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'Night Of' Finale Ambiguity; R.I.P. Gene Wilder; Venice Beach Beating Nightmare

August 30, 2016

What's news: China is planning rules for its film industry that could impact Hollywood studios. Also: Gene Wilder's career gets a critical assessment, Ann Coulter isn't happy with Comedy Central after she was roasted at the Rob Lowe roast and a harrowing story of surviving a Venice Beach beating. — Matthew Belloni and Erik Hayden.

HBO's 'Night Of' Finale Ambiguities

Critic Daniel Fienberg writes: For the past eight weeks, Riz Ahmed was seen on HBO as the star of The Night Of, an acclaimed drama about a student accused of and imprisoned for murder. Ahmed's Nasir Khan was the subject of weeks of "Did he or didn't he?" speculation that was resolved in Sunday's finale. Or was it? Full Q&A.

Elsewhere in TV...

↱ Ratings: Who watched the VMAs? Senior writer Michael O'Connell notes: The MTV honors saw another year of diminished returns. Across 11 Viacom networks, the premiere telecast brought in 6.5M viewers. Compared to last year's show, which pulled a similar move by casting a wide net across cable, the VMAs are down by more than 4M viewers (a 34 percent drop). ↲

► NBC's Grimm ending with season six. The final season will feature its shortest order to date and consist of 13 episodes (prior seasons had consisted of a full 22). The network touted that the last season would see a long-awaited battle between Nick and Capt. Renard.

► TNT is getting into the vampire genre. The cabler has handed out a pilot order to a reboot of Swedish vampire novel Let the Right One In. The drama is based on the best-selling Swedish book by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

► Netflix's new Jenji Kohan comedy finds star. Alison Brie has booked the lead role in the streaming giant's comedy GLOW, aka Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. It's inspired by the real story of the 1980s female wrestling league. The 10-episode comedy is set in Los Angeles.

↱ Podcast: Gloria Steinem opens up in a 54-minute chat with Scott Feinberg about her politics (Hillary Clinton is "a miracle to me") and pop culture (the Kardashians are "painful" and the Real Housewives "a female minstrel show"). Listen. ↲

► Fox's Empire books Phylicia Rashad. The Cosby Show actress has joined the hip-hop drama's third season in a recurring role. The Emmy winner will play Diana Dubois, a powerhouse from one of New York's oldest and most prominent African-American families.

► Freeform's Pretty Little Liars officially sets end. The second half of the seventh and final season, consisting of 10 episodes, will return in April with the Disney-owned cabler using the drama to launch forthcoming Bella Thorne drama Famous in Love.

► CBC casts Anna Paquin in transgender drama. The True Blood alum has nabbed the lead role in the Canadian show Bellevue. Muse Entertainment and Back Alley Film are making the show for the CBC, with eight one-hour episodes planned for a winter 2017.

Showtime promotes Weiner. In not-so-coincidental timing, the cabler announced the "world TV premiere" of the behind-the-scenes documentary about Anthony Weiner on the same day he was in the news after another sexting scandal broke. Details.

R.I.P., Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder, who died Sunday after a three-year battle with Alzheimer's disease, was the Mad Hatter of American screen comedy, critic Stephen Dalton writes in his appreciation:

He could make you laugh without even moving, his beatific half-smile always shading into a sinister smirk, his soft-spoken manner a flimsy mask for the whirling maelstrom of mischief beneath.

With his radiant blue eyes, explosion of frizzy hair and otherworldly demeanor, Wilder was an unsettling clown and an unlikely leading man. But his offbeat energy helped create some of the greatest screen comedies, and biggest box office hits, of his generation.

► Full obit I Colleagues' remembrances I His life in photos I In Memoriam video.

Elsewhere in film...

► China cracks down on "Western values" in film industry. The country's top legislature on Monday reviewed a draft of the long-awaited first film law. Once passed, the new legal framework will have wide-ranging implications for China's domestic film industry and Hollywood studios.

► New Line's Life of the Party adds Julie Bowen. The Modern Family star has joined Melissa McCarthy in the comedy. The movie, being directed by McCarthy's husband, Ben Falcone, began production last week in Atlanta. Bowen will play McCarthy’s nemesis.

► Fox thriller enlists Game of Thrones actor. Robert Aramayo, young Ned Stark on the recent season of the HBO show, has joined the cast of The Empty Man. James Badge Dale is starring in the movie, which is set to begin shooting in Cape Town, South Africa, in September.

► Michael Douglas-starrer The God Four gets financing. Demian Gregory will produce through his newly minted Aristocracy Group banner, alongside Peter Winther and Lars Winther. The film is looking to begin production in the spring.

↱ Review: Morgan. The Kate Mara-led Fox film, hitting theaters on Friday, follows the story of a corporate troubleshooter trying to avert a crisis. Critic Sheri Linden's takeaway: "It loses its bite in the final stretch, but this is a sharp, smartly cast sci-fi thriller." ↲

► MGM YA adaptation casts Narcos actress. Ana de la Reguera is joining the MGM and Alloy Entertainment project Everything Is Everything, which will be helmed by Stella Meghie. Les Morgenstein and Elysa Dutton of Alloy are producing. J. Mills Goodloe wrote the script.

► Hitman producer teams with Vault Comics. Adrian Askarieh and Silver Fox Entertainment’s F.J. DeSanto are teaming to develop and produce adaptations of a slate of high-concept comics by writer and graphic designer Tim Daniel. Details.

► R.I.P., George Kaczender. The helmer, who directed the controversial feature In Praise of Older Women, which caused ruckus at the 1978 Toronto International Film Festival, died of cancer, family friend Noel Hynd told THR. He was 83.

↱ Ben Affleck reveals Batman villain. If the social media tease is to be believed, Deathstroke is coming to the DC Extended Universe, setting up a potential showdown between Affleck's Dark Knight and the most dangerous assassin alive — but who is Slade Wilson? ↲

Student Academy Award winners unveiled. This year, 1,749 films were received as entries from 286 domestic and 95 international colleges and universities, with honorees coming from AFI and USC, as well as DePaul and Michigan State. Full list.

Surviving a Venice Beach Ambush

In a nightmare scenario, a well-known physician was attacked inside his BMW after leaving a Venice Beach restaurant. Now, after surviving the beating, Dr. Bruce Lee spoke to senior writer Scott Johnson, offering an in-depth account of the night he was nearly killed:

When Dr. Lee climbed into the driver’s seat of his BMW 750 on a warm July night, the last thing he expected was to get pistol-whipped and beaten until he was unconscious. But that’s exactly what happened to the prominent gynecologist, who previously invented a groundbreaking surgical procedure and recently starred on an episode of The Doctors.

A month after that horrific attack, Lee is finally ready to recount the details of a few minutes that nearly were his last. His account illustrates how the incident, which began right after Lee climbed into his car, escalated within seconds, involved a team of assailants — and ended with him in the emergency room. The full story.

Elsewhere in THR, Esq...

► Disney can't immediately appeal "no poaching" ruling. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort by Disney and DreamWorks to delay a class action lawsuit that alleges that studios colluded with each other to deny its workers better job opportunities and keep wages low.

► Fox News wants Andrea Tantaros' lawsuit in arbitration. Under fire for how it treated the former host, the cable news network tells a judge that her allegations about sexual harassment "are a smokescreen to obscure her violation of her employment contract."

► Steve Harvey facing trial over unreleased comedy tapes. The comedian is the midst of a dispute with his former videographer over who owns rights to footage. Should a trial happen, a jury could get a shot at putting an exact figure on Harvey's worth.

Snoop's war with PBR. The rapper is a step closer to trial with Pabst Brewing Co. after a California judge declined to drop his lawsuit. Snoop sued in 2015, claiming Pabst breached their deal when the company was sold and it didn't pay him the agreed-upon 10 percent. The next episode.

Ann Coulter's Roast Postscript

Behind a perplexing move: Comedy Central's Rob Lowe roast (televised this Labor Day) elicited more roasting of Ann Coulter than the actor. Asked last night why the show became a roast of her, the conservative commentator shot back:

"I have no idea, but it probably has something to do with Comedy Central's corporate decision to move away from comedy — which is paying huge dividends with the Larry Wilmore and Trevor Noah shows." Full Q&A.

What we're reading...

— "How the Upright Citizens Brigade Improvised a Comedy Empire." "Like starting a band in the sixties, or joining a cult in the seventies ... taking improv classes has become the default activity for today’s postgraduate seekers." [The New Yorker]

— "The Unsettled, Unsettling Oscars." Assessing Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation fallout: "As Searchlight figures out what to do with its wounded front-runner, other studios are devising ways to seize the chance to put their own films forward." [Vulture]

— "Feeding Nostalgia With a Remix." "Nostalgia is too big a force in pop culture to belong to any one institution. But Netflix owns a bigger percentage of it than most, simply because the past is built into its business model." [The New York Times]

— "The Twilight of Fox News." Namely: "If the future of your business relies on a dramatic and sudden extension of average human lifespans, your ten-year outlook is murky." [The Atlantic]

— "Death of an Insurrectionist." A Jack Shafer postscript for Warren Hinckle, who "changed American journalism for good by creating Ramparts, which served as a media crawlspace for investigative reporters and culture critics in the 1960s." [Politico]