PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Little Women producer Playground Entertainment will adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night for television.
Top 10 Weekend Domestic Box Office Estimates: June 15-17, 2018
Incredibles 2 (Buena Vista) $180 million, opening weekend
Ocean's 8 (Warner Bros.) $19.5 million (week 2), cume revenue $79.1 million
Tag (Warner Bros.) $14.6 million, opening weekend
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Buena Vista) $9 million (week 4), cume revenue $192.8 million
Deadpool 2 (Fox) $8.8 million (week 5), cume revenue $294.6 million
Hereditary (A24) $7 million (week 2), cume revenue $27.1 million
Superfly (Columbia) $6.3 million, opening weekend
Avengers: Infinity War (Buena Vista) $5.29 million (week 8), cume revenue $664.1 million
Adrift (STX) $2.1 million (week 3), cume revenue $26.8 million
Book Club (Paramount) $1.8 million (week 5), cume revenue $62 million
Source: comScore
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
Lucifer fans are delighted to learn that Netflix has resurrected the canceled Fox series for a fourth season. "You brought us back," showrunner Joe Henderson told fans on Twitter. "YOU did this. So relax, take a breath, put some ice on those fingers that have been hashtagging up a storm … and get ready for more deviltime."
The second part of Smithsonian Channel's Drinks, Crime and Prohibition airs Monday night. Notes Smithsonian Channel executive producer Tim Evans, the show "goes into the Smithsonian vaults to uncover their astonishing collection of Prohibition artifacts – everything from cocktail shakers to Tommy guns. … Prohibition helped invent cocktails, jazz, the women's movement and the Mob. It may seem like history, but its effects still reverberate today, and this film explores its exciting impact on American culture."
Comedy Central is axing the daily late-night show The Opposition With Jordan Klepper after one season, but Klepper is remaining with the network for a new half-hour weekly series called Klepper. The last Opposition episode will air June 28.
ADVERTISING
CBS has almost wrapped its upfront sales for the 2018-19 season - earlier than expected, seeing moderate gains in CPMs thanks to a boost from drug marketers, financial services, insurance companies, retailers and manufactures of consumer packaged goods, an insider told Variety. The network also saw solid sales for its Sunday afternoon NFL programming and even inventory for the 2019 Super Bowl.
Fox Networks Groups outlets including Fox Broadcasting, Nat Geo and their digital siblings will run inspirational videos telling stories about people who have overcome adversity, housing the mini-stories in advertising slots. Brands are expected to attach their names to the vignettes about people overcoming cancer, the loss of a limb or blindness. Fox has hired TBWA\Worldwide, the agency that created Apple's famous "1984" Super Bowl ad, among others. The vignettes, called "Unbreakables," are expected to be unveiled today at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France.
US box office revenues are slightly higher in 2018, but national TV spending for big summer movies has taken a nosedive, according to iSpot.tv. Last year studios spent $505.6 million between April 1-June 15; this year during the same period they spent just $363.1 million.
DIGITAL DATA
BET apologized for a tweet sent out referring to Kesha's allegations that her former producer Dr. Luke raped Katy Perry. The tweet, which said, "Hide ya wife, hide ya kids, they raping e'body here! ALLEGEDLY!" was deleted after an uproar, and the network apologized.
GOING GLOBAL
NBCUniversal was honored as the 2018 Company of Distinction at BANFF World Media Festival in Banff, Canada; NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt and Chairman of Global Distribution & International for NBCUniversal Kevin MacLellan were featured as keynote speakers.
The 58th Monte-Carlo Television Festival opened Friday with a global premiere screening of Amazon Prime original series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan starring John Krasinski. "The demand for top-quality fiction programming continues to drive the business forward, while, at the same time, unbiased international news reporting and documentaries have never been so important to us all," festival CEO Laurent Puons said in a statement.
The European Commission has approved Comcast's bid to buy pay-TV operator Sky. Meanwhile, 21st Century Fox's board of directors is set to meet this week to consider Comcast's $65 billion bid to acquire much of its film and TV assets.
France Televisions, TF1, and M6 have launched their own SVOD platform Salto, destined to provide competition to Netflix and Amazon. The companies will air exclusive premieres of content and original content.
CASTING
Denis O'Hare (This Is Us) will recur on the second season of HBO's Big Little Lies. He's set to play Ira Farber, a new character.
Matt Barr (Valor) will co-star with Sofia Pernas in Blood & Treasure, CBS' serialized adventure series that is slated to premiere in Summer, 2019. He'll play an antiquities expert alongside Pernas' art thief who team up.
Jesse Rath is moving from recurring to series regular for season 4 of Supergirl. She plays Braniac-5.
Hartley Sawyer has been bumped from recurring to series regular on The Flash. As Ralph Dibney, aka Elongated Man, he moves from private eye to a full member of Team Flash.
Leah Remini will star on Fox's untitled half-hour multi-camera comedy pilot from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator Rob McElhenney, Rob Roswell and 20th Century Fox TV.
