Today In Entertainment OCTOBER 30, 2020
What's news: Big tech had a huge quarter, YouTube revenue hits $5 billion, Apple services hits a new high, Charter actually grows its pay-TV subs, mini-Cannes wraps up as France locks down, new Blumhouse projects, Judge Judy joins Amazon, Netflix hikes prices. Plus: CBS All Access renews a show but makes it animated, and The CW's 2020 season will start in 2021. --Alex Weprin Big Day For Big Tech ➤YouTube earned $5 billion in advertising revenue over the summer as the video streaming giant continues to see a boon amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Susan Wojcicki-led company's third quarter revenue was up 32 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, helping to drive a 14 percent increase in overall quarterly revenue for parent company Alphabet. The story. +Some more data: YouTube TV now has more than 3 million subscribers, while YouTube Music and YouTube Premium have more than 30 million paid subscribers combined. +Twitter said the number daily active users stood at 187 million for the quarter, but that was up only 1 million users compared to the second quarter that ended with 186 million DAUs. The latest three-month period fell short of an analyst forecast of 196.3 million DAUs. That miss on user growth sent stock in Twitter down by $5.15, or just under 10 percent, to $47.27 in after-hours trading. More. +Apple saw its services revenue skyrocket to a new record of more than $14.5 billion, up from $12.5 billion a year earlier. Services includes the app store, as well as the Apple Music and Apple TV+ streaming video service. +Amazon says that it spent nearly $3 billion on video and music content last quarter, and about $8 billion so far this year. That is up from $1.9 billion and $5.5 billion a year earlier. Those expenses include Amazon Prime Video costs, and Apple Music costs. +Cable giant Charter Communications, in which John Malone's Liberty Broadband owns a big stake, on Friday reported that it grew its pay TV subscribers in the third quarter as broadband user growth amid the coronavirus pandemic once again drove its results. --The company also mentioned planned rebates for customers due to sports programming affected by the coronavirus pandemic. It mentioned "$218 million of estimated credits to be provided to Charter's video customers upon finalization of expected rebates from sports programming networks, which result from fewer games broadcast during COVID-19." The story. +And in gaming: Video game publisher Activision Blizzard posted third-quarter financial results on Thursday, with results that were better than expected across major console and mobile titles and leading with the flagship Call of Duty franchise. More. Cannes Wraps Up As France Locks Down ➤Mini-Cannes Festival wraps up as France locks down. The French Tech, a comedy from director Bruno Podalydès, closed the three-day mini-festival at 8 p.m. local time with a gala screening at Cannes' Palais des Festivals. At midnight, per orders announced a day earlier by French President Emmanuel Macron, the country closed shop, entering a second COVID-19 lockdown. --"We were the first major film event to be affected by the pandemic, and now we are the last festival of the autumn," Cannes festival director Thierry Frémaux told THR's Scott Roxborough, referring to his decision in May to cancel the physical Cannes 2020 festival. --Frémaux is confident Cannes will hold a complete and "normal" festival next year. The official plan is to have Cannes 2021 in May, but Frémaux said they will shift the dates if the pandemic is still raging. "We want a normal Cannes, not a Cannes with face masks,” he said. “We are already making plans so that, if we have to, we can hold the festival in July or August. But I think it will be May. I believe. I hope." The story. ➤Searchlight Pictures has picked up Dust, a psychological horror thriller that has The Crown star Claire Foy attached to topline. The project was initially unveiled at the Cannes virtual market in June. It will now be further developed by the prestige film arm of the Walt Disney Co. The story is set against the backdrop of increasingly horrific dust storms in 1930s Oklahoma and tells of a young mother, to be played by Foy, haunted by the past who becomes convinced that a mysterious presence is threatening her family and takes extraordinary measures to protect them. More. +Oscar-winning filmmaker John Ridley is set to write and direct a new Blumhouse horror project, based on the first purported haunting to be experienced in a public housing project. Based on the recently published article Project Poltergeist, written by Saleah Blancaflor for Truly*Adventurous, the adaptation will focus on the true events surrounding unexplained events that terrified a young boy in New Jersey in the 1960s. The story. +Speaking of Blumhouse: Following the release of the first four titles in their Welcome to the Blumhouse film series, Amazon Studios and Jason Blum's Blumhouse Television have announced the next four titles in the series. Due out in 2021, the movies— The Manor, Black as Night, Madres and Bingo — will all be released on the Prime Video service. More. ➤Netflix is making a rare price hike. The streaming giant has upped the cost of two of its plans, its first price increase in a year-and-a-half. The standard plan, which let's people stream on two screens at the same time and features access to Netflix's HD library, will cost $1 more, going from $13 per month to $14 per month. The highest-price premium plan, which allows up to four streams at the same time, will increase by $2 to $18 per month. The story. Judge Judy Goes Streaming ➤Judge Judy is joining Amazon. Judy Sheindlin, the star of top-rated daytime strip Judge Judy, will front a new court show for IMDb TV, Amazon's free, ad-supported streaming platform. When she announced Judge Judy's final season in March, Sheindlin said she was working on a new show she called Judy Justice. The IMDb TV show is currently untitled, but it's the same project. Like Judge Judy, the new show will put Sheindlin front and center as she adjudicates an array of cases. The story. +No Activity is coming back to CBS All Access — with a massive change. The soon-to-be rebranded streamer has handed out a fourth season renewal to the scripted comedy series starring Patrick Brammall — only it is converting from live-action to an entirely animated series. Brammall will return to voice FBI agent Nick Cullen; Tim Meadows will also return to voice his character, agent Judd Toldbeck. More. +Former TNT series Tell Me Your Secrets, which the cabler scrapped after ordering it to series, will see the light of day after all. Amazon has acquired the psychological thriller, created by Harriet Warner and starring Lily Rabe, Amy Brenneman, Hamish Linklater and Enrique Murciano. It's set to debut in 2021 on the company's Prime Video platform. More. +The CW's 2020-21 season is set to begin in earnest in January. The network has scheduled winter premiere dates for a dozen shows, including network cornerstones The Flash and Riverdale. Newcomers Walker, starring Jared Padalecki, and Superman & Lois will join the lineup alongside returning shows All American, Batwoman (with new lead Javicia Leslie), Black Lightning, Charmed, Legacies and Nancy Drew. More. +Ratings: Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson Tonight topped Fox's The Masked Singer in the ratings... Two weeks after sweeping the comedy field at the Emmys, Schitt's Creek moved to the top of Nielsen's streaming rankings... ➤Eko asks court to prevent sale of Turnstyle tech in Quibi dispute. The two companies are embroiled in a legal battle over who owns the technology behind a key Quibi feature, and Eko doesn't want the intellectual property to be sold as part of the platforms unwinding, Ashley Cullins reports. The story. ➤Ray Fisher accuses Warner Bros. execs of "racist conversations" during Justice League edit. The actor leveled several new claims at the studio and director Joss Whedon in a Forbes interview that was later updated to remove an incendiary quote.. More. ➤Awkwafina and Sandra Oh will play sisters in an upcoming comedy for Netflix. The untitled feature was written by Jen D’Angelo, and follows a lonely recluse has her life is upended when her train wreck of a sister vows to mend their relationship by helping her fulfill her lifelong dream: to be a contestant on her favorite game show. The story. +Casting roundup: Mads Mikkelsen and Armie Hammer are teaming up as a Soviet engineer and his CIA handler for Cold War thriller The Billion Dollar Spy for Belle and A United Kingdom director Amma Asante... Eva Longoria is to star alongside Matt Walsh in the road trip comedy Unplugging... Sierra McCormick, Vinessa Shaw and Pat Healy are starring in the horror film We Need to Do Something for director Sean King O'Grady... Jodie Turner-Smith is to play Tudor Queen Anne Boleyn in a three-part psychological thriller mini-series set to air on ViacomCBS-owned Channel 5 in the U.K., with Sony Pictures TV distributing internationally... Revolving door: Josh Berger, president and managing director for Warner Bros.' operations in the U.K., Ireland and Spain and president of its Harry Potter Global Franchise Development, is stepping down from the company... in turn: WarnerMedia has promoted Polly Cochrane to the role of country manager for the U.K. and Ireland, overseeing all commercial and group marketing activities in the region.... October Sky and Ghosts of Mississippi screenwriter Lewis Colick has signed with APA... ➤TV's Top 5 podcast: During this week's podcast, hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg talk to Late Show with Stephen Colbert ep Chris Licht about the upcoming election special, and also discuss how broadcast shows are portraying life during the pandemic and why Jon Stewart's return is a big deal for Apple. Listen. ➤TV review: Inkoo Kang reviews Showtime's Citizen Bio, writing that while the subjects that [director Trish] Dolman spotlights are plenty colorful, I found myself craving more context (and, OK, debunking) for the assumptions underpinning Traywick’s ambitions and the biohacking community’s in general — like the apparent premise that science happens most readily alone, sans collaboration or a shared database of proven knowledge." The review. In other news... --Actor Patrick Wilson is stepping behind the camera for the next Insidious film. The franchise star will make his directorial debut with the project, the fifth in the franchise, which has a script from Scott Teems, who worked from a story from Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell. --Marc Forster is set to direct White Bird: A Wonder Story, the movie adaptation based on R.J. Palacio's graphic novel of the same name, for Wonder producers Lionsgate and Mandeville Films. --The American Film Institute has received a $5 million gift from the Perenchio Foundation, the organization announced Wednesday. --Baltimore dirt bike advocate weighs in on Charm City Kings debate: "The stories of riders are not a monolith" --Diane Warren on the #MeToo musical The Right Girl: "Music is a powerful tool to get voices heard." --Here's the first trailer for Michael Bay's pandemic thriller Songbird. --Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience debuted in downtown L.A. on Wednesday, kicking off a drive-thru live entertainment show inspired by the hit Netflix series that will run through Spring 2021. What else we're reading... --"TV's most expensive commercials for the 2020-2021 season" [Ad Age] --"'I Have to Sober Up Because I Think He Might Win’: What it was like to cover the news on the day that gave us the past four years." [Vulture] --"‘Marketing myopia’: Quibi’s flameout is a cautionary tale for advertisers keen to latch on to the next big thing in media" [Digiday] --"'It's going away': A small movie theater struggles to survive" [NY Times] --"The public access horror king of the North Shore" [The Ringer] Today's birthdays: Ivanka Trump, 39, Henry Winkler, 75, Diego Maradona, 60, Gavin Rossdale, 55, Nia Long, 50.
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