With the looming Coronavirus, almost every single thing that might have a person leaving the house is being cancelled. This past week has seen industry events like the annual Facebook and Google events cancelled, TV industry conference MipTV cancelled, international comic book conventions cancelled, concerts… etc. Anywhere that people gather is at risk of being cancelled this year.
That includes cinemas. While they’ll stay open, studios wanting the biggest possible audiences for their films are in retreat mode. The first big one to be pushed is the new Bond film No Time To Die. Instead of launching in April, it’s now a November release.
Read more: Dark Horizons
And Mulan will be delayed in some international territories (ie China).
Read more: Dark Horizons
Thankfully TV won’t be impacted by it. After all… TV is all about everyone staying inside the house. But it’s also dire in an Olympics year.
So far the Olympics this year are still planned to go ahead in Tokyo. NBCUniversal has sold $1.25 billion in advertising and it will be using the event to launch its streaming service Peacock.
Read more: NYT
Meanwhile local broadcaster Seven has $90-100 million tied up in sponsorship of the Tokyo Olympics. The network has structured its programming around the event for the year and with nothing really firing for the network in 2020, they have a lot pinned on the Olympics going forward.
Read more: Mediaweek
TV upfronts events for advertisers will be impacted. The first upfronts to be cancelled is Fox News. Which is weird because announcers on that very channel have been advising viewers that the virus isn’t that big a deal…
Source: Deadline
Everyday Australians have bigger concerns than whether the virus will interrupt TV shows. They’re busy panic buying toilet paper this week.
Supergirl star Melissa Benoist has announced that she’s pregnant. One assumes this will impact on the show - that’s not exactly an easy costume to hide much of anything in.
A non-canine child is coming to our family very soon!!! 😱😆😭 @christophrwood has always been an old dad by nature but now he’s going to be a real one!March 4, 2020
Reviews are in for the Reese Witherspoon/Kerry Washington Hulu drama Little Fires Everywhere. And they’re not good.
“Little Fires Everywhere” loves drama so much you’d be forgiven for going all-in with it — yelling at the screen, mocking whoever loses each verbal sparring match, making fun of all the white people who are so painfully un-woke it makes you hate yourself for using the word “un-woke.” As a nighttime soap, the episodes can be juicy, biting entertainment, but as the drama stacks up, it loses power. Watching Washington dig deep again and again dulls the effect of her quivering lip and trembling voice; seeing Witherspoon wrap her villainous cloak ever-tighter feels suffocating, and somewhere amid the first seven episodes, the fire goes out under a blanket of melodrama.
Read more: Indiewire
What’s next?
