Today In Entertainment

AUGUST 26, 2020

What's news: NBCU investigating Ron Meyer as the Charlotte Kirk affair expands, the great agency exodus, Tenet box office preview, Young Sheldon's rich syndication deal with ViacomCBS, NBC's Tiger King drama, I'm Sorry canceled at truTV. Plus: Kate Winslet talks Ammonite and getting back to work, and History channel reunites Home Improvement's Tim Allen and Richard Karn. --Alex Weprin

On the cover: Kate Winslet, back in the awards race with same-sex romance Ammonite, on getting back to work. The perennial contender on the pleasures of a quarantined awards season, the pride that came from choreographing her own sex scenes with Saoirse Ronan, and why a virtual Toronto Film Festival isn't the end of the world: "I can be barefoot and I don't have to put a dress on. It's awesome."

--Winslet was on a set in Philadelphia shooting HBO’s limited series Mare of Easttown when everything shut down in mid-March. It was only fitting that the actress, 44, who once embedded with CDC epidemiologists to research her role in Steven Soderbergh’s eerily prescient Contagion, became the one on set best prepared for a coming plague, Tatiana Siegel writes.

“People thought I was crazy because I had been walking around [Philadelphia] wearing a mask for weeks, going into the grocery store and wiping everything down with isopropyl alcohol and wearing gloves,” she says of the time when early reports of the virus had started to emerge from Wuhan and Europe. "Then all of a sudden March 13 came around, and people were like, 'f*ck, where do I get one of those masks?'"

--About Ammonite: "The buzz about the film has been building since spring, when it was selected to make its world premiere in Cannes (those plans were scrapped due to COVID-19). To date, only festival programmers have seen Ammonite, which will kick off a surreal 2021 awards season when it’s screened in front of a live audience in Toronto (because of government restrictions, only locals can attend, which means Winslet will videoconference in for the premiere and when accepting the prestigious Tribute Actor Award).

--“It’s clearly the film for us this fall and is something we’ve always planned on being an awards contender across multiple categories,” says Neon CEO Tom Quinn. “I think Kate is discovering new levels of what she can do as an actress with this role in a way that took our breath away.” The cover story.

➤Box office preview: Tenet launches overseas in key COVID-19 era test. Across the globe, theater circuits have largely pegged their reopenings to the film. Warners, hoping to manage expectations in unusual circumstances, isn't providing guidance as to how much the movie might open to internationally this weekend.

--Box office analysts and rival studios, however, are targeting an initial overseas debut of anywhere from $25 million to $40 million through Sunday, depending on fast-unfolding circumstances. The story.

+Even Tom Cruise is doing his part: The actor threw his support behind Christopher Nolan's espionage epic by attending a preview screening of the movie in London on Monday. The actor tweeted about his experience with an accompanying video showing him wearing a black face covering as he arrived at the Odeon BFI Imax. "Big Movie. Big Screen. Loved it," Cruise headlined the post. More.

 The Charlotte Kirk Affair Expands

➤NBCUniversal investigating Ron Meyer as Charlotte Kirk affair expands to more moguls. After ousting its longtime studio chief, the company has hired outside counsel to investigate “Ron’s behavior,” an insider tells Tatiana Siegel.

--Sources tell Siegel that Steve Tisch — a heavyweight producer behind Forrest Gump and The Equalizer and chairman, co-owner and executive vp of the New York Giants — had a relationship with Kirk in 2012, predating the beginning of the Meyer affair by a few months. Unlike Meyer and Tsujihara, Tisch was not married at the time he was involved with a then-19-year-old Kirk, who had just moved from her native England to New York. The story.

 The Great Agency Exodus

➤Top reps are fleeing the majors as a management civil war looms. While Hollywood’s big three talent firms face pandemic upheaval, a billionaire Trump backer is shelling out $25 million to partially finance a new venture, one of multiple new boutique firms.

--Another big question is which star clients will follow. Hollywood chatter says Taron Edgerton, Tom Hardy, and Keira Knightley may be heading to the new shop while Margot Robbie and Tiffany Haddish, who already have managers, may be navigating new arrangements. The story.

 'Young Sheldon' Strikes ViacomCBS Syndie Deal

➤Young Sheldon reruns will air on Nick At Nite. Under the multiple-year deal, the 1990s-set single-camera comedy from Chuck Lorre will join ViacomCBS-owned Nick at Nite's syndication lineup in November. The lucrative deal, financial terms of which were not immediately available, will see the first three seasons of the comedy about the younger version of Jim Parsons' Sheldon Cooper join Nick at Nite's evening block that also includes repeats of Friends, George Lopez and the Lorre-backed Mom.

--The move means that Young Sheldon and Big Bang Theory will have different syndicated homes. WarnerMedia-owned TBS has syndication rights to the flagship comedy. The syndie deal also had a halo affect on first-run episodes of Big Bang Theory after TBS aired the multicam for multiple hours each weekday. The story.

In TV news...

+NBCUniversal is going to make the most of the interest in Tiger King. The company on Tuesday announced that its Joe Exotic drama starring Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon has been formally ordered to series and will air as a cross-platform venture on NBC, USA Network and streamer Peacock. The story.

+TruTV has canceled its scripted comedy I'm Sorry, citing circumstances created by the coronavirus pandemic. The cancellation comes despite the WarnerMedia cable network having picked up a third season in June 2019. Created by and starring Andrea Savage, I'm Sorry had been about two weeks into production on season three before the pandemic shut down production in March. More.

+Nearly two years after it was ordered to series, The Stand will at last make its debut on CBS All Access in December. The ViacomCBS streaming service will premiere the limited series, based on Stephen King's novel, on Dec. 17, with episodes debuting weekly. The nine-episode story, which CBS All Access gave a straight-to-series order back in January 2019, will feature a new coda written by the author. More.

+It's Tool Time again: History is reuniting former Home Improvement stars Tim Allen and Richard Karn for a competition series at the cabler. Allen and Karn will host and executive produce Assembly Required, in which builders compete from their home workshops to breathe new life into household items that desperately need fixing. Allen and Karn will also delve into the history of each item and celebrate the men and women who crafted them and the techniques they used. More.

+BuzzFeed is expanding its media reach.The company has signed a first-look deal with Universal Television to develop scripted series projects based on its content and original reporting from its journalists. The first project under the deal is inspired by Bim Adewunmi's 2018 story, "Meet the Women Who Are Building a Better Romance Industry." More.

The day in deals...

+Cynthia Erivo is expanding into producing. The award-winning actress is reteaming with The Outsider studio MRC Television and has signed a first-look deal with the studio and Civic Center Media. Additionally, The Outsider and Genius star has launched Edith's Daughter, a production company that will focus on stories and people who are often overlooked and underrepresented. Erivo has tapped Bron Studios' Solome Williams as vp at Edith's Daughter (with the company named after Erivo's mother). The details.

+Robin Thede is putting down roots. The Emmy-nominated creator of HBO's A Black Lady Sketch Show has signed an exclusive multiple-year overall deal with Warner Bros. TV Group. Under her first-ever multiple-year deal, Thede will develop new content for streaming outlets, premium and basic cable and broadcast networks. More.

➤Succession, but IRL? CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter's new book Hoax has plenty of scoops, but one is sure to be of interest to many in Hollywood. Citing people in James Murdoch's "orbit," Stelter discusses an idea being floated that would see James wrest control of Fox Corp. from his older brother Lachlan.

--After Rupert Murdoch's death (the mogul is 89), control of the family's companies would fall to the Murdoch Family Trust, with Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence each having a vote. If James convinced his sisters to go along with the plan, it is not out of the realm of possibility. The Daily Beast has more.

➤RNC ratings: The opening night of the Republican National Convention was down in the ratings compared to 2016 — falling by a similar percentage as did the Democratic convention last week. Across the six major commercial networks carrying coverage at 10 p.m. ET — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — the convention averaged 15.85 million viewers, per Nielsen. That's off by about 30 percent from the RNC's opening night four years ago, which drew 22.53 million. The numbers.

➤Alf Clausen's Simpsons lawsuit moves forward: A Los Angeles Superior Court judge is allowing 79-year-old Alf Clausen to proceed in his lawsuit against Fox and producers of The Simpsons over his termination as the show's lead musical composer. But in a bit of a surprise, it's a disability claim that will carry Clausen forward rather than a charge of age discrimination. The story.

➤Film review: Frank Scheck reviews the Bruce Willis-starring thriller Hard Kill. "The production notes inform us that the unimaginatively titled Hard Kill was filmed in a mere ten days, making you wonder how they spent eight of them." The review.

Obituaries: Arnold Spielberg, a pioneering computer designer who encouraged his only son, Steven Spielberg, to become a filmmaker, has died. He was 103. Spielberg died Tuesday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his family announced...  Gail Sheehy, the journalist, commentator and pop sociologist whose best-selling Passages helped millions navigate their lives from early adulthood to middle age and beyond, has died. She was 83...

In other news...

--How Jon Hamm is helping small theaters: "We’re trying to keep the lights on."

--Girls Trip director Malcolm D. Lee has signed with A3 Artists Agency.

--WME has signed entrepreneur Samir Arora (Mode Media, NetObjects) and his Palo Alto-based tech company Sage Digital, whose AI-enabled mobile platform supports fundraising, payment systems and other online experiences and services. 

--The Toronto Film Festival has booked Hollywood A-listers Ava DuVernay, Denzel Washington, Barry Jenkins and Saoirse Ronan for candid conversations at its upcoming 20th edition.

--The Tokyo International Film Festival, which plans to forge ahead with a physical edition in late October, will showcase the work of rising Japanese arthouse director Koji Fukada.

--Kat Calvin, founder and executive director of voter ID and turnout organization Spread The Vote, has announced the launch of a new PSA campaign #WorkThePolls aimed at inspiring young people to help at the polls.

--Writers on Ozark and The Good Place break down key season finales right on the script pages.

What else we're reading...

--"How the Hollywood Fix cornered the influencer paparazzi market" [NY Times]

--"Sean Hannity receives special White House access for Republican convention" [CNN Business]

--"Bella Thorne has made $2 million on OnlyFans in less than a week. A movie is next" [LA Times]

--"Ava DuVernay interviews Angela Davis" [Vanity Fair]

Today's birthdays: Macaulay Culkin, 40, Melissa McCarthy, 50, Chris Pine, 40, Keke Palmer, 27, James Harden, 31.

Is this e-mail not displaying correctly?
View it in your browser. 

©2020 The Hollywood Reporter. 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 All rights reserved.

AUGUST 26, 2020

UNSUBSCRIBE 

MANAGE PREFERENCES

PRIVACY POLICY

TERMS OF USE