it was a 'secret.' Diller finally cut off Malick's salary. 'It would be twenty years before he directed another movie,' he writes. The author's handling of actors could also be a minefield. He got into hot water with Robert Redford after Paramount used a shirtless photo of the star embracing Faye Dunaway in a full-page ad to promote the political thriller 'Three Days of the Condor' in 1975. Redford called Diller and insisted that 'the ad had 'disrobed him' in front of his kids,' he writes. The actor asked for the ad to be taken down immediately, but Diller declined. 'And that was the last we saw of Robert Redford for five years,' he writes. 12 Diller and Robert Redford (above) clashed after the studio used a shirtless photo of Redford to promote 'Three Days of the Condor.' Courtesy Everett Collection After the huge success of 'Saturday Night Fever,' Princess Margaret requested to meet John Travolta 'for tea' during her visit to Los Angeles. Diller made the request to Travolta, who responded, 'I don't do tea!' He was finally cajoled into meeting the royal at the Beverly Wilshire. 'And when he came back, he said, 'She hit on me!'' Diller writes. He admits that has hasn't always had the best movie judgment. Diller thought 'Grease' was a terrible follow-up project for Travolta — even producer Robert Evans agreed, imploring Diller to 'burn it' before the footage ruined the actor's career — and pushed Travolta to star in 'American Gigolo' instead. Travolta resisted because he was wary of the 'somewhat gay subtext.' (The role eventually went to Richard Gere, and 'Grease' was a huge hit.) 12 Diller (third from left) has long run in powerful circles. In 1983, he mingled with Bill Sheinberg (from left), Sid Sheinberg, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and David Geffen. Berliner Studio Inc/Shutterstock Cocaine was rampant in the movie industry during the '70s and, Diller writes, Paramount's sets were no exception. During his visit to Robert Altman's production of 'Popeye,' starring Robin Williams, Diller realized that 'everyone in our made-up village — and I mean everyone! — was completely coked out.' He eventually discovered that his own driver, an affable New Yorker named Mario, was also a major cocaine dealer, 'particularly to all my friends,' Diller writes. 'I always wondered why they insisted that Mario drop me off first after our nights out. Once I left, Mario would open his trunk and deal out the drugs.' 12 After joining 20th Century Fox as CEO, Diller objected to Bruce Willis being cast in 'Die Hard.' ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection In 1984, Diller joined 20th Century Fox, where he served as CEO until 1992. One of his first projects was 'Die Hard' — and he immediately objected to the casting of Bruce Willis. 'Who cares about Bruce Willis?' he scolded the casting director. 'No one really likes Bruce Willis!' But Willis would soon prove to be the least of his worries. Producers Joel Silver and Larry Gordon asked to use an office tower owned by Fox for a pivotal final 'blowout' scene. 'We won't hurt anything,' they assured Diller. 'It'll only be one night.' Later that evening, Diller received a call from the studio's real estate division, screaming that the filmmakers were 'destroying our building!' He drove to the shoot and realized it wasn't an exaggeration. Diller confronted Silver, who just shrugged and said the scene had been 'more complicated' than they anticipated, and they'd need 'about two weeks' to finish their cinematic destruction. 12 Diller is married to fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg. Bloomberg via Getty Images Diller changed his tune after seeing a rough cut of the film, telling the director, 'Don't touch a f–king thing. This is not a good movie. This is a great movie.' But he still wasn't enthusiastic about Willis, insisting the star's face not appear in any of the advertising. 'No one likes him,' Diller continued to declare. 'After they see this movie, they're gonna love him, but coming in, they don't like him.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Justin Hartley and Wife Sofia Pernas Celebrate Season 3 of ‘Tracker' With Sweet Date Night
Justin Hartley celebrated his hit CBS series Tracker by attending an event for season 3 with wife — and onscreen love interest — Sofia Pernas by his side. Hartley, 48, and Pernas, 35, were all smiles while posing at the blue carpet during CBS Fest on Wednesday, May 7. The couple also reunited with their Tracker costar Fiona Rene, who plays another one of Hartley's love interests on the show. The outing took place at the Paramount Studios lot in Los Angeles where CBS announced its schedule for the 2025-2026 primetime lineup. In addition to Tracker, the roster included one new comedy, four action-packed dramas, three unscripted series, 17 returning shows, sports and special event programming. Tracker is currently CBS' biggest success story with Nielsen reporting that Tracker came at No. 1 while averaging 10.84 million viewers per episode. The show, which premiered in February 2024, follows Hartley as Colter Shaw, a lone-wolf survivalist who solves missing persons cases. Justin Hartley and Wife Sofia Pernas' Sweetest Quotes About Working Together on 'Tracker' and More As the star and executive producer on the series, Hartley has been able to bring in some familiar faces — including his wife. Pernas was introduced as Colter's nemesis who has since crossed paths with him multiple times as they continue to grow closer. "It's so funny when you're in this business for as long as I've been in it, and I didn't realize it until Tracker, really? I'm like, 'S*** I've been around.' You develop all these relationships and you can call on friends who otherwise wouldn't do these things," Hartley told TV Insider in February about the show's star-studded guest stars. "And you get all these really wonderful people that come on. You'll see some really familiar faces, some really big TV names, familiar faces come on and just do stellar work on our show. It elevates the show. I just think it's wonderful that we're able to do that." Hartley first worked with Pernas on The Young and The Restless in 2015. Years later, they reconnected off screen and exchanged vows in 2021. Along with Tracker, they collaborated on the short-lived Quantum Leap reboot. 'She's wonderful. I mean, if I had my choice, I'd spend every minute with her," Hartley gushed to Us Weekly in July 2024. "What's really cool is when you meet someone that means so much to you, that you're so proud to be with and so proud of, and just such a fan of, and to get to see her work, because she's such a talented actor. She elevates scenes, and so it makes my job easier, actually. But yeah, it's just wonderful to work with her.' Every Time Justin Hartley and Wife Sofia Pernas Shared the Screen: From 'Quantum Leap' to 'Tracker' Hartley has opened up about getting the chance to collaborate with Pernas, telling USA Today in March, "I enjoy being around her. I'm having the time of my life with this show. I love it. To be able to share it with the people you love makes it even better." According to Hartley, it didn't require much work to get Pernas to appear on Tracker. "Obviously, I got her because I live with her," he quipped on an October 2024 episode of Max's Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? "It's not even a phone call." He added: "It's like, 'Hey, babe. Come on, we're going to work.' But that's fun when you can work with people that you love. ... It's great. It's great having her. She's a light and we get the greatest guest stars on our show." Tracker returns to CBS Sundays in the fall and is currently streaming on Paramount+.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Steven Spielberg names the ‘greatest American movie of all time'
Steven Spielberg has named what he believes to be 'the greatest American film' of all time. The Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park director made the claim at an event honouring fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, whose credits include Gene Hackman drama The Conversation and Vietnam film Apocalypse Now. But it's Coppola's first Godfather film that Spielberg described as 'the greatest American film ever made'. At the 50th AFI Life Achievement Awards, Spielberg, who first met Coppola in 1967, said: 'When we're young, it's our parents we want to make proud, and then it's our friends, and then it's our colleagues, and finally, it's our peers, but you, sir, are peerless.' He said that the director has 'taken what came before and redefined the canon of American film' and 'inspired a generation of storytellers who want to make you proud of their work'. Spielberg, whose other credits include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET and Schindler's List, added: 'I always want to make you proud of my work.' The pair first met at a film festival screening of a short film made by George Lucas in the late 1960s. The wunderkind trio would go on to establish themselves as the most famous filmmakers in the world the following decade, with Spielberg releasing Jaws, Coppola making the first two Godfather films and Lucas creating Star Wars. At the time of its 1972 release, Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's The Godfather was expected to be a flop due to its epic running time, with Paramount Studios convinced Al Pacino had been miscast in the role of Michael Corleone. However, the film, which won Marlon Brando an Oscar for his role as crime boss Don Vito Corleone, defied expectations to become a box office hit and one of the most seminal films of all time. It also won the Best Picture Oscar as well as Adapted Screenplay for Coppola. At the Coppola celebration, which took place earlier this week, Hollywood star Robert De Niro jokingly thanked the director for not casting him in The Godfather as Sonny, the role played by James Caan, as it freed him up to play the young version of Brando's character in the 1978 sequel. De Niro described it as 'the best job I ever, never got'.
Forbes
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Aravind Srinivas On Academia, Lossless Compression, And More
HOLLYWOOD, CA - APRIL 03: Actor Thomas Middleditch attends the premiere of HBO's "Silicon Valley" ... More at Paramount Studios on April 3, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic) There's an iconic scene in season one of Mike Judge's Silicon Valley TV show, where Christopher Evan Welch, playing the character Peter Gregory, beseeches young career professionals not to go to college. A professor in the audience chimes in, irate at Gregory's attacks on his livelihood. 'The value of a college education is intangible,' he sputters. Welch, who sadly did not survive the end of the show, (Gregory's character had to be written out), eyes the bearded gent and replies sardonically: 'The value of snake oil is also intangible.' Follow me here, because this is interesting. I've been writing about the tension between academic goals and the goals of innovation – between the urge to pursue higher degrees, and the value of getting out in the world and building startups. But you can have both – case in point, a recent interview I did with Aravind Srinivas. At the very beginning at the very beginning of his remarks, Srinivas noted how his parents are prouder of his PhD than his business track record, even though he's the cofounder of one of the most famous model services around. Encapsulating this idea, he boiled down a principle he has seen in his community of origin into a few simple words: 'seek knowledge even more than wealth.' As for his early days in tech, he talks about YouTube videos and coding competitions, and his graduate degree at Berkeley, followed by some internships. 'People around here were way more intense, hard-working, way better at actually, not just coming up with new ideas, but implementing them and getting them working, or writing all the code to scrape data sets …. so that taught me a lot, and pushed me more towards entrepreneurship.' There's a very interesting part of this interview where Srinivas talks about getting an interview at OpenAI and presenting some of his ideas to Ilya Sutskever. Sutskever, he said, told him to his face that his ideas were bad. It upset him - but it set him on a different path. I thought it was extremely interesting when Srinivas actually narrated part of the interaction and then showed how it informed the work being done over the past few years: '(Sutskever) took me to a board and just drew two circles, one big circle, and inside it a smaller circle,' Srinivas said. 'So the big circle is generative unsupervised learning, and the smaller circle is reinforcement learning. And you don't need anything new. You just need to do this in sequence, and throw a lot of compute at it, and train on (the whole) internet, and then you build the general intelligence. … nobody had any clue at the time, but he just saw the future, and that ended up being right.' And again, he stressed the path of practicality. Srinivas said he hasn't made a presentation deck in ages. Instead, he said, just show potential investors what you do, and what your products do. 'The number one thing to do is just iterate and do something,' he said. 'I've seen many founders spend at least six months to a year in the idea maze, going around and around and not getting anywhere, not knowing what it takes to actually (show people) something, get in the hands of people, see them use it, learn from that, and then go and update your hypothesis about the world.' Referring to Google user intent programming, Srinivas talked about how search is a fundamental service, and what that has meant for the industry. He came up with some pointers: for instance. making sure news sources are prominent, and exposing the chain of thought, and urged innovators to 'change the paradigm.' Srinivas also suggested that a company might buy Twitter, for example, promoting a 'healthy mix of useful content' and strengthening the community notes feature, where, he said, we might do well fact checking with software. Later, he pointed out how Hollywood simplifies the process of innovation: 'Academic people don't have the discipline to try small scale experiments,' he said, citing movies like 'A Beautiful Mind' and 'Good Will Hunting' where observers just marvel at a grand idea, scrawled across a whiteboard, in idolatrous glory. In reality, he said, it's better to iterate – to come up with things one piece at a time. Evaluating the difference between closed models, where a few oligarchs control the output, and democratized AI, where the people have the models in their pockets, Srinivas said it's extremely important that we end up with the latter type of arrangement. 'Open source is the only thing that can keep people in check here,' he said. 'I hope we end up with the utopian outcome.' Midway through the conversation, Srinivas actually referenced the Silicon Valley TV show. Further, he talked about the show's significant impact on the tech community, which I thought was so useful in looking back at that time. 'Someone actually told me: 'hey, look, I know you're making jokes about this show all the time, but realize that some people might take it personally, because it's actually pretty true,'' he said. ''It's not just a humorous show.' A lot of people were very depressed watching it, because it reflects Silicon Valley in almost a brutal way.' He did note that the theme of lossless compression as a holy grail, for him, translated into the real world, too. 'The particular idea, in that TV show, that was explored was around lossless compression, which is very directly generative AI,' he said. 'They also talked a lot (in the show) about how you can use neural nets. So that was actually the idea I really wanted to start up first on: lossless compression with generative models.' So there you have it – Mike Judge's classic take on the budding community of innovators in California influenced at least one high-level disruptor who went on to work on ground-breaking LLM projects. As for the fictional Peter Gregory's advice, take that into consideration – if you really value the abstract stake that learning gives for exploration, academia may be the way to go, (especially if you want your parents to be proud of you). But don't neglect that urge to actually come up with something, and make it real.
Forbes
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Selena Gomez Charts Her First No. 1 On A Billboard Ranking
Selena Gomez's I Said I Love You First debuts at No. 1 on several Billboard charts, giving her and ... More Benny Blanco their first vinyl albums chart-topper. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 22: Selena Gomez attends the Season 4 premiere of Hulu's "Only Murders In The Building" at Paramount Studios on August 22, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by) Selena Gomez's new album I Said I Love You First doesn't just debut on the Billboard charts this week, it arrives in spectacular fashion, quickly climbing to the top of multiple rankings. The set opens at No. 1 on a number of tallies, and as it does, it hands both Gomez and her fiancé Benny Blanco a major career win. I Said I Love You First debuts at No. 1 on half of all the Billboard charts it reaches this week. On the Vinyl Albums chart, the ranking that highlights the bestselling vinyl LPs in the U.S., the set marks the first time she's ruled the list. Blanco, meanwhile, earns his very first placement and his first leader simultaneously. The same project is also new to the throne on the Top Album Sales chart, which takes into account all formats, both physical and digital. According to Billboard, I Said I Love You First sold 21,000 copies on vinyl in its debut frame. That's the best week either Gomez or Blanco has managed on the format throughout their careers. In total, the album sold 71,000 copies in its first seven days, which made it the bestselling release in the U.S. this frame. A significant portion of those units came from vinyl, though it also sold well on platforms like iTunes and on CD. Gomez has been to the Vinyl Albums chart before, but she's never risen this high. In 2020, her set Rare broke into the top 10, peaking at No. 7. Prior to that, her 2015 release Revival made it to the tally, but only for one week, when it stalled at No. 20. Now, she not only returns to the ranking, and dominates it completely — alongside Blanco, who had never appeared until now. While I Said I Love You First shines on the sales-based charts, it falls just short of topping the Billboard 200. The collection opens at No. 2 on the all-genre, all-consumption list, coming in behind Playboi Carti's Music. That hugely popular hip-hop offering spends a second frame at No. 1. This is Gomez's first solo studio album to miss the throne on the tally. Her last three solo efforts—Stars Dance, Revival, and Rare—all debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. I Said I Love You First also opens at No. 6 on the Top Streaming Albums chart. That's the lowest position for the set across the Billboard major rankings, but it still represents a big moment for both artists. It's the first time either Gomez or Blanco have broken into the top 10 on this particular list, and it underlines the fact that while sales were a major force behind this exciting launch, streaming contributed to the title's rise in a meaningful way as well.
