Today In Entertainment

DECEMBER 18, 2020

What's news: Margot Robbie on LuckyChap's producing strategy, inside the streaming-driven shift in Hollywood's executive ranks, a Little House on the Prairie reboot and L.A. Law sequel are in the works, a bidding war erupts over rights to a New York Times article, why the Deaf community is protesting The Stand. Plus: Wonder Woman 1984 has a muted opening in China, and why Hollywood's big streaming pivot will be costly for indie films. --Alex Weprin

 LuckyChap's Game Plan

►Margot Robbie and LuckyChap partners talk their producing strategy: "If it's not a 'f***, yes,' it's a 'no.'" The Hollywood Reporter's Film Producers of the Year talk about Oscar contender Promising Young Woman and why they tapped Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach to write a Barbie movie: "Whatever you're thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different."

--"In starting any business, it's about identifying a gap in the market," Robbie says. "And the conversation started because I was like, 'I keep picking up scripts, and I never want to play the girl, I just want to play the guy.' And I can't be [the only one]. There are brilliant actresses who aren't getting amazing roles. And beyond that, you look at the statistics of male versus female directors, male versus female writers, etc., and there's so much to be done. You can't just sit there and do nothing when you hear those stats."

--About that Warner Bros. HBO Max move: "We know there are people at Warner Bros. whom we have brilliant relationships with that are very talent-friendly and are responsible for the incredible reputation Warner Bros. has had over the past decades as the predominant talent-forward studio. We are hopeful that this will work itself out and that Warner Bros. will do right by its storytellers." The story.

 Hollywood's Executive Shuffle

►Inside the seismic shifts in television’s top jobs. As the town tries to make sense of 2020's sweeping changes in TV’s C-suites, streaming's priority is the only constant, Lesley Goldberg and Lacey Rose report.

--"It's the great reckoning," Kevin Reilly warned in early August, still fresh from his ouster as head of HBO Max and a cadre of cable networks. "With the pandemic as an accelerant," he continued, "there will not be one corner or sector that will sit with their feet up thinking, 'I'm good!' " Prescient as those words were, even Reilly couldn't have predicted the upheaval that would come during the back half of 2020, as Hollywood's legacy companies dramatically overhauled their executive structures to (finally) make their streaming businesses their top, and in some cases seemingly only, priority. The story.

►Over 16 companies are hotly seeking the screen rights to New York Times piece "She Stalked Her Daughter’s Killers Across Mexico, One by One," a gripping and devastating story that personalizes the kidnapping epidemic in Mexico.

--Production companies Chernin Entertainment (Ford v Ferrari), Makeready (Queen & Slim), Thunder Road (John Wick), and Amblin plus studios Lionsgate TV, 20th Television, UCP as well as HBO’s documentary division are among the companies that are said to be in the mix for the rights. Sources tell Borys Kit that nearly 16 offers have already been made, including six-figure options and even figure purchase prices. The story.

+Frances McDormand will star in an adaptation of Women Talking from Plan B and MGM's Orion Pictures. Oscar nominee Sarah Polley to write and direct the feature that is based on the best-selling novel by Miriam Toews. It follows a group of women in an isolated religious colony as they struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men. More.

+Jennifer Lopez is set to star in and produce a feature film adaptation of The Cipher novel for Netflix. Netflix optioned the novel of the same name by crime fiction writer Isabella Maldonado to adapt for the screen. More.

+China box office: Wonder Woman 1984 is off to a sluggish start in China. The Warner Bros./DC superhero tentpole opened Friday in direct competition with Chinese action flick The Rescue, directed by Dante Lam, and as of 5 p.m. in Beijing, the local favorite had staked out a commanding lead. The Rescue's mid-evening total stood at $8.9 million and climbing, compared to just $4.6 (30 million RMB) for WW 1984, according to an estimate from Artisan Gateway. More.

 The Reboots and Sequels Keep Coming

►The Ingalls family could be headed back to TV screens. Paramount TV Studios and Anonymous Content are teaming up to reboot Little House on the Prairie. The two companies are developing an hour-long drama based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's novel, which previously spawned a 1974-83 series that aired on NBC. The story.

+How about another sequel? ABC is developing a sequel to L.A. Law, with Blair Underwood set to reprise his role as attorney Jonathan Rollins. He'll also be an executive producer on the project. More.

+Deaf community members protest hearing actor playing deaf character on The Stand: "Enough is enough." On Thursday over 70 signatories issued a statement saying that the casting of a hearing actor to play a Deaf character on the new CBS All Access show is "not acceptable." The story.

+Samuel L. Jackson is the latest A-lister to sign on to a series at Apple. The tech giant has landed a six-episode limited series, The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, that will star the Oscar nominee in his first lead TV role. The series is based on a novel by Walter Mosley, who will also write the script. The story.

In other TV news...

+ABC is looking to bring its daytime soap All My Children to primetime. The network is in early development on Pine Valley, a drama that takes place in the same fictional town as the long-running daytime drama, which last aired on ABC in 2011 and had a brief revival in 2013 via production company Prospect Park. More.

+CBS is reviving the Tiffany Haddish-led Kids Say the Darndest Things. The network has ordered a new season of the unscripted show to air later in the 2020-21 season. The pickup comes some seven months after ABC canceled the show following its 2019-20 run. It last aired in January. The story.

+Showtime is adding to its 2021 slate. The ViacomCBS-backed premium cable network has handed out a series order to drama Yellowjackets, starring Melanie Lynskey and from creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. Jonathan Lisco has also boarded the series and will serve as co-showrunner alongside Lyle and Nickerson. More.

+Peacock has handed out its first scripted renewal. A.P. Bio, the former NBC comedy that was brought back from the dead as the streamer's first half-hour original, will return for a fourth season on the ad-supported platform. Like its third season, which bowed in September, the fourth cycle will consist of another eight episodes and return in 2021. More.

Obituary: Jeremy Bulloch, the actor who played Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died after an unspecified illness. He was 75. Actor Daniel Logan, who grew close with Bulloch after playing a younger version of Boba Fett in 2002's Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, confirmed Bulloch died Thursday in his native England. The obituary.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: In the 100th episode of the podcast, hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg welcome Kaley Cuoco, who discusses her terrific year; The Rookie creator Alexi Hawley, who explores the predicament of the police procedural; and Rolling Stone chief TV critic Alan Sepinwall, who offers a look at the best TV of 2020. Listen.

►Hollywood’s big streaming pivot will be costly for indie films. Smaller features, which rely on word-of-mouth to expand their theater count over multiple weeks in cinemas, may be at risk from studios’ direct-to-consumer bets, writes ArcLight Cinemas president and COO Ted Mundorff in a guest column. The column.

►Film review: Frank Scheck reviews Fatale, writing that it "wears its film noir and '80s-era thriller influences so heavily on its sleeve that you can feel the seams fraying." The review.

Casting roundup: Lochlyn Munro, who played Betty Cooper’s father on Riverdale, has joined the cast of Peacemaker, HBO Max’s series spinoff of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad... Michael Stuhlbarg, fresh off Showtime's Your Honor, has boarded the star-studded cast of the Hulu limited series Dopesick... Narcos: Mexico star Fernanda Urrejola is on the call sheet for Cry Macho, Clint Eastwood’s drama that is wrapping up shooting in New Mexico...

Revolving door: A month after being promoted to president of Universal Television, Erin Underhill has upped Vivian Cannon from senior vp to exec vp drama... Veteran acquisitions and distributions exec Frances Manfredi has departed NBCUniversal as a result of the conglomerate's restructuring...Heather Olander, who most recently served as exec vp alternative at Peacock, USA Network and Syfy, will exit the company following a transition period... Weta Digital has brought on board members Tom Staggs, Jeff Huber and Ken Kamins... Liz Gateley will transition from her role as a podcast executive at Spotify to a creative consultant with the audio streaming giant next year...

In other news...

--The Berlin Film Festival on Thursday unveiled major changes to its 71st edition, which will see it split into two stages, with the first stage shifting online because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

--Screen Media has picked up the North American theatrical rights to the documentary Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street ahead of its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in the Premieres sidebar.

--Vivendi said Friday that a Tencent-led consortium had exercised its option to acquire an additional 10 percent stake of Universal Music Group.

--The Gotham Independent Film Awards will honor the cast of Aaron Sorkin's Netflix film The Trial of the Chicago 7 with its first ever ensemble tribute.

--Hollywood monuments to John Wayne, D.W. Griffith and more are under fire: A status report.

--New streaming service Discovery+ has unveiled a timely true-crime documentary thriller that will investigate fashion mogul Peter Nygård.

--After testing positive for COVID-19, Ellen DeGeneres appears to be recovering smoothly.

What else we're reading...

--"Trump bows to reality, asks confidants: Should I do The Apprentice again?" [The Daily Beast]

--"Rupert Murdoch receives dose of Covid vaccine in UK" [The Guardian]

--"New York Times says Caliphate podcast fell shot of standards" [NY Times]

--"With COVID stimulus in sight, L.A.’s desperate nightclub owners hope it’s not too little, too late" [LA Times]

Today's birthdays: Billie Eilish, 19, Brad Pitt, 57, DMX, 50, Stone Cold Steve Austin, 56, Sia, 45.

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DECEMBER 18, 2020

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