Today In Entertainment

SEPTEMBER 09, 2020

What's news: The Film Academy rolls out significant inclusion requirements for the Oscars, a Netflix programming shakeup, younger viewers flocked to Mulan, ABC developing a new Black-ish spinoff, the Kardashians set an end date at E!, Fresh Prince reboot lands at Peacock, Hilary Swank sues over SAG-AFTRA health plan. Plus: The Chi renewed, and why Regina King could ride One Night in Miami back to the Oscars. --Alex Weprin

 Academy Sets Oscars Diversity Rules

➤Film Academy sets inclusion requirements for Oscars, will take full effect in 2024. "To encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience," films will have to meet minimum requirements pertaining to representation and inclusion to be eligible for the best picture Oscar beginning with the 96th Oscar race (which will recognize achievements from 2024 and be held in 2025), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday.

--The new requirements — which were announced just shy of the five-year anniversary of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and three months after the Academy announced its Academy Aperture 25 initiative — were determined by a task force headed by Academy governors DeVon Franklin and Jim Gianopulos and were modeled after a template inspired by the British Film Institute (BFI) Diversity Standards, which are used to determine certain funding eligibility in the UK and eligibility in some categories of the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) Awards. The details.

+BAFTA approves: "We are delighted that the Academy has today announced its new representation and inclusion standards," Marc Samuelson, chair of the BAFTA Film Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday night. "BAFTA introduced very similar standards in conjunction with the BFI for the Outstanding British Film and Outstanding British Debut categories in 2016 and we continue to review and expand these standards every year. We look forward to continuing our work with AMPAS, the BFI and other industry bodies to introduce universal diversity standards adopted in all BAFTA's Film Awards' categories by 2024." More.

➤Netflix shocker: One of Netflix’s veteran content executives is leaving the company in a surprise shake-up at the streaming giant. Cindy Holland, vp original content who has spent nearly two decades at Netflix, is out amid a move by newly appointed co-CEO Ted Sarandos to streamline the the company's television ranks. Bela Bajaria, who of late was overseeing Netflix’s local-language productions, is being promoted to the newly created role of vp global television.

--“Since becoming co-CEO, I’ve wanted to simplify the way our content teams operate,” Ted Sarandos explained in a statement Tuesday. Only Bajaria and Holland were up for the job, per sources, and Sarandos ultimately chose the relative streaming newcomer with a long TV track record over his colleague since the DVD-by-mail days. With Bajaria as the global TV lead, there was no role for Holland, who had been running all English-language episodic programming. The story.

 Younger Viewers Flocked To 'Mulan'

➤Mulan strikes chord with younger adults on premium VOD. A survey conducted by Screen Engine/ASI, one of Hollywood's leading research firms, offers clues as to who paid to watch the tentpole on Disney+. 70 percent of the Labor Day weekend audience was between the ages of 13 and 34, well above the norm for a PVOD titles (59 percent), according to data shared with THR's Pamela McClintock. The story.

➤Olivia Colman, Ava DuVernay, Colin Farrell, Jodie Foster set to present TIFF Tribute Awards. Canadian pop sensation Shawn Mendes will perform as part of TIFF's celebrity-driven awards show to air on the CTV network countrywide and stream online. Other presenters set for the TIFF Tribute Awards include Regina King, Delroy Lindo and Bollywood star Tabu, while Chloe Wilde and Tyrone Edwards will host the kudosfest. More.

 Another 'Black-ish' Spinoff

➤The ish franchise may be adding another installment. ABC is developing Old-ish, another spinoff from Kenya Barris' Emmy-nominated flagship series Black-ish. The comedy would see Laurence Fishburne and Jenifer Lewis reprise their roles as Earl "Pops" Johnson and Ruby Johnson, the parents of Anthony Anderson's Dre.

--Fishburne — who has been an exec producer on Black-ish since its start — has been a recurring player on the series and appeared in more than 60 of the comedy's 141 episodes thus far, while Lewis was promoted from recurring to series regular in season two. The story.

➤Peacock has landed the Fresh Prince of Bel Air reboot. The streamer has handedout a straight-to-series, two-season order for the update from original series star Will Smith. “We have just officially closed the deal with Peacock with an unprecedented two-season-order from a pitch,” Will Smith told to Morgan Cooper and Chris Collins when he surprised them with the good news about Bel-Air in an announcement posted to YouTube. “I’ve been in this business for 30 years and that does not happen. They ordered two full seasons of Bel-Air based on the quality of the pitch and the work that you guys have done. So I want to say congratulations. I am hyped.” The story.

➤It's the end of an era at E! After 20 seasons spanning nearly 14 years, Keeping Up With the Kardashians will air its final season in 2021. "It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to Keeping Up With the Kardashians," the Kardashian-Jenner family said in a statement posted to social media on Tuesday. "After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and several spin-off shows, we've decided as a family to end this very special journey." The story.

In other TV news...

+Showtime will stay in the Windy City for another season of The Chi. The premium cable outlet has renewed the Lena Waithe-created drama for a fourth season following ratings growth for the third run, which aired its season finale on Aug. 23. Justin Hillian will return as executive producer and showrunner in season four, marking the first time the series hasn't changed showrunners between seasons. More.

+Starting today, you won't see a morning story on the previous night's ratings at The Hollywood Reporter. THR isn't abandoning ratings coverage in any way — but changes in both the way people watch TV and the way Nielsen reports those viewers have made those early ratings numbers arguably less relevant than they ever have been. Rick Porter explains the changes, here.

+The Ellen DeGeneres Show nodded to multiple reports of a toxic workplace culture in its announcement of its Season 18 premiere on Tuesday. “I can’t wait to get back to work and back to our studio. And, yes, we’re gonna talk about it,” DeGeneres herself said in a statement. The show will return on Monday, Sept. 21st, and will be filmed at the Warner Bros. lot but without an in-studio audience. More.

+ABC News will launch a new series exploring "the racial reckoning sweeping the nation and whether it leads to lasting reconciliation." The monthlong series will be called Turning Point, reviving the name of a special series that last aired in the 1990s. More.

+Kal Penn is hitting the campaign trail for Freeform. The actor and former Obama White House staffer will host a six-week series, Kal Penn Approves This Message, that will explore issues relevant to millennial and Generation Z voters and encourages people to cast a ballot in the November election. The unscripted comedy is part of a larger campaign at the Disney-owned cabler to encourage voter participation, under the tagline "Kick 2020 in the Ballots. FF'ing Vote." More.

➤Hilary Swank senses something rotten with the way her union's health plan treats women. In a scathing lawsuit filed Tuesday night in California federal court, she reveals she's been submitting claims for coverage for treatment of her ovarian cysts — but that in 2015, the Board of Trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan began refusing her. "This matter addresses the shockingly antiquated question of whether the sole purpose of a woman, and specifically her ovaries, is to procreate," states the opening of a complaint after quoting The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood. The story.

+On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a copyright win for producers of Jersey Boys. In doing so, the appellate judges wrote a new chapter of law about nonfiction works. If an author represents the work as true, he or she can't later say it was made up to carry a copyright lawsuit. The story.

➤Awards analysis: Regina King could ride One Night in Miami back to the Oscars. It will be interesting to see how the film's four central performers — each excellent and possessing roughly equal screen time — will be promoted, writes THR's awards columnist Scott Feinberg. The analysis.

➤TV review: Inkoo Kang reviews Hulu's Woke, writing that "it’s not only that Woke is so politically tepid, although it’s that, too. It’s that the show cares so little to flesh out its protagonist, Keef Knight, that we have no idea why a 30-something Black man who was presumably alive and conscious during the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Philando Castile by cops just a few years ago would presume that police violence would never happen to him. The review.

In gaming news...

+Colin Kaepernick is now available to play in Madden NFL 21, EA Sports announced on Tuesday. The former San Francisco 49er star QB will be a free agent, marking the first time since 2016 Kaepernick has been the game. More.

+Also: On Tuesday, Nintendo revealed a new Legend of Zelda title set 100 years before the events of Breath of the Wild... Microsoft has confirmed that it is making a more compact version of its highly anticipated next-gen Xbox Series X console...

Revolving door: Ford v Ferrari co-writer Jason Keller will make his directorial debut helming the feature film La Sombra (The Shadow) for Sherborne Media Finance and Paprika Financing... After breaking-out on popular Hulu series Normal People, Daisy Edgar-Jones has been tapped for studio feature Fresh... Performers' union SAG-AFTRA has engaged entertainment/technology attorney and journalist Jonathan Handel as an outside Special Counsel to the union, to work on special projects and additional issues...

Obituaries: Sir Ronald Harwood, the Oscar-winning British screenwriter of The Pianist and films such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Dresser and Quartet, has died. He was 85... David Z. Marmel, who executive produced Mrs. America and Mrs. World pageants for television, died Sept. 1 of cancer at his home in La Quinta, California, a family spokesperson said. He was 84...

In other news...

--The Britannia Awards, BAFTA-LA's annual ceremony of talent, will not take place in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, BAFTA-LA announced Tuesday. The next ceremony will take place in 2021.

--Kevin Hart is helping to relaunch the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual telethon, previously hosted by Jerry Lewis.

--Samuel Goldwyn Films has ordered Another Round. The indie distributor has picked up U.S. rights to Thomas Vinterberg’s hotly-anticipated new comedic drama ahead of the film's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Saturday. 

--The Just For Laughs comedy festival, run by a consortium including ICM Partners, Howie Mandel and Bell Media, has unveiled stand-up talent picks for its first-ever virtual event in October.

--Dominic Buchanan, best known as the BAFTA-winning producer of Netflix/Channel 4 series The End of the F***ing World, and Bennett McGhee, producer of the Riz Ahmed-starring Berlinale 2020 FIPRESCI winner Mogul Mowgli, have launched a new film and TV production company, Home Team.

--STXfilms has picked up the worldwide rights to Queenpins, a coupon scam comedy that reunites the studio with Kristen Bell.

--Inside Out, one of the largest LGBTQ film festivals in North America, has unveiled film titles for its upcoming Oct. 1-11 virtual edition.

--Cinemas in California's Orange County were granted permission Tuesday to reopen, becoming the closest market near Los Angeles to once again allow moviegoing in the COVID19 era.

What else we're reading...

--"Rick Moranis' return to acting is a Mint Mobile ad with Ryan Reynolds" [Ad Week]

--"Current and former TMZ employees say it’s time for a reckoning at the abusive newsroom" [BuzzFeed News]

--"How the pandemic transformed what you will see on TV" [WSJ]

--"Beyonce's music label Sony bets its next big hit will be a podcast" [Bloomberg]

--The IAB has named David Cohen president, with Randall Rothenberg shifting to a chairman role [AdExchanger]

Today's birthdays: Hugh Grant, 60, Adam Sandler, 54, Michelle Williams, 40, Joe Theismann, 71, Michael Buble, 45.

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SEPTEMBER 09, 2020

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