Inside The Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, Plus Why Great Films Are Flopping

0:04Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV and awards lovers. I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. Hi, John. Hey, Rebecca. We're a little tired. Let's be honest. It's been the busiest week of the Hollywood season so far. Yeah. But before we get into all that, I just wanted to remind our listeners that we're gearing up for a mailbag episode soon and we really want your questions. You can send us as an email or a voice note to littlegoldmen at vf.com. Anything about this award season, we would love to answer it. Yeah, we've received some hot takes, if you will, but we want more.

0:44Yes, we want them all. But anyway, I really want to congratulate us for surviving this past week because it was not only extremely busy, but also some of my favorite things I think I've gotten to do since joining Vanity Fair. So it was a really fun one. John, do you want to talk about the now infamous Adam Sandler, Timothy Chalamet conversation and basketball game that we got to host? Yes. So we, on Saturday with Netflix and A24, hosted a Vanity Fair scene selection live with Adam Sandler and Timothee Chalamet, where they talked about their work and also played basketball. It was at a high school gym.

1:29There were students there. There were cheerleaders. it was wacky. It was like something only in the world of the Timothee Chalamet promotion tour. The video is going live beginning of December and it was really funny. It was emotional at times and we got to watch those two play basketball and it was also the same day that Timothee launched that crazy viral video with the marketing execs for May 24, which it's not real. I thought it was real for the first like six minutes. I've been doing this for some time and I've never done an event like that. It really was so much fun. I thought the energy was incredible in that room.

2:19And I thought the conversation was great because you could tell that Timothy is such an admirer of Adam Sandler's work. And he's also a very good interviewer because like he's very curious about acting and careers. and Adam, I think, also did the same thing for Timothy. So it was kind of a dream thing, even though I know it was such a circus to put it all together, but I think very worth it in the end. And then Sunday, no rest for the wicked because Sunday night, Rebecca, you were at the Governor's Awards. I was, which really is why this week is so busy because everyone comes in town for that.

2:53And so then studios make them do 100 Q &As and roundtables and events. So this was sort of like the culmination of that. And it's always a beautiful event at the Ray Dolby, which is in Hollywood. And the room is packed. Like I was in the elevator with Javar Panahi and Joseph Kaczynski and Guillermo del Toro. And I was like, this is exactly why I love this. Because it's just like, when else do you get to experience that? And Tom Cruise got his very first Oscar as one of the honorees. And that I think was beautiful. I mean, he had this montage clip of his work that was like so long. It felt like a movie in and of itself.

3:33So that was really beautiful. And then Debbie Allen was also honored and production designer Wynn Thomas. And then Dolly Parton was honored, but couldn't attend, but did send in a nice video acceptance. So overall, it was a really beautiful night, but also like a great time for me to talk to people about what movies they're seeing and liking and how the landscape is filling out for the season. Speaking of Hollywood, Rebecca, hooray for Hollywood. The Vanity Fair Hollywood issue is officially out in the world. This is our special issue covering all the biggest stars in Hollywood. We have a very special guest with us, the man of the hour who put this whole issue together.

4:17Please welcome to the show Vanity Fair's global editorial director, Mark Guaducci. Hi, guys. Mark, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, especially because I think, John, you put together most of this issue. It's very nice, but this was definitely, I remember your first day, we had a meeting where you were like, welcome everyone, and then like 10 minutes later, you were like, we have to have a meeting about the Hollywood issue. That sounds about right. Yeah. But I think, I always say that magazine making or anything, whether it's a physical magazine or a website or whatever, this is all a team sport.

4:57and nothing is quite like that than a big issue like this. So it was an enormous effort by dozens of people. Yeah, you definitely hit the ground running and we witnessed that. But can you tell listeners just a little bit about what the concept is for this Hollywood issue? Yeah, sure. So when I came in, I really wanted to make sure that the Hollywood issue, which is our biggest issue of the year, had an idea on the cover. I looked back at, I spent a lot of time in the archives in general when I was starting this job. And the first Hollywood issue, which is probably still my favorite, actually, from 1995, featured a lineup of ingenues.

5:41And at the time it was like Gwyneth Paltrow and Julianne Moore and Sarah Jessica Parker. And the idea of doing an issue dedicated to any theme at the time was sort of unusual. even unique. And so in a time when now almost every magazine that I can think of has some version of a Hollywood issue, everyone sees the Oscars and the awards season as the major opportunity to tell stories about celebrities, actors, talent, the movies of the season. And so what we landed on was this idea that the male actors of today are so different than the male actors of previous generations, who they are, what they represent, and that that at least was a story idea that we could put out into the world.

6:27And I like that when we approach issues in the future, whether it's a sports issue or the new establishment, it's not just a repeat of what we've done in years past that we try to find a specific idea that will cause conversation. So you come up with this idea of repositioning the new leading men in Hollywood. Then we have to cast. Who are those people? Can you talk a little bit about what was going through your head, that process? John, I think you could probably answer this question better than I since you booked half of these people with Alison Ward-Frank, our intrepid global talent director.

7:10But given this idea that I mentioned briefly, we were talking about how nowadays the male movie stars are not the kind of matinee idols of old Hollywood or the more like puffed up buff superheroes of more recent Hollywood successes. is these guys, by and large, seem almost, we were saying they feel it's more radical that they're actually mere mortals, that they feel like guys you might even know. They're just hovering an inch and a half above reality, and we love them all the more for it. They're nice guys. They're actually kind and feel vulnerable when we have so many more opportunities to see actors these days.

7:54I was thinking about how you kind of have to be a star on social media. a star on the small screen now doesn't mean TV. A star on the small screen means an iPhone. You have to be a star on the small screen before you're a movie star. And all these guys are, that they're beloved by audiences. You could see it in the reaction to the cover. And so when we went about casting, we identified, you know, some people call it the internet boyfriend or whatever, but we identified those people that represent that idea. So in Malibu, we shot Jeremy Allen White with Glenn Powell, who's the Tom Cruise of our day, Callum Turner, who is in many cases known almost first and foremost for being a boyfriend.

8:34But then, of course, he is a super talented actor. He has a huge year coming up, too. He's in like five movies next year. And A$AP Rocky, who is a burgeoning movie star himself and has a couple of really prominent roles. So even though we know him as a musician, a style virtuoso, and also part of the most stylish family in the world, he is also now an actor. In London, Theo Wenner and the fashion editor Tom Guinness shot Andrew Garfield, Harris Dickinson, Jonathan Bailey, and Riz Ahmed together, as well as Paul Mescal, Michael B. Jordan, and Austin Butler. And that group of people, what it says to me is that we are looking at a Hollywood that is perhaps more cognizant of its failures in the past and is prioritizing, consciously or subconsciously, prioritizing actors who seem like genuinely good people.

9:41John you know better than anybody that getting all those people together is no mean feat that just even the idea that they all took place on two days is quite crazy to say nothing of there were two parrots that I'm sure were very difficult to book Poncho and Howard the biggest divas on the set they had hard outs early on in the day but the issue does not only feature men we have an amazing profile with Chloe Zhao Inside and an entire inside portfolio we haven't even touched on that was a huge lift to get made. And I think it's incredible. Could you talk a little bit about those inside pieces? So there has historically been a portfolio in the Hollywood issue that just represents what Hollywood looks like right now.

10:31My favorite version of that, Tom Ford, was given the issue in 2006. and when we were thinking about what, how to reinterpret, you know, look to the past, but do something that felt contemporary, we're looking at an industry or a town that's on the verge of some major evolutionary leap. And so looking at, to just only look at actors felt limiting. We wanted to look at people across disciplines and also across locations because Hollywood is physically, of course, Los Angeles, but Hollywood is everywhere now. I think of Hollywood as a global industry, and it also is not just film and television. It's also music and it's sports.

11:14I think Hollywood is show business in a way. It's like anything that fits into that category. So the way that we organized it was that it was a, we call it 37 Hours in Hollywood, wherein it was a timeline of people that started at, I think it was 6 a.m., with Hollywood agents' assistants getting their bosses smoothies for the morning and then went from there. And so what we wanted to just, it was a really fun way of imagining what a single 37-hour period could look like all over the world for all these different Hollywood players. And Jeremy O 'Harris was kind enough to write that through in captions for us.

11:56And there were many photographers involved in that kind of a shoot. It has such an incredible energy to it, and it looks so great. And being able to witness the sort of sweat and tears that went into booking it, it really paid off, I think. And I know this issue was so much work, but I'm hoping it was a little bit of fun to put together. Mark, do you have any very specific moments that are sort of favorite memories for you of putting it together? I would say that, actually, honestly, the most fun day was yesterday because watching the internet react to the internet boyfriends was so fun. I mean, I was just on the phone with our audience team and they were saying that in the first 10 hours, our engagement was up 70 % year over year on social, which I deeply believe that Vanity Fair covers should cause conversation.

12:49So watching people react, people question why we shot all men, what does this mean, hand-wringing about that, We welcome all of it. It caused conversation, and that is the most that we can hope for with that kind of a cover. Okay, so we are going to end this with some rapid-fire fun questions so our listeners can get to know you better. Okay. What are three of some of your favorite movies? Ooh. Barry Lyndon is my favorite movie. Stanley Kubrick is my favorite director. Okay. Barry Lyndon is a stand-in for The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut and all of them. The Matrix is a favorite movie. And The Matrix is kind of a stand-in, I would say, for Star Wars and epic, a genre of epic sci-fi is where I'll leave that.

13:45And as a kid, I was really into Cruel Intentions. Really? I love Cruel Intentions. I'm glad you picked it. No shame. No, no, no. How could you not? It's incredible. When you're going to the movies, what size Diet Coke are we getting? First of all, there's so much shame around Diet Coke. I think that, you know, someone once described a Diet Coke as a fridge cig, and I have never forgotten it. Yeah, so when I go to the movie theater, we're doing a big Diet Coke, like a large and a large popcorn no bother but I could not go to the movie theater without those two things John's really outing your vices in our little interview yeah what else do you want to talk about John I'm going to wrap it up to go easy on you here but this is a tough question it's something we talk about all the time we're going to ask I know you've seen a lot of the movies in the race this year so what do you think is going to take best picture what's your pick at this moment in time I honestly think that Hamnet has a shot at Best Picture.

14:56I think that, or at least Best Director, and certainly Jesse I think deserves a Best Actress Oscar. But then I think people forget that this is also the year of Sinners because it was so early in the year. Sinners is an amazing movie and also important and makes you think, but is also just a really fun ride. Okay, well, that is all we have time for. Mark, thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you for having me, you guys. Thanks, Mark. So, for the past few weeks, as I've been at these events and I've been talking to journalists and other talent and filmmakers and execs, I've noticed that the conversation has been coming up a lot about the box office.

15:44And sadly, that's because we're seeing a string of Oscar contenders that are really flailing at the box office. Agreed. The box office is front of mind for everyone. And today we're going to take a look at some of the quote-unquote indie films that have struggled to make a splash in theaters this year. And we're going to sort of define what we think is actually a flop. And if it's fair to call these films flops, Murky Waters we're getting into. Murky Waters. So we'll wrap it up with a little bit more in the murky water section about the best actor race, which is shaping up to be very, very interesting.

16:24And then we'll share some underdog picks for that race.

16:30So, John, I want us to get into it and talk a little bit about these films that have been struggling at the box office. But I guess we should sort of start with discussing what our framing is here. Like what exactly we are calling an indie. Right. And we're totally making it up. Because it's our podcast. Yeah, it's our podcast. Because what defines an indie has changed, I think, over the years. One, and two, I think in the context of what this podcast is, we're basically defining an indie as an adult drama whose scope isn't too large, right? Yeah, it's a film that obviously, not given that huge studio release, but it's also, I think, we're talking about films that are adult dramas that have to be scrappy to be made.

17:24I guess it's like a spirit. It's sort of a vibe that defines it more than a number or the studio backing them. So we picked five movies to kind of use as an example of this trend. So we're going to talk about Die My Love, Christy, Smashing Machine, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and After the Hunt. Yes. Yes, and what's in common with all of these adult dramas is that they've been released in theaters and they have not performed in pretty major ways. So I guess the first one we want to talk about is Die My Love, which is the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. It's released by Mubi.

18:06This is, by the way, proper indie. was made via indie financing and then was purchased in Cannes by Mubi for$24 million. And then was released two weeks ago and has totally petered out. It's opening weekend. It made$2.6 million. That is a very low opening considering how much press Jennifer Lawrence was doing prior. Yeah, she was really out there to support this film. And, you know, we're talking about Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pence and two of, like, these giant movie stars who had huge fan followings. But I really love this movie. It's a hard watch, and I think for some people, it can leave them very unsettled.

18:56But I had hoped that her performance would be enough of a draw to get people to come see it, because she's doing some really incredible work in this movie. You know, Mubi paid a lot. So for it to really stumble is bad. It's interesting because I sort of wonder, Jennifer Lawrence did a big New Yorker profile. She did the New York Times interview. She did Las Culturistas. She did a lot of like webby, fun things. I mean, she's incredible at that type of stuff. I did sort of feel though, what was getting lost in all of it was the movie itself. And I think she was trying to get it back to the film.

19:40And this is a hard film to promote. Right. But I did feel like they needed to get more like into like, if you're going to pay$16 or more to see this movie, what is it that you're seeing? Interesting. And I think that was lost. I think interesting and challenging filmmaking, but, you know, it didn't work. I mean, all of these, almost all the films we're talking about did go wide immediately, which is also really tough for a little film that's competing against bigger movies in the theater. So I don't know if that's part of it too, you know, if these needed more word of mouth than they got. But, you know, speaking of movie stars, I think we should jump to Christy, which also was recently released.

20:24It stars Sydney Sweeney as this real life boxer, Christy Martin. It's an incredible performance from her. but it had, I think, one of the worst starts ever for a movie released in more than 2 ,000 North American theaters. It only earned 1.3 million. And I think part of this was it was Black Bear, the production company's first movie that they self-distributed, which seems like a very challenging thing to get into in this day and age, but they want to do it. So I think that's part of it. I think the Sidney Sweeney sort of controversy that continues to swirl around her is part of it. I think the black bear of it all was tough.

21:05I mean, we're looking at movies that are being distributed by A24 having major issues. And their genius is marketing, yeah. Yeah, so like then when you're getting into somebody trying it out for the first time, this isn't the best year to like try out releasing a small independent film. Which gets us to the next film we're going to talk about, which is Smashing Machine, another sports movie. This one stars The Rock and Emily Blunt. And, you know, I think had a lot of conversation around The Rock doing this really dramatic role that's very different than what you've seen from him, but then ended up just really struggling.

21:43I think it opened in 3 ,300 theaters, which is a huge release for a movie that's sort of a small sports drama, earned 5.8 million, and it had a$50 million budget. So it really did not make even close to enough money. So this is technically kind of isn't an indie. This actually marks the A24 bigger budget films that they had been touting starting last year that they were sort of expanding past like just strictly, strictly smaller budget films. And this wasn't a success story. Civil War was a success story that came out last year. And it's interesting because in this one, like, yeah, they did everything.

22:31Like they had the fancy Venice premiere. I think you knew what this movie was about. Right, they marketed it the right way as in, do you want to see The Rock do this? Yes, exactly. Which I thought people would want to see that. Or a little bit more. The movie's capping out at about like$20 million worldwide. And so with a$50 million budget, that is not what they needed. The next film is a film that most of our listeners probably didn't even know was released. Right. Which is Kiss of the Spider Woman. This movie premiered in Sundance without distribution. Roadside Attractions picked it up, released in mid-October.

23:18This is the film that stars Jennifer Lopez in the, I guess, titular world. It's a musical. It was a musical that was sort of created for Chita Rivera back in the day for Broadway. And like, I don't really know if it like stands the test of time. Like, it's not like you're reviving Wren. Right, right. You know, like, and it opens to$891 ,000 opening weekend. It's capping out at somewhere between like one and a half, two million dollars worldwide against a sizable budget. Again, this film just like did not get any sort of traction in theaters. It is crazy because I feel like even as someone who is really embedded in this world, I never saw any advertising for it or market.

24:11Like it just felt very quiet. And J-Lo tried her best. She was at the Governor's Awards the other night. And she did all the, she did Sundance. She did, you know, she did all the promotional stuff she needed to do. But this one just could not get any attention or any momentum at all. And I think reviews were kind of mixed, if not tepid. So that didn't help its cause. But yeah, it just, it was a real stumble there. And then should we end it with what I think is kind of like the most interesting struggle at the box office this season with After the Hunt, the Luca Guadagnino movie. We've talked about it a lot.

24:52Stars Julia Roberts. This movie opened really small. It's going to cap out at about like$9 million worldwide. This is another movie that is not a traditional indie. Like it's budget. is reported somewhere in the 70 millions. But again, like we said, it's an adult contemporary drama. And it feels like an indie, even though it's released by a major studio. This is a bomb. This is a bomb. And I think a lot of that, I think, has to do with how polarizing the reviews were and the reaction out of the festivals because a lot of people didn't like this movie. I am one of the people who did enjoy watching this movie and I think it results in interesting conversations.

25:39But I thought because it's a Luca Guadagnino movie and because it's Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, I thought that was kind of enough to get people in there. And this one did actually platform for two weeks in six theaters before kind of doing a wider release. But I think in that case, because word of mouth wasn't great, that didn't probably help its cause. It was quite a polarizing film. But here's the thing, actually, Rebecca, Luca's movies, he's a mixed bag when it comes to the box office. And Challengers did well. It had the thing where you felt like you had to see it to be part of the conversation, which is what these movies need, I think.

26:20Obviously, Call Me By Your Name, which was kind of, I mean, it wasn't his breakout film, but it was like the film that launched, obviously, Timothee Chalamet. And then I think launched him to more national recognition. He has amassed a following since Call Me By Your Name and with the success of Challengers, but he also had Queer, which didn't work for many people. But yeah, I thought there'd just be a little more sort of a cinephile support for it. And maybe there was, maybe there just aren't that many of us. Yeah. It just didn't get beyond that. But I think for us, that question remains, and I was talking to people about this at the Governors Awards, is like, are they dead in the water when it comes to awards?

27:02Or do they still have a chance for Oscars, even if the narrative has been, the box office has been real tough? I use the term dead on arrival a lot. You text me that movie is DOA like every three days. Yeah. You have a guess, but I think it actually is dependent on each of these films. I think, I'm going to start, we want to stay positive here. Because also, we want these movies to succeed. Yes. The heck and I. I want them to keep making these movies. Yeah, like, I'm like, I'm nervous. I'm like, oh, please, come on. Like, get out there. Do something. I don't know. I don't have the answers. If I had the answers.

27:40We'd fix it for you. I think Dwayne Johnson in Smashing Machine still is going to be in the conversation up until the very end. I think you're right. I think he's going to start amassing enough there. I think that people will watch the film at home so I still have hope for The Rock. I think The Rock and I think Jennifer Lawrence because you have to remember that, listen to my pitch, people will watch it when it hits the screening, Academy screening site and actors are going to respect that performance. It is a really killer performance and they're going to be like, I don't know if I could have crawled through the grass and thrown myself through a glass door the way she can do those things, you know?

28:25And so Best Actress is tough but I think there is a chance that she will remain in the conversation and because she is going to things and doing the things you need to do if you want to stay in the conversation. I'm hopeful. There's basically like three or four like big movies that I think like everyone's going to see across up and down the Academy, you know, and then things start splintering out and actually the actors branch this year has a lot of work to do. They do. You know what I mean? There's a lot of movies where you're watching it only for one performance in one category. I don't know.

29:01I can see some people at the very end being like, I just never got around to it. Yeah, I think we can safely say all these films are probably out of the Best Picture race. Yeah. The hope remains for acting, and that feels like probably it to me. But we'll see. We don't know for sure. When we come back, we're going to talk about what even defines a box office flop these days. and what that might mean for the future of films like these. Stay with us.