Ruben Östlund’s latest film “Triangle of Sadness,” a satirical dark comedy that takes  place in a luxury yacht, has gained considerable recognition since it came out, including a Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the spring. Now, Östlund delves into his directing, shooting during the pandemic, funding, and the aftermath of the film’s success, while Filipina actress Dolly De Leon discusses her career and how being in the film has changed her life. But first, the “Avatar” sequel premieres worldwide, including a coveted theatrical release in China. Can it gross more than $2 billion to succeed? Plus, Warner Bros. Discovery pulls the plug on “Minx” season 2. Matt Belloni and Kim Masters analyze.

Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino stays busy with his projects, which lately have stacked up on top of each other throughout their production cycles. After recovering from a broken foot, he’s flown to Brazil, Argentina, the United States, and around Europe in a months-long global press tour to promote two most recent films that he produced and directed.  

When actor, writer, and producer Kumail Nanjiani was 18, he moved from Karachi, Pakistan - a city of more than 9 million people - to the United States to attend Grinnell College, a small, private liberal arts college in Iowa in 1997. The town of Grinnell’s population was about 9,000 then. Though he had visited New York as a teenager, and “sort of knew America the way it is in movies,” he was not prepared for the cultural shock. 

After writing and starring in the film “The Big Sick” in 2017, actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani says writer-director and producer Robert Siegel (“Pam and Tommy,” “Big Fan,” “The Wrestler”) approached him with an idea to make a drama film about the American stripper troupe Chippandales. At the time, Nanjiani turned it down.

For Peter Kujawski, chairman of Focus Features, it was “very simple and easy” to greenlight James Gray’s drama “Armageddon Time.” Gray had written the script before the pandemic shut down of March 2020. By that Summer, Kujawski got a call from Roeg Sutherland, a talent agent from CAA, saying he had something that he should look at. Sutherland knew Kujawski was a “gigantic fan” of Gray’s work and he was in a position to say yes to the project. “I was predisposed because of my fanship,” Kujawski reveals. “The movie literally could have been about young James Gray just building a model rocket, and I would have wanted to do it.” Gray, who also produced and directed the film, says he didn’t know of Kujawski’s admiration. “This is fabulous to hear!” Now Gray and Kujawski discuss “Armageddon Time,” the challenges of making the film during the pandemic, their careers, and Gray’s bad experience working with former film producer Harvey Weinstein. But first, Kim Masters and Matt Belloni talk about another producer, Eric Weinberg, the criminal charges against him, and the “club” culture of complicity that allowed him to keep getting jobs in Hollywood.

Actor, comedian, writer, and producer Larry Wilmore has been in show biz for four decades. He has written for dozens of iconic TV shows, including “In Living Color,” “The Office,” and “Black-ish.” But early in his career, he says a Black comedian who didn’t fit a stereotype didn’t have a job. 

This week, The Business revisits a conversation with filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is now being tapped to direct an upcoming “Star Wars” movie, along with Damon Lindelof, who will develop and co-write it. Obaid-Chinoy will be the first woman and person of color at the helm of this movie franchise. Recently, the two-time Academy Award winner directed two episodes of Disney’s limited series “Ms. Marvel.” She shares with Kim Masters her path from making intimate documentary shorts in her home country of Pakistan, to animated features, to “Ms. Marvel” – her first live-action, narrative fiction series. “I know what ‘Black Panther’ did for communities across the world. And this is exactly what ‘Ms. Marvel’ is going to do for South Asian communities,” says Obaid-Chinoy. The mini series portrays a teenage, Pakistani-American superhero, and within its first week on Disney+, it received a 97% score – the best reviewed Marvel series and film production on Rotten Tomatoes, a record previously held by “Black Panther.” The filmmaker also talks about how the real life heroes she has depicted over the years in documentary form are tied to “Ms. Marvel.” “Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel is a superhero who … is very much in line with the other characters that I had been filming throughout my career,” she explains, adding she desires to continue telling important stories in the future. First, Masters and Matt Belloni have a fresh banter about Lucasfilm and how its leadership’s lack of creative vision is running the franchise into the ground. Plus, Peacock has growing problems. 

Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown was born and raised in Mobile, Ala., and has had an absorbing interest in the American South, including her 2004 documentary “Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt.” But only while filming “The Order of Myths,” in 2008, she learned of the last known slave ship brought to the United States in the late 1850s, and the nearby community former slaves formed. “I didn't remember learning about that in school. That was the first time I had heard of the Clotilda [ship] or Africatown,” she states. That was the moment when she came across the topic of her newest project, the film “Descendant.” Now, Brown shares how she created partnerships to make the film, and got Questlove, Netflix and the Obamas to become involved in it. But first, Kim Masters banters with Matt Belloni about Warner Bros. Discovery’s unpredictable decision to hire filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran to run the DC Universe. 

It’s been five years since The New York Times and Ronan Farrow, contributing writer for The New Yorker, broke Havey Weinstein’s story of criminal conduct. “There was a lot of frustration in the national conversation about gender and sexual violence, and then, Harvey's place in Hollywood changed, and maybe in some subtle ways Hollywood started to change,” he says. 

After AMC acquired the rights to Anne Rice’s major literary works in 2020, the network tasked producer Mark Johnson (“Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”) to oversee its ambitious new project of making shows out of the author’s 18 supernatural novels. First is “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” on AMC+, telling the love story of two vampires, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in early 20th century New Orleans. For the more sensual scenes, an intimacy coordinator was hired. “They make all of us feel just what they're supposed to do, get more comfortable,” Johnson says, “then it's up to wonderful actors who make it all seem ad lib, spontaneous.” For Anderson, who played Grey Worm on the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” having an intimacy director to guide his character’s more sizzling sequences has been an important asset. “[Johnson and I] were talking about demystifying the idea of storytelling as being just purely magic and in the moment and all about feeling, but I think when it comes to intimate scenes, you can't do that,” he says, “there’s things that can really get into your head if you don't prepare properly.” IWTV’s Executive Producer, Johnson, and actor, Anderson, discuss the making of the new AMC series with Kim Masters. But first, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav laid off about a quarter of the company’s television division staff this week. What does this mean for the company’s future? Matt Belloni discusses with Lucas Shaw.