Open Thread

The New York Daily News reports: They’ve found a way to celebrate Broadway. The months-delayed Tony Awards will go on virtually this fall, organizers announced Friday, although a date for the event has not been set. The 2020 Tonys were initially scheduled to take place June 7 at Radio City Music Hall. But the annual celebration was delayed indefinitely in …

Deadline reports: President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen just agreed to be in the Late Night with Seth Meyers hot seat. The attorney and former Trump Organization vice president shared on Twitter that he plans sit down and chat with the Saturday Night Live alum for an exclusive interview. Although Cohen did not share the airdate, he had the …

Variety reports: “The Batman” will resume shooting in early September in the U.K. at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, according to insiders. The comic book adventure was roughly seven weeks into production when filming had to be halted in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. “The Batman,” which is said to be a grittier and more realistic take on the Dark …

Variety reports: In simpler times, it wasn’t uncommon to see Brooklyn-born New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer out and about in the city — but it was a little surreal to see him standing outside the indie mecca Baby’s All Right, located in the city’s hipster-centric Williamsburg neighborhood, on Tuesday afternoon, alongside LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and several of the …

Deadline Hollywood reports: While the big actor paydays right now are coming from film and series auction deals won by streaming services, hitting the bottle has become a pretty good way for stars to supplement their incomes. Ryan Reynolds is at the center of a deal today where Diageo acquired Aviation American Gin. The deal is an estimated $610 million …

Variety reports: The Disney Channel animated series “The Owl House” has made history by having Disney’s first bisexual lead character. Luz Noceda, the show’s 14-year-old protagonist, is a normal teen who goes on a journey to another world to become a witch. Luz has shown she’s attracted to male characters in the show, and in the two most recent episodes, …

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump ordered ByteDance on Friday to divest the U.S. operations of its video-sharing app TikTok within 90 days, the latest effort to ramp up pressure on the Chinese company over concerns about the safety of the personal data it handles. Trump’s latest move comes on top of an executive order he issued last week that would …

The New York Daily News reports: R. Kelly’s manager threatened to shoot up a Manhattan theater to prevent a screening of the tell-all docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” that was attended by a number of the disgraced rapper’s accusers, Manhattan prosecutors said Friday. Donnell Russell, 45, called an employee of NeueHouse theater in Madison Square on Dec. 4, 2018, and said …

Variety reports: AMC Theatres has just endured one of the most traumatic periods in its hundred-year history. As the theater chain looks to reopen 100 of its locations on Aug. 20 after shutting them down last spring during the coronavirus pandemic, it has hit on a novel way to bring back audiences while paying tribute to its past. For one …

Variety reports: Singer Trini Lopez, who enjoyed a heyday in the 1960s with hits including “If I Had a Hammer” and “This Land Is Your Land,” died Tuesday from complications related to coronavirus, collaborators said. He was 83. Lopez had been in and out of a hospital setting for about six weeks before dying about 5 a.m. at Desert Regional …

Variety reports: A dramatic reboot of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is in the works, Variety has confirmed. It will be based on Morgan Cooper’s viral video that reimagined the NBC comedy series as a drama titled “Bel-Air.” The trailer, which Cooper posted online last year, has racked up over five million views on YouTube alone. The project is currently …

Variety reports: Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” is officially a hit single again 39 years after its release, thanks to a pair of twins from Gary, Indiana whose spontaneous reaction to the unexpected drum break in Collins’ ballad has caused it to be possibly the most meme-d song of August 2020. “In the Air Tonight” currently sits at No. …

Deadline Hollywood reports: President Donald Trump’s recent mispronunciation of Yosemite – in which he referred to the national park as “Yo-semites” – is causing some merriment on social media. And one of the biggest revelations is that a beloved cartoon character bearing the park’s name may actually be a Semite. “It being a strange world, Yosemite Sam is actually Jewish,’ …

Variety reports: Madonna has revealed that she is working on a screenplay with Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody. The pop star announced the news in a short video posted to her Instagram on Friday with the caption, “When you’re stuck in a house with multiple injuries what do you do? Write a screenplay with Diablo Cody about…?” Madonna followed this statement …

Billboard Magazine reports: Fans are eagerly waiting to hear Troye Sivan’s new EP — and today, they got another surprise taste of the singer’s new music. Sivan dropped his latest single “Rager Teenager,” a moody song that sees Troye wistfully remembering his younger days of angst, hormones and bad behavior. In the one-shot video for his song, audiences see Sivan …

Deadline Hollywood reports: The long-gestating American Song Contest series is getting close to fruition and is now targeting a debut during the holiday season 2021. American Song Contest will feature musical artists and bands from each of the 50 states and across every musical genre, to perform all original songs on the live televised event. The first Eurovision Song Contest …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Roku smashed Wall Street analysts’ consensus estimate for revenue in the second quarter, reporting a jump of 42% from a year ago to $356.1 million. The company now has 43 million active accounts, a rise of 41% over the same period in 2019. The streaming company said it was the No. 1 connected device based on hours …

Variety reports: Sony has bought the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic, titled “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” The studio plans to release the movie in theaters around Thanksgiving in 2022. Stella Meghie (“The Photograph”) directed the film from a script by Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Darkest Hour”). Music producer Clive Davis is producing “I Wanna Dance With …

Deadline Hollywood reports: After last year’s Twinkle All the Way featured an on-screen, same-sex kiss between couple Lex and Danny (Brian Sills and Mark Ghanimé), Lifetime will continue to bolster their LGBTQ representation with The Christmas Set Up. This marks the network’s first movie with an LGBTQ romance as the lead story. In addition, Lifetime has greenlit A Sugar & …

Playbill reports: Due to the ongoing pandemic, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS took its annual striptease fundraiser online: Broadway Bares: Zoom In. Although the in-person 30th anniversary celebration, originally set for June 21, was postponed until 2021, the annual evening lived on digitally through streamed stripteases featuring New York City dancers. Viewers got new performances that make social distancing sexy, plus …