Boulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:
Bidding on one of Lawrence’s newest projects — about disgraced Silicon Valley medical lab entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes — went nuts last night as nine companies offered $3 million to $4 million for director Adam McKay‘s screenplay, according to Deadline. The film, so far called “Bad Blood,” has a budget of $40 million to $50 million.
The trade site says the movie has “all the requisites for the big packages studios are responding to right now: hot-button subject matter, McKay coming off his Oscar for “Big Short” and Oscar winner Lawrence, 25, who usually finds herself in the Academy Awards mix on prestige projects, most recently ‘Joy.'”
Lawrence (left) and Holmes.
Holmes, 32, launched Theranos in 2003, with claims it could test blood with only a pinprick vs. the traditional method of drawing blood by injection. That pumped up the company’s valuation to $9 billion as recently as two years ago, according to Deadline. The company has since come under investigation over claims of inaccurate testing. And Holmes’ own worth — at one point valued at $4.5 billion for her 50% stake — has fallen to a fraction of that.
AMAZON‘s plans to use drones for delivery were slowed yesterday when the Obama Administration released new rules limiting their use, including over urban areas. The Federal Aviation Administration said commercial drones are OK so long as the drone and its payload weigh less than 55 lbs., stays within unaided sight of their pilot, and operators pass a test every two years. In addition, each drone must have its own pilot (Guardian). Also yesterday, Amazon said it’s expanding grocery delivery service to Boston (Boston Inno). The retail giant employs 6,000 employees in the Louisville area, and thousands more across the state.
KFC: In India, the fast-chicken giant has introduced its latest mobile technology to lure younger diners: Watt a Box, a 5-in-1 meal box that comes with a Chicken Zinger, two hot wings, hash browns, a chocolate pie, Pepsi and a 6,100 mAh Lithium-ion battery to charge smartphones. The device isn’t sold, but instead can be won as part of a week-long competition; watch the demo video, above (The Memo). Some customers aren’t so thrilled, however: Testers who charged an iPhone with the box said it only gained 17% battery after charging for half-an-hour, during which time the powerbank became completely drained (Eater).
Meanwhile, in an unusually public spat with an employer, Darrell Hammond — the Saturday Night Live comedian hired to play Colonel Sanders in the new KFC commercials — says the company “played” him into thinking he’d have the gig permanently. He was later replaced by another SNL veteran, Norm Macdonald, in what’s now a running joke of actor switches (Hollywood Reporter). Indeed, it’s part of the script in comedian Jim Gaffigan’s version:
YUM: As Yum gears up to spin off its China operations in October, rival McDonald’s has received more than half a dozen bids for its China and Hong Kong stores, including from Beijing Tourism Group, Sanpower and ChemChina, in an auction that could fetch up to $3 billion. In March, McDonalds said it was reorganising its Asian operations by bringing in partners who would own the restaurants within a franchise business (Reuters).
AMAZON: A Chinese company has reportedly beaten Amazon in the race to deliver online goods by unmanned drone, carrying loads of up to 33 lbs. with a top speed of 34 miles per hour. E-commerce giant Jingling has been deploying them in rural areas, with smaller populations and less demand for goods that would strain the fledgling service. Amazon is planning to introduce a similar service called Prime Air, but not until 2017 or 2018 (Mirror). At a minimum, Amazon says it must win regulatory approval from the FAA. In the meantime, it’s released an amusing video, top, about Prime Air (Amazon). The FAA on June 3 released an FAQ on the process for getting permission. Six myths about Prime Air.
FORD‘s No. 68 GT won the GTE Pro class at Le Mans today, beating long-time rival Ferrari in Ford’s first victory at the French endurance race since 1980. The No. 69 Ford GT finished third, and the No. 66 GT finished fourth (Detroit News and Motor Trend). The winning car is based on the $400,000 2017 GT supercar the company unveiled in January. Ford has received more than 7,000 applications from fans hoping to buy one, with just 500 planned for production. It’s been more than a decade since Ford last launched such a pricey vehicle. In Louisville, the automaker employs nearly 10,000 at its auto and truck factories.
TACO BELL: No injuries were reported when a pickup crashed into the front doors of a Taco Bell restaurant in Marion, Ind., yesterday afternoon; employees and several patrons reportedly were inside (Marion Star).
Boulevard focuses on news about some of Louisville’s biggest employers, nonprofits, and cultural institutions. This is one in an occasional series about them.
Louisville’s economy was sizzling in 1951, when General Electric’s nearly 50-year-old home appliances business started construction on what would become one of the city’s single-biggest factory complexes. Louisville’s population had soared 15% in the previous decade, to 369,000, after World War II’s end shifted the U.S. economy back to peacetime prosperity.
Edison in 1922.
GE appliances traces its history to 1905. But through its corporate parent and original driving inventor, it really extends even further back, to 1866. That’s when 18-year-old Thomas Edison moved to Louisville to work for Western Union. He spent most of his spare time tinkering, eventually losing his job. Many career moves later, he’d amassed a stack of patents for electrical inventions. The financier J.P. Morgan and a partner cobbled them into a company that formed the basis of General Electric.
That was the goliath that in the late 1940s and ’50s raced to meet post-baby boom consumer demand for toasters, mixers and “white goods” with the latest features — like the two-in-one freezer-fridges advertised in the 1952 TV commercial, top of this page.
Appliance Park would eventually cover 1,000 acres in the county’s south end, with more than a dozen manufacturing, warehousing and power-generation buildings.
With Ford, International Harvester and other big manufacturers, GE launched a solid middle class with good wages and benefits that became the foundation of Louisville’s economy. At one time, the park employed 25,000 workers. It was a self-sufficient city providing many of its own needs, right down to mail handling.
Each year, Sundance receives more than 8,000 short film submissions, selecting 60 to 80 to screen during the January festival, with eight picked for the tour traveling to more than 50 cities nationwide. This is one of very few theatrical releases of short films in America. Recommended for audiences over 13 due to thematic elements.
AMAZON is seeking tax breaks for a proposed distribution center in Houston that would lower the retailer’s taxes there to 65% for 10 years, starting Jan. 1; Harris County officials meet today to consider whether to call a public meeting on the company’s request. The $136 million facility would create 1,000 jobs and construction would start in the third quarter (Houston Chronicle). Amazon already has at least one center in Houston; it opened in 2014. In the Louisville area, it employs 6,000 at two distribution centers. What it’s like to work in one of the centers.
Presumptive GOP White House nominee Donald Trump has renewed his attack on The Washington Post and owner Jeff Bezos, after the paper called him out for trying multiple times yesterday to quietly link President Obama to this weekend’s devastating attack in Orlando. Trump has revoked the paper’s press access to his campaign, saying Bezos is using the newspaper as his personal mouthpiece to gain tax advantages for Amazon. Bezos bought the paper from its long-time owners, the Grahams, for $250 million in 2013; he owns it separately from Amazon (The Verge). Also, Amazon is getting ready to roll out its second annual Prime Day, a special 24-hour discount extravaganza for Prime members that last year exceeded its Black Friday results. It was held in July last year; the company hasn’t set a date this year yet (Street Insider).
FORD has been much less visible than competitors in forging deals with Silicon Valley partners, raising questions about whether it’s getting left behind in the race for self-driving cars and other innovations. Talks with Google this year went nowhere, while Fiat Chrysler has already forged a relationship with that technology giant. Meanwhile, Ford’s experiments with on-demand shuttles and e-bikes have been overshadowed by General Motors’ Maven car-sharing and Toyota’s alliance with Uber (Hybrid Cars).
GE: We now know what Haier paid GE’s 61-year-old Appliance Park: $125 million, according to Jefferson County Clerk Office records reviewed by Business First. Overall, Haier paid $5.6 billion for the home appliances division in a deal completed last week.
Exhibit A.
KFC: Some customers are confused and angry — and even angry about that anger — after the fast food restaurant famous for fried chicken launched a $6 limited edition burger with that other white meat: pork. The sandwich of pulled pork, coleslaw and barbecue sauce on a brioche bun is available across KFC restaurants in at least Australia starting today for the next four weeks (Emmanorris Blog and EFTM ). The Ozzie KFC division posted that video at the top of this page and the photo on the left.
News about the sandwich is spreading across Twitter, with many outraged or at least annoyed over the outrage:
TACO BELL: Our foreign news story of the day is about the Mexican chain’s move into Brazil next month in the megalopolis of Sao Paulo, just in time for the summer Olympics: “Taco Bell desembarca no Brasil ainda no segundo semestre” (Clica Piaui). For those who don’t speak Portuguese, Google Translate is your friend. Facing an increasingly saturated U.S. fast-food market, the Yum unit is ramping up overseas openings, expanding to 1,000 locations by 2020 from about 280 now (Bloomberg).
PAPA JOHN’S: Three men armed with a gun and a baseball bat robbed a driver at 10 p.m. Sunday night in Magnolia, Del., taking money and his cellphone (Delaware Online).
TEXAS ROADHOUSE is hiring in Knoxville and Alcoa, Tenn., at a job fair today (WVLT).
In other news, the newly opened Speed Cinema this weekend will present this year’s Sundance Short Film Festival Tour (Insider Louisville). And on Wall Street, U.S. stocks traded lower again right after the opening bell (Google Finance).
News about business and culture in Louisville, Ky.
Bidding on one of Lawrence’s newest projects — about disgraced Silicon Valley medical lab entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes — went nuts last night as nine companies offered $3 million to $4 million for director Adam McKay‘s screenplay, according to Deadline. The film, so far called “Bad Blood,” has a budget of $40 million to $50 million.
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