Today In Entertainment

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

What's news: HBO Max and Amazon strike a long-delayed Fire TV deal, Freaky wins the box office but trouble looms for theaters as shutdowns return, People's Choice winners and Critics Choice doc winners, fresh off Netflix deal American Cinematheque expands. Plus: Chadwick Boseman: Posthumous Oscars contender, and Sylvester Stallone joins The Suicide Squad. --Alex Weprin

 Box Office Alarm As More Theaters Go Dark

➤Freaky rules the box office but surging COVID. Blumhouse and Universal's Freaky — a twisted take on the classic body-swap pic Freaky Friday — topped the struggling North American box office with a $3.7 million weekend debut. The movie came in on the lower end of expectations amid a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, resulting in theater reclosures last week in markets including San Diego and Sacramento, and warnings from health authorities in a number of states urging consumers to stay home.

--The cinema closings are the bigger story here: Theaters are also shutting down again in Oregon, where a two-week lockdown for certain public-facing businesses was announced on Saturday. That was followed Sunday by revised restrictions in Washington state and Michigan that will require theaters to close their doors for the next several weeks. Sources tell THR that parts of New York's Westchester County, as well as Canada's Ontario province — including the greater Toronto area —  are likewise impacted. The story.

➤After Netflix deal, American Cinematheque hires an executive director and adds three board members. "If we had not sold the Egyptian to Netflix, given the pandemic, we would have been out of business," says Ken Scherer, the nonprofit's newly-appointed executive director, during a conversation with THR's Scott Feinberg alongside his newly-promoted deputy Gwen Deglise and board chairman Rick Nicita.

--"Ted [Sarandos], being a board member, understood who we were — who we are — and what we wanted to do. Netflix played ball with us 100% of the time. They respected our needs and gave us virtually everything we wanted, in terms of time and controls. The negotiation, for something like this, was surprisingly conflict-free. It took much longer to get various procedural approvals than to resolve any disagreements with them." The story.

 'Alexa, Open HBO Max'

➤HBO Max and Amazon finally strike a deal. WarnerMedia has reached a deal to distribute six-month-old streaming service HBO Max on Amazon Fire TV devices. The deal could help HBO Max reach millions of potential subscribers as the fledging service looks to grow its audience. Amazon is the second most-used streaming platform in the U.S. behind Roku, with tens of millions of users. The deal with Amazon means that Roku is the last major platform without a deal to carry HBO Max. 

--At the center of WarnerMedia's distribution negotiations is how the platforms classify the service. The previously launched HBO Go and HBO Now apps were treated as channels and sold through Amazon's a la cart subscription offering. But WarnerMedia wants HBO Max to be treated more like standalone services Netflix or Disney+.  Under the new deal with Amazon, existing HBO subscribers who purchased the subscription through Amazon Channels will have access to HBO Max at no additional cost. The story.

➤Critics Choice Documentary Awards. The winners of the Critics Choice Documentary Awards were unveiled Monday morning, with Dick Johnson is Dead taking home the top prize of best documentary feature as well as best director for Kirsten Johnson. The nominees, announced in October, were determined by the CCA's documentary nominating committee. Winners were determined by all qualified CCA members. The winners list.

+E! People's Choice Awards: Tyler Perry, Jennifer Lopez and more winners of the 2020 E! People's Choice Awards shared messages of inspiration and positivity amid a year that has been dominated by the pandemic and on the heels of a contentious presidential election that took days to call. Demi Lovato hosted the show, which aired live from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. In lieu of a live audience, Lovato walked out onstage surrounded by video screens of people watching at home. The winners and what happened.

+Speaking of E!: Andy Cohen is expanding his reality TV empire. The Bravo multi-hyphenate will host and executive produce a docuseries for E! that is set to air early 2021. The seven-part series is titled For Real: The Story of Reality TV and will see Cohen revisiting some of the most iconic moments from the genre and interviewing the stars behind those moments for the inside scoop. More.

 Chadwick Boseman Is A Posthumous Oscars Contender

➤Awards analysis: Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman enter contention for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Boseman, who died of colon cancer in August, could become only the eighth posthumous acting Oscar nominee and only the third posthumous acting Oscar winner, Scott Feinberg writes. The analysis.

➤Director James Gunn confirmed on Saturday that Sylvester Stallone has joined the cast of The Suicide Squad. He wrote in an Instagram post, "Always love working with my friend @officialslystallone & our work today on #TheSuicideSquad was no exception. Despite Sly being an iconic movie star, most people still don’t have any idea what an amazing actor this guy is." More.

➤In U.K. entertainment news: BAFTA-winning filmmaker Michael Winterbottom and his Revolution Films production company have signed an exclusive first-look deal with TV giant Fremantle. First out of the partnership's blocks is a U.K. political drama about Prime Minister Boris Johnson set against the COVID-19 pandemic... Jim Sheridan, the six-time Oscar nominee, is set to make his documentary series debut in partnership with Sky with Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie, a five-parter examining the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork in 1996...

➤The Washington Post is turning to a TV veteran to turbocharge its video programming. The news outlet has named Chitra Wadhwani editorial director of Washington Post Live, where she will oversee the "Race in America" series. Wadhwani joins WaPo from CBS, where she was the supervising producer for CBS This Morning.

➤TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews the HBO documentary Murder on Middle Beach, writing that "it's an interrogation of several of the most common modes of documentary filmmaking — part self-exploration, part true crime, part family tree — and that sort of thing takes time and investment, from the director and the audience." The review.

Obituaries: Walter C. Miller, a former executive producer for the Country Music Association Awards, died on Nov. 13, the organization revealed on Saturday. He was 94... Soumitra Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, died Sunday of complications from the coronavirus. He was 85...

In other news...

--Paramount has removed Michael B. Jordan spy thriller Without Remorse from the theatrical release schedule. The film, an adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel of the same name, was due to be released Feb. 26, 2021 after an initial Oct. 2, 2020 release date. The studio is closing a deal to sell Without Remorse to Amazon Studios, according to sources.

--The basketball documentary Gap Year, produced by LeBron James and starring NBA rookie Darius Bazley, is set for a release on Dec. 1 via most streaming services.

--Mobile game developer Zynga revealed on Monday the establishment of a new game studio to develop the company's upcoming Star Wars game.

--A New York man was arrested Saturday in connection with an unprovoked assault against Rick Moranis that occurred as the 67-year-old actor was walking near Central Park in October.

--Ahead of Thursday night's VIP premiere for Big Sky, ABC and event producers Little Cinema detailed how they planned to make the virtual event special enough to match the scope and intrigue of the Montana-set series.

What else we're reading...

--"The oral history of CNN's election week" [Esquire]

--"Wikipedia, Jeopardy!, and the fate of the fact" [The New Yorker]

--"There's 'an enemy out there' says Cedric the Entertainer. And he's ready to fight back" [LA Times]

--"Trump allies explored buyout of Newsmax TV as Fox News alternative" [WSJ]

Today's birthdays: Lisa Bonet, 53, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 43, Amar'e Stoudemire, 38, Siva Kaneswaran, 32, Pete Davidson, 27.

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NOVEMBER 16, 2020

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