  |  | | | | | | What's news: The entertainment community responds to the shootings in Texas and Ohio, while TV news operations tossed out their original weekend plans to bring wall-to-wall coverage. Hobbs & Shaw debuted to $181 million globally, claims of harassment on the set of ABC's The Rookie. Plus: A planner for the week ahead. --Alex Weprin | | | | | | Responding To Terror |  | | | | The two mass shootings over the weekend, in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, dominated the news cycle on Sunday, and led to TV news operations tossing out their planned weekend coverage to go into breaking news mode. Hollywood responded with anger and heartache, with celebrities taking to social media to call for action by policymakers. | | +The evening newscasts: NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt and ABC World News anchor David Muir anchored special editions of their newscasts from El Paso Sunday evening. CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell anchored from New York on Sunday. All three anchors will be live from El Paso tonight, the networks say. | | +The Sunday shows: ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, and CBS' Face the Nation all tossed out their standard political formats to focus on interviews with local politicians from Texas and Ohio, and live reports from the scenes. "Massacre in America," is how Jonathan Karl opened This Week Sunday morning. Beto O'Rourke, who represents El Paso, appeared on all three shows. White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was on ABC and NBC. | | +Cable news: Like their broadcast counterparts, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all tossed out their original Sunday plans and went live to cover the aftermath of the shootings. Previously scheduled primetime programming was likewise tossed aside to make room for more live coverage. The channels say they expect live coverage to continue from both states today. | | +The entertainment world reacts: "If it ever, for even a moment, feels like it’s become normal, we are completely f**ed.” HBO Last Week Tonight host John Oliver opened his show Sunday night with that warning. Plenty of other Hollywood notables weighed in on social media. Reese Witherspoon called for gun control legislation, urging followers to call their reps. John Legend said President Trump "is a part of the problem." "What leader will step up to command wiser/effective talks?" asked Dwayne Johnson. | | +New this morning: The White House said President Trump will make a statement regarding the shootings this morning. Look for the broadcast networks to offer special reports with live coverage, and live coverage on cable news. Trump, in an early morning tweet Monday, shoveled blame for the shooting on "the media." "News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!," he tweeted. He also called for "strong background checks." | | +More: GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Fox News Sunday that video games could be to blame for the shootings... Fredrick Brennan, the founder of the website 8chan, wants the site to be shut down following the mass shootings. The El Paso shooter posted his manifesto to the site... Rupert Murdoch's New York Post called on Trump to "Ban Weapons of War" in an editorial... |  | | ^$181M for Hobbs & Shaw. The Fast & Furious spinoff opened to $61 million domestically, easily propelling it to a win at the box office. The film opened to a very strong $120 million internationally, giving it a global opening weekend haul of $180.8 million. The film doesn't open in China and South Korea until later this month. | | --"[The film], teaming Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, came in on the modest end of expectations domestically," Pamela McClintock writes. "While spinoffs aren't generally expected to rise to the level of an official franchise installment, Hobbs & Shaw cost at least $180 million to produce before marketing, meaning it will need to do big business globally." The numbers. | | +Has Dwayne Johnson launched his own Fast & Furious franchise? Franchise spinoffs have had decidedly mixed success at the box office, but Hobbs & Shaw's reasonably strong opening (particularly overseas) suggests that the Johnson-led offshoot may have legs to support future installments. "The result for Hobbs & Shaw shows that with the right characters, a huge brand like Fast & Furious can begin the universe-building process that has become de rigueur in today’s movie business," Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore tells McClintock. More. | | ►Fox gets Credible. On Sunday Fox Corp. announced that it had acquired a majority stake in the financial technology firm Credible Labs. Fox is paying $265 million for a 67% stake in the company, and will commit another $75 million to help the company continue to grow. The Australian firm "enables consumers to compare instant, accurate pre-qualified rates from multiple financial institutions across student loans, personal loans and mortgages," the company says. In a statement, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch touted potential synergies with Fox Business Network. More. | | Elsewhere in film... | | --Martin Scorsese's hotly anticipated gangster epic The Irishman is set to close this year's BFI London Film Festival. | | --The biggest audience for European movies outside Europe is no longer America. It's China. | | --China box office: Ne Zha soars to record $340 million. | | | | | | | | Harassment On The Set Of 'The Rookie'? |  | | | | Afton Williamson, the co-star of ABC drama "The Rookie," says she quit the show, and claims that she faced sexual harassment and racial discrimination on set. Williamson, who co-starred on the cop drama from showrunner Alexi Hawley (Castle), ABC Studios and Entertainment One, on Sunday announced her departure from the show in a lengthy post on her verified Instagram account. | | +The allegations: Williamson "claims she experienced racial discrimination and racially charged inappropriate comments from the hair department as well as from the drama's executive producers starting with the pilot and continuing throughout the show's first season," Lesley Goldberg writes. "What's more, the actress says the harassment was reported to Hawley and the showrunner never passed it along to human resources. Her issues escalated into sexual assault during The Rookie's wrap party, she said." | | +The response: Entertainment One says it has launched an independent investigation. "The safety of working environments is a top priority for us, and we take this matter very seriously," an ABC spokesperson said. The story. | | Rep Sheet Roundup: Paradigm has hired Warner Bros. Records executive Lori Feldman as its first-ever CMO… Coolio has signed with Stewart Talent, as has Deadwood actor Pasha Lychnikoff… Lil Baby, a rapper, has signed with ICM Partners… Kid actors Lexy Kolker (Shooter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Darielle Dorsey (Underground) have signed with Mayhem Entertainment PR. More here. | | ►Luxury cinema chain iPic is filing for bankruptcy. The theater chain, which has 123 screens across 16 locations, said in a court filing that it will "seek approval of either a sale or a reorganization plan and emerge with a healthy balance sheet and new capital structure." The company's stock was down nearly 60% in pre-market trading Monday. More. | | In other news... | | --Judge rules Bobby Brown's consent is not needed for Showtime's Whitney Houston doc. | | --ABC News says that former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) has joined the network as a contributor. | | --Frank Scheck writes from Madison Square Garden, where Barbra Streisand delivered blistering attacks on President Trump to a sold-out crowd that included Hillary and Bill Clinton Saturday night. | | --The man who sent a pipe bomb to CNN will be sentenced today. | | | | The CW Wants More DC |  | | | | The DC Comics universe will continue to expand on The CW. The broadcast network, jointly owned by WarnerMedia and CBS, will debut a "Batwoman" series later in the fall, and CW president Mark Pedowitz says that a spinoff of one of its biggest DC shows could be in the cards. | | +The CW's DC Universe: Batwoman debuts in October, joining Supergirl, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. Arrow will end after next season, but Pedowitz hinted that a spinoff is possible. | | +More from the executive session: Pedowitz expressed support for rookie shows All American and In The Dark. The Gossip Girl reboot had "preliminary discussions" at The CW before being shifted to HBO Max. More. | | +Also: The CW's new, post-Netflix-deal digital strategy is coming into focus... The 100's upcoming seventh season will be its last... Batwoman Star Ruby Rose hopes groundbreaking lesbian superhero appeals to everyone... | | ►The TCA Awards: The Television Critics Association held its 35th annual awards ceremony on Saturday, honoring excellence in television. The big winner was the Phoebe Waller-Bridge Amazon comedy Fleabag, which took home all three awards it was nominated for: the prestigious program of the year prize, best comedy series and individual achievement for Waller-Bridge's onscreen role. | | +Other winners: Netflix's Russian Doll took home the outstanding new program award, HBO's Chernobyl, Last Week Tonight, and Finding Neverland also took home awards. The full list of winners. | | +David Milch made a rare public appearance to accept the lifetime achievement award. Milch, who created HBO’s Deadwood and wrote for the dramas NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues, recently went public with his own Alzheimer’s diagnosis. More. | | The week ahead... | | --TV: HBO's Succession returns for season two on Sunday, Aug. 11 at 9 p.m. On Tuesday, HBO debuts a new season of NFL doc series Hard Knocks. Also on Tuesday: Bravo debuts a new season of The Real Housewives of Orange County, and USA debuts a new season of Growing Up Chrisley. The new Bachelor In Paradise kicks off tonight, and Fox has the Teen Choice Awards Sunday. More. | | --TCA: The final week of the TCA summer press tour has ABC on the schedule today, with fellow Disney channel FX on the calendar tomorrow. Keep your eyes out for an update on the state of "peak TV" from John Landgraf. On Wednesday, Fox will present its new programming, and on Thursday NBCUniversal will close out the tour with its slate of panels. | | --Earnings: Disney reports after the close on Tuesday, Viacom reports before the market opens Wednesday, and CBS reports after market close on the same day. | | --Movies: No big blockbusters opening this week. The Art of Racing In The Rain and Dora And The Lost City of Gold open Friday. | | What else we're reading... | | --"HBO’s Succession tries to get the merger-mad media industry right." [NY Times] | | --"Hobbs & Shaw takes the best versions of the Rock and Jason Statham and turns them loose." [The Ringer] | | --"The new 90210 is a nostalgia bender with a meta twist. Will that turn off diehards?" [LA Times] |  Today's birthdays: James Gunn, 53, Maureen McCormick, 63, Janet McTeer, 58. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
