1. KEVIN IS A PLACE ON EARTH



As they say in the industry – it’s on! The never-quite-stable exec suite at Warners appears to be gearing up for a war of everything against everything in anticipation of the telephone people coming ashore; with dreams of big new even fancier offices dancing in some heads. Nothing ever changes in Hollywood, and particularly on the Warners lot where the rule of threes prevails once again. Long ago, it was Kevin, Jeff and Bruce playing King of the Mountain, today it's Kevin, Sue and Toby jostling for footing. Intrigue has been brewing quietly for months. With the AT&T folks hovering, the thought looms that there will be a great big giant new job at the combined company. Someone is going to have to assume oversight over not just Warners but also Direct TV and HBO in a combined entertainment division of Ma Bell. Leading the charge is Mr T of course, whose people I’ve been told, have been quietly spreading the word that the jet-setting CEO is destined for a bigger role with the new team. But Tsujihara isn’t the only one letting it be known he’s like this with the phone folks. Kim Masters’ THR piece on the Toby Emmerich moves contained this little tidbit,”Industry sources say (Sue) Kroll has been building her own relationship with AT&T global marketing officer Lori Lee recently.” I heard that the two were getting all BFFy at the Wonder Woman premiere last month. I’m sure her titular boss is just tickled that his old family and new are hitting it off so famously. Which raises the question: what job is Kroll eyeing? Just keeping her own safe and secure in the new company, or filling Kevin’s chair if he moves up, or has she decided its time for her to leapfrog to the very top of the ladder? And then there’s Toby Emmerich, the understated head of the Motion Pictures group who has been an absent player in the six months long frenzy of alternating finger pointing and credit hogging that have surrounded each of Warners' 2017 releases; but who know appears to be stepping forward with some what-am-I-chopped-poke moves. If the studio degenerates over the months ahead into Mad Max-like war of everything against everything, we might well look back on Variety’s profile of Emmerich this week as the Franz Ferdinand moment that lit the powderkeg. Even though Wonder Woman was a pre-Emmerich project, as he makes clear, the framing of the piece is very, Toby Pulls the Mess of a Studio Out of the Doldrums, making it clear, he’s the man to bring in the new tentpoles, oversee the bold new era of female-driven superherodom. “DC may be commanding the bulk of his attention.” Well, apparently, with the Game of Thrones revving up, someone/s didn’t like the positioning of Toby as Mr. Tentpoles, the man responsible for all Warners big bets. The Variety piece was quickly followed by the Kim Masters piece, which put Emmerich in rather a smaller box. He’s going to take his clever little New Line experience and be the fellow in charge of making sure that our little movies stay little, and that our artistes keep themselves in nice tidy $30 million dollar budgets. While the executive with ties to Warners thinks it is an overreaction to predict that Emmerich will preside over the total "New Line-ization" of the studio, he does expect some key elements of New Line culture to be incorporated: Budgets are likely to be slimmed down and final-cut directors may be avoided. He believes the studio can hold on to control of final cut and still hire A-list filmmakers. As for budgets, he says, "Outside the silos, there has been a big waste of money on projects that don't make sense." Under Emmerich's leadership, he adds, "they're not going to make a movie like The Judge with Robert Downey Jr. for $60 million. For $35 million — maybe." And then there’s the nod to the complicated relationship between Toby and Sue, neither truly controlling the production slate -- and their official leader nowhere to be seen, as Kroll's long battle to position herself as more than just a marketer continues apace: Still, Emmerich faces some constraints, such as the fact that Sue Kroll, the president of worldwide marketing and distribution, does not report to him. Whether that creates tension that must be addressed is a subject of speculation among Hollywood observers. Early in his tenure, sources tell me, Tsujihara made a high priority of reigning in out of control marketing budgets. Three years later, they remain unreigned. And within those budgets there’s a great deal of favorite childism afoot, pouring on more to the almost sure hits and hitching marketing’s success on their back, while the more difficult films are ignored and unsupported. Has Emmerich now been set up to do battle with Kroll over the size and direction of the marketing spend, with AT&T watching from the sidelines. Will the winner get to keep their job in a new regime? Take a step up over the rest? Hard to say. The fact that Emmerich as reported in the piece remains in his New Line offices doesn’t suggest that he’s eager to dive into battle. How the studio as a whole handles The Goldfinch, which now bears the marks of Emmerich’s First Warners Project will be interesting to watch. Meanwhile, if the jockeying is getting uncomfortable, THR’s Power List, released this week, probably did little to soothe rough nerves. Tsujihara was forced to share the mediocre #15 spot with Emmerich, who hasn’t even made a movie yet. Worse still for those seeking peace in the valley, Sue Kroll was nowhere on the list, meaning in this unofficial/official ranking, she stands below #100 Donald Glover in Hollywood clout. Friends tell me the earth has been quaking around Kroll’s office since the list was unveiled. And then there’s one more element in this phone company Game of Thrones: the acquisition might not happen. President Trump said during the campaign that he would stop it. A group of Democratic Senators including Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken sent the Justice Department a letter asking them to take a very hard look at the deal. The Justice Department hasn’t made a peep and hasn’t said when they will make a peep. So at the end of the fight, everyone could well end up stuck exactly where they are. Altogether. One big happy family. Is that the scariest prospect of all?