Today In Entertainment MAY 01, 2021
What's news: How the NFL Draft beat the Oscars, Grammys rework their nominating process, Andy and Barbara Muschietti and Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani adapting The Doubtful Guest, Apple snags Come From Away, Marilyn Manson sued by Game of Thrones star, NBC renews three comedies, the red carpet returns, Tubi's original slate. Plus: How a malpractice suit against a star lawyer could leak #MeToo secrets, and remembering Eli Broad. --Alex Weprin An NFL Upset? ►The NFL upsets the Oscars: The first round of the NFL draft didn't reach the record-setting highs it did a year ago, but the multi-network coverage did draw a big audience Thursday — bigger than the Oscars, in fact. Coverage of the draft's first round on ABC, ESPN and NFL Network drew a combined audience of 12.52 million viewers Thursday night — about 2 million more than ABC's Academy Awards telecast on Sunday. ESPN had the largest share of viewers with 6.48 million, while ABC brought in 4.19 million and NFL Network 1.85 million. The former two declined from a year ago while NFL Network added about 130,000 viewers. The story. ►The Grammy Awards have changed its tune and voted to remove its nomination review committees — groups that determined the contenders for key awards at the coveted music show. The Recording Academy made the announcement Friday after the board of trustees met and approved the change. "It's been a year of unprecedented, transformational change for the Recording Academy, and I'm immensely proud to be able to continue our journey of growth with these latest updates to our awards process," Harvey Mason Jr., the academy's interim president and CEO, said in a statement Friday. The story. ►Eli Broad, billionaire entrepreneur who reshaped Los Angeles, dies at 87. Broad provided much of the money and willpower used to reshape Los Angeles’ once moribund downtown into a burgeoning area of expensive lofts, fancy dining establishments and civic structures like the landmark Walt Disney Concert Hall. The obituary. A 'Doubtful Guest' Film ►Andy and Barbara Muschietti and Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani have teamed up to tackle an adaptation of the Edward Gorey book, The Doubtful Guest. Amblin Partners picked up the project in a competitive situation. Andy Muschietti, currently shooting The Flash in London, is attached to direct with Nanjiani attached to star. Nanjiani and Gordon, who were nominated for an Oscar for penning 2017’s The Big Sick, will write the script. The story. +Apple's latest musical. Apple Original Films has acquired the upcoming live filmed production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Come From Away for a debut on Apple TV+ later this year. Christopher Ashley will direct the production as the Broadway cast will reprise their roles in the live capture set for this May. More. ►Game of Thrones star Esmé Bianco has filed a lawsuit against goth rock icon Marilyn Manson alleging a host of physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse across a multi-year relationship. Bianco claims Manson (real name Brian Warner) "used drugs, force, and threats of force to coerce sexual acts from Ms. Bianco on multiple occasions" and "raped Ms. Bianco in or around May 2011." The story. +Also: Embattled Noel Clarke announced he will seek "professional help" in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations made by 20 women. More. NBC Renewals ►NBC will have a comedy brand to rebuild off of in the 2021-22 season. With Superstore having already ended and veteran Brooklyn Nine-Nine set to close up shop next season, the broadcast network will return all three of its freshman comedies to the schedule after Young Rock and Kenan scored second season renewals Friday. The story. +Some major TV casting news: Oscar winner Taika Waititi will play a demented pirate in a new HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death... Finn Wittrock is joining the DC universe. The American Horror Story and Ratched actor has been cast in a key starring role in HBO Max's upcoming Green Lantern series... Vanessa Lachey will star in NCIS: Hawai'i, becoming the first female lead of a show in the long-running franchise... +A red carpet return: New York City's entertainment scene was officially jolted out of the sleep it succumbed to last year when Pose took over the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center for the world premiere of the FX show's third and final season on Thursday night. The screening marked the first major in-person red-carpet event to take place since the COVID-19 pandemic. More. +Tubi, the Fox Corp.-owned free streaming video service, plans to launch a full slate of original programming in the fall, including content developed by Fox Entertainment. The streaming service plans to unveil its plans and make its pitch to advertisers at its newfronts presentation next week. More. ►How a malpractice suit against a star lawyer could leak #MeToo secrets. Ousted UMG executive Charlie Walk is suing longtime Trump consigliere Marc Kasowitz, but they have one thing in common: They say they want the truth to come out. The story. In other legal news... +Newsmax apologized Friday for airing false allegations that an employee for Dominion Voting Systems manipulated machines or tallies on Election Day to the detriment of former President Donald Trump. Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based firm, in turn dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit. More. +Also: A federal jury found a former Netflix executive guilty Friday of receiving lucrative stock options and more than a half-million dollars in bribes and kickbacks from tech companies to approve contracts with the streaming giant. More. ►Executive pay news dumps: Discovery Inc. president and CEO David Zaslav's 2020 pay package fell to $37.7 million, compared with his 2019 compensation of $45.8 million... AMC Networks president and CEO Josh Sapan received compensation worth $11.8 million in 2020, compared with $20.2 million in 2019... Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, John Malone's international cable giant, saw his overall pay package for 2020 shrink to $44.9 million, compared to a total pay packet of $123.2 million in 2019... In other news... --TikTok has named Shouzi Chew, the CFO of parent company ByteDance, as its new CEO. Chew will also continue to serve as CFO of the parent company. Vanessa Pappas, who had been the interim head of TikTok, will shift to a new role as COO of the company. --Technicolor Post sent out a notice on Friday announcing that it is "nearing the end of its 100+ year journey in Glorious Technicolor." "Starting May 1st, we will become integrated into Streamland Media's portfolio of Post-Production businesses," the notice read. --Edward James Olmos, founder of the Latino Film Institute, announced that the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) will host a preview screening of the Jon M. Chu-directed musical In The Heights from Warner Bros. Pictures on June 4 at Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatre. That comes days before the previously announced premiere as the opening night main event for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on June 9. --Jimmy Kimmel co-hosted a virtual benefit for autism on Friday along with former NASA engineer and current YouTuber Mark Rober that raised over $3 million for NEXT for Autism. --AT&T CEO John Stankey lauded WarnerMedia's CNN and streaming service HBO Max during the telecom giant’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday. What else we're reading... --"How Pixar uses hyper-colors to hack your brain" [Wired] --"The eyes have it: A quarter century of watching and being watched by Dave Matthews" [The Ringer] --"The art world knew him as Eli. How Broad was friend and foe to museums" [LA Times] --Sounds like Janet Mock gave quite the speech at the Pose premiere [Page Six] Today's birthdays: Wes Anderson, 52, Tim McGraw, 54, Ray Parker, Jr., 67, Jamie Dornan, 39, Charli D'Amelio, 17.
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