What's news: Hollywood pushes forward with production despite virus surge, why Tenet's staggered theatrical release may mark a new "normal," Snap Inc. earnings, Spotify inks a new deal with Universal Music, a peek inside the NFL's TV deals, will ByteDance sell TikTok? Elisabeth Moss inks a deal with Disney's Hulu and Fox 21, Obama and Biden bypass TV for video conversation. Plus: Cynthia Erivo to star in musical drama Talent Show for Universal, and Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation pioneer, turns 110 in quarantine. --Alex Weprin

 Hollywood Production Pushes Forward

►Hollywood charges forward with production plans despite virus surge. Studios keep plotting returns to filming in states including California, New York, Georgia and Illinois as they hash out details of on-set COVID-19 protocols with the guilds, Bryn Elise Sandberg reports.

--Among the projects in flux: Tyler Perry's BET shows have returned to production in Atlanta after delays in getting COVID test results pushed the schedule back, Also in Georgia: Stranger Things is set to return in September, and Dwayne Johnson's Red Notice hoping to return to production in the state soon so that Johnson can move on to work on Warner Bros.' Black Adam. FX's Fargo is eyeing a mid-August return in Chicago.

--"For studios plotting their return to production, government approval has somehow proved less of an issue than guild approval. Sources say the AMPTP, which represents the major studios, and guilds like IATSE, the labor union for crewmembers, are still in the midst of hashing out details of the on-set safety protocols. The main issues that continue to be debated center on the role of COVID-19 managers, the frequency and type of testing, 10-hour work day caps to allow for more time to clean and sick day compensation (the guild is said to want members who may fall ill to the virus to still be paid, while the studios want to avoid having to potentially pony up double the money.)" The story.

►Tenet tosses playbook as staggered rollout may be new box office "normal." Studio insiders tell Pamela McClintock that the espionage epic will go out first overseas, where cinemas have reopened in many European and Asian countries, and have begun to reopen in China. Tenet hopes to arrive in the U.S. in the first part of September, even if only in select cities.

--“Our normal for the foreseeable future is some markets open and some closed, which will keep changing over time. We can’t expect this to change for months, so we have to get going,” says Patrick Corcoran, vice president and chief communications officer at the National Association of Theatre Owners. The story.

 In Business News...

►Snap Inc. earnings: The coronavirus pandemic fueled strong second quarter revenue for Snapchat owner Snap but didn't lift the company's user base as much as it did the previous quarter.

--The company on Tuesday reported second quarter revenue of $454 million, up 17 percent compared with the same period last year, a sign that advertising on the platform was strong in spite of the shutdown's earlier disruption of the marketing industry. Snapchat's base of daily active users grew 17 percent year-over-year to 238 million. It represented sequential quarterly growth of 9 million and was lower than the 239 million that analysts were expecting. The story.

+Will ByteDance sell TikTok? According to The Information, that is one possibility if the U.S government continues to pressure the Chinese owner of the white-hot video app. A group of U.S. investors in the company have discussed buying a majority stake in the app, making it a U.S. company and hopefully relieving the pressure from the White House and Congress.

+A peek inside the NFL's TV finances: Every NFL team received $296 million from the league last year (up 8 percent from the 2018), with almost all of that cash coming from the league's lucrative TV and sponsorship deals. That figure comes courtesy of the Green Bay Packers, which are the only NFL team to operate as a non-profit, and accordingly released its financial information Tuesday. The Packers also painted a somewhat dire financial forecast for the upcoming season, owing to a likely lack of crowds (or minimal live crowds) at Lambeau Field.

--The numbers also highlight the importance of the league's new TV deals, which are due for renegotiation beginning this year. Before the pandemic, the rights were seen as a slam-dunk to set new records, well above the $1-$2 billion per season the networks currently pay. Now, with cord-cutting accelerating and a weak ad market impacting TV revenue, it isn't clear how the league will fare... though TV rights records remain very much in play.

+Spotify, Universal Music ink new license agreement. The companies announced the new deal Wednesday morning, keeping the world's largest music label on the world's largest music streaming platform for at least a few more years. Spotify signed a new deal with Warner Music earlier this year. Terms weren't disclosed. More.

+The New York Times, which is in the midst of a film and TV production expansion, has named Meredith Kopit Levien CEO, succeeding Mark Thompson effective Sept. 8. Kopit Levien has been one of the business-side executives most involved in the Times' video production, which includes the FX series The New York Times Presents, and a number of documentary film projects.

+WME, Endeavor Content increase assistant pay. The talent and media agencies' move follows in the wake of competitors Verve, CAA, ICM and UTA in responding to the #PayUpHollywood movement. More.

 Elisabeth Moss Inks Disney Deal

 Elisabeth Moss is expanding her reach in Hollywood. The Emmy-winning Handmaid's Tale star and executive producer has launched a production company, Love & Squalor Pictures, and signed a joint first-look TV deal with Hulu and Fox 21 Television Studios. As part of the deal with the two Disney-owned companies, Love & Squalor is developing an anthology called Black Match, with Moss attached to star. The story.

How a fight over social media between an Oscar-nominated producer and the Film Academy wound up in court. Big Chill and Erin Brokovich producer Michael Shamberg filed a civil action in LA County Superior Court alleging that the organization violated its bylaws by failing to vote on a proposal he made before the board in January. Scott Feinberg explains what's going on. The story.

►Cynthia Erivo to star in musical drama Talent Show for Universal. Gandja Monteiro (Vida, The Chi) will direct the project, which is based on an idea by Duane Adler, the Save the Last Dance scribe who originated the Step Up franchise.

--Talent, a working title, is the story of a failed songwriter, to be played by Erivo, who returns home to Chicago to lead a group of at-risk youth in their annual talent show. Lena Waithe wrote the latest script. The story.

►Syfy's Van Helsing restarts production after COVID-19 shutdown. Nomadic Pictures and Dynamic Television announced work on the final 10 episodes for the action horror series had resumed after grinding to a halt on March 15 amid the coronavirus spread. Production on the final run for Van Helsing also marks the first U.S. network series to restart location shooting in Canada, a Hollywood production hub. More.

+Bridget Everett to star in HBO comedy series. The premium cable outlet has given a series order to Somebody Somewhere, which will star Everett (Patti Cake$, HBO's Camping) and is inspired by her life. Everett will also executive produce the show, which is set in her home state of Kansas. More.

+Entertainment One has partnered with wrongful death trial attorney L. Chris Stewart on a new docuseries about his pursuit of justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and other victims of high profile police brutality cases. More.

►The Obama-Biden show: Joe Biden's presidential campaign said Wednesday that it had taped a socially-distanced conversation between Biden and President Barack Obama. The slickly-produced discussion (watch a teaser here) will debut on Biden and Obama's social media feeds Thursday, bypassing traditional TV platforms (though it is a sure bet that the cable news channels will pick up clips in short order.

 Showtime has defeated a lawsuit over a May 2019 episode of Billions as a New York federal judge has found the Cayuga Nation can't sue the network for defamation because the allegedly offensive material involved the tribe as a governing body rather than its individual members. The Cayuga Nation and Clint Halftown on August 15 sued the network, along with co-creators Brian Koppelman and Andrew Ross Sorkin and writer-producer David Levien alleging the series portrayed them as participating in an illegal casino land deal and bribing a public official. More.

+Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of throwing bottles like "grenades." Heard alleged in a British court on Wednesday that her ex-husband  threw “30 or so bottles” at her as if they were “grenades or bombs” while they were in Australia in March 2015 and that he accidentally severed part of his finger during the assault. More.

►CAA has a new head of TV lit. Praveen Pandian has been promoted to head of the agency's television literary department, reporting to head of scripted TV and CAA board member Joe Cohen. He fills a long vacant role at CAA, which had not had anyone in that position since Cohen took over as head of the TV department years ago. More.

+The movie adaptation of bestselling murder mystery novel Where the Crawdads Sing has found its director. Olivia Newman, who wrote and directed Netflix feature First Match, will helm Sony Pictures' feature adaptation of the Delia Owen's debut novel that has dominated the New York Times bestsellers list since it was published 2019. It was also the most-sold fiction book on Amazon for all of 2019. More.

►Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation pioneer, turns 110 in quarantine. "I don't know why I am still here, but I know that I don't want to be revered for how old I am, I want to be known for who I am," says the MPTF resident. Her first pandemic was the 1918 Spanish flu. When this one is over, she tells Gary Baum that she "can't wait to watch my Dodgers and eat a Dodger dog." More.

►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Fear City: New York vs. The Mafia, writing that Netflix series "is an occasionally entertaining and never revelatory offering that dares to walk where countless documentaries have meandered before." The review.

►TV ratings: NBC ran its summer winning streak to nine weeks on Monday, with The Titan Games leading the network to the top of the adults 18-49 rankings. It also led the broadcast slate in total viewers, while ABC's Bachelor clip show slipped to a low in total viewers. The numbers.

+Retro Jeopardy episode scores ratings gains. Having exhausted its supply of new episodes in June, the long-running game show has been airing reruns for the past several weeks. Monday began a week highlighting moments from early in the show's current run, starting with Alex Trebek's first episode as host from 1984. Viewers came out in high numbers for the flashback: More.

Obituary: Michael Franklin, who represented directors and writers as executive director of the DGA and WGA West, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 96...

In other news...

--Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster classic Goodfellas, Sidney Lumet's corrupt cops thriller Serpico from 1973 and newly-restored gems from Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Souleymane Cissé are among the highlights of the Venice Film Festival's Classics lineup, which organizers unveiled Wednesday.

--Gael Garcia Bernal is the latest star to join M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller for Universal. Shyamalan will write, produce and direct the untitled film. Plot and character details are being kept under wraps, as is typical with Shyamalan productions.

--The Rada Film Group, producer of the Sundance-winning documentary American Promise and the narrative feature The Keeper, is rebranding as Rada Studio.

--Disney Junior has set a primetime finale coronation special for Elena of Avalor that will air Sunday, Aug. 23, on Disney Junior and DisneyNOW. New episodes leading up to the finale will debut every Sunday at 5 p.m.

--One year after the cancelation of her E! talk show, Busy Tonight, Busy Philipps is back with her latest venture: podcast Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best.

--ViacomCBS's ViacomCBS Networks U.K. unit unveiled a series of measures designed to strengthen its diversity and inclusion drive and accelerate "diverse representation on-screen, off-screen and within its organization."... BritBox, the U.K. streaming service created by ITV and the BBC, has begun flexing its original programming muscles...

--What organizers described as "an anomaly" that closed online voting for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards early in June was actually an error that cross-linked certain accounts and allowed voters not only to see personal information listed in the linked account but to change the other person's vote.

--A hostage stand-off in Ukraine has ended peacefully after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to the hostage-taker's demand to publicly endorse an obscure documentary narrated by Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix.

--Bad Robot has hired Grace Del Val as its new head of business affairs.

What else we're reading...

--"How to sell books in 2020: Put them near the toilet paper" [NY Times]

--"ESPN anchor Sage Steele claimed Black colleagues excluded her from race special" [WSJ]

--"Fox sells 90% of ad inventory for shortened MLB season" [Sports Business Daily]

--"Ellen Goodman and Lynn Sherr team up for a podcast about women voters and the power of persistence" [Boston Globe]

Today's birthdays: Alex Trebek, 80, Selena Gomez, 28, Prince George of Cambridge, 7, Danny Glover, 74, Bob Dole, 97.