Today In Entertainment APRIL 05, 2021
What's news: The box office roars back to life with Godzilla vs. Kong, Wall Street analyst says it "destroys lingering concerns around theatrical window importance," the 2021 Screen Actors Guild Awards winners and snubs, and what they mean for the Oscars, Food Network's big bet on Guy Fieri, The Walking Dead's end grows closer. Plus: A review of The Nevers, and a Shape of Water settlement. --Alex Weprin The Box Office Roars Back To Life ►The U.S. box office is back in action. Legendary and Warner Bros. tentpole Godzilla vs. Kong posted a pandemic-best debut of $48.5 million in its first five days, including $32.2 million from 3,064 theaters for the three-day Easter weekend. That's by far the biggest showing since the COVID-19 crisis commenced and is a huge jolt of confidence for nervous Hollywood studios and theater owners, who worry as to whether moviegoing will ever return to pre-pandemic levels. --"I think a big movie like this working should tell everyone if we are rational in how we release a title, there is an appetite for people to have a shared experience in theaters," says Joshua Grode, CEO of Legendary. He said the decision to release the film wasn't for the "faint of heart," but that it was the "right movie for the moment." Adds Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros: "This is really significant. It is igniting a recovery." --Like all other 2021 Warner titles, Godzilla vs. Kong launched day and date on HBO Max, yet it's unclear what impact that had on its theatrical run. HBO Max didn't release viewership numbers, but said the film has had a larger viewing audience in its first four days than any other film or show since the launch of the streaming service. "The HBO Max audience has spoken very clearly and loudly: they love this film and are watching it more than once,” said Andy Forssell, exec vp and general manager of WarnerMedia Direct-to-Consumer. The story. +Wall Street reacts: The theatrical performance of Godzilla vs. Kong "destroys lingering concerns around theatrical window importance and demonstrates a solid path to resurgence" for cinema operators, B. Riley Securities analyst Eric Wold argued in a report on Monday. He also upgraded his rating on shares of AMC Theatres from "neutral" to "buy" and raised his price target on them from $7 to $13. --"We believe consumers want to leave the house and return to the theater, and these results are very telling, especially considering that the movie was available for free to HBO Max subscribers at the same time as the theatrical release." More. +Meanwhile in China: Godzilla vs. Kong already suffered a surprise upset. The Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment blockbuster earned a healthy $44.2 million in its second weekend on Chinese screens, which amounted to a slide of just 37 percent from its $70.3 million debut. But that wasn't enough to stay on top. Underdog local drama Sister, from Shanghai-based studio Lian Ray Pictures, handily defeated the monster mashup, opening to $53.5 million. More. 2021 Screen Actors Guild Awards ►SAG Awards: The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Crown and Schitt's Creek were among the big winners at the 2021 SAG Awards, which aired Sunday as as a one-hour, pre-taped virtual ceremony on TBS and TNT. --Filmmaker Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7 got a major boost on the road to the Oscars upon winning the SAG Award for best ensemble, the guild's top honor that's equivalent to a best picture prize. Last year, the top SAG winner — Parasite — went on to win the Academy Award for best picture in a surprise upset. The win also gives Netflix its first-ever victory in the best ensemble category, where it also had two other films nominated: Da 5 Bloods and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. (It should be noted that Nomadland, an Oscar frontrunner that's up for best picture, wasn’t in the mix for SAG's best ensemble award.) --Michael Keaton, as part of the cast of Trial of the Chicago 7, set a record by becoming the first person to win three SAG awards for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture, following his awards as part of the winning ensemble in 2014's Birdman and 2015's Spotlight. Meanwhile, for likely the first time in SAG history, the four top individual film honors were awarded to people of color. The full list of winners. +The snubs: Da 5 Bloods and Hillbilly Elegy, despite multiple nominatons, were shut out. Two-time nominees The Father and One Night in Miami also failed to win a single award as did multi-nominated TV series Dead to Me, Bridgerton, Better Call Saul and The Flight Attendant, with I May Destroy You's Michaela Coel also going without a win. The snubs list. +Scott Feinberg's analysis: THR's awards analyst writes: "The best ensemble SAG Award and the best picture Academy Award have gone to the same film only 12 times in the 25 years in which both have been presented — indeed, in two of the last three years, with The Shape of Water and Green Book, the eventual best picture Oscar winner wasn't even nominated for the best ensemble SAG Award." --"But in each of the four decades in which the best ensemble SAG Award has been around, it was just about the only Oscar precursor award that predicted a huge best picture Academy Award upset. See: 1998's Shakespeare in Love, 2005's Crash, 2015's Spotlight and 2019's Parasite. So this is certainly encouraging news for Trial (and, by the way, for its scene-stealer Michael Keaton, who, as part of its cast, and having previously been part of the Birdman and Spotlight casts, just became the first three-time winner of this category)." The analysis. +The Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Birds of Prey and Pinocchio claimed awards in the feature competition during the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild (Local 706) Awards, which were handed out during a virtual presentation shot on the stage at the El Portal Theater in NOHO. The winners. Food Network Is Going All-In On Flavortown and Donkey Sauce ►Guy Fieri has inked a new, three-year exclusive deal with Food Network. The new deal will see Fieri, who debuted on U.S. TVs back in 2006 by winning the second season of nascent reality competition The Next Food Network Star, approach the 20-year mark on the channel. His long tenure on the network has seen him launch some if its most popular programs, including Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (33 seasons and counting), Guy’s Grocery Games and 2020 launch Tournament of Champions — which lured over 12 million viewers to its first season. The story. +In other TV news: The end of The Walking Dead is closer than you think. AMC on Sunday announced that the 11th and final season of The Walking Dead would return Aug. 22. That's two months earlier than the show's traditional October debut and the first time the flagship zombie drama has launched outside of the Halloween season. The story. ►Settlement comes in lawsuit claiming The Shape of Water infringed Pulitzer Prize winner. Disney's Fox units and Guillermo del Toro get out of a copyright case that was revived last year by an appeals court, Eriq Gardner writes. The story. ►On Saturday Night Live: Following the trend of last week's cold open, Saturday Night Live opted for a new television show sketch to hit on this week's mix of news and controversies. Instead of a game show, SNL opted for a fictional talk show hosted by Britney Spears (played by Chloe Fineman) called "Oops You Did It Again." Fineman-as-Spears had quite a roster to go through with rapper Lil Nas X (played by Chris Redd), Looney Tunes character Pepé Le Pew, (played by Kate McKinnon) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (played by Pete Davidson)... Here's host Daniel Kaluuya's monologue... Obituaries: Gloria Henry, who appeared in movies with Gene Autry, Lucille Ball and George Raft before portraying the mother of a chaos-causing kid on the 1960s CBS comedy Dennis the Menace, has died. She was 98... Arthur Kopit, an award-winning playwright known for Indians and Nine, died on Friday morning. He was 83... William "Biff" McGuire, whose Broadway career spanned seven decades and included a role in the original South Pacific and Tony-nominated turns in The Young Man From Atlanta and Morning's at Seven, has died. He was 94... ►TV reviews: Daniel Fienberg reviews HBO's The Nevers, writing that "the first four episodes sent to critics are the exact sort of rough, unfocused opening that fans of Buffy and Dollhouse know to expect. Those shows benefited from goodwill toward [Joss] Whedon, allowing audiences to concentrate on quippy dialogue, clever themes or the occasional bit of visual flair instead of the clumsy storytelling or misguided subplots. Based on the taxing duration of several of these new episodes, he hasn't lost his creative carte blanche. What's gone is that unlimited reservoir of viewer goodwill, which The Nevers probably could use." The review. +Inkoo Kang reviews HBO's Mare of Eastown, writing that the show "is as much a portrait of a town as it is a crime drama. Starring Kate Winslet as detective Mare Sheehan, the seven-part limited series acutely recalls Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright’s (far superior) BBC/Netflix show about a middle-aged female cop who often seems to be the only person holding together her drug-ravaged working-class town, even as its dysfunctions follow her home." The review. ►Awards Chatter podcast: This week Priyanka Chopra Jonas reflects on growing up between India and America, winning the Miss World beauty pageant and building an international acting career. Listen. In other news... --Nasim Pedrad talks to THR's Sharareh Drury about creating and playing an awkward teen boy in Chad. --Marvel Studios dropped a new trailer for Black Widow on Saturday... and a new trailer for the Disney+ series Loki on Monday. --Viewers noticed that a lot of characters from assorted Warner Bros.' properties were hanging around in the background of the new Space Jam trailer, giving the film's world something of a Ready Player One feel (also a WB property). From It's Pennywise to the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz to the droogs in A Clockwork Orange to an agent from The Matrix series, there was plenty to spot. There even appeared to be Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin. --DMX has been admitted to a New York hospital following a reported drug overdose. On Saturday, DMX's representatives confirmed that the rapper is currently hospitalized, and as of Saturday night, was on life support. --Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli has been released from a California prison and is under home confinement following his imprisonment for his role in a college admissions bribery scheme. What else we're reading... --"The lawyer behind the throne at Fox" [NY Times] --"Broadway reopened for 36 minutes for the first time since March of last year" [Insider] --Discovery stars Chip and Joanna Gaines are buying the headquarters of the Waco Herald-Tribune as their new headquarters [Waco Herald-Tribune] --"Rival group makes fully financed, roughly $680 million bid for Tribune" [WSJ] Today's birthdays: Lily James, 32, Hayley Atwell, 39, Sterling K. Brown, 45, Pharrell Williams, 48.
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