Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: HBO is doing its part to provide some entertainment relief for everyone who’s staying home amid the coronavirus crisis. The premium cabler is making nearly 500 hours of top programming available to stream for free for a limited time on HBO Now and HBO GO without a subscription beginning Friday, April 3. The content includes every episode …

Variety reports: Adam Schlesinger, a musician and songwriter highly regarded for his work as a member of Fountains of Wayne and an Emmy-winning songwriter for TV’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” has died as a result of coronavirus complications, Variety has confirmed. He was 52. An EGOT contender, Schlesinger has been nominated for Oscars, Tonys, Grammys and Emmys and won the latter two …

Deadline Hollywood reports: A COVID-19 casting scam has been trolling actors for nude audition videos and their passport information for a fake fashion show in Paris. “We find it appalling that someone would use this global crisis to take advantage of our members and those who aspire to work under our contracts,” SAG-AFTRA said Tuesday. “It is even more troubling …

The New York Daily News reports: New York City is so short on morgue space for coronavirus victims that FEMA is hauling in trailers to store all the bodies. “We are sending refrigeration trucks to New York to help with some of the problem on a temporary basis,” FEMA regional direction Thomas Von Essen said at Manhattan press briefing with …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Joe Diffie, one of country music’s biggest stars in the early 1990s, died Sunday from complications caused by contracting the COVID-19 virus. He was 61 and his death was confirmed by his publicist. Diffie was a traditional country artist, drawing on his honky-tonk background and deep, rich voice to craft a string of hits after his debut. …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Back in November, UCP announced Joe Exotic, a limited series starring and executive produced by Kate McKinnon. Four and a half months later, interest in the project, based on Joe Exotic, the second season of Wondery’s Over My Dead Body podcast, is skyrocketing because of the massive popularity of the Netflix docuseries Tiger King, about the real-life …

CBS Philadelphia reports: The number of coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania has soared above 2,200 as more deaths have been reported across the Delaware Valley. Health officials reported Friday an additional 531 COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total to 2,218, including 637 cases in Philadelphia. The number of coronavirus cases jumped by 154 on Friday in the city. “Our notable increase …

Deadline Hollywood reports: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Thursday said it will be altering long-standing rules for Golden Globe motion picture eligibility and screenings for the coming year, change that could include the unheard of step of first being seen even on broadcast TV. However, producers and studios must prove they had a “bona fide theatrical release planned to …

Deadline Hollywood reports: The 74th Annual Tony Awards, scheduled to air live on CBS on Sunday, June 7 from New York’s Radio City Music Hall, has been postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date, presenters announced today. Presenters the Broadway League, the American Theater Wing and CBS will coordinate for the new date once the ongoing shutdown has …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Two days before the Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Picard, Patrick Stewart is offering fans new and old a gift while stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak. With video cameos from Star Trek: Discovery’s Sonequa Martin-Green, Anson Mount and Michelle Yeoh, Stewart, who plays the onetime U.S.S. Enterprise captain Jean-Luc Picard on the CBS All …

Deadline Hollywood reports: As the number of new cases of the coronavirus shows signs of abating in China, a smattering of cinemas re-opened in a handful of provinces across the country this weekend. On Friday, there were 486 movie theaters back at work, while Saturday the total was upped to 507, local reports say. These small steps to get China …

Deadline Hollywood reports: More television shows are donating their medical supplies to hospitals amid the coronavirus outbreak. In the latest gestures, FX’s Pose and NBC’s Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. made the donations. “Today we donated all our prop supplies to Mount Sinai hospital to help nurses and doctors battling the Covid outbreak,” Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy wrote …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Netflix is giving back to the creative community as the entertainment industry reels from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. In a company blog post Friday, Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer, said the streamer has established a $100 million fund to help those workers hardest-hit in the television and film industry by the outbreak. Most of the …

Deadline Hollywood reports: A New York bankruptcy judge Thursday approved the sale of the iconic Moviefone movie listings service for $1 million as part of the bankruptcy of its parent company Helios & Matheson Analytics. That oddly-named holding company shot to fame by starting, growing and ultimately badly bungling the MoviePass subscription service, which is next on the auction block. …

The Associated Press reports: Rosie O’Donnell is reviving her old daytime talk show for one time only — and her guest list is impressive. A who’s-who of Broadway and Hollywood — including Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, Neil Patrick Harris, Morgan Freeman, Gloria Estefan and Barry Manilow — plan to join O’Donnell on Sunday for a live streaming “The …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Cinemark is joining the other major U.S. exhibition circuits in shutting its doors in the face of the growing coronavirus pandemic. The chain said Tuesday it is closing all 345 of its U.S. theater effective Wednesday. On Monday, the nation’s largest theatrical exhibition company AMC said that all 630 of its U.S. venues will close for at …

Playbill reports: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has launched an online fundraising campaign to create the COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund, which will be administered by The Actors Fund. The new fund will assist those in the entertainment community, onstage and behind the scenes, who are facing healthcare crises and other needs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Broadway Cares has …

Playbill reports: The Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre Association have announced that all SOLT theatres (which includes all of the West End) and all UK Theatre venues (a large number of Off-West End theatres and houses across the country) will temporarily close their doors beginning March 16. The announcement comes shortly after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson encouraged …

Deadline reports: The state of exhibition and the domestic box office is changing by the hour in the current coronavirus climate and by tomorrow or even before next Friday we could be looking at a different theatrical landscape. The lingo “comping” is used by distribution and exhibition executives when discussing the historical comparison of titles at the box office or …

Gothamist reports: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in New York City is now 213, an increase of 59 overnight. The five boroughs now have more people who have tested positive than Westchester County, which has 174 infections. Westchester had previously been the site of the largest cluster of coronavirus cases in the state, many of them connected to Lawrence …