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CBS' Digital Touchdown; 'Gilmore Girls' Ratings; Making of 'Jackie'; The Year in Queer

December 02, 2016

What's news: Want to watch CBS' NFL games this Sunday but don't have cable? If you've got the $6 a month streaming service, now you can. Plus: Parsing Gilmore Girls' Netflix ratings, Jurassic World 2 casts a hot young star and could a doc get a best picture Oscar nom? — Matthew Belloni, Erik Hayden and Jennifer Konerman.

CBS and NFL's New Team-Up

NFL games will finally be available on CBS All Access, the broadcaster's over-the-top streaming service, in a long-awaited deal that brings the ratings-driver sport to its service:

Verizon customers and Sling TV subscribers have been able to stream football games for some time now - even Twitter has been live streaming certain Thursday Night Football games. But games have been noticeably absent from the $6-a-month streaming service given that CBS has a deal to broadcast games every Sunday, in addition to a package of some Thursday night matchups.

Michael O'Connell emails: A major point of contention between CBS and the NFL has been settled. So important is this development to the company, ratings-reliant on the sport even with flagging NFL ratings, it prompted a comment from a "very pleased" Leslie Moonves.

Elsewhere in TV...

► Netflix's Gilmore Girls appears to be a win. Projection house Symphony Advanced Media, which has been leaking numbers on the streamer, said that nearly 5M viewers between the ages of 18-49 have watched all episodes of the revival since its debut Nov. 25.

Context: Compared with other 2016 Netflix efforts, Gilmore Girls' binge audience in the first three-day window is only outmeasured by Orange Is the New Black's fourth season (5.8M) and the first run of Fuller House (7.3M).

► Amazon cancels Good Girls Revolt after one season. Sony Pictures TV, whose TriStar TV banner was behind the 10-episode series, is in the process of getting the rights back from Amazon and plans to shop the period drama.

► FX's Sons of Anarchy spinoff moves forward. The cabler has ordered a pilot for the project, titled Mayans MC. Anarchy co-creators Kurt Sutter and Elgin James co-wrote the pilot script, which was ordered in May.

► Discovery taps Sam Worthington for Manifesto. The Avatar star is set to play opposite Paul Bettany in the Unabomber drama. The series is produced by Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti's Trigger Street and Lionsgate TV.

► Netflix enlists Regina King for crime drama. The Emmy winner has signed on to star in the streaming giant's forthcoming 10-episode series Seven Seconds, which hails from The Killing creator Veena Sud.

↱ Steven Bochco remembers Grant Tinker: The NYPD Blue creator writes: "Grant was my role model in terms of how to treat writers, protect them, and create an environment that encouraged them to be their very best." ↲

► Investigation Discovery greenlights first TV movie. Guillermo Diaz and Carrie Preston will star in Dating Game Killer, centered on serial killer Rodney Alcala, to premiere in early 2017.

► Amazon offers HBO, Cinemax subscriptions. Prime subscribers can now stream HBO and Cinemax for an added fee via its Amazon Channels program, which offers a cable-like bundle of services such as Showtime and Starz.

► R.I.P., Andrew Sachs. The actor, known for his role as the Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers, died at 86. Co-star John Cleese paid tribute: "A very sweet gentle and kind man and a truly great farceur ... I could not have found a better Manuel." Full obit.

↱ The battle over the future of ticket pricing: "StubHub is like Napster," says a Ticketmaster exec of a "Cold War" against resellers even as both rivals push for a law that could curtail mass digital purchases. ↲

Trump dating site gets membership boost. Now that the controversial Republican business mogul is packing his bags and in the thick of a transition to the White House, TrumpSingles.com is booming. The site's founder: "Business is great!"

A Best Picture Nom for a Doc?

Not even Michael Moore has scored a best picture nod from the Academy, but as docs like O.J.: Made in America tower over other features, could it be their time? Gregg Kilday's close look:

No documentary feature ever has been nominated for the best picture Oscar. Nine foreign-language films and three animated movies have, but the Academy, which instituted a separate, if not quite equal, category for feature documentaries, never has seen fit to invite doc filmmakers to sit at the main table.

Several docs that could fit the bill: Ava DuVernay's 13th, Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro, Gianfranco Rosi's Fire at Sea, Alex Gibney's Zero Days, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Sternberg's Weiner, and Ezra Edelman's magnum opus, O.J.: Made in America could be giving other best picture hopefuls a run for their money.

The fact that docs have been restricted to their own category has become increasingly ironic because so many of the narrative features considered Oscar-worthy often are fact-based dramas, sometimes even new versions of stories that documentary filmmakers were the first to tell (Loving, Snowden).

Elsewhere in film...

↱ In theaters this weekend. Horror film Incarnate, which stars Aaron Eckhart and Carice van Houten, is opening in 1,737 locations this weekend, and is expected to earn in the $4M-$5M range. In limited release, Jackie, "a shattering reflection on loss and legacy" is debuting in five theaters. ↲

► Annapurna Pictures adds game division. After five years building up its film credits, the company run by Megan Ellison is launching an interactive division, expected after a string of gaming hires from sparked speculation about Ellison's next move.

► Sundance unveils New Frontier lineup. Zero Days, set in an underground Iranian nuclear facility, is one of 20 VR experiences and 11 installations to be showcased in Park City. Also making the cut is a teaming from Pharrell Williams and Megan Ellison. Full lineup.

► Jurassic World 2 casts Get Down star. Justice Smith has joined Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment’s next Jurassic World film. J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls) is directing the project, which is heading toward a spring 2017 start in England.

► Hugh Jackman, Fox 2000 team for YA best-seller. Smoke Signals writer Sherman Alexie will adapt his Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a coming-of-age story set on a reservation, with Temple Hill and Donners' Company producing.

► Writers Guild picks leaders for producer-union talks. The WGA has named the members of the negotiating committee for their upcoming contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The list.

↱ Anatomy of a Contender: The Making of Jackie. A behind-the-scenes look at how director Pablo Larrain convinced Natalie Portman to play the iconic First Lady. "Even though so much has been written, we know very little," the helmer says of Jackie Kennedy. "She is the most unknown known person there is."

New podcast: Portman looks back on child stardom, her decision to attend college and the two films she's made with Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan and Jackie ("one of the most incredible creative experiences — if not the most incredible creative experience — of my life"). Listen here. ↲

La La Land scores another nod. The Ryan Gosling-Emma Stone musical La La Land was chosen by the New York Film Critics Circle as the best film of 2016, after also scoring 12 Critics Choice nominations yesterday. Winners list.

The Year in Queer Film and TV

It's that time to start the annual retrospectives: Reviews editor Jon Frosch and critic David Rooney discuss the year in LGBT film and TV offerings. An excerpt:

Frosch: ...In 2016, despite the annual dearth of studio offerings featuring gay or trans characters, there have been a number of queer-themed works to celebrate — including one that may be, for me, the best film of the year. Now that Mike Pence has seen Hamilton, can we make him see Moonlight?

Rooney: ... Some of our colleagues have described Moonlight as “bleak,” and I disagree. I guess if you take into account its setting in the midst of the '80s crack epidemic in a poor Miami neighborhood and the fact that it deals with bullying and incarceration, the movie could be called grim. But I can't recall a more ultimately uplifting recent depiction of the difficult path to self-knowledge.

Frosch: Agreed. There's wrenching pain in Moonlight, and, as you say, realism, but little of the harshness or formal austerity that have at times made current European art cinema and its U.S. indie imitators tiresome. The full conversation.