Today In Entertainment

JANUARY 05, 2021

What's news: Hollywood looks to Georgia as Senate runoff elections close, TV news prepares for another election night in America and certification of Joe Biden's win, production continues in Canada despite COVID spike, Chris Webber developing a "Fab Five" series, U.K. 2020 box office report, CBS News names a permanent D.C. bureau chief. Plus: Reviews of Mr.Mayor and History of Swear Words, and why Tanya Roberts' rep said she had died when she is, in fact, still alive. --Alex Weprin

 All Eyes On Georgia

►Will Hollywood support swing Georgia blue?: Today is election day, with control of the U.S. Senate hanging in the balance. For Hollywood, the Georgia runoffs have been a rallying cry, spurring a fresh wave of fundraising efforts and virtual reunions to try and raise money for the Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Most recently, ActBlue hosted Jordan Peele and Bradley Whitford for a conversation Sunday.

+TV news coverage: The cable news channel are all planning special election night coverage, while the broadcast networks will stick with their normal primetime programming (do expect to see breaking news cut-ins if calls are made).

+Big money for TV station owners: For local station owners like Tegna and Nexstar, as well as some major media companies like Fox Corp., the runoffs have led to an advertising boom, with some of the campaigns and PACs even buying national ads. “It’s pretty insane,” says Michael Beach, CEO of Cross Screen Media. “We are seeing off-the-charts spending, I don’t think anyone has ever seen the amount of frequency that is going to a target.”

+Looking ahead: Wednesday will bring the joint session of Congress where the election results will be confirmed. Normally this pro forma affair would be passed over even by cable news channels, but with President Trump seeing it as a last stand to overturn the election results, it is likely to attract wall-to-wall coverage.

--Some notable figures from the world of media have released statements urging Congress to certify the results. Among them are former Republican House Speaker and current Fox Corp. board member Paul Ryan, who said the moves under consideration "strike at the foundation of our republic." Separately, a group of hundreds of CEOs released a statement saying that "attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy."

That list counts among its signees media and entertainment executives like Altice CEO Dexter Goei, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, IAC CEO Joey Levin, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch, Rubenstein Communications CEO Steven Rubenstein, Steiner Studios chairman Doug Steiner, Silvercup Studios CEO Alan Suna, Hearst CEO Steven Swartz, Vox Media president Pam Wasserstein, and Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.

+In other TV news news: This morning CBS News named Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews its new Washington bureau chief. Ciprian-Matthews has served as the interim D.C. bureau chief since July, after Chris Isham stepped down from the role. She previously served as an executive vp at CBS News, most recently as the head of strategic professional development. The story.

 Production Continues up North

►Film industry in Canada keeps up production amid COVID-19 rise: "Everyone is on high alert." Major Hollywood studios and streamers are weathering the latest COVID-19 storm on Toronto and Vancouver soundstages. Months-long efforts by Canadian studio operators, producers, unions and guilds to work with top studios to bolster on-set coronavirus safety measures for actors and crews, including testing, have so far paid off.

--"Ultimately, we don't want any exposure on set. Everybody has to ensure the safety of the crew, to ensure production keeps going," says Johonniuss Chemweno, CEO of New Mexico-based VIP Star Network, which conducts diagnostic testing for Hollywood film cast and crews, including on Canadian soundstages. The story.

►U.K. box office: The box office for the U.K. and Ireland — unsurprisingly — slumped by a record margin in 2020, down 76 percent from 2019. Following five consecutive years of topping £1.3 billion ($1.8 billion), widespread lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a box office total of just £323 million ($439 million), according to Comscore's newly-released annual report.

--The situation meant that nine of the year's top 10 performing films were released before the first Q2 lockdown. The list was headed by Sam Mendes BAFTA-winning 1917, which took £44 million ($60 million), followed by Sonic the Hedgehog ($26.2 million). Tenet, in third, was the only post-lockdown release to make the top 10, taking $23.6 million. The story.

►Netflix developing We Can Be Heroes sequel with Robert Rodriguez. The feature, which drew from characters in the director's Spy Kids franchise and early aughts movie The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, followed the children of Earth's superheroes that have to take on alien invaders that have kidnapped their parents. The story.

 'Fab Five' Series In The Works

►Chris Webber shepherding "Fab Five" limited series. The story of Chris Webber and his "Fab Five" teammates at the University of Michigan has been told a number of times, including in a well-reviewed ESPN documentary from 2011. It hasn't, however, been told from Webber's perspective.

The former NBA All-Star is developing a limited scripted series, called Fab Five, that will tell the story of the group — Webber, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson, Jimmy King and Jalen Rose — who constituted the greatest recruiting class in college basketball history when they enrolled at Michigan in the early 1990s and went to two NCAA championship games. The story.

+HBO has acquired North American TV and streaming rights to a Scandinavian limited series about an infamous murder case. The Investigation, set to premiere Feb. 1 on HBO and HBO Max, tracks the events surrounding the 2017 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. The reporter boarded a mini-submarine to interview its owner, Danish entrepreneur Peter Madsen, in August 2017. Madsen was rescued from the foundering sub the following day, but Wall didn't surface. Part of her corpse was later discovered on shore 10 days later. The story.

+Streaming ratings: Netflix's Virgin River moved to the top of Nielsen's streaming charts for the beginning of December, displacing The Crown. The drama based on Robyn Carr's Virgin River novels took up 1.79 billion minutes of viewers' time in the week of Nov. 30-Dec. 6. It moved up from third to first in the Nielsen rankings; season two of the show debuted Nov. 27. The numbers.

►Revolving door: Elisabeth Deutschman Rabishaw and Victoria Gold have been promoted to executive vice presidents, co-publishers at The Hollywood Reporter. In this role, Deutschman Rabishaw and Gold will oversee sales strategy, direct marketing, events and revenue streams for THR across all platforms globally... Meredith Wechter, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, and Bryce Dallas Howard's agent, is leaving WME...

►Tanya Roberts is not dead. A rep for Roberts said Monday afternoon that the actress is alive, one day after he confirmed her death to THR and multiple other outlets. Mike Pingel told THR on Monday, "I did get confirmation [of her death], but that was from a very distraught person [Roberts' boyfriend, Lance O'Brien]," Pingel said. Pingel added, "And so yes, this morning at 10 a.m. ... the hospital did call to say that she was still alive but it's not looking good. We will hopefully have information [soon]. It's upsetting." More.

+Obituaries: George Gerdes, the quirky singer-songwriter turned character actor whose career included turns in A Few Good Men, Single White Female, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The X-Files and Bosch, has died. He was 72... Canadian Indigenous actor and artist Taran Kootenhayoo has died at 27 years old... Sandi Scully, the wife of beloved Los Angeles Dodgers' Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, died Sunday evening at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after a battle with ALS, the team announced. She was 76... Marjo Bernay, a longtime executive with the Art Directors Guild, died Sunday in Los Angeles of a heart attack. She was 79...

►TV reviews: Inkoo Kang reviews Tina Fay and Robert Carlock's new NBC comedy Mr. Mayor, writing that "whereas Kimmy Schmidt sprung confidently out of the gate, Mr. Mayor wobbles and sways in these earlier chapters, despite terrific sparring partners in Danson and Holly Hunter. Fey and Carlock may see their new show as a homecoming of sorts, but it’s just as easy to view the duo as leaning away from their strengths and toward impulses that have recently left a sour taste in even some of their biggest fans’ mouths." The review.

+Daniel Fienberg reviews Netflix's Nicolas Cage-led History of Swear Words, writing that "It's slight and rarely as funny as it feels like it ought to be. But if your curiosity stems from the seeming oddness of the Leaving Las Vegas star serving as emcee for an overview of obscenities, that oddness is delivered in satisfying quantities." The review.

►Film review: David Rooney reviews The White Tiger, writing that "If there's simply too much novelistic incident stuffed into the overlong film's Dickensian sprawl, the three leads' magnetic performances and the surprising twists of the story keep you engrossed." The review.

In other news...

--NBC has renewed its affiliation agreements with two of the country's largest TV station operators: TEGNA and Nexstar. The deal will see dozens of local TV stations across the country continue to be affiliated with the NBC broadcast network.

--Veteran talk show host Larry King, suffering from COVID-19, has been moved out of the intensive care unit at a Los Angeles hospital and is breathing on his own, a spokesman said on Monday.

--Bachelor Matt James on his history-making premiere and "real and authentic" search for love this season.

--Feinberg Forecast: Here's THR awards analyst Scott Feinberg's first read of the Oscars race at the tart of 2021.

--Zoe Kravitz has filed for divorce from husband Karl Glusman.

What else we're reading...

--"A 25-year old bet comes due: Has tech destroyed society?" [Wired]

--"David Spade knows he’s not America’s No. 1 star. He’s found other ways to survive" [LA Times]

--"Instagram has privately advised some creators on how often to post, offering a rare glimpse into how its mysterious algorithm works" [Business Insider]

--"I.R.S. says Prince's estate is worth twice what administrators reported" [NY Times]

Today's birthdays: Diane Keaton, 75, Marilyn Manson, 52, Walter Mondale, 93, January Jones, 43, Bradley Cooper, 46.

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JANUARY 05, 2021

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