Today In Entertainment APRIL 13, 2020
What's news: Bob Iger weighs a post-virus Disney, Cinemark raising $250 million in debt, writer-producer Saul Turteltaub dies at 87, Europe's theaters look for a digital lifeline, Tom Hanks hosts Saturday Night Live At Home, George Stephanopoulos tests positive for coronavirus. Plus: A review of Killing Eve season three, and interviews with Norah O'Donnell and Jon M. Chu. --Alex Weprin Disney's Post-Virus Vision ►Bob Iger thinking about a post-virus Disney. Iger stepped down from the CEO role in February, ceding the title to Bob Chapek, but New York Times columnist Ben Smith reports that Iger has been active in leading the company as the coronavirus crisis has deepened. “A crisis of this magnitude, and its impact on Disney, would necessarily result in my actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!” Iger wrote to Smith in an email. --The big takeaway from Smith's story, however, is how executives at the company are thinking about what the company needs to look like after the current crisis recedes. --Some of the ideas mentioned by Smith: Occupying less office space, as well as ending the traditional but expensive TV upfronts, and producing pilots for shows that may never run (both ideas have long been bandied about). Also in consideration: A Disney that requires fewer employees. Iger told Smith he had “no recollection of ever having said” that he expected a smaller work force. “Regardless, any decision about staff reductions will be made by my successor and not me,” he added. +Related: Disney World to furlough 43,000 workers due to coronavirus crisis. About 200 workers will remain on the job performing "essential duties" during the closure, and they will be offered positions based on seniority, said the Service Trades Council, the coalition of unions representing the Disney World workers. The story. ►Cinemark raising $250 million in debt offering amid virus crisis.The move follows Fitch Ratings on April 9 downgrading the credit rating for the exhibition giant over concerns that current theater closures amid the COVID-19 crisis will last until June "at the earliest." Cinemark said it intends to use the proceeds of the debt offering "for general corporate purposes, including further increasing its liquidity." The story. +Also: Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, has opened a new revolving credit facility that could provide as much as $150 million in liquidity, per an SEC filing. Senior executives at the company agreed to temporary pay cuts, with CEO Michael Rapino forgoing his salary entirely. ►European theater owners look for digital lifeline amid virus crisis. While the U.K.'s Curzon enjoys record views on its beefed-up Curzon Home Cinema streaming platform, other operators across Europe are turning to VOD to keep business flowing during the lockdown, Alex Ritman and Scott Roxborough report. Quote: "We've live-streamed Q&As to the service before, but previously they’ve always been events we were hosting at one of our venues," says Curzon CEO Philip Knatchbull. "So we’ve adapted that in light of the lockdown. We’ll be speaking to directors directly from their own isolation." The story. ►Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos tests positive for coronavirus. The news isn't a total surprise, as he has been caring for his wife, Ali Wentworth, as she recovers. "I'm one of those cases that are basically asymptomatic," Stephanopoulos said. "I've never had a fever, never had chills, never had headache, never had a cough, never had shortness of breath. I'm feeling great." More. ►How I'm Living Now: Norah O'Donnell, CBS Evening News anchor. The journalist still appears every weeknight from her Washington, D.C. studio, offering the latest updates on the COVID-19 epidemic to her surging audience of more than 7 million viewers. O’Donnell, who took over the anchor chair in 2019, is approaching her coverage with some helpful insights. Not only does she have an infectious disease specialist (her own father) on speed dial, she’s neighbors with Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and face of the government’s task force to combat the spread of the disease. The interview. +How I'm Living Now: Jon M. Chu, In the Heights director. Jon M. Chu is back at home in Los Angeles with his wife and two children (a 6-month-old and a 2-year-old), where he has continued postproduction on his upcoming Warner Bros. musical In the Heights, which had been slated for a June 26 release. With that date now pushed back, Chu spends much of his day in Zoom meetings, some related to Heights and others to projects tied to his overall deal with Disney’s 20th Century Fox Television. His days also include time with family. “Appreciate this time,” he advises. The interview. 'SNL' At Home ►Saturday Night Live's quarantine edition: It was an SNL unlike any other, with pre-taped sketches, shot by cast members and their families, and an extended Weekend Update segment, with hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che holding court from their respective homes. --The big surprise: Tom Hanks was the night's "host," delivering a monologue (complete with an "audience" Q&A bit). It's a strange time to try to be funny, Hanks said, noting that he and wife Rita Wilson were the first A-list celebrities to be diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. Watch the opening. +Also: Kate McKinnon reprised her Ruth Bader-Ginsburg impression... Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump called into Weekend Update... The rest of the sketches... +Critic's notebook: Saturday Night Live at Home finds humor amid pandemic pain. "Tom Hanks, shooting in what my colleague Michael O'Connell very accurately described as his 'second or third kitchen,' was the perfect semi-host for the evening," Daniel Fienberg writes. "They weren't able to weave him into any sketches, but he introduced musical guest Chris Martin, closed the show and established a tone that straddled 'business as usual' — does this even count as his 10th hosting stint? — and an unavoidable reminder of, well, everything. Hanks referred to his own coronavirus recovery as the "celebrity canary in the coal mine" and it's truly impossible to put a number on how many lives he and Rita Wilson saved through the visibility of their shared Australian diagnosis." The notebook. ►L.A.'s Saban Clinic launches emergency relief fund: "People are going to have bigger needs now." Cheryl Saban talks to THR's Tatiana Siegel about sheltering at home, the causes she's funding and the work of the clinic on the COVID-19 front lines. The story. ►L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti, Marcus Mumford, Charlie Puth and Amy Adams join Richard Weitz’s starry Zoom party. The WME partner and his daughter Demi have pivoted their Zoom concert series from a way to connect during isolated times to a major charitable endeavor that has now raised $300,000 and climbing. More. ►Broadway star Danny Burstein on harrowing coronavirus experience: "Strength through stillness." The six-time Tony nominee, who was starring in Moulin Rouge at the time of the shutdown, opens up in a guest column about the alarming progression of his illness, his terrified hospitalization and his recovery at home. The column. In other coronavirus-related news... --The Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plans (MPI) has implemented a temporary eligibility change for IATSE members who are out of work amid the coronavirus crisis. --British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been discharged from a London hospital, where he had been treated for the new coronavirus. --A judge has allowed Michael Avenatti to be temporarily freed from a federal jail in New York City and to ride out the coronavirus scare at a friend's house in Los Angeles. --Chaz Bono says Cher has been an overprotective mother amid the virus crisis. Obituaries: Saul Turteltaub, the writer and producer whose expansive television résumé included The Carol Burnett Show, That Girl, Sanford and Son, What's Happening!! and so much more, has died. He was 87... Tim Brooke-Taylor, one of the trio of stars from the classic U.K. sketch show The Goodies, has died. He was 79... 'Killing Eve' Review ►TV review: Inkoo Kang reviews season three of BBC America's Killing Eve, writing "reverting to [Phoebe] Waller-Bridge's women-behaving-very-badly sensibility, season three is, atmospherically at least, a return to form." The review. +What the HBO rom-com thriller Run has in common with Fleabag. Showrunner Vicky Jones tells THR about the influence her longtime collaborator Phoebe Waller-Bridge had on the premium cable network series starring Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson. More. ►NatGeo moves limited series Barkskins into Genius: Aretha Emmy contender slot. Barkskins, an eight-part limited series adapted from Annie Proulx's 2016 epic novel of the same name and brought to the screen by Scott Rudin Productions and Fox 21 Television Studios, will premiere over Memorial Day weekend — specifically, on Monday, May 25 at 9pm EST — and will air back-to-back episodes each week for four weeks. More. The week ahead... --In TV: FX on Hulu's Mrs. America debuts Wednesday... One World: Together At Home will air on ABC, CBS and NBC Saturday night... The Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart debuts on ABC tonight... More... --Peacock primed: NBCUniversal will soft-launch the Peacock streaming service Wednesday, but only for select Comcast customers. --In film: Just kidding. Though you can buy Trolls: World Tour on-demand if you want the theatrical experience. About last night: How Westworld just drastically changed the HBO drama's entire universe... The Killing Eve team breaks down the deadly season 3 premiere: "No one is safe"... What else we're reading... --"The short and unhappy Royal career of Harry and Meghan" [The New Yorker] --"TV advertisers rethink aversion to news shows as they adapt their ad messages" [Digiday] --"How adult animation became the hottest genre for streaming services" [AdWeek] --"We are going to the sea! (from the safety of our car.)" [The Ringer]
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