TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman is reporting that film directors Neil Marshall (The Reckoning) and Joshua Newton (Nicole and O.J.) were the guys who “attempted to extort veteran Hollywood executive Ron Meyer,” and whose efforts led to Meyer’s being dismissed from his vice-chairman job with Universal.

This, wrote Waxman, is “according to two individuals with knowledge of the drama that led to the mogul’s abrupt ouster on Tuesday.”

Waxman reports that both Marshall and Newton have “dated” actress Charlotte Kirk, the 28 year-old actress whose brief affair with Meyer in 2012 was the source of all the trouble.

Kirk also got down with Warner Bros. honcho Kevin Tsujihara in 2013 and ’14, an affair which led to his ouster a year ago last March. Prior to that she may have also have “dated” producer Brett Ratner and allegedly did date Australian billionaire James Packer.

I’m wondering if Kirk has ever “been” with someone who’s roughly her age and wasn’t an older dude of wealth and power who might have helped her career. If I were writing Kirk’s story for a screenplay, I would invent a young, witty, good-looking boyfriend who has no power but makes her laugh and is good in the sack. The tragedy would be that although Kirk has found a guy who really loves her, she can’t reciprocate because he’s not an industry heavy-hitter or at least a director with the option of casting her in something.

I prefer the NMDLND version because it’s more succinct, less colorful, a little sadder and scruffier.

The more colorful version with portions of five license plates (Alaska, California, Arizona, South Dakota and one other) is more eye-poppy. It suggests that the film may be about a vibrant and colorful journey of some kind — different regions, vistas, aromas, flavors. It suggests some kind of eye-opener or pick-me-up experience, and that Frances McDormand‘s “Fern” may be in for a bracing adventure.

The NMDLND version conveys less in the way of optimism, and more in the way of “art.” I’m always more in favor of an implication rather than a statement of plain fact.

The first Nomadland reviews will happen at the Venice Film Festival on 9.11 — a little more than three weeks hence. The commercial opening is on 12.4.20.

I’m trying to remember when the last Los Angeles press screening I attended might have been. The first week in March, something like that. This morning the word went around that a major award-season contender will have a special drive-in screening — non-virtual, an actual projected image, people in cars — on a somewhat early September date (i.e., before the middle). Not at one of the regular drive-ins and not on the West Side or in Hollywood or downtown Los Angeles, but at a reachable, not-too-far-away location. I’m being cagey about this because no one has mentioned it on social media and I don’t want to be the first. But the mere idea of attending an actual live, big-screen showing of a presumably first-rate film after more than six months of streaming everything on my 4K 65-incher…it was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

REPORTER: QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that?

TRUMP: Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world. pic.twitter.com/rPYFU1B8WB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2020

Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro reported this morning that serious Chris Nolan fans “in select cities” will be able to see Tenet before the official 9.3 opening.

No specifics on the cities but they presumably won’t include Los Angeles, New York City or burghs in New Jersey. A statement from Warner Bros. domestic distribution honcho Jeff Goldstein says Tenet will screen in the yet-to-be-named cities on Monday, 8.31, Tuesday, 9.1 and Wednesday, 9.2.

So in order to enjoy some sumptuous Egyptian scenery while taking a trip down the Nile on a great-looking, first-class steamer, we’ll need to endure sit through another Kenneth Branagh-slash-Hercule Poirot murder-mystery. Starring, directed and produced by Branagh — a truly bountiful paycheck. The script is by Michael Green.

Initially adapted by director John Guillermin and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer in 1978 with Peter Ustinov as Poirot, the new Nile is about…no spoilers.

Like Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express (’17), Death on the Nile is a wokester re-imagining of 1930s upper-crust travel culture with elegant ladies of leisure like Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright occupying first-class salons.

Some of Death on the Nile was actually filmed on in Egypt…imagine! Costarring Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Gal Gadot, Dawn French, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey and Jennifer Saunders.

Phoenix‘s musical supplements tell you almost everything about Sofia Coppola‘s On The Rocks (A24/Apple). This is one peppy, finger-poppin’ relationship comedy about a married daughter (Rashida Jones) and her laconic, libertine, hound-dog dad (Bill Murray).

You can tell right away that director-writer Sofia Coppola, who enabled Murray to give one of his best performances 17 years ago in Lost in Translation, has wisely decided to just let Murray be Murray.

Boilerplate: “Laura (Jones) thinks she’s happily hitched, but when her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) starts logging late hours at the office with a new co-worker, Laura begins to fear the worst. She turns to her charming, impulsive father Felix (Murray), who insists they investigate the situation. As the two begin prowling New York at night, careening from uptown parties to downtown hotspots,” etc.

Murray (who turns 70 on 9.21) looks good. He obviously dropped a few pounds before filming began in June 2019.

On The Rocks will open in a few select theatres in early to mid October, followed by streaming debut on Apple TV Plus later that same month.

Kevin Hart to Deadline‘s Matt Grobar translation, boiled down to basics: “Homophobic attitudes have long been embedded in African-American culture. Remember those Eddie Murphy gay jokes from the ’80s? Or the reaction among many older African Americans to Pete Buttigieg‘s candidacy last year?

“Nine or ten years ago I used a few jokes in that vein, jokes that may have connected among some in the POC community but not in the broader liberal-minded entertainment community. I got slapped around for that in late ’18 and early ’19, but I accepted this as a learning or teaching moment. I apologize for having been insensitive towards people in the LGBTQ community, and here we are now. Life is for learning, and I’m ready for the next lesson.”

Actual Hart quote: “What happened to the days of making a mistake, learning from the mistake, not doing that, and educating others on what not to do because of your mistakes?”

Unspoken Matt Grobar response: “As you know, it doesn’t work that way now. If you’ve made a mistake or if you did or said something hurtful or incorrect a few years ago and we get wind of it, you’re dead. Go away, work for Uber or McDonalds, commit suicide, move to Manila. Okay, you might be able to come back in two or three years if you profusely apologize and beg for forgiveness, maybe, but remember how HUAC and Hollywood studio chiefs began purging suspected Communists starting in the late ’40s? We’ve basically brought that shit back, but for righteous reasons. We’re scrubbing the industry clean.”

“If you grew up in northern New Jersey in the ’80s, you were either injured at Action Park or knew someone who had been.” Or so goes the legend.

Speaking as a former Garden State guy who moved to Los Angeles in ’83, I never paid the slightest attention to Action Park. But the kids and I went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor a few times in the ’90s, and visited Wet & Wild once in Las Vegas. The hairiest ticket was a super-speed water slide inside a spiralling tube thing — you crossed your legs, crossed your arms across your chest and pushed off into the unknown, travelling at a pretty fast clip.

Wiki excerpt: “Action Park was an amusement and water park located in Vernon, New Jersey, on the grounds of the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski resort. Consisting primarily of water-based attractions, the park opened in 1978 under the ownership of Great American Recreation (GAR).

“Action Park’s popularity went hand-in-hand with a reputation for poorly designed rides, under-trained and under-aged staff, intoxicated guests and staff, and a consequently poor safety record. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park, and it was given nicknames such as ‘Traction Park’, ‘Accident Park’ and ‘Class Action Park’. Little effort was made by state regulators to address these issues, despite the park’s history of repeat violations. In its later years, personal injury lawsuits led to the closure of increasing numbers of rides and eventually the entire park closed in 1996.”

Class Action Park will premiere on HBO Max at midnight (Pacific) on Thursday, 8.27.

“Homes burn, residents flee for lives as lightning-sparked fire rages northwest of Vacaville,” etc. — San Francisco Chronicle, updated 8.19.20 at 9:11 am.

Hairy conditions as the #LNULightningComplex fire burns along both sides of Berryessa Knoxville Road near Lake Berryessa. @GettyImagesNews @CAL_FIRE pic.twitter.com/EVWKsgsump

— Justin Sullivan (@sullyfoto) August 19, 2020

#Timelapse: Sudden explosive development of the #CZUAugustLightningComplex #fire burning tonight in San Mateo & Santa Cruz Counties. @NWSBayArea @CALFIRECZU #CAwx pic.twitter.com/pADZ3B4Trk

— Jeff Boyce (@Negative_Tilt) August 19, 2020

A couple of decades hence young cineastes will ask their older brethren, “Explain again why a well-made but not especially overwhelming social criticism drama from Bong Joon-ho won the Best Picture Oscar instead of this obviously superior Martin Scorsese gangster epic, especially considering the fact that The Irishman didn’t have anything like that Parasite scene in which a family of con artists welcomes the one person in the world who has a motive to rat them all out, and yet they let her in during a rainstorm while they’re all drunk and dishevelled…why did everyone give that scene a pass again?”

Criterion’s The Irishman Bluray (out 11.24.00) contains a new 4K digital master, approved by director Martin Scorsese, with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

From Michael Herr‘s ridiculously overpriced book, “Kubrick“: “‘A paranoid schizophrenic is a guy who just found out what is going on’ is a famous William S. Burroughs-ism. I once told it to Stanley Kubrick, and he took it to his heart. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute…I’ve gotta write that down.’ He put it into wide release, telling it to everyone he knew, and I think it was mostly because he was so pleased to find himself of one mind with someone he admired as much as Burroughs.”

HE comment: I always thought the definitive Burroughs remark about paranoia was a four-word definition: “Knowing all the facts.”

Alternate Burroughs version: “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. A psychotic is a guy who’s just found out what’s going on.”

(Largely copies from 8.17 Joseph McBride Facebook posting.)