Today In Entertainment

JANUARY 29, 2021

What's news: Nielsen releases Wonder Woman 1984 streaming numbers, virtual Sundance kicks off, why SAG-AFTRA wants to toss out Trump, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman board new series, Noah Baumbach's Netflix deal, ABC News president James Goldston set to exit, Nick Cannon's daytime talk show back on track. Plus: THR's Cinematographer Roundtable, and remembering Cicely Tyson. --Alex Weprin

 Nielsen Releases 'Wonder Woman 1984' Streaming Numbers

►Wonder Woman 1984 makes huge streaming debut, Nielsen says. For the week of Dec. 21-27, HBO Max users spent 2.25 billion minutes watching Wonder Woman 1984 (it was released Christmas Day). That's equivalent to about 14.9 million complete plays of the 151-minute movie. It's also 580 million minutes more than Nielsen's previously reported No. 1 for the week, Pixar's Soul on Disney+ (1.67 billion minutes), and the third highest weekly total for any title since Nielsen began releasing weekly streaming numbers in August 2020.

--"The impact of Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max cannot be understated," said HBO Max executive vp and general manager Andy Forssell. "As was announced on Wednesday during our earnings and as this Nielsen data shows, it was a huge holiday gift to the consumer at a time when they wanted and needed it. This partnership with Warner Bros. of course continues throughout the year but it began with Wonder Woman’s arrival on Christmas Day to great success." The story.

+And HBO Max has set its next tentpole: Zack Snyder's Justice League will debut on the streamer Thursday March 18, WarnerMedia said Friday morning.

+In other streaming news: Netflix made a subtle but significant change in its annual report, filed with the SEC Thursday. For the first time since the company went public in 2002, it did not disclose how many subscribers it had to its legacy DVD-by-mail business. A year ago it reported "over two million" subscribers, but with DVD revenue down by 20 percent from last year, they are likely down to 1.6-1.8 million now, raising questions about how long it is tenable...

The Sundance Film Festival kicked off Thursday in a pandemic-inspired virtual format...

►Sundance founder Robert Redford made a brief appearance during the opening night welcome ceremony from Park City, Utah. Redford, who skipped for the second year running the opening press conference earlier in the day, was not personally featured on screen. Instead, the Hollywood director narrated a short visual tone poem about Utah that featured shots of space-pointing telescopes in the Atacama desert that Redford used as metaphors for artists telling stories amid the COVID-19 crisis. The story.

+Film festival toppers discuss reimagined virtual event. "I can be a festival director and not wear pants," Tabitha Jackson joked during an opening online press conference held via Zoom as Sundance kicked off on Thursday. "We're always going to have too many people fit into Park City. This additional dimension is very exciting," Jackson said, touching on this year's online hub, as Sundance organizers look to 2022 and beyond. The story.

+Focus Features chairman on how the company surged despite pandemic shutdown. Peter Kujawski, the exec running NBCUniversal's specialty label, talks to Tatiana Siegel about his Sundance strategy and the financial and cultural results of leaning into PVOD amid the pandemic: It's "not cannibalizing one window to make room for another."

--"One of the positive things that’s happening in the marketplace right now is there’s a lot of new business models and a lot of new competition. Certainly, we’ve got our competitors in the specialty and theatrical distribution marketplace, and we look at streamers and what they are doing. There’s going to be a good opportunity for partnerships, the alchemy of like-minded people setting out to get a movie in front of the most people possible." The interview.

+Sundance reviews: CODA... Summer of Soul... Censor... In The Same Breath... Flee...

In other film news...

►Noah Baumbach is chilling with Netflix. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind last award season’s darling Marriage Story has signed a deal to write and produce films for the streaming giant for the next several years. And he already has his next project in sights: an adaptation of White Noise, the 1985 novel that broke author Don DeLillo into the mainstream and earned the writer a National Book Award for fiction. The story.

+Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley biopic is singing to a new tune. Warner Bros. announced Thursday that the film will now debut in theaters on June 3, 2022, instead of Nov. 5, 2021. The change means that the movie may get a traditional theatrical run, versus being one of the 2021 Warner Bros. titles scheduled for a day and date release in cinemas and on HBO Max. More.

+Ethan Hawke will star in The Black Phone, a horror thriller Scott Derrickson is directing for Blumhouse and Universal. Derrickson and frequent collaborator Robert Cargill wrote the script adapting the Joe Hill short story that first appeared in the author’s short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts. More.

+Jared Leto and Darren Aronofsky, who worked together on Requiem for a Dream, are set to re-team for an adaptation of seafaring supernatural horror Adrift. Leto will star and Aronofsky will direct the adaptation of a short story of the same name by Koji Suzuki, the writer behind The Ring. More.

 Why Trump Is Being Targeted By SAG-AFTRA

►Why SAG-AFTRA is taking action against Trump. The charges were initiated by national executive director David White at the request of president Gabrielle Carteris. They cite not only Trump’s alleged role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, for which he’s been impeached, but also his war on the media. As White noted, “This individual’s words and actions over the past four years have presented actual harm to our broadcast journalist members.”

--Leading entertainment labor lawyer Ivy Kagan Bierman says it’s the second part that’s significant. “SAG-AFTRA cannot do something that is partisan politics,” she says. “I think this charge is intentionally very specific to something that is clearly within the union’s control — which is someone making statements or taking action that the union regards as dangerous to its members.” The story.

+The industry groups that recommended a production pause amid California's COVID-19 surge in early January have lifted it. SAG-AFTRA, the Producers Guild of America and the Joint Policy Committee — the bargaining group that represents commercial advertisers and advertising agencies — have agreed that effective Feb. 1, filming is cleared to resume. The story.

►George Clooney may be heading into the future. The actor-turned-filmmaker, currently in the awards sphere with Midnight Sky, is circling Legendary’s adaptation of classic pulp hero Buck Rogers in potential multiple capacities. Legendary is currently developing a prestige limited series that is being written by Brian K. Vaughan with the goal of launching a film and an anime off-shoot if the initial series is a success. The story.

+Nicole Kidman has lined up her latest star vehicle. Via her Blossom Films banner, which has a first-look deal with Amazon Studios, Kidman is set to star in and executive produce a series adaptation of the Norwegian film Hope. Like the original, which was selected as the Norwegian entry for Best International Feature Film category at this year’s Oscars, the series is being billed as a complicated, blended-family drama. It’s expected to chronicle twelve days of a family’s Christmas together, including the unravelling of a marriage, with six children between them. The story.

In other TV news...

+A daytime talk show starring Nick Cannon is back on. The syndicated strip, titled Nick Cannon, is set to debut in fall 2021. Lionsgate's Debmar-Mercury will distribute the show, with Fox Television Stations serving as the lead affiliate group. Cannon's show had initially been set to launch in fall 2020 but was pushed back following anti-Semitic remarks Cannon made on his Cannon's Class podcast last summer. The story.

+Armie Hammer has departed The Offer, a Paramount+ series about the making of The Godfather. The actor's exit from the show comes amid controversy over graphic messages he allegedly sent several women over social media. More.

►James Goldston, president of ABC News for the past seven years, is departing. Goldston said in a memo to staff Thursday that he'll step down as head of the news division at the end of March and will help with the transition to a new leader.

--"I've loved every day of my 17 years at ABC News, but in recent times I've always assumed that after this extraordinary election cycle, which we've covered at a full sprint for four years, it would be time for a change," Goldston wrote. "After a great deal of reflection over the last few months, I'm ready for a new adventure." The story.

+Revolving door: British screenwriter Philippa Goslett (Mary Magdalene, How to Talk to Girls at Parties) has joined HBO's sci-fi series The Nevers as executive producer and showrunner...Former CAA execs Caroline Yim and Zach Iser have joined WME as partners and co-heads of the music department’s hip-hop/R&B team... Days after becoming second-daughter, Ella Emhoff is joining the modeling industry, represented by IMG...

 THR Cinematographer Roundtable

►Cinematographer Roundtable: Pros from News of the World, One Night in Miami, Mank, Nomadland, Mulan and I'm No Longer Here on what Hollywood gets wrong about their jobs, their inspirations and who drives diversity the most on productions. The THR Cinematographer Rountable.

►Friday the 13th producer Sean Cunningham has launched a new lawsuit over net profits from the horror franchise. According to a complaint filed on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the studios distributing the films have "systematically misaccounted" contingent compensation. The story.

+Disney tells court to shush Muppet Babies reboot suit. Jeffrey Scott in October sued Disney because its reboot of the series allegedly misappropriates elements of the original series production bible that he created, including the show’s nursery setting and the child versions of the characters, and because he pitched a reboot to the company in 2016. In a motion to dismiss filed Wednesday, Disney argues the California federal court where he filed the complaint lacks jurisdiction and Scott lacks standing and failed to state a claim. More.

+Gamers have a new play — seeing how a federal judge will scrutinize the dealmaking behind a digital platform responsible for 75 percent of all PC games sales. On Thursday, five gamers filed a putative class action in California federal court against Valve Corporation over its Steam platform. More.

►Cicely Tyson, the admired Oscar-nominated actress who made television history while forging a sterling career out of portraying women of strength and substance, died Thursday. She was 96. Her death was announced by her longtime manager, Larry Thompson.

--Tyson, saluted with an honorary Academy Award at the Governors Awards in November 2018, became the first African-American to win a lead actress Emmy Award when she was recognized for her astonishing performance as a woman who ages from 23 to 110 — from the 1850s to the civil-rights era — in the 1974 CBS telefilm The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. The obituary.

+In the wake of Tyson's death on Thursday, Shonda Rhimes, Zendaya, Oprah Rosario Dawson and many more took to social media to pay tribute to the actress who made television history while forging a sterling career out of portraying women of strength and substance. The tributes.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: During this week's podcast, hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg discuss Tyson and Cloris Leachman's impact, speak with Showtime's Desus and Mero, explore HBO Max's next creative chapter and also review the oddly light February TV calendar. Listen.

►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Netflix's We Are The Brooklyn Saints, writing that "ultimately, the documentary really only concentrates on three of the players, but they're all winners and the series does a great job of featuring their world outside of football." The review.

In other news...

--Zach Braff has closed a deal to star with Gabrielle Union in Cheaper by the Dozen, the reimagining of the hit 2003 comedy being developed for Disney+.

--Nominations for the 32nd annual GLAAD Media Awards were revealed on Thursday via a live-streamed TikTok video featuring Saved by the Bell star Josie Totah, The Christmas House actor Jonathan Bennett and D.J. 'Shangela' Pierce.

--David Ellison's Skydance Media has closed a deal that will give it $1 billion in available credit from J.P. Morgan and a consortium of partnering banks.

--Cable operator Charter Communications, in which John Malone's Liberty Broadband owns a big stake, on Friday reported that it lost fewer pay TV subscribers in the fourth quarter than in the year-ago period.

--As the stock price of movie theater giant AMC Entertainment surged on Wednesday, the private equity firm Silver Lake used the volatility to its advantage, and lightening AMC's debt load in the process.

--Sonny Fox, the beloved pioneer of kids television who demonstrated an amazing one-on-one rapport with children as the host of the New York-based Sunday morning program Wonderama, has died. He was 95.

--Facebook's "Supreme Court" has issued a landmark decision on free expression. On Thursday, the social media company's Oversight Board ruled that it was wrong to remove a Brazilian woman's Instagram post showing her uncovered breast. The woman did so as part of an international campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer.

--Tehran co-producer Julien Leroux has launched Paper Entertainment, a London-based TV producer and financier.

What else we're reading...

--"Hollywood is leaving COVID safety to ill-prepared assistants who say they have no idea what they're doing" [BuzzFeed News]

--"Conde Nast eyes shift to New Jersey, cutting NYC offices" [Bloomberg]

--"Can studios compete with streaming services to buy this year’s Sundance hits?" [LA Times]

--"A surge of M&A deals could shape US sports betting in 2021 — including a major acquisition by DraftKings and 'generous and creative' bids for Bleacher Report" [Business Insider]

Today's birthdays: Oprah Winfrey, 67, Heather Graham, 51, Sara Gilbert, 46, Adam Lambert, 39, Tom Selleck, 76.

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JANUARY 29, 2021

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