Today In Entertainment APRIL 28, 2021
What's news: Why there could soon be a culling of cable channels, an "adult" Flintstones reboot, Oscars' TV ratings low caps award shows' down year, why Caitlyn Jenner's bid to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom can't count on Hollywood, Discovery hits 15 million streaming subs, a new Chateau Marmont lawsuit. Plus: Paddington 2 director weighs in on passing Citizen Kane on Rotten Tomatoes, and Ewan McGregor on reprising his role of Obi-Wan, and playing Halston. --Alex Weprin Ewan McGregor 's Master Class On the cover: "I have the career I started out wanting": Ewan McGregor on reviving Obi-Wan and "going to the extremes" to play Halston. Able to embody both a fashion maestro and the Jedi mentor, the insanely versatile actor opens up to Seth Abramovitch about playing a gay icon and getting a Star Wars do-over. --On his decision play Halston: "'I didn't know [writer-director] Dan Minahan and I didn't know Halston,' McGregor says. 'I was just really taken with the presentation. He showed me all these photographs of Halston and the people in his circle — Liza Minnelli, [jewelry designer] Elsa Peretti, [his lover] Victor Hugo. And I could tell instantly from the photographs: I wanted to play him. Just something about the way he holds himself, something in his eyes.'" "'We had a little bit of a dog-and-pony show,' Minahan continues. 'We went around to major streamers and I'd describe the vision of it and Ewan would talk about why he really wanted to play the role.' The answer was invariably a no. 'There's no murder, there's no violence,' concedes McGregor. 'It was a hard sell.'" Until Ryan Murphy caught wind of he project... --On his rift with Danny Boyle after the director replaced him with Leonado DiCaprio in The Beach: "The two didn't speak for 'a long time,' McGregor says, even once sharing a first-class cabin flying across the Atlantic without exchanging a single word. They've since patched things up and collaborated on the 2017 sequel T2 Trainspotting. 'It wasn't handled very well,' he says of the rift. 'There was probably both sides to it. I was upset. But at the same time, it's part of life, it's just part of growing up.'" --On returning to Star Wars: "McGregor had been in talks to reprise the character in some form for the past seven years. It was originally going to be a feature film, until 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story underperformed and Disney and Lucasfilm pivoted to streaming. But until the project was announced in August 2019, McGregor was sworn to secrecy. 'I'd see stuff on social media like, 'They better cast Ewan as Obi-Wan,' and I wasn't able to say anything,' he says. 'But it was pretty humiliating to think that [Disney] might be thinking about casting someone else.'" The cover story. A Coming Cable Culling? ►Streaming wars' casualties: Cable TV channels on chopping block. As NBCUniversal turns off the lights on its sports network, expect other Hollywood giants to cull their sprawling linear offerings as they prioritize billions of dollars toward direct-to-consumer platforms. --Driving this oncoming consolidation are two factors: managing the decline of the traditional pay TV business, while also investing in direct-to-consumer streaming offerings. “They are all trying to find this balance of, where do I capture the lion’s share of ad dollars and viewership in traditional, combined with trying to gain this emerging piece in streaming,” says Steve Nason, research director for Parks Associates. The story. +Streaming giants' next worry: A subscriber churn uptick. Netflix, Disney+ and others gained customers amid COVID-19 lockdowns. But as consumers increasingly leave home, executives’ focus may turn to customer retention, Erik Hayden writes. The story. ►Fox is preparing to meet The Flintstones — again. The network is teaming with Warner Bros. Animation and star and executive producer Elizabeth Banks to develop Bedrock, an update of the classic animated series. The adult animation project, first announced nearly two years ago, will be set 20 years after the 1960s series and center on a grown-up Pebbles Flintstone (voiced by Banks). Lindsay Kerns (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, DC Super Hero Girls) will write the pilot script. The story. +Roselyn Sanchez is taking a trip to Fantasy Island. The Grand Hotel and Devious Maids alum has been tapped to star in Fox's straight-to-series update of Fantasy Island. The actress will play a descendant of Ricardo Montalban's Mr. Roarke in the straight-to-series drama set to bow Tuesday, Aug. 10 at 9 p.m. More. ►Discovery has reached 15 million paying subscribers worldwide to its streaming services, including Discovery+. In late February, the firm said it had reached more than 11 million paying streaming subscribers. In its second earnings report since the Discovery+ launch early in the year, the company disclosed that it had ended the first quarter in March with more than 13 million. --Discovery also reported on Wednesday that its U.S. advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2021 fell 4 percent compared with the year-ago period; management had forecast a drop. But U.S. distribution revenue rose in the double-digit percentage range thanks to Discovery+ and higher carriage fees. The story. Earnings and business roundup... +Sony's annual results were buoyed by stellar early sales for its PlayStation 5 games console and brisk business for its music unit. The company's film division saw its full-year profit rise, but earnings fell in the final quarter of the fiscal year ended in March compared to the same period a year ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The details. +Meanwhile: YouTube continues to grow at a torrid pace, with any sign of pandemic slowdown seemingly behind it. The Google-owned video platform brought in more than $6 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2021, according to the quarterly earnings report of parent company Alphabet. More. +AMC Theatres is backing away from its plan to authorize 500 million new shares of the company's stock. Instead, the company announced an "at-the-market" offering which would see the company sell up to 43 million shares. Meanwhile, the company continues to face headwind from the pandemic. In a separate SEC filing, the company disclosed that it expects revenue for the first three months of 2021 to be $148 million, down from $941 million a year earlier. It expects its net loss to be in the ballpark of $570 million. The story. +And in audio: Spotify now has 158 million paid subscribers and 356 million monthly active users as it continues its push into podcasting and live audio... Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, said on Wednesday that it added self-paying subscribers in its satellite radio unit during the first quarter, but its user count dropped due to a decline in promotional customers... Kong Will Return ►Get ready for more Godzilla. Instead of winding down the franchise, the success of Godzilla vs. Kong may ramp it up. THR's Borys Kit has learned that Legendary is quietly taking steps to stretch the series into one or more installments, entering early talks with Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard to return for another round of monster-on-monster action. If a deal closes, Wingard would be the first helmer to return to the monster fold since Godzilla kicked off the Legendary partnership with Japan’s Toho in 2014 with a $524 million global gross. The story. +The World of Darkness universe is expanding. Eric Heisserer, who earned an Oscar nomination for penning 2016's Arrival, is developing a shared universe based on the games that began life in the 1990s. He will work with Christine Boylan, a writer and producer on TV shows such as The Punisher, Castle and Constantine, alongside production company Hivemind, known for The Witcher and The Expanse. They will work in concert with Paradox Interactive, which has controlled the rights to the franchise since 2015. The story. In other film news... +Paddington 2 director Paul King on toppling Citizen Kane: The director weighs in to THR after a newly unearthed review jolted the Orson Welles classic from the top spot. --"It's extremely lovely to be on on any list, which includes Citizen Kane, but it is obviously quite an eccentric list that goes from Citizen Kane to Paddington 2, so I'll try not to take it too seriously," he told THR's Alex Ritman. "I won't let it go too much to my head and immediately build my Xanadu. But I have been cooking up a model just in case." The story. +The Berlin Film Festival's planned in-person event this summer is in doubt amid new coronavirus pandemic restrictions set out in Germany's recently updated Infection Protection Act. The changes "now make the planning of the Berlinale Summer Special a bigger challenge," organizers said in a statement on Wednesday. More. +Horror thriller The Black Phone will begin ringing in theaters on Jan. 28, 2022. Blumhouse and Universal announced the release date on Tuesday. The film, starring Ethan Hawke and directed by Scott Derrickson, co-stars newcomer Mason Thames in his first film role as Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy who is abducted by a sadistic killer (Hawke) and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. More. +Also: Heavy Metal magazine, the sci-fi and fantasy publication once known for pushing the envelope of graphic storytelling on the newsstand, is looking to get its shine back, pacting with Range Media Partners, the management and brand development firm. Range will assist the venerable magazine and company in bringing their properties and titles into the film and television arena and the company is looking at this as the first major step in a transition from publication to production banner. More. +And: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie is coming to Netflix this summer. The streaming service has purchased the global streaming distribution rights (outside of Japan) to the anime film. More. ►Oscars' TV ratings low caps award shows' down year. Collectively, the four biggest awards shows — the Emmys, Globes, Grammys and Oscars — lost a staggering 35 million viewers from their previous telecasts in the 2019-20 season, suffering an average drop of 45 percent. The Emmys actually fared the best, losing only 9 percent of their 2019 audience (albeit from a much lower starting point than the other three). --The only outlier has been the NAACP Image Awards, which has seen substantial growth in each of the past two years — first by moving from TV One to the more widely distributed BET (and simulcast on other ViacomCBS cable networks) in 2020, then by adding CBS this year. The story. ►Why Caitlyn Jenner's bid to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t count on Hollywood. The recall campaign faces several hurdles — including the fact that industry donors aren’t likely to look favorably on efforts to fundraise from Trump’s base, Peter Kiefer writes. --“Jenner’s going to have to drill down in Trump’s fundraiser base, but that doesn’t help you in California,” says Democratic strategist Garry South, who is skeptical of the chances for Jenner’s campaign. The story. ►Chateau Marmont hit with new lawsuit over alleged racist incidents involving guests. In an April 26 filing, a Black employee who worked overnight shifts at the hotel’s front desk over a five-year period makes allegations about a series of racist episodes involving guests and a purported absence of backup from her superiors, including general manager Amanda Grandinetti, who has previously apologized after THR published employees’ claims she’d directed racist comments at them. More. Revolving door: Writer-director Travon Free has signed a first-look producing deal with Endeavor Content... Vice Media has hired ABC News veteran Van Scott to be vp of communications... Chinese pop music superstar JJ Lin has signed with UTA for U.S. and European representation in all areas... Emily Vespa is joining Kovert Creative as the latest hire in the firm's talent department... Casting roundup: Booksmart star Kaitlyn Dever will join the Julia Roberts and George Clooney starring rom-com Ticket to Paradise... Tia Carrere, along with Eugene Cordero of Star Trek: Lower Decks and WandaVision actor Asif Ali, have joined the cast of Easter Sunday, Amblin Partners’ family comedy starring Jo Koy... Leslie Jones is bringing her enthusiasm for film and TV to MTV as the host of the 2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards... In other news... --Small Axe, Steve McQueen's landmark anthology series about the lives of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s, leads the pack of 2021 BAFTA TV and BAFTA TV Craft award nominees. --Ironheart has found its head writer, with Chinaka Hodge set to lead the series for Marvel Studios and Disney+. The series will be six episodes, with Hodge winning the job after pitching her vision for all six to Marvel. Production is slated to begin next month. --Dan Le Batard's radio show finally has a new home. Sort of. The former ESPN host's flagship Dan Le Batard Show will be distributed by DraftKings as part of a wide-reaching distribution and content agreement between the sports betting giant and Meadowlark Media, the content studio founded by Le Batard and former ESPN president John Skipper. --Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham's reunion crime flick Wrath of Man is headed to China. The MGM-produced movie will open in the world's largest theatrical market on May 10, three days after its North American opening. --Jay Gatsby will soon be singing a new song. Florence Welch, the Grammy-nominated British singer-songwriter known for the ethereal baroque pop of Florence and the Machine, will tackle a new musical stage adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald Jazz Age novel, The Great Gatsby. What else we're reading... --"Inside Netflix's quest to end scrolling" [Vulture] --"OpenAP launches data tool meant to streamline TV ad buying" [WSJ] --"NewsNation promised an ‘unbiased’ alternative to Fox, CNN. What went wrong?" [LA Times] Today's birthdays: Jessica Alba, 40, Penelope Cruz, 47, Aleisha Allen, 30, Jay Leno, 71.
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