The Least Powerful Man in Hollywood

What They’re Building Across the Street from The Petersen

The Least Powerful Man in Hollywood

LA Times on Academy Museum
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Designed by Renzo Piano and the L.A. architect Zoltan Pali, it will remake the interior of the May Co. department store as a museum of Hollywood history.

It will also add a 1,000-seat dome-shaped theater, a structure Piano calls “the spaceship,” to the back of the 1939 landmark.

If Brougher and other academy leaders can compel the architects to reconcile the clear potential of the new wing’s interior spaces with its unconvincing, unwieldy exterior, they may be able to salvage the design before construction begins.

If not, they may well have an architectural flop on their hands when the museum opens in 2017 — not to mention the third disappointing Piano building within a quarter-mile radius.

Here’s the Pitch

The Least Powerful Man in Hollywood

There hasn’t been an adaptation of a John Wyndham novel since 2009’s BBC production of Day of the Triffids mini series. The Midwich Cuckoos was made into The Village of the Damned. The Kraken Wakes is yet to be made. And Mr Spielberg owns Chocky.

Steven, let’s have a meeting and look at The Chrysalids.

 

MY FAVORITE QUOTE

Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television. — Rita Mae Brown

Would I feel differently had Bob Keeshan (Capt’n Kangaroo) and I met that day?

The Least Powerful Man in Hollywood