Today In Entertainment

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

What's news: More studios conceal box office grosses as pandemic continues to impact theaters, Woody Allen responds to HBO's Allen v. Farrow, why young adult fare has become Netflix's bread and butter, Discovery tops 11 million streaming subscribers, U.S. films get China release dates as Lunar New Year winds down, Time's Up says there should be "no comeback" for Brett Ratner. Plus: Disney+ adds Muppets disclaimer, and THR's 2021 broadcast TV scorecard. --Alex Weprin

 Box Office Secrets

►More and more Hollywood studios are concealing their box office grosses amid the pandemic and ongoing theater closures, saying they don't want to be unfairly judged for numbers that, in "normal" times, would be considered anywhere from tepid to abysmal. In the latest twist, Searchlight Pictures didn't even send a Sunday note to the press when Chloé Zhao's Nomadland expanded into more than 1,100 theaters over the Feb. 19-21 weekend. The Oscar hopeful was the only new wide release of the frame after playing in select Imax theaters the three previous weekends (those numbers were also kept under wraps).

--Ditto for A24, which didn't send a press note Sunday with any numbers for awards contender Minari, which is playing in roughly 140 locations. Nomadland also debuted Feb. 19 on Hulu. As a result of the hybrid release, Searchlight insiders say the specialty label opted not to report box office grosses. The company stressed that the decision was Searchlight's, and not parent company Disney's.

--So, what film did top the box office (at least according to the numbers that were released)? The Croods: A New Age, which was first released in November. The story.

+Meanwhile, in China: Chinese blockbusters Hi, Mom and Detective Chinatown 3 both sailed past the $600 million mark during their second weekend in cinemas — an unprecedented feat for two films competing head-to-head in a single market. The numbers.

+Also: As China's booming Lunar New Year box-office period winds down, Beijing's film regulators are beginning to let Hollywood titles back into the marketplace. Warner Brothers’ live-action/animation hybrid Tom and Jerry has secured a release on Feb. 26, officially the final day of the Chinese New Year season. The film will be the first new U.S. studio title to launch in China in 2021. Just one week later, on March 5, Disney's feature animation Raya and the Last Dragon will get a theatrical rollout. More.

 Woody Allen v. 'Allen v. Farrow'

►Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn have broken their silence over HBO's Allen v. Farrow, describing the docuseries as a "hatchet job riddled with falsehoods." In a statement to THR, the disgraced director and his wife said that Allen v. Farrow filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick "had no interest in the truth" and accused the documentarians of "collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers" and only giving them a "matter of days" to respond to the docuseries' allegations. The story.

+How the Allen v. Farrow team convinced Dylan and Mia Farrow to share their story. Among the bombshells in the first episode of the HBO docuseries are their testimonies about Woody Allen’s inappropriate and "intense affection" for a young Dylan Farrow.

--"I haven’t spoken publicly about him for decades," says Mia when she appears on camera. "But that’s the great regret of my life, that I wasn't perceptive enough. It's my fault. I brought this guy into our family. There's nothing I can do to take that away." The story.

►Discovery Inc. said on Monday that it has reached more than 11 million paying subscribers worldwide to its direct-to-consumer services, including Discovery+,  and would hit 12 million at the end of February. In its first earnings report since the Discovery+ launch about seven weeks ago, the company also reported that U.S. advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020 improved to come in roughly unchanged compared with the year-ago period., in line with Wall Street expectations. "Advertising was flat as higher pricing and the continued monetization of content offerings on our next generation platforms were offset by secular declines in the pay-TV ecosystem and lower ratings," the company said. The story.

+In other earnings news: Dish Network on Monday reported that it lost 133,000 net pay TV subscribers in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of 194,000 in the year-ago period and a gain of 116,000 in the third quarter of 2020. The company, led by chairman Charlie Ergen and CEO Erik Carlson, ended December with 11.29 million total subscribers, including 8.82 million Dish TV subscribers and 2.47 million Sling TV subscribers. More.

►Teenage dream: Young-adult hits become Netflix’s first franchises. While superhero and monster movies are the hallmarks of traditional film franchises, so far it’s largely young love that’s sparking sequels at the streamer, Mia Galuppo reports. 

--"To their credit, [Netflix] really had a vision for how to grow this trilogy," says Matt Kaplan, the 36-year-old producer behind Netflix's ultra-popular To All the Boys I've Loved Before film series. "Ultimately they had the reach, and they were able to help us garner attention on social media immediately." The story.

 THR's Broadcast Scorecard

►Broadcast TV scorecard 2021: What's new, renewed and canceled. In keeping with some tradition, here's THR's handy guide of scripted broadcast shows are coming back, what's canceled (or ending) and what's been added to the 2021-22 schedule at ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW. Bookmark this scorecard as THR will update it regularly as the wind shifts on current shows and as the networks make their decisions. The scorecard.

►Time's Up says there should be "no comeback" for Brett Ratner. In response to reports that Ratner is planning a biopic of R&B duo Milli Vanilli, Time's Up president and CEO Tina Tchen released a statement that read, "TIME’S UP was born out of the national reckoning on workplace sexual harassment. Our movement is a product of countless courageous acts by many survivors, including those who spoke out about what they endured at the hands of Brett Ratner." The story.

+A settlement agreement has been reached in a lawsuit that alleged James Franco intimidated students at an acting and film school he founded into gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations. A status report jointly filed by the two sides in Los Angeles Superior Court said a settlement had been reached in the class-action suit brought by former students at the now-defunct school, Studio 4, though elements of the lawsuit may live on. The document was filed on Feb. 11, but the settlement has not previously been reported. The story.

+Chris D’Elia on Friday posted a lengthy video in which he addressed sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him last summer. The comic-actor said in the nearly 10-minute video posted on his YouTube page "I do have a problem," but maintained he did nothing illegal. More.

►On Saturday Night Live: SNL tackled the latest Britney Spears documentary in its cold open that played out in the form of a talk show. "You all know me from my upbeat Instagram videos," said Chloe Fineman as Spears, the host. The idea of the show was so that people could apologize for what they’ve done wrong. Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page was on hosting duty for the first time, with rapper Bad Bunny as the musical guest. All the sketches.

►Disney+ has added a content disclaimer to The Muppet Show. On the series' content details page, the platform issued an advisory note that the program "includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures." "These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now," the disclaimer reads. "Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together." The story.

►Film review: John DeFore reviews Crisis. "Setting out to be the Traffic of the opioid era, Nicholas Jarecki's Crisis presents a trilogy of storylines whose tendrils involve everyone from big-pharma execs to undercover cops to addicts at various stages of despair," DeFore writes. "Sprawling and serious but not nearly as involving as it should be, the pic — Jarecki's sophomore feature, after 2012's similarly topical Arbitrage — may well attract interest for unwanted reasons, as one of the films co-lead Armie Hammer completed before his current social media-stoked scandals hit." The review.

In other news...

--Netflix has set an official release date for Zack Snyder’s zombie horror thriller. Snyder’s Army of the Dead will launch on May 21, the director announced Sunday. The first teaser for the film will debut on Thursday.

--Amanda Gorman's inauguration appearance and the global attention it received — some characterized the 22-year-old poet as an American treasure and fashion icon — has resulted in an "avalanche of offers," per an industry source familiar with such deals.

--CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter thought more than a quick update was necessary in preparing for the paperback edition of his book from last summer, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. In effect, he's writing a substantially different book, adding some 20,000 words to the 95,000 of the hardcover edition.

--Martha Stewart, the actress and singer best known for her supporting turns opposite Joan Crawford in Daisy Kenyon and alongside Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place, has died. She was 98.

--Jim Carrey is taking a pause from posting political cartoons.

What else we're reading...

--"Golden Globes voters in tumult: Members accuse Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. of self-dealing, ethical lapses" [LA Times]

--"The shocking, exhilarating, heartbreaking true story of #TheSnyderCut" [Vanity Fair]

--"Want to make a hit record from your bedroom? Ask Splice" [Bloomberg]

--"Allen v. Farrow is the latest example of 'consequences culture'" [CNN]

Today's birthdays: Drew Barrymore, 46, Julie Walters, 71, Paul Dooley, 93, James Blunt, 47, Ellen Greene, 70.

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FEBRUARY 22, 2021

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