What's news: Sonic is zooming to an easy box office win, Writers Guild holds "substantive" talks with agencies, Univision closes in on a buyer, Topher Grace and Jimmy Kimmel land pilots, the prosecution makes its closing arguments in the Harvey Weinstein trial, Korean Americans react to Parasite's Oscars wins. Plus: The voice of Sonic plays Sonic, and the latest It Happened In Hollywood podcast. --Alex Weprin

 'Sonic' Booming

►Box office: Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog is zooming to a winning debut at the Valentine's Day-Presidents Day box office, according to early returns. So far, the film is pacing ahead of expectations. Thursday's preview gross  of $3 million was a solid start for the family film, a genre that does not typically pick up a lot in preview earnings, with families waiting to head to the multiplexes until the weekend. By comparison, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World made $3 million in previews before flying to a $55 million opening weekend. The story.

+How Sonic the Hedgehog marketing went from false start to reboot. After stumbling out of the gate, Paramount listened to fan criticism and reworked the film and promo campaign accordingly, Chris Thilk writes.

+Bonus video: Sonic voice actor Ben Schwartz plays Sonic the Hedgehog while answering existential questions from THR's Patrick Shanley. The star of the Paramount movie wades through increasingly difficult topics while trying his hand at the '90s videogame. Watch.

►Writers Guild says it held "substantive" talks with all major agencies except one. On Friday, WGA West president David A. Goodman offered an update to members after the guild signed several agencies to its code of conduct. "Those we have spoken to have said directly to me they would like to make a deal," Goodman wrote. "We continue to place pressure on them, by pursuing the lawsuit, by negotiating with the smaller agencies, and by withholding their ability to represent writers." Here's the story.

Editor's note: Today In Entertainment will be off on Monday for Presidents Day. We will be back in your inbox bright and early on Tuesday morning.

►Cinematographers Guild president steps down after eight months. In a note to members, Lewis Rothenberg cited issues with establishing a residence in Southern California as what led in part to his resignation, and also noted "differences" with other leaders. "While I truly believe everyone in the leadership of this Local has the members in mind, there are major ideological differences between some of us," Rothenberg said in an email to Local 600 members. The story.

►Korean Americans react to Parasite's historic Oscar wins: "The door has opened to a goldmine." Korean American Leaders in Hollywood, a new nonprofit, held an Academy Awards viewing party last Sunday in — where else? — Koreatown, Rebecca Sun reports.

Quote: "Suddenly emboldened to hope for a best picture win, the entire bar was riveted to the screens as Jane Fonda opened the final envelope, silent with bated breath, like sports fans counting down the clock on a Game 7 that has come down to the wire. Upon the utterance of a single word — 'Parasite' — the place exploded with a deafening roar that soon gave way to a chant: 'Bong Joon Ho! Bong Joon Ho!'” The story.

Elsewhere in film...

--John DeFore reviews Jason Blum's Fantasy Island.

--Less than four months after exiting Landmark Theatres, Ted Mundorff has landed at Arclight Cinemas as president and COO.

--Indiana Jones 5 will begin filming this Summer, Harrison Ford says.

--The subtle clues in The Batman first look.

 Univision Closes In On A Buyer

►Univision is nearing a sale. The Spanish-language broadcast giant is in exclusive talks with an investment group that includes former Viacom CFO Wade Davis and Searchlight Capital Partners, according to The Wall Street Journal. The deal could value Univision at $10 billion, inclusive of its debt. The sale, if it happens, would mark 13 years of rocky results for the network after being acquired by a consortium of private equity firms in 2007. 

--The company announced its intention to go public in 2015, but had to scrap those plans in 2018 as the business deteriorated and a search for new leadership began.

In other business news...

+Third Point LLC, the influential hedge fund run by Daniel Loeb, is shaking up its media holdings. According to a regulatory disclosure outlining the company’s holdings as of Dec. 31, 2019, Third Point accumulated a $115 million stake at ViacomCBS. Third Point also revealed that it had taken a $130 million stake in Amazon, and had cut its holdings in Fox Corp. by more than 37 percent. More.

►Streaming wars lead to rise in Canadian film and TV shoots. CBS Television Studios last year opened a 260,000-square-foot studio in Toronto, and Netflix launched its latest global production hub in the city by taking long-term leases on eight soundstages, Etan Vlessing reports: "I've never seen this many projects in this country." The story.

+Canada wants streamers to start paying more taxes. Defying long-standing calls from regional indie producers and broadcasters to impose a direct levy on the revenues of Netflix, Google and Amazon, upcoming legislation to revamp broadcast and telecom rules is expected to leave such U.S. big-tech players mostly unregulated and untaxed. An exception to the above is an expected legislative mandate that tech giants must collect a goods and services sales tax (GST) from their customers. More.

+Also: Fox Corp. and Cox Media Group have renewed the affiliation agreements for four of Cox’s local TV stations... Hollywood payroll services company Cast & Crew is acquiring a rival, showbiz accounting and payroll provider Media Services.

Read The Hollywood Reporter cover to cover and hundreds of other magazines in Apple News+.

►ABC has landed one of the most in-demand actors of this pilot season, signing Topher Grace to star in its comedy pilot Home Economics. Should the pilot go to series, it would be Grace's first regular role on a broadcast show since he departed That '70s Show in 2005. More.

+Jimmy Kimmel is expanding his primetime footprint at ABC. The network has given a pilot order to a comedy called Adopted, which Kimmel is writing and executive producing. More.

Casting roundup: ABC's Thirtysomething sequel has added Patrick Fugit to its cast... Dixie D'Amelio will parlay her TikTok fame into a new show with Brat TV called Attaway General... Amazon's A League of Their Own reboot has filled out its cast... Kevin Smith's animated Masters of the Universe series at Netflix has lined up Mark Hamill, Lena Headey, Chris Wood and Sarah Michelle Gellar to join its voice cast...

►HBO is developing a docuseries based on The Cut's Sex Diaries. HBO is developing a verité docuseries based on the sex and dating column with The Fourth Estate producer and co-director Jenny Carchman set to direct. Vox Media Studios is producing. This would be the first New York Magazine project to hail from the production shingle since Vox Media acquired the publication in September. More.

+Coming off an Oscar win for best adapted screenplay, Jojo Rabbit writer-director Taika Waititi may be headed to Showtime for his next project. Waititi and Jude Law are in talks for a limited series in the works at the premium cable outlet called The Auteur, sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is described as a Hollywood satire that would have Law playing the eccentric title character. More.

Elsewhere in TV...

--Netflix has canceled its dark revenge comedy Insatiable after two seasons... Meanwhile: Netflix has picked up comedy package Cocaine Hippos, with comedian Jermaine Fowler set to star.

--Daniel Fienberg reviews Epix's Slow Burn... Inkoo Kang reviews the Apple TV+ docuseries Visible: Out On Television.

--WarnerMedia released the first teaser trailer for HBO Max. Watch.

--Ratings: Thursday's broadcast ratings didn't bring many surprises. Per usual, CBS' Young Sheldon had the largest total audience in primetime by a sizable margin, and it tied ABC's Grey's Anatomy for the lead among adults 18-49.

 Weinstein Prosecution Closing Arguments

 On Friday morning, lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi put a bow on the State of New York’s case against Harvey Weinstein, calling the former movie mogul an “abusive rapist” who manipulated and abused women who wanted to break into the entertainment industry. Weinstein, she said, viewed himself as “the master of his universe, and the witnesses here were really ants who he could step on without consequences.” Jury deliberations will begin Tuesday. The story.

+Universal Music accused of "gamesmanship" over lost recordings. After a 2008 backlot fire, UMG told insurers that works by nearly 17,000 artists were effected. Now, the company is identifying just 19, Eriq Gardner reports. The story.

+Appeals court considers importance of Friday the 13th screenwriter's union membership. It turns out, the future of many movie franchises might turn on whether screenwriters are deemed to be employees or independent contractors. On Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard an important case on this issue. And an attorney representing the original producer of Friday the 13th urged three appellate judges to factor a screenwriter's union membership above everything else. The story.

+Also: Michael Avenatti on Friday was found guilty on multiple charges that he tried to extort Nike...

►It Happened In Hollywood podcast: Andrew Stanton had a great idea for a Pixar movie, one that centered on the last robot on Earth. He just wasn't sure what the robot was going to look like. Then inspiration struck.

--"I was at a baseball game with my editor on [Finding] Nemo," the director, 54, tells THR's It Happened in Hollywood podcast. "I borrowed his binoculars and then I missed an entire inning just looking at them and starting to make them look happy and mad and sad....That cracked it open for me. That's pretty much what I did: I put binoculars on top of a trash compactor." Listen here.

What else we're reading...

--"The NFL's scramble to strike the richest deal in sports" [WSJ]

--"Podcast producers are creating their own version of the Oscars" [Bloomberg]

--"Game over for HQ Trivia" [CNN Business]

--"The epic, inconceivable, totally predictable fall of Michael Avenatti" [Vanity Fair]

Today's birthdays: Matt Groening, 66, Jane Seymour, 69, Brandon Boyd, 44, Ali Campbell, 61, Amber Riley, 34.

Have a great holiday weekend...