Today In Entertainment

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

What's news: 700 more theaters close as the pandemic takes its toll on moviegoing, Freaky wins a subdued weekend, Regal owner Cineworld secures $450 million to keep itself afloat, will Hillbilly Elegy resonate in Hollywood? Snapchat launches a new assault on TikTok, highlights and winners from the American Music Awards. Plus: Fox News Media is getting into the scripted Christmas movie game, and THR's TV critics on their fall TV faves and fails. --Alex Weprin

 The Theatrical Collapse Continues

➤Moviegoing teeters after 700 theaters reclose overnight in North America. Over the Nov. 20-22 weekend, Blumhouse and Universal's campy body-swap reboot Freaky came in at No. 1 at the box office with $1.2 million in its second outing, a steep 66 percent drop. That's by far one of the lowest chart-topping grosses of all time — much less for the weekend before Thanksgiving, one of the most lucrative corridors of the year for moviegoing. Normally, the film itself would be blamed. But not in this case.

--Heading into the weekend, 646 movie theaters in the U.S. closed down again virtually overnight amid an alarming surge in COVID-19 cases, according to Comscore. There were also 60 cinemas reclosures in Canada, meaning that in the span of several days, the North American box office lost 706 locations compared to a week ago.

--"Given the limited number of open theaters, the holiday movie season will be tasked with bridging the gap between this most challenging period and when the cinematic cavalry arrives in the form of what on paper looks to be a truly spectacular 2021 slate of blockbusters," says Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore. "The adage 'it's always darkest before the dawn' certainly applies here. Theaters need new high-profile films to drive audiences to the multiplex, but unfortunately, those are in short supply in the coming weeks." The story.

+Cineworld finds a lifeline: Cineworld Group, the world's second-largest cinema exhibitor and owner of the Regal theater chain in the U.S., on Monday said it has secured a new $450 million debt facility and was implementing operational measure to give it $750 million in extra liquidity to keep the business afloat amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

--Cineworld said it "believes that together these steps will provide the group with financial and operational flexibility until lockdown restrictions in key jurisdictions are eased and studios are able to bring their enhanced pipeline of major releases back to the big screen." The story.

 Will 'Hillbilly Elegy' Resonate?

➤Hillbilly Elegy: Caught between Hollywood and a hard place. Netflix's Ron Howard-directed adaptation of a populist memoir by conservative writer J.D. Vance was greenlit when liberal creatives were trying to understand the other side, but a total avoidance of political substance is what ultimately undermines the film's awards chances, Rebecca Keegan writes.

--"I expect the movie will do very well in Middle America, the Rust Belt and the South," says Rod Dreher, the American Conservative columnist whose 2016 interview with Vance helped drive early interest in the book.

"I am much less sure about coastal audiences. I would have imagined that a Hillbilly Elegy movie would have been universally popular because … it tells a story about perseverance in the face of impossible odds, and of the power of a grandmother’s love," he adds. "But I sense that enough time has passed since the book’s publication that a lot of Blue State folks are going to intuitively associate the story with Trump, and come to it with a grudge, if they come to it at all." The story.

➤TikTok’s influence is extending to rival platform Snapchat. On Monday, Snapchat introduced a feature called Spotlight that will give more prominent promotion to public posts from its users. Spotlight is available in 11 countries including the U.S. and Canada and will roll out in more markets over time. To encourage users to try out Spotlight, Snapchat is promising to pay $1 million each day to the people who create the most popular Spotlight posts. The story.

 The American Music Awards

➤The 2020 American Music Awards, like most things in 2020, was visibly affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Host Taraji P. Henson was joined at Los Angeles' Microsoft Theater for the live ABC broadcast Sunday night by a limited audience of invited guests in small groups from the same families, she said, and she explained that they were socially distanced and tested for COVID-19.

--The small crowd, wearing masks in the balcony, was shown applauding and cheering throughout the show. The audience, while significantly smaller than ones for awards shows prior to the pandemic, was still somewhat of a rare sight in a year that's featured numerous audience-free and virtual events and comes as L.A. County has imposed new restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. Big winners included Tayor Swift, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber. The recap and list of winners.

➤Exclusive: Fox News Media is taking on Hallmark and Netflix in the Christmas movie game. The company will debut is first original scripted Christmas movie this year on its Fox Nation streaming service. The film, Christmas in the Rockies, is being produced by Brain Power Studio in association with INSP Films and Fox Nation. Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt each make cameos in the film, which will be exclusive to the Fox-owned platform through November 2021. The story.

+In other streaming holiday news: ViacomCBS' Pluto TV said Monday that it will launch a slate of channels this week in partnership with CBS, featuring classic TV shows. The shows include Happy Days, Family Ties, The Love Boat, Wings, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mission: Impossible, Laverne & Shirley, and Mork & Mindy.

➤Cinematographer Joshua James Richards' lensing of Chloé Zhao's Nomadland won the Golden Frog in the main competition of the 28th EnergaCamerimage Festival of the art of cinematography, which wrapped its virtual program on Saturday.

--The DP's cinematography of the landscapes of the Western U.S., additionally captured the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize. The Silver Frog went to Antti J. Jokinen's Helene, which was presented to DP Rauno Ronkainen; and the Bronze Frog was awarded to Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio and cinematographer Nicolaj Brüel. The story.

➤Critics' conversation: The Queen's Gambit, Ethan Hawke and other fall TV faves and fails. THR's TV critics Daniel Fienberg and Ingoo Kang break down the highs and lows of Fall 2020's small-screen offerings, including The Queen's Gambit, The Good Lord Bird, The Vow, Ted Lasso and new seasons of The Crown, The Mandalorian and The Boys. The conversation.

➤Film review: Robyn Bahr reviews the Netflix documentary Shawn Mendes: In Wonder, writing "neither a rousing concert film nor a juicy "insider's peek" chronicle of fame, In Wonder may be best described as pillow-soft agitprop, an extended commercial inculcating you into the Mendesverse ahead of his new album set to drop next month." The review.

➤Obituaries: Sandy Dvore, an Emmy-winning American graphic artist and title designer who created the walking partridges in The Partridge Family and the brush-stroke logo for The Young and the Restless, has died. He was 86. The obituaries.

+Lance Heflin, known for executive producing the reality television series America's Most Wanted, died on Nov. 15. He was 67. The obituary.

In other news...

--The North American rights to The Diaries of Alan Rickman have been sold to Sarah Crichton at Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan, it was announced Sunday.

--Cazzie David shares the trauma of modern life and being a child of Hollywood in debut book.

--Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost turned to an SNL veteran to serve as their wedding officiant.

--A long-lost trove of Bob Dylan documents including the singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song lyrics has sold at auction for a total of $495,000.

--The Taiwanese film My Missing Valentine won big Saturday night at the annual Golden Horse Awards, taking five honors, including best feature film.

--Los Angeles County is set to stop in-person dining at restaurants and bars as it looks to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus as COVID-19 cases in the area have increased in recent days.

What else we're reading...

--"Trump has been a ratings driver for cable TV news. How will the networks adapt?" [LA Times]

--"David Fincher's impossible eye" [NY Times]

--"Nevada imposes new pandemic restrictions on casinos, entertainment" [WSJ]

--"2020's silver lining: Smaller movis got to shine" [Vanity Fair]

Today's birthdays: Miley Cyrus, 28, Robin Roberts, 60, Nicole Polizzi aka Snooki, 33, Chuck Schumer, 70, Chris Hardwick, 49.

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NOVEMBER 23, 2020

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