Today In Entertainment

OCTOBER 12, 2020

What's news: The War with Grandpa overtakes Tenet at the box office, analyst cuts 2021 box office expectations, has Hollywood made any progress toward pay parity? Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot re-teaming on Cleopatra, Range Media expanding into digital representation. Plus: MIPCOM preview, and a review of Pixar's Soul. --Alex Weprin

 Box Office

➤Tim Hill's family friendly comedy The War With Grandpa topped the U.S. box office with $3.6 million, enough to topple Christopher Nolan's Tenet from the top spot. Tenet, now in its sixth weekend of play in the U.S. grossed $2.1 million for a problematic domestic total of $48.3 million. Overseas, it zoomed to $275 million for a global total of $323.3 million, according to Warner Bros.

--Overall, it was a quiet weekend in the wake of Regal Cinemas closing all but seven of its U.S. locations because of a lack of Hollywood product amid the ongoing pandemic. The story.

+Meanwhile in China: The country's office resurgence continued apace over the weekend as local anthology film My People, My Homeland brought in a healthy $38.2 million.

--China's weeklong National Day holiday period came to a close on Friday, which meant that Saturday was an official workday for most companies and state employees. Still, the theatrical market again demonstrated the strength of its post-COVID-19 rebound, with ticket sales across all titles totaling approximately $68 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway. More.

+At least one analyst is slashing 2020 and 2021 box office expectations even further: "Even though we had already been projecting a 70 percent year-over-year decline in domestic box office revenues in 2020, we are lowering that projected decline even further to 80 percent," B.Riley's Eric Wold writes. And he reduced his projection for the 2021 box office from a decline of 20 percent compared with what he called the "2019 baseline levels" to 30 percent. More.

➤Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot are reuniting for another costume drama. The duo will reteam for Cleopatra, a historical biopic in the works from Paramount Pictures.

--Jenkins will direct the drama based on a script penned by Laeta Kalogridis, with Charles Roven of Atlas Entertainment, Gadot and Jaron Varsano of Pilot Wave Motion Pictures banner producing. Gadot will play Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt role made famous by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 classic. The story.

➤Range Media is getting into the digital business. The upstart management and brand development firm Range Media Partners is expanding into digital talent representation under the leadership of Facebook's Kai Gayoso. Formerly a strategic partner manager for emerging talent at Facebook, Gayoso has joined Range as a partner, where he will lead representation of digital management and also work with clients across the firm to develop individualized digital strategies. More.

 Pay Parity In Hollywood

➤Has Hollywood made any progress toward pay parity? As COVID-19 disproportionately impacts women in the workforce and the nation also grapples with racial injustice, THR's Ashley Cullins and Natalie Jarvey looks at what progress — if any — the industry has made toward pay equity.

--"Talent lawyers consulted by THR seem to agree that the one thing that has made a substantial impact has been new state laws in California and New York that prevent employers from asking potential new hires about their pay history. 'This has allowed us to break the cycle of institutionalized pay inequity embodied in the 'quote system,' ' says talent attorney Jodi Peikoff, whose clients include Mark Rylance and America Ferrera. 'The fees of clients who are women or people of color have dramatically increased, although often still not at a true market value.'" The story.

➤Is MGM nearing a sale? The independent studio, which counts hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group as its largest shareholder, is reportedly in talks for a deal, and had been banking on the latest James Bond film No Time To Die to help close it, the Wall Street Journal reports. Amazon, Apple Comcast and Facebook are cited as potential acquirers (Comcast's Universal is helping distribute the latest Bond film)...

➤On Saturday Night Live: For SNL’s cold open on Oct. 10, Maya Rudolph's Kamala Harris faced off against Beck Bennett's Mike Pence in a spoof of the recent vice presidential debate, with Jim Carrey's Joe Biden becoming the fly that landed on Pence's head... Host Bill Burr's monologue drew quite a bit of attention... Kate McKinnon broke charcater, the rest of the sketches...

➤MIPCOM: Studio holdbacks and U.S. production delays are helping to boost internatonal drama sales. In an online session held as part of MIPCOM's "warm-up" week ahead of the market, Tim Mulligan, research director at media analysis company MIDiA Research forecast that would be around 279 scripted shows out of the U.S. this year, compared to 532 U.S. scripted series in 2019.  "This will have significant ramifications over the next 12-15 months," Mulligan said. The story.

+MIPCOM hot list: COVID production stops mean little U.S. fare will be at the market this year and may lead to changing international TV tastes, but several diverse and challenging dramas make THR's hot list, including shows featuring Bryan Cranston and Kyle MacLachlan. The list.

 Film Reviews:

➤Leslie Felperin reviews Disney Pixar's Soul, writing that "this densely packed, exquisitely executed and just a teensy bit batshit film is peak Pixar. It's a vintage mix of the company's intricate storytelling, complex emotional intelligence, technical prowess and cerebral whimsy on dexamethasone." The review.

+Jon Frosch reviews French Exit, writing that Michelle "Pfeiffer's performance in this uneven but charming adaptation of Patrick deWitt's 2018 novel certainly isn't her subtlest, but it ranks among her most captivatingly Pfeiffer-ian." The review.

➤Disneyland is implementing new health and safety recommendations from the Orange County Health Care Agency amid a standoff between the conglomerate and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Officials from the city of Anaheim recently toured Disneyland and Disney California Adventure to view the COVID-19 measures adopted. More.

➤TV review: Inkoo Kang reviews HBO's The Undoing, writing that "It’s almost hard to believe that stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, series writer David E. Kelley and series director Susanne Bier could come up with a show so limp, so generic, so dispiritingly bad as this six-hour drama that only has enough story for a two-hour feature." The review.

Obituaries: Tom Kennedy, a veteran host of game shows including Name That Tune, Split Second and Password Plus, has died. He was 93... Margaret Nolan, who was known as the gold-painted model in the title sequence for the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, has died. She was 76...

In other news...

--Chinese online ticketing platform Weying Galaxy alleges it got taken for a ride in a deal for new movies in the Vin Diesel-starring xXx film franchise. The company has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court looking for punitive damages and the ability to take control of a joint venture that now owns derivative rights.

--President Donald Trump on Sunday had one of his posts tagged by Twitter for — once again — sharing false information about the novel coronavirus.

--On Saturday, the entire 17-person cast of GLOW gathered virtually for a livestream reunion, where they got the opportunity to react to the news of the show's cancelation together. 

--Group Nine Media's mobile news brand NowThis is launching an events franchise, and has tapped Seth Meyers, Bozoma Saint John, Hillary Clinton, Charlize Theron and others to participate in the inaugural edition.

--Ten years after Lost ended, showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse had to go back — in a manner of speaking, at least. The brains behind ABC's genre-defining island drama reunited for a special virtual New York Comic Con Metaverse panel this weekend...

--The Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2020 awarded five statuettes on Oct. 10 with winners including Zendaya, for her work increasing inclusivity in the style world, and designer Sindiso Khumalo.

What else we're reading...

--"Mandy Patinkin is still singing" [The New Yorker]

--"NBC ripped by local news staffers in NYC over ‘unfair’ COVID-19 testing" [NY Post]

--"The billionaire who stood by Jeffrey Epstein" [NY Times]

--"How Team Trump used Fox News as a laundromat for unverified Russian information about top Democrats" [CNN]

Today's birthdays: Hugh Jackman, 52, Susan Anton, 70, Bob Schneider, 55, Marcus T. Paulk, 34, Bode Miller, 43.

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OCTOBER 12, 2020

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