What's news: Theater reopening plans in peril as Warner Bros. delays Tenet to August, are streaming services muzzling controversial docs? Hollywood's male #MeToo stigma, positive reviews for virtual Cannes, why Kevin Mayer left Disney for TikTok, Disney to overhaul Splash Mountain after outcry, why the Streisand Effect is misunderstood. Plus: THR's TV Director Roundtable, and why now is late night TV's moment. --Alex Weprin

 'Tenet' Delayed

►Warner Bros. pushes Christopher Nolan's Tenet once more. In a blow for the planned revival of the box office next month, the release of Christopher Nolan's Tenet has been delayed again from July 31 to Aug. 12 because of a surge in COVID-19 cases. Warner Bros. announced the shift on Thursday amid rapidly changing and unexpected circumstances. 

--Last week, cinema circuits said they will be up and running by mid- to late-July, but that could now change because of the surge in cases and the lack of big summer event pics. Theaters in Los Angeles and New York City — the country's two largest moviegoing markets — are of particular concern, while several states are also seeing a surge in cases. Insiders say Warners and Nolan are taking their cues from the exhibition community in pushing the film to Aug. 12, a Wednesday. The story.

►Are streamers muzzling controversial documentaries? Half a dozen hot-button docs have been pulled from platforms or dropped by digital distributors in the past year, angering filmmakers and viewers, Tatiana Siegel reports: "People do not like to be told they cannot see a film."

--“These platforms are so big that not being able to get your viewpoint on one of them effectively means that people probably don’t know the film exists,” says Patricia Aufderheide, founder of the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University and an expert on censorship. The story.

►Why did Kevin Mayer leave Disney to join TikTok? "I’m not getting any younger. If you really want to make a big splash, there’s just a timing factor to that," Mayer told investor Peter Csathy in a video interview for Creatv University. "And there aren’t many companies like ByteDance and TikTok.” Mayer, who told Csathy that Bob Iger was his most important mentor (Mayer was passed over to succeed Iger in favor of Bob Chapek), added that the chance to build the hot social video app was too good to resist. “It’s not public, but presumably at some point it may go public.”

 Hollywood's Male #MeToo Stigma

►Hollywood's male #MeToo stigma and the fear of coming forward: "It's looked upon as a weakness." More than two years into the movement, male victims grapple with consequences after speaking out, from mockery to job offers drying up, Rebecca Keegan reports.

--"'I've never been so vulnerable in my life,' Johnathon Schaech says. 'Like, whoa, wait a minute. What did I just do?' Schaech was unsure if his newfound vulnerability was hurting his confidence as an actor or if he was being blacklisted for speaking out. 'People were taking one side of the #MeToo movement or the other, like a friend of theirs was called out or a friend of theirs was affected,' he says. 'They didn't necessarily hear my story. They heard their story.'" The story.

Cannes roundup...

►Cannes dealmakers give high marks as the Marche du Film Online wraps. Market regulars may have missed the Croisette, but robust sales, strong project slates and highly organized meetings, events and presentations came as a pleasant surprise, Scott Roxborough reports: "Doing everything online has been incredibly efficient." The story.

+Beijing cinema chain boss on how China's industry can bounce back from pandemic. Jimmy Wu concedes that the pandemic has created "the hardest moment in the Chinese film industry of at least the past 20 years," but he insists that he is optimistic that the exhibition sector will emerge stronger "if the industry and government work together and are smart about it." The interview.

+Nicolas Cage thriller Willy’s Wonderland sells internationally. Cage plays a man that must survive a hellish night trapped inside a family entertainment center, where the animatronic characters have turned evil. More.

+Also: Southern crime thriller Arkansas — starring Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn, Clark Duke, Vivica A. Fox, and John Malkovich — has sold out for VMI International at the Cannes Virtual Market... Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard on his virtual Cannes market project Rules for Werewolves... Producer Fernando Sulichin on indie film post-COVID: "We are going to have some creative breakthroughs"... "It's a catastrophe": Stefan Ruzowitzky on how his latest film became a casualty of the pandemic...



^If "film is a fling, TV is like a marriage": TV directors of Mandalorian, Westworld, Pose, Mrs. America, Devs and Home Before Dark on everything from the social justice movement to "difficult" actors. In THR's TV Directors Roundtable, Anna Boden, Deborah Chow, Jon M. Chu, Alex Garland, Janet Mock and Jonathan Nolan discuss how the state of the world affects them ("The news just got darker and darker — I found myself not being able to concentrate"); what it's like to speak for an underrepresented community ("I just don't want to f*** up") and anxieties of going back on set: "Recession kills people the same way viruses do." The roundtable.

►Disney to overhaul Splash Mountain ride amid outcry. The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday announced the classic ride Splash Mountain would be retooled at its parks amid outcry over its ties to the controversial 1946 film Song of the South. The ride will be rebranded for The Princess and the Frog. The celebrated 2009 animated film featured an African American female protagonist. In its Thursday announcement, Disney said it has been planning on retooling the ride since last year. The story.

►Boris Johnson's handling of coronavirus pandemic to be dramatized for TV by Michael Winterbottom. The filmmaker — whose recent credits include The Trip series and feature comedy Greed, both with Steve Coogan — is set to co-write and direct a new real-life drama set against the global pandemic and "the biggest national and personal crisis to face a government leader since World War II." More.

+Disney kids channels to shutter in U.K., content moving to Disney+. From Oct. 1, Disney+ will become the exclusive U.K. home for content from Disney Channel, DisneyXD and Disney Junior, the company said Thursday. "The Walt Disney Company remains committed to our kids channels business and continues to execute distribution agreements for Disney channels in many markets where Disney+ is also available." The story.

►YouTube touts TV viewing, creator-led originals slate in virtual Brandcast pitch. YouTube has long argued that marketers should give the same weight to the billions of videos on its platform as they do Hollywood TV productions, and shift more of their budgets to its platform. Now, the company is illustrating that people are watching its videos like they would traditional programming. In the last year, there has been an 80 percent growth in YouTube watch time on TV screens, and more than 100 million monthly viewers watched the platform’s videos on TV sets in the month of March. The story.

►Plan B, Searchlight Pictures team to adapt The World According to Fannie Davis. Author Bridgett M. Davis is adapting her own work while Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is consulting on the project, Borys Kit reports. The story.

+YA novel I'm Not Dying With You Tonight set for movie adaptation. Autumn Bailey-Ford is producing the indie drama with Prominent Pictures and Radar Pictures. More.

 Late Night's Moment

►Amid pandemic and protests, late night hosts become "megaphone for the movement." Late night shows have long been known for bringing in humor while covering the news, but after the racial justice protests against police brutality began to rock the nation, hosts and writers had to grapple with how to approach these intense and important issues, Sharareh Drury writes. The story.

 Marlon Wayans is setting up shop at HBO Max. The multihyphenate has signed an overall deal with the WarnerMedia-owned streaming platform that covers scripted and unscripted series projects and stand-up comedy. A scripted project, co-written with Wayans' long-time producing partner Rick Alvarez, and a pair of comedy specials are already in the works. More.

+Kevin Jordan signs first-look TV deal with MACRO. Former VH1 creative director Kevin Jordan is making the transition to producing, signing a first-look deal with MACRO Television Studios. The ad industry veteran is developing two projects with the indie studio, a period drama called Cordoba and supernatural drama Thirst. More.

+Hulu boards Normal People author's Conversations With Friends. The Disney-owned streamer has boarded the 12-episode, straight-to-series half-hour drama that it will produce in partnership with youth channel BBC Three. More.

+Council of Dads canceled at NBC. The family drama, from Universal Television and showrunners Tony Phelan and Joan Rater and exec producer Jerry Bruckheimer, was the last of NBC's freshman class to have its fate determined by the network. More.



 Why the Streisand Effect is misunderstood. The phenomenon, coined to describe censorship attempts that backfire, has been increasingly invoked online — from Donald Trump's legal threats to HBO Max's Gone With the Wind reckoning — but is it real? Eriq Gardner investigates. The story.

+Google will again be contending with a lawsuit that alleges it breached an agreement to never get into the business of content for children thanks to a decision on Thursday from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The suit comes from SM Kids, which claims to be the proper successor to the "Googles" brand. The story.

+New York judge rejects Trump family effort to halt tell-all book. The motion seeks an injunction to prevent Mary Trump and the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, from releasing it, as scheduled, in July. More.

+Concertgoers seek Ticketmaster terms of use click rates in antitrust class action. The fans argue the site is "designed in a way to actively dissuade consumers from knowing or understanding that the Terms of Use are something they can or should read." More.

 Stacey Abrams partners with stars to boost census participation: "We can't be left out of the story." The politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, author and former Minority Leader in Georgia's House of Representatives has partnered with America Ferrera, Wilmer Valderrama and Ryan Piers Williams' nonprofit Harness to help reach as many people as possible and get them to fill out this year's census count by the Oct. 31 deadline. The interview.

►Who needs movie theaters when you have Fortnite? Epic Games' battle royale hit Fortnite is hosting a Christopher Nolan-themed movie night on Friday, offering scheduled screenings of Inception, Batman Begins or The Prestige. Dubbed Movie Night at Party Royale's Big Screen, the event is described by the video game publisher and developer as a test that will allow viewers to choose their participating country to see available showtimes. The films will be shown in their full length. More.

►WME head of music Marc Geiger exits. WME’s co-head of music Sara Newkirk Simon will transition to a consultant role with WME's parent company Endeavor, it was announced on Thursday. Meanwhile, Lucy Dickins is promoted to co-head of WME’s music division, joining Scott Clayton and Kirk Sommer who will remain in their roles as co-heads. More.

+Other representation news: Electronic music and gaming star Joel Zimmerman, better known as deadmau5, has been signed by UTA for worldwide representation in all areas. More.

Casting roundup: Elizabeth Banks will play Ms. Frizzle in the live-action hybrid adaptation of the beloved books and '90s animated series The Magic School Bus... Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, Benjamin King and Da’Vine Joy Randolph will star in comedy Shriver... Sarah Bolger is set to star in the historical true crime drama Black Donnelly’s... Joseph Fiennes will play Wim Hof, the Dutch extreme athlete, in The Ice Man...

►TV's Top 5 podcast: During this week's podcast, hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg also discuss Hollywood's racial reckoning, Hulu's big "imports" and the best TV of 2020 (so far). They also speak with Search Party showrunners Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers. Listen.

►Critic's notebook: Tiger King and The Last Dance were quarantine breakouts, but are they Emmy-worthy? With a nation in lockdown, these two shows gave us communal TV moments as an escape. Next, they're likely to go head-to-head for the nonfiction/documentary series Emmy, Daniel Fienberg writes. The column.

►Broadcast TV ratings: Wednesday's broadcast ratings were once again fairly soft, with two of the five original shows on the English-language networks declining week to week among adults 18-49 and the other three flat. Univision snagged the top spot in the key ad demographic for the second straight week. The numbers.

In other news...

--MGM’s International Distribution and Acquisitions arm has acquired the remaining international territories, excluding China, for Bill & Ted Face the Music from Endeavor Content.

--National Geographic Documentary Films will give Ron Howard's Rebuilding Paradise film a limited theatrical release on July 31 via Abramorama.

--The world of the anticipated video game Cyberpunk 2077 is expanding. A 10-episode anime series based on the property is in the works from Netflix, anime studio Studio Trigger and CD Projekt Red, the developer behind the video game.

--BET on Thursday announced that Beyoncé will receive the Humanitarian Award at the 2020 BET Awards, set to air on Sunday.

--When film directors jump to TV: Helmers reveal benefits, challenges of moving to small screen.

--Dark Horse Comics has cut ties with writer and editor Scott Allie after another former Dark Horse employee accused him of sexual harassment and sexual assault across a period lasting more than a decade.

--Grammy-winning country group The Dixie Chicks have dropped the word "dixie" from their name, now going by The Chicks.

--The 9th BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia is headed online this year amid the COVID-19 crisis.

--Amazon Studios and Michael B. Jordan's production company Outlier Society unveiled on Thursday the launch of their summer screening series, dubbed A Night at the Drive in. The series celebrates multi-cultural voices in world cinema.

What else we're reading...

--"Disney Parks need a cure" [WSJ]

--"‘We need to talk about the money’: Leslie Odom Jr.’s Hamilton duels, onstage and off" [LA Times]

--"Facebook tries to contain damage as Verizon joins ad boycott" [WSJ]

--"The temptation of Kayleigh McEnany" [The Atlantic]

Today's birthdays: Ariana Grande, 27, Aubrey Plaza, 36, Nick Offerman, 50, Chris O'Donnell, 50, Chris Isaak, 64.