Today In Entertainment

JANUARY 19, 2021

What's news: ViacomCBS sets March 4 debut for Paramount+, analysts expect a "muted" quarter for Netflix, how foreign streamers are saving a Canadian industry on the brink, Biden inaugural adds last minute star-power in Jon Stewart and Garth Brooks, The Marksman takes out Wonder Woman at the box office, the complete guide to 2021's pilots. Plus: Riz Ahmed is ready to make some noise, and the country where Disney+ is handily beating Netflix. --Alex Weprin

 Riz Ahmed's Moment

►Riz Ahmed Makes Some Noise. With his buzzy performance in Sound of Metal — which required him to learn sign language and drumming — plus a new wife and a booming company, the soft-spoken actor and rapper is having his loudest year yet, Tatiana Siegel reports.

--On learning ASL: "Many actors are looking for a shortcut, whatever is good enough, 'Could I sign this?' 'Did I get that line?' Very two-dimensional to me," his sign language coach Jeremy Lee Stone says through an ASL interpreter. "[Being deaf] is about a culture. To really teach him, Riz really had to strip his identity and become fully immersed in the deaf community."

--Back to basics: "What followed Nightcrawler was a series of high-profile studio films — Jason Bourne, Rogue One and Venom — as well as HBO's The Night Of. There was little doubt: Ahmed had arrived. But he found he missed some of the more unconstrained, freewheeling filmmaking of the early days of his career, when he starred in movies with names like Shifty (playing the title character in the urban crime drama, naturally)."

"The kind of movies I was doing in the U.K. for 10 years before The Night Of and Star Wars and all these kind of things," he explains. "They were just smaller and scrappier and independent, and were very intimate working environments." The story.

 Paramount+ Gets Launch Date

►Here comes Paramount+: ViacomCBS will launch its rebranded CBS All Access streaming service under the new Paramount+ brand in the U.S. and in Latin America on March 4, the company said on Tuesday. The company, led by CEO Bob Bakish, will roll the streamer out to international markets in phases, with the Nordics debut set for March 25, and Australia following in mid-2021. ViacomCBS on Tuesday also set a previously mentioned investor event to discuss its streaming strategy for Feb. 24. The story.

In other streaming news...

►Netflix earnings: What Wall Street is expecting amid "muted" investor sentiment. Going into Netflix's business update (slates for this afternoon), Wall Street experts have once again shared and fine-tuned their forecasts and agreed at least on one thing: that investors have entered 2021 with some skepticism given they don't expect the streamer to be able to replicate the strong growth seen in the early days of the pandemic and it has introduced price increases in key markets. The story.

+There's at least one country where Disney+ has topped Netflix: As the streaming wars heat up worldwide, Disney+ Hotstar has already staked out a sizable lead over Netflix in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, Patrick Brzeski reports. As of Jan. 16, Disney+ Hotstar had 2.5 million subscribers in Indonesia, followed by local Southeast Asian streaming companies Viu and Vidio, with 1.5 million and 1.1 million subscribers, respectively — and with Netflix trailing in fourth place with just 850,000 subs. More.

+How foreign streamers could save a Canadian industry on the brink. Canada forcing Netflix and other foreign streamers to pour $800 million annually into local Canadian content will be a lifeline for world-beating creators, say Bill C-10 supporters. The story.

+In other tech news: Apple mulls a podcast subscription push amid Spotify's land grab. The iPhone giant has explored adding a paid audio product, a risky move given the proliferation of free, ad-supported programming. More.

►President-elect Joe Biden's inaugural committee has added some last-minute star power to its festivities. For starters, the committee announced that Scandal actor Tony Goldwyn will host its virtual "Parade Across America" Wednesday afternoon, and that former Daily Show host Jon Stewart will make a rare appearance during the parade as well. The story.

--In addition, country music icon Garth Brooks will perform at the swearing-in ceremony, joining Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez. "This is not a political statement, this is a statement of unity," Brooks told the press Monday. "This is history, and it is an honor to get to serve." More.

+Also: How Biden becomes @POTUS: A Twitter transition breakdown. The multi-step process will begin with the archiving of official tweets sent during the Trump administration. More.

 'Marksman' Takes Out 'Wonder Woman'

►Box office: Liam Neeson's latest action thriller The Marksman dominated a quiet Martin Luther King Day box office with an estimated four-day opening of $3.7 million, including $3.2 million for three-day weekend. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and widespread theater closures, Marskman played best in the South and drew an older crowd, with 33 percent of ticket buyers over the age of 45, according to PostTrak. Neeson's movie ended Wonder Woman 1984's four-weekend rule at the top of the domestic chart. WW84, falling to No. 3 in its fifth outing, was also beat by The Croods: The New Age. The numbers.

►TV pilots 2021: The complete guide. A new batch of comedies and dramas will compete with holdovers from last season as broadcast networks attempt a return to the traditional development model while also contending with the challenges of a pandemic. The guide.

+A BBC buy: BBC Studios, the commercial and production arm of the U.K. public broadcaster BBC, has taken full control of British film and TV banner Clerkenwell Films, upping its stake from 48 percent to 100 percent. The moves also sees Murray Ferguson leave the production company he set up in 1998, which is best known as producer of the BAFTA-winning Netflix/Channel 4 hit The End of the F***ing World, plus shows including Misfits and Lovesick. The story.

+The Shelby family are returning for one final bout. The BBC's critically acclaimed series Peaky Blinders — created by Steven Knight and starring Cillian Murphy — is set to end after season six, which has just started production. More.

►IDA Documentary Awards: Crip Camp, directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, nabbed the best feature trophy at the International Documentary Association's 2021 awards, which took place Saturday night via an online ceremony amid the coronavirus pandemic. The winners list.

+Critics Choice TV Awards: The Crown and Ozark lead the nominees for the 26th annual Critics Choice Awards in the TV categories. The shows — each of which garnered six noms — help give Netflix the lead among streamers/networks overall, with a total of 26, followed by HBO/HBO Max with 24. The full list of nominees.

►Who made the cut for Trump's "Garden of American Heroes?" One of Trump's final acts in office was to sign an executive order naming who should be included in his "Garden of American Heroes," a government memorial that he ordered to be established last year. Biden, of course, could nix the whole project,but if it does come to fruition, here are some of the people Trump wants included from the world of entertainment:

--Walt Disney, Alex Trebek, Julia Child, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Berlin, Frank Capra, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Woody Guthrie, Billie Holiday, Bob Hope, Harper Lee, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Shirley Temple, Alex Trebek, and John Wayne.

►Fox News, news: Fox News Channel has lined up the first batch of guest hosts for its new 7 p.m. opinion hour. The hosts will include Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, Fox Business host and Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo and regular contributors to the network Katie Pavlich, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Mark Steyn and former congressman Trey Gowdy, per the Los Angeles Times.

--Meanwhile, The New York Times' Ben Smith writes that Fox's settlement with the family of Seth Rich specified that it had to remain a secret until after the Novembr election. "Fox’s decision to settle with the Rich family came just before its marquee hosts, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, were set to be questioned under oath in the case, a potentially embarrassing moment. And Fox paid so much that the network didn’t have to apologize for the May 2017 story on FoxNews.com."

--And then there is the lead from today's Politico Playbook: "Spotted: GEORGE W. BUSH and TUCKER CARLSON having dinner at the private home of a neighbor on the exclusive Gasparilla Island, Fla., where they both have homes."

►Supremes at 60: Mary Wilson says a reunion is "up to Diana Ross." The group — then a quartet of 15-year-olds from Detroit called The Primettes — was signed to Berry Gordy Jr.’s Motown Records in 1961, setting it on a path to superstardom. The interview.

►Obituary: Phil Spector, the eccentric and revolutionary music producer who transformed rock music with his “Wall of Sound” method and who later was convicted of murder, has died. He was 81. California state prison officials said he died Saturday of natural causes at a hospital. The obituary.

+Neil Mahoney, an Emmy-nominated editor, director, writer and producer who contributed to such comedies as Key & Peele, Portlandia and Drunk History, has died. He was 43... Richard Lindheim, the co-creator of the 1985 CBS series The Equalizer, has died. He was 81...

In other news...

--Juno Films has picked up the North American rights to the documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World ahead of its world premiere at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.

--Sen. Josh Hawley has found a new publisher after his book was dropped by Simon & Schuster in the wake of the siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. The conservative publisher Regnery announced Monday that Hawley's The Tyranny of Big Tech will come out this spring.

--Lawyers for Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, asked a British judge on Tuesday to settle her lawsuit against a newspaper before it goes to trial by ruling that its publication of a "deeply personal" letter to her estranged father was "a plain and a serious breach of her rights of privacy."

--World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) revealed on Saturday that its 2021 WrestleMania 37 event will take place in Tampa Bay in April.

--Steve Martin on Sunday told his fans he had some good news and some bad news. The iconic comic and movie star revealed that he had received what is assumed to be his first round of COVID-19 vaccination, which was the good news. He added the bad news is he is old.

--When streaming service DC Universe is relaunched as subscription comic reader DC Universe Infinite this week, it will add a number of eagerly anticipated classics, including material from mature readers imprints Vertigo and DC Black Label, DC has announced.

--Dr. Dre was back at home Saturday after being treated at a Los Angeles hospital for a reported brain aneurysm.

What else we're reading...

--"Inside Nancy Dubuc's quest to rehabilitate Vice" [The Information]

--"Netflix investors, we need to talk about churn" [Bloomberg]

--"Investors push Home Depot and Omnicom to steer ads from misinformation" [NY Times]

--"What Netflix's Cobra Kai teaches us about how to deal with Trump" [LA Times]

--"The bloody anatomy of a Rambo movie" [The Ringer]

Today's birthdays: Dolly Parton, 75, Katey Sagal, 67, Tippi Hedren, 91, Shawn Wayans, 50, Pete Buttigieg, 39.

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JANUARY 19, 2021

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