What's news: Disney unschedules Mulan and pushes back Star Wars and Avatar films, Paramount shifts A Quiet Place Part II and Top Gun: Maverick to 2021, Fox developing an Empire spinoff, Denis Leary inks Fox deal, Elisabeth Moss to star in Apple thriller Shining Girls, The Ties to open the Venice Film Festival, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sue the paparazzi. Plus: Hallmark Channel finds its new CEO, Universal circles Tom Cruise's space movie. --Alex Weprin

 The Theatrical Schedule Comes Unglued

Following Warner Bros. decision to pull Tenet from the theatrical release calendar, the other shoe dropped Thursday, with Disney and Paramount delaying many of their tentpoles, or pulling them off the calendar altogether. Both studios released statements acknowledging the virus crisis and expressing support for theatrical films, but without a clear timeline for when movie theater swill reopen, changes had to be made.

►Disney unschedules Mulan, pushes back Avatar and Star Wars films a year. Mulan directed by Niki Caro, had been set to hit theaters on Aug. 21. Presently, however, the vast majority of cinemas in the U.S. remain closed. Mulan had previously been scheduled to open in late March and then was pushed to July 24. Disney didn't provide further comment regarding Mulan's fate beyond saying that the live-action adventure epic was being undated. While the company has been a champion of the theatrical experience, it is also investing heavily in its new streaming service, Disney+.

--All currently scheduled Avatar and Star Wars films are also being delayed by a year. Avatar 2 moves from Dec. 17, 2021, to Dec. 16, 2022, with subsequent movies in the series hitting theaters every December through 2028. Disney also revealed that the next untitled Star Wars pic, previously dated for Dec. 16, 2022, flies to Dec. 22, 2023, while the film after that moves from Dec. 20, 2024. to Dec. 19, 2025. and a third untitled film from Dec. 18, 2026. to Dec. 17, 2027. 

--Sony gets opportunistic: Hours after the announcement, Sony scooped up Avatar 2's Dec. 17 date for its next Spider-Man film, which had been set for Nov. 5, 2021. The full story on Disney's shuffle.

+Paramount gives up on 2020, pushing A Quiet Place Part II and Top Gun: Maverick to 2021. The studio announced Thursday evening that John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II is being delayed from Sept. 4, 2020 to April 23, 2021, while Top Gun: Maverick — which sees Tom Cruise reprise his titular role — is moving from Dec. 23, 2020 to July 1, 2021. The story.

Meanwhile, Paramount is actively looking to offload some theatrical projects to streamers...

+Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy time-travel adventure moves to Netflix from Paramount. Reynolds and Levy, who have the high-profile video game adventure movie Free Guy set to hit theaters in December, will star and direct, respectively, and produce the project, which had been called Our Name Is Adam. The Skydance project, written by Jonathan Tropper, had been set up at Paramount since 2012 and briefly had Tom Cruise attached. T.S. Nowlin and duo Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett were previous writers. The story.

+Amazon finalizing deal for Michael B. Jordan thriller from Paramount. Amazon is circling Paramount's Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse, starring Michael B. Jordan. The feature stars Jordan as beloved Clancy character John Clark, a former Navy SEAL and director of the elite counterterrorism unit Rainbow Six. More.

►Exclusive: Endeavor unveils its inclusion plan. A memo from Ari Emanuel revealed that the agency, working with Michael B. Jordan and Color of Change's new initiative #ChangeHollywood, would implement more than 30 actions in an effort to support Black voices and storytellers, along with diversifying its own ranks.

--Among the actions being taken: Committing $5 million over the next three years towards community programs and inclusion initiatives; partnering with select colleges to recruit students from underrepresented backgrounds; disclosing the company's diversity numbers; providing an inclusion rider template to all agents and clients; hiring independent security for the company's events; investing in Black creative-led film and TV projects; and training script readers and assistants to flag content that contains implicit and harmful bias. The story.

 In TV News...

►Empire spinoff starring Taraji P. Henson in the works at Fox. The offshoot, which is in development, is the first project to stem from a newly signed two-year, first-look deal that Henson has signed with Empire producers 20th Century Fox TV. Henson's newly launched production company, TPH Entertainment, will also produce the Empire spinoff, which will follow what's next for Cookie. The story.

+Denis Leary inks broadcast development deal at Fox. Under terms of the deal, Leary — via his new production outfit, Amoeba — will create and produce comedy, drama and animated projects for Fox Entertainment. Leary may also star in any new show created under the deal. More.

+Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me heads to HBO. The premium cable outlet will air a special in the fall based on Coates' best-selling book. Originally adapted by Harlem's Apollo Theater in 2018, the special features readings from the book, documentary and archival footage and animation. Apollo Theater executive producer Kamilah Forbes will direct. The story.

+Elisabeth Moss to star in Apple thriller Shining Girls. The Handmaid's Tale Emmy winner will star in and executive produce the thriller, based on Lauren Beukes' best-selling novel of the same name. Apple TV+ has handed out a straight-to-series order for the drama, which hails from Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and MRC Television. The story.

+Jeopardy all-stars in talks for The Chase game show reboot at ABC. The network is in talks with quiz-show champs Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter — who competed in the network's highly rated Jeopardy: The Greatest of All Time tournament earlier in the year — for a reboot of the British format in which a team of players faces off with a trivia expert, and which ran on GSN in the United States from 2013-15. More.

+Brian K. Vaughan's Paper Girls scores Amazon series order. The show is the third TV adaptation for one of Vaughan's comics, following Runaways at Hulu and FX's long-gestating Y: The Last Man. Amazon gave a series commitment to Paper Girls in 2019 ahead of Thursday's formal pickup. More.

+Also: Amazon has given an early third-season renewal to its comic-book series The Boys... Sweet Magnolias was renewed for season 2 at Netflix... Netflix also scuttled an unscripted show featuring comedians Chris D'Elia and Bryan Callen following accusations of sexual misconduct against D'Elia.... During a Comic-Con@Home virtual panel Thursday, the creative teams of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Picard talked the future of long-lasting franchise — and teased two new entries into the property...

►New this morning: Daniele Luchetti's The Ties to Open Venice Film Festival. The Ties, an adaptation of the novel by Domenico Starnone, will be the first Italian film to open Venice in 11 years. It will screen out of competition. The 1980s-set drama traces a marriage in collapse. Aldo and Vanda have been married 30 years but their relationship is tested when Aldo falls in love with the young Lidia. The story.

 A Royal Lawsuit

 Meghan Markle and Prince Harry haven't escaped the paparazzi since leaving the U.K. — in fact, they're now suing for invasion of privacy over illegal images they say were taken of their young son in their own backyard.

--The former royals and recent California residents are suing because of "serial intrusions on the privacy of a 14-month-old child in his own home, and the desire and responsibility of any parent to do what is necessary to protect their children from this manufactured feeding frenzy," according to a complaint filed Thursday in L.A. County Superior Court by Michael Kump of Kinsella Weitzman. The story.

+Also: Amber Heard insisted Thursday that she never wanted the world to know the details of her years of alleged abuse by Johnny Depp, as she concluded her evidence in her ex-husband's libel case against a British tabloid. More.

+And: Goldman Sachs has agreed to a $3.9 billion settlement with the Malaysian government over the 1MDB scandal. More.

►Universal circling Tom Cruise movie that will shoot in space. Doug Liman will direct and write the mysterious project. The filmmaker previously helmed Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow and American Made. More.

►Hallmark Channel has found its next leader. Former TV One chief Wonya Lucas has been tapped to serve as president and CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards Inc. Lucas, who will begin her new post Aug. 10, will report to Hallmark Cards CEO Mike Perry.

--Lucas takes over the role previously held by Bill Abbott. The latter executive was pushed out in January following a particularly fraught holiday season that saw Hallmark remove a commercial featuring a same-sex couple and eventually backtrack and apologize for its decision. The story.

+Revolving door: Producer Becky Sloviter, who most recently produced Hulu comedy Palm Springs, is joining MRC Film to head a new label focused on female-fronted comedies... CBS News has named Alvin Patrick the head of its newly-formed race and culture unit... The 72nd Emmy Awards has named Guy Carrington, Reginald Hudlin, David Jammy and Ian Stewart executive producers...

►Veep? Meet Veep. Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus co-hosted a fundraiser for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden last night, and she used the opportunity to crack some jokes, according to the pool report. "This is America. We can't make a totally unqualified, ill-equipped TV personality vice president. No, no, in this country we make him president.” Referencing a Veep episode where her character led a push to replace plastic cutlery with in government offices with recyclable utensils, Louis-Dreyfus said “That's actually more than Trump has done for the environment in four years. Talk about pathetic, he's actually worse than a fictional president with a team of professional writers working 24/seven to make her as bad as possible.”

►Verizon loses 81,000 pay TV subscribers as media unit hit by pandemic. The telecom giant on Friday reported that it lost 81,000 net pay TV subscribers for its FiOS consumer video service in the second quarter, compared with a loss of 52,000 in the year-ago period and a loss of 84,000 in the first quarter. The Verizon Media unit, which includes the likes of Yahoo and HuffPost, posted revenue for the second quarter of $1.4 billion, down 24.5 percent from the year-ago period. The firm said this was "primarily as a result of COVID-19 related impacts." The story.

+In other business news: Comcast struck a new carriage deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group, covering 78 Sinclair television stations in 51 major markets across Comcast’s cable television footprint, the Tennis Channel, 18 Fox-branded regional sports networks, YES Network, and in Chicago Sinclair's new Marquee Sports Network, which has rights to Cubs games.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: This week Awards columnist Scott Feinberg joins podcast hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg to break down how the pandemic has impacted the Emmy Awards, and Betty showrunner Crystal Moselle discusses HBO's six-episode skateboarding comedy. Listen.

►Film review: Robyn Bahr reviews the Netflix teen romantic comedy The Kissing Booth 2, writing that "as I might have said during my own high school days, The Kissing Booth 2 is 'mad stupid,' but it's still not as overtly slappable as Netflix's other low-budget teen comedies." The review.

►TV ratings: ABC's comedy United We Fall posted more decent ratings in its second week, topping the English-language networks in adults 18-49, while Univision's Te Doy La Vida came in first overall in the demographic. The numbers.

Casting roundup: Nina Dobrev will star in an adaptation of Woman 99 acquired by Bruna Papandrea's production banner... Brad Dourif, who has voiced the character Chucky over the course of seven feature films, will reprise his role in Syfy and USA's series Chucky.

In other news...

--After making a surprise announcement Thursday morning, the singer officially released her eighth studio album titled Folklore, along with a music video for her new single "Cardigan."

--Starting Saturday, Fox Sports will play ball with thousands of virtual fans during its Major League Baseball broadcasts. With in-person attendance not permitted for MLB's 60-game 2020 season, which starts today, Fox Sports hopes to better produce the feel of a live game by populating the stands of Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium and all major-league venues with digital crowds.

--The Location Managers Guild International announced the nominations for its 7th annual awards, which will be live streamed as a virtual event due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

--The Theatre Artists Fund, spearheaded by Sam Mendes to help support freelancers in the U.K. stage industry struggling during the lockdown due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, has raised £1.6 million ($2 million) since it launched on July 6, with donations from a number of major stars.

--Corus Entertainment, a major buyer of American series from studio suppliers, has been hit with a round of pandemic-era layoffs at its Global News division.

--In gaming news: Newly formed video game entertainment and news network VENN unveiled on Thursday its distribution lineup including top digital and TV platforms that will broadcast live content in a 24/7 cycle... Xbox revealed its latest slate of games on Thursday in a showcase during Summer Game Fest...

--The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled details on a slimmed-down and virtual industry conference set to take place Sept. 10 to 15... Also: The 24th iteration of the American Black Film Festival has announced the lineup for its virtual fest...

What else we're reading...

--"A&E has lost half its viewers since dropping Live PD" [WSJ]

--"The next streaming showdown is a race for eyeballs in Southeast Asia" [Bloomberg]

--"TikTok is launching a $200 million fund to pay creators for their videos" [The Verge]

--"Facebook ignored racial bias research, employees say" [NBC News]

--"Baseball is back. And it looks a lot different" [CNN]

Today's birthdays: Jennifer Lopez, 51, Lynda Carter, 69, Gus Van Sant, 68, Anna Paquin, 38, Bindi Irwin, 22.