Today In Entertainment

FEBRUARY 05, 2021

What's news: Trump quits SAG-AFTRA, Questlove's Sundance doc scores Disney deal, Nomadland's Chloe Zhao tackling Dracula, Renee Zellweger to NBC, a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman reboot, Fox News facing $2.7B lawsuit, SAG Award nominees and analysis. Plus: Chris Albrecht consolidates at Legendary, and how celebrity Chiefs fans are prepping for Sunday. --Alex Weprin

 Trump, Out (Of SAG-AFTRA)

►Donald Trump has pre-emptively submitted his resignation from SAG-AFTRA as the union moved through a disciplinary process that could have resulted in expelling him. On Wednesday, the former president sent an exclamation mark-laden letter to union president Gabrielle Carteris announcing his resignation. "I no longer wish to be associated with your union," Trump wrote after enumerating what he called the union's "dismal record." "As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resigning from SAG-AFTRA." In a comment on the letter, SAG-AFTRA said only, "Thank you." The story.

+Meanwhile: A voting technology company is suing Fox News, three of its top hosts and two former lawyers for former President Donald Trump — Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — for $2.7 billion, charging that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped "steal" the U.S. presidential election. More.

►Renee Zellweger is headed to NBC to star in a drama series based on one of Dateline's most popular true-crime stories. The network has given a straight-to-series pickup to The Thing About Pam, based on a set of stories from NBC's long-running newsmagazine and companion podcast. Zellweger will make her broadcast TV debut in the series, on which she's also an executive producer. The story.

+Starz continues to explore famous women in history. The Lionsgate-backed premium cable network has gone straight to series on drama The Serpent Queen, a drama based on the book Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France by Leonie Frieda. More.

+Here's an unexpected reboot: Sony Pictures TV and Norman Lear are delving into the prolific producer's catalog again, developing a remake of 1970s cult favorite Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Schitt's Creek breakout Emily Hampshire is set to star in the series, which will update the original's satire of consumer culture for the social media age. Hampshire will also co-write the script with Letterkenny creator Jacob Tierney. More.

+Nick Cannon and ViacomCBS are back on good terms again. Cannon will resume production on his VH1 series Wild 'N Out in the near future, and past episodes of the show are set to begin airing again on the cable network later this week. The patching up of Cannon's relationship with the media giant follows his apology for anti-Semitic comments on his podcast last summer and subsequent work educating himself and working with Jewish groups. More.

+Also: The latest addition to the Law & Order franchise — and a reunion of former SVU co-stars Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay — has a premiere date. NBC will debut Law & Order: Organized Crime at 10 p.m. April 1. More.

 Questlove's Doc Nabs Disney Deal

►Disney owned Searchlight Pictures and Hulu have acquired music doc, Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a directorial debut for The Roots founder Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. The deal was negotiated by Cinetic for worldwide rights. The film is set for theatrical release, as well as streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and internationally on Star and Star+. Sources close to the deal say that the sale marks the biggest for a doc in the history of the Sundance festival, beating out last year's record-break Boys State, which went to Apple for $12 million. The story.

+Dracula, the sci-fi western. On the heels of a historic Golden Globe nomination, Nomadland filmmaker Chloé Zhao has found a new project into which she can sink her teeth. Zhao has teamed up with Universal Pictures to join the studio’s classic film monster repertoire, developing a feature project based on the most famous vampire of all, Dracula. Zhao’s version is described as an original, futuristic, sci-fi Western. The story.

+Rapper Lil Yachty and Mattel are teaming on a feature adaption of the popular children's card game Uno. The movie is described as an action heist comedy, set in the underground hip hop world of Atlanta. Yachty is attached to produce, with an eye to star in the movie. The story.

►SAG Awards: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Minari topped the nominations for the 2021 SAG Awards with three nods each. While Trial of the Chicago 7 and Da 5 Bloods, in a comeback after being surprisingly shut out by the Golden Globes, earned three nods a piece from SAG-AFTRA as well, one of those nominations was in the stunt performers category. The SAG Awards also handed out two nominations to Hillbilly Elegy (stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close) and The Father (Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman). The full list of nominations.

+Analysis: "While the picks of the nom-com — which is comprised of about 2,500 people chosen at random from the guild's overall membership — were certainly less baffling than those offered Wednesday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, they were still all over the map," writes THR awards columnist Scott Feinberg. The analysis.

+Can dual nominations or snubs be overturned? Feinberg looks back at the 21st century's prior award seasons to illustrate the sorts of performances that are sometimes brought back from the dead — and that can be upended — by the Academy. More.

 Celebrity Kansas City Chiefs Fans Prep For Sunday

►Superstitions and Kansas City barbeque: How celebrity Chiefs fans are prepping for the Super Bowl. Heidi Gardner has ordered Patrick Mahomes-shaped cookies, Rob Riggle will be wearing a lucky shirt and sitting on a specific spot on the sofa while former Chiefs player John Amos will be spooning out barbeque sauce from a Kansas City staple. Chris Gardner has the story.

Earnings roundup...

+Lionsgate on Thursday posted a smaller third-quarter loss on lower overall revenue as the Hollywood studio continues to drive into the streaming space with Starz. The studio saw its global streaming subscriber base for Starz, Starzplay Arabia and Pantaya grow to 14.6 million, up another 900,000 subscribers compared to the end of its second quarter. More.

+Snapchat's TikTok competitor has already taken off with its users. The feature, dubbed Spotlight, was introduced in November last year as Snapchat faced increased competition for Gen Z users from the popular Chinese app. Snapchat says that Spotlight reached more than 100 million monthly active users in January. More.

+Call of Duty continues to be a big hit for video game publisher Activision Blizzard. The first-person shooter franchise had over 100 million active monthly players across its premium and free-to-play modes during the final three months of 2020. More.

►Legendary Television is consolidating its studio operations. The company has merged its international and domestic arms and tapped former Starz chief Chris Albrecht to lead the combined business. Albrecht takes over the lead of the studio from Nick Pepper, who was tapped in early 2018 to lead Legendary's TV business. Pepper will transition to an executive producer role on various Legendary shows. As part of the merged studio, former CAA co-head of TV business affairs Danny Grover has joined Legendary and will serve as its new head of business affairs after his 30-year career at the agency. The story.

+Revolving door: Shonda Rhimes has brought longtime director (and sometime actor) Tom Verica in house at Shondaland as head of creative production... Focus Features has promoted Kiska Higgs to president of production and acquisitions...

►SPAC of the day: Former Major League Baseball star, current Fox Sports analyst, and J-Lo's beau Alex Rodriguez is the CEO of a new SPAC that filed for a $500 million IPO Thusday. Slam Corp. is looking to merge with a company in the media, ecommerce, entertainment or sports fields, and counts writer-director Reggie Hudlin among its board members.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: During this week's podcast, hosts Daniel Fienberg and Lesley Goldberg break down a busy week of awards nominations, pay tribute to trailblazer Jamie Tarses, decode Super Bowl scheduling and take a deep-dive look at the state of Peak TV. Listen.

►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews CBS' The Equalizer, writing of the show getting the coveted post-Super Bowl slot "Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller's pilot script feels like it could have been a spec script for Castle or Person of Interest or any of a dozen comparable shows. Or just a workable template for almost any broadcast procedural." The review.

In other news...

--CAA is revamping its agent trainee program with a business and inclusion focus.

--Two California state lawmakers have proposed a bill that would allow major theme parks in Southern California to reopen faster than under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

--Morgan Wallen has been dropped by WME. The removal of Wallen as a client on Thursday comes in the wake of the country singer facing consequences after a video circulated online showing Wallen using a racial slur.

--U.S. companies have engaged in more than $10 trillion worth of mergers and acquisitions since 2008, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)  on Thursday announced a bill aimed at making sure those deals don't harm consumers or halt competition.

--Impact, the talent accelerator founded by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard in 2018 for up-and-coming writers, has partnered with Skydance Television in a first-look deal to source content using its proprietary application and review system.

--Bridgerton and Cobra Kai finished nearly neck and neck in the latest edition of Nielsen's streaming rankings, each recording more than 2.6 billion minutes of viewing time.

--Michelle Williams has signed on to play Peggy Lee in a biopic for the legendary singer.

--"He was our North Star": Linda Bloodworth Thomason on Hal Holbrook.

--Jim Weatherly, the country music singer-songwriter who wrote Gladys Knight's hit "Midnight Train To Georgia," has died. He was 77.

What else we're reading...

--"Quest for Hollywood fame splits Redditors at heart of market frenzy" [NY Times]

--"Apple TV+ is doing better than you think" [Vulture]

--"Dateline NBC trying its first multi-part crime drama" [AP]

--"Rolling Stone launches video channel on Amazon's Twitch" [WSJ]

--"Mike Pence is starting a podcast" [Politico]

Today's birthdays: Cristiano Ronaldo, 36, Neymar, 29, Bobby Brown, 52, Michael Mann, 78, Laura Linney, 57.

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FEBRUARY 05, 2021

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