Mornin! Here’s the Hollywood + MediaBiz news to know on TUESDAY February 16th, 2021. Happy Mardi Gras! Finally a holiday where donning a mask is endemic to its traditions. Sadly the same can’t be said for shirts.

🎧 NEW MUSIC TO READ BY

Maren Morris & Ryan Hurd “Chasing After You”  Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube

New song from the married couple. All songs are added to “THE WAKEUP Playlist” on SPOTIFY - listen here as ya like:

THE WAKEUP Spotify playlist

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

PARAMOUNT rebooting “Paranormal Activity” for March 2022 release

Christopher Landon will write (he wrote every Paranormal since the original, and November’s “Freaky”). Will Eubank (“Underwater”) will direct.

Blumhouse + Oren Peli producing, will be under the new PARAMOUNT PLAYERS label, No plot details. (THR)

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:

“The Croods 2” takes 1st place… its 12th WEEK in theaters. Also - a film you can rent at home for $20. For the past 2 months. Certainly a sizable argument for the movie theater business… as parents officially run out of things to do with their kids this Winter. The 3 day totals:

• “The Croods 2” : $2.7 million

• “Judas and the Black Messiah” : $2.4 million

• “The Little Things” : $2.4 million

Robin Wright’s “Land” opens to $1 million. Also DISNEY/PIXAR’s “Soul” crossed the $100 mil mark globally (now at $104 mil).

Meanwhile in China…. they now hold the record for the biggest opening weekend for a movie EVER: “Detective Chinatown 3” (which definitely doesn’t sound like an SNL sketch…🤔) made $398 million over the 3 day weekend. $424 mil including IMAX. Sorry “Avengers: Endgame”. /Deadline

This at a time where most China movie theaters aren’t above 75% capacity limits.
Chinese New Year > July 4th Weekend. /Variety

ALSO IN MOVIES

• ANNAPURNA buys Jerrod Carmichael SUNDANCE movie “On the Count of Three”. Price of $2 million for North American rights. Jerrod’s directorial debut, written by pair of “Ramy” writers. Will come out thru MGM/UA. /Deadline

• eOne sells “My Little Pony” movie to NETFLIX (keeps China rights). Was previously hitting theaters this Fall via PARAMOUNT. /THR

• PARAMOUNT buys rights to do “The King & I” musical. Temple Hill producing - no writer or director attached so… give ‘em a call if you have any idea what to do with it. /THR

• IFC buys “Mainstream” - Andrew Garfield + Maya Hawke movie about outsiders who become social media celebs, with dangerous consequences. Directed by Gia Coppola (granddaughter of Francis). Will hit theaters in May. /THR

📺 THE TV SET

AMAZON orders “Mr & Mrs Smith” TV series with Phoebe Waller-Bridge & Donald Glover

A project few saw coming… that I’m pretty sure we all can’t wait to see. Gonna drop 2022 TBD. It’s going under Phoebe’s AMAZON deal, she’ll co-create with Francesca Sloane (“Atlanta”) who will be showrunner.

No plot/direction specifics other than, well, I think we all saw the movie. (VARIETY)

PARAMOUNT+ reviving “The Real World” with original NYC cast

VIACOM programming chief Chris McCarthy takes yet another step in his quest to completely rebuild the 1990’s MTV programming lineup… bringing back the cast of the very first NYC edition (including Eric Nies 🙌 #TheGrind2022).

Will be called “Homecoming” and sounds like a multi-ep reunion thing taking place in the original NYC loft apartment, where they revisit that 1st season and reflect on things, vs. them all living together again. Good call.

PARAMOUNT+ will drop it on launch day March 4th. Last iteration of the show aired on FACEBOOK Watch in 2019, and last MTV season was in 2017. It debuted 29 years ago in 1992 👵🏻. (DEADLINE)

VIACOM makes “Chappelle’s Show” $$ deal with Dave Chappelle

Dave posted a 10 minute IG video saying they’ve come to an agreement on cutting him in on streaming biz sales - video link in this CNN article.

Thusly, “Chappelle’s Show” is now back on NETFLIX and HBOMAX.

ALSO IN TV

• “Bridgerton” casts Simone Ashley (“Sex Education”) as female lead in Season 2 at NETFLIX. /Deadline

• NETFLIX apparently working on its own Britney docu. Bitch. Sorry couldn’t resist. /Bloomberg

• “CSI” limited series reboot gets closer to order. William Petersen and Jorja Fox close to completed deals, Matt Lauria (“Friday Night Lights”) also joining. /THR

• “The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison stepping away from hosting duties for “unspecified period of time.” /Deadline

• AMAZON cancels Nick Frost - Simon Pegg show “Truth Seekers” after one season. /Deadline

• DISNEY sets first round of international Original Productions for their STAR streaming service (STAR is international for “HULU”), plus first 2 new DISNEY+ int’l series. /Deadline

• “60 Minutes” looking to transition a version of their QUIBI show “60 in 6” to PARAMOUNT+. /Bloomberg

• CBS sets Oprah to host a (newly pregnant) Meghan & Harry interview special. Will air Sun March 7 at 8p. Curious given that Oprah has a multi-year content deal at… APPLE TV. But hey, above my paygrade.

• “Bridgerton” star Regé-Jean Page to host SNL this week with Bad Bunny handling the music.

• “The Equilizer” gets 8 million viewers in CBS timeslot premiere on Sunday night (20 mil sampled post-SUPER BOWL). “60 Minutes” lead-in had 9 mil viewers. “American Idol” season premiere got 6.7 mil & won younger demos that night.

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

3 BRIEF ITEMS:

Social media INFLUENCERS can now join SAG/AFTRA. /NYT

THE WING sells majority stake to owner of REGUS. /Bloomberg

Biden Deputy Press Secretary resigns after debacle with threats to POLITICO reporter over reporting about his dating life. /NYT

📰 GOOD READS

90 year-old guy takes out 1/4 page WSJ ad to compain about his crappy AT&T broadband service.

AT&T installs fiber to his house within a week.

But his neighbors are still shit outta luck. Ars Technica read here.

🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

HBOMAX “Justice League” 4 hour “extended movie” (🤷‍♂️) Launches March 18th. Will be just one 4 hour thing, not chopped up into 4 one-hour chapters. But will be HBOMAX only - no theaters.

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH

First an omission from Friday 🤦‍♂️. The new Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, and Benedict Cumberbatch movie “The Mauritanian” - true life story about a Guantanamo detainee is also now in theaters (grossed $170k from 245 theaters this wknd). Sorry STX!

OTHERWISE TODAY:

OWN “Queen Sugar” season 5 premiere at 8pm.

BET Tyler Perry’s “The Oval” season 2 premiere at 10:30pm.

NETFLIX series premiere “The Crew” - Kevin James multi-cam laugh track sitcom about a NASCAR pit crew…. although it seems to pretty much take place in their garage.

But the high profile premieres today are on NBC: “Young Rock” & “Keenan” back-to-back starting at 8pm.

And we’ll end on a kudos to RWQuarantunes which raised $1.1 million for the LA Food Bank with their show from Dodgers stadium this weekend 👏.

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Have a great 4 day week ya’ll. See ya tomorrow.

-Sean McNulty