Hollywood Winners & Losers: Why Jimmy Kimmel Won, and Baby Yoda Lost
WON: Jimmy Kimmel: Jimmy Kimmel had a rough week, with Donald and Melania Trump demanding ABC cancel his talk show after his “expectant widow” joke in the wake of the WHCD shooting, and the FCC opening a suspiciously timed review of ABC’s broadcast licenses. One suspects Disney’s newly minted CEO, Josh D’Amaro, had an even more nerve-wracking week than Kimmel. D’Amaro has apparently decided to tie himself to the ship’s mast and ride out this latest political storm.
Kimmel handled the situation really well. His defiant monologue Monday had a swaggering, I’m-not-being-cowed-by-this-shit energy; deftly threading the needle amid the various sensitivities involved, all while still being funny. Particularly savvy: Labeling his retroactively controversial joke a “light roast,” like it was a Starbucks order. One wonders if his somewhat odd “sorry for what the WHCD audience went through” line was negotiated with the network brass (like: “Fine, I’ll throw in a ‘sorry,’ but not for the damn joke”). So Kimmel won this week because he pulled through with his show and dignity intact.
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What’s also true: Trump is hellbent on getting Kimmel canceled, has survived numerous assassination attempts, and Kimmel was suspended just seven months ago for making a joke about another political figure’s assassination. So maybe making jokes about right-wing leaders dying isn’t wise from a tactical perspective, if not an ethical one. “Trump does the same thing! Bad faith arguments! First Amendment!” Sure. But it’s not exactly a crippling act of self-censorious restraint for a Disney late-night chat show host to avoid making “the president I loathe is gonna die soon” jokes given, you know, everything.
LOST: Baby Yoda. For weeks, Disney’s The Mandalorian and Grogu has been smelling a bit like Dagobah at low tide. The first Star Wars movie in seven years has struggled to generate excitement (somehow not clearing the low bar of Fandango’s annual poll of 6,000 moviegoers to determine the 10 most anticipated films of the summer). The studio released a clip on Kimmel last week that was mocked for having goofy Book of Boba Fett energy. The clip also suggested the studio is — wisely — going all-in on targeting families and kids instead of aging fans who get pouty if anything labeled “Star Wars” can’t make them feel like they’re 12 again (I mean, guilty as charged).
The film’s early tracking is coming in at $80 million for its four-day Memorial Day weekend release. There is a lot of debate about this number and what it means (THR‘s expert analysis is basically: Good?). The tough-to-avoid comparison is that it’s lower than Disney’s previous weakest Star Wars movie — Solo, which was considered a dud that halted the franchise and sent Star Wars spinning off, like Darth Vader in his crippled TIE fighter, to Disney+ — which, in turn, gave birth to The Mandalorian (the circle, as they say, is now complete).
Expect Disney to point out that The Mandalorian and Grogu costs less than its previous Star Wars efforts at a reported $165 million (Oh? We swear we couldn’t tell!), that this is a great opening for a project based on a TV show (a TV show based decades of blockbuster movies — this isn’t exactly the big screen debut of The Witcher), and that it stars lesser-known characters (as if Jyn Erso was a household name when Rogue One opened to $155 million).
All that said, the film is extremely likely to open highly than $80 once Disney’s marketing department makes the jump to hyperspace starting on May 4. For three weeks, you’re not going to be able to watch TV, look at your phone, or go outside without seeing a wide-eyed cherubic Baby Yoda peering back at you. The film’s final trailer is its best one yet, and stuffed with John Williams’ iconic theme music from the original trilogy, as if to say: “Look, this really is Star Wars! You’re just not allowed to compare it to Star Wars.”
WON: Meryl Streep: Speaking of Disney marketing, the studio’s press campaign for The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been a master class, and Streep has been riding high over it all. Her stylist reportedly constructed 25 different looks for her global publicity tour, an effort even Miranda Priestly would envy. There was that also that Vogue cover with Anna Wintour, and now the revelation that Streep initially rejected Prada 2 to hold out for twice as much money. “It took me this long to understand that I could do that,” the 76-year-old Oscar-winner told Today. “I was ready to retire, but that was a lesson. They needed me, I felt.” Damn right.
The film is looking to open big with $175 million globally and is the first female-driven movie to ever kick off the summer box office, a release date that typically draws superhero films. The reviews have been a bit tepid, but fans won’t care.
LOST: Summer House: Bravo suffered its first-ever leak from one of its reunion shows, when unauthorized audio surfaced on TikTok from the highly anticipated Summer House season 10 reunion. Bravo executive producer Andy Cohen has described the upcoming #Scamanda showdown as one of the most intense of the network’s 200+ reunions, and was rightly pissed: “People laid their souls out emotionally for 10 hours yesterday and it’s disgusting and illegal for someone to leak or distribute this,” Cohen wrote. “It’s disrespectful to the work and tears the cast put in yesterday.” Bravo discovered the leaker was somebody on the production team and sources say the person was fired. Fans will still watch the reunion in droves on May 26 to see the all streaking mascara.
LOST: Cheryl Hines and RFK Jr.: It was a sad and striking scene: Hines awkwardly staggering onto the stage in high heels amid an active shooter emergency at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, trying to reach for her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was being whisked away in a bulky bubble of Secret Service agents. The clip was so heavily scrutinized that it became like a bloodless Curb Your Enthusiasm version of the Zapruder film. The consensus seems to be that RFK Jr. may have had little choice but to go with the flow, and his agents presumably followed procedure in protecting the HHS Secretary while ignoring his actress spouse, leaving the star to fend for herself. But it sure looked heartless and – if we still believe in such things — unchivalrous. One felt for Hines, who might want to wait a few weeks, then casually ask over dinner: “So, if ICBMs are incoming … what happens to me, exactly?”
Last Week: Why Sydney Sweeney Won and ‘Michael’ Critics Lost
Thoughts, tips, praise, suggestions, gripes: jhibberd@thr.com.
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