What's news: AMC says it won't show Universal films after Trolls tiff explodes, the Film Academy changes Oscars eligibility rules to account for pandemic impact, YouTube nets $4 billion in ad revenue but warns of ad slowdown ahead, cable news sees record ratings in April, China's theaters likely to reopen in June, Amazon snags an exclusive national NFL game. Plus: Mike Schur talks Parks and Recreation special, Now You See Me 3 in the works, and a review of Netflix's Hollywood. --Alex Weprin

 Major Oscars Changes

 Oscars during coronavirus: Academy rules streamed films will be eligible, and merges sound categories. Scott Feinberg writes about the major changes to the Oscars rules as the Film Academy grapples with shuttered movie theaters, and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

--Films that were scheduled for theatrical release, that meet the other eligibility requirements and that are made available for Academy members to view on the organization's members-only streaming service within 60 days of being made available on a publicly available streamer or VOD service, will be in the running. (This covers any and all films that scrapped their theatrical release due to the coronavirus crisis in favor of another method of reaching consumers, such as Trolls World Tour... more on that film below).

--Also, the two sound Oscars — best sound editing and best sound mixing — have, following a period of study initiated and conducted by the governors of the sound branch, been consolidated into one, best sound (which will recognize both editors and mixers), bringing the number of Oscars that will be presented on the telecast from 24 to 23. Additionally, to be eligible for the best original score Oscar, at least 60 percent of a film's music must be original, as opposed to "predominantly" original, the prior standard. Here's the story laying out the eligibility changes.

+Academy president and CEO weigh in: David Rubin and Dawn Hudson discuss Tuesday's announcement with Feinberg, the prospect of an audience-free Oscars and the eligibility — or lack thereof — of ESPN's The Last Dance.

Quote: "We are making every effort to contend with a very difficult global crisis, and at the same time serve our members well and honor the great work of wonderful filmmakers," Rubin says. "We've worked hard to thread that needle and stay true to our core value of honoring theatrical exhibition." The interview.

+Academy sound branch governors brief members on consolidation of editing, mixing Oscars. "Combining our awards under one banner will give us more unity as a community. Understand that this consolidation in no way eliminates the number of potential statuettes that the Sound branch will receive, and will in no way diminish the contribution of any member to the soundtrack. Instead, it will unify us into the 'team' we represent." More.

+Cinema Audio Society Responds to the Academy's decision: "We understand this decision came about after careful debate and consideration by the sound branch," says CAS president Karol Urban. "While points of concern exist, the Cinema Audio Society respects and supports efforts to unify recognition of both sound mixing and sound editorial as a highly aligned team of creatives that are integral to a film’s success." More.

 Universal and AMC In a 'Trolls' War of Words

►AMC Theatres refuses to play Universal films in wake of Trolls World Tour. The threat came in the wake of comments made by NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell regarding what the on-demand success of the family film means for the future. "It is disappointing to us, but Jeff’s comments as to Universal’s unilateral actions and intentions have left us with no choice. Therefore, effectively immediately AMC will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theaters in the United States, Europe or the Middle East," AMC CEO Adam Aron wrote.

--It didn't take long for Universal to respond. The studio issued an evening statement saying it remains dedicated to moviegoing, and that Shell's comments were misconstrued (the statement also took a dig at AMC and the National Association of Theatre Owners for trying to "confuse" matters.) “We absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and have made no statement to the contrary. As we stated earlier, going forward, we expect to release future films directly to theaters, as well as on PVOD when that distribution outlet makes sense. " Here's the story.

+NATO released a statement as well: “Universal does not have reason to use unusual circumstances in an unprecedented environment as a springboard to bypass true theatrical releases,” said NATO president and CEO John Fithian. “Theaters provide a beloved immersive, shared experience that cannot be replicated — an experience that many of the VOD viewers of this film would have participated in had the world not been sequestered at home, desperate for something new to watch with their families." The story.

+Movie theaters could take "months, not weeks" to reopen, California Gov. Gavin Newsom says. The state leader also revealed that county leaders are considering reopening schools in late July or early August in his daily coronavirus briefing on Tuesday. More.

►YouTube nets $4 billion in ad revenue despite coronavirus spending slowdown. In a statement, CFO Ruth Porat attributed Google owner Alphabet's $41.2 billion in first-quarter revenue to its search, cloud and YouTube businesses. However, she noted, "Performance was strong during the first two months of the quarter, but then in March we experienced a significant slowdown in ad revenues." The story.

+Spotify reaches 130 million paid subscribers, advertising hit by pandemic. Spotify said Wednesday that it swung to a first-quarter profit and grew its user base to 130 million premium subscribers and 286 million total active monthly users as of the end of March, however: "Our outlook for most of our key performance indicators has remained unchanged with the exception of revenue where a slowdown in advertising and significant changes in currency rates are having an impact." More.

+Advertising in freefall: Agency giant WPP said Tuesday that in some markets revenue fell by 30 percent, reflecting a sharp pullback in ad spend.

►France's reopening plan bad news for Cannes, cinemas. Under the guidelines outlined by French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe to the country's National Assembly on Tuesday, cinemas will not be among the businesses allowed to reopen when France begins to loosen its lockdown measures May 11.

--The ban on large gatherings — meaning festivals and events that draw more than 5,000 people — will remain in place until at least September, Philippe said. Meaning the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, which has already been postponed twice, will not be held this summer in anything like its traditional form and is looking less and less likely to happen at all. The story.

+China's cinemas expected to reopen in June, Beijing official says. Museums and indoor entertainment venues — including movie theaters — are expected to get the official green light to reopen in early June, following the conclusion of China's National People's Congress in May. The statement represents the first official indication of how and when China's vast network of 70,000 movie screens — the most of any country in the world — could be rebooted. More.



^Cable news sets ratings records in April. Fox News and MSNBC each set all-time records, and CNN had its highest-rated month in more than a decade. The three big cable news networks owned the top spots across all of cable for the month both in primetime and the total day: Fox News ranked first in both measures, averaging 3.68 million viewers in primetime — its best month ever — and 2.24 million for the whole day, per Nielsen same-day figures. The numbers.

►Disney World: Florida task force releases initial guidelines for reopening theme park. Suggested "guidelines" for reopening Walt Disney World as listed in the Tuesday report included tape marking off 6-foot spaces for waiting in ride queues and staff regularly wiping down surfaces. Staff who are 65 and older would be "encouraged to stay home," according to the report. Capacity would also be capped for some time. The story.

►How I'm Living Now: Phil Rosenthal, writer and eater. Rosenthal, whose long-gestating third season of his Netflix travelog (Somebody Feed Phil) arrives on the streamer May 29, is spending his lockdown making video shorts to mock Donald Trump, house-training a new puppy and exhaustively deliberating his nightly takeout options. When the famously famished Everybody Loves Raymond creator recently spoke with THR, he was very keen to talk about food. The interview.

In other coronavirus-related news...

--Netflix is donating an additional $100,000 to its industry hardship fund benefiting the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) amid the battle with the novel coronavirus. In addition, Ryan Murphy is personally matching the gift.

--European movie theater giant Vue International has made a bold plea to its landlords in a bid to survive the coronavirus crisis.

--Over two weeks after U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) urged California Labor Secretary Julie Su to roll the benefit out as soon as possible, gig and self-employed workers can now apply for federal unemployment benefits if their work has been affected by COVID-19.

Obituaries: Irrfan Khan, the veteran Bollywood actor who crossed over to Hollywood in films including Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire and Jurassic World, has died. He was 53... Julie Nathanson, a longtime executive with Rogers & Cowan who represented such clients as Raquel Welch, Michael Urie, Frank Langella, Bruce Greenwood and Terry Bradshaw, died Sunday night in the Hollywood Hills after a battle with cancer. She was 68... Rob Gibbs, a story artist, writer and director who contributed to many Pixar films, from Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo to Up, Wall-E, Inside Out and Onward, has died, a company spokesman confirmed. He was 55...

 About That 'Parks and Rec' Reunion

►Parks and Recreation: Inside the reunion with a purpose. Co-creator Mike Schur opens up about the challenges of producing the special that doubles as a fundraiser for Feeding America.

Quote: "I didn't think Parks and Recreation would ever reunite; the show had a point to make and we made it and it ended and there was no compelling reason to do it but this is as compelling a reason as there is," Schur said Tuesday. The story.

►Now You See Me 3 in works with Top Gun: Maverick co-writer Eric Warren Singer. The previous movies, about misfit illusionists and escape artists, starred Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Morgan Freeman. While no deals have been made, the goal is to reunite the actors. More.

►Amazon gets exclusive national game in NFL streaming deal renewal. The regular season game will be played on a Saturday in the second half of next season and still be available on broadcast TV in the local markets of the teams. Amazon will also continue to stream Thursday Night Football through 2022. More.

►Writers Guild advises members on next steps after court ruling. "Discovery — which the agencies have reason to fear and which has already begun — will now proceed in force. The agencies will be required to defend, in public, those practices that for decades they sought to keep private," the guild wrote to its members. More.

►AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan's pay drops slightly to $20.2 million. The boss of the company behind The Walking Dead home AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv had made $20.6 million in 2018. More.



^TV reviews: Daniel Fienberg reviews Netflix's Hollywood, writing that Ryan Murphy's series is "a consistently handsome, often moving, frequently sanctimonious erasure of the actual slow nature of Tinseltown progress in favor of something that's more a fairy tale than an alt-history." The review. Fienberg also reviews HBO's limited series I Know This Much Is true.

►Jenji Kohan sets Social Distance anthology series at Netflix. Hilary Weisman Graham will pen the scripts and serve as showrunner, with Diego Velasco set to direct and co-exec produce. Kohan and her Orange is the New Black team, Tara Herrmann, Blake mcCormick and Graham will all exec produce. And yes, everything will be done remotely. The story.

+Also: One Day at a Time is finding a creative solution to its stalled fourth season. The Netflix-turned-Pop comedy will produce an animated episode, set to air at a date to be determined in the spring. 

►FaZe Clan, Sugar23 team to launch new studio. The new studio will focus on creating feature films and scripted television series that fit the tone of FaZe's "aspirational gaming lifestyle" brand. More.

+EA partners With Google to bring games to Stadia streaming service. The partnership will kick off with EA and Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — which first launched on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC last November — debuting on Stadia later this year. EA will then launch sports titles FIFA and Madden NFL this winter, with plans to release more games on Stadia in 2021. More.

TV ratings: Monday was a fairly quiet night in the broadcast ratings, as all five English-language networks were down year-to-year in adults 18-49. All but The CW declined week-to-week as well. The numbers.

Revolving door: Michael Ouweleen has been named president of WarnerMedia's Adult Swim network... Passion Pictures has named Nick Southgate as its new CEO... The Just For Laughs Group has named longtime Walt Disney exec Marina Di Pancrazio as chief content revenue officer... Showtime has tapped Erin Calhoun to lead its communications team... Neon has promoted Elissa Federoff and Christina Zisa to president of distribution and president of publicity, respectively... Kristen Anderson has been tapped to serve as vp communications at Disney's Freeform...

In other news...

--WarnerMedia has acquired Dutch tech group The Widget Company (TWC), a Amsterdam-based group that specializes in designing services for over-the-top, mobile and connected TV applications.

--David Leitch and the writers behind blockbuster creature feature The Meg, Jon and Erich Hoeber, are partnering for thriller Fast and Loose for STX.

--Dwayne Johnson's Titan Games will return to NBC for season two May 25.

--Sister, the global media company founded by Elisabeth Murdoch, Stacey Snider and Jane Featherstone, has invested in newly launched nonfiction podcast studio Campside.

--Karen Gillan is set to lead the cast of sci-fi thriller Dual, with Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale, Martha Kelly and Jesse Eisenberg also set to appear in the movie.

--The Beijing International Film Festival, originally scheduled to run in mid-April before the coronavirus pandemic forced its indefinite postponement, will host a mini film event online with the help of leading Chinese streaming service iQiyi.

What else we're reading...

--"Dish demands Disney pay for ESPN refund over no live sports" [NY Post]

--"How Quibi’s big budget launch turned into a horror show" [FT]

--"Olympics could be canceled if coronavirus persists next year, says Tokyo 2020 president" [CNN]

Today's birthdays: Andre Agassi, 50, Uma Thurman, 50, Michelle Pfeiffer, 62, Daniel Day-Lewis, 63, Jerry Seinfeld, 66.