It’s official - The Academy Awards have been pushed back into April. Originally the 2021 awards were to take place on Feb 28. The new date: April 25.
The new date comes with an additional benefit - the 93rd Academy Awards can now serve as a promotion for the hugely expensive Academy museum that opens five days after the new date. Source: THR
The Emmys remain locked in this year for Sept 20 - what form they’ll take is the big question.
Search Party returns for a third season on June 25 (yes, it has been almost 3 years since season 2).
Who is this for?
To promote HBO Max, the WarnerMedia-owned DC will release a series of three free comic books featuring new characters Hector, Brian, and Olivia meeting a dog named Max who gives them access to different superpowers and become able to teleport, shape shift, fly and save lives around the world.
How fun.
The company promises the comics will have plenty of “Easter Eggs and fun nods” to the 10,00 hours of programming available on the service, including Friends, Game of Thrones and The Big Bang Theory.
My favourite part of this nonsense is this quote:
DC and HBO Max both share in the belief that great storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to engage and connect with people,” DC Chief Creative Officer and Publisher Jim Lee said. “We are excited to share these new and original stories of Hector, Brian, Olivia and Max with the DC fans, and all fans of great entertainment content.”
Great. Entertainment. Content.
There’s a new Star Wars game Squadrons which is released on October 2. News today is that it will also be VR compatible with the ability to play the entire game either 2D on your TV set or with your VR headset on. Source: Road To VR
Meanwhile, Star Wars Celebration is an annual Star Wars fan event that has been held since 1999. Because of the corona, it will not be held this year. It’s also taking a break next year too, but will be back for 2022. By that time, the stink of Star War: Rise of Skywalker may have started to vanish. Source: Variety
Back in 1996 Disney staged Contact 96 - it’s first and last dedicated sci-fi convention. It was developed to sell packages to its theme park resort.
The event was a bomb - only 20 people bought the weekend package and the event was shrunk from a full weekend to just one day. Read about it: Collider
Tension has risen in New York news rooms. While most staff are dealing with big city living in the day and age of the corona, their bosses have all fled for remote country homes. Oh, and then there are the colleagues who have come from money and could afford to also leave.
The clarity with which the onset of Covid-19 revealed who could afford to get out of town, who might be OK if they lost their job, who had money or family to fall back on. The backgrounds of Zoom calls, your colleagues’ Instagrams and casual Slack references revealed who was trying to get the air-conditioner in their Crown Heights studio working, and who was opening up the pool.
Source: NYT
You can pay celebrities money and they’ll record a short video for you. Think of this as the equivalent of Krusty The Klown recording the voice for a Krusty doll.
Via the Cameo online service, you can talk to celebs like:
Gilbert Gottfried - $150
Jonathan Frakes - $200
Sinbad - $65
Ian Ziering - $200
Tony Hawk - $200
Scott Patterson - $150
Jeremy Piven - $400
$400 to get a video from THE Jeremy Piven. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, yeah? Well, now you can also book the celebs for ten minutes to talk to via Zoom. Gilbert Gottfried goes for a sweet $750, but THE Jeremy Piven? 10 minutes with him will set you back $15,000
What’s next?
