Today In Entertainment

APRIL 02, 2021

What's news: A music mega-deal, D.C. drops projects from Ava DuVernay and James Wan, Steven Yeun joining Jordan Peele's latest, Godzilla vs. Kong starts strong, New Jersey tries to poach Georgia projects as studios weigh in, Supreme Court okays media ownership shakeup, Hulu picks up The 1619 Project, Coming 2 America's big debut. Plus: AMC Theatres' stock gambit, and Hollywood's opioid heir. --Alex Weprin

 Hollywood's Opioid Heir

►From opioid crisis to Hollywood: Heir to Purdue Pharma undergoes "identity makeover." Film financier Michael Sackler has refashioned himself as a self-styled ethical investor, but some see an attempt to escape accountability for his family’s role in the OxyContin scourge, Gary Baum and Alex Ritman report: "Privilege is a disconnection drug."

--Rooks Nest's first film, which Sackler fully produced, was Sally El Hosaini's debut My Brother the Devil, about two London siblings who become low-level drug dealers. "It helped put us on the map," he says of the project, which provided an early screen role for Letitia Wright... Soon, though, he turned his attention to media investing. "I realized I didn't love films as much as I loved business," he says, noting that his ambition is to "build really, truly, big businesses" and that "it's so clear that unless you're coming to the table with billions and billions of dollars to spend on movies, it's so difficult to create [for] a major studio."

--"For his part, Sackler sees himself as an innocent. 'I've not been a part of the business,' he says, referring to Purdue. 'It's something that is a historical legacy, it's nothing to do with me,' noting that he was still a minor when claims against the company first arose. (The DEA found, in 2003, that the firm's 'aggressive methods' had 'very much exacerbated OxyContin's widespread abuse.') He adds, 'I'm very conscious that how I choose to use my own money is up to me, and I choose to use it in this way, which I think is a force for good.'

--"Daniel Halliday, a philosophy professor at the University of Melbourne and author of the 2018 book Inheritance of Wealth: Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath, observes that Sackler is a beneficiary of significant suffering and that 'it's not enough to say you're not the perpetrator. The moral and ethical presumption is that you surrender the fruits if you can. You don't get credit for doing something else.' He adds, 'If you're not giving the money back to the victims, you're just changing the subject.'" The story.

►Just in: A mega music deal: In a bold expansion into the U.S. music landscape, South Korean entertainment company HYBE, formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment, aka the home of BTS, is acquiring Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings. The merger will bring together the two companies' broad range of services, including management, label services and publishing, for an impressive roster of marquee global artists, such as K-Pop super groups BTS, TXT and Seventeen, and U.S. pop-stars Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, among others. The story.

 D.C. Pivot

►Warner Bros. and DC Films' upcoming slate is moving forward without Ava DuVernay's New Gods and James Wan's Aquaman spinoff, The Trench. "As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward," Warner Bros. and DC told THR's Borys Kit and Aaron Couch. "We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future." The story.

In other film news...

+Steven Yeun is in talks for Jordan Peele's latest directorial effort at Universal. The Oscar nominee will join Keke Palmer in the feature, which has already been given a July 22, 2022 release date. More.

+AMC's stock gambit: The theater giant on Thursday asked shareholders to authorize the (potential) issuance of 500 million new shares at its annual meeting. In a securities filing, the company said it woud use the shares to pay down its debt and improve liquidity. It may also use shares to give equity to some of its landlords as part of lease negotiations, or on acquisitions.

--"We will be sensitive to dilution issues. At the same time, though, there’s an opportunity to bolster our cash reserves. There’s an opportunity to buy back debt at a discount," AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron told CNBC Thursday. "There might be an opportunity to defray some of our deferred theater rents; settling with stock instead of cash; maybe there’s some merger and acquisition opportunity where we could buy other companies inexpensively using our stock as currency, there are a lot of good reasons for shareholders to give us the authority to have more shares."

►Georgia's potential loss could be New Jersey's gain. At least that's what the Garden State hopes. Amid backlash to Georgia's newly passed voting law, New Jersey is attempting to poach business from the Peach State. On Thursday, Governor Phil Murphy sent a letter to some of the major studios, including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros, condemning the election law, which ushers in more rigid voters restrictions like ID requirements for absentee voting, limiting the number of ballot drop boxes and making it illegal to give food and water to voters in line. The story.

+Hollywood studios are beginning to publicly denounce Georgia's newly passed voting law. ViacomCBS was the first major entertainment industry corporation to weigh in on the restrictive bill, which President Joe Biden has called "Jim Crow in the 21st Century." The story.

 Supreme Court Greenlights Media Ownership Overhaul

►The FCC was within its rights to loosen restrictions regarding media outlet ownership, the U.S. Supreme Court has held, and it doesn't need empirical data to justify its decision. The FCC's ownership rules limit the number of radio stations, TV stations and newspapers that one entity can own in any single market. It's obligated to review these rules every four years and repeal or modify any that is no longer “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition.” The story.

In other legal news...

+The Robinhood stock trading app failed to heed Ice Cube's well-known warning "You better check yo self before you wreck yo self." The company has had its fair share of controversies, and now it's being sued by the rapper for using his likeness and misquoting his lyrics in an ad.  The complaint, which was filed Wednesday in California federal court, references hundreds of lawsuits (one of them is from Ice Cube's business partner Jeff Kwantinetz) and multiple government investigations — including an inquiry into the suicide death of a 20-year-old Robinhood user. More.

+Also: A federal judge has swooped in to stop Lil Nas X's limited edition satanic-themed Air Max 97 shoes from being sold. Or at least, whatever has not already been shipped. More.

►Hulu has landed the rights to the docuseries The 1619 Project, based on materials from Nikole Hannah-Jones' acclaimed special issue of The New York Times Magazine which examines the impact of slavery on American history. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Life, Animated, God Loves Uganda) is set to produce and oversee the series as well direct the first episode, with Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning journalist Shoshana Guy (America Divided) serving as showrunner. The story.

In other TV news...

+Barry Jenkins is moving his overall TV deal from Amazon to HBO. The Moonlight Oscar winner and his Pastel banner has inked a two-year, first-look TV deal with HBO and its streaming sibling HBO Max. Under the pact, A24 will exec produce all HBO/HBO Max Pastel projects and partner with the production company's Jenkins and Mark Ceryak on select projects outside of the deal. The story.

+Bless the Harts will not be back for a third season. Fox has canceled the animated comedy from creator Emily Spivey. The series, a co-production between Disney's 20th Television and Fox Entertainment, will wrap its second and final season in May on the independent broadcast network. More.

+Eddie Murphy's Coming 2 America debuted to a big audience on Amazon. The sequel to 1988's Coming to America leads Nielsen's streaming rankings for the week of March 1-7 with 1.41 billion minutes of viewing time — making it one of the most watched films to debut on a streaming service in the six months Nielsen has been releasing weekly rankings. More.

+AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan on The Walking Dead, franchises and streaming strategy. The executive also discusses taking the company's niche streaming services global and how he thinks about potential mergers and acquisitions. The interview.

+Spoiler alert: The magical beach on Grey's Anatomy just delivered a double surprise. Viewers knew that Chyler Leigh would be returning to reprise her role as Meredith's younger half-sister, Lexie Grey, but she wasn't the only former star who came back on the show's magical beach. Eric Dane, in a surprise appearance, returned to reprise his role as Lexie's on-screen love interest, Mark Sloan. More.

+Also: Magnolia Table, one of the flagships for Chip and Joanna Gaines’ forthcoming Magnolia Network, has been renewed through season three — with the second and third seasons dropping in spring and summer. More.

►Early box office: Godzilla looks ready to roar. Godzilla vs. Kong did monster business on it opening day at the domestic box office — at least for the pandemic-era — in a big boost for Hollywood. The Legendary and Warner Bros. tentpole earned $9.6 million on Wednesday from more than 3,000 locations in North America, with the majority in the U.S. The early numbers.

►SAG Awards: Are bigger casts better when it comes to capturing the top prizes? Oscar mathematician Ben Zauzmer analyzed 25  years of Screen Actors Guild Awards winner data to yield some surprising results. The column.

►Breaking down the legal do's and don'ts of Hollywood's "Cancel Culture." It takes just moments for an indiscretion to go viral and prompt calls for a person’s cancellation, but companies ought to proceed carefully to avoid the same fate, Eriq Gardner writes. The column.

Casting roundup: AMC has lined up a big-name voice cast for its animated series Ultra City Smiths. Jimmi Simpson, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, John C. Reilly and Bebe Neuwirth head the ensemble for the stop-motion series... Anthony Ramos has lined up his next studio project. The in-demand In the Heights star is in final negotiations to lead the next installment of the Transformers franchise being directed by Creed II helmer Steven Caple Jr... Top Chef Star Kwame Onwuachi has scored a cameo in a biopic on his life starring LaKeith Stanfield...

Revolving door: Lovia Gyarkye is joining The Hollywood Reporter as arts & culture critic... Dexter Fletcher has signed on to direct the first block of episodes of The Offer, the scripted limited series centered on the making of cinema classic, The Godfather... Fox News anchor Bret Baier will be staying with the channel for years to come. The 6 p.m. Special Report anchor has signed a five-year contract extension with the cable news channel... Longtime 20th Television studio exec Chet Dave has been promoted to head the studio's comedy division... ICM Partners has signed TikToker Griffin Johnson for representation in all areas... Spike Lee and George C. Wolfe will join Vimeo's board of directors...

►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Netflix's The Serpent, writing that the drama "ends up being an infuriating blueprint for how bad storytelling choices, bad accents and an opaque central performance can thwart even the most inherently gripping of yarns." The review.

►TV's Top 5 podcast: During this week's podcast, hosts Lesley Goldberg and Daniel Fienberg are joined by the prolific documentarian Ken Burns and longtime producing partner/director Lynn Novick and preview a busy month of programming ahead. Listen.

In other news...

--Meadowlark Media, the content company founded by former ESPN president John Skipper and ESPN host Dan Le Batard, has raised $12.6 million in Series A funding.

--Amy Johnston, who portrayed Cindy Lou, the girlfriend of Gary Busey's character in The Buddy Holly Story as his pioneering rock 'n' roller is first starting out, has died. She was 66.

--Twin brothers who run a popular YouTube channel that features their pranks on the unsuspecting public pleaded guilty to reduced charges connected to fake bank robberies, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

--Vice Media Group is opening an office in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh.

What else we're reading...

--"In a rare admission, MTV says its mental-health portrayals are sometimes damaging" [Washington Post]

--"General Motors vows to send more advertising dollars to Black-owned media companies" [WSJ]

--"'You can’t shame me': Sharon Stone on how Basic Instinct nearly broke her, before making her a star" [Vanity Fair]

--An excerpt from former House Speaker John Boehner's book reveals the extent to which the conservative media machine influences Republican politics [Politico Magazine]

--"Meredith explores sale of local TV stations" [Bloomberg]

Today's birthdays: Michael Fassbender, 44, Emmylou Harris, 74, Christopher Meloni, 60, Quavo, 30, Bobby Bones, 41.

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APRIL 02, 2021

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