Today In Entertainment

DECEMBER 15, 2020

What's news: Harry and Meghan to become Spotify royalty, Mortal Kombat and Tom & Jerry get new release dates, Chris Pine gets ready to roll the 20-sided dice, Amazon picks up Boots Riley's I'm a Virgo, Hulu cancels Helstrom, how Nickelodeon plans to "Nick-ify" an NFL game. Plus: HBO and the Michael Jackson estate go to arbitration, and THR's film critics pick their favorite movies of 2020. --Alex Weprin

 Spotify Royalty

►The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are becoming podcasters. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have inked an exclusive multi-year deal with Spotify through newly formed production company Archewell Audio. Together, they plan to host and produce podcasts that uplift and entertain audiences.

--The partnership will kick off later this month with a holiday special hosted by the couple that will feature inspirational stories. Spotify-owned studio Gimlet will produce the show in partnership with Archewell Audio. Meghan and Harry are likely to feature diverse and underrepresented voices in their programs. Their first full podcast series is expected to be released next year as part of Spotify’s free, ad-supported product, which reaches 320 million people around the world. The story.

 More Warners Release Shifts

►Warner Bros. and New Line are pushing back the release of their Mortal Kombat reboot from Jan. 15, 2021, to April 16, 2021. Monday's follow-up announcement also included new dates for Tim Story's family film Tom and Jerry, which is moving up from March 5, 2021, to Feb. 26, 2021, and filmmaker Lisa Joy's sci-fi drama Reminiscence, which has been taken off the calendar. It previously was dated for April 16, 2021, and is expected to find a new home at some point in 2021. The details.

In other film news...

+Chris Pine is getting ready to roll some D20s. The actor, who is gearing up to return to the world of superheroes with Wonder Woman 1984, is in talks to star in Paramount and eOne's long-gestating and big-budget Dungeons & Dragons movie. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley — the duo behind New Line's sleeper hit Game Night— are set to direct the feature that is based on the popular role-playing fantasy game. Goldstein and Daley also wrote the latest version of the script, based on a previous draft by Michael Gilio. The story.

+Hulu has picked A24 feature False Positive starring Ilana Glazer. The movie follows Lucy (Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux) who, after several attempts of trying and failing to get pregnant, finally find their dream fertility doctor in the illustrious Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). But after becoming pregnant with a healthy baby girl, Lucy begins to notice something sinister through Hindle's gleaming charm. More.

+The Justice Society in New Line and Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie is getting hit by a twister. Quintessa Swindell, one of the stars of Netflix’s Trinkets, has nabbed the whirlwind role of DC hero Cyclone in the action-adventure thriller featuring the DC Comics anti-hero starring Johnson. The story.

+Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody has joined the high-profile cast, led by Saoirse Ronan, of Searchlight’s untitled murder mystery feature. Tom George is helming the project that also has Sam Rockwell and David Oyelowo on the playbill. More.

►Some animation news: Noah Jupe, Brian Tyree Henry, Mandy Patinkin, and Benedict Wong have been lined up to voice star in The Magician’s Elephant, Netflix’s animated adaptation of the book of the same name by Kate DeCamilo... Richard E. Grant, Kacey Musgraves and Dan Stevens will lead the English language voice cast for Studio Ghibli's animated feature Earwig and the Witch, directed by Goro Miyazaki with planning from his father, Academy Award-winner Hayao Miyazaki...

 Amazon Snags 'I'm a Virgo'

►Following a two-year development process, I'm a Virgo has a home. Amazon has handed out a straight-to-series order for I'm a Virgo, the coming of age entry from Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) starring Emmy-winner Jharrel Jerome (When They See Us). Created, written and directed by Riley, I’m a Virgo is a coming-of-age joyride about a 13-foot-tall Black man (played by Jerome) who lives in Oakland, Calif. The story.

+Helstrom is the latest one-and-done at Hulu. The Marvel drama from former head of television Jeph Loeb has been axed at the Disney-backed streamer. Helstrom was one of two live-action Marvel dramas Hulu picked up shortly after the comic book giant's Netflix deal crumbled. With the cancellation, Helstrom officially closes the book on live-action scripted shows from former Marvel Television president Loeb. The story.

+How Nickelodeon and CBS Sports plan to 'Nick-ify' an NFL playoff game. The game will feature Nick-inspired graphics — including animated slime in replays of big moments — a SpongeBob-inspired pregame show and Nickelodeon stars Gabrielle Nevaeh Green and Lex Lumpkin (All That) involved in the broadcast — with Green becoming the first woman in the broadcast booth for an NFL playoff game produced by CBS Sports. The story.

+Showtime is giving Shameless a royal sendoff. The premium cable network on Monday announced it has picked up Shameless Hall of Shame, a companion series designed to celebrate John Wells' departing dramedy with six hourlong retrospective episodes. More.

+Naomi Scott is headed for Netflix. The Aladdin and Charlie's Angels grad has been tapped to star in Netflix anthology Anatomy of a Scandal. More.

+Alicia Vikander is heading to HBO to star in a limited series. The Oscar winner will topline and executive produce Irma Vep, loosely based on French filmmaker Olivier Assayas' 1996 movie of the same name. Assayas is also an executive producer, as is Euphoria creator Sam Levinson. Euphoria producer A24 is behind the series. More.

+The afterlife is getting the docuseries treatment at Netflix. Filmmaker Ricki Stern will exec produce and direct Surviving Death, which is based on the book from best-selling author and journalist Leslie Kean. The series releases Jan. 6. More.

►HBO and the Michael Jackson estate are headed to arbitration to resolve the estate's claims that the network violated a decades-old non-disparagement deal by producing Leaving Neverland after a federal appellate court on Monday found that contract's arbitration provision is still valid even 28 years later.

--Optimum Productions and the two co-executors of the Jackson estate in February 2019 sued HBO in an effort to compel arbitration. They claim the network agreed not to besmirch Jackson in a deal for a 1992 concert film — a deal that contained an arbitration provision. The story.

+The Federal Trade Commission is asking some of the world's biggest social media and streaming video giants to hand over information regarding their privacy and data practices. The FTC has issued orders to Amazon, Facebook, TikTok owner ByteDance, YouTube, Twitter, Snap, Discord and WhatsApp, asking for a variety of information. The details.

+Also: The Center for Democracy & Technology doesn't have standing to sue President Donald Trump over his executive order that targets social media sites for the alleged censorship of conservative voices, a D.C. federal judge has ruled. More.

+And: Ticketmaster has convinced another California federal judge that fans who are unhappy over pandemic-related event cancellations and delays have to arbitrate their claims, this time in a suit from a fan who was angry about not getting a refund for tickets to a Rage Against the Machine concert that was indefinitely postponed. More.

►Ben Sherwood's next act: The former Disney TV group president is launching a sports tech startup called Mojo, which will provide content and instructional materials to parents and youth sports coaches. “I had options to suit up and play for another media team, or do something different,” Sherwood told me. The story.

+Revolving door: Cassidy Lange, the former MGM co-president of production, has landed at Netflix as director of original studio films... BET founder Robert Johnson is joining the board of directors at Discovery, effective January 1, 2021...

►THR's film critics pick the best films of 2020. A transcendent concert film, a bold #MeToo thriller and stellar dramas from Kelly Reichardt, Chloé Zhao and Eliza Hittman were among highlights of the year. The list.

+TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews CBS All Access' The Stand, writing that the Stephen King adaptation "is a car on cinderblocks. It looks great. If you glance under the hood, you can see all of the work that's been done on the engine. But no matter how ready it seems to peel out onto the road, it isn't going anywhere." The review.

In other news...

--Veteran German producers Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann and Michael Lehmann will adapt Max Sprenger's best-selling autobiography Tsunami im Kopf (Tsunami in the Head), about Sprenger's life with locked-in syndrome, for the screen. 

--How The Bachelorette reunion filmed amid COVID-19.

--Cinemas across London will be forced to close again starting this Wednesday, with the government having told ministers that the city — and other select areas of England — are to move into the country's highest tier of coronavirus restrictions.

What else we're reading...

--"2021's must-see drama: Netflix under siege" [Bloomberg]

--"WB/HBO Max" [Bob Lefsetz]

--"Group Nine Media explores blank check company for digital media acquisitions" [WSJ]

--"The undoing of Jeffrey Toobin" [NY Times]

--"'Nobody will need MSNBC the way they needed it': Can the left's favorite network break through post-Trump?" [Vanity Fair]

Today's birthdays: Paul Simonon, 65, Adam Brody, 41, Eddie Robinson, 100, Don Johnson, 71, Dave Clark, 81.

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DECEMBER 15, 2020

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