Today In Entertainment

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

What's news: A full recap of last night's 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, HBO and Schitt's Creek were the biggest winners, how the show pulled it off amid the pandemic, memorable moments and notable snubs, HBO chief Casey Bloys weighs in, a big night for Black actors, analysis and a review. Plus: Ellen DeGeneres addresses workplace culture concerns, the weekend box office from North America and China, Nomadland is people's choice winner in Toronto. --Alex Weprin

 The 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards

The 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards were an awards show unlike any other before it. Cameras set up inside nominee's homes, only a smattering of people in the Staples Center (a venue which would normally hold up to 20,000), and presenters zooming in from around the country. It was a format that broke traditions, even if the end result was one very familiar to Emmy viewers: Domination by HBO...

The Primetime Emmy Awards (and Creative Arts Emmys) by the numbers...

--By network/streaming service: HBO, 30, Netflix, 21, Pop TV, 10, Disney+, 8, NBC, 8, VH1, 6, ABC, 5, National Geographic, 5, Adult Swim, 4, Amazon Prime Video, 4, CNN, 3, Fox, 3, CBS, 2, Apple TV+, 2, Quibi, 2, FX Networks, 2...

--By show: Watchmen, 11, Schitt's Creek, 9, Succession, 7, The Mandalorian, 6, RuPaul's Drag Race, 6, Saturday Night Live, 6, Last Week Tonight, 4, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, 4, Apollo 11, 3, Cheer, 3, Dave Chappelle: Sticks and Stones, 3 Euphoria, 3, Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, 3...

The full list of winners...

The big stories...

➤HBO's dominating night: Netflix entered Sunday's 72nd Emmy Awards with a record 160 total nominations but failed to cap its historic season as stalwart HBO was the year's biggest winner, having converted 30 of its 107 nominations on the strength of Watchmen and Succession. The story.

+HBO chief Casey Bloys weighs in: "I've been at HBO for 16 years now and I feel like every year it's, 'What is HBO going to do?!' So this is a really nice way to answer that question, what is HBO going to do, post-Game of Thrones," he tells Lesley Goldberg. "At some point, the volume game may overtake us, in terms of raw numbers, and that's mathematics. But it's not going to change the kinds of shows we do or why we do them. We'll continue to play our game and do what we're doing." The interview.

➤Schitt's sweeps: Pop TV's Schitt's Creek, with its sweep of seven Emmys on Sunday night on the heels of two at the Creative Arts Emmys last week, established a new record for most wins in a single season for a comedy series. The show's nine total wins for its sixth and final season breaks the record of eight that Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2018 and matched in 2019. The story.

➤A big night for Black actors: The Television Academy gave out a record number of Emmy nominations to Black actors in 2020. Over the weekend, the Emmys followed that up by giving a record number of awards to Black performers. The story.

➤That whole pandemic thing: From hundreds of cameras set up across the world, to awards statues handed out by couriers clad in hazmat suits (designed by costume designer Katja Cahill and executive producer Guy Carrington!), to Jason Bateman sitting in the stands of an otherwise empty Staples Center alongisde cardboard cutouts of other nominees, it was a presentaton that is unikely to be forgotten.

➤The snubs: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Good Place, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Ozark were among the shows to either be shut out completely, or underperform compared to expectations. The snubs list.

 Emmys Analysis

➤Scott Feinberg's analysis: HBO holds off Netflix in a year unlike any other: "How did Schitt's do it? It had a strong season, to be sure, but more than anything, I would argue, it enjoyed the Netflix bounce: TV Academy members, like the public, caught up with past seasons of the show on Netflix (they certainly had plenty of time to do so during the pandemic), which had licensed them (just as it had AMC's Breaking Bad before that show went on its mid-run Emmys streak), thereby giving the show a shot of adrenaline that no amount of TV Academy FYC events (of which there were none this year) or billboards (there were some, but few were out and about to see them) could have provided." The analysis.

+Michael O'Connell's analysis: "Though there was not the greatest variety among winning projects, the 2020 Emmys have a surprising amount to say about how TV's top awards are evolving with the medium. That a basic cable comedy could win the night's most awards, in a year where basic cable is pulling out of scripted television, shows that voters are not always going to be wooed by new platforms and nine-figure productions." The story.

➤Daniel Fienberg's review: "In a 'normal' year, [the monotony of the winners] would have been borderline disastrous, but the telecast kept finding different variations or oddities. There were categories presented by teachers, farmers, truckers and several medical professionals. Randall Park came out with an alpaca. Noho Hank from Barry (or at least Anthony Carrigan) came out dressed like a postman. And there were always those quick glimpses into people's living rooms as one could take pleasure in Uzo Aduba's books, couple Holland Taylor and Sarah Paulson watching together or whatever was happening with Jeremy Strong's neckwear. There was always something happening. Oh and the Necrology segment, featuring departed luminaries accompanied by H.E.R. terrifically singing a strange arrangement of Sinéad O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares 2 U,' was an above-average example of the form." The review.

+The most memorable moments: From a Friends reunion to a "Black Lives Matter" chant featuring Jimmy Kimmel and Anthony Anderson to the pandemic-fueled monologue, here's a roundup of the biggest moments from Sunday night's awards show. The list.

+Some other notable moments and wins: Apple TV+ had its first win for Billy Crudup in The Morning Show... Euphoria's Zendaya, 24, made history, becoming the youngest ever best actress in a drama series winner... Tyler Perry spoke about recognizing the value of a diversity of experiences and stories while accepting the Governors Award on behalf of himself and The Perry Foundation at the 2020 Emmys on Sunday Night...

+Fashion: Chris Gardner looks at how the nominees approached the unusual at-home affair. More... The 20 best dressed...

+Pre-show drama: E! red carpet hosts Giuliana Rancic and Vivica A. Fox were MIA after each was diagnosed with COVID-19. E! style correspondent Brad Goreski, E! News’ The Rundown host Erin Lim, Laverne Cox and Nightly Pop co-host Nina Parker hosted in their stead. More.

 Now The Rest of the Day's News...

➤Christopher Nolan's Tenet jumped the $250 million mark at the global box office over the weekend, but continues to struggle domestically without such major cities New York and Los Angeles in play. Warner Bros. is reporting that the big-budget espionage pic earned $4.7 million domestically from 2,930 theaters in its third weekend for a North American total of $36.1 million. The studio insists that Tenet is far from over, and anticipates a huge bump in ticket sales as more cinemas on both coasts are allowed to flip on the lights. The story.

+Meanwhile: Holdover local war epic The Eight Hundred dominated Mulan over the weekend in China, as the Disney tentpole continued its precipitous decline in its most important theatrical market. The Eight Hundred, produced for about $85 million, on Monday also overtook Sony's Bad Boys for Life ($424.6 million) to become the biggest worldwide film of 2020. As of 5 p.m. Beijing time on Monday, The Eight Hundred had reached $426.5 million. More.

➤Ellen's apology: Ellen DeGeneres addressed multiple reports about a "toxic" work culture on her eponymous show when the daytime program returned on Monday.After sarcastically sharing that she had a "great...super terrific" summer, even offering a double thumbs up, DeGeneres went right into the reports of a toxic workplace and the WarnerMedia investigation in her first monologue back.

--"I learned that things happened here that never should have happened," DeGeneres said. I take that very seriously and I want to say I'm so sorry to the people that were affected. I know that I'm in a position of privilege and power and I realize that with that comes responsibility. I take responsibility for what happens at my show." The story.

➤Trump appears poised to sign off on TikTok deal: The proposed deal, which must still formally approved, would create a new company, TikTok Global, headquartered in the U.S. and 20 percent owned by Oracle and Walmart. "I have given the deal my blessing," Trump told reporters over the weekend. "If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too." Stay tuned.

➤Chloe Zhao's Nomadland picked up the top People's Choice honor on Sunday at the pandemic-era Toronto Film Festival, which wrapped on Saturday. The Frances McDormand-starrer was named the top audience prize winner in Toronto, which is often a barometer of future Academy Award nominations. The first runner-up for the top audience prize was Regina King's One Night in Miami, while the second runner-up was Tracey Deer's Beans. The winners.

+Another big Toronto deal: Solstice Studios has sealed a deal for worldwide rights to filmmaker Reinaldo Green Marcus' Good Joe Bell, a drama starring Mark Wahlberg and written by the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain duo Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. More.

+Best of Toronto and Venice:  Career highs from Frances McDormand and Kate Winslet, a new Spike Lee joint, Regina King's feature directorial debut and gems from Greece, Iran, Japan and Ivory Coast are among the favorites of THR's film critics. The list.

In other news...

--Microsoft is growing its video game domain, acquiring the parent company of publisher Bethesda Softworks for $7.5 billion in cash.

--Disney+'s upcoming Marvel Studios show WandaVision is coming into focus. The first trailer debuted during Sunday's Emmys, and shows off a 1950s sitcom-inspired vibe with a dark twist, as Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) live their ideal suburban lives, but begin to suspect not everything is as it seems.

From $10,000 to $10 million: How WME's Richard Weitz’s “Quarantunes” pandemic concert series hit its biggest milestone yet.

--Ernie F. Orsatti, a veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator who got his start by taking a stupendous fall through a glass skylight in the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, has died. He was 80.

--Greta Thunberg called out celebrity culture as "absurd" at TIFF.

What else we're reading...

--"Jeff Zucker helped create Donald Trump. That show may be ending" [NY Times]

--"Fox is poised to spend up to $2 billion to keep Sunday football" [Bloomberg]

--"Commentary: Essential workers saved the Emmys from being completely out of touch" [LA Times]

--"How the 2020 Emmys' big winners reflect Trumps divided America" [Vanity Fair]

--"Trump mocks MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi for getting shot with rubber bullet" [CNN Business]

Today's birthdays: Bill Murray, 70, Stephen King, 73, Alfonso Ribeiro, 49, Jason Derulo, 31, Wale, 36.

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

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