Super Bowl Ratings Fumble; How Fox News Plans To Fight $2.7B Suit; Does Amazon's Next CEO Care About Hollywood?

[The Hollywood Reporter]( Today In Entertainment FEBRUARY 09, 2021 What's news: Super Bowl ratings hit a 14-year low, Fox inks new deal with Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, Fox News details strategy to fight $2.7 billion defamation suit, does Amazon's next CEO care about Hollywood? Virtual Sundance reaches biggest audience ever, hot book from former flight attendant being courted by Hollywood, would Judd Apatow ever make This Is 50? Plus: Lee Daniels bringing a spy drama to FX, Dan Harmon brings an animated comedy to Fox, and remembering The Supremes' Mary Wilson. --Alex Weprin [Super Bowl Ratings Fumble] Super Bowl Ratings Fumble ►Just in: Super Bowl ratings hit a 14-year low. Super Bowl LV was, as the game always is, the most watched television broadcast of the year. Sunday's game, however, is the least watched NFL championship game since 2007. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs averaged 96.4 million viewers across all platforms, including CBS, ESPN Deportes and streaming on CBS Sports, NFL and Verizon digital and mobile properties. It's down about 5.5 percent from last year's all-in audience and the smallest total tune-in for a Super Bowl since 93.18 million people watched Super Bowl XLI in 2007. The TV only audience for CBS is about 90.7 million viewers, off by 9 percent vs. Fox's broadcast of Super Bowl LIV last year ([99.91 million]( viewers) and the smallest for the game since 2005. [The numbers](. +The ratings had been subject to an unprecedented delay by Nielsen, leading some analysts to suspect that the numbers would be down significantly from last year. Those predictions held up. +The Equalizer, which CBS programmed in the coveted post-game spot, drew 20.4 million viewers, the most for any non-sports telecast since the Oscars last year but down from the 23.7 million who watched The Masked Singer on Fox after Super Bowl LIV. ►How Fox News will fight a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit. The Rupert Murdoch-owned news network files a motion to dismiss Smartmatic's blockbuster libel action, Eriq Gardner reports. Now and down the road, the defendant will attempt to pin ultimate responsibility for wild tales of election fraud on Donald Trump and his lawyers. --"Following the 2020 presidential election, one thing was undeniably newsworthy: whether then-President Trump’s unconventional efforts to challenge the results of the election would succeed," states the dismissal motion. As the motion soon adds, "When a sitting President and his surrogates claim an election was rigged, the public has a right to know what they are claiming, full stop." [The story](. +Meanwhile: Fox Corp. reported its quarterly earnings Tuesday morning. The company, led by CEO and executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch and chairman Rupert Murdoch, said its quarterly advertising revenue jumped 14 percent, "primarily due to record political advertising revenues at the Fox Television Stations, continued linear and digital growth at Fox News Media" and the impact of the consolidation of streaming service Tubi. [The story](. +The company also said Tuesday that it had signed Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to a contract extension. Scott, a 25-year veteran of Fox News, was named CEO in 2018, overseeing the cable news channels Fox News and Fox Business Network and digital platforms Fox News Digital, Fox Nation and the forthcoming Fox Weather. [The details](. --"The success of Fox News, throughout its entire history, has been to provide the absolute best news and opinion for a market that we firmly believe is center-right," Murdoch said. "We believe that where we are targeted, to the center-right, is where we should be targeted. We don't believe we should go further right [as competitors Newsmax and OAN are]... and absolutely we won't go to the left." [Meet Andy Jassy] Meet Andy Jassy ►Does Amazon’s next CEO care about Hollywood? Incoming CEO Andy Jassy isn’t likely to make big studio moves — but has built ties with Hollywood while running the tech giant’s web services division, Natalie Jarvey and Lesley Goldberg report. --“One of the big hallmarks of Hollywood is when you have a new leader come in, there’s a whole changing of the guard. That’s not the Amazon way,” says former Amazon vp of digital media Bill Carr, who oversaw Prime Video and Amazon Studios in their early days and has co-authored the forthcoming book Working Backwards: Insights, Stories and Secrets from Inside Amazon. [The story](. ►The Sundance Film Festival saw its biggest-ever audience with a digitally focused 2021 edition. On Monday, the Sundance Institute reported that its pandemic-era event -- which took place both online and in-person in 20 cities across the country over seven days from Jan. 28 through Feb. 3 -- reached a total audience 2.7 times larger than at the typical 11 day Park City, Utah edition. --As Sundance mostly streamed its 2021 content -- including the U.S. Grand Jury prize winner CODA -- to online viewers in all 50 states and additionally in 120 countries, the festival recorded 251,331 views of feature and short films through its bespoke online platform and TV apps. [The story](. +Dealmaking: A24 has picked up the U.S. rights to Swedish writer-director Ninja Thyberg's porn industry drama Pleasure after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. [More](. ►Four Seasons Total Landscaping getting the documentary treatment. Christopher Stoudt has directed a feature documentary about the local, Philadelphia-based small business that gained notoriety after Rudy Giuliani held an impromptu and chaotic press conference to discuss then-President Donald Trump's planned legal challenges to the election ballot-counting process. Many believe that the location was chosen by accident, with the Trump campaign mistaking the landscaping company for the Philadelphia branch of the upmarket Four Seasons Hotel. [The story](. ►Universal's romantic-comedy Marry Me — starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson — is delaying its release yet again due to ongoing theater closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, the music-infused movie had been set to open May 14, 2021 and will instead walk down the aisle on Feb. 11, 2022 in advance of Valentine's Day. That date had previously been occupied by an untitled Universal event pic. In a twinned announcement, Universal said it will release an untitled Blumhouse project on Jan. 28, 2022, but provided no further details. [More](. [High-Flying Dealmaking] High-Flying Dealmaking ►A one-time flight attendant landed a seven-figure book deal -- and, now, a Hollywood pact is expected to follow. On Feb. 4, the Associated Press [broke the news]( of T.J. Newman's journey from flight attendant to first-time author, with a two-book pact with Simon & Schuster imprint Avid Reader Press. The 36-year-old has said she wrote the first book, the thriller Falling, on the backs of airplane napkins and on iPads during her red-eye route. --Within a day or two of the wire story hitting, more than 14 major studios, networks, streamers and top filmmakers were already pursuing the screen rights, which are being handled by Shane Salerno at The Story Factory and CAA. By Monday, there were at least two formal offers, according to a well-placed source -- one, from a studio interested in giving Falling the film treatment; the other, from a network eyeing a limited series. [The details](. +Lee Daniels is expanding his Disney footprint to FX. The Empire co-creator is attached to executive produce The Spook Who Sat By the Door, a spy drama that has been ordered to pilot at the Disney-backed basic cable network. --Based on the novel by Sam Greenlee, Leigh Dana Jackson (Raising Dion, Foundation) penned the script and will serve as showrunner on the drama. Gerard McMurray (Burning Sands) will exec produce and direct the pilot. Daniels will exec produce the potential series via his overall deal with Disney's 20th Television. The book was optioned through Daniels' inclusion fund. Lee Daniels Entertainment president Marc Velez will also exec produce. [The story](. +Fox and Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon are heading to ancient Greece. The network has given a series order to an animated series from Harmon to premiere in 2022. The show is set in mythical ancient Greece and centers on a family of humans, gods and monsters that tries to run one of the world’s first cities without killing each other. [The story](. +Amazon is taking another step into the YA space with a series order for The Summer I Turned Pretty, based on Jenny Han's novel. Han, the author of the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, is adapting her book and will serve as showrunner along with Gabrielle Stanton (Titans, Syfy's Haven). The eight-episode series comes from Amazon Studios and Wiip. [More](. +Starz's Step Up TV series is moving forward following last year's tragic passing of its leading lady Naya Rivera. The Lionsgate TV production, after consulting with the family of its late star, has enlisted Christina Milian to replace Rivera in the scripted series. [More](. +Apple has greenlit a kids' series about saving endangered animals that has the backing of the Jane Goodall Institute. The renowned primatologist's organization is among the producers of Jane, along with Sinking Ship Entertainment, the company behind Apple TV+'s Daytime Emmy winning series Ghostwriter. [More](. +Black History Month programming: Rebecca Sun has a roundup of all the special programming on television and streaming. [The list](. ►The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences says its bylaws are "unambiguous" when it comes to whether it's obligated to hold a board vote in response to a member's proposal: It isn't. The Academy is asking L.A. County Superior Court judge H. Jay Ford III to throw out [a lawsuit from producer Michael Shamberg]( (The Big Chill, Erin Brockovich) that alleges it violated its bylaws by failing to vote on a proposal he made before its board of governors, which called for amending the rules to mandate "state of the art social media" and "an annual member survey." [The story](. +In other legal news: President Joe Biden's Department of Justice won't be challenging California's net neutrality laws. The DOJ on Monday voluntarily dismissed a suit that was filed in September 2018, almost immediately after then-Governor Jerry Brown signed the nation's toughest net neutrality bill into law. [More](. ►Judd Apatow on the painful art of writing personal comedy. The King of Staten Island director and co-writer reveals his talent discovery process (Pete Davidson, Melissa McCarthy), the habit he picked up from SNL boss Lorne Michaels and the aftermath of Trump: "I'm definitely nervous." --"I definitely would make This Is 50. I am always thinking about it. I have an idea for it and was actually weighing whether or not to do that movie or the Netflix film, but it didn’t seem like This Is 50 was appropriate for this exact moment. But I hope I get to do it. I really like movies that revisit people over time. I need to do my version of Boyhood. We’ll see if we get the opportunity to do it. (Laughs.)" [The interview](. ►Critics Choice Awards: David Fincher's Mank, from Netflix, leads this year's nominees with a total of 12 mentions, including for best picture, best director, best original screenplay and best cinematography. Stars Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried also scored acting noms. Minari, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, followed closely with 10 mentions, including for best picture, best actor (Steven Yeun), best supporting actress (Yuh-Jung Youn), best ensemble cast and best original screenplay. [The full list of nominees](. +Analysis: "'Snub' is a highly-debated word each awards season, but I think we can all agree: if you are not nominated even when a category has anywhere from six to 10 slots, as Critics Choice Awards categories do, then — I hate to say it — you got snubbed," Scott Feinberg writes. [The analysis](. +AARP Movies For Grownups Awards: Da 5 Bloods and The Trial of the Chicago 7 each scored a leading six nominations for the awards show aimed at recognizing projects that resonate with older viewers. One Night in Miami and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom each scored five nods, with The Life Ahead, Minari and The United States vs. Billie Holiday up for three awards apiece. [All the nominees](. ►Obituary: Mary Wilson, a founding and longest-running member of The Supremes, has died. She was 76. She died suddenly on Monday evening at her home in Henderson, Nevada, her longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz said in a statement. No cause of death was given. [The obituary](. +Flashback: Wilson spoke to THR's Seth Abramovitch just last month. [The interview](. Casting roundup: Michelle Rodriguez and Justice Smith [have joined]( Chris Pine in Paramount and eOne's big-budget Dungeons & Dragons feature adaptation.... Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gabel are [lending their voices]( to Annapurna Interactive's upcoming first-person puzzle video game Maquette... Saturday Night Live cast member Melissa Villaseñor has been [tapped to host]( the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards... Jamie Lee Curtis is [the latest]( to join the feature adaption of the video game Borderlands... ►TV review: Daniel Fienberg reviews Starz's The Luminaries, writing that "It's a murky muddle that some viewers are going to find utterly infuriating, and even as the six episodes unfold, clarity on the nature of the opening scene is, at best, partial." [The review](. In other news... --Larry Kudlow, a longtime CNBC fixture before joining the Trump administration, [will host a new show]( on Fox Business starting Feb. 16. The untitled show will air at 4 p.m. ET weekdays and replay at 7 p.m. The latter slot previously hosted a replay of Lou Dobbs Tonight — which Fox Business abruptly canceled last week. --ICM Partners [has promoted]( Travis Merriweather to senior political strategist. He will report directly to CEO Chris Silbermann and ICM Politics head Hannah Linkenhoker. --Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater is [set for a cross-platform close-up]( after signing for representation in all areas with UTA. --Jean-Claude Carrière, the prolific French screenwriter who collaborated with some of the greatest art house auteurs of his time, [has died](. He was 89. --Viola Davis, who stars at the title character in George C. Wolfe's Netflix film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, [has been tapped]( for the Palm Springs International Film Festival's Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actress. --Netflix's Cobra Kai and Bridgerton [remained head and shoulders]( above the rest of the streaming world for the first full week of 2021, although the two shows swapped rankings from the previous week. --ViacomCBS [U.K., Australia boss]( on streaming, originals, diversity focus. --Louise Linton's Me You Madness [has been picked up]( for distribution in the U.K, France and French-speaking Europe, where ILY Films has acquired the film. --Claudia Conway is [set to audition]( on the latest season of American Idol, the ABC show revealed in a promotion on Monday. What else we're reading... --"Inside Chadwick Boseman's grand finale" [[Vanity Fair](] --"We're all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears" [[Glamour](] --Reddit has raised $250 million in new funding [[Reddit Blog](] --"Amid industry rebukes, Morgan Wallen's album stays no. 1" [[NY Times](] Today's birthdays: Tom Hiddleston, 40, Terry McAuliffe, 64, Jason Winston George, 49, Sharon Case, 50. [Image] [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn]( Is this e-mail not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser.]( ©2021 The Hollywood Reporter, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. 11175 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles, CA, 90025 All rights reserved. FEBRUARY 09, 2021 [UNSUBSCRIBE]( [MANAGE PREFERENCES]( [PRIVACY POLICY]( [TERMS OF USE](