Hollywood Today
Hearing on Johnny Depp domestic violence allegations delayed
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A hearing on Amber Heard's allegations that Johnny Depp physically abused her is expected to last up to a week, prompting a judge Tuesday to delay its start.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carl H. Moor ruled Tuesday that the hearing will begin Aug. 17, two days later than planned. Moor ordered the delay after concluding the hearing may take up to five days.
The domestic violence allegations are one aspect of the actors' contentious divorce. Heard filed to divorce Depp on May 23, and a few days later obtained a temporary restraining order after accusing the actor of repeatedly hitting her during a fight in their Los Angeles apartment.
Depp's lawyer has denied the allegations, and she said Tuesday he wants the hearing concluded as quickly as possible. "This is weighing heavily on my client," attorney Laura Wasser said.
If Heard prevails, the restraining order against Depp could be extended for up to five years.
Heard wants to call Depp as a hostile witness during the proceedings.
Moor ordered Heard to sit for a deposition on Friday and Depp to give sworn testimony in advance of the hearing on Saturday.
Depp will not be allowed to attend Heard's deposition, Moor ruled.
Heard accused Depp of repeatedly hitting her and throwing a cellphone during a fight in their Los Angeles apartment in May. A judge ordered Depp to not contact Heard and stay 100 yards away from her.
Los Angeles police responded to their apartment, but the person who made the call declined to file charges and officers determined no crime occurred.
Heard has alleged in court filings that Depp abuse throughout their relationship, which started after they met on the set of the 2011 film "The Rum Diary."
Townes Van Zandt to join Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt will be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with songwriters Aaron Barker, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Bob Morrison.
The 2016 inductees announced Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, will be inducted during a ceremony in October.
The critically acclaimed Zandt wrote "Pancho and Lefty," ''To Live is to Fly," ''Waitin' Around to Die," and "Be Here to Love Me," and influenced a generation of songwriters in Nashville. He died in 1997 at the age of 52.
Barker has written several hits for George Strait, including "Baby Blue" and "I Can Still Make Cheyenne." Chapman wrote Faith Hill's hit "This Kiss," and "Nothing I Can Do About it Now," for Willie Nelson. Morrison wrote the Grammy-winning song "You Decorated My Life" for Kenny Rogers.
Ukulele player gets legal break to perform with Matisyahu
HONOLULU (AP) — A Maui ukulele player who unwittingly sang a duet with reggae artist Matisyahu will be performing with the singer in Hollywood.
But making the opportunity happen required help from Maui's top prosecutor and public defenders. A judge is allowing Clint Alama to fly to Los Angeles and back while temporarily released from jail, where he's being held on a probation violation after convictions for assault and other charges.
Prosecutor John Kim says Alama must return after Friday's concert or risk going to prison.
Matisyahu and his bassist Stu Brooks were at a Maui coffee shop recently when they heard Alama strumming the singer's hit "One Day." Matisyahu sang along, while Alama seemed oblivious to his signing partner's identity.
Alama — who turned himself in to police earlier this week after a warrant was put out for his arrest — revealed his legal problems when they invited him to Hollywood.
NEW YORK (AP) — At Disney, content is king.
The media conglomerate's studio entertainment, including popular films such as the animated "Finding Dory," ''The Jungle Book" and the Marvel saga "Captain America: Civil War," helped boost the company's third-quarter profit above expectations. But The Walt Disney Co.'s cable and broadcast channel revenue growth was weaker.
Disney said it will also spend $1 billion for a 33 percent stake in the Major League Baseball video streaming service BAMTech. Media companies like Disney are trying to adapt to the increasing popularity of on-demand streaming video and "skinny bundles" — that is, cheaper, slimmed-down channel packages, some of which omit expensive channels like ESPN.
In a call with analysts, CEO Bob Iger said that traditional cable packages known as "multichannel bundles" are most profitable for Disney. But he acknowledged that new digital-video options offer consumers choice and variety.
"We must create or take advantage of
NEW YORK (AP) — A little less than two years ago, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's North Korea comedy, "The Interview," spawned the hack of Sony Pictures and a crisis unlike any previous in Hollywood. The experience hasn't done much to tame them.
In the crudely funny but not crudely animated R-rated comedy "Sausage Party," Rogen and Goldberg are again pushing the limits of today's risk-adverse Hollywood — and Sony is still backing them.
"That experience in no way made us more timid, I don't think. If anything, it showed how this (expletive) can really hit the mark in ways that you never imagined it would," says a chuckling Rogen. "But I would probably think twice before killing a living dictator in one of my films."
No foreign country has lambasted "Sausage Party," ("Not yet," notes Rogen). But the comedy's extreme profanity in a medium most associated with Disney makes "Sausage Party" an audacious release for any studio, let alone one brought to its knees by a previous film from the duo.
Rogen and Goldberg (co-writers and producers) have been working for nearly a decade on "Sausage Party," their own warped version of a Pixar movie, complete with a song by "Beauty and the Beast" composer Alan Menken. It's set in a supermarket where food and grocery items believe their salvation lies in being purchased and taken "to the great beyond."
There's some of the existentialism of their apocalyptic comedy "This Is the End" and even hints of the political satire of "The Interview." But there's mostly a staggering amount of double entendre new opportunities in ways that are complementary to our multichannel offerings," he said.
That includes an ESPN-branded streaming service Disney plans to launch sometime before the end of the year. Pricing hasn't been determined. The new service will offer different programming that's "complementary" to ESPN, Iger said.
FILMS UP, TV DOWN
It's been a year since Iger warned that subscriptions at Disney's key sports network ESPN might fall slightly as cable "cord-cutting" gathered steam, an announcement that tanked Disney shares. Subscribers were down about 4 percent year over year, according to Nielsen statistics cited by BMO Capital Markets. ESPN's impact at Disney is huge because it leads the cable-network division that accounted for nearly half of Disney's operating income last year.
Cable network revenue, including ESPN, edged up 1 percent to $4.2 billion. At ESPN rate increases offset a decline in subscribers. Broadcast revenue rose 5 percent to $1.71 billion.
Film, by contrast, has been a standout (Rogen stars as a hot dog who dreams of uniting with Kristen Wiig's bun), a prolonged orgy scene and even a villainous douche.
"The real problem getting it made was not the talking douche or the graphic sexual stuff or the specific statements that it made," says Goldberg. "The real thing was: 'Rated-R CG film.' That was the phrase that stopped the studios from making it. There's no model."
The pair — childhood friends from Vancouver turned creative collaborators — spoke separately in recent interviews, Goldberg on the phone from Los Angeles and Rogen over coffee in the East Village, with his dog, Zelda, quietly perched next to him. In some ways, the fiasco of "The Interview" is long behind them. They released their holiday comedy "The Night Before" last November with Sony and have dived into their AMC series "Preacher," among other projects.
But both acknowledge the experience of "The Interview" remains omnipresent. Their office is still on the Sony lot and they've continued to work closely with the studio that, under former head Amy Pascal, fostered their early films.
"I overall remember it sucked. It was just a massive bummer," says Rogen of the hack. "It took a long time to emotionally recover from it."
"We all talk about it all the time and we will forever," says Goldberg. "Seth and I don't agree on what happened, even. He's less sure that it was North Koreans. I'm more sure. But it's not clear. We also have a running theory that someone started it and someone else picked it up."
They say there were many frustrations in the hack — how the media reported it, how the studio handled some aspects of it, how the theaters refused to screen the film. One upside was that the leaked emails spawned a large debate over gender equality and pay in Hollywood, but Rogen doesn't see it that way.