What Matters in Hollywood Today

What's news: The Weinstein Co. finally finds a buyer. Plus: Parsing Comcast's Disney-Fox strategy, inside NBC's Tom Brokaw defense and a wide-ranging conversation with Spike Lee. — Ray Rahman

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The Cannes Issue: Spike Lee unleashes BlacKkKlansman. The director talks to Tatiana Siegel about race, Trump and being "robbed" of Cannes' Palme d'Or: 

On Trump and Charlottesville: "I just think that his dog whistle stuff has given these people that 'Come out.' They get the signal. That's what happened in Charlottesville. … Agent Orange refused to repudiate the Klan, the alt-right and the Nazis. 'There's good people on both sides.' That's going to be on his gravestone. He's on the wrong side of history."

Jordan Peele on the BlacKkKlansman story: "I was just blown away. I couldn't believe I had never heard about it. It's one of these pieces of reality that almost plays like social satire. So, I was immediately obsessed with this story."

Spike on casting Topher Grace as David Duke: "The real David Duke wasn't going play him, so we had to get an actor who understands the part. We never even discussed how he was going to approach it, but I had confidence in him. It's fantastic when you see people do something they're not known for."

On Do the Right Thing losing the Palme d'Or to Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape: "Look, me and Steven are cool, have always been cool. But that thing was commandeered by Wim Wenders," Lee says. "He said Mookie [played by Lee himself] was not a heroic character."

Wim Wenders' response: "He said he'd be waiting for me in an alley with a baseball bat. Well, he should have been waiting for the whole jury because it wasn't my decision. The film simply didn't have the support of the jury. … He just had the bad luck to be in such a great year." Full cover story.