Greetings from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where I’ve been sucking up studio CinemaCon presentations and second-hand cigarette smoke all week…

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Thursday Thoughts (CinemaCon Edition)…

Seen, heard, and pondered this week at Caesars during the annual convention for movie theater owners…

• Let’s lay off Lasso: I was once an entertainment litigator, and trust me, serving celebrities with legal documents is incredibly difficult. Famous people are rarely alone in public, and you typically can’t just knock on their front door, so process servers know they need to get creative. Yes, it was a bit unusual to see reps for Jason Sudeikis serving Olivia Wilde child custody papers on stage at CinemaCon during her presentation of Don’t Worry Darling. No, it’s not a great look for Sudeikis, and it was bizarre to witness; from my vantage point, Wilde appeared to think it was an unsolicited script before peeking in the manilla envelope, then quickly moving on like a pro. But this is how process servers work.
• I’m told Sudeikis’ lead family lawyer is Bill Breslow, who has represented Robert DeNiro, Mia Farrow against Woody Allen, and Ivana against Donald Trump. He’s a veteran, and I’m betting there was an urgent need to serve her. On stage, in front of 4,000 people, introducing the movie that co-stars her new boyfriend Harry Styles, certainly wasn’t ideal, but it was probably just the most likely place to get her.
• Tom’s PR bonanza: Turns out Top Gun: Maverick is in fact excellent, and Paramount was right to withhold it from the streaming vultures. Tom Cruise didn’t appear in person this morning, but he’s about to be everywhere, starting with a three-day premiere and junket extravaganza with multiple flyovers next week in San Diego (never mind that the actual Top Gun flight school relocated to Nevada in the ‘90s).
• I’m told Paramount has budgeted three hours for Cruise to do the red carpet on an aircraft carrier Wednesday, and, as usual, his publicist Amanda Lundberg has meticulously ferreted out media that might ask about Shelly Miscavige or Danny Masterson. It’s almost exclusively TV, and outlets were informed they must use professional-grade cameras, no iPhone footage allowed. That’s unusual, but Tom is Tom, and Tom’s gotta look great...

Or are they? This is where we are: Since the Great Netflix Correction of last week, everyone in Hollywood wants the creative community to feel secure that the freewheeling film and TV spending will continue, while at the same time telling Wall Street that it won’t. Can we have both? We’re gonna see very soon...