hollywoodreporter.com - 12 617 Showbiz News and Updates

SAG-AFTRA announced Thursday the launch ofanew sexual harassment reporting platform as well as the first industry-wide accreditation for intimacy coordinator training programs and registry. SAG-AFTRA's Intimacy Coordinator training accreditation and registry programs aim to expand the number of experienced professionals to serve in this role nationwide.

May Wynn, the 1950s starlet who had a supporting role in the acclaimed Humphrey Bogart military legal thriller The Caine Mutiny, where she adopted her character's name for her stage name, has died. She was 93.

Byron Allen's Allen Media Broadcasting has acquired seven divestiture TV stations from Gray Television for $380 million. Gray spun the TV stations off as part of a separate deal to acquire Quincy Media for $925 million.

The Walt Disney Co. has named Paul Richardson as chief human resources officer effective July 1,the company said Thursday.

GOT7's Mark Tuan, a Chinese American rapper, singer, model and gamer based in Los Angeles, has signed with CAA. Tuan has appeared on international TV shows like Battles Likes on KBS World, Law of the Jungle on SBS, I Can See Your Voice on Mnet and All for One on Youku.

Fox Corp. is looking to turbocharge its digital business.

A Jeopardy! winner's hand gesture from Tuesday night's show has sparked a protest by former contestants demanding an apology from producers. A group of 467 purported former participants on the show posted an open letter on Medium on Wednesday accusing the syndicated game show's producers of failing to catch what they allege is a white power hand gesture.

Ken Jeong is set to host a television and streaming event called "See Us Unite for Change," which will celebrate the Asian-American experience during AAPI Heritage Month and in the wake of violence affecting the community. The event, which will air on Friday, May 21 at 5 p.m.

Ahead of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Birds of Prey actress Ella Jay Basco and rapper Ruby Ibarra have released their Asian self-love music video "Gold." The video begins with Basco starring in a 1950's black and white commercial advertising a "Brown Be Gone" skin whitening soap to "wash the brown away." Midway through the commercial, the model played by Basco begins to panic when hearing the potential side effects of using the soap, such as "complicity" and "inauthenticity." As the

Tom Bilyeu and Lisa Bilyeu, founders of Impact Theory Studios, have signed with A3 Artists Agency. The duo inked a deal for overall representation, with a focus on scripted, unscripted, digital and live events businesses.

The Weeknd leads all finalists for the 2021 Billboard Music Awards with 16 nods. The singer is up for top artist, top male artist, top Hot 100 artist, top streaming songs artist and top song sales artist.

T-Street — the production banner run by director Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman — and Knives Out studio MRC Films have launched a new label to produce low-budget films from emerging filmmakers. The venture, which was announced by the T-Street principals and MRC's Brye Adler and Jonathan Golfman, will produce three to four features a year from up-and-coming filmmakers, with creative and financial backing from the companies.

Moviepass co-founder Stacy Spikes revealed on Thursday his latest project: PreShow Interactive, a mobile app that offers gamers the ability to exchange their time spent engaging with branded content to unlock in-game currency without interrupting their playing experience. The currency that players unlock may be applied to many popular games across multiple consoles.

For many, Scotland-based Mark Millar is living the comic book creator's dream. As a writer, he worked for both DC and Marvel Comics — the latter of which even saw him influence the big screen by making classic character Nick Fury a Black man.

In Netflix's romance/tech sci-fi series The One, Amir El-Masry — also recently seen on the HBO/BBC financial drama Industry and now appearing as the lead in Focus Features' darkly comic refugee film Limbo — played a DNA expert called Ben.

The finalists for the 2021 Billboard Music Awards are being announced at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m.

A muddled execution undercuts laudable ambitions in the latest effort from director William Brent Bell, who previously demonstrated his talent for turning low-budget horror films into major commercial hits with such movies as The Devil Inside and The Boy. The filmmaker mines deeper emotional terrain than usual with Separation, which attempts to inject scares into a Kramer vs.

Robert Smigel on Wednesday dropped by The Howard Stern Show, where he defended a classic Saturday Night Live sketch he wrote, which starred the late Chris Farley. Stern brought up that the Chippendales sketch — which featured Farley and the latePatrick Swayze dueling for a spot in the male striptease show — has come under fire in recent years for perhaps adding to Farley's self-destructive behavior.

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock has reached 42 million sign-ups, parent company Comcast said in its latest quarterly earnings report. The conglomerate had in its previous financial update in late January mentioned 33 million sign-ups.The streamer has been "benefiting from the recent addition of exclusive domestic streaming rights to WWE Network andThe Office," the company said on Thursday.

Serving up some nostalgia, ViacomCBS' MTV will in May premiere My Life on MTV, a new music series "celebrating some of the world’s greatest stars and their most unforgettable moments." The 10-episode series, featuring the likes of Lady Gaga,Sean "Diddy" Combs, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys, One Direction, Backstreet Boys, Linkin Park, Green Day, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Jonas Brothers, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez, Coldplay, U2, 'N Sync and Britney Spears, will premiere in

Giant-screen exhibitor Imax posted higher first-quarter revenues as it was lifted by a recovery in the Asian box office. The company, led by CEO Richard Gelfond, reduced its loss attributable to shareholders to $14.8 million, compared with a loss of $49.4 million last year when Imax was hit hard by movie theater closures during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Heather Stewart, a hugely respected film British Film Institute veteran who has helped transform the BFI National Archive into a world-leading film preservation facility, is to step down from her current role as creative director after 30 years at the organization.

Dish Network reported that it lost about 230,000 net pay TV subscribers in the first quarter, compared with a decline of 413,000 in the year-ago period and a drop of 133,000 in the fourth quarter of 2020. The latest quarter's figures include subscribers to the traditional Dish pay TV service, as well as the Sling TV streaming service.

Despite an online backlash, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell appeared as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday. The controversial executive, who has been banned from Twitter and is currently being sued for pushing wild conspiracy theories and disinformation that the 2020 election was rigged, began his interview with host Jimmy Kimmel talking about the coronavirus and whether or not Lindell had been vaccinated,to which he confirmed that he hasn't.

You know you're in the realm of the archetype when a movie's closing credits favor descriptors over character names: The Waitress, The Loner, The Mentor — and, first and foremost, The Virtuoso's nameless title mercenary. Played by Anson Mount in a tight-jawed register, he's a killer for hire whose armor is starting to crack, ever so slightly, after a hit gone wrong.

Stephen Colbert went live after President Biden's address to Congress on Wednesday, where he spoke of his administration's first 100 days in office. The late-night host acknowledged that Biden was the first President to deliver the speech in front of a mask-wearing audience, though because of social distancing, the audience was "way smaller" than usual.

Netflix continues to bulk up its production operations in Europe, on Thursday announcing it will set up a hub in Sweden in the second half of this year. The opening of the Scandinavian hub, which will be based in Stockholm, was made Thursday by Lina Brouneus, Netflix's director of acquisitions and co-productions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Samuel L. Jackson-starrer The Protege will shoot it way into theaters Aug.

President Joe Biden declared Wednesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress that “America is rising anew," and pointed optimistically to the nation's emergence from the pandemic as a vital moment to rebuild the U.S. economy and fundamentally transform roles the government plays in American life.

Endeavor will go public on Thursday, capping a two-year journey that will finally see the parent company of WME, IMG and UFC trade on the public markets. In a securities filing Wednesday afternoon, the company officially priced its IPO at $24 per share, which would give it an enterprise value of about $10 billion.