Those shows are set to resume production on January 11, while other CBS Studios shows are scheduled to resume later in in the month, insiders tell the industry trade.
So far, CBS is the only major studio known to be pausing or delaying production due to the pandemic. Other TV studios are in the process of determining the fate of their productions moving forward.
While TV studios have implemented increased safety measures, such as mask-wearing on set and segmenting casts and crews into “zones” to regulate contact, there are a number of productions that have reported clusters of positive COVID-19 cases to Los Angeles County health officials through November and December.
Several crew members of Apple TV’s Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet who tested positive for the virus disputed the producers’ initial assertion that there was no evidence of transmission at work. The Lionsgate TV production recorded nearly 20 positive cases, according to Variety.
Los Angeles County reported 13,661 new COVID-19 cases and 73 deaths on Monday. Statewide, California logged a record high of 66,811 cases that day. Los Angeles County now reports the most COVID-19 infections of any other U.S. county, with 746,666 cases as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Amazon Studios(NEW YORK) — Amazon Prime’s just-dropped Yearly Departed is a series of eulogies for 2020, hosted by Two Dope Queens‘ Phoebe Robinson and featuring a line-up of all female comedians including Tiffany Haddish, Rachel Brosnahan, Ziwe, Sarah Silverman, Patti Harrison, and Natasha Leggero.
Executive producer and writer Bess Kalb tells ABC Audio of the show’s mock-funeral format, “We needed a way to laugh about the year without diminishing it, and I think a sort of overly paying tribute to ridiculous things was an appropriate enough way to do that.”
She adds, “I think the comedy funeral lent itself pretty well to all these things that we are excited to see go — and a few that we can be melodramatic about the fact that we have to let go of for now.”
Brosnahan, the Emmy-winning star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, explains, “We just…loved the thought of having a group of some of the funniest women that we know and admire say goodbye to this complete dumpster fire of a year together.”
For example, Haddish says a tearful goodbye to casual sex, thanks to quarantine, and COVID-19 testing, while Harrison waves goodbye to “rich girl influencers,” whose social media posturing during the pandemic made them look more ridiculous than usual.
She notes, “Especially in a lockdown…there’s nothing more violently disconnecting to be sitting on your couch covered in little cracker crumbs and then seeing someone…on, like, a floating yurt with 30 of their ‘closest friends,’ drinking champagne. And I think that’s really hard to connect to.”
Yearly Departed includes a show-stopping “In Memoriam” segment by Christina Aguilera, who belts out “I Will Remember You” as a list of things that 2020 ruined — like “Hugs,” “Vacations” and “The Name Karen” — scrolls behind her.
iStock/RawPixel(LOS ANGELES) — The COVID-19 pandemic took a terrible toll on the bottom line of the movie business. Thousands of theaters closed throughout the year amid lockdown restrictions, and production on untold numbers of films was temporarily delayed, indefinitely postponed or shut down for good.
As a result, 2020’s highest-grossing film was Universal’s Bad Boys for Life. The Will Smith/Martin Lawrence action comedy, which opened in January, made more than $204 million for the year domestically before movie houses closed. By comparison, 2019’s highest-grossing film, Avengers: Endgame, made more than $350 million in the U.S. on its opening weekend alone. The movie went onto become the highest-grossing movie of all time. Compare that to this year, where the combined box office totals for all of the top-ten movies didn’t make a third of what Endgame did.
Some theaters re-opened when COVID case numbers briefly declined in late summer, and few drive-in theaters enjoyed a brief renaissance, but theaters quickly closed again when infections surged in the fall. One of the handful of major releases this year, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, had to rely on its overseas take to carry the load and ended up making more than $350 million, the great majority of which came from non-U.S. screenings.
Here are the top 10 movies of 2020 domestically and their total grosses, according to Box Office Mojo:
1. Bad Boys for Life — $204,417,855 2. Sonic the Hedgehog — $146,066,470 3. Birds of Prey — $84,158,461 4. Dolittle — $77,047,065 5. The Invisible Man — $64,914,050 6. The Call of the Wild — $62,342,368 7. Onward — $61,555,145 8. Tenet — $57,800,000 9. The Gentlemen — $36,296,853 10. Fantasy Island — $26,441,782
The story of the year from the movie business became the number of films openings that were bumped in a vain effort to outrun the pandemic. Movies including A Quiet Place Part II, Wonder Woman 1984 and the James Bond film No Time to Die all of which saw their release dates bumped as many as three times before their respective studios shifted their release them to next year or, in what became a game-changing strategy, direct to streaming.
Universal made the first move in the spring by moving its then-brand new films The Invisible Man, The Hunt and Emma to streaming in March. Its yet-to open Trolls World Tour opened in what theaters it could in April but was then made available to stream on April 10, its debut date.
That move was followed suit by Warner Bros.’ deciding to bring its Harley Quinn movie Birds Of Prey to streaming shortly after its February release, and Disney, who brought its Disney/Pixar movie Onward, Artemis Fowl and then its live-action Mulan to Disney+.
Other studios made the switch to streaming, too, like Warner Bros.’ Scoob and the sequel to Borat, among dozens of others.
In December, Warner Bros. announced its entire slate of 2021 films — including major titles like Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, Dune, the fourth Matrix movie, andLin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights film adaptation — will head directly to HBO Max, a major move that wasn’t welcome news to theater chains that still have yet to open in major cities like New York and Los Angeles.
The fates — and release dates — of other major releases are still up in the air. Marvel’s Black Widow film was supposed to open May 1;but after several postponements, its new release date now stands as May 7, 2021. That caused a domino reaction with other Marvel movies that were set to open in 2020, into 2022 and beyond, a backlog experienced by many major studios.
In total, domestic revenues for theaters in 2020 were at a 40-year low, with a total that could reach $2.3 billion — the lowest since the late ’70s before adjusting for inflation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
As the year wound down, studios resumed shooting again, many overseas, with strict safety protocols in place. Among the films in production as of Christmas 2020 are Jurassic World: Dominion, the next Avatar movies, the fourth Matrix film and the seventh Mission: Impossible movie.
Getty Images/Getty Images for AFI(LOS ANGELES) — Anthony Hopkins marked 45 years of sobriety on Tuesday with an inspirational message for his followers on social media: “hang in there”
“With gratitude, I celebrate 45 years of sobriety,” the Two Popes actor captioned a video message posted to his Instagram and Twitter pages.
Noting that 2020 has been a tough year “full of grief and sadness” for “many people,” Hopkins recounted his journey to recovery by revealing he had a “wake up call.”
“I was headed for a disaster,” he continued. “I was drinking myself to death. I’m not preachy but I got a message, a little though that said, ‘Do you want to live or die?’ And I said, ‘I want to live’ and suddenly the relief came.”
The 82-year-old Oscar-winner then urged his followers to “hang in there.”
“You young people, don’t give up, just keep in there, just keep fighting. Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid,” he said.
ABC/Tyler Golden(LOS ANGELES) — Chrissy Teigen revealed to fans that once again, she’s taking a break from booze.
The model and mom was responding to a fan on her Instagram, after she posted a video of her dancing in a bathing suit while on vacation with her family in St. Barts.
“I need whatever drugs you’re on!” a follower joked, to which Teigen replied, “4 weeks sober!”
The comment was met with support from her fans.
Incidentally, it’s not the first time Chrissy”s given up drink. In 2017, she told Cosmopolitan that there’s a history of alcoholism in her family, and that at the time she thought she needed to cut back.
“I was, point blank, just drinking too much,” she confessed. “I got used to being in hair and makeup and having a glass of wine. Then that glass of wine would carry over into me having one before the awards show. And then a bunch at the awards show. And then I felt bad for making kind of an a** of myself to people that I really respected. And that feeling, there’s just nothing like that. You feel horrible. It’s not a good look for me, for [husband] John [Legend], for anybody.”
At the time of that interview, Teigen had just come back from a, alcohol-free wellness retreat. She refrained from drinking for some time after, noting, “I have to fix myself.”
Chrissy also explained that she’s not the kind of person who can “have just one drink,” which experts say can be a slippery slope towards dependency.
“SEAL Team” – Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2020 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.(LOS ANGELES) — NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, SEAL Team, Why Women Kill and Diary of a Future President are among the shows extending their holiday hiatus for a week amid Los Angeles County’s COVID-19 surge, according to Variety.
