Showbizz This Week: Netflix Executives Are Dropping Like Flies, Tom Holland Has a New Basement (Probably), and Julia Stiles Will Make You Cry on Live TV

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By Your Humble Correspondent | Robe Johnson

Listen, I don’t know who should know this, but if you are an executive at Netflix right now, don’t answer the phone. Actually, don’t answer your door, either. Just don’t leave the house. The streaming giant is in the middle of a musical chairs that’s so vicious it makes “Squid Game” look like a team-building seminar.

In show biz this week we have: Blood in the boardroom of Netflix, A wedding planned like a military operation, but with a better buffet, Tom Holland is apparently buying a spooky attic and Julia Stiles is preparing to emotionally decimate the millennials on national tv. Hang on, this week is strange!

The Netflix Thunderdome Claims Another Victim

It seems that no one really took seriously the warning that the clampdown on the sharing of Netflix passwords could upset people, because Dan Lin is out as head of film at the streaming service. This comes on the heels of cuts to the workforce—around 6% of staff, or roughly a thousand employees—and the booting of Bela Bajaria, chief content officer. Peter Rice, formerly of Fox and Disney, is the new head of the content department, taking over on October 26; he’s been dubbed ‘one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry’, which is code for ‘he will dismiss you in a professional and timely way’.

Strangely, his management was not altogether disastrous; he oversaw “KPop Demon Hunters”, which won an Oscar, and had Oscar buzz for La Bola Negra, but he also approved the production of “The Electric State”, a film so expensive and so forgotten that, as I write, I have to find out about it. My sources tell me that he was dismissed late last week, which means that over the weekend, while the rest of us were happily unaware, Lin already knew his career was in trouble.

Ejae Gets Married, Proves Romance Isn’t Dead (Just Very Logistically Complicated)

In happier news, Ejae, the singer-songwriter behind “Golden” from the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, the song that has been stuck in your head for three months, has already tied a knot with music producer Sam Kim. The couple originally planned to get married in California next month, but then “Golden” became a global phenomenon, awards season happened, and the wedding clashed with promotional schedules. So they moved the whole thing to Seoul, bumped the date up by a month, and pulled it off in four months of prep.

The wedding was held on October 17 at a banquet hall on the former estate of Ejae’s maternal grandfather, the actor Shin Young-kyun. The bride told Vogue that the preparations were hectic and a little stressful, but it was real teamwork. A wedding in four months while her song is riding the world charts is not “teamwork,” it’s an extreme sport. I once spent four months on choosing a sofa. These two operate on another scale.

Tom Holland Is Making a Thriller Called The Attic, Which Sounds Like a Bad Idea

Tom Holland’s next project after he’s done with Spider-Man will be a film called The Attic (or Penthouse, depending on the reports you read—the industry seems a bit confused, so we’ll go with The Attic because it’s funnier). The writer is Drew Pearce, who wrote Iron Man 3 and The Fall Guy. Sony snapped up the project before any other studios had time to take a look. Plot details are being kept under wraps, which in industry speak means they have a title and a poster concept and nothing else.

What I need to know is, whether this is an attic or a penthouse, because there are entirely different images, for an attic means dust, creepy dolls, ghosts. The penthouse suggests modern chic and murder at a party with champagne. Both are good; but a thriller entitled The Attic with Tom Holland makes me think he’s going to crawl through some kind of secret nook and find things he shouldn’t, and I’m very concerned about his kneecaps.

Taika Waititi’s Star Wars Movie Is Still Not Happening, Water Is Still Wet

In news that will shock no one, Taika Waititi has finally confirmed that his long-promised Star Wars film is officially on ice. The project was first announced in May 2020, back when the whole world thought a global pandemic would last only three weeks. It’s been six years — six years! I’ve had friends who have married, had children and divorced in the time it’s taken for this movie to not be made.

Waititi told Inverse that he has about four other movies he’s trying to make instead, but he offered a sliver of hope, saying ice ages do come to an end. With all due respect, you are not a glacier. You are a filmmaker with too many projects. Just say it’s not happening and let us grieve in peace.

The Dirty Dancing Sequel Will Not Be Haunted by AI Patrick Swayze

Here’s some genuinely welcome news. The upcoming Dirty Dancing sequel will certainly pay homage to the late Patrick Swayze but definitely not with the help of artificial intelligence. “That’s one of the things that you really have to focus on: how to let people mourn him in a movie,” said producer Nina Jacobson, who went on to add with what I can only assume was a glare at every studio executive drooling over this whole deepfake thing, “And don’t worry, we won’t be bringing him back with AI.”

By the way, it’s good that more movies are weird, messy and emotional. The sequel brings back Jennifer Grey and takes place in the 1990s with a new cast of young lovers. Jacobson noted that the original film ventured into territory where today’s romantic comedies are too scared to tread, including an abortion subplot, and she wants to rekindle that spirit of daring. Just leave the dead actors alone. It isn’t that hard.

Julia Stiles Is Going to Make Everyone Cry on Dancing with the Stars

Finally, a story guaranteed to spoil your week: Julia Stiles is set to perform a contemporary dance on “Dancing with the Stars” in memory of her late 10 Things I Hate About You co-star, Heath Ledger. She’ll dance to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Valli, the very song Ledger’s character Patrick Verona sang from the bleachers to win over Stiles’ Kat Stratford in the 1999 film. Ledger died in January 2008, at age twenty-eight.

I am not sure that I am ready for this, but I know I was not at the age of twelve and I’m certainly not ready now as a fully grown adult who understands life and death so much better than I did then. The combination of that song, that movie, and the fact that Heath Ledger is dead will annihilate me. I’ll be watching through my fingers, crying into a blanket, and pretending that I have hay fever.

And in Case You Missed It…

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2 will be released today on Netflix and it will have a special guest star: none other than Hideo Kojima, the game creator, who will reprise his role from Cyberpunk 2077 as Hideyoshi Oshima, in the most delightfully self-indulgent crossover since someone put a Kojima cameo in a Kojima game. Meanwhile, Salman Khan is sitting out this week’s Bigg Boss hosting duties, with Rohit Shetty stepping in amid security concerns following a shooting incident involving Tiger Shroff in Mumbai. And the message to the rest of you is: stay safe, and enjoy.

This week has been a whole week. Be good to each other, don’t tell Netflix that you have a phone, and, for heaven’s sake, hug your loved ones. Even the ones who won’t shut up about K-pop. They’re good people.

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