Open Thread

Billboard Magazine reports: In his 20th-floor office overlooking Houston, veteran personal-injury attorney Jim Adler reflects on why he hasn’t aimed any TV marketing at survivors of last weekend’s Astroworld festival disaster. “It’s just so tragic,” he says. “I don’t think there’s an appropriate type of TV ad.” Adler may not have been marketing on TV, but by Monday morning, the …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Night Court, the follow-up to the classic legal sitcom, will air on NBC in the 2022-23 season. When the series, which stars and is exec produced by The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch, was first ordered, the broadcast network had yet to decide whether it would air in midseason or in the next season. Night Court centers …

Variety reports: Musicals are divisive by nature, but they can hit a sweet spot with awards voters with the right cast and crew. Andrew Garfield leads the charge on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut, “Tick, Tick … Boom!” With tender vocals and a heartfelt vulnerability, Garfield could emerge as a definitive challenger to the best actor prize that has seemed preordained …

Variety reports: The gaffer on “Rust” felt a whoosh of air and heard the loudest shot he had ever heard on set, and then watched helplessly as his friend Halyna Hutchins faded away in his arms, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday. Serge Svetnoy provided a detailed, first-hand account of the Oct. 21 shooting in a negligence suit against …

Variety reports: Unity Software, a 3D game-development platform, is expanding its VFX footprint in a big way with the $1.625 billion acquisition of the technology division of Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-based Weta Digital. The deal promises to make the tools used to create Gollum for Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings,” Caesar from “The Planet of the Apes” and characters …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Mighty Ducks franchise star Emilio Estevez is speaking out about the circumstances surrounding his departure from Disney+’s series Mighty Ducks: Game Changers ahead of its second season. In the lengthy response to Deadline’s November 5 story about Estevez not returning to the hockey-themed series, the actor says that the exit was a result of “nothing more than …

Variety reports: On Monday, the city of Los Angeles will introduce SafePassLA, a vaccine verification program that will require proof of full COVID-19 vaccination for all patrons and employees to enter movie theaters, indoor restaurants and other businesses. Proof of full COVID-19 vaccination and photo ID became requirements on Thursday for indoor entry to bars, breweries, wineries, distilleries, nightclubs and …

Deadline Hollywood reports: The Mighty Ducks franchise will continue without Gordon Bombay. Emilio Estevez, who reprised his role from the 1992 movie and its 1994 and 1996 sequels in Season 1 of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, will not be back for the Disney+ series’ upcoming second season. Disney Television Studios’ ABC Signature, which produces the hockey-themed sequel series, made …

Entertainment Weekly reports: Twenty-two years is an eternity for an artist who changed the face of music to stay silent. But with the preciousness of time in stark focus due to the pandemic — and likely sensing that her window for making another project was closing — Diana Ross is seizing the moment. Thank You, the 77-year-old diva’s first studio …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Pop goes AMC Theatres. Beginning in 2022, AMC will begin selling “AMC Theatres Perfectly Popcorn” at kiosks, counters and stories in retail malls across the country. AMC plans to launch five such sites in the first half of 2022. These initial locations won’t be in a mall with an AMC cinema. Roughly 15 locations are expected …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Fox Corp. reported strong quarterly earnings on Wednesday, as the TV business continued to rebound from a year earlier, when the pandemic was wrecking havoc on the advertising and TV business. The earnings, for fiscal Q1 of 2022 (the quarter that ended Sept. 30), saw the company have revenues of $3.05 billion (up 12 percent year-over-year), …

Variety reports: Paul McCartney, the iconic Beatles band member, epic solo artist and trumpeter player (it’s true!) has put out a tome of a memoir. Inside the creator recounts his more than eight decades of songwriting. The lyrical autobiography, “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” chronicles over 150 of McCartney’s songs, spanning from the first tunes he wrote while growing …

Deadline Hollywood reports: FX and Hulu are moving from Britney Spears to Janet Jackson with their latest documentary in The New York Times Presents strand. The cable network and streamer are set to launch Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson on November 19. The film will tell the story of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, which saw Justin …

NY1 reports: His hilarious political and pop culture parodies have brought him more than 680,000 subscribers on Youtube. That’s because Randy Rainbow knows how to get a laugh. He’ll rely on those talents as grand marshal of this year’s Village Halloween Parade. “I’m a Halloween person. I’m a Halloweenie. Am I allowed to say that on NY1?” asked Rainbow. “Clearly …

Variety reports: Red light or green light? Costumes based on Netflix’s smash hit “Squid Game” have soared in popularity this Halloween — and searches for baby costumes based on the ultra-violent Korean drama are currently No. 1 on Google’s top-trending rankings. Google searches for “Squid Game Halloween costume” have spiked 450% in the U.S. the past week, according to the …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Ice Cube has departed Sony’s upcoming comedy, Oh Hell No, in which he would’ve co-starred with Jack Black, after declining a request from producers to get vaccinated, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. Sony had no comment. A personal representative for the star declined to comment. WME, his agency, declined to comment. Oh Hell No is being …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: The latest trailer for MGM’s anticipated House of Gucci movie teases even more of the dramatic saga that gave way to Maurizio Gucci’s death in 1995. With “Sweet Dreams” serving as the soundtrack, the new trailer plots how Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) made her way into the powerful family before ultimately conspiring against her former partner …

Variety reports: The Santa Fe County Sheriff said Wednesday that other live rounds may have been on the set of “Rust” last week, in addition to the one that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. Sheriff Adan Mendoza said that investigators recovered 500 rounds of ammunition, which included a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and, possibly, live …

Deadline Hollywood reports: The Los Angeles Times is premiering the short documentary The Beauty President Tuesday, part of a new initiative that will showcase nonfiction shorts “with a West Coast perspective.” The Beauty President, directed by Whitney Skauge and executive produced by Lena Waithe and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ben Proudfoot, centers on one of the most unlikely candidates to ever to …

Deadline reports: Addressing “the recent debate around our company,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave not an inch on Monday, saying, “what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture.” Kicking off a conference call with financial analysts after quarterly earnings, Zuckerberg addressed the elephant in the room — weeks of devastating …