Today In Entertainment FEBRUARY 29, 2020
What's news: Coronavirus fears are continuing to cause some chaos in Hollywood, the winners from France's Cesar Awards, Berlinale winners, CBS cancels Hawaii 5-0 and re-signs NFL analyst Tony Romo, Pop TV hit by layoffs, America Ferrera leaving NBC's Superstore. Plus: Syfy has ordered a timely series inspired by the horror pandemic classic Day of the Dead. --Alex Weprin Coronavirus Chaos Continues How coronavirus fears are changing red carpet etiquette. Handshakes are down, air kisses have more space and hand sanitizers are a topic du jour as Hollywood braces for an epidemic, Chris Gardner writes: "Knowledge is power right now.” The story. ►CBS stops Amazing Race production over coronavirus fears. No cast or crewmember was exposed to the virus, but a network spokesperson said the decision to stop production was taken out of "an abundance of caution." Sources tell THR's Rick Porter that three episodes had been filmed prior to the shutdown. The story. ►Game Developers Conference "postponed" amid coronavirus concerns. No specific date for when the event may take place in the future was provided, but Friday's post stated that GDC organizers "fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer" and "will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks." More. +Coronavirus, cont'd: Amazon has started restricting all non-essential employee travel in the U.S. as the coronavirus continues to spread... Apple CEO Tim Cook told Fox Business' Susan Li that he is "optimistic" about China managing the coronavirus outbreak, which has slowed production at the tech giant's suppliers... A Google employee has tested positive for the coronavirus at an office in Switzerland... Cesar Awards: Les Misérables, Ladj Ly's blistering look at life in the Parisian banlieues, has won the 2020 Cesar Award for best film, beating out all comers, including Roman Polanski's An Officer and a Spy. Les Misérables also picked up the best male newcomer Cesar for Alexis Manenti, playing a racist cop, the public Cesar, voted on by the French-going audience, and a best editing honor for Flora Volpelière. But the French Film Academy ignored a street full of protestors and a furious army of online critics to give Polanski its top directing honor Friday night. The controversial director won the best directing Cesar for An Officer and a Spy. The full list of winners. +Berlin: Otac, Welcome to Chechnya win Panorama Audience Awards. A touching tale of a father fighting bureaucracy to win back his family and a documentary about the real-life fight for LGBTQI* rights in Chechnya have won this year's Audience Awards for the Panorama sidebar at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. The winners. +Also: There Is No Evil, a bracing portrayal of live in modern-day Iran, which targets the government policy of mass execution of dissidents has picked up two of the top honors awarded by the independent juries at the 70th International Film Festival. More. Elsewhere in film... --Chis Bremner, who co-wrote January’s surprise hit Bad Boys for Life, has been tapped to pen M.A.S.K., Paramount and Hasbro’s big-screen take on the toy line. --Renee Zellweger makes first post-Oscars appearance to accept courage award and honor publicist Nanci Ryder. --Why The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell defied test screening notes. --Dakota Johnson aspires to produce Tracee Ellis Ross' new album in the trailer for the Focus Features film The High Note. 'Hawaii 5-0' Says Aloha ►Hawaii 5-0 Canceled by CBS. The long-running crime drama is set to end with its current 10th season. The series will bow out with a two-hour finale on April 3. The show is a reboot of the 1968-80 series that starred Jack Lord as Honolulu detective Steve McGarrett. The current series, which stars Alex O'Loughlin as McGarrett, will end up running for nearly as long as its predecessor — 10 seasons vs. 12 for the original. The story. ►Pop TV hit by layoffs amid ViacomCBS consolidation. The cable network is undergoing layoffs in the wake of the channel's move from Showtime Networks to Chris McCarthy's Entertainment & Youth Brands at the recently merged conglomerate. Pop is known for its cult hit Schitt's Creek, which is airing its final season, and for reviving critical favorite One Day at a Time after Netflix canceled it in 2019. The latter is set to premiere March 24. The story. ►Tony Romo reups with CBS Sports. The network's lead NFL analyst and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback has signed a new long-term contract, reportedly at an eye-popping $17 million per year. The new deal suggests that ViacomCBS is serious about retaining its NFL rights when the league opens negotiations later this year. More. +In other TV sports news: YouTube TV is temporarily keeping the regional sports networks owned by Sinclair on its live TV service, while the two sides try to has out a deal. YouTube previously said it would drop the channels due to rising sports costs. "Fox RSNs and Yes Network are still available as we have agreed to a temporary extension with Sinclair," the company said in a tweet. "We're waiting for an update on the agreement we're working on with them. We'll let you know once there's more info." Read The Hollywood Reporter cover to cover and hundreds of other magazines in Apple News+. ►Umbrella Academy boss inks Netflix overall deal. Showrunner Steve Blackman has moved his pact from Universal Content Productions to the streamer, where he will develop new projects. The story. ►Day of the Dead TV series a go at Syfy. The NBCUniversal-owned basic cable network has handed out straight-to-series orders for Day of the Dead — an ode to George A. Romero's 1985 feature — and fellow genre drama The Surrealtor, Lesley Goldberg reports. Both series are low-cost co-productions from indie studios that afford Syfy the flexibility to take swings. Both shows will launch in 2021. The story. ►America Ferrera leaving NBC's Superstore. Ferrera will leave the NBC comedy at the conclusion of its fifth season, scheduled for April 16. The Universal Television-produced series has already been renewed for 2020-21. Ferrera, who has also directed several episodes of Superstore, said in a statement that she's ready to seek the "next chapter" in her career and her life. More. +In other casting news: Courteney Cox will headline a horror comedy pilot called Shining Vale at Starz...Sophia Bush is set to play the title character in CBS' drama pilot Good Sam... Netflix's The Witcher has cast Killing Eve and FX's The Bridge alum Kim Bodnia in a key role for its upcoming second season... Ben Schnetzer has been tapped to star in FX's adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan's beloved comic series Y: The Last Man... Elsewhere in TV... --Deborah Young reviews The Eddy, Damien Chazelle's Netflix series about a Paris jazz club... Daniel Fienberg reviews Netflix's Queen Sono... --Jason Segel gets weird in AMC's Dispatches From Elsewhere. --Ratings: ABC scored an across-the-board ratings victory Thursday, leading the broadcast networks in both adults 18-49 and total viewers, on an night when usual total-audience leader CBS aired mostly reruns. Station 19 grew its audience for the second straight week, and Grey's Anatomy topped the night in adults 18-49. Lizzo Suit Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" was undoubtedly one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the past year. But according to counterclaims filed on Friday in California federal court, she and her credited producer are not 100 percent the sole songwriters of the hit. Moreover, Justin Raisen, Jeremiah Raisen and Justin “Yves” Rothman allege that she would never have collected her Grammy Award but for their songwriting and producing contributions. The story. +Flavor Flav to Bernie Sanders campaign: Stop using Public Enemy's name. A cease-and-desist letter from a law firm retained by Flav says the use of the group's name for a March 1 event promotes a "false narrative to the American people" since the artist isn't endorsing the candidate. More. +Also: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is looking into allegations that at least one deputy shared gruesome photos of the crash site where Kobe Bryant and eight others were killed last month. ►THR In Studio: Rian Johnson’s modern-day whodunit film Knives Out was such a success at the box office that he's already working on the sequel. While he's said that the follow-up to the film will center on Daniel Craig's Southern detective Benoit Blanc, he told The Hollywood Reporter In Studio that the audience must "Think of it just like another Hercule Poirot novel from Agatha Christie, so a whole new location, whole new cast." Watch. Obituary: Nick Apollo Forte, the veteran cruise-ship singer who portrayed Lou Canova, the fading lounge act with a big ego and an even bigger drinking problem, in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, has died. He was 81... What else we're reading... --"The Invisible Man brings Universal's monster movies back from the grave" [Bloomberg] --"How Ryan’s YouTube playdate created an accidental (eight-year-old) millionaire" [Forbes] --"Elliott Management’s Paul Singer seeks to replace Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, source says" [CNBC] --"Like Warren, I had my own sexist run-in with Chris Matthews" [GQ] Today's birthdays: Ja Rule, 44, Tony Robbins, 60, Pedro Sanchez, 48, Antonio Sabato Jr., 48, Joss Ackland, 92. Have a nice weekend...
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