What's news: The Walking Dead delayed, Disney+ exploring a supernatural comedy, MLB's return sets a ratings record for ESPN, layoffs hit Fox Sports, Apple secures a Werner Herzog doc, Art Directors' Guild releases COVID safety guidelines, Apple's Central Park casts Kristen Bell's replacement. Plus: The pre-Emmys Feinberg Forecast, and a Bob's Burgers movie? --Alex Weprin

 'Walking Dead' Delay

Comic Con may not be taking place in San Diego this year, but the "at home" format is still making news...

 The Walking Dead season 11 delayed to 2021. The new season has always debuted in early October and this will be the first time in a decade that the show's return has been delayed. Instead, AMC has slated the previously delayed season 10 finale — originally scheduled to air in April but delayed because of production issues related to COVID-19 — for Oct. 4. While still dubbed the season finale (watch the opening minutes, below), AMC has, in a twist, extended the season with an order for six additional episodes. Those installments are set to air in early 2021. Additional details about the newly ordered episodes, which brings the season 10 order to a franchise record 22 episodes, will be announced later. The story.

+Related: Six more Walking Dead stars join Robert Kirkman's Invincible. The adult animation series for Amazon has recruited Lauren Cohan, Chad Coleman, Michael Cudlitz, Lennie James, Ross Marquand and Sonequa Martin-Green to join its voice cast. More.

+Disney+ developing Halloween supernatural comedy Spooked. Details are being kept in the pumpkin head but it is known that the storyline involves a Halloween night gone awry as trick or treaters are transformed into whatever costume they are wearing. The story.

+Maisie Richardson-Sellers talks Kissing Booth 2, her Legends of Tomorrow future and working with Carrie Fisher. The actress shares stories from her first on-camera job on The Force Awakens and her recently launched Barefaced Productions. The interview.

+How Dave Franco's own paranoia inspired him to write and direct The Rental. The filmmaker discusses his creative partnership with wife Alison Brie, the “elevated and tasteful” romantic comedy they wrote together during quarantine and his self-deprecating response to Barry Jenkins' offer to be in If Beale Street Could Talk. The interview.

+From a galaxy far, far away: Fans are still waiting to find out more about Star Wars: The High Republic, the publishing initiative spanning prose and comics set hundreds of years before the original Star Wars movie, and at Disney-Lucasfilm Publishing’s Comic-Con at Home panel Friday, some more information was finally revealed. More.

 MLB's Ratings Record

►Major League Baseball opener sets ratings record for ESPN. The rain-shortened opening game between the New York Yankees and World Series champion Washington Nationals drew an audience of 4 million viewers, according to Nielsen fast nationals. That's the largest audience for an opening night game ever, breaking the previous record of 3.7 million viewers in 2017 (Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals). The story.

+Layoffs hit Fox Sports. The company laid off between 50-100 people as part a restructuring that had been planned pre-pandemic. The story.

+THR TV critics pick 10 great sports-themed series. Viewers in Olympics withdrawal should check out these top-notch shows depicting athletes, competition or pure physical prowess, from addictive documentaries to a '90s superheroine classic, a comedy about fantasy football and more. The list. The list.

In other TV news...

►Bob's Burgers team discusses "doing good" in animation, accidental pandemic episode. Speaking on a Comic Con At Home panel, Creator Loren Bouchard and the cast also promise that a feature film based on the series will be released someday. The story.

+Apple's Central Park casts Kristen Bell's replacement. Emmy Raver-Lampman (The Umbrella Academy, Hamilton) will take over the role of Molly Tillerman in the show's second season. The recasting comes a month after the show's creative team said it would look for a Black or biracial actress to play Molly, amid a continuing reckoning over representation in the industry. More.

+Broadcast TV ratings: NBC's Blindspot ended its five-season run with steady ratings Thursday, and Univision led the adults 18-49 demographic in primetime on a fairly quiet night on the broadcast networks. Usual leader ABC aired reruns all evening. The numbers.

+Also: Netflix has renewed the YA drama Outer Banks for a second season following what Netflix calls a "breakout" first run. More.

 Apple's 'Fireball'

►Apple picks up new Werner Herzog doc Fireball. The doc's focus will be on how shooting stars, meteorites and deep impacts have focused the human imagination on other realms and worlds, and on our past and our future. More.

►Art Directors Guild releases COVID-19 safety recommendations. Previously submitted to IATSE, these are department-specific additions to the interim guidelines proposed by the AMPTP, IATSE and other participants in the Industry-Wide Labor-Management Safety Committee Task Force, as well as the Safe Way Forward protocols. Guidelines include remote working and remote meetings, where possible. More.

 Amber Heard's sister denied Friday that she had lied to a London court after Johnny Depp's lawyers in his libel suit against a British tabloid presented video footage that they claim showed his ex-wife was violent towards her. More.

►Feinberg Forecast: THR's awards columnist Scott Feinberg gives his final projections ahead of Tuesday's Emmy nominations. The forecast.

►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Epix's Helter Skelter: An American Myth, writing that the series "is another six-hour documentary telling a story that — though it's been recounted exhaustively — is still capable of fueling nightmares when delivered with proficiency (if not efficiency). Which this version, for the most part, does." The review.

Obituary: Harry Clein, the expert Hollywood publicist and awards campaigner who led films including Sophie's Choice, Forrest Gump, Kiss of the Spider Woman, sex, lies, and videotape and The Blair Witch Project to great success, has died. He was 82...

In other news...

--Henry Golding, perhaps best known for his breakout work Crazy Rich Asians, has signed with CAA.

--The 2020 Montclair Film Festival is forging ahead with a rescheduled edition of this year's event, to take place in October, featuring a mix of drive-in and virtual screenings as well as special events and conversations.

--Comcast's gaming network G4 teased a return next year with a video posted to Twitter on Friday, its first tweet since 2013.

--Disney has tightened health and safety restrictions at Walt Disney World in Florida and Downtown Disney in California.

--Mel Gibson spent a week in a Los Angeles hospital in April after testing positive for COVID-19, his representative said Friday.

--Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center is introducing the Black Carpet Speaker Series, a free program designed to provide Black filmmakers a platform to discuss everything from their projects and influences to insights and career journeys.

--Alfre Woodard has a date with Patrisse Cullors on July 29. The veteran actress and producer will join the Black Lives Matter co-founder for a SAG-AFTRA Foundation conversation at 1 p.m. PST on the organization's YouTube channel.

--Action-adventure game Ghost of Tsushima sold more than 2.4 million units worldwide during its opening weekend, July 17-20, PlayStation revealed in a tweet on Friday.

What else we're reading...

--"Apple eyes new streaming strategy after Tom Hanks drama breaks records" [Fast Company]

--"Good Place creator Michael Schur on what we lose when TV gets shorter" [Vanity Fair]

--"Why Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum is TV’s most honest dating show" [LA Times]

--"Amazon's streaming foray left out of Yankees' shortened season" [Bloomberg] 

--"Step Brothers and the peak summer of blockbuster comedy" [The Ringer]

Today's birthdays: Matt LeBlanc, 53, Robert Zoellick, 67, Rita Marley, 74, Juan Pablo Di Pace, 41.