Hot Rumor: Charlize Theron to Star in Paramount+ Series 'Cash' From Director David O. Russell

Happy Monday, folks!

This weekend, like everyone else, I watched the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight, which started out exciting enough but quickly devolved into a farce designed for Netflix’s PR purposes. I should know, having once fought in a PR stunt myself when I stepped into the ring with Uwe Boll, who’s a much better fighter than he is a director.

It was rather uncomfortable to watch Tyson stumble around in those final few rounds while Netflix’s announcing team pretended it was still a fair fight and Paul continued throwing light jabs at the 58-year-old. Plus, millions of subscribers reported buffering issues throughout the night, so while Netflix had to be happy with the 60 million viewers who tuned in, the streamer still has a long way to go if it wants to deliver reliable live entertainment on par with the broadcast networks.

On Sunday, I saw Wicked: Part One (its actual title), and I’ll weigh in with my thoughts tomorrow once the embargo lifts. I also watched Steven C. Miller’s theatrical debut Werewolves starring Frank Grillo (also under embargo), Kate Cobb’s low-budget indie drama Okie, which I found to be a strangely hypnotic VOD title, and Sam Yates’ thriller Magpie, which is based on a story by its star Daisy Ridley. I definitely enjoyed the latter, which features some clever twists in its final frame.

I also dug Matt Grobar’s Deadline interview with Heretic filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who are among my favorite guys in the biz, even if the second half of their A24 film didn’t fully work for me.

And I appreciated Clayton Davis’ Variety column on the hypocrisy of Matt Walsh submitting his hit documentary Am I Racist? for Oscar consideration after denouncing liberal Hollywood and the Film Academy. Davis catches Walsh talking out of both sides of his mouth, as he makes money by hating on Hollywood, only to secretly crave its validation. Interesting food for thought here…

Alas, I shrugged reading Tom Brueggemann’s Indiewire piece about how Warner Bros. “owed” Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 a wide theatrical release because of the billions of dollars he has made for the studio, which is obviously nonsense. This is why Tom could never be trusted to run a movie studio. David Zaslav is trying to run a business here, not piss away money due to past performance. Clint should be happy with the limited theatrical release that his very mediocre movie did receive from Warners, and leave it at that. You haven’t heard him bitching — just a bunch of film critics with no regard for the actual business of filmmaking.

Anyway, tonight you’ll read about Charlize Theron possibly doing her first major TV series with director David O. Russell.

There are also items about Javier Bardem starring in a remake of Cape Fear, Steven Spielberg teaming back up with the Obamas, Will Ferrell booking a courtroom comedy, and Rachel Zegler being rumored to star in a Gloria Estefan biopic.

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