Today In Entertainment FEBRUARY 17, 2021
What's news: Kevin Mayer plots a major media roll up, WGA Awards screenplay noms, behind Disney's firing of Gina Carano, the backstory behind HBO's Allen v. Farrow, CBS sets another NCIS spinoff, CNN's daytime shakeup, ReFrame Stamp recipients. Plus: Joel Stein on making amends with his agent, and Regina King's THR cover. --Alex Weprin  Regina King In Conversation On the cover: Regina King is ready to seize her moment: "You give us a little window, we’re going to kick it all the way open." In a frank discussion with fellow filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood, the One Night in Miami director — who has been thrust into the awards conversation a year after claiming her best supporting actress Oscar — opens up about ambition, success and how best to use her megaphone. --Gina Prince-Bythewood: "For the last couple of years, you've been humming at this different level, and it's always been building to that, but I want to know, do you feel that? That you are touching greatness right now?" --Regina King: "I guess I have a hard time with phrases like that. Because what is that? It's subjective. There are moments that I feel like I've always been great. (Laughs.) And then there are moments that I feel like there's no such thing as greatness being a certain thing. Sometimes I look at people like Serena or Beyoncé, and I don't understand how you can actually sleep and be able to put out what they put out. Like, how do you have the time to be you?" ... --King: "It's such a delicate line to walk because you don't want to express what you feel in a way that it deters people from wanting to actually listen or be an ally. I find myself constantly thinking as I'm talking to make sure I'm choosing my words wisely and still being honest to myself. Because I understand that in order for us to actually witness a change in our lifetime, we have to express how we feel, who we are, but also do it with grace so that we can receive all of the different people who are needed to truly make that shift happen." --Prince-Bythewood: "Listen, I haven't reached greatness yet, but I always reach for it. And we've got to have that mentality. We have to show up, and we can't fail so that others can come after us. And it's interesting because I said that in an interview, and I got pushback that that sounded a little arrogant. And again, it was that thing of people not understanding what it is for us to navigate this industry. You have to be everything. You have to be graceful, you have to fight. … You're like a shark." The cover story.  Mayer's Media Mega Roll Up ►Former Disney and TikTok executive Kevin Mayer is exploring a deal to roll up several independent media and entertainment companies, including Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings and Ben Silverman’s Propagate Content, sources with knowledge of the talks tell THR's Kim Masters and Natalie Jarvey. --Blackstone is financing the venture and is expected to invest a minimum of $2 billion as part of an expansion of its media and entertainment holdings, says a knowledgeable source. The ambitious venture, on which Mayer is teaming with former Disney chief operating officer Tom Staggs, would focus on a broad portfolio of companies that could span social media, influencers, music, musicians, film, television and e-commerce, the source adds. The details. In other business news... +Shares in Imax surged after China's Lunar New Year holiday propelled tentpoles like Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom to blowout box office performances. Market analysts and beleaguered North American exhibitors are watching China's holiday opening weekend this year for signs of an eventual full recovery globally from the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Imax stock rose 8 percent to $20.05 in mid-morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, after hitting a new 52-week high of $20.47 following the market open. More. +Nielsen launches new tool to measure diversity on TV. Gracenote Inclusion Analytics will provide content creators, distributors and advertisers with proprietary metrics, including an identity group’s share of screentime relative to their real-life representation in the population, Rebecca Sun reports. The story. +Another podcasting acquisition: Radio and audio entertainment giant iHeartMedia has struck a deal with The E.W. Scripps Co. to acquire advertising technology and measurement firm Triton Digital for $230 million, the companies said on Wednesday. More. +A Disney update: Dan Loeb's Third Point made a lot of news last fall, after sending a letter to the Disney board declaring that the company should go all-in on streaming. Since then, the company did exactly what Loeb suggested, and a filing by the hedge fund on Tuesday showed that the company sold some 500,000 shares in the company last quarter, after it announced its streaming strategy. Loeb bought the shares when Disney's stock price as hovering in $120 range, but it spiked to over $170 after its investor day in December. ►WGA Awards: The Writers Guild of America has announced its nominees in the categories of original, adapted and documentary screenplay for the 2021 WGA Awards. The original screenplay nominees are Judas and the Black Messiah, Palm Springs, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal and The Trial of the Chicago 7. Adapted nominees are Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, News of the World, One Night in Miami and The White Tiger. The full list of nominees.  Gina Carano Backstory ►Behind Disney's diring of Mandalorian star Gina Carano. "In Carano’s case, the move to cut ties had been brewing for some time. In the months leading up to Disney’s investor day presentation Dec. 10, Carano’s agents at UTA were negotiating for the actress to receive a sizable bump for a planned spinoff of Disney+’s The Mandalorian that was to star her fan-favorite character, Cara Dune... 'She was originally in that presentation when they announced all those things, and they pulled her off of it,' a source tells THR." The story. ►Allen v. Farrow: Inside Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s explosive HBO docuseries. With their project focusing on Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, the directing duo continue their longtime mission of uncovering new evidence and aggressively holding alleged sexual predators to account, Tatiana Siegel reports. --"All three of them could not believe that we had captured everything that we had," says [investigative producer Amy] Herdy. "They were just so incredulous that we had gone to the depths that we had gone, that we had all the details that we had, that we had all the documents that we had, that we had all the interviews that we had. I think none of them realized that we were going to be able to put together something as monumental as we did." The story. In other TV news... +CBS is plotting yet another expansion of one of its massive global franchises. The broadcast network is nearing a straight-to-series order for a Hawaii-set incarnation of its juggernaut NCIS franchise, sources tell THR's Lesley Goldberg. CBS declined comment as deals are still being firmed up. The story. +ABC is going to school with Quinta Brunson. The network on Tuesday handed out a pilot order for Harrity Elementary, a single-camera comedy written by, starring and exec produced by the comedian, former Buzzfeed development partner and co-star of HBO's A Black Lady Sketch Show. More. +Working Title has optioned the TV rights to Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell from John Preston — author of A Very English Scandal and The Dig (which was recently adapted for film by Netflix) — and published earlier this month by Viking, with plans to turn it into a limited series. More. +Disney+ unveiled details of its global Disney+ offering, which includes the "Star" brand for adult fare. The story. ►CNN daytime shakeup: Brianna Keilar will join John Berman as co-anchor of the channel's morning news program New Day. Keilar had been the anchor on the 1-3 p.m. hours, and before that was White House correspondent. Alisyn Camerota, who had been co-anchor of New Day for the last six years, will now co-anchor the 2-4 p.m. hours alongside Victor Blackwell, who had been co-host of New Day Weekend for the last 9 years. All the changes. +Meanwhile: CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin, who has been a staple of the news channel's afternoon lineup since she joined the company in 2008, will depart next month. ►Joel Stein: How I made up with my agent. Twenty-two months after leaving his WME rep amid a union standoff, the TV comedy writer calls WGA president David A. Goodman for tips on mending the relationship: "You can blame me." --"To my shock, some writers aren’t going back to their agents, having gotten used to applying for their own jobs and negotiating their own salaries, like people in every other single industry in the entire world. But even though my lawyer, Jared Levine, did a great job negotiating a CBS pilot for me last year, I never considered not rehiring my agent, Richard Weitz. I knew all the opportunities he has gotten me, how much he’s taught me, and how much I liked telling my family that I have a Hollywood agent. Still, before I took Richard back, I wanted to make sure his other clients were returning. After all, I had fired him solely because other writers did. I wanted to make sure I was once again doing what all the cool writers were doing." The guest column. ►Regé-Jean Page has set his next project after breaking-out as the star of Netflix's smash hit Bridgerton. Page has closed a deal for a leading role in Paramount's Dungeons & Dragons feature. More. Casting roundup: Lily Rabe, who has carved a name for herself with the American Horror Story anthology, has been cast as the female lead in The Tender Bar, the drama that George Clooney is directing for Amazon Studios... Jemaine Clement is set to bare all as a sex guru in New Zealand marriage-in-crisis comedy Nude Tuesday... Australian actor Eric Bana has signed on to star in the ecologically themed family film Blueback from filmmaker Robert Connolly... Jordan Peele has found the leads for his newest directorial project. Actress and recording artist Keke Palmer has signed to star in the feature project while Daniel Kaluuya, who famously toplined Peele’s Get Out, is in negotiations to reunite with the filmmaker... Lenny Kravitz, Cheech Marin, D’Arcy Carden, Selena Tan, Desmin Borges, and Alex Mallari have boarded Lionsgate's action-comedy Shotgun Wedding ... Revolving door: Julie Plec is expanding her Universal Television-based production company. The creator of the Vampire Diaries universe has enlisted former ABC Signature drama exec Emily Cummins to serve as president of her My So-Called Company...Liesl Copland— a partner at Endeavor Content— has joined Participant media to focus on how the company's slate of projects can be best placed in the ever-changing global distribution infrastructure... UTA has signed filmmaker Roger Ross Williams and his production banner, One Story Up, for representation... Anne Heche has signed with APA in all areas.... ►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Behind Her Eyes, writing that "A little flexibility in literary analysis is often a good thing, because there's always a risk that if you take something intriguing and over-explain it, you can go from tantalizing to plain old ridiculous in an instant." The review. In other news... --ReFrame and IMDBPro revealed today that 29 of the 100 most popular scripted films of 2020 have received a ReFrame Stamp, a mark of distinction for projects that have demonstrated gender-balanced hiring. The showing is a jump of 12 percent over 2019 when 26 films were selected. --Google has signed a landmark deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to pay for journalism from its global news sites. --Hong Kong Disneyland is set to reopen — again — on Friday, Disney Parks announced Wednesday. The Hong Kong theme park has closed three times in response to waves of COVID-19 infection in the city, with its most recent closure going into effect on Dec. 2, 2020. --The Just for Laughs comedy festival, run by a consortium led by ICM and Howie Mandel, has unveiled plans for a hybrid 39th edition this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic. --Fortnite is set to host a short film festival on the Party Royale big screen. Dubbed Short Nite, the festival will stream a series of animated films from international directors and writers. The series, roughly 30 minutes in length, will run continuously in the battle royale multiplayer game for 24 hours starting on Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. ET. --Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization Australians in Film on Tuesday unveiled a talent development program for undiscovered and underrepresented filmmakers. --Netflix has acquired worldwide streaming rights to Chinese animated film New Gods: Nezha Reborn, which opened theatrically in China last weekend at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday. --Disney has unleashed the first Cruella trailer. Cruella sees Emma Stone star as the Disney villain who rose to fame with 1961's 101 Dalmations. What else we're reading... --Martin Scorsese wrote the cover story for Harper's Bazaar, titled "Il Maestro: Federico Fellino and the lost magic of cinema" [Harper's Bazaar] --"Triller has been inflating public user figures, doesn't deny it" [Billboard] --"Golf superstar Phil Mickelson could shoot for TV stardom next" [Front Office Sports] --"YouTube’s quick-video answer to TikTok coming to U.S. in March" [Bloomberg] Today's birthdays: Michael Jordan, 58, Ed Sheeran, 30, Paris Hilton, 40, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 40, Rene Russo, 67. 
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