Today In Entertainment

MARCH 05, 2021

What's news: A Quiet Place 2 moves up as F9 and Minions get pushed, Liam Neeson's plan to welcome New Yorkers back to movie theaters, Netflix and the Obamas partner on Kevin Hart's Fatherhood, Oscars voting kicks off, Berlin winners, a Party Down revival, Pose set to end, Charisma Carpenter on how to be an ally of victims of abuse. Plus: THR's studio profit report, and a Biden hire sure to raise eyebrows in Hollywood. --Alex Weprin

 Box Office Action

►The next installment in Universal's Fast & Furious is shifting gears yet again, and will now roar into theaters on June 25 instead of May 28. In a more dramatic move, the studio announced that Illumination's origins story Minions: The Rise of Gru is being pushed out of 2021 entirely. It is now set to hit the big screen on July 1, 2022, moving from July 2 of this year. The story.

+Other films are moving up: Paramount is moving the release of A Quiet Place Part II earlier after originally delaying the film’s theatrical release. John Krasinki, who wrote and directed the film, took to social media Thursday night to share that the anticipated second installment will now release on Memorial Day. More.

+Liam Neeson to welcome New York City moviegoers back to theaters: Neeson, who has received his first vaccination shot, will personally thank moviegoers for turning out before his latest action pic plays Friday evening at a prominent Upper Westside multiplex. "This is one for the diary," Neeson told THR's Pamela McClintock during an interview this week. "It will be nice to welcome people. I think going to the cinema is a bit of a sacred experience. I've felt that way since I was a kid."

--New York City isn't only the second-biggest moviegoing market in the country behind Los Angeles — where cinemas remain shuttered — it is key in terms of generating buzz and publicity for Hollywood titles, and for the box office overall as it attempts to recover. "The reopening of New York is a strong symbolic gesture to the theater-going audience that it is okay to put your toe in the water," says Tom Ortenberg, chief of Open Road/Briarcliff, which is distributing The Marksman in the U.S. The story.

In other film news...

+Netflix will release Kevin Hart's Fatherhood on Father's Day, presenting the movie with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. The streamer acquired the worldwide rights for the feature from Sony Pictures, which has had to push the release date of the film several times due to the continued theatrical shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sony will be presenting the film, along with Higher Ground. The deal excludes China. More.

+Amy Jo Johnson is set to helm Ends of the Earth, a dramatic love story set against the backdrop of the September 11, 2001 attacks, with Erica Huggins, president of Fuzzy Door Productions — the Family Guy mastermind Seth MacFarlane's production banner — on board to produce. More.

+American High and Hulu will team on a new teen comedy Sex Appeal. Mika Abdalla (Netflix's Project Mc2) and Jake Short (Hulu's All Night) will lead the movie that follows over-achiever Avery Hansen-White, as her long-distance boyfriend hints at wanting to take their relationship to the next level at the upcoming STEM conference (“nerd prom”). More.

 2020 Studio Profit Report

►THR's Studio profit report: Netflix reigns, Paramount and Sony gain. In a tumultuous year, Hollywood majors cut their losses on theatrical titles and Disney took the biggest hit, but the pandemic also lowered marketing and production costs, THR’s annual analysis shows. The report.

►Oscar nominations voting kicks off. Voting begins today for an abbreviated 6 day voting period. The nominees will be announced March 15. Here's THR awards columnist Scott Feinberg's lay of the land as the voting opens. The Feinberg Forecast.

+Former presidents Obama and Clinton could tip the scales in the doc Oscars race. The 586 members of the Academy's documentary branch are being lobbied by some heavy hitters as they weigh which of 15 shortlisted doc features deserve to make their list of five Oscar nominees, Feinberg reports. The story.

+How often do Oscar voters agree with the Critics Choice Awards picks? Ignoring the outlier of best picture, the critics' selections are eerily accurate predictors of who goes on to win Academy Awards, Michael O'Connell writes. More.

►Berlin winner: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn from Romanian director Radu Jude, has won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. A scathing social satire about sex, lies, and videotape, the movie was shot entirely during COVID lockdown last summer, with cast and crew all wearing anti-viral masks. The story.

+Analysis: A Post-COVID recovery leads to optimism as European Film Market wraps. With the promise of theaters reopening and plenty of big-budget, buzzy art-house titles available, Berlin's EFM offered hope for the global film business after a year of Corona lockdown: "There is a consensus that there is light at the end of the tunnel." The story.

 'Party Down' Revival

►Party Down, Starz's cult comedy from the late aughts, may party once again. A limited revival of the series is in the works at the network, with the original producing team and cast all expected to return. Though technically still just development, co-creator Rob Thomas expressed his commitment to the project in a statement accompanying the news. More.

+FX's groundbreaking and Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning drama Pose will come to an end with its previously announced third season. In making the announcement, the Disney-owned basic-cable network revealed that the final season will consist of an abbreviated seven episodes. That's down from eight and 10 in seasons one and two, respectively. The final season will debut Sunday, May 2 at 10 p.m. with two episodes; the series ender will air June 6. The story.

+Netflix has preemptively picked up Shadecraft, an upcoming comic book from Image Comics created by Lucifer showrunner Joe Henderson and artist Lee Garbett. In the development deal, Henderson will co-write the pilot with Georgia Lee, a writer-producer on sci-fi shows The Expanse and The 100. More.

+Jimmy Kimmel Live! intends to mark the one-year anniversary of the novel Coronavirus pandemic — or "our national incarceration," as the show is dubbing it — with an aptly titled "Coronaversary Show." The special episode is set to air March 11, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg returning exactly one year to the day after he guest hosted the ABC late night show. More.

+FX's American Crime Story anthology has cast Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton in its next season, which covers the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. More.

+The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which is best known for presiding over the annual Primetime Emmy Awards, announced Thursday that it has "launched a comprehensive evaluation across the organization" to figure out how to better address "the need for diversification" within its ranks. More.

►Fox Corp. CEO says ratings will "improve for the next four years" amid Biden administration. "The main beneficiary of the Trump administration from a ratings point-of-view was MSNBC. That's because they were the loyal opposition," Lachlan Murdoch told the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference during a virtual session that was webcast on Thursday.

--"That's what our job is now with the Biden administration. You'll see our ratings improve for the next four years," he added. Fox. Corp. also saw its bottom line at Fox News and local TV stations benefit from the 2020 U.S. elections due to record political advertising, despite the coronavirus pandemic. The story.

+In other biz news: Imax posted lower revenues during its fourth quarter, compared to pre-pandemic 2019, but an Asian box office resurgence helped the giant screen exhibitor offset a continuing hit to its North American theaters from the COVID-19 crisis. More.

►President Biden is adding an adviser to his staff that will raise eyebrows in Hollywood. Tim Wu, the Columbia University professor and antitrust crusader, will be special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy. Wu has written two books about the media, tech, and entertainment industries: The Master Switch, and The Attention Merchants, each casting a critical eye on how modern media works. While his focus will surely be on Big Tech, as the entertainment giants push into streaming they may get scrutinized by the White House as well.

+Revolving door: UTA has signed Oscar-winning writer, director and producer Cameron Crowe in all areas... Motion Pictures Laboratories — a nonprofit tech research lab jointly funded by Hollywood studios Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. — has appointed Spencer Stephens to the full-time role of senior vp, production technology and security... Diverse Representation, the organization that advocates for greater visibility of Black representatives and attorneys in entertainment, has unveiled the names of participants taking part in its inaugural Black Entertainment Executives Pipeline Program... Averi Harper is joining ABC News' political unit as  deputy political director...

Casting roundup: Apple's Ted Lasso is adding to its cast. Sarah Niles has boarded the comedy from star Jason Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence as a series regular for its upcoming second season... Fate of the Furious star Elsa Pataky and Luke Bracey are set to star in Matthew Reilly's Interceptor thriller for Netflix...

►Charisma Carpenter: How to be an ally of victims of abuse. After being deluged with responses to her social media post detailing psychological abuse she says she endured from Joss Whedon on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the actress found that even good intentioned comments fell short of true support for the abused. Here, she offers her thoughts on how best to be an ally to those who reveal past trauma. The guest column.

►Film review: Frank Scheck reviews Amazon's Coming 2 America, writing: "Less a sequel than a remake featuring a younger actor going through the same narrative paces as Murphy in the original, Coming 2 America includes so many nods to its predecessor that it feels like a feature-length Easter Egg in search of a movie." The review.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: Wynonna Earp showrunner Emily Andras joins podcast hosts Lesley Goldberg and Daniel Fienberg in this week's episode, which also looks back on the hits and misses of winter TV. Listen.

►Awards Chatter podcast: Riz Ahmed, The Emmy-winning star of The Night Of reflects on a career marked by obstacles and sudden success — all of which prepared him for his latest, greatest performance. Listen.

In other news...

--The Podcast Academy has released the nominees list for the inaugural Awards for Excellence in Audio, or the Ambies.

--The ATX Television Festival will be a virtual event for the second straight year — but a much more expansive one than 2020's first remote effort.

--Can a VPN provider be held liable when its users illegally stream films and TV series? What if that provider markets itself as a way to avoid "threats and jail time" for illegal viewing? Those are the issues posed to a Florida federal judge in a suit involving the piracy of films starring Amy Schumer, Gary Oldman and Woody Harrelson.

--Disney+ crashed for some users during the early morning hours Friday as throngs of fans attempted to watch the WandaVision season finale.

--Josh Humiston, a partner and music agent at the Agency for the Performing Arts, died Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a stroke. He was 48.

--Joan Weldon, the actress and singer dubbed "filmdom's fairest exterminator" after her turn as a young scientist investigating giant, radiation-mutated ants in the 1954 sci-fi classic Them!, has died. She was 90.

--Universal Studios is reopening after nearly a year of being shuttered for a weekend food and dining event.

What else we're reading...

--"Dream team: LeBron James joins the Tune Squad in Space Jam: A New Legacy first look" [Entertainment Weekly]

--"Fox News’ scrappy White House correspondent grills Biden, who plays along anyway" [LA Times]

--"Skip Bayless inks new $32M Fox deal after ESPN’s failed Stephen A. Smith reunion attempt" [NY Post]

--"YouTube CEO: Trump to be reinstated once ‘risk of violence’ passes" [Politico]

--"Google crushed many digital ad rivals. But a challenger is rising" [WSJ]

Today's birthdays: Elaine Paige, 73, Eva Mendes, 47, Mike Brown, 51, Taylor Hill, 25, Penn Jillette, 66.

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MARCH 05, 2021

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