The 18th annual Women in Film Oscars party celebrated the achievements of the 65 women nominated at the 97th annual awards.

The organization, Women in Film, has been advocating for gender equality since 1962 and has provided support during the #MeToo movement, COVID, the unions strikes, and more recently, the devastating wildfires.

This year, WIF CEO Kirsten Schaffer told the audience, which included Cynthia Erivo, Monica Barbaro, Diane Warren, “Dune 2” producer Tanya LaPointe and more, “Our industry has taken a beating in the past four years, and that combined with what’s happening to women, to transgender people, to immigrants, to queer people and people of color across this country, means that we need this community more than ever. We need to double down on our efforts for inclusion as a community and not let up.”

The event was held Friday night at the Wheelhouse in West Hollywood. Among the other nominated attendees were “The Substance” director Coralie Fargeat, Erivo, Barbaro, “Gladiator 2” costume designer Janty Yates, “Sugarcane” director Emily Kassie, Diane Warren and more.

Schaffer continued, “Community is the heart of this organization. It’s people working together to change perception, change business practices and culture. Our mission is gender equality, but in order to achieve that, people need to feel safe, physically, emotionally and financially.”

Schaffer was one of the thousands impacted by the wildfires and said she was one of the 11,500 people who had lost their family home. She reminded the crowd that WIF had been partners with the Entertainment Community Fund and said, “I know many of you have already given to countless gofundmes, to the Red Cross to firefighters, but this is not over. The recovery process will take many years and many hands. Please make a donation tonight to the entertainment community fund.”

In closing, Schaffer celebrated the women and called on them to “strengthen our bonds. If there ever was a room or a backyard of people who have the tenacity, the courage and the creativity to imagine our way out of this dark time, it is this room.”

After, she called on the Oscar-nominated women to come to the stage and introduce themselves one by one before a group photo was taken.

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Sunday might be billed as Hollywood’s biggest night, but it certainly won’t be outside of the Oscars ceremony. As the town readies for the last evening of awards season, theaters are seeing another muted weekend. Focus Features’ underwater thriller “Last Breath” is projecting a measured opening at $7.3 million. Meanwhile, Disney’s “Captain America: Brave New World” is expected to maintain No. 1 for the third weekend in a row, despite quickly losing momentum among moviegoers.

“Last Breath” dived into $3 million across Friday and preview screenings from 3,018 venues. The survival thriller, about a real rescue operation by deep sea divers, is projected to earn $7.3 million through its opening frame. Alex Parkinson directs a cast that includes Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole, adapting from his own 2019 documentary of the same name. Focus acquired distribution rights last summer.

Reviews have been positive for “Last Breath” and audience sentiment is positive, with moviegoer pollster Cinema Score turning in a B+ grade. Original, adult dramas have been tougher sells for moviegoers in recent years. Focus is hoping solid notices can propel “Last Breath” and keep it from wobbly sea legs in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, “Captain America: Brave New World” is expected to hold onto the top slot at the box office, even after it suffered a 68% drop in its last outing — the third-worst second-weekend plummet in Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history, behind only theatrical bombs “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (-69%) and “The Marvels” (-78%). The superhero entry earned another $3.6 million on Friday, which is down 50% from its $7.2 million daily gross a week ago.

“Brave New World” will look to surpass $150 million domestic sometime on Sunday. It’ll soon outgross “Eternals,” another rare Marvel disappointment at $164 million. Counting down the list, that’d make it the 32nd-highest-grossing MCU entry in North America, ranked among 35 total entries. “Brave New World” will next have to get ahead of the 2011 original “Captain America: The First Avenger” ($176 million) to even escape a bottom five finish for the franchise.

Falling to third place, Neon’s horror comedy “The Monkey” is suffering a sharp drop in its second outing after earning a lukewarm “C+” grade on Cinema Score. The indie release earned an estimated $1.8 million on Friday, with rivals expecting about $6.2 million and a 56% fall for this second weekend. That’s a much steeper decline than director Osgood Perkins’ last genre play at Neon, last summer’s breakout “Longlegs,” which also landed a C+ grade on Cinema Score but dropped only 46%.

Even without the same staying power though, “The Monkey” is in a strong position. Produced for around $10 million, the Stephen King adaptation has a shot at getting past a $24 million domestic total by the end of the weekend.

In fourth, Sony’s release of “Paddington in Peru” earned another $970,000 on Friday and is projecting $4.5 million for its third weekend of release. The StudioCanal production is now pacing a touch ahead of the humble Brit bear’s last adventure, “Paddington 2” in 2017. Total domestic gross for “Peru” should reach $31 million through Sunday.

Universal’s “Dog Man” looks to round out the top five, despite its availability as a premium digital rental and now more than a month into its theatrical release. The DreamWorks Animation caper earned $860,000 on Friday and is projecting $4 million in its fifth weekend of release — with an outside shot of surpassing $83 million by the end of the frame.

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The young (and the frugal) staff members at United Talent Agency were up in arms last week, sources told Tenpercenteries, over news from leadership that the company was suspending its free lunch service. 

What began as a post-pandemic perk to lure staff back into the office had miraculously and generously lasted until 2025. UTA was serving up dishes from Leora, the restaurant that sits in the agency’s shadow in Beverly Hills. A turkey club sandwich will run you $15 and a sesame ginger salad sets you back $22 (very modest prices for Los Angeles eateries, btw). 

The free chow was served daily, except on Fridays, and continued through a brutal period of industrywide cost-cutting that persists to this day. Free catered lunches were introduced to Hollywood’s office culture by Silicon Valley, where companies like Facebook would install shopping mall-style food courts to keep programmers fed and happy. Netflix still boasts an impressive menu of cuisine (hot and takeaway) at its Sunset Boulevard headquarters. 

If UTA’s biggest rivals — CAA and WME — ever did offer free lunch, they certainly don’t now. Sources at UTA said agency heads are currently cooking up supplements like coupons, to roll out in the coming weeks. Some UTA assistants wondered aloud to their bosses if they would be compensated for the lunch loss, estimating the meals would introduce a financial burden they haven’t had to carry in years.

We would happily pay for lunch to hear how those conversations went.

Notable talent agency and management signings:

Kamala Harris has signed with CAA for representation in all areas, with a focus on speaking engagements and publishing. She was repped by the agency before becoming Vice President in 2021.

Gersh has signed Constance Wu. She’s best known for her roles in 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians,” 2019’s “Hustlers” and the 2015-2020 ABC comedy series “Fresh Off the Boat.”

UTA has signed seven-time Grammy- and Academy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste for representation in all areas.

Former President Joe Biden has signed with CAA. Biden was represented by the agency from 2017 to 2020, following his two terms as Vice President under President Barack Obama.

UTA has signed digital media company Jubilee Media and its founder Jason Y. Lee for representation in all areas. In addition to the popular format “Surrounded,” Jubilee’s YouTube channels feature such series as “Middle Ground,” “Odd One Out,” “Versus 1,” “30 vs 1,” and “Ranking.”

Quvenzhané Wallis has signed with Gersh for representation in all areas. She is the youngest person to be nominated for best actress at the Oscars, for her turn in 2012’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

Almost Friday Media, the digital content network and comedy production hub born out of the Instagram meme account Friday Beers, has signed with Range Media Partners. Almost Friday Media is working on a TV pilot with Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures.

Writer, director and executive producer Matt Hastings has signed with Gersh. Hastings continues to also be repped by attorney Bob Getman and The Gotham Group. Hastings’ latest drama series, “Fallen,” premiered last month on Sundance Now and AMC+.

Matt Donnelly is senior entertainment and media writer for Variety.

Katcy Stephan is a film reporter for Variety.

Tenpercenteries also runs in Variety‘s weekly magazine

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The New York Times is asking a federal judge to dismiss Justin Baldoni‘s defamation suit against the paper for its role in publishing a bombshell report that ignited his legal battle with Blake Lively. Baldoni has accused the Times of working in coordination with Lively and her PR team on the Dec. 21 article entitled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” that revealed the actress had filed a civil rights complaint accusing her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star of misconduct. The piece also contained allegations that Baldoni and his representatives engaged in an elaborate effort to tarnish Lively’s reputation in retaliation after she raised her concerns about his on-set behavior.

In its filing, the Times accuses Baldoni, his company Wayfarer and his PR team of trying “to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively” and claims that the paper merely “engage[d] in newsgathering and publishing an Article and Video about the Wayfarer/Lively dispute.” In the conclusion to the filing, the paper argues that, Baldoni and fellow plantiffs’ suit “tells a one-sided tale that has garnered plenty of headlines, but ‘The Times’ does not belong in this dispute.”

In a statement, Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the Times, said, “As our motion shows, this case should never have been brought against The New York Times. Blake Lively raised serious concerns about the way she was treated on the set and after the movie’s release. We did exactly what news organizations should do: we informed the public of the complaint she filed with the California Civil Rights Department. Mr. Baldoni’s misbegotten campaign against The Times – questioning our ethics, attempting to discredit our reporting, filing a baseless lawsuit – will not silence us.”

A spokesperson for Baldoni did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

However, a spokesperson for Lively released a statement in support of the Times’ motion, saying the paper “correctly calls out Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit for what it is: a shameless PR document that has no business in a court of law.”

The statement continues, quoting from Lively’s amended complaint: “For years, Baldoni urged men to listen to and believe women. But when a woman spoke out about his behavior, he and his billionaire backer Steve Sorowitz used a ‘social media combat plan’ to scorch earth and try to ‘bury’ and ‘destroy’ her, along with the media who reports on it. These bullying tactics will not survive in court, and everyone should see their meritless claims for what they are.”

Earlier this month, Baldoni’s team amended their initial complaint to argue that metadata on the Times’ website shows that the paper had access to Lively’s civil rights complaint at least 11 days before its initial story. Baldoni’s initial $250 million suit against the Times was filed on the same day that Lively sued Baldoni as well as his publicists and Wayfarer. On Jan. 16, Wayfarer countersued. Two weeks later, it added The Times as a defendant.

Released last summer, “It Ends With Us,” a drama about a florist who falls into an abusive relationship with neurosurgeon, became one of the year’s biggest hits, earning more than $350 million.

This article has been updated with a statement from a spokesperson for Lively, in support of the New York Times’ motion to dismiss.

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Robert Richter, an independent filmmaker and producer whose credits include nearly 90 documentaries on a wide range of subjects, died at his home in New York City on February 16 following complications associated with heart failure. He was 95.

A three-time Academy Award nominee for best documentary short, Richter’s expanse of accolades included a 2008 National Emmy for “exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking” as executive producer on the HBO version of his documentary feature “The Last Atomic Bomb,” and three duPont Columbia Broadcast Journalism awards (TV’s Pulitzer Prize). Richter was the only independent producer to receive the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global 500 Award.

Born and raised in New York City, Richter’s decades-long career in filmmaking began at Occidental College in California with an experimental Telluride Association program, followed by a B.A. from Reed College in Oregon and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

While studying on a CBS Foundation Scholarship for a Public Law and Government M.A. at Coumbia, Richter joined the Edward R. Murrow-Fred Friendly documentary team and produced primetime documentaries and news features alongside Walter Cronkite.

Richter left CBS in 1968 to pursue independent filmmaking under his company Richter Productions, Inc., where he made over 50 documentaries for primetime television. Richter produced documentaries for ABC with Peter Jennings as correspondent, for NBC with Phil Donahue, for PBS “Nova” and for other independent PBS programs.

In addition to producing and filmmaking, Richter led the committee that launched what developed into the nation’s largest funder of documentaries by independent producers: the Independent Television Service (ITVS). He spent a decade as volunteer president of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, and seven years on the International Documentary Association board as their New York representative. He was also founding chair of the Salem chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, served on the national ACLU media committee, a board member of CARE, USA, and a Reed College Board of Trustees member.

His memoir “Documentaries and Serendipity” was published in 2022. Richter is survived by his wife of 43 years, Elizabeth (Libby) Bassett; four daughters Roxanne, Allison, Rowena and Isabella, and three grandchildren Sophia, Samuel and Cyres.

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