Today In Entertainment

MARCH 13, 2021

What's news: How Nomadland will test China's new era of Hollywood censorship, Chris Harrison will not host the next season of The Bachelorette, Trevor Noah developing presidential reboot, Grammys preview, new HBO Max details, Joe Biden COVID anniversary address ratings, Apple TV+ gets ready to Jet. Plus: Predicting the Oscar nominees using math, and this year's César Awards winners. --Alex Weprin

 'Nomadland's' New Test

►Chloe Zhao backlash will test China's new era of Hollywood censorship. The Oscars frontrunner's complicated predicament in her home country highlights the increasingly charged nature of U.S.-China film relations, with the China release of Nomadland — and Disney's Marvel tentpole The Eternals — hanging in the balance, Patrick Brzeski reports. The story.

►Breaking news from Bachelor Nation. Chris Harrison will not host the next season of The Bachelorette, following a racial controversy surrounding the veteran face of the franchise. "We support Chris in the work that he is committed to doing. In his absence, former Bachelorettes Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe will support the new Bachelorette through next season," said ABC Entertainment, the network home to the reality franchise, and producers Warner Horizon in a joint statement to THR on Friday evening. The story.

►Paramount and Trevor Noah are teaming up for remake of The President’s Analyst, a political comedy initially made in 1967. Pat Cunnane, who served for six years as President Barack Obama’s senior writer and deputy director of messaging at the White House, wrote the script for the project, which is being developed as a potential star vehicle for Noah. The comedian and The Daily Show host is producing the feature with Haroon Saleem, his partner at the duo’s Day Zero Productions. The story.

 Data-Driven Oscars Predictions

►Predicting this year's Oscar nominations using just math. THR contributor Ben Zauzmer gives his annual data-driven analysis of the potential Academy Award nominees.

--"My model encompasses data from a number of critic circle awards, guild awards, and other sources, weighting each of them based on how well they’ve predicted each category in past years. All things considered, the model has done fairly well. Last year’s nominee predictions went 40/44, and last year’s award predictions went 17/21. But what happens when the present is so strange as to look nothing like the past? Welcome to the weirdest year of Oscar prediction." The predictions.

+The Oscars faces another ratings decline as movies become more niche. Films don’t necessarily enjoy the dominance they once had. Just as big novels gave way to more specialized literary fiction, titles like Nomadland and Minari are likely to have more limited appeal. More.

+Meanwhile, in France: Albert Dupontel's dark comedy Bye Bye Morons was the big winner at the 2021 César Awards, France's top film honor, held Friday night. The winners.

►Grammys preview. The 2021 Grammy Awards will be handed out Sunday evening. CBS will broadcast the show, with The Daily Show's Trevor Noah serving as host. Here's the full list of nominations, led by Beyonce...

--As always, musical performances will be at the heart of the show. Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B are among those scheduled to perform. Also on tap is a tribute to venues shuttered by the pandemic... Grammys producer Ben Winston explains how the show will operate given the pandemic protocols...

--Meanwhile, The Weeknd is boycotting the show... how the Grammys will welcome back in-person media...

►New HBO Max details: WarnerMedia plans to roll out its ad-supported tier in June, though pricing hasn't been determined yet. During a Q&A with investors, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar clarified that the lower-priced tier will not include access to the theatrical films that premiere day-and-date on HBO Max and in theaters. WarnerMedia also doesn't plan to run ads during HBO originals, which have long been provided to subscribers ad-free. The story.

+International plans: AT&T expects half of the 120 million to 150 million HBO Max and HBO subscribers it expects to sign up by the end of 2025 will be outside the U.S. market, AT&T executives said Friday. More.

 Biden Ratings

►President Joe Biden's first primetime TV address to the nation drew nearly 29 million viewers across four broadcast networks and the three largest cable news outlets Thursday night. In a switch from recent trends, broadcast nets ABC, CBS and NBC drew the largest audiences for the speech, in which Biden focused on COVID-19 vaccines and the recently signed, $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.

--The seven networks averaged 28.8 million viewers from 8-8:30 p.m. ABC led the way with 6.48 million viewers and a 1.29 rating (equivalent to about 1.56 million people) in the core news demographic of adults 25-54. CBS drew 5.82 million people and a 1.13 in the 25-54 demo for the speech. The story.

+The directors behind HBO's McMillion$ are tackling another docuseries that sits at the intersection of junk food and commerce. James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte will direct and executive produce The Jet for Apple TV+. The series will delve into Pepsi's 1990s promotional campaign that allowed consumers to trade in "Pepsi Points" for merchandise like T-shirts, leather jackets and other items. Ads for the "Buy Pepsi, Get Stuff" campaign also featured a Harrier II jump jet available for 7 million points. A man tried to cash in that many points, leading to a court case over whether Pepsi had actually promised to give away a jet in exchange for that many points. The story.

+Rebekah Weatherspoon’s contemporary romance series is getting the television treatment. Valerie C. Woods, a co-executive producer on season four of OWN's Queen Sugar and the upcoming second season of Netflix's Sweet Magnolias, and her MCV Productions have landed the rights to Weatherspoon’s romance trilogy and have begun development on the series' first book, A Cowboy to Remember. Woods will write the pilot episode of the series and executive produce. More.

+Will Forte is teaming with Peacock for a suicide drama. The Last Man on Earth alum, who next is reviving MacGruber for the streamer, will star in Expiration Date, a drama in development from Harry and Jack Williams. More.

+HBO Max is getting into the game show business. The streamer has given a series order to Tattletales, which will feature celebrity couples revealing tidbits about their relationships. Author and TV host Ayesha Curry and her husband, NBA star Stephen Curry, will host and serve as executive producers. More.

+Also: Marc Webb, the filmmaker behind the Andrew Garfield-starring Spider-Man movies as well as 500 Days of Summer, is directing the first two episodes of Just Beyond, Disney+’s horror-comedy based on the R.L. Stine graphic novel series from Boom! Studios. More.

+And: CBS is initiating an investigation over an episode of The Talk that sparked controversy after co-host Sharon Osbourne defended Piers Morgan's comments about Meghan Markle and asked fellow co-host Sheryl Underwood to "educate" her during the conversation. "We are committed to a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace. All matters related to the Wednesday episode of The Talk are currently under internal review," the network said in a statement on Friday. More.

Casting roundup: Maribel Verdú, best to known to international audiences for her work in Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, will play Barry Allen's mother in The Flash... Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is getting underway in Toronto, Canada and has also just announced five additional cast members. Babs Olusanmokun, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Jess Bush  and Melissa Navia will join the Paramount+ production as series regulars... Haley Bennett is boarding Eli Roth’s adaptation of Borderlands for Lionsgate... Lili Reinhart has set her next feature film project with Netflix. Reinhart will star in a dual timeline drama Plus/Minus...

►TV review: Inkoo Kang reviews Nat Geo's Genius: Aretha, writing that "watching Cynthia Erivo sing on screen is often a restorative experience. Here is a vocalist who, when performing, appears as if she’s doing exactly what she was put on this earth to do, and to behold that is to feel that the world is alright, at least for a few minutes. That’s a quality Erivo shares with Aretha Franklin, making the London-born multi-hyphenate a fantastic choice to play the late Queen of Soul..." The review.

In other news...

--When the Grammy Awards return to Los Angeles on March 14, they'll arrive with the first major (albeit very limited) red carpet experience the city has seen in a full year.

--Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail tabloid in the U.K., has written to ViacomCBS demanding the deletion of "offending content" in Oprah Winfrey's high-profile interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

--Focus Features' Limbo — Scottish director Ben Sharrock's comic drama about misfit refugees struggling with life on a remote Scottish island — is set for a theatrical release on April 30, 2021.

What else we're reading...

--"Last summer, Disney promised change. Then the first Black Bachelor’s season unraveled" [LA Times]

--"What comes after the Endgame? The Russo brothers are trying to figure out" [The Ringer]

--"Sci-fi writer or prophet? The hyperreal life of Chen Qiufan" [Wired]

--"Former Fox host Eric Bolling considering congressional campaign" [Politico]

Today's birthdays: William H. Macy, 71, Neil Sedaka, 82, Common, 49, Tristan Thompson, 30, Yemi Alade, 32.

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MARCH 13, 2021

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