It’s Thursday, and now that I’m finished posing for Beyoncé’s wax figure at Madame Tussauds, I’m available to sing at weddings.
Hello from Los Angeles, where we’re scratching our chins about a new HBO show, hoping to sit at the Chris Nolan/Ted Sarandos table at our next black-tie event, and welcoming Issa Rae back to the tube.
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Game of Thrones kicked off its new season this week with record ratings for the series and for HBO, and debuted to near-universal critical praise. But the next partnership between the cable network and Game of Thrones show-runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss is inspiring a much less enthusiastic reaction. On Wednesday, HBO announced that after Thrones, Benioff and Weiss’s next series will be an alternative-history drama called Confederate, “where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution.” Of the announcement, VF.com’s Joanna Robinson asks, “Are these the right people to tell that story?”, pointing out that Benioff and Weiss, who are white, have come under fire for the way their series depicts race and slavery. Two creatives of color, Nichelle Tramble Spellman (Justified, The Good Wife) and Malcolm Spellman (Empire) will be co-writing and executive producing the series, but their involvement has not inoculated HBO from some blistering criticism. At the Daily Beast, after calling Confederate “stupid as hell,” Ira Madison III writes, “Americans barely know enough about what actually happened during slavery as is, so how about HBO just pick up the canceled series Underground instead of this?” In a video posted on her Twitter feed, journalist ReBecca Theodore-Vachon expresses what even many Game of Thrones fans seem to feel about the news. “Y’all are good with dragons,” Theodore-Vachon says. “Y’all are good with magic. When it comes to black people . . . no, I do not trust you.”
If any of this newsletter’s readers are in charge of creating the seating charts for black-tie Hollywood events, I’d like to request that you place me at the table with Dunkirk director and cinema purist Chris Nolan and Netflix executive and industry disrupter Ted Sarandos. That’s because, as VF.com’s Yohana Desta notes, “An alternate name for the Dunkirk press tour would be the Great Netflix Thrashing of 2017.” In an interview with IndieWire’s Eric Kohn published on Wednesday, Nolan called Netflix’s simultaneous stream-and-theatrical-release policy “mindless.” Later in the day, at a screening hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, Nolan said he rarely uses Netflix, preferring Blu-ray for at-home viewing. With Dunkirk setting sail on an awards campaign, and with Sarandos being one of Hollywood’s busiest hobnobbers, it seems inevitable these two will end up in tuxedos at the same event at some point in the next six months, perhaps debating the future of cinema over lukewarm plates at the Beverly Hilton. I’ll bring the popcorn.
Comic-Con is in full swing, with film presentations happening Thursday from 20th Century Fox and Netflix, as well as TV panels for the Marvel shows Legion and The Inhumans. VF.com’s Robinson takes measure of the Con to end all Cons, finding the San Diego scene rather scarce in the news department of late. Nevertheless there is fun to be had. The L.A. Times’ Meredith Woerner and Tracy Brown tick off highlights on the convention floor, including Outlander promotions (“Do you like free T-shirts and actors with questionable Scottish accents who are paid to be nice to you? Then look no further, because the Starz booth is here to please.”). And HBO’s immersive Westworld experience at the convention is winning high marks from those who sampled it Wednesday night, including Variety’s Joe Otterson, who describes android hosts, Old West outfits, and personality tests that yield either a white or black cowboy hat. Seeing how many reporters got a white hat, however, I’m skeptical of the test . . .
VF.com’s Yohana Desta e-mails:
Raise your hand if you’re excited for the return of HBO’s Insecure. Now, take that hand and click on this link right here, because I spoke to star Issa Rae about the new season and how her life has changed in the wake of all her critical success (like getting draped into that Rihanna-Lupita Twitter movie). As you’ll recall, the last season of the show ended with Issa and her walking-thirst-trap boyfriend, Lawrence (Jay Ellis), splitting up after a painful infidelity spree. This season picks up where we left off, catching up with the broken-up couple, and Issa’s best friend, Molly (Yvonne Orji), as they work through their various career and relationship issues. This season also introduces some new guest actors, including Sterling K. Brown. Rae met the This Is Us star during this past awards season, and he casually mentioned that he was an Insecure fan and wanted to be on the show. “That’s what everybody says,” Rae remembers thinking. Lo and behold, Brown meant what he said, one day sliding into her DMs to ask her about it again. If only life were always this easy. Insecure returns this Sunday, right after that show about dragons and that sporty Dwayne Johnson comedy.
VF.com’s Laura Bradley e-mails:
Everyone start wishing Lena Dunham luck now—because she’s going to need it come fall, when she joins the cast of American Horror Story’s seventh season. So far, this season’s newcomers also include Billy Eichner, Colton Haynes, and Billie Lourd. There’s no telling what role the Girls creator will play in this election-themed installment of Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology; as usual, everyone is pretty much keeping silent as the grave (sorry) when it comes to details. We’re guessing whomever Dunham will play, she’ll either be facing hell or raising it.
It’s official: after months of negotiations, Ryan Seacrest has finalized his deal to return to American Idol when the singing show he hosted for 15 years at Fox returns on a new network, ABC, in early 2018. Seacrest and Kelly Ripa shared the news on Seacrest’s other ABC show, Live with Kelly and Ryan, on Thursday morning. The hosting gig will mean Seacrest tapes Idol on Sunday nights in L.A., hops a redeye to be in New York Monday morning with Ripa, and then tapes his daily radio show, On Air with Ryan Seacrest, in a studio that iHeartRadio built for him at ABC in New York. That sounds . . . grueling. But we are sending Seacrest good-luck vibes and melatonin.
That’s the news for this sultry Thursday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and a black cowboy hat to rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.
