ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY AND AWARD NEWS BY NICOLE SPERLING JUNE 7, 2019

The Real Reason Amazon Shifted Its Late Night Strategy It’s Friday, and we’re wondering how Entertainment Weekly will fare as a monthly. Greetings from Los Angeles, where we are discovering the influence of Clarence Avant; pondering the impact of Booksmart on Amazon’s upcoming release Late Night;analyzing the impact of Veronica Mars on its 15th anniversary; and digging into Netflix’s well-meaning, though messy, adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. Hollywood Royalty On Monday night the Hollywood Illuminati turned out to L.A.’s Paramount Theatre to learn about and celebrate the life and times of kingmaker-manager-former head of Motown Records Clarence Avant in the Netflix documentary The Black Godfather, which debuts today. Quincy Jones, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Jimmy Kimmel, Laura Dern, Chadwick Boseman, Pharrell Williams, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis, were all there. Even 85-year-old Hank Aaronturned up. So why were so many stars on hand to honor a man most Americans have never heard of? We’ll let Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, who happens to be married to Avant’s daughter, Obama-era ambassador to the Bahamas Nicole Avant, take it away… “This is a movie that is about my father-in-law that my wife produced, and you may think to yourself, Is there any kind of conflict there? Yes!” said Sarandos as he introduced the film with a laugh. “But truth be told this was a film that was getting made. This was a story that had to be told. And what am I supposed to do, let it go to HBO or something? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Could you imagine that holiday dinner if that happened? That isn’t happening.” So yes, Hollywood nepotism is alive and well. But hey, the movie’s pretty good as it turns out, tracking Avant’s rise from abject poverty in the Jim Crow South to his position as a Zelig figure in the African American entertainment community. Over the course of his six-decade career, Avant has brokered deals (Aaron’s Coca-Cola endorsement, among many others), carried plenty of quiet influence (Barack Obama’s prime-time speaking slot at the 2004 Democratic National Convention), and earned an impressive fan club along the way; the movie’s interviewees include former congressman Andrew Young, senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Cicely Tyson, P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Bill Withers, L.A. Reid, Babyface, and Obama himself. Bill Clinton is also in the film, and director Reginald Hudlingot him to tell a story of how Avant lifted him up during the impeachment proceedings. “He got quiet and reflective and then told this incredibly intimate story—he told it very honestly, and we were all blown away by the power of his recollection,” said Hudlin. “One of the things I’m most proud of about this movie is that a lot of people gave their best interviews.” That, and the fact that Hudlin has now ensured that Sarandos and family will have a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner. Late Night’s Shift It would have only made sense that after Booksmart’s disappointing box-office performance, Amazon would start scrambling to find a better release strategy for Late Night,its own upcoming female-driven comedy. But apparently that’s not the case. I spent a bit of time with the streamer’s co-head of movies Matt Newman to understand the company’s recent decision to pull back from its nationwide release of the Mindy Kaling–Emma Thompson comedy for one week, opting instead for a platform debut today before going wide next Friday. Newman told me that the shift was not reactionary. Instead he said it was predicated on strong reviews, strong screenings, and trying to slow the roll of the release in order to build strong word of mouth. For more on my chat with Newman and his hopes for his big summer release, read on. Marshmallows Unite Veronica Mars might have only aired on UPN for three years (2004–2007), but it earned plenty of adoration from fans and critics in that short stint. It also became a launchpad for the likes of Kristen Bell, Tessa Thompson, and Amanda Seyfried. With Hulu launching an eight-episode limited revival on July 26, now seemed like just the right time to revisit Neptune, California. VF.com contributor Marc Freeman spoke to the cast and crew for an oral history of the Rob Thomas-run original series. Read on to find out who Thomas first envisioned for the role of Veronica; how jawlines impacted casting; and the effect S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders had on the series. Tales Redux Redux A television adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City first bowed on PBS in 1994 before shifting over to Showtime for two additional miniseries in 1998 and 2001. Now Netflix has put Orange Is the New Black writer Lauren Morelli in the driver’s seat to adapt Maupin’s tales of one San Francisco apartment building as a cornerstone of its Pride Month programming. Our critic Richard Lawson quibbled with the awkwardly slow aging of the series heroine, portrayed by Laura Linney, and her best friend, played by Murray Bartlett of Looking fame. But once he got beyond the strange math of the 10-episode series, the show, which primarily centers on Mary Ann’s (Linney) abandonment of her adopted daughter, Shawna (Ellen Page), who’s been raised in the San Francisco apartment by her father and his community, he found some greatness to it, specifically when the show referred back to its past. Said Lawson, “The show is more concerned with utopia, which often means gazing in the rearview and seeing some glint of what a city and some of its citizens were before a plague knocked them off course.” He added, “Indeed, Tales of the City is best when it’s grappling with the old tales of an old city, mulled over in the present day. Which means it may prove plenty appealing to folks who tend to experience Pride Month (it used to be just a weekend!) with a little sadness, those particular blues that can ring the edges of all that compulsory celebration.”