NETFLIX gets high-profile Exorcism movie from Lee Daniels

CHRIS EVANS joins THE ROCK in AMAZON pic / CARDI B wins YOUTUBER lawsuit / PAR NETWORK kills Movie rebrand

Jan 25, 2022

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY January 25, 2022.

Where congrats Millenials on being old enough for your own nostalgia music festival! 🧓 The WHEN WE WERE YOUNG festival will take place in Vegas Oct 22, 23 and 29.

Lineup includes a reunited PARAMORE, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, AVRIL LAVIGNE, JIMMY EAT WORLD, ALL AMERICAN REJECTS and more who will gather at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. Oct 22 & 23 sold out immediately but the 29th goes on sale here on Tuesday.

AND: CARDI B awarded $1.25 Million verdict in Defamation case against a YouTuber who was posting several videos with lies about her in 2019. Will be appealed… but certainly an interesting precedent for the platform if upheld. /THR

ALSO 🙋‍♂️: Tomorrow’s newsletter will be a little later than usual as AT&T has their Q4 earnings at 830a.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

“Promising Young Woman” writer / director Emerald Fennell sets up next movie at MRC

No plot details other than it’s “a story of obsession”, and she’s looking to shoot this Summer and now casting. But sadly no roles for a newsletter writer. Again.

No studio or streamer on board yet (MRC is also doing the 2 “Knives Out” sequels at NETFLIX). /Variety

NETFLIX buys high-profile Exorcism movie to be directed by Lee Daniels

“Inspired” by an actual case of an Indiana mom (to be played by Andra Day) whose kids seemingly became demonically possessed. You can read about it here in the INDY STAR from 2014 if ya like.

$65 Million pricetag, Octavia Spencer and Glenn Close are among the co-stars. Looking to shoot this Summer. /Deadline

AMAZON sets Chris Evans to co-star in The Rock’s holiday pic “Red One”

Jake Kasdan (“Jumanji” movies) directing, but no real plot details available other than it’s thought to have extensions into other aspects of AMAZON in holiday season. 🎅

Plan is to shoot this year, so TBD which Christmas we’ll see all the clever but likely non-stop promo tie-ins. /Deadline

MGM sets “Fleabag” director to direct a book adaptation from Reese Witherspoon / HELLO SUNSHINE

Book is “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine”, a 2017 Reese book club selection that subsequently sold 2.5 Million copies. It’s about a lonely woman who realizes “the only way to survive in life is to open your heart.” Amen sister.

Director is Henry Bradbeer who has also directed on “Killing Eve”.

ALSO IN MOVIES

NETFLIX adds Mark Strong, Jodie Turner-Smith to “Murder Mystery 2” with Sandler & Aniston. Jeremy Garelick (“The Wedding Ringer”) directing, currently shooting in Hawaii. /THR
MGM moved Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” (the Thai cave rescue movie) from April to Nov 18 to put it in the OSCAR race mix. /Deadline

🎤 IN OTHER WORDS

“You’re progressive in one way but then you’re still making that fucking backwards story about 7 dwarves living in a cave together, what the fuck are you doing man?”
- PETER DINKLAGE on the WTF podcast, talking about DISNEY’s upcoming retelling of “Snow White & the Seven Dwarves” with Gal Gadot.

📺 THE TV SET

Ross en espanol! pretty sure you remember the gist. via Giphy

DISNEY moves ABC’s upcoming new series “Maggie” to HULU

The comedy is about a woman coming to grips with her psychic abilities, and was ordered to series back in May.

Apparently there are “no slots on the ABC schedule”, and with ABC president Craig Erwich also being HULU’s president… a decision was made to move it (no word if Kareem Daniels’s centralized distribution group was involved here).

No HULU premiere date indicated. /Deadline

HULU orders missing girl drama “Saint X” series, based on a book

Young woman dies on Caribbean vacation, her sister pursues the truth as the story unfolds from varying perspectives.

Dee Rees (“Mudbound”) directing, Leila Gerstein (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) is writing. /Variety

NETFLIX orders “Survival of the Thickest” comedy series starring Michelle Buteau

8 episodes starring the comedian & host of NETFLIX’s“The Circle” reality show, and based on a book of essays she wrote.

She’ll play a newly single woman rebuilding her life after the breakup of a serious relationship.

A24 producing, Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (“The Carmichael Show”) is showrunning. /Deadline

ALSO IN TV

PEACOCK cancels “Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol” after 1 season. /Deadline
CBS sets Dylan McDermott for “FBI: Most Wanted”. Replaces Julian McMahon who just announced he’s leaving. /Deadline
Josh Duhamel replacing Emilio Estevez in DISNEY+ Season 2 of “The Mighty Ducks” (he’ll play a new character). 🥅 Josh also replaced Armie Hammer in LIONSGATE’s JLo action-comedy “Shotgun Wedding” last year (movie due out this June). /Variety
“Jeopardy!” now has a new 2nd most-winningest contestant (that’s not how you say that is it), as Amy Schneider crosses 39 straight wins 💰💰. Only 35 more to go to catch Jennings… /Deadline
SYFY orders space drama “The Ark” from Dean Devlin (“Independence Day”). About a planet colonization mission 100 years from now that’s meant to help secure humanity’s existence that… well some bad things go down and they have to figure out how to survive until they get to the planet. In a year. /THR
CBS renews “Ghosts”, “Bob Hearts Abishola” and “The Neighborhood” for the Fall TV season. /Variety

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

VIACOM puts the kibosh on re-branding PARAMOUNT NETWORK to PARAMOUNT MOVIE NETWORK

As they finally discovered that… well, no one would really call it that anyway.

They announced the plan to change it in 2020, then canceled or moved all of their long-in-the-tooth reality shows (“Bar Rescue” etc)… and the plan was to produce 52 original movies a year to go along with the usual licensed library movies on the network.

Covid put a freeze on that, and the executive brought in to oversee all the Original Movies left after a year. Plus ya know… “Yellowstone”.

No real plan declared as to what, if anything PAR NETWORK will be moving forward with instead for the 42 weeks of the year “Yellowstone” isn’t on 🤔. /Deadline

CBS NEWS streaming service (aka CBSN) launches revamp

Well. It’s still news all the time, so… revamp is a strong word here really.

Basically they’re adding the presence of the CBS NEWS A-List talent and some Original Series, in advance of the challenge CNN+ is about to mount in the space any day now.

Even though CNN+ will be a pay service, and CBSN is free. Err… sorry - it’s now called CBS News Streaming which.. well I’ll probably still go with CBSN #TBH.

CBSN is still the top dog by far in audience among news streaming service apps, even as NBC and ABC entered the free streaming app biz over the past couple of years.

Some notable CBSN..S launches coming shortly:

Norah O’Donnell is reviving a Murrow series from the 50’s called “Person-To-Person” which they previously tried to revive with some specials on CBS in the early 2010’s. But the format is a one-on-one interview series.
Docuseries “CBS Reports” which brings A-List talent to their docuseries efforts (Gayle is doing the first one, looking back at the Trayvon Martin case).
And… a bunch of brand extension content from various CBS NEWS franchises (CBS Sunday Morning etc) and Big in-house talent, all in the link above for the inclined.

FIOS loses another 70k Cable TV customers in Q4, finishes 2021 down almost 300k

FIOS has lost over 7% of their TV customers each of the past 2 years.

Added 55k Broadband subscribers to finish 2021 +360k, its best year since 2014. /THR

FIOS End of 2021:

Cable TV: 3.57 Million
Broadband: 6.5 Million, far above the heights of the peak FIOS Cable TV subscriber count back in the mid 2010’s.

ALSO IN MEDIA

AMAZON MUSIC & WONDERY make deal for “My Favorite Murder” podcast. Episodes will now drop 1 week early on AMAZON MUSIC and WONDERY+.
- Other podcasts they produce like ”The Murder Squad” and ”This Podcast Will Kill You” also included, no price disclosed. /THR

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

WALL STREET took a cue from the NFL yesterday, as a crazy late day rally saved what was shaping up as another pretty dark day… So, we’ll see what today brings.

But - couldn’t save AMC THEATERS (-7%) which has a grim couple of weeks ahead before Feb movies start to kick in.

A lot riding on HBOMAX’s Q1 projections tomorrow, and if COMCAST decides to share any material PEACOCK info on Thurs (They did not in their last earnings call).

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

NETFLIX “Nightclub Comedian” - New Aziz Anzari special. Stream or Add to Your List here

If you were sent this newsletter or… just kinda found it:

🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

NETFLIX“Murderville” trailer - 6 episodes answering the question “What if we mostly improv’d a police procedural show?”. And apparently they left some of the gaffes in the episodes, each of which has a celeb guest star (Conan, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, and Ken Jeong). Premieres Thu Feb 3