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Sundance Confronts Politics; Walk of Fame Shame; Actor Roundtable Unveiled; Tom Cruise Teases 'Mummy'

December 01, 2016

What's news: Sundance has a long history of showcasing hot-button political films, especially in the documentary lineup. This year's competition slate tackles ISIS, Ferguson and even Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker. Plus: The Hollywood Walk of Fame falls into disrepair, Moana will top a Thanksgiving leftovers weekend and THR unveils the annual actor roundtable. — Matthew Belloni, Erik Hayden and Jennifer Konerman.

Sundance Preps Trump-Era Fest Lineup

Ready for Sundance? The aftershocks of this year’s election are still reverberating, with more than a hint of the divisive issues on display with the 2017 festival lineup, film reporter Tatiana Siegel emails:

On Wednesday, the festival unveiled the 66 films that will screen as part of the U.S. Competition, World Competition and NEXT sections, and the picks reflect the campaign trail news cycle like never before — with an entire program dedicated to climate change and films on Syria, the Gulf War, Black Lives Matter and ISIS.

"You can’t ignore the fact that our most intense moments of programming were right during the election," Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper says.

A few hot titles: Alexandre Moors’ Gulf War drama The Yellow Birds (pictured), Dave McCary’s Brigsby Bear, Gillian Robespierre’s Landline and Maggie Betts’ Vatican period drama Novitiate.

Today: Sundance unveils its virtual reality roster. Look for big names from Hollywood as well as (no surprise) the political arena.

Elsewhere in film...

The Actor Roundtable: Six Oscar contenders — Casey Affleck, Andrew Garfield, Mahershala Ali, Jeff Bridges, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dev Patel — talk about their love-hate relationship with acting in the latest roundtable with Stephen Galloway. The conversation I Video highlights.

► Box office preview: This weekend, typically a slow one, has just one new wide release, the horror film Incarnate, which stars Aaron Eckhart and Carice van Houten. The $5M film is opening in 1,737 locations and is expected to earn in the $4M-$5M range, a solid start for a film of that cost. Meanwhile, Disney's Moana is tracking to drop about 50 percent from its second weekend out to earn around $28M. Full preview.

► Tom Cruise teases Universal's Mummy reboot. The Mission Impossible actor, who is anchoring what the studio hopes to be a new monster franchise, posted a first look at footage of the film, also featuring Russell Crowe.

► Billy Dee Williams adds voice to Lego Batman. Nearly 30 years after playing Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman, the actor will voice Two-Face in Lego Batman Movie, director Chris McKay revealed.

► Pope Francis welcomes Martin Scorsese to the Vatican. The Pope met with the Silence filmmaker on Wednesday morning before the film's screening, discussing Jesuit missionaries and Christian artwork in 17th-century Japan.

↱ Will Trump drive filmmakers back out of Cuba? Havana hosted three high-profile film and TV productions recently, including F. Gary Gray's Fast 8. But it remains unclear what Trump means when he says he will seek "a better deal" with the country. ↲

► The Wire star joins Kate Bosworth in The Domestics. Lance Reddick has joined the post-apocalyptic thriller set up at MGM with a script from Mike P. Nelson, who is also directing. The project is in pre-production for a shoot in New Orleans.

► Nicolas Cage to star in climate change thriller. The actor has signed on for The Humanity Bureau, which being directed by Rob King from a script written by Dave Schultz. Principal photography is set to begin this week in British Columbia.

↱ Exec suite: See-Saw Films' Iain Canning, Emile Sherman. The Lion producers, who won an Oscar for The King's Speech, discuss how Trump may impact filmmaking and possible controversy surrounding their upcoming Mary Magdalene epic. ↲

La La Land, Arrival, Moonlight top Critics' Choice noms. The modern-day musical danced to the top of the list of film noms. Mel Gibson also earned a directing nom for Hacksaw Ridge, which had seven noms. Complete list.

TV Execs' "Cowardly" Press Tour Retreat

Yes, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox network execs are planning to skip January's Television Critics Association press tour. Yes, chief TV critic Tim Goodman (a TCA member) thinks that'll wind up being a bad idea, for a few reasons:

What doesn't happen — what has never happened like it will happen on this winter tour — is for the Big Four networks to agree in secret that they want to protect their network heads from explaining their dismal fall. It's an unheard of mass cop-out.

The networks have said they will make their executives available for one-on-one interviews but that defeats a major purpose of the TCA press tour — giving access to smaller print or online publications that couldn't get that access in any other way.

Likely, they are all hoping this decision will buy a little time and make people forget they are in trouble. It won't. All it does is shine a light on the fact they won't talk about this dark period they're in and not handling so well. But it's weirdly telling that they all colluded to avoid being asked why their business is broken.

On the bright side, at least they've proven that they can collude on something. It's a starting point.

Elsewhere in TV...

► Turner CEO talks Trump, AT&T-Time Warner deal. John Martin said at a Recode event last night that a Trump White House is "probably a little bit better from a business standpoint" and that there are "too many shitty" cable networks that must go away.

► CBS adds drama to midseason schedule. Training Day and Katherine Heigl's Doubt will join the lineup, each getting a 10 p.m. platform. Getting a little adventurous on Saturday, CBS also added co-production Ransom to broadcast's most-neglected night.

► NBCU greenlights Chris Noth procedural. Gone, based on Chelsea Cain's best-seller One Kick, has gotten a 12-episode, straight-to-series order from NBCUniversal International Studios, German network RTL and France's TF1, under the company's new agreement.

↱ Netflix introduces downloads for offline viewing: Subscribers worldwide will now have access to the much requested new feature at no extra cost. Netflix says the feature is already enabled for Orange Is the New Black, Narcos and The Crown, with more movies and series on the way.

Matt emails: This is a big deal for frequent flyers, subway commuters and people like me who desperately wanted to watch The Crown this weekend while sitting outside beyond the reach of WiFi. But it's most important to Netflix's global expansion plan, especially in parts of the world where broadband is not as accessible. ↲

► CMT unveils Nashville season five footage. The country network, which picked up the show after ABC canceled it, will sneak the first hour of the two-hour season five premiere on Dec. 15 at 9 p.m. It also unveiled the season's first trailer.

► Showtime's Masters of Sex has ended its run. Once a prestige drama, the show never became a breakout ratings performer for the cabler. Season four averaged less than 800,000 total viewers, less than half of the 2 million viewers its lead in Ray Donovan scored last season.

► HBO's Ballers moving to CA for third season. The comedy starring Dwayne Johnson is exiting Florida after filming two seasons in Miami. The move comes as the state's film and TV tax incentives program expired earlier this year.

► Showtime enlists Dope director Rick Famuyiwa. The helmer has come onboard to direct a new pilot for the untitled coming-of-age project from Lena Waithe, which will also recast several roles. Clark Johnson (Homeland, The Wire) directed the original pilot.

↱ R.I.P., Grant Tinker. The TV exec who formed MTM Enterprises with his then-wife Mary Tyler Moore and took NBC from last to first in the ratings died Monday at 90. Full obit.

Paying tribute to Tinker: Moore said the exec "uniquely understood that the secret to great TV content was freedom for its creators and performing artists." NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt called Tinker a "towering figure in the history of the NBC network" and NBCU CEO Steve Burke said Tinker "made an indelible mark on NBC and the history of television." ↲

In THR, Esq: Katie Couric moves to dismiss $13M defamation lawsuit over Under the Gun ... Gawker agrees to alter story about DailyMail.com in settlement ... Power Rangers co-creator sues WonderFish partner for fraud.

Walk of Fame Falls Into Disrepair

It's not just Trump's star: Neglect, deterioration and money questions have marred a city landmark, as Gary Baum and Scott Feinberg find in an interesting new feature:

One-fifth of the 2,500-plus stars are in disrepair after decades of neglect, THR has found. Longtime Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Leron Gubler acknowledges this figure matches a city review conducted in the 2000s.

Touching every era and genre of entertainment, the damage ranges from minor cracks (Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Spelling, Aretha Franklin) and broken brass inlays (Al Jolson, Chris Rock, Edith Head) to large gouges (Irving Thalberg, Myrna Loy, Paul Rudd). Stars in the worst condition include those honoring Cecil B. DeMille, Ginger Rogers, Neil Diamond, Lucille Ball and Billy Wilder.

The disrepair is hard to reconcile with the roughly $1M in annual revenue that the chamber, which selects honorees and stages the ceremonies at which stars are bestowed, appears to generate from the walk.

"They must be raking in the bucks," actor Tab Hunter says. "I wonder what they're doing with it."

Today's Birthdays: Emily Mortimer, 45, Sarah Silverman, 46, Larry Charles, 60, Treat Williams, 65, Bette Midler, 71, Woody Allen, 81.